Condensing The Omega Stage List (Needs Input)

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 2, 2015

Introduction:

Hello and welcome to Part 2 of my thread on condensing the Omega Stage List. As it has become clear that there are tangible differences between the Omega Stages, I have been using this thread in an attempt to see how many different Omegas are required in order to express the full list. This way we can be familar with a few of them and so it will not be necessary to recall more than 40 stages and their various benefits and drawbacks by name alone. And yes, the current ruleset absolutely requires you to know all of them, so long as you play a character that is affected by Omegas.

The first part of my analysis (which can be found in a spoiler tag underneath this introduction) was done in a proof-by-contradiction style. I asked the forum for contradictions to some claims I had made in order to get the largest amount of information between the differences in the various stages. I was able to conclude using the analysis that we can objectively shrink the list down to 6 Omega stages (down from 9) without losing any strategic options in a counter-pick framework. I will be working to frame my proposed system properly, making wording changes and increasing the ease of use mainly. Once the system is complete expect a full work up explaining my system to appear on the forums. Until then, I'm going to do the middle step here, conclude my initial analysis, and confirm I'm not making any huge mistakes. Discussion will begin on post 41 and onward, most likely on the start of page 2 for you guys.

Hey all, I'm going to need your help with something. I'm going to make sweeping assumptions about Omega stages, and I need you to provide counter-examples to contradict them. Sound fun? You bet it does!

The Rational:

The Ottawa Smash 4 Community (613Smash) is currently unsatisfied with the way the stagelist is approached, and so we're going to be making some changes locally. One of these will be a change in how the Omega list is handled. As it currently sits, the official stagelist implies that all 40+ Omega stages are identical, when in reality they are not. There are 9 distinct stage layouts within the list, and the differences can be rather major, depending on the matchup.

So currently, players are given an incomplete stage list and must discover (by accident through large amounts of play time, or the hard way in a tournament set) that there are these "hidden" stages. This knowledge gives an edge that has nothing to do with skill, and leads to using "noob traps" and to players feeling (and rightfully so, I believe) bitter about their experience. As we are dedicated to fostering both a strong community and the highest level play possible, we do not find this interaction is acceptable.

The Problem to Solve:

What is the smallest list of Omega stages we can make without losing any strategic options?
The exact way to include the functionally different Omega stages is to be decided, but the above question must be answered no matter which option we chose. Although 9 look different, I theorize that there might be some Omegas that are strategically equivalent. I'm going to call two omega stages strategically equivalent if they both allow for the same set of recovery options for every character.

What I need from all of you is to point out any and all characters that recovery options that differ between the two stages I claim are equivalent. (Although one counter-example is sufficient to disprove the claim, it's important to have as many of them as possible. I'll get to why that is if I'm asked)

The bulk of the work in studying and categorizing these differences was done by @

Cornstalk in this thread. Major shoutouts to him. I will be directly using his terms and descriptions without actually using forum-based quotes for ease of viewing, so keep that in mind.

The Stages:

Here are the 9 Omega stage archetypes and an example for each. A link to a visual is provided in a mess below each type because Smashboards handles linking REALLY weirdly:

Straight Walls: Onett
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/4/47/SSB4UOnettOmega.jpg
Under Stage Walls: Boxing Ring
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/b/b9/SSB4UBoxingRingOmega.jpg
Overhang Walls: Bridge of Eldin
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f6/SSB4UBridgeOfEldinOmega.jpg
Rude Walls: Kalos Pokemon League
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/0/0e/SSB4UKalosPokemonLeagueOmega.jpg
Like FD: Palutena's Temple
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e2/SSB4UPalutenasTempleOmega.jpg
Cruel Edge Floater: Pilotwings
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/2/20/SSB4UPilotwingsOmega.jpg
Kind Edge Floater: Norfair
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f2/SSB4UNorfairOmega.jpg
Fat Lip Floater: Orbital Gate Assault
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e3/SSB4UOrbitalGateAssaultOmega.jpg
The Jerk: Lylat Cruise
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/6/61/SSB4ULylatCruiseOmega.jpg

I'll be using the definitions indirectly in my claims, check out the thread linked above for direct definitions

The Claims:

1) Final Destination = Like FD

This is one the general community holds to be true. There are more sharking options in Like FD, but recoveries are not affected.

Counter-examples:

2) Kind Edge Floater = Like FD

Both have generous under-stage lips that will guide you to the ledge safely. One difference is that you can't wall jump at all on Kind Edge Floaters, and you can wall jump on certain parts of Like FD. However, if you can wall jump you can also upB which is far more reliable and safe. Thus the ability to walljump is outclassed by upB and there is no strategic difference between the stages.

Counter-examples:

and those with long, rising recoveries can stall a bit under a Kind Edge Floater by moving past the guiding lip before using their upB, then moving back to be guided up before their upB runs out. This isn't possible on Like FD [Both Olimar and Villager can move any direction, including not at all, during these recoveries. Therefore, they can willfully stall underneath either stage type]
can move past the guiding lip under a Kind Edge Floater and stall his recovery for a few seconds by upBing into a flat ceiling before moving into the guiding lip to recover. This is not possible on Like FD as he is forced to rise [Although the timing would take getting used to, Duck Hunt can allow himself to fall a little before using his upB. This would allow for the same type of under-stage stalling, but would work on any stage]
and other characters with long enough hitboxes can land hits through a Kind Edge Floater in places they couldn't on Like FD. This is presumably from on the stage, but will check for clarification. [The clarification is needed to determine whether or not this is a recovery difference]
Can walljump to extend their recoveries after using an upB on Like FD, but cannot on Kind Edge Floater

3) Rude Walls = Kind Edge Floater

Although visually quite different, both prevent wall-jumping and guide your upB to the ledge. A wall you can't walljump off of is basically a giant guiding lip.

Counter examples:

Spring, Fire Hydrant, Bowling Ball, Tree etc with spawnable items can punish recoveries a little easier on Rude Walls, as the being guided by the wall makes recoveries easy to aim at. [I'm not entirely sure this is a very meaningful difference. Characters have different edge guarding options on each stage, so being on a Kind Edge Floater wouldn't prevent edge guarding from the mentioned characters. We are supposed to be looking at recovery options, and edge guarding options seem beside the point]

4) Straight Walls = Under Stage Walls

Both of these allow for walljumping and reliable wall clinging (if we use Boxing Ring Omega). The only difference is a small space to avoid things thrown straight down provided by the lip in Under Stage Walls. This claim states that small alcove doesn't effect a match.

Counter-examples:

Spring, Fire Hydrant, Bowling Ball, Tree etc with spawnable items Are all at a disadvantage on Under Stage Walls, as their opponent can dodge these moves by virtue of the lip.

5) Overhanging Walls = Fat Lip Floater

Same general shape here. Straight walls for the first bit, followed by a guiding lip curved into the stage. Overhanging Walls have straight walls at the bottom, where Fat lips Floater does not. However, whether or not you can wall jump that far down does not make a difference. You are either too far down to live, or your recovery can get you back regardless.

Counter-examples:

can use upB to hide out under a Fat Lip Floater, where as Overhanging Walls prevent him from physically going under the stage. [however, he might be just as safe under the guiding lip on both stages, needs some testing]
Can recover using a walljump from the bottom of an Overhanging Wall, then a jump to upB, and then another walljump to grab the edge. This is not possible on a Fat LIp Floater.
wallclingers (are there any more?) can wall cling to the very bottom of a Straight Wall and recover from there. Presumably, this implies that wallclingers can recover from the lowest part of an Overhanging Wall, but lack the ability to do so on a Fat Lip Floater. [needs testing, speculation]

6) Fat Lip Floater = Straight Walls

Here's a bit of a wilder claim. The inward curve replacing a straight wall (and the ability to walljump) does not effect the recovery of any character. If you are midway down, a walljump that low will not save you.

Counter-examples:

can use upB to hide out under the stage of a Fat Lip Floater or even hide under the lip itself, where as Straight Walls prevent him from doing both
and possibly others can recover with a walljump starting from lower than Fat Lip Floater allows
Can recover using a walljump from the bottom of a Straight Wall, then a jump to upB, and then another walljump to grab the edge. This is not possible on a Fat LIp Floater.
~~and anyone else with a walljump can use it to stall and avoid hitboxes from edge guarders in more places on Straight Walls than on Fat Lip Floater~~ [After some testing, I found that you can actually walljump just fine off of the guiding lip. Walljumping to stall is very much a thing, it's just able to be preformed on both stages]
wallclingers can wall cling to the very bottom of a Straight Wall and recover from there, but there are no such walls that low on Fat Lip Floater. [still need to test for Diddy, but cling>jump>walljump>upB should work]

7) Cruel Edge Floater = The Jerk

Both have extremely difficult ledges to grab, and are difficult for those with difficult recoveries. Yes, Cruel Edge Floater gives some recoveries more wiggle room, but if you picked it based wanting to recover, you might as well have picked Kind Edge Floater. This claim is not so much that the stages are the same, but more that Kind Edge Floaters and The Jerk both outclass Cruel Edge Floater for either reason you'd want to pick it. Therefore Cruel Edge Floater is an unneeded stage as no character benefits from the middle ground it provides.

Counter-examples:

Theoretically, there could be a where the middle ground works for one, but not the other. I will need an example of a matchup where this is true.

Thank you for your time and contribution!

Just to Clear Things Up:

Before I get into the results, there's a few things I want to mention to confirm we're all on the same page:

The proposed rule change would be to allow only 6 Omega stages be selectable when someone counterpicks FD/Omega in order to normalize the list and cut out the unnecessary memorization the rules currently require
This proposed rule would NOT replace the rule that Banning FD bans all Omegas. It would be working in combination with it
This proposition is NOT advocating to add 6 stages to the stagelist. That would certainly cause more harm then good.
The Claims made in part 1 were intentionally incorrect and full of holes because they were meant to be contradicted. In contrast, I'm actually making these following claims in good faith. If you see a problem with them, feel free to let me know, but I'm not openly asking for counter-examples this time around
Grass stages will be accounted for in the final formulation but as this analysis did not include them, they will not be discussed here
I won't get into it much, but the final formulation will allow regions and TO's to choose which stages they want to have as each archetype's representative.

Again, I'm using the definitions and terms coined by @

Cornstalk in this thread. Check that out or my Part 1 in the spoiler tag above for more details.

