Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[DJ3DS]

So when is the next time the game is getting demoed?
Would like someone to get some footage of hazardless stages, we know most of them already but some more confirmation would be nice.

Here are the stages we don't have 100% confirmation of what hazardless does. (even stages which are obviously not going to be legal, for catalogueing purposes)
-Green Hill Zone
-Coliseum
-Tortimer Island (Would like confirmation that the layout is random, only seen one game with this level played with hazards off.)
-New Pork City
-Onett

It is available at a demo in the UK in London on the 29th July. I'll be there having a go.

First, this is the current method with three differences:

• First match is a random "neutral"
• Winner gets no stage ban
• Winner cannot change characters

Second, this is actually (more or less) how things worked at the beginning of Melee. So let's look at why those 3 differences came about.

It was realized that some stages were just too biased against certain characters. If your opponent played Jigglypuff, you could force them to Corneria; or if they played Ganon, you could force them to Mute City. So, we started letting winners switch characters too--but forced them to do it before the loser.

But it was still pretty biased, especially because most players only play one character. So, it was decided that the winner should be allowed to ban a single stage. That way we'd never have to ban stages like Corneria, Green Green,s Mute City, Brinstar, and Rainbow Cruise.

Finally, in around 2009, Melee and Brawl events started getting sick of players randomly getting best or worst stages for game 1, like Jigglypuff on Dreamland or Ice Climbers on FD. So, we started doing stage striking instead, using lists of either 5 or 9. This removed the randomness and consistently gave the most fair stage (within the given group) for any given matchup. Costs of stage striking include taking a small but non-zero amount of additional time, confusing new players (who have to firmly remember what the neutral stage list is), and degenerating to a "let's just go to Smashville" malaise for many apathetic players.

This is a very helpful and informative post as to *why* things are being done the way they currently are.

After all that I've read, I wonder if a mixture of the old and new is the best approach to solving the issue. The prevailing issue people seem to have with a large stage list is of time and expedience with counterpicking. I think my system would be to have a relatively small list of neutral stages with a much larger list of counterpick stages, and choose from them as follows:

Game 1:
- Players strike from the list of neutral stages, as usual. Perhaps expand it to 7 stages, but going overboard isn't necessary.

Game 2:
- Loser chooses a set of N neutral or counterpick stages (where N is relatively small).
- Winner chooses a subset of M<N of these stages, and bans them.
- Loser chooses one of the remaining N-M stages for the next game.
- Winner chooses character.
- Loser chooses character.

Personally I think this is the most expedient way of keeping a broad choice of stages. I'm not a fan of the vetoing idea because it feels unnecessarily long.

 

[Thinkaman]

The first annoyance with striking as a policy is that it really needs to have 5 or 9 (or 13) stages in the set to work organically. You can try alternate strike orders, but these often do not yield symmetric results and only serve to confuse new players even more.


There is also fundamental metagame problem with idea of separate neutral and counterpick stages. It will *always* be way more important to learn to play effectively on the neutrals than counter-pick stages. Under these systems, a wise player would focus most of their practice on neutrals.

These neutral-stage-focused players then in turn are politically incentivized to remove counterpick stages. This instigates the tautological cycle I mentioned earlier: Competitive play becomes about "neutral stages", so everything not on a neutral stage stops being "competitive play."

This would sound like a kooky conspiracy, but this is precisely how it went down in Melee, in Brawl, and in Smash 4.


So, I'm a big advocate of lots-of-legal-stages for counterpicks. But I'll be honest, there really isn't any good or best way of doing game 1.

• You could random from all legal stages, including "counterpick" stages. This has the possibility of really screwing over some matchupsat random though, and is not seriously considered.
• You could strike from all legal stages, including "counterpick" stages. This would take forever and be confusing to everyone; everyone would hate it and no one is advocating this.
• You could strike from a "neutral" list. This is relatively complicated and time consuming, and has all the problems associated with designating "neutral stages" I mentioned above.
• You could random from a "neutral" list. This is simpler, but now the neutral list is even more important and the random results can be unfair. Also, settings have to be verified--an incorrect random list could throw games into doubt.
• You could do every game 1 on the same stage. This is the simplest and fastest option. However, it has the highest risk of normalizing gameplay to a single stage and skewing competitive balance to character performance on this one stage.

There are pros and cons with all of them. Really, there isn't a good answer and I think all of them are about as good. You might be surprised that I, a "stage liberal" who pioneered stage striking, is equally comfortable with game 1 being striking, random, or Battlefield.


Let's talk about Battlefield for a second. If you are going to pick a single stage, in Melee, Brawl, Smash 4, and almost certainly in Ulti, Battlefield is the correct answer. Honestly, it's not even close.

It's not the perfect stage since there's no such thing. Like other popular "neutral" stages, it has a deep bias in favor of the static neutral. But insofar as one stage does have to be the technically statistically most fair, I'm pretty sure it's Battlefield in every game.

What else would it be? No one in their right mind would say FD. And it's not Smashville, which favored Brawl MK and Smash 4 Sheik, featured wild platform throws, screwed over Little Mac, and otherwise exhibits many of the same biases that FD does. Battlefield at least has the fairest platform heights and has a reasonable blast zone spread thanks to the upper platform. (It's not just a low or high ceiling, it's a high ceiling that sometimes acts like a medium or low ceiling.)

Smash Ulti offering Battlefield modes has no relevance on the competitive merits of stage policy, but at least it does bypass the big aesthetic annoyance of a one-stage game 1 protocol. It certainly is at least more relevant than FD Omega stages.

 

[Munomario777]

Another idea that's been thrown around in here is randomly selecting 5 or 7 stages from the whole legal stage pool, and then doing a game-1 strike on those. I think it'd help avoid the over-centralization introduced by a static list of neutrals, while also letting players correct for most imbalance caused by the RNG. The main problem is that the game doesn't have a built-in way to do this, so it'd have to be through some separate application or something.

