Super Smash Bros. Maker - Custom Stages Project Thread

[Skailler]

Before I start with anything else, I want to apologize if this kind of thread already exists in some form, belongs somewhere else or has no right to exist for any other reason. Tell me and Ill lock it, or if you are a mod, you will propably do that yourself Now with that out of the way, its time for a more or less pointless rant. [insert good intro here]



Hello fellow smashers! As most of the competitive players (should) know, our current Smash 4 stagelist consists of something similar to this in most cases:

* Battlefield (Starter; Miiverse legal at occasions)
* Final Destination (Starter, occasionally swapped with PS2 Omega or Palutena´s Temple Omega)
* Smashville (Starter, most played stage in any Smash game)
* Town & City (Starter)
* Dreamland 64 (either Starter or Counterpick)
* Lylat Cruise (either Starter or Counterpick)
* Duck Hunt (Counterpick)
* Omega Stages (Counterpicks, banned if FD is banned)

Umbra Clock Tower also seems to have potential as a viable Counterpick, but deciding about this is not what this thread is about.

In earlier versions of the game, we also had Halberd, Delfino Plaza and Castle Siege as Counterpicks, but those were later banned for one reason or another (or many reasons at once). However, none of these stages had a real platform/layout problem, it was just the hazards/transitions/walkoffs/ridiculously low ceilings etc. that led to these bans. If there was some kind of switch to turn of hazards that doesnt require 6 controllers at one setup and also does not effectively cripple Lucarios Aura, I think these stages would be legal without a second doubt. That not only applies to those three stages however. The stages that have good layout but arent legal for some hazardious reason are:

* Halberd
* Delfino Plaza
* Castle Siege
* Pokémon Stadium 2 (actually legal in Brawl in some rulesets despite its hazards)
* Mario Circuit (MK8 version)
* Skyloft
* Wuhu Island
* Pyrosphere
* Midgar (although thats just a third BF layout)
* Kalos Pokémon League
* Wily´s Castle
* Mushroom Kingdom U (arguably, basically another BF with minor differences)
* Norfair
* Pirate Ship
* Wii Fit Studio (arguably)


As you can see, that it quite a lot of stages that suffer from a lack of a "hazard switch" option of kind. 15 to be precise. That are 15 stages that would be fine without their hazards, and 15 possible stages that certain higher tiered characters might struggle on and/or could potentially benefit certain lower tiered characters. Sadly, there is no option to actually get these stages in their tournament suited form without turning them into an FD reskin or needing a large number of controls per setups while also nerfing a character because of some more or less gimmicky mechanic. So, there is no potential way we could get more different stages to our list, right?


To quote Lex Luthor, WROOOOOOONG!

There actually is a way. A way that was totally not given away by this threads title, a way that allows us to have just those very stages with good layout and good legality viability in our ruleset. That possibility is: The Stage Builder.


I can already hear 50% of you guys typing in a response calling all of this nonsense and that I should get a brain or something with prepared to launch at me and the other 50% are just scratching their head in pure disbelief, thinking "Are you really that stupid?" Yes I am. Hear me out please.


Arguments against Custom Stages

* Too much work to make
* Too hard to spread across the community
* Too many possible differences across different setups
* Not worth the effort
* Its Custom, GTFO with that crap


Those are the "Big 5" of cons regarding Custom Stages made in the Stage Builder to my knowledge, and I will try my best to cover each of them individually.

"Too much work to make"/"Not worth the effort"

This is actually the argument I understand the most. Creating just one Custom Stage in the Stage Builder made for competitive viability can be a lot of work, as you have to keep number of platforms, size of the platforms, size of the main floor, size of the blastzones, height of the ceiling and other stuff like potentially moving platforms in mind. However, I am not asking anyone to create brand new stages. What I aim for is recreating already existing stages that have a perfectly fine layout, but are not legal because Smash doesnt aim at competitive players at all. [/s] In case you have just skipped it, a list of those stages can be found above. However, making those stages is still much work. While you "only" have to recreate something, you still have to check everything I listed above AND make sure that your project is as close to the original as possible/competetively sensible. (Noone wants to fight on a PS2-esque stage with Non-Omega Palutena´s Temple´s blastzones).

