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

HAXage wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is the most even slow/fast game we have, i think; it's not a blowout by any means although Yosh did lose. this tourney is also notable in that Cac never allowed more than one point against him in his 1v1s, which indicates he was playing a pretty solid game throughout (up to sudden death, lol )

first missile pickup is right off the bat, Yosh has ample opportunity to deny Cac the pickup due to his spawn and does a pretty good job, landing two solid hits on him and avoiding one missile, although Cac does get the kill in the end. typically the first point is like this, i agree: players scramble for the missile spawns, sometimes they aren't there, sometimes they are. to rush for them immediately is a bit of a gamble because they are really way out there, even for a fast character, and risking finding nothing while your opponent drops down and grabs the HL is a big waste of time.

since this match only had three points in it, is it reasonable to say that that first missile pickup won Cac the game? absolutely not! Yosh puts him in the red right away and only dies due to some really weird splash around the corner, and his followup revenge push just kinda goes sour when he slips off the ledge at 1:12 or so. then he makes the wrong decision (i.e. to jump down instead of just push down the ramp) at 1:39 and Cac gets out of there just in time. was he locked out entirely because of his character? again, absolutely not; he had a whole bunch of options up to that point, including the (probably easiest) brute force option of just pushing with a bar on.

then what occurs is basically a really long timelapse of Cac running away. he spends about 30 seconds looking for a health pickup, which he eventually finds at 2:21 or so; i would argue that his intent was clear enough at that point that Yosh shouldn't have wasted time looking for the missiles and should have immediately moved to cut him off, and that since he had control of the center it would have been at least moderately easy to do so. i think the main mistake he makes is chasing directly instead of going around the left side of the center to cut Cac off at 2:10.

but what does this get Cac in the end? after his health pickup, he doesn't manage to put any damage on Yosh or take any advantageous position, and the item grabs end up landing Yosh, who still has control of the high ground, with invis at 3:10! hell, if missiles had been there he could have had the point too - it just so happened that they weren't there, and that stroke of luck had nothing to do with who was the faster character. all in all, Yosh's play here - from Cac's health pickup to Yosh's invis pickup - could be a textbook example of how to get the stuff you want to get on Katina as Peppy: he has a great, straight line of sight to Cac while making the long walk to the missiles, he keeps the high ground all the time, and he puts plenty of pressure on Cac while he's doing it, just cheap spammy RCBs that don't cost anything to fire off.

afterwards... Cac grabs HL, which doesn't do much for him now that Yosh is invis. he ends up dying with it due to suicide, although i would be pretty confident in stating that that one would have been a lost point anyway as Yosh still had a bar. Yosh has no problems pushing him here; he recognizes that this is a position he's going to benefit from, barring some serious nonsense, and comes out on top.

next point, Cac heads to missile spawn, and they still aren't there. there's a brief standoff and then Cac decides to push up first, being the one with more health; they still have bars. this prompts Yosh to move up and Cac jukes him out and heads right for what he knows must be there: the barrier. there's no pack, no silver health (he can see both of these things), all the other items have been taken already, so the bar must be there - and he executes this juke perfectly in a scenario where he probably should have taken a hit at the very least. maybe it's just that Yosh isn't expecting it, but the end result is that Cac ends up with 2 bars, which is enough to win the match for him. again, speed has nothing to do with this one: Cac saw first that the bar must be there, and took it at the first opportunity when he was confident enough that he wouldn't get hit.

so where were the turning points here that were decided by the fact that Cac had 2 more speed stars than Yosh? there was only one missile pickup the whole game, and it decided a moderately close first point; the second point dragged on a little longer than it could have but this wasn't thanks to character stats, it was thanks to the fact that Yosh went right when he should have thought ahead a little further and gone left. happens to everyone. the third point could have gone either way - hell, for the bulk of it, Yosh was actually closer to the deciding item - the barrier - than Cac was! if he had made the connection and checked for the bar instead of being so aggressive there... who knows?

i don't think this stage is won on speed at all. i think it's won on decision-making, and you can make good or bad decisions no matter what character you are. if you want to play this map like Ap and give your opponent the runaround, sure, Akp, pick Falc if you want the whole thing to hinge on how far you think ahead, pick Pep. this one's always been green and green it should stay, i say.

and yeah, oops, Simp5 was supposed to be next we don't normally discuss red stages, but this one was brought up for discussion by Jay a little while ago and i said we'd include it. we'll do it after Kat

As far as missiles its all about where you spawn, speed of you and your opponent, if the barrier near the elevator is there from at the start and where the missiles spawn. Also the missiles often spawn near stealth, which are very unfair when put together.