 

[Phyvo]

You could always do what Brood War did and have a set sequence of stages for each tournament that varies with time. That is, every Bo3/Bo5 would go through the same 5 stages in the same sequence. Then for the next tournament or during the next "season" (for weeklies/biweeklies) you'd switch things up. Players would know what's coming next so they would know what to practice on. Yes, sometimes certain characters would be advantaged/disadvantaged but depending on how good the pool of stages is it would allow TOs to inject variety (good for viewership IMO), and you'd be less likely to have some stage on the counterpicking list that breaks some character on the roster for years until it becomes illegal.

Seems weird for a fighting game to do but given the number of stages and their importance for Smash I think it could work.

 

[Funen1]

I find it funny how I mentioned the idea of picking a small amount of stages from a bigger pool for use in a single set in a post on the first page of this thread, only to dismiss it because it would end up complicating things too much, and then a bunch of other people spent most of the rest of this thread to date trying to justify it. XD I think all the talk that was needed kinda proves my point of it being too complicated for people to consider using it over what we're already familiar with, even if what we're already familiar with is still massively flawed.

Anyway, I wanna go back to the list Thinkaman made for game 1 scenarios, specifically random with all legal stages. It's true that which stage is picked will end up dictating which matchups players might want (I alluded to players wanting as much control as possible in that first post I made), but I'm curious how much more you think that might end up nudging players towards top-tier characters that do well on any stage compared to what a very small stage list (including your possibility of only doing BF in game 1) already does. On a similar note, my first thought if this system were used would be that it would encourage people to have multiple characters so that they're never caught off-guard by whichever stage is picked, but given this community's mentality towards learning extra stages, I feel like they would end up extending that to learning multiple characters and dismiss it without even thinking about it. And judging from the mentalities of at least some TOs who've posted so far in this thread designed to sort out their "philosophy" towards Ultimate's ruleset, I believe I have every right to fear this.

One thing that makes me wonder if random stages could work in the first place is that Tekken apparently uses random select for every game, not just game 1, and the legal stages in Tekken apparently have extra features that different characters can use to different degrees of effectiveness. However, my understanding of what some of those "hazards" are like and how much that does swing certain matchups is very rudimentary at best. Could someone else who's more familiar with Tekken go more in-depth on that, if possible?

 

[MaestroDavros]

I find it funny how I mentioned the idea of picking a small amount of stages from a bigger pool for use in a single set in a post on the first page of this thread, only to dismiss it because it would end up complicating things too much, and then a bunch of other people spent most of the rest of this thread to date trying to justify it. XD I think all the talk that was needed kinda proves my point of it being too complicated for people to consider using it over what we're already familiar with, even if what we're already familiar with is still massively flawed.

Anyway, I wanna go back to the list Thinkaman made for game 1 scenarios, specifically random with all legal stages. It's true that which stage is picked will end up dictating which matchups players might want (I alluded to players wanting as much control as possible in that first post I made), but I'm curious how much more you think that might end up nudging players towards top-tier characters that do well on any stage compared to what a very small stage list (including your possibility of only doing BF in game 1) already does. On a similar note, my first thought if this system were used would be that it would encourage people to have multiple characters so that they're never caught off-guard by whichever stage is picked, but given this community's mentality towards learning extra stages, I feel like they would end up extending that to learning multiple characters and dismiss it without even thinking about it. And judging from the mentalities of at least some TOs who've posted so far in this thread designed to sort out their "philosophy" towards Ultimate's ruleset, I believe I have every right to fear this.

One thing that makes me wonder if random stages could work in the first place is that Tekken apparently uses random select for every game, not just game 1, and the legal stages in Tekken apparently have extra features that different characters can use to different degrees of effectiveness. However, my understanding of what some of those "hazards" are like and how much that does swing certain matchups is very rudimentary at best. Could someone else who's more familiar with Tekken go more in-depth on that, if possible?

I've only recently gotten into watching Tekken 7, so take my observations with that in mind.

Tekken 7 is interesting. To get this out of the way Smash has ledges that lead to death, Tekken doesn't.

Some stages have cosmetic alterations that remain throughout the match (you slam someone hard into the ground, it's permanent damaged for the remainder of the match). Beyond regular stages like these there are a few additional stage types. One are borderless stages, which don't have boundaries and go on forever. One stage in particular will collapse into a new area if damaged enough. Then there are dynamic stages. After a few rounds within a match, an event will take place (like ground giving way on a volcano level) and the layout will be quite different.

These types of differences are minor compared to what some of the hazards in Smash are like, but I've also seen some Smash stages banned for less.

Another note is that in Tekken 7, the randomizer is like a slot machine. As in, it will keep rapidly rotating around stages until someone stops it by button press.

Now it's time for my nihilistic side to come out (I kinda flip between that and optimism depending on my mood and the situation). I've come to realize that we probably aren't going to see much change in the way SSBU is run competitively. The major T.O.'s seem bent on adapting previous Smash rulesets into Ultimate instead of treating it like a new entity entirely. I predict we're going to see an ultra conservative stage list (starting at around 9-12, but ending up around 7-9 at best) and like Smash 4 whatever ruleset that the first major tournament utilizes will be the template for the next decade at least.

My view of the current state of competitive Smash is that it stifles creativity and innovation in favor of preserving a status quo that has been in place for a decade or more. Compared to other fighting games we're a lazy community; we fight against the basic idea of multiple mains because "it's too hard". But in other games having multiple mains is a necessity, you need to be able to adapt to a new situation. In Smash, the top players are top players because they turn Smash into a mathematical equation, with every single move planned and studied. Because of this, if you throw a wrench into that perfection (like, a stage that deviates from the norm) they throw a hissy fit. In other fighting games, while stages don't have as much impact as in Smash, the top players are top because they're damn good at the game. They don't need to look at it mathematically in order to just be inherently good at reading an opponent and knowing the right moment to strike. Competative SFV & T7 matches are viceral and raw, which makes them exciting to watch. Smash (especially Smash 4) is just coldly logical, and I just don't find that interesting or entertaining. I wonder why I keep turning off Smash tournaments and watching something else and well, there's why.

