Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Terotrous]

Yet Rainbow Cruise is better H+ than its H- counterpart according to your post? What?

I feel like the travelling part is less disruptive than a permanent wall. One allows some janky gimps, the other allows infinites, I guess you pick your poison, though I'd much rather have the travelling part because it's more unique and iconic. I suppose you could try to make the same argument for PS1's transformations, except that a lot of people have always hated the fact that PS1 transforms and just like the base layout, which also lacks problematic aspects.

On a COMPLETELY different (and if I'm being honest, somewhat off-topic) subject, I'd like to collect opinions on the use of ice in a stage. Obviously no current legal stage has ice, and no existing stage with ice is legal, but ice is a thing that exists in the game and I like to challenge myself to make custom stages that stretch the limits of viability without actually crossing the line into "wtf no" territory. So, as a thought experiment, could a stage have ice and still be legal?

Honestly I feel like Ice changes up the game too much, largely due to vastly increased safety on shield of many moves. It's also just generally not fun to play on since it messes up your controls.

Maybe it could work if, say, the stage was a long flat plane with a small patch of ice in the middle, though I feel like it'd probably have camping problems or something.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Honestly I feel like Ice changes up the game too much, largely due to vastly increased safety on shield of many moves. It's also just generally not fun to play on since it messes up your controls.

Maybe it could work if, say, the stage was a long flat plane with a small patch of ice in the middle, though I feel like it'd probably have camping problems or something.

I hadn't thought about shield safety, that's an interesting point. What about a normal stage with an ice platform? Would that be any better (or worse) than a patch of ice on the ground?

 

[Sean²]

Ice? Do you want everyone to be Melee Luigi? Just what I need, sliding Ganondorf Fsmashes, lol

 

[ATH_]

Ice on platforms would be interesting depending on the physics of it. I don't know the ice physics very well in Ultimate, so I can't say. If you could waveland onto an ice platform and have it slide you to the other side that would be Neat. Stuff like that. Platform cancelling too.

I feel like the travelling part is less disruptive than a permanent wall. One allows some janky gimps, the other allows infinites, I guess you pick your poison, though I'd much rather have the travelling part because it's more unique and iconic. I suppose you could try to make the same argument for PS1's transformations, except that a lot of people have always hated the fact that PS1 transforms and just like the base layout, which also lacks problematic aspects..

Have you ever tried to play on H+ Rainbow Cruise in a serious competitive match? If not, please refrain from comparing two drastically different polarizing aspects and saying one is "less disruptive" than the other when you do not have the experience to say so.

I'm not trying to say you're point is invalid, but that your point is purely an opinion, not an informed one. There's no evidence to back your claim, whereas we have years of Melee to say otherwise. I don't think PS1 H+ is perfect by any means, I agree with Frihetsanka that being able to tech off of the windmill is a huge deal going from Melee to Ultimate. However, that doesn't instantly make PS1 worse than Rainbow Cruise H+. I'm perplexed how one could think that with such conviction.

Are you saying that if you could tech the windmill in Melee, then Rainbow Cruise H+ would be a better suited stage as counterpick in Melee?

 

[Frihetsanka]

Are you saying that if you could tech the windmill in Melee, then Rainbow Cruise H+ would be a better suited stage as counterpick in Melee?

Maybe Melee would run 5 stages instead of 6 stages then, I doubt Rainbow Cruise would return, it's a pretty bad stage. Here's a summary I found on why it's banned:

"Rainbow Cruise was allowed in the past during the early stages of the Melee and Brawl metagames; although it was a scrolling stage, it had a predictable pattern and was thus allowed by many tournament organizers. However, it has now been almost universally banned in notable tournaments in both games. This is because the stage has ungrabbable ledges, disappearing platforms, and winding, non-linear passages throughout the entire cruise. This creates massive problems for characters with either poor to mediocre recoveries or slow and sluggish aerial maneuvering. The stage greatly favors characters with good air mobility and jumping ability, allowing some already top-tier characters to almost guarantee a win on this stage (such as Jigglypuff in Melee and Meta Knight in Brawl), and overcentralizes keeping up with the stage instead of actually fighting with the opponent. The abundance of alternative pathways through the stage can also promote stalling by allowing faster characters to avoid fighting altogether." https://www.ssbwiki.com/Rainbow_Cruise#Tournament_legality

