I often think a lot of the reason we have a meta where campy characters are incredibly strong is the community's tendency to legalize giant stages (Kalos and Hollow Bastion) while not even considering the small stages like Wario Ware and Castle Siege.
Steve’s worst stage is probably Lylat because mining takes longer on metal and the slopes fuck with blocks, and Sonic would definitely struggle more on Warioware because he has nowhere to run. And legalize Castle Siege cuz I love that shit
I genuinely think a hazards on stage list would be more fun and interesting to play on. If we're sticking to the traditional rules for stage legality, then we actually gain more stages than we lose if we switch to hazards on. -Smashville and Hollow Bastion become unique from each other due to SV's moving platform -Yoshi's Story gets Randal, and while the Sky Guys are sometimes irritating, they do add to the enjoyment -T&C, Battlefield, FD, Small Battlefield, Northern Cave, and Hollow Bastion remain almost entirely unchanged -Stages like Dreamland 64 and Fountain of Dreams are no longer just Battlefield but again -PS2 and Kalos are lost, but PS1 could be viable as a counterpick and variety choice, like Melee -Yoshi's Island is a bit more out-there, but it becomes even more unique with the moving center platform and side platforms that rise and fall -Lylat regains its tilt, but it seems like it's less of an issue in this game (And that's IF it becomes legal, again) -More stages means more bans. Don't like a stage's gimmick? Ban it! -Hazards allow for characters to shine in ways they otherwise couldn't. Lil Mac could use Randal to recover, moving platforms allow some characters more opportunities to approach in otherwise bad matchups, and so on
This could be good and bad IMO I'm envisioning a 9 stage ruleset (like eu, no counterpicks) With hazards off (current ruleset): bf, sbf, ps2, hb, fd, sv, t&c, kalos, (I run northern cave as 9th, eu uses yoshis) With a hazards on: bf, sbf, [yoshi's], hb, sv, t&c, [fod], northern This makes 2 extra triplats, which maybe could turn out to be a non issue but who knows, it just feels slightly wonky. I kinda wanna test it out ngl. I'll probably do an experimental tournament (I run tourneys for friends, so usually only like 10 man brackets), and see if I/everyone else likes it better, who knows. Extra notes: I'm pretty sure the town platforms move throughout the whole match in hazards off, which I think is probably fine but that's a tentative answer. Northern cave is usually not legal because of photosensitivity issues I believe, and I also heard some of the songs on it can be copyright which is obviously bad for competitive tourneys but doesn't matter to me.
I had ps2 with stage hazards on in a tournament and it was neat seeing what players did in the forms. Especially the form with ice physics. Seeing Samus slide away from their opponents while charging charge shot was funny. Dash grabs kept sliding so youd usually be closer to the blastzones by the time you'd throw. Or you'd keep sliding so you'd be closer to them after the throw and get a follow up that you normally couldn't get.
Never forget that the Ultimate scene banned a stage solely because Palutena players didn’t want to learn how to recover. Stage hazards off was a phenomenal idea. However, I just wish there was a way to toggle it on a stage by stage basis. Stages like Yoshi’s Story, Fountain of Dreams, and Dreamland get their identity from their hazards because they aren’t particularly intrusive and make the stages unique. These could easily be unique legal stages with hazards on.
And it’s not just Palu mains that have a issue with it Ness and Lucas mains also have a issue with it, as well as Zelda and Mewtwo mains (before the devs fixed it one of if not the latter two)
Unova really is such an egregious ban; it could’ve been a pretty cool counterpick thanks to its unique blast zones and platforms, like a mix of PS2 and Kalos, but thanks to a very minor issue that only affects like 3-5 characters, it’s basically just illegal. I know that “just ban it if you don’t like it” can be kind of a bad and cliche argument when it comes to stuff like this, but it really does apply here.
It wasn't that, it was that is too similar to PS2 and now SBF, having three stages with the exact same layout kinda ruin the ban process if you only have three bans and you don't want that stage. We had it on our local scene for like 4-5 months to try it and I saw it picked over PS2 like 3 times lol
Considering how massive is the stage list in Ultimate, it's a travesty everyone just plays pokemon stadium 2. Biggest offender is nobody ever picking Omega stages either.
I like this point of view of yours. I envision that if these type of stages are accepted and adapted from, then maybe just maybe we can start having some more complex stage features in competitive smash. I know it’s hard because of walk offs and other things, but I like to think that stages can become more complex when fighting.
This is a very well made video. I personally wish that smash ultimate had an option to turn off hazards on the stage select screen. There is an issue with having some stages such as wily castle be leagal due to having to back out of the stage select screen and physically change the option in a sepertate menu. I believe if there was an option to toggle hazards present on the main stage select screen, then many more stages could be legal.
Yes, yes, and again yes! Either that, or make a pre-selection menu for which stages have their hazards on and which have them off, exactly like there is for the stages to appear for the random selection! This is absolutely existential!
As awesome as PM is, the P+ leadership team can't make up their minds about what the tourney legal stages should be. Ironically, as you mention, they have the potential to perfect the stagelist, but it turns out modding is a double edged sword, where the team feels they have to make virtually unlimited iterative changes.
this video reminds me of a time when VGBC had an ENTIER invitational just to test out an experimental hazards on/hazards off stage list but the new stages were only played once or twice, and even when people were playing on the stages that where supposed to be hazards on, they just agreed to turn them back off.
I wanna know why "semi-permeable" stages like Delfino Plaza or Halberd were banned/avoided in brawl because of sharking with ledge grabs, but then the community never tried running hazardless skyloft now that you no longer get invulnerability on ledge regrabs. A lot of stages definitely could have been better in terms of hazards off, but the community really screwed the pooch by not experimenting with stuff more. My personal vote for stagelist is hazards on with FD, BF, SBF, Smashville, Town&City, NorthernCave, HollowBastion, and FountainofDreams. 8 stages that all have unique platform layouts or attributes from each other, severely limiting how much characters can excel on certain archetypes of stages, such as going to kalos or ps2 because fd or sbf got banned.
Its so interesting of a topic cause theres so much to consider. I love things like randall in the game. It provides hype moments but isnt luck related or jank. So its cool. More things like him would be great. Transforming stages would be really cool... its just that the jank of it kinda makes it really inconsistent. Like transforming just die cause you were in a new spot you thought was fine. Things like stunning people with shine in a corner is so funny though. Idk too much about the stage debacle in ultimate. But theres like 2 arguments ive heard 1) lylat and others like it just make campy characters better. As a wolf whose blaster goes in a straight line... at the corners of the stage they can just go away compared to a wii fit trainer or min min. Where they can just do what they want... but other fast characters... their nuetral tools are now cut off. Making it feel awful. So its moreso not really "theres more janky interactions" its moreso "i have to do more... but my opponent gets to do less to win." 2) adding in new stages can invalidate bans. I agree that these stages are cool. But adding them means that If we dont get more bans... essentially you force people to have to face a stage that THEY THOUGHT THEY BANNED. But they are similar enough to get the benefit. Which can feel awful.
An easy solution for the second argument you mentioned is to just lump all the similar stages together. For example, if you wanted to ban Battlefield, you’d take out stages like Fountain of Dreams as well
With all the effort competitive Smash players put into memorizing every frame of an attack, you’d think they could learn to remember what spots are or aren’t safe to stand on when a Stage transforms.
Really good video; I’m always happy to see people pushing back against the super conservative stage list Ultimate currently has. At the very least, I hope that we can get Unova and Yoshi’s Island legal again at some point; most of the other retired stages make sense to me, even if I don’t personally agree with the reasoning, (such as the walk-offs that appear for the first few seconds of Halberd, for example) but imo there just isn’t a valid reason for either of those stages.
I’ve always personally vouched for Hazards off Spring Stadium, as the boost panels on the side do telegraph where the ceiling panels are, making their off-screen position less bothersome to deal with. It’s certainly the least offensive ‘obstacle’ for a stage in comp smash imo, at least considering PS1 and Yoshi’s exist…
Great video, I just wanna add that as a Bowser Jr. main, Lylat has an extra challenge of a near pitch black background, and it makes the cannonball nearly invisible.
Decent video. One of my gripes with the ultimate stagelist is that there are many big stages and few small stages. So this is what I run at my locals Starters: Battlefield Final destination Smashville Town and city Ps2 Yoshis story Lylat Cruise Counterpicks: Yoshis island Small battlefield Kalos 3 small 4 medium 3 big. It's balanced.
