Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Thinkaman]

Mario Maker is an awesome stage for friendlies, top tier. It shouldn't be legal for obvious possibilities, but if I had to play the rest of my Smash life on one stage, I'd pick Mario Maker to cheat it.

Some stages on my list I think are sort of awful, and usually exclude from my personal rotation--like 3D Land or Wily Castle. But if my opponent wants to play there to show me how good they are, who am I to stop it? Who am I to say "no no, that's not real Smash Bros"?

Of course, if he wanted to play with items or go to Temple, we have clear and direct reasons as to why this actually is problematic for competition.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Well, now I feel bad. Honestly, this is very admirable! Amongst my close friends we occasionally like to play on conventionally "awful" stages because they're fun and things happen on those stages that can't happen on a more typical stage. It's all good fun.

While it can be competitive at times, even though it's not my personal taste, but I still respect it. Run tourneys however way you want, as long as the people playing are enjoying theirselves. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that nothing's stopping you from being as bombastic and outgoing about whatever you enjoy.

What thinkaman is talking about was competitive play and extremely high level. During the brawl days it wasn't just oh MK is the best but you had to deal with legitimate counterpicks that also played to strengths. For instance DK vs d3 was a horrible MU for DK but in Jungle Japes the MU was pretty winnable and not only that but the stage was actually amazing for DK.

The continued limitation of stages denies some characters viable counterpicks and denies variety. It's become lets just fight on this neutral instead of picking stages that actually gave you an advantage. If we're going to limit the stages so much we might as well just adopt the Japanese stage rules.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

I still think we should just stick to what we've always done: Leave every contentious stage in at first, and gradually cut things down as they become problems. Small stages give zero unfair advantages to people because EVERYONE dies early.
Sharking stages are actually impossible to safely exploit because it's predictable and you can easily punish people for trying it. All it does in practice is add an extra layer of depth for recovering.
Slope stages have literally nothing wrong with them lmfao.

If people actually bothered to use these stages they'd realize that there's no reason they seriously need to be banned, but for some reason, unlike how the stagelist was in literally every Smash game, they just banned everything prematurely.

 

[khfan93]

In my opinion, and I admit this is a tad harsh, the only subjective matter we should be looking at are informed opinions. People who have read up on the stages, not just Castle Siege, and have an understanding of both what hurts and helps it here. People shouting that a stage is bad with no rhyme or reason might as well be shouting Battlefield is trash. The difference is people are used to Battlefield, and would question it immediately, while with Siege they aren't familiar and therefore are inclined to agree because the person talking seems knowledgeable.

I would go even further and say that no one has an informed opinion about any of the stages we're looking at on any stagelist with the possible exception of Battlefield due to its prevalence in online play.

While people have made lots of claims about certain stages being biased against certain characters and problems with slopes, their data is usually just a handful of twitter videos of something not quite working maybe how you expect it to. This is not sufficient to make any conclusions.

What people need to do is have players of roughly equal skill level grind out matchups on every stage that is being considered to be legal. Not only Castle Seige and Lylat and WarioWare, but also Smashville and Pokemon Stadium 1 vs 2 and Final Destination etc etc etc. You'd want at least 100 data points for each matchup per stage (which is a lot! This would require a strong concerted effort). Then you could look at the data and see whether or not any stage has an undue amount of influence on the outcome of the match. Do certain characters have an obscenely unfair advantage on a stage? Does spawn position have a strong correlation with performance in the match? Do slants really cause that many problems? A fair, logical, and statistical analysis of the data I'm describing would provide enough information to at least make some good hypotheses about these stages/

Unfortunately this is clearly not going to happen because everybody is very set in their opinion on what stages should and should not be in the stagelist based on what they think is fair and is unlikely to budge even when shown data.

 

[Mooer]

I still think we should just stick to what we've always done: Leave every contentious stage in at first, and gradually cut things down as they become problems. Small stages give zero unfair advantages to people because EVERYONE dies early.


Sharking stages are actually impossible to safely exploit because it's predictable and you can easily punish people for trying it. All it does in practice is add an extra layer of depth for recovering.


Slope stages have literally nothing wrong with them lmfao.





If people actually bothered to use these stages they'd realize that there's no reason they seriously need to be banned, but for some reason, unlike how the stagelist was in literally every Smash game, they just banned everything prematurely.

I like this, but how big should a stagelist be theoretically? As we increase the stage list, the usefulness of stage striking and counterpicking would become less meaningful. After a certain threshold they would become largely irrelevant and would waste time at events. I think that if we want larger stagelists then we might find that increasing the number of stage strikes from 2 to 3 would help retain the benefit of the practice.

A fair, logical, and statistical analysis of the data I'm describing would provide enough information to at least make some good hypotheses about these stages

Yes, I think we should all start creating as much data as we can about what it’s like to play competitively on each stage. It can be done and would settle a lot of stage debates. We should incorporate as much of what we already know, like blast zone size, etc.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

I like this, but how big should a stagelist be theoretically? As we increase the stage list, the usefulness of stage striking and counterpicking would become less meaningful. After a certain threshold they would become largely irrelevant and would waste time at events. I think that if we want larger stagelists then we might find that increasing the number of stage strikes from 2 to 3 would help retain the benefit of the practice.

I mean I'd be down with having 3 bans. Also, certain stages could be grouped together where if you ban one of them, they all go, but if you don't ban that archetype, then any stage within it is fair game (Banning all triplats using only one ban, for example).

Either way I think we should test things before pre-emptively banning a bunch of stages that have no reason to be banned.

