Stage Analysis & Discussion Thread

[mimgrim]

Even if there can be no stage that is 100% neutral, there are clearly stages that are much more neutral than others, which is the point of the neutral list. Allowing people to choose between, say, 3-5 slightly different neutral stages using bans brings us that much closer to total neutrality.

Not really.

What, besides some arbitrary definition that is NOT fact, makes a stage more "neutral" then another?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Quick question about Omega Forms: Were all of them just ruled to be skins of FD? Either way, are we just treating Omega stages the same as FD?

Dodging the rest of the debate completely, last I saw there's still differing opinions on whether or not Omegas with walls all the way down should somehow be considered separately from the ones that float over a void. (I personally acknowledge that it affects some characters e.g. Greninja that can wall jump/cling, but don't believe it to be a large enough difference to be worth having two FDs in the stage list since most characters want FD for the lack of platforms.) That said, with the exception of what the underside of the stage looks like and apparently different camera zoom parameters, all Omega stages have the same stage length and distance to the blast zone to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Terotrous]

Everything is relative, the declaration of your frame of reference is arbitrary.

Is Battlefield neutral, and FD is odd for not having platforms?

Is FD neutral, and BF is weird?

Is Temple neutral, and all other stages are janky?

It's all arbitrary and subjective.

Except, you know, it's not arbitrary at all. Temple has absurd caves of life and allows some characters to run away for literally the entire match while the other character has no way of catching them.

You can try to argue FD vs Battlefield (note that Smashville and Pokemon Stadium 2 are actually both hybrids of the two!), but there's no reasonable way to argue that stages like Temple are neutral.

 

[DeLux]

Show me the layouts of these stages and I would be happy to do so.

Why would you need that? Why not just let the players decide by striking?

 

[Piford]

Except, you know, it's not arbitrary at all. Temple has absurd caves of life and allows some characters to run away for literally the entire match while the other character has no way of catching them.

You can try to argue FD vs Battlefield (note that Smashville and Pokemon Stadium 2 are actually both hybrids of the two!), but there's no reasonable way to argue that stages like Temple are neutral.

But you could say that temple is neutral and that your hurting characters by removing their ability to run away on stages like final destination

 

[Terotrous]

Not really.

What, besides some arbitrary definition that is NOT fact, makes a stage more "neutral" then another?

Just because you keep claiming that it's arbitrary doesn't make it arbitrary. It's not a coincidence that dozens of different communities independently came to the same general conclusions about which stages were legal.

 

[DeLux]

Just because you keep claiming that it's arbitrary doesn't make it arbitrary. It's not a coincidence that dozens of different communities independently came to the same general conclusions about which stages were legal.

They did not independently come to the conclusion. The politics of rulesset making has been an ongoing struggle for a long time.

Also - Most of the smash community is scrubby. Rather than learn to beat something/utilize something, they would rather ban it or exclude it from 1/3rd of play for no reason.
'
Appeal to common practice is still a logical fallacy, besides that.

 

[Thinkaman]

Just because you keep claiming that it's arbitrary doesn't make it arbitrary. It's not a coincidence that dozens of different communities independently came to the same general conclusions about which stages were legal.

Humans can share preferences without making them something deeper than just that--preferences.

Many communities came to the conclusion that FD was the only neutral stage, and many communities have disagreed.

Many new players only play on Temple. It's a reflection of preferred playstyles and game experiences, but no more or less legitimate of an opinion.

Our current rules are a result of years of negotiation and compromise.

 

[Terotrous]

Our current rules are a result of years of negotiation and compromise.

Yes, but it has been years of negotiation and compromise that have lead us to an understanding of the Smash Bros metagame and how different stages affect it, that now leaves us better equipped to determine which traits in a stage are desirable. That's why you'll never find a competitive player who doesn't agree that PM has the best stagelist of all the Smash games.

Appeal to common practice is still a logical fallacy, besides that.

It's also a fallacy to suggest that just because there isn't a 100% consensus all viewpoints must be equally valid.