How are round 1 bans handled? I think your stage selection is very fun, but it also heavily depends on bans. And if it's the 1 - 2 - 2 system, that HEAVILY makes the Rock, Paper, Scissors game way to important for it to be fair. Even then, for counterpicks, 2 or even 3 bans doesn't seem sufficient. PS2 and Small Battlefield is basically banning the same, but costs 2 bans. To a lesser extent, also happens with Battlefield and Yoshi's Story. So, what's your solution? I'm genuinely curious
I will add that you are much more likely to see these stages as legal in a doubles tournament. Slants and camping barely matter, so I could honestly see stages like mementos, mushroom kingdom U, and yoshi’s island as legal doubles stages
Warioware should be a counterpick imo, we have a good amount of large stages to help characters who need survivability and more room to play with and I think having small battlefield & hollow bastion alone for low tiers with decent kill options to counter pick to only ain't healthy for the game since its a 3 ban ruleset. So the top tier can strike the two small stages and a stage beneficial to said character. I also think it'd add a fun double edge sword since obviously all characters can benefit from the stage getting jank 70% kills. I want it to be SSBU's SM4SH Lylat where people who don't want to deal with it can just ban it and give the opponent more room to pick a stage their comfortable on & Doc tornado killing earlier would be fun to watch. Thanks for the vid
I feel like smaller stage lists are just generally preferred, which is why despite the stage hazard toggle existing a bunch of stages that could be legal in ultimate are banned Take Wario Ware for example, that stage is banned because “the blast zones are too small”, if that stage was in melee without the hazards you just know that people wouldn’t give a shit about the blast zones
The thing that I think is crazy is how few different arrangements of platforms we have. So many stages are banned because they’re too similar to another one, so I wish we had another stage form in addition to omega and battlefield: island form. Imagine pirate ship but flat and floating in the air instead of water, lylat cruise but perfectly flat, delfino plaza with a bottom thick enough to prevent sharking, spear pillar and Luigi’s mansion without caves of life, pilotwings without the walls in the middle, norfair with a bigger center platform. The list goes on and on. Plus they need to give unique layouts to the new stages that just fly around like northern cave, yggdrasil’s altar, and hollow bastion
I think it'd be interesting to see both a hazards on ruleset and a hazards off one. Some stages without hazards are better (PS2, Kalos, etc.), while others (Smashville, Fountain of Dreams) are better with hazards. I think it'd be really cool to see FoD legalized in Ult since nintendo patched the lag issue on the stage, and I'd also like to Yggdraisal's altar legal, it's like T&C with different platform layouts
Hmm, interesting that you think Lylat is bad for Little Mac... For the time it was legal on my locals, and as a LM main, that was my main stage to go to, and maybe my most consistent map. The slants help LM a fuck ton, and the lower platforms make it harder to camp as you can harass them with Up Smashes, and they're also very susceptible to Side B. The removal of Lylat directly led to me going down on my local rankings. So I'm interested to know why you think it's the opposite.
I was only a pacman main back when it was around, and picked up little mac as a secondary after its removal though. The thin stage i have seen gimp little mac's recovery easier than in other stages, through my limited time playing both character and stage. Regardless i find it a sad removal as a smash 4 vet who only ever wanted the stage to stop rotating.
@@HeyoImKaGo The thin stage actually helps LM more than it harms. Because it's both thin and slanted, LM's Down Smash becomes and incredibly aggressive tool and skyrockets its edgeguarding consistency. It also messes with some characters ledge trapping, and it can also sometimes let LM hit the opponent bellow the stage before grabbing the ledge, although that's much rarer, and it definitely makes certain 2-Frames work better on LM. I think it does more good than harm, though, at the end of the day. But it's always interesting to hear other LM's perspective.
@@franciscodelico I'll take your word for it on experience, i sadly lack as much as you have with the character + stage. I'm making a sequel vid rn and actually along with talking about a ton of other stages people have brought up, will talk some more about lylat.
My personal list is: Battlefield Small Battlefield Final Destination Kongo Jungle (I don't see much reason not to include it) Dream Land Brinstar (Based asymme-chad stage) Yoshi's Story Fountain of Dreams Green Greens (The side platforms make for a KO through the stage) Pokémon Stadium WarioWare, Inc. Frigate Orpheon (Based asymme-chad stage) Yoshi's Island Halberd (Cool transorming gymick + Jump-througj main stage) Lylat Cruise Pokémon Stadium 2 Castle Siege (Based asymme-chad stage) Smashville Unova Pokémon League PictoChat 2 (FD with a slight slant and a large top blast zone) Mushroom Kingdom U (Rare large stage for variety) Skyloft (Jump though main platform) Kalos Pokémon League Town and City Wuhu Island Wily Castle Midgar Umbra Clock Tower Mementos (Based asymme-chad stage) Yggdrasil's Altar (Cool transformation) Spring Stadium (The ceiling is cool ok) Minecraft World (all layouts are pretty basic) Northern Cave Cloud Sea of Alrest (Based asymme-chad stage) Hollow Bastion
The weakest point of Ultimate is the lack of hazards on at least Town and City and Smashville. I hope that in the future someone makes a toggle mod for hazards since to my knowledge, this is why some stages that have workable hazards are not used.
As a Cloud main, yeah no we dont need old Smashville back, y'all really wanna deal with limit camping on the platform again? Bring back old Town tho I miss the balloons
The biggest shame to me is the exclusion of Unova Pokemon League. It was my favorite stage from 3DS, which had a lot of my favorite stages (still mourning the loss of Rainbow Road), and with hazards off, it's a perfectly viable stage. But it was removed because of the occasional flashes of lightning, which is odd to me because we're still putting up with Final Destination.
11:47 yeah at first glance it looks great until you find out that there’s a split ceiling over it. And you would also think the bottom of the stage would be good until you find out that it’s held up by a stick for a pedestal. So once your underneath the stage it’s harder to recover because it’s small
I get the point completely, luckily here in Europe we have the uniformed stagelist (Netherlands are based) and that helped massively imo. As far as your stage proposal, personally I disagree on all of them lol, as far as I'm aware slants are just terrible (Especially if it's the main ground) they just alter the game too much and make it inconsistent. Jab locks for instance become side dependant, some projectiles behave inconsistently, pancaking becomes ever more inconsistent, and it just makes playing a lot more imprecise since your air time is changed by the slant and is impossible to precisely know how much (And 2/3 frames can be the difference between autocancelling your move or not, getting a parry or getting hit, be safe or not etc. Ramses for example talked about this and I agree on him completely) Also Yoshi's Island's slants allowed for some very dumb things like Ike Aether at the ledge sending you backwards etc. I honestly think WarioWare's platforms are sick, the stage is just too small and you can literally win from one mistake. I know a lot of people make the argument of "it's small so is good vs campy characters" and my answer to this is that if Sonic's Spin Dash fair kills you at 30% you're still getting camped. I wish Spring Stadium was good... but even there it would maybe be too similar to Hollow. I'm always hesitant to add more stages to the stagelist; I think is important to keep it quick and simple and even 10/14 stages could make it way longer
Funnily i introduced the same unified stage list to my scene bout a year ago to my scene. (I'm a TO) As i said with the stages, it's moreso wishful thinking for most of the stages, however lylat i feel really should be legal. For example it's by far steve's worst stage. Also having hollow bastion and smashville both be legal feels so odd to me for similar reasons as your comments on spring stadium. All this is more perspective stages (besides a few i wish could be legalized)
@@HeyoImKaGo Good! I hope you're enjoying it, personally I don't think an Ultimate stagelist could get much better than that I think that doesn't justify having a bad stage just because of one character, but I get the argument. Aren't Smashville and Hollow are sufficiently different due to the blastzones? Smashville is very small while Hollow is quite a bit wider, that to me makes it different enough to justify it (I don't know the specifics of Spring Stadium tho)
There is some debate over stage legality in P+ but ervery stsge list has some fun stages. Wario Ware, PM Distant Planet, Flat Lylat, Luigi's Mansion, Delfinos, there's always a few neat stages along with the boring competitive ones. Ig tge bjg debates sre FOD or Delfini but thags because the platforms recede into the ground so sometimes they can ruin a combo and in PM the punsih for that can be very severe. Overall tho people seem to be ok with them as long as the platforms movement was less intense
I haven't been a part of the Smash community for a while now, but whenever I stop by to watch a tournament, it'd be hard to convince me that this game has more than two viable stages. I don't know how we got a game with over 100 stages and people only play on PS2 and Small Battlefield, but it makes me think that even if we had a more diverse stage list (which I am in favor of), it wouldn't make a large difference in the competitive scene. I mean, I have a completely radical wish that leans into some even wilder stages being on the list, but that's a topic for never because it's a dumb idea and it won't happen.