These are just my viewpoints so they don't speak for everyone, but that hopefully gives an insight into how I approach this topic.

 

[dav3yb]

Tekkens only real stage hazards are any stages that might have wall in it. The game is much more focused around the movement and mind games from those than probably any other fighting game I've seen. Being able to bait out an attack that lands you a whiff punish that you can manage to carry to a wall for extra damage. And I know some stages have no walls at all, and are kind of an "infinite" scrolling stage. I don't dabble in tekken enough to know exactly how this affects matchups or how people change their playstyle, but it's a thing.

 

[Jamison]

I've noticed a trend for a good while now and I honestly don't understand it. Is there some reason there seems to be such a negative view towards solo mains? Is it just a sm4sh thing?

Spoiler: Why so much hate for solo mains?

For the record I personally only consider myself a solo main for Smash 64. I was a solo main in Melee when I played Fox but when I switched off of Fox I used a lot of Falco/Marth/Sheik before settling on dual maining Marth/Sheik. I considered myself a tri-main in PM at the time I regularly played it using Mewtwo Fox and Roy. At the beginning of Sm4sh aka the Wii U launch (not 3DS) I was a solo Sheik main. But after Sheik's nerfs and DLC characters my Mario is arguably better and my Cloud is most likely better in doubles than any other character I just choose not to play him BC I don't want to be another Cloud.

I played sm4sh a decent amount for the first year it was out. I do occasionally check out top 8's of tournaments and I see a mix of players like Salem and Void that seem to be true solo mains and players like Nairo and MKleo who use a few different characters. Frankly, it seems to me that the reason they change characters is BC of a character MU and not BC of a stage. Granted I understand that a Sheik player might opt for a character change if they get counter-picked by Tweek to FD but that's more BC he's going DK with no platforms so ding-dong is a threat so it still feels like the character plays a much bigger role. This seems to be a trend through all smash games that the character MU is the major factor that affects whether or not someone uses a secondary.

Obviously in Smash 64 they only play on one stage so this would be the case. In Melee the top players use of secondaries is largely BC of a MU their main had trouble with. Armada's use of Young Link and Fox were due to Hungrybox's Puff being a hard counter to Armada's Peach. We've also seen players such as Westballz and Plup try to use Fox vs Hungrybox for the same reason. While Dreamland as a counter-pick has historically been helpful for Hungrybox it's mostly the character he plays that gets others to change THEIR character. Then you have M2K you uses Sheik and Marth. While his opponent's character usually dictates which of the two he plays sometimes stage has an affect as well. FD being typically great for Marth and it being a bad stage for Sheik in most MU's for example. But outside of the top top players most Melee players are solo mains. It isn't just oh everyone plays Fox either. You have plenty of Falcons, Falcos, Marths and Sheiks that are solo mains. But in the Melee community nobody gives you flack if you only play one character. Most people play one character BC they dedicate a lot of time practicing tech skill, studying MU's etc. These players spend hundreds if not thousands of hours trying to be the best they can be with one character. It honestly feels insulting to them to claim they think dual or tri-maining is too hard. Most people that compete still have jobs or school (some also allocate time to things like family, friends, relationships) so even if they wanted they simply couldn't put in the time for multiple characters and it has nothing to do with their laziness.

Now I understand that Melee has few "viable" characters and thus you typically see fewer MU's in general and therefore there's less likelihood of secondaries. You also don't have any super lopsided MU's playing the higher tiered 3rd of the roster. It's also a more technical game and therefore picking up a secondary would arguably be much more time consuming. Now Sm4sh has double the roster and more "viable" characters so secondaries are likely to become necessary for more players. I can't personalize speak to the laziness of players BC I obviously don't personally know most of them. It just feels like an unfair label to give a community. I also want to point out that with Ultimate's roster size potentially being triple that of Melee's secondaries will most likely be more common. You could play every single match on SV and I think you'd see more secondaries just BC of all the characters. I will admit that adding more stages would create more variables that would potentially be unfavorable and further necessitate secondaries for Ultimate. But I don't think it will have as large of an affect as many suspect. I still believe whether you use 7 or 27 stages it's predominantly going to be the character MU that primarily creates players to use secondaries. There are also factors such as an opponent's play style or how someone is feeling that day (they might have a higher ceiling skillwise with one character but a lower floor BC that character is harder to play for example). I personally don't feel stage list is a big factor in limiting the frequency of secondaries.

Spoiler: Ultimate doesn't need a revolution

As far as this whole viewpoint that the community isn't very open to major alterations, I feel that's overly pessimistic. From what we've seen of gameplay Ultimate is going to be a lot like Sm4sh, as in they will be the two smash games with the most fundamental similarities. So if Sm4sh tried different things that the community as a whole in the end felt didn't work i.e. duck hunt/custom moves why be so quick to dismiss what has already proven to be effective? I still think we should be open explore some changes. Most are in favor of more than 6 stages. Potentially upping the stock count for singles back up to 3 from 2 is also very much on the table.

Focusing on just stage count a lot of people believe if we start with a smaller list it will be unlikely the stage list would increase, at least significantly. IDK why so many want to completely revamp the system to such an extreme degree. I've done a couple different mock-ups of potential stage lists. I still think right now 8 stages is best but I have drafts of 13 stage lists that I think would be competitively viable. I don't think they are as competitive as any 7-10 stage list is. I feel there's simply this fixation on a large stage list having all these "positive" effects BC more stages is more entertaining to watch, creates more secondaries and there seems to be little thought on the "negative" effects. The more stages you add the more likely you are to make a character less viable at all and thus decrease their chances of tournament play. If there are more stages that means every character would have more bad stages and thus more fear of getting counter-picked to a bad stage. So you might see some game 2 character changes but with how little control one has over their opponent's counter-pick people are going to keep going back to comfort picks. That'll create a saturation of the high/top tiers. So if someone is playing the same "safe" character for games 1 and 3 they are less likely to keep using a secondary. Has anyone actually considered that more stages could limit the characters used? I can only speak for myself but I'd rather see 20 different characters on 8 stages than 8 different characters on 20 stages. But again that's just me. I'm sure I'll get quote in some counter-argument as to why I'm wrong and there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with scrapping a system we've built over years of fine tuning.

