Stage Analysis & Discussion Thread

[Tybis]

I apologize in advance if this is already known but all of the omega version have the same horizontal bast zones and are all the same stage length. I believe the reason why people don't think this is true is because the camera fix distance isn't the same.

So, if it's true that the max camera pan distance can vary, then doesn't that mean that "hoop damage" will play a larger role on some Omegas due to closer camera boundaries?

 

[Tristan_win]

So, if it's true that the max camera pan distance can vary, then doesn't that mean that "hoop damage" will play a larger role on some Omegas due to closer camera boundaries?

I think max camera distance is the same but the standard setting can vary from stage to stage. Like for warioware the stage seem to try to keep as much as the background in the picture as possible while a normal stage like FD it will focus more on the fighters. This is why people tend to think wareware is bigger because they are almost always seeing the whole stage.

This is just all speculations on my part though, I haven't tested this.

 

[infomon]

I'm honestly concerned that Mute City might need to be disallowed for the sake of anyone who might be susceptible to epileptic seizure from those bright flashing retro fire effects. I'm not even joking. But I suppose there's no problem until it happens to someone...

 

[Piford]

I'm honestly concerned that Mute City might need to be disallowed for the sake of anyone who might be susceptible to epileptic seizure from those bright flashing retro fire effects. I'm not even joking. But I suppose there's no problem until it happens to someone...

Aren't you not supposed to be playing certain Video Games if you have epilepsy? And if a player know he/she has it, couldn't he/she just ban it for medical reasons. It seems unfair to ban a stage for everyone just because of a few people.

 

[Tybis]

I'm honestly concerned that Mute City might need to be disallowed for the sake of anyone who might be susceptible to epileptic seizure from those bright flashing retro fire effects. I'm not even joking. But I suppose there's no problem until it happens to someone...

Yeah, I'm sure that if the effects are that bad, then Nintendo will be getting serious complaints, at which point the effects may get patched out or toned down. Until something like that pops up, I think it'll be okay.

 

[smashmachine]

man the 3DS really doesn't have that many obviously legal stages, does it

fortunately the Wii U version seems significantly better on this regard

 

[Neoleo21]

As far as I'm concerned, the only stages that should be banned are those that skew victories to 100-0 like fox Vs Dorf on temple or 50-50 grab walkoffs like brawl and any stage with predictable hazards like Halberd should be allowed (and tested thoroughly to make sure they are predictable) and whether the other "strategies" that exist on other stage should be allowed to exist unless the events listed occur, it encourages greater character variety. Smash is unique in that there are any two given match ups, one versus the character, the other versus the stage, thus banning stages outright would be equivalent of banning characters, we must avoid this as much as possible. Few competitive people are going to actively want to go to a suicidal random stage like Warioware, thus banning it would be a pointless waste of time. Also on a somewhat related question, How are we going to handle counter picking in this game with all the omega variants?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Are you sure? Because from what I've seen from e3 videos, there's a random chance that a giant geyser of water shoots up from anywhere on the stage, even right in the middle of it, and also a random chance that this geyser carries a big spiky fish. Also giant icicles can fall from the sky that freeze whoever they land on.

Every hazard on the stage has huge tells; you just have to pay attention to the background. The icicles, for instance, have large water drops fall beforehand that are probably really hard to see in grainy 30 fps videos, but on an HD display in person, they're really easy to see and give you a big heads up for the icicles (though being frozen is about the least punishing possible way to get hit in smash, freeze isn't very dangerous in general). We already know the retail version won't be precisely identical (Nabbit wasn't in the demo build), and in my very limited time with the demo, I wasn't able to fully chart the stage's mechanics, but it was just so good as in "it was probably the best smash stage I've ever played in any smash game". It had tons of variety, but everything was tame and the player was given a huge heads up about everything going on so you were never blindsided. It was such a stage, and I am so optimistic that quality like it offers will be our status quo for Wii U stages.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Finished this last night: http://smashboards.com/threads/pictochat-2-a-brief-analysis.372270/
(a bit of advertisement because it was a lot of work).
Also PictoChat discussion.