To recap, here's every archetype of stage and a link to a visual example:

Straight Walls: Onett
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/4/47/SSB4UOnettOmega.jpg
Under Stage Walls: Boxing Ring
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/b/b9/SSB4UBoxingRingOmega.jpg
Overhanging Walls: Bridge of Eldin
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f6/SSB4UBridgeOfEldinOmega.jpg
Rude Walls: Kalos Pokemon League
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/0/0e/SSB4UKalosPokemonLeagueOmega.jpg
Like FD: Palutena's Temple
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e2/SSB4UPalutenasTempleOmega.jpg
Cruel Edge Floater: Pilotwings
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/2/20/SSB4UPilotwingsOmega.jpg
Kind Edge Floater: Norfair
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f2/SSB4UNorfairOmega.jpg
Fat Lip Floater: Orbital Gate Assault
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e3/SSB4UOrbitalGateAssaultOmega.jpg
The Jerk: Lylat Cruise
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/6/61/SSB4ULylatCruiseOmega.jpg

Results:

So our Omega stage list looks a little something like:

Like FD
Kind Edge Floater
The Jerk

Straight Walls
Rude Walls
Understage walls

Not needed on this list are:

Overhanging Walls
Fat Lip Floater
Cruel Edge Floater

Why are these 3 stages not needed? It's simply because the differences they exhibit are outclassed by other stage options. Meaning if you wanted to choose these stages for your counterpick, there are actually better options present in the stage list. We can call a stage "Outclassed" if there are 2 other stages that contain all that stage has to offer; One containing the benefits one might want to help their own recovery, and one containing the pitfalls one might want to mess up their opponent's recovery. Simply put, if there are better options for both helping yourself and pressuring your opponent on other stages, then those stages outclass that stage.

Outclassed Stages:

A) Overhanging Walls (Outclassed by + Understage Walls, - Straight Walls)

+ Understage Walls features a protruding lip above a vertical wall, which shields recovering players at every point on the wall from Villager's bowling ball, throwable items, and much more. In contrast, Overhanging Walls only protects characters below the inner lip, and only characters that can recover from this low are able to use this protection in the first place. Both stage types allow for walljumping and wall clinging at every point of the wall, but Understage Walls has far superior protection while recovering, both in amount of characters and in physical locations.

- Straight walls allow players to punish vertical recoveries with a plethora of options, and a similar set of options can be used to punish these recoveries on Overhanging Walls. However, wallclingers (and to a lesser extent, walljumpers) can use the inner lip to dodge many of these options in order to aid their recovery on to the stage. So if you want a stage to most effectively punish vertical recoveries while still allowing walljumps, Straight Walls is the clear choice. (If you don't want walljumping, choose Rude Walls)

B) Fat Lip Floater (Outclassed by + Like FD, - Straight Walls)

+ Like FD provides difficult-to-punish protection while recovering from beneath the stage and also allows walljumping near the edges. Conversely, Fat Lip Floater provides a completely inferior version of this sort of protection, as characters can easily be edgeguarded while making their way up the large lip. There is actually an extremely small amount of help Fat Lip Floater provides to recoveries, and nearly any other stage would be a better option. However, it suffices to say that Like FD is a the better choice for aiding a recovery.

- Straight Walls provide many options for messing up an opponent's recovery, as described in the - case of A). Fat Lip Floater's underside and inner lip can allow dodging and subsequent recovery that would not be possible on Straight Walls. For punishing these vertical recoveries, Straight Walls is the much better option.

C) Cruel Edge Floater (Outclassed by + Kind Edge Floater, - The Jerk)

+ Kind Edge Floater has a generous guiding lip that will aid recovery from underneath the stage, significantly decreasing the precision required to make it back on stage. With a similar, yet noticeably smaller guiding lip on Cruel Edge Floaters, it's trivial to point out that the larger edge help a character's recovery more. As a side note, neither stage allows any amount of walljumping.

- The Jerk is the pinnacle in messing with an opponent's recovery. With absolutely no guiding lip or wall jumping to speak of, this stage requires your opponent to be very precise in order to recover. Cruel Edge Floaters also require precision, but simply not to the same degree. If you want to screw up opponents with limited recoveries, The Jerk is the superior choice.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 2, 2015

Here's an example post to show generally how posting is generally expected:

ex) A) Straight Walls = B) Rude Walls

Little Mac:
A) Allows walljumping which greatly aids his recovery if he is caught off stage
B) Without walljumping, his recovery potential is greatly reduced

ParanoidDrone · Feb 2, 2015

Your post says Boxing Ring for under stage walls but the link goes to Luigi's Mansion Omega.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 2, 2015

Thanks for the save, another example of why linking is weird here. Should be fixed.

PND · Feb 2, 2015

I very much disagree with #4. Sonic's spring, Pac Man's Hydrant, Diddy's banana, Villagers Bowling Ball and Tree, and a plethora of other moves are changed strategically by that lip. Understage walls means you can hide below the lip while recovering to avoid these moves. With flat walls, you cannot. I think that's a huge difference. Unfortunately, not sure this fits your post format though :S

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 2, 2015

If you have more than one character like that, the format isn't as important. The format is more there in case you don't quite know what to post.

EDIT: Thread updated with this counter-example. Let's keep them coming!

In a similar vain as PND's counter-example, is it also possible that the lip in Overhanging walls protects someone from being spiked?

Linkshot · Feb 3, 2015

So I talked about this last night and I'm trying to remember it all without reading logs. tl;dr is that I think Fat Lip Floater is Villager's best stage for multiple reasons. Firstly, flat-no-plat is just good for setting up a camp. Secondly, the fat lip gives more room for the bowling ball to destroy guided recoveries. Thirdly, the fact that there's a flat underside means that Villager can just hang out under there with UpB for a while. Finally, while it's the least important, allowing Villager to walljump means they get a different set of edgeguarding options (walljumping gives you brief invinc so you can dodge and throw out a slingshot or rocket).

So this is why Fat Lip Floater stands out from Kind Floater and Kind Overhang. (#5 and #6)

For #3: Mega Man and Sonic very desperately need that little walljumpable lip to extend their recoveries that extra inch. A Rude Overhang would outright kill them, while a Kind Floater would let them sneak under an edgeguard, walljump, and grab the ledge.

For #2: A Kind Edge Floater is very much not like FD because characters with long rising recoveries (Duck Hunt, Olimar, Villager) can hang out under a Kind Floater while a Like FD would just forcibly push them to the ledge. As well, long enough hitboxes (hi Shulk and Link) can sneak under a Kind Floater but only have a very "shallow" area to do that on Like FD before it gets too thick. The extra walls on Like FD also give guided projectiles less freedom.

For #1: Was just taught that Like FD allows more characters to scrooge than plain FD does. I...need more specifics on that.

And for #7... "Cruel Edge Floater gives some recoveries more wiggle room, but if you picked it based wanting to recover," that's where counterpicking comes in. Your recovery is slightly better than mine, so a Kind Edge would put us on equal footing by saving both of us, The Jerk would put us on equal footing by killing both of us, but a Cruel Edge would save you and kill me.

moreside · Feb 3, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
Fat Lip Floater = Straight Walls

Here's a bit of a wilder claim. The inward curve replacing a straight wall (and the ability to walljump) does not affect the recovery of any character. If you are midway down, a walljump that low will not save you.

Counter-example 1: Every character with a wall jump benefits more from straight walls than fat lip floaters. Most characters can definitely recover from very low, for example Captain Falcon can wall jump into B-reverse up-B, Fox can wall jump into angled up-B, etc.

Counter-example 2: In the cases where a character's recovery is unaffected (although I'm fairly certain there are no such cases), wall jumping lower than the fat lip allows helps stalling off stage. Let's say I'm playing Little Mac, and I'm trying to recover against an Ike charging eruption. Instead of recovering into it, I can fall a bit lower, wall jump, and then up-B - hopefully killing enough time for the move to end.

Counter-example 3: Finally, characters with wall clings undeniably benefit from straight walls. I've played Sheik and got a wall cling literally pixels above the blast zone and still made it back, where I otherwise would have died.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 3, 2015

Linkshot said:
So I talked about this last night and I'm trying to remember it all without reading logs. tl;dr is that I think Fat Lip Floater is Villager's best stage for multiple reasons. Firstly, flat-no-plat is just good for setting up a camp. Secondly, the fat lip gives more room for the bowling ball to destroy guided recoveries. Thirdly, the fact that there's a flat underside means that Villager can just hang out under there with UpB for a while. Finally, while it's the least important, allowing Villager to walljump means they get a different set of edgeguarding options (walljumping gives you brief invinc so you can dodge and throw out a slingshot or rocket).

So this is why Fat Lip Floater stands out from Kind Floater and Kind Overhang. (#5 and #6)

For #3: Mega Man and Sonic very desperately need that little walljumpable lip to extend their recoveries that extra inch. A Rude Overhang would outright kill them, while a Kind Floater would let them sneak under an edgeguard, walljump, and grab the ledge.

For #2: A Kind Edge Floater is very much not like FD because characters with long rising recoveries (Duck Hunt, Olimar, Villager) can hang out under a Kind Floater while a Like FD would just forcibly push them to the ledge. As well, long enough hitboxes (hi Shulk and Link) can sneak under a Kind Floater but only have a very "shallow" area to do that on Like FD before it gets too thick. The extra walls on Like FD also give guided projectiles less freedom.

For #1: Was just taught that Like FD allows more characters to scrooge than plain FD does. I...need more specifics on that.

And for #7... "Cruel Edge Floater gives some recoveries more wiggle room, but if you picked it based wanting to recover," that's where counterpicking comes in. Your recovery is slightly better than mine, so a Kind Edge would put us on equal footing by saving both of us, The Jerk would put us on equal footing by killing both of us, but a Cruel Edge would save you and kill me.

Great stuff, but it will take me a while to get it all updated. Can you give a specific example of a matchup where #7 has that difference? I understand that's theoretically a possibility, but I'm going to need examples to get things going

moreside said:
Counter-example 1: Every character with a wall jump benefits more from straight walls than fat lip floaters. Most characters can definitely recover from very low, for example Captain Falcon can wall jump into B-reverse up-B, Fox can wall jump into angled up-B, etc.

