...I stand corrected.

Hazards Dracula's Castle should be the only legal Dracula's Castle

May I ask why? No joke it seems as though regular Dracula's Castle doesn't have any particular problems except that it's large. Which given the game as a whole isn't terrible, most legal stages are closer to the small side pretty sure.

Galaxy Tours has 5 layouts.

This entire post is full of inaccurate jumping to conclusions. Lest we forget I play this game competitively too, unlike Sakurai. But ok. If you guys want Luffy at the top of the tier list so bad go for it, it'll only make me place better lol

Regardless, if we have a mixed stagelist of hazards on/off it's not going to stick and you can bookmark this post and correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds literally nearly impossible to work.


I feel that you read half of one of my posts and then stopped reading LOL. What I'm gunning for is not some ridiculous #LegalizeCrateria movement in any way.


We agree here.


...It's too bad the stagelist you guys made doesn't. It's a step in the right direction from a striking standpoint, sure, but what kind of "stage knowledge" are we referring to here? Nothing moves (except a stage or two's platforms, slightly), nothing happens, nothing is different really. And now your counterpicks are just overflow for your neutrals.

Here's the fundamental issue I have with this mentality:
Why is "Dream Land" a counterpick when Rainbow Route is a neutral?
Why is "Saturn Valley" a counterpick when Smashville is a neutral?

Because the death boundaries are 5 pixels wider? Because one platform is a bit lower? You aren't really counterpicking, you're choosing a neutral in a different category. And let me take this a step further - do you want to be counterpicking the opponent's CHARACTER attributes and archetype or do you just want to strike for fun, eliminating merely slight layout changes (slightly wider, one more platform) that describing them as "uncomfortable" is the world's biggest exaggeration?

I'll leave you with this: https://smashboards.com/threads/varied- ... st.205461/

What's the difference between these stagelists and what we're coming up with? Even the most conservative stagelist has a crucial crucial philosphy difference. Do you think with the way we view things, if Castle Siege (haz on) was a new stage idea to SSF2, we would have it legal? I don't think so.

If I'm alone in this I guess it's whatever and we can repeat our mistakes from 9b but imo it's worth at least TRYING something new for a little bit before we return to same-old-same-old. I'm not arguing for legal walkoffs, I'm not arguing for stationary walls so you can be infinited, I'm not arguing for OHKO stage hazards or invincibility or anything, I'm arguing that we should TRY some stages out that don't have any of those things. It's clear that our old stagelist didn't work, this is an opportunity to be more innovative and do something more interesting. To shake up our tier list via stagelist. Think about it. Moving platforms around in a bunch of variations and moving blast zones by so little that you need a calculator to get the percentage isn't going to make top tiers worse or low tiers better.

Trouble with test tourneys for this s*** is that people dont WANT to play on these stages, so its really hard to test whether theyre viable or not.
If you offer them as choices alongside the non-jank stages, people will just pick the others.
If you only offer jank stages, you're not gonna get as many competitively minded people playing in your tour.

People want to play a game where the better player wins, and being able to counterpick a stage that gives you a huge advantage doesnt really promote this.
GT - promotes top platform camping (characters with bad vertical movement invalidated).
Yoshi's island - platform camping/circle stalling.
Hylian Skies - walls up 100% of the time, allowing infinites - transformations help a bit but they're infrequent enough to allow a full 0-death from one transformation easily. I could easily get peach to 250% in maybe 1/2 of a single transformation with VERY questionable drillshines.
WT - walkoffs, walls up 100% of the time, we cant seriously be considering this right?
Saturn Valley - player 1 takes the first stock with an usmash, P2 gets star KO'd. P1 recovers 25% damage while P2 is dead, giving P1 an advantage when they're already in the lead. Gives whoever takes the first stock an advantage for doing nothing. Also heavily promotes center stage control, making characters like Pacman, BBM, Samus and MM f*** insane on this stage. I can also see people spamming rolls/shield in the middle to get some health back, just seems like a lot of ugly strats would be implemented on this stage, and I dont wanna see the meta go that way tbh.

Would you be happy losing to a player who employed these strategies? Wouldnt you say its unfair?

Some stage hazards are really obtrusive and can interrupt the flow of the same. Say a player's getting combo'd on one of the ToS platforms, and the stage hazard comes in and interrupts the combo. Does the player getting combo'd deserve to get out of it? Should the person comboing be punished for using platforms in a combo?
(As an aside here, you can't actually see the stage hazard when both players are on a platform due to the camera)

Stages don't need wacky mechanics to be different. Dreamland is a strong counterpick because of it's huge stage and tall platforms, giving characters with better mobility an advantage, but not a completely polarising one. Yoshi's is a strong CP for characters who control space easily with large hitboxes.

Also idk where you're getting the idea that everything is an FD variant. Plats fundamentally change punish and neutral game, and even slight variations in platform height and spacing can make a difference. I.E ToS platforms prevent 0-death chaingrabs/juggles as you can DI to one and tech on it, which is not possible on FD.

Like a few things are worth a shot but idk about some of the jank s*** thats getting suggested itt.

What other stages could even be considered? Clock Town, World Tournament (hazards on), Central Highway (hazards on)... Unless you're ok with big stages (Yoshi's Island / Lunar Core) or the floor/ceiling on Sand Ocean... I guess Jungle Hijinx could be thrown in there, though people argue it's too similar to Castle Siege without hazards. The issue with so many stages are *walls*. Hylian Skies, Casino Night Zone, Steel Diver, etc would have been ok if not for said walls. (Hylian Skies takes too long to change to avoid this issue)

The thing about that Brawl list is that a lot of them are transitioning stages. Halberd, Castle Siege, Delfino... the only one present here is Castle Siege (Unless Galaxy Tours changes later?). Rainbow Cruise is an odd one, though.

