Custom Stages: What We Want, What We Expect

[liets]

So all around the boards, I've seen much talk about the stage builder, but never a thread specifically devoted to it. So I made one. Simple.

So by now, it's looking pretty certain that the stage builder will be Wii U exclusive, being that we haven't seen it and a large Wii U-centric update is seeming likely. Now, many of us have voiced upset about the restrictions of the Brawl stage builder, and wish/hope it returns stronger. What do we want to see in it? What do we expect to see in it? Let's get talking about this complex topic!

EDIT: Gonna compile a list of what we can come up with, to have them all in a compact place :D (If your idea is too similar to one already stated, it will not be listed)

Nat Perry's ideas

Spoiler

• Lava
• Lava behavior
• Lava platforms
• Water
• Destructible platforms/blocks
• Upside-down spikes
• The ability to create paths for moving platforms, and alter their speed
• Make platforms/objects appear at certain points
• Set spawn points
• Better backgrounds/themes/motifs
• Ramps/dropping platforms/special objects not taking up space that they don't even touch
• Gamepad functionality

Renji64's ideas

Spoiler

• Time of day options
• Weather patterns
• Premade building block structure sources (I think that's what you meant, correct me if I'm wrong)

strawhatninja's ideas

Spoiler

• Bosses
• General stage hazards

HeavyLobster's ideas

Spoiler

• Constructable target test/board the platforms/etc
• Sharing ustom-built things via Miiverse
• Walk-off-ability
• Walk-transfer (ala Balloon Fighter)

Shadow Blitz's ideas

Spoiler

• Editable regular stages?!
• Enemy implementation (with respawn locations and times)

Vann Accessible's idea

Spoiler

Series-specific backgrounds/tiles/hazards, such as

• Warp pipes
• Bullet Bill cannons
• Question Blocks
• Beamos statues
• Bubble doors
• Arwings

LIETS' OWN CONTRIBUTIONS WOO!

• Fire bars
• Piranha pipes
• Conkdors
• Blade traps (Zelda series)
• Dexivine (The grabby vines from Wind Waker)
• Pokemon hotsprings for gradual healing

Pizza Wenisaur's ideas

Spoiler

• Custom dimensions
• Custom blast zones
• Multiple songs
• Mix and match theme pieces
• Better fine tuning (smaller sizes and such)
• More useful pieces
• Piece manipulation (ex. make stairs more/less steep)
• MOAR ASSETS
• Landscape draw tool

Jellyfish4102's ideas

Spoiler

• Custom textures
• Background of every stage to choose from
• Blocks texture together to form one structure

The Drilling Juggernaut's ideas

Spoiler

• Series-themed backgrounds
• Draw on pieces themselves
• Customize closest background (ala Smashville/Town And City)
• Custom spectators (ala Smashville/Town And City)

Wanderer From Roseyard's ideas

Spoiler

• Filesize kept down as not to limit stages
• Streetpassing stages
• Online custom stage gallery where players play on them and vote for them
• Change theme without restart
• Placing a block the most left/right it can creates walk-offs
• Teleporters
• Bumpers
• Visual themes (+backgrounds)

1. Forest- Tall trees with canopies that block out the sky, save for spare sunbeams
2. Castle Ruins- The place of an unknown holy war strewn with tattered flags blowing in the wind
3. Ice Cap- Ice sheets drift in a vast, dark ocean bathed in light from an aurora
4. Stadium- A spectator-packed stadium with a jumbotron
5. Volcano- Fiery caverns with a hint of some lava palace in the distant background
6. Space- A twinkling, futuristic city with cosmos above (and below!)

Hero of the Winds' idea

Spoiler

Custom flags

 

[Nat Perry]

Just gonna make a spontaneous list here...

• Lava
• Lava behavior
• Lava platforms
• Water
• Destructible platforms/blocks
• Upside-down spikes
• The ability to create paths for moving platforms, and alter their speed
• Make platforms/objects appear at certain points
• Set spawn points
• Better backgrounds/themes/motifs
• Ramps/dropping platforms/special objects not taking up space that they don't even touch
• Gamepad functionality

 

[Renji64]

I want the option to choose between night and day and weather. Less Building blocks and some premade sources to make a decent stage. Weather effects would be cool as well not enough night time or raining stages.

 

[strawhatninja]

I think it would be cool if we could add bosses and various stage hazards to our stages.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I'd like the ability to construct Break the Targets and Board the Platforms courses as well as courses for fighting, and the ability to share courses via Miiverse. I'd also like to be able to create courses with walk-offs, and maybe even ones where you can reappear on the other side by going offscreen, like you can in the Balloon Fighter course.

 

[Shadow Blitz]

I may add more to this later....

