Nintendo Direct (08.08.2018) - Stage Morph

[Yuya-Noboru]

As we've seen in the today's Nintendo Direct, we have now the possibility to change the stage during a match. This looks awesome!

What are your best ideas of stages combination? I'll go for Final Destination and then Brinstar Depths (Melee).

 

[Galgatha]

We need to talk about this becoming legal! :D switching between 2 possible legal stages mid match XD Oh man!!!!

Screw it! I am going to make tournaments that run stage morphing lol!

For me, it would have to be Yoshi Island then Jungle Japes lol

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Stage morphing opens up some interesting possibilities. Would it be feasible for both players to pick a stage for game 1 and play a match that morphs between the two? Would it be at all relevant to counterpicks?

 

[Galgatha]

Idk, this is something we need to chew on seriously, but it could make matches SO much more entertaining to play/watch.

 

[Apollo500]

It looks like a really fun option! I would never have thought about it, but when they showed it off I was like "This seems like such an obvious feature in retrospect!"

 

[SmashShadow]

I would probably pick things with matching aesthetics from the same series or game:

DK64/Jungle Japes
Brinstar/Brinstar Depths
Dreamland 64 /Green Greens
Mushroom Kingdom/Mushroomy Kingdom
Skyworld/Palutena's Temple
Smashville/Town and City
3D Land/Golden Plains
Yoshi's Story/Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
Hyrule Castle/Temple
Peach's Castle/Princess Peach's Castle
Port town Aero Drive/Big Blue
Distant Planet/Garden of Hope
Sky Loft/ Great Plateau Tower
Green Hill Zone/Windy Hill Zone
Arean Ferox/Castle Seige
Coneria/Lylat Cruise
Figure 8 Circuit/Mario Circuit
Fourside/New Pork City
Pokemon Stadium/Pokemon Stadium 2

 

[NouveauRétro]

I'd be so surprised if at the very least FD/BF ain't legal

The real issue is figuring out how often the transition should be. Fast to prevent too much advantage at once? Or few in order to prevent camping out one transition?

 

[Crystanium]

Suppose this game has three stocks and is timed for 8 minutes. I could see that if morphing stages was part of the tournament scene, each stage would be 4 minutes each. I don't see why stage morphing should even be an issue, especially since tournament rules treat BF as DL. You cannot consistently treat the stages as the same, and then be opposed to stage morphing.

 

[Untouch]

There are large implications here.
SO many stages aren't legal because of camping. This would make camping a LOT less viable and safe.

 

[Crystanium]

There are large implications here.
SO many stages aren't legal because of camping. This would make camping a LOT less viable and safe.

There are plenty of reasons for why stages aren't legal.

Very low ceiling.
Stage hazards.
Walk-offs.
Cave of life.
Camping.

 

[AIM0001]

Question, can you still turn off hazards for these stages?

 

[nirvanafan]

It is an interesting idea, will probably goof off with it a bit although I am not sure if I will use it too much after that.

 

[TamaskaLEM]

Question, can you still turn off hazards for these stages?

I can't see why you can't. The Stage Hazard option is right under it.

 

[soviet prince]

brilliant move sakurai well played

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

This was something I didn’t want before the direct because it was a possibility I couldn’t have even inagined. I am astoubded that this is a thing. Just to name a few combinations, I would do...

- Mushroom Kingdom then Mushroom Kingdom II
- Brinstar then Brinstar Depths
- Dream Land then Fountain of Dreams
- Unova Pokémon League then Kalos Pokémon League
- Battlefield then Final Destination
- Random and Random

 

[soviet prince]

This was something I didn’t want before the direct because it was a possibility I couldn’t have even inagined. I am astoubded that this is a thing. Just to name a few combinations, I would do...

- Mushroom Kingdom then Mushroom Kingdom II
- Brinstar then Brinstar Depths
- Dream Land then Fountain of Dreams
- Unova Pokémon League then Kalos Pokémon League
- Battlefield then Final Destination
- Random and Random

random and random would be fun

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Pac-Land and WarioWare will be my favourite combination!

Mario Bros. + 75m seems like fun.

Saffron + Fourside will be interesting.

having the same stage but in Omega and BF forms will be pretty cool.

Great Cave Offensive + any small stage, wonder how that'll work?

do I really need to explain why it'd be so awesome to combine Pokemon Stadium 1 + 2?

 

[Shoopdawooper]

Why would we ever even bother with stagestriking now that this is a thing?! Both players just get to choose their stage, and it remains for half the match. Problem solved. Near infinite possibilities. Fair, and almost impossible to tire off. I mean, we (competitive scene) lived for several years on 5 stages. Now it's 103*102*3 = more than 30000 stage combinations. Sakurai, why do you spoil us so?

P.S. I like the New Donk City -> Fourside combo. Day turning to night in the big city.

 

[NouveauRétro]

random and random would be fun

Hanenbow then 75m

 

[ZeroJinKui]

the fact that people find this to be a fun feature makes me think it won't be tournament legal.

no offense, but pros seem to be very... anti-fun.

atleast, the ones i've come across certainly are.

 

[Shoopdawooper]

the fact that people find this to be a fun feature makes me think it won't be tournament legal.

no offense, but pros seem to be very... anti-fun.

atleast, the ones i've come across certainly are.

I'm sorry, but I just have to quickly reply to this. I think that if you really think about it, you can see how this statement makes no sense at all. Competitive players play a video game... Because it's fun. It's really not that complicated.

I'm guessing you're referring to some of the competitive communities' harsh reactions to random or unbalanced elements in the game that you might consider fun. However just because you don't understand the reason why, doesn't mean it isn't a good reason.