 

[mimgrim]

It's not a coincidence that dozens of different communities independently came to the same general conclusions about which stages were legal.

That's only true for Melee, maybe 64 to but I don't really keep up with the game, end even that took years. There are still tons of disagreements for P:M and Brawl among the different communities for legal stage though. Stop with the misinformation now please. >_>

 

[Doval]

That's why you'll never find a competitive player who doesn't agree that PM has the best stagelist of all the Smash games.

Project M is homebrew and that's why, despite its popularity and arguable superiority, it'll never achieve Brawl's legitimacy. That's the problem with imposing artificial rules - you create your own homebrew game and risk isolating yourself from the community behind the original game. It's a very slippery slope. That's why any ban or artificial rule needs overwhelming evidence that it breaks or worsens the game or significantly impedes a fair contest. Barring that, there's no reason to ban anything regardless of how odd or "janky" any number people think it is.

I won't deny we have a good idea of what makes a good stage and Project M did well there. But saying that some stage is janky because it doesn't conform to those standards isn't a valid reason not to use it. It's also very tempting to think that we know what *all* good stages look like, but it's wrong. Expecting a stage to be arbitrarily similar to known good stages rules out legitimate good stages that just happen to be different and stops us from getting a better understanding of what makes a stage good.

 

[Terotrous]

I won't deny we have a good idea of what makes a good stage and Project M did well there. But saying that some stage is janky because it doesn't conform to those standards isn't a valid reason not to use it. It's also very tempting to think that we know what *all* good stages look like. Expecting a stage to be arbitrarily similar to know good stages rules out legitimate good stages that just happen to be different.

I would be willing to test out new stages if they were legitimately very different from anything we've seen before. I was a supporter for the original PM Norfair, for example. However, in Smash 4 3DS, the majority of the stages are either old stages that we tested out back when they were new and then banned them, or stages that are extremely similar to old banned stages that would be banned for the same reasons. About the only stage that doesn't fall under this is Tomodachi Life, and I'm a big supporter of that stage.

 

[Thinkaman]

That's why you'll never find a competitive player who doesn't agree that PM has the best stagelist of all the Smash games.

I'd disagree, and I know many others who would. But I don't mean to derail.

The big issue here is you are demanding your preferences be accepted as an objective truth, which just doesn't work.

We can objectively say which stages can and cannot be circle-camped, sure. But the criteria that circle-camp stages = bad is an entirely subjective one to have. For example, it is largely irrelevant in all of the following contexts:

• FFAs
• Teams
• Items On
• No external reward
• No timer

Timed, item-less, 1v1s for money are an incredibly small % of smash bros games. They are an incredibly small percentage of my games!

This isn't to say that such criteria shouldn't be applied to that or other contexts, but when I ban circle-campable stages from events I TO, I do so recognizing that it's strictly a personal preference in accordance with the type of game experience I (and most of my players) prefer.

 

[Terotrous]

We can objectively say which stages can and cannot be circle-camped, sure. But the criteria that circle-camp stages = bad is an entirely subjective one to have. For example, it is largely irrelevant in all of the following contexts:

• FFAs
• Teams
• Items On
• No external reward
• No timer

Timed, item-less, 1v1s for money are an incredibly small % of smash bros games. They are an incredibly small percentage of my games!

But the stagelist we're discussing only applies to that ruleset, so all other possible rulesets are irrelevant. I don't know where people getting the idea that if we say Gaur Plains is a bad stage because it can be circle camped, that means you can literally never play this stage ever. You can play whatever you want in funsies.

I suppose you could use this to argue that PM's stagelist is only the best from the perspective of this ruleset, but I think it was fairly clear that's what I was referring to.

Incidentally, this has nothing to do with my own preferences. When I play PM, I don't use the approved ruleset, I have some obviously jank stages like Pirate Ship and Pictochat enabled. However, I understand the reasoning behind how the legal stagelist was chosen, even in the cases where I don't agree with the stages they chose.

