Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Tesh]

If FoD did get fixed, are we looking at having 3 tri-plats legal?

 

[dav3yb]

If FoD did get fixed, are we looking at having 3 tri-plats legal?

I'd say probably not, although it would open it up as a viable option to play on in place of battlefield.

 

[ATH_]

If FoD did get fixed, are we looking at having 3 tri-plats legal?

No, no no. Not with Hazards off. If we had mixed hazards I'd say FoD and Dreamland/Yoshi's Story Hazards on would be neat and unique enough. If FoD is fixed then hazards off FoD would still be terrible because it's basically just Battlefield at that point.

For online tournaments mixed hazards is impossible really, but for offline there's a very real chance it could be standardized.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Any hopes for stage updates in the 2.0.0 patch?

Personally, I'd love to see fixes to Fountain of Dreams and Pokemon Stadium 1. While I admit it's wishful thinking, I'd love an option in the rules for Hazards: Toggle, too. Or maybe something in the Random Stage Switch that lets you toggle hazards on and off for specific stages.

Doubt it but an option of whether or not to pick ruleset on Character Select rather than at the very beginning of the match process would be neat too.

Other than that, I doubt they're going to change anything about how stages function. While it would be certainly great to have things unified and consistent with what hazards are considered, I don't believe they're going to put so much effort into that.

I can't really think of much else myself, so I'd love to hear other's thoughts.

I have a whole list of changes I wish they'd make to stages but apart from the frame drops on FOD and various collision bugs on e.g. Lylat, I doubt anything major will happen in that department.

 

[Mooer]

I think the following stages are the "most fair" for all fighters. If I were at an event I think I'd appreciate a TO running this stage list. I'll explain some of my choices. I would argue that the P1P2 system and banning 2 stages for the following games works for this arrangement. I would possibly consider banning 3 stages if we find fault with the balance or if we want an even larger stage list. All hazards off.

Neutral

1. Battlefield
2. Final Destination
3. Pokemon Stadium 1
4. Smashville
5. Wario Ware

Counterpick

1. Yoshi's Story
2. Yoshi's Island
3. Lylat Cruise
4. Kalos Pokemon League
5. Town & City

Doubles

1. Mushroom Kingdom U
2. Frigate Orpheon

Explanation

• I don't think anyone should be arguing against Battlefield or Final Destination. Smashville gets a solid pass too.
• I chose Pokemon Stadium 1 here because it has a smaller platform and a smaller blast zone than Pokemon Stadium 2 which is prone to projectile spammers. Pokemone Stadium 1 mitigates that and I'm of the opinion that we need more smaller stages in these lists because there are more than enough large stages already.
• Wario Ware is small with small blast zones and that is okay. Being small doesn't mean it's bad. It's the stage I find missing in a lot of lists. Characters that play poorly on large stages need a bone imo and Wario Ware is the perfect pick due to its unique platform layout.
• The counter picks should all be familiar to everyone and I don't see any reason not to include them.
• I omitted Unova but just barely. I think it has a unique size/platform layout combo. I personally don't like the sides of the stage (or how dark it is if I'm being nitpicky) and another diplat didn't seem worthwhile over the other picks.
• Castle Seige also gets a nod as a small stage worth considering. However I'm not alone in disliking the mid-stage slant and my personal bias is against the obscuring that occurs on the right side of the map off stage.

 

[Sean²]

Battlefield
Final Destination
Wily Castle
Smashville
Town & City
Lylat Cruise*
Pokemon Stadium 1
Pokemon Stadium 2
Dreamland
WarioWare
Yoshi's Story
Yoshi's Island Brawl
Fountain of Dreams*
Castle Siege
Rainbow Cruise
Unova Pokemon League
Kalos Pokemon League
Midgar
Frigate Orpheon

Quoting myself here because I have some revisions after heavy testing. All stages still Hazards OFF.

