Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[|RK|]

Whew lad. Game 5 of ZeRo vs Rich Brown was super dominant.

I think someone better at analyzing sets should look at this, but from what I noticed, Rich Brown's evasion was generally really good the entire set. And Shadow Ball was definitely a consistent threat, allowing him to punish ZeRo a couple of times for throwing banana. Around game 4, ZeRo started to adapt by throwing bananas from higher up. This allowed him to get around the pressure exerted by Shadow Ball. That and ZeRo's own evasion went way up - I don't think I could time a jump to avoid Shadow Ball like that to save my life lol. By game 5, it seems that ZeRo just caught on to Rich's patterns - he sort of dominated the entire match. I think he just knew how Rich was going to avoid him and followed up better.

My takeaways - evasion is the way to go in this MU, on Mewtwo's side. Very much prevents Diddy from playing the game the way he wants. ZeRo almost lost game 4, due to smart evasive play and the ever-present threat of Shadow Ball limiting his options. Mewtwo's fair is insane, and airdodge > fair clutched out a few stocks in Rich Brown's favor. But scarier (imo) is the recovery time after Shadow Ball.

All that said, I think I've learned a couple of things about how to play the Mewtwo MU thanks to ZeRo - so that's always good. Jumping over Shadow Ball appears to be the best option to avoid it - without immediately going back to an aggressive option. Timing anything else is a nuisance, save for shield.

I wish I got to see another game on a tri-platform stage, because I think that's where Mewtwo is most dangerous.
----
EDIT: Personally, I auto-ban Duck Hunt as a Kirby main. Only exception is if the opponent has shown a proclivity for aggressive play OR their character doesn't benefit from Duck Hunt much.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Because people hate Lylat so much that it clouds their judgement.

Then they have nobody to blame but themselves when they get timed out on Duck Hunt.

 

[Das Koopa]

Update on top 100 project

I pretty much have my methodology down. Average placements will be put into grades, which grant a set amount of points for wins. E.g. Mr. R gets 50 points for a win on ZeRo who is graded A+, and gets 40 for a win on Ally, who is graded A. Something akin to this with more detail. For players like Ranai who have extreme peaks but low attendance, their points will be increased by the difference in tournament attendance. Ranai > VoiD, Ranai attends 6 tournies to VoiD's 12, and thus gets the base point number for VoiD's grade then it's multiplied by 2.

Those aren't actual occurrences (pls Ranai/ZeRo runback), just simplified examples.

The actual point values are the only thing I'm lost on at this stage but I've figured everything else out so I'll test around. It'll depend on how many grades I need, too, as I'm not finished averaging placements yet (this is without a doubt the hardest part).

I'll be posting a list of the finalized average placements when I'm done with them. I've added and subtracted from the current contenders list.

 

[|RK|]

Watching ZeRo vs ConCon - yup, ZeRo's Sheik still has the best neutral. Kind of refreshing to see a Sheik needle camping, actually. As much as I like Mr.R and VoiD, I kinda missed ZeRo's smart Sheik play.

Update on top 100 project

I pretty much have my methodology down. Average placements will be put into grades, which grant a set amount of points for wins. E.g. Mr. R gets 50 points for a win on ZeRo who is graded A+, and gets 40 for a win on Ally, who is graded A. Something akin to this with more detail. For players like Ranai who have extreme peaks but low attendance, their points will be increased by the difference in tournament attendance. Ranai > VoiD, Ranai attends 6 tournies to VoiD's 12, and thus gets the base point number for VoiD's grade then it's multiplied by 2.

Those aren't actual occurrences (pls Ranai/ZeRo runback), just simplified examples.

The actual point values are the only thing I'm lost on at this stage but I've figured everything else out so I'll test around. It'll depend on how many grades I need, too, as I'm not finished averaging placements yet (this is without a doubt the hardest part).

I'll be posting a list of the finalized average placements when I'm done with them. I've added and subtracted from the current contenders list.

Sounds like you're taking inspiration from ELO rankings?

 

[TDK]

Can someone link me to ZeRo vs ConCon?