 

[Piford]

But the stagelist we're discussing only applies to that ruleset, so all other possible rulesets are irrelevant. I don't know where people getting the idea that if we say Gaur Plains is a bad stage because it can be circle camped, that means you can literally never play this stage ever. You can play whatever you want in funsies.

I suppose you could use this to argue that PM's stagelist is only the best from the perspective of this ruleset, but I think it was fairly clear that's what I was referring to.

Incidentally, this has nothing to do with my own preferences. When I play PM, I don't use the approved ruleset, I have some obviously jank stages like Pirate Ship and Pictochat enabled. However, I understand the reasoning behind how the legal stagelist was chosen, even in the cases where I don't agree with the stages they chose.

We don't know the exact ruleset for Smash 4 yet. Also, I still have yet to play a match on gaur plains where me or my opponent was able to circle camp. I think it's a great stage. At the least, it should be legal in doubles, since its much harder to effectively camp in doubles.

 

[_Magus_]

We don't know the exact ruleset for Smash 4 yet. Also, I still have yet to play a match on gaur plains where me or my opponent was able to circle camp. I think it's a great stage. At the least, it should be legal in doubles, since its much harder to effectively camp in doubles.

Me and my friend played one on Gaur. I was Ganon, he was Mega Man. With his superior range and movement speed, he was able to circle camp, and the match timer (set on 8 minutes) timed out. I'm not a huge fan of Gaur


EDIT: Being a larger stage, it would be perfect for doubles.

 

[Terotrous]

We don't know the exact ruleset for Smash 4 yet.

We do know it'll be 1v1 timed stock (for singles). Whether it's 2 stocks or 3 doesn't have much effect on stage legality.

Also, I still have yet to play a match on gaur plains where me or my opponent was able to circle camp. I think it's a great stage. At the least, it should be legal in doubles, since its much harder to effectively camp in doubles.

Sure, the creation of the doubles stage list is a totally different process. I personally have no interest in doubles, so I won't pretend to know if it has the capacity to be legal there.

 

[Piford]

Me and my friend played one on Gaur. I was Ganon, he was Mega Man. With his superior range and movement speed, he was able to circle camp, and the match timer (set on 8 minutes) timed out. I'm not a huge fan of Gaur


EDIT: Being a larger stage, it would be perfect for doubles.

Well I assume it was actually mostly projectile camping if it was mega man. And Gaur Plains is gannondorfs worst stage and he should always ban it in actual competitive play.

 

[GroundZero996]

Does this new stage builder fix stage viability problems? Clearly it's more powerful than the Brawl one.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

What does everyone think of that giant battlefield? In the case it could be accessed from 1v1 mode, I feel it could be a pretty good stage.

Does this new stage builder fix stage viability problems? Clearly it's more powerful than the Brawl one.

Wouldn't it be a pain to have the community agree on one stage customization?

 

[GroundZero996]

What does everyone think of that giant battlefield? In the case it could be accessed from 1v1 mode, I feel it could be a pretty good stage.



Wouldn't it be a pain to have the community agree on one stage customization?

Why? We have a bunch of custom stages for PM don't we? And the stages are probably something you can share so you just have TOs make the stages.

Also Big Battlefield would just be absurd for 1v1 IMO.

 

[Piford]

What does everyone think of that giant battlefield? In the case it could be accessed from 1v1 mode, I feel it could be a pretty good stage.



Wouldn't it be a pain to have the community agree on one stage customization?

It looks like giant battlefield can be accessed for 1v1s based on the SSS.
Custom Stages might work, but it's hard to agree on a standard.