I think that Simp 5 should be yellow block banned and yellow stage

Alright HAX, your argument's got me. I understand. I vote Green unrestricted. One thing that I would like to ask though is do you find it to be a problem that checking for the missiles is more doable as faster characters and is more costly for slower characters? Does this seem to be a problem? Or is it more glaring in theory?

FalcoXII wrote:

Alright HAX, your argument's got me. I understand. I vote Green unrestricted. One thing that I would like to ask though is do you find it to be a problem that checking for the missiles is more doable as faster characters and is more costly for slower characters? Does this seem to be a problem? Or is it more glaring in theory?

Why do you need to check, can't you just see when the stage is shown before the match starts?

Jay McCloud wrote:

FalcoXII wrote:

Alright HAX, your argument's got me. I understand. I vote Green unrestricted. One thing that I would like to ask though is do you find it to be a problem that checking for the missiles is more doable as faster characters and is more costly for slower characters? Does this seem to be a problem? Or is it more glaring in theory?

Why do you need to check, can't you just see when the stage is shown before the match starts?

I meant not only for the first point but other times as well. It can be costly to make the run out there and not find cloaking or missiles, especially if you're Peppy.

FalcoXII wrote:

I meant not only for the first point but other times as well. It can be costly to make the run out there and not find cloaking or missiles, especially if you're Peppy.

The way I see it your opponent has a few choices. 1, come at you from the center. 2, run up the sides and challenge you. 3, try and long range you with HL or something. Or 4, ignore you.

For 1 they're kinda choked. They can either fall off the sides or jump over the ridge if they're at the beginning and you're shooting at them. If they fall then you're free to start moving towards center while shooting them from above. If they don't fall then just bunker in and hold your own with your blaster. Times 4 charge is certinally something to be afraid of.

For 2, again, start moving towards center while trying to take them down from above, or hold them at the bottom while shooting them from above so they can't quickly get behind you while you're moving back.

For 3 just make sure you stay in cover and use your blaster to try and get them back. You should have the better charge so use it.

For 4 you're free to move back at any time.

It may be more do-able for faster characters but slow guys aren't completely trapped if they decide to go for it, and as Haxage said, this stage is about decisions. Wether you want to go for the missles or not is going to have to be your decision.

FalcoXII wrote:

One thing that I would like to ask though is do you find it to be a problem that checking for the missiles is more doable as faster characters and is more costly for slower characters? Does this seem to be a problem? Or is it more glaring in theory?

i can sort of see how this might be a concern, because you can't see if they're there from a distance, so checking for the missiles involves going all the way out to the spawn; this means that even if missiles are there, slow characters will spend more risk in getting them and get the same amount of reward (theoretically).

i don't think it is too big a deal, however, and i have a few reasons for this:

1. time wasted is time wasted no matter how much of it you waste. falc, pep, whoever... sometime after you commit to checking for missiles, your opponent is going to have some spare time to do something. whether they want to prepare to defend against the missiles, push you a bit to try and prevent you from picking them up or using them effectively, or whatever, there's still a significant amount of time that goes down the drain when you head out there, and it's going to cost you no matter what. so you take a few seconds longer to get out there as a slower character; so what? a difference of a few seconds on a map as wide open as this isn't going to be a big deal.

2. part of the risk involved in picking a slower character at all, on any stage, is knowing that you're going to spend 10 seconds longer getting places and you're going to have to work around that. what this means is that a lot of the time walking all the way out there is just not worth it! you're given some pretty considerable compensation for reduced speed no matter if you're Pep or Slip and there's no need, in general, to run out and take the 20 seconds to grab missiles for yourself. a much better way to use that time is to prevent your opponent from doing what they want to do, play as defensively as possible, hold your control of high ground, keep the pressure on.

a more extreme example might be full Fich, where the missiles are WAY out in the open (although with the somewhat significant difference that you can see the missiles before you actually get to them). if you're playing Pep, are you going to drop everything and run out there just because they're a power weapon? no way! if your opponent is really lit up, or as slow as you, or if they're in no shape to counter them or get any pickups during the time it takes to get out there, THEN you might want to consider moseying on out, but it's easy to see in that case that sometimes the risk just isn't worth it and there are better options. i posit that Katina is not significantly different - people just think it is, because it's a smaller stage and not so empty.

3. missiles, on the whole, are overrated! they are not a guaranteed kill, they aren't a magic machine that does 16 damage to your opponent when you press A, and although they are a vastly useful weapon they aren't the counter to everything. in game after game on my channel alone you'll see scenarios in which missiles not only didn't help players but were often [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to the player using 'em the bottom line is that SFA is not and has never been a game where you can spam a weapon and win, no matter how much i pretend to complain about Yosh gimping on Sauria or whatever - games are won on decisions and not on missile pickups.