Counter-example 2: In the cases where a character's recovery is unaffected (although I'm fairly certain there are no such cases), wall jumping lower than the fat lip allows helps stalling off stage. Let's say I'm playing Little Mac, and I'm trying to recover against an Ike charging eruption. Instead of recovering into it, I can fall a bit lower, wall jump, and then up-B - hopefully killing enough time for the move to end.

Counter-example 3: Finally, characters with wall clings undeniably benefit from straight walls. I've played Sheik and got a wall cling literally pixels above the blast zone and still made it back, where I otherwise would have died.

Also super stuff. As I said, the claim was a little wilder, but I didn't know objectively why. It really helps to have something concrete like this (especially Shiek being able to recover from that far down). I'll add this stuff up as well. I'm having trouble interpreting your second counter-example though. You say there are no such cases, but I'm not sure what you're referring to at that point. Like, if there are no such cases in which your counter-example is true, then it's not a counter-example, so I don't think that's what you mean. Would you be able to clarify?

So to elaborate, if we end up finding that all stages do have rare but meaningful differences, then we might end up having to make executive decisions on which ones are different enough to count as their own stages. Hoping we won't have to, but it's a possibility

Secondly, multiple examples are important because if one claim has only a single counter-example, we can find another stage that's equivalent for that character alone, and it would mean no loss of strategic options.

Amazing Ampharos · Feb 3, 2015

Spreading knowledge about the subtle differences can be helpful and I certainly support that (tell any local Rosalinas who for whatever reason want to play on an omega to go Omega Halberd FYI), but how does knowing more about which omegas have which effects really affect the approach to the stagelist? As someone who always strikes and bans the "stage" FD + Omega I certainly don't want to play on any of them, and I'd hate to have to use multiple of my procedural options to achieve that end or even worse be forced to play on one of these flat stages just because of how the game handles them. The most popular rule is that game 1 is always on normal FD and that, if FD is counterpicked, you can cp any omega in its place if that's your cup of tea. I'm not seeing the differences being highlighted as much of a reason to change that...

moreside · Feb 3, 2015

Amazing Ampharos said:
How does knowing more about which omegas have which effects really affect the approach to the stagelist?

Here's my two cents. Let's say I'm playing Little Mac and I'm picking stages to ban against a Jigglypuff. An obvious one would be Lylat Cruise, as the ledges directly nerf my recovery, while Jigglypuff is more or less totally unaffected. However, I could still get counter picked to Omega Lylat, which has precisely the problem I tried to ban. Of course I could also ban FD, but that's normally a good stage for Mac, so I'd be hurting myself by doing that.

So, my idea at least (not sure if @

The_Jiggernaut is on the same page) is as follows:

Banning FD bans all Omega stages. When you ban or strike FD, you're doing it because you want platforms. You shouldn't have waste bans on other individual Omegas.

Banning a different stage bans it, as well as Omegas that share its ledges. For example, banning Lylat Cruise means I can't be taken to Omega Lylat, or any other "Jerk" Omegas.

Banning a stage with unique platforms (Delfino, for example) does not ban any Omegas.

Now that's the ideal type of situation. I realize that memorizing which Omegas have which ledges is a stupid thing to ask of players, so I think it should suffice that banning FD bans all Omegas, and banning a non-FD stage also bans its corresponding Omega. I can't think of any problem with the current rules that this doesn't solve.

Linkshot · Feb 3, 2015

um, I'm not sure if I'm right, but the way I've always done it is that I can ban a stage to stop you from counterpicking it but it doesn't stop -me- from counterpicking it. So yes, you can ban Lylat + Omegas, then go to an Omega of your choice on your counterpick.

EDIT: Huh, this just added another layer of weirdness to Omegas.

moreside · Feb 3, 2015

Linkshot said:
um, I'm not sure if I'm right, but the way I've always done it is that I can ban a stage to stop you from counterpicking it but it doesn't stop -me- from counterpicking it. So yes, you can ban Lylat + Omegas, then go to an Omega of your choice on your counterpick.

Yeah that's right, but if I didn't have to ban FD then I could hypothetically get counter picked there, which is better for me. Sure it's unlikely, but it's still a possibility.

The_Jiggernaut said:
I'm having trouble interpreting your second counter-example though. You say there are no such cases, but I'm not sure what you're referring to at that point. Like, if there are no such cases in which your counter-example is true, then it's not a counter-example, so I don't think that's what you mean. Would you be able to clarify?

Basically I'm pretty sure that every character benefits from wall jumping as a boost to their recovery on straight wall where it does not help on fat lip. If that's the case, the point of stalling still holds for all of them. Take Villager for example, whose recovery is good enough to never need a wall jump to recover. Villager can still make use of the wall jump as a way to stall for a bit without having to waste his up-B which makes him more vulnerable.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 3, 2015

Amazing Ampharos said:
Spreading knowledge about the subtle differences can be helpful and I certainly support that (tell any local Rosalinas who for whatever reason want to play on an omega to go Omega Halberd FYI), but how does knowing more about which omegas have which effects really affect the approach to the stagelist? As someone who always strikes and bans the "stage" FD + Omega I certainly don't want to play on any of them, and I'd hate to have to use multiple of my procedural options to achieve that end or even worse be forced to play on one of these flat stages just because of how the game handles them. The most popular rule is that game 1 is always on normal FD and that, if FD is counterpicked, you can cp any omega in its place if that's your cup of tea. I'm not seeing the differences being highlighted as much of a reason to change that...

I'm glad to hear that you also feel spreading the knowledge of the stage differences is important. At the very least, we will be simply listing the differences as a sort of "Recommended Omega List" on the Stagelist itself (as that is the most visual place we can put it) without changing any other rules. Spreading the information this way takes away nothing and gives the large benefit of making sure everyone is on the same page, and so we strongly recommend that the other regions start doing this as well.

The purpose of this thread is to see if we're able to objectively say that some of the Omega stages are redundant, and that shortens the list and increases readability. Also, if we find that only 2 or 3 Omega stages are needed to express the whole list, there are other changes we can explore. Like adding those few Omega stages to the list proper, or keeping the Ban FD=Ban Omega rule while adding Omega options to the 13 stages we strike from. We're thinking of removing a few existing stages, so there would certainly be room. Speaking of, we are big believers in your proposed method of striking from the whole stage list, and will be trying it out for time in an upcoming tournament. I for one, always had a problem with how Brawl's Metagame favored characters good on static stages (as a Jigglypuff main, that shouldn't be a surprise though).

While I understand that you personally don't like Flat-No-Plats of any kind, I don't outright believe that having more of them in the game would be an objectively bad thing for the metagame. Nor does it seem like you are claiming such, only that you personally as a player wouldn't like it. The thing is, the Omega Label is entirely arbitrary. Yes it means no platforms, but it's another stage entirely. And I believe that these stages should be judged just as any other "standard" stage and be put in our stagelist or banned from it as we do with any other stage.

Here's why I don't see a few flat stages as a problem. if we add Omega Onett and Omega Lylat as striking options, you'd have to use 3 of your strikes to avoid playing on a flat stage. That shouldn't feel like too much to ask since someone who absolutely does not want to play on a transforming stage must use 5 of their strikes to avoid that on your most recently proposed stage list. If you're worried about some sort of FD-central metagame, remember that the bulk of characters good on FD do NOT want to play on Omega Lylat, so it's not as if Diddy now has 3 options to take you to FD. And weirdly enough characters that benefit from static stages are at a marked disadvantage on this list.

Other People's responses

I'll get to responding to the rest of you guys a little later. I need to get some food and take a break for now. But just letting you know that I will indeed respond.

ParanoidDrone · Feb 3, 2015

moreside said:
Here's my two cents. Let's say I'm playing Little Mac and I'm picking stages to ban against a Jigglypuff. An obvious one would be Lylat Cruise, as the ledges directly nerf my recovery, while Jigglypuff is more or less totally unaffected. However, I could still get counter picked to Omega Lylat, which has precisely the problem I tried to ban. Of course I could also ban FD, but that's normally a good stage for Mac, so I'd be hurting myself by doing that.

So, my idea at least (not sure if @ The_Jiggernaut is on the same page) is as follows:

Banning FD bans all Omega stages. When you ban or strike FD, you're doing it because you want platforms. You shouldn't have waste bans on other individual Omegas.

Banning a different stage bans it, as well as Omegas that share its ledges. For example, banning Lylat Cruise means I can't be taken to Omega Lylat, or any other "Jerk" Omegas.

Banning a stage with unique platforms (Delfino, for example) does not ban any Omegas.

Now that's the ideal type of situation. I realize that memorizing which Omegas have which ledges is a stupid thing to ask of players, so I think it should suffice that banning FD bans all Omegas, and banning a non-FD stage also bans its corresponding Omega. I can't think of any problem with the current rules that this doesn't solve.

I think I'm missing something. The way you're talking, it suggests that if you banned FD for them to counterpick game 2, then you yourself would be banned from picking it on game 3. I was under the impression that stage bans for each game were considered separately.

Also Mac's recovery is so terribad anyway I'm not sure the ledges really matter but that's a separate topic.

EDIT: @

Amazing Ampharos why Omega Halberd for Rosalina? (This won't summon you because edits but hopefully you notice.)

moreside · Feb 3, 2015

ParanoidDrone said:
I think I'm missing something. The way you're talking, it suggests that if you banned FD for them to counterpick game 2, then you yourself would be banned from picking it on game 3. I was under the impression that stage bans for each game were considered separately.

Also Mac's recovery is so terribad anyway I'm not sure the ledges really matter but that's a separate topic.

I win game one.
I ban Lylat and FD.
Let's say the Jigglypuff is a huge for glory fan and only wants to play FD. I've prevented Omega Lylat, but I've also prevented getting counterpicked to another Omega, which would be in my favour.

It's just an example. Basically I'm saying that if I ban a stage because I don't like it's ledges, I shouldn't have to ban FD just because there's an Omega with the same ledges.

ParanoidDrone · Feb 3, 2015

moreside said:
I win game one.
I ban Lylat and FD.
Let's say the Jigglypuff is a huge for glory fan and only wants to play FD. I've prevented Omega Lylat, but I've also prevented getting counterpicked to another Omega, which would be in my favour.

It's just an example. Basically I'm saying that if I ban a stage because I don't like it's ledges, I shouldn't have to ban FD just because there's an Omega with the same ledges.

I find myself okay with that sort of situation but I'm also very laid back about stage quirks like that which I'm pretty sure is the minority opinion.

