Thoughts on the New Stage Select Screen (Order)

[Arthur97]

What are your thoughts on the new SSS? Personally, I don't like the order. It seems...sloppy(?) compared to how it's been done in Brawl and 4. I hope both it and the character select screen have options to sort by series as well.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

I prefer the actual order, I don't like how they mixed stages of different Smash Bros game in Sm4sh. Though, customization sort options sounds nice.

 

[ZeroJinKui]

sloppy?

sakurai said he specifically put them in the order they were introduced to the series, like the characters.

so basically, they're listed by game... 64, melee, brawl, smash 4, ultimate.

would hardly call that "sloppy"... sloppy implies randomly jumbled about with no order to them.

i think it's very fitting, seeing as this game is basically a celebration of the entire series, so characters/stages being ordered by the games they debuted in is a nice touch.

but yeah, more options are always better, i suppose, understandable that some people would like to customize even little things like that.

 

[Arthur97]

sloppy?

sakurai said he specifically put them in the order they were introduced to the series, like the characters.

so basically, they're listed by game... 64, melee, brawl, smash 4, ultimate.

would hardly call that "sloppy"... sloppy implies randomly jumbled about with no order to them.

i think it's very fitting, seeing as this game is basically a celebration of the entire series, so characters/stages being ordered by the games they debuted in is a nice touch.

but yeah, more options are always better, i suppose, understandable that some people would like to customize even little things like that.

It looks sloppy, yes there is an order, but they appear kind of all over the place, especially since unlockable stages are further separated. Yes, it can be learned, but it just seems so much less neat. I just think the series method looks better.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

There are no unlockable stages in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For players like me that played Smash Bros. since the first opus (or even Melee), I feel the opposite way as you. When I saw Sm4sh's SSS, you got every stage from the same universe but it felt like some stages weren't in the right place.

 

[Arthur97]

There are no unlockable stages in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For players like me that played Smash Bros. since the first opus (or even Melee), I feel the opposite way as you. When I saw Sm4sh's SSS, you got every stage from the same universe but it felt like some stages weren't in the right place.

That may be if things were still like they were in Brawl and Melee, but 4 broke down the barriers between returning and new stages for the most part and this one is mostly returning so there is little reason to cordon them off except maybe the 64 stages since they keep the classic look.

And I have played every Smash game.

 

[Good Guy Giygas]

I honestly don't have too much of a problem with how the stage selection screen is ordered as I like how it's grouped by introduction. However, I do feel like due to the sheer amount of stages appearing, I think listing them all on one screen might make it hard to really discern what's what. I'd prefer if there were separate pages like there were in Smash for Wii U, where this time they could be grouped by 64 stages, Melee stages, and so on.

I'm more worried about the character selection screen, because I really hope that isn't grouped by introduction. To me, that would look sloppy. I want everyone to be grouped by series, otherwise it's just characters all over the place from different franchises without any cohesiveness.

 

[ssbashworld]

As someone who has played each game for countless hours it is not too bad since I do have a good idea at when each stage was introduced but for newer players or people who just do not play these games a lot I can picture it being difficult to find stages with everything being crammed on one page and not in an easier to follow order like by series.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

That may be if things were still like they were in Brawl and Melee, but 4 broke down the barriers between returning and new stages for the most part and this one is mostly returning so there is little reason to cordon them off except maybe the 64 stages since they keep the classic look.

And I have played every Smash game.

I didn't meant that you didn't, it's just that I always preferred the separation between Smash games stage. I understand how you see things, it's your opinion and I hope you'll have that "customization sort" option so you can select stage the way you want.

I'm more worried about the character selection screen, because I really hope that isn't grouped by introduction. To me, that would look sloppy. I want everyone to be grouped by series, otherwise it's just characters all over the place from different franchises without any cohesiveness.

Yeah, I also prefer characters sorted by series rather than appearance in Smash games.

 

[Tollhouse]

Yeah I prefer the characters being listed by series too. It's going to be hard to find characters visually for players new to smash because order of appearance wouldn't mean much to them because they've never played the previous games. If smash is about different worlds colliding it makes a lot more sense to group those worlds together so you can see who goes together.

