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Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

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ExceptionalBeasts

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In regards to hazards on/off, a potential solution to including both without possibility of playing on hazards-on stages: In previous Smash games if you had stage select set to "Turns" or "Loser's Pick" or whatever, the SSS cursor would have an icon showing "P1", "P2", etc depending on whose turn it was. If we had that on, it would be easy to see which set of rules you're during the stage select process.
 

ParanoidDrone

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2GG tweeted a revised day 1 ruleset: https://twitter.com/2GGaming/status/1064979356026494976

Starters, hazards on:
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Fountain of Dreams
Dream Land
Town & City
Pokemon Stadium 1
Yoshi's Story

Counterpicks, hazards off:
Kalos Pokemon League
Lylat Cruise
Castle Siege
Gamer
WarioWare, Inc.
Frigate Orpheon
Arena Ferox

Although the stage selection is making me raise my eyebrows a bit (4 triplats in the starter category alone) I have to admit that the idea of splitting hazards on/off into starter/counterpick is novel. So points for being unique, I guess.

EDIT: A guy replying to the tweet is convinced Warioware will be banned eventually.
 
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Untouch

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4 battlefields....
These stages are all legal in melee because they have pretty drastically different blast zones, that was changed in Smash 4, to the point where Dream Land is grouped with Battlefield.
Pokemon Stadium with hazards off is foolish as well, one of the transformations has a ceiling of life, it's why it was banned in Brawl.
Also still no Brinstar. :rolleyes:
 
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Frihetsanka

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4 battlefields....
These stages are all legal in melee because they have pretty drastically different blast zones, that was changed in Smash 4, to the point where Dream Land is grouped with Battlefield.
Pokemon Stadium with hazards off is foolish as well, one of the transformations has a ceiling of life, it's why it was banned in Brawl.
Also still no Brinstar. :rolleyes:
People are theorizing that they made the stagelist bad on purpose to prove a point (like proving why Pokémon Stadium with hazards on is bad, or why having four Battlefields is bad). As such, I don't mind it as much, as long as people don't actually think it's a good ruleset... Becuase it absolutely isn't. I mean, I thought most of us were hyped about getting Pokémon Stadium (2) hazardless, and that ruleset doesn't even have that stage!

But yeah, it's probably an experimental stagelist mainly used to collect data.
 

ParanoidDrone

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People are theorizing that they made the stagelist bad on purpose to prove a point (like proving why Pokémon Stadium with hazards on is bad, or why having four Battlefields is bad). As such, I don't mind it as much, as long as people don't actually think it's a good ruleset... Becuase it absolutely isn't. I mean, I thought most of us were hyped about getting Pokémon Stadium (2) hazardless, and that ruleset doesn't even have that stage!

But yeah, it's probably an experimental stagelist mainly used to collect data.
I suspect you're right. IIRC 2GG is the org that said they'd be trying out several rulesets in the initial days.
 

J0eyboi

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2GG tweeted a revised day 1 ruleset: https://twitter.com/2GGaming/status/1064979356026494976

Starters, hazards on:
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Fountain of Dreams
Dream Land
Town & City
Pokemon Stadium 1
Yoshi's Story

Counterpicks, hazards off:
Kalos Pokemon League
Lylat Cruise
Castle Siege
Gamer
WarioWare, Inc.
Frigate Orpheon
Arena Ferox

Although the stage selection is making me raise my eyebrows a bit (4 triplats in the starter category alone) I have to admit that the idea of splitting hazards on/off into starter/counterpick is novel. So points for being unique, I guess.

EDIT: A guy replying to the tweet is convinced Warioware will be banned eventually.
If you want to make starters hazards on, it should either be BF, FD, SV, FoD, T&C or BF, FD, SV, FoD, YI (I think the first is better). There aren't enough good hazards-on stages for 9 starters.

Also, the lack of a standard (as in not Kalos because its platforms are over the ledges), static 2-plat seems odd to me.
 
