As the creator of quite a few of the custom stages going around now, I wanted to say, thank you very much for this video! When I made the stages (about 10 years ago), my original intention was actually just that; I wanted to expand the legal stage list. I naively thought that, if I were to tweak the stages to get rid of some of the things people complained about, then they would be used in tournaments right then and there... like I said, I was a bit naive. What was interesting though was, at that time, nobody I talked to was even willing to play on the stages, even in friendlies. The explanation I was given was usually something like: "I don't want to throw off my game". Though, to be fair, looking at them now I can see some of the mistakes I made. Seeing them get a new lease on life after all these years has been quite the surprise I must say! No matter what their fate now, I'm glad to see them even get this far.
An argument that is overlooked is that custom stages are much more likely to bring people INTO the game, not the other way around. Every game company in the world knows that adding more content is the best way to get more people into their game. 1) It brings back people who used to play and are curious, their friends see them playing and become curious themselves 2) People see on Reddit/gaming journals that melee is getting new content. More eyes means more players.
This could be said to be why rivals of Aether is so popular. There are theoretically infinite characters and stages, and it’s balanced by the fact that you choose which ones you want to play with and against. This being said, I disagree with the reasoning that “it brings new people into the game” is an important argument, let alone one that should be considered whatsoever for an already thriving community. It’s not worth changing Melee into Mario Kart if it will bring more people into the title Also, the reason that rivals’ workshop works is that it’s _YOUR_ choice to select or deselect these stages and characters. If you absolutely detest a character because it’s broken, you don’t have to have it downloaded. Are you going to tell your tournament opponent to not use their preferred stage? All in all, this is a consensus thing. There should be a consensus of >=80% among the players. That’s the only way you’re not going to get much conflict.
I’ve been playing for three years purely through online play. Never set foot in a venue. I very much believe that the main source of new Melee players are going to be people playing the newer Smash games, who already have an adapter and controller and who just have to download Slippi and an ISO to get started. To me, the newer Smash games are sort of the entry point to Melee, and people who are serious about the newer Smash games will already have the required equipment to play Melee.
Literally describes me perfectly. Played ultimate, already had an adapter, watched competitive melee for years, and recently got slippi and started playing. Oh, and I got the custom stages with no issue, as well as showing other relatively new players how to get them too. Learning to wavedash, L cancel, and shield drop consistently is a million times more difficult than getting the custom stages. The barrier to entry argument is terrible.
absolutely. i watched melee for years, and ult is the first game i went to comp events for. i saved up money for a gc, got suprised with one for xmas, and modded a gcmc for uncle punch. this game has a low skill floor but the hoghest skill ceiling, and thats why i was drawn to it
If you're interested in hearing my thoughts on custom stages in more detail, along with the thoughts of IBDW, Junebug, check out my podcast with Turndownforwalt! It's called "The Mixup" and it will be live at 6:00pm EST on Walt's twitch channel (twitch.tv/turndownforwalt) We will be going over the topic of custom stages in Melee on a general level, and then break down each stage individually! It should be a fun time :)
Great video It addresses a lot of the worries, arguements and potential barriers to having a quality like this. I do hope this ongoing effort ends well with very little interference from Nintendo, having a small stage list is one thing that always bummed me out the most from going to P+ to Melee. Ironically moreso than having less characters.
Hey Radar, Just wanted to thank you for your careful consideration of the topic (as well as others you have addressed in the past). You always do a great job. Also your music is great!
Hey man great video I wish there was a podcast that talked about custom stages and stuff with really handsome hosts that would be really cool right?????
Most of them haven't been released yet unfortunately as I'm still working on my second album. The only one that has been released is "Breakfast Time" which you can find on my spotify. Follow me there for the future music releases! open.spotify.com/album/48fyQixL3eJLwEBcOscnWJ?si=nJAkwy1tRJCTTQhKenz8Pw here's the link
makes no sense to say that custom stages become an additional boundary to get into melee, nowadays i think getting a melee disc a gamecube or wii (or just modding it) and a crt is actually more complicated, when honestly with slippi you just need to get a controller adapter. And besides there's a whole community where you can get info on how to install and use slippi and other features through discord servers and also a bunch of youtube tutorials. we're at a point where anyone can enter the scene and during the last year melee has become more accessible than ever. I'm fine with the variety of stages we have because each of them change each matchup in interesting ways but im down for new stages because theres also the fact that people don't wanna play melee because according to them it lacks more stage variety.
Welp... glad I took the time to setup slippi and the melee rom a long time ago. At least two good things will remain consistent in my life: OSRS and Melee
@Base Bass Forte I still have to grind solo raids for the twisted bow. 400m bank for a 2k account is kinda sad lol. look forward to kicking some bosses butt with yuh eventually.
I'm happy to see experimentation with the stages and it makes sense to be trying out new things during this covid era, but I think the community should be cautious about adding brand new things to the base game. We have made a lot of changes to Melee overtime but they've been about making details that already exist in the base game a bit easier (UCF) or keeping a stage that already exists the way we want it (frozen stadium). Someone who just has a Gamecube and a copy of Melee should be able to grind and get the skills and knowledge needed to play competitively. Stage design is hugely important to every platform fighter and adding in new custom ones will affect the meta.
