Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Kewkky]

Best way around the "unfair" banning of stages is for the forces that be to make a list of "automatic competitive stage disqualifiers" and then go through each stage one by one finding out which stages meet the criteria to get banned. Separating starters from counterpick could remain the same as it is now, since it's more nuanced than outright banning stages.

Examples of automatic disqualifiers could be walk-offs, hard ceilings, walls, overall size of a stage (which would enable stalling), etc.

As far as stages like Delfino where the stage ends up having temporary walls and walk-offs, that'd be up for debate. IMO, temporary bannability would only cement a stage into the counterpick category instead of a ban.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Honestly the only problem I have with the current stage list is the complete and total lack of any moving elements whatsoever. Turning hazards off got us Kalos and PS2, but we lost SV (which was unironically probably the best non-character contribution from Brawl) and Randall which were like the last remaining forms of reasonable character in Smash stages.

Smash is much less exciting to play and watch when every stage is an assortment of flat blocks living underneath 2-3 stationary platforms.

I fully admit to being more into the wacky stages back in the Brawl days. Those tastes have changed since then but I still think the moving platform version of Smashville is a big loss and don't understand why so many people hate it. The primary goal of the smash rule set is to decrease randomness, and the SV platform is literally consistent and predictable.

I'm hoping the inclusion of a version of PS2 with better platform heights and no transformations might lead to us turning hazards on again some day and forming a stage list around that instead, but honestly I think that won't happen and we'll continue to edge ever closer to the realizing our destiny of actually becoming the "Fox Only Final Destination" meme

 

[GhostM]

People definitely mind the music lol. A lot of complaints about Pokemon/Animal Crossing music being played over and over.

Platforms are lower (can be jumped onto by Ken, etc). Stage is small enough to jump under it to the other ledge (might need a rule against doing this too many times).

I didn't think that people minded the music since it doesn't affect gameplay. More variety in terms of music is always great in the end, so I'm glad that they decided to do so.

 

[Neil2TheKing]

Best way around the "unfair" banning of stages is for the forces that be to make a list of "automatic competitive stage disqualifiers" and then go through each stage one by one finding out which stages meet the criteria to get banned. Separating starters from counterpick could remain the same as it is now, since it's more nuanced than outright banning stages.

Examples of automatic disqualifiers could be walk-offs, hard ceilings, walls, overall size of a stage (which would enable stalling), etc.

As far as stages like Delfino where the stage ends up having temporary walls and walk-offs, that'd be up for debate. IMO, temporary bannability would only cement a stage into the counterpick category instead of a ban.

I personally don't like the counterpick system. IMO the counterpick stagelist is often used to lessen the importance of unique stages. If a stage is viable games 2-5 it should be viable game 1 as well. The arguments to make Lylat and Kalos Counterpicks are very arbitrary. You could just as logically argue Smashviille and FD should be counterpicks. The way I look at it if a stage is degenerate, ban it outright. Otherwise it should be legal. If you don't like Lylat Cruise Strike it or git gud. No Johns

EDIT: changed wording for politeness and clarity

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Lylat Cruise literally exists so that good characters have a stage they can take worse characters to for an even easier win

That's like the only time I ever see it used across 3 smash games lol

 

[Neil2TheKing]

I would be very surprised if that was true for all matchups

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I didn't think that people minded the music since it doesn't affect gameplay. More variety in terms of music is always great in the end, so I'm glad that they decided to do so.

The bigger issue is of course what songs are copyrighted, thus banned due to streaming matches.

 

[Kewkky]

The bigger issue is of course what songs are copyrighted, thus banned due to streaming matches.

I doubt that'll be an issue. Unless it's happened before, where a streamed game, which the streamers aren't monetizing it, got taken down due to BGM belonging to a third party solely?

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I doubt that'll be an issue. Unless it's happened before, where a streamed game, where the streamers aren't monetizing is, got taken down due to BGM belonging to a third party solely?

Some 3rd party songs are copyrighted and majors tend to ban Omega/BF versions of the stages with those songs on stream.