I just want to point out physical sports when they make rule changes or adjustments try to fine tune things and do them slowly over time with baby steps or trial periods. The NFL changes its rules every year. But they don't make these giant changes at once or they would segregate the fan base. That's exactly what some of these proposed ideas would do. If the first Ultimate tournaments use a 20 stage randomizer or has someone pick 4 stages out of 25 and let me pick me one I'm going to be far less inclined to compete or spectate. I assure you it's not out of laziness or fear. It's out of sheer disinterest and that's how the majority of smashers feel, or at the least the ones that have actually been to a tournament.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm not sure this is the best thread to talk about the merits of solo vs. multiple mains. But I do think it's worth noting that, other than Hungrybox and Jigglypuff, I'm legitimately struggling to think of any top level player who only uses a single character.

Now, to be fair, the reason for most secondaries is to cover unfavorable character matchups. But is there any particular reason you can't have a secondary to cover a bad stage? I know the subject of certain stages being bad news for solo character mains has come up before. Yet I'm not sure why picking up a secondary to cover unfavorable matchups is considered good strategy while picking up a secondary to cover unfavorable stages is considered a hardship.

I think that weird juxtaposition is what the sentiment is really about.

For my part, I think that if you want to be a solo main to the exclusion of all other characters, that's certainly your prerogative and I won't stop you, but I also think you have to accept the implicit risk that comes with such a commitment and realize that if you're not flexible enough to change characters then you leave yourself open to having your character choice exploited.

 

[Munomario777]

The more stages you add the more likely you are to make a character less viable at all and thus decrease their chances of tournament play. If there are more stages that means every character would have more bad stages and thus more fear of getting counter-picked to a bad stage. So you might see some game 2 character changes but with how little control one has over their opponent's counter-pick people are going to keep going back to comfort picks. That'll create a saturation of the high/top tiers.

More stages = more bad stages, but also more good stages (in terms of stages that favor or don't favor certain characters). If a character excels on X stage but that stage isn't included in a more restrictive ruleset, then that character is gonna be weakened by the exclusion of that stage. For this reason, small stagelists are not exempt from character bias like you're painting them out to be.

The existence of unfavorable stages (for a certain character) in the ruleset is why striking and other measures exist. If your character performs poorly on a certain stage, then because both game one and subsequent games give each player a degree of control over which stages are not played on, you can consistently avoid playing on that stage. Under many CP systems, the winner can even ban a small handful of stages, a number that can be changed depending on the size of the stagelist or any other factors.

 

[Jamison]

I do think it's worth noting that, other than Hungrybox and Jigglypuff, I'm legitimately struggling to think of any top level player who only uses a single character.

Leffen. That's it for the top 6. But it is noteworthy that as of late Mang0 has tried to go all Falco. Also, Plup went Sheik vs HBox recently splitting sets 1-1 in sheik vs puff. But that's only the top top players. Most of the top 100 even top 30 players are still solo mains. Many might experiment with secondaries but when a game has been around for so long and even the "newer" players have been playing Melee longer than Sm4sh has been out it's natural to mix things up just to keep things fresh. Even the players who dual main like Armada still use 1 character the majority of the time. M2K is prob about the only one who sorta splits his use of multiple characters in tournament play evenly. But even then Sheik has been his comfort pick and he goes Marth moreso when he feels it's a character advantage or if his Sheik isn't working in the set.

Small stage lists certainly have character bias as well, sorry if I said something that implied otherwise. That wasn't my intent. You could argue even that a small stage list has more character bias as currently in both Melee and Sm4sh you get no bans in bo5 so you have to go to your opponents best stage.

Spoiler: Stage List size yet again

FD is the best example as in every iteration of smash it is in, it has some significant MU advantage. As it is almost always the only "no platform" stage. I forget who said it so I apologize for not giving full credit but someone a couple days ago suggested rule of 3 but done with 9 stages. So a small, med, & lrg stage with large blast zones and also a sm, med, lrg stage with sm blast zones. This would in theory be a more balanced way of doing stages it's just we'd be reliant on Nintendo to make such stages and small stages with lrg blast zones are uncommon and lrg stages with small blast zones are sadly unheard of, least that I can think of off the top of my head. Heavy weight characters typically benefit from the small blast zones but they also have survivability so I could see how a large stage with smaller blast zones would help a heavy-weight character. Just like a large blast zones would help a floaty character as they often have great recoveries (kirby, peach, samus etc.) The game is likely going to have a meta that favors faster characters still. I can't picture ridley, dk, bowser ever being top tier but I expect sonic and sheik to stay relevant competitively. But part of the issue as I've stated previously with an expanded stage list is that most stages have platforms so it's hard to keep that spread balance when you we still don't have enough similar style stages. With the confirmation of Omega modes keeping things like stage size and blast zone size the same it means there's no difference at all. So I see it being very difficult to find FD esque stages to use.