As for stages from the Wii U verison
Miiverse if its not identical to battlefield
Big Battlefield might be too big
Mario Circuit is good if its similar to rianbow road
Lylat Cruise, I new it'd be back, and its still good.
Kalos Pokemon League was unveiled further, and even with the small stage hazards (The swords and flame pillar) it looks really good.
Gaur Plains is even bigger and now with tons of hazards, too bad.
Similarly Great Cave Offense, Palutena's Temple, and Temple are all way too big for single player.
Delphino's back and better with the new mechanics of the game
Wuhu Island is probably similar to Delphino and Skyworld, which would be awesome.
Port Town Aero Drive and Luigi's Mansion probably deserve re-evalutation
Pyrosphere and Garden of Hope look ruined by stage bosses
Orbital Gate wasn't bad from what was shown
Congo Jungle 64 is back which is cool
Gamer didn't seem that bad
Wrecking Crew is the new 75m, which is also back
Bridge of Eldin and Norfair could also work again, well see
The New Donkey Kong stage likely is too circle campy for competative play
I have no idea about Yoshi's Island and Mario Circuit being legal
I don't think we know what the stage next to port town aero drive is
Clearly all the stages haven't been shown because Game & Watch lacks a stage.

 

[Piford]

Why? We have a bunch of custom stages for PM don't we? And the stages are probably something you can share so you just have TOs make the stages.

Also Big Battlefield would just be absurd for 1v1 IMO.

Custom stages that are legal in PM are made by the PMDT

 

[smashmachine]

I think there are easily 10+ legal stages for the Wii U version already

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I haven't had an opportunity to rewatch the direct, so does anyone know if custom stages can be shared between people? I like the idea of particularly clever-yet-balanced (or just plain balanced-yet-not-Battlefield/FD-clone) stages being approved and distributed en masse, but there's always the issue of logistics and community acceptance.

If nothing else the stage builder looks a lot more robust than Brawl's.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

I haven't had an opportunity to rewatch the direct, so does anyone know if custom stages can be shared between people? I like the idea of particularly clever-yet-balanced (or just plain balanced-yet-not-Battlefield/FD-clone) stages being approved and distributed en masse, but there's always the issue of logistics and community acceptance.

If nothing else the stage builder looks a lot more robust than Brawl's.

I believe it was said at the tail end of the direct that we will be able to eventually share our stages online.

 

[Piford]

I think there are easily 10+ legal stages for the Wii U version already

I'd say we have

Very Likely Legal (15)
Final Destination
Battlefield
Big Battlefield (Doubles only Possibly)
Delphino Plaza
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Castle Siege
Smashville
Congo Jungle (Doubles only Possibly)
Skyloft
Pilotwings
Windy Hill
Town and City
Kalos Pokemon League
Wuhu Island (Based off SSS pic)

Slightly Sketchy (4)
Mushroom Kingdom U
Mario Circuit
Orbital Gate
Gamer

Retest Pls (3)
Port Town Aero Drive
Norfair
Luigi's Mansion

Walk-offs are freaking everywhere (8)
Wii Fit Studio
Mario Circuit (Brawl)
Yoshi's Island (Melee)
Coliseum
Onett
Mario Galaxy
Bridge of Eldin
Boxing Ring

Ridley Sized (5)
Hyrule Castle
Palutena's Temple
75m
Great Cave Offense
Wrecking Crew

It's Boss Time (4)
Pyrosphere
Gaur Plains
Wily Castle
Garden of Hope

I Have No Clue (3)
The windmill stage
Skyworld
Jungle Hijinx

Edit: Pac-Land is noticeably absent from the SSS, so its 100% confirmed we still have more stages to come, and Pac-land is still a garbage stage.
Edit 2: I also forgot Mii Verse, but we'd need to see if you have to be connected to the internet to use the stage and if its not identical to battlefield before deciding its legality.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Does this new stage builder fix stage viability problems? Clearly it's more powerful than the Brawl one.

@ Overswarm would you kindly explain the results of Equity, Libra, and Abyss? Or if you don't want to I could.

Super fast explanation: custom stages were tested in Brawl. It's not just that the stage builder was bad, telling players who come to their first tournament ever to play on a custom stage they've never seen before pushes buttons. Plus coordinating it between all of the consoles with sd cards is also difficult.

Thought still, would love to hear more about that midwest circuit you ran, you could probably say way more about it then I could since you ran it and all

Either way, custom stages will probably never be legal. I'd stay focused on the normal stages.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

So I just rewatched the direct to confirm my thoughts. We will eventually be able to share custom stages with friends online. Perhaps that could make them legal because the hassle of sharing SD cards is now null.