 

[LiamMail]

don't even think about reset bomb forest

 

[T33p0]

don't even think about reset bomb forest

And why should that be? I think RBF is fine, both transformations are big enough to give you breathing room, but still small enough to allow for fast-paced, in-your-face matches. The enemy at the bottom on the second form typically isn't an issue. If anything, I SD on that because I'm dumb like that sometimes.

 

[Piford]

don't even think about reset bomb forest

Reset Bomb Forrest is definitely one of the most legal stages the game has to offer.

 

[Boss N]

So can anyone right up a list on what the current consensus on stages are at this point? Like which ones are OK, Iffy, and on board the Ban-wagon?

 

[SmashBroPlusB]

Just spent the past two and a half hours or so reading through 12 pages of this topic... not fun. Also, it doesn't look like anything of value has even been accomplished here. Like seriously, there's still a split with two different groups here, one group embracing a large variety of stages, and the other group still huddling around their tiny, tiny five-stage selection of basically "FD + Ferox".

Personally, I'm with the former. While the stage selection for Smash 3DS has its fair share of really ****ty stages (Mushroomy Kingdom came back? Really?), there's also some cool new stages like Reset Bomb Forest and SNES Mute City, or stages that have improved older stage concepts, like Spirit Tracks basically being a more playable Big Blue (Melee). The exact reason I'm so anxious to get into the live tournament scene and stray away from online matches is because, without swapping Friend Codes, the only modes available are "turn all the items on and play inferior 2-minute timed matches" or "have fun sucking on Final Destination all day long". I mean don't get me wrong, For Glory mode was a great start, it just gets really stale really fast. I've come to the point where I prefer beating on CPUs with a healthy stage selection more than I want to actually get practice against other humans in, and it's only been a week since release.

I guess my general opinion is that I'd highly appreciate a more dynamic stage selection, and it's great that some of the community is embracing this notion as Smash 4 is a new game in its own right. It's "Smash 4", not just "the fourth Smash Brothers". However, I honestly can't tell what the general popular "opinion" is concerning legal stages, if there even is one. As I said before, there's still this huge divisive split in stage opinions. I may not be the most qualified person to say this, but even from a spectator's perspective there's no way this can be healthy for the future of the game's competitive scene.

 

[T33p0]

I guess my general opinion is that I'd highly appreciate a more dynamic stage selection, and it's great that some of the community is embracing this notion as Smash 4 is a new game in its own right. It's "Smash 4", not just "the fourth Smash Brothers". However, I honestly can't tell what the general popular "opinion" is concerning legal stages, if there even is one. As I said before, there's still this huge divisive split in stage opinions. I may not be the most qualified person to say this, but even from a spectator's perspective there's no way this can be healthy for the future of the game's competitive scene.

It's really difficult to actually decide on which stages should be legal, if only because of two factors:
a) The stage concepts, while being concentrated on some of Nintendo's greatest handheld and older home-console hits, are generally kind of meh. I mean, we have Mushroomy Kingdom, 3D Land and Dream Land as auto-scrolling stages (and I for one really dislike those stages), then we have Golden Plains, WarioWare and Pac-Maze with random powerup mechanics (which in my mind should totally be a no-go for a competitive setting) and then we have all the stages with stuff like walk-offs, stage-blocking hazards and all that jazz (looking at you, Unova League. Way to make me hate Gen5 even more). That said, my go-to list for the future in terms of stages will be Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, Prism Tower, Tortimer Island, Arena Ferox, Rainbow Road, Brinstar, Mute City, Reset Bomb Forest, Distant Planet and Tomodachi Life. As for FD itself, I'll be using that and the Omega Versions of all the stages I didn't list here, simply because variety and so I can listen to the tracks on these stages as well.

b) The WiiU version, which in all likelihood will have a far better stage selection, is practically right around the corner. I for one won't get it (if only because I have no WiiU), which is why I would like to push for at least the twelve stages I listed above, adding stages that are deemed okay and taking away those that are problematic, to become the norm. It would probably be one of the most diverse stagelists, and I think that'd be absolutely okay.