I frankly think lylat should come back, whether it's to replace HB or to be a 9th stage in the standard upheld by Cagt ran tournaments (basically anywhere in Northeast US and some parts of Canada). On top of the reasons already mentioned, it has the smallest set of blastzones of the current list, steve fucking sucks on there, kazuya stops functioning on the stage, and I'm sure there's more implications. (and I'm saying this as a Kazuya player, though if lylat was legal, I would commit to learn snake as a secondary to abuse it.) I really think people should give it a more honest try in today's meta tbh.
The real problem is the ban/strike/counterpick process if you find a way to make that take a reasonable amount of time for 8+ stages then sure else rule makers are just going to take the best 7.
Personally I enjoy playing with a hazards on stage list with smashville, town and city, and fountain of dreams all having hazards that are IMO very fun and balanced. In base ultimate I didn’t like it since hazards on was too big a sacrifice needing to get rid of PS2 and Kalos, but now we have small battlefield and northern crater which are similar enough platform layout. So I use a ruleset with battlefield, small battlefield, fd, smashville, town and city, fountain of dreams, northern crater, and hollow bastion from time to time if I want to mix things up. I don’t think anything like that should be used in tournaments, especially with fountain of dreams lag, but I recommend trying out stages like smashville and fountain with hazards on, they’re really fun and well designed imo, moving platform layouts add a ton of variety to the match while not being gimmicky or unbalanced!
I actually have 2 ruleset which are normal exept having only one stage on for random + random selection so it Insta-goes to the stage select. It's quick to be done with t&c and the like as a way to speed up the process
As a casual player. Some of the stages people have contention with or dont use for competitive always confuse me. Why is hollow bastion contended? Why are the yoshi stages now suddenly a nono? Its just a bit confusing to me as an outsider.
Yoshis story is contended due to it being nearly identical to battlefield (not to confuse it with island) and hollow bastion is very similar in stage layout to smashville. With only 2 or 3 bans per ruleset, people don't like banning the same stage twice
@@HeyoImKaGo doesnt the presence of randal make it different? As for hollow bastion. I suppose thats understandable, though doesnt smashvilles platform move?
@verixforgotten1121 it's because hazards can't be toggled during stage select, only by going into the ruleset and changing it, which significantly slows down sets. TOs can't just think about how fun or good each stage or ruleset is in-game, we also have to make sure the tournament is finished in a reasonable amount of time. Also the yoshi stages have slants, which are widely disliked due to the inconsistencies they introduce. Ult is already a very inconsistent game and people don't want to make that worse.
@@HeyoImKaGo battlefield, small battlefield, final destination, Yoshi’s story, fountain of dreams, Smashville, town and city, Northern cave, Hollow bastion
I personally allow both ps1 and ps2 when playing with my buddies. I like ps1 a lot more than ps2 because it's bigger and I think it looks better. Honestly wish more tournaments allowed it more.
They were indeed early on. Lylat got pulled out pretty fast on most scenes though, and yoshis island and story both were removed early for different reasons though
Yoshi's platform is way too big and it enables the specialized advantage-state(not combos I mean sharkers;trappers) and zoner characters too much. Characters like Samus, Corrin and Byleth can shark under it extremely well while camping with projectiles and/or swords, that many characters can't really interact with. It's especially bad for characters relying on slower aerials as the platform just blocks their moves entirely. The platform covers roughly half of the entire stage; smashville comparatively has both more reasonable edges and the platform is also only roughly 30% of the stage. The edges being really high and slanted makes it, typically, even less safe of a spot to be than normal. Pikachu's t-jolt also coils the platform, threatening nearly the entire stage ground at some point, which is just criminal.
cool vid bro =) I liked the visuals but maybe you could slow down the speed of the hypnotic background effect? it kinda hurt my eyes after a little bit jolly good
Lylat's way too egregious to consider in a competitive ruleset. We had it legal for a while but it was consistent the most banned stage at majors. Slants will always suck, especially for a game where landing aerials are as important as they are. Also a big problem for low crouches since it makes crouch camping in the corner absurdly good. The background being so dark is a problem for seeing characters like Game and Watch if they pick the default color. The side blastzones being so short kinda seals the deal as well, they're as small as Town which is already enough of a factor to make Town an autoban in a lot of matchups like Chroy.
Why arena ferox isn't legal in ultimate is pretty obvious. Prism Tower seems more normal, but the bottom blastzone gives you very little space under the stage; basically right underneath the stage. It seems like between sm4sh and ult, the entire stage was shifted down since the top blastzone is pretty high up. Many players in my tournaments seemed to dislike the stage because you could pass through the main stage. It facilitates a wider variety of recoveries, but mostly horizontal recoveries have a hard time snapping to ledge and often times go past and through the stage, down to their deaths. These two are the only reasons I'd ban this stage. People like to point out that two set-ups that are similar to NC can help create walk-off-like combos, but I think NC and Kalos have already shown us how reliably those occurred. The second NC form with yellow platforms have ledges on the outside, but don't tend to be a problem once both players know that they're there and tend to add a new layer to recovery. The temporary nature of that form also makes it more passable. There's also the literal walk off at the start and at the end of the stage loop. The first occurrence is short enough where you can dodge two moves and be fine (rip hbox). The later walk-offs you are just on your own to not get walked off which can be risky but if you mostly hold center and mix-up your escape options, you should be fine.
Yggdrasil's Alter has a similar issue. The top and bottom blastzones are the same as Battlefield, but the side blastzones are further. So it's town and city/ final destination, but you kill much later. The initial form is a non-issue. Banning the stage is more for just the fun aspect is missing and keeping sets from going 7 minutes every game. Especially with hazards off, the solid platforms don't float up at the sides and promote risky plays. Umbra clock tower has the whole motion sickness point against it, there's also under the stage platforms, solid platforms and for some reason every platform is always moving, they never stick to a spot. FOD is both unique and bland. It has its own meta game around its various possible formations, but it transforms slowly and inconsistently so you never feel like you're not just playing on battlefield. That is until you're shielding on platform and Bowser Jr is jabing you from underneath. Tbh, I would just prefer having fod over bf just because there is that extra layer of optimizations players can make that in my casual eyes just seems better. Dreamland, the wind is annoying and pushes grabbable items, giving characters that can spawn them crazy ledge pressure. Also affects various situations that it's more obvious that this isn't bf. When I had this legal, most players went here over other bf-likes. (Probably because they wanted to have fun in my gimmick tournaments) Tomodachi Life is a stage. Most times I had this legal, the players weren't used to it so ladders often ended quickly. To the stage's defense, there's always a platform to escape to. If your opponent isn't perfect with their ladder, you can tech or use an escape option. Camping is still pretty effective. Standing on the top platform is risky but being able to shield means whoever is approaching you from underneath has to contend with your options. The short stage generally means you can't be projectile camped for that long. Similar to Prism Tower, there's not much room under ledge(it is minimal) before you touch the blastzone so some characters are forced to recover high because their recovery is mostly vertical. It has its meta but I would not recommend. The top platform on mementos ruins it. Everything else is fine, even with hazards on, actually, like Ygg, hazards make it more bearable.
Reset bomb forest is oddly fine, but I don't think the people that win on that stage want it to be legal. Fighting here is so clunky, similar to 75m. The Brawl Pikmin stage has some very promising properties, but the left slope has a big problem, and it's not the walk-off. The bottom bit that extends under the main stage creates such a strong, easy to defend position that it's alone enough to ban the stage. If the slope wasn't there, this would be a very interesting stage to play on.
The only thing people complain about is how dark it is. Everything else about the stage is fine. Platforms are workable, not insane kill barriers, and an interesting platform configuration. Basically everything the game lacks in it's current platform picks.@@HeyoImKaGo
yeah the issue is with ultimate it was to big so the top players didn't have to pick staged with any jank so they simply chose not to which is a shame also mixed hazards menu for smash 6 please maybe if Nintendo likes us one of the hazards changes is making the stage more competitively viable
hazard changed would be nice. I also wish for example we could have different formations maybe, or have a ruleset only display stages selected instead of the whole list. it would really clean up the aesthetic of the selection screen.
