Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[Untouch]

I appreciate this tourney for doing a solid job explaining why stages are banned.

 

[Munomario777]

Balloon Fight also looks to have normal blast zones instead of the wrap-around edges... interesting. This stage actually looks really fun for casual play, and the visuals are nice

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Okay Mario Maker just put up an absurdly simple layout. But considering it's Mario Maker, I don't think we can draw any conclusions from a sample size of one.

Agree/disagree?

Also yes a good number of these stages (I assume it's on random select) are obviously banned and irredeemable.

 

[Untouch]

Mario Maker: Stage looks pretty plain, can't tell if it isn't random though as this is the first time I've seen it appear. If it always appears like this, legal?
Stage does look a bit large...

 

[dav3yb]

Mario Maker is up:

looks like the background/textures change, but the initial layout it drops sticks around. would have to see more to really see how it acts.

 

[ShneeOscar]

Even if Mario Maker Hazardless never has lava or other problematic things, that fact that it's randomly generated still makes it banned.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Mario Maker is up:

looks like the background/textures change, but the initial layout it drops sticks around. would have to see more to really see how it acts.

Mario Maker's layout is always static over the course of a match, one match tells us nothing. We need a solid sample size.

EDIT: Lylat doesn't tilt but we knew that already.

 

[dav3yb]

Mario Maker's layout is always static over the course of a match, one match tells us nothing. We need a solid sample size.

Shows how much i've played on it

I was remembering anything with breakable blocks would get re-drawn after a while.

 

[ShneeOscar]

Lylat doesn't tilt, and I didn't see any ledge shenanigans, so no reason to ban it.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Like Mario Maker, Gamer gave us a very inoffensive layout, but we need a bigger sample size to draw conclusions. 5-Volt aka Silent Hill Mom is absent, of course.

 

[Untouch]

I think I've seen Gamer show up multiple times with different layouts but I may be wrong.
5 Volt doesn't appear.

 

[Munomario777]

If the layout isn’t RNG, this looks really solid :o

 

[Untouch]

Tortimer's Island does NOT have a consistent layout between games with hazardless is off.

 

[Munomario777]

Tortimer's Island does NOT have a consistent layout between games with hazardless is off.

Hopefully that’s not an indication of how mario maker and gamer behave, I really hope those two have static layouts

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Tortimer's Island does NOT have a consistent layout between games with hazardless is off.

I assume you saw another match there earlier? No fruit or sharks at least.

Does a random layout automatically disqualify a stage provided no possible configuration is abuseable?

 

[Untouch]

I assume you saw another match there earlier? No fruit or sharks at least.

Does a random layout automatically disqualify a stage provided no possible configuration is abuseable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r5b-Lf1NCo
I don't think random stages are always bad, but commonly the random parts have had issues.

Kongo Jungle 64: Platforms don't move.

 

[Munomario777]

As if kongo couldn’t get any canopy-campier, now the platforms are stuck at the top lol

 

[ParanoidDrone]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r5b-Lf1NCo
I don't think random stages are always bad, but commonly the random parts have had issues.

Kongo Jungle 64: Platforms don't move.

JFC what did they do to Kongo Jungle. That's awful. Banned.

Re: Tortimer Island, while the water might be a contentious issue (it's annoying but I'm not convinced it's abusable yet) I think the removal of the shark and fruit means the solid part of the stage, at least, should be pretty problem-free.

 

[Untouch]

Wait is this a different layout for New Donk City?
It is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as4BP8j_Y-o&feature=youtu.be&t=3385
This was at the Japanese event, with hazards on. Is the layout random? They never mentioned that.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Wait is this a different layout for New Donk City?
It is...

IIRC Prism Tower would skip some of its stops each cycle. New Donk probably acts the same.

 

[Munomario777]

New Donk looks pretty good! Couple of weird layouts in there, but each lasts so short it probably shouldn’t be an issue? I’m all for giving it a shot.

 

[dav3yb]

Does a random layout automatically disqualify a stage provided no possible configuration is abuseable?

I would pretty much assume yes. if there's a stage that gives a layout similar to pokemon stadium, and you like that because of how your character can use the platforms, but you get an FD version instead, then pretty much no one is going to risk it I think.