I really want to see Smash 3DS to still be played when the WiiU version is out. In my mind, 12 individual stages plus variants of one of them out of 34 is quite a bit. Now all we'd have to do, if we want to see this version of the game to survive, is to find out how to work with all the stages we have.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Best 3 stage starter list I've seen so far is

Starter:

Battlefield
Yoshi's Island
Prism Tower

I'm running a 5 stage starter set:

Starter:

Battlefield
Yoshi's Island
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Tomodachi Life

 

[Terotrous]

That said, my go-to list for the future in terms of stages will be Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, Prism Tower, Tortimer Island, Arena Ferox, Rainbow Road, Brinstar, Mute City, Reset Bomb Forest, Distant Planet and Tomodachi Life. As for FD itself, I'll be using that and the Omega Versions of all the stages I didn't list here, simply because variety and so I can listen to the tracks on these stages as well.

The problem is most of those stages are terrible. Tortimer Island has random beehives and constantly spawning fruit that makes already long matches take an eternity. Rainbow road is just Prism Tower with cars. Distant Planet has a walkoff and the rain is very disruptive, even when neither happen it's a campy stage. Brinstar has always had issues with the lava. Reset Bomb forest has literally nowhere to fight in the second transformation, almost all of the platforms are the size of a tilt.

12 stages isn't necessary, we only really need like 7 or 8 to implement DSR, and on this terrible stagelist that's clearly all we're going to get.

 

[Second Power]

Tortimer Island has random beehives and constantly spawning fruit that makes already long matches take an eternity.

Uh, what? I've played ten matches on this and haven't seen a beehive. There is a beehive item, are you sure you're not mistaking it as part of the stage? And, could I see a match where the fruit had a big effect?

 

[Terotrous]

Uh, what? I've played ten matches on this and haven't seen a beehive. There is a beehive item, are you sure you're not mistaking it as part of the stage? And, could I see a match where the fruit had a big effect?

I will confirm later but I'm pretty positive beehives appear even with items off. And the fruit spawns pretty often and restores like 5-10% per piece, that can obviously add up over the course of a match. Even if both players eat an equal amount of fruit it'll make things take a lot longer.

 

[SonicZeroX]

I will confirm later but I'm pretty positive beehives appear even with items off. And the fruit spawns pretty often and restores like 5-10% per piece, that can obviously add up over the course of a match. Even if both players eat an equal amount of fruit it'll make things take a lot longer.

Make sure items are turned off in both ways; all off + individually all turned off, because I think in Brawl if you set items to none but didn't turn them each off Dedede could randomly spawn items with his side B.

 

[Piford]

Beehives and exploding fruit do spawn even with Items off in both ways.

 

[T33p0]

The problem is most of those stages are terrible. Tortimer Island has random beehives and constantly spawning fruit that makes already long matches take an eternity. Rainbow road is just Prism Tower with cars. Distant Planet has a walkoff and the rain is very disruptive, even when neither happen it's a campy stage. Brinstar has always had issues with the lava. Reset Bomb forest has literally nowhere to fight in the second transformation, almost all of the platforms are the size of a tilt.

12 stages isn't necessary, we only really need like 7 or 8 to implement DSR, and on this terrible stagelist that's clearly all we're going to get.

On Tortimer Island: Beehives last like 15 seconds at best and contribute to eliminating all advantages you might get from eating fruit. Both are a small, but nonetheless engaging secondary objective other than staying in the face of your opponent. That or it might be a fairly good counterpick for characters that prefer to stay at range, the stage is big enough to grant them a small reprieve as well.

On Rainbow Road: The Shy Guys are definitely avoidable when they don't come in from the side of the stage, which is the case with like two or three of its transformations. I've also had matches where no Shy Guys would show up, although I will admit that this might have just been a ton of luck on my part (no, we weren't playing with 4 people).

Reset Bomb Forest has plenty of space in the second transformation to fight. Also I'd like to know which characters you play that have tilts the size of one of those platforms. I will stay adamant in saying that Reset Bomb Forest is fine as is, while it seems to me you just want to write off as many stages as possible because of more or less minor stage hazards (which the bone snake is btw).

If the general consensus on some of the stages I listed is that they're unfit for competitive play in singles or doubles, then by all means, strike them from the list entirely. But to do that, we'd need cold, hard evidence, and to get that, we'd need more input and videos from tourney play that showcases matches on these stages. As it stands, however, we're not getting such evidence, which is why we should encourage TOs to incorporate these stages into their stagelists first, then decide based on that feedback.