STARTER:
Battlefield/Midgar/Fountain of Dreams
Final Destination/Wily Castle
Smashville
Town & City
Pokemon Stadium 1/PS2/Unova Pokemon League
WarioWare
Kalos Pokemon League

COUNTERPICK:
Dreamland
Yoshi's Story
Lylat Cruise
Yoshi's Island Brawl
Castle Siege
Rainbow Cruise
Frigate Orpheon

_______________________

• Removing Dreamland as a starter as getting yourself pineappled is still easy on this stage. My testing partners and I noted more SDs on this stage than any other. This is the only flat, neutral stage I ran into that had this as an issue. It may be pointless to leave it on as counterpick even, if FOD gets fixed in the future. Same with Midgar and BF, but leaving the option since it's still early. I'd say in the long run, BF and a fixed FOD could be the standard layout triplat stages (Then you have a triplat that has a slightly different main platform that can help recovery mixups.), with Yoshi's being a counterpick because it's much larger. Marked stages in Blue that I think have immediate replacements.
• Fountain of Dreams is Yellow because of the graphical issues. This stage is still very playable as a starter without them. Until those are fixed, it should remain banned.
• In my opinion, I think FD should 100% be a counterpick. This stage gives huge advantages to some characters. And if you use the argument "Well, just strike/ban it", then you shouldn't say banning WW is a waste of a ban. I'm going to ban WW against DK the same way I'm going to ban FD against heavy zoners. But I'm leaving it as a starter for now as it is still a popular stage.
• If there's one odd contention point to any non-neutral stage being banned, it's because of slopes. I think this is a ridiculous notion. This is what solidifies these stages as counterpicks.
  • If someone beats you handily on a flat stage, choosing another flat stage has a negligible chance of changing game 2's results. You may have a different platform layout, and that can help a couple characters, but in other matchups, it can help to change up the main platform as well.
  • E.G. the main point of a counterpick. If someone is much better than you, they'll be able to beat you on a non-flat stage as just as easily.
  • Another reason announcing character switches needs to come first.
  • I think a lot of people who have issues on slants can't find a legitimate reason to do so, but just find them annoying. I think that's too subjective of a reason to call for a total ban.
• Rainbow Cruise is only janky for Ness. And that is that is totally situational. The wall has very little effect for everyone else. The bow of the ship has gotten the Lylat treatment so you can't get stuck under it. You can pineapple yourself under the stern of the ship, but only if you're way under. It's about as easy as getting stuck under Smashville.
  • The only other thing we found is that it's a bit hard to see your character when you're offstage. But WW is similar in this aspect.
  • The midstage slant near the bow makes for some interesting situations, but not in a bad way. It can be used to your advantage without being broken.
  • You can put yourself into a favorable position when your opponent is on the stern, if you stand right by the wall. However they have an escape route via the floating platforms so they're not completely trapped. Getting someone in total disadvantage in this situation requires a read of some kind.
• Frigate and Castle Siege are generally seen as more favorable to RC.
  • Frigate: sharking through the moving platform is possible. But it's riskier than going for a ledge since the main platform is not sharkable. Totally feasible counterpick.
  • CS: Right side wall was the only partially annoying thing here. The slant had very little effect on the end result of matches since it's a very small stage.
• I think we should maybe pick between PS1 and 2 for a standard at some point as well. Maybe PS2 because Unova could fit in as the smaller biplat to PS2's larger platform - and it has walls to assist bad recovery characters with walljumps.
• The rest of the stages are all fine, basically no jank whatsoever that affected match outcome.
• As per my previous post, 3-5 bans would work with a stagelist like this. Banning any of the very similar stages would ban them all.

If I had a big scene in my immediate area I'd offer this to a TO or even try to do it myself at something, but turnout is miserable where I live. A lot of TOs won't risk it, which is the biggest issue. Hoping to test it out more online one of these days to pull more data since I nor my training partner don't play every character at their 100% optimum level to see what may be broken on some of these stages.

