Stage Discussion

[Cyn]

This thread is meant to discuss all current stages for Smash Ultimate.

 

[TheCJBrine]

I'm disappointed in no Icicle Mountain.

However, we still have Summit, so I'm okay.

Let's discuss Summit and its infinite glacier.

 

[Freelance Spy]

Castle Siege is the best stage in the game fight me.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

I don't have the game yet, but I have a crucial question about returning stages because the wiki still isn't updated. Is Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2 from Smash Brawl back or is it omitted like in Smash 4? I'm posting here because I'm 99% certain that question doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

 

[RepStar]

They seem smaller in this game.

 

[Madwario]

It feels like they designed the N64 stages from scratch again, the graphic is smooth. Or maybe im wrong.

 

[Deleted member]

Green Hill Zone competitive viability:

Just turn off hazards and you get a slope which could be pretty useful i could see it being a good stage for faster characters but most slow smash 4 characters aren't even very slow anymore tbh it would pretty interesting even as a counterpick

 

[Luigifan18]

Green Hill Zone competitive viability:

Just turn off hazards and you get a slope which could be pretty useful i could see it being a good stage for faster characters but most slow smash 4 characters aren't even very slow anymore tbh it would pretty interesting even as a counterpick

You forget that it's a walk-off stage, which removes "poor recovery" as a weakness (, , and suddenly become way better), nullifies "great recovery" as a strength (, , and become way worse), and changes gimping strategies from "epic edgeguarding" to "throw near the blast zone". Offstage play is not even a thing on Green Hill, especially with hazards off. It's up to you whether or not you consider that degenerate. Most competitive players do, because dying at 0% from being piledriven directly into a blast zone by even a weak, safe throw or tilt with no chance to DI or recover is freaking ridiculous. I don't, because hanging around the blast zone to score a cheeky kill could let your opponent get a cheeky kill on you just as easily, meaning that going for a cheap-shot kill is rather risky.

 

[banana29]

No poke floats

 

[Wyatt Davis]

I'm in love with hazardleas brinstar. Hope its tourney legal.

 

[DavemanCozy]

No hazards stages that are pretty cool;
- Wario Ware
- Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2
- Kalos league
- Unova League

Stages I'm not so sure about but are competitively playable with hazards off:
- Lylat Cruise
- Halberd
- Prism Tower
- Delfino
- Brinstar
- Pirate Ship

There are many more stages in this game that have viability competitively that I've yet to try.

Note: Midgar and Dreamland become Battlefield clones with no hazards off. Possibly with different blast zones.

Pictochat and Wily Castle become Final Destination clones with no hazards as well, with different shape and possibly different blast zones as well.

Also:
Going forward it will be debate for sure whether hazards are on or off. If they are off it disables the tilting platform in Yoshis Island (Brawl) and Randy the cloud from Yoshi's Story for e.g., and I guarantee there will be players who do not like that.

Another Edit:
As far as stages go for tourneys, I expect the following will have little contesting regardless of hazards on or off:
- Battlefield
- Final Destination
- Yoshi's Story
- Dreamland
- Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
- Fountain of Dreams
- Smashville

I'm unsure about Town and City but personally I don't see anything terribly wrong with it for tourneys.

 

[Aeronite's Kiseki]

I don't have the game yet, but I have a crucial question about returning stages because the wiki still isn't updated. Is Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2 from Smash Brawl back or is it omitted like in Smash 4? I'm posting here because I'm 99% certain that question doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

It is not in the game, wondering why myself...but still sad

 

[DavemanCozy]

Wow... so there is a bug right now with Yoshi's Story, where fly guys carry items whether they're on or not. Pretty sure this must be a bug, since baloons in Smashville don't do that I don't think.

Fountain of dreams drops frames as well. So that is not good.

I'm hoping these get fixed in a patch. They are good stages

 

[staindgrey]

So, the Omega forms of most of these stages seem incredibly small.

I want Melee's FD proportions back.

 

[Luigifan18]

So, the Omega forms of most of these stages seem incredibly small.

I want Melee's FD proportions back.

I have no clue why they changed it in the first place...

