Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Pizzaguylol]

The problem is that it happens far more consistently on Lylat than Battlefield and can be semi-replicated unlike that which is a random one-off. That also wasn't normal Battlefield, it was a Battlefield mode for another stage. At most all you'll get is "alright, can't play BF mode on that stage either". The Lylat ledge issues with Kirby/Peach/Daisy were replicated post patch, they still happen. It ain't going to be legal until its fixed for fairly valid reasons.

(Also another point that kind hurts that BF example: it was Ike. Ike has some weird things every now and then, has in every Smash game he's been in. If his Aether spike hits somebody the Yoshi stage slope they go flying off almost perfectly horizontally and almost guarantees a kill for example. There is also the fact it happened after the dramatic zoom in for a potential KO blow on top of it being online, so the combination of the two could have caused a hiccup.)

Again, you all want something to actually change? Gotta do more than complain about things here. I can guaranteed you none of the major TOs are reading this topic. Or taking random retweets seriously. Make a name for yourself, actually go to tournaments, become a large TO yourself. Nothing will change otherwise. All you got here is well, for lack of a better term: a circlejerk. And those accomplish nothing other than make everyone involve satisfied with themselves. Been here, tried that (and this was back when some of the large TOs would actually occasionally poke their heads into the topic, at least the Texas ones would which is where I was at the time), nothing happened.

You might be right. M2K is speaking up on Twitter, at least.

 

[dav3yb]

The problem is that it happens far more consistently on Lylat than Battlefield and can be semi-replicated unlike that which is a random one-off. That also wasn't normal Battlefield, it was a Battlefield mode for another stage. At most all you'll get is "alright, can't play BF mode on that stage either". The Lylat ledge issues with Kirby/Peach/Daisy were replicated post patch, they still happen. It ain't going to be legal until its fixed for fairly valid reasons.

(Also another point that kind hurts that BF example: it was Ike. Ike has some weird things every now and then, has in every Smash game he's been in. If his Aether spike hits somebody the Yoshi stage slope they go flying off almost perfectly horizontally and almost guarantees a kill for example. There is also the fact it happened after the dramatic zoom in for a potential KO blow on top of it being online, so the combination of the two could have caused a hiccup.)

But we have so many other good stages now, we can AFFORD to not have to deal with "JANK" this time around! #BattlefieldMustGo /sarcasm

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Based on my time spent online, hazardless Reset Bomb Forest would make for a good legal stage for both singles and doubles, especially with Castle Siege being used in some of these recent tourneys...also Fountain of Dreams and Arena Ferox seem fine for tournaments (weird how I haven’t seen the former being used)

 

[MarioManTAW]

Based on my time spent online, hazardless Reset Bomb Forest would make for a good legal stage for both singles and doubles, especially with Castle Siege being used in some of these recent tourneys...also Fountain of Dreams and Arena Ferox seem fine for tournaments (weird how I haven’t seen the former being used)

Fountain of Dreams has been reported to have frame drops. Arena Ferox with hazards off has a random layout that can include walls and ceilings. With hazards on, it will also often have walls and ceilings, but only temporarily.

 

[Pizzaguylol]

Fountain of Dreams has been reported to have frame drops. Arena Ferox with hazards off has a random layout that can include walls and ceilings. With hazards on, it will also often have walls and ceilings, but only temporarily.

Wasn't that was fixed in the day 1 patch? I've used the stage pretty regularly without issue.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Fountain of Dreams has been reported to have frame drops. Arena Ferox with hazards off has a random layout that can include walls and ceilings. With hazards on, it will also often have walls and ceilings, but only temporarily.

I’ve never noticed nor been affected by any sort of frame drops while playing on FoD, so that’s kinda weird for that to be the reason why it’s banned

 

[Nidtendofreak]

But we have so many other good stages now, we can AFFORD to not have to deal with "JANK" this time around! #BattlefieldMustGo /sarcasm

This is exactly what I was talking about in terms of a circlejerk and doing nothing. In fact, if on the very off chance a noteworthy TO glanced at this thread at all, that sort of behaviour is what allows them to just ignore anything you have to say. I made a bunch of points, you didn't touch any of them and instead just attacked the people who want the smaller list. You just proved that you have no counter argument in a rather immature manner.

Let me ask you point blank: how much tournament experience do you have? Across all Smash games? Not online (those don't matter), as in physically going to a place, dropping money, going through a bracket?

Wasn't that was fixed in the day 1 patch? I've used the stage pretty regularly without issue.

I’ve never noticed nor been affected by any sort of frame drops while playing on FoD, so that’s kinda weird for that to be the reason why it’s banned

It was tested after every patch, framedrops still happened. It's not literally every match but even a semi-rare occurrence is enough to ban the stage because a single framedrop can absolutely remove what would have been a kill confirm or the like and end up deciding a match. Nobody in their right mind is willing to put up with that risk. The problem is the reflective floor, game struggles with it for whatever reason. Which is a shame because it would be a nice Battlefield alternative to have (and if they ever added an easy hazard toggle to the stage selection screen so we can have mixed hazards, it would be an excellent standalone stage with hazards on).