 

[ATH_]

2.0.0 is releasing in 20 minutes. I doubt Nintendo's going to give us anything to chew on here, but I hope there'll be something to discuss.

On another note, I'm seeing a lot of stagelists having 7 starters and Dreamland+Battlefield as separate stages. Quickly, I'll list some pros and cons between both of those subjects.

Having 5 starters means a faster tournament procedure. This may not seem like much, but players have reported issues with striking from 7 starters (though we don't have concrete evidence of this really). The faster procedure may not seem like much at a locals, but at a Major it can be a huge difference. Meanwhile, having 7 starters can mean solving the stage size problem in a more likable way. In my opinion, Lylat Cruise is the perfect 5th starter because it's different enough, has a balanced size, and brings lots of different strategies to the table without being hazardous in any way. However, lots of people don't like Lylat on a 5 Starter list because they'll say you "have to" strike it. Having 7 starters means more variety, and therefore more strikes. More strikes means Lylat won't annoy as many people. So there is a trade-off, but that isn't all of it. 7 Starters means at least one stage will have a non-unique layout. If your 5 Starters are Battlefield, Kalos, Smashville, Lylat Cruise, and Pokemon Stadium 2, then you need to add two stages for 7 Starters. Let's say you add Final Destination, but then what? Town & City has been dubbed not a good starter, as it skews the list to favor projectile characters too much in game 1. So what do you use? Well, you could use WarioWare, but then you run into the same problem as before! People don't like WarioWare as a starter, and people don't like Lylat as a starter, and they will say it forces 2 strikes against them. It's a tough issue.

Dreamland and Battlefield are far too similar to be played separately, in my opinion. And the pineapple issue on Dreamland just makes it worse to me. Looking at the data, Dreamland's horizontal blast zones reach 10 units farther, and the stage terrain is 6 units thinner. This means characters live ever so slightly longer on Dreamland, but overall, there's not enough difference to warrant its own slot. Otherwise, you're unbalancing your list with two triplats that are basically the same stage.

 

[Frihetsanka]

YO THE MADMEN ACTUALLY DID IT
THEY FIXED LYLAT'S LEDGES

...mostly pic.twitter.com/BavfGe4o2S

— Andrew Nestico (@PracticalTAS) January 30, 2019

Let's go Lylat! Legal!

 

[Munomario777]

According to PTAS, the Kirby thing on Lylat was also fixed!

(So can we agree to not ban unova for teleport stuff that might get fixed in the near future :o)

EDIT: P.S. Fountain still lags, Story still has food, no hazard toggle. (good)

 

[Terotrous]

Since this patch apparently contains stealth stage fixes, has anyone tested FoD lag under 2.0?

 

[Munomario777]

Since this patch apparently contains stealth stage fixes, has anyone tested FoD lag under 2.0?

yes; it still lags

 

[Untouch]

I don't believe Lylat was "fixed", but they did fix the interaction with Peach's Up B, which was the biggest issue with the stage in my opinion.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don't believe Lylat was "fixed", but they did fix the interaction with Peach's Up B, which was the biggest issue with the stage in my opinion.

In practice there's not really a distinction, since that was the main issue with Lylat (the Kirby issue was also fixed, by the way).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah, "they fixed Lylat" vs. "they fixed the way three specific characters (Peach, Daisy, Kirby) interact with ledges, of which Lylat's were of the most concern" are technically distinct statements but functionally the same as far as the end users (us) are concerned.

 

[ATH_]

Lylat for 5th starter party! With those issues fixed I really see no other stage more fitting for a 5th starter.

It has a unique layout to the other starters, its static and can't kill you, and its an average size? Sounds great to me.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Lylat seems to me like the best candidate for a 5th starter, other stages are too similar to other starters or have some other issues (like Town & City).

