Let's talk about Skyloft

[Amazing Ampharos]

@ Ulevo asked me to do this, and I'm happy to provide my services. Let's discuss whether Skyloft should be a tournament legal stage and why. Skyloft is a very complex stage so this will be kinda long; I have to address 15 forms! I'm not going to pretend to be neutral in this; I am very strongly in the pro-Skyloft camp (it's my favorite stage in the game). Don't be dissuaded from making an opposing argument even though my explanation definitely will tend to suggest a pro-legality position. I'm just not a neutral party here, and I will at least do the courtesy of being honest about that.

For those unfamiliar with what this stage does, please reference the Skyloft Stage Research Thread. Please do note that this stage is Skyloft, the transforming Legend of Zelda stage. This is not Skyworld, the Kid Icarus stage with the breakable platforms. It's this stage:

The easiest way to look at Skyloft is that it's a variation on Delfino Plaza. The stage has essentially identical mechanics with the touring platform that has cyclical platform lay-outs moving around an environment landing at a variety of stops. Here's a short list of the main important differences:

-Skyloft, being set high in the air, has no swimmable water.
-Skyloft's blast zones are less close while transforming compared to Delfino (but it still has moments where they're closer than a normal stage). In general Skyloft's blast zones are a little further out than Delfino's but not by much (see this thread).
-While Skyloft is in motion, if a player comes in contact with the land mass below, that player will be hit for modest damage and knockback (if this happens on Delfino, the player passes through the land mass as though it weren't there).
-The platform lay-outs and landing stops of Skyloft are those of a different stage and thus have different particular shapes though of similar average quality. Skyloft also has 11 possible stops while Delfino only has 9.
-Delfino Plaza lingers for a transformation cycle every four stops over the "starting area", but its stops are also a bit longer on average (Skyloft's last 15 seconds while Delfino's last 18).

For the most part otherwise, Skyloft has the same basic idea. Since Skyloft is so similar to Delfino Plaza, I'm going to basically do a compare/contrast to show how as far as I can tell (factoring in my extensive experience on the stage) it should be allowed or not allowed as a partner to Delfino Plaza. Trying to be objective, I think this is the ultimate end-point of a logical analysis.

Both Skyloft and Delfino Plaza have one "janky" element: Skyloft hitting players while moving and Delfino getting super tiny blast zones when transforming. Both are obnoxious little elements that I somehow doubt were fully thought through by the development staff, but in context I think most of the community has seen that this obnoxious feature of Delfino Plaza is simply too minor to warrant banning the stage in light of what a high quality stage it is otherwise. The thing is that Skyloft's obnoxious feature is pretty similar in impact. Skyloft hitting you, while it hasn't been thoroughly mapped out on this forum, is predictable. You just kinda watch the background (which you are always doing anyway on this type of stage to know where you'll land next) and make appropriate decisions. Much as on Delfino, this particular obnoxious element doesn't factor in all that often; the vast majority of games played on this stage are not impacted by this at all even if both players play unaware of it. It is somewhat more frequent to be hit by Skyloft than to die to an early Delfino set-up, but the consequence is also drastically lower. Getting hit by Skyloft does 12% damage and often messes up your stage position but seldom actually kills whereas when Delfino's goofy blast zones become a factor it means stocks are being taken for sure. My experience is that both elements have a similar but ultimately minor negative effect on the overall quality of their respective stages, but this is definitely an area where it is always good to hear from players in other regions who have also played extensive amounts on both stages.

I have seen many players criticize Skyloft for enabling unusually slow gameplay, but as someone with substantial tournament experience here, I can say that it just isn't so. Again, I'm going to do some compare and contrast with Delfino Plaza so you might want to reference that stage's research thread to know which form is which.

All four of the traveling platform lay-outs used by Skyloft are very tame. Skyloft platform 1 is nearly identical to Delfino platform 3 (except the platforms are tilted the other way which makes no significant difference); it's a top quality lay-out. Skyloft platform 2 is probably one of the most balanced platform lay-outs that any stage ever has, and I can't even imagine complaints about it. Skyloft platform 3 has that interesting "check mark" platform lay-out that in practice plays quite well. High platforms can be hard for some characters to approach (hence most complaints about Duck Hunt center around the tree), but in this case, there's always a lower platform close at hand which makes moving up toward people pretty easy. General smash gameplay dynamics still apply that overall it's really disadvantageous to be on a higher platform than your opponent, and my tournament experience confirms that the idea of "camping" the upper parts of this stage mostly plays out to be a really bad idea. If you did want to camp a transforming segment's high platform, Delfino is actually better as Delfino platform 2 has an awkwardly high center platform that is kinda far away from the side platforms... Skyloft platform 4 is the long slanted platform, and while it really has no analogue on any other stage in this game, there's really no way to abuse it at all (it plays out very similarly to the platform on Yoshi's Island Brawl for those familiar with either Brawl or the 3DS version). Note that the stage spends most of its time in motion so these platform lay-outs are the "main stage", and Skyloft's are clearly pretty high quality.

