Meta Stage Legality Discussion Thread:

[RIP|Merrick]

The biggest problem I see is that, as many have said before, if it's out once it's unfortunately probably gone forever.

I have tried bringing up the likes of Wuhu and Skyloft many many times in our scene. I have done my part and researched these two heavily with help from our very useful guides and research threads. But people are very stubborn. I pointed out things with Pirate Ship various times and how it's about the same level 'potentially' as Halberd. But using the word jank in an argument immediately wins out over reason it seems. It's the same thing with the whole Mii thing where fallacies and misinformation make someone so stubborn enough as to want to even bother to lab particular things they're saying up or just give things a try. West Michigan will keep all Mii sets legal until proven they can't be, which I can't see any time soon given some poor arguments against them that make me think they don't know the character.

It's a shame how content ends up getting entirely cut out. Also a little concerning how much public outcries from top players can end up swaying a TOs decision, though I'm seeing a lot of these get called out lately.

The only plus side is at least there is being I see some true effort go forth in establishing a unified ruleset people can at least refer to, which nobody even has to go by. Usually between the seven to ten stages you see everywhere.

 

[teluoborg]

If it's not broken don't fix it.

Also, There is no need for a global ruleset.

If it's not necessary don't add it. See it works both ways.

And a global ruleset is the best way to increase the validity of the results of tournaments, so I wouldn't say there's no need for it. Unless you're so egocentric you think only your scene matters that is, in which case you're right.

 

[RIP|Merrick]

And a global ruleset is the best way to increase the validity of the results of tournaments, so I wouldn't say there's no need for it. Unless you're so egocentric you think only your scene matters that is, in which case you're right.

Not to mention getting up and coming top players ready for what we're starting to see as a globally formed stagelist. I'm not saying anything regarding the other stages that aren't seeing the light of day, but at least with our current stagelist fundamentals overall have been improving rapidly, and we're starting to see some national threats. Could be a coincidence, but who knows.

 

[Krysco]

If a stage is banned anywhere but has the potential to be legal then someone has to start. Not every region will immediately make the stage legal. It will have to start off somewhere and if it proves valuable then other places might choose to make it legal as well. The universal stage list idea is good, certainly but in order for it to expand universally it has to start off somewhere, not everywhere at once.

Heck, maybe not even expand but change. For all we know, maybe Wuhu or Skyloft are more competitively valuable than Halberd or Castle Siege. The latter two simply get a pass because they were legal in Brawl imo.

 

[Ghostbone]

Halberd is getting banned everywhere, Castle Siege unfortunately as well is on the chopping block.

Comparing Wuhu and Skyloft to those two stages will get you nowhere.

 

[RIP|Merrick]

This is what our newest stagelist is post-Big House 5. Notably Halberd, Castle Siege, and Delfino Plaza we omitted, new stage striking order, full stage striking, and two bans, which don't carry throughout a set and only apply to that game. Now I know this is about as conservative as it gets, but as far as conservative rules go, do we have a good ruleset going here?

 

[Krysco]

See that's just it though. Everywhere is cutting stages no problem. This whole 'universal stage list' idea is used against the idea of adding stages. "Why add Skyloft when not everyone uses it?" But getting rid of Halberd and Castle Siege is no problem. Why get rid of Halberd or Castle Siege if other places still use it? I guess it's just the conservative side winning over the liberal side which is fine if it ultimately betters the competitive scene of Sm4sh. Just seems unfortunate to omit more and more parts of the game rather than use as much as we can outside of obviously horrible stages like Temple.

Dah well, complaining about it on a forum won't do any good. Suppose if I or anyone else truly cares enough then us liberals should host our own tournaments more with larger stage lists and see if we can't change anything...though to my understanding that didn't prove much in Brawl and the same probably applies to Melee.

 

[Ghostbone]

This is what our newest stagelist is post-Big House 5. Notably Halberd, Castle Siege, and Delfino Plaza we omitted, new stage striking order, full stage striking, and two bans, which don't carry throughout a set and only apply to that game. Now I know this is about as conservative as it gets, but as far as conservative rules go, do we have a good ruleset going here?

