Map Discussion: Lylat Cruise and New Norfair

[Frost | Odds]

@ SOJ I'd love your thoughts on this stuff, if that's okay. I know you do a lot of theorycrafting about the stagelist. This isn't the PM Suggestions Subforum, but I'd like to see if others' experience mirrors my own as well as a variety of opinions on whether these suggestions are reasonable.

Lylat

It seems like most people hate this map, due to a combination of factors - some of which have been addressed ("battlefielding"), and some which have not. Despite its problems, though, IMO it's a very cool and unique stage that is still justified to have a place in the competitive map list. I quite like it despite these quibbles.

I'm wondering if the community would agree on additional changes to this stage to make it look and feel a little less strange. If not, that's cool - but I think it's possible that changes can, and possibly should, be made.

- The background is still terribly busy, and can make it difficult for new players to parse what's happening in the actual game, and are pretty distracting for the rest of us. Would it be possible or desirable to add a partially transparent black filter or something behind the stage to mute these effects? Of course, that may have the side effect of making the map feel more monochromatic. I'm sort of at a loss.

- This may just be me, but the all-grey aesthetic of the stage is pretty dull and almost depressing. This is an extraordinarily minor gripe, but I'm super curious if anyone else feels the same here. It's most apparent when playing the (fairly common) black or white costumes for various characters -- I play a bunch of Dry Bowser and grey Kirby (and often against grey m2, white squirtle, etc), and the effect is pretty strange. This tendency towards monochrome also seems to make the busy background stand out even further. I have no idea what could be done about this.

- This is the big one: the slanted side platforms. I get that these are simply the result of the import from Brawl, but I question whether they're the best possible design for the stage. Visually, they're kind of an eyesore because of how obvious they alias across the dark background - and (my bias shows here) they're strange to waveland on/generally locomote around. I'd personally prefer if these were leveled out, thereby correcting both issues. The obvious problem with this is that we've now effectively got a third PS2 (when considered alongside Distant Planet), but I'd still regard that an improvement. I would also be tempted to experiment with levelling the outer wings of the stage's model, but that'd probably be way more effort than it's worth.

- Perhaps something else could be done to further differentiate Lylat, while reducing its perceived 'jank' factor. If, for example, the previous change were to be made, perhaps the middle platform could shift left and right between the other two? There may be a better change that I'm not thinking of.

New Norfair

First, the aesthetic of this stage is absolutely fantastic; I'd rate it a solid 10 stars out of would bang again. The lava floes and geysers, and the blue lights on the stage add awesome color and slight movement without being overbearing. Though I'm aware that this is entirely from the Brawl port, I mention it to contrast directly with the visual design of Lylat.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to see much play. I'm not totally sure what the design intent behind this stage is, but I suspect it is primarily to give floaty, gimpy characters that are largely dependent on their aerial mobility (such as Wario, Jiggs, M2, Ivysaur, Kirby et al) a cool counterpick where their particular type of movement outclasses the more traditional DD style neutral games of Marth, ZSS, Falcon and the like. Operating under this assumption, everything about the stage's design makes sense - from the smallish, DD-limiting main floor to the floaty, random-seeming platforms, to the huge blastzones.

As mentioned, this doesn't seem a lot of play. I have some guesses why. I love the idea of this stage, but IMO the execution could be improved.

- The movement of the platforms seems completely random. I've been watching it off-and-on, on an idle setup for the last 10 mins or so, and I'm still never sure which way either platform is going to move. In my opinion, this is a problem, because randomness (even perceived randomness) inherently reduces the game's skill ceiling, and will tend to frustrate a lot of players who will feel that they simply lost due to the map's unfairness, rather than by being outplayed. There are a few contributing factors:

1. The omnidirectional nature and weird placement of the platforms. The edges never seem to end up flush with the edges of the stage (on the vertical plane), and only rarely with each other (on the horizontal). The end result looks pretty weird, and is insanely unpredictable.
2. The stop-and-go nature of the platforms makes it much tougher to see any pattern in their movement - particularly because players are typically too busy fighting each other to pay much attention to how the platforms are moving.
3. The slowness of the movement of itself actually makes it pretty tough to tell if the platforms are currently moving at all, particularly if the game is especially chaotic. As a minor quibble, this very slow movement also has pretty bad aliasing issues.

FoD has very similar issues, though it seems to be mostly accepted bcuz melee - and they're also not as pronounced due to the strictly up-and-down nature of the plats' movement. I think we can do better, in any case.

I'm not sure how viable any of this is, but I'm going to throw my ideas out there anyway. Some or all or none of these may be productive or helpful.

