Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[dav3yb]

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

You forgot to link the video.

 

[Akiak]

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?

Yeah, but you could also just stand there and force your opponent to jump/approach and aerial or something.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

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.

laughs in Belmont

 

[Mooer]

If we assume for tournament simplicity that there will be no hazards for all stages,
then could the following be the list of Neutrals that we can all agree on?
1. Final Destination
2. Battlefield
3. Pokemon Stadium
4. Smashville

Counterpicks I think we all agree on:
5. Kalos Pokemon League
6. Town and City

Potential Counterpicks that we can't all agree on but probably will include some number in the final list. Can we discuss these?
7. Lylat Cruise - Possible ledge grab problem with Kirby's up special, otherwise I haven't seen any real arguments for not including this unique stage
8. Frigate Orpheon - Moving platform temporarily causes highground/lowground and a corner to appear, seems balanced
9. Castle Siege - I would love to see this legal, some debate over blastzones and pieces of map geometry obscuring characters
10. Warioware - I think the small horizontal blastzones combined with camping the high platforms has me leaning away from this stage
11. Mushroom Kingdom U - Bigger stage, possibly reserved for doubles, I'm a huge fan of the unique platform layout


All other stages are banned due to the usual plethora of reasons including being clones of stages already on the list (i.e., triplats, double plat, single plat, no plats), size issues, blastzone issues, campable areas, walk offs, stage effects that can't be removed with no hazards mode, being able to jump up through the bottom of the stage, corners/walls, etc.

 

[Galgatha]

These tiny tiny legal stage lists break my heart How the mighty have fallen. Anyway, I haven't seen Arena Ferox brought up at all in these discussions, any reason as to why? What's the issue with it?

Also, in regards to Green Greens, I thought the side portions of the stages were actually slightly LOWER than the middle platform, making it that in order to camp with projectiles; unless you have an arching projectile that is like Axe, you need to constantly jump to hit your opponent. So, both players are needing to jump in order to make the side platforms usable for camping. I think Green Greens should stay.

Also community seriously needs to stop coming up with dumb reasons to ban stages TBH.

 

[Skeleghost]

laughs in Belmont

I don't want people to actually ban the belmonts or olimar or whatever. And I DO expect a ton of stages will be banned with faulty justification too (unless people suddenly actually do the stage lists thing I keep harping on). But I figure it's worthwhile to at least state what a logically consistent set of standards would entail, even if that's probably not gonna happen in practice.

These tiny tiny legal stage lists break my heart How the mighty have fallen. Anyway, I haven't seen Arena Ferox brought up at all in these discussions, any reason as to why? What's the issue with it?

Also, in regards to Green Greens, I thought the side portions of the stages were actually slightly LOWER than the middle platform, making it that in order to camp with projectiles; unless you have an arching projectile that is like Axe, you need to constantly jump to hit your opponent. So, both players are needing to jump in order to make the side platforms usable for camping. I think Green Greens should stay.

Also community seriously needs to stop coming up with dumb reasons to ban stages TBH.

A big part of the issue is that the optimal number of stages with a stage strike system is 5. Thus, the real debate is which 5 stages we are going to use. And because there are more than 5 decent stages, we have to arbitrarily throw a bunch out. The other half of the issue is that people hate being forced to play on stages that they don't like, and yet that is the whole point of coutnerpicking. I mean... the optimal counter-picking strategy is NOT to pick a stage you are good on, it's to pick a stage your opponent is bad on, and that makes people inclined to prefer to ban lots of stages.

So at the end of the day, there will be 5 stages + maybe a few counterpicks options, and it does not matter how many viable stages there are. The stage striking system only makes sense with 5 'starter' stages and maybe as many as 5 'counterpick' stages. If you want more stages, you need to throw out the entire system (which is why I hope people do that! But I don't expect it).

 

[Mooer]

*edit see my later comment, computer glitched on me and I double posted

 

[Galgatha]

I don't want people to actually ban the belmonts or olimar or whatever. And I DO expect a ton of stages will be banned with faulty justification too (unless people suddenly actually do the stage lists thing I keep harping on). But I figure it's worthwhile to at least state what a logically consistent set of standards would entail, even if that's probably not gonna happen in practice.



A big part of the issue is that the optimal number of stages with a stage strike system is 5. Thus, the real debate is which 5 stages we are going to use. And because there are more than 5 decent stages, we have to arbitrarily throw a bunch out. The other half of the issue is that people hate being forced to play on stages that they don't like, and yet that is the whole point of coutnerpicking. I mean... the optimal counter-picking strategy is NOT to pick a stage you are good on, it's to pick a stage your opponent is bad on, and that makes people inclined to prefer to ban lots of stages.

So at the end of the day, there will be 5 stages + maybe a few counterpicks options, and it does note matter how many viable stages there are. The stage striking system only makes sense with 5 'starter' stages and maybe as many as 5 'counterpick' stages. If you want more stages, you need to throw out the entire system (which is why I hope people do that! But I don't expect it).

I still think that broken system needs to go and be replaced with something else. Too bad others don't feel the same way.

 

[Mooer]

These tiny tiny legal stage lists break my heart How the mighty have fallen. Anyway, I haven't seen Arena Ferox brought up at all in these discussions, any reason as to why? What's the issue with it?

