Stage Analysis & Discussion Thread

[Spazzy_D]

*imagines the sound of 4 Jigglypuffs shieldbreak-SDing at once*

You only need 5 players to trigger the lack of hazards, but point taken, lol. Pokemon Stadium 2 without transformations is super simple and pretty perfect for competitive 1 v 1.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So is PS2 with transformations. In fact, it's even better because it forces players to adapt to new things.

 

[Spazzy_D]

So is PS2 with transformations. In fact, it's even better because it forces players to adapt to new things.

I don't disagree, but more options never hurt anyone.

 

[Starcutter]

The transformations are half as long as the base form, like I said in the last page.

Also, here's my verdict on each transformation, including the base form:

Base: Really Great
Ground: Great
Ice: Great (No tripping anymore makes this a lot better than the last game)
Electric: Okay, probably the worst part of the stage.
Flying: Weird. Everyone is Jigglypuff.

2/3rds of the match is on the base form, so it's unlikely all the transformations will appear.

Personally, I REALLY like Stadium 2 in this game.

 

[Pazx]

I think we should seriously consider hazardless Norfair and no-transformation PS2 for doubles because you only have to suicide 1 Puff/Sonic. 4 people are playing, and the 5th controller is already there. Gamepad suicide for dubs pls. Opinions? Downsides?

Note: I'm of the opinion that PS2 and Norfair should both be legal in singles with or without hazards/transformations

 

[Space thing]

I think we should seriously consider hazardless Norfair and no-transformation PS2 for doubles because you only have to suicide 1 Puff/Sonic. 4 people are playing, and the 5th controller is already there. Gamepad suicide for dubs pls. Opinions? Downsides?

Note: I'm of the opinion that PS2 and Norfair should both be legal in singles with or without hazards/transformations

What if there's a Lucario/Lucarios playing? You'd need to do it with an NPC in that case.

 

[Pazx]

What if there's a Lucario/Lucarios playing? You'd need to do it with an NPC in that case.

I'm pretty sure stock-aura was exclusive to Brawl so we shouldn't have an issue, but I'm not certain.

 

[Space thing]

I'm pretty sure stock-aura was exclusive to Brawl so we shouldn't have an issue, but I'm not certain.

It exists, it just isn't affected by NPC's placement for some reason. Though, I haven't actually checked if it exists in 5+ player smash. It SHOULD though. >.>

 

[webbedspace]

Yeah, I'm with Capps. That's a lot of extra work to make a couple of stages viable, and kind of a hype-killer. It's already kinda dumb in wifi tournaments with the countdown jigglypuff.

FWIW sometimes a Sonic is used, with dash off stage -> down-air to end a stock in under 2 seconds.

...

Hmm - I notice that in 8-Player Smash, all of these so-called "starter" stages are available:
* Battlefield
* Ω Palutena's Temple (or whatever)
* Smashville
* Town and City
* Duck Hunt
* Lylat Cruise

Let's now add 3 to the list:
* Pyrosphere
* PS2
* Norfair

That means it's possible to play every commonly-endorsed "starter" stage, plus 3 more, all from the 8-Player Smash screen. What if it were proposed that only the first game of a set must take place in 8-player mode, and all subsequent games must be in normal mode? That'd have the uncomfortable effect of soft-banning the new three for purely logistical reasons (replacing them with 3+ touring/transforming stages), but would mean that players can't keep switching from 8-player's character select screen to normal if they change their mind during stage selection, which would be in itself a cumbersome state of affairs.

 

[erico9001]

It exists, it just isn't affected by NPC's placement for some reason. Though, I haven't actually checked if it exists in 5+ player smash. It SHOULD though. >.>

Are you sure? I'm not seeing anything about it in the Lucario boards.

 

[Lavani]

I'm pretty sure stock-aura was exclusive to Brawl so we shouldn't have an issue, but I'm not certain.

Are you sure? I'm not seeing anything about it in the Lucario boards.

It's still a thing.

 

[Space thing]

Are you sure? I'm not seeing anything about it in the Lucario boards.

To add to @ Lavani 's post:http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...al-thread-with-more-moderators.359645/page-49

Discussed on the next page as well. Also, I've tested myself as well. Aaaaaand I just checked it in 8 player smash. Works the same.

 

[J_the_Man]

Already did!

Gamer seems to be the most liked out of many "banned" stages. If folks could find me convincing arguments to test its legality I bet I could legalize it for maybe one night to see what people thought. At a minimum it might be fun.

I've considered doing an "odd stages" tournament too. Not really stage testing like before, but using the more out there stages just for fun in case any blew our minds. Maybe it belongs there?