I agree that this whole idea of mine is combined with a lot of effort, an amount of effort that might just be too much. However, we as a community can potentially reduce the amount drastically in two ways:

1.) Forget about Custom Stages
2.) Find a small group of volunteers that would make those stages for everybody.

While Option 1.) is obviously the much easier path (less work, no need to adapt to many new stages etc.) Option 2 still has its merits. Because look at it this way, what do we gain by rereating stages? Here is a small list:

* Access to new a whole new variety, appealing to viewers who are sick of "Smas4ville"
* Access to some of the best layouts in the Smash series (I think it it widely agreed on that stages like PS2 have some of the best layout ever)
* Access to new stages that could potentially shift the meta if higher tiered characters tend to struggle on them while (also) benefitting lower tiered characters, resulting in a refreshing of the meta and more character variety
* Having a project that the Smash 4 community can be proud of, saying "We did that as a community, together" (something this community really lacks at times imo)


Just to name a few. Now here is what Option 2 would look like in detail:

* In case this idea gets accepted by a majority, volunteers can feel free to form a group in order to create "official" versions of the Custom Stages
* The "Official" Custom Stages" get created (doh)
* Those stages get shared to other players and TOs using the sharing function
* In the end, everyone has access to these stages that are always the same

Of coure we would have to ensure that we dont just create stages for the sake of it when there is no real need for them. For obvious reasons, we do not need to recreate Midgar for any reason at all (unless you really dig the music) because it is just another Battlefield, a stage that we already have twice with the only differences being blastzones and a temporal windbox that partially affects the stage. For other stages, we could actually get rid of some minor problems. Problems that did not make the stage banworthy on their own, but nonetheless are issues. An example for this would be the slants on Pirate Ship. For stages like Skyloft that have multiple appealing layouts during the "main transition part", we would have to agree on one ceratin layout as well. However, this is not the issue at hand (yet).


I hope this was understandable. Back to counterarguing:


"Too hard to spread across the community"

This should not be too much of an issue. To my knowledge, you can easily share your self-made stages with your friends and the whole world in a matter of mere moments using the Sharing Function of the Stage Builder. That way, it is very easy to grant every player and TO access to the stages they will later on see and play on in competitive play. The sharing process might start slow at first, but the more people have these stages, the more people can share them, eventually nullifying this problem.


"Too many possible differences on different setups"

While I basically already have discussed this indirectly, lets get to the point anyway. As I mentioned, you can easily share your stages with the whole community via Internet (which I highly doubt anyone seeing this post does not have access to in some way). That way, not everyone has to make similar stages hoping that they end up being somewhat similar to each other, but instead we can let a group of volunteers make one version that always stays the same. Not too much of an issue either.


So now that I have brought more or less viable thoughts on the issues of Custom Stages, it is up to you, the community. Do you think that Custom Stages have a place in competitive play? If so, would you participate in this project for the community? If not, why? Think about it for a while and let it sink in. I made a poll about this question (that was propably the first thing you saw anyway) that will be open for one month. I think that this is enough time to carefully think about the matter at hand, that in all honesty and seriousness could potentially change Smash 4 stagelists forever. I know what my decision is, but Im obviously biased, so dont mind me




Finished Stages:

* Skyloft (Layout 1)
* Arena Ferox (Statue Form)
* Pokémon Stadium 2
* Mario Kart 8 Circut

 

[Raijinken]

While standardization is time consuming (no quick transfer, you either send online or remake manually), I personally love using custom stages. I've remade several, including several of the above, Arena Ferox's statue form, and some past stages. Of course, there's also plenty of room to make simple stages with competitive trends in mind, something that's been discussed in the past.

 

[TheDerp]

This seems interesting, so if the ball ever starts rolling count me in!

Spoiler: One of my stages

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAACNUKFOWZpYCQ

If we're going to do this, we need criticism (lots of it) and we need to be aware of the glitches and derps that effect gameplay, so we should only make the stage look nice if we checked that the detail won't mess up someone's play.

Would we include 3DS stages by the way?

 

[Megamang]

Are the stage sizes/blastzone sizes determined? Are there any the same size as smashville, battlefield, or FD?