 

[Untouch]

IIRC Prism Tower would skip some of its stops each cycle. New Donk probably acts the same.

Judging by the position of this tarped building, it's at the same position.



This one is not a walkoff and has the platforms closer to the stage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I would pretty much assume yes. if there's a stage that gives a layout similar to pokemon stadium, and you like that because of how your character can use the platforms, but you get an FD version instead, then pretty much no one is going to risk it I think.

I would think the mere fact that it's random in the first place means no one would pick it hoping for a specific layout because the odds are very much not in their favor for that.

U Untouch I might not be understanding your initial confusion. What did you mean when you first said "Wait is this a different layout for New Donk City? It is..."

 

[Munomario777]

I would think the mere fact that it's random in the first place means no one would pick it hoping for a specific layout because the odds are very much not in their favor for that.

Why would anyone pick it then, over a stage with a guaranteed layout?

 

[Untouch]

I would think the mere fact that it's random in the first place means no one would pick it hoping for a specific layout because the odds are very much not in their favor for that.

U Untouch I might not be understanding your initial confusion. What did you mean when you first said "Wait is this a different layout for New Donk City? It is..."

The third transformation of New Donk City has a different layout in each of the videos.
It appears to be over now.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Why would anyone pick it then, over a stage with a guaranteed layout?

Because they felt like it? It's not a question of "why allow it" but "why ban it" (from the ruleset, not striking or whatever).

EDIT U Untouch :

Prism Tower, Mario Circuit, and now apparently New Donk City Hall, are not guaranteed to stop at all layouts in sequence each time it cycles through. So if you have layouts A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, the stage could go A B C E G B D E G H A C D G B...in no particular pattern.

 

[Munomario777]

Because they felt like it? It's not a question of "why allow it" but "why ban it" (from the ruleset, not striking or whatever).

In competitive, you pick a stage because it gives you a better chance of winning

Unless each transformation is very similar, RNG layouts won’t give you an advantage in the same way as a consistent stage will

If Battlefield only had a 50% chance of having platforms, it wouldn’t have a place in competitive. Players who benefit from the triplat would rather pick Dreamland, and players who benefit from the featureless stage would rather pick FD

For this reason, even if there’s nothing inherently wrong with any individual transformation, stages whose layout is dependent in RNG don’t have a place in competitive imo. They pretty much always have a tactically superior alternative, so why include them in the first place?

Additionally, they introduce an element of RNG that can determine the outcome of a match. If you pick the hypothetical Random Battlefield I was talking about in hopes that it chooses the triplat variant but it chooses the featureless variant instead, you’re at a significant disadvantage / lose a significant advantage through no fault of your own, which is also a reason we don’t use items / stage hazards

 

[ParanoidDrone]

In competitive, you pick a stage because it gives you a better chance of winning

Unless each transformation is very similar, RNG layouts won’t give you an advantage in the same way as a consistent stage will

If Battlefield only had a 50% chance of having platforms, it wouldn’t have a place in competitive. Players who benefit from the triplat would rather pick Dreamland, and players who benefit from the featureless stage would rather pick FD

For this reason, even if there’s nothing inherently wrong with any individual transformation, stages whose layout is dependent in RNG don’t have a place in competitive imo. They pretty much always have a tactically superior alternative, so why include them in the first place?

Additionally, they introduce an element of RNG that can determine the outcome of a match. If you pick the hypothetical Random Battlefield I was talking about in hopes that it chooses the triplat variant but it chooses the featureless variant instead, you’re at a significant disadvantage / lose a significant advantage through no fault of your own, which is also a reason we don’t use items / stage hazards

"No one uses it" should not be a reason to ban something in my book. Either it's abusable/degenerate, and therefore banned, or it's not, and therefore allowed.

 

[Munomario777]

"No one uses it" should not be a reason to ban something in my book. Either it's abusable/degenerate, and therefore banned, or it's not, and therefore allowed.