Amazing Ampharos · Feb 3, 2015

@

ParanoidDrone Omega Halberd has, as far as I can tell, the thinnest geography near the ledges of any omega. Rosalina's ledge game benefits non-trivially from this as she can easily uair through the stage to a pretty substantial distance.

I understand what you're saying @

The_Jiggernaut about how in a way it's just arbitrary, but in the overwhelming majority of match-ups the differences between the omegas don't matter very much at all. On the other hand, the 5 transforming stages are all super different from each other; if I want to counterpick Halberd, I'll probably be pretty unlikely to want to counterpick Castle Siege since they favor extremely different characters and gameplay styles. I'm not even sure that "transforming" as a generic attribute actually favors any particular character whereas "flat with no platforms" definitely does. There's also not really a clear stopping point; there are probably over 20 gameplay distinct omegas with the differences between all of them being very small in most match-ups. If you allow all of them independently, FD is effectively the stage every game. It's really vague/arbitrary where to draw the line for how many to include as independent other than just lumping them as one unit which is pretty clean, and honestly even the two most different you can find are probably less than 1% as distinct as, say, Smashville and Town & City are distinct.

To address the ledge issue, while I'm continually unimpressed by people who struggle to recover to Lylat's ledges (it's just not hard with any character...), I'd like to run a thought experiment. If Omega Lylat Cruise were simply not allowed, who loses from that? The overwhelming majority of players who don't want to play on one particular omega just don't want that one, and players who really want to be tricky with the ledges are mostly going to favor default anyway which has moving ledges and all the fun those entail. I'm sympathetic to having to spend two stage bans, including to a stage you might otherwise like, just because you lack the smash skills to recover to that ledge type; yeah you really should just learn to recover on those stages, but it's pretty punishing if you are bad at it as it stands. No omega other than Omega Lylat Cruise has ledges that are anything but generous; wouldn't just getting rid of that one omega resolve that entire concern?

RESET Vao · Feb 3, 2015

Yo, this is the best thread going right now. Thanks for your observations. I'm going to chat about this to my region and see if we can make a stageset with one each of a few archtypes and other stuff available. I'll post up how it goes.

Inb4 rejected idea.

Edit: X character can't go under and around the stage to the other ledge of Onnet etc, such as Jigglypuff and Villager.

Raijinken · Feb 3, 2015

Are we going to account for grass friction in this analysis (or was that disproven or something)? Those are pretty significant for Fox and CFalc.

infomon · Feb 3, 2015

IF I counter-pick an Omega, I pick very specific omegas for specific reasons. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to pick any of them.

Also, music counterpicks are very much a thing lol. Sonic stage 2 gud.

also hai ottawa

cot(θ) · Feb 3, 2015

Counter-example to 6:

can wall jump twice to recover on walled stages. The amount of time needed to use his Up-B and second jump is enough time for his wall jump to refresh.

Also, in general, I think most characters' Up-B gives them enough vertical distance that a wall jump from below the level of Fat-Lip Floater would definitely held their recoveries.

TheHypnotoad · Feb 3, 2015

I don't understand why you have to ban omega stages at all. We can categorize them, and it will be a boon to the players who study the stages to learn the subtle differences, but why should we ban some of them? The original purpose of the omega stages was so that you could play on FD without having to deal with the same scenery and music every time, and I think that that is still the main reason to pick an omega stage over FD. If I want to pick omega Mario Galaxy (which I normally wouldn't because FD is a terrible stage for Robin, but I digress) because it looks beautiful and has some of the best music in the game, then I should be allowed to.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 3, 2015

Linkshot said:
So I talked about this last night and I'm trying to remember it all without reading logs. tl;dr is that I think Fat Lip Floater is Villager's best stage for multiple reasons. Firstly, flat-no-plat is just good for setting up a camp. Secondly, the fat lip gives more room for the bowling ball to destroy guided recoveries. Thirdly, the fact that there's a flat underside means that Villager can just hang out under there with UpB for a while. Finally, while it's the least important, allowing Villager to walljump means they get a different set of edgeguarding options (walljumping gives you brief invinc so you can dodge and throw out a slingshot or rocket).

So this is why Fat Lip Floater stands out from Kind Floater and Kind Overhang. (#5 and #6)

For #3: Mega Man and Sonic very desperately need that little walljumpable lip to extend their recoveries that extra inch. A Rude Overhang would outright kill them, while a Kind Floater would let them sneak under an edgeguard, walljump, and grab the ledge.

For #2: A Kind Edge Floater is very much not like FD because characters with long rising recoveries (Duck Hunt, Olimar, Villager) can hang out under a Kind Floater while a Like FD would just forcibly push them to the ledge. As well, long enough hitboxes (hi Shulk and Link) can sneak under a Kind Floater but only have a very "shallow" area to do that on Like FD before it gets too thick. The extra walls on Like FD also give guided projectiles less freedom.

For #1: Was just taught that Like FD allows more characters to scrooge than plain FD does. I...need more specifics on that.

And for #7... "Cruel Edge Floater gives some recoveries more wiggle room, but if you picked it based wanting to recover," that's where counterpicking comes in. Your recovery is slightly better than mine, so a Kind Edge would put us on equal footing by saving both of us, The Jerk would put us on equal footing by killing both of us, but a Cruel Edge would save you and kill me.

Looking through again, I found I needed to ask for some clarifications.

#1 You're going to have to confirm again (since I missed it) but does scrooging mean hitting through the stage? If so, I'm not actually sure that being able to do it from deeper under the stage changes recovery options themselves.

#2 What part are you referring to when you say "extra walls"? Things near the top or the bottom? When you say people can hit through the stage in Kind Edge Floater, do you mean from above or below the stage?

#3 You can't actually wall jump on a Kind Edge Floater. I will put this counter-example as a difference for #2, as apparently the ability to wall jump does make a difference. Is it because Megaman and Sonic can walljump after using upB?

moreside said:
Here's my two cents. Let's say I'm playing Little Mac and I'm picking stages to ban against a Jigglypuff. An obvious one would be Lylat Cruise, as the ledges directly nerf my recovery, while Jigglypuff is more or less totally unaffected. However, I could still get counter picked to Omega Lylat, which has precisely the problem I tried to ban. Of course I could also ban FD, but that's normally a good stage for Mac, so I'd be hurting myself by doing that.

So, my idea at least (not sure if @ The_Jiggernaut is on the same page) is as follows:

Banning FD bans all Omega stages. When you ban or strike FD, you're doing it because you want platforms. You shouldn't have waste bans on other individual Omegas.

Banning a different stage bans it, as well as Omegas that share its ledges. For example, banning Lylat Cruise means I can't be taken to Omega Lylat, or any other "Jerk" Omegas.

Banning a stage with unique platforms (Delfino, for example) does not ban any Omegas.

Now that's the ideal type of situation. I realize that memorizing which Omegas have which ledges is a stupid thing to ask of players, so I think it should suffice that banning FD bans all Omegas, and banning a non-FD stage also bans its corresponding Omega. I can't think of any problem with the current rules that this doesn't solve.

This... Gets a little complicated for me. I've specifically said that someone banning Lylat only to be taken to Omega Lylat was not a problem, but I've since realized it is when using it on people at a bi-weekly. Someone banning Lylat heavily telegraphs that they would also be uncomfortable with Omega Lylat, and so choosing it is a very easy "read" when it comes to stage selection.

There are two problems I have with your proposed method. The first is the one you point out, that it's a really difficult to memorize what ledges are shared with what Omegas. It's even a difficult thing to define, I'm not sure how it would be done. The second is that we would be imposing a general rule for the sake of a single case. Since you really want to just ban Lylat and it's Omega together, you should just propose that as a rule. (I still don't know how I feel about it, it's seems really not elegant to have an entire sentence of the rules covering this fringe case... It might be best though? I'm still not able to tell)

RESET Vao said:
Yo, this is the best thread going right now. Thanks for your observations. I'm going to chat about this to my region and see if we can make a stageset with one each of a few archtypes and other stuff available. I'll post up how it goes.

Inb4 rejected idea.

Edit: X character can't go under and around the stage to the other ledge of Onnet etc, such as Jigglypuff and Villager.

Thank you very much! I'm glad you are enjoying the discussion. Good luck with your chat. If they don't want to change the rules, the act of posting Cornstalk's 9 and a brief description as "recommended omegas" will go a long way for your community.

I feel I should mention here that I chose different representatives for the archetypes than he did on two additional criteria: Visual intuitiveness and not having any recommended Omegas overlap with the standard stage list. For examples, Wily's Castle visually looks like it has 8 ledges to grab going all the way to the blastzone but is actually coded as a wall, and Kongo Jungle 64 is a legal stage in Ottawa, so having Omega Kongo Jungle 64 would be confusing.

Also, I'll put in going under the stage as a tentative difference, as I'm not entirely sure how it changes things. I tried to switch sides against someone as Jigglypuff in a match once, and they were just able to move to the other edge before I got there. It's something I might test out myself, but it would be nice to get a sub-discussion going on in this thread.

Amazing Ampharos said:
@ ParanoidDrone Omega Halberd has, as far as I can tell, the thinnest geography near the ledges of any omega. Rosalina's ledge game benefits non-trivially from this as she can easily uair through the stage to a pretty substantial distance.

I understand what you're saying @ The_Jiggernaut about how in a way it's just arbitrary, but in the overwhelming majority of match-ups the differences between the omegas don't matter very much at all. On the other hand, the 5 transforming stages are all super different from each other; if I want to counterpick Halberd, I'll probably be pretty unlikely to want to counterpick Castle Siege since they favor extremely different characters and gameplay styles. I'm not even sure that "transforming" as a generic attribute actually favors any particular character whereas "flat with no platforms" definitely does. There's also not really a clear stopping point; there are probably over 20 gameplay distinct omegas with the differences between all of them being very small in most match-ups. If you allow all of them independently, FD is effectively the stage every game. It's really vague/arbitrary where to draw the line for how many to include as independent other than just lumping them as one unit which is pretty clean, and honestly even the two most different you can find are probably less than 1% as distinct as, say, Smashville and Town & City are distinct.

