• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Stage Info Repository & Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
This is a placeholder for now, but I'm going to be researching timings for transitions, etc. for all the stages, and examining the mechanics. Will be putting all the info here for now.

Will also be drafting a stagelist based on preliminary opinions on things, cutting out only obviously broken stages and keeping it as liberal as possible for the start of the discussion period.
 

Strong Badam

Super Elite
Administrator
Premium
BRoomer
Joined
Feb 27, 2008
Messages
26,545
So far I'm very disappointed with the viable stages available. Some may argue that walkoffs are not immediately banned bcuz different game, but this game is very Brawlly and I feel without safe air dodges, it's going to be very easy to punish landings and do mean things near a blastzone. No character can CG (yay!) so it's not like we'll see CGs to the blastzone or anything, but it'd certainly be polarizing to allow it.

So far we've been playing with these stages:
Battlefield
Final Destination
Yoshi's Island: Brawl
Lumiose City (possible CP)

Others here have argued for the Fire Emblem stage, but the obstructions that come up disrupt gameplay in a PS1 Rock Transformation-esque way. People don't feel like interacting when they occur and the stage is otherwise very similar to FD.
Rainbow Road would be cool if it weren't for the Karts.

I think we may explore the possibility of allowing a pick of either FD or a For Glory version of a stage (preferably, a version that's smaller than the actual FD). If you'd like to ban FD, you get to ban both of these options, but if not, your opponent can pick either. I dunno, just an idea.

Starting liberally is fine, but I personally plan on running a stagelist I expect to be the end-game list. Let's not kid ourselves here, we're not going to magically allow Brinstar after having it banned two games in a row beforehand. The gameplay mechanics have absolutely not changed drastically enough to necessitate a hugely different approach to stage legality.
 
Last edited:

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
Okay, so @#HBC | Ryker and I just finished running through all the stages we currently have unlocked. Here's what we came up with.

Legal

Battlefield
Final Destination
Yoshi's Island Brawl

AC Island – Boat seems pretty predictable and unobtrusive. Random layout possibly of small concern, need to research how much it varies.

Lumiose City Gym – Starts with initial walk-off. Platform comes in at 8 seconds and leaves 5 seconds later. Visual warnings when platforms leave or change and you can't die off the top when platforms leave. Full cycles ~2 min. 4 transitions total. Only one set of stages (no variation a la Delphino).

Phase 1
Ground with walkoff. Platform appears at 8. Leaves at 10.

Phase 2
Arrives at 15. Observation deck leaves at 30 seconds.

Phase 3
Four plat set-up at 40 seconds. Leaves at 52 seconds.

Phase 4
1:05 metal platform setup. 3 plats. 1:20 leaves to night sky transitions

Phase 5
Night Sky transition leaves at 1:45. Landing back on ground 1:55.

Consistently loop, non-intrusive.

Arena Ferox –Starts with med sized flat stage henceforth called neutral transformation. First trans 10 seconds. 3 plats on statues like castle siege. They are breakable. 40 seconds leaves trans 1. 45 goes to neutral. 50 sec goes to rotating plats with a solid plat in the middle. 1:30 collapses to neutral. 1:40 sec goes to 4 plat layout with a three unbreakable/unpassable walls. 2:20 back to neutral. 2:30 4 plats with small solid wall in the middle on the ground. Breakable plats. Cannot die off top with platforms leaving. 3:10 goes to neutral. 3:20 heads back to first trans.

Order of stage is NOT SET. Cycle will go transition into neutral into transition, but the order of which transition does not follow any known pattern and will change the order of the second cycle as soon as all transitions have been seen. Works like Pokemon Stadium in every aspect we can see.

Arena Ferox is basically this game's PS1. I don't think the transition with the blocked platforms is intrusive enough to be an actual problem, tbh. No moreso than PS1 was.

Kid Icarus - Trans at 55 when meteor comes down. 3 sets of destructible platforms that cannot be passed through. 12 damage creature comes across the bottom. Creature comes in from right at 15 seconds after trans and then spends 15 seconds crossing the screen. He is then gone for another 15 seconds. Then he returns crossing left to right instead and taking another 15 seconds. Kills at about Brinstar acid to eyeball it. Transitions back to first at 2:10 as creature returns to right side.

Creature side of origin varies.

Brinstar – Same as Brawl, but sharking should be mitigated.

Questionable

Tomodachi Life – Suspect circle-camp, very visually jarring. Would personally say no.
Gaur Plains – Potential circle camp, sharking, walk-off camping.
Distant Planet – Essentially the same as Brawl. Same problems with Rain, camping, walk-off and Bulborb.
Corneria – Walls not as abusive as previous. Possible, but gross.
Jungle Japes – Differnt klaptrap starts, but still on 10 second timer. Water is super strong. Holy ****.
Paper Mario – 3 transisitons. 2:30 seconds for a full cycle. Needs further examination.
Mario 3D World – Scroller with a minimal hazard 3/4 way through. Requires further research.