 

[dav3yb]

I mean I'd be down with having 3 bans. Also, certain stages could be grouped together where if you ban one of them, they all go, but if you don't ban that archetype, then any stage within it is fair game (Banning all triplats using only one ban, for example).

Either way I think we should test things before pre-emptively banning a bunch of stages that have no reason to be banned.

For my rules, i did away the daves stupid rule thing, and I just upped the bans to 3. I also include both castle siege and wario ware in my list, so I think that at least helps with that some.

 

[Mooer]

I mean I'd be down with having 3 bans. Also, certain stages could be grouped together where if you ban one of them, they all go, but if you don't ban that archetype, then any stage within it is fair game (Banning all triplats using only one ban, for example).

Either way I think we should test things before pre-emptively banning a bunch of stages that have no reason to be banned.

I don’t think group bannings are the answer here. Platforms are only one aspect of what defines stages. So many other factors are considered when striking and counterpicking like blast zones, stage size, platform size, slants, etc. There may be a case for some stage groupings but I wouldn’t risk muddling the banning process regardless.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

I don’t think group bannings are the answer here. Platforms are only one aspect of what defines stages. So many other factors are considered when striking and counterpicking like blast zones, stage size, platform size, slants, etc. There may be a case for some stage groupings but I wouldn’t risk muddling the banning process regardless.

Oh I agree, I just think that, since there are technically differences between Dreamland, BF, and Midgar, someone should be allowed to use any of the 3 (Kirby for example doesn't have a working FThrow on BF but he does on Midgar) but you should also be able to ban it.

That said, it should only really be used for some incredibly minor changes where a stage would be otherwise banned for being too similar.

 

[ATH_]

Personal solution here is to run tournaments with the intention of being experimental with the stages/rules. Rotate out which stages you're hosting, rather than having them all at once. I'm going to be doing this myself soon.

I'm hoping people will be attracted to the idea of a tournament created to test out all of the potentially viable stages.

 

[Tesh]

Were the gamebreaking bugs with 2D stages not fixed in 2.0?

 

[Frihetsanka]

This is what I'd run for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate if I was running a local or a supermajor after running Genesis 6 & reviewing matches + data, just my opinion but I think this is optimal.

2 bans, no DSR pic.twitter.com/jSNQ2pRABc

— Bear (@BearUNLV) February 5, 2019

I like this list. While I think Lylat Cruise should be a starter (over Town & City) and probably Final Destination over Kalos Pokémon League as a starter, this list has all the right stages.

 

[ATH_]

This is what I'd run for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate if I was running a local or a supermajor after running Genesis 6 & reviewing matches + data, just my opinion but I think this is optimal.

2 bans, no DSR pic.twitter.com/jSNQ2pRABc

— Bear (@BearUNLV) February 5, 2019

I like this list. While I think Lylat Cruise should be a starter (over Town & City) and probably Final Destination over Kalos Pokémon League as a starter, this list has all the right stages.

Adding Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Story, and Unova as a core would make a pretty solid list for a major.

Would be balanced with 2 open stages, 2 triangle-layout, 2 monoplat, 2 biplats, and then t&c/lylat act as the dynamic/unique layouts. 1 ban with DSR or 2 bans w/o is fine. You can always hit every stage of a certain type, and leave them with their third-best option.

Otherwise, this list is super bias'd towards Pichu/characters who like open stages. Opponents ban FD/Kalos and they CP to T&C all day. Meanwhile for other characters they're hitting your best layout, your second best layout, and forcing you to a layout you're only neutral on.

Also, as a side note unrelated to the quoted post, I'm beginning to consider removing Siege from my list and using Skyloft instead. If only people would see the value in character-first... The overwhelming hate towards Castle Siege is frankly... frightening.

 

[Krysco]

I used to be in support for Skyloft until I saw this post:

From beneath the middle of skyloft, meta knight can:
- uair/up-b through to attack
- side-b to either ledge
- down-b to land with minimal lag
- waveland b/c of the little hop that happens at the start of airdodge
- tornado to anywhere, incl. top plat

Does that sound degenerate?

— Andrew Nestico (@PracticalTAS) December 13, 2018

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/509437485198082059/522877804350537731/2018-12-13_21-48-01.mp4

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/509437485198082059/522880751738421275/2018-12-13_22-00-49.mp4

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/509437485198082059/522883716834525187/2018-12-13_22-12-46.mp4

Those examples are just showing 3 characters that can exploit the semi-solid base platform, there may or may not be more characters that can do similar things. You could make the argument of 'just ban it against those characters' but that seems like a really silly reason to have to ban a stage, because the opponent gets whole chunks of time where they don't even have to play the game and many characters can't go down there to do anything about it. These strats are also possible on solid base platform stages but the options back are far more limited since you can't just go through the base platform.

Also, thanks to patch 2.0.0 I no longer have the replays saved to my Switch that I was gonna use to show off the different stages people were interested in possibly being legal (plus I procrastinated hard on that) and while I did have them saved to my 128gb usb stick and my computer, I had to have my computer sent away to be reloaded and the usb was used to preserve more useful things that were on it.