To address the ledge issue, while I'm continually unimpressed by people who struggle to recover to Lylat's ledges (it's just not hard with any character...), I'd like to run a thought experiment. If Omega Lylat Cruise were simply not allowed, who loses from that? The overwhelming majority of players who don't want to play on one particular omega just don't want that one, and players who really want to be tricky with the ledges are mostly going to favor default anyway which has moving ledges and all the fun those entail. I'm sympathetic to having to spend two stage bans, including to a stage you might otherwise like, just because you lack the smash skills to recover to that ledge type; yeah you really should just learn to recover on those stages, but it's pretty punishing if you are bad at it as it stands. No omega other than Omega Lylat Cruise has ledges that are anything but generous; wouldn't just getting rid of that one omega resolve that entire concern?

I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree. The number of matchups where the Omega stage choice doesn't matter is not overwhelming large. More than half the cast can wall jump in order to aid their recovery, so it matters if walljump-able walls are present for those. When on an Omega stage with a small guiding lip, anyone with a directional upB (also a very large chunk of the cast) must aim for a specific spot or land on stage, making their recovery much more predictable than on FD.

Although it's difficult to tell if there is a character that benefits from every transforming stage (Jigglypuff certainly likes Delfino, Skyloft, and Wuhu though), it's very easy to say that there are a handful of characters that are at a disadvantage on transforming stages, as a general attribute. Duck Hunt, Diddy, and anyone else who likes to camp gets messed up by stage changes. By the way, I don't consider Halberd a transforming stage since it "transforms" between a stage with a platform to a stage with a platform. The 5th was Pokemon Stadium 2.

While I understand that there are many small game-play differences, it is not as arbitrary as you seem to claim to find a cut-off. Cornstalk did it quite fine in the thread I linked by grouping stages based on physical details and distance measurements. And I think grouping them in terms of the cast's ability to recover is extremely objective.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't feel that you are qualified to talk about the differences between omega stages and the ease at which you can recover on certain levels during high-level play. You have explicitly stated that you outright refuse to play on FD or any Omega stage during tournaments. It's for fair for you to then talk about how easy it is to grab the ledge and how unskilled anyone that says otherwise must be. It's a disservice to a lot of talented smashers I know to say that.

Also making a statement that two stages are "less than 1% distinct" than another two is silly and makes you look unprofessional. We have no agreed upon metric to denote stage differences, so stating a percent like that is meaningless. It is equivalent for you to say "the difference between Smashville and Town and City is over 9000." When I say that Smashville and Town and City are very similar, I'm not talking about the song choice or the backgrounds. All recovery options are identical for both stages and characters with kill throws and shiek kill very early on both stages due to platforms that move closer to the blatzones. Just because the platforms are in different locations, that does not mean the strategies are actually different strategically.

I personally hate Lylat Cruise and love Omega Lylat, and others (including @

infomon ) have stated the same. Since the stage moves, you effectively get moving blastzones, and I end up getting killed rather early as Jigglypuff. Because Jiggs has no upB, she very frequently gets killed by the stage moving away from her last jump. She's not the only character that gets messed up by Lylat's "quirks". Outright removing it, does not feel like a satisfying solution. I've said it before but banning a stage that's identical to Lylat Cruise except it does not move, is a straight surface, and has no platforms while the rest of the community considers Lylat Cruise a starter stage would make us look like a joke.

Raijinken said:
Are we going to account for grass friction in this analysis (or was that disproven or something)? Those are pretty significant for Fox and CFalc.

Actually, I strongly agree that grass makes a significant difference. And that's precisely why I don't feel the need to put it in the analysis. If I stated Grass Stage is strategically equivalent to Non-Grass Stage, you've already pointed out two indisputable counter-examples, and I'm sure there are many more. I guess I did that step in my head in order to keep the thread as clean as I could (still pretty messy I think), though maybe it would have been best to mention it before.

It's sort of hard to say how we should handle grass stages. it's not significant to put a "grass stage" option into the striking pool, because anyone with a disadvantage on grass would far too easily remove that option from game 1. Should we have one legal grass Omega and just make the choice for which one it is for people? Part of this thread's analysis is to see which stages are interchangeable, so part of my hope is that it becomes obvious that all but 1 or 2 grass stages are strategically the same. Do we recognize it's difference but ban it? It seems to early in the game to make that choice. I'm honestly not sure how to handle it, though I would be willing to discuss grass further

EDIT: I see more people have posted while I was typing. I will get to these responses when I get back home

infomon · Feb 3, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
I personally hate Lylat Cruise and love Omega Lylat, and others (including @ infomon ) have stated the same.

wait wait wait

I love Lylat and Omega Lylat. Omega Lylat is a great choice if they banned Lylat but not Omegas

But depending on the matchup, I might want Windy Hill Zone (grass, straight walljumpy walls, better music than Yoshi's Island but that depends on my mood) or Mushroom Kingdom U (grass, overhang walls lead to some Pika tricks).

moreside · Feb 3, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
Someone banning Lylat heavily telegraphs that they would also be uncomfortable with Omega Lylat, and so choosing it is a very easy "read" when it comes to stage selection.

This is largely where my ideas are coming from, and Lylat is just the most obvious example of it. When you ban a stage, you ban it for a reason. You ban FD because you want platforms, you ban Delfino because you don't want the transformations, and so on. It may also be the case that the reason for the ban is due to the main platform of the stage. In this case, since nearly all main platforms are shared by at least one Omega stage, I find it silly that one would have to ban the stage in question, as well as FD just to prevent the one stage's platform.

I realize that it's a super fringe case and I honestly don't believe it to be all that important, but it's something that might be worth considering nonetheless.

The_Jiggernaut said:
There are two problems I have with your proposed method. The first is the one you point out, that it's a really difficult to memorize what ledges are shared with what Omegas. It's even a difficult thing to define, I'm not sure how it would be done. The second is that we would be imposing a general rule for the sake of a single case. Since you really want to just ban Lylat and it's Omega together, you should just propose that as a rule. (I still don't know how I feel about it, it's seems really not elegant to have an entire sentence of the rules covering this fringe case... It might be best though? I'm still not able to tell)

After posting and reflecting on it, I've noticed a bunch of problems with that method too. Regardless, as far as how I figured it'd work, your classification system would come into play by being able to sort main platforms based on "the smallest list of Omega stages we can make without losing any strategic options." As far as Lylat, I was really only using it as an example, though it may be the only example really worth any thought.

All in all I'm really just trying to find a legitimate application of your classification system. I may have misinterpreted but if we're just splitting them up to classify them as separate stages, then I'd strongly disagree. As I said, you ban FD because you want platforms. The current rule of banning FD means no Omegas should definitely stay in place. Sure, some characters benefit more from some Omegas more than others, but that really only matters to the counterpicker. If you've got a wall jump, pick a straight walled stage, etc. I don't think Omega differences should affect our approach to the stagelist if that's what we're going for.

Cornstalk · Feb 3, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
Straight Walls: Onett
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/4/47/SSB4UOnettOmega.jpg
Under Stage Walls: Boxing Ring
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/b/b9/SSB4UBoxingRingOmega.jpg
Overhang Walls: Bridge of Eldin
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f6/SSB4UBridgeOfEldinOmega.jpg
Rude Walls: Kalos Pokemon League
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/0/0e/SSB4UKalosPokemonLeagueOmega.jpg
Like FD: Palutena's Temple
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e2/SSB4UPalutenasTempleOmega.jpg
Cruel Edge Floater: Pilotwings
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/2/20/SSB4UPilotwingsOmega.jpg
Kind Edge Floater: Norfair
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/f/f2/SSB4UNorfairOmega.jpg
Fat Lip Floater: Orbital Gate Assault
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/e/e3/SSB4UOrbitalGateAssaultOmega.jpg
The Jerk: Lylat Cruise
http://www.ssbwiki.com/images/6/61/SSB4ULylatCruiseOmega.jpg

I'm going to try and approach these from the idea of what play styles will like and hate these enough to want to ban them.

Fat-lip and Overhang
These are architecturally similar where most of the match will take place. The only strange feature of these stages is wall sticking vs edge sweet-spotting. Every one and a while characters like

and

will wall stick at the ledge instead of grabbing it. This happens on straight wall stages as well, but doesn't seem to be nearly as frequent. This could actually be considered an annoying inconsistency rather than a true feature of the stage type.

Honestly, both of these could be completely removed as a choice and I find it unlikely anyone would even miss them for genuine gameplay affecting reasons (sorry, cool music doesn't count!)

Like FD and Kind Edge Floaters
The main difference between these comes down to trading the ability to attack slightly deeper into the stage from under it for a small section you can wall jump. These two could be combine into one category, thus shrinking the list by 1 more (taking us down to 6)

Cruel Edge Floaters and Lylat (the Jerk)
The whole purpose of picking these is to make it harder for characters like

who have a wonky Up-B to sweetspot the edge. Because the guiding lip is so small, even floaty shark characters like

will be hesitant to attack from below the stage because recovery will be much more risky compared to other Omegas.

Straight vs Rude walls vs Understage Walls:

and others that have options to attack straight down like

may prefer the rude walls over the straight, but this only has an impact against characters that can wall jump/stick.

This is a really hard one to narrow down, even from limited experience. I think it will make more sense if I share my experiences with these from helping a friend practice

vs

Straight Walls: Bowling balls were a threat to diddy, but wall jumping and sticking could stall or escape the ball drop. So there were enough options to avoid it.

Rude Walls: Diddy making the mistake of Up-B against the wall when Village was ready meant bowling ball to the head. Diddy had no real options because of the limit of the wall if he ended up in a bad spot against it.

Overhang Wall: This one provides a cool stall. As Diddy, I have been able to cling to the wall under the lip (Luigi's mansion) and wait for a fully charged bowling ball to pass by before recovering safely while villager was in after lag. Should the wall stick wear off, diddy simply drops straight down but can still Up-B (and I believe wall jump still, just not stick)

I could say Straight and Overhang could be potentially combine to one, as they mostly achieve the same thing in a slightly different way.

So condensing the list could easily look like this:

Like FD + Kind Floater
Cruel Edge + Lylat
Straight Wall
Rude Wall (no cling/jump)
Under Stage Wall

or

Like FD + Kind Floater
Cruel Edge + Lylat
Straight Wall + Under Stage Wall
Rude Wall (no cling/jump)

If you take it a step further and do FD + Like FD + Kind Floater, they all are considered the same stage for striking. At that point you only have 3 flat variants added to the stage list.

Depending on how many strikes are allowed, would having 3 more flat stages on the roster make a huge difference when we already have FD and the mostly flat Smasville and Duckhunt on there already?