 

[ぱみゅ]

EDIT: Personally, I auto-ban Duck Hunt as a Kirby main. Only exception is if the opponent has shown a proclivity for aggressive play OR their character doesn't benefit from Duck Hunt much.

THIS.
Characters have natural weaknesses, and the point of a counterpick is to exaggerate and counter them.

 

[|RK|]

Can someone link me to ZeRo vs ConCon?

https://www.twitch.tv/2ggaming/v/106837535?t=18m05s

Warning: Stream quality is trash.

THIS.
Characters have natural weaknesses, and the point of a counterpick is to exaggerate and counter them.

Well, yes. But on a personal level, I'd like to have real counterpicking ability. No stage exaggerates a character's strengths as much as Duck Hunt does. Again - I play Kirby. I can be timed out by high mobility characters on Battlefield, and I have no issues with that stage. I chose my character, and I accept his limitations - I imagine most other people with slow characters feel the same. My point is that Duck Hunt exacerbates these qualities to a level that doesn't promote truly skillful and competitive play.

 

[ぱみゅ]

At this point I am convinced that Character Selection is a skill.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I'd argue Smashville exaggerates a character's strengths a lot... and frankly in some cases more so than Duck Hunt.

Because hey, Ness Bthrow on the platform is completely fair right? Or Sheik Fair chains off of it? Or all of the various other crazy things select other characters can do with that platform?

The claim that Duck Hunt "doesn't promote skillful and competitive play" is completely laughable. Is it circle camping? No. Is it under the stage stalling? No. If you character can fall to that issue in that MU you have two options: ban it or pick a different character. If you don't do either ones of those you ain't playing to win. That's on you. Your opponent fully taking advantage of that is as competitive as this game can get. Its ignoring the mindset of playing "honourably" and going "this guy isn't playing to win, but I am. Sucks to be him." Its the exact same thing as somebody being stupid enough to CP Ness to Smashville and then complaining that they got Bthrow'd off of the platform and died at like 20%.

Know what 1) your character can do 2) what your opponent's character can do 3) what stages add to the mix. Because the Smash series will always be character vs character vs stage. If you don't like that last element, you're in the wroooong game series.

Duck Hunt, by itself, is 100% acceptable. It shouldn't even be in the discussion for being removed from the stage list even if 3DS stages are added to the Switch version.

What next, Little Macs start complaining about every non-FD stage because characters can use platforms to camp them out?

 

[Game7a1]

Since it hasn't been reported, another large regional went down in the past weekend, The Last Smash on the Hill. Just a couple of things to note before you read further.

• Despite the high entrant count, there were a few DQ's, some from PR and high ranking NE players, and those few DQ's led to unusual results. As such, a few people in the top 16 probably wouldn't have made it without those DQ's in their pools (it also unbalanced the pools really hard for some and made top 48 + Death Pool loser's side stacked by New England standards) That said, they still do deserve the placements.
• Not all matches were streamed, so for some players, I don't know who (else) they went, so I might be wrong on a couple of accounts. That said, it is NE, and there is a good amount of character diversity.

The Last Smash on the Hill (195 entrants): https://smash.gg/tournament/the-last-smash-on-the-hill/events/wii-u-singles/standings

1st Craftis
2nd Light
3rd Raffi-X
4th IceArrow
5th LingLing
5th Waldo
7th Glare
7th Kogaarasuma
9th Kuma
9th Splash Damage
9th EPM
9th Koolaid (I have no Idea as he's the Anti of the region, but his Fox did win games on stream)
13th Scot!
13th Sheppy
13th Pelca
13th Wizdorf

 

[|RK|]

I'd argue Smashville exaggerates a character's strengths a lot... and frankly in some cases more so than Duck Hunt.

Because hey, Ness Bthrow on the platform is completely fair right? Or Sheik Fair chains off of it? Or all of the various other crazy things select other characters can do with that platform?