:shrug: I just don’t think it’s really worth including a stage if there’s no reason to ever pick it

IMO the actively degenerate thing about random stages is that you don’t know what layout you’ll get. In ultimate (and many rulesets for past games) you choose stage before character, so you can choose a character based on the chosen stage

In this way, RNG stages screw with that dynamic, and are gonna often end up benefitting one of the two players based on random chance. If that Random Battlefield ends up picking the triplat in a match between ZSS and Mac, ZSS gets an advantage due to RNG

(Not that there’s really an example of this anyway from what I’ve seen. Mario Maker, Gamer, and Ferox – the stages where we don’t know if there’s RNG in hazardless – all have bad transformations, and Tortimer has issues with water regardless)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

:shrug: I just don’t think it’s really worth including a stage if there’s no reason to ever pick it

IMO the actively degenerate thing about random stages is that you don’t know what layout you’ll get. In ultimate (and many rulesets for past games) you choose stage before character, so you can choose a character based on the chosen stage

In this way, RNG stages screw with that dynamic, and are gonna often end up benefitting one of the two players based on random chance. If that Random Battlefield ends up picking the triplat in a match between ZSS and Mac, ZSS gets an advantage due to RNG

(Not that there’s really an example of this anyway from what I’ve seen. Mario Maker, Gamer, and Ferox – the stages where we don’t know if there’s RNG in hazardless – all have bad transformations, and Tortimer has issues with water regardless)

I don't see how knowing the chosen stage has a random layout, then gambling via character choice that whatever layout it picks won't hurt you, can be anything but the fault of the player. That's what secondaries and strikes (or vetoes) are for.

I actually didn't consider that Arena Ferox could randomly pick one of its forms for hazards off and I really hope it's just statues all the time because that's by far the best one.

 

[Untouch]

In my opinion, the stuff we saw today and already know...

Legal (Singles)
Battlefield
Final Destination
Prism Tower
Pokemon Stadium 1
Pokemon Stadium 2
WarioWare
Yoshi's Island Brawl
Unova Pokemon League
Dream Land
Castle Siege
Town and City
Umbra Clock Tower
Wily's Castle
Dracula's Castle
Skyloft
Frigate Orpheon
Fountain of Dreams
Smashville
Kalos Pokemon League
Yoshi's Story Melee
Lylat Cruise
Rainbow Cruise
Wuhu Island

Legal (Doubles)
Green Greens
Norfair
Mushroom Kingdom U
Reset Bomb Forest

More Research Needs To Be Done
Gamer (Random?)
New Donk City (Random?)
Arena Ferox (Random?)
Mario Maker (Random?)
Halberd (Blast Zone Issue)
Magicant (Platform under the stage?)
Pictochat (Hazardless?)
Midgar (Hazardless?)

 

[Munomario777]

I’m going to assume that “you can just always strike it” isn’t a good argument. If it’s always optimal to use one of your limited strikes on a stage because of degenerative elements, it’s probably too degenerate

(And in the case of an RNG stage, it’s definitely always in your favor to strike it / avoid playing on it, as this gives you a 100% chance of being able to choose a good fighter for the stage)

In that light, it’s the fault of the player for choosing the RNG stage, that’s correct. However, this decision screws over both players and turns stage selection into a roll of the dice, where your character may or may not thrive / suffer on the stage. This is not good for competitive play

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I’m going to assume that “you can just always strike it” isn’t a good argument. If it’s always optimal to use one of your limited strikes on a stage because of degenerative elements, it’s probably too degenerate

(And in the case of an RNG stage, it’s definitely always in your favor to strike it / avoid playing on it, as this gives you a 100% chance of being able to choose a good fighter for the stage)

In that light, it’s the fault of the player for choosing the RNG stage, that’s correct. However, this decision screws over both players and turns stage selection into a roll of the dice, where your character may or may not thrive / suffer on the stage. This is not good for competitive play

I'm still not completely convinced, and there is such a thing as Confusion Fu where trying to **** with your opponent is the point -- a random layout stage would fall under that paradigm to a degree, especially if you have a high risk tolerance and/or use a character that's good on a wide variety of layouts. But you make a good argument.

 

[webbedspace]

My predictions for what the list will shake out as:

Starters
* Tri-plat (Battlefield)
* Wide two-plat (Kalos Pokémon League)
* Medium two-plat (Pokémon Stadium 1 or 2, whichever has higher ceiling)
* One-plat (Smashville hazardless OR Yoshi's Island Brawl)
* Zero-plat (Final Destination)

Others
* Quad-plat (WarioWare)
* Narrow two-plat (Unova Pokémon League)
* Mixed (Town and City)

All the ones with tilted terrain (Castle Siege, Arena Ferox, Yoshi's Story, Skyloft,) or walls (Dracula's Castle, Frigate Orpheon) will probably be ignored for being suboptimal or inelegant compared to the above. The other tri-plats (FoD, Dream Land 64, Midgar) will also be ignored for being too similar to BF.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So out of 20 or so perfectly good looking stages, you're seriously proposing we limit ourselves to 8?