• From a technical standpoint, this is probably too difficult, but I would like the ability to "edit" the regular stages. Ex: Adding rows of spikes on the outside of the ring in the Boxing Ring stage. Imagine the madness of having a 4-man FFA in such a small space.
  
• More backgrounds/themes please. Brawl's custom stage backgrounds are rather dull.
• Stage hazards, including adding some of the enemies from Smash Run mode (add a function to edit re-spawn times)

 

[TeaTwoTime]

From a technical standpoint, this is probably too difficult, but I would like the ability to "edit" the regular stages. Ex: Adding rows of spikes on the outside of the ring in the Boxing Ring stage. Imagine the madness of having a 4-man FFA in such a small space.

This would be the best thing ever. I don't expect it at all, unfortunately, but it'd certainly be a feature of the "best case scenario" stage builder for me.

 

[Vann Accessible]

I'm one of the biggest advocates for the stage builder. It was my favorite thing in Brawl. But honestly, we don't even know if it's returning in the Wii U version either. It could be Sakurai hates Brawl hacks so much he'd rather not offer an easy hack window again.

Anyway, I'd like to see series specific backgrounds and tiles and hazards:

Warp pipes, bullet bill cannons, question blocks, Bemos statues, bubble doors, Arwings, etc.

There's so much more potential here.

 

[mario123007]

The new Smash Bros game has such a potential, and I am keep dreaming about this game, stage builder was my favorite, however, I think that they just need to imprive it better, add some series platforms ir something

 

[PizzaWenisaur]

Oh, don't get me started about stage builder,but since you got me started...

• No more choice between small,medium,large stages - allow people to make thier own dimensions.
• Allow people to set blast zones, all the blast zones. That means left, right, top, and bottom. I was really annoyed that I could never make a walk off.
• Allow for player to have more than one song per stage, and choose the probability of the songs for that stage
• Don't do seperate different stage pieces into 3 different sets. People should be able to mix and match parts.
• The size of the grid blocks were way too big. The most basic block shouldn't be the size of Mario - which caused all of stage builder to have a lack of fine tuning. You couldn't slightly nudge the position of anything.
• Make the pieces more meaningful - a lot of them just seemed not too useful.
• Allow for better munipulation of pieces. Not just scaling up the size of a platform but being able to, for example, make stairs more or less steep.
• The bar that limited how many assets you could put on the stage was too low.

This last one is a bit long so I dropped the bullet points. Basically, I'm not a big fan of the lego style stage builder of games. Because usually they lack the ability to be able to create intricate terrain. If someone wanted to create the curved landscape of Sonic's Windy Hill Zone it would be nice to have the tools to be able to do so. Since Smash is a 2D fighter it would be cool to be able to draw the outline of the landscape - then texture however you so desire.

 

[Jellyfish4102]

The ability to make custom textures for the blocks as in Animal Crossing.

You can use the background of every stage.

Pre made textured blocks join together to appear as one structure.

 

[The Drilling Juggernaut]

In order of likeliness to happen, though I would love all of them:

Themed backgrounds: Mario themed, Kirby themed, Zelda themed and so on.

Weather patterns: This can be purely aesthetic but I would love levels that rains or snows.

Customizable textures: Let us draw on the platforms themselves. Being able to draw in a unique background too would be great

Decorative foregrounds: Not the actual place where fighters fight, but the area just behind them. Put Pellet Posies, Animal Crossing trees, a warp pipe, or heck even just a generic fence. It wouldn't add anything to how the stage plays, but it would really help it feel less like floating rocks in space.

Spectators: We have trophies. Let's give them some animation and place them in the background of stages like Animal Crossing characters in Smashville. It's a lot of work but having Jill from Drill Dozer watch the fight would make my Metal City stage more authentic, or have a few Pikmin series enemies wondering around the background. This would really liven stages up. Imagine Luigi's Mansion ghost watching the fight, or Nurse Joy with a Chansey. Have some of them cheer, some of them pace, and some just stand there. Animal Crossing and Kalos Pokémon League have them, it would be a lot a work but it would be great.

 

[MoHarp]

A deep custom stage builder would be my dream come true...

 

[Wanderer from Roseyard]

I liked the idea that one could just freehand draw a stage on the touchscreen and it would come alive. I don't remember where I read that. Could it actually be done without being a buggy mess, though?