With that in mind, I can still see about recording some matches on some more controversial stages with my buddy once I get my usb stick back. Compared to before, I think there's been a more general consensus on what stages at least shouldn't be legal. Like I don't see much talk about Dracula's Castle, Mushroom Kingdom U, Green Greens, Halberd, Reset Bomb Forest, Rainbow Cruise. The current 'stage battle' just seems to be keeping Castle Siege legal, Lylat too though seemingly to a lesser degree than Siege and seeing about Warioware becoming legal and having less long, mostly flat stages. If there's any stages in particular that people want videos made to try and show whether they're good or bad, feel free to ask. Even better, if anyone wants to do matches online, I can record those too. Opens up more character possibilities since my buddy and I only use so many characters. I would say we could even do a 3 player ffa where I just SD right off the bat buuuuut Ultimate has that whole 1v1 damage multiplier that would be negated by such a set up so it sadly wouldn't work out 1 to 1 with tournament play. There's also the lovely fact that for whatever reason, Ultimate has no way of allowing you to share replays with others when Sm4sh and possibly even Brawl did have such a feature. Instead, they want you to have a microSD and to convert your replay into a video with Ultimate's ingame means of doing so. Means no one can even record matches on their own and just send it to someone like me who has a capture card.

Also, why exactly is PS2 used so much more than PS1? With Unova, I get it due to the lighting and the weird slanted walls that screw with teleport recoveries but the differences between PS2 and PS1 seem rather minor and from the sounds of things, we need fewer large stages like PS2, not more. There's the size which PS1 should be in favour of, the spawn points which I don't think matter too much. Could be wrong on that. The platform height difference if any might affect a few mus and I think the platforms have different widths? Could matter for tech chase scenarios on the platforms and sweeping uairs, utilts and usmashes that are used to cover entire platforms. There's the underside but that seems rather minor though again, I could be wrong on how insignificant that is.

 

[Sean²]

This is what I'd run for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate if I was running a local or a supermajor after running Genesis 6 & reviewing matches + data, just my opinion but I think this is optimal.

2 bans, no DSR pic.twitter.com/jSNQ2pRABc

— Bear (@BearUNLV) February 5, 2019

I like this list. While I think Lylat Cruise should be a starter (over Town & City) and probably Final Destination over Kalos Pokémon League as a starter, this list has all the right stages.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that most Smash TOs are never going to adopt anything more than a very conservative stagelist even if there’s rigorous testing involved. From now till the end of time.

But other than FD being a counterpick, which is fantastic, I hate this list. Smashville is the only small stage. With that many huge stages, he’s just hurting for Pichu to run train in every set. Add Yoshi’s Brawl and Unova to balance it out a bit. If people will continue to whine about WW and CS then maybe it’s time to prove there are good replacements.

I’ll still make the claim that if someone destroys you on one flat stage then picking another flat stage isn’t going to do much better for you. The nervous picks to Kalos and T&C are a bit sad to see.

 

[Tesh]

Maybe I'm too traumatized from the infinite ledge camping of brawl, but whats so wrong about what happening on this clips?

The worst I can say about it is that its probably boring to watch and play against, but I could say the same about half the zoners in this game entrenched in their perfect hidey hole.

Ledge i-frames don't refresh after the 1st grab so you are definitely going to be vulnerable on your 2nd cycle through whatever nonsense you decide to do down there. Retreat to a ledge? Probably get spiked or dsmashed like anyone else who grabbed twice. Do a special onto the stage with "minimal lag" is not different from someone air camping then teleporting somewhere. Waveland? Lag and no threat. Some of these things might get you footstooled through the stage and you could just die.

Going under the stage isn't just for your typical flying character either btw. Without a big solid stage in the way, a lot of characters have more freedom to go down there and contest a flyer and then just recovery through the stage or to a ledge.

With that said, I hate skyloft. Its asymmetrical for no reason and its wide and I think the platform layout adds nothing positive to the game. I prefer Brinstar.

 

[ATH_]

Okay, this is all fair. I'm not switching it for Skyloft. However, as much as I don't think Castle Siege should be banned, I feel as though the loss of interest due to a list with Siege and the supposed issue with pxp1 when siege/lylat are legal is frustrating. It feels like I may be forced to downgrade to a 12 or 11 stage list.

People citing Genesis 6 as proof Siege shouldn't be allowed don't know how to look at this data, clearly. The stage was banned 51% of the time in game 2. You must realize this means it wasn't played on, therefore not tested. We don't have data of people playing on it that puts it in anything other than a positive light. According to twitter (grain of salt) M2K counterpicked to Siege against a Belmont because it's a great stage against any character with a projectile that shoots straight forward. That's great! That sounds like what a counterpick is. A stage that is less balanced than Neutral and gives a group of characters an advantage!

All the Genesis 6 data tells us is people hate the stage, not that the stage is bad.

I'd bet that the reason people counterpicked to it is mostly because they know how to use it as a counterpick. Almost sounds like something that takes skill and awareness of the stage!

Ranting aside, I still think Castle Siege is a fine counterpick. I'm afraid how people will respond to Frigate if a large tournament runs it, and frankly, I won't be surprised to see people hating it just as much. We're given the opportunity to make a stage list that's truly balanced, interesting, and diverse, but all we want to do is become stricter and stricter on our stages. How unsavory.

 

[THE SLOTH]

I'm unfortunately a bit out of the loop with the Smash community on what stages are being tested at the moment, but I figured I'd ask since this has been on my mind for a while. What's the general consensus on Halberd? Hazardless, it seems fine enough, starts as a walk off for only 10 seconds before staying like a normal stage setup for the rest of the game. The aerial platform layout has a go-through main platform with some slants on the sides and one low, wide secondary platform, similar to hazardless Smashville. On-ship layout then has a wider main platform with curved sides (in Smash 4, going at the curves at certain angles would make you clip through the main platform and stand inside of it, but I don't think that's a problem anymore? Somebody might need to verify that) and the same secondary platform as before, rotates between these two layouts through out the match. A lot to swallow, and some tiny things that make me doubt the majority of the community will want to test with it, but I don't see anything outstandingly bad for this stage that should prevent it from at least being experimented on. It'll be a counterpick at best, of course, but an interesting one imo.

