Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Munomario777]

That's weird lol. IMO it's probably not a deal breaker since the bottom blast zone does that anyway :shrug:

Either way, objectively it should probably be in the list if other transforming stages (NDC, Prism) are, esp since it was legal at the start of 4



EDIT: Unrelatedly – Green Greens, Umbra, Fountain, and Story have entries in the doc that aren't linked in the OP

EDIT 2: Also unrelated: Rainbow Cruise and Drac are a combo package, I reckon, since they both kinda hinge on wall infinites existing or not (a Ness one was already discovered).

 

[lordvaati]

Personally I advocate for Hazardless WarioWare as a starter. Size is a legitimate standard and the 4 platform layout adds a new option that breaks the Triplat standard.

Also Hazardless MKU is a dream, but part of me kinda wishes it had the 3rd section as an option because the idea of a rotating FD esque layout sounds intriging to me(like another variant of Frigate.)

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I can hazard a guess to the water changes there: probably to prevent Ike from spiking you forever in water until you die. Which would be doable due to aether always spiking now. It would be like what you saw sometimes back in Brawl but even more so: if he was above you he Dair'd you, if you were above him he UpB'd you. If you didn't have an Up B like Marth or MK's, you lost your stock. Chrom and D3 could probably do similar things with their Up Bs, not sure if with the current set up the attacked character would bob to the surface or go down with the attacker. If its the later, change probably is to make it more risky/make it so it doesn't take like 45 seconds to finish somebody off in the water through that manner.

 

[Black_Ice_Gaming]

Dear All Smash Fans~



Okay so i’ve seen many ideas for a competitive smash ultimate and honestly I’m very disappointed with them. This is because we have a very unique opportunity in the fact that the competitive community has actually been thought of and not disregarded. So I have an idea on what a rule set can be all I need is for you to share this so everyone can see it. Now than before we begin i’d like to say from the bottom of my heart thank you for taking your time with this let us now begin.





~STOCK AND TIME~





Now after playing Ultimate since the midnight release of the game I’ve had an idea on how long matches will last after playing with others who are switching from playing other smash games competitively one coming from Melee the other two coming from Sm4sh and my self also coming from Melee. After playing for some time this is what we thought.

• 4 Stock

• 8 Minutes

This gives more than enough time for the match to play out and not be timed out nor have to few stock to were it would end to fast. This is the same rules as melee altho I could see the stock count changing to three as well. There really isn’t much to explain here so i’ll move on to the next subject.





~FINAL SMASH METER~





I think the Final Smash Meter (which i’ll now be referring to as FS Meter) should be tried if it is not it may never, if we banned it right away and what to try to later many will be reluctant to and it will be much harder to get people to have a open mind once the rules are finalized. Here are some of the key points about the meter I will explain more after it is listed.



#1).The FS Meter is similar to other fighting game Ultimate Moves.



#2).It gives variation to a fight.



#3.)Makes the game have more depth with how it can be used.



#4).From what i’ve seen it is not broken and every Final Smash can be avoided.



Now lets get into the first point most fighting games played competitively has some for of a Ultimate Move Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom, Injustice Gods Among Us. Their Ultimate moves from what i’ve found are completely aloud in competitive play. Now on to point two. The fights would have more variation with the visuals of the Final Smash along with players having a new move to use. As for point three its easy to explain ill do this one with a example first. Lets say that a Incineroar has their meter ready and than get launch off stage they could try using Incineroar’s Final Smash which would rush him forward allowing them to recover from what his poor recovery would consider death most the time. This is one of many examples on how it gives game play variation. Now for the final point four. The FS Meter Final Smash is overall weaker than one from a Smash Ball. Along with the fact that in this game they are meant to be more like Ultimate Moves I don’t see any that are busted. Now than this one is a bit incorrect not every character can doge every Final Smash like Little Mac trying to dodge Ice Climbers on Fountain Of Dreams. But overall a Pichu won’t beat a Bayonetta and just like match ups some are just better at dogging Final Smashes but overall the cast can all dodge a hefty amount of them but now lets move on to the next part.





~SPIRITS~





This will be fast but I thought I should still talk about it in case someone who supported for customs in Sm4sh was wondering. Its a easy no the Spirits give to much randomness and would take to long setting up at tournaments. Not only that but they can also allow a player to have a item like the Lip’s Stick. So overall the Spirits are a easy no, they should be banned we seen them in Sm4sh where they was the exact same in the form of customs.





~STAGE HAZARDS~





Now let us get a tad weird shall we? I’ll first say the rules than describe it and that is both have it on and off. Let me explain, so in Ultimate you have the ability to save rulesets so I say we should make two rulesets both being used in one tournament being swapped between i’ll start making my points now.



#1).More stages can be allowed.



#2).Lets stages be more unique.



And thats it but it makes a huge impact heres why. With stage hazards turned off the stages Dream Land, Fountain of Dreams, and Yoshi’s Story all becomes Battlefield with some differences around the bottoms of the stage and the blast zones but normal on Dream Lands a breeze will blow on Fountain of Dreams the platforms will rise and fall and on Yoshi’s Story Randle (That cloud) will go around the bottom of the stage on a timer. Along with that some other things are Pokemon Stadium not transforming Yoshi’s Island not having it’s top platform move or the side platforms show. Smashville not having its platform move the same goes for Town and City.



But even than we lose if we just leave hazards on because now stages that can be use with the hazards off now can’t because of their hazards like for example. Halberd firing lasers and canon balls, Reset Bomb Forest transforming the same goes for Castle Siege. PictoChat 2 now having drawings and WarioWare, Inc. playing it’s mini games.