Also, in regards to Green Greens, I thought the side portions of the stages were actually slightly LOWER than the middle platform, making it that in order to camp with projectiles; unless you have an arching projectile that is like Axe, you need to constantly jump to hit your opponent. So, both players are needing to jump in order to make the side platforms usable for camping. I think Green Greens should stay.

Also community seriously needs to stop coming up with dumb reasons to ban stages TBH.

A small list of stages just makes way more sense for organized tournament play. Less time striking maps, less time counterpicking, better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps. Green Greens may or may not have a camping issue, but it definitely has a larger problem of forcing players to jump to (re)acquire the centerstage. This unavoidable, predictable play can lead to issues where a fair number of fighters will be have to strike Green Greens just to not be easily gimped. I don't think that's all that fair, but I love the stage so much without hazards, maybe it could still be used for doubles?

As for Arena Ferox the stage is particularly large but the real issue is the crappy platforming. Some are solid and can really lengthen a game just because fighters will either tech off it or just bounce back to the stage.

 

[Munomario777]

Anyway, I haven't seen Arena Ferox brought up at all in these discussions, any reason as to why? What's the issue with it?

it randomly selects 1 of the transformations, and some of them have caves of life

 

[Galgatha]

A small list of stages just makes way more sense for organized tournament play. Less time striking maps, less time counterpicking, better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps. Green Greens may or may not have a camping issue, but it definitely has a larger problem of forcing players to jump to (re)acquire the centerstage. This unavoidable, predictable play can lead to issues where a fair number of fighters will be have to strike Green Greens just to not be easily gimped. I don't think that's all that fair, but I love the stage so much without hazards, maybe it could still be used for doubles?

As for Arena Ferox the stage is particularly large but the real issue is the crappy platforming. Some are solid and can really lengthen a game just because fighters will either tech off it or just bounce back to the stage.

Redacted due to info from Muno.

I am just done arguing how stupid the current system is. Literally everything you stated about the stage striking is why I dislike it. But, I guess this isn't the thread for it, and it seems bad habits die hard.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

These tiny tiny legal stage lists break my heart How the mighty have fallen. Anyway, I haven't seen Arena Ferox brought up at all in these discussions, any reason as to why? What's the issue with it?

Ferox doesn't consistently go to the statues form, it picks one of its four forms at random and stays like that for the whole match. That kills any chance it has at being legal since statues is the only good form of the bunch. (Resetting the match until it gets picked just isn't going to happen.)

A small list of stages just makes way more sense for organized tournament play. Less time striking maps, less time counterpicking, better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps. Green Greens may or may not have a camping issue, but it definitely has a larger problem of forcing players to jump to (re)acquire the centerstage. This unavoidable, predictable play can lead to issues where a fair number of fighters will be have to strike Green Greens just to not be easily gimped. I don't think that's all that fair, but I love the stage so much without hazards, maybe it could still be used for doubles?

Although it's true that a smaller stage list is better from a logistical point of view, I disagree with the notion that it's better for competition. If we accept as an initial fact that different stages require different strategies, then by necessity limiting the number of stages will reduce the number of strategies a player must be competent with. This in turn means there's less room for a player to practice and grow. Now, there's an upper limit to this (e.g. Kongo Falls has the rock), but in general that's my view. (Edits for rephrasing and clarity.)

 

[Akiak]

So at the end of the day, there will be 5 stages + maybe a few counterpicks options, and it does note matter how many viable stages there are. The stage striking system only makes sense with 5 'starter' stages and maybe as many as 5 'counterpick' stages. If you want more stages, you need to throw out the entire system (which is why I hope people do that! But I don't expect it).

You're actually right about >10 stages being impractical with regular bans. However with PXP1 this is no longer the case. The only real difference is that you're giving the winner more information, which means he's less likely to waste his bans.

Honestly if we don't use PXP1 we're really not gonna get the most out of this game, and that would be a real shame imo.

Keeping it brief as I (and Muno) have already talked about it a million times lol.

 

[Skeleghost]

I still think that broken system needs to go and be replaced with something else. Too bad others don't feel the same way.

I mean, I am probably the biggest proponent of personalized lists instead of stage striking! I made an app for it (shameless plug even though I already linked it last page: http://smashlists.droppages.com/)! Some other people have suggested other systems too, like not using starters at all on game 2 or 3. I think my system is easily the best though (of course, I would say that, wouldn't I?)

Basically, if you don't want good stages to be banned, arguing "this stage is actually not that bad" is not going to work. Because even if you successfully argue that Stage A should be legal, that will just cause people to be inclined to ban Stage B. The number of legal stages is going to be low, and the only way to change that is to change the system itself (and the smash community is infamous for being ultra-conservative, so good luck!). Basically, all the stage liberals in this thread really ought to be moving over to the ruleset discussion thread, that's what I say!

A small list of stages just makes way more sense for organized tournament play. Less time striking maps, less time counterpicking, better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps.

Woah, the whole "less-time-consuming" thing is very reasonable, but "better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps"? Why is that a good thing? If that actually makes sense, then, again, it sounds like logically TOs should also be considering character bans. If needing to learn more is a downside, then the ideal smash game really would just have one stage and one character.