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Untouch

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I like the starter hazards on rule, here's my take on it.
Instead of Starter/Counterpick it'll be Starter/Neutral.
Round one can only pick from Starter, but hazards are always on, uses the standard stage striking procedure.
Round two can only pick from Neutral, but hazards are always off. Uses the 4-2-1 (loser picks 4 stages, winner strikes 2, loser picks 1 from the 2 left) method.

Starter
Fountain of Dreams
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Town and City

Neutral
Battlefield
Final Destination
Castle Siege
Yoshi's Island
Pokemon Stadium 2
Warioware
Kalos Pokemon League
Arena Ferox
Frigate Orpheon
Lylat Cruise
Brinstar
Duck Hunt
Big Blue

Rainbow Cruise
Skyloft

Unova Pokemon League
Smashville
Halberd

Prism Tower
Town and City
Magicant
Mushroom Kingdom U
Pictochat 2
Wuhu Island
Dracula's Castle


Stages in italics have potential to have major issues or be too similar to existing stages, I can't say if they should be allowed or banned before testing.
The only stage we're really losing out with this is Yoshi's Story, I unfortunately don't think Randall is enough to slot it into starter, unless Battlefield is removed.
 

J0eyboi

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I like the starter hazards on rule, here's my take on it.
Instead of Starter/Counterpick it'll be Starter/Neutral.
Round one can only pick from Starter, but hazards are always on, uses the standard stage striking procedure.
Round two can only pick from Neutral, but hazards are always off. Uses the 4-2-1 (loser picks 4 stages, winner strikes 2, loser picks 1 from the 2 left) method.

Starter
Fountain of Dreams
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Town and City

Neutral
Battlefield
Final Destination
Castle Siege
Yoshi's Island
Pokemon Stadium 2
Warioware
Kalos Pokemon League
Arena Ferox
Frigate Orpheon
Lylat Cruise
Brinstar
Duck Hunt
Big Blue

Rainbow Cruise
Skyloft

Unova Pokemon League
Smashville
Halberd

Prism Tower
Town and City
Magicant
Mushroom Kingdom U
Pictochat 2
Wuhu Island
Dracula's Castle


Stages in italics have potential to have major issues or be too similar to existing stages, I can't say if they should be allowed or banned before testing.
The only stage we're really losing out with this is Yoshi's Story, I unfortunately don't think Randall is enough to slot it into starter, unless Battlefield is removed.
You said round 2, I assume you meant round 2+?

Anyway, the only obvious problem I see with this is that it disproportionately benefits characters who are strong on Battlefield or Final Destination, as those stages are the only ones that would available in every round while being unchanged by the hazard toggle. Given that, DSR is a must if you want to keep those stages on the neutral list.

Also I feel like there are better names for the two categories than "starter" and "neutral."
 
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Iron Kraken

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The whole "starter picks are made with hazards on" and "counter picks with hazards off" seems completely unnecessary to me.

It would be better if we simply used the best of both hazards on and hazards off.

There's no justification for PS1 to be played with hazards on instead of hazards off.
 
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Frihetsanka

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There's no justification for PS1 to be played with hazards on instead of hazards off.
Some people have argued that PS1 should be allowed with hazards on, I suppose they wanted to "test" that (it probably won't stay legal in the long run). The current stage list is pretty bad (4 Battlefields, for instance), but hey, at least we get to test it. More data and all that.
 

Pyr

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I don't think so. Windmill is still a cave of life because it's solid, right? That means 3 of 4 transformations contain a cave of life in some form. (Windmill, Tree, Rock)

Not sure how long each transformation lasts off the top of my head, but that pushes it over the top in my eyes.
 

Frihetsanka

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FWIW, if we do mixed hazards, we could conceivably have hazards-on PS1 and hazards-off PS2. That could be a thing. /shrug
Theoretically, yes. There could be logistical issues and, more importantly, hazards-on PS1 is a terrible stage which Melee only accept because they lack good options (and, assuming the Windmill's still solid, it's even worse than in Melee).
 

ParanoidDrone

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Yeah, I wouldn't be too crazy about it either, but it could conceivably happen.

At the risk of retreading old ground, I need a quick sanity check: Sharking inherently bad, Y/N? Why or why not?