 

[ATH_]

I'm unfortunately a bit out of the loop with the Smash community on what stages are being tested at the moment, but I figured I'd ask since this has been on my mind for a while. What's the general consensus on Halberd? Hazardless, it seems fine enough, starts as a walk off for only 10 seconds before staying like a normal stage setup for the rest of the game. The aerial platform layout has a go-through main platform with some slants on the sides and one low, wide secondary platform, similar to hazardless Smashville. On-ship layout then has a wider main platform with curved sides (in Smash 4, going at the curves at certain angles would make you clip through the main platform and stand inside of it, but I don't think that's a problem anymore? Somebody might need to verify that) and the same secondary platform as before, rotates between these two layouts through out the match. A lot to swallow, and some tiny things that make me doubt the majority of the community will want to test with it, but I don't see anything outstandingly bad for this stage that should prevent it from at least being experimented on. It'll be a counterpick at best, of course, but an interesting one imo.

Well, to start, the on-ship terrain is nearly as large as PS2 (roughly 2-4 units shorter, ~182 units total). The main issue with the stage isn't that though, it's the semi-soft terrain of the flying section. Some would say the visuals are distracting too. Overall, I like the stage myself, but I understand it's likely not viable considering about 60% of the time it's in the flying mode. During my own testing I noticed that the transformation sequence between ship to flying was very disruptive too. It creates a gap that hides most characters in the terrain, then takes about a full 8 seconds for the animation to finish. It can disrupt attacks, approaches, ledge options, etc. If you want to know more about semi-soft platforms and why they aren't the greatest, Tesh and Krysco just made posts right above your post about it. Good reads.

 

[Krysco]

Semi solid stages have the issues shown in those clips from the post I quoted and other issues like certain recovery moves going right through the stage rather than grabbing the ledge such as Ganon and Ike's side specials. And the most optimal way to camp under the stage would be to not even grab the ledge on the way down, easiest to do by inputting an aerial just as you pass the ledge. From there you get however much air time your character allows and either a bunch of recovery options like what was shown with MK, Puff and Yoshi or very few options like what Ganon, Mac, Ike and Luigi would be stuck with. These options generally being going through the stage to get back on or grabbing the ledge (including the one on the other side of the stage for some) with invincibility if you didn't grab it on the way down. If I'm not mistaken, the amount of invincibility you get is also based on your amount of airtime. From there you just need to touch the stage or even get hit and you get your invincibility back and grabbing the ledge refreshes all of your double jumps and you can do the whole process all over again. Mind you, neutral get up has 1 frame of vulnerability before you can shield and all jump squats are only 3 frames and none of this is factoring in any engagements you do choose to make with your opponent. Get up and shield an attack, allowing you to either punish or due to the nerfed shield, more likely just jump out of shield and go back under the stage or throw out an attack to try and knock your opponent away. There's counterplay to the ledge portion of this but for certain mus, there really isn't anything some can do to dissuade camping under semi solid stages. Some like Ness or Snake have good means of stopping it while others, namely anyone with poor airspeed and no disjoints can't do much except wait.

Just seems like way too uphill of a battle to try justifying legalizing semi solid stages when you can completely remove the issue by just working with the solid ones.

 

[Sean²]

All the Genesis 6 data tells us is people hate the stage, not that the stage is bad.

The issue is, a majority of TOs will listen to them and ban it anyway to increase turnout.

People claim they like character diversity in tournament but what they’re really asking for here is to let top tiers run away with the whole thing.

I love hazardless Castle Siege. Until my online weekly banned it, it was my go to counterpick almost every time. It’s a small stage that lets me counter zoners and campers by giving them less space to breathe. The slope helps against projectiles and adds more vulnerability to stupidly good attacks like ROB’s side B by making his hurtboxes during the animation more easily accessible on the ramp.

I have to agree with M2K 100%. People want to whine about stages because they don’t necessarily play to their strengths and don’t feel like learning how to play on them. What I find interesting is that I don’t think it was top players who cared as much about CS as far as my vision went, it was mostly the mid level players who were vocal about it.

It really doesn’t help that you have big name commentators dumping on stages during peak viewership, either.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It really doesn’t help that you have big name commentators dumping on stages during peak viewership, either.

Which I think was really unprofessional of them, BTW. Expressing your opinions is fine and all, but there's a time and a place. Like Twitter or something. Commentating during an actual tournament...not so much.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

I used to be in support for Skyloft until I saw this post:

Those examples are just showing 3 characters that can exploit the semi-solid base platform, there may or may not be more characters that can do similar things. You could make the argument of 'just ban it against those characters' but that seems like a really silly reason to have to ban a stage, because the opponent gets whole chunks of time where they don't even have to play the game and many characters can't go down there to do anything about it. These strats are also possible on solid base platform stages but the options back are far more limited since you can't just go through the base platform.

Ok but the thing is, all that does is force the opponent to go to the platform if they want to be safe, the person trying to shark can't actually reach you from there.

Plus, I've played against people trying to shark in the past, and the other person can just hit you through the platform.

Realistically though, no one is going to allow a sharking stage to be played against characters that can use it well in the first place. Against characters who can't, it's a very solid stage, and against characters who can, there's counterplay and the ability to ban the stage.

 

[Krysco]

Ok but the thing is, all that does is force the opponent to go to the platform if they want to be safe, the person trying to shark can't actually reach you from there.

Plus, I've played against people trying to shark in the past, and the other person can just hit you through the platform.