EDIT - also, i'd like to point out that the invis-next-to-missiles scenario is pretty rare; invis in general is not an easy spawn on Katina. it's a big deal when it happens but i think i can count the number of times it's happened in a tourney game on one hand

Thanks. I thought I'd bring that up, and I'm glad I got an answer. I agree.

Ok, that vid changed my mind. Katina gets my vote for green.

Do we all agree Katina should be green with missiles?

Agreed. I suggest moving on again.

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

alright, i guess no one has anything more to say on Katina and that's fine by me, so it stays.

Jay McCloud wrote:

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

this is for simp3 i assume? i think we'll come back to that later, after the rest of the stages have been done, along with simp2... right now i want to go over simp5 a bit and see what everyone's thought on it are.

I don't really have any insight. By the time I unlocked it, I was mostly playing based on revoleague stage rules, so I only have played it a few time.

HAXage wrote:

alright, i guess no one has anything more to say on Katina and that's fine by me, so it stays.

Jay McCloud wrote:

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

this is for simp3 i assume? i think we'll come back to that later, after the rest of the stages have been done, along with simp2... right now i want to go over simp5 a bit and see what everyone's thought on it are.

yes it is for simp3, and yes it can wait

HAXage wrote:

alright, i guess no one has anything more to say on Katina and that's fine by me, so it stays.

Jay McCloud wrote:

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

this is for simp3 i assume? i think we'll come back to that later, after the rest of the stages have been done, along with simp2... right now i want to go over simp5 a bit and see what everyone's thought on it are.

Before I vote I need to know how many invis suits are on the stage at once

Jay McCloud wrote:

HAXage wrote:

alright, i guess no one has anything more to say on Katina and that's fine by me, so it stays.

Jay McCloud wrote:

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

this is for simp3 i assume? i think we'll come back to that later, after the rest of the stages have been done, along with simp2... right now i want to go over simp5 a bit and see what everyone's thought on it are.

Before I vote I need to know how many invis suits are on the stage at once

There can be two stealth suits at once. There are 5 items (two health, two stealth and a barrier) I believe that there are always 2 or 3 on the stage at one time. So if the barrier and health were the most recently collected items, there would probably be two stealth sitting near each other.

FalcoXII wrote:

Jay McCloud wrote:

HAXage wrote:

alright, i guess no one has anything more to say on Katina and that's fine by me, so it stays.

Jay McCloud wrote:

I completely forgot about the broken spawn, I change my vote to yellow no invis

this is for simp3 i assume? i think we'll come back to that later, after the rest of the stages have been done, along with simp2... right now i want to go over simp5 a bit and see what everyone's thought on it are.

Before I vote I need to know how many invis suits are on the stage at once

There can be two stealth suits at once. There are 5 items (two health, two stealth and a barrier) I believe that there are always 2 or 3 on the stage at one time. So if the barrier and health were the most recently collected items, there would probably be two stealth sitting near each other.

in that case I vote red, instead of yellow block banned yellow

Sorry. I thought you meant Simp3. I have no idea about Simp 5

Jay McCloud wrote:

Before I vote I need to know how many invis suits are on the stage at once

The number of items on a stage at a time depends on the number of players. For simp5 there is 1 item on the map for 2p and 3p. When it's 4p there are 2 items. The items are 3 stealth packs, 2 health packs, and 1 barrier. The barrier is at the bottom, the 2 health packs are located near the bottom and near the top, and the 3 stealth packs are at the bottom, top, and middle area so the max stealth packs on the stage at once could be 2 under the right circumstances.

When I tested this stage I noticed that it took 20 seconds for an item to be able to respawn. If all the items were gotten within the 20 seconds of the first item grab then no items spawned until that first item's time was done, it spawned, and then the next one that was grabbed would spawn after it's 20 seconds were up, and so on. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this before but I tested it on other stages and it seems to be the same situation.

For simp5 I think it should stay red. Haxage and Cac do a nice job of explaining why it is already banned in their "Why It's Banned" series on youtube and I agree with it.

Zerolink100 wrote:

Jay McCloud wrote:

Before I vote I need to know how many invis suits are on the stage at once

The number of items on a stage at a time depends on the number of players. For simp5 there is 1 item on the map for 2p and 3p. When it's 4p there are 2 items. The items are 3 stealth packs, 2 health packs, and 1 barrier. The barrier is at the bottom, the 2 health packs are located near the bottom and near the top, and the 3 stealth packs are at the bottom, top, and middle area so the max stealth packs on the stage at once could be 2 under the right circumstances.

