Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[WritersBlah]

There are two major problems with that method, one of which is unsolvable and the second of which is solvable but requires a legal stage list which undoes one of your proposed benefits.

Problem 1 is that inevitably only one player will have any real control here. If the decider is static he can easily force the game to his favorite 3-5 stages; in a game with this many stages, no reasonable number of nos will be enough to prevent me from getting an outcome counterpick level good. If the decider alternates, whoever goes second is the only one who has a real say since he can just say automatic no to anything proposed (really the fact that his opponent would suggest it is a good reason to say no even if he otherwise likes the stage). So if you have 40 legal stages, you guarantee that game 1 happens on the 3rd to 5th most desired stage of one of the players, and somehow you have to pick which player that is which will be a contentious point of randomization to say the least. This is a strictly worse outcome than if you pick random which should on average be on the 20.5th most favorable stage to either side (and the per side veto further helps shift things to the middle). Yes, there's an asymmetry of how players value stages that can come into play, but an aggressive stage selector will always consider anything about a stage that his opponent likes as a hidden downside of that stage and will probably scout that player's other matches to learn his favorite stages to appropriately shift them down in the desirability ranking (and counterpoint to see his opponent's least favorite stages and rank them up). We had a guy in our region who would ask a large percentage of the people he played what their favorite stage was and, if it sounded like a real answer, he'd immediately announce his stage ban was that stage; don't think people don't do stuff like that. Stage striking kinda works because it goes through all the stages and can't help but meet near the middle. If you try to cut out pieces of it but retain player choice, you're really cutting out the middle stages and guaranteeing an extreme outcome since extreme outcomes are the only incentive players have to pursue. This problem is not solvable. I don't see a solution other than sticking with striking and having single digit legal stages in a game with 40+ candidate legal stages (totally gutting the game) or just allowing a neutral third party to decide which I'm proposing is the overly simple random button.

The second problem is that if you don't have a stage list there are plenty of unplayable garbage stages, and let's be real that most players have a general sense of where they rank on the skill tree. If I think I'm totally outmatched by an opponent and I have control of the stage situation, I can give myself a greatly helped chance by changing the match from a "real" smash match into a Sonic ditto on New Pork City or something to that effect as my only goal in stage selection isn't to pick a fair stage but just to pick a stage that removes skill from the equation as much as possible and turns the game into something more degenerate at which maybe I have a coinflip shot at coming out ahead. You can solve this by banning all the stages that let me do stuff like this, but at that point, the proposed benefit of removing the memorization of a long stage list is diminished. I don't think you get around the need to, at some point, have a stage list that people will benefit from knowing (a good TO will have printouts and will have every console set up right so people can just check the random stage setting in-game as well to help). It would be nice to be able to somehow be pure enough not to ban anything and play the whole game as it is, but it just doesn't seem realistic.

I don't mean to be down on creative thinking, but I gotta call it how I see it... My experience of years of being in and out of the smash community has totally convinced me that simpler has a chance of succeeding in this community and complicated really doesn't too; definitely the main goal of what I suggested was keeping it as simple, quick, and easy to explain as possible.

I've been thinking about this post a lot ever since I first read it, but I want to propose a counterargument. Not so much because I wouldn't like your proposed random select method, but because I feel like it would have significant pushback from the community and result in ending up with a smaller stagelist down the line. The truth of the matter is that people like to have control over the stage they play on, and asking tournaments to run almost entirely under random select would likely lead to a lot of complaining. I've been trying to consolidate a method for retaining both control over the stage played on while allowing for a large stage list, and I'd like to propose a modification of PoptartLord 's method.

First off, for the sake of being able to make this function, I'd have to reinstate the distinction between starters and counterpicks. I see the value in having all stages legal from Game 1, but it practically necessitates random select. So instead, have game 1 operate similarly to how it has in Brawl and Smash 4: have a list of either 7 or 9 "starter" stages to strike from. Game 1 happens, and we get a winner and loser. Historically, because stagelists in the past have been pretty limited, we've been able to have the winner ban two or so stages and have the loser choose from the remaining selection. With a stagelist that will likely reach into the double digits however, no amount of stage bans will be feasible to keep track of and have tournaments go by smoothly. PoptartLord suggested having the loser suggest a stage one by one until the winner agreed to one. The problem with this method, as you mentioned, is that it would always be in the winner's best interest to say no up until the very end. So instead of this, what if the loser simply listed, without interruption, six or seven stages he'd like to play on, with the winner then choosing from that list. This would remove the inherent bias coming from a yes-no listoff, while still providing an edge to the loser.

For the sake of argument, let me calculate what advantage is given to game 1's loser when choosing a stage in previous Smash games. In Melee, the winner is given one ban from a six-stage list, so the loser has 83% of the stagelist open to them (with the inverse being that the winner has 17% control of where not to go next game.) In Brawl, rulesets that had larger stagelists allowed the winner two bans (Brawl stagelists varied a lot, but let's go with a ten-stage list), giving the loser 80% advantage. Smash 4 gave the winner either one ban from a six-stage list, or two bans from a seven-stage list, putting loser advantage at either 83% or 71%.

The reason for pointing this out is to quantify the power dynamics in counterpicking stages, which has almost consistently been L80-W20. Dave's Stupid Rule can potentially limit this in Game 3 by an extra stage, shifting things to more of a L70-W30, but I find this to be somewhat negligible. What I've proposed above can maintain this power dynamic while still giving players control over which stage they go to next. Let's say that the community decides on a 20-stage list. By the loser listing off a four-stage list and the winner choosing from those given stages, this maintains the 80-20 power dynamic while significantly cutting down on the time necessary to counterpick normally. Of course, with a twenty-stage list, you could simply leave the winner with four bans instead which isn't a massive number, but who knows. Heck, this could even be maintained for counterpicking while having Game 1 be decided by random select, if players can actually be convinced to drop the starter/counterpick distinction.

 

[WritersBlah]

Peach's Castle: https://youtu.be/J2kFk1lJ70U
Removes Bullet Bills, platforms are static, no buttons.

Huh, that's interesting. With the knowledge that wall infinites and chaingrabs have been removed from Ultimate, how disruptive does having a giant wall in the middle of the playing field play into matches? Can you still trap people against the wall?

 

[Jamisinon]

Huh, that's interesting. With the knowledge that wall infinites and chaingrabs have been removed from Ultimate, how disruptive does having a giant wall in the middle of the playing field play into matches? Can you still trap people against the wall?

I don't think trapping people against the wall is the big issue. I think the biggest issue is you can put your back to a wall and if someone hits you that wall protects you. So you can just keep running back to the wall. That way they have to get you away from the wall first b4 they can try to KO you. There is also the issue that in the example of Peach's Castle you have to go over the wall. This means you could easily force a scenario where someone has to approach you from above.
I still think it's far from a horrible stage there are just things like taking 4 Marth f-smash tippers in 1 stock and not dying bc you hit the wall each time or Pikachu spamming B over the wall to a Little Mac. Like if ur mac and i'm pika and you get KO punch i just instantly run to the other side and spam B till you lose the KO punch or approach in the air over the wall. It's kind of like Pokemon Stadium 1's Fire Transformation but to a lesser degree. That's the best way I can describe the issues it creates.
No wall infinites also doesn't mean you couldn't get trapped and still take significant dmg. Tho I'm not fully aware of how no wall infinites works in sma5h. I don't think taking a couple extra jabs or tilts would be game breaking in any way, it would be more of an added inconvenience.

 

[Untouch]

Huh, that's interesting. With the knowledge that wall infinites and chaingrabs have been removed from Ultimate, how disruptive does having a giant wall in the middle of the playing field play into matches? Can you still trap people against the wall?

I think the bigger problem is circle camping here.
I can see counterpick potential though.

 

[ZeonSBS]

I don't think randomly butchering what could be our biggest stage list ever is the way to go so I've come up with this idea:

We can narrow down our legal stages to about 25-30 stages.

We gather them in groups of 5 or 6, each group must have some kind of pattern and a balanced share of stages, we achieve this by having Final Destination and a Triplat/BF Forms, the most fundamental stages, in each group for balance sake so there's no character completely screwed up within a group.

(This would also ultimately fix our problem with having 4/5 triplats that "are kind of the same but different enough to be their own stages" problem, we just put a different "niche" one in each group as a Battlefield Form alternative. (Dreamland, YoshiStoryMelee, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams (If it makes it in), Midgar)

How it'll work in actual tournament play:

At the start of each set both players ban these groups as we do with stages in Smash4. (Ban 1, Ban2, winner of rock paper scissors/whatever picks group).

This will determine the available stages throughout that WHOLE set.

After that we only have to do the banning method again but this time the loser of the "banning group phase" is the "winner" in the "stage ban phase" (Ban1, Ban2, picks stage within the selected group for the set)

After the first match stage bans and counterpicks work as always within the available stages from the chosen group for the set.

Groups would look something like this:

(Every stage without hazzards) (These are only examples.)