 

[Manonymous]

Can hazrdless Magicant be legal in tournaments ?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Let me ask you point blank: how much tournament experience do you have? Across all Smash games? Not online (those don't matter), as in physically going to a place, dropping money, going through a bracket?

A non-zero amount. Mostly small locals, to be fair, but I have competed with money on the line from Brawl onward.

The problem is that I have a 9-5 job as well as other hobbies and interests beyond Smash. I simply don't have the time to become a full-on TO like you suggest in order to promote change.

Can hazrdless Magicant be legal in tournaments ?

No. There's a small platform underneath the main stage. Good luck dislodging someone from there if they're set on camping it.

 

[Pizzaguylol]

That's a shame if there are still frame drops. I'd sacrifice reflections if it meant the stage could be less laggy.

I'm hoping some TO's will adopt the concept of "echo stages" that are similar to a starter and share bans.

All would be hazards off for now:
* BF echo = Yoshi's Story
* FD echo = Wily Castle
* PS2 echo = Unova
* Smashville echo = Yoshi's Island (Brawl)

Nothing too crazy. Would promote some more variety at least.

 

[dav3yb]

This is exactly what I was talking about in terms of a circlejerk and doing nothing. In fact, if on the very off chance a noteworthy TO glanced at this thread at all, that sort of behaviour is what allows them to just ignore anything you have to say. I made a bunch of points, you didn't touch any of them and instead just attacked the people who want the smaller list. You just proved that you have no counter argument in a rather immature manner.

It's the same kind of things a lot of people have been saying in this thread. But they're actually serious about it.

Let me ask you point blank: how much tournament experience do you have? Across all Smash games? Not online (those don't matter), as in physically going to a place, dropping money, going through a bracket?

I have a decent bit of experience going to various events around my state, which sadly isn't a ton, but at least a couple big(er) ones a year, and a handful of smaller things. We recently had a place open up in town that can actually do local stuff as well.

My friend and I also host a tournament for our state and surrounding area's. We've done 4 pretty big ones over the past 5 years, each drawing a decent crowd. This is all for more than smash though. This includes Street Fighters, Tekken, Guilty Gear, DBFZ, etc...

You can bet your ass that I'll be running a proper stage list at any events I'm apart of though. And I'll be making sure my locals don't ban stages for stupid non-reasons.

Feel free to answer your own question as well btw, since you seem to think it's relevant.

 

[Runic_SSB]

* FD echo = Wily Castle

Wily is way different from FD. The only similarity is the lack of platforms. If there's an FD echo it should be Pictochat.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

This is exactly what I was talking about in terms of a circlejerk and doing nothing. In fact, if on the very off chance a noteworthy TO glanced at this thread at all, that sort of behaviour is what allows them to just ignore anything you have to say. I made a bunch of points, you didn't touch any of them and instead just attacked the people who want the smaller list. You just proved that you have no counter argument in a rather immature manner.

Let me ask you point blank: how much tournament experience do you have? Across all Smash games? Not online (those don't matter), as in physically going to a place, dropping money, going through a bracket?




It was tested after every patch, framedrops still happened. It's not literally every match but even a semi-rare occurrence is enough to ban the stage because a single framedrop can absolutely remove what would have been a kill confirm or the like and end up deciding a match. Nobody in their right mind is willing to put up with that risk. The problem is the reflective floor, game struggles with it for whatever reason. Which is a shame because it would be a nice Battlefield alternative to have (and if they ever added an easy hazard toggle to the stage selection screen so we can have mixed hazards, it would be an excellent standalone stage with hazards on).

Well that’s quite unfortunate, especially consider how FoD is the best Kirby stage in Smash history...oh well...atleast it’s back

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I have a decent bit of experience going to various events around my state, which sadly isn't a ton, but at least a couple big(er) ones a year, and a handful of smaller things. We recently had a place open up in town that can actually do local stuff as well.

My friend and I also host a tournament for our state and surrounding area's. We've done 4 pretty big ones over the past 5 years, each drawing a decent crowd. This is all for more than smash though. This includes Street Fighters, Tekken, Guilty Gear, DBFZ, etc...

You can bet your *** that I'll be running a proper stage list at any events I'm apart of though. And I'll be making sure my locals don't ban stages for stupid non-reasons.

Feel free to answer your own question as well btw, since you seem to think it's relevant.