KeithTheGeek · Feb 3, 2015

Personally, I think categorizing Omega Stages as separate stages is just a little bit too confusing and unwieldy to deal with for a tournament set. I respect the differences between any given Omega stage, for example being unable to wall jump on Kalos and Galaxy, but I would tend to agree that for the most part the differences are minor enough to not really warrant counting them as separate entities from FD.

I'd like to add onto what @

moreside proposed above. If I understand correctly, he wants the following:

Banning FD bans all Omega Stages
Banning a stage also bans the corresponding Omega stage, but not FD/Omegas in general

I also think that for game 1, if players strike and are left with FD, they should have the option of starting on a different Omega instead, probably Palutena's Temple because of its similarities. I know that I personally as a player dislike the background of the regular FD stage - it obscures visual details (Crash Bombs, Paralyzer Shots, other projectiles) and when the background transitions the bright flash is distracting AND makes certain characters hard to see.

Outside of that, though, I think it's on the player to know what differences, if any, affects their character's matchups in any notable way. Mega Man mains might have to be wary of Omega Kalos, but that doesn't really affect me as a Dedede player. Conversely, if I was to counterpick FD against Mega Man for whatever reason, it might be wise for me to go for Kalos instead.

The only real issue I see with banning a stage also banning the omega, is that it leaves Omegas in that a character might want to ban but can't without striking FD. Such as the example of Kalos Pokemon League I keep coming back to. Maybe the omega forms of the banned stages should be dropped, as well? It's tricky thinking of a proper solution to this that doesn't feel convoluted, yet I don't think the current method of "banning FD bans omegas" is enough for certain characters.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 4, 2015

Hey everyone! Finally back home... past midnight. Going to see if I can get to all your posts. Got a lot of Omega testing done today with @

Linkshot

Some results I updated the first thread with. One other notable result was fooling around with grass. For sure it makes a big difference to many characters. It seems to simply halve the distance traveled after a forward dash, which results in worse jump-canceled moves and half-speed foxtrotting. I doesn't modify general run speed, however.

We also tested Standard Kalos as a stage. All I have to say on that is... still better than Pokemon Stadium 2.

Bigjoe5 said:
Counter-example to 6:
can wall jump twice to recover on walled stages. The amount of time needed to use his Up-B and second jump is enough time for his wall jump to refresh.

Also, in general, I think most characters' Up-B gives them enough vertical distance that a wall jump from below the level of Fat-Lip Floater would definitely held their recoveries.

Awesome, thanks for the contribution. I played, like an hour of Megaman today and can't believe I didn't try walljumping twice. It's added to the original post in #6, as well as #5 as it happens to apply to both.

infzy said:
IF I counter-pick an Omega, I pick very specific omegas for specific reasons. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to pick any of them.

Also, music counterpicks are very much a thing lol. Sonic stage 2 gud.

also hai ottawa

infzy said:
wait wait wait

I love Lylat and Omega Lylat. Omega Lylat is a great choice if they banned Lylat but not Omegas But depending on the matchup, I might want Windy Hill Zone (grass, straight walljumpy walls, better music than Yoshi's Island but that depends on my mood) or Mushroom Kingdom U (grass, overhang walls lead to some Pika tricks).

Ottawa says hai!

One thing I really need to mention is that there are several different directions we can take the end result of this thread. A few of which don't involve restricting choice on an omega counterpick. If we all decide the rules can't be changed without fracturing the community, one thing that needs to be done is point out on the stage list itself examples of Omegas that are different so players can look at them and have an idea what actual options they have. If we find that only 5 stages offer strategic variance then that's all the more readable than 9 stages. Another method involves including certain Omegas as striking options in the context of a 13 stage strike, but allowing complete freedom in counterpicks

But, there are some options that do involve limiting the Omega stage list. And if we see that it's better for the game as a whole to do that, we have to be ready to follow through. It sucks that people get their freedom limited, but tournaments simply aren't about comfort. I'm sure when people in melee wanted to ban the vast majority of the stages, people complained about visual and music choices being constrained. If you really enjoy the music of a certain stage, bring an MP3 player to the event.

Though I do very much apologize for misquoting you on Lylat/Lylat Omega. How do you feel about the proposition of simply banning Omega Lylat from the stage list? Do you feel the stages are similar enough that it wouldn't be a problem, and how do you think it would solve (or not solve) the issues?

EDIT: Oops, I've since changed my mind on the issue, I strongly think we need to choose a handful of omega stages and ban the rest. If we allow people to choose whatever they like, that forces every player to memorize every single stage difference in case it comes up. More in the spoiler tag a few quotes down.

TheHypnotoad said:
I don't understand why you have to ban omega stages at all. We can categorize them, and it will be a boon to the players who study the stages to learn the subtle differences, but why should we ban some of them? The original purpose of the omega stages was so that you could play on FD without having to deal with the same scenery and music every time, and I think that that is still the main reason to pick an omega stage over FD. If I want to pick omega Mario Galaxy (which I normally wouldn't because FD is a terrible stage for Robin, but I digress) because it looks beautiful and has some of the best music in the game, then I should be allowed to.

Some of what I said above to Infzy applies here. I don't necessarily think it best to ban omega stages, but at the same time, it might be better for how we play. While I am sympathetic towards wanting to choose a personal favorite stage, I don't think that music selection should be someone we build a ruleset off of. Part of the problem with this is that you're are asking that every single player memorize 40+ stages and their differences just so you can have music you personally like play during a match. I go into this in more detail a few quotes below (it's the only thing in spoiler tags)

Although Omega stages were announced as "FD with different music", we know better now. None of the stages, in fact, are actually identical to FD. Besides, when has the Smash community ever used something as it was "originally intended"? Remember that this is a game designed around items, including smash balls, and meant to be played on Time rather than Stock. Besides that, it doesn't seem important to me that we use things as intended. We have been given a number of tools to shape our ruleset, and we should use all of them to make the best experience possible.

moreside said:
After posting and reflecting on it, I've noticed a bunch of problems with that method too. Regardless, as far as how I figured it'd work, your classification system would come into play by being able to sort main platforms based on "the smallest list of Omega stages we can make without losing any strategic options." As far as Lylat, I was really only using it as an example, though it may be the only example really worth any thought.

All in all I'm really just trying to find a legitimate application of your classification system. I may have misinterpreted but if we're just splitting them up to classify them as separate stages, then I'd strongly disagree. As I said, you ban FD because you want platforms. The current rule of banning FD means no Omegas should definitely stay in place. Sure, some characters benefit more from some Omegas more than others, but that really only matters to the counterpicker. If you've got a wall jump, pick a straight walled stage, etc. I don't think Omega differences should affect our approach to the stagelist if that's what we're going for.

So it seems we might not be on the same page with things, that's unfortunate. I'm not sure what sort of thing based off of the classifications of this thread you mean, exactly. Yes, part of this thread is to see what other options we have besides the simple Ban FD=Ban Omega rule we have in place. Some of those options might involve remove the rule in favor of other things. I'm personally interested in a scenario where we have a few Omega stages on the same level as standard stages, but that doesn't have to be the outcome.

See, the interesting part of this thread is that I don't actually know where it will take us. We might find a load of counter-examples to claims that stages are identical, and that would lead us to an absolutely objective statement that all 9 archetypes are needed to express every option. In a case like that, treating the Omega stages as part of FD is probably for the best. However, we'd know that for sure, rather than just assuming it's best because it's the way we've always done it.

Or, this thread to could to an absolutely objective statement that many of the 9 archetypes are redundant from a strategic standpoint and we end up with the knowledge that only 2 or 3 of the 40+ Omega states are needed to express the full list. If that happens, I strongly feel that incorporating these few into our stage list would be manageable.

Perhaps we'll end up with something in-between, and we can work in either direction from there. Rather than wanting a specific outcome, I want to know what our options are.

KeithTheGeek said:
Personally, I think categorizing Omega Stages as separate stages is just a little bit too confusing and unwieldy to deal with for a tournament set. I respect the differences between any given Omega stage, for example being unable to wall jump on Kalos and Galaxy, but I would tend to agree that for the most part the differences are minor enough to not really warrant counting them as separate entities from FD.

I'd like to add onto what @ moreside proposed above. If I understand correctly, he wants the following:

Banning FD bans all Omega Stages

Banning a stage also bans the corresponding Omega stage, but not FD/Omegas in general

I also think that for game 1, if players strike and are left with FD, they should have the option of starting on a different Omega instead, probably Palutena's Temple because of its similarities. I know that I personally as a player dislike the background of the regular FD stage - it obscures visual details (Crash Bombs, Paralyzer Shots, other projectiles) and when the background transitions the bright flash is distracting AND makes certain characters hard to see.

Outside of that, though, I think it's on the player to know what differences, if any, affects their character's matchups in any notable way. Mega Man mains might have to be wary of Omega Kalos, but that doesn't really affect me as a Dedede player. Conversely, if I was to counterpick FD against Mega Man for whatever reason, it might be wise for me to go for Kalos instead.

The only real issue I see with banning a stage also banning the omega, is that it leaves Omegas in that a character might want to ban but can't without striking FD. Such as the example of Kalos Pokemon League I keep coming back to. Maybe the omega forms of the banned stages should be dropped, as well? It's tricky thinking of a proper solution to this that doesn't feel convoluted, yet I don't think the current method of "banning FD bans omegas" is enough for certain characters.

While I agree that categories for Omega stages might are not trivial to learn, the current stage list requires you to remember the differences between every single Omega stage, which isn't exactly ideal either.

As this is sort of a side point where I argue the necessity of only allowing players to pick from a certain set of Omega stage rather than the whole list, I'm going to put it in spoiler tags.

You state that it should be on the player to be aware of the differences Omega stages would make in a matchup (which is more or less fair, so long as we give the player the tools to be aware of these differences, but I digress) which does require a player to memorize all 40+ stages.

If the Megaman player in this example should watch out for Omega Kalos, then he also has to remember which of the 10 or so stages with walls to the blastzones can be walljumped. Heck, he even has to remember which of the list HAVE walls at all. Because if a player counterpicks Omega Pac-Land, he's just got to outright know that it has walls and that they can't be walljumped on. I think this is too much to expect of everyone, especially new players

This is precisely the reason why I want to normalize the Omega stage list. Even if we want to keep the Ban FD, Ban Omegas rule, it would go a long way to ban all but 9 Omega stages that represent the 9 archetypes presented by Cornstalk (maybe a 10th for a single grass option?). With what might be shown in this thread, we might be able to have a list even smaller than that. Yes, we lose a lot of people's favorite stages, yes we lose good music, but it's just ridiculous that we demand this level of recall from players.

