How to Make Stage Morph Legal

[Prof. JermZ]

With "Stage Morph" being a new casual mechanic in Smash Bros. Ultimate, most are just throwing it to the side and automatically calling it not legal for tournament play. Although, I honestly think that if implemented correctly (especially after we can get a stage list prepared out of the massive amount of options) it would help to discourage campy gameplay.

With the option to be able to set a time when the stage morphs, you would first be able to play on any legal stage, and then for the last 1 or 2 minutes, you would force them to go to something like Final Destination. So if you have a 5 minute time limit, then you just set it up to switch every 4 minutes.

I really don't know if this would be a great idea or not, and that's why I'm bringing it up here and trying to see if we could get this brought up, because I thought it was really weird that people are just kind of ignoring it.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Are people considering this not viable? I haven't heard any articulated opinions on the mechanic. The only hurdle I can think of is coming up for rules regarding the stage strike process. Can game 1's stage pick combine a starter with a counterpick? Should we allow the players the ability to choose how long it takes to stage transition, or should the tournament rules dictate a hard number like one or two minutes? Having players debate rules for their set adds time to the process, but otherwise the system of switching rules in this game looks easy and quick to understand.

There are also more sensible concerns, like how the frame rate of the game drops significantly during a transition which can mess up combos in progress and basically function like a laggy For Glory match. Or whether the new stage coming up can actually save somebody falling to their death at that moment. Especially if said stage has walk offs. Or at what point the stage's boundaries finish the transition. You might be arbitrarily killed or not killed during a transition while recovering or being victim to a ladder combo due to new stage boundaries which is jank. But people don't seem to mind the transitions in Delfino Plaza which was a sort of viable stage in Brawl so maybe people won't mind the jank. I can't really look at this feature and say it's instantly viable without testing things out, but I wouldn't immediately write it off either until somebody points out a critical weakness I hadn't noticed.

 

[TowerLight]

Personally what i think it'll end up being is a Gentleman's Clause-esque bonus rule where both players can agree to choose a stage each and turn on stage morph.

 

[CostLow]

Pokemon Stadium is perfectly legal in Melee and it has a form of stage morph. Tournaments could simply be run with stage morph to either prevent a certain stage from entering a particularly precarious moment in it's own transformation or to balance out the last game of a match so that a tied match could be settled with two stages each chosen by the players.

 

[Prof. JermZ]

Yeah, I think it would be better suited for a final round mechanic, but I was actually thinking about Pokémon Stadium when I first thought about it. Or if both players agree is fine, I don't see it being an issue either.

I just really felt sad that people dismissed it ASAP.

 

[MaestroDavros]

Yeah, I think it would be better suited for a final round mechanic, but I was actually thinking about Pokémon Stadium when I first thought about it. Or if both players agree is fine, I don't see it being an issue either.

II just really felt sad that people dismissed it ASAP.

Depends on where you look. One of the threads here discussing stage legality morphing has almost unanimous support, but other places dismiss it outright.

I'm personally not in support of it being legalized. To me it's a solution in search of a problem, and knowing the community it will cause endless arguing if stalling happens or if in a match the 2 stage types potentially chosen favors one fighter or the other. The latter sounds neat in theory, but to me it doesn't make matches as neutral as possible to both competitors. Having the advantage swing even minusculy in favor of one opponent or another every minute would create an unstable match.

I've seen people use it as a way for more stages to be in the game, but I think we can allow more stages without relying on a morphing mechanic. Besides, part of the debate over larger stages is about the length of time it takes to choose them. Adding this into it would only cause more time spent on choosing stages. Just my viewpoint.

 

[Amiibo Doctor]

It doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of ways to make stage morph legal. If it doesn't slow down the frame rate FoD in Doubles style, then switching from Omega stage to Omega stage would be neat, and with Battlefield-type stages. Locals could do small morphs like Smashville to FD, but I can't see any large majors finding enough situations to make it legal.

 

[Prof. JermZ]

Fair, on both accounts. I do see it being a small side event more than something you would see at EVO. I didn't really think about advantage when it came to morphing.

I wouldn't want the stage to morph every minute, just for the last minute or so. Like, just as a super easy example, you pick BF as the stage, but you pick it's omega for the morph for the last minute to help prevent slow down and camping and to help prevent a time out. This is what I had in mind, but I didn't think about how a character that can use platforms to their advantage facing off against someone that really doesn't fair too well with platforms, all of a sudden getting the short end of the stick.

It'll for sure be used in locals, but it's also up to the big timers on what they think.

 

[Captain Shades]

Just make the two stages Final Destination. That’s all the competitive community plays any way according to memes.

 

[lucasla]

I dont see any problem if the players that are choosing the characters also had the option to choose the stages (on the legal stages list), and then the first stage to appear can be sorted between the two players. It could have something like "playing on home" each time your stage appears, and the other player would need to know you more. I see more complexity and fun added, and that's more interesting to me.
Also, depending on the parameters of the stages, if they were all Omega, that would have almost zero influence on gameplay, it would just make the fight more fun to watch.

 

[Carfax]

What if you lose before the stage morphs to the one you chose? Bad luck I guess?

 

[Crystanium]

What I've had in mind for stage morphing is selecting two similar stages, and if the time limit is 8 minutes per match, the transition could occur in 4 minutes.

 

[jwillenn]

Bingo, TowerLight! At least I hope so...


I call it the "Thumbs Up Override" , which basically allows the players involved in the set to decide if they're okay with it or not. They sit and they have a quick thumbs up or down moment of communication. If both thumbs up, they play the entire set with Stage Morph Rules. If one or both thumbs down, they play with Standard Stage Rules. Takes mere seconds to get this out of the way following seating of both players. This is how you can work in the experimentation phase for this leading up to the first major. Some players are going to try it and we'll get to see how it goes, while others will not be FORCED to use it. What we'll find is that it's perfectly okay to allow players who want to use it to use it. Why must all participants of the tournament adhere to YES or NO for something like Stage Morph? Shoot, for a moment, I was thinking this could apply to even stages with hazards, but that might be a bit too complicated to have organized during tournament play.

 

[TowerLight]

Bingo, TowerLight! At least I hope so...


I call it the "Thumbs Up Override" , which basically allows the players involved in the set to decide if they're okay with it or not. They sit and they have a quick thumbs up or down moment of communication. If both thumbs up, they play the entire set with Stage Morph Rules. If one or both thumbs down, they play with Standard Stage Rules. Takes mere seconds to get this out of the way following seating of both players. This is how you can work in the experimentation phase for this leading up to the first major. Some players are going to try it and we'll get to see how it goes, while others will not be FORCED to use it. What we'll find is that it's perfectly okay to allow players who want to use it to use it. Why must all participants of the tournament adhere to YES or NO for something like Stage Morph? Shoot, for a moment, I was thinking this could apply to even stages with hazards, but that might be a bit too complicated to have organized during tournament play.

This sounds like a really good way to do it. I'd keep hazards out of it though, just have different legal stage layouts.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

I'd like to think that Stage Morph would remove the need for 'stage striking'. Each player picks a legal stage, it rotates/morphs in on a 2 minute timer or a 1 minute and 30 second timer or some other timer proportional to our overall time limit. The person who would normally be allowed to pick the stage instead picks whether their half of the morph is first or second in morph order.