 

[Tesh]

So, in patch 1.2.1, Ps2 peacefully displays a somewhat static background. This was apparently a bug. In Patch 2.0, there is a jumbotron in the background that shows a zoom in of one of the players for like 95% of the match.

If Castle Siege gets banned for the right side issue, I want Ps2 banned. Every over the top annoying visual effect in this game gets shown a 2nd time at 10x the size. Fighting in the middle of the stage is so disorienting.

 

[ATH_]

Hopefully PS1 will get fixed so we can use it. It's generally better anyway, except for the glitch issue.

Has anyone checked if it was patched or not?

 

[dav3yb]

Hopefully PS1 will get fixed so we can use it. It's generally better anyway, except for the glitch issue.

Has anyone checked if it was patched or not?

does it ever show up in hazardless anyways?

 

[ATH_]

does it ever show up in hazardless anyways?

I haven't tested it myself and can't right now, but I was speaking in general and not specifically about the monitor in the background. Though they're pretty similar so generally if there's a reason to dislike one more than the other then the better one should be used.

 

[Thinkaman]

It's painful to listen to people complaining about Castle Siege being legal when you think the transforming version should be a starter. (Just like it was in Brawl)

People will always complain.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It's painful to listen to people complaining about Castle Siege being legal when you think the transforming version should be a starter. (Just like it was in Brawl)

People will always complain.

I assume this is in response to the commentary at G6?

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

I assume this is in response to the commentary at G6?

Yeah. The stage came up during a match with Armada. D1 and one other commentator were trash talking the stage, and D1 even said that the people on the inside are thinking about banning the stage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah. The stage came up during a match with Armada. D1 and one other commentator were trash talking the stage, and D1 even said that the people on the inside are thinking about banning the stage.

M2K also counterpicked it as Bowser vs. a Richter. And won. Which I think is a good object example of how smaller stages are really important for dealing with heavy zoning characters like the Belmonts.

Armada also dismantled that Lucario completely on the same stage, but I'm less familiar with Lucario to judge what kind of stage he prefers.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Mm. I uh, actually had another problem with the Armanda vs Apologyman game.

I got mad motion sick from the camera constantly zooming in and out. By the end of that particular game I had to stop watching.

Does anyone have any VODs of games played on Castle Siege on hand by any chance? I wanna try to watch more games on that stage later in case it was say, too much caffeine in my system and the gameplay just pushed me over the edge because of it. But if it keeps happening to me because of the camera zooming in and out so frequently it uh, might need to get Clock Tower'd. Which is frustrating because I really like Castle Siege.

 

[Munomario777]

save siege pls

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don't think Castle Siege is going to last very long, people seem to dislike it more than any other currently legal stage, and it does have some serious issues.

 

[ATH_]

sigh... people using positions of power to unfairly influence the mass audience on stream about a stage is so... ugh. If they gave it a fair shot and discussed the positives and negatives and more importantly: whether or not those individual things matter, I wouldn't complain. But taking the opportunity to trash on a stage to guilt TOs against using a perfectly viable stage and give new players (and veterans) an unfair and biased opinion on a stage is really gross.
save castle siege, please don't let us fall into a campy vs rushdown meta because of all the big stages. there should be more than two playstyles that are viable.

 

[Semako]

The jumbotron on the Pokemon Stadium stages is much more annoying/distracting for me than the castle siege camera

 

[Munomario777]

The jumbotron on the Pokemon Stadium stages is much more annoying/distracting for me than the castle siege camera

yeah it’s something else... makes stuff like siege unova etc less of an anomaly tho :o

 

[HouseLuggage]

So I hear people liking Rainbow Cruise. What about Brinstar? It seems just as unconventional and has lots of different slopes and angles and platform placements. Just curious what others think about it.

EDIT: Also, what's wrong with hazardless Arena Ferox? It seems to me like a unique triplat in the same vein as Reset Bomb Fortress.