As a casual viewer of competitive Melee for the last ten years or so, I am in favor of seeing new stages added to the rotation. The only issue I see is that Nintendo has been attacking the use of Slippi in Melee for being unofficial and "illegal". We also saw Project M get shut down. So, while new stages are exciting and I would love to see them in streams or smaller tournaments, it is best to leave them out of the official ruleset to avoid all Melee from being canceled by Nintendo.
id like to see custom stages introduced as a side-event at tournaments a-la jungle jam, at least at first! could provide some time for the community to really test them. similarly when ranked is added to slippi, maybe unranked could have a custom stages mode?
I think its fair to say that adding custom stages would make watching the game a better experience. More variability is exciting. But I think the Nintendo stuff is scary to me. I feel like if we push our luck too much they'll just take the bad PR hit and nuke our whole scene. Just my two cents. Great vid btw.
Good vid, pretty thorough examination of the arguments for and against. While personally I hope custom stages stay out of tournament melee, I think your arguments were very fair. Thanks for the content.
I don't think Melee needs custom stages, but they can only improve the game as long as they're treated with care. Worst-case scenario we don't wind up using them, might as well experiment
@@cthulhutron3244 You misunderstand, I'm saying I think custom stages have the potential to be good, so we should try it. We don't NEED custom stages, but they can't hurt as long as they're tested properly
There is such a small barrier to entry compared to how it used to be. When I first started I needed to find a crt, Wii/GC, controller, and then find a copy of Melee. That was super hard to do and caused me not to play melee for a year. Not to mention finding someone to play with. Slippi has made playing people a million times easier. You no longer have to hope you have a active scene in your area. That you can only play a few times a week. The past two years has made Melee more accessible to anyone who wants to play.
Quick Note! I'd say that even during this time, a wii and nintendont are also a pretty common way of getting into the game, and it would be very easy to have these stages included in a 20xx version or an uncle punch version, so that's another point for not really being in the way of new players.
I am a very small portion of the community but I think it's important to represent that I still play melee on vanilla and while not many there probably are others too
Thanks for the video as always my dude. I listened to/watched the whole thing, but my takeaway is that 1. You seem pretty curious about the B0XX, or at least the discussion (I see the relevance, of course) 2. I can't wait for the new album!
Random message on an over two year old video but i think one argument for custom stages could be to add specifically stages trusted within pm already or stages in similar form to those that are not in melee because that would take into account used data from that game and be applying it to melee decently easily due to the general similarities.
I think the only thing I disagree with heavily is the disregard for playing on a vanilla setup. In theory we will eventually be back in LAN venues. If we're going to be holding tournaments on LAN, they should have the same ruleset and stages as online tournaments and for locals especially should be as accessible as possible. I'm not sure how possible / realistic it is to add custom stages to a GameCube memory card, let alone expect everyone coming to a local tournament to have access to one of these. This was and is still an issue with UCF. A lot of the small town locals in rural Ohio I've been to just don't have players with a UCF setup. UCF isn't as big of a deal because the goal is to just level the playing field between controllers, it doesn't add content or physically change any of the rules. Adding stages on the other hand all the sudden opens up the potential for a player to not have local tournament practice on these stages when going to something bigger like a regional or major. I'm willing to concede that netplay tournament practice exists, but I need you to understand that, while they are a minority in the community, players in scenes like this don't really have that as an option. They can't get decent internet in the middle of the woods they live in. I want to be clear; I am not opposed entirely to the idea. In a lot of ways I think it could be a very healthy and fun change to the game. My only point is that I think the video brushes the accessibility argument under the rug more than it realistically should, especially in the (hopefully soon) coming post-covid restrictions world.
It's not necessarily the custom stages themselves that could dramatically improve balance, but rather the viability of Bo5 bans which would allow for removal of the most polarizing stage(s) in a particular matchup. Also modding is the norm on PC, so "filthy modder" arguments don't really reserve to be dignified with a response.
7:45 yeah... yeah that guy is me. I agree that it's the most flawed stage by far but... if pokemon stadium was really THAT bad, we would've gotten rid of it already I feel... I feel as if the incredibly unique stage layouts keep players on their toes and really test their adaptability in a mostly non harmful way. ironically i find it to be a great skill check. love the frozen version too though
Regardless of what we decide about custom stages, I think the purists play an important role in the community. Even if it’s not perfect, the game has survived this long because of how good it is already. Change is good, and many changes need to happen, but what we have now is working. Changing too much too quickly could accidentally make things worse without giving the community enough time to assess the changes. Slowing down the process to only allow what we are absolutely sure will be beneficial is a good thing imo. Even if that means it takes too long to ban wobbling, I’m glad there’s people to keep the more ambitious side of the community in check. Custom stages look cool tho
Curious to hear your thoughts on buffing characters to make them more viable. I was shocked to see so many people on twitter who would actually want that. I mean, we already have PM for that or is it just me?