Realistically though, no one is going to allow a sharking stage to be played against characters that can use it well in the first place. Against characters who can't, it's a very solid stage, and against characters who can, there's counterplay and the ability to ban the stage.

This isn't even about sharking, it's about camping under the stage with more options and freedom to get back on stage when you need to. Not all characters can dissuade this sort of camping. I tried sharking a bit against my buddy when I was testing the controversial stages and all his Marth had to do was time a well placed dair to go under the base platform and his Peach could literally just hold jump, down and attack to do a floating dair as low as possible. It's far easier to deal with sharking than simply camping under the stage. The best sharkers (MK and Puff) don't have the range to do it safely while those with the needed range (the Links and Shulk for example) can't stay below the stage for very long.

If I choose to play as MK or Puff and you're a character without a good offstage and air game to chase me or have a projectile to do it for you, I can just keep stalling the match by going under the stage for as long as possible. This is especially true if I played against you proper at first and got a huge percent or stock lead. Even if you hit me on my way back up, you'll still be stuck nickle and diming your way back to even if I choose to keep camping below the stage. And you can't guarantee to hit me on my way back up everytime given how many options I have compared to solid stages.

You could argue that that's just how counterpicks work, you pick a stage that benefits your character and hinders your opponent but you're hindering characters with already poor recoveries and benefitting those with already good recoveries, including giving them a free camping spot. It's not Brawl MK ledge camping levels of bad but it's still going where many can't safely engage and that spot never goes away.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

This isn't even about sharking, it's about camping under the stage with more options and freedom to get back on stage when you need to. Not all characters can dissuade this sort of camping. I tried sharking a bit against my buddy when I was testing the controversial stages and all his Marth had to do was time a well placed dair to go under the base platform and his Peach could literally just hold jump, down and attack to do a floating dair as low as possible. It's far easier to deal with sharking than simply camping under the stage. The best sharkers (MK and Puff) don't have the range to do it safely while those with the needed range (the Links and Shulk for example) can't stay below the stage for very long.

If I choose to play as MK or Puff and you're a character without a good offstage and air game to chase me or have a projectile to do it for you, I can just keep stalling the match by going under the stage for as long as possible. This is especially true if I played against you proper at first and got a huge percent or stock lead. Even if you hit me on my way back up, you'll still be stuck nickle and diming your way back to even if I choose to keep camping below the stage. And you can't guarantee to hit me on my way back up everytime given how many options I have compared to solid stages.

You could argue that that's just how counterpicks work, you pick a stage that benefits your character and hinders your opponent but you're hindering characters with already poor recoveries and benefitting those with already good recoveries, including giving them a free camping spot. It's not Brawl MK ledge camping levels of bad but it's still going where many can't safely engage and that spot never goes away.

Fair enough, I just think that the problems with stages like this are worth it for how it increases depth for things like how you get off the ledge.

That said, I still think it's punishable even without going offstage. You aren't exactly being threatened when the opponent is trying to camp you out, so if you read what they're going to do then you can catch them and punish them.

 

[Krysco]

Fair enough, I just think that the problems with stages like this are worth it for how it increases depth for things like how you get off the ledge.

That said, I still think it's punishable even without going offstage. You aren't exactly being threatened when the opponent is trying to camp you out, so if you read what they're going to do then you can catch them and punish them.

The threat is them eating away at the timer with some characters stuck accepting it. In your previous post you mentioned how you can go on a platform to avoid being sharked. That still leaves you above your opponent in a disadvantageous position and they can now just jump up through the stage unless you happened to wait for them to burn all their resources in which case, they were likely sharking or camping you beforehand.

I'll ask you and anyone else in favour of Skyloft or any semi solid stage this: knowing all of these (admittedly hypothetical) issues with semi solids, what makes you want them over other stages that don't have these issues? Gotta keep in mind, you can't just keep adding stages to a stage list. There's particular number sweetspots that are generally wanted like 4x + 1. You mention how they add depth to getting off the ledge and I'm curious what you mean by that. You can let go of ledge and double jump through but that's only some slightly different angles from doing the same thing on solid stages. Characters with numerous jumps and really flexible specials like Pikachu get even more options for getting off the ledge/recovering but they're mostly already amazing at those 2 aspects of the game (there are exceptions like D3 likely doesn't get off the ledge too well despite his numerous jumps).

 

[Luigifan18]

The threat is them eating away at the timer with some characters stuck accepting it. In your previous post you mentioned how you can go on a platform to avoid being sharked. That still leaves you above your opponent in a disadvantageous position and they can now just jump up through the stage unless you happened to wait for them to burn all their resources in which case, they were likely sharking or camping you beforehand.

In that case, you invoke Potter Stewart on 'em.

 

[Mooer]

I'd like to discuss Starters. This debate is assuming we are sticking with P1P2, that said I'm open to changing things if anyone has actual data on other methods. To start off I think we currently have 3 solid starters in Battlefield, PS1/PS2, and Smashville. There is debate surrounding which Pokemon Stadium to use but for now I think we all agree we want at least one of them. Possibly leaning towards PS1 because the blast zones on PS2 are enormous. If PS1 was as pretty as PS2 I think there would be no contest

I'm currently trying to decide whether Final Destination should be a starter. It has a legacy of being a starter but it has always been one of the most polarizing. I would suggest we look at Town and City as a replacement. T&C has a transformation with no platforms like FD. In this way we wouldn't actually be losing a flat no-plat option. Plus, we stand to gain a dynamic stage in our starters. It has an average size with average blast-zones, so it's worth looking into imo.

