Smash Bros Ultimate: Competitive Stages Discussion

[Jedisupersonic]

So we have quite a number of returning stages in this Smash Bros game, and I think us that are into the more competitive side of things should discuss the possibilities of each, we also now have several options on stages, such as making them either Battlefield or FD. Along with the new hazardless option.

Here are the stages (I think I got them all) so far confirmed in Ultimate

Spoiler: Stages

• Arena Ferox
• Balloon Fight
• Battlefield
• Big Blue
• Boxing Ring
• Bridge of Eldin
• Brinstar
• Castle Siege
• Coliseum
• Corneria
• Distant Planet
• Dreamland 64
• Duck Hunt
• Find Mii
• Flatzone X
• Fourside
• Frigate Orpheon
• Garden of Hope
• Gaur Plain
• Gerudo Valley
• Great Bay
• Great Plateau Tower
• Green Greens
• Green Hill Zone
• Halberd
• Hyrule Castle 64
• Hyrule Temple
• Kalos Pokemon League
• Kongo Falls
• Living Room
• Luigi's Mansion
• Lylat Cruise
• Magicant
• Mario Circuit
• Mario Galaxy
• Midgar
• Moray Towers
• Mushroom Kingdom II
• Mushroom Kingdom U
• Mushroomy Kingdom
• New Donk City
• New Pork City
• Norfair
• Onett
• PAC-LAND
• Palutena's Temple
• PictoChat (1 or 2)
• Pilot Wings
• Pokemon Stadium
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Port Town Aero Drive
• Princess Peach's Castle
• Prism Tower
• Reset Bomb Forest
• Shadow Moses Island
• Skyloft
• Skyworld
• Smashville
• Spear Pillar
• Spirit Train
• Summit
• Super Mario Maker
• Suzaku Castle
• The Great Cave Offensive
• Tomodachi Life
• Tortimer Island
• Town and City
• Umbra Clock Tower
• Unova Pokemon League
• Venom
• WarioWare Inc.
• Wii Fit Studio
• Wily Castle
• Wrecking Crew
• Wuhu Island
• Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
• Yoshi's Island (64)
• Yoshi's Story
• 3D Land
• 75m

I borrowed this list from https://allgamers.com/article/4428/all-confirmed-maps-in-super-smash-bros-ultimate

It could be wrong or outdated, but we needed the starting point. We have some obvious choices that can stay as stages in our competitive matches, however we now need to consider the hazardless option when talking about other stages, Frigate Orpheon for instance looked like a fine stage with hazards off.

I just figured i'd get this ball rolling, I don't have a particular starting point besides Frigate Orpheon and the match ZeRo and Leo had on it hazardless

 

[Bradli Wartooth]

While we can make a prospective list of stages that will be workable without hazards, I feel that we're really going to need to get our hands on the game to figure out which stages are actually good. Also it's important to discuss just how many should be legal overall, because if this is as it seems, there will be dozens of stages that could be legal.

I think a good starting point will be to just look at all the returning stages that were legal in their home game.

64:
Dream Land

Melee:
Battlefield
FD
PKMN Stadium
Yoshi's Story

Brawl:
Yoshi's Island
Lylat Cruise
Frigate Orpheon
Smashville
Halberd*
Castle Siege*

3DS:
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox

Wii U:
Town & City
Duck Hunt*

* on stages that were legal for a decent amount of time and were tested fairly extensively, but ultimately became banned at many tournaments. Perhaps removed hazards or other reasons could allow them to become legal again in Ultimate.

This is already a large list of stages, and there's going to be plenty more with the complete removal of hazards. And we could also still see the potential return of FoD, bringing us to 16 stages before hazard removal is accounted for.

This large number brings us to the issue of banning stages. How do we organize the stage list to make this process smooth? How many bans are going to be reasonable when the stage list could easily exceed 25-30 potential legal stages?

 

[Jedisupersonic]

This large number brings us to the issue of banning stages. How do we organize the stage list to make this process smooth? How many bans are going to be reasonable when the stage list could easily exceed 25-30 potential legal stages?

That's the tricky thing, it might have to become more of a free form process if we have quite a few stages. Although I think we should branch out a little when the game comes out and see what sticks instead of adhering entirely to the old processes, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Bradli Wartooth]

That's the tricky thing, it might have to become more of a free form process if we have quite a few stages. Although I think we should branch out a little when the game comes out and see what sticks instead of adhering entirely to the old processes, but maybe that's just me.

