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

HAXage wrote:

and it is thus that we see the whole game basically turn into one giant king of the hill scrap, where actual battles take place in about thirty seconds and the rest of the match is spent by the attacking player running about and trying to amass enough weaponry to take the top.

That actually might be a fun separate game mode to play. Have a timed match of, say, five minutes, and whoever is on the top when time runs out wins.

A conversation for a different topic, though.

sfafreak wrote:

What about Pep? He too can reach the yellow block.(Curse You, Yellow Block!!!!! )

i think Slippy gets the swing here because Pep's CB, although advantageous, does not have the same crucial potential for playing a camp game that Slip's health does. keep in mind the only goal here is to survive for as long as possible on top of the blocks - something which Pep is not really built for.

anyway, we haven't tested anything like 4p on this one, or even played it in ages, so unless someone can tell us exactly how 2v2 or FFAs work on this stage based on their own experience we should probably just move on since it'll take a while for that to happen.

True, but he can dish out more damage with his PCB than slip.

Also I think you're right that we should move on, calling simp5 red. we haven't found any reasons for making simp5 legal, and many reasons to keep it banned.(besides my possible idea above).

Zerolink100 wrote:

I didn't check the weapon spawn times, only items. When I checked it I wasn't as exact as I could be either so it might very well be 15-17 seconds as well.

No I didn't mean 2 at one time, and where is the other health pack then? I only saw the one on the blue level near the bottom and the one on the green ledge near the top.

I saw two on ground level, or maybe I saw the same one twice. Either way there is at least one down there

[[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

These are the two health pack spawns that I found. I haven't seen any other health pack spawns.

sfafreak wrote:

Also I think you're right that we should move on, calling simp5 red. we haven't found any reasons for making simp5 legal, and many reasons to keep it banned.

I agree with moving on.

Strider4102's multiplayer faq on Gamefaqs seems to corroborate that there are only two health kits on the stage

anyway, this thread is mainly for 1v1 statuses and we don't really need a whole other revision thread to change the 4p status of a stage, so let's close this one down and move on to Sarg for now.

regular old huge analysis of my favourite stage in the game coming up shortly

HAXage wrote:

Strider4102's multiplayer faq on Gamefaqs seems to corroborate that there are only two health kits on the stage

anyway, this thread is mainly for 1v1 statuses and we don't really need a whole other revision thread to change the 4p status of a stage, so let's close this one down and move on to Sarg for now.

regular old huge analysis of my favourite stage in the game coming up shortly

Green for Sarg

Ah, Sargasso. This is tied with Zoness for my favorite stage. It is similar to Simp3 in the fact that both are considered "top down" stages. However, it has more methods for going up and down, preventing the problem we had with Simp3 and it's chokepoints. Also unlike Simp3 is the fact that you have places to take cover and hide. In my experience, this is green in 2p, 3p, 2V2, and FFA's.

Green for all. Elevators make it easy to travel up quickly plus all the other different ways of getting up, and there's plenty of cover.

HAXage wrote:

regular old huge analysis of my favourite stage in the game coming up shortly

 or maybe not so huge since there's so much consensus on this one, lol. anyway, this stage honestly couldn't have been better designed if they'd hired id software to do it: you can't abuse speed because there are uncountable ways to ascend and descend, you can't abuse high ground because there's the perfect amount of stuff between levels to mess with your missiles or HLs, the items are spread way the hell out so as to make them unrunnable, and the cover on the bottom level - where escape is a little harder and most of the battles actually take place - is absolute genius, just sparse enough to allow for risk but with just enough stuff to actually permit use of it. everything is spaced perfectly, everything flows so naturally, and it's balanced as hell. green it has been and green it shall be

on to full fich since i really doubt anyone else will have any objections with this one, and as an aside holy smokes is this new reply posting interface awful or what... i mean wow what was wrong with BBCode

Why did the interface changed? Anyway Green for this but I dont like sonar on this in multiplayer matches. They often lead to fighting for cover and the player with either more health or a barrier(s) wins that fight.

Jay McCloud wrote:

Why did the interface changed? Anyway Green for this but I dont like sonar on this in multiplayer matches. They often lead to fighting for cover and the player with either more health or a barrier(s) wins that fight.