These are the major issues, as well as standardizing them. Imagine getting eliminated by a Bayonetta ceiling kill, then much later realize the setup was messed up, the stage was one hex higher, and you would have survived? This is a worst case scenario, but not impossible.

Its more of the fear of that, than the actual occurence, that I could see causing problems. People are naturally going to be anxious about different stages when they are so accustomed to the ones we have.

My suggestion, and something I do myself with friendlies at my house, is a Pokemon Stadium layout. This brings an element of the familiar into play, and is also something we don't see with our current stagelist. Plus, with no DSHL fox, it'll be fair

 

[Skailler]

Are the stage sizes/blastzone sizes determined? Are there any the same size as smashville, battlefield, or FD?

These are the major issues, as well as standardizing them. Imagine getting eliminated by a Bayonetta ceiling kill, then much later realize the setup was messed up, the stage was one hex higher, and you would have survived? This is a worst case scenario, but not impossible.

Its more of the fear of that, than the actual occurence, that I could see causing problems. People are naturally going to be anxious about different stages when they are so accustomed to the ones we have.

My suggestion, and something I do myself with friendlies at my house, is a Pokemon Stadium layout. This brings an element of the familiar into play, and is also something we don't see with our current stagelist. Plus, with no DSHL fox, it'll be fair

That size question is part of the research we would have to do if we ever start using the Stage Builder. While we have free ceiling height choice, I do not have the numbers for the blastzones in my head (does anyone else?). The problem with the "one hex means death" is of course... rather unlikely, but in that case, I would actually only go for a rematch if it becomes clear right away (lets say, you doubt it mid-match or before the next one starts, and you get to check) that it was infact causing the issue, but in the other cases, I would keep going as before.

Concerning having new stages, the way I see it is that adapting is a huge part of Smash. In order to be successful, you will have to adapt to a handful more stages if there is nothing wrong with them. Besides, the current plan (at least mine) is not to make any new stages, just recreate already existing ones that just have hazards that hinder them. I doubt that people never have played at least one match on a Pokémon Stadium, a Wuhu or something similar back when we were testing much more.

 

[Megamang]

Replaying a match is only fuel for salt, and a TO nightmare. Its not like the match can truly be replayed without the knowledge each person has gained on eachother, and if you win and someone calls it out its gonna feel bad. No Johns, as they say.

And, to be blunt, the onus for research is on you or whoever wants this project to go further. If you can prove the stages are exact replicas, minus the hazards, then they will probably gain more traction.

This isn't that hard, test some training mode kill %'s such as: Middle of stage Marth uthrow, megaman uncharged f-smash at the ledges... anything that is rather weak is a solid tester, as it reduces the margin of possible error. Prove the kills happen at the same %, the stages are hazardless, and you have a solid starting point. Otherwise players would rather spend their time playing than figuring this out, and don't want to risk the unknown in a tournament match.

Its a shame custom stages can't be prettier. Both smash custom stage makers have always seemed really lazy to me, we should be at least able to access many more textures than the default one. It may not make sense from a practical standpoint. but I promise custom stages would have more traction if you could make them actually look like pokemon stadium. People like playing on pretty stages (why omega addition is so cool!) and are more likely to feel placebo jank if the fact they are playing on a recreation is painfully obvious.

Disclaimer: I haven't really messed with the stage maker except from day 1 shenanigans, so maybe they have added stuff to it or I missed some obvious options, but I haven't seen pretty stages. I mean, we should at least have the textures for Mario Maker as those are really varied, look nice, and designed for that kind of thing. I digress.

 

[Skailler]

Gotta love my bamboo WiFI... Anyway, Im just going to answer to the few posts.

If we're going to do this, we need criticism (lots of it) and we need to be aware of the glitches and derps that effect gameplay, so we should only make the stage look nice if we checked that the detail won't mess up someone's play.

Would we include 3DS stages by the way?

Concerning the things you bolded, this is what I aimed this thread for to be later on, assuming that this idea actually gets accepted. 3DS stages sound like a good idea, but I think we should discuss which stages we actually do later on (having 20+ new stages is a bit over the top imo).