Ah, good good. Means you actually have a chance of impacting things. For myself: 1 Melee tournament, 4~5 Brawl tournaments (including a regional for Texas sitting at over 100), 2 SSB4 (won 1, moved back to Canada between Brawl and SSB4 and unfortunately in my local region SSB is mostly dead, have to travel over an hour to get to the nearest tournament), 1 SSBU (would be two as of this weekend but I've caught the flu and I don't want to try an hour and a half both ways while this sick).

Now what will be interesting, is how big of a crowd you can get with a "proper" tournament stage list. If you're a very large, well known TO in the region you can get away with whacker things. Back in Texas during Brawl we had fairly liberal stage lists because the guy hosting them over in Houton was arguably one of the most important TOs in the whole of the southern USA and it influenced the area. Gotta play with Pirate Ship legal a few times for example (and found out first hand why despite my research, no it was actually a pretty bad stage to be playing on). He was also the first major TO to host a regional with MK banned, and it actually got at least one person from a Northeastern State to fly down just to try Brawl with MK banned. The TO would butt heads with other major TOs from other regions from time to time, but he was a large enough TO to get away with pretty much whatever he wanted to try out.

However if you're not that well known within the Smash community specifically and try to have say, a 15 stage list legal tournament there's a few likely outcomes. First is that almost nobody known/serious/experienced signs up. You could have gotten away with it during week 1 or week 2 just fine, but by this point the "approved" stage list is already quasi-settled. If there are any other TOs in the area whatsoever and they follow the standard 7ish list and people are used to that, good chance you'll have a low turnout because people will take one look at the stage list and then go "yeah no". The ones that show up would be mainly newbies or very casual fans. Not strictly a bad thing, but its not something that can impact other regions and their stage lists.

Second possibility is that you still get a decent turnout... but nobody will take the results seriously. We've had that happen before with some fairly large tournaments. Stagelist was too out there and people would either ignore the results or put a huge * beside them in conversation. Either the tournament host wouldn't be able to run the tournament again (due to people seeing the results not being taken into consideration due to being too different from the norm), or the host was forced to change the rules next time around if he wanted people to take his tournament seriously. If they tried to force it again with the large difference from norm it was pretty easy to see that the people playing the next time weren't taking it super seriously.

I'll be curious to see how your tournaments turn out. If you're previously established, with no competition, and the next closest set of TOs know about you then you have a chance of influencing things. I'm doubtful any TO is going to go much beyond 7 at this point (8 once Lylat is properly fixed), but its possible you get them to add a stage they had been resistant against because the footage proves it doesn't have the negative impact they were fearing. Or one of the other possibilities I mentioned could happen. Or it could turn out with time that after 3-4 tournaments you start cutting down your stage list size because people really don't like trying to deal with (for a random example out of the air) the Belmont constant ledge pressure on Green Greens and the footage makes it pretty clear that it almost doesn't matter what character is picked against them on that stage.

EDIT: Guess I forgot another obvious possibility: people show up but refuse to use the extra stages you provided... and just play like its a 7 stage list still. Kinda seen stuff like that happen as well, where an entire tournament will just shun a stage. Don't even have to waste a ban on it, nobody there will pick it.

 

[Pizzaguylol]

Wily is way different from FD. The only similarity is the lack of platforms. If there's an FD echo it should be Pictochat.

Fair enough. I'm just not sure an argument could be made for it being its own separate legal stage vs an "echo" since it's an FD-like. Personally, I'd prefer it to Pictochat for aesthetics and having the walls and the slightly longer platform.

 

[dav3yb]

Well that’s quite unfortunate, especially consider how FoD is the best Kirby stage in Smash history...oh well...atleast it’s back

I think the easiest way to replicate any frame rate issues is just have to players stand next to each other and shield while on the base platform. It's probably mostly due to how the stage has to calculate reflections of all the particles going on in the game now.

{Long post, cut to save space}

The last event we held wasn't too big, but it was earlier this year, and Smash 4 was pretty well all but dead around here at that time, so we really only had enough for a small bracket. The year before we skipped because there really wasn't a suitable venue at a reasonable enough cost to justify it. Prior to that however, we had probably between 40-50 for smash around the area, so given the time and effort, we can draw a decent crowd. I know of 2 other "large" events, besides ours that are hosted, and one of which my friend actually helps out with for the smash side of things. I'll be trying to get with some of the other TO's in neighboring states as well to see how they're handling stages, and at least try and encourage them to not make decisions based on poor information, or to blindly follow a list because some other large tournament is.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Best of luck with that then. As I've said before I'm a fan of larger stage lists: not quite the size I've seen you and some others suggest but not the smaller lists that seem to be popping up.

I guess another point to keep in mind: even if you do end up successfully running and keeping larger stage lists, it might not hurt to go to the "standard" list for a tournament right before a national one if you have a lot of players in your area travelling out to it. Its better to let them have practice on the smaller list in that situation then to be used to have a lot of counterpick options and potentially stumble in key MUs because they can't go to the CP they are used to. That's another thing some of the larger tournaments in my area back in Brawl used to do because we had a noticeably larger list most of the time.