@@HeyoImKaGo it's a stage with a layout that changes constantly, but the changes happen fairly consistently and people could learn the patterns and adapt... Of all the stages that change layout, it's by far the less out-there because it never changes the main platform shape and it never introduces solid platforms.
If multiverses cn have stages with partial roofs used to di towards and tech(defensive options) we can too its not that hard to get used to and stage knowledge used to be a skill needed to be a top player
@@HeyoImKaGo well that explains a lot. I use sword characters especially Shulk so hate em because getting back to neutral and staying defensive on the platforms is rough with it like that.
Yeah fair, finding info is hard with some of the past, since a lot of things when searched only show the more current rulings. I myself only got into smash back during sm4sh, so most games prior, I lack experience for.
have you ever noticed that competetetetetetetetetive people, for some reason, don't seem to adapt? like you see those tier lists, the word 'meta', trying to find the DOMINANT strategy, fox being fast and stupid sometimes? like that video, 'honer vs innovators', that thing existing tells me that there are people who just, don't. okay, this is going to get long- see, in real life, you have these fight competitions done by karate schools, boxing associations, judo people- what have you, and these things, don't make sense to me. they say things like "we will teach you to CONQUER all of your foes WITHOUT MERCY!!!1!" and then you go to these competitions and you- you ge- ... somethings wrong. later, you go to a bar, and then a FIGHT breaks out! crap's flying everywhere, and also other things, people are get'n bumped an' bruised an' beaten, someone breaks out the nunchuks, and HOLY moly, the guy with the chair is the last man standing! we have a winner! then you go back to the fight class to get some lessons, a-... and then you lea-... somthing's wrong. so anyway, you're off again, and meet some bikers, they're chummin' with some other bikers. then someone says something wife related, and HERE WE GO AGAIN!! violence, cussing, tobako gets spit around, someone gets a chair, and that chair gets broken by a PIPE! we have a winner! then you go back to the figh- nnnnope, somebody wants your wallet, and he's GOT A KNIFE! but y'know, you have all that fight club experience, you've got this! then you get stabbed. it's not lethal though, it wasn't a really good knife. in fact, it's still there. but HEY! you've got a knife! now YOU'RE on the attack, chargin' this mugger with the weapon that he tried to get you with, and he's scramblin' to get away from you, throwin' garbage cans and dirt, climbing over everything he can to get away, adapting as best he can to the really bad situation he's in-...... *AH-HAAA!* adapt! This is the reason why fight instructions, and smash bros competetetive feels so wrong! real fights aren't IN even flat grounds, equal for both sides! they're messy, junk is all over, bricks and bottles are sometimes sprawled all over, sometimes they don't exist! the truly great fighters are not the best because of raw beefy SKILL, because they can ADAPT to the situation! and yet these competive guys don't want that. NO ITEMS! FOX ONLY FINAL DESTINATION! to close off, my favorite quote from Dark messiah of might and magic,:"think. adapt. kick that creature and watch it fall."-Sir Kicksalot Deathboot.
I think i get what you're saying. the best tend to be those who can adapt and play to their surroundings, but i think that there is a point missed. Competitive smash is like chess or fencing. Sure, these things start both players off with the same position, but they are also set up to give equal potential to win. I'm not a huge fan of metas, and prefer to go about things in less than ideal fashions, but i also really enjoy competition. Sports and irl fights or wars are very different context so it feels a little odd to compare the two.
@@HeyoImKaGo I guess my big issue is when people get elitist about it. y'know, "oh, I'm the best in this competition, I can beat ANYBODY IN THE WORLD!" sir, I don't think you'd last long in a mud pit match with wild chickens.
I think one key element hasn't been talked about in this video at all despite appearing on the thumbnail: fair VS fun. Modern stage lists are fair, but they're not especially fun. Sure, stages such as Frigate Orpheon or Lylat are not only different from the usual but also not as fair... yet they're also far more fun or memorable. Too much jank however can make a stage neither fair nor fun (e.g. Hyrule Temple) so those definitely should be banned. Right now, the stage list is all vanilla flavour with choco chips or white choco chips. It's pretty much all the same with very little variations. It's all FD: - with 2 side plats - with 2 side plats but even more to the side - with walls - with a central platform - with 3 platforms Town and City is pretty much the only one truly changing enough to not be "FD bUt dIfFeReNt". As pointed out by others, this creates a certain meta of characters who can capitalise the most out of these stages. Spring Stadium has those weird top ceiling things? GOOD!! This makes it a counter to characters laddering you to the top blastzone or whose best killing move is up-smash (like Fox). Instead of being a reason for banning it, that makes it a reason to ADD it, to bring diversity and force adaptation to the stage instead of just applying the same gameplay to every single stage. As things stand now, many players care so little about banning stages that they just choose to "gentleman PS2" and play their matches on it. Why have so many stages if it's to play on the same one "bUt dIfFeReNt"? It's "Fox only, no items, Final Destination" all over again. No wonder players are losing interest in the game...
I often think a lot of the reason we have a meta where campy characters are incredibly strong is the community's tendency to legalize giant stages (Kalos and Hollow Bastion) while not even considering the small stages like Wario Ware and Castle Siege.
I know right!? If you don't wanna keep seeing Steve or sonic keep winning majors, diversity the stage list!
Steve’s worst stage is probably Lylat because mining takes longer on metal and the slopes fuck with blocks, and Sonic would definitely struggle more on Warioware because he has nowhere to run. And legalize Castle Siege cuz I love that shit
@@lukemagnotta7338 based
Hollow bastion is literally the same size as bf/sbf/fd
@@lukemagnotta7338no, Steve only mines iron so he never runs out of Minecarts and anvils
The thing competitive smash players fear the most: slants
😭 bring them back
Smash players when they see a -1° slope (this will prevent them from performing a situational jablock combo)
I genuinely think a hazards on stage list would be more fun and interesting to play on. If we're sticking to the traditional rules for stage legality, then we actually gain more stages than we lose if we switch to hazards on.
-Smashville and Hollow Bastion become unique from each other due to SV's moving platform
-Yoshi's Story gets Randal, and while the Sky Guys are sometimes irritating, they do add to the enjoyment
-T&C, Battlefield, FD, Small Battlefield, Northern Cave, and Hollow Bastion remain almost entirely unchanged
-Stages like Dreamland 64 and Fountain of Dreams are no longer just Battlefield but again
-PS2 and Kalos are lost, but PS1 could be viable as a counterpick and variety choice, like Melee
-Yoshi's Island is a bit more out-there, but it becomes even more unique with the moving center platform and side platforms that rise and fall
-Lylat regains its tilt, but it seems like it's less of an issue in this game (And that's IF it becomes legal, again)
-More stages means more bans. Don't like a stage's gimmick? Ban it!
-Hazards allow for characters to shine in ways they otherwise couldn't. Lil Mac could use Randal to recover, moving platforms allow some characters more opportunities to approach in otherwise bad matchups, and so on
This could be good and bad IMO
I'm envisioning a 9 stage ruleset (like eu, no counterpicks)
With hazards off (current ruleset):
bf, sbf, ps2, hb, fd, sv, t&c, kalos, (I run northern cave as 9th, eu uses yoshis)
With a hazards on:
bf, sbf, [yoshi's], hb, sv, t&c, [fod], northern
This makes 2 extra triplats, which maybe could turn out to be a non issue but who knows, it just feels slightly wonky. I kinda wanna test it out ngl.
I'll probably do an experimental tournament (I run tourneys for friends, so usually only like 10 man brackets), and see if I/everyone else likes it better, who knows.
Extra notes:
I'm pretty sure the town platforms move throughout the whole match in hazards off, which I think is probably fine but that's a tentative answer.
Northern cave is usually not legal because of photosensitivity issues I believe, and I also heard some of the songs on it can be copyright which is obviously bad for competitive tourneys but doesn't matter to me.
I had ps2 with stage hazards on in a tournament and it was neat seeing what players did in the forms. Especially the form with ice physics. Seeing Samus slide away from their opponents while charging charge shot was funny. Dash grabs kept sliding so youd usually be closer to the blastzones by the time you'd throw. Or you'd keep sliding so you'd be closer to them after the throw and get a follow up that you normally couldn't get.
Never forget that the Ultimate scene banned a stage solely because Palutena players didn’t want to learn how to recover.