As for the stages though, that stage selection screen is crazy. They've had 2 or 3 pages of stages in the last 2 games so it's surprising they'd stick them all on one this time. It's like almost to boast the amount of stages the game has.

Order of appearance isn't sloppy in anyway. It's just another way to organize the characters/stages. It's really no better than alphabetizing them, really. It's not at all the best way to present the roster/stages but at the end of the day it's not that big of a deal. We'll get over it.

 

[MacDaddyNook]

It's going to be confusing to find all the stages. I'm glad they're grouped by which Smash Game they're from, but I feel like there should have been separate tabs for each grouping, like how Brawl handled past stages, to make it less cluttered.

 

[Arthur97]

Characters are even worse because it's not even by series in that wave of smash games making it even worse. Then having echoes appear next tot the originals. Like Chrom and Lucina being listed with Melee...which came out long before Awakening.

As for the sloppy comment, I meant it looked that way. I know there is a method to the madness, but it just doesn't look as nice to me.

 

[Kori]

I like it, mostly because I'll mainly be playing on 64 stages and a couple melee stages, so they'll be easy to find

I think his method fits the overall theme of Smash Ultimate, putting things in order of release. Characters, Stages, etc.
While it would be nice to organize things by series, I'm just happy with what we're getting!

 

[lucasla]

I dont care too much about the order, I just want an option to select favorite stages and when I select Random, it chooses only from my favorite list. Cause, even having a lot of stages I like, the game also have almost half of the total that I dont like (OR HATE), so, I want this option to be avaiable.

 

[CostLow]

The screen is jumbled but I like it. Usually when worlds collide things get mixed up. Ultimate is the culmination of every Smash Bros game before plus a whole new roster of fighters, stages, and modes on top of all that stuff. Besides, there are eight (10 if you count yoshi and Wario) characters from the Mario universe. Do we really need them all together with all of their stages together as well. What I found myself doing in the selection screen for Sm4sh was skipping whole clusters of characters because I didn't want one fighter from that game. Perhaps there is something psychological about this ordering method that will encourage more people to try characters or stages they otherwise wouldn't if they were still clumped together by gameverse.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

I dont care too much about the order, I just want an option to select favorite stages and when I select Random, it chooses only from my favorite list. Cause, even having a lot of stages I like, the game also have almost half of the total that I dont like (OR HATE), so, I want this option to be avaiable.

You know you can add/remove stages from being selected during the random selection ?

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

It will go super confusing the way they’re organized now, and so will the fighters. For those of us who were here since the original Smash, the organization makes sense, but cramming them all together by what game they showed in makes no sense to the person playing Smash Ultimate as their first Smash game. They should do what they have done before.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Smash 4 CSS wasn't sorted by universe though. You had some characters that were placed at random position.

 

[CostLow]

It will go super confusing the way they’re organized now, and so will the fighters. For those of us who were here since the original Smash, the organization makes sense, but cramming them all together by what game they showed in makes no sense to the person playing Smash Ultimate as their first Smash game. They should do what they have done before.

What's funny about that statement is that you assume people who are picking up Smash Bros for the first time either will fall into one of only two categories:

• They know the characters (and thus the stages) as part of certain categories and can only identify these characters (or stages) based on close proximity to others from their series, or;
• They don't know the characters (or stages for that matter) well but will somehow still be inconvenienced by the organization of characters (and stages) based on Smash Bros introduction.

But, I think there are other types of newcomers to smash. I also think that all the categories of newcomers will be just fine with this system of organization (assuming that reorganizing by series won't be a feature in the future) because for starters, this system will help to educate the new players. Veteran players can easily point out the next generation of stages and fighters and to be honest, the division of game series is kinda screwy when you look at Mario. Yoshi has his own game series but is also a major part of the Mario series, much like Wario. Those two will be separated from the other Mario cast anyways but I don't see people complaining about that. Introduce your friends to some older versions of Smash and teach them about the legacy. The selection screens will start to make a lot more sense once you do.

 

[Arthur97]

Smash 4 CSS wasn't sorted by universe though. You had some characters that were placed at random position.