 

[GroundZero996]

@ Overswarm would you kindly explain the results of Equity, Libra, and Abyss? Or if you don't want to I could.

Super fast explanation: custom stages were tested in Brawl. It's not just that the stage builder was bad, telling players who come to their first tournament ever to play on a custom stage they've never seen before pushes buttons. Plus coordinating it between all of the consoles with sd cards is also difficult.

Thought still, would love to hear more about that midwest circuit you ran, you could probably say way more about it then I could since you ran it and all

Either way, custom stages will probably never be legal. I'd stay focused on the normal stages.

I don't see why this is a problem with Online stage sharing? Brawl didn't have this, so yeah that was a problem, but with onlines stage sharing TOs can post these stages to be tested and practiced on.

Excluding custom stages this time will be a huge oversight IMO, especially if we are lacking starter stages.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

A thought on the new Mario Circuit stage:

At first glance it looks like a Rainbow Road clone where you fly around and occasionally fight on the track itself, but thinking about the actual course I'm not so sure. The reason is that MK8's Mario Circuit is a Mobius loop and the majority of the track is either sideways or upside down, which would restrict the possible landing spots to basically the start line and the white bridge. (People who have played MK8 know what I mean.)

It's possible it has some other trick up its sleeve, but for now I'm hesitant to call it as another travelling stage, for better or worse.

 

[Piford]

A thought on the new Mario Circuit stage:

At first glance it looks like a Rainbow Road clone where you fly around and occasionally fight on the track itself, but thinking about the actual course I'm not so sure. The reason is that MK8's Mario Circuit is a Mobius loop and the majority of the track is either sideways or upside down, which would restrict the possible landing spots to basically the start line and the white bridge. (People who have played MK8 know what I mean.)

It's possible it has some other trick up its sleeve, but for now I'm hesitant to call it as another travelling stage, for better or worse.

I mean the stage could simply follow the course and go upside down and such. But i guess it is worthy to note that we've only seen one stage layout in the small clip and picture we've seen (Flat surface with a semilong platform above it). I guess it could be simply that. I mean RR/MC/PTAD don't have platforms between stops so that does bring into question if it will be like those stages.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I don't see why this is a problem with Online stage sharing? Brawl didn't have this, so yeah that was a problem, but with onlines stage sharing TOs can post these stages to be tested and practiced on.

Excluding custom stages this time will be a huge oversight IMO, especially if we are lacking starter stages.

Most you would talk to here would say we shouldn't have starter stages at all.

But in the end, it's still bad for a new player to come in having never played on a stage and then being told it is legal having had no way to practice on it.

 

[Overswarm]

Long story short: Custom stages brought about no issues when implemented in tournament play. They were easy to set up from an SD card, brought about no crazy changes in results, and were some of the most popular CPs. Some people didn't like them, but they were mostly the same people that say things like "no custom moves" and "Why aren't we playing 2 stock FD only" -- all around worthless people to get commentaries from, because they hate change and everything close to change.

That said, the limitations of the stage builder made it very difficult to make good stages. There were glitches (olimar's pluck) and huge limitations. Wii U might not have it. Most of the legitimate complaints were due to things we couldn't change due to those limitations. A few hated that we couldn't play on the stages in other tournaments, thus making practicing on them kind of pointless in the long term.

Long story long:

Here's a video on one of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4MtPy6Q0co

I used these stages:

The general results were.... neutral. I used them for an entire circuit (one full season), no major incidents and it wasn't a big pain to implement.

There were no issues with loading them up onto another Wii (we just put them on an SD card and transferred them, with two people it took no time at all).

There were no major balance issues.

Libra and Equity both became very popular stages and helped reach a "middle ground" of sorts.

Equity made the game MUCH faster paced, which was its intention. Libra allowed for an FD that didn't force a player into a chain grab situation all the time. The goals we set for those stages were basically hit, just unintended consequences we couldn't get around were the real drags.

