STAGE REVISION THREAD V4: THE CULLING (COMPLETE!!!)

ThatLunaticFeline wrote:

53 seconds to reach the top from the easternmost ramp leading up. As FALCO.

 hahahaha okay that's just absurd, yeah. when a map takes a FIFTH of game time to traverse - playing as the fastest character there is - it's time to retire it.

geez, that statistic alone is almost enough to make all the analysis redundant, lol

ThatLunaticFeline wrote:

Point 2, as it is now called because I couldn't come up with a name of any sort, is the area where most central spawners will end up converging upon, whether high or low ground, in the earlygame.

You could call it "The Hakuna Matata Log" or "THML" for short. This references the scene in Hakuna Matata wher we see Simba grow up while walking across a log. Since both go across a gap, and it's "The Lion King" themed...

TahtLunaticFeline wrote:

I'm ending this analysis now because I'm sick of hearing the Titania music to the point of madness right now.

Titania probably has the worst music of all the stages, single or multiplayer. Could be a good topic.

ThatLunaticFeline wrote:

Pride Rock

also, such is my TF2 inclination that my FIRST thought was "oh, like the rock on Badlands" rather than "lol lion king"

sfafreak wrote:

You could call it "The Hakuna Matata Log"

I thought about that, actually, and also the edge of the valley where Simba's dad dies, but I couldn't remember the name of the valley and although Hakuna Matata is actually a really good idea as is represents the transition from The Pridelands (Simba's youth/the beginning of the game) to the summit of Pride Rock (Simba battles Scar/a push to gain control again) Hakuna Matata sounded a bit too much of a mouthful. So Point 2 is what I decided on. It's not exactly official, so call it what you like, but Point 2 is what I'll call it just for ease of speaking and less tongue twisting (even though I'm exceptionally good at tongue twisters)

sfafreak wrote:

Titania probably has the worst music of all the stages, single or multiplayer. Could be a good topic.

I like Zoness's music but my favourite is Corneria multiplayer, followed by Sargasso's singleplayer. Corneria's music just gets me pumped for an awesome fight, and Sarg's is awesome and strangely fitting for speedruns through the map in an attempt to get gold on it. Also, the Star Wolf Theme is my favourite video game theme ever. No doubt.

Even the theme of love from Mother 3 doesn't stand up to Star Wolf (mostly because that theme plays when you get molested by a transsexual alien and consequently learn 'PK Love'.)

Damn, we need to start this topic elsewhere...

well, there's been a pretty good response to this and as Cac pointed out there's been a conspicuous dearth of Titania games in the last two years, which is probably all for the best anyway. i don't think anyone will have any objections if we move on.

almost done! now we're just coming back to the stages we went over but couldn't decide on. first of these is Simp2, and the debate is over map restrictions: should the stage exist unrestricted yellow, or should it be no-invis green? we've left it as a pick-your-own-format stage in the past but nobody at all has played it yellow in our tourneys at least, so it's time to ask whether it's worth having the restriction.

Free simp2! I'm ready to take on any and all item runners by camping the centre...

I would go ahead and post an analysis of the map right now but to be honest the debate surrounding the map is more focused on which characters fit best to it and how they're played on it. I can provide a bit of knowledge on this matter but as I've already said I am not the person to look for when trying to understand and analyse character playstyles on certain maps. I guess it's probably cause I barely get to play the multiplayer, but that's my excuse this time.

The little knowledge I can offer tells me that I think that although stealth pack is a significant factor in 2v2/FFA it's kind of easy to forget how important of a tactic screen-looking is in 1v1. Because of this fact alone I say that 1v1 Simp2 is Green no matter what, as there are three counters to stealth packs - screen-looking, CB, and HL. That's just it.

In 2v2 and FFA I admit it can be a bit more of a contributing factor but even so it's not as threatening as some people believe, in my opinion. I'll leave the professionals to argue it out over whether it should be banned cause it's so small making Peppy imba/cheap or whatever cause I'm not too good with that. Meanwhile, I'll sit here with a cup of tea and wait for a juicy stage to sink my teeth into and analyse.

ThatLunaticFeline wrote:

I would go ahead and post an analysis of the map right now but to be honest the debate surrounding the map is more focused on which characters fit best to it and how they're played on it.

well, the debate is basically whether there's any reason to not play Falc on this map; the issue is that item runs are very easy to do when playing a fast character. if they're a big enough deal on the map that you wouldn't ever try any other strategy then we have a problem, and that's at least criteria for yellow.

it's occurred to me that we have at least a partial analogy in simp1 item running, although the key item - the invis - is not present on that map and the runs are a little more one-track: just circle the map border. on simp1 runs are difficult though not impossible to shut down; Cac's camp-the-center strat works pretty well on that map as well.

i don't know if it's a good enough comparison, considering it's harder to get vantage points over the whole map on simp2 and the center is not so overflowing with items, but it does pack a hugely important weapon and allows control over a lot of space (although it does neglect the other red weapon spawn). honestly at this point i'm ready to just try it green unrestricted, if only for the sake of being able to wrap up this thread, and if we see exponentially lousier games on simp2 we may at least know why. if anybody feels really strongly about this one, feel free to discourage me

Man... Did I miss a lot in the three weeks I was on vacation...
I don't have the time to read through the 3 pages I missed, but I would like to add my input, especially trying to make Ap red. I'll be on tomorrow or the day after with enough time to read and respond.

Also, thank you ThatLunaticFeline for seriously revitalizing the forum!

FalcoXII wrote:

Also, thank you ThatLunaticFeline for seriously revitalizing the forum!