So the solution is simple we make two save rule list one called “Ultimate Hazards On” and another named “Ultimate Hazards Off” with the rules being

• 4 Stock

• 8 Minutes

• FS Meter On

then one will have hazards on the other hazards off now we have the best of both the variation of stages like Fountain of dreams but more stages that would other wise be unusable like WarioWare, Inc.





~STAGE LIST HAZARDS ON~





This one will be short ill just list the stages I think should be able to be picked with the Hazard On rules.

• Omega/Battlefield Stages along with the original Battlefield and Final Destination.
• DreamLand
• Fountain of Dreams
• Yoshi’s Story
• Pokemon Stadium
• Lylat Cruise
• Yoshi’s Island
• Smashville
• Town and City
• Prism Tower
• Duck Hunt
• Umbra Clock Tower

And that is all for what I think should be aloud for competitive play with hazards on now granted the stage list can be changed if there are problems found.





~STAGE LIST HAZARDS OFF~





This one will also be short the same as the last a list of stages but this time with the rules of hazards off

• Battlefield/Battlefield Forms
• Final Destination/Omega
• Dream Land
• Green Greens
• Fountain of Dreams
• Yoshi’s Story
• Brinstar
• Pokemon Stadium
• Castle Siege
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Lylat Cruise
• Halberd
• Yoshi’s Island
• Frigate Orpheon
• WarioWare, Inc.
• Smashville
• Prism Tower
• Unova Pokemon League
• Reset Bomb Forest
• Find Mii
• PictoChat 2
• Mushroom Kingdom U
• Town and City
• Kalos Pokemon League
• Skyloft
• Duck Hunt
• Pilotwings
• Wuhu Island
• Wily Castle
• Midgar
• Umbra Clock Tower

Now there is one thong about this and its Stage Striking I believe if Player One strikes Battle Field than Player Two can’t pick Dream Land Yoshi’s Story, or Fountain of Dreams this rule will apply to any stages that are far to similar to one another.





~ENDING~





So with this I’ve said everything I have to say please make sure to share the post, message me, comment, and comment below if something is wrong with the rules or if there is misinformation. Along with that please make sure to share this everywhere you can if its not seen these rules can’t be taken into consideration and with that i’d like to say THANK YOU so much for your time and please have a wonderful day I truly hope you do.





Sincerely Black Ice Gaming~

 

[Pacack]

Castle Siege? Frigate Orpheon? New Donk City Hall? Dracula's Castle?

Castle Siege was in my list. I had forgotten Frigate Orpheon, though I have no qualms with it. I've edited my post to include it.

I haven't personally spent enough time with New Donk City Hall. I might be mistaken, but didn't some of the transformations have walls?

And Dracula's Castle wasn't on my list because of the wall infinites.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Does anyone know if Smashville baloons with hazards on, items off, bring items?

If they don't, then I'm suspecting fly guys bringing items in Yoshi's Story is a programming oversight, and something that may get fixed in a patch.

I got dejavu as well when i saw Fountain of Dreams dropping frames. Not getting it right with Melee 4player is one thing, but 17 years later they don't even get it right with 2 player... lmao. Again though, I think this can also be fixed with a patch by downgrading some of the graphical effects on the stage. It may suffer from visual quality but I wouldn't mind, that is one of my favorite stages from Melee having been a Princess Petch main there

Sorry for the double post but I really like this list that Pacack posted.

I highly encourage everyone to consider the viability of the following stages, having played on them all for almost the entire time I've had the game since launch. (I haven't even done World of Light yet.)

I personally advocate for a hazardless only stagelist for the sake of TOs.

Starters:
Triplats (Battlefield+Forms, Dreamland, Yoshi's Story, grouped together)
Flat Stages (Final Destination, Wily's Castle, and omegas)
Stadium Stages (Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2, Unova Pokemon League)
Mono-Platform Stages (Smashville, Yoshi's Island Brawl)
Warioware

Counterpicks:
Kalos Pokemon League (too different to be grouped with the other Pokemon starters)
Castle Siege
Town and City
Skyloft
Wuhu Island
Lylat
Prism Tower
Halberd
Frigate Orpheon
Brinstar Depths
Mushroom Kingdom U (Doubles)

I would also experiment with these stages before banning them outright:
Reset Bomb Fortress
Green Greens

I really like your starter list and the way they're grouped together. And I also agree that for simplicities sake just have hazards turned off or on, don't go switching back and forth between rulesets. It creates a lot more noise and potential to mess up.

I prefer the idea of grouping stages into layouts. Makes it much much simpler to counter pick stages like this.

Whittle the list down to 2 or 3 CPs and that is awesome.

On another note: somethin I've been noticing is that most tourneys are still doing character first and stage second. Why? Just do stage first and characters 2nd. If the game follows that order then don't mess with it, just do it like that. What is the possible advantage of spending more time choosing a character, then holding the b button to go back, pick a stage, pick characters... like geez why, just for old times sake?

Another edit:
Thanks to the admin for putting my post into two. I was on the phone and I was having trouble editing, got on PC now.

About Yoshi's Story, the platforms are a tad higher than BF, enough to make a bit of a difference for characters with short jumps like Snake. So idk if that warrants it being split up into its own thing.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Does anyone know if Smashville baloons with hazards on, items off, bring items?

They don't.

 

[Pacack]

I really like your starter list and the way they're grouped together. And I also agree that for simplicities sake just have hazards turned off or on, don't go switching back and forth between rulesets. It creates a lot more noise and potential to mess up.