The claim that Duck Hunt "doesn't promote skillful and competitive play" is completely laughable. Is it circle camping? No. Is it under the stage stalling? No. If you character can fall to that issue in that MU you have two options: ban it or pick a different character. If you don't do either ones of those you ain't playing to win. That's on you. Your opponent fully taking advantage of that is as competitive as this game can get. Its ignoring the mindset of playing "honourably" and going "this guy isn't playing to win, but I am. Sucks to be him." Its the exact same thing as somebody being stupid enough to CP Ness to Smashville and then complaining that they got Bthrow'd off of the platform and died at like 20%.

Know what 1) your character can do 2) what your opponent's character can do 3) what stages add to the mix. Because the Smash series will always be character vs character vs stage. If you don't like that last element, you're in the wroooong game series.

Duck Hunt, by itself, is 100% acceptable. It shouldn't even be in the discussion for being removed from the stage list even if 3DS stages are added to the Switch version.

What next, Little Macs start complaining about every non-FD stage because characters can use platforms to camp them out?

Smashville? Really?

The Smashville platform moves. It's not an ever-present threat that is always in the position your opponent needs it to be in. Its usefulness is limited by the strengths of your opponent's moves, the player's ability to take advantage of it, and basic stage awareness. This is a poor comparison to a stage where character mobility is practically all that's needed.

Secondly, IDK where the "honorable" thing comes from. No one's talking about *not* playing to win. No one is saying that camping or patient play is *bad*. But any stage that promotes limited interaction with the opponent based solely on movement stats isn't a useful stage for competitive play.

Finally, regarding the wrong game series thing - again, this is a meta crafted by the players. This isn't Street Fighter. The stage list is what we select, the ruleset is what we select. So this nebulous line of reasoning could be used for any stage that we choose to make legal. Imagine we allowed Halberd:

If you character can fall to that issue in that MU you have two options: ban it or pick a different character. If you don't do either ones of those you ain't playing to win. That's on you. Your opponent fully taking advantage of that is as competitive as this game can get. Its ignoring the mindset of playing "honourably" and going "this guy isn't playing to win, but I am. Sucks to be him." Its the exact same thing as somebody being stupid enough to CP Ness to Smashville and then complaining that they got Bthrow'd off of the platform and died at like 20%.

Know what 1) your character can do 2) what your opponent's character can do 3) what stages add to the mix. Because the Smash series will always be character vs character vs stage. If you don't like that last element, you're in the wroooong game series.

Or Poke Floats in Melee:

[...]

I don't really have to change anything you said.

 

[Luco]

Does anyone know who The Great Gonzales beat to take 9th? Pretty happy with that placement from a solo Ness, he outplaced Dath too which is pre cool.

Also, once again saying this but the meta we're stuck with is the meta we created. Our stagelist is no different. Some characters become more or less viable dependent on the stages we allow, and that even includes how likely a character is to take advantage of 'random' hazards.

So yes, even our most seemingly neutral stages can impact a match *heavily*. There's no such thing as a truly 'neutral' or 'fair' stage.

To clarify, I'm not saying DH should or shouldn't be banned, I just think it's important for people to keep the above point in mind when talking about stages and how they affect stuff.

 

[Das Koopa]

Sounds like you're taking inspiration from ELO rankings?

I think I just naturally arrived at a similar system

I'd argue Smashville exaggerates a character's strengths a lot... and frankly in some cases more so than Duck Hunt.

Because hey, Ness Bthrow on the platform is completely fair right? Or Sheik Fair chains off of it? Or all of the various other crazy things select other characters can do with that platform?

The claim that Duck Hunt "doesn't promote skillful and competitive play" is completely laughable. Is it circle camping? No. Is it under the stage stalling? No. If you character can fall to that issue in that MU you have two options: ban it or pick a different character. If you don't do either ones of those you ain't playing to win. That's on you. Your opponent fully taking advantage of that is as competitive as this game can get. Its ignoring the mindset of playing "honourably" and going "this guy isn't playing to win, but I am. Sucks to be him." Its the exact same thing as somebody being stupid enough to CP Ness to Smashville and then complaining that they got Bthrow'd off of the platform and died at like 20%.