You could argue some characters in sm4sh use FD as a gimmick. I'll use DK again as an example BC of ding-dong. But if you still give players bans and expand the stages you likely are only going to have one no platform stage, maybe Prism Tower so you get 1.5 stages but then you likely have to increase the bans with more stages and then that doesn't really become an option for DK if someone always has two bans. Granted a stage like Kalos could be used in similar fashion even with platforms but the strength of the counter-pick could then be weakened but still apparent. That's honestly preference and there's no right or wrong answer. I just feel the way I feel. I want a good spread of stages, so a no plat stage, a 1 plat stage, 2 plat etc. It's just there are only a couple 2 plat layouts and for 1 plat stages it feels as though you either use SV or Yoshi's Island (Brawl). But when you get to 3 plat stages you simply have more layout options. Look how similar kalos and PS are then look how different BF and Lylat are by comparison then you also have stages like Mario Bros U/Resent Bomb Forest as well. It's still all theory crafting now I just think the more stages the harder it becomes to get a fair even spread. I'd be very open to a let's get 2 of each type of stage instead of just one of each type but we simply don't have the stages currently to necessitate that same even spread IMO. The bigger you go the more imbalanced it gets.

My mindset is simply that ideally Nintendo balances the characters in a way that you won't have characters with as good of a MU spread as Bayo or Sheik in sm4sh. If a character is say top tier and has 60 even or winning match-ups but still has 12 losing MU's that could still be enough to get players to use secondaries. I don't like the notion of adding stages to try to create an environment that isn't conducive to solo mains or specifically that tries to force people to pick up more than one character.

Spoiler: The gameplay should hopefully be what causes secondaries not the stages

Hopefully the characters will do that themselves. If Nintendo gave us a character and the character is really good on say 18 stages but 2 of them they are bad at that's probably an imbalance. Ideally every character is going to be disadvantaged or advantaged by every stage whether a just slightly or massively. I personally just want to have stage selection be a lesser factor. After all, if the character MU is the biggest factor then it paves the way for more stages being more of a realistic option. My hope is that the blast zone size and platform layout are the major factors and there isn't some other reason (i.e. legalized Great Tower Plateau and a player chooses the stage BC of the ceiling and not BC of the platform or blast zones). I don't want to see stages get abused for survivability. Not saying a player shouldn't be able to pick a larger stage or wider blast zones for that reason I just don't want to see walls or ceilings. If we add in too many large stages then certain players will use them constantly and that in turn drags matches out. I still hope the pace of the game increases enough for 1v1 3-stock matches to make a return.

 

[WritersBlah]

As far as this whole viewpoint that the community isn't very open to major alterations, I feel that's overly pessimistic. From what we've seen of gameplay Ultimate is going to be a lot like Sm4sh, as in they will be the two smash games with the most fundamental similarities. So if Sm4sh tried different things that the community as a whole in the end felt didn't work i.e. duck hunt/custom moves why be so quick to dismiss what has already proven to be effective? I still think we should be open explore some changes. Most are in favor of more than 6 stages. Potentially upping the stock count for singles back up to 3 from 2 is also very much on the table.

Focusing on just stage count a lot of people believe if we start with a smaller list it will be unlikely the stage list would increase, at least significantly. IDK why so many want to completely revamp the system to such an extreme degree. I've done a couple different mock-ups of potential stage lists. I still think right now 8 stages is best but I have drafts of 13 stage lists that I think would be competitively viable. I don't think they are as competitive as any 7-10 stage list is. I feel there's simply this fixation on a large stage list having all these "positive" effects BC more stages is more entertaining to watch, creates more secondaries and there seems to be little thought on the "negative" effects. [...]

I just want to point out physical sports when they make rule changes or adjustments try to fine tune things and do them slowly over time with baby steps or trial periods. The NFL changes its rules every year. But they don't make these giant changes at once or they would segregate the fan base. That's exactly what some of these proposed ideas would do. If the first Ultimate tournaments use a 20 stage randomizer or has someone pick 4 stages out of 25 and let me pick me one I'm going to be far less inclined to compete or spectate. I assure you it's not out of laziness or fear. It's out of sheer disinterest and that's how the majority of smashers feel, or at the least the ones that have actually been to a tournament.
[/SPOILER]

Allow me to go on a bit of a personal tangent and tell you a little story. The prerelease announcement of Smash 4 got me really excited. I had dabbled in competitive Brawl in the past, but this game seemed leagues better, and I made a personal promise to start playing the game competitively from the start. Getting the 3DS version on release, I sunk hours into experimenting with stages, drawing up potential stagelists based off of previous ruling reasons on the SmashWiki, unlocking every single custom move, the works. I worked closely with the Smash Club at my university to propose my arguments for a ruleset, and though I didn't get everything I wanted, I got a lot more than I thought I would. The players at the tournament, however, were immediately dismissive and critical of my suggestions, despite never hearing my arguments. I warned the playerbase that being so conservative right off the bat would choke the meta and create a very static tournament style, but it seems that's exactly what they wanted. So I rolled with it.

I was also one of the first proponents of custom moves, using them in matches as early as the 3DS's second week. I was one of the only one in the area who had all the sets in the custom moveset project completed, so my 3DS got borrowed a lot to set up tournament sets in the area. After EVO, the community collectively decided that they didn't like custom moves and wanted to do vanilla exclusively. So I rolled with it.

Then Miis got banned from tournament play because they were an extension of custom moves. Then Duck Hunt got banned due to "polarizing gameplay." I was still attending tournaments, heck, I was actually improving significantly. But the truth of the matter was that I wasn't liking the way the competitive meta and rulesets we're headed. The last straw was when the community collectively tried to ban Lylat Cruise and the gentleman's clause. At that point, I had to ask myself whether it was worth continuing playing a game that I didn't enjoy playing. After continually being criticized online for holding on to my opinions, I decided it wasn't, and stopped playing Smash Bros competitively. That was two years ago now. The only reason I've come back recently is because my best friend moved away and I have nobody left to play Smash with, plus Ultimate's promise of having a different situation. I don't want the chance for something different to slip away from me, and that's why I'm fighting for a liberal stagelist so hard. I know I can't be the only one who supports the notion, and I know a ruleset like this would be competitively viable. So take that as you will.

 

[Jamison]

I know I can't be the only one who supports the notion, and I know a ruleset like this would be competitively viable. So take that as you will.