In terms of the transformations, let's drop some numbers. 5/11 of Skyloft's landing stops have walk-offs while 3/9 of Delfino's do. However, the rooftop landing site on Delfino has a blast zone so close that it's effectively a walk-off stage even if it isn't one technically, and when that is considered, both are very close in terms of total walk off presence (5/11 is very, very close to 4/9). In terms of temporary walk-offs, this makes both pretty equal in terms of acceptability no matter how you feel about temporary walk-offs. People often like to talk about which forms allow for a stall-out as well, but let's really look at that...

Skyloft transformations with significant stalling potential (5/11):

Knight Academy
Windmill
Residential District
Small Island
Waterfall Island

Delfino transformations with significant stalling potential (5/9):

Docks
Pillars
Umbrellas
Rooftop
Shine Gate

This means that Delfino actually more often has strong camping positions than Skyloft. To be fair to Delfino, it's a bit "softer" in that the Umbrellas is the weakest stalling position of these 10 locations while the Small Island is definitely the strongest (the other four in both cases are pretty similar) so in this case 5/11 actually adds up to a pretty similar amount of defensive gameplay to 5/9. In all of these cases, just because it's possible to find strong stalling positions doesn't mean it will actually happen. My experience on both stages suggests to me that stalling on these forms is merely "possible" in that between some players using some characters it will sometimes happen but for the most part active combat is happening all of the time on both stages. It's often not in the interest of either player to try to stall, and even if it is in the interest of one, the stalling positions on both stages are weak enough that an aggressive opponent can often overcome anyway. Skyloft's Small Island in specific is a blatant hard loop so that's not good as it uniquely allows for unstoppable run-away for its duration, but Skyloft balances that out by having the Isle of the Goddess landing site which is the most offensively oriented landing site of any transforming stage.

This loop is the only perfectly defensible stalling position on Skyloft:

This landing site encourages rushdown really hard, and no one realizes it:

At this point I've made an exhaustive case that Skyloft is very, very similar to Delfino in tournament quality, but not everyone loves Delfino. Some argue that Delfino's archetype of transforming is inherently disruptive, and that's a lengthy discussion we could have but one over a topic that is pretty far out of the mainstream even if it's a philosophy that is entirely self-consistent. Some seem to believe that having multiple of this style of stage is somehow bad even if one is okay, and that just doesn't make sense to me. If this style of stage is acceptable once, it's acceptable twice, and even if it wasn't, I don't see why Skyloft would be the loser instead of Delfino other than Delfino already being familiar to players since it was in Brawl but that's just an obviously terrible reason to support a stage over another one. I legitimately don't understand how we have a current national standard that has Delfino legal and Skyloft not legal; as far as I can tell, the case for both is very, very similar since they're two very similar stages. I feel the main purpose of discussion here should be to figure out either a rigorous and solid reason one is better than the other or to demonstrate what I suspect which is that one is not significantly better than the other and that something in the current standard isn't consistent.

There is one last criticism I've heard and a minor mechanic to put out there. Sometimes players fall through the stage on Skyloft and end up underneath it. As far as I can tell, it almost always happens when the stage is transitioning from the floating platform to this particular landing stop:

If you end up beneath the stage, you can just jump to land back on the stage. Like all stages, only the intended exterior of Skyloft is solid; if you ever get inside the stage, you can pass through the floor and get back on top freely. You should never, ever die to this; the only disadvantage to this rare occurrence is the small loss of time you suffer for having to jump back onto the stage. There's also not any evidence that this happens here more often than on Castle Siege, the other good stage in smash 4 with this problem. It's pretty rare all things considered.

I suppose from here we can discuss, but before you comment, I'll leave you with this. If this doesn't warm your heart a bit to Skyloft, I don't even know what to say:

 

[Thinkaman]

I've always considered Skyloft the "best" transforming stage, and have heard many people voice similar opinions. I like it a lot.

 

[Raijinken]

I'd certainly say Delfino's blast-zones are more impactful (and, as were the case, "exploitable") than anything Skyloft has to offer. I'm for both being legal.

