What's good internet, MockRock here! Specializing in analytical and entertaining videos about Super Smash Bros and other platform fighters, with whatever else catches my eye thrown in for good measure. Thanks for giving me a look, and remember to subscribe if you like what you see!
I honestly have no idea how to solve these problems as I personally have never really been much into competitiveness of any video game myself, including Smash since there's always so many varying opinions, and/or preferences on what competitors want, and the developers always TRYING their best to make their Stages as fair, and balanced as possible for competitive Smash, and platform fighters in general. 🤔 Hopefully future Smash titles, and future platform fighters can figure out at least SOME way to alleviate these issues to SOME capacity. 🤞Maybe they could also have Stage Gimmicks be turned off on the Stage Select screen instead of just the Rules Select screen too, and allow players to choose ones they want that particular Stage's Gimmick to be turned on, or off rather than all on, or all off. One thing I definitely agree on though is that the devs REALLY need to add the option to turn Stages with moving backgrounds, especially ones with really complex animations, off as while I may not have ever developed motion sickness much, or at all throughout my entire quarter-century (25 years) of playing Smash, there are plenty of players that have been prone to motion sickness both casuals, and competitors, so this would be a HUGE benefit for them, with again, the choice to choose which ones to leave on, or off, as well being available on the Stage Select screen. And while I'm not 100% sure if this is a problem, perhaps even the option to guest characters in the background on, or off too as I'm sure are players who find a bunch of random people in the back just moving around nonchalantly, and some even speaking (looking at you Mementos Phantom Thief gang) to be really distracting, and once again the choice to choose if players want guest characters turned off for ALL Stages, or just turn them off for certain ones, and of course, be located on the Stage Select screen. Regardless, another great video MockRock! 👍
Final destination has always been my favorite stage because i find the game a lot easier when my opponent has less options, even though i play characters that should benefit from platforms much more than average. Maybe i should reevaluate how i approach the game
It's kinda weird how I feel like every Melee-playing kid around the world independently decided Temple was the best stage. The internet wasn't even that commonplace at that point, I was the only one in my friend group who had access and I wasn't the one that owned Melee, but even we knew Temple was the shit. There's just something about it that immediately reads as The Best, despite it being a stage without much in the way of gimmicks or distinct reference.
As someone who can understand the pain of editing something for hours, only for it to be a few second joke and not have people really appreciate it, I have to say that 11:35 is a fucking AMAZING edit. Great green screen, cute reference, and overall funny that made me laugh. Really appreciate the time you probably put into this few second joke and again was legitimately funny
You didn't mention the recent Off-Season Melee tournament, which notably had Mute City unbanned, and players had a lot of fun on that, with more vehicles (pun intended) for skill expression.
I found funny that smash was born with the idea of being wacky, with weird stages, funny items, and random stuff always happening, but the competitive scene is that sanitized, it doesn't feel like smash anymore, I would kill for more wacky tournaments with weird stages and items turned on, it would be really fun, and it would feel like a real smash tournament
I've been playing this game casually for well over a decade, and have dabbled in competitive for a little while now; I'm not quite an 0-2'er, but our better players will beat me consistently. However, one day we did an items bracket, and for 2 sets my opponents made the mistake of agreeing to play with all items on medium and random stages with hazards on against me. Set 2 I played our 2nd, almost 1st best player, and COMPLETELY wiped the floor with him; clipped on his main, and 3 stocked another char of his to win 2-0. My point is that it's kinda insane to think that sheer adeptness with all the variety of items and stages can completely flip a skill gap that large on it's HEAD. Oh well, I got to have my day that day I suppose, for a few games at least...
Personally I think a solution would be to group the stages based on how "competitive friendly" the stages are. And then within the more friendly groups, players select 1 stage from each group to play on, before they're given the next group. For example, one group can be relegated to tri-platform layouts like Fountain of Dreams, Battlefield, and Dream Land 64, another to stages with slight slopes like Castle Siege, Mementos, and Yoshi's Story, another with one or two with moving platforms, another with shark-able base platforms, another with smaller blast zones, etc.
The devs messed up by deeming the moving platform on Smashville a Hazard, yet they seemed to try and haphazardly rectify their mistakes by adding competitive stages post-launch like Northern Cave, Small Battlefield and Hollow Bastion, so that people can use those with hazards on instead of Kalos, PS2 and Smashville hazards off, and also get other hazards on stages. Instead, the competitive ruleset went hazards off and essentially doubled up on stages that were almost identical anyway.