It was very much by series with the exceptions of clones and DLC which, yes, was a bit of an unfair eyesore that I really wish they hadn't done.
Edit: and the whole Yoshi thing.

What's funny about that statement is that you assume people who are picking up Smash Bros for the first time either will fall into one of only two categories:

• They know the characters (and thus the stages) as part of certain categories and can only identify these characters (or stages) based on close proximity to others from their series, or;
• They don't know the characters (or stages for that matter) well but will somehow still be inconvenienced by the organization of characters (and stages) based on Smash Bros introduction.

But, I think there are other types of newcomers to smash. I also think that all the categories of newcomers will be just fine with this system of organization (assuming that reorganizing by series won't be a feature in the future) because for starters, this system will help to educate the new players. Veteran players can easily point out the next generation of stages and fighters and to be honest, the division of game series is kinda screwy when you look at Mario. Yoshi has his own game series but is also a major part of the Mario series, much like Wario. Those two will be separated from the other Mario cast anyways but I don't see people complaining about that. Introduce your friends to some older versions of Smash and teach them about the legacy. The selection screens will start to make a lot more sense once you do.

A problem seems to be that Ultimate is focusing too much on Smash history at the sake of keeping the characters cohesive. It just makes sense to keep like things together and the game series themselves should be more important than the Smash placement. Even in the same "generation" they are split up. Mario and Luigi are not next to each other. Marth and Roy are not next to each other. Dedede and Meta Knight are not next to each other. Since characters are by reveal apparently (though not sure how some of the Melee ones were chosen), it just looks messy if not just within that "generation." Having unlockable stages not with the starter stages produces something similar. Example being that Pirate Ship is a good ways later than Bridge of Eldin.

 

[CostLow]

I agree that it makes more sense if you know the stages belong together, but you are once again assuming that everyone joining smash in this generation are Nintendo fanboys. They are the only people who would be bothered by the mixup. If you're a Nintendo fanboy though, how are you not playing Smash Bros. already?

It sounds like your real concern is that the cataloging process doesn't appeal to you because it's by date rather than by title/author (so to speak). It's actually not a bad cataloging process though. Assuming DLC will be a thing, all new fighters/stages will just slide to the bottom so you can quickly and easily identify who has been added and someone without that DLC on their copy of the game would also easily identify the difference and have no other problems adjusting. Even if the stage DLC is from a previous Smash Bros title I think that would still be pretty easy to identify with this method (though possibly not as easy in that instance as with going by series).

Basically, the only real argument against the SSS that I've been seeing here is for Nintendo fanboys who want their stages grouped by game series when that doesn't even enter the realm of discussion for anyone else, and even within that group of players will only bother those that somehow are Fanboys and NOT into Smash Bros somehow.

 

[Jamison]

I actually like the SSS. Being more of a fan of 64 and Melee I like how it will be easier to find the old stages I love.
I do agree options to sort the stages would be nice. Hit R sort by franchise for example. I'd also like it if you could sort by stages toggled on in random. There are always stages I never want to play. So I wouldn't mind doing something like holding L and only the stages I have selected show up. It gets annoying fast if you're playing casual sm4sh with a friend and they pick a horrible stage bc they don't know the stages. Like if we are playing a 1v1 I don't ever wanna see great cave offensive. I also think all the stages on 1 screen could be an issue. It'll make it easier to accidentally click on the wrong stage. Even if it were two pages, one page of sm4sh and ultimate stages and another page of brawl/melee/64 that would be better. The Project M stage list was done pretty well. I think it's another example of where they should just steal an idea from PM. But that's just me.

Spoiler: But CSS I hate

With that said I'm super annoyed by the whole order of release for character select. I like characters to be grouped by franchise. If I play marth in sm4sh and then wanna switch to another FE character and I'm expecting them to be close to each other I'm annoyed that Roy and Lucina and Corrin were on different parts of the screen than Marth/Ike. I think the new CSS will be confusing. It might be nice if you wanna go from Melee characters to Brawl characters or something similar to that and it will be nice to have all the new characters lumped together instead of scattered.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

Not everyone is Nintendo fanboys, but Smash surely isn’t the first game for most. I am a Mario player. My cousins are Legend of Zelda fanboys. Some people like Kirby. Some people like Donkey Kong. You can insert Star Fox, Pokémon, Fire Emblem, or any Nintendo franchise into that statement. Some people like more than one franchise. I couldn’t name you a single person who played Smash Bros before any other video game. I'm sure those people exist, but they would be an extremely small minority.