Hella-Banned

Wily's Castle – Yellow Devil single-handedly ruins this stage.
Find Mii – Ultimate Ghost attacking ruins this stage too. Far far too disruptive.
Nintendogs – Constant falling disruptive debris. Walk-offs. Potential run-away.
Punch-out – Far too easy to camp the lights. Even though you can knock them down, they only stay down for 5 seconds. Air-camping would be far too strong.
Wario-ware – Star + Super Shroom. Banned.
N's Castle – Tried so hard, but hell no. Zekrom and Reshiram are bad news. Stairs can kill as they come in.
Magicant (Earthbound Stage) – Birdman is too strong a friend. So much bro.
Spirit Tracks – Big Blue 2.
Gerudo Valley – Bridge of Eldin, but worse.
Mushroomy Kingdom – Same as Brawl. Please go away.
Green Hill Zone – Still destructible. Still walk-offs. Still a mean stage hazard.
Rainbow Road – Single plat start. Lands at 10 secs. Trans is plats over open hole. 7:35 trans to neutral. Track deals 15 damage when moving. Periods when no track beneath stage. Landed at 6:50. Cars do 10 each. 6:25 next trans. 2 plats. Grabbable ledge. Leaves at 6:10 with nice big arrow. 6:00 next stage. Flat moon area. Cars come in like flat area of port town aero dive. Leaves at 5:45. 5:35 tubes wheere you can hit wall. Ground rotates and cars from the back. Leaves at 5:15. Finishes 4:55. Like Port Town, has multiple stop routes. Track kills off top ~100.

Cars too obtrusive. Some transitions garbage.

New Super Mario Brothers – Walk-offs and scrolling. Coins do something? Can't tell what turning gold does.

Pictochat – BAAAAAAAANNED. :<

Balloon Fight - Awful. Water is dangerous and intrusive. Bumpers. Layout is bad. Walk-offs.
 
Last edited:

Dabuz

Fraud at Smash
Joined
May 8, 2008
Messages
6,057
Location
Being the most hated
Rainbow road felt...playable. The paper mario stage is fine until phase 3 which is the most atrocious thing I have seen in a smash game. Sadly I think only 5 stages (FD, BF, yoshi's, Lumiose city, AC) feel like solid stages, with maybe Brinstar and Arena Ferox as additions, let's hope for DLC stages :/
 

Venus of the Desert Bloom

Cosmic God
Super Moderator
Premium
BRoomer
Writing Team
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
15,214
NNID
VenusBloom
3DS FC
0318-9184-0547
New Super Mario Brothers – Walk-offs and scrolling. Coins do something? Can't tell what turning gold does.
It increases the power of the character but, by what percentages, I am not sure. I am still testing this out. But yeah, a definite ban IMO.

Played as Mario, got the 100 coins and gold form and did an uncharged Up smash and did 24% damage. Non-gold status did 13% damage uncharged, A definite power increase. Not to mention the stage's entire gimmick is trying to collect coins to power oneself up thus encouraging stalling tactics and an emphasis on "collecting coins" rather than fighting.

Not to mention the stage shifts to the right or left without much warning.

Pac-Maze could also be banned due to the collecting nature of it. Players can collect small pellets and, when they get 100, can get the bigger pellet in the middle of the stage. This causes them to damage the ghost stage hazards. Plus, it is a pretty big stage.
 
Last edited:

C.J.

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Messages
4,102
Location
Florida
I was waiting for this thread

Before even talking about what stages should or shouldn't be legal we need to come up with what we want to measure.

Do we want to measure platform play, just ground play, acting around interferences that the stage has, etc.

Before talking about any specific stage(s), we need to determine what EXACTLY we are trying to measure throughout a tournament.
 

Ishiey

Mother Wolf
BRoomer
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
7,292
Location
Land's End (NorCal)
Well, I think it's safe to say that we can first filter out all of the obvious trash stages, and then focus from there. Since these are stages made by Nintendo, chances are we'll only have a handful that the community accepts as "neutrals", and then a similar amount of CPs that are up for debate.

@ Strong Badam Strong Badam is right that stagelists always end up shifting towards the conservative end, so maybe we should talk more about that? Is there merit in going for a broader stage list in the early days, or should we just go off of history and assume everything that isn't able to be debated as a neutral should be cut from the start?
 

Marc

Relic of the Past
BRoomer
Joined
Sep 14, 2002
Messages
16,284
Location
The Netherlands
I don't expect the stage list philosophy to turn out drastically different than before, but it's really up to the TO. I feel like some room should be left for experimentation early on, but it seems like many stages have more going on than even Brawl did and there aren't many "gray area" ones left for the 3DS version. I'd be happy to end up with like 5 considering what we have to work with, but could see 3 or 7 depending on the approach taken.
 

Strong Badam

Super Elite
Administrator
Premium
BRoomer
Joined
Feb 27, 2008
Messages
26,545
At the least, the undersides of the stages vary based on which stage. Brinstar for example is Smashville-esque, whereas WarioWare's For Glory mode has walls going down to the blastzone. They're functionally different in at least one way.