 

[Untouch]

In 1.2 FoD still drops frames, Yoshi's Story still has food with items off, and it SEEMS that Lylat is still glitched.
I cannot get the glitch at NEAR the severity of the video that first surfaced, but I did get Kirby to miss grabbing the ledge.
He didn't clip through the stage, but just didn't grab the ledge, wasn't the ledge grab limit either.

Lylat does suffer from the same glitches with Peach.
Ugh, this patch didn't fix much.

 

[Galgatha]

Ferox doesn't consistently go to the statues form, it picks one of its four forms at random and stays like that for the whole match. That kills any chance it has at being legal since statues is the only good form of the bunch. (Resetting the match until it gets picked just isn't going to happen.)

That is really sad to hear :/

Woah, the whole "less-time-consuming" thing is very reasonable, but "better for players to practice their skills on a smaller set of maps"? Why is that a good thing? If that actually makes sense, then, again, it sounds like logically TOs should also be considering character bans. If needing to learn more is a downside, then the ideal smash game really would just have one stage and one character.

I agree completely with you here. I understand that there are some forms of degenerative gameplay, however to claim that a stage is bad due to "somebody has to jump to get to center platform" is honestly stupid. By allowing MORE legal stages, we develop MORE interesting ways of playing, a much more complex meta game, and it allows more character to have real viability that just struggle on "neutral stages". Honestly, there is literally 0 reason to keep the current system besides people being lazy. And laziness should be shunned, not enabled.

/rant

 

[Skeleghost]

Laziness is definitely not the right word. A better term for it would be 'conservative' or maybe 'reactionary' or 'neophobic'. It's not that they are exerting less effort than they should be. It's that they are (perhaps excessively) committed to doing things in the way that has been established in the past.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I'm going to mostly stay out of this mess but, take it from somebody who argued fairly hard for a liberal stagelist in both Brawl and SSB4:

1) If you have to resort to name calling/accusations (like "its just lazy to keep it this way"), you've already lost. You've already given a great reason to not to bother to listen to what you have to say.

2) No method that requires an out of game function (like an app) is ever going to be used for something like stage selection. It doesn't allow some casual guy who's barely even aware of competitive tournaments to walk in and give it a shot with no prior prep. It also means if something goes wrong with the app or whatnot there's no easy way to fix things. If say the app goes down mid-tournament, its an absolutely disaster. Let alone if say its discovered after a tournament that the app was actually bugged.

An out of game program is used to track tournament brackets out of necessity. And of course streaming is an out of game setup. But those are the only out of game things used at tournaments.

3) Time is a huge factor. Like, massively, mindboggling important factor. Lets say we go with a fancy new method that takes about 10 seconds longer on average. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? Think about 10 seconds every match, in every set, in a double round robin initial phase tournament that follows up into a double elimination bracket, that tops off with a Bo5 32 onwards and then Bo7 Finals. Those tournaments already significantly struggle to stay on time, and have times been forced to rush things or stop the tournament in the finals due to running out of time at the place they're renting. Mega-tournaments cannot afford a 10 second difference for stage selection, and every tournament should use the same stage choosing method.

4) A stage that promotes significant camping will never be used. We've had Green Greens legal before in Brawl and I think SSB4. Guess what, we had gap camping among other things. Imagine if you're using Chrom or Ike, with their Up Bs that secure kills with the opponent dying first every time. Why would you camp the gap if the opponent doesn't have a projectile? You gain the lead and then sit there. Opponent has to approach through the air. You Up B. If it hits, you take off a stock. If it doesn't hit you can safely grab either ledge because the opponent had to go in fairly hard on their defensive options and most likely can't punish you for the attempt... meaning you can do the same thing again for free.

A major issue with this scene beyond the obvious? Viewership. What do you think the crowd reaction or stream reaction is going to be to something like that being even a semi-viable strategy? Very bad. Said viewership is how you get money to keep tournaments going. Can't piss them off.

5) This one is going to be hard for people to swallow I know but: if you're not a well known name in the Smash scene, you will never change anything about the stage selection system. How well you argue things is irrelevant. If you're a TO are you going to listen to some nobody off on the internet who has a crazy new system, or are you going to listen the local people who attend your tournaments weekly? Or heck, are you going to listen to a random on the internet or somebody like NAKAT or Zero or M2K? It's a pretty obvious choice.

If you want even a vague possibility of changing the stage selection system without becoming a high level pro player: host tournaments yourself. Use your method. Prove it works at a local level, then host regional tournaments. Multiple of them. All successfully. And then most likely host a national tournament. And then maybe a new stage selection method would gain some traction.

---

Quite frankly, energy is better spent trying to make sure Lylat stays legal than trying to overhaul the whole system "just because" or because "I think I have a better method". Its something that can actually be taken seriously by TOs: that's something that us pot money feeders can actually have an impact on.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Regarding Green Greens and having to jump to the side platforms...

...surprisingly, you don't.

To be more specific, literally every character I've tested so far has been able to grab the ledge simply by running off the opposite side of the gap. In both directions. Seriously. Every character. Even Little Mac, Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Incineroar, and the Belmonts. (All of which I thought would be solid candidates for missing at least the side -> center ledge grab without a jump.)