1. Add a visual indicator as to which direction each platform is going to move, and when. This would probably be technically demanding (though I'm willing to take a stab at making it myself), but I'd imagine that an arrow emanated from the bottom of the platforms (obviously pointing in the direction of the imminent movement), kinda like this, would help quite a lot, and also increase the stage's visual appeal.
2. Faster platform movement would probably help both the aliasing issue, and the ambiguity of the movement.
3. Though this isn't very 'fun', squaring the platforms' edges with those of the stage, and making their movement patterns more symmetrical and predictable, would probably go a long way. What if they panned through their respective spaces in alternating clockwise/counter-clockwise fashions, or something?

We've had about a month to play with 3.5 now, and I'm super impressed with the new balance, stagelist, and Dreamland 2.0. I personally don't typically care much about strictly visual stuff, but I think it may contribute somewhat to the popular maligning of some stages. I could be coming totally out of left field, though.

Sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Bazkip]

Norfair platform movement according to SOJ 6 months ago when he first showed off the stage, I assume this is still how it moves.

 

[Agi]

Norfair is my go-to stage right now for maximum mobility/survivability. Wario's full jump lands perfectly on top of the platforms when they're at their lowest height, making shoulder bash cancel shenanigans possible all over the place. Good UThrow height as well for pretty simple followups. Also it's pretty.

 

[mimgrim]

Please leave Lylat alone. PLEASE.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Please leave Lylat alone. PLEASE.

Uh, care to elucidate?

 

[mimgrim]

Because Lylat is a perfectly fine stage as is. Slants give it a flair of uniqueness along with YI:B, and if your going to change the slants on Lylat might as well change them on YI:B as well, among all the flat stages. Background johns are just that, johns. Seriously if the background distracts you then that's your problem. I've personally never been distracted by the background of the stage and think anywho who claim it is distracting are just babies.

Leave my Lylat alone :<

 

[GFooChombey]

I honestly like Lylat the way it is too. I understand if people say the background is too busy, but we've adapted to worse. Characters can do some pretty fun things with those low platforms.

 

[ECHOnce]

The biggest major complaint I've heard about Lylat before+after 3.5 is the Melee Battlefield-like ledges, which as we all know can catch recoveries under the lip of the stage, and can appear misleading while trying to sweetspot - the ledgebox is the top corner of the wing and not the bottom or middle iirc, which players may unfortunately assume. We have a four-letter word for players getting an advantage/disadvantage from strange or unknown circumstances, and ideally it should be kept at a realistic minimum. 3.5 tried to address this with thinner wings, but close/unfair failed recoveries still happen and many players don't even realize there was any change.

Spoiler

I'm sure several solutions have been considered and eventually rejected since many players would say the BF ledges add more variation to stagelists and work well as a CP stage, but let's face it. CPing to Lylat is either CPing the player hoping they aren't used to the ledges and screw up (read: jank), or CPing the player's character because they realize their recovery is hard to sweetspot without a wall or camera to zoom out further (to show characters below screen); Lylat is the only non-walled stage that doesn't have a lip slanting towards the ledge, so longer vertical/diagonal recoveries (e.g. Ike, M2, Zelda, G&W, Marth, ICs) or ones that require a degree of precision or control while moving (e.g. Lucario, Pika, Diddy, Ness, ROB) experience much more difficulty than those few others with more horizontal ones, or ones with less commitment to the height they end up at as their recovery ends (e.g. DK, Jiggs, Kirby, Bowser, Link). Not many characters fall into the advantageous category; they're mostly either disadvantaged or neutral.

CP stages generally work against a fraction of the characters due to either platform heights/placement (aids recoveries, leads to better/worse options for escaping chaingrabs/tech chases/juggles, can make diagonal approaches in neutral less safe, helps/hurts SHFFLs or SH > projectiles), the length of the stage (affects characters with longer/shorter-than-average approaches in neutral, longer/shorter-than average follow-ups/chaingrabs/tech chases, projectiles), walled ledges (recoveries, edgeguards), or the blast zone size and distance from the stage (hurts recoveries that cover short horizontal/vertical distances, survival based on weight). Emphasis on a fraction. Any single aspect of a CP stage should not disadvantage such a large portion of the roster that only a given few benefit or are indifferent.

imho the best way of going about fixing the ledges (in a manner that remains aesthetically pleasing) - if it were to be revisited again in 3.51/3.5b/whatever it'll be called - would be to change the angle of the ledge's "wall." You know, that poor excuse for a wall that they made thinner, but iirc you can still walljump off of. Rather than thinning it out and keeping it vertical (I think it is?), we could make it thicker again, angle it at 90 degrees to the stage "ground," and make the grab-able ledge look "sharper," so that the edge is more clearly defined and in a month we'll all forget it was ever hard to tell where the sweetspot was while semi-freaking out in a MM or tourney set.