Looks very good
Specifically the set procedure is very nice (bans only applying to next game, no DSR). You may need to specify what happens in Bo5 though (maybe go down to 1 ban + don't let people counter-pick the same stage twice)

 

[RIP|Merrick]

Looks very good
Specifically the set procedure is very nice (bans only applying to next game, no DSR). You may need to go down to specify what happens in Bo5 though (maybe go down to 1 ban + don't let people counter-pick the same stage twice)

Are you saying two bans for best of three, only to change it to only one ban for best of five? Am I reading that right? I'll spitball that among the other TOs and see what they think assuming that's what you meant.

Just seems unfortunate to omit more and more parts of the game rather than use as much as we can outside of obviously horrible stages like Temple. Dah well, complaining about it on a forum won't do any good. Suppose if I or anyone else truly cares enough then us liberals should host our own tournaments more with larger stage lists and see if we can't change anything.

To be fair, one of our upcoming tournaments Tech or Treat we will be letting Gamer be an actual legal stage for Singles and Luigi's Mansion for doubles in celebration of the holiday. I know there are a very incredibly small group of people who enjoy particular stages that aren't legal in our standard ruleset, so every so often for our biweeklies we run particular stuff because we also don't like turning off those who enjoy those stages like Wuhu.

 

[Rizen]

My opinion on a SSB4 Wii U stage list, I try to keep a wide selection of stages as long as they don't polarize or disrupt the main gameplay.

Starters:
BF (3 platform layout, no surprises, I think everyone can agree)
Smashville (sort of halfway between BF and FD in terms of layout)
FD (the counterpart to BF's small platform based layout)
Dreamland 64 (a slightly larger BF)

CPs:
Delfino (The transformations never last too long so you can play defensively to avoid getting exploited by the low ceiling form. This also forces campers to return to the center when the platform rises.)
Castle Siege (TBH I dislike this stage but nothing is bad enough to ban it. I recognize some characters like it as a CP)
Town and City (bigger SV, the platforms make it lean to much toward avoidance to be a starter)
Duck Hunt (big stage with a few shenanigans but nothing that disrupts the game play enough)
Lylat (Almost neutral but the ledges and tilting)
Kongo Jungle 64 (seems neutral enough but I can see characters running too much too)

The rest are too gimmicky or support running/camping enough that the game revolves around it.

 

[Ghostbone]

Are you saying two bans for best of three, only to change it to only one ban for best of five? Am I reading that right? I'll spitball that among the other TOs and see what they think assuming that's what you meant.

Yea that's what I meant.
You run super low on stages with 2 bans in Bo5, and with only 7 stages it's not necessary (melee has 6 stagess and no bans in Bo5)

 

[RIP|Merrick]

Yea that's what I meant.
You run super low on stages with 2 bans in Bo5, and with only 7 stages it's not necessary (melee has 6 stagess and no bans in Bo5)

Alright, thanks for the explanation! I should apply this also to our Rivals of Aether ruleset as well, didn't realize that could theoretically happen in best of five.

 

[Krysco]

I'm currently in the process of making a script for the Battlefield video and while making it some questions arose that I'd like some input on. I 'measured' the height of the top platform by saying that can reach it with his up b. I'm wondering if perhaps I should use something else like or full hop. I used and his up b simply because I used his full hop to measure the lower platforms and that's a difference I'll be pointing out when I get to DL64 which will be tackled after BF and MV. I also measured the distance between the two lower platforms with 's Jolt Haymaker. I'm wondering if perhaps a projectile would be a better measurement tool like maybe 's lemons. I think I'll also use a projectile to measure the full distance of the stage if I can find one that goes from one end to the other.

TL;DR should I stick with up b and Jolt Haymaker for platform measurement or should I use full hops and projectiles instead?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm currently in the process of making a script for the Battlefield video and while making it some questions arose that I'd like some input on. I 'measured' the height of the top platform by saying that can reach it with his up b. I'm wondering if perhaps I should use something else like or full hop. I used and his up b simply because I used his full hop to measure the lower platforms and that's a difference I'll be pointing out when I get to DL64 which will be tackled after BF and MV. I also measured the distance between the two lower platforms with 's Jolt Haymaker. I'm wondering if perhaps a projectile would be a better measurement tool like maybe 's lemons. I think I'll also use a projectile to measure the full distance of the stage if I can find one that goes from one end to the other.

TL;DR should I stick with up b and Jolt Haymaker for platform measurement or should I use full hops and projectiles instead?

Another mildly useful metric: Shulk can barely clip the feet of someone standing on the top BF platform with his utilt. Lucas could do this with usmash in Brawl, not sure if he still can in 4.

