Official Stage Legality Discussion

[SoSlickAndSoFly]

Here's what I think the list should be

Neutral

FD
BF
Smashville
YI

Counter

Lylat
Delfino
Poke stadium 1
Frigate
Halberd
Castle Siege

Banned

75m
Big Blue
Bridge of Eldin
Flat Zone 2
Hanenbow
Hyrule Temple
Mario Bros.
Mushroomy Kingdom I
Mushroomy Kingdom II
New Pork City
Rumble Falls
Shadow Moses
Spear Pillar
The Summit
Wario Ware
Green Greens
Mario Circuit
Onett
Port Town Aero Dive
Skyworld
Green Hill Zone
Jungle Japes
Luigi's Mansion
Norfair
Pictochat
Pirate Ship
Pokémon Stadium 2
Rainbow Cruise
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
Brinstar
Corneria
Distant Planet

 

[Linkshot]

I'd prefer that you justify each of your selections :O

 

[Noobicidal]

But he's right

You mean YOU'RE right. Nice alternate account dear.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

My list

going to say what I think

Neutrals:
Battlefield Probably Most neutral stage, definite yes
Final Destination: same
Smashville: same
Yoshi's Island: same
Delfino: the stage moves but no specific character ha s a weakness, all the of the walls or the walk off areas can be easily avoided or people can just camp until its a better area
Lylat Cruise: of course the area curves, projectile characters are slightly weaker, but no real disadvantage to most characters

Counterpicks
Castle Siege: certain characters do overly well here (see D3), middle section is the only portion that is truly broken, if it stayed on the middle section the longest, i would say banned or counterpick
Halberd: Ceiling is too low, Snake's up tilt is broken here, Metaknight is also really good here, otherwise, no real problem, hazards are easily avoidable
Pokémon Stadium 1: Walls + Windmill, either this or banned
Brinstar: a good DK stage....wut, fire isn't as powerful as on Norfair, fire assists recoveries, no major problems
Hanenbow: Is there really a problem with this stage or does everyone just hate it THAT much
Distant Planet: Side is campy, water is a problem, because the stage is curved grabs aren't broken
Frigate Orpheon: anti snake stage, whats not to like, platform shifts
Jungle Japes: Stage is too high, Klap traps come every 10 seconds, water assists some recoveries, anti-snake (kind of)
Norfair: Platforms are odd, flames can be avoided, kinda campy, but not horrible
Pirate Ship: Either this or banned, cannon is powerful, water assists recoveries, would ban it if the portion lasts a bit too long
Rainbow Cruise: Anti-chaingrab, either this or banned

Banned:
Pictochat: Movements are random, certain portions effect too many characters, missile does 25 damage, Spears do 20 and kill very easily, Spikes do 30
Luigi's Mansion: Cave of life, Campiest stage in the world, cave of life, certain characters are overpowered
Wario-ware: Where was this stage, you never included it, minigames are fun but cause too much turmoil
Pokémon Stadium 2: the effects are broken, electricity causes SD's, ice causes odd movements, other one has walls, main platform is fine
Corneria: sorry ness user's, campy, lasers intercept stuff, wall allows infinite
Yoshi's Island (Pipes): toon link is too good, walk off
Green Greens: either counterpick or banned, too low a ceiling, walls are campy, Blast glitch
Mario Circuit: Walk off, cars
Onett: Walls, cars
Port Town Aero Dive: cars kill you at 40, NO
Skyworld: Ganon's forward b is too good, platforms are broken, literally
75m: Too large, broken areas, walk of's, fire
Big Blue: Cars are broken, stage moves too much
Bridge of Eldin: Walk off, too large, campy, D3 chain grab, falco lasers
Flat Zone 2: Too Small, broken projectiles, probably the most broken stage
Hyrule Temple: Cave of Life, too large, campy
Mario Bros: Walls, cave of life, overpowered projectiles
Mushroomy Kingdom I: moving, stage camping, back throws
Mushroomy Kingdom II, cave of life (technically), walls, camping, back throw's
New Pork City: WAY....TOO....LARGE
Rumble Falls: Moves badly, moves too quickly, Green things kill people at 40
Shadow Moses: If walls aren't broken, infinites, if walls are broken walk off
Spear Pillar: bottom portion is cave of life, pokemon effect stage too much
The Summit: Gravity, bottom portion is either cave of life or overpowered.
Green Hill Zone: Too Campy,check points have too high priority, walls break

 

[Linkshot]

Hanenbow is banned due to the availability of circle camping.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I'll throw my 2 cents into the pot I guess as people are now making what they feel the list should be like.