Not sure yet but some stages seem smaller. I don't have the means to test the horizontal distance. But people here were saying Distant Planet's was smaller.
 
Last edited:

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
I plan on only allow one FD / "For Glory" mode of a stage at the moment, but I'll need to test the modes first. Given the lack of chaingrabs and the like, if there's a "smaller FD" and "bigger FD", the pure flatness of the stage isn't as extreme. I don't have access to a japanese 3DS until later today.

I'm running a tournament on October 11th with 16 or so players and will be running 4 stock, X minutes, and have a pretty large stagelist.

I'm also running a midwest circuit for the Wii U this spring and plan on having a pretty liberal stagelist for it.

My "should I ban it" criteria, apart from the obvious like Hyrule Temple-esque stages and questions like "Can you predict this hazard/stage transformation" or "does this cause seizures", is going to be data driven. I plan on only gathering top 8/final pools information and ignoring the lower sections at the moment.

  • What is the amount of 1 stock / 2 stock / 3 stock / 4 stock results on this stage? What is it's impact?
If there is a large amount of high # stock results, then one of two situations occur. One, this stage is fair and one player is just drastically more skilled. This one is easy to check as you can just check the other games and other sets for that player as a cross reference. If he happens to get a 3 stock win repeatedly against everyone on JUST that stage but not others... it's the stage, not the player.

The other is that the stage is a counterpick, for or against certain characters/matchups.

This is the first thing I'm going to look for. If a stage is up for being banned, it needs to have an impact. If it's just "I don't like that stage" then no one will pick it. If someone does, they obviously chose it. I don't plan on banning any stages that don't have an actual impact on gameplay just because people don't like them.
  • What is their usage?
If a stage has inordinately high usage, it's likely to be a preferred stage. I'd separate these into "starter" and "CP" categories, but ranking popularity of stages is a pretty good way of determining CP-ability. Popular stages are typically not counterpicks. Popular stages for particular characters are almost always counterpicks. Because there are a multitude of characters, we should see higher numbers for "popular amongst the cast" counterpicks.
  • What is their variance?
A stage that results in 3 stock victories for DHD or Samus against the entire cast is likely a strong stage that needs to be looked at. A stage that results in seemingly random amounts of 1, 2, and 3 stock victories for any character is way worse.

Variance should be low. If variance is high, it means that a stage property like a hazard or walk-off edge is arbitrarily changing who wins and by how much. It's why we use more stock rather than less. One stock games have high variance -- they don't show who is actually better, just who took the first stock. 99 stock games have low variance -- you will never beat a better player in a 99 stock game.

We can't do 99 stocks, but we move as close to that edge as we can, typically with 3 or 4 stocks.

This is really the problem with walk-offs, at least in other games. It's not the low % KOs by grab -> back throw off the side. Those are fine. The issue is that the ease of this strategy results it not being a one-off thing, but rather a predominant strategy that is defined not by its failures, but successes, and so a match between the same people on the same stage 10 times in a row will have drastically different outcomes each time. Hopefully walkoffs won't be as bad in this game. I haven't been able to test yet, but plan to.
  • Timeouts?

    How many timeouts occur on these stages? When compared to other stages, is it similar? How many standard deviations from the mean?

    If there's a stage that has low variance, normal usage, consistent results, but it is forced into a timeout a large number of times against the player's wishes it would have to go. This is the PS1 problem.
  • What is their character impact?

If you have Little Mac vs. Megaman, and Little Mac needs a flat stage that doesn't move and Megaman needs platforms and movement, your stage list determines who wins this matchup.

Because of this, it's important to keep as many stages as possible so we aren't arbitrarily picking which characters can be successful. We might not like the idea of an F-Zero car being a platform on the bottom of the stage sometimes or a Pictochat foot trying to stomp you, but if it's a relatively minor concern and is a pillar of a character it might require further consideration.... and virtually every stage is important for someone!

You can determine character impact by looking at win % for that stage compared to others. If it's high on that stage and low on all the others then that's his CP. It likely won't be that clear, but you get the idea. If it turns out that a character has higher win % on the starter stages and low on the CP stages, that means the starter list is incorrect, at least for that character.

This is less of a factor as to why a stage should be banned and more of a "how we should look at it".
  • What is banned?

Each player in my tournaments will be getting one ban only (and you should do that too!) and this makes it really easy to figure out what they consider their "worst stage" in the matchup to be. If a starter stage is frequently banned, it will likely be moved to a CP.




Player preference has virtually zero impact on my tournament rulesets. It's all about reducing variance and keeping as much of the original game intact. If a stage has low variance and a normal impact and normal timeouts but also happens to have this annoying hazard that makes the game come to a standstill for 20 seconds at a time, I'd leave it legal.
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
Well, I think it's safe to say that we can first filter out all of the obvious trash stages, and then focus from there. Since these are stages made by Nintendo, chances are we'll only have a handful that the community accepts as "neutrals", and then a similar amount of CPs that are up for debate.