 

[teluoborg]

Does Small Battlefield as a starter over PS2 and PS2 getting moved to counterpick status (on account of its size) seem at all likely to anyone?

Imo if you have 8 stages (FD BF SV PS2 LC TC KPL YS) and add a 9th one (SBF) then it's the perfect opportunity to use a 9 starters striking system and stop banning X stages from game 1 for no reason.

Best way around the "unfair" banning of stages is for the forces that be to make a list of "automatic competitive stage disqualifiers" and then go through each stage one by one finding out which stages meet the criteria to get banned. Separating starters from counterpick could remain the same as it is now, since it's more nuanced than outright banning stages.

Examples of automatic disqualifiers could be walk-offs, hard ceilings, walls, overall size of a stage (which would enable stalling), etc.

As far as stages like Delfino where the stage ends up having temporary walls and walk-offs, that'd be up for debate. IMO, temporary bannability would only cement a stage into the counterpick category instead of a ban.

When you ban all the following criterias :
-Hard obstacles and ceilings
-Size that allows for circle camping
-Walls
-Pits
-Walk-offs

Here's what the stage list looks like :

Battlefield
Small Battlefield
Final Destination
Dream Land 64
Yoshi’s Story
Fountain of Dreams
Pokemon Stadium 1
Wario Ware
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi’s Island
Lylat Cruise
Pokemon Stadium 2
Castle Siege
Smashville
Unova Pokemon League
Pictochat 2
Kalos Pokemon League
Town and City
Wily’s Castle
Midgar
Umbra Clock Tower
Yggdrasil Altar

To these you can add the semi solid stages if you don't think that's worth banning a stage over:
Brinstar
Halberd
Skyloft

If you want to know more about those stages I've compiled their data in this google sheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IVOV224w0eOI7lZpKlCAe11gmmG9OzgMcMVaqwsiE0Q/edit#gid=0

 

[StrangeKitten]

Y'know, it's kinda funny they'd go through the trouble of making a newish stage rather than just increasing the side blast zones of Wario Ware but you do you, devs

 

[Neil2TheKing]

Imo if you have 8 stages (FD BF SV PS2 LC TC KPL YS) and add a 9th one (SBF) then it's the perfect opportunity to use a 9 starters striking system and stop banning X stages from game 1 for no reason.


When you ban all the following criterias :
-Hard obstacles and ceilings
-Size that allows for circle camping
-Walls
-Pits
-Walk-offs

Here's what the stage list looks like :

Battlefield
Small Battlefield
Final Destination
Dream Land 64
Yoshi’s Story
Fountain of Dreams
Pokemon Stadium 1
Wario Ware
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi’s Island
Lylat Cruise
Pokemon Stadium 2
Castle Siege
Smashville
Unova Pokemon League
Pictochat 2
Kalos Pokemon League
Town and City
Wily’s Castle
Midgar
Umbra Clock Tower
Yggdrasil Altar

To these you can add the semi solid stages if you don't think that's worth banning a stage over:
Brinstar
Halberd
Skyloft

If you want to know more about those stages I've compiled their data in this google sheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IVOV224w0eOI7lZpKlCAe11gmmG9OzgMcMVaqwsiE0Q/edit#gid=0

From the stages you listed I like the following for a hazards off stagelist:

Final Destination
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium 2
Yoshi’s Island Brawl
Town & City
Lylat Cruise
Yggdrasil Altar
Wario Ware
Castle Siege

Every stage has a different layout and you represent 8 different series with this stagelist. 5 are current mainstays of the stagelist. I’ll explain why I like the other four below:

Yoshi’s Island Brawl: Smashville and Yoshi’s Island Brawl are mostly the same stage, and of the two Yoshi’s Island offers more varied gameplay/ individuality. Slants are very underrepresented in the stagelist and this is a shame considering 70% of smash stages have slants.