 

[Second Power]

I will confirm later but I'm pretty positive beehives appear even with items off. And the fruit spawns pretty often and restores like 5-10% per piece, that can obviously add up over the course of a match. Even if both players eat an equal amount of fruit it'll make things take a lot longer.

Okay, just tried and I can confirm that Beehives appear (albeit rarely, over the course of a 15 minute match, I saw a single one). If anything, makes me think of it like the stage version of stitch face. Fruit typically heals 2-4% with 5+ being uncommon. I don't think they'll cause a match to take forever (I could be proven wrong, but that'll be with a match rather than text/data).

I'm personally filing this stage under the header "Needs testing in a competitive environment".

 

[Terotrous]

I suppose you could test it to see how disruptive those items are, but before we get to that point I'd want to know why we think this stage should be legal in the first place. The main reason to add a stage is because we think it having this stage available broadens the competitive game. With that in mind, as a player, what are the situations in which you would want to counterpick with Tortimer Island?

(Incidentally, this is the main thing I have against Rainbow Road. The only legit reasons I can see to pick this stage are:
- I want to random my opponent out with cars
- I want to pick Prism Tower, but I already won there and DSR is in effect
Neither of which is a good reason to allow that stage, IMO)

 

[Terotrous]

On Tortimer Island: Beehives last like 15 seconds at best and contribute to eliminating all advantages you might get from eating fruit.

They're also annoying and disruptive as they interrupt your attacks.

On Rainbow Road: The Shy Guys are definitely avoidable when they don't come in from the side of the stage, which is the case with like two or three of its transformations. I've also had matches where no Shy Guys would show up, although I will admit that this might have just been a ton of luck on my part (no, we weren't playing with 4 people).

See the part of my post above about "what's the point of having this stage when Prism Tower is available"?

Reset Bomb Forest has plenty of space in the second transformation to fight. Also I'd like to know which characters you play that have tilts the size of one of those platforms. I will stay adamant in saying that Reset Bomb Forest is fine as is, while it seems to me you just want to write off as many stages as possible because of more or less minor stage hazards (which the bone snake is btw).

It really doesn't, there's even less space than Kongo Jungle and that stage is already known to be campy nonsense for that reason. Certainly, characters like Dedede and Ike can cover those platforms with their tilts. Probably Marth as well, even with his nerfed sword.

If the general consensus on some of the stages I listed is that they're unfit for competitive play in singles or doubles, then by all means, strike them from the list entirely. But to do that, we'd need cold, hard evidence, and to get that, we'd need more input and videos from tourney play that showcases matches on these stages. As it stands, however, we're not getting such evidence, which is why we should encourage TOs to incorporate these stages into their stagelists first, then decide based on that feedback.

There's some truth to this, but no one wants to be the TO to run a tourney whose final is totally ruined by a jank stage.

 

[Piford]

Rainbow Road is not Prism Tower. Prism Tower's main platform gets added platforms, shifts sizes, and is always there. Rainbow roads platform is always the same exact as it travels through the stages, and disappears as it makes stops. Also the transformations are completely different. And while the stops with cars are random, they give fair warning before the cars come, and you can see the cars themselves move, so you can avoid them.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

In what way is Unova League actually terrible? Platform layout is nice, and even in Reshiram's form the chances that it nukes the entire centre of the stage to force camping is pretty darn low. Seems about equivalent to the one or two more obnoxious forms of Pokémon Stadium, except with damaging hitboxes as camping walls instead of actual walls. The only issue right now that I see is that nobody really knows if the stairs are on a timer or if there's some other exact indication as to when they'll show up.

 

[T33p0]

In what way is Unova League actually terrible? Platform layout is nice, and even in Reshiram's form the chances that it nukes the entire centre of the stage to force camping is pretty darn low. Seems about equivalent to the one or two more obnoxious forms of Pokémon Stadium, except with damaging hitboxes as camping walls instead of actual walls. The only issue right now that I see is that nobody really knows if the stairs are on a timer or if there's some other exact indication as to when they'll show up.