I can't let such an awesome idea die down without making any sort of impact! I genuinely believe that with a little extra help SFA can really do well in the future.

But as for the present, I see what the argument is for Simp2 and I think your reasons for debating the significance of speed is very justified. In other similar games like Quake speed is everything and although the speedy characters can get punished on maps such as Zoness I agree that Simp2 does tip itself towards the favour of those with better agility. However we cannot discount the fact that speedy characters are of course a lot squishier than slower characters and in theory Krystal can be a real pain to deal with on this map as her double barriers after respawn can make fighting her a big risk, because she gets one kill and the advantage switches straight to her and stays with her as she still has another barrier.

Another argument against the faster characters is, of course, their survivability. Fox is good all-round but Slippy can wall him, even if Fox is stacked to the heavens, and Falco is fast but Peppy can basically one-shot him with an RCB. This map sort of exposes the counters of each character.

As far as past discussion goes, I agree with all decisions except Ap 1v1. I'll always hold out for red. I think we should create a new rating beyond red for Titania, it's that bad. Maybe black, banning it from being played in friendlies. I won't discuss it now. I'll wait until we're done with Simp2.

Concerning Simp2, I vote green unrestricted. I don't feel that speed can be gimped as much as it's made up to be, and I think that even slow characters can camp the blue maze for barriers and missiles. As fast characters pick up health and items, those will be forced to respawn much more quickly. I vote against restricting invis, and would rather see it yellow than invis banned. I don't have much more to say, I think slow characters have enough options (including also grabbing invis) to allow the stage to be green.

a couple of years ago Cac and i tested this map a bunch and i believe the conclusion we came to was that although the map tends to revolve around the items when you play it unrestricted, this is not necessarily a bad thing? we had some pretty consistent win rates from Fox in XvF and if there is exploitability inherent in the items it didn't really show itself. if Falc starts scrambling for the items it just becomes a power game where the attention is redirected away from the red weapons and onto invis instead.

so yeah, i'd be fine with trying green no restrictions for a while. we could do with some change and i'd like to eliminate the number of restrictions in this fashion anyway

I agree. I don't like having that kind of restriction. I realize that the cave on Sauria is necessary, but that one's easily enforceable. Banning invis is difficult to enforce

And besides, Fox is a pretty easy character to play, due to his well rounded stats. There's not too much of a learning curve since he can play all styles.

I agree totally. Restrictions are too hard to enforce on such a small map and with restrictions it feels like the game is unbalanced. Sure, there are certain restrictions that need to be place, like red maps, but small things like this feel wrong to have.

all right, let's settle on this one and move on to our review of simp3 - excuse me a minute while i try to find my previous arguments regarding this stage...

Sorry im so late, Green 1v1 and 2v2, yellow FFA for simp 2

Yellow for all except 1v1

Ah, Simp3. One of my favourite maps for sure. As I'm busy packing for a holiday in Holland (one whole week of just snowboarding, heck yeah) I'm not able to post an analysis right now but there'll be plenty of opportunity on the way there (it's a 4/5 hour drive fromm Calais to Eindhoven, and it takes 2/3 hours to get to Calais in the first place) to write it up then and post it when I get there.

Quickly, though, there should be no real argument to why this map should be considered a yellow or higher in any mode, cause campers get easily punished with grenades and all-out assaulters get blown up by remote mines (best weapon on this stage, imo).

Ha, I exist, I was filtering through spam mail in my emails and I found one from LS for some reason and here I am.

Super sad I missed Aparoid because that stage is the worst.  

As for Simp 3, it is also the worst (because i'm bad at it) but I still think its a fair stage so GREEN

also i stopped reading the thread at like page 5 because reading is hard, did anything drastically change (my guess is no)

but I did read something about missles on Katina, and if you're lucky you can survive, but really, if someone gets the totally ridiculous spawn by the invis, demon sniper and missiles, the odds of either the missiles or the invis being there are pretty high, and are heightened every time the other player picks up a weapon, allowing the demon sniper to spawn so you can grab it increasing the odds of the missiles even higher.  its a free point unless you fuck up or the other person gets lucky, and even if they go hide, it allows you to stock up on Hl's and other overpowered weapons

oh wait its not katina's turn >.<

Spoiler:

great success

I vote green for Simp3. I find it to be quite a fair stage.

STG, will you help me argue red for Ap?

totally, once the time comes

although I'm on the road the next two days then probably not in the house much in the next three, but i'll contribute when I can.

Unrelated, but I kind of wish there was an Indoor Aparoid City Map

holy smokes suddenly STG

so basically my argument for yellow simp3 last time we covered this stage was that there are only two routes up to red and that this creates an environment where it's really difficult for a slow player to get where they want without being cut off by a faster character. i guess no one else really sees this as a problem, and i don't really blame you if you don't because we don't have any evidence for it at the moment (although that might change when i get all these games from Floss 2 stitched together).

i'd happily keep arguing for yellow 1v1 on this but i made all my points earlier and i'd just be repeating myself at this point, so we'll say green 1v1

i do think this one should be yellow 2V2/FFA though. it's way too small to contain four players and allows for a lot of snowballing and spawn kills; if you get an appreciable stack of items you have free reign over a whole lot of freshly spawned players at any time, given that there are only seven possible spawns (thanks TLF!)

EDIT: also STG probably the biggest change was making Ap red 1v1, although as Cac pointed out we've basically not played it for two and a half years anyway so it's been unofficially red

Bear in mind there is only one way to the missiles in zoness, a green stage.

Simp3, green on all.

well, there are two ways (elevator or stairs) but either way, Zoness is a much larger stage than Simp3 and the missile spawn doesn't comprise a whole sixth of the stage's total area...