I think TSON is advocating for allowing hazards on some otherwise neutral stages, though - Pokemon Colosseum's transformations, Tower of Salvation's Mithos, Castle Siege's transformations... is anything else even viable?

Most of your complaints assume that all of the stages keep the Hazards on.

There's a reason you assume hazards off when considering a stage's legality. Like there are few stages that improve with their Hazards on are Central Highway (platform layouts + made much smaller) and Dracula's Castle (workable w/o hazards but hazards = moving platforms), Castle Siege,


Short version, other than a few stages, Hazards make the stages worse/not viable for competitive play.

World Tournament (Yes Hazards) is a 4th FD, that is not only worse than all of the other 3 FD options but is larger than every other stage being considered

I'm fine w. big stages problem is I think the only viable ones are Dracula's Castle or Jungle Hijinx. The rest actually cause a bunch of problems for slower characters. also don't see the similarities to Hijinx and Siege, other than layout- Siege is actually MUCH smaller in terms of space on stage and blastzones.

Just a thought, is there a reason why there can't be 3 sections? Neutral, and then 2 parts of counterpick - one for games 2/3, and one for games 4/5 (assuming best of 5).

Neutral stages would be the 5 or so (Battlefield, FD, Smashville, Rainbow Route, Colosseum)
Counterpick A would have some 'lighter' counterpicks with minor things like slopes, as well as more polarizing layouts (Jungle Hijinx, Yoshi's Story, Metal Cavern, etc)
Counterpick B would include the 'hard' counterpicks with predictable hazards that force players to adjust (Central Highway, Castle Siege, Tower of Salvation, etc)

To smooth out the process a bit, you could force players to choose stages from that section (Meaning no neutral stages while counterpicking). Counterpick B stages wouldn't even show up if there's no game 4 or 5, as well.

EDIT: Some stages could even be in 2 categories. For example, Colosseum could be in Counterpick B with its transformations on.

you guys seriously want a stage where there's this huge-ass beam in the center of the stage saying "hope you don't have to jump in neutral, my guy"



yeah anybody who complains about this stage is just johning for sure lmfao

So the angel in the middle... Who creates that beam?

Slide that button for hazards to the "off" position and she doesn't exist to ruin your game. Everyone's aware that w. hazards ToS is terrible, which is why it's only legal if it's off.

So don't jump? LMFAO. your opponent gets the same handicap too. what do you do on port town aero dive in brawl? stand on the ground when the cars are coming and then john that you died?

this isn't a be-all-end-all make-or-break stage hazard but i think it deserves testing. everything is EXCESSIVELY choreographed, and in the same order. if you get hit you deserved to get hit.

Is it that terrible? From what TSON's said, it seems like the hazards come in a set order at set times, so you know exactly when that beam will show up. Sort of like knowing when Halberd's laser will fire (though that's definitely a lot easier to avoid). Certainly not a neutral stage, but stage knowledge like that is part of the game.

Let's stress the importance of testing as a community then and get TO's to buy in, if competitive players don't enter then we'll be adopting a stagelist that they won't like and their input will be irrelevant after the fact. It's that simple.


While I agree with what you're trying to say idk if you're explaining it well lol. The point of a counterpick is supposed to allow the loser a chance at a stage where they feel like they are off on a better foot vs. their opponent. If the opponent loses, then they get a chance to do the same thing right back. Being a better player is not just about raw talent/skill, it's also about fundamentals, knowledge, and strategy. These things all intersect over being "pro".

If you're great with your character, and you don't know anything about what tools your opponent has, you probably lose. If you're great with your character but your character is outclassed by another in a certain MU and you choose them anyway, you probably lose. If you're great with your character, but you have no knowledge of a stage and your opponent CP's to it, you are supposed to be at a disadvantage. Part of "skill" is having the ability to gain knowledge and apply it appropriately for the MU or the stage CP.


Seems assumptive. Would like to see this tested.


Agreed.


Can we see this actually happen in a match with a human tho?


The hazard invalidates the walkoff and the walls, leaving a long fd-like stage, but the thing that makes it notable to me is that it encourages people to recover high bc of the hazard. Think it would have an interesting effect and I DEFINITELY want to see this one tested.


Wanna see this tested. Worth nothing that if P2 gets star KO'd they can just come back and KO P1 and do the same thing. lol. Don't think the roll thing is a big deal either considering it heals so slow


If some of these hazards actually worked the way you described them, that would definitely be a discussion to have. Unfortunately we haven't tested the ones that sound plausible though so we can't just write them off like that.


When you see yggdrassil swirl upwards, or missing, you know the hazard is coming on the sides. If you choose to combo on the platform knowing that the hazard is coming, you dropped the combo due to your own flub. You deserved to, too.


Calling them all FD's is an exaggeration a bit, but we have like 4 battlefields, 3 fd's, and like 1 stage that's different and all of these are indistinguishably littered across cp/neutral for near-no reason ("this ones a bit wider. this one's got slightly narrower blast zones, this one has a wall instead of open space underneath, this one has a ten degree slope"). these aren't cp's they're variants, i hope you're realizing why i want to widen the horizons a bit FOR TESTING before we go back to same old same old

i don't do anything in port town aero drive because the stage isn't legal for obvious reasons, regardless of how choreographed it is.

"your opponent gets the same handicap too" so why don't we just start playing on Steel Diver with hazards on? because that way both my opponent and i have to jump with insane jump heights. what are they gonna do? john that their combos don't work right?