 

[ATH_]

Maybe Melee would run 5 stages instead of 6 stages then, I doubt Rainbow Cruise would return, it's a pretty bad stage. Here's a summary I found on why it's banned:

"Rainbow Cruise was allowed in the past during the early stages of the Melee and Brawl metagames; although it was a scrolling stage, it had a predictable pattern and was thus allowed by many tournament organizers. However, it has now been almost universally banned in notable tournaments in both games. This is because the stage has ungrabbable ledges, disappearing platforms, and winding, non-linear passages throughout the entire cruise. This creates massive problems for characters with either poor to mediocre recoveries or slow and sluggish aerial maneuvering. The stage greatly favors characters with good air mobility and jumping ability, allowing some already top-tier characters to almost guarantee a win on this stage (such as Jigglypuff in Melee and Meta Knight in Brawl), and overcentralizes keeping up with the stage instead of actually fighting with the opponent. The abundance of alternative pathways through the stage can also promote stalling by allowing faster characters to avoid fighting altogether." https://www.ssbwiki.com/Rainbow_Cruise#Tournament_legality

Apologies if there was ambiguity in my previous post, I mentioned I agree with you about the windmill being a big deal, but my following sentences weren't intended to be a further response to you. I was not trying to seriously argue that, it was in response to Terotrous 's implication by listing Rainbow Cruise H+ but not listing PS1 H+.

Basically yeah, Rainbow Cruise H+ sucks pretty badly. I highly doubt stages with moving terrain will ever be viable in any smash game. Rainbow Cruise is a case where it fills some checkboxes of tournament viability (consistent/predictable, "hazardless", more or less intuitive) so I can see why lesser developed scenes might've allowed it, especially back then.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Based on the results of my poll thus far, here is the list of legal stages I will be running for my next tournament:

Starter Stages
Battlefield
Smashville
Pokémon Stadium
Final Destination
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick Stages
Yoshi’s Island
Castle Siege
Kalos Pokémon League
Town & City
Skyloft
Mementos
Wuhu Island

Alternate Stages
(Battlefield) Any Battlefield form stage
(Battlefield) Dream Land
(Battlefield) Yoshi’s Story
(Battlefield) Midgar
(Battlefield) Fountain of Dreams
(Pokémon Stadium) Pokémon Stadium 2
(Pokémon Stadium) Unova Pokémon League
(Final Destination) Any Omega form stage
(Final Destination) Wily Castle
(Final Destination) PictoChat 2
(Final Destination) Umbra Clock Tower

Definitely some surprises in the votes there, but I think it will be interesting to see how these stages will be in competitive play.

Notes:
-First of all, my tournaments have been using the PXP1 stage selection process (P4P1) and will continue to do so with this new stage list.
-Mementos was surprisingly popular: the most popular counterpick stage!
-Skyloft and Wuhu Island were also more popular than I expected, being on par with Kalos Pokemon League and Town & City.
-Compared to my previous stage list, 2 stages have been removed: WarioWare and Mushroom Kingdom U, neither of which earned more than 50% of the votes.
-Yoshi's Island has graduated from an alternate of Smashville under my previous ruleset to a full standalone stage.
--Despite the votes ruling in favor of separating Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Story remains an alternate to Battlefield.
-Fountain of Dreams and Umbra Clock Tower were popular enough to be included as alternates of Battlefield and Final Destination, respectively.
-The votes ruled in favor of PS1 over PS2.

 

[Terotrous]

Have you ever tried to play on H+ Rainbow Cruise in a serious competitive match? If not, please refrain from comparing two drastically different polarizing aspects and saying one is "less disruptive" than the other when you do not have the experience to say so.