Group1 (The Smash4 Tournament Group)
FD
Dreamland / BF Forms
Lylat
Town and City
Smashville

Group2 (The Melee Group)
FD
Yoshi Story (Melee) / BF Forms
Pokemon Stadium
Kongo Falls idk
Brinstar idk

Group3 (The Brawl Group)
FD
Battlefield Forms
Frigate Orpheon
Castle Siege
Yoshi Story (Brawl)

Group4 (The Epic/Badass Group)
FD
Midgar / BF Forms
Umbra Clock Tower
Halberd
Dr. Wily Castle

Group5 (The Ultimate Group)
FD
Battlefield
Prism Tower
New stage
New stage

It's more complicated to explain now that there is no reference sheet as the game isn't out yet, but once we make the groups, tournaments will flow like a breeze with just a printed reference sheet in tournaments or a look at some official international stage ruleset post on Smashboards on the phone while in the banning group phase. It's very simple.

Some examples:

CEO Winners Finals (MKLeo vs Void) 2020 was played within Group1 (The Smash4 Tournament group) , they started playing in FD then Town and City, Lylat, FD again and SV.

EVO Losers Quarters (Tweek vs Abadango) 2022 was played within Group4 (The Dark/Edgy group), they started playing in Midgar, then Umbra Clock Tower, Gaur Plains BF Form and finished with Halberd.

CEO Losers Semis (Armada vs Plup) 2020 was played within Group2 (The Melee Group) they started playing in Yoshi's Island Melee, then Pokemon Stadium, FD and BrinstarDepths BF Form because Plup loves the Metroid music and all BF Forms are the same now.

Tell me what you think

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

That already happens though. Think about Little Mac. He is at his best when on stages like FD and Smashville. However, with our current rules, those stages would always be unavailable to a person who picks little mac. So the only stages left are ones he would do pretty bad at.

Now think of the new system. Especially with stage selection happening first. In this scenario, there is more of a possibility of picking a stage Little Mac at least does pretty well in, or if you lost the last match, you could just counterpick one yourself. Even in a sytem with at least 1 or 2 bans you could still probably find a stage Little does good enough in unlike in the smash 4 system where he is doomed to never get a stage he wants.

To be fair, Little Mac is am extreme case and I chop that up to Little Mac having a flawed character design from the start considering how Smash plays.

Edit: Also there's not going to be a ton of stages legal regardless. Dream-Land should either be banned or relegated to a battlefield clone. Besides FD and Battlefield versions are the same on every stage now (music variety and scenery). Frigate, Pokemon Stadium (1 or 2), Yoshu Island (1 of them), Prism Tower, and probably Castle Siege (transformless) will be legal. Fountain of Dreams will definitely be legal if it's in the game.

Quality >>> Quantity

 

[Count Bleck]

https://youtu.be/UeaJtW3K838

ESAM gives his opinion on the ordeal. Seems like he's in favor of a rotation, while some comments mention a tekken style stage style of hazards off and random with banned stages removed from the pool.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think he was at least one of the MAIN reasons duck hunt got the axe. Of course it was more than just Mac, but I think some of those platforms he had to use his recovery move to get to.

Even if Little Mac weren't in the game I think the Smash 4 stagelist would've been the same.

I still fail to see how it would reduce "competitiveness" in any significant way as to alter tournament outcomes.

It could, people could get unlucky with stages and lost games that they wouldn't have lost with stage striking.

I think the idea of starters and counter-pick stages needs to die. But more so, i think the entire striking process needs to die. Now if there are enough stages to consider leaving some of them off the list for the 1st pick, given that it's random, i wouldn't be completely opposed to that, but if a stage is viable for competitive play, it should be viable 100% of the time, not "only available after certain conditions are met."

Striking is needed in order to avoid bad stage MUs. Allowing every stage as a starter on a list with 10 or more stages would mean stage striking would take longer, noticably so. If we're running with a 9 stage list, perhaps we could run with 9 starters and no counter-picks. Random is bad, and I've explained why several times before.

I'm making the assumption here that the hazard toggle will lead to more quality stages. There needs to be some serious flaws in the stage before cutting it, not just some excuse that it favors X character, or the ledges are "jank," whatever that means.

I also think that we'll get more quality stages than 6, but I question your definition of "quality stage". Apparently it includes (hazardless) Kongo Jungle and Saffron City.

Kongo Jungle is dead because of the rock. Saffron City is dead because of reasons already discussed. Let's look at why it was banned in 64, shall we? "This stage is commonly banned in both Japanese and American tournaments due to its overly large size promoting excessive camping, and the random Pokémon hazards disrupting gameplay. Ness's recovery also suffers here; it is impossible to recover using PK Thunder between the buildings should he fall in."

Random Pokémon hazards are gone now, but the rest is still there. Banned.

A randomized stage pick would simply force people to be familiar with those stages, and thus being able to mitigate the random factor.

It's not merely an issue of familiarity but also about character viability on different. I don't think people should have to be ready to play 3-5 different characters in order to deal with random stages for game 1. I also think that we should still do character picks before stage picks for game 1 first, in order to reduce the risk of something like facing Donkey Kong on Halberd* (if I know that my opponent has picked Donkey Kong then I'll ban Halberd for sure).

*If Halberd isn't legal, substitute for Town & City.

 

[dav3yb]

I don't think randomly butchering what could be our biggest stage list ever is the way to go so I've come up with this idea:

We can narrow down our legal stages to about 25-30 stages.

We gather them in groups of 5 or 6, each group must have some kind of pattern and a balanced share of stages, we achieve this by having Final Destination and a Triplat/BF Forms, the most fundamental stages, in each group for balance sake so there's no character completely screwed up within a group.

(This would also ultimately fix our problem with having 4/5 triplats that "are kind of the same but different enough to be their own stages" problem, we just put a different "niche" one in each group as a Battlefield Form alternative. (Dreamland, YoshiStoryMelee, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams (If it makes it in), Midgar)

How it'll work in actual tournament play:

At the start of each set both players ban these groups as we do with stages in Smash4. (Ban 1, Ban2, winner of rock paper scissors/whatever picks group).

This will determine the available stages throughout that WHOLE set.

After that we only have to do the banning method again but this time the loser of the "banning group phase" is the "winner" in the "stage ban phase" (Ban1, Ban2, picks stage within the selected group for the set)

After the first match stage bans and counterpicks work as always within the available stages from the chosen group for the set.

Groups would look something like this:

(Every stage without hazzards) (These are only examples.)

Group1 (The Smash4 Tournament Group)
FD
Dreamland / BF Forms
Lylat
Town and City
Smashville

Group2 (The Melee Group)
FD
Yoshi Story (Melee) / BF Forms
Pokemon Stadium
Kongo Falls idk
Brinstar idk

Group3 (The Brawl Group)
FD
Battlefield Forms
Frigate Orpheon
Castle Siege
Yoshi Story (Brawl)

Group4 (The Epic/Badass Group)
FD
Midgar / BF Forms
Umbra Clock Tower
Halberd
Dr. Wily Castle

Group5 (The Ultimate Group)
FD
Battlefield
Prism Tower
New stage
New stage

It's more complicated to explain now that there is no reference sheet as the game isn't out yet, but once we make the groups, tournaments will flow like a breeze with just a printed reference sheet in tournaments or a look at some official international stage ruleset post on Smashboards on the phone while in the banning group phase. It's very simple.

Some examples:

CEO Winners Finals (MKLeo vs Void) 2020 was played within Group1 (The Smash4 Tournament group) , they started playing in FD then Town and City, Lylat, FD again and SV.

EVO Losers Quarters (Tweek vs Abadango) 2022 was played within Group4 (The Dark/Edgy group), they started playing in Midgar, then Umbra Clock Tower, Gaur Plains BF Form and finished with Halberd.

CEO Losers Semis (Armada vs Plup) 2020 was played within Group2 (The Melee Group) they started playing in Yoshi's Island Melee, then Pokemon Stadium, FD and BrinstarDepths BF Form because Plup loves the Metroid music and all BF Forms are the same now.

Tell me what you think

This is nearly exactly what I had suggested in the early Smash 4 days when there was still discussion about it having a larger list:

I wouldn't include FD on every list though, that just gives people an out/excuse to keep playing there if they don't like other stages.

https://smashboards.com/threads/stage-legality-discussion-thread.401784/page-19#post-19893651

So I figured I'd mock up a bit of what i was talking about when mentioning dividing stages into sets for striking.

-SET1
Battlefield
Duckhunt
Peaches Castle
Pokemon Stadium 2
Skyloft

-SET2
Smashville
Wuhu Island
Delfino Plaza
Kongo Jungle 64
Town & City

-SET3
Final Destination
Lylat Cruise
Dreamland 64
Halberd
Castle Siege

So 3 sets of 5 stages.

First match, each player strikes an entire set, and then 1-2-1 strikes from the final set for a starter.

2nd and 3rd match, winner of previous round strikes a single set, and 1 stage from each of the remaining sets.