While standardization is time consuming (no quick transfer, you either send online or remake manually), I personally love using custom stages. I've remade several, including several of the above, Arena Ferox's statue form, and some past stages. Of course, there's also plenty of room to make simple stages with competitive trends in mind, something that's been discussed in the past.

Standarzation should be the smallest problem imo. After all, we would have only one stage that takes like, 3 minutes to find and download? It really wouldnt be too much to ask for everyone who brings a setup to a tourney to have the "Official" Custom Stages that are legal for that particular ruleset.

Replaying a match is only fuel for salt, and a TO nightmare. Its not like the match can truly be replayed without the knowledge each person has gained on eachother, and if you win and someone calls it out its gonna feel bad. No Johns, as they say.

And, to be blunt, the onus for research is on you or whoever wants this project to go further. If you can prove the stages are exact replicas, minus the hazards, then they will probably gain more traction.

This isn't that hard, test some training mode kill %'s such as: Middle of stage Marth uthrow, megaman uncharged f-smash at the ledges... anything that is rather weak is a solid tester, as it reduces the margin of possible error. Prove the kills happen at the same %, the stages are hazardless, and you have a solid starting point. Otherwise players would rather spend their time playing than figuring this out, and don't want to risk the unknown in a tournament match.

Its a shame custom stages can't be prettier. Both smash custom stage makers have always seemed really lazy to me, we should be at least able to access many more textures than the default one. It may not make sense from a practical standpoint. but I promise custom stages would have more traction if you could make them actually look like pokemon stadium. People like playing on pretty stages (why omega addition is so cool!) and are more likely to feel placebo jank if the fact they are playing on a recreation is painfully obvious.

Disclaimer: I haven't really messed with the stage maker except from day 1 shenanigans, so maybe they have added stuff to it or I missed some obvious options, but I haven't seen pretty stages. I mean, we should at least have the textures for Mario Maker as those are really varied, look nice, and designed for that kind of thing. I digress.

1.) Well, that sounds better than my idea. Im a terrible TO (I kind of hosted a few minor tourneys a while ago (aka created bracket and nothing else), but I really only stepped in if the main TO asked for other opinions), so I guess your argument is valid.

2.) Exactly. However, I wanted to see how the community responds to this idea before I go into detail out of fear I do work and then it gets rejected instantly. However, considering we have an overwhelming number of 0% on "Nope" votes, I will start recreating Pokémon Stadium 2 in the Stage Builder as a test run (prolly gonna call it Pokémon Stadium 2.5). However, I am absolutely terrible when it comes to making stages, so dont expect a masterpiece nor this being done in a short amount of time (Id guess a week).

Once Im done with that, I will share it via Miiverse and put a notification with KO % here. After that, its up to you guys who belive in Custom Stages. Show it to your local TO, get people to play there and get feedback in any way possible. I will do the same, but considering my community is rather... conservative (had a referendum to get Miis banned 2 weeks ago, TO does not care too much about the actual ruleset), I doubt I will get much success.
Lets get this thing running

 

[Raijinken]

Standarzation should be the smallest problem imo. After all, we would have only one stage that takes like, 3 minutes to find and download? It really wouldnt be too much to ask for everyone who brings a setup to a tourney to have the "Official" Custom Stages that are legal for that particular ruleset.

Well, it depends on the scale of the tournament, and the number of custom stages in use. If you're just trying to supplement the existing stagelist and/or have a small tournament where the system owners already know each other, that's not that bad. Like you said, a stage or two at a few minutes a piece.

On the other hand, imagine a bigger tournament with 10+ setups. They all have to connect to wifi, and either hunt the stage down (pretty hard last I recall), or exchange friend information and send the stages directly. The difficulty grows at a tremendous rate even before you consider adding more than a stage or two via this method.

While I do really like the idea, it's a logistical nightmare. At small events, or as a side event with limited entrants (enough to keep it to 1-2 consoles), it'd be excellent. But alas, perhaps due to the SmashStack type issues that Brawl's SD loading resulted in, they've made it pretty hard to quickly share stages.


On the stage creation note, since the test feature forces you to use Mario, I find it useful to measure platform heights, platform size, etc. in Mario units (jump height, roll length, character height, etc). Use those as units of measure and you can also approximate blast zone proximity via smash attacks or throws in training mode.