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

It is not in the game, wondering why myself...but still sad

Oh well. That sucks. It was one of my favorites from Smash Brawl to be honest, and not having any fitting place for the underground pieces sucks.

 

[LordDagron]

I made a fairly large list of stages that I think could be legal. The main points are no stages with walk offs, walls, or large slopes. Toggling hazards is annoying to do before matches so we'll just keep it off by default here. I have 20 stages here, we probably want to try and narrow it down to 10.

battlefield/midgar (These seem to be about the same)
final destination/umbra clock tower (Also the same)
dream land
yoshi's story
fountain of dreams
green greens
pokemon stadium
WarioWare
yoshi's island
lylat cruise
pokemon stadium 2 (not sure if there's actually a difference without hazards)
smashville
unova pokemon league
mushroom kingdom U
reset bomb forest (I can definitely see this one being banned.)
skyloft (this could probably be removed because of the angled platforms.)
kalos pokemon league
town and city
duck hunt
wily castle

 

[mav_snake_main]

I want to know what the legal stages are and whether to put hazards on or off.

 

[Luigifan18]

That's still being worked out. The game's only been out for two weeks.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Reset Bomb Forest (with and without hazards) makes for a fun stage for doubles (though of course...RBF is a fun stage in general cause Viridi)

 

[Dukemon]

This "Gotta Catch them all" Logo on the Saffron City Stage is translated in europeane Languages.

 

[VGFan95]

Click here for a post that details how each stage is affected by turning Stage Hazards Off.

 

[Skyknight]

I'm a little disappointed that Dracula's Throne Room isn't on the list. I like having the short walls to reduce the risk of sending myself off a ledge. ("Nothing to Lose" and "Don't Wait Until Night/Heart of Fire" also help.)

 

[fogbadge]

do stage hazards still turn off automatically on 5 or more player smash?

 

[Sovereign Trinity]

I'm disappointed in no Icicle Mountain.

However, we still have Summit, so I'm okay.

Let's discuss Summit and its infinite glacier.

I'm actually happy Icicle Mountain didn't return, but I definitely would've loved its battlefield and final destination form.

I thought it was unique, but just dislike moving stages. Hey, good thing the Icicle Mountain soundtrack is in Ultimate!

 

[Idon]

I'm actually really pissed we never got hazardless pyroshpere considering that was the stage everyone wanted to be made legal without Ridley.

 

[Deleted member]

I wanted Rumble Falls, instead we got Fountain of Dreams. Sakurai bias rears it's ugly head.

 

[Dukemon]

Big Blue had atleast one tint mistake. Little Wyvern is darker than it is normally.

 

[Deleted member]

I wish that Kid Dracula had more presence outside of his shadow on the Dracula's Castle stage.

Maybe him flying around the place in the background, or anything that isn't just the shadow.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

The audio changes from Smash Brawl to Smash Ultimate on Frigate Orpheon was a bit of a let down. I liked them better in Smash Brawl.

I wish the legendary Pokémon on Spear Pillar lingered longer like they did in Smash Brawl, but having them all be able to show up in any given game was a nice touch.

 

[Svenjamin Olafsvartal]

The sunset seen from the Halberd is absolutely delectable!

 

[Illusive]

I like the way that Balloon Fight and Mario Bros wrap around, but they should only kill you in hitstun if your character is above 100%.

Also I really like the aesthetics of Dream Land GB, but I wish the characters popped out in front of the game boy instead of behind it.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I don't get why they they didn't just disable grabbing off-screen or near-off-screen for walkoff stages.

 

[ClawstheBadger]

Is Pirate Ship with hazards off viable? I'm pretty sure it still has water you can wade in, and I doubt that would be accepted in competitive.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

Is Pirate Ship with hazards off viable? I'm pretty sure it still has water you can wade in, and I doubt that would be accepted in competitive.

I believe that the water will be a huge issue in the eyes of the competitive scene, and it has a weird platform setup, so I think not.

 

[Skamhutt]

I have a question regarding permeable stagefloors and I thought this would be the right place to ask. The issue is not new to Ultimate, if I recall correctly, however since it is the latest installment of the series, I was curious to see if anyone has an answer to this.