On a related note, Shulk can't do this on Dream Land. The platforms seem to be higher.

 

[Ajimi]

Yea that's what I meant.
You run super low on stages with 2 bans in Bo5, and with only 7 stages it's not necessary (melee has 6 stagess and no bans in Bo5)

How exactly can we "run super low on stages" with RIP|Merrick ruleset ? Melee has a DSR so sure, but not here. No DSR + 2 bans that last only one game = 5 stages to choose from no matter what (even in BO99).

(Also another reason for 2 bans is BF + DL.) His ruleset is fine as is, IMO.

 

[Pazx]

I don't think BF + DL is a reason for 2 bans in a BO5.

7 stages and 2 bans in a bo5 means there are really only 3 stages (you CAN pick the 2 stages you've banned but unless you're going for ultra mindgames or a character switch there's no reason to), which probably counts as "running super low on stages".

 

[GUIGUI]

View attachment 77337
This is what our newest stagelist is post-Big House 5. Notably Halberd, Castle Siege, and Delfino Plaza we omitted, new stage striking order, full stage striking, and two bans, which don't carry throughout a set and only apply to that game. Now I know this is about as conservative as it gets, but as far as conservative rules go, do we have a good ruleset going here?

For Omega stages, a distinction should be made for the stages that allow to pass under it and th ones where you can't.

 

[Ansou]

And a global ruleset is the best way to increase the validity of the results of tournaments, so I wouldn't say there's no need for it. Unless you're so egocentric you think only your scene matters that is, in which case you're right.

I agree that a global ruleset is good in general, but I really don't like the way that the global ruleset is decided right now. To follow what most other TOs do isn't exactly great if they haven't used much reasoning to decide their own rules. The problem is that many TOs are just following what the majors are doing which means that everyone that goes by this philosophy will pretty much only follow a small group of people that has a lot of power here. There is absolutely no guarantee that that small group of people make well grounded decisions.

It's honestly super difficult to forge a good global ruleset for a couple of reasons. What we would basically need to do if we don't want some TOs with a lot of power to decide the rules for everyone is:

1. Make sure that all TOs agree to craft their rules based on one central discussion and global decisions. This was attempted in Brawl so it would probably be even harder in this game because it might have left a bad taste.
2. Actually have that central discussion in a structured way that doesn't lead to arguments echoing forever. Note that every player in every region should be able to state their opinion and that theorycrafting that hasn't been properly tested shouldn't be counted as a real argument.
3. Actually make the final ruleset decisions. I honestly have no clue how we would decide who makes the final decisions or how we would base them. We would in some way have to ensure that they are based on the arguments presented in the discussion and not on bias.

So while this is incredibly difficult to do, until something like this happens, I have a hard time seeing people being okay with a global ruleset.

Yea that's what I meant.
You run super low on stages with 2 bans in Bo5, and with only 7 stages it's not necessary (melee has 6 stagess and no bans in Bo5)

Could you run any lower on stages in Bo5 than in Bo3 if DSR is not used? As far as I know, DSR is pretty much the reason that Bo5 would differ from Bo3.

 

[teluoborg]

You're mostly right, and all the things that you propose are the things that should be done in theory, but since a global discussion with every opinion being wieghted correctly is nearly impossible to have then it doesn't happen.

What happens instead is that the top players that travel for tournaments do not want to take the risk of practicing on stages that could be banned somewhere so they spend their time practicing basic stages that they know will be legit in 100% of the tournaments (except jank city aight). You can't blame them for doing so even if I see a lot of posts here saying things like "people that take Sheik to SV don't know the matchup" and such.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

You're mostly right, and all the things that you propose are the things that should be done in theory, but since a global discussion with every opinion being wieghted correctly is nearly impossible to have then it doesn't happen.

What happens instead is that the top players that travel for tournaments do not want to take the risk of practicing on stages that could be banned somewhere so they spend their time practicing basic stages that they know will be legit in 100% of the tournaments (except jank city aight). You can't blame them for doing so even if I see a lot of posts here saying things like "people that take Sheik to SV don't know the matchup" and such.

Speaking of which, how did Jank City go? I was really pleased to hear about it, then promptly forgot to watch it because Splatfest.

 

[Neutricity]

Speaking of which, how did Jank City go? I was really pleased to hear about it, then promptly forgot to watch it because Splatfest.