 

[dav3yb]

Best of luck with that then. As I've said before I'm a fan of larger stage lists: not quite the size I've seen you and some others suggest but not the smaller lists that seem to be popping up.

I guess another point to keep in mind: even if you do end up successfully running and keeping larger stage lists, it might not hurt to go to the "standard" list for a tournament right before a national one if you have a lot of players in your area travelling out to it. Its better to let them have practice on the smaller list in that situation then to be used to have a lot of counterpick options and potentially stumble in key MUs because they can't go to the CP they are used to. That's another thing some of the larger tournaments in my area back in Brawl used to do because we had a noticeably larger list most of the time.

I honestly don't think stage's play as big a role as people believe. Match knowledge is going to go a lot further than any stage knowledge, and knowing what your character can do in various situations/positions will translate over to just about any stage.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I honestly don't think stage's play as big a role as people believe. Match knowledge is going to go a lot further than any stage knowledge, and knowing what your character can do in various situations/positions will translate over to just about any stage.

Hate to bring up Brawl/Pirate Ship again but uh.... Ike on that stage had many matchups that went from "fairly even or a slight disadvantage" to "he almost couldn't lose" by water camping with Aether. Opponent got hit once, they were trapped in an endless loop of getting spiked back into the water until they died. Meta-Knight on Norfair was even worse. It was tried, the only way MK lost was if he screwed up between the sharking and gliding under the stage to any platform faster than any other character could reasonably keep up with.

I don't think any of the suggested stages in here are quite that imbalanced. I am heavily suspicious of Green Greens with the Belmonts, Chrom, or Ike in particular. Probably some other characters I haven't through of either. I'd be willing to try it out if a tournament I went to had it available, but I wouldn't actively add it to a tournament if I were to host it. And I'd be watching any videos on it veeery carefully. I can't see Chrom not being over centralizing in a meta where Green Greens is available to him and he can land his up B from Nair or Fair (or jab, probably some other options I've forgotten) while having 4 pits to drop the opponent into. Get a stock lead, camp on one of the side sections. Doesn't matter how many projectiles the opponent may have they have to eventually approach to try to take his stock in which case they risk losing another stock to Chrom with a single touch on either side of him. Same general concept as Ike water camping on Pirate Ship but without the stage taking away the water (pits in this case) multiple times during the match. Kinda hard to say I'm against the stage for "no reason" when I can make direct, reasonable comparisons to my own experiences.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Hate to bring up Brawl/Pirate Ship again but uh.... Ike on that stage had many matchups that went from "fairly even or a slight disadvantage" to "he almost couldn't lose" by water camping with Aether. Opponent got hit once, they were trapped in an endless loop of getting spiked back into the water until they died. Meta-Knight on Norfair was even worse. It was tried, the only way MK lost was if he screwed up between the sharking and gliding under the stage to any platform faster than any other character could reasonably keep up with.

I don't think any of the suggested stages in here are quite that imbalanced. I am heavily suspicious of Green Greens with the Belmonts, Chrom, or Ike in particular. Probably some other characters I haven't through of either. I'd be willing to try it out if a tournament I went to had it available, but I wouldn't actively add it to a tournament if I were to host it. And I'd be watching any videos on it veeery carefully. I can't see Chrom not being over centralizing in a meta where Green Greens is available to him and he can land his up B from Nair or Fair (or jab, probably some other options I've forgotten) while having 4 pits to drop the opponent into. Get a stock lead, camp on one of the side sections. Doesn't matter how many projectiles the opponent may have they have to eventually approach to try to take his stock in which case they risk losing another stock to Chrom with a single touch on either side of him. Same general concept as Ike water camping on Pirate Ship but without the stage taking away the water (pits in this case) multiple times during the match. Kinda hard to say I'm against the stage for "no reason" when I can make direct, reasonable comparisons to my own experiences.

FWIW, I think (haven't confirmed yet) that Aether and similar moves will kill the user if they land in water now. At least I heard something to that effect which I sort of mentally filed away as "interesting but unlikely to be relevant" but here we are so I guess that makes me a fool. I'm also 95% sure that if Chrom et al position their up special so that they land on the ground while the target's over the ledge, their landing hitbox will pop the target up and save them from the spike. Again, not something I've done any in-depth testing on yet. But in theory they'd need to commit to suicide kills. Not impossible by any means, obviously, but also not completely free.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Oh I know that happens with water now. I was talking in the past as a comparison.

And yeah Chrom and Ike need to go off stage to kill (unless its Yoshi's stage with the slants), but the opponent always dies first. So in a last stock situation, they land it, they win. Pulled it off in tournament myself with Ike. Zero has seen it end in a draw instead of Chrom/Ike winning one time... and it wasn't even him. Just saw it in footage a grand total of one time. So 99.99% chance if they catch you in Up B they win, 0.01% chance of going to w/e sudden death rules the tournament has.