Know what 1) your character can do 2) what your opponent's character can do 3) what stages add to the mix. Because the Smash series will always be character vs character vs stage. If you don't like that last element, you're in the wroooong game series.

Duck Hunt, by itself, is 100% acceptable. It shouldn't even be in the discussion for being removed from the stage list even if 3DS stages are added to the Switch version.

What next, Little Macs start complaining about every non-FD stage because characters can use platforms to camp them out?

I mean, even without the debate on how it objectively gives inordinate advantage to characters with good mobility (almost universally - whereas other stages usually are quirked towards even more specific characters) there's nothing acceptable about the randomized Duck element. It has impacted numerous games (Including today's!) and there's no skill to it.

You get a read and capitalize on it then your work is stopped because the stage is badly designed. This is why stage hazards are bad. Even if you can play around them when you and your opponent are in neutral, you can get punished either by being forced to drop a combo or getting disrupted in the middle of it despite playing the game correctly.

But like I said, it's less to do with the issue of people occasionally going for timeouts in Sm4sh as a whole and more to do with the stage slowing the game down and damaging the viability of the game as a spectator sport. It's only going to get worse, especially if Wrath becomes more active and KEN starts traveling as much as Komo. It's about the game's health, and despite the insistence of "Who cares about E-sports", we wouldn't be analyzing sets and having these discussions because they fundamentally rely on the game growing which is dependent on interest from viewership.

can we stop with the mindset of works for melee works for this game? this is the game WE play. same series but basically different game cultures, mindsets, and even strategies. duck hunt is a legit stage it has all the checkboxes for a legal stage. if switc has more stages (assuming this community is able to leave gc controllers behind) that doesnt mean lylat and duck hunt should be removed. it will make stage striking and bans a skill to be honed and actual used rather than the auto bans most players use now.
as for the argument of spectator sport if and when smash 4 is struggling for viewership we can deal with that but as of right now we aren't. with new character(s) and a new release dont think we will be struggling anytime soon.

the other issue on the horizon is with mvc getting a new game the debate for who gets sunday (at events and evo) will be ugly next year. us or melee is getting kicked out of a good time slot.

Nothing about Sm4sh is so fundamentally different from Melee that our game has some inherent need for a larger stage list. There's a desire for more variety with it, but I'd prefer three good stages to a mesh of ones with a lot of small problems. I'm actually okay with the current list minus Duck Hunt, too, which incidentally seems to be Japan's stagelist. At least, last night's qualifier had Duck Hunt banned, and I don't think I ever see much of it there.

 

[Emblem Lord]

At this point I am convinced that Character Selection is a skill.

UGHGGHGHGHGFNFG!!!!!!!

YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

You win so many ****ing internets

 

[|RK|]

Last unprovoked note on Duck Hunt. Again, from a personal perspective - I'm a Kirby main.

I am fine with playing on Battlefield and Dreamland. Why is that, even though characters like Mewtwo, Zero Suit Samus, and Pikachu exist? Characters that can move across the platforms like butter, making it extremely difficult to stop them? It's because there's still a game to be played, even if it's heavily in my opponent's favor. I can position myself appropriately, read my opponent's movement habits, and capitalize on them. Most characters can, even if it's severly out of their favor. That is fine; that's how competition works.

So why is Duck Hunt an issue? Because there's no real need for a pattern. If you play Little Mac, you have exactly one stage ban for the rest of your life. If Duck Hunt is available, you ban it - you hardly have a choice. Choosing the stage is tantamount to SD-ing two times, and then counting on DSR to give you another ban in game 3. And that's stupid.

It's baffling that people are okay with this. When a stage rather than the opponent makes a game impossible, how can you talk about "pure competition"? Isn't that the reason we ban stages in the first place? To prevent them from creating the outcome of the game in and of itself? Character selection is absolutely important; I'll never deny that. But that should be important regardless of stage choice, and outcome should still be dependent upon the abilities of the player over everything else.

That's my two cents.

 

[Jaguar360]

Does anyone know who The Great Gonzales beat to take 9th? Pretty happy with that placement from a solo Ness, he outplaced Dath too which is pre cool.