I'm a competitive player and I would love to see stage morphing be implemented in some tournaments. It's hard to predict the full consequences that morphing brings to the table though, so I guess we'll wait and see.

Some more stage combos that seem fun to me:
Great bay -> Pirate Ship. Setting sail
Pirate ship -> Rainbow cruise. Bonus points if the transition occurs during the tornado section.
Spirit train -> Pilotwings. Trains planes and... (Big blue?) Automobiles?

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

I don’t see this being Tournament legal though. Maybe through gentleman’s rule it could work, but the stage that is there first can make a huge difference.

Because one stage has to be there first, it gives one player more opertunity than the other to take stocks, and I don’t see any fair ways to determine it. A coin flip would leave it to RNG, and loser of the previous match doesn’t work until the second match of a set.

 

[ZeroJinKui]

I'm sorry, but I just have to quickly reply to this. I think that if you really think about it, you can see how this statement makes no sense at all. Competitive players play a video game... Because it's fun. It's really not that complicated.

I'm guessing you're referring to some of the competitive communities' harsh reactions to random or unbalanced elements in the game that you might consider fun. However just because you don't understand the reason why, doesn't mean it isn't a good reason.

I'm a competitive player and I would love to see stage morphing be implemented in some tournaments. It's hard to predict the full consequences that morphing brings to the table though, so I guess we'll wait and see.

Some more stage combos that seem fun to me:
Great bay -> Pirate Ship. Setting sail
Pirate ship -> Rainbow cruise. Bonus points if the transition occurs during the tornado section.
Spirit train -> Pilotwings. Trains planes and... (Big blue?) Automobiles?

maybe i should've been more clear... the competitive players i was talking about are the ones who think this game shouldn't even have anything in it other than what THEY prefer, which is... nothing, really.

one stage, one character, and nothing else... because apparently anything other than what they like is trash that should be dealt away with.

it's one of the reasons i tend to stay away from communities, cause elitists tend to be extremely toxic and bring down the whole community, giving them a terrible reputation.

that's more along the lines of what i was talking about.

 

[soviet prince]

 

[Chiroz]

Possible problems I could see arising from this:

1-) Outright camping until it changes to the stage that benefits you the most.

2-) There's a clip of Wolf going through a solid wall right as the stage starts transitioning allowing him to survive (or could also potentially kill him depending on which stage it was).

This would be literally almost exactly happens in Smash 4 Lylat Cruise which people hate. The only difference is that we would know exactly when it's going to happen and we would be able to control it (which we can also know in Lylat, but no one has ever bothered to memorize all of the inclinations and their timers for that one stage).

Point #2 is the most worrying for this feature to be tournament viable.

It's important to note that the next stage had not even begun to materialize, the animation had started but there was no real sign of what the next stage was, Wolf was just able to Up-B through the floor of a solid stage.

 

[Iridium]

I do wonder, would this screw over certain recoveries, like tethers for instance, if done right when the stage changes? Probably not, but I feel like TOs are simply going to ignore this, although giving it a try couldn't hurt too much.

 

[Tiberious]

I figured this would happen. It seems awesome as hell, but the tournament scene is going to just ignore it, just proving the old 'no FSes, Bayo only, Omega stages' stereotype true.

Were I in charge, I'd have it be a morph every 2 minutes. That's long enough for stocks to be taken, but frequent enough both characters can benefit. You also know when it's coming and can plan around it.

 

[jwillenn]

Here's an idea someone may have suggested. When players sit to play their set, we expect to see the thumbs!
If both are up, then Stage Morph and decide who picks first stage of two by coin toss, rps, or verbal. Done. If one thumb down, then Single Stage and decide who picks first. Done. Morph happens at 2 minutes in. For the remainder of the set, the loser of the previous match picks the first stage.

Try it out and see how it goes leading up to Evo. If it seems widely accepted, keep it. If not, drop it. Perhaps Nintendo should try promoting something like this with the remainder of its tournaments leading up to release. It should also have FS Meter on for the 1 vs 1s so we can get a feel for that as well.

 

[Iridium]

I have a bad feeling TOs are going to consider stage morph a distraction, just like FS Meter. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing at least at the start of the new competitive scene, but I think that mindset would change their position.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

If both are up, then Stage Morph and decide who picks first stage of two by coin toss, rps, or verbal. Done. If one thumb down, then Single Stage and decide who picks first. Done. Morph happens at 2 minutes in. For the remainder of the set, the loser of the previous match picks the first stage.

I like this but would like to expand on it. Loser either picks first stage, or picks second; it's their option. Some characters take longer to get momentum going and the losing player might want their stage to be the SECOND one that shows up for precisely this reason; once their resources are ready to go, so is their stage of choice to use them on.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

I have a bad feeling TOs are going to consider stage morph a distraction, just like FS Meter. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing at least at the start of the new competitive scene, but I think that mindset would change their position.

If I remember correctly, custom moves were initially authorized at the debut of Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament before being defined as "not legal". The competitive scene needs to be entertaining so Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's tournaments debut will probably allow stage morphs.

 

[Iridium]

If I remember correctly, custom moves were initially authorized at the debut of Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament before being defined as "not legal". The competitive scene needs to be entertaining so Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's tournaments debut will probably allow stage morphs.

Well, yeah. We just don't want tourneys to be boring, so I'm hoping tourneys don't end up like how SSB4 is now.

 

[Dario64]

This is one of the coolest Features they've shown (next to the FS-Meter). Im definitely using this more often.
However im not sure if this will ever be legal in Tournament Play. Custom Moves where barely allowed and I simply don't think the Community will allow such a thing. But who maybe im just wrong.
It definitely will add a new layer of Gameplay and I also think this would benefit low Tier Characters.