This is how my initial thinking of it would go. The order of where the stages are could obviously change, and probably should, but i just set those up on the fly trying to just spread out the more "neutral" stages with the others more suited for a counter-pick.

I think I'll toy with this idea a bit and get some of my locals to give it shot a few matches. I also get the feeling that no matter what, any stage list that isnt 5 starters + 5-6 counterpicks just isn't going to get very far.

 

[ZeonSBS]

This is nearly exactly what I had suggested in the early Smash 4 days when there was still discussion about it having a larger list:

I wouldn't include FD on every list though, that just gives people an out/excuse to keep playing there if they don't like other stages.

Oh you really indeed had the same idea years ago! I think if there's a moment to implement something like this is now. We really do have A LOT of competitive stages now and grouping them in balanced groups just makes things so much easier.

 

[dav3yb]

Oh you really indeed had the same idea years ago! I think if there's a moment to implement something like this is now. We really do have A LOT of competitive stages now and grouping them in balanced groups just makes things so much easier.

Yeah, I had just roughly grouped those stages into those groups, mainly to try and separate those that are played ALOT... you might notice that BF, Smashville, and FD are all in different groups.

In the end it all depends on how many stages are deemed viable, and how their layouts are when using the hazard toggle. You would want each group to be somewhat balanced, and that might be easier said that done.

 

[infomon]

I propose the following. Suppose there are like 30+ legal stages.

No stage-bans up-front.

Loser of a match picks (say) 5 stages that they want for counterpick. Winner chooses which 1 of those 5 they go to. Winner picks character. Loser picks character.

 

[WritersBlah]

I propose the following. Suppose there are like 30+ legal stages.

No stage-bans up-front.

Loser of a match picks (say) 5 stages that they want for counterpick. Winner chooses which 1 of those 5 they go to. Winner picks character. Loser picks character.

That is literally what I was suggesting in my post. It does lead to the question of what has to be done for game 1. You either have to have a significantly smaller pool of starter stages to make striking easier, or you need to rely on random select (with maybe two or three bans from the random switch for each player at the start.)

 

[Skitrel]

I hate the idea of random affecting tournament outcomes.

I also hate the idea of a seasonal rotation affecting all tournament outcomes for a season, favouring one or harming another character arbitrarily.

The stage decision NEEDS to be given to players in a new system that players use to cut down the entire list together. Anything else involves taking away control from players and thus affecting the outcomes of matches in ways players do not have control over.

 

[LancerStaff]

Everything we do will have some bias. FD only, BF only, pure random, random with bans, stage striking... There is no perfect stage or perfect stage list. Wider stage lists biases characters who perform well on any stage, smaller and samey lists biases characters with those sorts of preferences. Ultimately I don’t think the devs are balancing for anything in particular either.

Actually... What I’d like to see is, in a perfect world, stage choice being influenced by how strong of a character you picked. I’m fairly confident there will be a wide gap between good and bad characters again. So ideally bad characters get more chances to play on favored stages, and good characters get less. Like if we had 15 stages to choose from, Sheik on Sheik would just be both sides striking 7, but if it was Sheik on DDD then Sheik gets 0/1/2 bans while DDD gets the rest. Though I understand this would be rather nightmarish to set up and get going, especially with how stage selection is before the characters now...

 

[infomon]

Basically, I don't want anyone's "opinions" to change how I play the game. Someone else's idea of what characters are better, or which stages are "similar enough" or "in season", I don't want any of that affecting my tournament outcome.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I propose the following. Suppose there are like 30+ legal stages.

30+ legal stages doesn't seem very realistic.

I hate the idea of random affecting tournament outcomes.

I also hate the idea of a seasonal rotation affecting all tournament outcomes for a season, favouring one or harming another character arbitrarily.

The stage decision NEEDS to be given to players in a new system that players use to cut down the entire list together. Anything else involves taking away control from players and thus affecting the outcomes of matches in ways players do not have control over.

I agree that both a random stage list and a rotational stage list are problematic. Going with 5/7/9 starters and X counterpicks seems ideal, although number of bans could be discussed (that likely depends on how many stages are available, but I imagine 2-3 bans + Dave's Stupid Rule).

So ideally bad characters get more chances to play on favored stages, and good characters get less. Like if we had 15 stages to choose from, Sheik on Sheik would just be both sides striking 7, but if it was Sheik on DDD then Sheik gets 0/1/2 bans while DDD gets the rest. Though I understand this would be rather nightmarish to set up and get going, especially with how stage selection is before the characters now...

Who decides which characters are good and which are bad? The 4BR tier list? It changed quite a bit from version 3 to version 4, and will likely change for version 5 as well, without any balance changes. Even if we agree that we should try to balance the game by giving benefits to low tiers (I, personally, am inclined to side against that), it would be really hard for us to properly balance the game.

Seasons face a similar issue. I think it would be better to just use the stages that we deem viable to begin with, which I imagine will be somewhere between 7 to 15, depending on a number of factors (such as how the stage hazard switch works).

 

[Makai Wars]

Cutting stages has always been a part of competitive Smash, even games like Project M. There are good reasons to limit stage selection, at least when many of the stages are pretty mediocre (for competitive play). Unless they add more good stages I don't see how we could reach 20+ good stages, the current stage list isn't nearly as good as people make it out to be.

Cutting stages has always been a part of Smash because we HAD to cut stages, what you're arguing is that we should cut stages for no other reason than we CAN cut stages, and that ridiculous. If Ultimate allows us to have the widest variety of legal stages ever, why would we not abuse that? Even going off of purely starter stages alone we have over 10-15 and possibly more, if a few of the stages are somewhat redundant like Yoshi's Story to BF and Midgar, that's all the more reason to keep them.

I'm a big fan of the "Round 1 Random, Round 2 with 2 bans" idea. This makes the game more interesting to watch from a bystander's perspective and rewards the player that took the time to understand each and every stage, not to mention makes sets go by significantly faster than two people playing Rock Paper Scissors or something 4 times before choosing to just fight on Battlefield.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Cutting stages has always been a part of Smash because we HAD to cut stages, what you're arguing is that we should cut stages for no other reason than we CAN cut stages, and that ridiculous. If Ultimate allows us to have the widest variety of legal stages ever, why would we not abuse that? Even going off of purely starter stages alone we have over 10-15 and possibly more, if a few of the stages are somewhat redundant like Yoshi's Story to BF and Midgar, that's all the more reason to keep them.

One of the reasons we don't keep redundant stages is that it benefits certain characters more than others. Imagine if Smash 4 would have implemented your system with Battlefield, Dream Land 64, and Miiverse. This would greatly benefit characters good on triplats and hurt other characters (which is one of the reasons why Dream Land 64 is banned when Battlefield is banned).

Claiming that I argue that we should cut stages just because we can is disingenuous and a misrepresentation of my argument. I'm not sure what made you think I would support such a ridiculous statement.

I'm a big fan of the "Round 1 Random, Round 2 with 2 bans" idea. This makes the game more interesting to watch from a bystander's perspective and rewards the player that took the time to understand each and every stage, not to mention makes sets go by significantly faster than two people playing Rock Paper Scissors or something 4 times before choosing to just fight on Battlefield.

People who push the whole "rewards the player who understands the stage" seem to misunderstand why we have stage bans and stage striking in the first place. The reason I ban Town & City against Donkey Kong/Bowser players is not because I find Town & City hard to play on, but rather that the stage benefits them greatly.

"Significantly faster" seems like an overstatement. You only play RPS once per set (well, until you have a winner), and that takes, what, 5-15 second? Stage striking usually doesn't take long either since you generally know which stages you don't want to play on against your opponent's character. Saving maybe 40 seconds per set is a rather minor advantage of random stage select.

 

[DtJ Glyphmoney]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/8wmsjq/stage_vetoes_an_efficient_means_to_handle_the/

While it's far from perfect, I wrote up a pitch for how I think we might best attack this issue of the expanded stage list. Seems PoptartLord had a very similar idea, great minds and all right?

Very curious if you'd take a look at it Amazing Ampharos , your insight from what I've read so far has been extremely educational. If there's one person I want to sell on this right now, it would be you.

 

[Jamisinon]

Proposed Stage List 2.1

Let me know what you guys think of this slightly expanded stage list. I know most of you will still be in favor of more stages but anyways here's my updated version:

Spoiler: Starters

So I'm upping the starters from 5 stages to 7. I think BATTLEFIELD and FINAL DESTINATION are obvious picks here. They are starters in Melee and Sm4sh. I'm leaving out Dreamland assuming the blast zones will stay similar to how they were in sm4sh BC the stage is simply too similar to BF.
The third starter is SMASHVILLE. It's been shown to be a very neutral stage, especially in Sm4sh where it kind of replaced BF as the typical go to starter. I'm adding back in TOWN & CITY because it's a universal starter in sm4sh. I was reluctant at first BC it had some similarities to smashville but also BC of it's music. I think the larger stage list and better stages all-around should help alleviate the music issue.