Neutral:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
PS1
Castle Siege
Lylat Cruise

Neutral/Counter Pack: (Tournament Host can choose to have these two in either neutral or counter, but has to use both if putting any into neutral to allow stage striking to work properly):
Delfino
Halbred

Counter:
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Jungle Japes
Norfair
Pictochat
Pirate Ship
Pokémon Stadium 2
Rainbow Cruise
Green Greens

Counter/Banned: (Can be either, is up to the TH to decide, due to walk-offs, permanent walls, cave like effect, or very strong, frequent, but still dodgable hazards.)
GHZ
Corneria
Distant Planet
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
Luigi's Mansion
Mario Circuit
Onett
Port Town Aero Dive

Banned:
75m
Big Blue
Bridge of Eldin
Flat Zone 2
Hanenbow
Hyrule Temple
Mario Bros.
Mushroomy Kingdom I
Mushroomy Kingdom II
New Pork City
Rumble Falls
Shadow Moses
Spear Pillar
Skyworld
The Summit
Wario Ware

 

[SoSlickAndSoFly]

I'll throw my 2 cents into the pot I guess as people are now making what they feel the list should be like.

Neutral:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
PS1
Castle Siege
Lylat Cruise

Neutral/Counter Pack: (Tournament Host can choose to have these two in either neutral or counter, but has to use both if putting any into neutral to allow stage striking to work properly):
Delfino
Halbred

Counter:
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Jungle Japes
Norfair
Pictochat
Pirate Ship
Pokémon Stadium 2
Rainbow Cruise
Green Greens

Counter/Banned: (Can be either, is up to the TH to decide, due to walk-offs, permanent walls, cave like effect, or very strong, frequent, but still dodgable hazards.)
GHZ
Corneria
Distant Planet
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
Luigi's Mansion
Mario Circuit
Onett
Port Town Aero Dive

Banned:
75m
Big Blue
Bridge of Eldin
Flat Zone 2
Hanenbow
Hyrule Temple
Mario Bros.
Mushroomy Kingdom I
Mushroomy Kingdom II
New Pork City
Rumble Falls
Shadow Moses
Spear Pillar
Skyworld
The Summit
Wario Ware

Your list is too noob friendly, needs moar banned stages.

 

[infomon]

Your list is too noob friendly, needs moar banned stages.

lol, stop trolling and explain why you think Rainbow Cruise should be banned. like, srsly.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Your list is too noob friendly, needs moar banned stages.

lol no.

I've gone to tournaments with almost as many legal stages as I put down (counter the Banned/Counter section), it worked perfectly fine. Final Smash V wasn't exactly a small tournament either, seeing as it was one of the biggest tournaments in Texas.

 

[Linkshot]

Methinks SoSly hasn't entered an offline tourney yet and only wants stages that you can camp with Ike on.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Methinks SoSly hasn't entered an offline tourney yet and only wants stages that you can camp with Ike on.

If that was true, Pirate Ship would be legal. Ike's best stage by far. >_>

 

[MAILBOXARSON99]

I'm kinda' new to Smash at high level play, but could someone please explain to me why Shadow Moses and Hanenbow are banned? I always thought of these stages as balanced, or is Shadow Moses banned because of the walls or something?

 

[Linkshot]

Mailbox. Go to a stage where you can walk off the side to kill yourself. Go into training. Choose somebody like...Mario, Lucario, G&W, ROB as your opponent. Choose yourself as Dedede. Set opponent to stand.

Grab.

Down Throw. Dash immediately, then grab again. Down Throw. Repeat.

This can't be escaped before the inevitable death off the side.

Thusly, banned.

EDIT: Dedede can do this against a wall infinitely, too, except you don't even have to dash.

 

[infomon]

To add to that: Dedede's grab range is huge, it's pretty ridiculous to just say "don't get grabbed" vs. a D3. So for his grabs to be instant-death is pretty game-breaking; unlike the Ice Climbers, whom you can separate and/or realistically just avoid getting grabbed.

Or so the argument goes.

As for Hanenbow, the problem there would be circle-camping: just get ahead in %, then spend the rest of the match running away, occasionally firing lasers back at the opponent so you're not technically "stalling".

 

[Kamikaze*]

There is no such thing as a "gay" stage. Stages are genderless.

Haha.

But seriously, I hate stages that have stupid elements like the klap trap. >_>

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Klap trap appears under the rightmost platform every time the seconds timer reads 7. It's not hard to avoid.

 

[deepseadiva]

*is still waiting on the "new" ruleset and stage list*

 

[_Keno_]

Reasons to why stages are banned would be nice too.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I'm still questioning why Rainbow Cruise isn't banned.

It seems to distract more from the fight kind of like how Big Blue does with the moving platforms.

 

[Linkshot]

It doesn't ruin the fight. It might slow it down a little, but it doesn't outright destroy the concept of competitive Smash.