Yggdrasil Altar: By all accounts this is the best moving stage, and I think it’s important to have at least one in a competitive Smash stagelist, otherwise you are leaving a bunch of important smash skills untested. The initial walkoffs last 5 seconds, and i think that gives competitors a chance to show how to abuse walkoffs without letting them become degenerate

Wario Ware: I honestly believe that if all stages had Wario Ware’s Blast Zones nobody would complain. In fact, I daresay many people would praise Smash Ultimate for being so fast paced. Many people are coming round on this stage so people at your locals might be very keen/persuadable on making it a stagelist staple!

Castle Siege: The main reason this stage is banned is because of that one foreground peace that blocks the camera while edgeguarding on the right side. Honestly having one spot off stage where Pikachu can’t edgeguard you seems reasonable to me. I understand why offstage hounds like Esam don’t like it, but it’s not random and honestly the feature is very fitting for a Fire Emblem stage; it’s like an implementation of Fog of War

Teluoborg, what do you think about each region using a different stagelist? The way I look at it there is no logical reason to include Yoshi’s Story over Pictochat; it honestly just seems like a bias for Triplats. If each region had its own stagelist it could turn Smash Tournaments into Pokemon Gym Battles, where each region has its unique spin on the game. IMO every single one of those stages is Tournament viable. I doubt any of those stages lead to boring degenerate gameplay, and if the community is naturally fractured and lacks cohesion, ya’ll could use that to your advantage! New_Dumal I’m also interested in your opinion on this. I know you said you want all majors to use the same stagelist, but are you open to something like this? I feel like there are so many viable stages that it’d be a shame to shelf most of them.

I think Small Battlefield really opens the door for a Hazards On stagelist. it’s a biplat stage that can replace PS2 in that format. Teluoborg, could you also give me a list of viable Hazards On Stages? I would do it myself, but I daresay I might be too liberal.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I think Small Battlefield really opens the door for a Hazards On stagelist. it’s a biplat stage that can replace PS2 in a Hazards On Stagelist.

Not to be that guy, but it's very unlikely.

Not only do people still love PS2, but there would still be the Shy Guys giving food on Yoshi's, and Kalo's... everything with Hazards On, the latter of which is too popular to be banned. Plus, Smashville's moving platform hasn't been enough to change that in the past.

 

[Frihetsanka]

At this point in time, I think there are three decent-ish options.

9 stage list: Battlefield, Final Destination, Town & City, Kalos, Pokémon Stadium 2, Lylat, Yoshi's Story, Smashville, Small Battlefield.

7 stage list: Drop Kalos and Yoshi's Story (since they are similar-ish in pick rate as Battlefield for Story and Final Destination for Kalos).

6 stage list hazards on: Battlefield, Final Destination, Town & City, Smashville, Small Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams.

A hazards on list could run Lylat but given that people are used to hazards off (which is much less frustrating) I highly doubt people would be okay with hazards on Lylat. Yoshi's Story is out because of the food the Shy Guys bring.

I don't think hazards on is worth it, we lose more than we gain.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I don't see how the walkoff on Yggdrasil's would cause any issue. How are you supposed to cheese someone in only 5 seconds? From what I've heard, it's more that Yggdrasil's was big and we had too many other big stages already

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Last week's Hazards ON ruleset was a success. However, we'll be making a few changes to the stagelist for next week.

STARTER STAGES:
Dream Land
Final Destination
Small Battlefield
Smashville
Town & City

COUNTERPICK STAGES:
Fountain of Dreams

Explanation and signup links below: pic.twitter.com/mbWVRW6CQd

— Super Smash India (@SSBMIndia) August 10, 2020

The Smash community in India seems to be experimenting with hazards-on rulesets.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Y'know, it's kinda funny they'd go through the trouble of making a newish stage rather than just increasing the side blast zones of Wario Ware but you do you, devs

That's probably because the small blast zones on Wario Ware were likely an intentional design decision.

This might be a bit of a stretch, but a part of me thinks the small blastzones are to help invoke the risky, fast-paced nature of micro games.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The Smash community in India seems to be experimenting with hazards-on rulesets.

Dream Land over Battlefield is a mistake. Aside from that it's a reasonable experiment for hazards on.

That's probably because the small blast zones on Wario Ware were likely an intentional design decision.