The pros:

-We were able to add stages that increased CP possibilities both for and against characters; MK did very poorly on both Abyss and Libra and Snake did well on them during the time we played.

-It was exciting for players. Those that felt worthless before suddenly felt they had a chance because they had "practiced the stage". A "season" of custom stages was considered as it revitalized tournaments quite a bit.

-It helped meet both sides in the middle. Originalists wanted a broader stagelist, constructionist wanted less janky stages, custom stages allowed the possibility of both.

The cons:

-People who hate change hated it by default

-It was an unknown variable, so when someone had a really good game on a custom stage they ended up being blamed for "abusing" the stage. People blamed losses on them.

-It required initial setup. While minor, it was something a TO needed to do. Just another thing on the list.

-Some disliked the idea of learning new stages that weren't in other regions

I have no idea as to whether or not we'll need or want custom stages for the Wii U version. The 3DS version's stagelist is practically non-existant, even by my standards, but we don't know the impact of that yet. Wii U may have a huge stagelist or an even smaller one, who knows?

Just know that when it comes time to discuss custom stages, previous testing in Brawl found no real advantage or disadvantage to using them that was so overwhelming it demanded their use. If it turns out that every stage for Wii U has a dragon that comes out and slaps the stage and gives speed nerfs and damage buffs to random characters I'd recommend them, but prior to a stage crisis it's kind of a "meh" thing.

 

[popsofctown]

One things that makes me want this used is that a lot of players insist on playing stages with RNG that comes to an extent that I find unacceptable, but others find tolerable. Halberd is a premium example, most find the claw ok, I think a hazard that can create frame traps and randomly affects only one of the players in an average game is bs.

As a compromise, the layout of a stage like halberd can be emulated in stage builder and that stage could be used instead of the hazardy one. It's not the low ceiling I have a problem with, and if that's the counterpick property with the value you're after that's cool.

 

[GroundZero996]

Most you would talk to here would say we shouldn't have starter stages at all.

But in the end, it's still bad for a new player to come in having never played on a stage and then being told it is legal having had no way to practice on it.

I'm saying there are ways to practice it... Why are you ignoring this? As long as TOs give ample time to test out their creations they can just put them online to be shared. Any participant can then access them if it's friends only, or if it's for anyone then you can just make it public and anyone who has the game can download that stage.

Just know that when it comes time to discuss custom stages, previous testing in Brawl found no real advantage or disadvantage to using them that was so overwhelming it demanded their use. If it turns out that every stage for Wii U has a dragon that comes out and slaps the stage and gives speed nerfs and damage buffs to random characters I'd recommend them, but prior to a stage crisis it's kind of a "meh" thing.

It could be a nice way to pad out the stages if it turns out that there aren't enough neutral starters or viable counter picks. The 3DS suffers from this IMO.

It's not a huge deal, but it's not something that should be overlooked IMO.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Most you would talk to here would say we shouldn't have starter stages at all.

But in the end, it's still bad for a new player to come in having never played on a stage and then being told it is legal having had no way to practice on it.

Well the thing is, we have ways of advertising any custom stage to the world playerbase. We have a reddit of over 100,000 people to inform; we have Twitter; etc. Yes we may have the one player who doesn't know, but those are bound to happen especially in the early weeks. It will phase out over time if we are consistent with our rules.

The one big problem I see is getting the majority of TO's to agree to a stage to share.

Of course, I don't think it's really that big of a deal until we see the extent of the stages in the Wii U version.

 

[GroundZero996]

Well the thing is, we have ways of advertising any custom stage to the world playerbase. We have a reddit of over 100,000 people to inform; we have Twitter; etc. Yes we may have the one player who doesn't know, but those are bound to happen especially in the early weeks. It will phase out over time if we are consistent with our rules.

The one big problem I see is getting the majority of TO's to agree to a stage to share.

Of course, I don't think it's really that big of a deal until we see the extent of the stages in the Wii U version.

Don't the TO's already agree on stages with PM?

Even if they don't not all events have to have the same banned/ legal stages.