I saw some of Jank City. Skyloft was pretty meh but Pokemon Stadium 2 was entertaining to watch.
A R.O.B was struggling with the Electric transformation's ledge and got Dair-ed into the abyss by a Mario. That was pretty hype.

 

[RIP|Merrick]

So I'm proposing this for our Tech or Treat tournament which is meant to be more fall/Halloween based with stages to reflect that season.

Spoiler: Stages

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Town & City
Lylat Cruise
Duck Hunt
Gamer
Luigi's Mansion
Kongo's Jungle

Any suggestions on the most optimum way to strike these game one? I have it for 3-4-1 in that order currently.

 

[Pazx]

So I'm proposing this for our Tech or Treat tournament which is meant to be more fall/Halloween based with stages to reflect that season.

Spoiler: Stages

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Town & City
Lylat Cruise
Duck Hunt
Gamer
Luigi's Mansion
Kongo's Jungle

Any suggestions on the most optimum way to strike these game one? I have it for 3-4-1 in that order currently.

1-2-2-2-1 is tried and true.

 

[teluoborg]

Why not 1-3-3-1 ?
Also about the theme I can see Gamer being spooky and LM obviously fits in, but why KJ64 ? I'd replace it with Norfair or Pyrosphere.

 

[Pazx]

Why not 1-3-3-1 ?
Also about the theme I can see Gamer being spooky and LM obviously fits in, but why KJ64 ? I'd replace it with Norfair or Pyrosphere.

1-2-2-2-1 is superior because the person who strikes first (the weakest strike) also strikes last (the strongest strike). If saving a completely insignificant amount of time is the goal then striking 4-4 would work although it significantly favours the person striking second.

 

[Darklink401]

I wonder what people think of Hyrule Castle as being legal?

It might be a bit too big for 1v1, so it might be ok in doubles? I feel that it's overall a great stage to play in, and the tornado can lead to hype combos.


Also I totally support Super mario circuit as a competitive stage. X3 I feel that while its got some jank, its no more than, say, Halberd (tho that's been being banned xD)

 

[wizrad]

I don't understand why we're trying to be so conservative. In order to prevent stagnation, variation should be encouraged, not downplayed. Variation in stages produces variation in play. A player who can beat all varieties of play (and not just Sheik on Smashville) is the best. My personal stagelist would look something like this:

Starter:
Battlefield/Miiverse
Omegas (FD's flash is too much for me, gray G&W is invisible)
Smashville
Town & City
Dreamland 64

Either/or:
Kongo Jungle 64
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick:
Duck Hunt
Delfino Plaza
Castle Siege
Wuhu Island

Maybe:
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Mario Maker (with a lava/walkoff=reset clause)

Notably missing:
Final Destination (the flash interferes too much)
Halberd (the launch at the beginning can be abused to easily kill characters with poor recoveries, laser targeting players, bombs)

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I don't understand why we're trying to be so conservative. In order to prevent stagnation, variation should be encouraged, not downplayed. Variation in stages produces variation in play. A player who can beat all varieties of play (and not just Sheik on Smashville) is the best. My personal stagelist would look something like this:

Starter:
Battlefield/Miiverse
Omegas (FD's flash is too much for me, gray G&W is invisible)
Smashville
Town & City
Dreamland 64

Either/or:
Kongo Jungle 64
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick:
Duck Hunt
Delfino Plaza
Castle Siege
Wuhu Island

Maybe:
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Mario Maker (with a lava/walkoff=reset clause)

Notably missing:
Final Destination (the flash interferes too much)
Halberd (the launch at the beginning can be abused to easily kill characters with poor recoveries, laser targeting players, bombs)

This is literally my ideal stagelist, just possibly with Halberd and why is Kongo Jungle in the maybe section when it is clearly a Counterpick. But seriously, when I play friendlies with my roomie, we go random, and since random wont give you an omega unless you ask it to, we have FD instead, and Halberd, but otherwise it's identical to your list.

 

[wizrad]

I put Kongo in maybe because it's about as matchup-changing as Town & City, which I kept as neutral.

 

[[Deuce]]

What I don't like about the "conservative" side of the argument is the lack of consistency in perspective. Why are we using a top-down "inclusive" approach for characters AND a bottom-up "exclusive" approach to stages? There also seems to be quite a lack of defining criteria as to what enables a stage to be included other than this enigmatic "jank" or lack thereof.