(As a side note, it turns out that the thing where you can't regrab a ledge for a second or so is a global restriction that doesn't go away early if you touch the ground. You can go between the ledges fast enough for this to matter.)

Also interesting is that the only straight-line (e.g. not arcing, homing, or controllable) projectile I've found so far that can reach the main platform while standing on the sides is Samus's Charge Shot, but not Dark Samus's. Weird, I know. I assume Dark Samus hunches over just a little bit more when she fires it or something. I haven't explored the cast's options super thoroughly here, but the height difference seems to be just enough to require most characters to at least short hop their projectiles if they want to use them here.

Regarding the viability or lack thereof of camping the sides for easy kills...it's plausible, but AFAIK we have no proof either way, either of it working or of it not working. Would Chrom fishing for Aether kills (or whatever the hell his up special is called) be a snoozefest? Would we figure out counterplay for it? We don't know either way, and it's that unknown that really gets to me. Ditto for projectile camping. I'm not quite old enough to have been part of the OG Melee crowd, but from what I understand Green Greens (hazards on, at that) used to be legal until Fox emerged as the undisputed #1 and it was banned pretty much because of him? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.

Quite frankly, energy is better spent trying to make sure Lylat stays legal than trying to overhaul the whole system "just because" or because "I think I have a better method". Its something that can actually be taken seriously by TOs: that's something that us pot money feeders can actually have an impact on.

What if it's the lack of stage variety that's driving a player away in the first place?

 

[lordvaati]

Borrowing my post from the patch topic...

OK, just downloaded 1.20 and confirm 2 various things:

-The Color Change lag bug is still there. Bummer.
-Yoshi's Story still spawns food, which confirms it's not a bug but an in-game hazard added to the stage. Hazardless removes the Shyguys along with Randall. due to this Yoshi's Story can pretty much just be classed as a BF Variant akin to Midgar since it's only legal with Hazards off.

 

[Munomario777]

YS spawning food is correct. my opinion is still that it should be legal as a separate stage h'less

edit: also i tested fountain and it still seems to lag when 2 players shield next to each other

 

[Nidtendofreak]

What if it's the lack of stage variety that's driving a player away in the first place?

For sure. Smashville being played 60% of the time will do that. I'm still all for as large of a stage list as possible, but it has to be done well, reasonably. Making sure that Lylat is back as CP at bare minimum if not neutral the moment its ledges are fixed? That's good. Trying to get stages in that have elements that in the past have proven to be problems? Not so great.

(Another thing with the gaps, characters like Meta Knight can basically circle camp underneath the stage itself. Generally there's a rule against constantly stalling like there was in Brawl, but there aren't rules generally about doing it temporarily because if you have a hard rule against ever doing it its artificially limiting character options. But uh, you can be sure people don't like watching it happen.)

---

But seriously, I used to be one of the guys trying hard to make the stage list larger. I wrote up a topic back in... either Brawl or SSB4 about Pirate Ship and how it actually had a pattern and how you could reasonably predict what the next hazard was going to be and when it would change. I've been there, done that. Its better to know where to cut your losses and focus the collective energy on the borderline stages instead of the fringe stages. Lylat and T&C are two excellent examples for this.

 

[Untouch]

Can't tell anything from this patch, it seems nothing stage related was fixed.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The way discussion is going, it is fairly likely we are rapidly going to see stages cut, some without good reasoning (Lylat Cruise being the main example). I don't think spending time defending obviously bad stages like Green Greens and Reset Forest Bomb. Instead, the time would be better spent defending Lylat Cruise, Town & City, and Unova Pokémon League, stages I believe are worth testing but risk getting banned (perhaps permaturely).

Lylat, in particular, would be a shame to lose at this point in time, since it offers a unique platform layout and the issues cited only affect a few characters (Peach/Daisy and Kirby). I assume the collision bug (which likely wasn't Lylat-specific anyway) is fixed now, and until we get some new footage proving that it's not fixed we should all assume that it is. As such, the reasoning for banning Lylat is insufficient. Lylat should thus, at least for the time being, remain legal.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

From what I saw in the patch thread, people have tested it and Kirby was still not grabbing the ledge.

 

[Gunla]

To sort of quash it, so far it seems none of the stages were modified. FoD still lags, Yoshi's Story still has food, etc.

 

[Frihetsanka]

From what I saw in the patch thread, people have tested it and Kirby was still not grabbing the ledge.

Kirby not grabbing the ledge at certain situations is not enough to ban the stage, seeing how it can be played around and all (and Kirby players could avoid Lylat if they don't like it). Same with Peach/Daisy.

I think 1.1.0 might've fixed the clipping glitch, or 1.2.0, but I don't know for sure (hard to prove that it never happens but so far people have been unable to replicate it), so I think we should assume it's gone until we get new footage.

 

[Skeleghost]

What if it's the lack of stage variety that's driving a player away in the first place?

I am extremely confident that this happens a lot!