 

[dav3yb]

EDIT: Also, what's wrong with hazardless Arena Ferox? It seems to me like a unique triplat in the same vein as Reset Bomb Fortress.

Although the Tri-plat version is overall fine, it's random which layout you get, so it would potentially eat up too much time trying to hit the proper layout.

 

[Untouch]

So I hear people liking Rainbow Cruise. What about Brinstar? It seems just as unconventional and has lots of different slopes and angles and platform placements. Just curious what others think about it.

EDIT: Also, what's wrong with hazardless Arena Ferox? It seems to me like a unique triplat in the same vein as Reset Bomb Fortress.

I personally like Brinstar but the ground is uneven and can be awkward.

 

[HouseLuggage]

Oh I didn't realize Arena Ferox was random

 

[ATH_]

Ferox is random and has 3 (maybe 4?) layouts. Only one is really viable tbh and until we can control it we sadly can't really use it.
Gamer is similar, but appears to be randomized in 3 different sections of the stage? I haven't tested it enough but some randomizations are awful, while others are awesome.
Brinstar is a cool stage and is very anti-camping however the semi-soft terrain and the difficult to grab right ledge hurts it a lot. In my opinion Skyloft and Halberd end up being way better semi-softs, if semi-softs even survive into a major ruleset.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

It's painful to listen to people complaining about Castle Siege being legal when you think the transforming version should be a starter. (Just like it was in Brawl)

People will always complain.

In general I hate the idea of wanting a stage to be banned if it isn't super exploitable. Stages shouldn't be banned unless they're too overcentralizing for matchups and render characters completely unviable (and even then, people are fine with using BF even though Midgar is objectively better as a starter since Kirby's combo game actually functions on Midgar), and even stages like Wuhu Island, Skyloft and Kongo Jungle are perfectly fair as counterpicks since sharking isn't actually that powerful of a tool (My friend was trying to shark me using Cloud Up Air to demonstrate what was wrong with Kongo Jungle, I responded by killing him for it with Falcon Up B. He then SD'd trying to airdodge through the stage and messing up his angle and then blamed the stage, to which I told him to adapt) and none of them are nearly as campy as people seem to think.

But hey, "we don't need this many stages" is apparently a valid argument now so w/e

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Ferox is random and has 3 (maybe 4?) layouts. Only one is really viable tbh and until we can control it we sadly can't really use it.
Gamer is similar, but appears to be randomized in 3 different sections of the stage? I haven't tested it enough but some randomizations are awful, while others are awesome.
Brinstar is a cool stage and is very anti-camping however the semi-soft terrain and the difficult to grab right ledge hurts it a lot. In my opinion Skyloft and Halberd end up being way better semi-softs, if semi-softs even survive into a major ruleset.

You're correct about Gamer. It's divided into three discrete sections (left, mid, right) and each section has a certain number of possible objects that can be selected to fill the space. "Nothing" is also an option, and some objects span two adjacent sections as well. If it weren't for some of the possible objects being solid, I think it would be a strong contender for use, since all of the other possibilities are pretty mundane.

(As an aside, if you ever happen to play on Gamer with hazards on in a party FFA or something and one of the objects is an art easel or a portable game device, be careful -- Mom can appear from it.)

Ferox has 4 forms it can pick from.

 

[ATH_]

Imagine how cool it'd be if you could pick which Ferox form to play on? Same applies for stages like it too: PS1, PS2, Castle Siege, Mushroom Kingdom U, etc??

 

[Munomario777]

i'd play on grass form PS1 all day, heck yeah

 

[TheYungLink]

Imagine how cool it'd be if you could pick which Ferox form to play on? Same applies for stages like it too: PS1, PS2, Castle Siege, Mushroom Kingdom U, etc??

I'm a casual lurking this thread to see what stages the meta eventually settles on, but I wanna comment that I hated that World of Light and some Spirit fights locked away the option to only play on certain portions of transforming / traveling stages to them, and we couldn't play on those stages that way ourselves.