I prefer the idea of grouping stages into layouts. Makes it much much simpler to counter pick stages like this.

Whittle the list down to 2 or 3 CPs and that is awesome.

One thing I was contemplating was increasing to seven starters. There are just so many stages, so it's hard deciding which ones should be counterpicks if we have to limit significantly. If we did that, then I think it would look something like this:

Starters (Each player bans three):

• Triplats (Battlefield & Forms, Yoshi's Story, Dreamland)
• Flat Stages (Final Destination & Forms, Wily's Castle)
• Stadium Stages (Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2, Unova Pokemon League)
• Monoplats (Smashville, Yoshi's Island Brawl)
• Warioware
• Town and City
• Castle Siege

Counterpicks:

• Kalos Pokemon League (Banned with Stadium Stages, but locked until round 2)
• Wuhu Island (Banned with Monoplats, but locked until round 2)
• Lylat
• Skyloft
• Brinstar Depths

I would prefer to keep Prism Tower and Halberd legal, but if we have to keep the number of counterpicks low, it makes sense to remove the stages that have temporary walkoffs. Similarly, I like Frigate Orpheon, but it does occasionally have a wall that could be abused.

I'm not sure how many bans the winner should get when counterpicking. 3, maybe?

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Here is my stage list.

First, I feel mixed hazards is completely feasible. It just requires you to back out to a separate ruleset after each match. If we had no ability to save rulesets, I would consider nixing this but I feel that I have enough faith in TOs and players that they can. Assume Hazards off for most of these

Starters:
Triplats (Battlefield, Midgar, Dreamland, etc)
FDs
Stadiums
Smashville Hazards on
Yoshi's Island Brawl

Counterpicks:
Lyat
Kalos
WarioWare
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Skyloft
Wuhu
Castle Siege
Prism Tower
Halberd
Town and City Hazards On

These stages are the ones I feel that we can confidently look at for our rulesets. I feel that most of these do not need to be defended too much here, but I want to mention WarioWar, Skyloft, and Wuhu. If YS gets fixed I would put it as a counterpick for similar reasons.

For these stages, their separation was primarily for size purposes. It is healthy for us to include big and small stages. WarioWare has a great layout and its small blastzones are fun. Meanwhile Skyloft and Wuhu offer something that Smash 4 did not have: viable big stages. Having a big stage like Dreamland in Melee is something to value. I feel that none of these stages are too broken, with the walkoffs that can appear in Halberd and Prism being minuscule.

Now for stages that I feel we should take a strong look at.

Rainbow Cruise: The Wall may be something we have to consider here. If we can find that the wall is not too intrusive, I feel this would be a great choice to consider. If we find enough convincing evidence of practical infinite combos, I would say we nix the stage.

Green Greens: Unique layout that could be something that we could test. I do think that the side platforms are a problem for camping however. I would lean ban but I could see it being something we should test.

Delphino: My personal favorite smash stage. Shame it has too many problematic transformations. I feel that if we are willing to accept the jank that this stage has, it would be a great stage for spectators though. It begs the question is the intrusion that bad? I would say yes, but it could be tested.

Norfair: Unique as hell layout that favors aerial characters. I can see the problem here being multiple ledges. I feel that may make this stage along with the ledges too easy to recover on.

Reset Bomb Forest: Very big, and it may lead to problems with circle camping. I would ban but we could test this. Might be fun, I like the pit in the middle a lot.

Find Mii: Ban. That cage is way more intrusive than I thought it would be. Easily a nixed stage.

Mushroom U: Size is a concern here, might be too big. Test for singles, easily legal for doubles.

Dracula's: bad lighting and walls make this like Rainbow but worse. not a fan.

Umbra/PS1: Test if intrusions are that bad. If not consider as CPs. If so hazardless.

Fountain/Yoshis: If food is fixed and lag is fixed, maybe allow as hazards while in Triplat

In Short, I feel that Green Greens, Mushroom Kingdom U, Norfair, and Rainbow Cruise all deserve some degree of testing, even if some of or all of these stages turn out broken. I can see MKU being legal as a counterpick and it is the one i say we consider the most. The other three can work but need testing.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

In Short, I feel that Green Greens, Mushroom Kingdom U, Norfair, and Rainbow Cruise all deserve some degree of testing, even if some of or all of these stages turn out broken. I can see MKU being legal as a counterpick and it is the one i say we consider the most. The other three can work but need testing.

Pretty sure Rainbow Cruise is dead (along with Dracula's Castle) now that a wall infinite with Ness has been found. Although if a patch ever addresses it then I dearly hope we can reconsider it at that time.

On the subject of Mushroom Kingdom U possibly being too big, what about for doubles? For that matter, what other stages (if any) might work well for doubles but not singles?

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Pretty sure Rainbow Cruise is dead (along with Dracula's Castle) now that a wall infinite with Ness has been found. Although if a patch ever addresses it then I dearly hope we can reconsider it at that time.

On the subject of Mushroom Kingdom U possibly being too big, what about for doubles? For that matter, what other stages (if any) might work well for doubles but not singles?

Realistically, I feel this is the outlier that we would look at. I feel Skyloft and Wuhu are not that objectable in size compared to MKU. I feel most other stages would be too large. Maybe RBF and Kongo 64 but they have their own issues (mainly circle camping).

 

[dav3yb]

Pretty sure Rainbow Cruise is dead (along with Dracula's Castle) now that a wall infinite with Ness has been found. Although if a patch ever addresses it then I dearly hope we can reconsider it at that time.

On the subject of Mushroom Kingdom U possibly being too big, what about for doubles? For that matter, what other stages (if any) might work well for doubles but not singles?