Fichina should be yellow. There is too much bias towards Floxtal on this one, what with its open expanses and all. They definitely had singleplayer in mind when they designed this one.
P.S. The new interface does suck, doesn't it?
P.P.S. Sonar? Do you mean radar? There is a real life difference you know.

i don't think there is a terribly obvious character bias here (with the possible exception of Krystal; it is terribly hard to get into the control center without blowing a bar) so much as there's just... not much to the map. it's two spaces, an inside and an outside, and there's not much reason to go anywhere else, which means gameplay is more or less based around two chokepoints and some cover inside the center.

i guess it's probably the most balanced stage that i'd vote yellow on although to be honest i don't really have grounds for voting yellow. nobody really plays this stage full these days. the most recent game uploaded here was a tie between me and Cac KvS and there's a huge gap between that game and the next most recent.

so i guess it's up to anyone else to convince me what i should vote for this one now, lol. i have to admit i'd like some more green stages in the metagame right now and this one is the least suspect of all the current yellows, but the whole chokepoint play does mean you're going to be hitting B to make pushes a lot and it can be played rather campy. really the only thing stopping players from spending the whole game sitting in the center with CB pointed at the chokes is the missile spawn outside.

oh, and Jay, your idea of playing radar-less is kind of interesting although i don't think it should happen full Fich as it could make it very easy for someone to just get one point, run way out, hide in the ice fields and delay the game until it ends. however, it did give me an idea for CBF which i will bring up when we move on to that... (hint hint the idea is playing CBF radarless )

Haxage wrote:

but the whole chokepoint play does mean you're going to be hitting B to make pushes a lot and it can be played rather campy

I think that for 2p it should stay yellow for that reason. I don't think it would be interesting to see games played this way or having to waste a barrier just to get inside. Plus there is the homing launcher spawn in the middle that is going to get a barrier out of the one who tries to get in the center, and a pod to get lucky occationally. If the outside person goes for the missiles then the player inside just steps out with his homing launcher and forces a barrier, then steps back into the choke and whips out the mgun to keep the missiles at bay.

For 3p if all 3 inside then it's very heated, 2 inside and 1 out the guy outside just sneaks in when the other 2 are fighting or just wait for this next one, 1 inside 2 outside then the 2 swarm both sides to get in, and all outside just fight out there. The 1 in and 2 out might suck for the one guy the inside guy chooses to target but leaves himself vulnerable from behind, or what could happen is that the guy inside gets trapped inside due to the 2 outside watching the chokes.

For 2v2 I almost think it could turn out like 2p but the video in Haxage's New Year New Tourney does show that play revolved around the middle but there was no point that a team was truely guarding both enterances for it to be effective camping.

4p I imagine there's just too much going on for it to matter much.

So my vote is yellow on 2p, green for the rest.

i have to say i actually love this one 2v2 and for FFAs and we do play it this way frequently. it leads to some totally clutch plays with pods and sniper lockouts and stuff and if there's a character slant it kinda gets buried in the teamplay and/or sheer volume of explosives in chokes. whatever you could argue for 4p, it certainly doesn't flip-flop in the obvious way that it does 1v1 and i think that's good enough to call it green 4p.

Great analysis, Zerolink. I think you're right. Yellow for 2p, green for all others.

I don't feel strongly about this stage. Yellow 2p, Green others if fine with me

we certainly don't tend to see abuse of the center like Ap here, but there's no denying that controlling it is a pretty big deal... i suppose that's reason enough to vote yellow 1v1, yeah.

EDIT oh what the hell, i'll post a game analysis anyway [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Krys loses first point blah blah. Cac makes the decision to push out of the center right onto me instead of going around the other side and getting rand/sniper/whatever and i get one hit on him before he gets a MASSIVE ucb cheese on me losing a bar in the process.

then he tries to take center but there's nothing in there and he ends up having to push out with bar to make me pop a little bit; he just extends a little too far out when he pushes out the choke and i pick up the point after blowing my own bar. i finally pick up sniper/HL and that spawns some stuff inside but Cac pushes right out again and cheeses me a SECOND time with bar on. problem is then i spawn inside and pick up the pod which gives me a nice smokescreen, chokes Cac into the right side of the center and i get a good RCB. he pushes with bar but bars are even now and i don't want to give up center so he's forced to leave.