@ Strong Badam Strong Badam is right that stagelists always end up shifting towards the conservative end, so maybe we should talk more about that? Is there merit in going for a broader stage list in the early days, or should we just go off of history and assume everything that isn't able to be debated as a neutral should be cut from the start?
Stagelists shifting towards the conservative list at the end of its lifecycle isn't necessarily a good thing. Regardless, it'll be up to the TOs in the long run. Our goal should be to not say "use these stages" but rather "don't use the stage because..." and have a specific reason and data to back it up.

Like instead of "that stage has a stage hazard", I'd be able to point to one of these:

  • The hazard itself is the stage, thus making gameplay revolve entirely around it (and any attempt to not do so results in a loss) [ Summit's Fish is a really close example]
  • The hazard is entirely unpredictable and/or unreliable, so that a reasonable person cannot ascertain exactly what will happen or why, despite experience and study of the stage [Example: Wario Ware's reward system]
  • The hazard itself creates variance despite player experience, resulting in a truly random or largely skewed result [Example: Summit]
  • The hazard itself causes long lulls in combat and/or mandatory inactivity [See: Bridge of Eldin. PS1 could also be banned for this reason, as could PS2 due to wind transformation's permanent rise]
  • The hazard alters or changes actual game input and rules in a way that is unrelated to the majority of other stages [See: Spear Pillar flipping the camera]
  • The hazard, while minor, arbitrarily targets only one participant and gives them an unfair advantage or disadvantage that is large enough to potentially grant or deny victory. [Example: Wario Ware's stomping foot, Halberd's targeting system/claw]
  • The hazard tests a skill set that isn't inherent to smash, but otherwise completely removed. [no known examples yet, but consider a stage that has math problems that heal health]


It's also important to note that this is when we get our new blood. In the midwest we were running 50-70 man tournaments on a weekly basis for Brawl with large stagelists. Our variance was low and our attendance was high. The preference of people on the east coast didn't matter very much to us and it certainly doesn't matter to the guy going to his first Smash brothers tournament. Unless I have a clear answer to "why is this banned", I don't plan on getting rid of any stage.

Hopefully my October 11th tournament will clear up a lot as it is going to be janky as hell, even by liberal stagelist standards. If anyone has any specific stage questions for that time, let me know as I'll be doing a lot of testing that weekend.
 

C.J.

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Messages
4,102
Location
Florida
^^^^^

And while I agree that we can, very easily, just throw out the obvious bad ones, one of the problems in Brawl stages, and the reason that there were 2-5 different stagelists used is because some people measured "obviously bad" differently.

Are we going to ban hyrule again? Yeah probably. But we should really come up with some basic criteria (generally) so as to be consistent. Otherwise we hit a MK ban situation where people will base their criteria based on the stages they want instead of making a stagelist based off of criteria.

Ultimately it doesn't look like it'll make that big of a difference, especially on the 3DS version, but the stages could very definitely be different on the WiiU version and I'd really like to see guidelines in place before that happens to avoid bias judgement.
 

Strong Badam

Super Elite
Administrator
Premium
BRoomer
Joined
Feb 27, 2008
Messages
26,545
I did some kill % tests on the For Glory versions of stages and found equivalent death percents regardless of which I picked (I picked around 5, sorry I don't really care enough to do the same thing 20 times), and they were shared with FD as well. As I stated earlier though some stages have flat walls on the sides whereas others allow you to go underneath (with e.g. Wario). If we want to go the route of allowing either FD and a different For Glory version, we should probably just allow 1 additional one with walls, preferably one with the least distracting background.
I am unable to properly test whether or not the base stage is longer or shorter in different For Glory versions of stages, so I didn't bother.

I'm mostly concerned about best of 5 sets, DSR, and stage bans with this game. There seem to be at most 5 viable stages, if that, for competition (unless you live in the MW). 5 stages allows one of DSR/Stage Bans but not the other, really, unless an addendum to DSR is added that allows picking the struck to stage again for game 3.
 

C.J.

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 30, 2008
Messages
4,102
Location
Florida
We can just do for stages what melee does. Bo3 gets bans + DSR Bo5 gets only DSR.

While I'm all for including as many stages as possible (while still getting consistent results) I really like the idea of there only being 5 viable stages. It forces play on every stage at the top level (WF, LF, GF) so it forces stage knowledge and the ability to effectively use a variety of platform layouts while simultaneously promoting better platform/stage play at lower levels (see: *bad* Marth mains sucking on DL64 in Melee because fsmash doesn't reach the platforms).
 
Last edited:

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
You can test stage length with rolls. X Mario rolls. FD is Y mario rolls, Yoshi's is X mario rolls, etc., etc.

If you've only found five viable stages it might be that your criteria is a bit too stringent? This is smash brothers. :p

If it turns out that we actually only have a very small number of stages, a rule change might be necessary to accommodate.

Are we going to ban hyrule again? Yeah probably. But we should really come up with some basic criteria (generally) so as to be consistent. Otherwise we hit a MK ban situation where people will base their criteria based on the stages they want instead of making a stagelist based off of criteria.
I don't think we need to come up with criteria right away but rather do some early testing and find stages we agree need to be banned and bring criteria from that.