I don’t think the “we’ve changed Melee before” argument really works in regards to gameplay. Every mod used for Melee I can think of (aside from frozen Pokémon Stadium, which I don’t like because I’m a purist) has been for convenience or accessibility. When you start changing how the game is actually played that opens a lot of doors. Why not start using mods to buff underpowered characters or fix moves that were programmed incorrectly by mistake? All the same arguments can be applied. Does it make the game more fun and varied? Yes. But at a certain point it’s not Melee, it’s modded Melee. If people want to play the custom stages it should be a separate category. I have no problem with changing the stage list, it’s happened before, my problem is changing it and adding things that are fan made. Using fan made content in official tourneys would be like using a custom, fan made rule in an MLB game. It’s fundamentally changing the way the game is played and it’s no longer the original game. Imo keep the custom stages to net play or make them a separate tourney rule set.
Ahh yes, the Slippery Slope fallacy at work again lol. The counter is "Not only is designing new stages NOTHING like designing a new character, we have never made any changes to the actual characters in the game, whereas we HAVE repeatedly altered stages. They're really not comparable at all dude.
Well technically, if you want to be pedantic just for the fun of it, you could argue that Master Hand is a banned character. Via the Name Entry glitch, you can play as Master Hand, but that's banned for several reasons.
@@Coelocanth I mean even this doesn't cover the fact that we have never added characters to the game lol. It's just a colossal leap that only seems to make sense if you don't actually stop and think about how different they really are
@@Radarssbm First of all, slippery slope is not always a fallacy. Secondly, you're appealing to tradition, which is an actual fallacy. Sure, we have modified stages but one could argue that we should not have done that, or that having rollback with frozen Stadium is such a positive for the scene that it outweighs the cons of modifying the stage but that we should add the transformations back when possible. Just saying "it's obviously different bro" doesn't do anything. I could just as easily say that adding new custom stages is "clearly different" from only allowing some stages in tournament.
I feel like this discussion leads way to a slippery slope idea where the argument "If we're modifying the game to add in custom stages why don't we change other things like buffing characters like Bowser, Pichu, or Zelda to make them viable or making actions easier to preform" stems which could cause more split in the community. I know It sounds silly but my brain thinks of a dystopian 20HH reality where they're 5 tribes of melee all playing radically different versions to in no way resemble the base game. I honestly don't have problems with anything brought up here I just hope it doesn't get to an extreme point
I understand why you would think that, but I dont see that ever happening in a million years. People playing melee r way too smart and respectful of the game to ever do that (unless the meta runs into problems like mentioned in the vid, but thats nearly impossible). People who play melee have genuine love and passion for the game and how the characters work rn, to ever make actual character changes.
The video is really well-made! I also think most of your points are trash, and this is mostly just entertainment in lieu of an argument or a "case." I still enjoyed watching and hearing your thoughts. Frozen Whispy and Poke' are likely as far as the community will go in terms of stages at big tournaments. If we're going to see the custom ones, it's going to be the smaller ones or far and few between like Smash Summit is. Year 2021: Custom stages legalized Year 2024: No vanilla stage remains un-altered Year 2040: A legal stage is procedurally generated on Start Year 2100: Neural link tournament peak entrant count at 500 million
Porque no los dos? Chess has Bullet and Blitz variations to say nothing of Fischer Random. I am for your suggestion that we could (and maybe should) add stages provided that we give "the metagame" time to evolve before fully incorporating them into the classic or legacy rule-set.
idk why i'm compelled to type up my thoughts on this but here goes anyway: i think the issue with implementing custom stages is actually one of boundary lines. as an example of this philosophy, how would or should the community feel about the implementation of a change that allowed Mr. Game & Watch to L-cancel all his aerials? this is clearly an intended feature that was obviously only missing due to time limitations and chunks of code being improperly moved around. no one is using G&W at a high level, and a change like this would barely drag him above playable. but if you make a change like that, there are a great number of other changes that could be made along the same lines. furthermore, how does the community decide where and when to curtail the number of stage variants? what if i want my platform height one half-falco-body-length higher? what about allowing the players to adjust platform heights themselves before a match? a large amount of these continuations of thought probably rely on 'slippery slope (slippiry slope lol)' thought process, but that's sort of the issue. if you begin making one change, why not make more changes, and more changes, until we're not playing anything that resembles the original melee? i don't think that would actually happen, but at the root of it is the important question: what is it we're actually doing when we play melee? is a virtual contest between two opponents the ultimate goal? and if it is, is melee necessarily the best way to do it? would making a new game from the ground up be more sensible, or should we all just move to Rivals of Aether? i think mostly it is a lot of confusion in terms of legislation as opposed to just 'leaving things the way they are'. maybe that's all conservative thought versus progressive approaches tho. either way, it's interesting to think about.