I suppose I'm very late to the party, but given that I really like the stage, I'd like to take a crack at this. I've spent a fair amount of time testing this stage out and I feel that Gamer should get more discussion for tournament viability than the zero amount of discussion it's currently getting.

There are two main issues that players have with this stage's viability: 5-Volt and potential caves of life caused by a solid platform that can appear on the stage in the center or on either side of the stage.

The easiest to address is 5-Volt. There are plenty documented ways to avoid 5-Volt's death stare that do not compromise your safety relative to your opponent or your ability to fight, rolling being one of the most effective methods in my opinion. 5-Volt's death stare only covers half of the stage (unless she sweeps the room), so if the fight is taking place on the other half of the stage, she's not even a factor. 5-Volt also serves as a way to prevent campers from sitting under solid blocks, as her knockback can kill a player at kill percentages regardless if they ricochet off the solid ground or not (though I haven't tested teching off a 5-Volt blast yet, I'm certain there's no reason to assume you can't do that.)

Suffice it to say, while 5-Volt can be classified as a monster-type hazard, she's avoidable to the degree of a Halberd hazard; it's very likely your own fault you got hit by her. If Halberd can be considered tournament viable in spite of its hazards, one of which you can be grab-combo'd into, I think we can have a meaningful discussion about Gamer's tournament viability given its own hazard.

And now onto issue number two: The caves of life.

The first thing I'd like to mention after running three sets of 10 matches on this stage is that I'm comfortable concluding that there is a 50% chance you will either end up with a stage form that has a solid platform or not.

For information's sake, here's the breakdown
Set 1: 6-4 Solid Platforms
Set 2: 5-5
Set 3: 5-5

So essentially, it's a straight up gamble that you'd get a stage with solid platforms to begin with.

But that doesn't make up for the fact that 50% of the time that you get a stage that takes away kill options. To address this issue, let's imagine the stage being roughly 5 units long. When a solid platform is in the center, it only takes up the center unit. horizontal kill options are very much viable across the entire stage, with vertical kill options being limited to the left, center left, center right, and right sections of the stage. The top of the solid center platform is also vulnerable to 5-Volt's death stare, which makes camping around the center block a poor strategy. Sure, knocking a player cross-stage will likely result in them ricocheting off the platform, but cross-stage KO's aren't a great kill option to begin with.

Now, the more dodgy aspect of Gamer is a stage form with a solid platform on the edge of the stage. These solid platforms take away two units of the stage, and admittedly this can create a no-kill zone on the Center-Right/Left unit of the stage as well as limiting your kill options on the far-right/left unit of the stage. I don't think I can come up with an objective argument that will perfectly satisfy people on this issue. Personally, I've never had cave of life problems on this stage, having played more than 40 matches in the last couple of days testing Gamer. I know what kill options are viable at each section of the stage and my opponent can't camp in the one area he's safe from kill moves at kill percentage due to 5-Volt and the very limited space the no-kill zone makes up anyways.

Another important thing I would like to point out are the potential caves of life on this stage relative to other stages that are banned due to cave of life effects. As I've pointed out, the cave of life on Gamer, at its largest, takes up less than half of the stage. Compare that to a stage like Luigi's Mansion or Sky World, where solid platforms take up a vast majority of the airspace, which takes away all kill options at every point in the stage. On Gamer, you still have large areas of the stage where all kill options are available to you. The fact that Gamer's cave of life occupies less than 50% of the stage, in my opinion, warrants more discussion and testing of Gamer's viability.

As to what this stage adds to the tournament scene? I still consider myself learning the metagame, but I would guess that players who use lighter characters would be vulnerable to 5-Volt KO grab combos at lower percentages, and characters with deadly juggling and aerial games, like Diddy and RosaLuma would be limited on stage forms with solid platforms. Of course, there's a 50% chance that the stage won't grant these advantages.

 

[thehard]

Why are caves of life bad for competition in this installment of Smash? Genuinely curious. I hope it's not a legacy thing like with walkoffs.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Let's not forget that 5-Volt also hits under the stage where people might recover. And that certain forms have astonishingly low startup. And that she'll kill around 50.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Why are caves of life bad for competition in this installment of Smash? Genuinely curious. I hope it's not a legacy thing like with walkoffs.

There are a few problems:

-It centralizes gameplay around tech skill. If you can tech over and over again, you just don't die. Missing techs even at low percents lets you get rocked by ridiculously excessive "combos". Games are won and lost on L-pressing competitions. This isn't competitively healthy.
-Spatial control characters get a very, very large edge, being able to dominate the areas protected by the "caves".
-Match pace generally slows to a crawl. In general I think "it encourages camping!!!!1!!!" is a terrible reason to ban a stage, but these stages encourage it to extreme degrees.
-The geographies that constitute these caves often also constitute hard loops that enable infinite run-away. Other than the world's most video game hating mom interfering, the Gamer forms with the "cave" definitely allow this. Note this particular criticism doesn't apply to destructible cases such as Skyworld and Luigi's Mansion.