The fifth starter will be POKEMON STADIUM (NO HAZARDS). This gives us a 2 platform stage to go along with our already 0, 1, and 3 platform stages. It is a counter-pick in Melee singles but a starter in Melee doubles so w/o transformations it can be a starter for both singles and doubles.

For the sixth starter the Melee player in me really wants to put YOSHI'S STORY (MELEE) in so I am. I'm hoping they don't do to Yoshi's what they did to DL and make it too much like BF. I know the BF version of the stage removes Randall. I'm hoping the hazard toggle keeps Rndall BC he's cyclical and therefore not random in his movement pattern, but removes the Shy Guys. The big differences between Yoshi's and BF are the blast zones both are smaller both horizontally and vertically, and the stage is closer to the bottom blast zone. The platform layout is closer and the edges of the stage are angled. Yoshi's is a very different stage than BF in Melee so I'm hoping it stays that way. LYLAT CRUISE (NO HAZARDS) has a unique main stage that isn't completely flat and a unique 3 platform layout. No stage tilting would remove all the shenanigans as well.

My mindset for this updated starter list was take every Melee starter and every Sm4sh starter and see if they fit. I think hazard toggle should always be off so I do have some concern over Yoshi's still BC I'm not sure what it will do to Yoshi's. If it turns out to be more similar to BF then I'd propose it be removed completely and one of the counter-picks be bumped up to a starter then if a good enough stage was found it could be added as a counter-pick or the counter-pick number could remain as is.

Spoiler: Counter-picks

So firstly we have WARIO WARE (NO HAZARDS). I was mildly tempted to make it a starter due to it having 4 platforms but ultimately decided the blast zones and the fact PM used it as a counter-pick and not a starter made it seem logical to follow that pattern.

*Wily Castle was here but since it was confirmed hazard toggle removed all platforms it made it an FD clone. So it is no longer part of my proposed counter-picks.*

With the inclusion of Yoshi's Story (Melee) it makes it harder for me to justify having YOSHI'S ISLAND (BRAWL). Even though the platform layout is different the blast zones are similar and it also has a similar feel. But if I can have Smashville and Town & City I can have two Yoshi levels. Plus, it's a starter in Brawl. I could see changing my mind on this or use this stage to replace Yoshi's Story if it turns out to have issues or be another BF.

Next, FRIGATE ORPHEON (NO HAZARDS). I was really tempted to put Brinstar (No Hazards) in this spot and I might change my mind and swap the two but in the end I felt Brinstar had fairly small blast zones. Those small side blast zones were already in several stages so I felt a larger stage was needed. Plus seeing this stage in action at the invitational made it seem like it could be a solid choice.

With so many Fire Emblem characters I thought about Arena Ferox but some of the transformations gave a little bit of projectile barriers so I feel CASTLE SIEGE (NO HAZARDS) is the better choice.
I'm adding one more counter-pick and that's RESET BOMB FOREST. My reasoning behind this is that we haven't use a stage competitively that has a hole in the middle of the stage. I think with how small the hole is and with directional air dodging it won't create the same issues for Ness/Lucas that Saffron City does. I also think having a platform not too far above the hole mitigates how abused the hole could be.

Spoiler: Final thoughts

So I really do think 7 starters in place of only 5 could work really well without any significant drawbacks. I could still see 9 starters be viable but I think that would likely mean simply pulling stages from counter-picks and making them starters. I used to think 8-10 stages might be the sweet spot. So I'm pretty iffy still on using 12 stages (7 starters, 5 counter-picks). To some it might not seem that big, it might be small but it's still doubling the number of tournament stages we've been using. So I think that's something to keep in mind. I could easily see one of the Yoshi stages or Reset Bomb removed. I think Wario Ware and Castle Siege are pretty safe stages. I'm optimistic about Frigate. There are a couple minor things I could see being issues still.

I tried to cover the biggest franchises as best I could. So I'm a little sad I didn't add in a Mario stage (unless you count Yoshi as Mario-ish). Mushroom Kingdom U (No Hazards) I think would be a really good stage. Its layout reminds me a bit of Reset Bomb Forest so if an issue arose with Reset I think Mush King U would be first in line to replace it. I'm also sad there wasn't a Zelda stage I liked. I do think there's a chance that Great Plateau Tower gets reworked so that with hazard toggle doesn't create an impassible platform thus removing the "cave of life" it creates. In that case GPT would replace Yoshi's Island (Brawl). It would also be good enough to be considered a starter so I could see making it a starter and then bumping Yoshi's Island (Melee) down to a counter-pick as a viable option. Even if I don't personally share the sentiment I think more people would rather see a new level than one used in Melee time and time again.

I did notice no new stages made it into my starters list. But I think I'm going to take a sort of 'if it's not broke don't fix it' approach. Years of Melee and Sm4sh have shown these stages to be the best starters so that's why I'm still using them as starters.

With this many stages I do think bans would be necessary and DSR would still be in play. I think minimum one ban for best-of-5 and two bans for best-of-3. But I wouldn't be opposed to trying 3 and 2 bans respectively. I would think trying fewer bans at first would be optimal. Then if we saw MU's or characters having too many strong stages more bans could be added.

*Update to 2.1 I removed Wily Castle after it was confirmed hazard toggle removed the platforms.*

 

[Skitrel]

One of the reasons we don't keep redundant stages is that it benefits certain characters more than others. Imagine if Smash 4 would have implemented your system with Battlefield, Dream Land 64, and Miiverse. This would greatly benefit characters good on triplats and hurt other characters (which is one of the reasons why Dream Land 64 is banned when Battlefield is banned).
.

Didn't Miiverse have higher platforms? I feel like this is a pretty poor example if I recall correctly. It would be a counter-pick stage while Battlefield is a starter. Why? Because having higher platforms causes some characters to require a double jump or fullhop to reach the platform instead of shorthop. This particularly affected certain characters making it a strong counterpick.

You can't just lump in "Oh these all have 3 triangle shaped platforms" and act like they all have the same advantages for different characters. Battlefield is a fairly good stage for Link for example while Miiverse is a horrible stage for Link.

That's not even considering the fact that some utilt/usmashes will connect on Battlefield that would not connect on the higher platforms of Miiverse.

 

[infomon]

One of the reasons we don't keep redundant stages is that it benefits certain characters more than others. Imagine if Smash 4 would have implemented your system with Battlefield, Dream Land 64, and Miiverse. This would greatly benefit characters good on triplats and hurt other characters (which is one of the reasons why Dream Land 64 is banned when Battlefield is banned).

Let me try a counterpoint. It's not our job to balance the characters, we want to find who's the best at Smash Bros. Consider if the game had 1 legal stage with water, vs 10 stages with water. It should be more important to be good at water in the latter case, because that's a bigger part of the game. And every player is equally capable of choosing the characters that are good with water, or whatever.

But I have to temper that view against what they've done with Omega and BF versions of everything. Clearly we shouldn't weigh those equally when we consider the mix of stages.

I just like to consider the validity of our tournaments -- that we're still competing at the real game and not some preconceived idea of what it should be (e.g. that characters ought to be balanced, that stages ought to be "simple", that combos ought to be "predictable", etc.)

 

[Frihetsanka]

I suppose I could try making a potential sample list as well. I imagine this would be with hazards off for every stage, and that stage hazards off work as we think they will.

Starters:
1. Battlefield
2. Final Destination
3. Smashville
4. Town & City
5. Pokémon Stadium 1 or 2 (whichever is better)

Counter-picks:
1. WarioWare, Inc.
2. Frigate Orpheon
3. Kalos Pokémon League
4. Lylat Cruise
5. Yoshi's Island SSBB

Other stages could potentially be legal as well. Still, with this list we'd get a great bit of variety and and overall fair stage list with a low amount of jank, and no redundancy. Quality over quantity. Dave's Stupid Rule and probably 3 bans per player. This stage list would provide more variety than ever before, too, which should please spectators.

Of course, this is merely a sample stage list. We don't know every stage yet, and perhaps there might be more viable stages (in which case we could add more counter-picks). I think there are issues with 7 starters, however, namely that striking second is too big of an advantage. With 5 starters, you strike 1-2-1. Starting has the advantage of getting to choose but the disadvantage of having to start. With 7 starters, you could strike 2-3-1, I suppose.

Didn't Miiverse have higher platforms? I feel like this is a pretty poor example if I recall correctly. It would be a counter-pick stage while Battlefield is a starter. Why? Because having higher platforms causes some characters to require a double jump or fullhop to reach the platform instead of shorthop. This particularly affected certain characters making it a strong counterpick.

You can't just lump in "Oh these all have 3 triangle shaped platforms" and act like they all have the same advantages for different characters. Battlefield is a fairly good stage for Link for example while Miiverse is a horrible stage for Link.

That's not even considering the fact that some utilt/usmashes will connect on Battlefield that would not connect on the higher platforms of Miiverse.