But seriously, I used to be one of the guys trying hard to make the stage list larger. I wrote up a topic back in... either Brawl or SSB4 about Pirate Ship and how it actually had a pattern and how you could reasonably predict what the next hazard was going to be and when it would change. I've been there, done that. Its better to know where to cut your losses and focus the collective energy on the borderline stages instead of the fringe stages. Lylat and T&C are two excellent examples for this.

So... again, I'm claiming that you're probably gonna get the smashville situation again if stage striking is used. Stage striking itself is the problem! 5 is the optimal number of stages when striking, period. If a tournament is using stage striking, the primary debate is which 5 stages should be picked.

Counterpicking is the other half of the problem: Good players either
A) counterpick to their best stage, which inevitably ends up being a starter, because starters are the smart place to practice, OR
B) counterpick to a stage their opponent does not want to fight on, which is frustrating for the other player and makes them want to ban stuff.

You're almost certainly right that we won't be able to convince TOs to change the system! But if that is the case, we should accept that there will not be a large stage list. I'm pretty confident of this. So the arguments should not revolve around "is this stage viable", but instead should revolve around "is this stage BETTER than one or more other candidate stages?"

Basically, if someone wants Green Greens, they need to argue that it is BETTER than Town and City or Yoshi's Island or Lylat or what have you, not just "it isn't ban-worthy." I think Green Greens should be allowed but it's not happening in the current system even if the stage is perfectly fine.


In fact, here is an argument that assumes that stage striking will be used: The 5th stage should be unova pokemon league. Why? Because it is most similar to pokemon stadium 1 and 2, and pokemon stadium looks like it is going to be the new smashville of the game. Unova is just barely different enough to be it's own stage. Adding unova makes it more likely that we will get visual variety (sadly, it won't give us music variety).

That said, this is all hypothetical. It might actually make sense to start with lylat as a starter. Then, if pokemon stadium does, indeed, end up on 50%+ of all the matches, then the most unpopular stage could be exchanged for unova. Basically, start with variety, and then if one of the stages never gets chosen, swap it out for an 'echo' stage of the most popular stage. Of course, if all 5 stages are chosen a reasonable amount of the time, then it's better to stick with variety.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Current thoughts on stages (I am a TO and intend on hosting an Ultimate tournament Saturday):

Hazards universally off, by the way.
Starters:
Battlefield (all BF forms, Dream Land, Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, Midgar as alts)
Final Destination (Wily Castle as alt)
Smashville (Yoshi's Island as alt)
Pokemon Stadium (PS2 and Unova League as alts)
Kalos League
Counterpicks:
WarioWare

As a TO of a tournament series where the vast majority of players do not play at a high competitive level, my goal was to keep the stage list as simple as possible. I avoided stages with slopes, asymmetry, or any other "weirdness" although some of the stages I may not personally find fault with.

Considered, but rejected alts:
PictoChat 2 (alt for FD) - slight slopes on ledges, exceptionally close side blastzones
Umbra Clock Tower (alt for FD) - uneven ground, unusual, asymmetrical stage underside
Wuhu Island (alt for Smashville) - large stage, exceptionally close side blastzones, significant slopes on ledges, semi-solid

Considered, but rejected stages:
Castle Siege - slopes, asymmetry, small stage, camera issue
Town and City - moving stage, possible "stretcher" kills (I'll admit, the reasons here are weak, but as I said, I'm trying to keep the stage list simple and with as little "weirdness" as possible)

Not seriously considered:
Lylat Cruise - glitches, slopes, lack of popularity
Skyloft - sloped platforms, semi-solid
Mushroom Kingdom U - large stage, asymmetry
Frigate Orpheon - asymmetry, temporary wall

This is the ruleset I intend to use for Ultimate tournaments as of now. My personal opinions are very similar to this list (I believe Castle Siege and Town & City are perfectly reasonable stages but have chosen to exclude them). I do not believe Lylat Cruise or Frigate Orpheon should be legal (perhaps the more controversial opinions).

Another thing, which was touched on by the post above, is that I believe the stage list will (and probably should) revolve around which stages are the best. I think some stages (mostly Castle Siege and Town & City) are perfectly fine, but do not need to be legal because we have better stages. Plenty of stages would be fine but we don't need them. If another game had the same hazard toggle, but with fewer available stages, the game could include these stages and be fine, but with this many options, we can afford to reject anything that is "weird".

Finally, a bit of an aside, but has anyone seriously considered Tomodachi Life as a potential legal stage? It has no slopes, no asymmetry, no walk-offs, walls, or ceilings. The only issues I would be able to see are an overly vertical layout and potential camping.

 

[dav3yb]

As a TO of a tournament series where the vast majority of players do not play at a high competitive level, my goal was to keep the stage list as simple as possible. I avoided stages with slopes, asymmetry, or any other "weirdness" although some of the stages I may not personally find fault with.

This is where I fundamentally disagree with the thought process. Instead of appealing to the more casual crowd with less content, the entire selection method should be altered to be less convoluted. I for one am going to be running and testing out stage morphing at some locals, and stream-lining games by having only a few bans and loser picks from everything else. I honestly think with ~3 ban's most characters can just cut any particular stage that might have really bad issues for them.