Knowing that, how much would you want to try to approach a Chrom camping on one of the Green Green side platforms? While remembering he can easily combo into his Up B with one aerial which is hardly a commitment on his part? With you either having to jump or go for the ledge drop and hoping you don't get 2 frame'd? (And even if you don't get 2 frame and make it up... Chrom can just aerial you once in either direction and then end your stock. Or just run to the other platform on the other side of the stage).

 

[dav3yb]

Hate to bring up Brawl/Pirate Ship again but uh.... Ike on that stage had many matchups that went from "fairly even or a slight disadvantage" to "he almost couldn't lose" by water camping with Aether. Opponent got hit once, they were trapped in an endless loop of getting spiked back into the water until they died. Meta-Knight on Norfair was even worse. It was tried, the only way MK lost was if he screwed up between the sharking and gliding under the stage to any platform faster than any other character could reasonably keep up with.

I don't think any of the suggested stages in here are quite that imbalanced. I am heavily suspicious of Green Greens with the Belmonts, Chrom, or Ike in particular. Probably some other characters I haven't through of either. I'd be willing to try it out if a tournament I went to had it available, but I wouldn't actively add it to a tournament if I were to host it. And I'd be watching any videos on it veeery carefully. I can't see Chrom not being over centralizing in a meta where Green Greens is available to him and he can land his up B from Nair or Fair (or jab, probably some other options I've forgotten) while having 4 pits to drop the opponent into. Get a stock lead, camp on one of the side sections. Doesn't matter how many projectiles the opponent may have they have to eventually approach to try to take his stock in which case they risk losing another stock to Chrom with a single touch on either side of him. Same general concept as Ike water camping on Pirate Ship but without the stage taking away the water (pits in this case) multiple times during the match. Kinda hard to say I'm against the stage for "no reason" when I can make direct, reasonable comparisons to my own experiences.

Good thing this isn't Brawl then... I get that there WERE some strong strategies IN THE PAST, but that's where those stay. This is a new day, new engine, new game. Things need to be given a fair chance to be legal, and 20 days is NOT a fair chance. Someone a few pages back said they ran a lot of games on some of the more edge-case stages like Green Greens, and reported on their issues, but I don't think I saw the video's posted on those yet. But at this point, I'm fine with banning stages that have some demonstrable issues with them, which Green Greens seems to be one because of the issues with approaching.

My main point about stages not mattering nearly as much is that a lot of the stages we deem "legal" now, all share some basic fundamentals; they all have a single base platform, and anywhere from 0-3 platforms. I don't think there's going to be an appreciable difference in results between Pokemon Stadium, and Battlefield for most matchups. But where I'm really starting to become frustrated with seeing these stage lists are that they don't take the few stages into account that actually might make even a slight difference. Wario Ware, being a much more narrow stage, could play a bigger role for someone playing a slower heavy character vs a fast projectile character. Same with Castle Siege. It's also why I keep demanding evidence that there are any issues with stages like Skyloft, which has a semi-soft base platform. The only reasons I hear are, it makes recovery a bit awkward, and "sharking," the later of which has NEVER been proven to be an issue yet. I don't feel those are appropriate reasons to ban stages.

All these smaller stage lists are going to have very little effect on any kind of proper meta, and at this rate, they might as well treat it like Smash 64, and pick a single stage to play on for the life of the game.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Oh I know that happens with water now. I was talking in the past as a comparison.

And yeah Chrom and Ike need to go off stage to kill (unless its Yoshi's stage with the slants), but the opponent always dies first. So in a last stock situation, they land it, they win. Pulled it off in tournament myself with Ike. Zero has seen it end in a draw instead of Chrom/Ike winning one time... and it wasn't even him. Just saw it in footage a grand total of one time. So 99.99% chance if they catch you in Up B they win, 0.01% chance of going to w/e sudden death rules the tournament has.

Knowing that, how much would you want to try to approach a Chrom camping on one of the Green Green side platforms? While remembering he can easily combo into his Up B with one aerial which is hardly a commitment on his part? With you either having to jump or go for the ledge drop and hoping you don't get 2 frame'd? (And even if you don't get 2 frame and make it up... Chrom can just aerial you once in either direction and then end your stock. Or just run to the other platform on the other side of the stage).