Also, once again saying this but the meta we're stuck with is the meta we created. Our stagelist is no different. Some characters become more or less viable dependent on the stages we allow, and that even includes how likely a character is to take advantage of 'random' hazards.

So yes, even our most seemingly neutral stages can impact a match *heavily*. There's no such thing as a truly 'neutral' or 'fair' stage.

To clarify, I'm not saying DH should or shouldn't be banned, I just think it's important for people to keep the above point in mind when talking about stages and how they affect stuff.

Gonz beat Day , Blacktwins , and Regralht to get to where he did. It was a good run.

 

[Krysco]

Is there a link to this recent match on Duck Hunt that people are talking about? Camping-wise, I can see the stage being a problem since that's the same thing that got Kongo Jungle 64 banned in every game its been in and I'm sure that'd still be the case even if the lower barrel was removed. Curious how the rng ducks affected it though. The only thing rng about them I believe is the amount (a 50/50 between 1 or 2), their starting location and their initial direction. There's also the grass patches which are rng in terms of where they spawn.

And if the spectators take precedent over the players then I may actually feel bad for Sonic players. Using one of the best characters in the game, plenty of high level rep but because he slows the game down to a crawl and spectators matter, there may be more cases like that one from a while ago where a Sonic main got really far in a tournament and wasn't able to be on stream purely for using Sonic. Bayo may end up with a similar problem since she strongly discourages aggressive play.

This whole 'esports/spectator' thing, how big of a deal even is it for Sm4sh? Like, out of all of the modern, popular fighting games, is Sm4sh one of or down right the slowest? Or is this just some sort of fear that Brawl will happen all over again?

 

[SaltyKracka]

Because people hate Lylat so much that it clouds their judgement.

I will never understand why, honestly. I find it and it's platform layout far more interesting than DL64, and I've pineapples far more often on Battlefield.

 

[SSB ReVerb]

Not gonna lie, it seems like that timeout on Duck Hunt during Ally vs MrR was Ally's fault to be honest.

He was already down a considerable amount of percent yet he was the one who committed to shoot fireballs for a minute and a half from the top of the tree even though he was behind.

Mr R had no reason to approach as he was ahead and didn't want to get caught and die to a Mario up-b off the top. He made the right choice.

Ally even said on twitter that he forgot about the timer and was taking his time to approach.

 

[Game7a1]

So why is Duck Hunt an issue? Because there's no real need for a pattern. If you play Little Mac, you have exactly one stage ban for the rest of your life. If Duck Hunt is available, you ban it - you hardly have a choice. Choosing the stage is tantamount to SD-ing two times, and then counting on DSR to give you another ban in game 3. And that's stupid.

From what I've seen, Little Macs ban Smashville more often than they would ban Duck Hunt. At Showdown, Pugwest did timeout Naoto (a Litlle Mac) on Smashville by camping on the platform and just generally avoiding him. Mac has to burn both of his jumps just to get on the platform, which is puts him at a disadvantage. So if Smashville is available, they'll ban it rather than Duck Hunt. It's just that bad of a stage for him.
Macs get the rough end of the stick with the stage list (and I would assume other characters do too), but I think they know ways to deal with Duck Hunt.

 

[Rizen]

I'd argue Smashville exaggerates a character's strengths a lot... and frankly in some cases more so than Duck Hunt.

Because hey, Ness Bthrow on the platform is completely fair right? Or Sheik Fair chains off of it? Or all of the various other crazy things select other characters can do with that platform?

The claim that Duck Hunt "doesn't promote skillful and competitive play" is completely laughable. Is it circle camping? No. Is it under the stage stalling? No. If you character can fall to that issue in that MU you have two options: ban it or pick a different character. If you don't do either ones of those you ain't playing to win. That's on you. Your opponent fully taking advantage of that is as competitive as this game can get. Its ignoring the mindset of playing "honourably" and going "this guy isn't playing to win, but I am. Sucks to be him." Its the exact same thing as somebody being stupid enough to CP Ness to Smashville and then complaining that they got Bthrow'd off of the platform and died at like 20%.