 

[Routa]

Hello. I'm Routa and I'm a finnish TO.
When it comes to stagelists this is what I'm going to run this weekend:

BF/BF variations
FD/Omegas
SV
Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
Lylat
PS2
Kalos Pokemon League
Skyloft
Frigate Orpheon
Castle Siege
Brinstar

All stages have hazards off. FLSS is used for striking (order: 1-2-2-2-2-1). Loser of the game chooses 3 stages and the winner of the last game decides which one they go to next game.
This new system takes a while to get used to, but the time loss on comparison to old system is about 5 sec per game. Main reason why I decided to try the new "Ban" system was that on theory it should be less onesided.
Looking forward I can see dropping Brinstar mainly due to how the uneven main platform reacts to low ground projectiles. The visual location doesn't seem to match that well with the stage's collisionbox. It might get replaced with WW or Frigate might go as well due to some inconcesty with one of the ledges (the one between the moving platform and the main platform).
T&C was left out due to being transforming stage.
I can try to answer any questions you may have If I have the time.

 

[Fenrir VII]

I truly believe that any 5-stage starter list with both FD and T&C or Kalos is flawed from a balance perspective. T&C pretty much is FD, or FD with offstage platforms for most of the game. Considering that FD is considered a fairly unbalanced stage for certain characters, I don't see how that can be acceptable. Kalos is pretty much the same argument.

Again I think the best 5-stage starter list, in terms of actual tournament balance is:
-Final Destination
-Battlefield
-Smashville
-PokeStadium 2
-WarioWare

This list gives players a chance to strike any stages that they don't like while not allowing the opponent to select a very similar stage. All 5 are unique, favor different character-types, and provide different experiences. Most of the argument I've heard against Warioware refers to the side blastzones, but again I must say that aspect is overblown, and the stage can be struck if that's a concern.
In a starter list with T&C or Kalos, if you were concerned about flat no-plat stages, you'd have to waste both of your strikes automatically, and I believe that's a huge problem that should prevent those from being starters, even though they have no terrible issues on their own. This is the same reason we would not have both FD and Wily's Castle as starters.

For a 7-stage starter list, I could see adding 1 of these (but not both) along with Skyloft or possibly Lylat to provide the most varied list.

For other stages, I believe Frigate and Yoshi's Brawl 100% deserve to be legal. I also think Yoshi's Story should be legal and treated as separate from the other tri-plats due to significant differences from other tri-plat layouts (edge slopes, walls, platforms over the edges, different spacing, etc).
so my tournament stage list would look something like this (hazards off):

Starters (5-stage list for simplicity):
-FD
-BF
-SV
-PS2
-WW

Counterpicks:
-T&C
-Skyloft
-Kalos
-Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)
-Frigate Orpheon
-Lylat Cruise

Possible CPs:
-Brinstar (platform variations seem to help short chars, who don't need it imo)
-Halberd (needs some more testing but seems ok)
-Castle Siege (only real issue is the stage effects blinding edgeguards, which admittedly might be bannable)
-Prism Tower (imo the best transformer. Completely depends on the initial walkoff legality)

That's just my 2 cents.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I'd be more ok with Wario Ware if the blast zones on the side weren't so close. They are almost walkoffs, which is why I think it's better suited as a CP at its current state.

If it ever gets an update with increased blast zones though, I'd love to have it as a starter.

EDIT:

I know there are gripes around this thread about the current counter-pick system, and while I do agree that it is flawed in certain ways, it is also something that has been working for the past 15+ years that this game series has been played competitively. So when I post a stage list with 5 starters and 3 counterpicks, I'm doing so for the sake of keeping it simple, what I am concerned with when I run weeklies is making sure everyone is having fun and that matches can run themselves, not that I have to be hovering around the room answering questions about the stage picking system and what is a starter or wtvr.

The whole thing that makes it a mess for me to pick stages is the master button for hazards. I wish this could come in individual switches for each stage instead. One can hope a future update does this.

 

[Fenrir VII]

I'd be more ok with Wario Ware if the blast zones on the side weren't so close. They are almost walkoffs, which is why I think it's better suited as a CP at its current state.

No offense intended, but this feels like an extreme exaggeration to me. It's not "almost walkoff"-level... at all.

Also, why do blast zones inherently better classify it as starter or CP in general? The only considerations on whether a stage is starter vs CP should be balance of the stagelist & strike system, imo.
For WarioWare to get picked as the starter, both players would have to agree to it (by striking the other stages), so they would have to know that the stage is small, blast zones are close, etc. and still pick it. I don't see why that's a problem.
At the very least, it's a much smaller problem than a character who has an advantage on FD-types being able to basically choose between PS2, BF, and SV because their opponents have to waste both strikes on FD and T&C, for example.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

The problem with saying how the current system has worked for so long is that you ignore that for so long stage selection was terrible. Right now we have a ton of viable stages, which he have not had in an official smash game. Literally look at past smash games and their stage lists. There were sacrifices like having PS1 or even some weird lists in brawl.

For the first time, we have an actually good amount of legal stages. I say we take advantage of that. If we have to revise our system a bit then so be it. More stages that are tourney ok means better for spectators which is ok by tos. I’ll write more on this later.

 

[DavemanCozy]

No offense intended, but this feels like an extreme exaggeration to me. It's not "almost walkoff"-level... at all.