Unless I'm in the lead, it's not like I have a choice. Although FWIW most of my preferred character picks have tools at their disposal that I'd try using to either pressure him safely or bait him into a mistake. (e.g. Rosalina, Lucas, Richter, Peach, Inkling)

 

[Munomario777]

chrom + green greens kinda stuff is why i'm interested in giving char-first a shot (for game 2+)

 

[Untouch]

People were talking about stage "echos" before so I've decided to do some research into how different stages actually are, this is with hazards OFF.
Parameters found with: https://rubendal.github.io/ssbu/#/

BATTLEFIELD CLONES

• Fountain of Dreams -> Pillar at the bottom, preventing characters from circling around. Platform is slightly higher. Stage is very slightly curved.
• Yoshi's Story -> Stage is slightly curved. Walled stage. Blast zones smaller on the side (227 vs 240). Platforms at a different position (72 vs 60). Smaller stage (132 vs 160).
• Midgar -> Stage is slightly uneven on the bottom. Blastzones slightly smaller on the side (250 vs 240). Platforms at a different position (70 vs 60).

Final Destination Clones

• Pictochat 2 -> Walled stage. Curved edges. Blastzones slightly smaller on the side (225 vs 240).
• Wily's Tower -> Walled stage. Slightly larger stage (165 vs 160). Slightly Blastzones slightly larger on the side (248 vs 240). Blastzones larger on the top (212 vs 180).
• Umbra Clock Tower -> Stage is oddly shaped. Blastzones slightly larger on the side (250 vs 240).

Pokemon Stadium 2 Clones

• Pokemon Stadium -> Different stage bottom. Stage is slightly smaller (176 vs 186).
• Unova Pokemon League -> Different stage bottom. Platforms at a different position (71 vs 55). Stage is smaller (152 vs 186). Blastzones are slightly smaller on the side (237 vs 250).
• Kalos Pokemon League -> Walled Stage. Stage is smaller (160 vs 186). Platforms at a different position (97 vs 55).

My takeaways is that Unova and Yoshi's Story are different enough to warrant being their own stage, Yoshi's Island moreso since Kalos is a bit more different than Unova.

 

[Fenrir VII]

Imo Yoshi's Brawl should never be considered an "echo" of Smashville.
Yoshi's Brawl and Story should be their own stages.

There's no reason that FD, T&C, and Kalos should all be legal (favoring the same chars as FD), but Yoshi's Story and Brawl should be banned for being too similar to BF and SV (which they're seriously not).

Also PS1 > PS2 >> Unova. Higher platforms lead to more runaway style.

 

[DJ3DS]

So I've not seen much discussion on Halberd and wanted to know why.

This was a stage that was legal in parts of both the previous games with stage hazards on. Now it is (apart from like, the first 10 seconds) effectively a travelling Smashville that gets longer for certain points. Are the ceilings still weird in transition? Has this even been tested?

I apologise if this has been asked earlier in the thread. I had a scan but didn't find it. I'm curious as during my brief test I kinda felt the only major criticism was some similarity to the SV layout, but that being it really.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So I've not seen much discussion on Halberd and wanted to know why.

This was a stage that was legal in parts of both the previous games with stage hazards on. Now it is (apart from like, the first 10 seconds) effectively a travelling Smashville that gets longer for certain points. Are the ceilings still weird in transition? Has this even been tested?

I apologise if this has been asked earlier in the thread. I had a scan but didn't find it. I'm curious as during my brief test I kinda felt the only major criticism was some similarity to the SV layout, but that being it really.

AFAIK (not saying I agree or disagree with any of the following points), the main arguments against it are the temporary walkoff at the start, potential for cheese KOs during takeoff from the hangar and the Halberd itself, and the sharkable nature of the platform when not on the Halberd's deck.

 

[Epok]

Good thing this isn't Brawl then... I get that there WERE some strong strategies IN THE PAST, but that's where those stay. This is a new day, new engine, new game. Things need to be given a fair chance to be legal, and 20 days is NOT a fair chance. Someone a few pages back said they ran a lot of games on some of the more edge-case stages like Green Greens, and reported on their issues, but I don't think I saw the video's posted on those yet. But at this point, I'm fine with banning stages that have some demonstrable issues with them, which Green Greens seems to be one because of the issues with approaching.

My main point about stages not mattering nearly as much is that a lot of the stages we deem "legal" now, all share some basic fundamentals; they all have a single base platform, and anywhere from 0-3 platforms. I don't think there's going to be an appreciable difference in results between Pokemon Stadium, and Battlefield for most matchups. But where I'm really starting to become frustrated with seeing these stage lists are that they don't take the few stages into account that actually might make even a slight difference. Wario Ware, being a much more narrow stage, could play a bigger role for someone playing a slower heavy character vs a fast projectile character. Same with Castle Siege. It's also why I keep demanding evidence that there are any issues with stages like Skyloft, which has a semi-soft base platform. The only reasons I hear are, it makes recovery a bit awkward, and "sharking," the later of which has NEVER been proven to be an issue yet. I don't feel those are appropriate reasons to ban stages.