Having a stage list with 3 Battlefield-like stages would still greatly benefit certain characters and harm characters weak on Battlefield-like stages. There's a reason the Smash 4 TOs decided to make it so that if you ban Battlefield you also ban Dream Land 64. Do you agree with that rule, or would you prefer Dream Land to be fully separate?

Let me try a counterpoint. It's not our job to balance the characters, we want to find who's the best at Smash Bros. Consider if the game had 1 legal stage with water, vs 10 stages with water. It should be more important to be good at water in the latter case, because that's a bigger part of the game. And every player is equally capable of choosing the characters that are good with water, or whatever.

I can agree with this.

 

[WritersBlah]

I thought for the sake of argumentation, I'd list off my personal list of stages that I think should be legal, separated into two sections: stages I feel should definitely be legal, no questions asked, and stages I'm a little iffier on but still want to see at least get tried out for a while. Assume hazards off for all of these unless noted otherwise.

The Obvious Ones
Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Dreamland 64, Yoshi's Story, Town & City, Pokemon Stadium 2

Should Definitely be Legal (in no particular order)
1. Brinstar (no acid and nonbreakable sections of the stage give this stage an interesting layout well-suited for competitive play)
2. Fountain of Dreams (if it comes back, obviously)
3. (Hazards On) Pokemon Stadium 1 (I feel like the stage transformations still make this stage really interesting. Unless the hard windmill platforms from Brawl come back, there's no need to ban this stage)
4. Yoshi's Island Brawl (an honestly pretty well-balanced stage; I don't think the support ghosts detract from the gameplay whether or not they remain with hazards off)
5. Frigate Orpheon (as seen in the invitational, a pretty interesting but well-balanced stage)
6. WarioWare, Inc. (assuming hazards off turns off the microgames, the platform layout on this stage is honestly excellent and unique)
7. Lylat Cruise (the platform layout is honestly really good, and with no more tilting, has no reason to not be legal)
8. Unova Pokemon League (might be a little too similar to PS2, but not degenerate nonetheless)
9. Arena Ferox (hopefully hazards off keeps the transformations but makes the statues indestructible, but if not, should still be legal with the transformations)
10. Prism Tower (honestly the best traveling stage in the series)

The Iffier Ones
1. Yoshi's Island 64 (if hazards off removes the clouds, then it could definitely be legal. If not, instaban)
2. Planet Zebes 64 (if it comes back, could have an interesting platform layout. Might suffer from circle camping though)
3. Peach's Castle Melee (the giant wall in the middle might cause issues, but I think it's worth a trial run)
4. Mute City Melee (if it comes back, could definitely be a good traveling stage since the cars will be gone. If it doesn't transform, might make certain characters too strong though)
5. Delfino Plaza (if it doesn't transform, should definitely be legal. If it does, we need to test if the tiny ceiling transition is still a thing)
6. Castle Siege (if it doesn't transform, good. If it does, bad)
7. Rainbow Road (see Mute City above. Probably shouldn't have both legal though)
8. Reset Bomb Forest (assuming it doesn't transform, we need to see if the layout doesn't promote degenerate playstyles)
9. Find Mii (same as above, but with a few more risks involved regarding the Mii cage)
10. Wily's Castle (please keep the platforms in hazards off. If it doesn't, might be too similar to FD)
11. Umbra Clock Tower (if it no longer causes motion sickness and removes some of the campier stage transitions, could definitely be good. Otherwise, might be another FD clone)
12. Mushroom Kingdom U (I honestly really like this stage and its transformations. If transformations are still in hazards off, should definitely be legal. If it's just the first platform layout, we'll have to check if the stage is too big)
13. Mario Circuit U (has a really good base platform layout that makes sharking less powerful than in Mute City or Rainbow Road. Cars off also means the transformations could be really good, if they're still in)
14. Jungle Hijinx (assuming the barrels and background stage are gone, could be a nice small stage)
15. Pyrosphere (assuming it's back, might be too big, but could still have some fun interactions since the platforms don't seem to promote circle camping)
16. Halberd (if it doesn't stick on the walkoff transformation, could be a really good stage. Should check to make sure sharking isn't still too powerful)
17. Wuhu Island (nice large base layout, might actually be better if it doesn't transform)
18. Skyloft (with no transformations, a perfectly fine stage. With transformations, a little iffier, but iirc, it was banned for the transformations IN CONJUNCTION with the fact that you could randomly get hit by the statue while passing through the stage, which should be removed for good now)
19. Kalos Pokemon League (if it doesn't tranform, might be too similar to the other Pokemon stages. if it does, we'll need to see if the walkoffs from the water tranformation and the two sword walls don't stick around)
edit: 20. Duck Hunt (was banned in Smash 4 recently, I know, but I think it's worth another shot)

 

[ExceptionalBeasts]

Been lurking in this thread for a while, and thought I'd share my input.

Really I don't see the issue with randomly selecting the stage for game 1. There's really only 4 outcomes for selecting a stage in regards to your character's (and your own) prowess on it, which are really only 2 outcomes. Outcome 1 is the stage favors P1, and if random selects a stage favorable to P1, then for all intents and purposes that's the exact same as winning RPS as P1 and choosing a stage that favors your own character. Outcome 2 is the same but for P2, which is really half the chance of random- that the stage randomly selected benefits one character more than another, which we do already. Your second [set of] outcome is that both characters are at a disadvantage on a stage (i.e. Little Mac vs. Ganondorf on Duck Hunt) which is really no disadvantage because each character is pretty much at the same level of preparedness (obviously some characters are marginally better or worse on some stages compared to others, but I would assume that rarely is a deciding factor). You could also have both characters with an advantage on the stage (Marth vs. Fox on FD in Melee). In either of those situations the individual MU matters more, and the MU would matter anyway, so really it's a more applicable indicator of player skill. Really there's nothing random takes away from the game, although I can definitely imagine players complaining about the lack of agency in this situation even though I don't think it ultimately makes much of a difference because RPS is pretty random anyway.

The other big thing people suggest against this is it takes too long to go into options, then random stage select, then turn off whichever stages people wanna strike, but the new UI makes this simpler than ever. Randomly select a stage, and if it selects one of the 2/4/whatever stages that you striked, just press B and try again. This is assuming random stage select shows us the stage when we hit the button like every previous Smash stage- do we have confirmation on that? You'd only need to go into the menus on game 2 or 3 assuming we ban that many that we have a significant chance of wasting time by going back and forth hoping for something not banned.

I've also heard a lot of discussion about hazards always being off or on, but considering we could access Omega stages and My Music from the same SSS as the normal stage select, I'm hoping hazard toggle should be just a button press away. This kind of necessitates counterpicks (unless random stage select has separate buttons for hazards on/off versions of stages, which I doubt) but I think it's worth it for the variety.

Lots of people have also been arguing that it's a bigger investment to either learn more stages as your character or learn more characters to play better on stages. Neither of those are a big deal, I don't think. In a game with 65+ character, if you main one, you're deliberately handicapping yourself, and obviously there's no tournament ruleset for how many characters you should know but I'm gonna be surprised if the majority of players both in casual and competitive tourney settings don't pick up at least a couple. If that's inconvenient for you then...learn your single main really well. Learning multiple stages might be kind of an issue, but if you can remember moves and hitboxes and random trivia about the game (and you're taking the time to post on a gaming forum so I'm sure you can), you can probably learn each stage's idiosyncrasies, and it's really more a general set of principles (how does my character react to soft platforms, moving platforms, slopes?) than it is the exact geometry and layout of each stage down to the pixel, except in minute cases like Dream Land vs. Battlefield for Little Mac, but that being such a small difference makes it more likely (I think) that you'll end up remembering it because it's such a tiny detail you can't help but do so, etc etc.

So now not only do we have variety which is fun to play on and fun to watch, but we're rewarding the person who invests more time in the game (as we should) and using as much of the game's content as possible (as we should). I've seen people in this thread complain that this favors the person who has more free time to practice on stages, but not every player is going to be able to practice on every stage the perfect amount of times and I suspect the skill level will level out, and let's be honest if the person beats you because they have more time to invest that naturally means they're learning the mechanics more and I don't think more legal stages is going to be a reason (at least not the only reason) for your defeat.

And obviously this doesn't mean legalize everything, obviously we won't keep debilitating hazards or walkoffs or caves of life or overly large stages, but we should try most things, even if it really sucks for one specific character (Duck Hunt) or is unlike any layouts we've seen legal before (Reset Bomb Forest) or has the capacity for "degenerate play" (Kongo Falls but we'll have to test that with Ultimate's physics and how many people actually take advantage of it).

 

[Skitrel]

Having a stage list with 3 Battlefield-like stages would still greatly benefit certain characters and harm characters weak on Battlefield-like stages. There's a reason the Smash 4 TOs decided to make it so that if you ban Battlefield you also ban Dream Land 64. Do you agree with that rule, or would you prefer Dream Land to be fully separate?

I can agree with this.