 

[Skailler]

Well, it depends on the scale of the tournament, and the number of custom stages in use. If you're just trying to supplement the existing stagelist and/or have a small tournament where the system owners already know each other, that's not that bad. Like you said, a stage or two at a few minutes a piece.

On the other hand, imagine a bigger tournament with 10+ setups. They all have to connect to wifi, and either hunt the stage down (pretty hard last I recall), or exchange friend information and send the stages directly. The difficulty grows at a tremendous rate even before you consider adding more than a stage or two via this method.

While I do really like the idea, it's a logistical nightmare. At small events, or as a side event with limited entrants (enough to keep it to 1-2 consoles), it'd be excellent. But alas, perhaps due to the SmashStack type issues that Brawl's SD loading resulted in, they've made it pretty hard to quickly share stages.


On the stage creation note, since the test feature forces you to use Mario, I find it useful to measure platform heights, platform size, etc. in Mario units (jump height, roll length, character height, etc). Use those as units of measure and you can also approximate blast zone proximity via smash attacks or throws in training mode.

I still dont think it is too much to ask to just get the stages beforehand if you know you will bring a setup. I mean, I wont be the only one who has those stages, and in the worst case, searching online still should get the job done. Just put a disclaimer in the ruleset regarding that part. If we have 30 setups, then 30 people will have to put in ~10 minutes more work for getting the stage. I still doubt thats too much of an issue to be honest.

The unit idea is actually a good one. Will do that, thanks!

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well, it depends on the scale of the tournament, and the number of custom stages in use. If you're just trying to supplement the existing stagelist and/or have a small tournament where the system owners already know each other, that's not that bad. Like you said, a stage or two at a few minutes a piece.

On the other hand, imagine a bigger tournament with 10+ setups. They all have to connect to wifi, and either hunt the stage down (pretty hard last I recall), or exchange friend information and send the stages directly. The difficulty grows at a tremendous rate even before you consider adding more than a stage or two via this method.

While I do really like the idea, it's a logistical nightmare. At small events, or as a side event with limited entrants (enough to keep it to 1-2 consoles), it'd be excellent. But alas, perhaps due to the SmashStack type issues that Brawl's SD loading resulted in, they've made it pretty hard to quickly share stages.


On the stage creation note, since the test feature forces you to use Mario, I find it useful to measure platform heights, platform size, etc. in Mario units (jump height, roll length, character height, etc). Use those as units of measure and you can also approximate blast zone proximity via smash attacks or throws in training mode.

You can press a button (might need to pause first) to go to the CSS in testing and pick a character for yourself and the CPU dummy.

EDIT: Pause while testing the stage, then press ZL or ZR.

 

[TheDerp]

On the stage creation note, since the test feature forces you to use Mario, I find it useful to measure platform heights, platform size, etc. in Mario units (jump height, roll length, character height, etc). Use those as units of measure and you can also approximate blast zone proximity via smash attacks or throws in training mode.

I've actually sort of done this before.
Just to let you know though, you can pick any character when testing. Just pause the game and pull down either the left or right Z Trigger and you'll be taken to a character select screen.

EDIT: Working on Skyloft right now. Got the stages length down, so now I'm going to see which size is closest to actual Skyloft.

EDIT2:

Spoiler: Skyloft

Not sure if I should keep the bottom the way it is or give it a new design, because to me it doesn't look right.
Platform layout and ground length is extremely similar if not exact to Skyloft, haven't tested the blastzones though.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I did some work testing the custom stage blast zones and comparing them to FD. My methodology was hitting a Bowser training dummy set to "control" with WFT's uncharged usmash and dsmash, since they have fairly straight knockback trajectories, and noting the % at which black lightning started to appear.

For custom stages, I made a simple flat stage whose length matched the silhouette of FD the game provides in the builder, with the standing surface of the stage level with the surface of the silhouette.

Test Case|FD %|Small %|Medium %
WFT Usmash|111%|108%|119%
WFT Dsmash (Center)|136%|132%|144%
WFT Dsmash (Ledge)|98%|99%|113%

From this I think we can reasonably conclude that a stage made in the custom stage builder to the specs of the FD silhouette is slightly shorter than the real thing, but the side blast zones give weird results. And I figured out why.