I totally get where you're coming from but I don't really buy into "if you change one thing it sets a precedent to change other things" especially when the changes aren't related. People said the same thing about UCF because it was literally "changing the code in the game" and we still haven't made any balance changes or anything years later, nor do we plan on doing so. I think a more reasonable slippery slope is "if we change the stage lists, that will likely lead to people removing stage hazards." This isn't a slippery slope because the changes are directly related to each other. In contrast, changing the stage list is just not the same thing as changing a character. They might seem similar because both are "changing the game" but only if you genuinely believe all changes to the game are comparable to one another and I'm almost certain you don't. Did adding custom textures lead to rebalancing melee? Did frozen stadium lead to rebalancing melee? What about UCF? A reasonable person has to acknowledge that changing melee is not some universal category. There's a difference between each type of change. If this helps, look at it this way...if we changed any of the stages, would it make game and watch viable? Or even noticeably better? The answer is pretty clearly no. However, if we change G&W's frame data, that will have a MUCH bigger impact on his viability. That's literally cutting the lag of several aerials in half dude. This is why I brought up the fact that character's strengths are independent from stages. Stages may weaken/enhance a characters strengths, but they don't magically turn S tier characters into B tiers or something, that's just not how the game works. Stages are just not the same as characters, so even if it feels like crossing the stage boundary means crossing the character boundary, the reality is they are still soooo different.
Please increase your volume, I can't hear shit with the slightest background noise, if it were too loud, I could lower it, but rn I have it on max and it feels like 20% volume
Agreed! I think if there's one big change I'd like to see across all of them is a pretty big overhaul on the cameras. I think some of them are tolerable but I still think there's a lot of room for improvement.
This is all well and good for online tournaments, but what about the offline scene? Are you limiting this argument to the online scene only or transferring it to both cases? Because then implementation does become a serious problem if we are talking offline.
We could try also adding legal stages from other smash games, like Crystal Cavern, Green Hill, Secret and Wario Land from P M, or Smashville From brawl, also we could add hazardless Kalos, etc. If those stages are legal in other games, then there might be less problem if we use them in experimental tournaments, right?
I disagree, and that’s ok! You’re entitled to your opinion obviously. However, I think the thing I feel people miss about the buffing low tiers discussion is whether buffing those characters would actually make the game more fun. People confuse balance with fun, and they’re absolutely different. Melee’s top tiers are surprisingly balanced (people still don’t agree on the lists even after 20 years). If we buffed some of the low tier characters, I guess my fear is that some of those matchups would genuinely suck to play. A lot of people complain about say, Puff or ice Climbers, and there’s a very real possibility that buffing a lot of those characters is effectively just adding more matchups like that. I already don’t really enjoy playing. YL or G&W, or Kirby…but they’re tolerable because those characters are bad. I’m not really in a rush to make them better haha
@@Radarssbm Fair enough. I feel like the Mario bros and Roy would be fun to watch. Maybe a couple others. But I dont think buffs will ever happen in the community so thats why nobody ever talks about it.
@@gibransalazar7769 I think Roy would definitely be cool, but at least Marth exists. Mario…I’m fine as is hahaha. I think Luigi and Doc are pretty strong enough already. Not top tier but def tournament and top 100 viable
My biggest problem is how people can easily just rely on downloading roms instead of going through all the hoops in order to play a "competitively viable" Melee. Normally I don't have a problem with roms, but if you're using them for monetary gain in a tournament then it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Since everything is online now, it's harder to check for legitimacy and could further ruin the chances of Melee being taken seriously as an e-sport.
You don’t have to download roms, the game is the same? It’s just a gecko code. The difference is quite large. I feel like many other competitive esports have similar stuff and are still successful As for legitimacy, if their rom is different the online mode won’t function properly, so you don’t need to worry about checking for that. In terms of in person events, we were already using modded Wii’s anyway lol
The crazy thing it feels like it's the new generation of players that are fixated with Melee being played like it was 10 years ago. They take it too seriously. Have they seen M2K and mango play a tournament set on Corneria before? Probably not. We have the current stage list because we were limited back when the rules were established not because it's some ideal list.
my thoguthts on this is that i think they should be used for fun side events adding costum stages will drasticlly change the meta in my opionon but at the same time there pretty balanced and fun to play on so il be fine if there legal good vid
although it's not a perfect solution and ostensibly adds another barrier to entry, all these custom stages already work on vanilla melee/gamecubes via memory card hacks! i played on the stages using the multimod.me card back in like feburary, but you can make your own custom stage memory card with a modded wii the only real counter is doing so either requires buying a premade card, having a modded wii, or copying a card off someone else a la 20XXTE, but you already *need* a memory card for vanilla melee, especially if you want something like ucf, so who's to say it's that much worse
A good first step would be modifying issues with current stages. Rather than add a whole new stage that we would tweak to perfection, why not fix the jank involved with our legal stages? Inconsistent ledges, whispy, shy guys, transformations, etc. If the community can agree on these kinds of changes, I bet moving into broader modifications would be easier to discus.
Great points. Completely agree. The only good reason not to is Nintendo. But I think we can be smart about it. If they start getting snippy about it, just stop.
