steel diver is (probably?) banned because of the wall not because of the lowered gravity tho? not gonna repeat what I said above but u sure do seem like u didn't read what I just posted

: Let's just both not jump!
: ...

Your next counterargument is, "This situation wouldn't happen if struck that stage"?

As I tried to elucidate in my previous post, "fairness" is a bad metric to have alone for a stagelist. As TSON has said along with others, counterpicks are supposed to provide an advantage, as is stage knowledge.

As an example: a map exactly like SV, but one in which every short hop is twice as large, is probably not all that unfair of a stage. It would still be an awful stage to have, because it fundamentally doesn't test the same skills as the actual SV. (Beta more or less has this problem with Steel Diver.) Stage knowledge is important, but it should feel like the same game regardless of the stage you're playing it on: if your only metric is being fair, then you create a situation where being a pro player means learning 20 separate games that share elements in common, as opposed to learning the same game and adapting it to 10 different stages.

This comes up literally with Saturn Valley + hazards: a game where the center stage heals you is a fundamentally different game than a game where it doesn't. Obviously every stage has some variation (learning chaingrabs isn't all that useful on WW vs FD), but we should try to minimize ridiculous situations where players who have worked for a long time to build skill can get that suddenly erased because they don't practice the strategies they need on Saturn Valley, strategies that are completely different than any others they use or know. Ditto with Tower of Salvation: if I lost to someone on ToS with hazards on because they had a month of practice comboing around random beams of death that I didn't, my first thought isn't, "Hey, they're better than I am", but "Hey, they're better at playing on ToS than I am".

The magnitude of this effect is where the debate comes, but I think it's reasonable to isolate Saturn Valley and Tower of Salvation as firmly on the wrong side, along with Steel Diver, or Port Town Aero Dive, or Pokefloats. To be a good competitive player under the current v0.9b stagelist, you need to have some ability to play on lots of different types of stages, and each stage has some quirks that affect play: tech-chasing is different, some punishes differ, recovery and edgeguarding differ. But fundamentally, a good player on Smashville is a good player on Castle Siege, and a good player on Battlefield is a good player on FD. Stage knowledge affects the outcome, but it takes a back seat to stage-neutral ability.

Whether Tower of Salvation hazards, or any other significantly game-altering stage feature, are fair is pointless: technically the only unfair thing in Smash is port priority because anyone can play any character. What's more important is whether a game on Tower of Salvation feels mostly like a game on any other stage, and that getting better at playing on Battlefield carries over for the most part.

So with this in mind, here are my thoughts on the stages being debated. I don't think there's anything wrong with testing, but I think it's a waste of time to test stages that are obviously not ready for serious tournaments (not interested in seeing if Temple is good for competitive play or not):

WT is interesting, but the hazard changes the punish game so much that you'd have to completely relearn comboing to play on it: the stage is big enough that just building damage is clearly inferior to short combos that end in spikes or semi-spikes, or even stupid stuff like jabs at the ledge. It's not even a question of whether it's fair: it's a question of whether playing a game on it actually tests the same things that the other stages do, or whether it's mostly a contest of how good you are at playing on WT.

Saturn Valley is more borderline and deserves some testing, but again I question whether this doesn't fundamentally change the game in a way that the lack of platforms doesn't on FD.

I've been convinced GT is not viable: in a world where random mishaps can force replays, having the stage not be reproducible is a problem: what prevents someone from just turning off their wifi to get a better GT roll?

SSZ is just a matter of testing in serious competitive matches where one player agrees to play as degenerately as possible and seeing what happens, which can happen in a tournament or anywhere else.



The other thing I'd add is that the point of a CP and neutral list isn't to separate the polarizing ones from the not-polarizing ones: if it was, FD would be off in a heartbeat, as it's one of the most polarizing stages. The goal is to have a list that ensures that any matchup starts on a stage that doesn't inordinately favor one side. That doesn't need to be 5 perfectly non-polarizing stages, as those don't exist. That can be 5 stages that are balanced enough from every angle in a way so that most matchups start on a stage that feels neutral to both players.

So don't jump? Huh? Thats like playing basketball on an oily court and telling them "lol don't run bro and you wont fall! everyone has the same handicap!" A stage that hurts both players is worse than a stage that benefits neither

Now that there's been some discussion- not sure if I could run one this weekend (maybe sunday), but I'd fully run/test this ruleset out for a tournament over this weekend

Miscellaneous Rules:
3 Stock
8 Minutes
Singles
Hazards = OFF (Will put a * next to exceptions. Dracula's Castle and Dreamland can be gentlemanned to Hazards ON)
[Insert things about stalling/glitches that break the game etc.]
If one of Final Destination, Waiting Room or Nintendo 3DS are banned, it is considered 1 ban. You may gentleman to play on one of the 2 variants you did not ban.