When I tested this stage I noticed that it took 20 seconds for an item to be able to respawn. If all the items were gotten within the 20 seconds of the first item grab then no items spawned until that first item's time was done, it spawned, and then the next one that was grabbed would spawn after it's 20 seconds were up, and so on. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this before but I tested it on other stages and it seems to be the same situation.

For simp5 I think it should stay red. Haxage and Cac do a nice job of explaining why it is already banned in their "Why It's Banned" series on youtube and I agree with it.

When I checked spawn tines I got 15-17 seconds, but that was for weapons. Also I counted more than 2 health pack spawns, unless you meant 2 at one time.

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.

Ok, watch the Why It's Banned vid for simp5, and you will know why it's banned.(Pun intended)

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I vote red

i have to say i've been wanting to redo those vids lately, actually x) a lot of the information in them is a little out of date

really though the layout is a lot more important than the yellow block or the stealth packs in my eyes - although the abundance of the things certainly contributes and anything that "only <insert character here> can get up onto" is pretty bad for competitive gameplay.

my objections to the layout are twofold: firstly, there is little to no interconnectivity between the levels. above all else it's difficult and cumbersome to get from high to low, and when the entire stage is essentially five or six platforms and ramps connecting them, that's a big deal. gameplay on a good stage should flow well above all else - think of Sarg and how easy it is to be anywhere on the map at any time, or Katina where there is hardly anything hindering stage movement: plenty of ramps, an elevator, very simple high ground/low ground dynamic.

Simp5 has none of these things. if you're on the top and your opponent doesn't have missiles or a pod (which is a lot more unlikely a kill or bar force), you can't be hit, and they're going to be choked into attacking you by moving up one of three ramps, none of which is particularly detailed or offers much in the way of attack diversity beyond "run at them and hope by some miracle they don't notice you"... which brings us to the stealth packs, and to my next objection.

one of these is on the top floor; the other two are lower down. let's say you grab invis and begin an approach up - and we are assuming your opponent is camping the top here, because why wouldn't you? you can't be hit, you have every conceivable angle on your opponent, and if you're Slippy (which you should be; there is a pretty damnably obvious character slant on this one) you have a huge high ground and mobility advantage that makes it doubly difficult for your opponent to actually hit you (although, i admit, it's not impossible).

grabbing a stealth pack lower down might get you an approach, and it might even get you a kill (all bets are kind of off here, whether you die on the way up or get locked out is more or less entirely determined by your opponent's skill and map awareness). now what? you've used one minute or so to get up to the battleground, you're sitting on it and you are essentially king of the hill - so what do you do with this advantage? if you push down, you're venturing into territory that you don't control, and you have a perfectly good spot up on the top, where you're unhittable unless your opponent is actually up there, so why not just stay?

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. it's not a problem with the yellow block. it's not even a problem with the invis, necessarily. it's that the whole game revolves around "who can stay on top of the level the longest", and that's not a good game to have to play. it's why we ban the cave in Sauria, and it's why i'm going to be voting red for Titania 1v1 when it rolls around. it offers so little from a strategic competitive standpoint that there's no point in having it.

we could ban the yellow block but the yellow block isn't the problem by itself; you'd still have a big, opaque platform beneath it that would continue to breed camp games, and it wouldn't fix the fact that grabbing invis (of which there is an abundance) is more or less necessary to successfully attack the top.

i admit i am somewhat interested in this one's potential in 4p games and possibly 3p, although i strongly suspect it would play out exactly the same way in 2v2, with one team camping the top, but maybe it'd be more interesting in that scenario; who knows. in FFAs it might be more viable. it's difficult to actually outdamage players if you're playing a camp game in FFAs in general, and with the lack of vision to other levels people might actually be forced to use the whole stage to stay on top of things.

red in 1v1 and 2v2. undecided in FFAs.

EDIT - just read ZL100's test results; that's pretty cool! i was going to say we hadn't even been aware of different item spawns with different player counts, but we have seen something sort of similar with the removal of that big core thing in the main building in Zoness with 4 players. if that's the case, i definitely have reservations about enabling 2v2 or even FFAs here... imagine all players invis, or 2/4 in team games... yeesh

Amazing analysis, HAXage. Very comprehensive on why this should be red.

HAXage wrote:

if you're Slippy (which you should be; there is a pretty damnably obvious character slant on this one) you have a huge high ground and mobility advantage that makes it doubly difficult for your opponent to actually hit you (although, i admit, it's not impossible.

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