I would absolutely love custom stages. I think pretty much every stage made so far (minus Great Bay) could all work very well. Of course Peach's Castle and both Mushroom Kingdom's need tweeks but the others are great. I'd love to see a more faithful Smashville (like the Fourside custom but tweeked) and a Warioware clone (Flatzone is somewhat similar but I think both could be interesting to have). Also, a copy of PM's Green Hill Zone would be dope. Honestly I'm just really hyped that we're even discussing custom stages in the first place. I think it would be a very fun and interesting dynamic to have new stages. I understand the arguments against adding stages but I think it's worth it. It will be fun, add new strategies, perhaps make different tech skill viable/allow us to find new tech skill, etc. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is Nintendo but I feel like if Nintendo tried to take us down even more, we could just move custom stages to a side event until things cool down between us and Nintendo
the only way a custom stage would be accepted by the community is if it was based on another beloved stage from other Smash games. (copy sizes and platform placements, but change graphics). Since the design basically comes from nintendo developers, people would be more willing to accept it IMO
No game is immune to change. Even Gary Chess updated chess to include pawns moving two squares and the en passant rule in patch 1.0.2. That being said, I'm on the side of only adding fan made contributions to side events. It just opens up too much of a pandora's box including buffing bad characters, fixing moves that dont function as intended, etc. The only changes that have been made so far are for accessibility reasons like UCF. I play pokemon competitively and we see something similar with a no complex ban rule. Nothing is changed unless something is overwhelmingly unhealthy and even then it's just banned as a whole. Otherwise, in the case of pokemon, you get into the discussion of well this legendary wouldnt be broken if you didnt let it run xyz. That's my viewpoint for why things like stadium shouldnt be modded to not transform. If it's unhealthy, ban it outright, but these little fixes inherently lead to too much of a different game than what people go into expecting. I think custom stages would make excellent side events, but leave it there.
Much of your entire argument gets shut down by acknowledging it’s a slippery slope fallacy though? What if stage changes don’t lead to any future changes to the characters? What would you think then?
@@Radarssbm You're using the fallacy fallacy - just because something contains a fallacy doesnt mean it's invalid :) I'm still not a fan. I'm not saying it would lead to more changes. I'm more saying it divides the community into too many subsets. And I'm a filthy purist. I'm fine with adding or banning from the stage list or things available in the main game. But I feel like adding outside aspects really stops it from being *melee* and starts becoming a sort of PM clone. I dont consider this to be the end all be all of opinions, it's just how I personally see the game and the direction I'd like it to go down.
@@llamaryder1 I don’t personally think this is a good example of the fallacy fallacy but I’m not gonna argue that. Your opinion is valid, but I do think it’s still pretty clearly based an arbitrary definition of what makes melee “melee” in your eyes (which is also fine since you’re acknowledging it’s just your opinion!). Since we have done a lot to change the game so far, and are continuing to see changes...it’s not really about being a purist so much as it is about you liking the existing changes to the game and disliking future changes right?
Apologies if you already addressed this argument, but what about the idea that "melee is good enough"? You already correctly pointed out that there is still plenty of room and potential in the scene for new characters and matchups to become meta. We've already seen with Slippi a massive increase in lower-tier characters becoming more normalized. Sure, new stages are cool, but are they really needed? I don't think they do anything great for the competitive scene and as you pointed out, we can't say that they will be responsible for characters suddenly becoming "better" or "worse".
Like anything we add, you can make this argument. I think it’s completely fair if you think Melee is good as is and doesn’t need extra stages. I think extra stages might be fun, likely wouldn’t harm stuff too much, but also isn’t necessary. Main purpose of the video is to try to break down the arguments that I think are just bad/wrong. Hopefully I succeeded in that sense, but it’s still fair if the root of your opinion is “stage changes aren’t that interesting to me and I’m fine with melee as is”
It's very interesting but I feel you didn't touch on the physical copies aspect enough. What about when were running tournaments on gamecubes? Online won't take over locals
I guess I figured more people knew this already but 1) most tourneys use Wii’s + ISOs nowadays, for a variety of reasons (newer console, etc) 2) you can actually already load custom stages to an original GameCube with memory card mods so it’s completely possible
@@abjoern Not really? You just copy the mods from someone else who has them. It's literally as simple as copying the data on a memory card. It's true that it is a bit trickier on your own but still possible, just requires more steps/equipment.