I've had the thought as to whether there should be a banning process at all, but with this many stages, I think there actually needs to be a banning process. There will likely be so many options that some stages will be downright unplayable for certain characters, and losing the ability to ban out those stages basically makes some characters completely invalid in the meta since they can just get counterpicked to those stages. I'm sort of trying to come up with a new system, but the hard part is finding a way to make this work realistically.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

I've had the thought as to whether there should be a banning process at all, but with this many stages, I think there actually needs to be a banning process. There will likely be so many options that some stages will be downright unplayable for certain characters, and losing the ability to ban out those stages basically makes some characters completely invalid in the meta since they can just get counterpicked to those stages. I'm sort of trying to come up with a new system, but the hard part is finding a way to make this work realistically.

You're absolutely right, it could be bad for certain characters and i'm just gonna bring up Little Mac as an example despite his buffs there could be stages where he has to approach up and it'd just be impossible for him.

Maybe we need a process where each player selects a set of stages and both of them ban from each others picks?

 

[Wyoming]

Hazards off will come up with interesting counter picks. Lylat Cruise, Frigate Orpheon, Castle Siege, and possibly even Saffron City should go in the lab with the toggle off.

If Wily's Castle keeps the platforms, that's another one to look at.

Battlefield forms will depend on whether or not they are 1:1 variants of Battlefield. Smash 4's FDs had a few small differences to the parent stage. If they are exactly the same we should just treat them all as Battlefield and allow them.

All the previous stages that were legal will probably remain that way. Stage variety is healthy and we should not look at trimming down the selection. Pokemon Stadium in its natural state will be a debate I feel due to its controversial transformations but its hazards off form will be handy if push comes to shove.

 

[Bradli Wartooth]

You're absolutely right, it could be bad for certain characters and i'm just gonna bring up Little Mac as an example despite his buffs there could be stages where he has to approach up and it'd just be impossible for him.

Maybe we need a process where each player selects a set of stages and both of them ban from each others picks?

That's actually roughly what my thought was as well.

I think a good possible approach is to create a defined set of like 5 starter/"neutral" stages and then players take turns banning til there's one stage left and that's the starter. After that match, the loser of the previous match provides 3 stages (out of the large legal set) and the winner of the previous match can ban 1-2 of those stages. If 1 ban out of the 3, the loser picks from the remaining two. If the previous winner gets 2 bans out of the 3, you go to the remaining stage.

I think a system like that will prevent the issue of forgetting about all the potentially terrible stages the previous winner can be dragged into while still giving the previous loser the advantage of going to a stage they're comfortable playing on.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

Hazards off will come up with interesting counter picks. Lylat Cruise, Frigate Orpheon, Castle Siege, and possibly even Saffron City should go in the lab with the toggle off.

If Wily's Castle keeps the platforms, that's another one to look at.

Battlefield forms will depend on whether or not they are 1:1 variants of Battlefield. Smash 4's FDs had a few small differences to the parent stage. If they are exactly the same we should just treat them all as Battlefield and allow them.

All the previous stages that were legal will probably remain that way. Stage variety is healthy and we should not look at trimming down the selection. Pokemon Stadium in its natural state will be a debate I feel due to its controversial transformations but its hazards off form will be handy if push comes to shove.

I think Brinstar without hazards could be potentially good too.

Yeah we also need to check blast zones which will be easier than ever thanks to the new QoL improvement that Sakurai gave us when people are outside the stage limits.

 

[MaestroDavros]

Already a thread for this: https://smashboards.com/threads/discussion-of-stage-legality-in-smash-bros-ultimate.455486/

 

[dav3yb]

Yeah, there's already 2 threads discussing stages and if there needs to be a new system that isn't striking due to potential for a huge list of stages being legal. Really need to keep it to 1 thread though.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

Yeah, there's already 2 threads discussing stages and if there needs to be a new system that isn't striking due to potential for a huge list of stages being legal. Really need to keep it to 1 thread though.

Sorry was unaware was told in the main discussion thread one didn't exist and believed it at face value.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

There is, indeed, already a thread for discussing tournament legal stages. Feel free to post these thoughts in that thread.