We still haven't seen the Ness Infinite done on a human player. Not sure how tight the timing is, or if anyone can manage to get out or in some way influence the technique in any way. Although it doesn't bode well, I still wouldn't call it 100% conclusive. Not only that, but you're going to have to pull it off against a player that is actually fighting back, and would probably know about the infinite and could keep positioning in their favor to try and avoid it. If the setup is too complex for a player to make happen with any consistency, then I honestly don't see a major problem with it. It's not like melee IC's where them just grabbing you leads to your death.

 

[DavemanCozy]

On the subject of Mushroom Kingdom U possibly being too big, what about for doubles? For that matter, what other stages (if any) might work well for doubles but not singles?

Personally I think Wuhu Island is better suited for doubles due to its size.

One thing I was contemplating was increasing to seven starters. There are just so many stages, so it's hard deciding which ones should be counterpicks if we have to limit significantly. If we did that, then I think it would look something like this:

Starters (Each player bans three):

• Triplats (Battlefield & Forms, Yoshi's Story, Dreamland)
• Flat Stages (Final Destination & Forms, Wily's Castle)
• Stadium Stages (Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2, Unova Pokemon League)
• Monoplats (Smashville, Yoshi's Island Brawl)
• Warioware
• Town and City
• Castle Siege

Counterpicks:

• Kalos Pokemon League (Banned with Stadium Stages, but locked until round 2)
• Wuhu Island (Banned with Monoplats, but locked until round 2)
• Lylat
• Skyloft
• Brinstar Depths

I would prefer to keep Prism Tower and Halberd legal, but if we have to keep the number of counterpicks low, it makes sense to remove the stages that have temporary walkoffs. Similarly, I like Frigate Orpheon, but it does occasionally have a wall that could be abused.

I'm not sure how many bans the winner should get when counterpicking. 3, maybe?

I was thinking about this, and the more I thinking it out the more I remember the experimental days of Wii U and having to sit through several minutes of stage striking, only to get to Smashville or Battlefield at the end anyways :/ I don't think this would necessarily happen in this game though I think the list of potential starters is more robust and balanced than what we got with S4.

For the sake of variety it would be cool to have lots of stages. But for the sake of simplicity, part of me also cares about keeping it simple.

I used your stage list and came up with a 5 starter 3 CP list, potential to rotate CP stages each weekly to keep it fresh. All of them with Hazards off, again to keep it simple for everyone:

Starters:
1. BF / DL
2. FD / Wily Castle
3. Smashville / Yoshis Island Brawl
4. PS / PS 2 / Unova
5. Wario Ware or Town & City

CPs:
1. Kalos league (or Halberd or Prism Tower)
2. Lylat or Skyloft or Brinstar
3. Town & City or Wario Ware (unused 5) or Siege

Ban wise I'd go with 2 here myself, 1 ban must be on a starter so as to not block the CPs to just one left.

I think this would be a good balance of layouts and stage forms, and again I'd rotate the counterpicks to keep it fresh.

Btw I think you meant just Brinstar. Brinstar depths is the one that rotates with Kraid in the bg when hazards are on.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Personally I think Wuhu Island is better suited for doubles due to its size.

Porque no los dos? It's not like using one for doubles means we can't use the other at all.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Porque no los dos? It's not like using one for doubles means we can't use the other at all.

That's just my personal opinion, I prefer big stages for doubles more so than singles. Because it is much more likely to live longer in 1v1s on big stages in my experience. Each their own though.

 

[Midoriki]

I'm pretty worried about WarioWare's blast zones.

Looks like most horizontal kill moves kill ~20% earlier, which isn't that bad, just speeds up the match, which is arguably a good thing.

Whats actually worrying me is horizontal aerial strings. Not sure if its a true combo, but I have been able to land double f-air strings with Pikachu on pretty good players in tournaments, and if I start a double f-air chain from one of WarioWare's platforms it kills Mario at 37%! If I start it a little bit off stage it kills at 30%! I tested the % against training mode CPU's so DI might help you live until slightly higher percents, but this is still really scary!

Again, not sure if its a true combo and DI might help you live, but Pikachu down throw -> n-air -> f-air -> f-air kills Mario starting at 15% on WarioWare

If anyone has access to a smash buddy who can actually DI to test with I would love to know what the most egregious WarioWare exploits are, I wouldn't be too surprised if Sheik had a 0 to death true combo.

Don't know if this definitely makes it a non legal stage, but if my opponent plays a character with horizontal aerial strings I would want to be able to ban this stage for the set.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Well after playing a bit more, I'm skeptical now of WW close blast zones, I wouldn't have it as a starter now. I've seen kills from as low as 50%, not a strong enough reason imo to ban it outright, but it's enough that I think it should be CP. I'm predicting though that this will make it a largely unpopular choice and will eventually be phased out.

It's too bad cuz I thought it would have been great as a starter. If the blast zones were only a bit bigger one can hope patches make that happen

 

[Eaode]

I'm at work right now so I haven't had time to read the entire thread yet, though I plan to, but I wanted to weigh in quick on one point in particular that Chaos Lord made:

Another big topic was just how liberal the stagelist should be with unusual stages, and how/when/if stages should be tested as a rule. It was noted that there was a rather extreme, possibly generational, gap, where several older users from the pre-streaming melee days argue that the game did fine back when counterpicks included hazards on green green and mute city in stark contrast to the more modern sensibilities where anything remotely unusual gets written off as jank. If this seems a tiny bit biased it's likely because there was no really conservative advocator in the thread, the closest being Frihetsanka (props to sticking around and arguing against the grain BTW, echo chambers do little good), and even he disagreed with the levels some went to to prune the list.