Alternatively, they could abandon StarFox canon (for a righteous cause lol) and adopt a more unique solution of adding a little flap below the end of the wing. STAR WARS' Fury-class Imperial Inquisitor (opened or closed), is a good example (only one I could recall by name, although we've all seen ships like them before - they're everywhere in sci-fi - so it wouldn't really be copying any given series). The flaps could help to either lessen or get rid of the issue of the ledges angling downwards and catching recoveries, while still keeping the unique slanted ground. It would look a bit different from the Inquisitors, since the "n-shaped" curve extends off of Lylat's main body, rather than covering it, but it still would look pretty ok imo.

 

[Mean Green]

@ the OP
I just want smaller blast zones on those stages. But everything else about them is fine; they bring diversity.

 

[TreK]

The biggest major complaint I've heard about Lylat before+after 3.5 is the Melee Battlefield-like ledges, which as we all know can catch recoveries under the lip of the stage, and can appear misleading while trying to sweetspot - the ledgebox is the top corner of the wing and not the bottom or middle iirc, which players may unfortunately assume. We have a four-letter word for players getting an advantage/disadvantage from strange or unknown circumstances, and ideally it should be kept at a realistic minimum. 3.5 tried to address this with thinner wings, but close/unfair failed recoveries still happen and many players don't even realize there was any change.

Spoiler

I'm sure several solutions have been considered and eventually rejected since many players would say the BF ledges add more variation to stagelists and work well as a CP stage, but let's face it. CPing to Lylat is either CPing the player hoping they aren't used to the ledges and screw up (read: jank), or CPing the player's character because they realize their recovery is hard to sweetspot without a wall or camera to zoom out further (to show characters below screen); Lylat is the only non-walled stage that doesn't have a lip slanting towards the ledge, so longer vertical/diagonal recoveries (e.g. Ike, M2, Zelda, G&W, Marth, ICs) or ones that require a degree of precision or control while moving (e.g. Lucario, Pika, Diddy, Ness, ROB) experience much more difficulty than those few others with more horizontal ones, or ones with less commitment to the height they end up at as their recovery ends (e.g. DK, Jiggs, Kirby, Bowser, Link). Not many characters fall into the advantageous category; they're mostly either disadvantaged or neutral.

CP stages generally work against a fraction of the characters due to either platform heights/placement (aids recoveries, leads to better/worse options for escaping chaingrabs/tech chases/juggles, can make diagonal approaches in neutral less safe, helps/hurts SHFFLs or SH > projectiles), the length of the stage (affects characters with longer/shorter-than-average approaches in neutral, longer/shorter-than average follow-ups/chaingrabs/tech chases, projectiles), walled ledges (recoveries, edgeguards), or the blast zone size and distance from the stage (hurts recoveries that cover short horizontal/vertical distances, survival based on weight). Emphasis on a fraction. Any single aspect of a CP stage should not disadvantage such a large portion of the roster that only a given few benefit or are indifferent.

imho the best way of going about fixing the ledges (in a manner that remains aesthetically pleasing) - if it were to be revisited again in 3.51/3.5b/whatever it'll be called - would be to change the angle of the ledge's "wall." You know, that poor excuse for a wall that they made thinner, but iirc you can still walljump off of. Rather than thinning it out and keeping it vertical (I think it is?), we could make it thicker again, angle it at 90 degrees to the stage "ground," and make the grab-able ledge look "sharper," so that the edge is more clearly defined and in a month we'll all forget it was ever hard to tell where the sweetspot was while semi-freaking out in a MM or tourney set.

Alternatively, they could abandon StarFox canon (for a righteous cause lol) and adopt a more unique solution of adding a little flap below the end of the wing. STAR WARS' Fury-class Imperial Inquisitor (opened or closed), is a good example (only one I could recall by name, although we've all seen ships like them before - they're everywhere in sci-fi - so it wouldn't really be copying any given series). The flaps could help to either lessen or get rid of the issue of the ledges angling downwards and catching recoveries, while still keeping the unique slanted ground. It would look a bit different from the Inquisitors, since the "n-shaped" curve extends off of Lylat's main body, rather than covering it, but it still would look pretty ok imo.

When I CP this stage (pretty often actually), I don't expect my opponents to SD.
The reason I CP it is the total absence of walls. Walls allow you to slide along them, and in turn increase the amount of spots from where you can sweetspot your recovery. My character is an edgeguarder so reducing the amount of recovery routes for my opponent is just what I want out of my CPs.
If you SD there, well, thanks, I guess. But that's not the reason I CP this stage.