 

[Ismael]

Pirate Ship should be banned. It's one thing to have something on the stage that annoys you but there is simply TOO many ways to get stage killed. Mic_128 said that a stage is still legit if it dosn't really have any instant death hazards. Well, you + touch bottom of ship = you die. Cannonballs + you at high damage = you die. Catapult + you with bad DI/high damage = you die.

And don't say "lol, avoid it". Because you can still technically "avoid" getting chaingrabbed by Dedede, yet that on it's own warranties the ban of Shadow Moses.

 

[Markus Aralius]

i think any stage that requires you to have to watch out for a hazard should be banned. too many times i will be focused on a combo, or getting a kill when i get blasted by a cannon ball, or that mechanical arm from halberd comes and knocks me off. sure you CAN watch and try to avoid but it completly disrupts the fight itself. too many levels affect this unfortunatly. so for there to be an EQUAL playing field levels with hazards should be banned.

 

[Kamikaze*]

Klap trap appears under the rightmost platform every time the seconds timer reads 7. It's not hard to avoid.

I was back thrown into it once and was no where near the right platform.I daid at 50%. Face it, the croc is stupid.

 

[buenob]

markus - while you lament your 'combo stoppers', what about people who play characters with very few combo's, and require excessive spacing and pressure play to play well... by removing stages with a hazard "you have to watch out for" you are inherently giving an advantage to combo-oriented characters

 

[Mythic02]

Why does Big blue have to be banned? Currently the only reason is that the stage takes away too much attention from the stage. If you aren't paying attention to the stage then you might as well stay in once spot of rainbow cruise the whole time. You could also just keep walking in one direction of final destination til you fall off and die. I'm not saying make it neutral or anything, i'm saying make it at least counter/banned and take it from there. Only an idiot decides not to pay attention to the stage. It really helps anyone with a horizontal recovery and they need the help. Also it helps aerial attacks. It pretty much eliminates chaingrabs with the small platforms and if someone tries chaingrabbing they pretty much die too.

I said before, just make it at least counter/banned and see what happens from their. If you play it enough you know what happens and it isn't that hard to get around the stage. Even if you play someone who does best on the ground wait for others to come to you. Otherwise short hop across cars to stay close to the ground.

 

[Linkshot]

NOTE: Cannonballs have set knockback. If you get hit by the bomb itself, you will most likely die. The explosion won't kill you, though. The flippy thingy has no real range, so it's not really a hazard, just an annoyance.

Btw, this is a great Ganondorf stage. Why take away a stage a Bottom Tier does well on with regular fighting? There's no circle camping, either. It's a very legal stage. Paying attention to the stage is what separates Smash from Arcade Fighters.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I was back thrown into it once and was no where near the right platform.I daid at 50%. Face it, the croc is stupid.

It appears there and travels down the river from there. Face it, you don't know the stage. Face it, you 100% deserved to lose that stock.

Why should anyone complain about having to watch out? Just... watch out. It's not hard to pay attention to what's going on in the fight, and it doesn't introduce any inequality as suggested since everyone has the ability to pay attention. I mean, seriously, what kind of complaint is "it's not fair that I died because I wasn't paying attention"?

 

[Kamikaze*]

It appears there and travels down the river from there. Face it, you don't know the stage. Face it, you 100% deserved to lose that stock.

Why should anyone complain about having to watch out? Just... watch out. It's not hard to pay attention to what's going on in the fight, and it doesn't introduce any inequality as suggested since everyone has the ability to pay attention. I mean, seriously, what kind of complaint is "it's not fair that I died because I wasn't paying attention"?

A lot of other fighting games don't have all these wacky stage elements. Why can't SSB be like that?

 

[Linkshot]

Because then SSB would be boring and nobody would play it.

Also, if that's what you want, play on FD only.

No johns if somebody strikes it, though.

 

[deepseadiva]

NOTE: Cannonballs have set knockback. If you get hit by the bomb itself, you will most likely die. The explosion won't kill you, though. The flippy thingy has no real range, so it's not really a hazard, just an annoyance.

One major gripe I have with Pirate Ship is that the camera could be zoomed in enough on your fighting that you wouldn't be able to tell a bomb is coming.

Sure there's a blasting sound - but tournaments are loud, you can't always hear the game. Some people even play while listening to their iPods.

A lot of other fighting games don't have all these wacky stage elements. Why can't SSB be like that?

Smash is a completly different game.

 

[Cherry64]

Smash is a completly different game.

Agreed. smash it seems that things in levels Drastically effect game play. in a tourni match do you really want it decided by a bomb?
Say your fighting a Samus on that stage, and your winning then a bomb and she spikes you! and then you float up and you get spiked again. Trust me guys, tourni samus' don't miss

 

[Ismael]

I was back thrown into it once and was no where near the right platform.I daid at 50%. Face it, the croc is stupid.