 

[Piford]

The small island, I have found to be the worst for stalling. While, yes, it's extremely easy to stall when it's there, it's also the easiest to punish someone who was stalling on it. The person not stalling just waits at the top towards whatever side the person stalling on the bottom is on. When the stage comes up, it'll force him to one side because of the rising platform going through the hard platform. Now that the person stalling is being forced straight into the person not stalling. The person not stalling can get an easy punish and take stage control. So unless you know you can catch them running away, just wait at the top and punish when the stage transforms.

This stage is great and definitely should be legal along with Delfino and Wuhu. You know the stage can hit you, so use it to your advantage if you can. You can send your opponent into it for some extra damage.

 

[Ulevo]

Let it be known that I asked @ Amazing Ampharos to create this thread myself because I wanted to have an opposing view that could hopefully support this stage in a positive light in lieu of my less optimistic opinion. With that said, I have specific criticisms towards this stage that make me abstain from supporting its legalization.

There are instances during the transitional phases of the stage where characters will simply fall through the stage and are unable to recover. The video seen above is an example of this. What concerns me is the relative ease at which this happens. It is not like Mario Circuit's roof track glitch where it requires very precise timing.

As seen in the video below, such timings can be seen at 0:37 & 4:26, 3:08, 6:24, 7:29. As you can see, this does not always happen, shown at 9:35, leading to dangerous inconsistency. Most characters without Jigglypuff's excellent recovery would have died, fighting an opponent in the midst of this happening aside:

Additionally, as the video above demonstrates, there numerous points where the stage acts as hazard in rather inconsistent ways. As seen in 1:19 and 6:39, the particular portion of the stage Jigglypuff passes through is normally supposed to hit the opponent. At 9:43, you can see it hitting the opponent.

While I do not have a problem necessarily with the stage acting as a hazard, much like in Mario Circuit, the hazards here are too abundant in my mind for the health of competitive play. There are many instances where the bottom blastzone is blocked off, and unlike most transforming stages, the floor will act as a hazard upon arrival. While this normally would mean extensive stage knowledge would prepare the player to avoid these instances, the timing for when the floor of these transformations becomes safe to the player is not readily visible nor easily recognized.

In addition to this, the stage transformations overall are horrible. Let's examine them.

This transformation suffers from many of the problems the Fire transformation in Melee's Pokemon Stadium 1 does. The centre bell pillar dissuades from either player engaging each other for fear of giving up an advantage.

Again, this transformations dissuades from engagement. Any player that attempts to come in on another player at a different platform risks being intercepted in the air or being punished at a ledge.

While I do not feel that circle camping is an evident theme on the entire stage, it is present here within this particular transformation, and again dissuades combat.

In addition, there are many transformations with walk offs:

I would also note that while most of the platform transformations are healthy, this one presents issues given the high platform layout, making it easy for characters like Sonic, Wario, Meta Knight, or any character with a general mobility advantage to run from the opponent:

This is a concerning number of transformations to have relevant issues with. With 16 transformations in total if you include the four platform transformations, 9 of them have problems. While these transformations last for only 15 seconds, that does not really matter when half the stage is potentially problematic.

While Amazing Ampharos made the comparison to Delfino, and numerically the stages might be similar in terms of how many walk offs or transformations with stalling potential are present, Delfino's transformations are not nearly as bad.

I will be honest, I think this stage is not fit for competitive play. Excluding the fact that I feel there are more deserving stages to be included on the stage list, there are too many problems with transformation design and degenerate play, inconsistency with hazard placement and involvement, and stage bugs that kill players that fail to compel me to support this.

 

[Piford]

As seen in the video below, such timings can be seen at 0:37 & 4:26, 3:08, 6:24, 7:29. As you can see, this does not always happen, shown at 9:35, leading to dangerous inconsistency. Most characters without Jigglypuff's excellent recovery would have died, fighting an opponent in the midst of this happening aside:

Additionally, as the video above demonstrates, there numerous points where the stage acts as hazard in rather inconsistent ways. As seen in 1:19 and 6:39, the particular portion of the stage Jigglypuff passes through is normally supposed to hit the opponent. At 9:43, you can see it hitting the opponent.

I'm confused as to what is the inconsistency. The stage removes the hitbox when it becomes the ground, which is what happened at 9:35. At 3:08, the hitbox was removed, but Jigglypuff went under the ground when the stage swooped in there. 7:29 is actually showing you exactly what happens. First the stage acts as a hitbox and jigglypuff gets hit, then it turns off the hitbox to act as solid ground. Seems fairly consistent if you ask me. For 0:37, it's pretty clear that the bottom acts as a ceiling there, so you need to recover through the inside of the cave rather than hit that ceiling. For 1:19, that's clearly only in the background which is why it didn't hit Jigglypuff. You can see it curve away from the stage. You don't notice the building passing through the stage. This seems consistent to me, and most of these issue are areas in which you shouldn't be anyways and wouldn't likely effect a normal match.