If people think the natural way to go about the stages is to start with a few stages and argue that there isn't a compelling reason to add more, why isn't this method used for characters as well? Hell I hate those JANK characters like Pac-Man, Rosalina, Sonic, Miis, Olimar, Megaman, Duck Hunt, Lucario.... why don't we just have a 7 man character select: Mario, Shiek, Diddy, ZSS, Pikachu, Fox, Ryu

 

[teluoborg]

I don't understand why we're trying to be so conservative. In order to prevent stagnation, variation should be encouraged, not downplayed. Variation in stages produces variation in play. A player who can beat all varieties of play (and not just Sheik on Smashville) is the best. My personal stagelist would look something like this:

Starter:
Battlefield/Miiverse
Omegas (FD's flash is too much for me, gray G&W is invisible)
Smashville
Town & City
Dreamland 64

Either/or:
Kongo Jungle 64
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick:
Duck Hunt
Delfino Plaza
Castle Siege
Wuhu Island

Maybe:
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Mario Maker (with a lava/walkoff=reset clause)

Notably missing:
Final Destination (the flash interferes too much)
Halberd (the launch at the beginning can be abused to easily kill characters with poor recoveries, laser targeting players, bombs)

I'm not even going to bother with the stage list (the only thing I agree with is the use of omega palutemple instead of FD) and say this : at this exact moment people can not beat Sheik (on SV or anywhere else. SV isn't Sheik's best stage, it's the top Sheik player's best stage), so why would they bother trying to learn some obscure stages if they can't even get the most crucial thing done properly ? As long as people struggle with character matchups there is no need to complicate the equation with more factors.

 

[RIP|Merrick]

Why not 1-3-3-1 ?
Also about the theme I can see Gamer being spooky and LM obviously fits in, but why KJ64 ? I'd replace it with Norfair or Pyrosphere.

Kongo Jungle 64 because we wanted a more even number of stages, and while going through, while I don't feel it fits the spooky theme at all, I feel the stage as a whole kind of represents the Fall season in general better than the other available choices. Everyone seems fine with it and enjoy the stage anyway, so I'd say I found a winner.

1-2-2-2-1 is superior because the person who strikes first (the weakest strike) also strikes last (the strongest strike). If saving a completely insignificant amount of time is the goal then striking 4-4 would work although it significantly favours the person striking second.

Time isn't of any concern, naw. I'll be sure to add in our Facebook event description that I highly recommend striking from the Random Stage Switch screen because even I sometimes lose track of what was striked from time to time and it's so helpful.

Thanks for responding by the way!

 

[Jaxas]

I'm not even going to bother with the stage list (the only thing I agree with is the use of omega palutemple instead of FD) and say this : at this exact moment people can not beat Sheik (on SV or anywhere else. SV isn't Sheik's best stage, it's the top Sheik player's best stage), so why would they bother trying to learn some obscure stages if they can't even get the most crucial thing done properly ? As long as people struggle with character matchups there is no need to complicate the equation with more factors.

I don't follow the logic here, are you saying that when learning a matchup learning which stages to very definitely not take the character to isn't part of it? Stages are a very real part of matchups, and unless I'm misunderstanding you you're basically saying "Don't bother learning not to take (for example) Rosalina/ZSS to Halberd until you know the Matchup". That's not how that works - knowing stages is a portion of the matchup that has no competitive reason be ignored for "Ehh, just go to Smashville because it's popular".

Also, as Sheik main I'm not sure Smashville is her absolute best stage (it depends on the MU and the ruleset), however I do find SV to be consistently better for her than Battlefield, Town & City, Delfino Plaza, Lylat Cruise, Duck Hunt, Halberd, and Dreamland 64. These other stages aren't terrible for her, but most of the time Smashville is either my first choice of stage or in the top 3 when I'm striking/counterpicking.

And I'm a player who's so tired of Smashville that I'll ban it myself sometimes if I feel confident in winning the upcoming match.

 

[wizrad]

What I don't like about the "conservative" side of the argument is the lack of consistency in perspective. Why are we using a top-down "inclusive" approach for characters AND a bottom-up "exclusive" approach to stages? There also seems to be quite a lack of defining criteria as to what enables a stage to be included other than this enigmatic "jank" or lack thereof.

