Stage Builder Theory (How To Make Good Stages)

[signor]

I grew up on Brawl, TF2 and Minecraft so designing maps has always been something I tried to do in every game. However, when I look through the Shared Content of Smash Ultimate it seems to be pretty hit or miss. It's either an amazing stage with no glitches and a cool background, or a half-trying attempt at a meme. This is a guide or rule book on how to design a stage. The best way to rate the quality of stages is to pay attention to its Art, Design and Functionality.

Art

Art is pretty self explanatory. However, art doesn't just refer to a cool drawing in the background.
You should keep in mind the color palette of your stage, the design of each platform and the actual stage background chosen when starting.
There are 2 common issues that people run into when drawing a stage.
The first is foreground drawings. Foreground drawings tend to disappear when the camera zooms in which looks jank.
The second is accidental ledges. When drawing a design on a solid platform, it's important to turn of ledges for that block.

Design

Design refers to the layout of the stage. How many platforms, the size, canons, etc.
Note that just because a stage isn't tournament legal, doesn't mean it's a bad design.
You want to avoid obscure shapes and keep different playstyles in mind.
The biggest issue I see in stage designs are FD clones.
FD clones are usually made when the designer just wants to show off their drawing.
However, often times because the stage is just one flat platform, the camera won't show the full drawing anyway.
The FD layout also places characters incredibly close to one another at star, making games unfair.
You should also avoid solid, moving platforms at the ledge.
You cannot make one side of a platform have a ledge and one not, so there will always be an awkward ledge you wish didn't exist
Stage remakes are cool and all, but they are difficult to pull off.
It's near impossible to get the exact recreations of a stage (due to blast zone limitations) and some stages, like Pokefloats will never be faithfully recreated in stage builder.

Functionality

This is the easiest thing in the world to get right. Just play the stage.
Simply test for accidental ledges and clips and you should be good to go.
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Examples of good and poor stages: https://imgur.com/a/jlsKaqD
(In Order)

The first stage looks great. The art is 10/10. However what you cannot see is that the entire left side is walled off with lava and there is a wind box constantly blowing to the right. It's a cool drawing, but nothing more.

The second stage is stupid I hate it a clever idea, but it has the same issue as the Zelda stage. Never mind play on it, why would I even download it? You can get everything you need to out of these first two stages by Testing them in the menu or even just looking at them.

The third stage is a good example of art that isn't just a drawing. The colors all look very nice together and you can tell time was spent on it. The two side pillars move which goes back to something I said earlier in the design category. You end up grabbing the inner sides of the moving pillars when playing. Other than that, it's a brilliant stage.

Finally, the best stage I've seen so far, Chemical Plant. The stage design is amazing, the art is amazing and it is functional! Unfortunately, the rotating squares do have ledges on them, but they don't impact the gameplay too much. Clearly the best stage I've seen.

Last thing I want to say to clear things up. Some people see no problem with FD or picture stages like the first 2 examples because they look cool or are funny.
That's all fine but the joy you get out of a meme stage is lost very quickly. Why settle for just a picture or a meme when you could have a cool stage to go with it?
IMO, the best stages will be the ones that add something clever to the match like Smashket Ball or Chemical Plant.
It all comes down to whatever is fun for you to play on.​

 

[Room100]

Personally, there's two big issues I feel keep holding me back:
1. Limited color/texture palette
2. Actual limitations in amount of building possible

For the first, I literally just want a color wheel. All the textures and different types work well, it's fine to leave some things like ice and lava the same. But it gets annoying trying to work between rubber and metal all the time but they're my only options color-wise. Even some of the best functional and interactive stages are brought down because a silly texture was needed for the color.

The second point has come up literally every time I'm building. It's fine that it gets limited to 4 player when it does, not like I'll be having many 8 players matches on custom stages anyway. But it becomes a massive challenge to add adequate detail to the background while also creating dynamic platforms. I'm sure that's why most people choose detailed backgrounds instead of focusing on the groundwork, because half the time that's just gonna look like a stage-shaped block of dirt anyway