I'm not trying to say you're point is invalid, but that your point is purely an opinion, not an informed one.

Name a stage with a permanent wall that has ever been legal.

Meanwhile, we've had numerous stages that transform or move being legal over the years, including Rainbow Cruise.

Obviously, the stage is fairly disruptive and in a game where there's tons of legal stages to choose from, it's not going to see representation, but I still feel that it's fairly clear that the hazards on version of the stage is both more playable and more unique.

 

[ATH_]

Name a stage with a permanent wall that has ever been legal.

Meanwhile, we've had numerous stages that transform or move being legal over the years, including Rainbow Cruise.

Obviously, the stage is fairly disruptive and in a game where there's tons of legal stages to choose from, it's not going to see representation, but I still feel that it's fairly clear that the hazards on version of the stage is both more playable and more unique.

What permanent wall are you referring to on PS1 H+?...

 

[MarioManTAW]

What permanent wall are you referring to on PS1 H+?...

I believe he's referring to the wall on H- Rainbow Cruise.

 

[Terotrous]

Right, the difference between the H+ and H- conversation for Rainbow Cruise and PS1 is that for Rainbow Cruise, you kind of have to pick your poison. Either there's a permanent wall or the moving segment. With PS1, you don't. Either you have the transformations, which contain a few problematic ones, or you just stick with the base layout, which is generally considered to be the best part of the stage.

It's probably true that both versions of PS1 are better than either version of Rainbow Cruise, but I wasn't making a list of good stages, just ones where the hazards on version is better, and I think there's a good argument that PS1 shouldn't be on that list, unless you want to try to make some variant of my Smashville argument where the transforming nature of the stage somehow makes it more fair for more characters, though based on the shape of PS1's transformations and how people just wait some of them out I'm not sure if this would be the case.

 

[Frihetsanka]

[...]but I wasn't making a list of good stages, just ones where the hazards on version is better[...]

Add Duck Hunt to the list, the hazards off version is even campier than hazards on. With hazards on, you can kill a duck to summon the dog and use him as an elevator in order to more easily get to the tree, which is useful if, say, Little Mac is getting camped. With hazards off the stage is even campier. Still a bad stage with hazards on but it's not as bad as hazards off.

 

[Kaiser19]

This just occurred to me because I just fought a match online on hazards off Norfair. Has that ever been considered or tested? My brief experience with it seemed fine. It's certainly a unique layout.

 

[Sean²]

Norfair's one of the campiest stages out there. Approaching some characters on the bottom platform is nigh impossible.

 

[Idon]

This just occurred to me because I just fought a match online on hazards off Norfair. Has that ever been considered or tested? My brief experience with it seemed fine. It's certainly a unique layout.

If by unique you mean completely awful...

 

[Kaiser19]

If by unique you mean completely awful...

I suppose I should assume the stage has already been determined as "bad" given that I've never heard of a tournament running it. But I would like to hear some details as to why. No walls, no cave of life, no slants (I don't even necessarily consider slants auto-bad anyways).

 

[MarioManTAW]

I think the main concerns are too many grabbable ledges and no real central "base" platform. The bottom platform is too small to really be central for fighting.

 

[Sean²]

I suppose I should assume the stage has already been determined as "bad" given that I've never heard of a tournament running it. But I would like to hear some details as to why. No walls, no cave of life, no slants (I don't even necessarily consider slants auto-bad anyways).

Some characters can camp the bottom platform and there is absolutely no safe way to approach them. Little Mac can be hilarious on this stage if he gets a lead and can control the bottom platform. The game grinds to a halt if you don't have a counter, because his smashes take up basically the entire platform, have armor, and break shields.

Then on another note, the fact that you can grab the ledge of every platform can make the opposite happen. I could pick Kirby and run from Little Mac the entire game, and he would basically have no unpredictable way to catch me, barring me screwing up hard somewhere.