@@Radarssbm the thing is someone has to get the mods onto their card first. Maybe I'm remembering wrong but my scene had a bit of trouble getting a UCF card when it first came out. Oh well we have wiis so it probably doesn't matter
It is 100% legal to rip the iso from my disc and upload it to my computer. It is illegal to upload it to a website on the internet. So yes it is legal to use an iso for personal use if you got it by yourself and not a website, Nintendo is just dumb
I dont know man, I wish there was changes so that all the characters were viable so I could see more play from characters like G&W and Mario rather than like 5 characters more or less out of the 26 in the game but I understand the idea that trying to change characters viably is a bit hard and that the game flows fine already
I have a lot of thoughts about this and will address this in a future video but a couple quick thoughts here: 1. Most people who say this don’t seem to actually play the game a lot, they usually seem to be more casual players. This makes me question whether thy understand the game enough to really say who is/isn’t viable. Not saying that’s the case with you, but it’s just not as common an opinion among players who play in tourneys etc. The counterpoint to this is that these people aren’t into the game BECAUSE they believe not enough characters are viable but I don’t find this that compelling because... 2. I’m not sure that G&W or Mario...if viable...would be fun to play against? Put frankly, they’re pretty annoying to play against now imo. Many many people complain about Doc/Mario/Luigi. People like to talk about how ICs or puff are super annoying but just imagine if Kirby, G&W, Mario were meta and we had to play these long slow games all the time with lots of cheese. I’m not saying all new viable characters would be bad but having way more campy floaties isn’t necessarily going to be a good thing. 3. Similarly, would these matchups be fun to watch? Can we honestly say that melee would be better as a game, purely because all 26 characters were viable, if we had a way to know for sure that most of those characters sucked to play against and sucked to watch? Now you could say “well just make them interesting to watch/play against” but that’s not necessarily easy/possible and in many cases it would likely really hurt the overall point of the character. For example, we’ve seen Jigglypuff kinda suck in other games, and we have a pretty good idea what would make her better in those games but those changes wouldn’t suddenly change her fundamental character design right? Plus, it’s not like we can’t still get an idea of what the character is like to play against. Even low tiers in melee still show off their existing play style. Yes their weaknesses are noticeable and would slightly change their approach to the game, but it wouldn’t change it entirely either. I feel like I can easily imagine a good G&W and I’m not sure I like that idea at all lol. Of course if we KNEW that adding balance changes would make the game more fun maybe it’s more compelling but I think there are very very legitimate cases to be made that it would hurt the game, not help it. For me, the game is good already. We have tons of viable characters 13/26 have been in top 100, it’s not worth messing with things
@@Radarssbm Yeah that's why I said balancing a character viably is a bit hard, you dont want to change the character too much so they dont lose their personality, as for "cheese" isnt shine spiking cheese? You're using a frame 1 invincible move to gimp people too easily and take easy stocks, that isnt "cheese"? Like the definition of cheese is a bit hard to comprehend right now because I'm trying to think how G&W would cheese the game like other characters can
@@samthebagman4643 I think in some cases shine spikes absolutely are cheese lol. The difference is that Fox as a character isn’t really a cheesy character. I do think “cheese” is subjective so that probably wasn’t a great approach but I was mostly just trying to describe a character with a play style that is largely disliked and people don’t feel is skill rewarding..and then adding several of those characters is even worse. Also I would replace “balance is a bit hard” to “balance is very very hard, and you can easily fuck it up”
I don't have a strong stance on custom stages one way or the other, but I do have 3 thoughts on this video: 1) I think your argument about pretty much entirely relying on Slippi for accessibility purposes is flawed. They're a couple of servers running out of one modder's bedroom - I love Slippi and I give Fizzi money every month, but we shouldn't stake the future of the scene on one guy and one platform, especially with how C&D heavy Nintendo is lately. If Slippi shuts down, do we immediately stop using all of the custom stages that some people have potentially been practicing on and developing gameplans around for a long time? That also gives Fizzi basically the final say on which stages we will and won't use, which puts a lot of pressure on him that I'm not sure he's accepted at this point. 2) I appreciate the points you're making with your video, and you raise some good arguments, but, at the end of the day, "I just don't want to play on custom stages" is a perfectly good argument against it. Debunking arguments against adding new stages seems ultimately fruitless when I haven't seen a great argument for adding them in the first place, other than giving content to content creators. Are people really clamoring for new stages in Melee? I'm open to it, but I certainly don't need them, and I would have never thought to ask for them - I'll just go play P+ or Rivals if I'm craving some variety. Highlighting what a specific new stage may add to the metagame would be a more convincing argument for me personally. 3) This whole thing turns Melee into the wild west a bit. I know that, either way, this whole process would take a long time before we have tournament legal modded stages, but there's going to be a lot of bickering back and forth in the meantime while people try to land on a new ruleset. That just feels like drama that's not particularly healthy for the scene, in my eyes. I feel like lots of Ice Climbers players took the wobbling ban as the perfect excuse to leave, for example, and I don't doubt for a second that we'd be seeing similar bleeding here if a stage was added that significantly tilted any match ups. And, given the general breakdown of character representation, I don't see a world where new stages don't end up benefiting spacies and upsetting floaties further (maybe this is a benefit for some people). I'm willing to see how this one pans out, of course, but I am a little nervous about the discussions I've seen already. All of that said, I think the new stages are interesting and I'm intrigued to try them casually at some point. This is a well made video which has helped to clear up some things for me, so thanks for that! Edit: I also just fundamentally disagree with the idea that: a) previously banning stages that were already in the game is in any way the same as adding entirely new ones, let alone that there's a precedent there b) people playing on a gamecube being unable to practice on every tournament stage is not a big deal
1)Just to be clear, you realize that the stages are not designed by Fizzi and can/have been used offline as well right? 2) Yup, if you don't want them that's justified and valid. I just really hate when people act like their opinions are objective/factual. 3) I mean, you can say this about any change...Boxx controllers will just lead people to leave, Wobbling ban, etc....and then you can just immediately make the counter argument that it may also bring in many new people to the game (Boxx controllers could attract FGC players, wobbling may turn off potential new players..etc) As for the floaties/spacies thing...well I guess that kinda just ignores the whole "try to make a stage as neutral as possible" argument that I made. I pretty clearly explain that if the stages are just buffs to spacies, that's a bad thing lol. I understand why you're nervous though, I'm nervous too! a) I acknowledge that they're fundamentally different but they are still similar enough to compare imo b) Also to be clear, it's still possible to play these stages on a gamecube, just not without memory card mods (which are very very easy to add!)