Picking the fifth starter has been tough for me. I decided to look at blast zone and stage sizes to decide. Frrom what we've already established, we are lacking a small stage. This concerns me a lot. The small stage I've landed on for now is Unova League. Even though it's another bi-plat but the layout, stage size, blast zone size, and stage walls are completely different from PS1/PS2. We shouldn't just be looking at number of platforms when deciding on which stages to include. In fact, I would argue that platforms vs no-platforms, platform heights, and blast zones are bigger factors when choosing a stage to play on than platform layout. The only issues I have with Unova is the lighting and that weird stage wall on the left side.

The only other starter I'm considering right now would be Lylat Cruise. The platform layout is unique but the platform heights, stage size, and blast zones are all too familiar next to the other starters. Imo the stage lends itself better as a counterpick because of the slopes, edges, and platform layout.

I'm hoping DLC will include a decent starter, I don't think our current options are optimal.

 

[ATH_]

I'd like to discuss Starters. This debate is assuming we are sticking with P1P2, that said I'm open to changing things if anyone has actual data on other methods. To start off I think we currently have 3 solid starters in Battlefield, PS1/PS2, and Smashville. There is debate surrounding which Pokemon Stadium to use but for now I think we all agree we want at least one of them. Possibly leaning towards PS1 because the blast zones on PS2 are enormous. If PS1 was as pretty as PS2 I think there would be no contest

I'm currently trying to decide whether Final Destination should be a starter. It has a legacy of being a starter but it has always been one of the most polarizing. I would suggest we look at Town and City as a replacement. T&C has a transformation with no platforms like FD. In this way we wouldn't actually be losing a flat no-plat option. Plus, we stand to gain a dynamic stage in our starters. It has an average size with average blast-zones, so it's worth looking into imo.

Picking the fifth starter has been tough for me. I decided to look at blast zone and stage sizes to decide. Frrom what we've already established, we are lacking a small stage. This concerns me a lot. The small stage I've landed on for now is Unova League. Even though it's another bi-plat but the layout, stage size, blast zone size, and stage walls are completely different from PS1/PS2. We shouldn't just be looking at number of platforms when deciding on which stages to include. In fact, I would argue that platforms vs no-platforms, platform heights, and blast zones are bigger factors when choosing a stage to play on than platform layout. The only issues I have with Unova is the lighting and that weird stage wall on the left side.

The only other starter I'm considering right now would be Lylat Cruise. The platform layout is unique but the platform heights, stage size, and blast zones are all too familiar next to the other starters. Imo the stage lends itself better as a counterpick because of the slopes, edges, and platform layout.

I'm hoping DLC will include a decent starter, I don't think our current options are optimal.

I'm also excited to see what DLC stages are like. I really hope we get something good.

Personally I think T&C replacing FD is a pretty unique idea, though I use Kalos > FD. As well, I believe you shouldn't have any more than one stage from Kalos/FD/T&C be a starter because they all support the same characters.

As for the fifth starter, Unova is one I've seen, but I support Lylat as the fifth. It's unique, average in size, and balances out the starters. Smashville is below-average in size, PS1/2 is large (difference being about the same as SV), and then the remaining 3 starters are average in size.

Also, Unova/Lylat are equal sizes iirc. 160 across for both.

 

[ExceptionalBeasts]

Thinkaman's Anti-Casual No Weenies Allowed Stagelist
[/SPOILER]

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Anyway, I'm shocked this thread is still seeing any discussion. Props to those of you still fighting the good fight, but it's hard for me to not be discouraged as to where the stage meta is heading. I've tried to talk to TOs and have been met with only dismissal after setting my sights so low as to only suggest Lylat or WarioWare should be legal. It's a losing battle and I think the only thing worth doing now is rescinding yourself to the inevitable 5-stage stagelist. Or why not cut out counterpicking and such all together and only have one legal stage?

 

[ATH_]

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Anyway, I'm shocked this thread is still seeing any discussion. Props to those of you still fighting the good fight, but it's hard for me to not be discouraged as to where the stage meta is heading. I've tried to talk to TOs and have been met with only dismissal after setting my sights so low as to only suggest Lylat or WarioWare should be legal. It's a losing battle and I think the only thing worth doing now is rescinding yourself to the inevitable 5-stage stagelist. Or why not cut out counterpicking and such all together and only have one legal stage?

Simply put, because we can do better than that. We can inform people and show people we can have variety in our stages without it taking away from the games played.

People aren't ignorant, they're uninformed and unwilling because the playerbase has scared them away from how truly awesome this game can be.

 

[Mooer]

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Anyway, I'm shocked this thread is still seeing any discussion. Props to those of you still fighting the good fight, but it's hard for me to not be discouraged as to where the stage meta is heading. I've tried to talk to TOs and have been met with only dismissal after setting my sights so low as to only suggest Lylat or WarioWare should be legal. It's a losing battle and I think the only thing worth doing now is rescinding yourself to the inevitable 5-stage stagelist. Or why not cut out counterpicking and such all together and only have one legal stage?

We’ve gotta hit em with cold hard facts that support an extensively theorized framework. The more we discuss stage philosophy and build upon data in this thread we’ll soon reach a critical mass of information such that TOs will have no choice but to respect our efforts as the most crucial resource for stage list selection on the internet.

I'm also excited to see what DLC stages are like. I really hope we get something good.

Personally I think T&C replacing FD is a pretty unique idea, though I use Kalos > FD. As well, I believe you shouldn't have any more than one stage from Kalos/FD/T&C be a starter because they all support the same characters.

As for the fifth starter, Unova is one I've seen, but I support Lylat as the fifth. It's unique, average in size, and balances out the starters. Smashville is below-average in size, PS1/2 is large (difference being about the same as SV), and then the remaining 3 starters are average in size.