 

[Ulevo]

I'm confused as to what is the inconsistency. The stage removes the hitbox when it becomes the ground, which is what happened at 9:35. At 3:08, the hitbox was removed, but Jigglypuff went under the ground when the stage swooped in there. 7:29 is actually showing you exactly what happens. First the stage acts as a hitbox and jigglypuff gets hit, then it turns off the hitbox to act as solid ground. Seems fairly consistent if you ask me. For 0:37, it's pretty clear that the bottom acts as a ceiling there, so you need to recover through the inside of the cave rather than hit that ceiling. For 1:19, that's clearly only in the background which is why it didn't hit Jigglypuff. You can see it curve away from the stage. You don't notice the building passing through the stage. This seems consistent to me, and most of these issue are areas in which you shouldn't be anyways and wouldn't likely effect a normal match.

What is so consistent about this? It is obvious that at certain points, the floor will either act as intangible, a solid floor, or a hitbox. The question is whether or not players can identify which is which when they attempt to land on them, either voluntarily or by being hit there. This is a problem because that information is not readily available to the player. Can you identify which phase the floor is in at what times? I cannot.

As for the instance at 0:37, I hardly feel "recover high" is a reasonable argument. If you're thrown in that direction for whatever reason, you lose a stock. Most characters do not have the ability to recover high enough to get around that particular part of the stage to get back. I mean, if Jigglypuff cannot, there's going to a select few that can, if that. While you might argue that it was the players fault for being there in the first place, a player should not be punished by losing their whole stock just because they got back thrown or hit there at the wrong time, especially considering that there is no way to get out once you're there.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

@ Amazing Ampharos can you explain how the Isle of the Goddess transformation promotes rushdown? I have to admit I'm not seeing it.

For those keeping track at home, it's this one:

Spoiler: Isle of the Goddess

 

[Piford]

What is so consistent about this? It is obvious that at certain points, the floor will either act as intangible, a solid floor, or a hitbox. The question is whether or not players can identify which is which when they attempt to land on them, either voluntarily or by being hit there. This is a problem because that information is not readily available to the player. Can you identify which phase the floor is in at what times? I cannot.

As for the instance at 0:37, I hardly feel "recover high" is a reasonable argument. If you're thrown in that direction for whatever reason, you lose a stock. Most characters do not have the ability to recover high enough to get around that particular part of the stage to get back. I mean, if Jigglypuff cannot, there's going to a select few that can, if that. While you might argue that it was the players fault for being there in the first place, a player should not be punished by losing their whole stock just because they got back thrown or hit there at the wrong time, especially considering that there is no way to get out once you're there.

It's consistent in that the stage will remove it's hitbox right before landing. If the stage swings in, you might end up under where the solid ground is, but it only really matters on the residential district area. For the other times it happens, I don't really see a need to be floating around right next to the bottom blast line in any situation in an actual match. For the residential district, the stage stops for a moment before landing, so that if you do get caught in it you can return to the floating platform and then the stage. I didn't say the solution was recover high, I said to recover through the inside of the cave rather than through the rock. After some testing on my own I found exactly where the ceiling is and exactly where I could recover. I'll do even more testing, but getting hit with things is very hard to do and falling through is even harder. You generally have to be having around very close to the bottom blast line to fall through. In an actual match, if someone falls through the floor it's likely they were going to die anyways. The only thing to note about the hitboxes is that the floor hitbox on the Isle of the Goddess transformation last very long. It disappears when the stage is landing, but it's still an active hitbox right before. It's not a banworthy feature its should be noted it's not worth trying to land on it much earlier than the platform.

Also something interesting I noted. If the stage is going to land on the statue of the goddess, you'll see platforms on it. If it isn't, the platforms won't be there.

Edit: It seems any going inside the residential district happens only when the first transformation is the watchtower. You can tell when this is going to happen because cliffs will appear in the top left. Also, I'm pretty none of this is an issue after testing because it becomes very obvious where stuff happens, what can happen, and how most of it won't happen. If someone's worried, they should go around and try to see what they can hit and what they can't. You also get a feel for which transformations will happen next. If you know it can happen, it's easy to react to or avoid.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I had never seen that particular first clip; that was interesting and strange and was new to me (every time I've seen a clip on this stage it has been on the bridge). I would have liked to talk to that Pikachu player and asked what he input for that Quick Attack; it's strange that he didn't recover. There may be a random piece of solid geography inside of that one object which is very unusual, but assuming you're not trying to clip inside of it, it certainly seems very rare and very obscure to end up inside of that object. Before just now, I'd never seen it, and I have played on this stage an awful lot.

