Battle Arena Discussion: Cyclops Square

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Once a week I'm going to post a new battle arena for us to talk about. Kicking it off is Cyclops Square:



This arena features five bounce pads and three teleporters which each return you to the center of the arena (one is located at the very top of the arena and is not visible in this screenshot). The special arena ability is spikes that come out of the holes in the floor in the middle area, doing 50 damage to anyone they hit. These spikes are triggered by the two green buttons on either side. I grabbed this screenshot off of YouTube, and the placement of the green buttons is slightly different on the Wii (the lower left one is closer to the center... basically symmetrical to the opposite one).

The goal of this thread is to discuss the various strengths and weaknesses of this arena, strategies to playing it, which Skylanders are best/worst here, whether or not you have the options on when playing it... basically any and all thoughts/interactions you've had with Cyclops Square. Go!

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Ok, I'll get this discussion started:

Whether or not you turn on the arena hazards will have a big impact on how this arena is played. With them on, you basically have to avoid the middle area at all costs. The only time you can jump in there is when your opponent is clearly away from the green buttons. Nobody wants to take a 50 damage shot. That makes things more challenging, because food will often appear down in that area. Leaving hazards on also negates the "flee to the corner, teleport to the middle, rinse, repeat" strategy. That can be very frustrating if you're trying to counter that with a slower melee character.

On the flip side, if you turn the hazards off, the middle because a good camping spot for certain mid-range characters. Boomer, Eruptor, Gill Grunt, Trigger Happy... they can all sit in the middle and have a pretty good 360 degree range of attack. I think this set up favors lobbers, who are not affected by elevation differences.

And, as I wrote above, turning off the hazards makes the flee/teleport strategy very difficult for certain characters to counter. Any ranged characters with speed can simply race to a corner and attack until they're pursued - at which case they teleport to the middle, bounce pad to a different corner, and do it all over again. With a fast follower, this can be countered, but in certain matchups this is just impossible to beat.

With all of that being said, I think it's best to run this arena with the hazards on. Otherwise I think there are too many unfair advantages to the center area.

[themorpheus]

Why would you want the spikes off? I have pvped my son in this place, it was alright. Its not his favorite place to play.

[Yaggleberry Finn]

There are two circumstances where I'd want the spikes off. First, if I was trying to determine where a character was ranked in our tier system, I wouldn't want other variables to influence the outcome.

On a second, and much more "our house" level, my son doesn't like using them for one simple reason: I use them better than he does. Same with the other power-ups and health items. So he prefers we turn everything off and just duke it out. And when we do that, Cyclops Square can become an unfair place to play.

[themorpheus]

Feb 13, 2012 11:06:29 GMT -6 Yaggleberry Finn said:

There are two circumstances where I'd want the spikes off. First, if I was trying to determine where a character was ranked in our tier system, I wouldn't want other variables to influence the outcome.

On a second, and much more "our house" level, my son doesn't like using them for one simple reason: I use them better than he does. Same with the other power-ups and health items. So he prefers we turn everything off and just duke it out. And when we do that, Cyclops Square can become an unfair place to play.

Its only unfair based on skill levels. If it is battle mode, all things should be on. I would turn them off for gem collecting and football. It is a skill thing. I took a level 1 non-upgraded Dino-Rang against a level 10 Trigger Happy and won. It was a great battle and I felt good for winning. I then proceded to lose 7 straight right after that. Yea, my 5 year old son is good @ games! LOL

[Radical Tropicon]

I guess it is comparable to Super Smash Bros. Usually from what I've seen, most people play on the blank, flat playing field with no environmental variables as well as having all items turned off. Taking out variables like that, you can better determine who is a stronger character.

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Yeah, I agree with that comparison. I always appreciated the items in Brawl, it helped someone like me have a better chance at competing. And using the items is just another skill that you have to develop, some were a lot better with them than others.

[Tashiji]

Spikes definitely do impact how battles on Cyclops Square are played. I do turn them off, and yes, a big part of it is tiers, but fairness between characters who do not all have the same mobility is another issue. For example, Stealth Elf will navigate the field far better than, say, Stump Smash.

As for the arena...

Pros-

Relatively flat arena; increases overall fairness.
Contained enough so that keep-away isn't a dominant or infuriating strategy.
The square arena takes some of the effectiveness out of dashing, which gives lower-tier characters more of a fighting chance.
The overall size of the arena is more or less ideal; not too big, not too small.

Cons--

It's easy to get boxed-in.
Characters with no upward mobility will find themselves frustrated by the varying levels.
If arena hazards are turned on, this stage becomes as much a fight between player and spikes as it is player and player.
Characters like Ghost Roaster, Drill Sergeant, and charging Spyro, who depend on the charge for most of their offense, are a lot easier to dodge here.
Stealth Elf pretty much has access to you wherever you are on the arena.

Overall, I do like this stage. Again, I prefer hazards off, but when they are, Cyclops Square is excellent for mostly fair fights. Certain characters will encounter more problems here than others, but that is true of every arena. Charge & smash and hurling are excellent strategies here, while foward-facing ranged and charging take a penalty. A good arena when Drobot needs a check, but Stealth Elf dominates here as well as or better than anywhere else.

Maybe we should add a list of what characters work well here, and which suffer?

[Yaggleberry Finn]

I'm definitely game for adding in a list of characters that are helped or hindered by this arena. The Negotiator played against my son today on this arena with the options off, and once again slower characters trying to chase are at a disadvantage. Any characters that can shoot through/over differing elevations are at an advantage - Wrecking Ball's tongue and Double Trouble's Eldritch Beam come to mind.

[tyris01]

This is one of my favorite 'starter' arenas, and is the 'little brother' to the Pirate Grotto.

Playing the map with hazards off is just silly. I can understand people not wanting to play with items, but turning off the hazards in this map literally makes it a smaller Grotto with no real reason to choose it over the other.

However, with Hazards on, this map forces people to mix things up a bit. While its possible to keep doing the 'run and teleport' cheese, it's also possible to spike the guy for his poor judgement. Also, it is good to note that activating the spikes, at least on the PS3 version, will disable both buttons for a few seconds. Which means if you're going to run across the middle, hit the button yourself first to give yourself a grace period before the enemy can hit it.

With items on, this level shows good design. All the food items and the Comet spawn in the spikey field. You have to weigh the fact that picking up the food will still result in you having less health if the enemy spikes you. Thus if they are near the button, you have to be tricky about it and find a way to get them to hit it early, hit it yourself early, or lure them out instead. The food spawning here helps counter the silly 'camping sniper' effect of ranged guys staying on the ledge, as you can easily recover health while avoiding most of their effects (with a few exceptions). However, as a small bit of compensation, the Rocket Hat appears on the ledge area, so that unguided shooters have an alternate attack method, and if a melee guy DOES chase a ranged guy up there at the proper time he can go for it then his opponent... if they teleport down, he can send rockets after them and then move to spike them with the trap.

If I had to rate the 'starter' arenas in order of preference, this would be on top, followed by Troll Factory, Mushroom Grove, and Aqueduct pulling up the rear (honestly, Aqueduct is WAY too small for anything other than Street-Fighter-like melee brawls). I consider it roughly on par with the Ice arena (which, while larger, causes unnecessary silliness with the ice that affects about 2/3rds of the roster but doesn't bother other various movement-boosted SL's at all), but following behind Pirate Grotto and Necropolis.

I seriously hope they make a modified version of this using the graphics and design of Kaos's arena at the end of the game, but as a PvP arena.