We all agree Hyrule Temple should be banned, but why? The answer is that circle camping and the cave of life results in a mini-game atmosphere where your victory is determined by your running speed and/or your ability to tech walls. We can then look at that stage and say "look, Termina Bay isn't nearly as bad as Hyrule Temple but the stage still has the same issue. Characters are traveling under the stage back and forth between the two ledges and it ends up being a game of keepaway and "can you tech my back throw". It's skill based, but its a microcosm of the skills we normally test in smash.

The issue is that some people are constructionist and say "Smash stages suck, I want Street Fighter stages. I don't want the stage to move, change, or have any hazards whatsoever in any way" and others are originalist and say "I don't want flat/plat, I want the metagame to include things like moving stages, hazards, stage transformations, etc."

There's no real middle ground between the two. I prefer the latter because it's logically consistent and doesn't involve me playing God with a character's place on the tier list. If Little Mac is awesome on FD-only variants and I make the "FD only" stage list, I'm single handedly making Little Mac good. That's not fair to players who don't main Little Mac.

For those that didn't play Brawl, Brawl had a pretty large variety of character selection early in the game's lifespan and it was cut down pretty heavily by three main factors: Meta Knight, Dedede's chain grab, and the stage list shrinking. MK was a blight but had a few bad stages (Japes, especially) that he could be CPed on, but ultimately he prevailed even in that environment. D3's chaingrab eliminated all walls almost from the getgo and soon after invalidated DK, Bowser, and the like due to his small step/standing chain grab. As the stage list shrunk, the remaining viable characters shrunk as well -- our original starter list htat included stages like Delfino and Castle Siege were removed and it became a Battlefield/Smashville/Yoshi's/FD kind of list. Flat/plat. This improved the chances of characters like ICs, Falco, Snake, and Olimar and we saw a drastic increase in those characters within our region and a loss of virtually every other character.

The stagelist in Brawl was the biggest thing to determine character viability, so be very very careful when banning stages.

It might not be quite as extreme in Smash 4, but we'll see. Other than the obvious ones, I plan on making my changes based on data collection from different tournament series and hope that'll be enough.
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
We can just do for stages what melee does. Bo3 gets bans + DSR Bo5 gets only DSR.

While I'm all for including as many stages as possible (while still getting consistent results) I really like the idea of there only being 5 viable stages. It forces play on every stage at the top level (WF, LF, GF) so it forces stage knowledge and the ability to effectively use a variety of platform layouts while simultaneously promoting better platform/stage play at lower levels (see: *bad* Marth mains sucking on DL64 in Melee because fsmash doesn't reach the platforms).
Why is that particular skill the one you want to test?
 

Ishiey

Mother Wolf
BRoomer
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
7,292
Location
Land's End (NorCal)
OS, I'd be really surprised if all of that data is consistent early on in the game's lifespan. I mean, are people really aware of CP intricacies in the first year of playing the game? How much of the wins/losses can be attributed to people just not knowing the stage, or large skill gaps?

Agreed that banning "obvious" things and then making criteria from there for further evaluation is a good path. As well as having a statement about what a stagelist should do for the game by the time we have a criteria.

I think CJ is in favor of playing on every stage at top level because it tests ruleset knowledge, ability to deal with CPs, and also shouldn't skew the "true MU ratio" if we have an appropriately balanced neutral stage list.
 

---

鉄腕
Super Moderator
BRoomer
Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Messages
13,483
Location
Michigan
NNID
TripleDash
3DS FC
1719-3728-6991
Switch FC
SW-1574-3686-1211
I only have the demo so I do have a few questions:

Paper Mario - How are the hazards (if they can be called that)?

Tomodachi Life - Can you pass through the platforms? Also the ceiling.

Mute City - Haven't seen this one brought up at all. Seems like Mute City/Port Town without the cars?

Reset Bomb Forest - There is a small Cave of Life in the second transition, but it's destructible. How durable is it/does it reform like Skyworld? Does the stage transition back to it's first form over time?

Corneria - How high is the ceiling?

Pictochat 2 - Does the FD version still have the slanted edges?


Ferox seems like a CP IMO. I don't want to deal with those statues while playing as Mega Man.
 

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
Well, I think it's safe to say that we can first filter out all of the obvious trash stages, and then focus from there. Since these are stages made by Nintendo, chances are we'll only have a handful that the community accepts as "neutrals", and then a similar amount of CPs that are up for debate.

@ Strong Badam Strong Badam is right that stagelists always end up shifting towards the conservative end, so maybe we should talk more about that? Is there merit in going for a broader stage list in the early days, or should we just go off of history and assume everything that isn't able to be debated as a neutral should be cut from the start?
I believe there is always merit in starting with a broader stagelist. It's borderline impossible to convince people to add stages during the game's lifespan, so if it isn't in from the start, it probably won't be at all. Testing the borderline stuff has to be done early or it won't be adopted. (Paper Mario comes to mind as a potential stage like that).
I only have the demo so I do have a few questions:

Paper Mario - How are the hazards (if they can be called that)?