Captain Falcon can traverse FD with 34 utilts. He can traverse the small custom stage with only 30. (Probably closer to 29.5, actually.) The FD silhouette is smaller than the real thing.

The closest I was able to match FD's width was with a stage 32 blocks long, with a "block" being one square on the grid you can use in the stage builder. 31 is probably closer to the true length, but odd widths like that are basically impossible to center precisely so I stuck with even widths.

With this new, accurate stage width, here are the kill % values I got with WFT dsmash at the ledge:

Small: 92%
Medium: 106%

Neither is a perfect match for FD, but the Small size is closer, being "only" 6% off compared to the Medium being 8% off, in the opposite direction.

I also conducted some basic tests to see the effect of moving the stage around. Using the same "block" unit of measurement as before:

Moving the stage one block higher let WFT kill with usmash at 106%. (2% difference.)
Moving the stage one block sideways let WFT kill with dsmash at 97%. (2% difference.)

Based on this, I conclude that moving a stage around, expanding or shrinking platforms, etc. results in a kill % difference of 2% per block moved.

tl;dr

• No stage size is a perfect match for FD. Small stages come closest, but is overall...smaller. (No duh?)
• The FD silhouette is smaller than the real thing. Widen the stage by 3 blocks on each side to compensate.
• Moving the stage up or down, or expanding/shrinking a platform, results in kills approximately 2% earlier/later per block.

In conclusion, I think that trying to aim for perfect, faithful recreations of existing stages just isn't going to happen. Getting the stage size right is one thing, but fitting that into a Small/Medium/Large (lol) set of blast zones will result in kill % variances compared to the original. It may be better to try and conceive a unique stage idea (e.g. "a stage with a raised bump in the middle") and build something original and balanced around that.

 

[Raijinken]

I did some work testing the custom stage blast zones and comparing them to FD. My methodology was hitting a Bowser training dummy set to "control" with WFT's uncharged usmash and dsmash, since they have fairly straight knockback trajectories, and noting the % at which black lightning started to appear.

For custom stages, I made a simple flat stage whose length matched the silhouette of FD the game provides in the builder, with the standing surface of the stage level with the surface of the silhouette.

Test Case|FD %|Small %|Medium %
WFT Usmash|111%|108%|119%
WFT Dsmash (Center)|136%|132%|144%
WFT Dsmash (Ledge)|98%|99%|113%

From this I think we can reasonably conclude that a stage made in the custom stage builder to the specs of the FD silhouette is slightly shorter than the real thing, but the side blast zones give weird results. And I figured out why.

Captain Falcon can traverse FD with 34 utilts. He can traverse the small custom stage with only 30. (Probably closer to 29.5, actually.) The FD silhouette is smaller than the real thing.

The closest I was able to match FD's width was with a stage 32 blocks long, with a "block" being one square on the grid you can use in the stage builder. 31 is probably closer to the true length, but odd widths like that are basically impossible to center precisely so I stuck with even widths.

With this new, accurate stage width, here are the kill % values I got with WFT dsmash at the ledge:

Small: 92%
Medium: 106%

Neither is a perfect match for FD, but the Small size is closer, being "only" 6% off compared to the Medium being 8% off, in the opposite direction.

I also conducted some basic tests to see the effect of moving the stage around. Using the same "block" unit of measurement as before:

Moving the stage one block higher let WFT kill with usmash at 106%. (2% difference.)
Moving the stage one block sideways let WFT kill with dsmash at 97%. (2% difference.)

Based on this, I conclude that moving a stage around, expanding or shrinking platforms, etc. results in a kill % difference of 2% per block moved.

tl;dr

• No stage size is a perfect match for FD. Small stages come closest, but is overall...smaller. (No duh?)
• The FD silhouette is smaller than the real thing. Widen the stage by 3 blocks on each side to compensate.
• Moving the stage up or down, or expanding/shrinking a platform, results in kills approximately 2% earlier/later per block.

In conclusion, I think that trying to aim for perfect, faithful recreations of existing stages just isn't going to happen. Getting the stage size right is one thing, but fitting that into a Small/Medium/Large (lol) set of blast zones will result in kill % variances compared to the original. It may be better to try and conceive a unique stage idea (e.g. "a stage with a raised bump in the middle") and build something original and balanced around that.

