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Does the Stage Hazard Toggle mean that stages should go crazy with hazards?

Yes or No?


  • Total voters
    22
D

Deleted member

Guest
This a debate I've seen thrown around in the Smash Community on occasion and I'd like to bring it up here. The easiest example to give is Dracula's Castle. Some people appreciate the simplicity of that stage while others think the option to turn off hazards means they should have had all the bosses attack players instead of just being in the background.

Now if the hazard toggle got tweaked to being an option on the stage select screen like Battlefield and Omega Forms then perhaps I would change my mind. But right now I am of the opinion that the hazard toggle does not mean that simple stages are lame and that hazards should be added like crazy.

My reasons.

1. Outside of Multiplayer you're control for what stage you're playing on is limited

2. The current Hazard toggle is an all or nothing deal. You can't individually turn off stage hazards and some stages like Pokemon Stadium and Great Plateau Tower are made worse without them.


What about you guys though? What are your thoughts on this?
 

DelugeFGC

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I honestly don't fully understand the question being asked, but I think I get the jist..

People want a stage hazard toggle because without it, you're forced to go out of your way to have multiple rulesets on hand in order to play certain stages without them feeling gutted. The easiest example would be FoD (Fountain of Dreams) where the platforms come and go at interval, without hazards this is completely gone despite that being a quite important part of the metagame focused around that stage. Thus when FoD comes up, a separate ruleset must be used to avoid this issue.

A stage hazard toggle nulls this completely, making it far simpler to go about setting up your stage and getting on with the match without having to back out and switch rulesets or worse, create a new one on the spot. In a tournament setting, this is just highly inefficient and overall can be quite irritating after it comes up several times. Stage hazards are USUALLY jank and most competitive players, myself included, despise them.. BUT not all of them. It really boils down to what the game considers a 'hazard' because I personally don't feel that word best suits some of the things the toggle setting affects.. but I will digress on that matter for now.

We need a toggle, it's an extremely simple QoL fix and there's no real reason to argue against it from any perspective.
 
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D

Deleted member

Guest
I honestly don't fully understand the question being asked, but I think I get the jist..

People want a stage hazard toggle because without it, you're forced to go out of your way to have multiple rulesets on hand in order to play certain stages without them feeling gutted. The easiest example would be FoD (Fountain of Dreams) where the platforms come and go at interval, without hazards this is completely gone despite that being a quite important part of the metagame focused around that stage. Thus when FoD comes up, a separate ruleset must be used to avoid this issue.

A stage hazard toggle nulls this completely, making it far simpler to go about setting up your stage and getting on with the match without having to back out and switch rulesets or worse, create a new one on the spot. In a tournament setting, this is just highly inefficient and overall can be quite irritating after it comes up several times. Stage hazards are USUALLY jank and most competitive players, myself included, despise them.. BUT not all of them. It really boils down to what the game considers a 'hazard' because I personally don't feel that word best suits some of the things the toggle setting affects.. but I will digress on that matter for now.

We need a toggle, it's an extremely simple QoL fix and there's no real reason to argue against it from any perspective.
The question is if the existence of the Toggle means that stages should include lots and lots of hazards when those hazards are set to on. Think of it like this. Should Dracula's Castle have been the simple stage it ended up being? Or should all the Castlevania bosses have been able to attack the players. People don't tend to be fond of the latter, but the argument is that if you don't care for it just turn off the hazards.

That's only one example, but it gives the idea of what the question is.
 

DelugeFGC

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I mean if you ask me, screw traditional (SH's that are NOT things like what I mentioned with FoD) stage hazards and burn them with fire. But that's the response you'll get from any serious player, at the end of the day it boils down to people playing with what they like.. the issue a lot of players like myself have isn't related to that. It's related to you being forced to have two different rulesets with hazards toggled on and off so when certain stage picks come up, you're not forced to back out and pick the other ruleset.. etc. There's also a few other problems that this causes that I haven't mentioned, but I won't bother getting into all that as it's been hashed out to hell and back alright.


No, I don't want more stage hazards. I just want the ability to toggle them on and off from the stage select screen.
 