you’d ban down to the most fair stage game 1 anyways. idk how not having to ban ‘counterpick-only stages’ “saves bans”? it’s actually just a completely arbitrary restriction removing potential starting stages from matchups that could want them. only argument for it is “saves time or effort” i guess…
One of the biggest (albeit slightly exaggerated) criticisms lobbied at Melee is how such a large percentage of its roster is barely viable at best and completely unviable at worst, leaving a large chunk of the game out. It’s crazy how that’s basically the same deal with Ultimate’s stage list. They made such a big deal about nearly every stage being back and it just doesn’t matter for the most dedicated part of the player base. I’ve come to appreciate MockRock’s videos more as a game designer, because they’re such thorough analyses that get me to look at this genre is new ways. And it shows he’s thought about this stuff as a designer himself. Also the editing in this video is crazy, stuff like 5:15 were super stylish.
mock you dont know how happy this video made me, i already had a gam that is a mix of plaform fighters and normal fighters planned (think something like YOMI but real time) and my main plan is to have walls be a important tool to everyone, i see huge potential in stuff like my cabin stage that have a ton of different slopes and shit but overall helps both people. this might just be because my plans for the games mechanics are already weird, a character like bolt just get "clones" and combo extenders but low damage. another change is getting rid of backairs and forward airs for sideairs that can turn you around when used. i can rant all day about my plans but this is a youtube comment no point in going forward
Honesttly my biggest wish for smash 6 is better stage stuff. Omega and battlefield modes shouldn't be their own stages. It should be a separate background, main plateform, and floating platforms. (maybe a wall plateform). This way they could make any basic layout like small battlefield usable on any stage. It's just a different position for the platforms. Having a hazard toggle on stage select screen if rule allow. And a hazard switch for every stage at base in the rules. Having a chill version of certain stages like you said, and like rivals do. Have more i'tresting layouts that don't involve any wierd stuff. Like kalos platforms plus a third one in the middle. But that's it. Or asymmetrical but no slant. Bigger or smaller but no wiered platform layout that make it too exploitable. Et.
Good vid, I agree with how tepid our current stagelist is, though I wish the topic of characters was brought up more, cause yeah I think how polarizing the top tiers are in Ultimate is doing more harm to the game long term than our mild stage selection
If I were to make a stage select for competition. I would make it a grid where all legal stages are randomly placed. Each player can red mark a row and a colum. Stages where it cross are fully banned for the rest of the set. Then you can either red mark an additional stage each. Or take on banned or red marked stage and downgrade it to red mark or free. Banned are just banned. You can't play on them. Playing on a free stage red marks it. Playing on a red marked stage bans it. This allow for wankier stages. Since people won't be able to play more than twice on regular stages. And also allow for lighter variations like fd but one has walls down to the blast zone, the other is a plateform.
This is one of a few reasons I personally hate the smash competitive scene. Though I personally have other issues with competitive players. Either way great vid and I agree on basically all the points.
i do think it's funny how often smash releases what i like to call 'almost competitive' stages in their DLC, between smash 4's umbra clock tower (some platforms go under the stage, one of the platforms has a solid ceiling) and ult's yggdrasil's altar (start has a walkoff like halberd), spring stadium (small techable ceilings at the top of the screen) and minecraft world (too large), for what seems like an effort to provide more competitively viable yet slightly spicy stages into the discussion, and they all get shot down, with the only ones actually getting added being the truly sterile ones like northern cave and hollow bastion (of which, northern cave got later banned in my region for being 'too similar to fd/town', and bastion actually being amazing and being a beloved staple in my region). i do wish there was more interest in these 'spicier' stages but it seems to me that at the end of the day players just dont want to learn the new things and would rather focus on the characters, which is valid
Glad to see a video give a thorough breakdown on not only FD but ultimate’s stage list as a whole since I find it sad that the stagelist has gotten smaller over time. While thinking about the stagelists, a random thought I had about them was what if we had 2 stagelists where one list is hazards only and a hazard-less list. The set would start with only hazard-less list available and after the first match the opponent has the option to pick from a hazards on stagelist or continue picking from the hazard-less stagelist and banning and stage picking would remain the same from there and this would continue until the set ends.
Reminds me that Kalos was banned because the lip on the ledge screwed with Palutena's recovery a bit... back when she was considered a solid candidate for best character in the game. Yeah, I love Ultimate, but its players are bitchmade when it comes to stage selection.