Actually, currently in Ottawa we go to Palutena's Temple Omega whenever FD is struck to. I believe that it's a great substitute and the minor differences have never been felt. Projectiles being obscured by the transition was recently pointed out to me, and I've been pretty adamant about it since. So if any of your regions aren't doing this, you should discuss this with your local TO's.

There's been a bit of discussion of the proposed rule that banning a stage should also ban it's Omega variant. I'm really against it personally, as it's a general rule that only actually effects the Lylat Cruise and Lylat Omega pair, as other types of stages (like Rude Walls) have too many options to ban out this way.

I 100% agree that leaving things the way they are with JUST "banning FD bans omegas" is unsatisfactory for some characters. I also agree that it's hard to come up with something to solve this that isn't convoluted. That's it, there's no 'but' I just outright agree with you on these points.

Cornstalk said:
I'm going to try and approach these from the idea of what play styles will like and hate these enough to want to ban them.

Fat-lip and Overhang
These are architecturally similar where most of the match will take place. The only strange feature of these stages is wall sticking vs edge sweet-spotting. Every one and a while characters like and will wall stick at the ledge instead of grabbing it. This happens on straight wall stages as well, but doesn't seem to be nearly as frequent. This could actually be considered an annoying inconsistency rather than a true feature of the stage type.

Honestly, both of these could be completely removed as a choice and I find it unlikely anyone would even miss them for genuine gameplay affecting reasons (sorry, cool music doesn't count!)

Like FD and Kind Edge Floaters
The main difference between these comes down to trading the ability to attack slightly deeper into the stage from under it for a small section you can wall jump. These two could be combine into one category, thus shrinking the list by 1 more (taking us down to 6)

Cruel Edge Floaters and Lylat (the Jerk)
The whole purpose of picking these is to make it harder for characters like who have a wonky Up-B to sweetspot the edge. Because the guiding lip is so small, even floaty shark characters like will be hesitant to attack from below the stage because recovery will be much more risky compared to other Omegas.

Straight vs Rude walls vs Understage Walls:

and others that have options to attack straight down like may prefer the rude walls over the straight, but this only has an impact against characters that can wall jump/stick.

This is a really hard one to narrow down, even from limited experience. I think it will make more sense if I share my experiences with these from helping a friend practice vs

Straight Walls: Bowling balls were a threat to diddy, but wall jumping and sticking could stall or escape the ball drop. So there were enough options to avoid it.

Rude Walls: Diddy making the mistake of Up-B against the wall when Village was ready meant bowling ball to the head. Diddy had no real options because of the limit of the wall if he ended up in a bad spot against it.

Under Stage Walls: This one provides a cool stall. As Diddy, I have been able to cling to the wall under the lip (Luigi's mansion) and wait for a fully charged bowling ball to pass by before recovering safely while villager was in after lag. Should the wall stick wear off, diddy simply drops straight down but can still Up-B (and I believe wall jump still, just not stick)

I could say Straight and Under Stage could be potentially combine to one, as they mostly achieve the same thing in a slightly different way.

So condensing the list could easily look like this:

Like FD + Kind Floater

Cruel Edge + Lylat

Straight Wall

Rude Wall (no cling/jump)

Under Stage Wall

or

Like FD + Kind Floater

Cruel Edge + Lylat

Straight Wall + Under Stage Wall

Rude Wall (no cling/jump)

If you take it a step further and do FD + Like FD + Kind Floater, they all are considered the same stage for striking. At that point you only have 3 flat variants added to the stage list.

Depending on how many strikes are allowed, would having 3 more flat stages on the roster make a huge difference when we already have FD and the mostly flat Smasville and Duckhunt on there already?

This analysis is looking good. It seems a little removed from the thread itself, but it's still valuable. Actually, there's a specific claim I want your opinion on, 3) Rude Wall = Kind Floater. So in the case where you talk about Diddy vs Villager on Rude walls, although it would not be as easy to drop a bowling ball on the Diddy, would the Villager have strong options to edgeguard the Diddy on a Kind Edge Floater? For example, dropping of the stage and using either slingshot or turnips seem like good options, just in a different form than a bowling ball. Does this change feel like a strategic difference to you? Like, with Rude Walls taken away, are you suddenly unable to take Diddy to a stage where you can still fully edgeguard him?

I'm kind of ok with removing Fat Lip Floaters and Overhang Walls, though there are some weird Villager outliers that make them technically unique stages strategically. Villager has been one HUGE outlier this whole analysis though, so I'm not really against removing them

I actually really like the idea of pairs of bans, in fact I had a similar idea earlier. I was going to save it until after the analysis was done, but since you've put something so similar forward, I'll go ahead.

Ok so this forces me to make a few predictions on how the analysis will go. So baselessly, I will state that we will find that only about half of the 9 archetypes are needed to express the full list strategically. So we add the following changes to the stage list:

Final Destination (Like FD + Kind Floater)
Walls (Straight Wall + Under Stage Wall)
Lylat (Lylat Cruise + Lylat Omega)

And that's it. If you pick one of these options you can chose either of the two listed stage, but banning these options bans both listed stages.

This stands out for me for a few reasons. Firstly, the impulse everyone has to ban Lylat Omega with Lylat Cruise itself is satisfied, BUT there's an actual president for removing more than one stage using a single ban, so it's not as arbitrary or as much of an exception as it was before. Secondly, if you really really don't want to play on a flat stage with an easy recover, you can ban out the option. Remember that we're not very concerned about Diddy or Fox picking Lylat Omega for the flat surface alone, as dying easily is a problem for them. A stage like Smashville is a much better pick for them.

Yes it's different, yes it would take getting used to, but honestly it's a lot easier to learn than every single Omega stage. Remember too, that if the analysis does go in the direction to support this, those stages alone would objectively represent every strategic option the Omega stagelist has to offer.

If you don't agree with certain stages being left out, then come up with a few counter-examples to show that those stages aren't interchangeable. Actually, as amazing as the discussion has been, I do need more counter-examples to finish things up with the analysis, so those are appreciated.

TheHypnotoad · Feb 5, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
Part of the problem with this is that you're are asking that every single player memorize 40+ stages and their differences

These "differences" are so incredibly minor that the chances of them actually affecting a match in a substantial way are pretty much nonexistent. The only one you might have a point on is Lylat for screwing with recoveries, but that's it. Even the wall jump vs. no wall jump isn't game-changing, since players won't be wall jumping very often anyway. It's ridiculous to ban stages for no reason just for the sake of "simplicity".

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 5, 2015

TheHypnotoad said:
These "differences" are so incredibly minor that the chances of them actually affecting a match in a substantial way are pretty much nonexistent. The only one you might have a point on is Lylat for screwing with recoveries, but that's it. Even the wall jump vs. no wall jump isn't game-changing, since players won't be wall jumping very often anyway. It's ridiculous to ban stages for no reason just for the sake of "simplicity".

I don't know if I buy your arguments that the differences being too minor to matter, but a lot of people feel that way so you're entitled to that opinion. This thread is designed to check if that's objectively true of not. We might find at the end of it all, that it is indeed true that they are interchangeable. If we find they all offer different recovery options, your opinion will still be that these differences are too small to matter. And that's fine.

However, what about wallclinging for shiek and diddy? Do you really feel like there's no advantage to be gained by them ever preforming that? What about Megaman and sonic walljumping after their an upB that would have fallen just too short. Not all stages allow this. Is there a reason I'm not aware of why these fringe cases don't change a game?

However, if you really think the stages are too similar to matter, why should we bother with them? Do we honestly need over 40 ways to say FD? I understand that people have music and visuals they like, but why have it twice as many stages in our stagelist if all of them are too identical to ever effect a match? I see why you might not want that, but I don't see why you would consider simplifying the rules to be ridiculous.

hey_there · Feb 5, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
simplifying the rules

In principle I agree that having the differences expressed formally might be quite good, but I suspect that a lot of players (myself included) won't see a standard omega list of 9 stages as as simpler than FD=Omega. One of them involves remembering a single stage, while the other involves remembering 9 stages. It adds another layer of tedium before a match. I've noticed a lot of people already have trouble remembering a stage list while striking, and adding in 9 specific Omega stages as legal does not come across as simplifying the rules.

Lavani · Feb 5, 2015

The_Jiggernaut said:
2) Kind Edge Floater = Like FD
Counter-examples:

and those with long, rising recoveries can stall a bit under a Kind Edge Floater by moving past the guiding lip before using their upB, then moving back to be guided up before their upB runs out. This isn't possible on Like FD [Although a mechanical difference, I'm not sure how viable or safe this is for Duck Hunt and Olimar, who are very vulnerable in these recoveries. Villager, to my knowledge, can choose not to rise at all, so he should be able to stall even when touching a guiding lip]

Just a heads-up on Olimar's recovery, he can actually choose to move in any direction (including down) during it, and to my recollection has a better airspeed than Villager's. Duck Hunt is forced to rise, though.

TheHypnotoad · Feb 6, 2015

Look, the thing I don't understand is, what is banning them supposed to actually do? Supposedly it's meant to keep things simple so that players don't have to remember every single Omega stage, but why would they even have to? The players who use characters who might have a very slight advantage on one Omega stage over another will remember which one is good for them, and the ones who don't will not. "But wait," you say, "the other players WILL have to memorize it so that they can stage ban them!" Well if we're considering every single one to be completely separate stages, not only are we adding a whopping 9 more stages to the current list, but we are giving characters like Little Mac huge advantages while giving characters like Robin huge disadvantages, because you can't possibly ban all 10 FD stages. "Well then we'll just have to treat them as special cases during stage banning." Now you're making the process MORE complicated. Your idea would make the stage striking process a complete nightmare. Either you have to ban every Omega stage, or we just treat the Omega stages as being equivalent to FD and allow all of them. Anything else would make stage striking totally convoluted.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 6, 2015

hey_there said:
In principle I agree that having the differences expressed formally might be quite good, but I suspect that a lot of players (myself included) won't see a standard omega list of 9 stages as as simpler than FD=Omega. One of them involves remembering a single stage, while the other involves remembering 9 stages. It adds another layer of tedium before a match. I've noticed a lot of people already have trouble remembering a stage list while striking, and adding in 9 specific Omega stages as legal does not come across as simplifying the rules.