I might just have terrible luck with Reshi then, because it seems to always nuke the center of the stage. The stairs being able to hit you out of the park is also kinda bad news. Zekrom, for whatever reason, is almost as harmless as the other three that show up, who do absolutely nothing except look pretty. If the same were true of Reshiram, the stage would be fine. As it stands though, the moment it shows up, a good chunk of the stage is completely blocked off to you and you're practically forced to play on top of the stairs. If we were to allow Unova, then by that standard we might as well allow Gerudo Valley, which is just as problematic, if not more (blast zone beneath the bridge when collapsed/repaired is another thing against that stage entirely).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

In what way is Unova League actually terrible? Platform layout is nice, and even in Reshiram's form the chances that it nukes the entire centre of the stage to force camping is pretty darn low. Seems about equivalent to the one or two more obnoxious forms of Pokémon Stadium, except with damaging hitboxes as camping walls instead of actual walls. The only issue right now that I see is that nobody really knows if the stairs are on a timer or if there's some other exact indication as to when they'll show up.

The stairs are telegraphed by N's Castle in the background. At the start of the match it's not even there, it has to rise out of the ground first. The stairs themselves only appear after about 5 seconds after a bunch of holes open up in the castle walls, and they close after the stairs retract. The castle may or may not descend back into the ground once the stairs break, it seems to vary.

The first appearance of the stairs is consistently at the 37 second mark or so, but I don't know if subsequent instances are on a timer or not.

 

[Starcutter]

3DS LEGAL STAGE LIST (by legendofrob)

Starters
- Final Destination & Omega mode stages
- Battlefield
- Yoshi's Island
- Prism Tower

Counterpicks
- Arena Ferox
- Tomodachi Life
- Reset Bomb Forest

Omega Mode Bans
- Rainbow Road (lag issues)
- Coneria (also lag issues)
- Warioware (Zoom issues)

(If I notice issues with other omega mode stages I'd add them to here.)


I'd think this would be about the general consensus, maybe a stage or two off, but I think it's pretty good.

 

[Piford]

3DS LEGAL STAGE LIST (by legendofrob)

Starters
- Final Destination
- Battlefield
- Yoshi's Island
- Prism Tower
- Omega mode stages

Counterpicks
- Arena Ferox
- Tomodachi Life
- Reset Bomb Forest

Omega Mode Bans
- Rainbow Road (lag issues)
- Coneria (also lag issues)
- Warioware (Zoom issues)

(If I notice issues with other omega mode stages I'd add them to here.)


I'd think this would be about the general consensus, maybe a stage or two off, but I think it's pretty good.

You can't put Omega mode stages apart from Final Destination, since your forcing anyone who wants to strike Final Destination to strike it twice.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

The stairs are telegraphed by N's Castle in the background. At the start of the match it's not even there, it has to rise out of the ground first. The stairs themselves only appear after about 5 seconds after a bunch of holes open up in the castle walls, and they close after the stairs retract. The castle may or may not descend back into the ground once the stairs break, it seems to vary.

The first appearance of the stairs is consistently at the 37 second mark or so, but I don't know if subsequent instances are on a timer or not.

Ah, you're right! The holes disappear after the stairs are destroyed, and reappear right before the stairs reappear.

in that case, I see nothing that actually negatively impacts the potential legality of this stage. All hazards, even if pretty deadly, are telegraphed a couple seconds before they actually hit, giving you ample time to avoid them (or throw your opponent into them, that's also an option). And as for Reshiram's Fusion Flare, yeah, it can take out the entire centre of the stage, but the chances of it targeting that area specifically are pretty low, and it doesn't last all that long anyway. Kinda like a few of the less "favourable" transformations on Pokémon Stadium, really.

 

[Starcutter]

You can't put Omega mode stages apart from Final Destination, since your forcing anyone who wants to strike Final Destination to strike it twice.

that's a good point.


I kinda added it last minute to be honest though


I'll change it to be " Final Destination & Omega forms".


Or maybe it should be split into two categories, "FD and standard Omega forms" and "omega forms that reach to the bottom of the stage" since the two are different, the second giving wall-jumping and wall clinging characters an advantage.

 

[Piford]

that's a good point.