Cac grabs sniper outside, pod spawns, then HL, and now i can camp the center all i want; Cac beats it and picks up a bar but doesn't think it's worth it to use it for the pod and that ends up killing him; i have control of the chokes so he has nowhere else to hide anyway. for the last point, he absolutely has to bar to get into the center, and that goes all right for him but it means he only has one left to use in the inevitable KvS fights which usually end with Krys winning, and he barely ends up with the point before running out and camping a 3-3 draw.

anything funny in this game? well, absolutely... it was KvS on full Fich and ended with a draw, this is not something you usually see in this character matchup and certainly not commonly on this stage where the ENTIRE METAGAME is based on who uses fewer bars. the whole match here, though, is decided on who lets who push, and most of the time it's me calling the shots because i have control of the chokes... yeah, this one has to be yellow, it's too singleminded and although it's not exactly character-biased i think it's obvious that people can get some pretty weird kills here that they maybe don't deserve which kind of throws the match outcome around a little.

so last chance for objections before we move on

Your right, Haxage. people can get some weird kills here. (That's why my sister often chooses this stage lol.)

I think everyone agrees, 2p yellow, all else green.

on we go to CBF then, there's been plenty of time for people to get a foot in the door here

so i will admit that there is a bit of an issue with fast vs slow here in its current state; it's very even if PvS is on or FvK/X/F but the fact that the center is not transparent kind of puts a damper on the ability of any slow character to chase here. normally this hasn't been a problem considering the games we've had here so far: you need to see your opponent to get points, and people don't want to play camp games on an ARENA stage of all things anyway.

i have noticed some strange things happening in the final 30 seconds of the game when fast characters are up a point, though, and i don't particularly like that - the game should end when the 5 minutes are up, not at 4:30 because the fast character decides to not meet their opponent for the last few minutes of the game. in other words, it gives the fast character some sort of ability to influence when the end of the game actually comes, and that's not appropriate for competitive play. i can't cite any videos here because i'm sitting in a Starbucks and the connection is godawful so i can't load YT, but look up Ganon's game against Cac for third place at Kelowna 2012; Ganon fully and cheerfully admits that he's going to play like a chode in the last half minute or so and it works in his favor. other videos that might be worth checking out are HAXage vs Akp at Floss 1 and... hell if i know the actual game but i'm sure there's one more floating around out there.

the countermeasure to this is actually pretty simple, i think: turn off radar when playing CBF! this means that unless players see each other they will be unable to know the other's location, and if they can see each other they can shoot each other. i like this for a couple of reasons: first, it doesn't provide absolute assurance that this problem will be solved, but it puts a pretty big dent in the ability of a player to just bait Peppy around the center column forever without ever being in danger, and i think that's good. we do want characters to retain their individual abilities on this stage, or it's no good as a stage, right? so the overall mobility of Floxtal here is not really hurt; they just have to play a lot smarter than they previously had to in order to avoid getting shots put on them.

second, it prevents people from engaging others entirely on their own terms, which, although it's a big part of the metagame in bigger stages (let's face it, two players could just get lost looking for each other in Corneria), isn't as important in a stage this small. having no tricks to pull, pushing the game towards "who planned better and who aimed better", and being forced to make the best of a bad situation is, like, the whole point of having a stage like CBF!

so my proposal is GREEN with modification NO RADAR and i can thank Jay for this idea entirely; i think "you see it = you shoot it" is a much better way to play this stage and i'll try and get this into testing as soon as i get back to Vancouver.

I can agree with no radar. I actually prefer to play without radar on most stages.

I also think that this stage should be played with stock instead of time. The fact that it's played as a time match hugely tilts the game to fast characters in my opinion. Dying is never beneficial, (with the exception of Demon Losing) and so you definitely would want to get back into combat as soon as you can so you can get kills. If Falco is killed, no matter where you spawn, you're back in the center with guns blazing in 5 seconds. If Peppy gets killed, you could spend 30 seconds getting back in the center, all the while the time is still ticking. The only time it's beneficial to be slow is if you're two points ahead, and can burn time getting back in, but let's be honest. If you're that far ahead, you're going to win no matter how long it takes you to get back in there.

I've always been skeptical of time matches, as I wonder what prevents fast characters from running away after an early lead. I realize this is another advantage (and the main advantage) of fast characters, more control of when you fight; however, I think if the stage increases this advantage by a great deal, it can't be Green.

Whether radar is on or not, I won't vote Green for time matches. I'll have to vote Yellow.
If it's stock or point, I vote Green.

Is the color I used actually green? I'm colorblind, so I can't really tell.