Starters: (You can gentleman, but usually decided by RPS/RNG whatever you wanna do into a 1-2-1 strike format. If 7 Starters, 1-2-2-1 format)
IF only 5 Starter Stages
Smashville
Battlefield
Waiting Room
Pokemon Coliseum
Galaxy Tours

IF 7 Starters
Smashville
Battlefield
Waiting Room
Pokemon Coliseum
Galaxy Tours
Sky Sanctuary
Rainbow Route


Counterpicks
Dracula's Castle*
Rainbow Route
Dreamland*
Metal Cavern
Warioware
YI Melee
Final Destination/3DS
Tower of Salvation
Sky Sanctuary
Castle Town***

So before I continue on- 100% there's 2 issues to discuss- first one is Castle Town- no joke, I was hesitant but I think out of the stages i'd want to test, it's a better candidate than Mushroom Kingdom 2, Would Tournament, Yoshi's Island, Lunar Core, etc. It's honestly the last stage that I think is potentially viable. If I had to add another it would be Saturn Valley. I don't add that because the sides of the pool have shown that characters get stuck on them, and the dip is slightly strange. However, between that and Castle Town I think Town's at least worth testing 1st.

I am willing to admit that Castle Town is 100% a CP. It will specifically help certain characters with good air game/mobility, and hurt those w/o those options. It is decent sized. But the point of a CP stage is that there should be some strategic benefit for whoever chooses it. Not to mention similarly to Rainbow Route, Beta was kind in fixing the silly things that were a problem with the stage in the first place. If I had to drop a stage, it would be the 1st to go.

2nd thing is bans. I'm leaning towards 4. I would normally have selected 3, but given the number of CP's available, you simply need 4 bans to not ruin the CP Process. If you chose the 7 starters, I'd say limit to 3 bans, but regardless we have so many decent stages that things are going to be alright.

Not sure if anything else needs to be added or explained but that's what i'm leaning towards in terms of a ruleset if a hypothetical tournament was to happen.

What's wrong with Jungle Hijinx / Castle Siege? Are slopes that big a deal on your list? (Though you include Metal Cavern)

(Also, it's called Clock Town, not Castle Town)

why, broaden your horizons! maybe my strategy is to use that wall!

I think if you're gonna be sarcastic instead of trying to achieve understanding of where we're coming from u probably shouldn't be posting itt. what I'm saying isn't ridiculous I'm legit just saying to try making a more brawl-style list rather than what we had in 9b. very simple, not controversial. y'all are running so far with the theorysmash and these tangents that you're forgetting that I never said steel diver should be legal or tbh even TOS, I just said they deserve testing. if you feel sooooo strongly woe is me this stage can NOT be legal, then CLEARLY after testing in two tournaments people will be giving us that feedback. this really is not worth 4 pages of arguing. there's years worth of theoreticals, can we get some actual replays and video examples of the things you guys are freaking out about happening in matches? lol.

Lets partner with some tos and top players and get some matches and some community feedback after the fact

there's a reason why melee/smash 4 have such small stagelists nowadays though and it's because after such a long time of testing they work

if 9b's stagelist didn't work out the answer isn't to go back to what Brawl did because that game had some wack stages.

the answer is to cut down on the stagelist. Melee and Smash 4 have healthy metas and each only have six stages. even 64 does to a degree and it has only one stage.

even when those wack stages returned to Smash 4, they didn't get used in the competitive scene for long (Castle Siege, Delfino Plaza, Halberd) or are still really weird gray areas (Lylat)

why? because they didn't work. a small stagelist with variances is better than a huge stagelist with jank in it. i have no idea what you're expecting the response to be when ToS literally goes "DON'T JUMP" or "DON'T EVEN STAY ON THE MAIN STAGE BRO LASERS ARE COMIN DOWN" because they prevent you from playing the game.

a counterpick is closer to "giving the losing player some sort of an edge" and not "try to jank out their opponent" because you are not supposed to fight the stage, you are supposed to fight your opponent. i thought this was obvious but i guess not when steel diver's argument isn't "the gravity is wack" but rather "there's a wall there lol"

ngl the idea of this stage

being legal makes your posts seem less like a genuine "suggestion" and more of an elaborate meme tbh



(oh and if the smaller stage list doesn't work maybe it's not the stagelist or the players roflrolforlforlf)

rofl is right

i mean yeah what other response is there to having a competitive stage with giant lasers interrupting the match lmfao

...Like no joke both Smash 4 and Melee's rulesets are actually not great, partially because of options avaiable, and in the case of smash 4 the unwillingness to adapt/acknowledge that we shouldn't make a stagelist too polarizing just because people don't like certian factors.

But that's all to say because you've ignored everyone pointing out that the only time that laser is a problem is because hazards are on in your images. Turn them off and you'll see why everyone things that ToS is a decent CP stage.


Thanks for the heads up. As for Hijinx/Siege- def are options that I forgot when writing, but at a certain point the list gets too large. Mostly an oversight, but yea I have 0 problems w. either stage other than we just have so many. Their layouts, specifically Hijinx makes it attractive if we wanted to trade out say yoshi's so there could be a medium/larger stage in the list.

I think they're both viable, just hard to place with the number of potential legal stages we have. Also Siege could be either Hazards On or Off (so the same exception I named for Dracula's and Dreamland). Either way think both are viable but we actually have too many options (that would be a 17 stage stagelist if i added them)

y

you do know i'm arguing against even bothering to test ToS having hazards, right?

Even if it's worth testing ToS with hazards on because they're predictable or whatever, no one is going to want to. That's what it seems like.