@@Radarssbm 1) Yes, I'm aware that Fizzi has nothing to do with creating the stages, but the argument in your video (and I think the main reason this discussion is cropping up now) seems to be that 'hey, it's so easy to share and practice the stages now! Everyone can easily have access to identical builds by just including the gecko codes with Slippi." Which puts the ball in Fizzi's court to decide what stages to include (or whether to include them at all, since he's said in the past that he's apprehensive about hosting and distributing anything that actually visibly alters the gamecode). If easy distribution through Slippi is a part of the argument, I personally need to hear Fizzi's input before I accept it. 3) I'm uncomfortable with the way that people keep bringing up the BOXX as a comparison - I agree that there's potential for that controller to be OP and turn people off from competing if they feel like they're at a disadvantage against it, but the BOXX is also fundamentally an appeal to accessibility and the long term health of players - I think taking the plunge on that and tweaking things as we go is a noble cause for the scene, whereas new stages are just for fun. That said, you do raise a good point that new stages could just as easily attract as many (or more!) new players as it turns away, and I suppose there's no way of knowing how that will turn out until we try it, so there's probably no use in me theorizing about it without more data. I relistened to the section about designing the stages, and you did address some of my concerns (I'm still far from confident that new stages will be overall positive for us, regardless of the design and balance sensibilities, but I'm a little more comfortable now), but I do want to add that even a perfectly "neutral" stage is not inherently indifferent to the match-up breakdowns if new stages also leads to more bans, which is how it's historically worked in other smash games. A new neutral stage may mean that Fox gets a ban vs. Marth in a Bo5 from now on, for example. I guess I need to get a better idea of how this will be implemented - but we would need a list of well tested stages first. B) I've never modded a GCN memory card myself, so I'll have to take your word for it on how easy it is. I know tournaments wouldn't have issues getting the code onto a Gamecube, but I think an additional barrier to entry for new players - one that includes something as potentially intimidating as modding, no less - would absolutely turn some people off. I've been that guy who watched Melee for years but rarely played because it already seemed too intimidating to get into, and I think making mods the standard is a hard sell for a lot of people. It may be a smaller issue as long as Dolphin is the new normal, but I just don't have total confidence in Slippi, and thus Dolphin's relevance, surviving indefinitely. Time will tell. I'll try to listen to your newest podcast when it releases and check out some of the exhibition matches to solidify my opinions on this more. I have a strange inkling that it would be easier to backdoor introduce new stages through doubles, however, and then maybe let the most popular ones from there trickle into singles. That's a format that could probably use something new and exciting to keep people interested, since there are so few dedicated teams / storylines left, it's already missing a single's stage, viewership numbers were relatively low, it's an optional side event that new people can avoid (and likely will by default if starting through Slippi), the match-ups are a little less stage dependent, and it's been on break for a year now anyway. Just a thought.
Since we got rid of regular stadium, screw whoever did that. Transforming stadium was better but I get it melee people hate trans anything. Anyways I want to see fourside, the custom stage version, become legal. I love that stage.
All competitive games need a steady flow of new content. I would argue melee would benefit a lot from new stages and updated characters and new characters. Like dota. Custom stages can be very vanilla so idk why it would even matter that much, unless the ledge height might match a character too perfectly.
You’re putting too much faith in the community. They have a habit of adopting the positions of certain top players without much scrutiny. Certain specific top players who haven’t always been neutral.
If it’s not clear I think that’ll be a problem for balance. And given that the ban mechanism you mentioned seems to depend heavily on how much something is talked about on Twitter/Reddit/twitch (ie wobbling) that could be a problem. You could effectively be giving top players the ability to lobby for/against stages. That’s a huge amount of power, and some top players are more powerful than others in this regard.
I really liked a suggestion from someone that proposed the stages being put into "categories" of stages (bi-plat, tri-plat, no-plat, etc) and getting to ban 2 of the I think 5.
i'm just fundamentally against changing competitive melee in this particular way. if someone wants to play on custom stages for fun, thats cool. but for tournaments, i would prefer melee to be played on its original stages. sure ucf and freezing mods do change the game too. but it doesn't feel as drastic as putting 'smashville' (a brawl stage) into melee and using that in melee competition, unless we stop calling it melee and start calling it melee+ (or melee 2 lol). similar to how i feel brawl and PM tournaments should be separate from each other. i get why people like this, some of these custom stages are cool. i just think that melee on its own is a very good game, and a version of it with new stages, and even buffed/nerfed characters should be considered a different game.
^ agreed if we adding custom stages why not start adding custom characters and just making a new game all together (PM part 2)? I agree itd be fun casually but in a super competitive environment i think we should stick to melee's roots. Id be down to see it at some online netplay events (like ginger's smurf tourney and that kinda stuff) but seeing some wack stages at like Evo would seem really off to me. At that point why not play PM or just create a new game? Why not add some platforms to FD instead? Its tough to set a line between what changes are "too much" but I think for super competitive tourneys and stuff, adding whole new stages would seem really odd to me.