Know what 1) your character can do 2) what your opponent's character can do 3) what stages add to the mix. Because the Smash series will always be character vs character vs stage. If you don't like that last element, you're in the wroooong game series.

Duck Hunt, by itself, is 100% acceptable. It shouldn't even be in the discussion for being removed from the stage list even if 3DS stages are added to the Switch version.

What next, Little Macs start complaining about every non-FD stage because characters can use platforms to camp them out?

You're really saying SV is worse than DH? Really? On SV players can position their character with awareness of Sheik's platform abuse. SV does not invalidate half the cast; abusing SV is about skill, stratedgy and good positioning. There's no comparison even.

On DH if you play an immobile character and get camped for time-outs the only real counter play is to not be that character on that stage. If the opponent wants to time you out that's that. If Cloud wants to get a free limit he can. If ZSS gets a good lead, Mewtwo wants a charged shadow ball, Bayo always wants free(er) landings... I see all these mobile character players try to rationalize DH and want to facepalm. By your logic why don't we just have Great Cave Offensive as a legal CP? It can just be banned right? Just don't pick about half the cast who can't deal with it?

 

[Nathan Richardson]

According to a video explaining why something is banned if something centralizes the metagame to such an extent that the only way to counter a stategy is to use the exact same stategy then that something is banned.

I think something that invalidates half the cast forcing you to use specific characters especially when we're TRYING to diversify the metagame with more characters and more stages is painful to the point that it should be banned! Why use characters that you have no idea how to use or what their MUs are not because of someone choosing another character but the stage that's in play?

 

[verbatim]

Duck Hunt does not "invalidate half of the cast". People are getting upset over a situation that had nothing to do w/ the character that Ally played.

 

[Rizen]

Duck Hunt does not "invalidate half of the cast". People are getting upset over a situation that had nothing to do w/ the character that Ally played.

I meant DH the stage.

 

[blackghost]

You main Bayo by any chance Blackghost ? I have been trying to pick up Bayo myself so I like to keep track of these things. It is pretty hard to get a good grip with her without constant practice and experience in real face to face matches. Unfortunately don't have much time to go to many local places to play anymore and trying to play her on FG is a recipe for disaster..lol

i do main her but im not that good with her at all. i mostly imittate child and zach. i would imitiate salem but i dont have that kind of free time. lol. if you want to get good watch some med level bayo play from like ghost, bushi, or child. they are good players. salem, zach, and zach are so high level its hard to straight imitate

I think I just naturally arrived at a similar system


Nothing about Sm4sh is so fundamentally different from Melee that our game has some inherent need for a larger stage list. There's a desire for more variety with it, but I'd prefer three good stages to a mesh of ones with a lot of small problems. I'm actually okay with the current list minus Duck Hunt, too, which incidentally seems to be Japan's stagelist. At least, last night's qualifier had Duck Hunt banned, and I don't think I ever see much of it there

I'd have to disagree. if you know melee history the reasoning for most of their bans actually stems back to fox and falco gaining extreme advanatage and due to melee movement being uncatchable able by basically the entire cast. due to the bs that is melee shine a lot of stages were removed on that alone.(also fliers on 64)
other differences between are games are the prior mentioned movement, gravity, game culture, and player maturity in competitive environments/meta. melee and smash 4 are as different as third strike to sfv. similiar skin maybe but not even close to the same game.
i have no pity for players that die constantly to lylat the stage has been around since brawl and sakurai "nerfed" the stage. i mean come on, there are players that still dont know its a pattern and how the walls properties shift to becoming a ceiling when tilted up. No you weren't stuck on a wall you were stuck trying to slide up a ceiling and that doesnt work.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[ぱみゅ]

I meant DH the stage.

And I think they meant Mario/Ally would've been perfectly able to not get timed out like that, given Mario's mobility attributes.
It was more an issue of neither player over-committing. I mean, a lot of their other matches also took a lot of time.

 

[verbatim]

I meant DH the stage.

