Battle Arena

Players in the Battle Arena

Battle Arena (専用部屋, Private Room) is an online mode in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that allows players to create private, customizable online lobbies for players to battle and spectate outside of the Quickplay environment.

Overview

Upon entering a Battle Arena, all players are placed in the upper-right corner of the screen, where they can stay if they are not ready to go to another area. Players are represented by tokens displaying the character the player has chosen for their Smash tag. The tokens can be moved by the player to place them into other areas of interest. The top of the screen, from left to right, is the button to leave the arena, a prompt that displays the arena rules that the host can modify, information about the host, an icon that shows the arena type, the name of the arena, the background music that can be changed, and the player list that the host can use to kick players. The arena ID is also located in the upper-right corner. The box on the lower-left corner is a chat and message box that displays important information like match statistics and rule changes, which is also shown with a yellow banner that briefly appears at the top of the screen. As of update version 6.0.0, players can press the L button to expand the box and press the R button to send pre-written message to the box for others to see. The lower-right corner of the screen shows a player's personal statistics like name, icon, amount of victories, and preferred stage and character that the player can change, but doing so would kick them back to the waiting area.

The center of the arena is The Ring, which any player can join if there is room. If there is no room, players will form a line on the catwalk to the right side. Matches are started when any of the players in the ring presses start. All players in the ring will then have 15 seconds to press the join button to ready-up, or holding the special button to back-out. Any players that back-out or do not ready-up in the 15 seconds will be put in the back of the line, allowing other players into the ring. Once every player has readied-up, the match will start. Once the match ends, the message box will update with relevant information like player placements and player(s) designated by the selected rotation system will be kicked to the back of the line and awaiting players will be allowed into the ring.

The bleachers to the left are the Spectator Stands, where players not competing are allowed to spectate a live match for the first time in the series. Players in line can also spectate. Players not in line or in the stands are not allowed to spectate. If a player joins a lobby while a game is underway, they are not allowed to spectate until the next game starts.

Battle Arenas created by friends are visible on their friend lists, regardless if the arena is set to 'Public' or 'Friends'. People who aren't registered as friends can still join other player's Battle Arenas, however they would need to search for the Arena ID.

Creating an Arena

Creating an arena will present the player with the following options:

• Password; lets the arena creator assign a password to the arena, with the option of up to 8 numbered digits.
• Type; most of these options do not affect the functionality of the arena, only indicating the type of gameplay to be expected.
  • All Skill Levels (orange)
  • Veteran Players (red)
  • Glorious Smashers (purple)
  • Anything Goes (blue)
  • Playground (bright green)
  • amiibo Battle (teal); locks amiibo settings to "on"
  • Beginners Only (olive green); Prevents players that have at least one fighter in Elite Smash from entering. Cannot be selected if the lobby creator is in Elite Smash.
  • Elite Only (yellow); Only allows players with at least one fighter in Elite Smash.
• Visibility; changes who can join the arena.
  • Public; anyone can join
  • Friends; only players on the creator's friends list can join
• Format; controls the maximum number of players that can be in the ring
  • 4-Player Smash
  • 3-Player Smash
  • 1-on-1
  • Team Battle; allows 4 players
• Rules; contains many of the same options as Smash. Some options were moved to 'More Settings', such as allowing amiibo or Spirits.
• Rotation; determines which players will be removed from the ring after a match.
  • Top Two Leave; not selectable in 1-on-1 or team battle
  • Top One Leaves; not selectable in team battle
  • Bottom Two Leave; not selectable in 1-on-1 or team battle
  • Bottom One Leaves; not selectable in team battle
  • Winner Leaves; Team Battle only
  • Loser Leaves; Team Battle only

More Settings

These settings tend to control either the core match style or don't impact gameplay.

• Max players; controls the maximum number of players allowed in the arena
  • 2–8 players
• Stage; controls the allowed stage types
  • Choice
  • Random
  • Random Battlefield form
  • Random Ω form
  • Random Battlefield and Ω form
• Options that can be toggled on or off:
  • Custom Stages
  • amiibo
  • voice chat; requires all players to use the Nintendo Switch Online app
• Room Music; lets the arena creator choose the music that plays in the arena while outside of a game.

Joining an Arena

To join an existing arena, players have 3 options:

• Friends' Arenas; will display arenas made by anyone on the player's friend list, whenever or not it was set to friends only.
• Public Arenas; will display arenas based on what settings they want to see, such as Type, Format, Style, etc.
• Enter Arena ID; lets the player enter the Arena ID to join. The Arena ID is found in the top-right corner of the room. Players can theoretically enter a room by correctly guessing its Arena ID, though the amount of characters in each ID makes this difficult.

Players are not allowed to enter a full arena. If another player leaves a full arena, then they are given an opportunity to join depending on the settings of said arena. Players also need to successfully input the password if one is used.

Update history

1.1.0

• Added Battle Arenas to the game as part of they day one patch.

1.2.0

• Increased connection stability within arenas.

3.1.0

• amiibo can now be used in Battle Arenas.
  • "amiibo Battle" is now an arena type.
  • The "amiibo" setting is now available in the search engine, allowing players to include or exclude arenas that allow amiibo when searching for arenas.
• The color for Playground arenas has been changed to green. amiibo Battle uses Playground's old teal color.
• The "Passworded Arenas" setting has been added, allowing players to include or exclude arenas that need a password to enter.
• The "Next" indicator on the next players in line to enter the ring has been moved to the left.
• In arenas that choose players' preferred stages, music is now randomly chosen on a match-by-match basis when a player picks a stage without specifying a song, rather than randomly picking one song and always playing it.

6.0.0

• Two new arena types are available: "Elite Only", which only allows those in Elite Smash, "Beginners Only", which specifically disallows those in Elite Smash.
• The functionality of the arena log has been greatly expanded:
  • The log takes up a larger area when not expanded, now touching the ring, improving its readability and allowing more messages to be seen.
  • Any rule change is now recorded in the log.
  • The Arena Log now counts the number of battles done in the Arena, as well as how many battles a player has won in a row.
  • Players can now use preset messages to communicate with everyone in the arena outside of battle.
  • Several of the Arena Log's automated messages, such as "The battle has started", "The battle has ended", and "[playername] has racked up 10 KOs" have been changed.
  • The arena now records consecutive wins from a player, as well as the total number of matches played.
• Players can now change the rules of a battle arena without needing to disband it.
• Button prompts are now shown in the Arena. This includes when holding a token over the Waiting Area, Ring, or Spectator Stands, to expand the Arena Log, and to send a message.
• The Arena ID is now shown in the top right below the Player List button, in addition to being present on the Rules popup as before.

8.1.0

• Removed the black border of the question mark icon when selecting a random character or stage.

9.0.0

• The controls during combat in battle arenas while spectators are present have been adjusted.
  • The tick rate for battle arenas with 4 or fewer players has been increased from 30Hz to 60Hz, instead of only applying to 1-on-1 battles without spectators.

11.0.0

• Arenas will now close if the host's packets are dropped during a match.

Trivia

• Players will always be ordered by when they join the arena rather than by their current port number. This means that the host of the arena will always enter the stage first during their on-screen appearances.
  • This also affects the order for all characters on the "No Contest" screen when a communication error appears because a player disconnected, and the port numbers displayed on the "Controller Disconnected" screen.
• As of version 13.0.3, kicking all active participants in an ongoing match softlocks the game, leaving the arena stuck in the "Waiting for players..." state.