Firstly, I just wanna say you articulated your point very well and in a professional manner.

Spoiler: Both sides have merit but the majority usually gets their way

I wish I had a better answer for you other than well Ultimate will probably have 8 or 9 stages instead of 6. I personally usually like things very fair, very much just everything as competitive as possible. I'm that way in all games even when playing casually. Unfortunately for some that is a similar view many hold. So while some are very excited about hazard toggle and so many returning stages it seems as though the majority shares my opinion. I still think there should be some open mindedness and some of these ideas are worth exploring. I don't think we just dive first into the deep end but I do think things like 7 starters or 12 legal stages could work. I don't think they are as competitive and I still think you have to do what's right for the people competing above all us BC if your competitors aren't still having fun there won't be anyone playing for viewers to watch. That's just my opinion, so likewise you can take it for what it's worth.

As far as Sm4sh went I never wanted custom moves or Duck Hunt. But I tried to push for custom stages in tournament play but never got it. I know it's not the same as what you've tried and had to deal with but at least I can show you there's one facet of the game I wanted explored and was sad to see never given a try. You had people complaining about how similar BF and DL were, lots of people hating on Duck Hunt due to both the tree camping and average game duration and nobody was a fan of Lylat tilting. But you could recreate Lylat as a custom stage and it wouldn't have any tilting and that was never explored. I also tried to push for a custom Pokemon Stadium or at least something similar, a dual platform stage and that didn't happen either.

Now maybe I'm just lucky BC I happen to share the popular opinion in most things so that means I pretty much get I want. But few end up 100% satisfied with everything. So while I agree there should be some open-mindedness and we shouldn't dismiss everything outright I still feel a strong need for restraint because I fear we are going to change things too much from a system I personally think works. People can think the current system is bad, or that maybe it worked with old games but should be completely replaced with something different for the new game. That's fine. There's merit in all these varying opinions BC they all have pros and cons. I just feel sometimes people fixate on the pros too much and ignore the cons. I myself might be guilty of fixating on the cons BC I personally like what's in place. In the end even though we will likely see a little bit of everything early on as different locals try out different rulesets the way the large tournaments run often dictate how the smaller ones play out and eventually one ruleset gets adopted universally for better or worse. I wish I saw a better way of appeasing both sides on the stage debate but there doesn't really seem to be a great middle ground.

If say these big tournaments wanted to use a large stage list for pool play (20+ stages, randomizer, re-rolls whatever) I would be alright with that. It would make pools slightly less competitive but pools matches when a top player is involved are typically very one-sided and less interesting anyways. So a large stage count could spice thing up and likely wouldn't have a great impact on top players as they should all "win their pool easily" still. IDK how most intermediate players would feel but maybe it would help viewership for Fridays/early Saturday's of some events. Then we could switch to the more traditional limited stage list of around 8 stages for bracket play. Would that be something people would be willing to try out? You could start with a massive stage list and keep track of which stages are the most frequently re-rolled and subsequently remove them just as you could remove a stage if it offered too favorable of an advantage or we later decided it had too much "jank."

 

[Frihetsanka]

I'm not sure this is the best thread to talk about the merits of solo vs. multiple mains. But I do think it's worth noting that, other than Hungrybox and Jigglypuff, I'm legitimately struggling to think of any top level player who only uses a single character.

According to Armada, for Melee, not using a secondary/dual-main if you're a top 10 player might hold you back. Using a secondary/dual-main if you're not a top 10 player might also hold you back. Perhaps it's different for Smash 4 and Smash Ultimate, although I'm inclined to believe that most players, even top 100 players, are better off solo-maining. I imagine most or all of the people reading this thread are not and will not be top 100 players, so they'd be better off solo-maining.

I know the subject of certain stages being bad news for solo character mains has come up before. Yet I'm not sure why picking up a secondary to cover unfavorable matchups is considered good strategy while picking up a secondary to cover unfavorable stages is considered a hardship.

For most players, picking up a secondary to deal with unfavorable matchups is a bad strategy. It may be worth it for someone who plays at a top level and spends hundreds of hours to practice the new character (or something like that), but most players would be better off sticking to their main (unless, perhaps, they play a bottom 5 character or something like that).

So yeah, I don't give much merit to the whole "Just pick another character if you get a bad stage". It doesn't work like that, even Little Mac mains were often better off going Little Mac on Duck Hunt or Smashville rather than switching to a less practiced character. In many cases where people actually use a secondary it's because it's their former main, which changes things a bit (and even then, it probably would've been better to pick the "right" character to begin with, but that's sometimes easier said that done). Even someone like FOW would probably be better off playing Ness vs Rosalina instead of trying to pick up a secondary Cloud.

There's currently another thread specifically for this discussion, so I suggest we move this particular issue to that thread in order to not derail this thread and to not split discussion. Feel free to quote me or @ me in this thread if you want to address my points posted here: https://smashboards.com/threads/will-multiple-mains-be-necessary.456452/

 

[dav3yb]

So it's been confirmed by Nintendo that smash ultimate will be playable at EVO, so maybe we can get some people to do a bit of observational work on the stages. Anyone know someone who is going?

 

[Munomario777]

I don't like the notion of adding stages to try to create an environment that isn't conducive to solo mains or specifically that tries to force people to pick up more than one character.

Neither do I. I'm in favor of a large stage list because I want to be able to play on lots of stages. My opinion on how that affects solo mains is that it's far from a deal-breaker (because the impact is either small or non-detrimental).



It's not possible to balance a stagelist around the game, because the balance of the game is dependent on the stagelist. If FD makes up 1/7 of the stagelist, then characters like DK (good on FD) benefit. If FD makes up 1/20 of the stagelist, then other characters benefit. These effects are real and considerable, but it's wrong to say that one is objectively better than the other, assuming all of those stages are non-intrusive and good for gameplay and etc.

For this reason, the balance of characters shouldn't be considered something that determines a stagelist, but something that comes from the stagelist.