 

[Terotrous]

Yeah, I'm generally pretty liberal and even I can't even come close to justifying Norfair, it's probably one of the most busted stages in the game. Actually, this is probably another stage where H+ is better because the lava prevents camping (well, maybe prevent is the wrong word, it forces you to change where you're camping throughout the match). Still a very poorly designed stage in any case.

I'd actually like to see a variant of this concept explored again though because it is fairly unique. Maybe if the platforms were bigger and there were only 3 instead of 5 (though then it would be somewhat close to Kalos I guess).

Pilotwings is another stage that looks sort of legit with hazards off but definitely isn't, due to the lower wings being absurdly safe places to camp. This is another stage where the H+ version is better because at least you could wait out the biplane, though again it still sucks.

 

[Kaiser19]

Makes sense now! I was forgetting to think through the possible degenerate strategies one could employ with certain characters. Thanks for the replies!

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah, I'm generally pretty liberal and even I can't even come close to justifying Norfair, it's probably one of the most busted stages in the game. Actually, this is probably another stage where H+ is better because the lava prevents camping (well, maybe prevent is the wrong word, it forces you to change where you're camping throughout the match). Still a very poorly designed stage in any case.

I'd actually like to see a variant of this concept explored again though because it is fairly unique. Maybe if the platforms were bigger and there were only 3 instead of 5 (though then it would be somewhat close to Kalos I guess).

Pilotwings is another stage that looks sort of legit with hazards off but definitely isn't, due to the lower wings being absurdly safe places to camp. This is another stage where the H+ version is better because at least you could wait out the biplane, though again it still sucks.

I was actually thinking something like this:

Spoiler: Behold my amazing paint skills.

Not necessarily to scale but you get the idea I hope.

Other stages that H+ improves in some way include Kongo Jungle 64 (the platforms move and can help poor jump characters to reach the top), Fountain of Dreams (makes it unique from Battlefield), Umbra Clock Tower (makes it unique from FD), and Arena Ferox (becomes dynamic instead of being stuck on a bad form).

 

[Sean²]

Umbra has the most miserable moving background of any stage, even Lylat and FD. I'd play with my eyes closed and probably do better on that stage.

 

[Terotrous]

I was actually thinking something like this:

That's pretty close to Pyrosphere, which was one of the stages I was most hype for because with hazards off it would be a good stage, and then they skipped it for some reason! I guess they didn't want to reimplement the Ridley boss (particularly now that he's playable), but come on.

 

[VodkaHaze]

Umbra has the most miserable moving background of any stage, even Lylat and FD. I'd play with my eyes closed and probably do better on that stage.

I think even the BF and FD versions of Umbra should be banned, for the sole reason that some players find the background distracting while playing. It's part of why it was banned in SSB4. Though I don't know if there are any other stages which have this issue with their BF and FD variants.

 

[Sean²]

FD, all variants, is still pretty bad. If I'm going to a flat stage, I'll opt for a more static backgrounded Omega.

 

[Terotrous]

Honestly I find Unova to be the worst, it's too dark. There's a lot of stupid stuff you can do with either very dark costumes or black-coloured projectiles.

I feel like background design is generally an underappreciated element in many games, including many other fighters. There's a reason a lot of fighters are often played on Training Stage or a similarly bland background.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I've honestly never had a problem with Umbra Clock Tower's background, even Fortitudo (the giant angel that roars), so I'm basically /shrug over here whenever the subject comes up. But for BF/Omega forms at least, can't it be broadly legal with a footnote that says a player may veto it on the grounds of motion sickness or whatever? Ditto for any other stages with background related issues. (Something tells me Hanenbow would be a pain for red/green colorblind people.)

 

[ATH_]

A player choosing an outfit that better camouflages with the stage or using moves that do the same with the stage isn't against any rules, so why would that be a ban-worthy offense for a stage on its own? Unova offers that as a potential advantage to characters who can use it. Disliking it because it gives your opponent an advantage is not the kind of subjective material we need for stagelists. It's not helpful whatsoever.