I want to add myself onto the flame list of old players that think the stage list should be more liberal. Of course I haven't sunk a huge amount of time into Ultimate yet, I'm just getting back into smash in general after years of not playing. I played Melee competitively from around 2006 to 2013, also played a bit of brawl and a decent amount of PM. I don't want to overextend myself or make specific claims about stages I haven't had the chance to REALLY feel out, but I definitely did want to express the opinion that a stage having somewhat unusual mechanics or rewarding certain tactics/characters or just being "different" in general isn't grounds for a ban.

I definitely understand that having a big stagelist is a logistical problem in that it's hard to have striking/CPs be done efficiently, but I would LOVE to see stagelists incorporate stages that offer variety in playstyles, things that players have to adapt to, not in overwhelming ways, but in ways that reward good play. I come from the era of Melee where Pokefloats was a go-to counterpick for Falcon mains, and afaik it was banned only after it was demonstrated that Fox (the best character in the game) became virtually unbeatable on it. (The same logic is the core reason many stages in Melee were banned, actually). A subset of characters having a significant advantage on a stage, in my opinion, is fine as long as it's not propelling the best characters to new heights.

I definitely have gotten into a few hostile shouting matches about this and plan to avoid this in the future. Like I said, I haven't been the most active in the community for several years and there is A TON I don't know about the new game and the new stages, so I'm not advocating for any specific stages right now. I'm just expressing the generalized desire to see legitimate stage variety play a role in the community again. I attended a weekly last night where No-Hazard Frigate Orpheon was legal, for instance, and the fact that a stage with that "unconventional" of a platform/stage layout was even legal warmed my heart. I'd like to see more of that. And I welcome civil discussion with what I'm sure is the majority of you who disagree with me to some degree.

Warm wishes from a returning player :3

EDIT: Just finished reading the thread and I'm really glad there's a lot of legitimate (and not reactionary) discussion going on and desire for stage variety. I hope this is reflected in the TO community at large and other places the discussion is happening (also if anyone could link to the big Discord channels where that's happening I'd love you).
I've still got to do a lot of playing on stages to feel stuff out myself. Sad to hear about an infinite that could nix permanent wall stages

 

[teluoborg]

Hello, here are some data I've collected about stages because I see a lot of people trying to theorycraft with no info in their hands:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IVOV224w0eOI7lZpKlCAe11gmmG9OzgMcMVaqwsiE0Q/edit?usp=sharing
Image version:

And here's the curated version:
Platform Layout

Stage Size

Vertical Survivability

or how hard it is to kill someone off the top.
Notes:
-there are no low ceiling stages in this game. Is that a good or a bad thing ? I don't know.
-Yoshi's Story is in its own tier because it's the only one that has both a triplat layout and a default 180 ceiling, which makes vertical kills happen earlier with good positioning.

Horizontal Survivability

or how hard it is to kill someone off the sides when factoring positioning. This is all based on the relative distance between the ledges and the blastzones. Of course if you look at the absolute values you'll find out that you can kill someone earlier from the center of SV than from the center of FD.
Notes:
-Skyloft and Frigate are significantly off center compared to their side blastzones. Skyloft to the left and Frigate to the right.
-Wario Ware is also off center but that doesn't matter because you will die at 20% anyway.

Ground Level

Does it matter ? At the ledge yes, definitely. In the middle of the stage, I don't know.
Frigate is here because the right platform is below the level of the stage approximatively 1/3rd of the time.

Ledge Nature

Again, Frigate is in its own category thanks to its "uniqueness"
Not much to see here except that there are a lot of stages with walls.


Final note: If there's one thing I wanted to show with all this is that there's more to stages than their layout and you should really look at all the aspects when attempting to group them or treat redundancy while making a stage list.

 

[Akiak]

Figured I'd throw in mine too. This is the kind of ruleset I believe we should be running atm:

Hazards universally off. The only stages we would gain are Smashville (hazards on) and TnC. FoD drops frames and Yoshi's Story has the food issue. These may get patched but there's no guarantee. If you still want to attempt a mixed ruleset, I would recommend keeping all 5 starters hazardless. This makes it so that mistakes can only happen on games 3+ instead of every game of the set. This is because you would only switch to H+ on games 2+, and the potential mistake would happen on the next match where players might forget to switch back. This is iffy though, as players could still forget to switch back on game 1 after a previous set ended on hazards-on.

Starters
-BF
-FD
-PS1
-Smashville
-Lylat (or Kalos/Unova/YIB)

I picked PS1 over PS2 as I prefer the slightly lower plats, and it's slightly smaller making it less campy. M2K recently suggested that PS2+FD in a starter list might already be favouring zoning characters too much. PS1's camera is a little bit worse (the ledges are sometimes obscured) but I think having a balanced list is probably more important than some minor visibility issues.

Deciding on the 5th starter is tough. You could make an argument for all four of them (although YIB seems to have fallen behind a little, not exactly sure why).

Unova is my preferred pick, although its held back by one thing which we'll get to later. Having both Unova & PS1 might seem strange, but it's actually not at all. PS1 & Unova are quite different stages. The platforms on Unova are larger and reach almost all the way to the ledge, meaning they can be used to recover. Unova has walls, its main ground is smaller, and its blastzones are smaller horizontally and larger vertically. A number of people who've tried both stages say they play very differently.