Tomodachi Life - Can you pass through the platforms? Also the ceiling.

Mute City - Haven't seen this one brought up at all. Seems like Mute City/Port Town without the cars?

Reset Bomb Forest - There is a small Cave of Life in the second transition, but it's destructible. How durable is it/does it reform like Skyworld? Does the stage transition back to it's first form over time?

Corneria - How high is the ceiling?

Pictochat 2 - Does the FD version still have the slanted edges?


Ferox seems like a CP IMO. I don't want to deal with those statues while playing as Mega Man.
Paper Mario doesn't seem too bad to me, but I think you'll have a hard time getting conservative players to accept it.

The first transition is pretty benign, aside from when the fan appears and starts blowing the wind. Though telegraphed, it's pretty visually jarring, and the windbox isn't insignificant.

Second transition (on the boat) is fine. The waves obscure vision towards the front of the boat a little bit, but nothing horrendous. The stage itself gets temporarily moved towards the top blast zone when the whale appears underneath it. The whale itself cannot be interacted with in any way. The boat has no hitbox, unlike Pirate Ship from brawl. The water is not swimmable.

Third transition is probably the biggest offender. The rotating Bowser head in the middle is awkward to fight on and does occasionally attack (albeit telegraphed), and the only other places to stand are two rising/falling platforms on either side of the head. Those platforms are much too small for actual meaningful combat, so I can see this transition being a total campfest.

Tomodachi life you can pass through all of the platforms. The ceiling is pretty close, especially if you're fighting near the top. There's also a visual issue with it in that you cannot see into rooms that are not occupied by a player. It makes moving around feel visually jarring, as you can't see exactly where you're going to land.

Mute City I think is fine. The car hazard is extremely telegraphed. (There's a big "CHECK" symbol that comes up.) The track does 15% and will kill you around 120, but it's pretty easy to stay off of it. There don't seem to be any other hazards to it.

Reset Bomb Forest: The second transitions destructible terrain is not very durable. 2-3 attacks break it. They don't respawn. The stage loops back around to the original transition after 2 mins, 10 seconds, as I detailed in my first post.

I'll check on PictoFD & Corneria and get back to you on that.

Also, I will go on record as saying I essentially co-sign everything OS has said at this time.
 
Last edited:

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
Pictochat FD is a flat box. No slanted edges. I'm about to start categorizing and documenting the different FD's.
 

Neo Zero

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
7,028
Even among the FD versions there are important differences. For example, the true FD has an interesting jut at the bottom that makes going by it and reaching the other ledge very interesting (done as Dark Pit, but Im sure Pit, ROB, and probably a few others can do similar), compared to the 3D world FD which is flat and doesn't go far below. While I'm sure every platform based FD has something different or potentially interesting to it, it seems to be broken up into three basic FD styles

1: Wall based FD
2: SV based FD
3: BF based FD

But even then, it can be broken down more than that. For example I'd categorize Brinstar as more of a SV based FD, but the geography at the bottom isn't as smooth and can kind of catch you, as opposed to an FD like 3D world which is completely smooth. Another example being FD FD and BF FD. Both hang low, but because of how the crystals on FD are as opposed to the rocky terrain of BF, it's different navigating below it. It's even more interesting when you take into account characters who can't get across all versions of FD. For example as DDD, I can go from end of FD FD no problems because of how it's slanted as such a degree that it doesn't interfere with his Up B. When you get a SV type FD like 3D world though, because it has a flat base the roof will "stop" the Up B and I'll die.
 

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
Okay, so Ryker and I went through and categorized all the Omega stages.

They are all exactly the same length (5 of Robin's Back-rolls). As far as we can tell, their blast zones also seem the same, though we have not tested this super stringently. In terms of shapes, there are 4 'Types', with Arena Ferox and Magicant being special cases. We are also missing Flat Zone 2 and possibly one other stage? (How unlock?)

'Default FD' Versions (2):
Final Destination
Battlefield

'Wall' Versions (20):
New Super Mario Bros
Paper Mario
Mushroomy Kingdom
Gerudo Valley
Yoshi's Island
GB Dreamland
N's Castle
Wily's Castle
Reset Bomb Forest
Wario Ware
Distant Planet
Tortimer Island
Balloon Fight (Note: The Water obscures view of the player)
Punch Out
Nintendogs
Find Mii
Tomodachi Life
Pictochat
Green Hill Zone
Pac-Maze

'Smashville' Versions (6):
Mario 3D World
Rainbow Road
Spirit Tracks
Japes (Looks like it has a wall, but doesn't.)
Prism Tower
SNES F-Zero

'Brinstar' Versions (3): These are shaped like BF/FD but are shorter vertically.
Brinstar
Corneria
Gaur Plains

Arena Ferox: Special case. This is what I'm calling the 'Stadium' variant, but it is the only one of its kind. It has a Smashville lip that turns into a flat wall half-way down.

Magicant: Special case. Shaped like the default, but is asymmetrical between the left/right sides as far as we can tell.
 