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D

Deleted member

Guest
I mean if you ask me, screw traditional (SH's that are NOT things like what I mentioned with FoD) stage hazards and burn them with fire. But that's the response you'll get from any serious player, at the end of the day it boils down to people playing with what they like.. the issue a lot of players like myself have isn't related to that. It's related to you being forced to have two different rulesets with hazards toggled on and off so when certain stage picks come up, you're not forced to back out and pick the other ruleset.. etc. There's also a few other problems that this causes that I haven't mentioned, but I won't bother getting into all that as it's been hashed out to hell and back alright.


No, I don't want more stage hazards. I just want the ability to toggle them on and off from the stage select screen.
So basically you're on the side of whether or not hazards are set to on or off that a stage shouldn't include them just because they can be turned off.
 

DelugeFGC

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I'm not entirely sure what you're saying still, if what I assume you say IS what you say, then you'd be putting words in my mouth and that's not my position at all. I don't like stage hazards, not many competitive players do and few ever will, but this isn't what I'm talking about nor is it the point. The point is that currently, when you disable stage hazards.. things that really SHOULDN'T be considered stage hazards at all are disabled outright.. like said FoD platforms. This hurts the meta of certain stages, call these 'good' stage hazards if you want.. I don't think they should be considered 'hazards' at all but again.. not the point.

What me and many other people want, is to null all this business about turning hazards off in the ruleset, because the way that works forces you to have to keep multiple rulesets when picking certain stages in certain settings.. it causes other issues too like online in Battle Arenas. Instead, just let us toggle them On or Off in the stage select screen, so for the stages that have 'hazards' that aren't really hazards and are considered important to that stage.. well they can still be played on the same ruleset in a given setting.

That is the problem. As I said, I don't care for stage hazards much at all, but at the end of the day if people like them.. go nuts. That's not at all the problem here.
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying still, if what I assume you say IS what you say, then you'd be putting words in my mouth and that's not my position at all. I don't like stage hazards, not many competitive players do and few ever will, but this isn't what I'm talking about nor is it the point. The point is that currently, when you disable stage hazards.. things that really SHOULDN'T be considered stage hazards at all are disabled outright.. like said FoD platforms. This hurts the meta of certain stages, call these 'good' stage hazards if you want.. I don't think they should be considered 'hazards' at all but again.. not the point.

What me and many other people want, is to null all this business about turning hazards off in the ruleset, because the way that works forces you to have to keep multiple rulesets when picking certain stages in certain settings.. it causes other issues too like online in Battle Arenas. Instead, just let us toggle them On or Off in the stage select screen, so for the stages that have 'hazards' that aren't really hazards and are considered important to that stage.. well they can still be played on the same ruleset in a given setting.

That is the problem. As I said, I don't care for stage hazards much at all, but at the end of the day if people like them.. go nuts. That's not at all the problem here.
I apologize for the confusion. Hopefully this way of wording it will clear things up.

Regardless of the mindset being competitive or casual, the question is that when the stage is being made should the developers add as many hazards as they want because they can be turned off or is it okay for them to just make it a simple stage like say, battlefield.
 

DelugeFGC

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So basically, should you be able to add stage hazards to any stage you wanted, even if the stage never had any?

Not something I'd personally advocate for, it seems like it would be quite difficult to do without messing with stages like FoD. Since stages like that contain 'good stage hazards', in this system you speak of.. if hazards were set to on, BAD stage hazards would be added and that only makes the problem worse.

So.. if that's what you mean, no, not for me at all. If it was something that was implemented differently where it was a completely different setting from on/off.. sure, but that's basically getting into stage builder-esque additions which it's highly unlikely we'll ever be getting. I'm never a person who would want to add hazards to ANY stage, I just want to be able to toggle hazards in the select screen due to the issue I talked about.
 

MacDaddyNook

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As someone who plays with the hazards on, I really do not want them to go overboard with the hazards. This was one of my biggest problems with the Wii U version as many of the new stages were nigh-unplayable because the gimmicks and hazards disrupted everything too far much (and I'm glad that the worst offenders did not come back in Ultimate). An "All On" or "All Off" approach would be disappointing for me as the stages would become either become boring or a hot mess, neither of which would be all too fun for me. I'm fine with a toggle for those who want the stage layout without the interference of hazards, but I do enjoy playing a stage with all that makes it unique available, as long as it doesn't completely derail the fight.
 