Stage hazards off was a phenomenal idea. However, I just wish there was a way to toggle it on a stage by stage basis. Stages like Yoshi’s Story, Fountain of Dreams, and Dreamland get their identity from their hazards because they aren’t particularly intrusive and make the stages unique. These could easily be unique legal stages with hazards on.
Oh Unova Pokémon League, how I miss you
But also hate when we I play Palutena on it, which is rarely anymore since people stopped running the stage
And it’s not just Palu mains that have a issue with it
Ness and Lucas mains also have a issue with it, as well as Zelda and Mewtwo mains (before the devs fixed it one of if not the latter two)
Unova really is such an egregious ban; it could’ve been a pretty cool counterpick thanks to its unique blast zones and platforms, like a mix of PS2 and Kalos, but thanks to a very minor issue that only affects like 3-5 characters, it’s basically just illegal.
I know that “just ban it if you don’t like it” can be kind of a bad and cliche argument when it comes to stuff like this, but it really does apply here.
It wasn't that, it was that is too similar to PS2 and now SBF, having three stages with the exact same layout kinda ruin the ban process if you only have three bans and you don't want that stage.
We had it on our local scene for like 4-5 months to try it and I saw it picked over PS2 like 3 times lol
I'm kinda glad it got banned. I used to play handheld and fighting GW on that stage was hell for my eyes lol
Considering how massive is the stage list in Ultimate, it's a travesty everyone just plays pokemon stadium 2. Biggest offender is nobody ever picking Omega stages either.
I like this point of view of yours. I envision that if these type of stages are accepted and adapted from, then maybe just maybe we can start having some more complex stage features in competitive smash. I know it’s hard because of walk offs and other things, but I like to think that stages can become more complex when fighting.
I was watching this for a good couple minutes before realizing you weren't some TH-camr with a couple dozen thousand subs lol
This is really well-made
Awe thank you I'm happy you enjoyed the video!
feel free to share the vid around too if you like.
@@HeyoImKaGo Was literally about to say the same thing! Didnt realize until the end. video is very high quality
This is a very well made video. I personally wish that smash ultimate had an option to turn off hazards on the stage select screen. There is an issue with having some stages such as wily castle be leagal due to having to back out of the stage select screen and physically change the option in a sepertate menu. I believe if there was an option to toggle hazards present on the main stage select screen, then many more stages could be legal.
Yes, yes, and again yes! Either that, or make a pre-selection menu for which stages have their hazards on and which have them off, exactly like there is for the stages to appear for the random selection! This is absolutely existential!
@@MaxScheibenpflug Or just dont be prudes
smash remix does that. it's good.
@@algotkristoffersson15it can't be that hard to back out a menu
@@ehhorve857 or just don't ban stages in general
As awesome as PM is, the P+ leadership team can't make up their minds about what the tourney legal stages should be. Ironically, as you mention, they have the potential to perfect the stagelist, but it turns out modding is a double edged sword, where the team feels they have to make virtually unlimited iterative changes.
this video reminds me of a time when VGBC had an ENTIER invitational just to test out an experimental hazards on/hazards off stage list but the new stages were only played once or twice, and even when people were playing on the stages that where supposed to be hazards on, they just agreed to turn them back off.
I wanna know why "semi-permeable" stages like Delfino Plaza or Halberd were banned/avoided in brawl because of sharking with ledge grabs, but then the community never tried running hazardless skyloft now that you no longer get invulnerability on ledge regrabs. A lot of stages definitely could have been better in terms of hazards off, but the community really screwed the pooch by not experimenting with stuff more. My personal vote for stagelist is hazards on with FD, BF, SBF, Smashville, Town&City, NorthernCave, HollowBastion, and FountainofDreams. 8 stages that all have unique platform layouts or attributes from each other, severely limiting how much characters can excel on certain archetypes of stages, such as going to kalos or ps2 because fd or sbf got banned.
I appreciate the Rick roll at the end.
This is great! Can't wait to see more if you decide to continue making things like this.
I do indeed. I actually made a rivals vid you might like if you like this
Its so interesting of a topic cause theres so much to consider.
I love things like randall in the game. It provides hype moments but isnt luck related or jank. So its cool. More things like him would be great.
Transforming stages would be really cool... its just that the jank of it kinda makes it really inconsistent. Like transforming just die cause you were in a new spot you thought was fine. Things like stunning people with shine in a corner is so funny though.
Idk too much about the stage debacle in ultimate. But theres like 2 arguments ive heard
1) lylat and others like it just make campy characters better. As a wolf whose blaster goes in a straight line... at the corners of the stage they can just go away compared to a wii fit trainer or min min. Where they can just do what they want... but other fast characters... their nuetral tools are now cut off. Making it feel awful. So its moreso not really "theres more janky interactions" its moreso "i have to do more... but my opponent gets to do less to win."
2) adding in new stages can invalidate bans. I agree that these stages are cool. But adding them means that If we dont get more bans... essentially you force people to have to face a stage that THEY THOUGHT THEY BANNED. But they are similar enough to get the benefit. Which can feel awful.
An easy solution for the second argument you mentioned is to just lump all the similar stages together. For example, if you wanted to ban Battlefield, you’d take out stages like Fountain of Dreams as well
With all the effort competitive Smash players put into memorizing every frame of an attack, you’d think they could learn to remember what spots are or aren’t safe to stand on when a Stage transforms.
Really good video; I’m always happy to see people pushing back against the super conservative stage list Ultimate currently has.
At the very least, I hope that we can get Unova and Yoshi’s Island legal again at some point; most of the other retired stages make sense to me, even if I don’t personally agree with the reasoning, (such as the walk-offs that appear for the first few seconds of Halberd, for example) but imo there just isn’t a valid reason for either of those stages.
Nice video! The editing and voiceover are really dope! Keep it up my guy.
I’ve always personally vouched for Hazards off Spring Stadium, as the boost panels on the side do telegraph where the ceiling panels are, making their off-screen position less bothersome to deal with. It’s certainly the least offensive ‘obstacle’ for a stage in comp smash imo, at least considering PS1 and Yoshi’s exist…
Great video, I just wanna add that as a Bowser Jr. main, Lylat has an extra challenge of a near pitch black background, and it makes the cannonball nearly invisible.
Decent video. One of my gripes with the ultimate stagelist is that there are many big stages and few small stages. So this is what I run at my locals
Starters:
Battlefield
Final destination
Smashville
Town and city
Ps2
Yoshis story
Lylat Cruise
Counterpicks:
Yoshis island
Small battlefield
Kalos
3 small 4 medium 3 big. It's balanced.
Ngl I would not run FD but I'm a PM/Brawl person so that stage is just too strong as an option for some to me
How are round 1 bans handled? I think your stage selection is very fun, but it also heavily depends on bans. And if it's the 1 - 2 - 2 system, that HEAVILY makes the Rock, Paper, Scissors game way to important for it to be fair.
Even then, for counterpicks, 2 or even 3 bans doesn't seem sufficient. PS2 and Small Battlefield is basically banning the same, but costs 2 bans. To a lesser extent, also happens with Battlefield and Yoshi's Story. So, what's your solution? I'm genuinely curious
@@franciscodelico 1-2-2-1
I will add that you are much more likely to see these stages as legal in a doubles tournament. Slants and camping barely matter, so I could honestly see stages like mementos, mushroom kingdom U, and yoshi’s island as legal doubles stages
Kind of a banger vid tbh
Warioware should be a counterpick imo, we have a good amount of large stages to help characters who need survivability and more room to play with and I think having small battlefield & hollow bastion alone for low tiers with decent kill options to counter pick to only ain't healthy for the game since its a 3 ban ruleset. So the top tier can strike the two small stages and a stage beneficial to said character. I also think it'd add a fun double edge sword since obviously all characters can benefit from the stage getting jank 70% kills. I want it to be SSBU's SM4SH Lylat where people who don't want to deal with it can just ban it and give the opponent more room to pick a stage their comfortable on & Doc tornado killing earlier would be fun to watch. Thanks for the vid
I'm in the works on a sequel vid so I'll be talking about a lot of other ones soon
Very well made video me like
Great video bro, was very surprised to see how little subscribes you have. Keep at it for sure
Thanks!
Now THIS is about to be a Coney topic
As cool as it would be, i doubt this'll be seen by him.