(Imagine Skyloft or something. Literally nothing to call the stage into question other than being sharkable.)
 

Frihetsanka

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(Imagine Skyloft or something. Literally nothing to call the stage into question other than being sharkable.)
Skyloft isn't super-unique though, it's kind of similar to Battlefield/Lylat-ish, but the sharking will be the major issue. Should be easy enough to test early on to see anyway, only about two more weeks 'til the game's released.
 

ParanoidDrone

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Skyloft isn't super-unique though, it's kind of similar to Battlefield/Lylat-ish, but the sharking will be the major issue. Should be easy enough to test early on to see anyway, only about two more weeks 'til the game's released.
I was more referring to the broader idea of a stage with literally nothing to call its legality into question other than being sharkable, Skyloft just happened to be a readily available example.
 

J0eyboi

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Yeah, I wouldn't be too crazy about it either, but it could conceivably happen.

At the risk of retreading old ground, I need a quick sanity check: Sharking inherently bad, Y/N? Why or why not?

(Imagine Skyloft or something. Literally nothing to call the stage into question other than being sharkable.)
Is this about that one guy on reddit?

I can see it being incredibly annoying to deal with, but I can also see it not being that hard to deal with if you're patient, given the increased freedom of ground movement and changes to the ledge.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any Smash 4 sets in which sharking was effectively employed? I ask because I know that a bunch of sharkable stages were legal early on, and I have never heard anyone cite sharking as a reason they were banned.
 

Untouch

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https://youtu.be/a0q6eQ8887Q?t=543
Based on this, I'm moderately confident that Big Blue hazardless is just the ship.
If it's the case, could it be legal? It's kind of similar to FD, but much smaller. The camera is way pulled out too for some reason. Blastzones are pretty far back as well (or it looks like it, I don't really know).


Also sharking wasn't a giant problem in Smash 4, mainly because all sharkable stages were banned for issues that were way worse. It was a problem in Brawl because of Metaknight and gliding. I don't think there's much you can base on right now, the 4 grab limit should really hurt sharking as well, but it'll have to be tested.
 
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ParanoidDrone

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Is this about that one guy on reddit?
Probably, assuming you're talking about the posts I made in the last...oh, couple of hours or so.
https://youtu.be/a0q6eQ8887Q?t=543
Based on this, I'm moderately confident that Big Blue hazardless is just the ship.
If it's the case, could it be legal? It's kind of similar to FD, but much smaller. The camera is way pulled out too for some reason. Blastzones are pretty far back as well (or it looks like it, I don't really know).
Based on how the track and cars weren't doing the glowy white thing during the transition? I agree, it's a solid inference. But I wish we had some unambiguous evidence, I don't like relying on conjecture if I can help it.
 
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WritersBlah

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I don't think so. Windmill is still a cave of life because it's solid, right? That means 3 of 4 transformations contain a cave of life in some form. (Windmill, Tree, Rock)

Not sure how long each transformation lasts off the top of my head, but that pushes it over the top in my eyes.
This is false. As can be seen through the Japan tournament footage, Jigglypuff is able to jump through the windmill platforms without being stopped by their tops, proving they are soft platforms like in Melee, ergo, no cave of life on the water transformation.
 

MercuryPenny

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sharking is only an issue if it can be done safely. historically, brawl meta knight has been the only one able to do so - no other character is or was able to suspend themselves under a semisoft platform as long as he could, and they definitely couldn't spam marth-tier hitboxes every 13 frames.

i remember someone mentioning bayonetta, who is a fastfaller with much slower sharking options that need to be refreshed much more frequently, and refreshing them is nowhere near safe. sharking is one of several concerns unique to brawl. don't worry about it here.
 

MrGameguycolor

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but the sharking will be the major issue.
I already said this before in a previous video, but sharking will never be a problem.

*A: Mid-air stalling in general has been nerfed.
-Worse magnet hands
-No refresh-able ledge invincibility
-Limited of five ledge grabs so way less planking
-Ledge-trumping is a counter
-Limited to only one, way laggier Air Dodge

*B: There's multiple ways for opponents to combat this via disjoints, long ranged moves, counters, parrying, etc...