Smash Bros is a collection of video game characters over Nintendo’s history with some third parties thrown in there. Regardless of what they played prior, it would be easier on the new player if all of their favorite characters were bunched together. The veteran Mario player may not care whether Marth, Roy, and Ike are near eachother, but the experienced Fire Emblem fanboy will. Similarly, the experienced Fire Emblem fanboy wouldn’t care if Mario, Peach, Rosalina, and Bowser are together, but the veteran Mario player will. The organization currently used would only be understood by those who used to or still play Smash Melee. The Smash Brawl or Smash 4 player would be as confused as the newbie except for when it comes to the newcomers as well because they haven’t been around long enough to actually experience the entire Smash history.

The current CSS sucks right now, and the SSS is no different. Casual players want to see their favorite fighters and stages grouped together. To them, they would just see one big mess the way it is sorted now. I would create an image showing how I would organize all the currently announced characters and stages, but I am currently in Hawaii and don’t have the time or technology to do so. I may do it later.

Smash 4 CSS wasn't sorted by universe though. You had some characters that were placed at random position.

By the way, yes, I understand this and I am in disagreement with how they did the roster in that game. Generally, it became a hassle to find those characters. I see what they were going for but it turned into one big mess instead especially with DLC being added later down the road. It proves how a messy CSS can screw everything.

 

[Arthur97]

Really though, how many people are exclusively Smash fans? Yes, there are some, probably more so in the competitive community, but most people are probably fans of at least one series present. It just makes more sense, especially when weighed against most of it's predecessors. Plus, as far as CSS goes, they aren't even doing it by Smash title right with the echoes.

Doing it by game might be okay if they didn't do it by reveal (or whatever Melee and 64 uses for hidden characters) and didn't have the echo problem (do we really need visual queues to know who they're a clone of?). At least subdivide by series within each generation. And with the SSS, don't put hidden stages separate from the starters if they just have to go by game.

 

[Thanos6]

Honestly, I don't really care.

 

[soviet prince]

so ... you have to take another 10 secs to find the character woop de do it just means you have to look it's not that hard lol.

 

[Arthur97]

so ... you have to take another 10 secs to find the character woop de do it just means you have to look it's not that hard lol.

If it takes longer to find what you want, then it's worse. These things should make it easy to find what you want, not be an obstacle to work around.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Sort by series, followed by chronological debut, would be less messy.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

so ... you have to take another 10 secs to find the character woop de do it just means you have to look it's not that hard lol.

There are only a few people who actually want this, and it’s the people who have been around long enough to experience Smash’s entire history. Those are the only people who are going to know how the organization works. Everyone who has ever loved a franchise before Smash, or everyone who picked up Smash Brawl or Smash 4 as their first game will be way too confused to understand the screens. To those players, placing Mario and Luigi seven slots away from each other with no other Mario characters between the two would be no better than putting Marth, Simon, ROB, Greninja, and Lucas in a line next to eachother. They don’t see the structure which is what makes the current CSS awful.

 

[Arthur97]

The characters may not be so bad if they used the series subdivide and didn't have echoes with the original. What's the point in organizing them by game if you're going to have Dark Samus with the originals, Daisy, Lucina, and Chrom with Melee, or Dark Pit with Brawl?

 

[Dario64]

I think it's fine and for me it makes kinda sense. If I want to pick Smash 64 Stages, then I know they always be in the upper part of Selection Screen. Melee/Brawl in the middle and so on.