All these smaller stage lists are going to have very little effect on any kind of proper meta, and at this rate, they might as well treat it like Smash 64, and pick a single stage to play on for the life of the game.

This is a good point. One of the common occurrences in this thread is the subconscious surfacing of certain tactics as annoying (to that person) and therefore influence the decision making progress.
True facts:
Zoning/camping
Sharking
Killing early with heavies

These are all legal strategies. You may find that annoying but that your problem. So to decide that stages that are a little bigger or smaller aren’t fair isn’t a legitimate argument. There should be a variety of stages that compliment all playing styles.

OBVIOUSLY there is a limit: Degenerate gameplay, bad spectator experience, long matches effecting bracket times, yada yada. Of course. But it’s fair to infer that stages like wario ware and MKU don’t break into the category of “promoting degenerate gameplay”. At least there is no proof in actual competition. Besides, that’s what strikes are for.

Give the competitors the agency and responsibility to pick stages that suit them.

 

[Runic_SSB]

U Untouch Just my luck, I spent like 3 weeks gathering data through testing and the next day someone else comes by with data that's a million times better. Not complaining, this is massively important info (and it looks like a lot of my data was wrong), but still.

 

[Tesh]

What is considered wrong about sharking? In Brawl, the issue was more related to the fact that you should shark then return safely to a ledge and repeat. Not to mention MK being the best shark, so people were scrambling to reduce his power level anyway.

In Ultimate, whats wrong with puff, mk, ddd etc. going under the stage and attacking from there? You can't just go back to the ledge with invincibility in this game, so all the person on stage has to do is wait for you to be done and punish your ledge grab.

 

[Untouch]

I think it's funny that Yoshi's Story is about 82% smaller than Battlefield, and Battlefield is about 76% smaller than Mushroom Kingdom U, but at the same time Yoshi's Story is too similar when Mushroom Kingdom U is too big....?

 

[ATH_]

There is no such thing as a stagelist that provides a perfectly balanced chance across the entire cast.
Part of the "balance" of characters is what stages they're good on. A character might be good on every stage, and then what? Do we force ourselves to have a tiny stagelist over it? Absolutely not.
If you don't like having a losing chance because there's too many "big" stages on the stagelist, there's not much the TO can do to change it. Nobody's going to drop good stages like FD, T&C, and Kalos. If a character is good on large stages, that's part of what makes that character better.

It's a simple concept that I hope more people will come to understand. Of course, TOs are responsible for making a list not purely one-sided. Can't have a list of nothing but clones, which is why more than anything, variety is queen.

Also, since everyone's talking about similar stages, I'm on the side that Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island are different enough to warrant slots on a stagelist. I love the idea of Starters being with Hazards and Counterpicks being without, I think that's a great way for players to remember which rules to use.

I dunno, can't we have like, a printed paper at each set up with the stagelist? Or in between setups to save on paper and ink. Whatever works.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I think it's funny that Yoshi's Story is about 82% smaller than Battlefield, and Battlefield is about 76% smaller than Mushroom Kingdom U, but at the same time Yoshi's Story is too similar when Mushroom Kingdom U is too big....?

Some additional number crunching because I was bored:

Smashville and Town & City are horizontally the smallest of the widely accepted stages, at 140 and 139 units wide respectively. (Approximately, at least. I'm not mucking around with 5 decimal places for this.)

Battlefield and FD are 160 units wide, or roughly 1.14x wider than SV/T&C. (As a side note, Kalos and Lylat are the same width as FD, not counting platforms or slopes. I actually didn't know this until now. Yay learning.)

PS1/2 are both wider than BF, but as noted above PS1 is slightly smaller, at 176 to 186 units. That makes PS1 exactly 1.1x wider and PS2 1.1625x wider than BF/FD. They are also 1.25x and 1.32x wider, respectively, than SV/T&C.

Mushroom Kingdom U is 216 units wide, or roughly 1.35x wider than BF/FD, 1.227x wider than PS1, and 1.161x wider than PS2.

So the size jump from Battlefield to Mushroom Kingdom U is comparable to the size jump from Smashville to Pokemon Stadium 2. Whether it's still on the wrong side of the "too big" boundary for a stage is a separate problem.

 

[VGFan95]

Some additional number crunching because I was bored

How do you get the units of measure?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

How do you get the units of measure?

https://rubendal.github.io/ssbu/#/

Untouch linked it a few posts up. Hovering over the lines makes coordinates pop up.

 

[Epok]

What is considered wrong about sharking? In Brawl, the issue was more related to the fact that you should shark then return safely to a ledge and repeat. Not to mention MK being the best shark, so people were scrambling to reduce his power level anyway.

In Ultimate, whats wrong with puff, mk, ddd etc. going under the stage and attacking from there? You can't just go back to the ledge with invincibility in this game, so all the person on stage has to do is wait for you to be done and punish your ledge grab.