In my eyes, things like UCF are just accessibility mods - they ensure more people can play the game cheaply and easily by removing the controller lottery from the equation. The barrier of entry that new stages add are far from that - and also quite literally directly alter the meta. Using past mods to justify this one feels disingenuous to me, because we're certainly never implemented any mods that are going to affect tournaments in the same way this would at all. Not even close. The argument for this has to be made on its own, because it's breaking new ground.
Awesome video. I do have some bones to pick about your argument, though, as well as another counter-argument to custom stages as a whole. First, you seem to argue that we always have "changed the game" through things like changing the legal stages list over the lifetime of competitive melee. While I agree that removing pokefloats from the pool of competitively legal stages was a good idea, I would argue this is not changing the game, but rather a change of HOW we play the game. This makes this change more akin to rulesets rather than changing the game to actually be something that no vanilla melee player would be able to experience. Basically, adding new stages to the game is a different change than banning one, despite their relationship seeming like two sides of the same coin. Second, you said that characters' tier-list placement/relative strength is INDEPENDENT from stages, and I think this is simply not true. What if we went full normy-view of melee and only allowed FD to be played? Would Fox still be the best character in the game, or would it be Marth? What if battlefield was the only stage allowed? Would Samus drop out of the top 8? What if only the bottom blastzone existed and you could no longer kill characters of the sides and top? Would Puff and Peach be #1/2? Obviously Fox/Falco/Marth all have their strengths that would exist regardless of what stages are legal at any given time, but their relative strength to each other is defined by matchup spread, which necessarily dictates that stages play a role in shaping the tier list, albeit not an incredibly significant one when compared to the characters themselves. While character strength is not directly correlated to stage selection, stating that there is NO correlation is simply not true. As for my counter-argument, it's basically the "slippery slope" effect, combined with human error and balance while creating these custom stages. You mention how eventually, by hearing and responding to community feedback, custom stage developers will be able to create stages that are well-designed, balanced, and enhance the overall experience of playing melee. While this is true, I think part of the problem lies in the fact that we would then have the ability change and balance things within melee, which sets a dangerous precedent. Of course, stage creation and balance can only affect the game so much and thus will not likely cause a drastic, apocalyptic change to the competitive melee landscape, but if we become OK with adding stages and balancing them to how we see fit, what's to stop us from changing and balancing the stages that are on the current stage list? For example, battlefield's ledges suck, like when Fox/Falco sometimes just fall through the ledge when they go directly horizontal towards it. I personally never go horizontally towards a battlefield ledge because the risk of me just falling through isn't worth the small mixup I might gain in my recovery. While this likely is just an oversight and clearly is not fun, the fact that this exists affects the gameplay and decision-making of these characters, and thus shapes the meta-game. So if we become OK with tweaking the current legal stages, what's to stop us from changing things about the characters? I hope that most people agree that the characters themselves should never be touched (other than for non-competitive purposes), but what's to stop that opinion from changing in the future? Are we to agree as a community that character balance should never occur? How much can we change melee before it stops being melee? Of course, a game is only as good as how well it serves its community as a vehicle for competition and fun. So if allowing custom stages is truly the next barrier we face as a community to better enjoy the game, then I would see no reason to not add them. Keeping melee as vanilla as possible for vanilla's sake would only lead to melee's demise. We just need to be extremely careful when changing things about the game that can deeply affect it, because the ramifications are widespread but also extremely quiet. EDIT: grammar and missing words
This is a very long comment so it's kinda hard to break it down quickly but some of my main thoughts are.. - First point: yeah I generally agree, I still think they're similar enough to justify comparing them - Second paragraph: nah strengths/weaknesses of the characters are still independent of the stages. I already explain that stages can be used to affect balance so I'm not sure exactly what the purpose of this argument is but there is a big difference between affecting a matchup/meta and actually making a character bad. Here's an example: Peach has really bad vertical mobility...so we if made a stage that had really high platforms that would make her matchups against other characters worse, but the problem is still that her vertical mobility as a character is bad, and these stages only highlight that issue. Does that make sense? - Third paragraph: You said it yourself, this is a slippery slope fallacy. We have had many other significant changes recently, and they don't necessarily lead to other significant changes (boxx, wobbling ban, frozen stadium, etc). Even if you argue this would be the biggest change (debatable) it's nowhere close to actually going in and changing a character's move data However I think if we're being fair, the most realistic slippery slope is people seeking to change existing stages and I don't think that's totally unreasonable if it's removing stage hazards or bugs within stages. For the record, I do think you're just not used to battlefield ledges though lol, i'd recommend practicing horizontal recoveries haha as not using them will only hurt you in the long run I agree we need to be careful and I really doubt we will see any changes to the characters ever, or in any time soon (maybe 10-20 years down the line if we make it there lol).
@@Radarssbm for the second paragraph, I get that characters have their own strengths, but character strength is only useful in a competitive analysis setting, like in a tier list, which needs to take into account stages. That's my main point.
@@NotJohnnyKim I get what you're saying but 1) FD is an incredibly polarizing stage so it's going to have the most effect of any change tbh. 2) The reason the changes would even be noticeable on the tier list is because of how close all the characters are in strength. So yes, it makes a difference but the difference is way way way smaller than changing frame data