The dual-plat is also one of the most liked and least-polarising layouts, so having more than one doesn't bring up the same issues as, say, having multiple tri-plats. It'll also promote variety, since there's a good chance that the vast majority (say 40%) of game 1 matches will be played on PS1. Throwing in Unova splits that between two stages, which already solves the potential problem of visual fatigue which plagued Smash 4.

Unfortunately, it's held back by the shape of its sides, which causes issues for teleporting characters (such as Palutena), who tend to bounce off and die if they try to ride the stage from certain angles.

Kalos has a distinct layout and no jank whatsoever. The one thing holding it back is that it plays pretty closely to FD, which is already a pretty polarising stage.

Lylat would be an excellent pick, but is held back by some minor jank on its ledges. Kirby's Up-B and Peach/Daisy's Up-B & Side-B all are confirmed to have issues snapping to the ledges, although all of these issues are avoidable if you know what to do (hold back a little).

I think it's a really tough decision, but at the moment if I had to pick I'd go with Lylat, simply because it's a smaller stage compared to Kalos, which can be slightly campy. It has some jank, sure, which Kalos doesn't have, but again layout & overall balance in the list is more important IMO. There haven't been any reports of Lylat jank since release aside from the Peach/Kirby thing as far as I know.

The other three stages obviously become counterpicks.

Counterpicks
-Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
-Kalos
-Unova
-WarioWare
-Frigate Orpheon
-Castle Siege
-Mushroom Kingdom U
-Town & City
-Yoshi's Story (Melee) (potentially grouped with BF)
-Skyloft/Halberd/Prism (grouped together)
-Wily's Castle/Pictochat (grouped with FD)
-PS2 (grouped with PS1)
-Dream Land/Midgar (grouped with BF)

Counterpick Method
-Character first (L picks then W)
-P3P1 (loser picks 3 stages, winner picks 1)
-No DSR
-Loser can only pick 1 stage of any particular group (e.g. no Wily's & FD)
-Loser must pick at least 1 CP stage (this is to encourage usage of the CP stages a little)

Regarding the grouping, with PXP1 the grouped stages act as if they aren't there at all. For the sake of balancing the amount of bans, they shouldn't be counted. There is essentially no drawback to having these extra stages legal (provided they are actually good stages).

So the above list has essentially 15 legal stages, with 7 'echoes' (if YS isn't grouped). With 11-15 stages, P3P1 noDSR (which is equivalent to 2 bans) works really well in my opinion. With less stages (like 9-10), I'd suggest 3-2-1 (loser picks 3, winner bans 1, loser picks 1) with some form of DSR. With more, P4P1 should be fine. If you think 15 stages needs 3 bans (P4P1) then that's fine. I tend to go with as less bans as possible, as I think it hurts stage variety and is kind of unnecessary for the counterpick phase. Add more bans and it no longer feels like a counterpick basically. Also another thing to keep in mind is that with PXP1 bans are much less likely to be wasted.

Now I know that there are a number of stages here that people might be concerned about. It is my belief that all of these stages should be given a fair chance. Furthermore, the CP method I'm using also strongly alleviates the issues with having 'unpopular' stages. This is because players won't have to ban them every single set, thus avoiding the feeling of 'wasted bans'. This in turn means players will complain less about stages they dislike, and there's a higher chance of them sticking around.

Under this system, essentially the stages are only there for those who want to use them. This means that as long as a stage isn't overly polarising and offers interesting gameplay for at least some matchups, then we should keep it.

Character-first also helps with this, as the winner can ban a stage in response to his opponent's character, so stages that are excessively polarising for only a very small amount of characters (such as Skyloft & MK) aren't as big of a deal.

WarioWare - Very small side blastzones but rather high ceiling. Otherwise a perfectly fine stage.

Frigate Orpheon - Asymmetrical layout with moving sharkable platform and temporary wall. The only issue I see with this stage is potentially camping the platform when its both raised and lowered. This might however be only limited to certain characters.

Castle Siege - Asymmetrical layout. Can be degenerate depending on the matchup and the players' positions. Again though it remains to be seen how widespread this would be. Has some minor visibility issues and is rather small.

MKU - Rather large stage (perhaps 25% larger than PS2) except the blastzones are BF-size. There seems to be some evidence that the grass has no effect on traction (needs confirmation). Only potential issue is circle camping.

Town & City - I originally didn't include this one as I thought the second layout with the two off-stage platforms was too campy (and lasts 30 seconds). However, a number of people who've tried it think it's not that bad and that a decent amount of characters would be able to challenge the camper from below.

Yoshi's Story (Melee) - I'm about 60% in favour of grouping this one with BF. It basically all depends on how polarising the tri-plat layout is going to be in this game. If it's anything like Smash 4, it should probably be grouped. I think the best course of action is probably to keep it separate until it proves to be a problem.

Skyloft/Halberd/Prism - It's pretty clear to me that these stages are considered problematic because they're sharkable, and not because of other issues (i.e. redundancy with BF/SV etc.). This means that in this case, the defining feature of the stage is its semi-soft nature, and not the layout. Another way to look at it would be that sharking benefits certain characters more-so than certain platform layouts (such as MK), so having multiple sharkable stages would undoubtedly favour these characters, and grouping them together solves that.

There are some potential issues here, for example Skyloft is a tri-plat. Adding an extra grouping with BF might be a solution, but likely overcomplicates things. At the very least though, if we can agree that these stages all have a fair chance and should be tested, then grouping them together is definitely better than keeping them separate, as that would clearly give a rather unfair advantage to sharking characters.