I feel like smaller stage lists are just generally preferred, which is why despite the stage hazard toggle existing a bunch of stages that could be legal in ultimate are banned
Take Wario Ware for example, that stage is banned because “the blast zones are too small”, if that stage was in melee without the hazards you just know that people wouldn’t give a shit about the blast zones
Yeah I still want wario ware legal
I really like the stage layout and don’t mind the blast zones especially as a counter pick
The thing that I think is crazy is how few different arrangements of platforms we have. So many stages are banned because they’re too similar to another one, so I wish we had another stage form in addition to omega and battlefield: island form. Imagine pirate ship but flat and floating in the air instead of water, lylat cruise but perfectly flat, delfino plaza with a bottom thick enough to prevent sharking, spear pillar and Luigi’s mansion without caves of life, pilotwings without the walls in the middle, norfair with a bigger center platform. The list goes on and on.
Plus they need to give unique layouts to the new stages that just fly around like northern cave, yggdrasil’s altar, and hollow bastion
I think it'd be interesting to see both a hazards on ruleset and a hazards off one. Some stages without hazards are better (PS2, Kalos, etc.), while others (Smashville, Fountain of Dreams) are better with hazards. I think it'd be really cool to see FoD legalized in Ult since nintendo patched the lag issue on the stage, and I'd also like to Yggdraisal's altar legal, it's like T&C with different platform layouts
banger of a video, Commenting for the algorithm lol keep it up!
Wait, 80 subs? You definitely have a lot of quality in your videos
I was at 50 till i posted this vid, so I'm boosting my numbers
good video, but i'd recommend not using a fast moving background like that, as it really doesn't play well with youtube's compression
yeah i'll be using a different backround next time, thanks!
Amazing video bro. Glad to be an early subscriber! :)
Hmm, interesting that you think Lylat is bad for Little Mac... For the time it was legal on my locals, and as a LM main, that was my main stage to go to, and maybe my most consistent map. The slants help LM a fuck ton, and the lower platforms make it harder to camp as you can harass them with Up Smashes, and they're also very susceptible to Side B.
The removal of Lylat directly led to me going down on my local rankings. So I'm interested to know why you think it's the opposite.
I was only a pacman main back when it was around, and picked up little mac as a secondary after its removal though.
The thin stage i have seen gimp little mac's recovery easier than in other stages, through my limited time playing both character and stage.
Regardless i find it a sad removal as a smash 4 vet who only ever wanted the stage to stop rotating.
@@HeyoImKaGo The thin stage actually helps LM more than it harms. Because it's both thin and slanted, LM's Down Smash becomes and incredibly aggressive tool and skyrockets its edgeguarding consistency. It also messes with some characters ledge trapping, and it can also sometimes let LM hit the opponent bellow the stage before grabbing the ledge, although that's much rarer, and it definitely makes certain 2-Frames work better on LM.
I think it does more good than harm, though, at the end of the day. But it's always interesting to hear other LM's perspective.
@@franciscodelico I'll take your word for it on experience, i sadly lack as much as you have with the character + stage.
I'm making a sequel vid rn and actually along with talking about a ton of other stages people have brought up, will talk some more about lylat.
@@HeyoImKaGo Hey, I'm glad I could contribute something! This video was great, so I can't wait to see the sequel. You earned a sub 👍🏻
My personal list is:
Battlefield
Small Battlefield
Final Destination
Kongo Jungle (I don't see much reason not to include it)
Dream Land
Brinstar (Based asymme-chad stage)
Yoshi's Story
Fountain of Dreams
Green Greens (The side platforms make for a KO through the stage)
Pokémon Stadium
WarioWare, Inc.
Frigate Orpheon (Based asymme-chad stage)
Yoshi's Island
Halberd (Cool transorming gymick + Jump-througj main stage)
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium 2
Castle Siege (Based asymme-chad stage)
Smashville
Unova Pokémon League
PictoChat 2 (FD with a slight slant and a large top blast zone)
Mushroom Kingdom U (Rare large stage for variety)
Skyloft (Jump though main platform)
Kalos Pokémon League
Town and City
Wuhu Island
Wily Castle
Midgar
Umbra Clock Tower
Mementos (Based asymme-chad stage)
Yggdrasil's Altar (Cool transformation)
Spring Stadium (The ceiling is cool ok)
Minecraft World (all layouts are pretty basic)
Northern Cave
Cloud Sea of Alrest (Based asymme-chad stage)
Hollow Bastion
I think the Minecraft stage and mementos are underrated stages
Great video
The weakest point of Ultimate is the lack of hazards on at least Town and City and Smashville. I hope that in the future someone makes a toggle mod for hazards since to my knowledge, this is why some stages that have workable hazards are not used.
I completely agree with this. I started out in smash 4 and so i really miss smashville moving platforms
As a Cloud main, yeah no we dont need old Smashville back, y'all really wanna deal with limit camping on the platform again? Bring back old Town tho I miss the balloons
The biggest shame to me is the exclusion of Unova Pokemon League. It was my favorite stage from 3DS, which had a lot of my favorite stages (still mourning the loss of Rainbow Road), and with hazards off, it's a perfectly viable stage. But it was removed because of the occasional flashes of lightning, which is odd to me because we're still putting up with Final Destination.
11:47 yeah at first glance it looks great until you find out that there’s a split ceiling over it. And you would also think the bottom of the stage would be good until you find out that it’s held up by a stick for a pedestal. So once your underneath the stage it’s harder to recover because it’s small
Good stuff chief
We should stop complaining about every thing slightly different from the norm and play on arms stage as is
Yeah i was trying to allude to that idea towards the end of the vid, i think it'd be interesting to see played like that
I get the point completely, luckily here in Europe we have the uniformed stagelist (Netherlands are based) and that helped massively imo.
As far as your stage proposal, personally I disagree on all of them lol, as far as I'm aware slants are just terrible (Especially if it's the main ground) they just alter the game too much and make it inconsistent.
Jab locks for instance become side dependant, some projectiles behave inconsistently, pancaking becomes ever more inconsistent, and it just makes playing a lot more imprecise since your air time is changed by the slant and is impossible to precisely know how much (And 2/3 frames can be the difference between autocancelling your move or not, getting a parry or getting hit, be safe or not etc. Ramses for example talked about this and I agree on him completely)
Also Yoshi's Island's slants allowed for some very dumb things like Ike Aether at the ledge sending you backwards etc.
I honestly think WarioWare's platforms are sick, the stage is just too small and you can literally win from one mistake.
I know a lot of people make the argument of "it's small so is good vs campy characters" and my answer to this is that if Sonic's Spin Dash fair kills you at 30% you're still getting camped.
I wish Spring Stadium was good... but even there it would maybe be too similar to Hollow.
I'm always hesitant to add more stages to the stagelist; I think is important to keep it quick and simple and even 10/14 stages could make it way longer
Funnily i introduced the same unified stage list to my scene bout a year ago to my scene. (I'm a TO)
As i said with the stages, it's moreso wishful thinking for most of the stages, however lylat i feel really should be legal.
For example it's by far steve's worst stage.
Also having hollow bastion and smashville both be legal feels so odd to me for similar reasons as your comments on spring stadium.
All this is more perspective stages (besides a few i wish could be legalized)
@@HeyoImKaGo Good! I hope you're enjoying it, personally I don't think an Ultimate stagelist could get much better than that
I think that doesn't justify having a bad stage just because of one character, but I get the argument.
Aren't Smashville and Hollow are sufficiently different due to the blastzones? Smashville is very small while Hollow is quite a bit wider, that to me makes it different enough to justify it (I don't know the specifics of Spring Stadium tho)
There is some debate over stage legality in P+ but ervery stsge list has some fun stages. Wario Ware, PM Distant Planet, Flat Lylat, Luigi's Mansion, Delfinos, there's always a few neat stages along with the boring competitive ones. Ig tge bjg debates sre FOD or Delfini but thags because the platforms recede into the ground so sometimes they can ruin a combo and in PM the punsih for that can be very severe. Overall tho people seem to be ok with them as long as the platforms movement was less intense
I haven't been a part of the Smash community for a while now, but whenever I stop by to watch a tournament, it'd be hard to convince me that this game has more than two viable stages. I don't know how we got a game with over 100 stages and people only play on PS2 and Small Battlefield, but it makes me think that even if we had a more diverse stage list (which I am in favor of), it wouldn't make a large difference in the competitive scene. I mean, I have a completely radical wish that leans into some even wilder stages being on the list, but that's a topic for never because it's a dumb idea and it won't happen.