Duck Hunt the stage does not "invalidate half of the cast". People are getting upset over a situation that had nothing to do w/ the character that Ally played.

 

[L9999]

Is there a link to this recent match on Duck Hunt that people are talking about? Camping-wise, I can see the stage being a problem since that's the same thing that got Kongo Jungle 64 banned in every game its been in and I'm sure that'd still be the case even if the lower barrel was removed. Curious how the rng ducks affected it though. The only thing rng about them I believe is the amount (a 50/50 between 1 or 2), their starting location and their initial direction. There's also the grass patches which are rng in terms of where they spawn.

And if the spectators take precedent over the players then I may actually feel bad for Sonic players. Using one of the best characters in the game, plenty of high level rep but because he slows the game down to a crawl and spectators matter, there may be more cases like that one from a while ago where a Sonic main got really far in a tournament and wasn't able to be on stream purely for using Sonic. Bayo may end up with a similar problem since she strongly discourages aggressive play.

This whole 'esports/spectator' thing, how big of a deal even is it for Sm4sh? Like, out of all of the modern, popular fighting games, is Sm4sh one of or down right the slowest? Or is this just some sort of fear that Brawl will happen all over again?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXOKN0iaRZM
Here you go, skip to the end because the other matches drag out for too long.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Duck Hunt the stage does not "invalidate half of the cast". People are getting upset over a situation that had nothing to do w/ the character that Ally played.

But it does invalidate a portion of the cast, and people aren't really discussing it vis a vis Ally's loss. Sure, the match brought the issue to mind, but it's an issue in its own right.

 

[verbatim]

I would argue that you can only really make that case for Little Mac and maybe Lucas or Roy, but definitely not a significant amount of the cast. In a game with rage playing to go to time opens you up to significantly more opportunities to mess up once and lose the entire set, even on Duck Hunt the stage.

 

[Rizen]

I would argue that you can only really make that case for Little Mac and maybe Lucas or Roy, but definitely not a significant amount of the cast. In a game with rage playing to go to time opens you up to significantly more opportunities to mess up once and lose the entire set, even on Duck Hunt the stage.

Let's say gets the lead on DH and goes for a time out. realistically can't chase her down and to a lesser extent. Then several other characters are at more of a disadvantage than on other legal stages.

 

[Radical Larry]

So no one remembers the other giant stage that we pretty much had banned for similar camping problems?
Nobody remembers Big Battlefield?

 

[FeelMeUp]

Except Big Battlefield wasn't primarily for camping at all. You can't seriously need an explanation for this.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

I actually don't know why its banned and Ive been playing since release, never bothered to look into it either because I was a FG Luigi back then. The only thing I can really think of right now is that it makes ledge cancels kind of broken but that's not a good enough reason for it to be banned, is it?

 

[FeelMeUp]

Not dying until 200+ every stock and instantly making characters without great mobility combined with good projectiles bottom tier is a pretty good start.

 

[Bowserboy3]

As far as stages go, Big Battlefield is literally just unrealistically large.

---

It kind of upsets me how good of an addition UCT could have been if the platforms just wandered into the middle of the stage (as opposed to right at the side and below too). That's a stage that could be a legitimate CP if it wasn't for the platforms; having a stage with a high celing would benefit a lot when playing against characters that like KO'ing off the top (Fox, Rosalina, Bayonetta ironically).

Kind of stating the obvious again, but I still really wish there was a hazards toggle for "Smash" mode. It doesn't take away from Sakurai's original intentions, as hazards would still be active in Solo modes, and it gives us competitive players an extra option. So many other stages could have been good/decent with that... Pokémon Stadium 2 whyyyy... (especially if stages also stayed static when hazards were off too; Mushroom Kingdom U and Castle Siege would be cool if it stayed on it's first phase). Smash Switch really needs to add this.

While we could theoretically manage on just 7 stages, having the option of more stages is never a bad thing. I for one kind of get bored of seeing the same 7 stages when training. This is why I like PM, as even though not all of the stages are always available in tournament, it's wonderful to have a multitude of good stages just to play about and practice stuff on. It's also a thing of wanting things we don't have; it's just a side effect of being in a DLC era.