Quick note on Prism Tower - the two problematic layouts are the walkoffs at the start (which last 10 seconds) and the uppermost layout with the two off-stage platforms (which lasts 15 seconds). Although these are definitely bad layouts, they don't last very long, so the camping wouldn't be that impactful. If you compare the stage to PS1 in Melee, you'll find that the amount of time spent on a 'bad' layout is very similar, except it's much more evenly distributed on Prism (a transformation on PS1 lasts ~40 seconds).

Wily's Castle - Larger FD with a higher ceiling (+32), slightly wider sides (+8 each) and walls.

Pictochat - FD with higher ceiling (+12), smaller sides (-15 each), walls and lowered ledges.

PS2 - Identical blastzones to PS1, but the platforms are a little higher.

Dream Land - Blastzones are pretty similar to BF, but slightly wider, and the platforms are spaced differently and a little higher.

Midgar - Actually quite similar to Dream Land both in terms of blastzones and platform height, although the platforms are a little wider. The music is unfortunately an issue for streams due to copyright (wether this means a definite ban I don't know).

 

[lordvaati]

Pretty sure Rainbow Cruise is dead (along with Dracula's Castle) now that a wall infinite with Ness has been found. Although if a patch ever addresses it then I dearly hope we can reconsider it at that time.

On the subject of Mushroom Kingdom U possibly being too big, what about for doubles? For that matter, what other stages (if any) might work well for doubles but not singles?

Cruise is more dead since it seems like it is far bigger then it used to be(could be a placebo though). as for that Ness infinite as others said tests need to be done for how reliable it is to pull off in a match-I mean in Melee PS1 is a CP despite having a section that can theoretically pull off waveshine infinites. If they do go though then my vote is for Hazardless Brinstar since that's pretty much the Brinstar we always wanted.

As for underrated doubles nominations Hazardless Norfair is my top bid.

 

[Pacack]

Personally I think Wuhu Island is better suited for doubles due to its size.


I was thinking about this, and the more I thinking it out the more I remember the experimental days of Wii U and having to sit through several minutes of stage striking, only to get to Smashville or Battlefield at the end anyways :/ I don't think this would necessarily happen in this game though I think the list of potential starters is more robust and balanced than what we got with S4.

For the sake of variety it would be cool to have lots of stages. But for the sake of simplicity, part of me also cares about keeping it simple.

Honestly, I would argue that striking mainly becomes more complicated when there's a larger number of counterpicks. If there are seven starters, I don't think there would be a significant increase in time striking.

That said, Warioware having smaller blastzones on the side really does make it more of a counterpick than anything.

Starter (Each player bans three, first to ban decides which variation where applicable):

• Triplats (Battlefield, Yoshi's Story, Dreamland) Would include Midgar if it weren't for copyright
• Flat Stages (Final Destination, Pictochat, Wily's)
• Pokemon Stages (PS1, PS2, Unova) [Kalos]
• Monoplats (Smashville, Yoshi's Island Brawl) [Wuhu, Halberd]
• Town and City
• Castle Siege
• Lylat

[Grouped Counterpicks]

Counterpicks:

• Warioware
• Skyloft
• Prism Tower

With only three true counterpicks, I can see this working really well. I figure that Brinstar is the most reasonable stage to axe. How do you think this works if we do the grouped style of counterpicking like we did for Wily's in Smash 4 (at least for certain events). I think that way we can avoid having to do seasonal rotations.

Btw I think you meant just Brinstar. Brinstar depths is the one that rotates with Kraid in the bg when hazards are on.

You're right, thanks.

 

[lordvaati]

I wonder if much like how Triplats and Flats are grouped in similar categories the same should be done for the "Travelling" stages as well (ex. Skyloft, New Donk, Lumiose, Hazardless Halberd etc.)

 

[Skeleghost]

In the old thread, I promised I would make a version of the personalized-lists app that works on mobile, and I have that now.
http://smashlists.droppages.com/
For those who didn't keep up on that, this is an alternative system that is meant to replace stage striking and counterpicking.

I'm thinking this discussion should move over to the ruleset discussion thread though. It's not really about individual stages, but how stages are chosen. I'm just posting it in the stage discussion thread because most of the discussion from the previous thread seems to have migrated here.

Edit: Note that i renamed it from "Smash Filters" to "Smash Lists", and this is reflected in the url. I mean... I thought "filters" was more descriptive, but everyone ended up just calling it "lists", so I guess the people have spoken, and that's the name now.

 

[Pacack]

Okay, I've gotten some feedback from people I know in my community, and I've changed my list to avoid grouping. How do people like this list?

Starter:

• Triplats (Battlefield, Dreamland)
• Final Destination
• Pokemon Stadium (1 and 2)
• Smashville
• Town and City
• Yoshi's Island Brawl
• Kalos Pokemon League

Counterpicks:

• Warioware
• Lylat
• Castle Siege

 

[Frihetsanka]

How do people like this list?

I'd move Town & City and Kalos to counterpicks and remove Dream Land, aside from that it looks fine for an early list.

 

[Pacack]

I'd move Town & City and Kalos to counterpicks and remove Dream Land, aside from that it looks fine for an early list.

Any reason for considering Town and City more of a counterpick? It seems remarkably neutral to me without the high ceiling. I suppose Kalos might be a bit too large for a starter, but is that also your reasoning?

Fair on DL.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Any reason for considering Town and City more of a counterpick? It seems remarkably neutral to me without the high ceiling. I suppose Kalos might be a bit too large for a starter, but is that also your reasoning?

My main concern is that 7 starters has some issues and that 5 and 9 would likely be preferable, but Town & City does have a major issue, namely camping: I've heard people say that it's way too easy to camp on one of the platform layouts (the one with two platforms that are outside of the stage). Many people seem to think it's going to end up banned at some point.