So they're pretty bad. I don't like to look at them as an independent ban criteria since I don't think there's a stage in any game that's just great other than that one narrow problem, but they tend to be a bad sign.

 

[webbedspace]

Looking at the remaining list of non-8-player stages, I'm wondering if they'll eventually release an 8-player Kalos, Garden of Hope or Mushroom Kingdom U with no transforming or random events, too. That may be something to look forward to for the doubles/squads meta.

 

[Protom]

Looking at the remaining list of non-8-player stages, I'm wondering if they'll eventually release an 8-player Kalos, Garden of Hope or Mushroom Kingdom U with no transforming or random events, too. That may be something to look forward to for the doubles/squads meta.

And an orphaned Momless Gamer.
Heck, 75M. Wouldn't even be that bad if they remove the fireballs and springs, and maybe DK having a hitbox..

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

And an orphaned Momless Gamer.
Heck, 75M. Wouldn't even be that bad if they remove the fireballs and springs, and maybe DK having a hitbox..

75M's problem isn't the fireballs and springs. It's the virtually unstoppable runaway due to the large size and awkward platforms.

 

[webbedspace]

Umm, 75m is already 8-Player Smash ready.

The secret? Almost no polygons!

 

[J_the_Man]

There are a few problems:
-The geographies that constitute these caves often also constitute hard loops that enable infinite run-away. Other than the world's most video game hating mom interfering, the Gamer forms with the "cave" definitely allow this. Note this particular criticism doesn't apply to destructible cases such as Skyworld and Luigi's Mansion.

I would like to see this proven practical rather than accept it in theory. As you say, due to 5-Volt running around the room, which limits the space you can run around on top of the solid platform, circle camping is difficult. I personally have my doubts you can circle camp against a good player with such limited space to work with. And I might also add, there are characters, Fox to name one, whose up airs have hurt boxes that can reach through the solid platform. That would render camping completely worthless.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

@ J_the_Man

Interesting analysis and no real objections (I also enjoy Gamer), just wanted to insert a few pictures for the sake of illustrating your comments.

I have personally observed only two structures out of the many possibilities that create a cave of life situation.

Which is basically what you said. However, the second, larger one does provide a safe spot from 5-Volt.

Her vision has surprisingly limited vertical range, so if you stand on top of the green block (as Warioware!Wario is doing), then you are completely safe.

I can also confirm that yes, you can tech the knockback from her Doom-O-Vision. In addition, Luma is completely immune even if Rosalina is hit. (I forgot to test Pikmin.) The vision does enough shield damage to instantly break them, but a perfect shield can get around this. Counterattack moves, super armor, and anything with full invincibility frames can also be used to work around it.

Pictures pulled from my Gamer thread.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

Calling @ Rysir because he can apparently recreate the boat glitch consistently with Lucario on wuhu island. Need more info on how he does this. Decently important on convincing people the legality of this stage.

 

[Rysir]

Calling @ Rysir because he can apparently recreate the boat glitch consistently with Lucario on wuhu island. Need more info on how he does this. Decently important on convincing people the legality of this stage.

Yep confirming that lucario can indeed perform the instakill on Wuhu island. It works exactly like the Ness and Wario video, using down throw on the boat section while its moving will result in an unavoidable ko. I have tested against many characters so far and it would be a safe bet that it instakills the entire roster and the only requirement is to use down throw on the edge of the bump on the boat while its moving.

I can also provide a video of me performing it on a friend as well if needed! (not immediately as I'll need to record)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yep confirming that lucario can indeed perform the instakill on Wuhu island. It works exactly like the Ness and Wario video, using down throw on the boat section while its moving will result in an unavoidable ko. I have tested against many characters so far and it would be a safe bet that it instakills the entire roster and the only requirement is to use down throw on the edge of the bump on the boat while its moving.

I can also provide a video of me performing it on a friend as well if needed! (not immediately as I'll need to record)

A recording would be much appreciated, against someone other than Ness/Wario.

 

[Rysir]

A recording would be much appreciated, against someone other than Ness/Wario.

I'll get on it then, the video will be of me doing it to Shulk so it will be different.

Alrighty here it is (sorry about the click at the end, my camera's mic is stupid strong for some reason)

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

I'll get on it then, the video will be of me doing it to Shulk so it will be different.