Ya never know, next vid dives a tiny bit deeper into this topic
I frankly think lylat should come back, whether it's to replace HB or to be a 9th stage in the standard upheld by Cagt ran tournaments (basically anywhere in Northeast US and some parts of Canada).
On top of the reasons already mentioned, it has the smallest set of blastzones of the current list, steve fucking sucks on there, kazuya stops functioning on the stage, and I'm sure there's more implications. (and I'm saying this as a Kazuya player, though if lylat was legal, I would commit to learn snake as a secondary to abuse it.)
I really think people should give it a more honest try in today's meta tbh.
The real problem is the ban/strike/counterpick process if you find a way to make that take a reasonable amount of time for 8+ stages then sure else rule makers are just going to take the best 7.
We need wuho island that is all
Personally I enjoy playing with a hazards on stage list with smashville, town and city, and fountain of dreams all having hazards that are IMO very fun and balanced. In base ultimate I didn’t like it since hazards on was too big a sacrifice needing to get rid of PS2 and Kalos, but now we have small battlefield and northern crater which are similar enough platform layout. So I use a ruleset with battlefield, small battlefield, fd, smashville, town and city, fountain of dreams, northern crater, and hollow bastion from time to time if I want to mix things up. I don’t think anything like that should be used in tournaments, especially with fountain of dreams lag, but I recommend trying out stages like smashville and fountain with hazards on, they’re really fun and well designed imo, moving platform layouts add a ton of variety to the match while not being gimmicky or unbalanced!
I actually have 2 ruleset which are normal exept having only one stage on for random + random selection so it Insta-goes to the stage select.
It's quick to be done with t&c and the like as a way to speed up the process
As a casual player. Some of the stages people have contention with or dont use for competitive always confuse me. Why is hollow bastion contended? Why are the yoshi stages now suddenly a nono?
Its just a bit confusing to me as an outsider.
Yoshis story is contended due to it being nearly identical to battlefield (not to confuse it with island) and hollow bastion is very similar in stage layout to smashville.
With only 2 or 3 bans per ruleset, people don't like banning the same stage twice
@@HeyoImKaGo doesnt the presence of randal make it different?
As for hollow bastion. I suppose thats understandable, though doesnt smashvilles platform move?
@@verixforgotten1121 no Randall isn't there. Competative smash uses stage hazards off for all stages so smashville's stage is stationary
@@HeyoImKaGo well thats kinda lame.
@verixforgotten1121 it's because hazards can't be toggled during stage select, only by going into the ruleset and changing it, which significantly slows down sets. TOs can't just think about how fun or good each stage or ruleset is in-game, we also have to make sure the tournament is finished in a reasonable amount of time.
Also the yoshi stages have slants, which are widely disliked due to the inconsistencies they introduce. Ult is already a very inconsistent game and people don't want to make that worse.
At some point my competitive scene ran a hazards on ruleset which in my opinion made it pretty interesting
If you can find out what the list was, i would love to hear em!
@@HeyoImKaGo battlefield, small battlefield, final destination, Yoshi’s story, fountain of dreams, Smashville, town and city, Northern cave, Hollow bastion
I personally allow both ps1 and ps2 when playing with my buddies. I like ps1 a lot more than ps2 because it's bigger and I think it looks better. Honestly wish more tournaments allowed it more.
There's no way you have the same mains as me lmao 8:44
👀 it's the truth.
Great video
I have not kept up with ultimaye at all. Lylat and yoshis are banned? Werent they legal before?
They were indeed early on. Lylat got pulled out pretty fast on most scenes though, and yoshis island and story both were removed early for different reasons though
@@HeyoImKaGo damn thats crazy. Im surprised theyre banned tbh lol
My man Rick Rolling us at the outro XDDD
and i'll hyuckin do it again
Good vid, I always wanted mementos to be legal
Yoshi's platform is way too big and it enables the specialized advantage-state(not combos I mean sharkers;trappers) and zoner characters too much. Characters like Samus, Corrin and Byleth can shark under it extremely well while camping with projectiles and/or swords, that many characters can't really interact with. It's especially bad for characters relying on slower aerials as the platform just blocks their moves entirely. The platform covers roughly half of the entire stage; smashville comparatively has both more reasonable edges and the platform is also only roughly 30% of the stage. The edges being really high and slanted makes it, typically, even less safe of a spot to be than normal. Pikachu's t-jolt also coils the platform, threatening nearly the entire stage ground at some point, which is just criminal.
cool vid bro =) I liked the visuals
but maybe you could slow down the speed of the hypnotic background effect? it kinda hurt my eyes after a little bit
jolly good
yeah it was a bit experimental, i will avoid it in the future. thanks for watching!
Lylat's way too egregious to consider in a competitive ruleset. We had it legal for a while but it was consistent the most banned stage at majors. Slants will always suck, especially for a game where landing aerials are as important as they are. Also a big problem for low crouches since it makes crouch camping in the corner absurdly good. The background being so dark is a problem for seeing characters like Game and Watch if they pick the default color. The side blastzones being so short kinda seals the deal as well, they're as small as Town which is already enough of a factor to make Town an autoban in a lot of matchups like Chroy.
I miss yoshis Island from back in 2019
As a 3DS player, I was severely disappointed by by not seeing a rant on Arena Ferox or Prism Tower, especially in the ending section.
Why arena ferox isn't legal in ultimate is pretty obvious. Prism Tower seems more normal, but the bottom blastzone gives you very little space under the stage; basically right underneath the stage. It seems like between sm4sh and ult, the entire stage was shifted down since the top blastzone is pretty high up. Many players in my tournaments seemed to dislike the stage because you could pass through the main stage. It facilitates a wider variety of recoveries, but mostly horizontal recoveries have a hard time snapping to ledge and often times go past and through the stage, down to their deaths. These two are the only reasons I'd ban this stage. People like to point out that two set-ups that are similar to NC can help create walk-off-like combos, but I think NC and Kalos have already shown us how reliably those occurred. The second NC form with yellow platforms have ledges on the outside, but don't tend to be a problem once both players know that they're there and tend to add a new layer to recovery. The temporary nature of that form also makes it more passable. There's also the literal walk off at the start and at the end of the stage loop. The first occurrence is short enough where you can dodge two moves and be fine (rip hbox). The later walk-offs you are just on your own to not get walked off which can be risky but if you mostly hold center and mix-up your escape options, you should be fine.
Yggdrasil's Alter has a similar issue. The top and bottom blastzones are the same as Battlefield, but the side blastzones are further. So it's town and city/ final destination, but you kill much later. The initial form is a non-issue. Banning the stage is more for just the fun aspect is missing and keeping sets from going 7 minutes every game. Especially with hazards off, the solid platforms don't float up at the sides and promote risky plays.
Umbra clock tower has the whole motion sickness point against it, there's also under the stage platforms, solid platforms and for some reason every platform is always moving, they never stick to a spot.
FOD is both unique and bland. It has its own meta game around its various possible formations, but it transforms slowly and inconsistently so you never feel like you're not just playing on battlefield. That is until you're shielding on platform and Bowser Jr is jabing you from underneath. Tbh, I would just prefer having fod over bf just because there is that extra layer of optimizations players can make that in my casual eyes just seems better.
Dreamland, the wind is annoying and pushes grabbable items, giving characters that can spawn them crazy ledge pressure. Also affects various situations that it's more obvious that this isn't bf. When I had this legal, most players went here over other bf-likes. (Probably because they wanted to have fun in my gimmick tournaments)
Tomodachi Life is a stage. Most times I had this legal, the players weren't used to it so ladders often ended quickly. To the stage's defense, there's always a platform to escape to. If your opponent isn't perfect with their ladder, you can tech or use an escape option. Camping is still pretty effective. Standing on the top platform is risky but being able to shield means whoever is approaching you from underneath has to contend with your options. The short stage generally means you can't be projectile camped for that long. Similar to Prism Tower, there's not much room under ledge(it is minimal) before you touch the blastzone so some characters are forced to recover high because their recovery is mostly vertical. It has its meta but I would not recommend.
The top platform on mementos ruins it. Everything else is fine, even with hazards on, actually, like Ygg, hazards make it more bearable.
Reset bomb forest is oddly fine, but I don't think the people that win on that stage want it to be legal. Fighting here is so clunky, similar to 75m.