I honestly don't understand the argument you're making about the transformations having similar numbers of problematic forms but Delfino's somehow being better anyway. I don't really agree with the way of thinking of "a stage's legality is based on the number of problems we can list" since you have to consider both good and bad (it's not like a very simple stage like FD is perfect and every other stage is measured as a deviation from that), but even if I did, Delfino's problem count is pretty identical to Skyloft's. Like yeah you can use the bell on the Knight Academy defensively, but it's not really different from how you can use the shape of the Shine Gate which is a more fair comparison than the Fire Form of Pokemon Stadium from Brawl. The bell on the Knight Academy is a bit steeper than the divisions on the Shine Gate, but then again, you have platforms in approach friendly positions on the Knight Academy and it's harder for the defending player to quickly switch sides so overall it encourages about the same level of aggression which tends to be modest (sometimes the Knight Academy stalls out, but more often, it's mostly modestly paced fighting which is about what happens on the Shine Gate as well). The Windmill form of Skyloft is nearly identical to the Pillars on Delfino which is a case of complex and dynamic approaches by some characters and stalling/waiting for this form to go away by others. I do admit that Skyloft has the single worst transformation (the Small Island is a blatant hard loop), but it also has a smaller percentage of its transformations as potentially defensively oriented so it about balances out (5/11 is significantly less than 5/9).

I can also say, decisively, that the idea that the high platform on moving platform 3 of Skyloft allows for run-away is very, very far from true. Like... you really did post there that Sonic might use that to run away. Let me go straight to experience. I main Rosalina, one of the lowest mobility characters who is good anyway. My most frequent opponent mains Sonic. He avoids platforms like that like the plague since going up there destroys his mobility and puts him in a good position to get killed by my uair which I can set up awfully easily and dynamically since there's another platform right below. In general going up there is a good way to get yourself trapped; the secret to running away in a smash game is always leaving yourself somewhere to go while making your opponent take a long time to get to you which that top platform just doesn't do for you as it has no natural escape avenue and gives your opponent really easy and accessible options to get to you. My Sonic friend actually told me on several occasions that he considers Skyloft an okay Sonic stage overall but probably his worst transforming stage; he really likes Wuhu Island the best followed by either Castle Siege or Delfino Plaza depending on his opponent and his mood. If Skyloft helps anyone run away, it's definitely not Sonic who is the best general character at running away. I don't think the stage, other than the Small Island stop, actually promotes run-away at all, and I'm entirely convinced platform 3 has a 100% healthy lay-out.

I watched some of that second video, but it's over 10 minutes long and after about a minute and a half I hadn't seen anything really unusual. I was able to spot the difference between 1:19 and 9:43; at 9:43 Jigglypuff is further to the right and contacts the stage while at 1:19 Jigglypuff is a bit more to the left and doesn't actually touch anything (close but not quite, maybe that arch was touched and doesn't have collision or maybe Jigglypuff passed under the arch which wasn't really possible to tell in the video one way or another but at 9:43 Jigglypuff touched the stuff to the right of the arch so it was different entirely). Jigglypuff is also able to recover from doing a lot of stupid stuff that you would never do in a real match, and since in this game Jigglypuff's recovery is not notably good, that would seem to suggest that Skyloft is pretty forgiving even to players who intentionally try to put themselves in bad positions. In general I find the way contact with the stage works on Skyloft pretty intuitive and just saw my intuitions play out correctly in what I watched of that video; could you be more specific about what particular interactions don't seem to make sense? I also don't really see the issue at 0:37. If you get hit really low, too low to make it back, you might lose a stock... but isn't that true on every stage especially for a character with poor vertical recovery like Jigglypuff? What makes this case unusual?

I just don't see the problems overall. The transformations aren't so bad, I don't find it hard to keep track of what is allowed to happen (the stage has hitboxes when moving, doesn't when stopping, and turns on the grounded collision at some point while landing which may if you're very precise create a gap), and while I can't and won't provide a detailed explanation of everything that can happen at every point, it's mostly because it's the kind of thing that is more remembered as a moving picture than as a list of rules and I don't think I could accurately describe a moving picture in under 50,000 words even though it's simple and easy to understand. The bugs are super obscure and almost never actually result in kills; we've had this stage legal for the game's entire lifespan so far, I've seen people clip through the stage three times (all on the bridge), and all three times they just jumped to save themselves (and two of the times it was Link who clipped through, and Link is not exactly a high recovery character!). I think it only seems worse than Delfino because Delfino is familiar and to many this stage is not, but I think when actually played a lot, this stage mostly just shows is quality and shows that concerns are overstated while the upside is large and real.