Neo Zero

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
7,028
Flatzone2's would probably fall under Brinstar Version.

-------------------------
.-----------------------.
...-------------------...

Rough ASCII map of how it's laid out (actually that's basically it, it's just black blocks together that create small lips under the ledge)
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
OS, I'd be really surprised if all of that data is consistent early on in the game's lifespan. I mean, are people really aware of CP intricacies in the first year of playing the game? How much of the wins/losses can be attributed to people just not knowing the stage, or large skill gaps?
Inconsistency is typically easy to spot. You'd be surprised though, stuff gets consistent pretty fast in small groups.

Raz said:
he first transition is pretty benign, aside from when the fan appears and starts blowing the wind. Though telegraphed, it's pretty visually jarring, and the windbox isn't insignificant.

Second transition (on the boat) is fine. The waves obscure vision towards the front of the boat a little bit, but nothing horrendous. The stage itself gets temporarily moved towards the top blast zone when the whale appears underneath it. The whale itself cannot be interacted with in any way. The boat has no hitbox, unlike Pirate Ship from brawl. The water is not swimmable.

Third transition is probably the biggest offender. The rotating Bowser head in the middle is awkward to fight on and does occasionally attack (albeit telegraphed), and the only other places to stand are two rising/falling platforms on either side of the head. Those platforms are much too small for actual meaningful combat, so I can see this transition being a total campfest.
Agreement. I was playing the stage and thought "the wind isn't too bad, could be worse".

"Okay, the camera is annoying, could be dealt with. though. Would have to see."

'Okay, robot bowser head... WHAT IS IT DOING"

":("
 

Dabuz

Fraud at Smash
Joined
May 8, 2008
Messages
6,057
Location
Being the most hated
Outside of being visually jarring, I kinda like tomodachi life. A bit big and could lead to circle camp fests, but would be willing to try it out in tourneys.
 
Last edited:

Neo Zero

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
7,028
Outside of being visually jarring, I kinda like tomodachi life. A bit big and could lead to circle camp fests, but would be willing to try it out in tourneys.
The parts of the apartment not occupied being hidden could be a bit interesting besides the aforementioned issues. Since if you're not in them they remain "closed" certain projectiles could be lost/concealed using this (most notably Mecha Koopa's and DHD's can explosive thing).
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
The parts of the apartment not occupied being hidden could be a bit interesting besides the aforementioned issues. Since if you're not in them they remain "closed" certain projectiles could be lost/concealed using this (most notably Mecha Koopa's and DHD's can explosive thing).
Haven't played on the stage yet, but that sounds cool.
 

Zigsta

Disney Film Director
Joined
Oct 4, 2008
Messages
8,316
Location
Burbank, CA
NNID
Zigsta
3DS FC
1547-5526-6811
I'm curious about Brinstar in particular. I was a HUGE fan of it in Brawl since it was Bowser's best CP--the fact that the three platforms were at three different elevations helped to keep Bowser away from juggling, and the small blast zones on the side made for early kills. The extended hitboxes were also godly for stupid fsmash KOs. That side, MK basically made Brinstar unpickable. :/

So I'm curious, for the folks who have the Japanese game now:

-Does the right side of the stage still feature extended hitboxes?
-Does the lava KO earlier, later, or the same?
-Any adjustments to the blast zones?
-Given the fact that gliding is out and MK's upair got nerfed, do you see sharking to be as big of an issue on this stage?
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
Question for those with japanese version:

Have you experienced lag on any stages in particular? There was one (Arena Ferox?) that had transformations that included walls that seemed to create lag. We had no issues on many other stages.

It may be the case that otherwise viable stages may not be playable due to lag, especially with more than 2 players (like FoD in Melee dubs)
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
It was Duck Hunt Dog vs. ROB on a 3DS and 3DSXL, 3 stock 8 minutes if that helps with testing.
 

Neo Zero

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jun 24, 2012
Messages
7,028
Did they both have their various items out? (In this case, the Can/Frisbee/Gunman and the Gyro). It may have just caused slow down having all that on screen while the mist transition was occuring?
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
Did they both have their various items out? (In this case, the Can/Frisbee/Gunman and the Gyro). It may have just caused slow down having all that on screen while the mist transition was occuring?
It happened throughout a lot of the set. I don't remember if they were all out simultaneously or not.
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
For those who played the japanese version, did you run into any aesthetic issues when it comes to certain stages + certain abilities/costume choices?

I know that shadowsneak is hard to see on Balloon Fight and Pictochat, but unsure of what else.

We had no official recommendations for color changes other than the "color blind rule", but Brawl had some issues in particular with G&W. Given the first (that I know of) stage with an entirely black background I was curious if there were any similar issues people ran into with G&W or Wireframe Mac or the sort.

I feel it is important to note that on the 3DS you can select the opponent on the touch screen and "highlight" them in-game, making it impossible to lose track of them.
 

Overswarm

is laughing at you
Joined
May 4, 2005
Messages
21,181
This is what I'm using for my Oct. 11th tournament.