The 5th starter would likely be one of the following: Yoshi's Island Brawl, Lylat Cruise, or Kalos Pokémon League. There's a worrying trend of TOs that seem to ban Lylat without any good reason though, so I wouldn't be too optimistic about Lylat as a starter... Though we'll see. Seems many people tend to hold a grudge against Lylat due to Smash 4 and Brawl, despite Ultimate hazardless Lylat so far appearing to be a fine stage with an unique layout.

 

[Mooer]

I'd keep it to a short list of 10 stages.
5 neutral stages + 5 counterpick stages.
No Hazards for all stages.

It seems like there is a bit of consensus on Neutral Stages:
1. Battlefield
2. Final Destination
3. Pokemon Stadium
4. Smashville
5. Town and City

Counterpicks are more difficult but I would start here:
6. Kalos Pokemon League
7. Frigate Orpheon
8. Green Greens
9. Mushroom Kingdom U
10. Castle Siege

 

[J0eyboi]

My main concern is that 7 starters has some issues and that 5 and 9 would likely be preferable, but Town & City does have a major issue, namely camping: I've heard people say that it's way too easy to camp on one of the platform layouts (the one with two platforms that are outside of the stage).

I really don't get this argument. Even if camping those platforms is too effective, T&C transforms pretty often, and both of the other two layouts are much harder to camp. The fact that people are trying to ban it based on that is ridiculous to me.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I'd keep it to a short list of 10 stages.
5 neutral stages + 5 counterpick stages.
No Hazards for all stages.

It seems like there is a bit of consensus on Neutral Stages:
1. Battlefield
2. Final Destination
3. Pokemon Stadium
4. Smashville
5. Town and City

Counterpicks are more difficult but I would start here:
6. Kalos Pokemon League
7. Frigate Orpheon
8. Green Greens
9. Mushroom Kingdom U
10. Castle Siege

Green Greens absolutely has to go, and where is Lylat Cruise?

 

[Akiak]

I really don't get this argument. Even if camping those platforms is too effective, T&C transforms pretty often, and both of the other two layouts are much harder to camp. The fact that people are trying to ban it based on that is ridiculous to me.

Off-stage platforms with no ground underneath are considered to be highly campable and hard to challenge. This obviously is matchup-dependant, but for a starter you ideally don't want to favour any particular kind of character over another. TnC features off-stage plats for 30 seconds in the second layout (City?).

Lylat and Unova are both far better picks.

 

[keronshb]

I think DK64 and the already competitive Melee stages could work both with and without hazards. Though without hazards it could make the Pokemon Stadium's much better.

The DK Melee stages might work w/o hazards, but the one has an offstage platform.

 

[dav3yb]

Green Greens absolutely has to go, and where is Lylat Cruise?

Do you have some evidence that in the current build that green greens has some issues?

 

[J0eyboi]

Off-stage platforms with no ground underneath are considered to be highly campable and hard to challenge. This obviously is matchup-dependant, but for a starter you ideally don't want to favour any particular kind of character over another. TnC features off-stage plats for 30 seconds in the second layout (City?).

Lylat and Unova are both far better picks.

First of all, I was under the impression that we'd given up the pretense of starters being the most neutral stages around the same time that BF and FD were made starters again.

Second of all, I'm aware that those platforms are hard to challenge. I don't see the issue with that. They're only there a third of the time, and the other layouts are hard to camp. It won't be polarizing just because it's hard to approach a third of the time.

Third of all, I didn't even say T&C should be a starter. I just said that it's ridiculous that anyone thinks it should be banned based on this.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Do you have some evidence that in the current build that green greens has some issues?

Yup, the gaps make it so you can't approach without jumping, which puts you in a bad position and leads to camping. Banned.

 

[Akiak]

First of all, I was under the impression that we'd given up the pretense of starters being the most neutral stages around the same time that BF and FD were made starters again.

Second of all, I'm aware that those platforms are hard to challenge. I don't see the issue with that. They're only there a third of the time, and the other layouts are hard to camp. It won't be polarizing just because it's hard to approach a third of the time.

Third of all, I didn't even say T&C should be a starter. I just said that it's ridiculous that anyone thinks it should be banned based on this.

No, starters should definitely be the most 'neutral' stages available (while also offering some degree of variability between the layouts and not overly favouring certain kinds of characters).

I agree with you that it's probably not enough for it to be banned, but it has its issues.

 

[Skeleghost]

Yup, the gaps make it so you can't approach without jumping, which puts you in a bad position and leads to camping. Banned.

Is this theoretical or does this consistently happen in practice? Also, how bad is the camping? Should mild camping even be bannable? If it's extreme then that's a problem, but if it is not extreme, then... well, if you're going to ban stages for promoting camping, there are a few characters that probably need to be banned too.

 

[Luigifan18]

Off-stage platforms with no ground underneath are considered to be highly campable and hard to challenge. This obviously is matchup-dependant, but for a starter you ideally don't want to favour any particular kind of character over another. TnC features off-stage plats for 30 seconds in the second layout (City?).

Lylat and Unova are both far better picks.

Isn't camping on off-stage above-ground platforms reliant on gravity-affected or downward-angled projectiles, though? Mario and Snake would camp really well on the platform setup you describe... Fox and Luigi, not so much. ...Oh, wait, that's where the whole "disproportionate advantage" argument comes in, isn't it?

 

[Mooer]

Green Greens absolutely has to go, and where is Lylat Cruise?

True! I think swapping Green Greens for Lylat makes perfect sense.