This might be a bit of a stretch, but a part of me thinks the small blastzones are to help invoke the risky, fast-paced nature of micro games.

I think it has to do with hazards on WarioWare. I doubt the blastzones change during transformations so making the side-blastzones larger would be strange with some of the transformations, I guess. Small Battlefield is very different from WarioWare anyway.

 

[teluoborg]

I think there are 2 good solutions right now thanks to sbf :
1-FD SV BF PS2 LC SBF TC YS YI

2-FD SV BF PS2 LC SBF TC YS KPL

Both are 9 starters (striking in 3-4-1) 3 bans no DSR.

Basically the only difference is the 9th stage being either Kalos or Yoshi's Island.
Kalos is more appreciated but is very large and probably the most polarizing stage. There have been cases at tournaments were players with a high mobility character could jump from one platform to the other back and forth without the opponent being able to do anything about it.

YI, while being clearly less popular, brings in more balance to the list : small, very dense, close blastzones and slanted ledges are all characteristics that appear only twice in the other 8 stages, so it aligns with the 3 bans.

Teluoborg, what do you think about each region using a different stagelist? The way I look at it there is no logical reason to include Yoshi’s Story over Pictochat; it honestly just seems like a bias for Triplats. If each region had its own stagelist it could turn Smash Tournaments into Pokemon Gym Battles, where each region has its unique spin on the game. IMO every single one of those stages is Tournament viable. I doubt any of those stages lead to boring degenerate gameplay, and if the community is naturally fractured and lacks cohesion, ya’ll could use that to your advantage! New_Dumal I’m also interested in your opinion on this. I know you said you want all majors to use the same stagelist, but are you open to something like this? I feel like there are so many viable stages that it’d be a shame to shelf most of them.

You're still making decisions from a spectator's perspective. Nobody in the competitive playerbase cares about which game the stages come from, else sv wouldn't have been the absolute king of the stages for 10 years straight.
People that attend tournament care about what options the stages give them, and it's usually a priority when making rulesets. And those go beyond platform layout.
Yoshi's Island doesn't play like Smashville, same for YS and BF.

I'm not opposed to each region having its special stage list but first you need to understand that it's a lot of work to make one balanced list, let alone multiple ones, and second it's only viable if the players of a scene do not care about the global scale of the competition. If you plan on competing on a national/international level then you want your local scene to be a viable training ground hence share the same rulesets as majors and super majors.

 

[Neil2TheKing]

I’m speaking for myself. When this pandemic is over I want a place to play Smash Bros and meet new people. I don’t want to play on 9 static stages the whole time. That’s not how I play Smash Bros. That’s not how most people play Smash Bros, and when you take out all of the dynamic stages you remove a lot of skill from the game.

At my core, I believe when someone comes to a smash tournament they should have a chance to play on their favorite stage, no matter what that stage is. If they want to play on Corneria, there should be at least one format that makes that possible. With respect to the most competitive format, I think the stagelist should be representative of the overall game.

If you pick a random stage from the stage select screen, odds are it has slants, moving stuff, or something that wants to bite you. On 90% of stages knowing how to play with these elements and using them to your advantage is a skill that’s rewarded. These skills are completely absent from the current static stagelist. Smash Bros is full of 50/50 situations. At least two happen every game. Is there any reason that’s less random than a Pokemon Stadium 2 Transformation? For many people turning off Pokemon Stadium 2’s transformations sucks the life out of the stage.

Most of the “randomness” introduced by stage elements are telegraphed state transformations. They are much less random than tech chase situations and actually add depth to the game by offering additional decision trees. Limiting the stagelist to static stages strips out a lot of depth from the game and shifts the focus to technical execution.

If ya’ll aren’t playing for money or fame, can ya’ll adjust the ruleset to make it more fun for more people? The randomness introduced by many stages is miniscule compared to the randomness naturally baked into the game. I think ya’ll should turn hazards on and play with all of Smash Ultiimate’s interesting elements. Some stages are too big for 1v1 competition, but stages like Peach’s Castle and PS2 introduce lots of new gameplay.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I would be opposed to most of the game's stages for serious 1v1. Our current stagelist is best for 1v1, though there are some stages that can work well, like Yggdrasil's, that are worth another look.