Dibble

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Adding more stage hazards to a stage does not necessarily make it more interesting or fun to play on. I'm not saying stage hazards can't be fun though, and I actually quite liked Pyrosphere. The actual problem with some WiiU/3DS stages is that they crammed way to many hazards into them, so some players could like the moving platforms in Wily's Castle or Dungeon Man in Magicant, but then could completely hate Yellow Devil and Flying Men, ruining the entire stage for them.

I think the Stage Hazard toggle still has a few problems of it's own before we can even think of completely changing stages based off it's existence. The main problems with Stage Hazard are:
-It's not a toggle
-It gives players no options.
As an example it's really hard to enjoy the other elements of Wily's Castle when the Yellow Devil appears so frequently and interrupts the fight for so long. However turning stage hazards off removes not only Yellow Devil but literally everything else that makes the stage interesting. If the Stage Hazard toggle allowed people to turn on/off specific stage elements, it would make it way more practical and stage hazards in general shouldn't be much of an issue only a t that point.
 

DelugeFGC

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The problem is I can't see us getting the ability to turn individual stage hazards off without us also getting some kind of stage builder / custom stage mode which is HIGHLY unlikely at this point. So all I can really realistically wish for is the toggle right now.
 
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Dibble

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The problem is I can't see us getting the ability to turn individual stage hazards off without us also getting some kind of stage builder / custom stage mode which is HIGHLY unlikely at this point. So all I can really realistically wish for is the toggle right now.
I'm sort of thinking stages could have a new menu kind of like the my music option where players can choose what elements they consider as hazards in each stage so only those get disabled with stage hazards toggled off.
 

DelugeFGC

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To a point I would like the option we get to be linear and easy to apply, as I am the crusty sort that shows up to tournaments. When playing this game in that setting, stream-lined processes of getting into the match so you can get on with playing the game are a godsend and will always be the golden standard. As-such, the only thing I really can wish for is like I said, the toggle, as you could easily press a button in the stage select menu to do it. Your way seems like you would have to go into the menu ala when changing music and individually turn what you want off, making the process take longer. If they added a way to toggle the hazards off outright via the press of a single button AND still give you the option to go into a menu via holding the button or something.. sure. I just wouldn't see it happening that way.

The easiest, simplest thing that we should hope for is a toggle, imo.
 
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Xelrog

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Absolutely not.

As soon as the devs realized pros were only playing on three stages, they decided to go absolutely bonkers off the wall gimmick with every stage in the game. I absolutely hate the stage design post-Melee, when stages started transforming into other stages partway or had 3 invasive elements going on simultaneously. The worst ones of all are the ones that have the stupid boss characters interfering with the match.

A stage should have either zero gimmicks, or one gimmick, and no more than that. Melee had a great pool of stages each for fun and competitive. After that, even if I liked one thing a stage did, it was inevitably, invariably ruined by one of the other several things that it also tried to do. They didn't even get the hazard toggle right. Why are moving platforms considered hazards? I like the moving platforms on Smashville/Town & City, and the fun, non-gamebreaking platform variation of platforms we get on Umbra Clock Tower. I like the swinging cage on Find Mii and the ones on Wily's Castle--give me those without the stupid boss characters, please.
 
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DelugeFGC

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While I do agree when looking at Brawl and Sm4sh, Ult has SO many stages that due to the fact we can toggle hazards, I'd say it's by far and beyond in the best place competitively and casually for stage selection. It just sticks out because it has so many stages in the first place, but I'd say (esp. if we get the toggle) as TO's get more organized and in-tune, the Ult legal stage list is by far gonna be the longest once we've ever seen.
 

Duke27

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Stage hazards can be fun but I don't think the hazard toggle should be a green light to go nuts on the hazards haha. I can't imagine there being much fun in being tossed around a screen. While an individual stage hazard toggle would be really nice, I can't see us getting that either.
 
D

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I would have to agree that an individual hazard toggle is just too impractical. But I think a boss toggle that only turns off things like Metal Face and Flying Man is reasonable enough.
 