My ideas (I'm posting these before I read others' because I don't want to get too influenced yet)

• Both consoles have a touch screen. Use 'em! But controller input should work too.
• Filesizes need to be kept down and never limit our stages.
• StreetPassed stages for the 3DS.
• An online custom stage gallery where players can play on them and vote for them.
• The snap-grid needs to be smaller, so you could nudge a block slightly if you wanted, and not several meters.
• You should be able to grab the corner of a placed piece and stretch it. (A benefit to this is that there would only need to be one "slope block" and you could just stretch it laterally to achieve different steepness levels.)
• You should be able to change the theme and dimensions anytime without having to start over.
• If a floor piece is placed on the most left or right column, it should extrapolate the floor off the screen's edge, to give you walk-offs.
• Pieces:
  • Teleporters; you'd have to place at least two for it to work.
  • Bumpers. Bing, bing, bing!
  • Cracked blocks that are destructible, but eventually return.
• Visual themes (and their backgrounds):
  • Forest: Tall trees with canopies that block the sky, except for a few sunbeams for effect.
  • Castle Ruins: The place of some unknown holy war with tattered flags whipping in the wind.
  • Ice Cap: Ice sheets drift on a black ocean. The aurora borealis glows overhead.
  • Stadium: A packed audience and a jumbotron.
  • Volcano: Fiery caverns with a hint of some ruined lava palace in the distant background.
  • Space: A twinkling, futuristic city and the cosmos above (and below!)

And I think that's it.

Oh, don't get me started about stage builder,but since you got me started...

• No more choice between small,medium,large stages - allow people to make thier own dimensions.
• Allow people to set blast zones, all the blast zones. That means left, right, top, and bottom. I was really annoyed that I could never make a walk off.
• Allow for player to have more than one song per stage, and choose the probability of the songs for that stage
• Don't do seperate different stage pieces into 3 different sets. People should be able to mix and match parts.
• The size of the grid blocks were way too big. The most basic block shouldn't be the size of Mario - which caused all of stage builder to have a lack of fine tuning. You couldn't slightly nudge the position of anything.
• Make the pieces more meaningful - a lot of them just seemed not too useful.
• Allow for better munipulation of pieces. Not just scaling up the size of a platform but being able to, for example, make stairs more or less steep.
• The bar that limited how many assets you could put on the stage was too low.

This last one is a bit long so I dropped the bullet points. Basically, I'm not a big fan of the lego style stage builder of games. Because usually they lack the ability to be able to create intricate terrain. If someone wanted to create the curved landscape of Sonic's Windy Hill Zone it would be nice to have the tools to be able to do so. Since Smash is a 2D fighter it would be cool to be able to draw the outline of the landscape - then texture however you so desire.

Wow, a lot of overlap in our ideas! You and I must be Stage Builder Soulmates.

 

[Hero of the Winds]

Customizable flags would be really cool.

 

[PizzaWenisaur]

I liked the idea that one could just freehand draw a stage on the touchscreen and it would come alive. I don't remember where I read that. Could it actually be done without being a buggy mess, though?

My ideas (I'm posting these before I read others' because I don't want to get too influenced yet)

• Both consoles have a touch screen. Use 'em! But controller input should work too.
• Filesizes need to be kept down and never limit our stages.
• StreetPassed stages for the 3DS.
• An online custom stage gallery where players can play on them and vote for them.
• The snap-grid needs to be smaller, so you could nudge a block slightly if you wanted, and not several meters.
• You should be able to grab the corner of a placed piece and stretch it. (A benefit to this is that there would only need to be one "slope block" and you could just stretch it laterally to achieve different steepness levels.)
• You should be able to change the theme and dimensions anytime without having to start over.
• If a floor piece is placed on the most left or right column, it should extrapolate the floor off the screen's edge, to give you walk-offs.
• Pieces:
  • Teleporters; you'd have to place at least two for it to work.
  • Bumpers. Bing, bing, bing!
  • Cracked blocks that are destructible, but eventually return.
• Visual themes (and their backgrounds):
  • Forest: Tall trees with canopies that block the sky, except for a few sunbeams for effect.
  • Castle Ruins: The place of some unknown holy war with tattered flags whipping in the wind.
  • Ice Cap: Ice sheets drift on a black ocean. The aurora borealis glows overhead.
  • Stadium: A packed audience and a jumbotron.
  • Volcano: Fiery caverns with a hint of some ruined lava palace in the distant background.
  • Space: A twinkling, futuristic city and the cosmos above (and below!)

And I think that's it.

Wow, a lot of overlap in our ideas! You and I must be Stage Builder Soulmates.

Lol - great minds think alike.

But if any of you guys have a lot of experience with Halo online. That game lets you make replays, save pictures, create stages much like Smash. You could upload them to your own personal fileshare and your friends could click on your profile and see your content. Also there was a community fileshare where you could sort various things by new, most popular, most downloaded, etc. I wish Smash 4 had something like this.

 

[menotyou135]

Honestly, the most important feature of a stage builder is this: The ability to share said stages.

If custom stages are easily sharable via a link that someone can post online, then they become much more common to use. Tournaments can use their own stages if the stage selection sucks (which is looks like it will atm) and players can share their own stages.