The Brawl Pikmin stage has some very promising properties, but the left slope has a big problem, and it's not the walk-off. The bottom bit that extends under the main stage creates such a strong, easy to defend position that it's alone enough to ban the stage. If the slope wasn't there, this would be a very interesting stage to play on.
LEGALIZE N'S CASTLE
im making a sequel vid, so i'll add this to the list 😎👍
Man doesn't even bring up Unova League. :[
well i ask you to bring up your arguments for stages in the comments, so lay em on me
The only thing people complain about is how dark it is. Everything else about the stage is fine. Platforms are workable, not insane kill barriers, and an interesting platform configuration.
Basically everything the game lacks in it's current platform picks.@@HeyoImKaGo
yeah the issue is with ultimate it was to big so the top players didn't have to pick staged with any jank so they simply chose not to which is a shame also mixed hazards menu for smash 6 please maybe if Nintendo likes us one of the hazards changes is making the stage more competitively viable
hazard changed would be nice. I also wish for example we could have different formations maybe, or have a ruleset only display stages selected instead of the whole list. it would really clean up the aesthetic of the selection screen.
Another stage that could be legal in ultimate is hazardless wily castle from smash 4. Its just really fun and fair without the yellow devil
it'd be interesting if we had hazards off but also had hazards off, plats on.
i do personally miss moving platform smashville
As a hero main I suggest we make bridge of Eldin legal
I feel like you could have talked about Peach's Castle in smash 64
I'm planning on making a sequel video, i might include that.
@@HeyoImKaGo hell yeah
Pac-Mains forever!
People SLEEP on minecraft world and memetos and it makes me sad.
Minecraft is really cool, and i wish that the different forms were all just different stages
No Yggdrasil ? I'm very surprised cause to me Yggdrasil would be the next stage in line to legalize
Good video for the most part !
Interesting. What makes you think it would be a good stage?
@@HeyoImKaGo it's a stage with a layout that changes constantly, but the changes happen fairly consistently and people could learn the patterns and adapt...
Of all the stages that change layout, it's by far the less out-there because it never changes the main platform shape and it never introduces solid platforms.
good to know. i plan on including this along with a lot of other reccomended stages in a sequel vid to this so stay tuned @@VCosmoz
If multiverses cn have stages with partial roofs used to di towards and tech(defensive options) we can too its not that hard to get used to and stage knowledge used to be a skill needed to be a top player
That's what i was implying at the end there, funnily.
Though i feel like we might need more ceilings to justify a completely different game plan
The only stage I hate is town and city because of the way the platforms were Designed. The platforms could kill you
I uhh... T&C is my favorite stage lol.
Tho i am biased as a pacman main. I love the platforms that way
@@HeyoImKaGo well that explains a lot. I use sword characters especially Shulk so hate em because getting back to neutral and staying defensive on the platforms is rough with it like that.
shoulda mentioned old legal stages in games, such as hyrule in 64, or that one dk one in melee
Yeah fair, finding info is hard with some of the past, since a lot of things when searched only show the more current rulings.
I myself only got into smash back during sm4sh, so most games prior, I lack experience for.
I got rick rolled 10/10
Just make the list of legal stages be “Every stage in the game”
me like your videos
i watch everything now
please make more
me happy happy with what you make make
currently writing a sequel for this one, mate
Comment cause algorithm.
le epic
You didn’t talk about Unova Pokémon league 😂
*Insert walter white falling down meme here*
(I'm making a sequel vid, dw bro)
I don’t understand why pro players just use the omega version of the stages. Can someone explain?
Not sure what you mean by that. Can you elaborate?
👍
👍
have you ever noticed that competetetetetetetetetive people, for some reason, don't seem to adapt? like you see those tier lists, the word 'meta', trying to find the DOMINANT strategy, fox being fast and stupid sometimes? like that video, 'honer vs innovators', that thing existing tells me that there are people who just, don't.
okay, this is going to get long- see, in real life, you have these fight competitions done by karate schools, boxing associations, judo people- what have you, and these things, don't make sense to me. they say things like "we will teach you to CONQUER all of your foes WITHOUT MERCY!!!1!" and then you go to these competitions and you- you ge- ... somethings wrong.
later, you go to a bar, and then a FIGHT breaks out! crap's flying everywhere, and also other things, people are get'n bumped an' bruised an' beaten, someone breaks out the nunchuks, and HOLY moly, the guy with the chair is the last man standing! we have a winner! then you go back to the fight class to get some lessons, a-... and then you lea-... somthing's wrong.
so anyway, you're off again, and meet some bikers, they're chummin' with some other bikers. then someone says something wife related, and HERE WE GO AGAIN!! violence, cussing, tobako gets spit around, someone gets a chair, and that chair gets broken by a PIPE! we have a winner!
then you go back to the figh- nnnnope, somebody wants your wallet, and he's GOT A KNIFE! but y'know, you have all that fight club experience, you've got this!
then you get stabbed.
it's not lethal though, it wasn't a really good knife. in fact, it's still there. but HEY! you've got a knife! now YOU'RE on the attack, chargin' this mugger with the weapon that he tried to get you with, and he's scramblin' to get away from you, throwin' garbage cans and dirt, climbing over everything he can to get away, adapting as best he can to the really bad situation he's in-...... *AH-HAAA!* adapt!
This is the reason why fight instructions, and smash bros competetetive feels so wrong! real fights aren't IN even flat grounds, equal for both sides! they're messy, junk is all over, bricks and bottles are sometimes sprawled all over, sometimes they don't exist! the truly great fighters are not the best because of raw beefy SKILL, because they can ADAPT to the situation! and yet these competive guys don't want that. NO ITEMS! FOX ONLY FINAL DESTINATION!
to close off, my favorite quote from Dark messiah of might and magic,:"think. adapt. kick that creature and watch it fall."-Sir Kicksalot Deathboot.
I think i get what you're saying. the best tend to be those who can adapt and play to their surroundings, but i think that there is a point missed.
Competitive smash is like chess or fencing. Sure, these things start both players off with the same position, but they are also set up to give equal potential to win. I'm not a huge fan of metas, and prefer to go about things in less than ideal fashions, but i also really enjoy competition. Sports and irl fights or wars are very different context so it feels a little odd to compare the two.
@@HeyoImKaGo I guess my big issue is when people get elitist about it. y'know, "oh, I'm the best in this competition, I can beat ANYBODY IN THE WORLD!" sir, I don't think you'd last long in a mud pit match with wild chickens.
@@ehhorve857 elitism in any fashion is really annoying, it sounds like you've dealt with a lot of annoying smash elitists
@@HeyoImKaGo I mean, it'll happen. just gotta deal with it.
Just have every stage be legal.
too much visual distortion in this video for me to watch it
Rip.
I think one key element hasn't been talked about in this video at all despite appearing on the thumbnail: fair VS fun.
Modern stage lists are fair, but they're not especially fun. Sure, stages such as Frigate Orpheon or Lylat are not only different from the usual but also not as fair... yet they're also far more fun or memorable. Too much jank however can make a stage neither fair nor fun (e.g. Hyrule Temple) so those definitely should be banned.
Right now, the stage list is all vanilla flavour with choco chips or white choco chips. It's pretty much all the same with very little variations. It's all FD:
- with 2 side plats
- with 2 side plats but even more to the side
- with walls
- with a central platform
- with 3 platforms
Town and City is pretty much the only one truly changing enough to not be "FD bUt dIfFeReNt". As pointed out by others, this creates a certain meta of characters who can capitalise the most out of these stages. Spring Stadium has those weird top ceiling things? GOOD!! This makes it a counter to characters laddering you to the top blastzone or whose best killing move is up-smash (like Fox). Instead of being a reason for banning it, that makes it a reason to ADD it, to bring diversity and force adaptation to the stage instead of just applying the same gameplay to every single stage.
As things stand now, many players care so little about banning stages that they just choose to "gentleman PS2" and play their matches on it. Why have so many stages if it's to play on the same one "bUt dIfFeReNt"? It's "Fox only, no items, Final Destination" all over again. No wonder players are losing interest in the game...
I don't understand the thumbnail. Poke Stadium is fun but the Yoshi stage on the right sucks ass
Pokemon stadium 2 is the stage In the thumbnail, and all of this is in a competitive context tournament with stage hazards off.
Yousound like robtop
I'm not sure how to take this comment, mostly cuz i don't know who that is
@@HeyoImKaGo creator of geometry dash
@@Cvkultimate huh. Interesting
Great video