MBRedboy31

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What if, instead of just an on/off hazards toggle, we get what they had in Top Ride in Kirby Air Ride where there’s an option to have more hazards than the normal “on” option? For the benefit of competitive players, though, instead of off/on/many like in Top Ride, it would be better to have off/reduced/on. Still, it would be interesting to think about what increased hazards on some stages could be like.

(But yeah, it needs to be easily set from the stage select screen.)
 

Koopaul

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I feel stage hazards are like items in Mario Kart. People can have alot of fun with them, but nobody likes the Blue Shell. Basically hazards that absolutely devastate you instead of being a minor obstacle are things I see people rarely like.
 
D

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I feel the hazard toggle is far too inconsistent. Why aren't the rapids removed on Jungle Japes? Why does Delfino Plaza change location but Wuhu Island doesn't? Why is Arena Ferox locked to a random transform, but Pokemon Stadium locked to the base transformation? I think the hazard toggle should take some tips from the Item and Random Stage Switch. Select a stage and choose which hazards you do and don't want on. Want to play WIly Castle with platforms but no Yellow Devil? Just turn off the Yellow Devil. Want to play on the Mario Circuit 8 transformations that don't have walkoffs? Turn off the transformations you don't like. It would not only fix the problem of the hazards that are turned off being inconsistent, but also fix the problem of turning off hazards being an all or nothing ordeal (which isn't that big of a deal, because you can just make two rulesets and learn how to hold the B button on menus).
 

Xelrog

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Why aren't the rapids removed on Jungle Japes?
So that it's stationary water, or so that there's no water at all?

Honestly swimming ruined Jungle Japes for me (and I don't like it as a game feature, period). I would love to be able to turn water off so you fall right through it, and make JJ's rapids a windbox like they were in Melee. It won't happen, but I would sure love it.
 

Arthur97

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I mean, seems the competitive community still isn't adopting many stages so why not go hog wild?
 

lucasla

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I like the balance of:

None or only very irrelevant hazards in many stages;
Hazards that are only moving plataforms in many stages;
Hazards that change the scenarios (like destroying plataforms, scenarios in motion or scenarios that change the entire stage format) in some relevant amount of stages;
Intrusive stage hazards (like bosses) only in a few stages;

I dont think we need all or nothing, cause this would imply in less variation, every scenario would be a crazy mess or totally static scenario. So, I like how variated the level of crazyness of stage hazards are today.
 
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Luigifan18

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There should be a handful of stages that go crazy with the hazards, testing players' ingenuity and adaptiveness, like Norfair and Halberd, or change up the rules of the game, like Mario Bros. and Great Cave Offensive (both of which have layouts that make it hard to get opponents to any of their blast lines and provide alternative KO methods to compensate (Mario Bros.' stage enemies, Great Cave Offensive's Danger Zones)). The rest of them should be less intense, but most should still have some form of hazards to watch out for... just not anything that dominates the match. Hazards are there to be played around and exploited, but the game should be about player-on-player interaction first and foremost.
 
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JiggyNinja

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I vote No for two reasons:

1) Even in a casual setting, there is a limit to the amount of bull**** I want to put up with for stage hazards. Pokemon Stadium morphing into different arenas is fun; Palkia inverting everything on Spear Pillar is obnoxious. Halberd throwing out a cannonball or laser beam every once in a while is fun; Yellow Devil shutting down the entire ****ing stage every time he shows up is not fun.

2) Hazard switch is far too inconvenient to get get to right now. If it was right on the stage select screen, I would have a softer opinion on this. Making me go all the way out to edit the ruleset then burying it in the advanced options just makes me want to never touch it.
 
D

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Hazard switch is far too inconvenient to get get to right now. If it was right on the stage select screen, I would have a softer opinion on this. Making me go all the way out to edit the ruleset then burying it in the advanced options just makes me want to never touch it.
I feel you on that one. One might not think just holding B to go back a menu is all that inconvenient but if you keep wanting to alternate after every match it piles up.
 