Also, Unova/Lylat are equal sizes iirc. 160 across for both.

Just checked the stage data, you did recall correctly on Lylat and Unova. Lylat has the smaller blast zone all around too actually! Still leaning slightly more towards Unova just because slants like the ones on Lylat help against projectile characters and grabs making it a suitable counterpick imo. Truly though, I’d be happy with either as a 5th.

I completely agree with only having 1 FD-type stage in the starters. However I’m strongly against Kalos being that replacement because of the platforms. They’re just too high. I like their placement but consider characters like Little Mac, Ryu, Ken, and others that would love FD but absolutely fold to someone camping them on those platforms. I’m of the opinion that Kalos is best left as a counterpick.

 

[Untouch]

Watching M2K's video, he brings up a point about certain projectiles being hard to notice while on FD.
Ages ago, I suggested that we use WIly's Castle instead of FD if FD's backgound is as bad as Smash 4's. It isn't nearly as bad, but if this is a problem I can Wily's Castle being a safe alternative. Some Japanese tournaments do this already.

Here are the differences between Wily's Castle and Final Destination.
WC is 174 units long, FD is 160 units long.
WC horiztonal blastzones are 248 (162 from stage to blastzone), FD horizontal blastzones are 240 (160 from stage to blastzone).
WC top blastzone is 212, FD top blastzone is 180.
WC bottom blastzone is 120, FD bottom blastzone is 140.
WC walls are totally flat and extend to the bottom, FD floats.
WC has Megaman music, FD does not.

Obviously the proposal of "banning" Final Destination is something that'll take an obnoxious amount of effort to propose to the Smash Community, but WC feels like a better stage to me.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The solution to FD is to just use good Omegas instead. Problem solved.

Blank made a video on stage lists: https://youtu.be/kXc9mPrCmmk. She wants 5 stages in total, and while I don't agree (I think Lylat and Kalos should be legal as well) I think she does make some good points.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The solution to FD is to just use good Omegas instead. Problem solved.

Literally this. Omega Literally Any Stage > Hazardless Wily as a substitute for FD, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

EDIT: This presupposes that supplanting FD itself with some equivalent stage happens in the first place, which frankly I don't expect to happen on a large scale at any point in the foreseeable future. But if it were to happen, Omegas are the clear best option.

 

[Munomario777]

hey check out this new PXP1 infographic i made

An infographic I made, talking about the merits of a popularly-considered alternative to Game 2+ Stage Bans in Smash Ultimate called "PXP1." I think it could be pretty beneficial if we go with something similar to Genesis 6's list. pic.twitter.com/zZWpjwoNFE

— Muno 🐌 (@munosnail) February 10, 2019

 

[Alias Tex]

For the sake of discussion, I thought I would post my current hypothetical stage-picking ruleset.

1. Selection Rules

• This stage list assumes that characters are chosen before the stage
• After game 1, uses P4P1 (equivalent to 3 bans)
• A player may choose to freely ban a stage that they previously lost on using the same character earlier in the set
• Hazards are off.

2. Starter Stages

• Battlefield
• Final Destination
• Smashville
• Unova PKMN League
• Lylat Cruise

3. Full Stage List (Starters + Counterpicks, for P4P1)

• Battlefield Variant (Player 1's Pick)
• Battlefield Variant (Player 2's Pick)
• Omega Variant (Player 1's Pick)
• Omega Variant (Player 2's Pick)
• Unova PKMN League
• Smashville
• Lylat Cruise
• Yoshi's Island
• PKMN Stadium 1
• PKMN Stadium 2
• Town and City
• WarioWare
• Castle Siege
• Frigate Orpheon
• Skyloft
• Halberd
• Brinstar

Spoiler: About Variant Picks

3.1. Battlefield Variants

• Battlefield
• Battlefield form barring 2Ds/distracting features/music copyright
• Dream Land
• Yoshi's Story
• Midgar (not for streamed tournaments due to copyright)
• Fountain of Dreams (if it ever gets fixed)

3.2. Omega Variants

• Final Destination
• Omega form barring 2Ds/distracting features/music copyright
• Wily's Castle
• PictoChat 2
• Umbra Clock Tower (in a perfect world without motion sickness)
• Kalos PKMN League

Triplats and FD-likes are grouped together but take up two slots on the total stage list in the form of "Player X's Pick." For example, when nominating stages the loser's P4P1 list might look like this: "I nominate Town and City, Smashville, your Omega, and my Omega." If the winner were to select their pick of an Omega, then they would choose a stage from the Omega group. If they lost on their own pick, DSR strikes their pick in Omega stage, not their opponent's. (This still matters under PXP1) For DSR, Battlefield and FD count as the winner's pick game 1.

In theory, this solves the complaint that stage grouping removed nuance/depth in stage selection by sloting only the two most relevant stage variants in the set. Characters who dislike Omegas can avoid them despite there being more than 4 of them, but if they have to then they can choose to play on the most friendly variant (e.g. I have omegas but I have a wall-jump so I choose Kalos)

Now for some design philosophy:

My guiding principle for this rule set was to cover all of the bases. While some may say that we only need 5 stages (/no counterpicks) for a stage list, such a stage list is blatantly unable to be a quality representation of stage features that should influence a competitive matchup. For example, if we took Frostbite's starters (Battlefield, FD, Town and City, PS2 and Smashville) we would find that it lacks the diversity in stage size, platform layout, blastzones, and main stage composition, and thus in my opinion would fail to represent our potential stage nuance and diversity. By adding stages with size differences, slopes, semi-soft platforms, or moving parts in small enough numbers to ensure that characters that are severely impeded by one of these traits cannot be forced onto a stage of the offending trait (For example, there are 3 semisoft stages, but the loser choses from 4 stages plus the benefits from DSR.) we can make sure that the stage list has the potential to proportionately represent all stage aspects of each matchup. With P4P1, polarizing stages that are played are done so under less-polarizing circumstances, while polarizing stages that are not played have at least incentivized another, weaker counterpick concession.