Dreamland should be separate. Everything should be. But that's besides the point, by engaging with your thoughts I'm legitimising the concept you're putting forward when I actually completely disagree with it. I don't want TOs to be choosing which of the 30+ legal stages make tournaments because it will lead to one character or another being advantaged/disadvantaged. Same goes for seasonal. Same goes for random.

I am in favour of giving ALL the control to the players. So the players themselves decide their fate in a metagame style of picks against one another.

I like the following:

1. Both players pick 3 starters and 4 counter picks each. Blind to each other.
2. They combine their 7 picks together. Eliminate duplicates.
3. Stage striking occurs as it has always occurred. Fewer strikes occur depending on the total number of stages (determined by the number of duplicate picks).

This results in the entire stage list being given to the players.

The only additional steps added to the existing way we have always done stage picks is that the players add extra steps where they blind-choose their own stages to function in the total up to 14 stage pool.

This gives all power to players. It builds a metagame where players might want to NOT pick a stage because they believe their opponent will pick it, thus giving them more chance of getting an extra stage they want, etc etc.

I am in favour of the players having the power that decides their match completely. Not random things. Not a seasonal backroom. Not a TO picking only 10-15stages for an entire tournament. The players can face off against each other entirely with the entire legal stagelist.

 

[WritersBlah]

Starters:
1. Battlefield
2. Final Destination
3. Smashville
4. Town & City
5. Pokémon Stadium 1 or 2 (whichever is better)

Counter-picks:
1. WarioWare, Inc.
2. Frigate Orpheon
3. Kalos Pokémon League
4. Lylat Cruise
5. Yoshi's Island SSBB

Other stages could potentially be legal as well. Still, with this list we'd get a great bit of variety and and overall fair stage list with a low amount of jank, and no redundancy. Quality over quantity. Dave's Stupid Rule and probably 3 bans per player. This stage list would provide more variety than ever before, too, which should please spectators.

In a ten stage list like you're proposing, this shifts the power balance in counterpicking down from L80-W20 to L70-W30, and with DSR intact, even lower to L60-W40, the lowest advantage counterpicking would ever have been. Any reason why you would suggest three stage bans instead of two?

I like the following:

1. Both players pick 3 starters and 4 counter picks each. Blind to each other.
2. They combine their 7 picks together. Eliminate duplicates.
3. Stage striking occurs as it has always occurred. Fewer strikes occur depending on the total number of stages (determined by the number of duplicate picks).

This results in the entire stage list being given to the players.

The only additional steps added to the existing way we have always done stage picks is that the players add extra steps where they blind-choose their own stages to function in the total up to 14 stage pool.

This gives all power to players. It builds a metagame where players might want to NOT pick a stage because they believe their opponent will pick it, thus giving them more chance of getting an extra stage they want, etc etc.

That actually sounds like a pretty cool idea, but I have a few questions regarding it. Firstly, the number of starters needs to equal an odd number for striking as we understand it to function, so what decides which player gets to add their extra stage to the list (or removes one of them)? What if two players share a stage in their lists? Do they merge together or are the players allowed to choose another stage? Are players allowed to switch up their stage list every new set, or are they locked in for the rest of the tournament? What are the time logistics of choosing a different set of seven stages every set for every player?

 

[infomon]

You know what would be sweet, for game 1? If the game could pick a random set of 5 (or maybe 7) of the legal stages, and you stage-strike down from there.

But I don't think we should standardize on anything that requires an app just to choose the stage lol. Tournaments need to be easy to newcomers.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I am in favour of giving ALL the control to the players. So the players themselves decide their fate in a metagame style of picks against one another.

I like the following:

1. Both players pick 3 starters and 4 counter picks each. Blind to each other.
2. They combine their 7 picks together. Eliminate duplicates.
3. Stage striking occurs as it has always occurred. Fewer strikes occur depending on the total number of stages (determined by the number of duplicate picks).

This results in the entire stage list being given to the players.

I assume that, under this system, you would have something like more than 20 but less than 40 stages to choose from (so really bad stages like Temple would not even be possible, right?). One issue is that players could tailor their stage picks based on what character they're playing. A Zero Suit Samus player could choose Midgar, Battlefield, Dream Land 64, Yoshi's Story, Lylat, Town & City, and Halberd as their stages, which means that when counter-picking that player will be guaranteed to get a really good stage.

Also, stage striking depends on 5 starters (or more). There's good reason people objected to the 3 starter list in Smash 4 (it gives an advantage to the second striker), and 2 starters and 4 starters would obviously be even worse. Also, this system, with blind-picking stages, might be a hassle for smaller tournaments (although I suppose someone could create an app to make it easier).

In a ten stage list like you're proposing, this shifts the power balance in counterpicking down from L80-W20 to L70-W30, and with DSR intact, even lower to L60-W40, the lowest advantage counterpicking would ever have been. Any reason why you would suggest three stage bans instead of two?

My reasoning was that having the extra ban can be used to get rid of some of the more controversial stages, like WarioWare, Inc or Frigate Orpheon. If that doesn't work out then we could just use 2 bans.

 

[WritersBlah]

I assume that, under this system, you would have something like more than 20 but less than 40 stages to choose from (so really bad stages like Temple would not even be possible, right?). One issue is that players could tailor their stage picks based on what character they're playing. A Zero Suit Samus player could choose Midgar, Battlefield, Dream Land 64, Yoshi's Story, Lylat, Town & City, and Halberd as their stages, which means that when counter-picking that player will be guaranteed to get a really good stage.

I think that's probably the point of the system. The counterpicking process is meant to benefit the loser after all.

My reasoning was that having the extra ban can be used to get rid of some of the more controversial stages, like WarioWare, Inc or Frigate Orpheon. If that doesn't work out then we could just use 2 bans.

How are WarioWare and Frigate considered controversial? I haven't seen any players calling out their potential legality with hazards off.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think that's probably the point of the system. The counterpicking process is meant to benefit the loser after all.

Still, I think one should be able to deny someone going to their best stage (which you can in Smash 4). If you allow for multiple similar stages, then you can't really deny them that. It would kind of be like having multiple Final Destination variations (and perhaps we will have if we allow hazardless Wily Castle and hazardless PictoChat). Let's say you're facing a Sonic or Little Mac. You win game 1. You ban Final Destination, they go to hazardless Wily Castle, they win. You play another stage, they lose. You ban Final Destination, and they pick hazardless PictoChat. You had to fight Little Mac twice on what is essentially his best stage, despite banning Final Destination both times. Is this actually good? Also, wouldn't this lead to less diversity, not more? You'd have to fight ZSS on triplats more often than before, and Little Mac and Sonic on flat stages without platforms more often than before too. Two bans would lessen the issue but they'd still get their best stage one time.

Perhaps a variation of the system could be that similar stages count as the same stage when banning (like Omegas and FD in Smash 4 as well as Battlefield and Dream Land 64). That would remove some of the worst offenders.

How are WarioWare and Frigate considered controversial? I haven't seen any players calling out their potential legality with hazards off.

Stages can be polarizing even if they're legal.They're arguably more different and polarizing than most stages (WarioWare mostly if it keeps the small blastzones). If we look at Smash 4, a lot of people banned Lylat even if it wasn't all that bad for their character.

 

[Skitrel]

I assume that, under this system, you would have something like more than 20 but less than 40 stages to choose from (so really bad stages like Temple would not even be possible, right?). One issue is that players could tailor their stage picks based on what character they're playing. A Zero Suit Samus player could choose Midgar, Battlefield, Dream Land 64, Yoshi's Story, Lylat, Town & City, and Halberd as their stages, which means that when counter-picking that player will be guaranteed to get a really good stage.

Also, stage striking depends on 5 starters (or more). There's good reason people objected to the 3 starter list in Smash 4 (it gives an advantage to the second striker), and 2 starters and 4 starters would obviously be even worse. Also, this system, with blind-picking stages, might be a hassle for smaller tournaments (although I suppose someone could create an app to make it easier).

My reasoning was that having the extra ban can be used to get rid of some of the more controversial stages, like WarioWare, Inc or Frigate Orpheon. If that doesn't work out then we could just use 2 bans.

Correct. You'd pick from a total community-wide stagelist of "legals", starter and counterpick. I anticipate that to be around 30-40 stages depending on what else gets announced and what has been legal historically.

It would be irrelevant that the counterpick stages would be stronger because all players would have the same strength in their counterpicks.

It would actually serve to make finals matches more interesting because you'll get more situations where you get 3-2 results when counterpick stages are stronger instead of 3-0 results. That actually works out better for TOs that want their grand finals to be hype. Finals matches that are entirely one sided are always a bit disappointing for audiences.

 

[WritersBlah]

Still, I think one should be able to deny someone going to their best stage (which you can in Smash 4). If you allow for multiple similar stages, then you can't really deny them that. It would kind of be like having multiple Final Destination variations (and perhaps we will have if we allow hazardless Wily Castle and hazardless PictoChat). Let's say you're facing a Sonic or Little Mac. You win game 1. You ban Final Destination, they go to hazardless Wily Castle, they win. You play another stage, they lose. You ban Final Destination, and they pick hazardless PictoChat. You had to fight Little Mac twice on what is essentially his best stage, despite banning Final Destination both times. Is this actually good? Also, wouldn't this lead to less diversity, not more? You'd have to fight ZSS on triplats more often than before, and Little Mac and Sonic on flat stages without platforms more often than before too. Two bans would lessen the issue but they'd still get their best stage one time.