I kinda added it last minute to be honest though


I'll change it to be " Final Destination & Omega forms".


Or maybe it should be split into two categories, "FD and standard Omega forms" and "omega forms that reach to the bottom of the stage" since the two are different, the second giving wall-jumping and wall clinging characters an advantage.

Its such a small advantage and difference that it really doesn't deserve its own spot. If you pick Final Destination, you should get to choose what form you want. If we wanna get really into it, Wily Castle and Arena Ferox both have slight differences too, but you wouldn't count those as different forms.

 

[allshort17]

I'm surprised no one has brought up Injustice's and MK X's stage hazards. In Injustice, they are a staple part of the game and reward players for proper spacial control, positioning, and stage awareness. Granted, hazards in this game are player triggered, however the hazards on some stages in Smash 4 provide the same rewards as in Injustice. For example, the Shy Guys on Rainbow Road are telegraphed and non-random in positioning. So, characters that can effectively control space where the Shy Guys don't race through, force the opponent in unfavorable stage positions, and are easily able to follow-up when their opponent is hit are benefited, thus making this an effective counter-pick. Hazards don't necessary have to test a different and extraneous set of skills. They can aid in testing the skills we already expect players to have if the hazard is tame. Just consider that when creating stage lists.

 

[Piford]

Since there's a lack of any statistical testing actually being done, I thought I'd conduct an experiment to the best of my abilities about stages.
In the link above is a spread sheet of the results of a Lvl 7 Mario against a Lvl 9 Mario battling on various stages. Each was a sample of 5 matches, with the 3 stocks, 8 min timer, and no items. Theres also some notes on what happened during these matches. I know that 5 matches isn't really enough, and that computer players aren't the best, but it was the best I could do. Any thoughts?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Since there's a lack of any statistical testing actually being done, I thought I'd conduct an experiment to the best of my abilities about stages.
In the link above is a spread sheet of the results of a Lvl 7 Mario against a Lvl 9 Mario battling on various stages. Each was a sample of 5 matches, with the 3 stocks, 8 min timer, and no items. Theres also some notes on what happened during these matches. I know that 5 matches isn't really enough, and that computer players aren't the best, but it was the best I could do. Any thoughts?

It's certainly interesting at the very least, although I want to note that the AI doesn't really camp walkoffs like humans can so they may not be the best way to test Gaur Plains, etc. (Or camp/play keepaway in general, really.)

Out of curiosity, about how many transformations did Pictochat go through per match? There's a total of 26 or so.

 

[Piford]

It's certainly interesting at the very least, although I want to note that the AI doesn't really camp walkoffs like humans can so they may not be the best way to test Gaur Plains, etc. (Or camp/play keepaway in general, really.)

Out of curiosity, about how many transformations did Pictochat go through per match? There's a total of 26 or so.

They're were definitely a fair number, but I didn't record the actual amount.

 

[Gerpington]

They're were definitely a fair number, but I didn't record the actual amount.

This needs to be tested ...not that it should be unbanned. Some of the changes are very disruptive.

Also: free distant planet 2014

 

[MysteriousSilver]

I suppose you could test it to see how disruptive those items are, but before we get to that point I'd want to know why we think this stage should be legal in the first place. The main reason to add a stage is because we think it having this stage available broadens the competitive game. With that in mind, as a player, what are the situations in which you would want to counterpick with Tortimer Island?

(Incidentally, this is the main thing I have against Rainbow Road. The only legit reasons I can see to pick this stage are:
- I want to random my opponent out with cars
- I want to pick Prism Tower, but I already won there and DSR is in effect
Neither of which is a good reason to allow that stage, IMO)

I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle. We shouldn't be figuring out which stages we're going to ALLOW, but which ones are disruptive enough to warrant a ban. If someone prefers Rainbow Road as their counterpick over Prism Tower, that's their business, and if the stage isn't to disruptive, then they shouldn't be banned from counterpicking it just because a similar stage exists.

By all means, I'm not saying Rainbow Road isn't disruptive--I haven't played on it enough to really judge that. But I don't think we should be "adding " stages to the list, just cutting them if they're a problem. More stages = more diverse gameplay = more fun and a deeper game, if only a little bit.