I would not be opposed to side events running all stages, though. Or even just a lot of them (I'm doubtful that Palutena's Temple and Great Cave Offensive would be all that fun to play on. They're so big it's hard to see sometimes). I think the only issue is, you'd be using setups that could be used to play the serious sets instead, so it might make tournaments run longer. The feasibility of such a thing would come down to having enough setups and TOs that hosting a side event wouldn't present much issue. Doable for more sizable tournaments, probably. Likely difficult if your local is very small

 

[teluoborg]

I’m speaking for myself. When this pandemic is over I want a place to play Smash Bros and meet new people. I don’t want to play on 9 static stages the whole time. That’s not how I play Smash Bros. That’s not how most people play Smash Bros, and when you take out all of the dynamic stages you remove a lot of skill from the game

Skill isn't removed, it's prioritized. Dealing with the stage hazards is a skill that is deemed less important than dealing with your opponent, so stages that force you to deal with the layout more than the player aren't considered competitive.

If you pick a random stage from the stage select screen chances are it can be circle camped by a Sonic player. Literally 88 out of the 110 stages of the game reward one strategy : running away and avoiding interaction. You do not want any tournament to revolve around those skills.

You have a lot of beliefs about what a tournament ruleset should and shouldn't do, but as you've said yourself you've yet to attend any tournament at all, so your arguments hold no weight as your values don't overlap with those of competitive players.

So yeah, when the dust settles try attending a tournament, see how it happens in real life. You'd be surprised how different it is from what you imagine.

 

[Neil2TheKing]

If you pick a random stage from the stage select screen chances are it can be circle camped by a Sonic player. Literally 88 out of the 110 stages of the game reward one strategy : running away and avoiding interaction. You do not want any tournament to revolve around those skills.

Most Smash Bros stages are balanced around a 4 Player 5:00 Minute Timed Free For All with items on Normal. Ties get handled with in game sudden death. First player to win 3 games wins. With that ruleset all of the degenerate layouts you mentioned stop being degenerate. You try to camp a walkoff, something gets thrown at you. Camp on an unapproachable ledge? You don’t get any items. Play like a butt and run away the whole game? Everyone conspires against you and makes sure you lose. 4 player free for all rewards all Smash Bros skills, including spacing, combo game, matchup knowledge, keeping track of your character, stage knowledge, item play, adapting, social skills etc.

Skill isn't removed, it's prioritized. Dealing with the stage hazards is a skill that is deemed less important than dealing with your opponent, so stages that force you to deal with the layout more than the player aren't considered competitive.

You confessed. You just said you removed certain skills from the game. Obviously when you remove certain skills from the game the ones that are left become more important. For the same reason you don’t want to play on Final Destination 5 games in a row, I don’t want to play on 9 static stages. You might be testing certain skills very precisely, but the game you are playing is less skillful overall.

Spoiler: For What It's Worth...

For the record, you have to fight the stage no matter what stage you pick. You may feel like Battlefield doesn’t force you to fight its unique elements, but that’s because you mastered the stage. After you watch people run off the edge and SD for an hour straight, you realize that people have to fight Battlefield’s layout just as much as they fight Corneria’s layout. To take it a step further, Pirate Ship’s bombs never hit me. As far as I’m concerned that stage is never trying to kill me. However, I get ladder comboed on Battlefield all day. Every time that stage comes up I’m fighting the stage.

You have a lot of beliefs about what a tournament ruleset should and shouldn't do, but as you've said yourself you've yet to attend any tournament at all, so your arguments hold no weight as your values don't overlap with those of competitive players.

So yeah, when the dust settles try attending a tournament, see how it happens in real life. You'd be surprised how different it is from what you imagine.