Stages with polarizing features aren't exceedingly numerous. There are small stages (Castle Siege, WarioWare, Smashville, Brinstar) to match big stages (PS1, PS2, Skyloft, Kalos PKMN League/Wily's Castle as an Omega). There are fewer semi-softs than there are nominations in P4P1. Characters good on Tri-plats or FD don't lose the meaningful advantage of doing well on a common stage archetype, but they can't fill all of their nomination slots with FD clones. But perhaps the most important thing is that we don't ban all of our stage options before we even get to the DLC stages. We can see what works, and we have room to cut things if we need to. Unavoidably, this list is mostly theory-craft - but that is the point, we can discuss what works and what doesn't.

 

[ATH_]

Gosh, I've always loved M2K and his opinions. I'm so happy he made a video addressing the issues with these overly safe stagelists. By being "too safe" we're denying balance, ironically enough. For me, I think Jason's 110% correct on just about everything he said in that video (except for the things that were clearly joking).

To sum up some of his points:

• WarioWare, Castle Siege, and Unova League should absolutely be legal. They balance the list with big and small stages and allow more characters to flourish and be viable.
• We have a problem right now with the stages FD/Kalos/T&C where we keep allowing 2 or all of them as Starters, which is absurd. The stages all support the same groups of characters, with Kalos/FD being the most similar to each other. If our list is only 9 stages (such is Frostbite's) then why are a third of them "effectively the same stage" for certain characters like Pichu and Wolf.
• We're not experimenting at all. Nobody outside of online tournaments is running stages that aren't being ran at majors. Frigate, Mushroom Kingdom U, and WarioWare are all suffering because of this. Same goes for doubles with stages like Skyloft and Halberd among others.
• The game should be about fun, and with how many stages we have access to, there's no way we should be relying so much on twitter clips and word of mouth for how we judge our stages. We should be optimizing our lists for balance, fun, and most importantly, experimentation.

And I agree with him. To be honest, I feel rekindled to run Siege/WarioWare and push for 11/13 stage lists. We really have no excuse not to.

Salem brings up the point that on Yoshi's Island you can 2-frame recovering opponents utilizing the slopes on small characters, and usually every larger character has at least one move that can do it for free too. What I believe Salem fails to see here, is that that makes the stage unique. That's not a game-breaking feature of the stage. That is not ban-worthy. If it's true, (and it's really not as "Free" as he says it is) that only means the stage is even more different from Smashville. That's more of a reason to have it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Stages like the Yoshi's stages offer variety for existing stages, but we don't have to lock them behind "echo" stage rules or anything needlessly complicated like that. These stages have different blast zones and positions, and we have enough of them to allow them as is. It creates a dynamic where you ban a particular layout rather than banning multiple layouts to just play on another neutral. Say we have 13 stages (using my list as the example here), my opponent can ban BF and Story, leaving me with Unova. They can ban FD and Kalos, leaving me with T&C. They can ban Siege and WarioWare, leaving me with Yoshi's Island or Smashville for a small stage. They can consistently ban my best two stages, and leave me with a third-best option, but this is only possible if we have enough varied stages where characters even have their first and second-best stages. Otherwise, as M2K says, you can be forced to play on your 5th or 6th best stage because of the lack of variety, while your opponent gets to always get at least their third best.

This is also why I think DSR/SSR should be a staple rule. If everyone has the variance to play and ban according to each others best stages, then SSR helps us make sure sets of equal skill level are not decided by who wins game 1.

Then of course, there's PXP1 and Character-first, which even further alleviate the issue. Each player has so much control with these rules in place to make sure they A) Don't play on something they find stupid or controversially bad, and B) Get to do a lot less guess-work. There's simply more emphasis on player-skill, awareness, experience, and knowledge with these rules in place. Which is what should be prioritized, I'd believe.

So yeah. Even though #LegalFrigate seems like it's dead, I'd gladly sacrifice it for Siege and WarioWare. As well, I'm not going to give up on Frigate until we see it actually get tested enough. That's how we should be about every potentially viable stage.

 

[Swordplay]

I think the easy solution to the large stage issue is to use PS1 as a starter. Not PS2.

I'd probaby try to organize stages into 2 areas.

Stage size and plat type. You want one of each for starters. Lylat is an exception to triplet as it's unique enough

Need one of each for starter
Monoplat
Bi plat
Tri plat

Counterpicks should have the above and
No plat
Unique/multiplat



BF, ps1, smashville, starters

Counterpicks

PS2, unova as bi plat counterpicks
Yoshi island as monoplat (would love one more here)
Yoshi story as triplat skyloft... ( Many options for a 2nd like skyloft)
For unique. Fd, lylat are musts (if not starters)
Can also include wily castle and wario ware and castle siege for more no plat and multi plat options.

This is alot so 3 bans

 

[Tesh]

Why is FD a better stage than the hazardless no plats that could replace it? Wily and Pictochat I mean.

I'm pretty jaded about all the visual nonsense in Ultimate, so I'd be thrilled to at least see FD replaced with BF omega or some other stage with good music and a reasonable background. FD rivals Clock Tower as it is.

I also nominate Unova and evening smashville for GARBAGE visuals.