It's especially fun trying to clone Brinstar, as a Mario usmash kills Mario from the top at around 55 or 60, resulting in a disgustingly off-center (vertically) stage if you want to approximate that.

When that happened, I decided to scrap the idea of cloning, and started just taking existing stage design traits and building them into new stages. Brinstar then became Crateria:

Spoiler

Of course, approximations are still possible (and especially at the time I was making these, people were still griping about kill percent, so I was fine with erring on the side of earlier death), so you can still make a functional version. Arena Ferox, Statue form:

Spoiler

 

[BigLord]

I'm a TO in my scene and I've been wanting to try out a custom-stages-only side tournament for a while. Logistical nightmare, you say? There's an easy way.

Allow me to introduce an example. It may seem like a simple zoomed-out screenshot of that stage, but it's actually the game-generated Miiverse page of that stage. If you access it through your Wii U and press a button that says "Start", you can instantly download it.
How to access it? Well, you can search for it, but I usually access it through my browser, log in to my NNID account and leave a "Yeah!" on the page. This way, I can access my "Yeah!" post history to quickly access the Miiverse stage page.

There are some annoying things about this method, though:
― You have to restart the game everytime you download a custom stage. If you're downloading them in bulk, this could take a while.
― Every stage is only hosted on the game's servers for up to 30 days. After that, it's deleted and you have to ask for a re-upload (as you can see on the example above).

There's a whole community using this method already. A bit dead atm, but I have obtained loads of fun custom stages from there already. I've only created about three of them, so far.

 

[Raijinken]

I'm a TO in my scene and I've been wanting to try out a custom-stages-only side tournament for a while. Logistical nightmare, you say? There's an easy way.

Allow me to introduce an example. It may seem like a simple zoomed-out screenshot of that stage, but it's actually the game-generated Miiverse page of that stage. If you access it through your Wii U and press a button that says "Start", you can instantly download it.
How to access it? Well, you can search for it, but I usually access it through my browser, log in to my NNID account and leave a "Yeah!" on the page. This way, I can access my "Yeah!" post history to quickly access the Miiverse stage page.

There are some annoying things about this method, though:
― You have to restart the game everytime you download a custom stage. If you're downloading them in bulk, this could take a while.
― Every stage is only hosted on the game's servers for up to 30 days. After that, it's deleted and you have to ask for a re-upload (as you can see on the example above).

There's a whole community using this method already. A bit dead atm, but I have obtained loads of fun custom stages from there already. I've only created about three of them, so far.

A nice trick that I'll certainly be looking into, but it does kinda highlight how much of a pain Nintendo is being with this. Still, good to know, and it can certainly help small to medium events if the setup owners plan in advance.

 

[Skailler]

Coming in with the bump but without the promised stage... Something is very wrong if my Wii U keeps disconnecting to a Router that is like 3 meters awayon a regular basis or gives out wrong info (like claiming Im playing SSB4 when Im actually in the Miiverse)... Definetly going to look into that. PS2.5 is actually finished (Im propably going to lower the ceiling, but its pretty much done at this point) and I will update this post once I could upload it. Might be going to do Mario Kart 8 Circiut as well after that (see below).


BigLord That is great! Thanks for all the info. Do you think it is okay if we put our "competitive" Custom Stages in as well? I could imagine that being a good place for TOs who actually are interested in Custom Stages and are looking for some viable options.


Speaking of which... TOs. If we actually want this idea to succeed, we will have to talk to the organizers of our respective scenes. We need to show that Custom Stages are perfectly fine and can potentially add a lot more to the meta than most people might think. They will propably hestihate at first (or in my case, straight out kick me for "being an unwanted troublemaker repeatedly"), but Im certain that we can convince most of them with proper arguments in favor of Custom Stages while also being able to provide a decent amount of stages, preferably made by different people so they can see that other people care about this project as well and that you are not simply a single person in your cause.