 

[FrozenHobo]

The main issue I have with the new Norfair is how high the platforms go. The timing and positions are perfectly fine, I just think maybe 10-15 units lower would help a lot. Right now it aids running too much. Lylat isn't a huge problem as a CP. If people want it as a neutral you'll need to work on the ledges being a bit more consistent.

 

[Binary Clone]

I don't think enough people are talking about the aesthetics of Lylat, which I thought was one of the more major points of the OP.

Let's face it: Lylat has an overbusy background and is boring to look at. As far as the background I don't think, "Deal with it, we've had worse" is really a valid argument. We're in beta. There have been plenty of quality of life adjustments to PM like stagebanning that aren't necessary but they're nice, and I think the PMDT obviously does value having nice-looking stages. Why do you think we just had complete overhauls of Metal Cavern and Dreamland and Hyrule Castle? Even though Lylat is a newer stage, being from Brawl, I think it could definitely use some adjustments to just make it more interesting to look at and fun to play on. I know I play on Dreamland and Hyrule Castle a lot more now that they look nicer.

I think a couple simple things could really help how Lylat looks and feels. The background could be slightly darkened and desaturated, for one thing. Currently the lasers the show up in the background are the same color as the highlights on the stage itself that exist on the platforms and the engines. The fact that some of the only color on the stage matches between the stage and the background means that the two lack the distinction that they could have. I think that darkening or desaturating the background could help with that, but I also think that the lights on the ship should be a stronger, more vibrant blue. Right now they're just kind of a light cyan that blends in with the white. Changing that might make the ship itself more visually interesting while also distinguishing it more from the background.

 

[SOJ]

Hello @ Frost | Odds , thanks for taking the time to write out all your thoughts. As the main guy behind the stagelist and stages in general, I really appreciate hearing feedback from players.

Lylat

I hear about the distracting background problem all the time from players. Personally, it's never bothered me, in fact I've always loved Lylat's background the most. I loved fighting on a stage that felt so alive, it always increased the tension of the match. Now that's not to deny players who legitimately have a problem with it, and I completely understand.

Up until now we've never had a solution for this problem, but I'd like to say that I have something that will please everyone. Our coding wizards have been working on patching the Alternate Stage Loader (ASL) for PM. If this can get done for the next patch, we will have the ability to completely neuter the background for competitive play, and still offer the original background for those who like it. I think that is the best solution, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

As for the slopes, I really do not want to mess with them any more. I like how this stage is different enough from PS2 and Distant Planet with its slopes. I agree with @ mimgrim that they should be left alone. The ledges, however, were something we tried to improve. If players still feel like the ledges are too unforgiving, I suppose I could try out what @ ECHOnce suggested, but I'd rather give it some more time. I personally like the flavor Lylat adds to the stagelist, and wouldn't want to change it too much.

As for aesthetics, I might try some retexturing, but I don't know if I'd do it for the main build. I see what you're saying, but like I said, I don't want to mess with the aesthetics too much.

Norfair

Ok the name of the game for this stage is adaptation. This is a curveball counterpick that was designed to be somewhat unpredictable, but never unfair. I originally got inspiration for this stage from the reveal of Town and City from Smash 4's big Nintendo Direct in April. I wanted to fuse elements of Smashville, PS2, and Battlefield.

In previous iterations of PM, Norfair had interesting and unique platform designs, but always left something to be desired. The way I had designed Norfair before had always assumed we would add lava back in, but we never did. This left it as a casually competitive stage that would always get banned in tournaments. I wanted to fix that while keeping the designs I worked on.

The new design started as this, but I changed it again before releasing 3.5. The right platform stayed the same, but the left platform will now never go into the up right position. So the right platform has 6 different positions it goes to, and the left platform only has 5. The reason for this change was to reduce the "campyness" of the stage. When both platforms were up high, it was too easy to camp up top when they were together.

So to explain further, the new left side will always go like this:

  (3)     (2)        (x)
  (4)     (1)(5)     (6)                  (Left platform positions)
       ---------------------------------- (Base platform)

(Hope that makes sense. It starts at one then then moves up to 2 etc...)

The platform placements were very intentional. Talking strictly on the X axis (left and right), the 3 placements mirror Smashville and PS2. I liked how PS2 had platforms not directly in line with the edges, and Smashville had the platform go off past the edge. I also liked how Town and City had their platforms come together. Overall these 3 placements seemed to do best for this stage, as it's something I designed for previous iterations of Norfair.