@ Amazing Ampharos can you explain how the Isle of the Goddess transformation promotes rushdown? I have to admit I'm not seeing it.

For those keeping track at home, it's this one:

Spoiler: Isle of the Goddess

This is one of the things you would not realize until you've played on this stage competitively for a long time, and I kinda knew it wasn't obvious but didn't explain it just because the op was already really long. I don't know quite how you took that picture to make it look so big, but in practice, this is not large at all. If you're not on the "platform", you're very close to the blast zone while having the low ground and a lousy position to fight people attacking you from the platform. Being down there is super, super dangerous. Even being near the edge of the platform is pretty scary; you're closer to the blast zone than being near the edge of a typical platform but have all of the same mobility restrictions (you can't easily just "go right" without trapping yourself in an awful place). What this means in practice is that whoever controls the center stage on this transformation has an above average positional advantage, and the best thing to do by far with an above average positional advantage in 15 seconds is to push it really hard as you try to force your opponent all the way to the blast zone (which is of course always the goal, just a goal a bit closer at hand here than elsewhere). It's virtually always correct for the advantaged player to move in and move in hard since you just won't get that kind of opportunity so easily in the future and squandering advantages is how you lose matches. Even if the advantaged player has a big lead and doesn't want to move toward a walk-off at all, what this means is that the disadvantaged player will almost always rush right in (to get out of the bad stage position and seize a good one!), and either you have a rushdown battle happen at center stage or the advantaged player will retreat... and thus create the precise rushdown scenario I described in the first place with the two characters reversed. All around, this form promotes such aggressive play; I always get a bit nervous whenever we stop here just because I know that I'm about to have to fight really hard and that a lot of big exchanges are going to happen in the next 15 seconds. It's almost literally the exact opposite effect of going to the Small Island, and I think overall it's a pretty great dynamic that exists on this stage.

 

[Raijinken]

@ Amazing Ampharos can you explain how the Isle of the Goddess transformation promotes rushdown? I have to admit I'm not seeing it.

For those keeping track at home, it's this one:

Spoiler: Isle of the Goddess

Top guess is because it's essentially flat and unadorned, leaving little other choice (especially for characters without projectiles). The platform can also block some low projectiles

 

[Ulevo]

It's consistent in that the stage will remove it's hitbox right before landing. If the stage swings in, you might end up under where the solid ground is, but it only really matters on the residential district area. For the other times it happens, I don't really see a need to be floating around right next to the bottom blast line in any situation in an actual match. For the residential district, the stage stops for a moment before landing, so that if you do get caught in it you can return to the floating platform and then the stage. I didn't say the solution was recover high, I said to recover through the inside of the cave rather than through the rock. After some testing on my own I found exactly where the ceiling is and exactly where I could recover. I'll do even more testing, but getting hit with things is very hard to do and falling through is even harder. You generally have to be having around very close to the bottom blast line to fall through. In an actual match, if someone falls through the floor it's likely they were going to die anyways. The only thing to note about the hitboxes is that the floor hitbox on the Isle of the Goddess transformation last very long. It disappears when the stage is landing, but it's still an active hitbox right before. It's not a banworthy feature its should be noted it's not worth trying to land on it much earlier than the platform.

Also something interesting I noted. If the stage is going to land on the statue of the goddess, you'll see platforms on it. If it isn't, the platforms won't be there.

No, it kind of matters on any transformation that it can happen in. At 3:06, Jigglypuff dies because the floor is absent as the stage is descending, not swinging in. At 9:35, Jigglypuff lands on the ground safely, against while the stage is descending, not swinging in. The point I am making here is that there is nothing visual to demonstrate when the floor loses its hitbox, when it becomes intangible, and when it becomes solid again. It is essentially a guessing game for the player. This is important because a player needs to know when that part of the stage becomes usable if they plan to descend to the stage.

And whether you need to recover high or recover through the stage, the point is that most characters will die in that particular instance unless they have above average recovery options.

@ Amazing Ampharos I have made the majority of my points I planned on making. I am not going to engage in the specifics of each transformation to illustrate why I disagree with you. I am quite confident that if this stage sees recognition and is played in high profile tournaments that it will be phased out eventually. The sheer inconsistency of what can happen versus what will happen on this stage regardless of your awareness or knowledge as a player is not enough to justify having this legal in my opinion.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I don't know quite how you took that picture to make it look so big, but in practice, this is not large at all.