In order to provide a reasonably sized pool of stages, we will have to agree on which stages we add to our queue. In cases of Skyloft and similar stages, we also will have to decide on one "official" layout that can be applied. Once the current poll ends, I will create a new poll deciding about potential stages should be done (first). Once we agree on which stages we do, we will need volunteers to actually create these stages as well. And once we have those stages, we preferably should gather all of them in some place, be it this thread or a subreddit. And finally, we will have to present our stages to our scene and hope they accept them. (Of course, the alternative is that this thread crashlands and burns, but that is kinda counterproductive to my "speech" )

 

[TheDerp]

Spoiler: Skyloft&MK8

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAAAtVHhqIbgBaA

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAAAtVHhqIcairw

Skyloft is a complete rep and MK8 is a close to complete, since it's impossible to get it spot on, very, VERY close to the original.
I don't really count the blastzones, I'm just lazy I guess.
Also I can't make the bottom of the stages look nice and thinking of sticking the Omega's bottom on these custom stages.
EDIT: Noticed that you can touch the lava on MK8 if you really try, so I'll fix that later.

 

[Skailler]

Spoiler: Skyloft&MK8

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAAAtVHhqIbgBaA

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAAAtVHhqIcairw

Skyloft is a complete rep and MK8 is a close to complete, since it's impossible to get it spot on, very, VERY close to the original.
I don't really count the blastzones, I'm just lazy I guess.
Also I can't make the bottom of the stages look nice and thinking of sticking the Omega's bottom on these custom stages.
EDIT: Noticed that you can touch the lava on MK8 if you really try, so I'll fix that later.

Those really look nice, especially the MK8 one! Although you really should fix the lava^^ Im still pondering on which version of Skyloft we actually should try, especially because your layout already has been done above before.

 

[TheDerp]

Fixed MK8 and made another stage.

Spoiler: MK8 Fixed

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAACNUKFPcQeXkw

Spoiler: Halberd

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAAAEVHhp11pZ7Q

There's a glitch where if a platform is one grid square or less than one below another platform, then you can get Pac-mans Hydrant on the below platform. I wanted Halberd to have something but I'm guessing we aren't risking gameplay for stage looks. Will remove/edit the line on the bottom later.
EDIT: Forgot to add that while I haven't tested Halberd completely, it's pretty close to the original if it isn't spot on.

 

[TheDerp]

Halberd glitch fixed!

Spoiler: Halberd

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAACNUKFPq9bp2Q

New stage rep, Pokémon Stadium 2.

Spoiler: Pokémon Stadium 2

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAACNUKFPq3pkVw

The Side Blast zones are pretty close to the stage, so I'm not sure if I should remake this on a Medium sized background or keep it the same.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

These look awesome! I wish I could help out (gamepad broken, sent to Nintendo).

 

[GeneralLedge]

A lovely issue with custom stages, iirc, is that Bowser Jr's Mechakoopa loves ignoring the laws of physics and walking on platforms that are logically 'underneath' others.

Please be aware of this and test Bowser Jr's mechakoopa on various platforms. A good way to avoid this is to make the surface at least two units thick before any additional design fluff, since that's well beyond where mechakoopa looks for a platform to walk on. One unit thick may work as well, but iirc there were weird occurrences sometimes.

Also note that a similar issue happens with two surfaces next to one another, or merging into one another. Mechakoopa simply stops at the logical edge of one surface and turns around.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

A lovely issue with custom stages, iirc, is that Bowser Jr's Mechakoopa loves ignoring the laws of physics and walking on platforms that are logically 'underneath' others.

Please be aware of this and test Bowser Jr's mechakoopa on various platforms. A good way to avoid this is to make the surface at least two units thick before any additional design fluff, since that's well beyond where mechakoopa looks for a platform to walk on. One unit thick may work as well, but iirc there were weird occurrences sometimes.

Also note that a similar issue happens with two surfaces next to one another, or merging into one another. Mechakoopa simply stops at the logical edge of one surface and turns around.

It's stuff like this that makes me skip the design fluff stage altogether and focus almost solely on functionality. I just don't feel like dealing with the hassle.

Mechakoopa can also fall through the tiny gap that appears between directly adjacent surfaces, although you need to place yourself almost perfectly. I have a Miiverse post of it somewhere, let me see if I can dig it up.

EDIT: Here's a link.