*C: All the characters who could of potentially took advantages of this have major faults.
-Most upwards recoveries lag on landing
-Brawl Meta Knight is gone
-Bayo's specials increase her landing lag and she's actually looking more balance overall
-Most characters lack extra mid-air jumps
-Character's who do have extra jumps have slow air speed (Kirby, DDD, the Pits)
-Puff has tiny hurtbox cover limbs, she's light as hell and will likely not be a huge tournament threat anyway
-Ridley, Charizard and Squirtle's Up-B are very telegraphed, laggy and punishable
-Peach and Daisy's Up-B can be hard punished via shielding, not to mention they are also very light

Eventually if don't wanna SD, you'll have to go to ledge to regain your jumps, which will give up your stage position and set yourself up for a trump or ledge trap situation. If not, then landing on stage will get you punished hard via shield grabs, tilts, smashes or even spikes which can kill stupid early if you haven't fully landed on the platform.

Overall, it's much more of a risk then it's worth and will likely only be used for rare mix-ups or alternate ways for recovery.
So really, who's going to have an unfair advantage of it.
 
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dav3yb

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sharking is only an issue if it can be done safely. historically, brawl meta knight has been the only one able to do so - no other character is or was able to suspend themselves under a semisoft platform as long as he could, and they definitely couldn't spam marth-tier hitboxes every 13 frames.

i remember someone mentioning bayonetta, who is a fastfaller with much slower sharking options that need to be refreshed much more frequently, and refreshing them is nowhere near safe. sharking is one of several concerns unique to brawl. don't worry about it here.
This is why if anyone says it's an issue I'm going to start demanding evidence. I'm so sick of people projecting expectations from past games onto this one. I keep hearing **** like "sharking is a problem," and yet the game isn't out yet. It's going to have the dumbasses who can't think for themselves parroting this line to justify why a stage should be banned. It's a preconceived notion that needs to stop NOW.

Small horizontal blast zones is probably more of a reason to keep it around than to bin it. I wonder if this person also thinks Yoshi's should be banned in melee for having such narrow blast zones.

Not to mention this just more or less reinforces my idea that some of these more asymmetrical stages should be legal. The only way the "wall" on Rainbow Cruise could be such an issue is if another player happens to POSITION themselves really well, which should be rewarded. Good positioning and stage control should also be rewarded, it's part of the game.
 
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Raysebi

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Brinstar and Skyloft have all the requirements to be legal. This needs more awareness.

I am trying to convice people of the same and they are just so indifferent...
 

GamerGuy09

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This post on reddit by user wafflepotamus is probably the best list I've seen.



I really like the decision to only put Hazards on stages in counterpick. I personally dislike sharking stages not because of sharking, but it allows for easy recoveries like R.O.B. or King K. Rool always get back to stage no matter what if you can't edgeguard them.

So I would remove Skyloft, Prism Tower, and maybe Brinstar and maybe add in Mushroom Kingdom U to compensate.
 

Raysebi

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I agree, for me the best list posted so far, although i think brinstar/skyloft are fine.
 

WritersBlah

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This post on reddit by user wafflepotamus is probably the best list I've seen.



I really like the decision to only put Hazards on stages in counterpick. I personally dislike sharking stages not because of sharking, but it allows for easy recoveries like R.O.B. or King K. Rool always get back to stage no matter what if you can't edgeguard them.

So I would remove Skyloft, Prism Tower, and maybe Brinstar and maybe add in Mushroom Kingdom U to compensate.
I agree that this is probably the best stagelist I've seen so far. I'm personally less worried about the sharking stages and more concerned about Gamer specifically, though it looks like the list creator is as well. If push comes to shove, I think replacing it with Mushroom Kingdom U or Rainbow Cruise would be reasonable.
 

dav3yb

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Having only looked at the stages, I didn't realize that it also says 3 stock 8 minutes. I don't see any reason to try anything more than 6 minutes right now.
 