To make my full stance clear, I want to talk about a rather separate matter, which is the abundance of triplats. Depending on the CP or striking system used, there are options to mitigate the negative effects of this and preserve the positive ones.

I talked about this in a previous post, but my favorite that I've seen is where Player A chooses 3 stages, and Player B picks one of them. Player A may add as many triplats as he wants to his 3-stage list, but all of the triplats together count as only 1 of the 3 stages. This prevents Player A from forcing Player B to choose a triplat, while still allowing Player A to choose a specific triplat for whatever unique quirks it may have.

This same system could also apply to PS1 / PS2, and to FD / omegas / Wily. I'd say Kalos is too distinct to lump in with the two Stadiums myself, because of all the places those two platforms could be, above the ledge is among the most impactful.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

So it's been confirmed by Nintendo that smash ultimate will be playable at EVO, so maybe we can get some people to do a bit of observational work on the stages. Anyone know someone who is going?

I'm going, but I am not sure how much i'll be able to do in terms of seeing which stages work, but I'll see what I can find out with potentially some hazardless setups?

 

[dav3yb]

I'm going, but I am not sure how much i'll be able to do in terms of seeing which stages work, but I'll see what I can find out with potentially some hazardless setups?

The MAIN stage to check out is Green Greens. Also the setups at CEO allowed for hazards off, so I'm sure they'll do the same for EVO.

If you check the bottom of the first post in Amazing Ampharos's thead here (https://smashboards.com/threads/stage-changes-when-hazard-toggle-is-on.456624/) you can see which stages haven't really been documented yet. Green Greens is still the main one since there is very little chance any other stage will be tournament legal simply due to them being walk-offs (and new pork city being another massive stage).

Best of luck!

 

[Jamison]

I'd say Kalos is too distinct to lump in with the two Stadiums myself, because of all the places those two platforms could be

I haven't seen any Kalos gameplay yet but I just assumed the platforms would always be over to the sides. Is this not the case? BC two plats to the side is kind of a stage in between FD and PS. The platforms are less likely to interrupt combos BC of the natural gravitation to the center of the stage. The platforms on Kalos are closer to the side blast zones compared to PS, and since the plats hang over the ledge it hampers the approach options slightly compared to plats that are more centered. Like I could dash dance under the plats but I can't do that to the same extent on Kalos.

I agree with you on the tri plats. I think it's a big factor to consider. It's not just an abundance of tri plats but a lack of no plats and even 1 or 2 plat stages. At best I think we have a couple of each type then a plethora of triple plats.

I'm personally not completely sold on one player giving another a small selection. If it were obvious which 3 stages were the worst their opponent would always pick those stages. Likewise, if they knew which two stages were the worst someone giving them a pick of 3 stages doesn't mean much as you know which stage of the 3 they will always pick. Why not just let me ban the two stages I don't want first? If I just get two bans you'd potentially have a larger variety of stages as your top 2 picks might not be my two least favorite. It makes counter-picks potentially weaker. Which you may or may not prefer. I don't think it's a horrible idea though. I do think it would work. You'd likely yield very similar results to a pick your poison out of these 3 or just ban 2. I just think it's a bit more streamlined to use bans.

I personally disagree with characters not affecting a stage list. Since historically stages with lopsided MU's has been considered a reason to not use a stage I think that should still be a part of the consideration of the stage. With so many characters it would be impossible for certain very advantageous stage/character combos to not come about. If a large stage list made 1 out of 70 characters not viable it's a non-issue as far as my concern. But if you don't have an even spread of stage types it could alienate several characters from competitive viability. Like if every heavy weight character hypothetically benefited from no plats and the only no plat stages are FD and no hazard Wily's under these proposed ideas no plat stages would be banned every time forcing someone to play on platformed stages 5 games in a row. If you don't have enough stages to properly balance out the spread you hurt certain characters/playstyles too much IMO.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

The MAIN stage to check out is Green Greens. Also the setups at CEO allowed for hazards off, so I'm sure they'll do the same for EVO.

If you check the bottom of the first post in Amazing Ampharos's thead here (https://smashboards.com/threads/stage-changes-when-hazard-toggle-is-on.456624/) you can see which stages haven't really been documented yet. Green Greens is still the main one since there is very little chance any other stage will be tournament legal simply due to them being walk-offs (and new pork city being another massive stage).

Best of luck!

Thanks i'll be checking into that for sure, and i'll see if I get the chance to test it out.

 

[Untouch]

I have a feeling that even if the blocks don't spawn in hazardless green greens, the stage layout might be problematic for Ness/Lucas.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have a feeling that even if the blocks don't spawn in hazardless green greens, the stage layout might be problematic for Ness/Lucas.

Possibly, but IIRC the main part of the stage itself doesn't extend too far down and Ness/Lucas have monstrous double jumps so they could plausibly make their way underneath the stage to the ledge on the other side.

It's one of those things where we really need to see how it plays out in a real situation, just theorycrafting answers isn't enough.

 

[Vulgun]

Thanks i'll be checking into that for sure, and i'll see if I get the chance to test it out.

Would you mind also gathering some information on Great Plateau Tower? The two crucial things I want to know are the ceiling's health and how damage scales as the knockback of opponents increases.

There are other minor things, such as:
--If hitting the tower stales your move.
--If sandwiching an opponent between the tower and a multi-hit will cause it to collapse faster, or if they won't bump into it at all.
--How the ceiling could affect gameplay in a competitive sense, both with and without it.

Any chance you can give me word on these if you try it out? The priority is an estimate on how much health the tower has.

I'm mainly asking so that I can add some of this info in on the wiki.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

Would you mind also gathering some information on Great Plateau Tower? The two crucial things I want to know are the ceiling's health and how damage scales as the knockback of opponents increases.

There are other minor things, such as:
--If hitting the tower stales your move.
--If sandwiching an opponent between the tower and a multi-hit will cause it to collapse faster, or if they won't bump into it at all.
--How the ceiling could affect gameplay in a competitive sense, both with and without it.