Great video. Your editing helped to visualize some parts (such as adding sfx to characters jumping to show how frequently they do it), you knew when to put a joke in post, and you can tell you put your research into it. Love it. I want to add in to the conversation with a couple of things: Super Smash Brothers is an inherently volatile game despite developer intentions. That, and I want to also compare Super Smash Brothers within the spectrum of platform fighters. I feel comfortable in saying that the developers of Super Smash Brothers, Rivals of Aether would want the lifespan of a stock to be measured in minutes (a minute per stock, a minute and a half, half a minute...). To do this, you want players to win neutral against the opponent, then inflict damage, repeat several times until the opponent is at a reasonable percent to finally, KO by putting the opponent in the blast zone. Despite the intentions of the developers, the only necessary step to win is "put your opponent in the blast zone". A low percent gimp does happen. Ganoncides have determined games, Bayonetta still 0-to-KO's once in a blue moon. Generally, these options are rare because if the opponent knows it, they can be avoided and the person going for one of these can also be punished. Possibly with the same consequence that they tried to inflict on the opponent. If the stage were to allow these options to be easier and more common, then we start to get into gameplay that favours a type of gameplan too much to be fair. To promote fair and balanced play where both combatants ideally have to fight to win multiple neutral interactions to win a stock, you end up having to ban a lot of features that would allow a low percent KO or deviate from the purpose of fighting. Any wall is banned because low hitstun moves can allow a 0-to-KO. Any terrain in close proximity to the blast zone is banned because you can stay there to have a stock determined in one interaction. As a fighting game, people don't want stages where movement becomes a bigger obstacle than the opponent. In fact, any stage that is too hazardous is also written off. So in order to have a game that plays out as a traditional fight without players exclusively fishing for low percent KOs, you have to ban every stage that doesn't conform to that "ideal" version of Smash Brothers. I want to compare this to two games that lean more into the "platform" side of platform fighter with much more varied stages. Duck Game and TowerFall. Contrary to what might meet the eye, these games can be surprisingly competitive. Duck Game has been shown at Combo Breaker and TowerFall is the only reason why the Ouya was ever within the premises of EVO (as a side event). These two games do some things that make degenerate play harder to pull off and less rewarding. These two games have the players die if they get hit by anything, so the expectation is that lives are much more short and players are free to try fighting unwinnable battles because losing a life in these games is less severe than in Smash Bros. After every round, TowerFall and Duck Game reset the players. Meaning that an unwinnable fight will last for only one round. Super Smash Brothers is in a bit of a rough spot from its grand design. Because "putting your opponent in the blast zone" can be done disgustingly fast, but people generally don't design these games to be won from one interaction. So rules in tournaments have to effectively disallow anything that would enable games to devolve into "whoever gets first hit wins" or where the combatants are not in combat. I agree with your final point. It hurts me inside a bit that even indie games, a genre known for being experimental, and wild, have collectively decided "we are having not-Final Destination, not-Smashville, not-Battlefield and so on to appease the one form of play that people are already doing". I love seeing top players in things such as Alpharad's Casual Invitational, because you can see people using skill with some items and stage hazards. If items and hazards were more balanced with less randomness and volatility, it would be really sick to see what comes of it. I mean, Brawlhalla proves that items CAN work competitively, and Melee of all games shows that you can have weird little quirks with your stages and still have it be competitive. I'm just throwing my thoughts out there. It may be a little disorganized and I will not apologize for the length.
From the editing to the collabs and clip usage, even just the actual writing of the script i think this video is your best ever. I think its a perfect representation of how your chanels grown man, nice work.
What if they made a platform fighter but the gimmick is you can place platforms on the stage and each character can do it in a way that benefits their playstyle. Imagine the type of movement you could do.
Honestly? Smash players actually thinking they make enough money to care *this* much is a little funny to me. We all know that the real money with Smash isn't competing unless you're the top 0.1%. I love y'all (sometimes) but the gentle slopes is far from the worst we've ever dealt with, live a little.
You know, when they introduce the ability to turn any stage into a battlefield or omega version, I got really excited because I was like oh how exciting it’ll be to see some stages that you normally don’t see, even if it’s just a background. Fast-forward and it’s been kind of disappointing that that feature is more of a online thing then it is a tournament thing. I understand why but… It’s still just a little disappointing. Also, bring back fountain of dreams.
Alright, I'm only a casual viewer of this channel and know almost nothing about competitive Smash, but I still found it interesting, and I wanted to chime in to the discussion on the future of competitive Smash stages with something I'm surprised wasn't touched on in this video. Smash Ultimate's Stage Morph feature. As it exists now, I think I understand why it isn't used in competitive. The visuals for the transformations are really bright and distracting, and the new stage always just rises up from the bottom of the screen, which could artificially mess with the game in several ways. But as was touched on in the video, just about any stage layout can provide some kind of advantage to certain characters and disadvantages to others, not just FD. So, why not let the competitors have both their preferred stages? Obviously, the Stage Morph mechanic would have to be tweaked for it to be competitively viable in a theoretical future Smash game. It already features an adjustable time interval between transitions, and the new stage would have to appear directly on top of the old one (not rising from the bottom), likely with a blinking indication of some kind. Stage counterpicking and banning would probably have to be worked in with this feature, and some kind of system would have to be in place for figuring out which of the two stages appears at the start of the match, cause that would probably mean an inherit advantage to one side over the other. Still, I think there might be potential in seeing the Stage Morph idea into a future competitive platform fighter.
aside from my character being bad on it, I genuinely always ban fd shit is just not fun lmao but even then I understand that it has a place, more stage diversity is only a good thing and I think it’s something we just lack nowadays