If sharks was that bad they would ban it outright.

And Brawl was 2 games ago. We have a different physics engine and mechanics. You have no actual evidence that sharking is an overpowering strategy in this game other than MK did it in brawl(whise recovery options we nerfed and gliding isn’t in this game). Besides this is why you have stage striking. Don’t wanna deal with a sharking? MK strike halberd and/or skyloft.

 

[Frihetsanka]

You have no actual evidence that sharking is an overpowering strategy in this game other than MK did it in brawl(whise recovery options we nerfed and gliding isn’t in this game). Besides this is why you have stage striking. Don’t wanna deal with a sharking? MK strike halberd and/or skyloft.

I've seen plenty of evidence that semisoft platforms are bad and I've tested it for myself, and I agree: They're bad. Besides, as Muno has already pointed out, since it's stage before character game 2-5 you'd be forced to always ban semisoft stages just in case they have a pocket Meta Knight or some other character who can abuse semisoft stages, and that's bad.

Having it be character before stage game 2+ would reduce the number of times you'd have to ban semisoft stages, though. If they don't pick someone who's good at them you don't have a problem, and if they do you'll ban it (Skyloft would presumably be the only legal semisoft stage).

 

[Krysco]

Combination of work and the holidays caused a bit of a snag in my video recording plans but I do have some uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/user/ArchSageDragonlord/videos?view_as=subscriber

I have videos up so far for Brinstar, Castle Siege, Dracula's Castle (although I need to reupload the 2nd one as it didn't go through properly for some reason), Frigate Orpheon, Green Greens and Halberd. If anyone would like direct links instead, just let me know and I'll make another post with them in a spoiler (which is what I'll do anyways when all of the videos are uploaded). I have all of the replays recorded, it's just a matter now of rewatching them and seeing if they're worth uploading or not.

As for semi-solids and sharking, my buddy and I tested all of the potential stages that have that issue (Halberd, Skyloft, Wuhu, part of Frigate Orpheon, Prism Tower) and from that session, I found that only Meta Knight and Jigglypuff can really shark effectively. Maybe Peach/Daisy as well but I didn't test with them. The Pits don't have very vertically disjointed uairs, their uair lasts a long time, their air speed isn't the greatest and their jumps aren't that high so they can't shark too well and any other character with shark potential either has too few jumps () or too poor of an air speed () to be that threatening. My buddy was able to hit me through the stage a couple times when I tried sharking with MK and Puff (the latter for sure, might be misremembering with the former) so it isn't completely safe but then I could also just have been spacing the uairs poorly. As for the ledge invincibility issue, you can just hold down or input an attack as you pass the ledge to prevent grabbing it, that way when you're done sharking you can still grab the ledge with invincibility (plus the amount you get is partly based on how long you were in the air for). The bigger issue I find with semi-solids is how they interact with recoveries. I've mentioned this before but characters with already poor recoveries like get their options even more limited since their side specials will send them through the stage unless spaced properly while characters with good recoveries and even just good ledge options like get even more options since they can go under and up through the stage. Tethers can also let you up through the semi solid as I was able to do so with Isabelle's Fishing Rod. Lastly, semi-solids inherently make non-directional recoveries harder to use. There was at least a couple matches where my buddy tried to recover with Marth but because he was too far inside the stage, he ended up missing the ledge, not going up through the stage and falling to his death. As with the side specials of , there's always just properly spacing your recovery but it's not as lenient as traditional stages since on those, ever since Sm4sh anyways, the edges of the stage would guide your character towards the ledge. It's not immediately banworthy imo since you can just ban it if it ends up as a counterpick (it being any semi-solid really) but it benefits already strong characters while also hindering already weak characters so that could be a problem.

Anyways, I'm gonna see about getting more of the videos uploaded so hopefully with the holidays largely over, I'll be able to get them done soon.

 

[dav3yb]

So I've been looking and seeing about a stage list for our local scene here, and this is what I've come up with, which has a bit of compromising.

Spoiler: 15 Stage

So keeping with the 5 starters, I was considering Lylat in place of Unova. I feel they could be fairly interchangeable, but given peoples current disdain for it, I pulled it back to the counter-pick.

I dropped (from Munomario777 list, which you can find HERE), Green Greens, Prism Tower, Wuhu, and Mushroom Kingdom U, to end up with 15 total. I left 2 of the Semi-soft stages, which means if you still want to do PXP1 for games 2+, you will still always have an options that is not semi-soft to choose. If halberds walk-off proves to be too much of an issues for people, it could also be swapped for Wuhu instead. Although I'm wondering how well a clause for Halberd would go over of "no fighting until the first stage lifts off." I would personally hate to see such a thing, but whatever can be done to keep more interesting stages.

I think this is how I'm going to roll with things at locals for now, but I might switch a few things up here and there.