 

[allshort17]

I don't see why this is a problem with Online stage sharing? Brawl didn't have this, so yeah that was a problem, but with onlines stage sharing TOs can post these stages to be tested and practiced on.

Excluding custom stages this time will be a huge oversight IMO, especially if we are lacking starter stages.

There's no point in adding another barrier of entry into Smash and another reason for TO's to dispute. Even though it will be easy for larger tournaments, smaller tournaments and scenes not completely involved in the standard competitive Smash scene will have trouble ensuring all the stages are present. You're right in saying that they are easy to share and over time, most everyone will have them. We're the community that runs one of it's major games off of SD cards. But, it's still a hassle to check if every WiiU has the stages.

It's not hard to modify these stages also. A player could raise the stage up by one level or remove a block from the main stage. Small problems like these will arise and if unnoticed, muddies the validity of the competition. Again, we could check every WiiU or have the TO personally upload the stages. However, it's still a hassle.

Also, what stages will we make and how many should we make? There are effective an infinite number of appropriate custom stages we can make. Even if the community does happen to agree on what stages to use, some TO is going to want another one and run it in their tournaments, separating local communities even more. The Smash community already has problems agreeing on rulesets. There is no need to make it worse. The second problem is what stages will we make. We'd have to make stage with a purpose or otherwise we'd just have stages for the sake of having them. However, we could make stages that shift the game to favor one group of characters over another

The biggest problem is for the individuals, and not necessarily the players already into the competitive scene. If custom stages are implemented, the current competitive community will just get them and move on. But, for new players this is a huge issue. At least with our ruleset, we still use all the components that are already in the game. If we use custom stages, we seperate ourselves further from the rest of the player base. Smash games not only have so many different rules compared to other competitive games, but between the different Smash games themselves. It will only make it harder to attract new competitive players and keep them in the scene if they have to add the custom stages to the rules they have to learn and then actually learn the fundamentals of the game.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

My guesses on Wii U stages are based on what we know:

Known solid stages(15):

Battlefield
Big Battlefield (will be fine, really)
Final Destination
Mushroom Kingdom U (don't be scared; it's the best stage)
Delfino Plaza
DK 64
Skyloft
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Kalos Pokemon League
Castle Siege
Town and City
Smashville
Pilotwings
Miiverse

It's very clear that all 15 of these stages are solid; I have no real doubts all 15 will work in competitive play (Big Battlefield may be obnoxious, but there's no way it's unfair).

Likely solid stages (need to see full mechanics, 2):

Mario Circuit (new)
Orbital Gate

Both of these are promising looking moving stages that we haven't seen enough of to be fully certain. I'm optimistic.

Stages we know too little about to judge (2):

Mysterious Windmill Stage
Wuhu Island

I don't even know about these two. Maybe?

Stages we could use with controversy (13):

Mario Galaxy
Mario Circuit (brawl)
Luigi's Mansion
Jungle Hijinks
Bridge of Eldin
Norfair
Port Town Aero Dive
Yoshi's Island (Melee)
Onett
Coliseum
Gamer
Fitness Room
Windy Hill

I think all of these stages fit the classic model of a liberal stage list: they do crazy things without actually being unfair. You have walk-offs, substantial hazards, and non-traditional layouts. Norfair in particular I've always really thought was a great stage, but I know many feel otherwise. I imagine from this whole bunch we'll salvage 0-2 stages by the time it's said and done.

No hopers (12):

Temple
Pyrosphere
Great Cave Offensive
Palutena's Temple
Skyworld
Garden of Hope
Boxing Room
Gaur Plains
75m
Wrecking Crew
Wily's Castle
Pac Land

I find these 12 stages so unlikely to work out that I don't think any are likely to be legal.

We're in a great position to have a huge stage list on Wii U. If anything, we risk having so many legal stages that it will be difficult to stage strike through all of them. That being said, we don't really need custom stages (which don't seem able to emulate traveling stages, a critical stage type); we are already overflowing with good standard stages on Wii U.