Alrighty here it is (sorry about the click at the end, my camera's mic is stupid strong for some reason)

And you can say you can do it consistently? Thats very strange because we have confirmation that it only happened very very very rarely for Wario when down throwing on ness. Whats so special about Lucario in this regard? :/

 

[Rysir]

And you can say you can do it consistently? Thats very strange because we have confirmation that it only happened very very very rarely for Wario when down throwing on ness. Whats so special about Lucario in this regard? :/

Yeah I can do it as long as the boat is moving, I think lucario can do it consistently and to everyone because when he uses down throw his opponent hits the boat flat so their whole body will cover that bugged section of the boat.

The only time it wont work is if its not done in that very spot or if the boat is not moving. For some reason hitting that part of the boat counts as being run over by the boat.

 

[erico9001]

Gamer is a stage Ifind fun for

I'll get on it then, the video will be of me doing it to Shulk so it will be different.

Alrighty here it is (sorry about the click at the end, my camera's mic is stupid strong for some reason)

I wonder if Shulk can do that glitch too. I'm going to go test it out.

edit: No clue. Couldn't get it to work.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Does this work facing both directions? How tight are the spacing requirements (like how close to that particular spot do you have to be for it to work)? That's an interesting, if obnoxious to my cause, find. I still think people can just not go down there at that time, but it's definitely something worth understanding. Thank you for sharing your findings on this.

 

[Rysir]

Does this work facing both directions? How tight are the spacing requirements (like how close to that particular spot do you have to be for it to work)? That's an interesting, if obnoxious to my cause, find. I still think people can just not go down there at that time, but it's definitely something worth understanding. Thank you for sharing your findings on this.

Direction does not matter, merely standing on the line of that bump of the boat and using down throw is all you need for positioning so any further left or right and it wont happen.As long as lucario has one foot on each side of the line it will perform the instakill.

So yeah it can be avoided by avoiding the right side of the boat and sticking near the windshield if you happen to end up there. The middle and left side of the boat appear to be completely safe unless some other bizarre glitch is hidden on that crazy boat.

 

[Slyshock]

As long as we're talking about the boat glitch, I actually had an experience with it myself.

This was during a friendly online match, I wasn't intentionally trying to perform the glitch.

Personally I don't think this glitch is a deal breaker, I love Wuhu Island and have it legal in my tournaments. My opinion is that it's like a walk-off: not worth banning a stage over as long as it's temporary, and if your opponent manages to kill you with it then that's on you.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Yeah, I'm with pretty much everyone else - this is a non-issue. It's especially a non-issue because the segment to the left of the boat is hard to approach - it's an overhanging wall. Keep in mind that stalling on this sort of setup is a significant part of the reason Corneria was banned in Melee - it's a phenomenally strong defensive position that's quite hard to deal with. Just be wary of the glitch.

 

[Piford]

The boat section has to be the least likely section to come up. I had it cycle through on training mode trying to replicate the glitch and only got the boat section 2/20 times (the Jet Ski was 11/20 and the Rocks 7/20, obviously these aren't the actual chances though).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The boat section has to be the least likely section to come up. I had it cycle through on training mode trying to replicate the glitch and only got the boat section 2/20 times (the Jet Ski was 11/20 and the Rocks 7/20, obviously these aren't the actual chances though).

It's tied for rarest with the rocks and only comes up once every 16 transformations. Or so I thought, I'm surprised you got the rocks 7/20 times. Did you just wait for the second transformation in training mode then hit reset?

@ Rysir @ Slyshock I updated my Wuhu Island thread with your videos.

 

[Piford]

It's tied for rarest with the rocks and only comes up once every 16 transformations. Or so I thought, I'm surprised you got the rocks 7/20 times. Did you just wait for the second transformation in training mode then hit reset?

@ Rysir @ Slyshock I updated my Wuhu Island thread with your videos.

Yeah no point to waiting around the 2 minutes.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah no point to waiting around the 2 minutes.

Ah that explains it. If you let the stage progress on its own the boat and rocks are equally as rare and tie for rarest transformation across the entire stage, appearing exactly once each over a set of 16 consecutive transformations.

tl;dr you only play on the boat 1/16th of the time on Wuhu Island. (This in support of Wuhu despite the glitch, not aimed at you.)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Knocked out a quick thread on Pilotwings, not that there was much to cover. Really, if not for the engine camping I think it would be a shoo-in for legal use.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Yo, Drone, I made a Directory of stage researches: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-map-the-stage-directory.389466/
So you can now not add that list at the beginning of each of those threads

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yo, Drone, I made a Directory of stage researches: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-map-the-stage-directory.389466/
So you can now not add that list at the beginning of each of those threads

Already dropped a reply in the other thread, oops.

You missed the following 3DS stage threads:

Spirit Train
Tortimer Island
Arena Ferox
Paper Mario
Pac-Maze