I paused, changed the focus to center on everything instead of a specific character, zoomed out as far as it would let me, and maybe angled it a bit to get a more visually pleasing look. (Can't completely remember if I did that last bit or not but it's a "me" thing to do.)

 

[PUK]

The hazard will kill pretty late though, way later than by a good edgeguard, which is something we should see in competition. And before they kill the hazards can save you

 

[MintChipper]

From both a competitive and casual standpoint Skyloft is pretty boring imo.

 

[Piford]

No, it kind of matters on any transformation that it can happen in. At 3:06, Jigglypuff dies because the floor is absent as the stage is descending, not swinging in. At 9:35, Jigglypuff lands on the ground safely, against while the stage is descending, not swinging it. The point I am making here is that there is nothing visual to demonstrate when the floor loses its hitbox, when it becomes intangible, and when it becomes solid again. It is essentially a guessing game for the player. This is important because a player needs to know when that part of the stage becomes usable if they plan to descend to the stage.

And whether you need to recover high or recover through the stage, the point is that most characters will die in that particular instance unless they have above average recovery options.

Jigglypuff clearly went under while the stage was still swinging, so she missed the collision box. The parts of the stage that the intangible are the insides of objects, and the solid parts are the outside. Regardless, you shouldn't be next to the bottom blast line under the center of the stage. Just stay on the stage, it's where you should be. You don't really need a visual indication of when the stage can hurt you. There's only two transformations where I noticed the hitbox was active close to the landing, which were Isle of the Goddess and Knights Academy, so know that and work around it. If you stay with the transformation usually it turns back into a hitbox before it leaves completely (a few transformations don't), but it's not like staying with the transformations was a smart thing to do anyways. If your not actively looking for these, than it's not likely it's going to happen.

 

[jam1garner]

Jigglypuff clearly went under while the stage was still swinging, so she missed the collision box. The parts of the stage that the intangible are the insides of objects, and the solid parts are the outside. Regardless, you shouldn't be next to the bottom blast line under the center of the stage. Just stay on the stage, it's where you should be. You don't really need a visual indication of when the stage can hurt you. There's only two transformations where I noticed the hitbox was active close to the landing, which were Isle of the Goddess and Knights Academy, so know that and work around it. If you stay with the transformation usually it turns back into a hitbox before it leaves completely (a few transformations don't), but it's not like staying with the transformations was a smart thing to do anyways. If your not actively looking for these, than it's not likely it's going to happen.

I agree, if the stage has a chance to damage/kill you off the bottom, stay away from the bottom. If it seems less avoidable (I.e. Isle of the Goddess and Knight Academy) then know when it's coming, so you react properly.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I'm not actually sure why someone would go to a lot of those hazard spots anyways...

 

[Sinister Slush]

Skyloft is one of the more tame transformations. You're either bad for dying at parts like shown in the jigglypuff vid or just purposely running into the terrain, although it can sometimes save you if you're too low.

They also last less time than delfino and is generally a bigger stage during most of the match so it's fine.

Thank goodness it's legal in TX.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I like it. It's pretty.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

Well the good news is that neither of those fighters are mewtwo so it might be an earlier build...I wouldn't give up hope just yet

 

[Ulevo]

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

A taste of the lovely Skyloft pleasures to come. Indulge in the stage while people are willing to.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I've seen the same thing happen to Delfino, Pokemon stadium and even Brinstar back in melee. I think it's just something that's going to happen on transforming stages once in a blue moon. If it turns out it happens consistently then I'd worry about it.

 

[PUK]

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

It was possible to DK to come back by the side, but i hope it will be patched

 

[Piford]

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

If the DK had jumped from the ledge he'd had made it back on. Even if he didn't, he could've walked across the entire floating platform and recovered to the ledge on the other side.

 

[Sinister Slush]

A more accurate thing is if he just ran across that entire platform and jumped from the left side, he would've made it.
Otherwise just stay away from right side when it's transitioning to that area lol

 

[PUK]

or don't grab the ledge just before the transition

 

[dav3yb]

i recently concluded a tournament with singles and teams, and this stage was a lot of fun. we didn't run into any of the issues, but i can't say if they still exist or not.

 

[cot(θ)]

What do you expect to happen when you're in the area where the stage will be when it transforms? You either go through it, or get hit.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Jumping into this thread, I feel I should state off the bat that I lean slightly towards the Pro-Skyloft side of this debate. However, I freely admit that the stage has several problems including wild inconsistency and a rather extreme learning curve. I feel these issues are comparable to Delfino's issues and therefore it is an acceptable stage

This gfycat turned up on Reddit today. Thoughts?