The Smash Bros Community wasn’t always like this. In the old days, Melee players would play on Mute City, Green Greens, Brinstar, and other now illegal stages. Ken won every Melee tournament for 6 years during that time. I wanted to join the scene back then but I was 13 and my parents wouldn’t let me. During Brawl, the grassroots Smash Bros scene got hijacked by the meritocracy. They claimed they were making the game more competitive, but really they were making Smash Bros more like Street Fighter. When I grew up I didn’t attend Smash Tournaments because ya’ll took out so much of what I loved from the game. Teluoborg, you seem to care about two things: meaningful competition and tournament attendance. Your current stagelist is inhibiting tournament attendance. Lots of people see it and don’t want to attend. If changing the stagelist increased attendance, would you do it? Or are you only interested in people who agree with this version of the game?

For the record, here are the stages I consider tournament viable with Hazards On

Spoiler: Stages

Small Battlefield
Battlefield
Final Destination
Peach’s Castle
Dream Land
Rainbow Cruise
Jungle Japes
Brinstar
Yoshi’s Story
Fountain of Dreams (I think lag is fixed)
Green Greens
Pokemon Stadium
Delfino Plaza
Norfair
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi’s Island (Brawl)
Lylat Cruise
Pokemon Stadium 2
Port Town Aero Drive
Castle Siege
Smashville
Unova Pokemon League
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Town & City
Umbra Clock Tower
Great Plateau Tower

At least ten of these stages have absolutely 0 randomness. 5 are obvious starters, even by today’s incredibly strict standards, and many of these stages were tournament legal in the past. Many are actually better than ever before (PS2 and Delfino are easy examples). Temporary hard loops and walkoffs are fine from all the footage I’ve seen; they reward players who understand how to abuse them without becoming degenerate. Both types of structures are very temporary on all stages except Rainbow Cruise.

 

[StrangeKitten]

For the record, here are the stages I consider tournament viable with Hazards On

Rainbow Cruise

Dear god no. You end up fighting the stage instead of the opponent way too often. Characters with poor recoveries also get punished for having poor recoveries way worse than they already do.

 

[teluoborg]

The Smash Bros Community wasn’t always like this. In the old days, Melee players would play on Mute City, Green Greens, Brinstar, and other now illegal stages. Ken won every Melee tournament for 6 years during that time. I wanted to join the scene back then but I was 13 and my parents wouldn’t let me. During Brawl, the grassroots Smash Bros scene got hijacked by the meritocracy. They claimed they were making the game more competitive, but really they were making Smash Bros more like Street Fighter. When I grew up I didn’t attend Smash Tournaments because ya’ll took out so much of what I loved from the game. Teluoborg, you seem to care about two things: meaningful competition and tournament attendance. Your current stagelist is inhibiting tournament attendance. Lots of people see it and don’t want to attend. If changing the stagelist increased attendance, would you do it? Or are you only interested in people who agree with this version of the game?

You know at this point it's pretty clear that your view of the game is diametrically opposed to what the community has taken 20 years to build.

So what's the point of antagonizing a whole subset of the smash bros playerbase when you're clearly trying to appeal to a completely different type of player? Anyone can host a tournament on smash.gg nowadays, so go make your own online tournament with ffa, items and Rainbow Cruise, I'm pretty sure there's a target audience for that.

But not in the offline tournament scene. All of that has already been attempted and rejected.

So yeah host your own tournament, see who attends, what the games look like. Until then this discussion can't really go any further.

PS please don't put words in my mouth. If anything you're the one with a fetish on attendance.

 

[StrangeKitten]

It's also worth noting that the reason stages used to be legal but aren't now is because it took time to realize what is good or bad in a stage. Brinstar lava is more punishing for characters with poor mobility than good mobility. In a match played on Battlefield, for example, Jigglypuff gets Ganondorf offstage when Ganondorf is at 20. He takes a couple nairs, but wisely saves his jump and recovers. Next game, same scenario, but because Ganondorf has worse recovery and mobility options, he gets hit by lava as he tries to recover low. And now Puff can just keep him in lava hell and rack up way more damage than if game 2 had just been played on FD.

