One thread to discuss all stages... doesn't work. I plan to do a one of these every couple of days so we can talk about some of the more interesting legality candidates. I'm actually going to start with the stage I'm least sure about one way or another: Pac-Maze. This stage is so good, but on the other hand, I just don't know. Here's how it works so you guys can help out in making an informed decision here:
Ghosts do 7%, very low knockback. At realistic percents you don't really go anywhere, but by 200% you get a kinda decent launch. Hits are survivable around 250% but deadly around 300%. Ghosts mostly hand out on the side of the stage, very rarely pass through the middle areas. They stay out of the way so much that actively trying to get hit proved difficult for me... We can probably just pretend they aren't even a part of the stage for legality discussion.
Grabbing 100 pellets causes a power pellet specific to your character to spawn (sometimes pellets without a character indicator seem to spawn, but I can't easily tell if anyone could grab it since it's not a common event). You can have more than one power pellet on-screen at once. Grabbing that pellet gives you a temporary 1.35x damage multiplier on your attacks and a multiplier of around 0.55x (very approximate, defense is hard to test without a human partner) on the enemy's attacks and allows you to destroy the ghosts if you come in contact (as unlikely as that is!). The powered up state seems to last 11 seconds and doesn't seem to affect anything but damage and the interaction with the stage hazard. Other characters just pass through your own pellets without grabbing them (they can see where they are though), and if you die, your small pellet count is maintained and any super pellets on the field persist (but your powered up state ends immediately if you're in it).
The stage also sometimes spawns fruit that look like Pac-Man's Bonus Fruit items. You touch them and get points. As far as I can tell, this has no gameplay effect at all but might get a little confusing if Pac-Man players are in the match.
The lay-out is one main platform with two grabbable ledges and two small pass-through platforms on the left or right sides above it. Where Battlefield's top platform would be there's instead a thicker non-pass-through platform (non-grabbable ledges on this one) which has a triangle of pass-through platforms above it. The upper thick platform is very narrow; it seems like a lot of characters if not most characters can easily attack through it from below.
Here are potential problems I see with this stage being legal:
-The ceiling is very low if you're on the top platform. Being on upper platforms gives early kills in every smash game, but this stage is so vertical that you're at constant danger of death from up smash at almost any percentage on the top platform. I was able to kill a 21% Kirby (before the hit) with G&W's usmash from here.
-The power-up states are... interesting. I'm not convinced they're broken (I was actually surprised the multipliers were as big as they are, they play well!), but they definitely are significant enough that you really have to think about their effects as you play. You can get 100 pellets really quickly too so this powered up state will be toggled a ton on this stage (you basically just accumulate them for moving around).
-The stage is fairly big and may enable some run-away tactics. I'm actually leaning that it doesn't since you can easily corner people vertically and it's so easy to attack through the middle platform, but this is a risk to be mindful of.
Here are the upsides of this stage as a competitive stage:
-The extremely vertical lay-out is a very different lay-out from the other stages, but vertical gameplay is not less fair or less balanced than horizontal gameplay. It adds interesting skill tests.
-The hazards are extremely non-disruptive; the ghosts not being here wouldn't really change the stage at all.
-The power pellets are pretty much completely matters of player agency. You can control your pellet intake, and if you're exercising stage control, you can keep your opponent away from power-ups. This is an interesting skill test itself.
-It's another stage. All else being equal, more stages being legal is better.
I feel like I have a good sense of which stages should be legal in this game already, but this stage in particular really vexes me. It has a lot of good stuff going for it, but it is definitely more radical than the other good looking for legality stages (13 of them by my count!). What do you guys think of this one (and please don't dismiss it just because it's named "Pac-Maze" and looks goofy, be serious...), and has anyone made any mechanical observations that I haven't?
Ghosts do 7%, very low knockback. At realistic percents you don't really go anywhere, but by 200% you get a kinda decent launch. Hits are survivable around 250% but deadly around 300%. Ghosts mostly hand out on the side of the stage, very rarely pass through the middle areas. They stay out of the way so much that actively trying to get hit proved difficult for me... We can probably just pretend they aren't even a part of the stage for legality discussion.
Grabbing 100 pellets causes a power pellet specific to your character to spawn (sometimes pellets without a character indicator seem to spawn, but I can't easily tell if anyone could grab it since it's not a common event). You can have more than one power pellet on-screen at once. Grabbing that pellet gives you a temporary 1.35x damage multiplier on your attacks and a multiplier of around 0.55x (very approximate, defense is hard to test without a human partner) on the enemy's attacks and allows you to destroy the ghosts if you come in contact (as unlikely as that is!). The powered up state seems to last 11 seconds and doesn't seem to affect anything but damage and the interaction with the stage hazard. Other characters just pass through your own pellets without grabbing them (they can see where they are though), and if you die, your small pellet count is maintained and any super pellets on the field persist (but your powered up state ends immediately if you're in it).
The stage also sometimes spawns fruit that look like Pac-Man's Bonus Fruit items. You touch them and get points. As far as I can tell, this has no gameplay effect at all but might get a little confusing if Pac-Man players are in the match.
The lay-out is one main platform with two grabbable ledges and two small pass-through platforms on the left or right sides above it. Where Battlefield's top platform would be there's instead a thicker non-pass-through platform (non-grabbable ledges on this one) which has a triangle of pass-through platforms above it. The upper thick platform is very narrow; it seems like a lot of characters if not most characters can easily attack through it from below.
Here are potential problems I see with this stage being legal:
-The ceiling is very low if you're on the top platform. Being on upper platforms gives early kills in every smash game, but this stage is so vertical that you're at constant danger of death from up smash at almost any percentage on the top platform. I was able to kill a 21% Kirby (before the hit) with G&W's usmash from here.
-The power-up states are... interesting. I'm not convinced they're broken (I was actually surprised the multipliers were as big as they are, they play well!), but they definitely are significant enough that you really have to think about their effects as you play. You can get 100 pellets really quickly too so this powered up state will be toggled a ton on this stage (you basically just accumulate them for moving around).
-The stage is fairly big and may enable some run-away tactics. I'm actually leaning that it doesn't since you can easily corner people vertically and it's so easy to attack through the middle platform, but this is a risk to be mindful of.
Here are the upsides of this stage as a competitive stage:
-The extremely vertical lay-out is a very different lay-out from the other stages, but vertical gameplay is not less fair or less balanced than horizontal gameplay. It adds interesting skill tests.
-The hazards are extremely non-disruptive; the ghosts not being here wouldn't really change the stage at all.
-The power pellets are pretty much completely matters of player agency. You can control your pellet intake, and if you're exercising stage control, you can keep your opponent away from power-ups. This is an interesting skill test itself.
-It's another stage. All else being equal, more stages being legal is better.
I feel like I have a good sense of which stages should be legal in this game already, but this stage in particular really vexes me. It has a lot of good stuff going for it, but it is definitely more radical than the other good looking for legality stages (13 of them by my count!). What do you guys think of this one (and please don't dismiss it just because it's named "Pac-Maze" and looks goofy, be serious...), and has anyone made any mechanical observations that I haven't?