That being said, the situation in this Gfycat is an actual problem and it needs to be discussed honestly. People have stated previous to this that such clips only happen when someone is trying to break the stage and those claims are now shown to be false, as this was an honest-to-goodness match. We also don't know if DK clipping out of that situation is even possible

It's simply not legitimate to say that it's a situation the DK player should have been expecting, or could have avoided by preforming some list of precautions. Requiring that all players avoid certain loosely-defined actions to ensure functional play on a stage is simply not the same thing as that stage being functional.

Either this is an always-escapable situation once it's initiated, it's too rare to matter overall, or it's a compelling reason to ban the stage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

That being said, the situation in this Gfycat is an actual problem and it needs to be discussed honestly. People have stated previous to this that such clips only happen when someone is trying to break the stage and those claims are now shown to be false, as this was an honest-to-goodness match. We also don't know if DK clipping out of that situation is even possible
It's simply not legitimate to say that it's a situation the DK player should have been expecting, or could have avoided by preforming some list of precautions. Requiring that all players avoid certain loosely-defined actions to ensure functional play on a stage is simply not the same thing as that stage being functional.

Either this is an always-escapable situation once it's initiated, it's too rare to matter overall, or it's a compelling reason to ban the stage.

Since we're talking about it, I want to point out a couple of interesting things I noticed in the gfy:

First, before DK tried his double jump to up special, he was standing on the main stage inside the rock, in that inner corner thing. I expect that it's possible to come in through the wall there, instead of what DK ended up trying.

Second, DK tried to run sideways while the stage was descending and then double jump up special. Apparently there's a section of solid rock there. DIdn't know that but now we do. Lesson learned: Do not attempt to return to the stage from directly below when this happens, go to the sides instead. (This also explains another gfy I saw where Pikachu clearly used the second half of Quick Attack but didn't go anywhere. I'd bet money he ran into the same rock section.)

Third, even though DK failed to return, you can clearly see in the magnifying glass that he was able to land and return to idle for a second before he got low enough to die. Now DK's vertical recovery is bootycheeks, but I'm willing to wager that the likes of Villager, Pikachu, Rosalina, etc. could take full advantage of a second chance like this. (The player on the left -- Chillin? -- seemed to notice this too. Watch him right as DK dies.)

Also since the lower left part of the transformation has a grabbable ledge, that could make it even easier for people trying to save themselves in that specific location.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Since we're talking about it, I want to point out a couple of interesting things I noticed in the gfy:

First, before DK tried his double jump to up special, he was standing on the main stage inside the rock, in that inner corner thing. I expect that it's possible to come in through the wall there, instead of what DK ended up trying.

Second, DK tried to run sideways while the stage was descending and then double jump up special. Apparently there's a section of solid rock there. DIdn't know that but now we do. Lesson learned: Do not attempt to return to the stage from directly below when this happens, go to the sides instead. (This also explains another gfy I saw where Pikachu clearly used the second half of Quick Attack but didn't go anywhere. I'd bet money he ran into the same rock section.)

Third, even though DK failed to return, you can clearly see in the magnifying glass that he was able to land and return to idle for a second before he got low enough to die. Now DK's vertical recovery is bootycheeks, but I'm willing to wager that the likes of Villager, Pikachu, Rosalina, etc. could take full advantage of a second chance like this. (The player on the left -- Chillin? -- seemed to notice this too. Watch him right as DK dies.)

Also since the lower left part of the transformation has a grabbable ledge, that could make it even easier for people trying to save themselves in that specific location.

To add to this, I don't think it's possible to walk across the stage from right to left, possibly at any depth. We see the death explosion being blocked by parts of the stage that are solid rock, sort of mapping out what can be moved through. I'm not sure if Link made it through the stage because he was hit, the stage wasn't solid yet, or if that's always a usable escape.

In the end though, I don't feel this is a thing we can simply speculate about. Someone's going to have to produce video of themselves purposely clipping through this part of the stage and then demonstrating how to escape, or at the very least confirm escaping can be done consistently and how.

 

[AvariceX]

I've seen the same thing happen to Delfino, Pokemon stadium and even Brinstar back in melee. I think it's just something that's going to happen on transforming stages once in a blue moon. If it turns out it happens consistently then I'd worry about it.

I fell through frickin Lylat Cruise a couple weeks ago and we've been playing on that stage without with minimal complaints for years. Legit recovered on top of the stage as Greninja then fell through and died. I have the replay.

 

[Balgorxz]

I fell through frickin Lylat Cruise a couple weeks ago and we've been playing on that stage without with minimal complaints for years. Legit recovered on top of the stage as Greninja then fell through and died. I have the replay.

Lylat Cruise god damn I have replays too