If Smash Switch is really a thing (I'm pretty certain it is at this point), I'd like to see the following 3DS stages at the very least:

• Brawl Yoshi's Island
• Prism Tower
• Arena Ferox

These three could at least be decent competitive stages, or are at the least, decent. While not competitive, Magicant and Mute City would also be cool (if only because it bugs me that two of the oldest series' in Smash 4 have mere retro stages as their stages), but hey, this isn't competitive so I'll stop that there.

Another thing I just don't understand is why they made Dreamland so similar to Battlefield in terms of size and blastzones. Likely to save time and manpower, but even having Dreamland closer to it's Melee variant would give us another cool "different" stage. I don't really see them changing a stage blastzones drastically like that, but it's a thought anyway.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Melee Dreamland would possess a similar problem to Big Battlefield barring the size of the stage. The blastzones for it in Melee are fine because of the immense kill power that is meta in that game, but here the only thing that even remotely compares is deep edgeguard reads and the most explosive of moves.

I do wish we had a bit more palpable variety. UCT was amazing until it drew too much focus to the background elements, the actual layout and stage transitions are some of the best in the game's history and it's a shame they can't be utilized due to the stupid overly distracting background (at least in a competitive sense)

 

[Bowserboy3]

I can remotely understand "background distraction" in a sense, but it's all personal; one player might find it distracting while the other might not (me being the latter).

I always thought UCT's reason for being mostly banned was because of it's platforms underneath and at the side? I heard people saying it's somewhat distracting at points but it was never a huge issue. If the platform never appeared underneath the stage, and the occasional side platforms were much smaller and never stretched off screen, I think it would be a very solid stage.

As for Dreamland, I do agree that having a carbon copy of Melee's version might not be the best, but even something like a midpoint of what it is now and Melee would still be nice. Variety is usually always a good thing.

While Fountain of Dreams is another good stage, when I see people talk about competitive stages they want added, I am there thinking "why that stage?", because apart from nostalgia, do we really need another tri-platform layout stage? I can understand it being legal in Melee, as the options are limited, but considering we are in an era of DLC, anything is possible. Give us something different please.

I'm interested on people's opinions on Arena Ferox if that was added, though. I know it's a legal stage on the 3DS, even if it just because the stage options are limited, but even then it's a pretty good stage. There's only one transformation that might be iffy on the whole, and the rest of the stage is quite good.

 

[FeelMeUp]

FoD served as a balancer for characters like Samus, Fox, Falco and Falcon because they completely changed the dynamic of platform camping and how fullhops/ledge cancels apply in the neutral game. I don't think it'd be significant enough to warrant adding in Smash 4, though. Might actually make some characters even more infuriating to play against.
comes to mind.

 

[Wintermelon43]

I can remotely understand "background distraction" in a sense, but it's all personal; one player might find it distracting while the other might not (me being the latter).

I always thought UCT's reason for being mostly banned was because of it's platforms underneath and at the side? I heard people saying it's somewhat distracting at points but it was never a huge issue. If the platform never appeared underneath the stage, and the occasional side platforms were much smaller and never stretched off screen, I think it would be a very solid stage.

As for Dreamland, I do agree that having a carbon copy of Melee's version might not be the best, but even something like a midpoint of what it is now and Melee would still be nice. Variety is usually always a good thing.

While Fountain of Dreams is another good stage, when I see people talk about competitive stages they want added, I am there thinking "why that stage?", because apart from nostalgia, do we really need another tri-platform layout stage? I can understand it being legal in Melee, as the options are limited, but considering we are in an era of DLC, anything is possible. Give us something different please.

I'm interested on people's opinions on Arena Ferox if that was added, though. I know it's a legal stage on the 3DS, even if it just because the stage options are limited, but even then it's a pretty good stage. There's only one transformation that might be iffy on the whole, and the rest of the stage is quite good.

I think UCT was banned because of some people getting motion sickness from it.