As for the Y placements (up and down), I originally had them match Battlefield, but I've lowered them twice since then and will refuse to lower them any more. Battlefield's top platform is at 54.4, while Norfair's platforms go from 22 to 36.

As for aesthetics, I'm really not sure how I would incorporate an arrow into the platforms. I think putting on in would defeat the purpose of the stage, which is to adapt. I'd like to give these stages more time to develop their metas before tweaking them further, but I really appreciate all the feedback from this thread.

Thanks for the replies everyone, and I'll be checking this thread again soon for more replies.

 

[Frost | Odds]

[Lylat Stuff]

Sounds super cool, though I'm curious what you mean by 'completely neuter the background'. Just a black plane, or somehow maintain the current BG without the spaceships flying around and stuff?

Norfair Stuff

All pretty reasonable again. I still maintain that allowing players a little more information about what's immediately going to happen to the platform positions would probably be an improvement, but now that we know your reasoning behind the stage's design, it seems to fill the desired niche.

I'm personally biased on the matter because Bowser's perfect wavelands are now a pretty significant part of my play; doing them consistently is incredibly difficult even on stages with more ordinary platform placement. Will need to experiment more with this stage before I can generate any more meaningful feedback.

 

[Soft Serve]

I love lylat for the slants and the platform layout. There are matchups like tink where I want 3 platforms to try to DI/tech onto to avoid throw follow ups or at least make it harder for them, while still not having that top platform for escapes and platform camping/retreating. It's length and slants are also important to me to minimize the effectiveness of "corner carry" for lack of a better term. I don't want one shine or tilt to hit me to the ledge, and the trade off is my tech chases and trips don't have corner carry either, and there's more room to juggle and get juggled.
The background is noisy, but it doesn't bother me. I've had people call me out saying I just take them there because they get caught under the lip, and I say "no, I take you there for the same reasons I ban battlefield in melee. The lack of a wall limits recovery angles and makes my character, who has a bit below average edgeguarding, have an easier time when I get you off stage. You don't take spacies to battlefield hoping they suck and battlefield themselves, you take them there because it limits their options. If they do suck and kill themselves, well 'we take those.'"

I really like norfair a lot, I feel it fills a CP niche that was needed before, a flat, medium sized, non triangle platform stage with decently large blastzones (I think?) The platforms move between nice heights and are great for vertical tech chasing and combos.
that said I hate playing on the stage because aesthetically it bothers me a lot, I hate all the reds on the stage and I struggle to see the platforms sometimes. (It might just be me, I know I'm slightly red/green colorblind but I have no idea if that would effect it, never not been colorblind lol). It's similar to complaints about the rain on distant planet, sometimes it's just hard to see.

Speaking of DP, the walls are really unclear at parts once they start to curve. I loved the idea that it's a tree trunk a lot, I just dislike the color a lot and the sloped walls.

 

[SOJ]

Sounds super cool, though I'm curious what you mean by 'completely neuter the background'. Just a black plane, or somehow maintain the current BG without the spaceships flying around and stuff?

Well I thought I'd make it non-transforming like the Netplay version. It would just stay on the asteroids part. Maybe I'll start with the asteroids as a base and add a few things back. I just want to tone it down a lot if we can keep the other version as well.

I really like norfair a lot, I feel it fills a CP niche that was needed before, a flat, medium sized, non triangle platform stage with decently large blastzones (I think?) The platforms move between nice heights and are great for vertical tech chasing and combos.
that said I hate playing on the stage because aesthetically it bothers me a lot, I hate all the reds on the stage and I struggle to see the platforms sometimes. (It might just be me, I know I'm slightly red/green colorblind but I have no idea if that would effect it, never not been colorblind lol). It's similar to complaints about the rain on distant planet, sometimes it's just hard to see.

Speaking of DP, the walls are really unclear at parts once they start to curve. I loved the idea that it's a tree trunk a lot, I just dislike the color a lot and the sloped walls.

Thanks. It is actually on the larger size in terms of stages. Comparable to FD/SV. Sorry but the aesthetic of red isn't changing for that stage.

We'll try to adjust the tree model for the next patch.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

@ SOJ ...plz make the FE stage not transform...

 

[McSlur]

_Odds, they're stages, not maps.
This ain't no RTS game.

I like Lylat, but I find species hard to recover with on it, which really bugs me.

 

[Foo]

I like Lylat, but I find species hard to recover with on it, which really bugs me.

Would those species happen to be Foxes, Wolves, and Falcons?

 

[Frost | Odds]

_Odds, they're stages, not maps.
This ain't no RTS game.

Hahahahahah, you caught me. I'm still an RTS guy to the bone. :D