Perhaps a variation of the system could be that similar stages count as the same stage when banning (like Omegas and FD in Smash 4 as well as Battlefield and Dream Land 64). That would remove some of the worst offenders.

I have a few problems with the scenario that you've brought forth, as it assumes several things that likely aren't true. Firstly, it assumes that with a stagelist that massive, players will only get one ban. The number of bans should scale with the stagelist so that it effectively cuts out around 20% of the available stages. With a ten-stage list, this would be two bans. On a fourteen stage list (7 for each player), you'd be working with three bans. So in a worst case scenario where we had a list with BF, FD, FoD, Yoshi's Story, DL64, Wily's, and Pictochat all legal, you'd be able to ban all of the flat stages or all but one of the triplats. There aren't enough purely flat stages to make your nightmare scenario function. There are exactly one too many triplats, but that's firstly assuming FoD or a new triplat stage makes it back in, and secondly, that all of the triplat stages would give ZSS equally overwhelming advantages. In this scenario, your best bet would be to go to FoD since the platforms sink throughout the match.

Secondly, your propsed scenario, even if it happened exactly as you put it, would only affect Bo5 sets, and even then you're at worst looking at a bracket reset. Bo3 sets would let the Sonic roam free on a flat stage, sure, but game 3 would give your character just as huge an advantage. This sort of thing goes both ways, it doesn't just affect one player.

Stages can be polarizing even if they're legal.They're arguably more different and polarizing than most stages (WarioWare mostly if it keeps the small blastzones). If we look at Smash 4, a lot of people banned Lylat even if it wasn't all that bad for their character.

I think I just misiniterpreted your wording there. People do tend to dislike certain stages because it doesn't benefit their character, that's natural. I don't think moving platforms or small blastzones are grounds for controversy though. Lylat had that distinction because of its tilting screwing up multiple recoveries, but hazards off fixes almost every controversial element there could be in a stage with contested legality.

 

[PoptartLord]

no amount of stage bans will be feasible to keep track of and have tournaments go by smoothly. PoptartLord suggested having the loser suggest a stage one by one until the winner agreed to one. The problem with this method, as you mentioned, is that it would always be in the winner's best interest to say no up until the very end. So instead of this, what if the loser simply listed, without interruption, six or seven stages he'd like to play on, with the winner then choosing from that list

Interesting. So you're suggesting swapping from listing stages in series to in parallel; that works. Alright, time for a tweaked proposal:
The stage decider (i.e. just lost the previous game) picks ten stages out of the large pool of 40+ legal stages. The opponent gets to ban three of the ten. The stage decider then picks from the remaining seven for the next match.
The basic flow is this - create a short list, some get banned, pick from the remainder. Methodology advantage bullet points:

• Scalability. We can have a legal stage list of 20, 40, or even 80 and the stage selection time will remain constant [O(1)]. Under the current system the larger the stage list the more stages need to be struck every round. It doesn't scale well at all, which means we either need a new method to handle larger lists or artificially limit the legal stage list for the sake of supporting this process
• Both players have a say in the stage selection process. It's an issue when players don't have any say in the matter. We've heard this from several people in this thread already, and I'm inclined to agree. Not only is there player agency but ...
• Bans are significant. When striking stages from a large list it's always a gamble if the stage decider is even interested in said stage. If they're not then you wound up wasting a ban. Here you only ban stages that you know the opponent is interested in
• This method doesn't lose to manipulation. This is where my first proposal failed since it was always in your interest to veto, which ruined the spirit of the methodology. This time there's no preference order exposed to be taken advantage of
• Can account for hazards on or off. In the event that there are some stages legal only with hazards on (BotW stage where the cave is destroyable only with hazards on, if I'm hearing right?), since stages are picked manually it's possible to hit the toggle. Yes, I'm assuming it will be a button press on the stage menu like Alpha, Omega, and Music. Yes, this is a minor point

That still leaves the issue of what to do for game 1. Really there's only two options. The first is to select Random and be done with it. This takes away a measure of player control. The second option is more traditional where the winner of RPS becomes the stage decider and follow the above methodology. Maybe bump it up to five bans since game 1 seems to get all these special rules, I don't know. Point of discussion!

(Wasn't there one Smash 4 tournament where the damage ratio was accidentally set to 1.1x on a particular setup or something?)

Knockback was set to .9, and it was the stream setup. At least one whole set was played like that and two(?) games of another, and when discovered [mid-set] only the most recent game was allowed a redo.

If given the option would you add Duck Hunt, Delfino, Castle Siege, Halberd, Skyloft, and Wuhu back into competitive play? It would be better for viewers to have more stages. There would be less Smashville over and over.
Anyone else feel free to answer.

Not only would I add them, I've Gentleman'd to them in tournament and the matches turned out fine. Granted, Wuhu was only once or twice.
I don't care what viewers want, it's better for competitors to have more stages. The side effect of competitors playing on more stages is that viewers get to see games on more stages, which is a plus for them.
Death to Smashville! ...but it's already in the game and should be legal

..."Jank" does not mean random, at least not in Smash 4 context. ...
Adding bad stages would negatively affect the players, so that's a reason to be cautious. If we had 20+ good stages to choose from I'd be less concerned, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm a bit worried some people will try to cram in bad stages in order to get more stages, and I don't think that's a good idea. I think there will likely be 7-15 good stages to choose from (though it's possible they'll add more good stages), so we'll have to test them, but we should be able to get a minimum of 7 good stages.

"Jank" absolutely can mean random in Smash 4 context. I've heard it been used that way numerous times.
NEW RULE FOR EVERYONE: if you use the word "jank" you must define it and/or give specific examples. Otherwise the term can mean anything and becomes nothing more than an excuse to authenticate baseless claims
That last bit is.... wow. There's over 80 stages so far, and the game creators went so far as to implement a hazard toggle that affects every stage, and there should be 7 good stages? And four of the good ones were already in Smash 4, so only three of the new stages. Just how strict is your definition of a good stage?

I also wanna say I don't think we should throw all these stages into competitive to test them out

Here's the problem with that - once you've removed (or not included) something it will never come back. People will fight tooth and nail to make sure of that. Just look back to Smash 4 for confirmation. Miis, Duck Hunt stage, Delfino (what is the list down to now, 5?), alternate specials... all gone, with nary a whisper of any potential return.

Some observations on what hazard toggle does for certain levels <videos>

It might just be me but I think that build of the game is faster than the one I tried. Not having to fight the controls might have something to do with that though (I wasn't allowed to change the controls from default). Anyway, those stages looked great. It's one thing to theorize about stage issues, another to see them in action. There's so much bias from the last time these stages were available and Ultimate's speed and mechanics/physics aren't properly being taken into consideration

I don't think trapping people against the wall is the big issue. I think the biggest issue is you can put your back to a wall and if someone hits you that wall protects you. So you can just keep running back to the wall

I have quite a bit of experience with walls in Smash 4. They're not as lifesaving as people think. I've used walls to extend combos plenty of times so there's the potential for hiding there backfiring on you. If you get hit while touching / too close to the wall then it's untechable, which means you aren't saved. Even if you do tech if the opponent was close to begin with then you can get hit again while trying to land. Or you can get overconfident and get grabbed and thrown away. One last tidbit - if you're shielding (whether or not there's a wall at your back) and someone multiattacks you (i.e. rapid jab) then they'll get pushed away after about a second, so you can't get trapped into a forced shield break.
Bringing Ultimate's physics into the mix, launch acceleration has changed. You go the full distance much quicker, meaning there's that much less time to react to tech and be saved

It's not merely an issue of familiarity but also about character viability on different. I don't think people should have to be ready to play 3-5 different characters in order to deal with random stages for game 1. I also think that we should still do character picks before stage picks for game 1 first, in order to reduce the risk of something like facing Donkey Kong on Halberd* (if I know that my opponent has picked Donkey Kong then I'll ban Halberd for sure).

Any stage that can be chosen at random can be chosen through a stage striking process. Are you saying that you wouldn't need those 3-5 characters if you arrived at the same stage destinations through stage striking? Or is 3-5 hyperbole to fit your narrative?
So you're proposing picking characters first.... by subverting the change of stage selection coming before character selection in the game.... which was put in specifically to better mesh with tournaments.... but only for game 1..... because you're afraid that the opponent will choose a synergistic character to match the stage.... which is somehow different than choosing a synergistic stage to match the character.
In fact, character viability being different on different stages is the reason for the selection change. With stage selection first players are never stuck with a character that performs poorly on said stage; continuing to do so is their choice.
And before anyone says it don't give me that "starters are neutral so there's no stage that bad" line. It's garbage. Just compare FD and Battlefield - are you really going to say there aren't nontrivial matchup differences between the two most neutral of neutral stages?