Ok, so this is a common misunderstanding, I think. I certainly agree that the scenario (I believe) you're describing is overly-complicated and would make things worse and not better. However, I am not proposing this system.

If we have a legal list of 9 Omega stages it would not be replaces the FD=Omega rule, we wouldn't add all 9 to the striking list, and we certainly wouldn't have all 9 as separate legal stages.

When I talk about a legal list of 9 Omegas, it means when someone counterpicks an Omega stage, they have to pick from a list of 9, rather than a list of 40-something. Although some memorization would be required as to which ones would be legal, (encouraging your region to write up a physical stage list and post it by stations is generally a valuable thing to do if people are finding the list difficult to keep track of) the amount is significantly less than the amount of memorization 40+ Omegas require.

The only situation where I would consider adding Omega stages to the entire stage list is if we find that only 3 or so Omega stages are functionally different in terms of the strategy they provide. And that's still hard to know if that would be the proper course of action.

Lavani said:
Just a heads-up on Olimar's recovery, he can actually choose to move in any direction (including down) during it, and to my recollection has a better airspeed than Villager's. Duck Hunt is forced to rise, though.

Thank you for the heads up! That kind of reformulates things a little bit, and I think it makes it not a true difference for them. I'll update the main thread when after I respond to everyone.

EDIT: A little late, but it's updated. I sort of realized that would mean he can also stall at will if he has that much control and that doesn't change different stages.

TheHypnotoad said:
Look, the thing I don't understand is, what is banning them supposed to actually do? Supposedly it's meant to keep things simple so that players don't have to remember every single Omega stage, but why would they even have to? The players who use characters who might have a very slight advantage on one Omega stage over another will remember which one is good for them, and the ones who don't will not. "But wait," you say, "the other players WILL have to memorize it so that they can stage ban them!" Well if we're considering every single one to be completely separate stages, not only are we adding a whopping 9 more stages to the current list, but we are giving characters like Little Mac huge advantages while giving characters like Robin huge disadvantages, because you can't possibly ban all 10 FD stages. "Well then we'll just have to treat them as special cases during stage banning." Now you're making the process MORE complicated. Your idea would make the stage striking process a complete nightmare. Either you have to ban every Omega stage, or we just treat the Omega stages as being equivalent to FD and allow all of them. Anything else would make stage striking totally convoluted.

Alright, first of all... Don't Strawman me. It's beyond rude. Telling me what I'm going to say just so you can shoot it down easily is not going to fly here. Just don't.

The formulation you describe is indeed convoluted, which is why I don't agree we should use it. I'm not entirely sure what you're even suggesting I would suggest, but I will refer you my above response to Hey_There about not having all 9 Omega stages on the same footing as other stages.

To clarify on this a bit further, I'm quite aware that having an unbannable amount of Flat stages with no platforms gives an unfair advantage to those characters that are strong on those stages. So, if there are as many as 9 Omegas taking out FD=Omega for bans is not reasonable.

You're right that when counterpicking you just have to remember the stage you're good on. But when someone's counterpicking against you... that's when things change. Since someone can choose any Omega stage they like, you have to be ready to know all of them if you're playing a character who's recovery depends on that choice. This is so you can properly decide on a character switch. And yes, this situation exists.

I've already talked about this at length today, so I will simply quote the post I made earlier

The_Jiggernaut said:
So lets say a player wins a match with his Megaman (he seconds Jigglypuff), and his opponent is counterpicking. The opponent names an Omega stage, which the player vaguely remembers has straight walls in it, but not if he can wall jump off of them (note that this is NOT something conveyed in the visuals). So it could be one of 13 Omega stages, 10 with walljumps, and 3 without.

Why does this detail matter? Because Megaman can extend his recovery after he uses upB by walljumping. This difference is non-trivial and significant. It's more than just theory, I've personally experienced the difference it can make during a match. If the stage doesn't allow for this extension of recovery, the player may feel more comfortable using his secondary Jigglypuff, or some other character that doesn't rely on walljumping to recover. The knowledge of what's in store is an important factor of his decision to switch.

Let's look at a similar case where the opponent counterpicks an Omega stage and the player vaguely remembers instead that it floats and has a narrow lip, but doesn't remember if you can walljump near the tip. So it could be any of 19 Omega stages, 6 of which allow this and 13 of which do not.

Using the same argument as above, this difference is non-trivial and the lack of a walljump is an important factor in the decision to switch characters.

So where does that leave us? In order for any Megaman player to know what their recovery options are (on these two examples alone), they must keep track of 32 Omega stages. Now, you can come up with any sort of mimetic you'd like to help you remember them, but it's still true that you are tracking 32 stages. This is more than double the amount our current legal list has; it's honestly a lot. Additionally, as Sonic can do the exact same trick to help him recover, I can repeat the entire Megaman argument for him. So if you want to play either character the rules currently require you to track 32 extra stages. I believe I can safely say that that is a large knowledge barrier.

Alternatively, my proposition requires the same players in those same situations to know 4 Omega stages. Just four. If we have only one representative Omega legal per archetype, it substantially decreases the knowledge barrier while simultaneously leaving high-level play untouched. You can say there are 9 significant archetypes, you can say there are less. As long as we keep the rule that banning FD also bans Omegas nothing would change except the amount of meaningless details we expect players to memorize

Note also, that the rule "Any stage may be chosen so long as both players agree" would remain, so this would not stop players from picking Omegas that both of them are comfortable with.

lordvaati · Feb 9, 2015

There was one thing that I saw on GameFAQS and may apply here is an actual interesting reason for a stage ban-background. this is moreso an issue with traditional fighters, but it seems to one here as well-namely that the bacground can blind users from seeing what's going on in the fight sometimes. and the most shocking fact is that this happens on FD proper. since I play 3DS(which seems to be not that big an issue there), I can't really weigh on this, but apparently some Wii-U players say that the dynamic background of Final Destination can hide projectiles too easy and the like.

perhaps for your all-Omega ruling, vanilla FD should be banned due to this issue.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 9, 2015

lordvaati said:
There was one thing that I saw on GameFAQS and may apply here is an actual interesting reason for a stage ban-background. this is moreso an issue with traditional fighters, but it seems to one here as well-namely that the bacground can blind users from seeing what's going on in the fight sometimes. and the most shocking fact is that this happens on FD proper. since I play 3DS(which seems to be not that big an issue there), I can't really weigh on this, but apparently some Wii-U players say that the dynamic background of Final Destination can hide projectiles too easy and the like.

perhaps for your all-Omega ruling, vanilla FD should be banned due to this issue.

It's good to know that this is an actual discussion in the general fighting game community, thank you. Yeah, it seems to be a real issue in this game, unfortunately in one of the series' largest staples (at the very least there's the most memes about it). A lot of people tend to recognize this is a problem, most people electing to go to Palu temple instead of FD. But I think you're right, as part of the analysis, I'll likely add in the recommendation to remove FD as a legal stage.

And to all of you out there, I think I'll be giving this thread 1 or 2 more days to come up with counter-examples for the 7 claims, and then I'll be moving on to a mysterious Stage 2 of this analysis. So make sure you get your word in before then!

Sekaru · Feb 17, 2015

I realize I may be a little late to comment in. but I truly believe there should be a firm distinction between straight wall omega's and all others at the very least.. they allow for very different kinds of players (see vertical falling attacks/wall jumpers/wall clingers) I think in bans phase you should be able to ban fd (resulting in the ban of all omega's EXCEPT straight wall omegas) or ban straight wall omega's. I think due to the vast strategic difference they should be counted as seperate stage types.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 17, 2015

Sekaru said:
I realize I may be a little late to comment in. but I truly believe there should be a firm distinction between straight wall omega's and all others at the very least.. they allow for very different kinds of players (see vertical falling attacks/wall jumpers/wall clingers) I think in bans phase you should be able to ban fd (resulting in the ban of all omega's EXCEPT straight wall omegas) or ban straight wall omega's. I think due to the vast strategic difference they should be counted as seperate stage types.

Hey there, you're not too late, don't worry. I know I said I'd have part 2 up.... a week ago, but I've been behind on that so it's all good. It is on the way, however!

I guess what I have to say to that is by and large, I do agree with that. The straight walled Omegas are very distinct gameplay options when compared to FD. I also really like the idea of omega stages existing straight up on the stage list itself. If they're different stages, then the Omega label actually doesn't mean anything, right? However, I think by and large it's not a change that's right for the community at this time. Something of that style is something I'd eventually like to see occur in the community, but right now there's too many problems due to not really knowing what kind of change that would make to the metagame.

For instance, you would have to use both of your bans in order to stop your opponent from choosing an FD/Omega. This is not as bad of a scenario if you couldn't ban out the option at all, but it's still pretty polarizing (I don't know if this is bad or not though. This is a detail that is unknown to us due to our young metagame). Although walled Omegas offer different options, there are some characters that are not affected by the difference between FD and walled Omegas (namely those who do not walljump) so your proposed system allows them to choose the exact same option even if FD/Omegas were banned.

Speaking of similar options, how do Walled Omegas that cannot be walljumped off of factor in? Do we put them in with the rest of the walled Omegas, or with FD/Omegas? It's also hard to figure out where stages with thick, wall-jumpable lips would be categorized.

That being said, I do think once everyone starts understanding the strategic differences (if any) of the Omega stages and stops considering them interchangeable, adding Omega stages directly to the stagelist will be an option worth exploring.

The_Jiggernaut · Feb 20, 2015

I've finished off my analysis! Check it out in the first post of this thread (I edited it)

Discussion regarding part 2 will be discussed after this post

Condensing The Omega Stage List (Needs Input)

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Master

Smash Ace

Smash Champion

Smash Ace

Smash Hero

Smash Cadet

Smash Ace

Balanced Brawl Designer

Smash Cadet

Smash Hero

Smash Cadet

Smash Ace

Smash Master

Smash Cadet

Smash Master

Balanced Brawl Designer

Smash Journeyman

Smash Master

Smash Scientist

Smash Journeyman

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Scientist

Smash Cadet

Smash Journeyman

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Journeyman

Indigo Destiny

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

Smash Master

Smash Ace

Smash Rookie

Smash Ace

Smash Ace

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