That isn't to say you're not allowed to ban it for that reason, it's to say that using that point in discussion is pretty ignorant of what discussion is for. It's not for a mash of everyone's subjective opinions and preferences. If that was the case, then the majority of discussion would be influenced by the highest picked characters. Snake has an advantage on a stage? Well, how many people play Snake in the thread? Oh most of them do? Then nobody will care. That kind of bias is not viable here.

Distracting backgrounds on the other hand like FD and Umbra should definitely be considered seriously. Personally I run a rule that at either player's request, FD is replaced with Omega Form Wily's Castle for the remaining duration of that match. This usually solves the issue pretty quickly, as Wily's has very similar lighting and visual styles.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Umbra was banned in SSB4 less for the background being "distracting", more the background "causing motionsickness in people with motionsickness". I'm one of those guys, it happens pretty quick on that stage regardless of playing it or watching it on say a stream. Can't play the FD or BF versions of the stage either.

It just can't ever be picked period.

 

[Sean²]

A player choosing an outfit that better camouflages with the stage or using moves that do the same with the stage isn't against any rules, so why would that be a ban-worthy offense for a stage on its own? Unova offers that as a potential advantage to characters who can use it. Disliking it because it gives your opponent an advantage is not the kind of subjective material we need for stagelists. It's not helpful whatsoever.

That isn't to say you're not allowed to ban it for that reason, it's to say that using that point in discussion is pretty ignorant of what discussion is for. It's not for a mash of everyone's subjective opinions and preferences. If that was the case, then the majority of discussion would be influenced by the highest picked characters. Snake has an advantage on a stage? Well, how many people play Snake in the thread? Oh most of them do? Then nobody will care. That kind of bias is not viable here.

Distracting backgrounds on the other hand like FD and Umbra should definitely be considered seriously. Personally I run a rule that at either player's request, FD is replaced with Omega Form Wily's Castle for the remaining duration of that match. This usually solves the issue pretty quickly, as Wily's has very similar lighting and visual styles.

There are the stages like the BF/Omega Windy Hill Zone that would still be a strong contender to be always banned due to certain characters' abilities to hide things inside the more "plush" parts of the stage. Snake being one of them. Being dark is one thing, you can still see Snake's C4 when the light blinks and you can always see Isabelle's mine. But complete camouflage is a bit much.

 

[ATH_]

There are the stages like the BF/Omega Windy Hill Zone that would still be a strong contender to be always banned due to certain characters' abilities to hide things inside the more "plush" parts of the stage. Snake being one of them. Being dark is one thing, you can still see Snake's C4 when the light blinks and you can always see Isabelle's mine. But complete camouflage is a bit much.

The difference is that that is a non-standardized aspect of the stage. To put it simply, we don't ban Unova for it because it's a default aspect of the stage that is adaptable and based on player-perception. Meanwhile, we ban alternate forms of Windy Hill Zone because that aspect is not a default aspect of Battlefield or Final Destination.

In theory, the aspects (adaptable and non-adaptable) should be relatively standardized across the board with their alternate forms. This is why having stages like Wily's Castle as a proposed "echo stage" to FD doesn't work, because Wily's is much larger than FD. Lots of tournaments pick out 20 or so alternate BF/FD forms that you can choose from, with as much varied music and visual styles as possible without ignoring what the original stage offers. If you didn't do this, I suppose you could offer the alternate versions as entirely separate stages (I remember VGFan95 was doing this with their stage tables) but then you have the burden of finding alternate forms that are different enough to warrant an entirely new slot on your list.

By that logic, is Wily's Castle different enough from FD to warrant a new slot on a list? Possibly. That's subjective and arguable, of course. People aren't doing that for different reasons though anyway.

 

[WritersBlah]

Um, sorry to be so blunt on this, but did everyone here just collectively forget that the windmill on PS1 ISN'T techable? It's a soft platform. You always pass through it unless you land on it. I pointed this out during the prerelease footage in the previous thread.