Ugh, it's so late... I'll just do three stages for now.
Duck Hunt: It hasn't been available for me to test, but I wonder if jump -> directional airdodge straight up -> jump is enough to reach the tree with problem characters without having to burn an up-B. It would be great if so

Tortimer Island: Just commenting on the water for now. It negates a strength of long recovery moves (Pit) and kills off under the stage edgeguarding. I've never seen anyone drown. Spikes are definitely a thing, but mess up and you leave yourself wide open to be spiked yourself. Water really adds an interesting dynamic to the stage

Great Cave Offensive: Does the hazard toggle take the 'hot' out of 'hot lava'? Nooo!!! Just make it unselectable at that point.
...oh, and not legal due to excessively large size & circle camping & permanent walkoffs
.........I really want hazards off spikes to have little corks added to the points. It would be hilarious

EDIT: Added the fifth bullet point, underlined "Point of discussion!"

 

[WritersBlah]

• This method doesn't lose to manipulation. This is where my first proposal failed since it was always in your interest to veto, which ruined the spirit of the methodology. This time there's no preference order exposed to be taken advantage of

Actually, while you were gone, DtJ Glyphmoney pointed out that choosing stages in series does lead to some interesting mindgames, where you can attempt to fake out your opponent into wasting a veto by suggesting a poorer stage first so the final stage suggested is actually your preferred one, with the opponent being able to call your bluff by agreeing to a stage in the process. I'm not sure how much I'd like this to be an actual thing to worry about in tournament, but it's a perspective I hadn't considered. Returning to your post though:

Interesting. So you're suggesting swapping from listing stages in series to in parallel; that works. Alright, time for a tweaked proposal:
The stage decider (i.e. just lost the previous game) picks ten stages out of the large pool of 40+ legal stages. The opponent gets to ban three of the ten. The stage decider then picks from the remaining seven for the next match.
The basic flow is this - create a short list, some get banned, pick from the remainder. Methodology advantage bullet points:

• Scalability. We can have a legal stage list of 20, 40, or even 80 and the stage selection time will remain constant [O(1)]. Under the current system the larger the stage list the more stages need to be struck every round. It doesn't scale well at all, which means we either need a new method to handle larger lists or artificially limit the legal stage list for the sake of supporting this process
• Both players have a say in the stage selection process. It's an issue when players don't have any say in the matter. We've heard this from several people in this thread already, and I'm inclined to agree. Not only is there player agency but ...
• Bans are significant. When striking stages from a large list it's always a gamble if the stage decider is even interested in said stage. If they're not then you wound up wasting a ban. Here you only ban stages that you know the opponent is interested in
• This method doesn't lose to manipulation. This is where my first proposal failed since it was always in your interest to veto, which ruined the spirit of the methodology. This time there's no preference order exposed to be taken advantage of

That still leaves the issue of what to do for game 1. Really there's only two options. The first is to select Random and be done with it. This takes away a measure of player control. The second option is more traditional where the winner of RPS becomes the stage decider and follow the above methodology. Maybe bump it up to five bans since game 1 seems to get all these special rules, I don't know. Point of discussion!

I kind of like this idea, but I'm afraid it's beginning to get too complicated to teach to newcomers. With this proposal, the stage picking process would be the following:

Loser deliberates matchup between his character and the opponent's character -> chooses 10 stages he'd like to play on --> winner bans 2-3 of those stages --> loser picks a stage
Versus the current method of:
Winner bans 2-3 stages --> loser picks a stage

Those extra two steps at the beginning, especially since you're asking a player to pick out ten stages in tandem, requires a lot of thought, so I imagine choosing those ten stages could take upwards of a minute of decision making, on top of the usual time spent for banning stages. Between choosing your original proposal and your revised one, I feel like the revised one would lead to a healthier metagame, but the original would be significantly easier to implement. It's kind of a bad spot honestly.

edit: Maybe implementing some kind of app to streamline this process would be beneficial to avoid mistakes and maybe even keep things from running too long. Idk, I'm torn between wanting to implement this and what the general reaction from the competitive community would be.

 

[infomon]

Here's what's going to happen. A controversial convention for 7 or maybe 9 "starter" stages will emerge, that are just simple stages with different platform configurations, hazards off. FD, BF, Lylat, PokemonStadium, Smashville, some others. Even Smashville will be mildly controversial because of the movement -- since we can afford to be real choosy, and conservative TOs always win.

First game is chosen as stage-striking from that ultra-conservative list. Less serious tournaments could just do random pick from the starters, since you choose characters after seeing the random choice anyway (we hope).

I don't love this scheme, but it's a realistic baseline we can expect people to agree on. Other schemes will have to be more convincing than this.

----

For the counterpick games, I hope we do a simple "loser picks N stages from all available legal stages, then winner picks from that list."

 

[Frihetsanka]

Correct. You'd pick from a total community-wide stagelist of "legals", starter and counterpick. I anticipate that to be around 30-40 stages depending on what else gets announced and what has been legal historically.

It would be irrelevant that the counterpick stages would be stronger because all players would have the same strength in their counterpicks.

I don't like this argument, although I suspect we differ in our views of what role stages should play. I believe that it's best if stages play a fairly neutral role, so that stage pick might affect the outcome a little but not all that much. Ideally, stages played on should be fairly neutral-ish and shouldn't offer huge advantage to one character over the other (unless the opponent failed when banning/stage striking).

It would actually serve to make finals matches more interesting because you'll get more situations where you get 3-2 results when counterpick stages are stronger instead of 3-0 results..

I don't think this is a good thing. If a player wins 3-0 on a fairly neutral stage list but almost loses the set when you switch to a broader stage list, then that is a problem. I want people to fight against each other, not against the stage.

I have a few problems with the scenario that you've brought forth, as it assumes several things that likely aren't true. Firstly, it assumes that with a stagelist that massive, players will only get one ban. The number of bans should scale with the stagelist so that it effectively cuts out around 20% of the available stages. With a ten-stage list, this would be two bans. On a fourteen stage list (7 for each player), you'd be working with three bans. So in a worst case scenario where we had a list with BF, FD, FoD, Yoshi's Story, DL64, Wily's, and Pictochat all legal, you'd be able to ban all of the flat stages or all but one of the triplats. There aren't enough purely flat stages to make your nightmare scenario function. There are exactly one too many triplats, but that's firstly assuming FoD or a new triplat stage makes it back in, and secondly, that all of the triplat stages would give ZSS equally overwhelming advantages. In this scenario, your best bet would be to go to FoD since the platforms sink throughout the match.

Secondly, your propsed scenario, even if it happened exactly as you put it, would only affect Bo5 sets, and even then you're at worst looking at a bracket reset. Bo3 sets would let the Sonic roam free on a flat stage, sure, but game 3 would give your character just as huge an advantage. This sort of thing goes both ways, it doesn't just affect one player.

I agree that bans would decrease the risk of my nightmare scenario, but my point about having to play on stages good for that character still stands. I think people should have the opportunity to get rid of their worst stage if they want to. Just because both players get to play on their best stage once doesn't mean that's a good thing. I'd rather have players play on their second-best stage.

 

[infomon]

If a player wins 3-0 on a fairly neutral stage list but almost loses the set when you switch to a broader stage list, then that is a problem.

The problem might be that the player isn't good at dealing with diverse, dynamic environments, which is a central part of the game. So maybe they deserve to lose.

Consider that characters are designed and balanced around the situations that come up from having all the stages. Of course we need to ban the ones that are too degenerate or random to allow for legitimate competition. But aside from that, let's hesitate to let opinions distort the balance of the game.

I want people to fight against each other, not against the stage.

I want the best player to win. The best at the game Smash Bros, not just the mini-game that you happen to like. Food for thought I suppose.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The problem might be that the player isn't good at dealing with diverse, dynamic environments, which is a central part of the game. So maybe they deserve to lose.

Perhaps. Or perhaps the stages favor one character strongly and is disadvantageous for another. That's what I'm primarily worried about (see Zero Suit Samus). It might be the case that the stage list ends up fairly balanced (if ladder combos are nerfed across the board, for instance), which could change things. So much of what we're doing here is highly speculative and once we get to play the game we'll have more data to base decisions on.

Consider that characters are designed and balanced around the situations that come up from having all the stages.

You could make the case that characters are designed for FFA with items on as well. Smash has never been designed primarily with competitive play in mind, yet we make it work (partly because we ban things that aren't great for competitive play).

I want the best player to win. The best at the game Smash Bros, not just the mini-game that you happen to like.

People have long made the case that Smash players are too restrictive (when it comes to stages, items, and custom moves). Still, we had good reasons to ban items, ban custom moves, and restrict stages. Ultimately, the game is more competitively healthy because people made those decisions, and I hope Smash Ultimate won't be scared to make necessary cuts that make competitive Smash better.