It seems that some recoveries on stages with permeable floors tend to end badly for the executing character. For instance, if you use a horizontal recovery (Falco, Ike, etc.) on a stage like Skyloft, it sometimes happens that you go through the ledge, rather than grabbing hold of it, which leads to your characters downfall.
Also, if you use vertical recovery from below the permeable floor, it sometimes happens, that you are above the floor, but still fall through (observed with Ikes Up-B on Brinstar).

Does anybody know why that happens?

Edit: I thought some pictures might help to understand what exactly I mean (I'm sorry for the rather low quality).
Up-B on Brinstar
Side-B on Skyloft

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

You forget that it's a walk-off stage, which removes "poor recovery" as a weakness (, , and suddenly become way better), nullifies "great recovery" as a strength (, , and become way worse), and changes gimping strategies from "epic edgeguarding" to "throw near the blast zone". Offstage play is not even a thing on Green Hill, especially with hazards off. It's up to you whether or not you consider that degenerate. Most competitive players do, because dying at 0% from being piledriven directly into a blast zone by even a weak, safe throw or tilt with no chance to DI or recover is freaking ridiculous. I don't, because hanging around the blast zone to score a cheeky kill could let your opponent get a cheeky kill on you just as easily, meaning that going for a cheap-shot kill is rather risky.

I learned that in this game, with the right ruleset, even stages with that kind of design can be fun to play in. A lot of people like to play with stocks in free for alls, myself included. The one problem with that is that the player who dies first is punished with downtime, and the wait so you can play again can become unbearable specially if the match drags on. Combine this with the potential of cheap kills near the blast zone on stages with a walk off, that can also be caused by hazards, Final Smashes and items, and your fresh stock can disappear in an instant. Getting killed very early in a match, specially like that, is what's most salt inducing because you forsake your place as a participant and become an spectator; rather than having fun you just get to watch your buddies having fun for a few eternal minutes.

So this is where timed matches become an appealing alternative. In that kind of ruleset, a losing player doesn't have to forsake his/her place in a battle. Because their chances of participating are not in danger, then they are less likely to become angry or demoralized for getting KO'd in a "cheap" fashion like being thrown directly into the blastzone. It doesn't completely negate one's skill either because you still have to be active and rack up kills. Mind you, this is not for a purely competitive setting but for a casual one.
When playing with my cousin and brothers, I noticed that this was the ideal ruleset for us. In stocks, we would get frustrated at times; it happened to me playing on Dreamland GB. Despite being the most skilled player of my group, I was constantly caught in the crossfire on the middle of the stage and that let me to die pretty quickly near the blastzones. But in a timed match, playing on that stage became more appealing to me since now I wasn't in danger of getting booted off the game. I could still lose but at least I had more fun than on a stock battle. This also benefits my cousin who is the least skilled player of the group and constantly gets frustrated for getting offed a stock match pretty quickly.
A stage like Palutena's Temple suddenly becomes more desirable because the match doesn't drag out on a timed ruleset as it does with stocks.

 

[Dreamking]

Did Sakurai say something why the Training stage was exclusive to Training Mode? I don't remember but I wish it was selectable in multiplayer.

Suppose Nintendo announced that, in a patch, it was made playable in multiplayer mode. It would have the same grid background with the same spawn points which are expanded to incorporate eight players. The launch lines would be retained but are now coded to a character's damage level with the color is based on their player spot.

 

[Idon]

Did Sakurai say something why the Training stage was exclusive to Training Mode. I don't remember but I wish it was selectable in multiplayer.

Suppose Nintendo announced that, in a patch, it was made playable in multiplayer mode. It would have the same grid background with the same spawn points which are expanded to incorporate eight players. The launch lines would be retained but are now coded to a character's damage level with the color is based on their player spot.

They're going to have to adjust the vertical blast zones because those are ludicrously high, even for a casual stage.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

They're going to have to adjust the vertical blast zones because those are ludicrously high, even for a casual stage.

It would probably make for a good eight player stage in casual play for messing around.