Frihetsanka

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Having only looked at the stages, I didn't realize that it also says 3 stock 8 minutes. I don't see any reason to try anything more than 6 minutes right now.
It's mostly to reduce the risk of timeouts and camping. It's unlikely Smash Ultimate is 50% faster than Smash 4, and Smash 4 ran 6 minutes 2 stocks and still sometimes went to time.
 

lmntolp

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I'm also not sure on these groupings. The walls make FD/Wily's very different for some characters, which can make it awkward to choose whether to ban those. And there's even more differences in the tri-plat group with hazards on. I feel like people will ban the tri-plat group a lot just to reduce variance or have less to worry about.

The Pokemon stages were more like what I was looking for with groupings, something that's mostly aesthetic. But unfortunately they share music so it doesn't add variety in that department.

EDIT: I know I supported groups before and I still think they can work, but combining groups and individual stages could be.. messy, unless the groups are mostly aesthetic like I mentioned.
 
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WritersBlah

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It's mostly to reduce the risk of timeouts and camping. It's unlikely Smash Ultimate is 50% faster than Smash 4, and Smash 4 ran 6 minutes 2 stocks and still sometimes went to time.
I don't disagree, and heck, as a player, I prefer eight minutes. But that said, it's mildly concerning in terms of total time taken. I think six is too low as well, but I think seven minutes would be ideal. It so happens to be the max time for online matches, and I think it works as a nice middle ground between six and eight minutes.

edit:
I'm also not sure on these groupings. The walls make FD/Wily's very different for some characters, which can make it awkward to choose whether to ban those. And there's even more differences in the tri-plat group with hazards on. I feel like people will ban the tri-plat group a lot just to reduce variance or have less to worry about.


The Pokemon stages were more like what I was looking for with groupings, something that's mostly aesthetic. But unfortunately they share music so it doesn't add variety in that department.
I see your concern, but I think that's why the non-BF triplats are being grouped together as a separate strike from Battlefield. This makes the grouping more "Battlefield with a twist" then just straight triplats. I suppose if you wanted to make it a little more even, you could group Battlefield and Dreamland as the more "static" triplats, and then FoD and Yoshi's as the "dynamic" triplats, but that may get a little too confusing.

Also side note, but I've always personally found PS2 to be the least visually appealing of the biplats, but that's neither here nor there.
 
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Frihetsanka

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I think six is too low as well, but I think seven minutes would be ideal. It so happens to be the max time for online matches, and I think it works as a nice middle ground between six and eight minutes.
I agree, I also think seven would be a good start, and if it still leads to timeouts we should consider eight.
 

Veggi

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This post on reddit by user wafflepotamus is probably the best list I've seen.



I really like the decision to only put Hazards on stages in counterpick. I personally dislike sharking stages not because of sharking, but it allows for easy recoveries like R.O.B. or King K. Rool always get back to stage no matter what if you can't edgeguard them.

So I would remove Skyloft, Prism Tower, and maybe Brinstar and maybe add in Mushroom Kingdom U to compensate.
I like it. But one thing that confuses me is how people are supposed to strike down to one stage when the stages are grouped first match. Like what if it gets striked down to FD/Wiley's Castle? Which one do they play on?
 

WritersBlah

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I like it. But one thing that confuses me is how people are supposed to strike down to one stage when the stages are grouped first match. Like what if it gets striked down to FD/Wiley's Castle? Which one do they play on?
Here's my take on it. Personally, I feel like the person who struck before last (so not the person who chose FD) has the final say in which variant to go to. So something like:

P1: I ban Yoshi's.
P2: Alright, I ban Lylat.
P1: I ban biplats.
P2: I ban Battlefield, so which flat stage?
P1: I choose Wily's Castle.

Same thing can be applied to the counterpick phase. If we follow the exact rules listed in the picture:

Winner: Alright, I ban flats, biplats, Kalos, and Town & City.
Loser: Alright, let's go to a triplat.
Winner: Cool. I choose Fountain of Dreams.

It's admittedly a little sketchier during the counterpick phase, though not overwhelmingly so. You could switch it up so the loser chooses the exact triplat, or the winner can ban one of them. The good thing about this system is that it's flexible, so if one option ends up favoring one player too much, there's other options to shift the balance.
 
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