Any chance you can give me word on these if you try it out? The priority is an estimate on how much health the tower has.

I'm mainly asking so that I can add some of this info in on the wiki.

I will certainly try, but I can't promise anything considering I have no idea how many attempts i'll get to play the game or anything.

But I will try,

 

[NewGuy79]

I'm going, but I am not sure how much i'll be able to do in terms of seeing which stages work, but I'll see what I can find out with potentially some hazardless setups?

Another important thing to look out for would be how traveling stages operate with hazards off.

Important aspects to note would be: where the stage starts (on the initial walk off or in the air), how travel works ( do we land at all or are we stuck with the default layout) and if it's still possible for the stage to kill you ( can platforms carry you off/ can the stage hit you)

Right now the best stage to test this on would be Prism tower where all but the last point can probably be tested.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

Another important thing to look out for would be how traveling stages operate with hazards off.

Important aspects to note would be: where the stage starts (on the initial walk off or in the air), how travel works ( do we land at all or are we stuck with the default layout) and if it's still possible for the stage to kill you ( can platforms carry you off/ can the stage hit you)

Right now the best stage to test this on would be Prism tower where all but the last point can probably be tested.

Ok so Green Greens, Prism Tower and Great Plateau.

I'll note these down for when I get to that booth.

 

[Untouch]

Possibly, but IIRC the main part of the stage itself doesn't extend too far down and Ness/Lucas have monstrous double jumps so they could plausibly make their way underneath the stage to the ledge on the other side.

It's one of those things where we really need to see how it plays out in a real situation, just theorycrafting answers isn't enough.

Yeah, it's worth testing out.
If the stage doesn't pose a problem, it would potentially be a really great stage layout.

It was banned in brawl and melee primarily because of wall infinite which wouldn't be a problem. Also camping apparently? I don't see how this level promotes camping though.

 

[Munomario777]

We already know how prism tower behaves with hazards off. It seems unchanged from the hazards on version. (unless there's a new build of the demo or something?)

 

[dav3yb]

I wonder if people are thinking stages like green greens and jungle japes will be campy is due to the outer "island" platforms. If you get a lead, you could try and stick to one of those which might make it more unfavorable to approach. I honestly don't see how this should cause a stage to be banned, since it promotes control of the stage, which should be part of the game imho.

 

[Untouch]

I can vaguely see Kongo Jungle due to how small the platform is, but i can't see Green Greens being campy.

 

[NewGuy79]

We already know how prism tower behaves with hazards off. It seems unchanged from the hazards on version. (unless there's a new build of the demo or something?)

oh is this correct? I actually didn't know, thx for the info.

 

[lordvaati]

Another important thing to look out for would be how traveling stages operate with hazards off.

Important aspects to note would be: where the stage starts (on the initial walk off or in the air), how travel works ( do we land at all or are we stuck with the default layout) and if it's still possible for the stage to kill you ( can platforms carry you off/ can the stage hit you)

Right now the best stage to test this on would be Prism tower where all but the last point can probably be tested.

At the very least on the 3DS version I can confirm the side platforms do not carry you up to your death(despite them glowing red funny enough.)
If Lumisose/Prism Tower is unaffected by Hazard toggle then it should be pretty much the same.

 

[Untouch]

How much of the "camping" on Jungle Falls is only possible because of melee's mechanics?
Seems to me like removing the barrel stops circle camping and the floatier fall speed of ultimate should make camping on the rock significantly less viable.

 

[lordvaati]

Yeah I wonder about the rock too. For one Melee had a different ledge grabbing system, and on top of that characters with more unsafe recoveries. Even Little Mac might not struggle as bad due to his new Haymaker mechanics compared to the Melee cast.

Definitely at the top of the play test list IMO.

 

[Thinkaman]

To be an unnecessary devil's advocate, Kongo Falls's rock provides an alternate dominant position unlike any stage without walkoffs or a loop.

Fighting your way onto the rock is similarly difficult as fighting your way onto the main stage. This situation does not occur on any other stage except maybe Hanenbow.

This matters because it clashes with both the time-out mechanics that are in the game, and the totally made up ones we use. Both systems encourage one player to indefinitely retreat to a more advantageous position. In providing more than one "obviously advantageous position" simultaneously at all times, the stage discourages conflict in a similar way to loops.

It's not as severe as loops, but worse than say Duck Hunt.

 

[Spartacus5]

Are you still able to jump through the floor on Kongo falls like in melee?

 

[IsmaR]

Are you still able to jump through the floor on Kongo falls like in melee?

For the most part, it looks like it works identically to Melee, so yes.

-

Haven't seen anyone post it anywhere, but some stock/hazardless set play surfaced from SDCC on Great Plateau Tower.

Since hazardless means the Tower itself never breaks, I imagine it would be preferable to not set the hazard toggle to off in an ideal set up. That said, there's not much degenerate play that goes on (aside from things like up throw into up tilt/smash a few times, though I'm assuming you would just be able to tech anyway).

Obviously not any kind of evidence of anything substantial, given the players don't really try to go for cheese (camping in the middle to survive longer) and that it's not top level play in the first place, but I still think the stage should be given a fair shake. Unless they change hazardless to be the platform in a future build, at least.

 

[Untouch]

I feel as if plateau tower isn't suitable with or without hazards, level just looks absolutely way too small.

 

[dav3yb]

I feel as if plateau tower isn't suitable with or without hazards, level just looks absolutely way too small.

The main platform looks bigger to me than normal, but that's probably because most of what i've seen on it has been 4 player FFA. But I agree that it doesn't look suitable. Certainly with Hazards off with it keeping a permanent cave of life, which generally get's a stage axed pretty quick.

 

[Untouch]

I just feel like the massive tower in the middle of the stage takes up a huge amount of the stage real-estate and almost forces characters to either the edge or the cave of life.