 

[CostLow]

It's ok to cater to the most loyal fans isn't it? I've played since 64 and the largest competitive Smash Bros community is melee so those guys would totally understand the lineup. Why would it be bad to cater to those two large and loyal groups?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

It's actually exactly like the character select screen and low key actually really smart design. The old series grouping worked well when there were fewer series and fewer total stages. A series's section would be a nice big chunk you could quickly find on either screen and it was neat to parse with it being pretty easy to put the singles (like Duck Hunt) in a more dedicated singles section. With the sheer amount of content (70+ characters, 103 stages), it would be a nightmare. Imagine someone, for some reason, wanted to play Skyworld. Okay, we start with "where is the Kid Icarus section again..." and they have to search the entire 103 screen since the three Kid Icarus stages representing under 3% of total stages won't stand out as a group. This repeats many times as people look for different things and takes forever, and you begin to want more and more to just play on Mario stages because at least you can find those. The order of introduction grouping gives a ballpark rule to find any individual desired element; since Skyworld is a Brawl stage you know to look around the middle which actually narrows things down a lot! It's less nifty or pretty to look at or whatever, but the average player will find what they're looking for considerably faster which is the real priority of a menu. Function over form any day!

 

[Thinkaman]

Yeah, I really like both the character and stage layouts. I'd guess both will be sortable though--even the website is sortable (for characters).

 

[Arthur97]

It's actually exactly like the character select screen and low key actually really smart design. The old series grouping worked well when there were fewer series and fewer total stages. A series's section would be a nice big chunk you could quickly find on either screen and it was neat to parse with it being pretty easy to put the singles (like Duck Hunt) in a more dedicated singles section. With the sheer amount of content (70+ characters, 103 stages), it would be a nightmare. Imagine someone, for some reason, wanted to play Skyworld. Okay, we start with "where is the Kid Icarus section again..." and they have to search the entire 103 screen since the three Kid Icarus stages representing under 3% of total stages won't stand out as a group. This repeats many times as people look for different things and takes forever, and you begin to want more and more to just play on Mario stages because at least you can find those. The order of introduction grouping gives a ballpark rule to find any individual desired element; since Skyworld is a Brawl stage you know to look around the middle which actually narrows things down a lot! It's less nifty or pretty to look at or whatever, but the average player will find what they're looking for considerably faster which is the real priority of a menu. Function over form any day!

No, instead you have to search for one stage amongst a bunch of mostly unrelated stages. I actually missed Pirate Ship when looking through the website page at first.

In the end, most are going to memorize where their favorites are, but it just doesn't look nice at least not to me. Again, it does have an order, but unless you're an avid Smash fan, it may not be a conducive one. Of course, this site may not be the best place for that argument given it's a Smash site.

Of course, it doesn't help that it's so clustered. Doing tabs for each game also may have been better.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

But when order is there, someone after atleast a few looks at the stage select will be able to know where the three Kid Icarus stages he wants to play are located because they will only have to memorize one location for all three of them. The way it is set up now, Skyworld, Reset Bomb Fortress, and Palutena’s Temple are all in different locations on the screen making three locations to memorize, and three is greater than one. Imagine the stress of finding favorite stages put on a Mario or Legend of Zelda player.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

No, instead you have to search for one stage amongst a bunch of mostly unrelated stages. I actually missed Pirate Ship when looking through the website page at first.

In the end, most are going to memorize where their favorites are, but it just doesn't look nice at least not to me. Again, it does have an order, but unless you're an avid Smash fan, it may not be a conducive one. Of course, this site may not be the best place for that argument given it's a Smash site.

Of course, it doesn't help that it's so clustered. Doing tabs for each game also may have been better.

Tabs add a ton of clicks which is yet more wasted time, especially if you remember how many "series" aren't very big. Also no, Pirate Ship is as easy to find as everything else. Pirate Ship is a Brawl stage. It's near the middle. Your issue was not knowing it was in the game at all which is also kinda not a problem because, if you didn't know a stage existed, you weren't looking for it anyway...

Yes you will memorize where your favorite stages are regardless; that's not a benefit or a downside to any ordering. It is now possible to find stags that are not Mario or Pokemon stages and thus not part of groups that are so large they stand out. Duck Hunt was always among unrelated stages. PictoChat was always among unrelated stages. There are so few Kid Icarus and Star Fox stages their groups were always impossible to find. Etc, etc....