And well, some stages/aspects of stages have to be banned to make things fair for all characters. Didn't Duck Hunt get banned eventually in Smash 4 when it was realized that Mac couldn't reach the tree with his double jump? If not, it should have. It may seem annoying to ban a stage just because of one character, but if you don't, now everyone who mains Mac is in for a bad time. Walls can provide disproportionate benefit to characters that have spammable down tilts, being able to infinite or near-infinite just by using a single move. Ceilings make it easy to trap and infinite/near-infinite big characters with projectiles or up tilts. Excessively large stages make it easy for fast characters to get a lead and run away. Walkoffs remove the weakness of poor recoveries that helps balance those kinds of characters, and rewards strong kill moves above all else. I don't think it would be difficult to imagine why stages like these would suck the fun out of the game if someone's character does poorly on them.

Additionally, stages were sometimes legal in the past simply for a lack of options. PS1 is a pretty bad stage in Melee imo, but is legal because there simply aren't any alternatives. This has, naturally, improved as time has gone on. Now in Ultimate, it feels like we no longer need to have questionable stages legal because we finally have enough options.

Is our current stagelist perfect? Probably not. I would have said no, since it used to be comprised of mostly large stages that benefit campers (though even then, I think it was the best we could have done). But now that we have Small Battlefield, I am more optimistic about our stagelist. It's just that we haven't had offline tournaments, so it's hard to judge. But at the current moment, we are at least very close to a stagelist that is well-balanced for all characters

 

[rigmac97]

Overall I'm fine with the selection the developers have provided. Especially seeing all the Melee stages turned to HD. I'm just as impressed with the new stage creator too. Some people made bad-ass stages that are original and recreations. Check them out. https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/smash-ultimate-best-custom-stages

 

[TCT~Phantom]

If I had a complete say in what the legal stage list is, here is what I would push rn.

Starter

• Small Battlefied
• Battlefield
• FD
• Smashville
• Town and City

Counterpicks

• Yoshi's Story
• Lylat Cruise
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Kalos
• WarioWare
• Castle Siege
• Yggdrasil's Alter
• Yoshi's Island Brawl

I adamantly believe that we do need at least one smaller stage in the stage list. I am a stage liberal, and I would say that having an odd number of stages for striking purposes would be ideal.

Also, I want to make the case of Mementos and Mushroom Kingdom U as legal stages for doubles only.

Part of the main issues that are had with these two stages are the fact that in singles, they are more big stages that reward campy playstyles. Mushroom U has a huge starting platform and the blast zones of Kalos. Mementos may be more similar in size to Kalos but it has even bigger blast zones and a slant, which I know some people hate. But for doubles, I feel having more large stages rewards doubles players more. The problem of the stages being large and campy is lessened when you have multiple people playing. I feel that at the very least these stages should be tested in doubles.

In case anyone wondered what my doubles stagelist would be...
Starter

• FD
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Town
• Kalos
• Battlefield

CP

• Yggdrasil's
• Mushroom U
• Mementos
• Lylat

 

[GolisoPower]

After the new trailer, I think we can all agree that the new Minecraft stage will be banned for the same reasons as Super Mario Maker, right? It looks pretty big, like Mementos-sized too, but just edging it out to be too much.

 

[StrangeKitten]

At the time of writing this, we haven't seen the Minecraft stage in-depth and have only gotten glimpses through the trailer. This will change in only three hours, but nevertheless, the glimpses we saw do not look legal. I could of course be wrong, but I'm placing my bets on it being banned.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

After watching Sakurai's presentation, I agree that the Minecraft stage is likely banned. The terrain doesn't reform once destroyed, but I can't see that being enough to save it.

 

[Untouch]

I wonder how the hazards off will work.
It looks like the platform position is based on the biome which is random though, so even if it spawns without blocks I think it's unlikely to be legal.

 

[IsmaR]

It is worth noting Steve's mining mechanic functions differently based on individual stage attributes, but will always retain a predetermined order for BF/Omega form stages. (Will timestamp the video later here)

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sp5o1JJdDk#t=11m24s

It's not a big enough thing to be a deal breaker for most staple choices, but obviously it will impact enough for minor versions of stages that are "similar enough" (presumably Midgar will yield more iron than BF, Small BF less iron than PS2, etc.) to come into question.