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Smashville is static with hazards off.

I’m actually down for this, no more starterville hopefully?

LOL, I fricking called it.

 

[DJ3DS]

So, I'm now considering what an updated list of "legal" stages might be based on todays footage, for my local club at least. Any discussion on where I'm considering placing things is welcomed. Generally I want to be as open as possible; I like more stages, not less. I would largely only ban a stage based on definite abusable mechanics (stage hazards, permanent walk-offs, unreasonable camping positions) and it's likely that if you disagree with me on something, it's that you think a stage is more abusable than I realise, in which case I would love to understand more what the issues are. I'm not here to debate certain stage redundancies, that's something to worry about later.

Also, I don't really want to make a starter/counterpick distinction at present.

Spoiler

Banned stages:
1) Big Battlefield - It's huge and campable.
2) Moray Towers - It's similarly campable, I think.
3) Great Plateau Tower - It's a shame, because I really like this stage, but with Hazards Off likely being a universal default it actually has more problems.
4) Hyrule Castle - it's too campable.
5) Mushroom Kingdom 64 - Permanent walkoffs.
6) Saffron City - Does this have the same issues as Fourside.
7) Yoshi's Island 64 - With clouds confirmed still here, it is potentially excessively large and conducive to camping.
8) Corneria - the guns are an absurdly abusable camping position now that the guns don't fire.
9) Fourside - very campable and issues with holes between buildings for Ness and Lucas.
10) Great Bay - It's very long and the left platform is very close to the blastzone. I would be surprised to see it not being abused.
11) Hyrule - Still too big and campable e.g. someone like Incineroar can likely do nothing to a ROB or Villager who wants to do reverse hyrule jump.
12) Jungle Japes - water will still kill you.
13) Mushroom Kingdom II - permanent walkoffs.
14) Onett - Permanent walkoffs.
15) Princess Peach's Castle (Melee) - The wall makes it too easy to camp and runaway.
16) Venom - Lower wings are too strong a camping position.
17) Yoshi's Island - permanent walkoff.
18) Bridge of Eldin - permanent walkoffs.
19) Distant Planet - permanent walkoff.
20) Figure-8 Circuit - permanent walkoff.
21) Green Hill Zone - permanent walkoffs.
22) Hanenbow - seems very campable
23) Luigi's Mansion - caves of life
24) Mario Bros - permanent walkoffs, caves of life
25) Mushroomy Kindom - permanent walkoffs
26) New Pork City - too big and campable.
27) Pirate Ship - the water is still there and the ship probably still spikes you.
28) Port Town Aero Dive - several walkoff transformations and the track underneath.
29) Shadow Moses Island - the walls seem very problematic, but I'd be happy to be wrong.
30) Skyworld - caves of life
31) Spear Pillar - caves of life
32) Summit - caves of life
33) 75m - permanent walkoff, camping.
34) Balloon Fight - permanent walkoffs.
35) Boxing Ring - permanent walkoffs.
36) Coliseum - permanent walkoffs.
37) Dream Land GB - permanent walkoffs.
38) Flatzone X - permanent walkoffs.
39) Gaur Plain - permanent walkoffs.
40) Gerudo Valley - permanent walkoffs.
41) Golden Plains - permanent walkoffs.
42) Living Room - permanent walkoffs.
43) Mario Circuit - background can damage you at certain times.
44) Mario Galaxy - permanent walkoffs.
45) Mute City SNES - the road underneath looks like it would be an issue.
46) Pac-Land - permanent walkoffs.
47) Palutena's Temple - absurd size and camping ability.
48) Pilotwings - the background still damages you and the lower wings are still a strong camping spot.
49) Spirit Train - the tracks are still there.
50) Suzaku Castle - still has a permanent walkoff.
51) Great Cave Offensive - probably literally every problem a stage can possibly have.
52) Tomodachi Life - too campable.
53) Tortimer Island - still random, water might be an issue but I'd love to be proven wrong.
54) Wii Fit Studio - permanent walkoffs.
55) Windy Hill Zone - too campable.
56) Wrecking Crew - too campable.
57) 3D Land - permanent walkoffs.
58) Paper Mario - permanent walkoff.