Xelrog

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1) Even in a casual setting, there is a limit to the amount of bull**** I want to put up with for stage hazards. Pokemon Stadium morphing into different arenas is fun; Palkia inverting everything on Spear Pillar is obnoxious. Halberd throwing out a cannonball or laser beam every once in a while is fun; Yellow Devil shutting down the entire ****ing stage every time he shows up is not fun.
A million times, this. There seems to be some misconception that just because players aren't playing in a hyper-competitive tournament setting, they want absolute maximum RNG. If that were true, they'd be playing poker or--dare I say--Mario Kart, not Smash Bros.

On that note, can we also stop ruining Mario Kart by lowering the skill ceiling and maximizing RNG? DS was the one and only good one.
 

Koopaul

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I feel the hazard toggle is far too inconsistent. Why aren't the rapids removed on Jungle Japes? Why does Delfino Plaza change location but Wuhu Island doesn't? Why is Arena Ferox locked to a random transform, but Pokemon Stadium locked to the base transformation? I think the hazard toggle should take some tips from the Item and Random Stage Switch. Select a stage and choose which hazards you do and don't want on. Want to play WIly Castle with platforms but no Yellow Devil? Just turn off the Yellow Devil. Want to play on the Mario Circuit 8 transformations that don't have walkoffs? Turn off the transformations you don't like. It would not only fix the problem of the hazards that are turned off being inconsistent, but also fix the problem of turning off hazards being an all or nothing ordeal (which isn't that big of a deal, because you can just make two rulesets and learn how to hold the B button on menus).
The inconsistency is very annoying. It's like the developers didn't know what to consider a hazard or not. But I will say this, walk offs are not a hazard, they are a layout. A layout that is not good for tournaments but it is not a hazard.

Though I suppose it is debatable what is or isn't a hazard. In my opinion, a hazard is any element of a stage that has the potential to do damage or kill you. I would also say anything that disrupts fighter movement or projectiles would count as well (like a slippery floor or the pillars in Luigi's Mansion). I would only consider transforming stages a hazard if the transformation could result in death.

For example, the stage transforming in Pokemon Stadium cannot kill you so I wouldn't consider that a hazard, but the stage transforming in Paper Mario can kill you because the floor gives out and you can fall to your doom.

This is all subjective, but atleast I would stay consistant and put out clear guidelines on what is and isn't a hazard. It almost seems like the Smash Ultimate team couldn't make up their minds.
 

TheYungLink

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The toggle confirmed my worst fears: what we consider hazards and what the developers consider hazards are too different to make most stages viable.

I keep saying we need an advanced hazard toggle where we can individually turn on and off certain things to make stages like Wily Castle interesting and fun, or do things like turn off the Fly Guys in Yoshi's Story but leave the cloud platform there. Once we have the ability to do that, THEN is when I say that stages can get as crazy as they want. Give Final Destination and Battlefield hazards for all I care.
 

MacDaddyNook

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I vote No for two reasons:

1) Even in a casual setting, there is a limit to the amount of bull**** I want to put up with for stage hazards. Pokemon Stadium morphing into different arenas is fun; Palkia inverting everything on Spear Pillar is obnoxious. Halberd throwing out a cannonball or laser beam every once in a while is fun; Yellow Devil shutting down the entire ****ing stage every time he shows up is not fun.

2) Hazard switch is far too inconvenient to get get to right now. If it was right on the stage select screen, I would have a softer opinion on this. Making me go all the way out to edit the ruleset then burying it in the advanced options just makes me want to never touch it.
I am in complete agreement. Hazards and gimmicks should enhance the battle and keep players on their toes, when a stage's philosophy changes to battling against the stage's mechanics over the other players, the fun is severely reduced.
 

Mogisthelioma

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You don't turn on normal stages.
Have you ever gotten someone else's moveset and ended up on a normal stage?

On another point, making stages crazier than some already are will only make them obnoxious and unfun to play on to begin with.
 

Arthur97

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Have you ever gotten someone else's moveset and ended up on a normal stage?

On another point, making stages crazier than some already are will only make them obnoxious and unfun to play on to begin with.
That's more an issue with matchmaking.
 
D

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The inconsistency is very annoying. It's like the developers didn't know what to consider a hazard or not. But I will say this, walk offs are not a hazard, they are a layout. A layout that is not good for tournaments but it is not a hazard.
I wasn't trying to say that walk offs are hazards (which they definitely are not) I was just using it as an example of a transformation that you could turn off.
 
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