The obvious choice almost always seeming like it'd be against variety for the sake of it, but we have never had a character like this before, so it warrants discussion considering the concept of counterpicking is taken to a logical extreme with each minor terrain offering a potentially much different match up when the option exists.

 

[DaUsername]

So does Steve's existence mean every stage except FD and BF is banned now?
That seems like a thing the competitive community would do.

 

[StrangeKitten]

So does Steve's existence mean every stage except FD and BF is banned now?
That seems like a thing the competitive community would do.

Highly doubt it. He'll be a little different on other stages, but still very playable

 

[IsmaR]

Terrains for Steve mining are based on collision materials, these are viewable in the Data Viewer when hovering the cursor in the center of a collision line

Legal stages terrains

BF/FD/PS/PS2/Kalos/Unova = Brick
Smashville/T&C = Wood
Lylat = Iron

— Ruben (@Ruben_dal) October 3, 2020

These are just a few, but my concerns extend to things that err on the borderline, like both Yoshi's, all Pokémon stages, Fountain of Dreams/Dreamland 64, and then the outliers/"redundant stages" I hinted at before (Midgar, Wily Castle, Pictochat, Umbra Clocktower). Not even bringing up Warioware/Castle Siege/Yggdrasil and the like, it already feels like Steve on those stages would raise discussions for other reasons.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Terrains for Steve mining are based on collision materials, these are viewable in the Data Viewer when hovering the cursor in the center of a collision line

Legal stages terrains

BF/FD/PS/PS2/Kalos/Unova = Brick
Smashville/T&C = Wood
Lylat = Iron

— Ruben (@Ruben_dal) October 3, 2020

These are just a few, but my concerns extend to things that err on the borderline, like both Yoshi's, all Pokémon stages, Fountain of Dreams/Dreamland 64, and then the outliers/"redundant stages" I hinted at before (Midgar, Wily Castle, Pictochat, Umbra Clocktower). Not even bringing up Warioware/Castle Siege/Yggdrasil and the like, it already feels like Steve on those stages would raise discussions for other reasons.

https://twitter.com/Ruben_dal/status/1312491653366575106?s=20

Seems that Yoshi's Story terrain is "danbouru" which means...cardboard, apparently?

 

[StrangeKitten]

We'll see what happens, but I have a hunch that stages won't help or hurt Steve too much. Getting iron often on Lylat could be pretty good, but wouldn't that lower the chance that he'll get gold and diamond a bit? Whereas, FD and Battlefield would have Steve getting gold and diamond a little more often, at the cost of also getting wood and stone pretty often. I think it could all even out such that both have positives and drawbacks, and neither is outright better than the other. And of course, they could always adjust spawn rates in balance patches if need be.

 

[Battitude]

We'll see what happens, but I have a hunch that stages won't help or hurt Steve too much. Getting iron often on Lylat could be pretty good, but wouldn't that lower the chance that he'll get gold and diamond a bit? Whereas, FD and Battlefield would have Steve getting gold and diamond a little more often, at the cost of also getting wood and stone pretty often. I think it could all even out such that both have positives and drawbacks, and neither is outright better than the other. And of course, they could always adjust spawn rates in balance patches if need be.

The rate that you get Gold and Diamond is actually pretty consistent across the board material-wise, the main difference is iron stages give you only a third as many total blocks as the others do, so there's definitely a level of push-pull.

Anywho, with the announcement the biomes are selectable what are the chances we see people talking about Tundra? ~200 unit main stage, platforms right up to the edge, pretty much Kalos without the overhang.

 

[StrangeKitten]

The rate that you get Gold and Diamond is actually pretty consistent across the board material-wise, the main difference is iron stages give you only a third as many total blocks as the others do, so there's definitely a level of push-pull.

Anywho, with the announcement the biomes are selectable what are the chances we see people talking about Tundra? ~200 unit main stage, platforms right up to the edge, pretty much Kalos without the overhang.

Depends on if the igloo is there with hazards off or not. An obstruction that both players have to destroy to get it out of the way will kill the stage's competitive chances. If it's not there, the stage has a shot