Also, why do blast zones inherently better classify it as starter or CP in general? The only considerations on whether a stage is starter vs CP should be balance of the stagelist & strike system, imo.
For WarioWare to get picked as the starter, both players would have to agree to it (by striking the other stages), so they would have to know that the stage is small, blast zones are close, etc. and still pick it. I don't see why that's a problem.
At the very least, it's a much smaller problem than a character who has an advantage on FD-types being able to basically choose between PS2, BF, and SV because their opponents have to waste both strikes on FD and T&C, for example.

It's an exaggeration lol. Of course it is but that doesn't change the fact that nonsense like this can happen;
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ethan9882/status/1072678257135366144?s=19

I mean if you all want it fine but I'm gonna ban it most games

edit; i really do like the stage layout, but those blast zones sadly killed the enjoyment of the stage for me. I am not saying that just cuz I don't like it we shouldn't have it, just that I suspect I won't be the only one to not like it and lead to the stage getting frequent bans.

 

[Fenrir VII]

It's an exaggeration lol. Of course it is but that doesn't change the fact that nonsense like this can happen;
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ethan9882/status/1072678257135366144?s=19

I mean if you all want it fine but I'm gonna ban it most games

edit; i really do like the stage layout, but those blast zones sadly killed the enjoyment of the stage for me. I am not saying that just cuz I don't like it we shouldn't have it, just that I suspect I won't be the only one to not like it and lead to the stage getting frequent bans.

I mean sure.. but you'd be allowed to strike it without much disadvantage from doing so. That's the point. (vs if you played a char bad on Omega stages, T&C would force you to strike 2).

Also low % "nonsense like this" kills have happened for years off Smashville's platform. Also any Melee match on Yoshi's Story. It's not inherently a bad thing for the game, and is known by each player going into the match. For example, the clip you linked starts with Roy doing Double-Edge Dance, which WOULD HAVE KILLED if he had used the side option instead of up. The small blast zones benefit both characters in this situation.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Hazards mixed appears to be tested now, and it's a spectacular failure:

2gg ran the "good" way to do mixed hazards with 2 rulesets.

There were 30 reported instances of hazard mix-ups at MSM. That's just the reported ones.

We need smaller stages. Hazardless Smashville and Yoshi's are smaller.

It's easier to practice.

Hazards off pls

— TLTC (@ImTLTC) December 12, 2018

There is even some footage of people messing up in Grand Finals! Hazards off it is.

 

[Eaode]

I'm going to mostly stay out of this mess but, take it from somebody who argued fairly hard for a liberal stagelist in both Brawl and SSB4:

1) If you have to resort to name calling/accusations (like "its just lazy to keep it this way"), you've already lost. You've already given a great reason to not to bother to listen to what you have to say.

2) No method that requires an out of game function (like an app) is ever going to be used for something like stage selection. It doesn't allow some casual guy who's barely even aware of competitive tournaments to walk in and give it a shot with no prior prep. It also means if something goes wrong with the app or whatnot there's no easy way to fix things. If say the app goes down mid-tournament, its an absolutely disaster. Let alone if say its discovered after a tournament that the app was actually bugged.

An out of game program is used to track tournament brackets out of necessity. And of course streaming is an out of game setup. But those are the only out of game things used at tournaments.

3) Time is a huge factor. Like, massively, mindboggling important factor. Lets say we go with a fancy new method that takes about 10 seconds longer on average. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? Think about 10 seconds every match, in every set, in a double round robin initial phase tournament that follows up into a double elimination bracket, that tops off with a Bo5 32 onwards and then Bo7 Finals. Those tournaments already significantly struggle to stay on time, and have times been forced to rush things or stop the tournament in the finals due to running out of time at the place they're renting. Mega-tournaments cannot afford a 10 second difference for stage selection, and every tournament should use the same stage choosing method.

4) A stage that promotes significant camping will never be used. We've had Green Greens legal before in Brawl and I think SSB4. Guess what, we had gap camping among other things. Imagine if you're using Chrom or Ike, with their Up Bs that secure kills with the opponent dying first every time. Why would you camp the gap if the opponent doesn't have a projectile? You gain the lead and then sit there. Opponent has to approach through the air. You Up B. If it hits, you take off a stock. If it doesn't hit you can safely grab either ledge because the opponent had to go in fairly hard on their defensive options and most likely can't punish you for the attempt... meaning you can do the same thing again for free.

A major issue with this scene beyond the obvious? Viewership. What do you think the crowd reaction or stream reaction is going to be to something like that being even a semi-viable strategy? Very bad. Said viewership is how you get money to keep tournaments going. Can't piss them off.

5) This one is going to be hard for people to swallow I know but: if you're not a well known name in the Smash scene, you will never change anything about the stage selection system. How well you argue things is irrelevant. If you're a TO are you going to listen to some nobody off on the internet who has a crazy new system, or are you going to listen the local people who attend your tournaments weekly? Or heck, are you going to listen to a random on the internet or somebody like NAKAT or Zero or M2K? It's a pretty obvious choice.

