Tournament Rules for stages/levels?

Hi, havent played VF since VF3 in the arcades

Anyways, I've seen/heard that FS will have a variety of stages with fairly different geometries and walls/no walls etc.

Just wondering, in tournaments (both western console and japanese arcade) how these things are managed.

Does the tournament specify a fixed list of stages? Completely random? Player choice? Are there banned stages?

 

When I've played, it's been random stage select (and I think loser chooses whether to do character select or rematch on the same stage).

 

I've watched more VF tournaments from Japan than I can remember, and they usually just choose random, but I see players selecting stages a lot of the time too, so it doesn't seem like there are any rules. VF5FS's stages are all fairly designed. So yeah, no banned stages either.

 

My opinion would be loser can choose to change character(which in turn changes the stage) or just change the stage. Keep it random to save time in between matches.

 

Usually people pick random to save time. Me? I'm picking the stage I like the music for.

 

music is always how I've picked stages in the past.

 

It still is how I pick. That's why I'll only be using Jacky and Blaze's stages in FS.

Or Sarah's if her R track can be chosen.

 

So I hear a lot of people saying they "pick stages", I guess P1 or something has the stage picking control? Has there ever been disagreements over this?

Has there ever been people who specifically dislike ringouts/walls/narrow stages or whatever?

 

I think some characters benefit from stages with close walls than others. That's a good reason.

Btw, Akira, jean, lion's FS stage bgm are the best. The others are mostly better in R.

 

Coincidentally, when I was a little bit surfing through a Mortal Kombat forum, there was a discussion about the different stage sizes in MK9 and how different characters (Zoners, rush-down characters, characters with corner traps, ..) would want to pick a certain stage.
This was taken into tournament-play consideration and I thought that this could partially translate to VF5FS. Of course not as heavy as MK since VF fortunately has no projectiles, but with characters like Kage (easy set-up for ring out) or Jeffry (devastating wall combos) for example, you'd want to pick smaller stages and so on.

 

I think picking stages should not be allowed. You can go for another random roll if you're the loser, but you always run the chance of not getting a stage you wanted.

Alternatively if things are going back and forth, maybe if it's the final set of a round (like one of the two players is about to be set to losers based on the next match) if the loser of the previous match wants to change stages they can't pick it, they have to do the random roll. That way you don't have the back and forth picking stages that are better for your character going on so much. Just an idea. I think it's kinda complicated to implement though.