Needs further testing:
1) Dracula's Castle - I adore this stage and don't see any particular issues personally, but I think it does depend on whether the walls and stairs are abusable.
2) New Donk City Hall - This will depend on how abusable the transformations are. At least two have temporary walkoffs and it'll depend how these affect the game overall.
3) Kongo Jungle 64 - The only issue is whether you can camp the high platforms effectively. I'm on the fence personally as I would adore it but it has definite problems for some characters (like Little Mac).
4) Peach's Castle 64 - No bumper, better ledges and stationary lower ledge is promising. I think it should be looked into further.
5) Big Blue - have we seen this hazardless? If it consisted of the ship alone with nothing underneath, it seems completely fine to me, if perhaps redundant with FD. If we still have the road underneath I'd move it towards banned.
6) Brinstar Depths - With no Kraid and no stage rotation, it depends on the size and whether there are any abusable positions - I don't really know.
7) Green Greens - No blocks or apples, so it depends whether the side platforms can be abused.
8) Kongo Falls - it depends on how strong the rock is as a camping position. I guess it will probably be banned.
9) Delfino Plaza - is it still abusable during transformations?
10) Halberd - same thing as Delfino really.
11) Norfair - depends how campable the stage is. Interesting layout though.
12) Duck Hunt - the tree is a problem but only for certain matchups. Depends how many bans we get because obviously some characters like Mac are completely screwed by it.
13) Find Mii - The layout is interesting but the tower may be abusable and I don't know if the cage is an issue.
14) Gamer - based on Tortimer Island I don't know if it's still random and if so, what the other layouts even are.
15) Garden of Hope - I'm not sure if the size is too conducive to camping.
16) Magicant - depends entirely on whether the abusable lower platform is still there, which I'm not sure about.
17) Mushroom Kingdom U - no transformations so it depends on whether the size is abusable.
18) Pictochat 2 - I basically know nothing about the hazardless version of this stage.
19) Reset Bomb Forest - no transformations now so it's worth trying and seeing if the layout is an issue.
20) Super Mario Maker - same as Gamer.

Legal:
1) Battlefield - obvious.
2) Final Destination - obvious.
3) Dreamland 64 - obvious; BF clone with potentially different blastzones.
4) Brinstar - unique layout, no hazards, no breaking, no obvious abusable positions.
5) Fountain of Dreams - BF layout clone.
6) Pokemon Stadium - no transformations.
7) Rainbow Cruise - just the ship seems like a unique, fun layout with no immediate issues.
8) Yoshi's Story - just a triplat.
9) Castle Siege - no transformations and there's nothing really wrong with the first layout.
10) Frigate Orpheon - Unique layout, no more ledge issues.
11) Lylat Cruise - fun unique layout without being messed by tilting now.
12) Pokemon Stadium 2 - same as PS1.
13) Smashville - I hate the stage but it's completely fine.
14) Warioware Inc - fun new unique layout without hazards.
15) Yoshi's Island Brawl - basically now Smashville with slightly weirder main platform for projectiles.
16) Arena Ferox - fun unique layout. No obvious abuses.
17) Kalos Pokemon League - no transformations and the two side platforms don't seem immediately abusable.
18) Midgar - triplat
19) Prism Tower - I never saw an issue with this on 3DS and the same holds here.
20) Skyloft - my understanding is it doesn't transform now, so unless sharking is proven to be an issue it should be fine.
21) Town and City - See Smashville.
22) Umbra Clock Tower - isn't this basically FD now?
23) Unova Pokemon League - highly reminiscent of Stadium now as doesn't transform and no hazards.
24) Wily Castle - See Umbra
25) Wuhu Island - no transformations so only issue is whether or not it's too long.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Paper Mario has a permanent walkoff.

 

[DJ3DS]

Paper Mario has a permanent walkoff.

It's been a while since I played it, so I'd completely forgotten about this - thanks for the reminder.