If you want even a vague possibility of changing the stage selection system without becoming a high level pro player: host tournaments yourself. Use your method. Prove it works at a local level, then host regional tournaments. Multiple of them. All successfully. And then most likely host a national tournament. And then maybe a new stage selection method would gain some traction.

---

Quite frankly, energy is better spent trying to make sure Lylat stays legal than trying to overhaul the whole system "just because" or because "I think I have a better method". Its something that can actually be taken seriously by TOs: that's something that us pot money feeders can actually have an impact on.

For sure. Smashville being played 60% of the time will do that. I'm still all for as large of a stage list as possible, but it has to be done well, reasonably. Making sure that Lylat is back as CP at bare minimum if not neutral the moment its ledges are fixed? That's good. Trying to get stages in that have elements that in the past have proven to be problems? Not so great.

(Another thing with the gaps, characters like Meta Knight can basically circle camp underneath the stage itself. Generally there's a rule against constantly stalling like there was in Brawl, but there aren't rules generally about doing it temporarily because if you have a hard rule against ever doing it its artificially limiting character options. But uh, you can be sure people don't like watching it happen.)

---

But seriously, I used to be one of the guys trying hard to make the stage list larger. I wrote up a topic back in... either Brawl or SSB4 about Pirate Ship and how it actually had a pattern and how you could reasonably predict what the next hazard was going to be and when it would change. I've been there, done that. Its better to know where to cut your losses and focus the collective energy on the borderline stages instead of the fringe stages. Lylat and T&C are two excellent examples for this.

I see your point completely and there's a big point to be made for the efficacy of these discussions.

My frustration is basically--why AREN'T any high level players/big names advocating for **** like pXp1? Why AREN'T big names in the community actually caring about things like stage diversity? Me personally I AM more liberal in the sense that I don't mind very unconventional stages, but I'm not even saying we should push super hard for that.

I just mean that the stubbornness of the community, in saying things like "There's only going to be 5 legal stages. period" is really toxic. There are ways to do this better, and how have we fallen from "banning things that are proven to be degenerate" to "banning anything that seems 'weird'"

appeals to accessibility to new players on that front are misguided--new players are probably the ones that will be most put off by 1-2 stages being played in the vast majority of matches. And if we only have 5 legal stages even though we have near/over a dozen likely viable stages...there WILL be only 1-2 played in. Appeals to tournament time logistics are legit--but they aren't a case against something like pXp1. Only habit and stubbornness are holding it back.

It seems like the thing to do here is to gather the most reasonable and rational arguments for stages like Lylat, T&C, along with compelling cases for rulesets like pXp1, echo-grouping stages like BF and Dreamland, and take these discussions to KEY people. try to have discussions with your local community. Make a case for your local TOs to run an event with these rules or run one yourself. Take the best points of these discussions to the places like discord where the big influencers in the community like Zero and Leffen are talking.

I agree caution, respect, and articulacy are important here--it's important that those key people don't get the scattered debate about "Are gaps bad??" that's happening here, valuable as that is for our own understanding of this discourse.

But we should go to those key people with "We can cut down time AND encourage variety with pXp1" and "with pXp1 we can have lists that include borderline stages like WW, T&C, Lylat, etc. without gimping ppl's choices OR ban power"

 

[Krysco]

This Monday, my buddy is gonna be coming over and I plan on going to some of the more controversial stages and trying to exploit them as best I can, potentially with post commentary to give my own thoughts. I think the theorycrafting here is great but some actual footage to look at would be better.

I'm away from my Switch at the moment so can't see the stage list but I'll be testing:

Brinstar, Halberd, Skyloft, Wuhu, Prism for sharking issues. Most notable exploiters that come to mind are MK, Puff, the Pits and maybe R.O.B. Others like Zard, Ridley, D3 and Kirby either have too few jumps or too low of an air speed to shark as effectively. I also think Pikachu and Pichu might be able to camp by going under without grabbing the ledge and then using a mix of doube jump, Thunder stalling and Quick Attack to stall and go to either ledge or anywhere on stage.

Prism, Halberd, Rainbow Cruise, Warioware for closer blastzones and walk offs. Mostly concerned about those that can force approaches well and have long grabs ranges like Isabelle, the Samus' and the small Links.

Rainbow Cruise, Dracula Castle due to the Ness wall infinite if I can pull it off in practice and if my buddy can't shield or DI to escape.

Castle Siege to test how bad the right side edgeguarding is.

Fountain of Dreams to test the framedrops, namely with ICies.

Mushroom Kingdom U, Green Greens, Wuhu to test out excessive camping, namely with fast characters like Sonic and Young Link.

I feel these should all be tested vs characters with many options and characters with few. If the former can't develop counterplay then it's a huge issue and if the latter can't then it's only a slight issue but that's what bans are for.

I'm all for starting with a big stage list and shrinking it down as needed. Melee, Brawl, Sm4sh and even 64 have started with more and then cut off unneeded fat. It's easier to remove than it is to add and we finally have numerous stage choices for once. Let there be growing pains so the later life of the game is better. Can't know what hurts till you try it.

When I get some free time, I'm willing to test online with anyone interested too and I suggest others test with people too.

Also, I thought the best amount of stages was 4x+1? Like 5, 9, 13 etc