Yeah if you like don't know smash the ordering does you no favors, but even then you have fewer rules to memorize. Instead of having to remember 20-something series, many of which if we're being honest a lot of players knew nothing about anyway and didn't recognize as coherent groups anyway, you have to remember the one property of "which game did this stage originate in" which is just memorizing if any given stage falls into one of seven groups ("is FD/Battlefield", 64, Melee, Brawl, 3DS, Wii U, Ultimate) which is a much more manageable number of groups. It's actually pretty unintuitive that "Kid Icarus stages" is somehow a more natural grouping than "Brawl stages" anyway. Both groupings are about video games of origin from different angles, stuff you just have to memorize if you aren't intimately familiar with the originating series (and way more people play Smash than Kid Icarus), and having 7 groups is just a million times more functional than having like 15 groups and then like 20 stages that are singles and group with nothing...

 

[Arthur97]

Tabs add a ton of clicks which is yet more wasted time, especially if you remember how many "series" aren't very big. Also no, Pirate Ship is as easy to find as everything else. Pirate Ship is a Brawl stage. It's near the middle. Your issue was not knowing it was in the game at all which is also kinda not a problem because, if you didn't know a stage existed, you weren't looking for it anyway...

Yes you will memorize where your favorite stages are regardless; that's not a benefit or a downside to any ordering. It is now possible to find stags that are not Mario or Pokemon stages and thus not part of groups that are so large they stand out. Duck Hunt was always among unrelated stages. PictoChat was always among unrelated stages. There are so few Kid Icarus and Star Fox stages their groups were always impossible to find. Etc, etc....

Yeah if you like don't know smash the ordering does you no favors, but even then you have fewer rules to memorize. Instead of having to remember 20-something series, many of which if we're being honest a lot of players knew nothing about anyway and didn't recognize as coherent groups anyway, you have to remember the one property of "which game did this stage originate in" which is just memorizing if any given stage falls into one of seven groups ("is FD/Battlefield", 64, Melee, Brawl, 3DS, Wii U, Ultimate) which is a much more manageable number of groups. It's actually pretty unintuitive that "Kid Icarus stages" is somehow a more natural grouping than "Brawl stages" anyway. Both groupings are about video games of origin from different angles, stuff you just have to memorize if you aren't intimately familiar with the originating series (and way more people play Smash than Kid Icarus), and having 7 groups is just a million times more functional than having like 15 groups and then like 20 stages that are singles and group with nothing...

So four tabs (maybe five) are just too many for you? Especially if it comes with much larger portraits for picking them out?

Except now, the "groups" are so big, you still have to sort through them and their tiny little pictures. Also, in 4 at least, both the CSS and the SSS worked to drill that basic order in (sans the solos), but now that doesn't work as well since, for example, Mario fighters are not always at the front of each section, but Mario stages are. You have Meta Knight as the first Brawl fighter, but, what, Delfino Plaza as the first Brawl stage. They lose a uniformity. If the CSS always went in series order, then there would still be a uniform pattern that you would end up learning, but now it's two disparate patterns.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

The points we have been stressing is that not everyone knows what game a stage originated in. Smash 4 mixed them all with eachother, and to them it’s one big stage roster. People that started on this game have no clue which of their beloved stages came from which game. I honestly forget every time that Bridge of Eldin, Halbred, and Skyworld to name a few were Brawl stages. I can’t believe I have had to say this so many times to just a few people and yet the point still hasn’t seemed to be acknowledged, but...

NEW PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT INFORMATION.

Plus, if they’re sorted by time added to Smash, then where do the stages that originated from both versions of Smash 4 fall?

 

[CostLow]

Your point has been acknowledged. We're just saying that this point is assuming other things ARE known by newcomers that likely are not known. If you only know Mario characters and stages then you will likely only see those stages when first choosing. However, if the stages are a little more split up then your eyes will travel over many other stages that you might not have considered otherwise. It's a lot like shopping. The further you have to travel to get to your destination the more likely you are to pick up some extras along the way. Most people aren't going to be looking for melee exclusive stages, but at least this will help newcomers learn the history of smash bros a little more.