If people think the natural way to go about the stages is to start with a few stages and argue that there isn't a compelling reason to add more, why isn't this method used for characters as well? Hell I hate those JANK characters like Pac-Man, Rosalina, Sonic, Miis, Olimar, Megaman, Duck Hunt, Lucario.... why don't we just have a 7 man character select: Mario, Shiek, Diddy, ZSS, Pikachu, Fox, Ryu

Well, we're already trying to ban Miis, aren't we? I say we whiddle it down to regular Sheik, Tetra Sheik, and black Sheik, they're the only competitive ones anyways.

I'm not even going to bother with the stage list (the only thing I agree with is the use of omega palutemple instead of FD) and say this : at this exact moment people can not beat Sheik (on SV or anywhere else. SV isn't Sheik's best stage, it's the top Sheik player's best stage), so why would they bother trying to learn some obscure stages if they can't even get the most crucial thing done properly ? As long as people struggle with character matchups there is no need to complicate the equation with more factors.

I see where you're coming from, I guess we just fundamentally disagree on how we should learn this game. I believe we should take the game for its whole self, all the characters, as many stages as viably possible, and, preferably, with custom moves. Although I understand the 'defeat the meta' mentality, I think it will ultimately only hold us back.

 

[Yikarur]

Kongo Jungle should never be allowed.
Wanting Mario Maker legal is absurd as well. (for obvious reasons)

my personal stage list would be
Battlefield
Smashville
Omega
Town & City
Dreamland 64
Lylat Cruise
Duck Hunt
Castle Siege
Delfino

1 Ban

Full List Stage Striking. Having a lot of allowed stages but reducing the starter to 5 (and 2 of them are liked by the same characters) is not balanced.

 

[wizrad]

What's your beef with KJ64?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

New Pirate Ship looks amazing if people take the time to learn it. So it will banned because nobody will even bother.

QFT.

 

[RIP|Merrick]

Kongo Jungle should never be allowed.

I'm not sure if you're referring to my Tech or Treat rule set or not, but I'm allowing it for this one event mainly because it fits our theme for that particular night as well as because when asked, our players here were 100% okay with allowing it legal.

 

[teluoborg]

I don't follow the logic here, are you saying that when learning a matchup learning which stages to very definitely not take the character to isn't part of it? Stages are a very real part of matchups, and unless I'm misunderstanding you you're basically saying "Don't bother learning not to take (for example) Rosalina/ZSS to Halberd until you know the Matchup". That's not how that works - knowing stages is a portion of the matchup that has no competitive reason be ignored for "Ehh, just go to Smashville because it's popular".

I never said stages weren't part of the matchup, but even if you work with a short list you already have 5/7 stages to learn for each matchup, why do you feel the need to add more stages that are even more intrusive ?

What I don't like about the "conservative" side of the argument is the lack of consistency in perspective. Why are we using a top-down "inclusive" approach for characters AND a bottom-up "exclusive" approach to stages? There also seems to be quite a lack of defining criteria as to what enables a stage to be included other than this enigmatic "jank" or lack thereof.

If people think the natural way to go about the stages is to start with a few stages and argue that there isn't a compelling reason to add more, why isn't this method used for characters as well? Hell I hate those JANK characters like Pac-Man, Rosalina, Sonic, Miis, Olimar, Megaman, Duck Hunt, Lucario.... why don't we just have a 7 man character select: Mario, Shiek, Diddy, ZSS, Pikachu, Fox, Ryu

Why do people start with a small set of stages from the get go ? Errrr, I don't know.... Maybe because Smash has been around for 16 years and people know what they do and do not want in a stage ? It's not bottom up "exclusive" like you say, just that even with different characters, different physics and different mechanics the rules of Super Smash Bros stay the same and stages (just like items) play the same role they've played in the previous 3 games.

Yikarur Ditto minus CS and Delfino.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I really like KJ64. Barrel camping is nearly a non-issue with my experience with the stage, in part because the barrel can't be chased. It mives faster than Yoshi or Puff, and nobody has a higher air speed than those two. and a high-ceiling stage is important in stage selection. Plus it's a really good Puff stage, and presumably good for other characters who need high ceilings and would like an option besides Battlefield.

As for the reason why we start with a small stage list, it's because Melee has one and it's what we're used to. But Melee had one out of necessity. All but 6 of the stages in Melee are poorly designed, like Mute City, (lack of edges, hazards) Brinstar, (freaking lava that can't be easily worked around) etc. In SSB4 I feel like there are a greater variety of good stages that we didn't have in Melee. It's not PM level but it's still really good, and I feel like it would be a shame if we let perfectly good stages go to waste.