Actually, considering that he only appears next to ledges for his unsuspecting prey, and actually fooled you into thinking he only appears in a certain place....

the croc is a genious.

 

[Mythic02]

Is it me or has anyone else notice we got 256 pages and absolutely no changes. Why do we have this thread?

 

[fromundaman]

Agreed. smash it seems that things in levels Drastically effect game play. in a tourni match do you really want it decided by a bomb?
Say your fighting a Samus on that stage, and your winning then a bomb and she spikes you! and then you float up and you get spiked again. Trust me guys, tourni samus' don't miss

You know what, if I didn't notice the bomb, then got hit into a perfectly placed Samus spike, then that Samus obviously knew the bomb was coming, and simply played the stage better than I. Honestly, I'd rather lose to that then something more ridiculous, like tripping into a Fsmash, or something stupid like that. Your example seems like that player earned the win.



Also, the croc is not random, so you can't really ***** about it.


I honestly find PS2 gayer than both the PS and JJ, so meh...




Mythic, don't question the system! (this is a thread where people ***** about stages they don't like.)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I tried to get some stuff done, but I don't think many people really want anything productive to come out of this thread. The fact is that we really aren't going to be convincing each other of all that much; take my recent sub-argument with Kamikaze* as an example. Jungle Japes, in my eyes, is a nice "obviously fair" stage. I actually have a massive write up on why it should be legal everywhere a while back. Anyway, he then posts that he wants smash to be like other fighters where the stage doesn't matter. That's the point where it is just obvious that the two of us are probably never going to agree on anything about stage legality. The stages varying to a great extent is one of my favorite features and is one of his least favorite.

If we wanted to produce a "common man's rulelist" (as opposed to an SBR rulelist), the only direct way to do it would be a massive voting scheme which would be tricky to do on a lot of levels. Well, the theoretical administration of "ballots" is a problem that's very solvable, but it would require someone to design and program an external web page. Also, the usefulness of such a list is suspect since it's pretty obvious that a lot of players have this metric of "gayness" that they use to evaluate stages (aka how much they like the stages) as opposed to any objective standards of character bias and match variance.

If we really wanted to be productive, we could attempt to establish a list via first attempting to come to a consensus on a standard (or a small number of standards) on reasons for stages to be classified in various categories and then break down those factors in each stage (or rate them on those factors even). For instance, for the liberal philosophy, I think I could sum it up as such.

A stage should be banned if it has character bias to a sufficient extreme or if it introduces a sufficient amount of variance between skilled players. Variance is defined in this context as the unpredictability of the match outcome.

Then we could rank the stages based on character bias and variance. For instance, WarioWare would get a 10 on variance while Battlefield would get a 0 or at worst a 1. On character bias, on the other hand, Shadow Moses Island would get somewhere around a 9 while something like Smashville would get a 1.

Of course, that would be a fantastic amount of effort (especially since that metric I defined is probably not the only metric people would be interested in), and I'm not sure there are many people really up for that. Embarking on such a massive project is also risky since you can go through an extraordinary amount of effort only to have someone respond "no, that stage is obviously gay/********" and continue believing what they believed before (this response being the TYPICAL response, depressingly). The fact that logic doesn't really ring through to so many people makes me sometimes think that the only productive thing I do for stage legality is be obnoxious about wanting to allow as much as possible.

Regardless of futility, I tend to be up for productivity, but I am not sure enough other people here are to make it really plausible.

 

[Linkshot]

We could do it the way Smogon sets up the Pokemon Tier List.

We set up a form to fill out. It has EVERY stage on it.

You select what category it should fall in (Neutral, Counterpick, Banned).

In a field below that, you have to explain why you believe this to be the best decision.

If we get a "typical" response, we discard the vote.

How does that sound?

(Btw, after this post, I'm going to bed and then won't be back until Sunday night.)

 

[infomon]

That would be a tremendous amount of work, and still solve nothing. IMO the vast majority of competitive smashers haven't studied most of the levels enough to be really qualified to discern what's broken and what isn't. How many people are actually going to invest the time to make an intelligent answer as to why Corneria should be banned? Should "low ceiling" be a legitimate response or is that a "typical answer" we throw out? What about wall-infinites, since I doubt most people (if anyone?) really knows how many of those truly exist and actually take a person to death on Corneria (since you can tech the wall and w/e).

just sayin'.

 

[Linkshot]

It really depends on how convincing they make the argument. "Low ceiling" is valid if they have evidence to back it up as a negative impact.

 

[Tennet]

I really hope that the SBR makes a more definite list so we don't have to worry about having to practice different stages for different tourneys we may attend =/

 

[Lord Viper]

☆ All I'll say is as long as Corneria, and Green Hill Zone goes to Counter/Ban or Ban then I'm ok with the rest of the stages. ☆