 

[ATH_]

Um, sorry to be so blunt on this, but did everyone here just collectively forget that the windmill on PS1 ISN'T techable? It's a soft platform. You always pass through it unless you land on it. I pointed this out during the prerelease footage in the previous thread.

If that's the case, neat! Though, that only is relevant for H+ tournaments or mixed stagelists. Still though, good to know.

 

[Frihetsanka]

If that's the case, neat! Though, that only is relevant for H+ tournaments or mixed stagelists. Still though, good to know.

It is indeed the case, I tested it myself just to make sure. At least two of the transformations (Fire and Rock) are pretty garbage anyway, so it's not like the stage has much of a chance still. It might be a decent option for less serious tournaments though.

 

[Terotrous]

This is maybe a little offtopic but some people were talking about Custom Stage viability in here. MVG actually did a Custom Stage Round Robin event and there's some interesting gameplay in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC9PlJjaJYg

For those who don't want to watch it here's a summary of some of the important points that come up:

- Custom stages don't give you any control over spawn points, you always spawn in each other's face, which causes dumb interactions at round start.
- Custom stages give you decent control over blastzone sizes, allowing more legal stages with small blastzones. This is probably the best thing about them.
- In custom stages, the edges of platforms are walls and you can tech or bounce off them. This causes many weird interactions.
- A lot of recoveries REALLY don't work well if the edges of a stage aren't sloped.

Those things being said, having the customs does create interesting gameplay, and there's definitely kind of a novelty factor to it. While this could obviously never be legal in a real tournament, I feel this has decent potential as a side event and for casuals.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah, as of right now custom stages have a few too many inherent issues to be seriously considered for anything more than casual fun, but I do think they have value as a way to experiment with different layouts so we can get a feel for what does and doesn't work in general. (Gorilla Glacier and N. Sanity Beach caught my eye in particular.)

 

[boysilver400]

Question: why do so many people insist on having lylat be the final starter? It’s universally been the most controversial stage(at least in ssb4) and now people want it so badly to the point where it’s replacing FD as a starter stage in SnS??? I have to call bs. Someone please explain this **** to me

 

[Sean²]

The biggest controversies with Lylat were always the bad ledges and the tilting. The ledges have been fixed and it no longer tilts with Hazards Off. It's a fully unique layout and is totally symmetrical. FD has always been obvious as to whom it benefits and whom it counters, leading to almost as much contention as a starter. IMO Lylat is a less polarizing pick, because otherwise your 5th starter becomes a stage with a similar platform layout to other common starters. FD, Kalos, and Town have all proven to be very similar in who they benefit with their primarily broad, flat main platforms with very minimal-to-zero onstage floating platform coverage. I'd rather go to Lylat most times over being forced to waste both of strikes on both FD and Town/Kalos if I know I lose on FD-like stages. The other "best" alternative for the contentious stages would be to go down to 3 starters, to eliminate both FD and Lylat from starter status. PS2 is your large stage, BF mid, SV small. All options are covered. But that's not very well-supported amongst players.

But if you want to view their own reasoning, see here.

 

[Rizen]

Lylat's the worst stage for camping in the game; it's as polarizing as FD. The starter list should be BF, SV and FD. You get a good mix of enclosed and wide open stages with SV as a compromise.

 

[ATH_]

Question: why do so many people insist on having lylat be the final starter? It’s universally been the most controversial stage(at least in ssb4) and now people want it so badly to the point where it’s replacing FD as a starter stage in SnS??? I have to call bs. Someone please explain this **** to me

*ahem* I've covered this in full detail many times, but here are my main two relevant posts on this topic.

This one about how to pick the best 5th starter. And this one about why Town & City is too similar to FD/Kalos to have more than one of those three as a starter.

I don't really need to add more to it, the posts go into all the detail I could go into. If you have any questions feel free to ask. If you'd like to take a more statistical approach to it, Munomario777 uses Unova as the 5th starter based on analysis of pick rates. Though, I don't speak for him.