Issues with current stages:

Arena Ferox - Walls have some teching stuff, but honestly there are significant changes to how teching and hitlag work in this game. Walls aren't a huge downside anymore and the games on this stage have been predictable... and teching is something we're already used to. It being done on a horizontal or vertical plane is irrelevant.

3D Land - Part of it moves pretty fast, there's a spot where the ceiling gets REALLY low for like 2 seconds, and a segment where a very obvious spike comes up that can kill you. This is like halberd target level obvious, but it can still KO. I'm okay with this stage, but it's got a lot of little things that might bust it. Higher level play is going to have someone pushing the boundaries of the blast zone in the early stage, which could get degenerative. Would need to see gameplay first.

Brinstar - Lava's basically like Brawl's, lil stronger. Stage still works fine, has since Melee.

Corneria - Corneria has corneria problems, but you can't abuse the ledge on the fin anymore and the teching changes make fighting near the wall totally different. You typically have a frame advantage if you're teching against the wall or, at worst, in a neutral position and I haven't seen any "cave of life" level stuff going on here. Lasers are more obvious now. Could end up having the same issues vanilla corneria had, we'll see.

Reset Bomb Forest - Most people I've talked talk about the "crazy layout" of the second phase, but honestly the second phase doens't have that much going on. Some spikey thing on the bottom, no big deal. Destructable walls, no big deal. No ledge on right side, no big deal (Frigate had that). The FIRST phase is what worries me. It's got this giant gap in the center with a platform above it, so circle camping could very easily become a thing here. We'll see. I'd love to see people try to abuse the stage.

Tomadachi Life - This stage is awesome and unique, might have some circle camping issues but so far I haven't run into anything significant in friendlies. Will have to see.

Starters:


Prism Tower
Battlefield
FD
Arena Ferox
Yoshi's Island (Brawl)


Counter-pick:

3D Land
Brinstar
Corneria
Reset Bomb Forest
Tomadachi Life

Banned: (I really want the italicized ones to be legal)
Golden Plains - Stage itself isn't awful but the coins giving you super armor is mini-gamey. Not something... that we want.

Rainbow Road - This stage is amazing and one of my favorites... but the track can kill you at 80% and there are several places where you can actually force a grab release during the change into a track hit. I'd be fine with that to a certain extent, except there's also the fact that you can't see the cars coming in some areas AND there is a transformation where you can get trapped underneath the stage very easily. :(

Paper Mario- This stage isn't too bad until you get to rotating Bowser head... then it's out.

Mushroomy Kingdom- Want to test this more, but it's got some similar issues as it did in Brawl. It's not an awful stage.

Japes- perfectly fine on the right side, absolutely terrible on the left. THe water got STRONGER. Otherwise good stage gone. :(

Gerudo Valley - Walkoffs still have an issue. I tested it a lot and it's really, really easy to camp the walkoff against characters without projectiles. Same walkoff stuff applies, variance, etc.

Spirit Train - camera jank and all aroudn WTFness

Dream Land - some glitchy stuff in the stage (falling through existing pltforms off the bottom?!), walk-off issues.

Unova- Fire can sometimes cover up almost all the stage AND it can sometimes turn upside down. :|

Mute City- I like the stage, but the track kills you really early. :\

Magicant - Flying man.

Flat zone - walkoffs, stage combo and kills

Wario ware- minigamey

Distant Planet- Walkoff thing still exists, sharking still exists. :\

Tortimer Island - by default is random, but the big thing is exploding fruit and BEES.

Boxing Ring - walkoffs and bouncy things... bouncy things let you do some crazy stuff and infinite counter and all that junk

Gaur Plains - circle camp go

Balloon Fight - lol

Living Room - perfectly fine except it randomly combos you from like 50% to death and you can't see waht's falling, so you can't predict

Find Mii - Crazy random WTFness

Pictochat 2 - I loved Picto 1 and it was a fine stage... Picto 2 has JANKIER things occur and has a heart that heals you significantly. :\

GHZ - walkoffs, spinny raps

Megaman - Boss issue

Pac-man - circle camp and minigamey thing with pellets to give char buffs
 
D

Deleted member 245254

Guest
Just FYI, when 4 players are in a match hazards turn off.
I honestly wouldn't make too much of it.

It seems like gunpowder for the Wii U supremacy types, because having more of a "hassle" to set-up a proper 1v1 on other stages that many people would maybe just say "nope" too anyway is, in spirit, one of the things that can really drag a games competitive drive down. The more you have to tinker and arbitrarily modify the conditions away from the "default" game the less authentic it can feel for many players, making the eventual result more of a niche than an actual immerse and absorbent community.

I simply don't think this 4p some hazards are dulled/removed has much effect on anything concerning Smash 3DS's competitive value.
 

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
? I disagree completely.

This makes Rainbow Road a LOT more playable by removing the racers.

It also basically single-handedly saves Tortimer's Island by removing everything that was wrong with it.

Even if you wanted to try to claim that sillyness about it being 'a hassle' (which is nonsense), you can still at the VERY LEAST slap the 'Doubles' label on there.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom