JackieRabbit5
Smash Journeyman
So following the MK ban decision and the "What does it take to be banned?" thread, I think for the sake of the entire smash community we should make a list of specific things that it should and should not take to get something banned. Hope this is the right place for this heh, may want to advertise to Brawl players too.
I will now list the elements to be accordingly placed. Keep in mind this is just generally for a particular character, stage, item, setting, or even single technique, or whatever part of the game in question. Some may even need to be split, combined, or retitled. I'll include definitions too for clarity, these can also be argued.
Overcentralization- the whole metagame is practically based around how to beat it or do well against it.
Dominance- it causes the most wins (and money gained).
Overuse- it is used mostly all of the time, compared to others.
Diversity- if by not banning it similar things aren't used as much making the game less interesting, or on the other hand if by banning it, it would actually lessen the diversity unnecessarily. Either way this criteria is for if you think diversity is important.
Majority rule- most players agree about banning it.
Inability to counterpick- if it has no agreed reliable way to counter.
Hard evidence- would be like any relevant frame data or other empirical, unarguable, nontheoretical backing evidence.
Staying true to the original game- the idea that we shouldn't change much otherwise its like a different game altogether, and banning would go against this.
The hacked game option- the idea that we can just change something in the code of the game itself to fix any problems of something considered banworthy, resulting in an alternate version.
Maintaining a consistent ruleset- the idea that we should pick something and stick to it to prevent confusion, too many different rulesets, or too many arbitrary decisions.
Sirlin competitive gaming theory- the idea of playing to win and the problem of the scrub mindset, especially in a ban decision.
Randomness- the thing makes luck far too much of a deciding factor in who wins when it should be skill.
Enforcement- whether it would be hard to enforce the ban, or if it even should be. Maybe just better left to TO's.
Effect on community- how the thing may negatively effect the competitive community, and how banning might improve it or just make things worse; all pros, midlevel, newbie players, and spectators alike. Can be hard to predict.
Proban burden of proof- need for proban people to prove beyond any doubt that said thing needs to be banned.
Imbalance- in a perfect world the game should be balanced as possible so skill is the deciding factor and not just the choice of the thing, and if the thing skews that balance and can't be corrected otherwise with other rules, it should be considered for banning. Some of the best competitive games offer online patch updates for the purposes of correcting specific imbalanced things, but since smash doesn't we have to work with what we have.
Proper effort and time put into ban discussion- pretty self explanatory heh. The need for a good, long discussion over the ban issue.
Multiple criteria need- the idea that any of these criteria alone may not warrant a ban, but many together do.
Actual brokenness- ?? hard to declare on its own (unless its pretty obvious) because of so many factors and theoretical arguments. As such maybe impossible to add, otherwise it would definitely be good ban criteria.
I'll take suggestions for any other banning criteria, we should try to include everything for the sake of completion, any idea is good. And we should discuss how they should be sorted into these categories, i'll start with some of the obvious ones and put the rest in other for now:
GOOD/IMPORTANT BAN CRITERIA (what it should take/should be considered in getting something banned)
-Randomness
-Hard evidence
-Enforcement
-Proper effort and time put into ban discussion
-Maintaining a consistent ruleset
-Proban burden of proof
-Multiple criteria need
BAD/UNIMPORTANT BAN CRITERIA (what it should NOT take/should NOT be considered in getting something banned)
-Staying true to the original game
-Overuse
OTHER (unsure, inbetween, or could be considered either)
-Overcentralization
-Dominance
-Majority rule
-Diversity
-Inability to counterpick
-The hacked game option
-Sirlin competitive gaming theory
-Effect on community
-Imbalance
All this may be a matter of personal opinion but I think it would help to try and discuss. And actually it may be better to just order them from best to worst ban criteria if its too hard to categorize them.. Although if we want a more definitive way to decide what to ban it would help to categorize them like this. If nothing else I think this will help the collective community organize the common thoughts that keep being brought up in ban debates.
You can propose your own way to categorize them but please try to justify your choices. Like I put Randomness into good because I think we have all already agreed that items for example are terrible for competition, because anyone can just collect an item that randomly spawns close to them and use it for a lucky win when skill should decide. And I put Hard evidence into good because its like the only sure thing we have in a ban discussion.
Also maybe once we think we have all the possible ban criteria it would be helpful to discuss each element one by one if you think that's a good idea, or whatever works best. And like if one of the criteria is agreed to be slightly bad but mostly good then it can still go into good, unless its too debatable.
Keep in mind the elements in the good/important criteria category may not necessarily lead to banning something, but are just important to consider (for example Maintaining a consistent ruleset is more likely to lead towards not banning something actually). The list may need to be restructured around what leads to a ban if the element is inherent within the thing up for ban discussion tbh. Still contemplating, may just need to rephrase the criteria points. Or maybe the good/important criteria can be split?
tl;dr: Please try to read, but lets think of ban criteria and how to sort them as good or bad, justifying and discussing these choices. (well maybe not necessarily good or bad, but important or unimportant)
I will now list the elements to be accordingly placed. Keep in mind this is just generally for a particular character, stage, item, setting, or even single technique, or whatever part of the game in question. Some may even need to be split, combined, or retitled. I'll include definitions too for clarity, these can also be argued.
Overcentralization- the whole metagame is practically based around how to beat it or do well against it.
Dominance- it causes the most wins (and money gained).
Overuse- it is used mostly all of the time, compared to others.
Diversity- if by not banning it similar things aren't used as much making the game less interesting, or on the other hand if by banning it, it would actually lessen the diversity unnecessarily. Either way this criteria is for if you think diversity is important.
Majority rule- most players agree about banning it.
Inability to counterpick- if it has no agreed reliable way to counter.
Hard evidence- would be like any relevant frame data or other empirical, unarguable, nontheoretical backing evidence.
Staying true to the original game- the idea that we shouldn't change much otherwise its like a different game altogether, and banning would go against this.
The hacked game option- the idea that we can just change something in the code of the game itself to fix any problems of something considered banworthy, resulting in an alternate version.
Maintaining a consistent ruleset- the idea that we should pick something and stick to it to prevent confusion, too many different rulesets, or too many arbitrary decisions.
Sirlin competitive gaming theory- the idea of playing to win and the problem of the scrub mindset, especially in a ban decision.
Randomness- the thing makes luck far too much of a deciding factor in who wins when it should be skill.
Enforcement- whether it would be hard to enforce the ban, or if it even should be. Maybe just better left to TO's.
Effect on community- how the thing may negatively effect the competitive community, and how banning might improve it or just make things worse; all pros, midlevel, newbie players, and spectators alike. Can be hard to predict.
Proban burden of proof- need for proban people to prove beyond any doubt that said thing needs to be banned.
Imbalance- in a perfect world the game should be balanced as possible so skill is the deciding factor and not just the choice of the thing, and if the thing skews that balance and can't be corrected otherwise with other rules, it should be considered for banning. Some of the best competitive games offer online patch updates for the purposes of correcting specific imbalanced things, but since smash doesn't we have to work with what we have.
Proper effort and time put into ban discussion- pretty self explanatory heh. The need for a good, long discussion over the ban issue.
Multiple criteria need- the idea that any of these criteria alone may not warrant a ban, but many together do.
Actual brokenness- ?? hard to declare on its own (unless its pretty obvious) because of so many factors and theoretical arguments. As such maybe impossible to add, otherwise it would definitely be good ban criteria.
I'll take suggestions for any other banning criteria, we should try to include everything for the sake of completion, any idea is good. And we should discuss how they should be sorted into these categories, i'll start with some of the obvious ones and put the rest in other for now:
GOOD/IMPORTANT BAN CRITERIA (what it should take/should be considered in getting something banned)
-Randomness
-Hard evidence
-Enforcement
-Proper effort and time put into ban discussion
-Maintaining a consistent ruleset
-Proban burden of proof
-Multiple criteria need
BAD/UNIMPORTANT BAN CRITERIA (what it should NOT take/should NOT be considered in getting something banned)
-Staying true to the original game
-Overuse
OTHER (unsure, inbetween, or could be considered either)
-Overcentralization
-Dominance
-Majority rule
-Diversity
-Inability to counterpick
-The hacked game option
-Sirlin competitive gaming theory
-Effect on community
-Imbalance
All this may be a matter of personal opinion but I think it would help to try and discuss. And actually it may be better to just order them from best to worst ban criteria if its too hard to categorize them.. Although if we want a more definitive way to decide what to ban it would help to categorize them like this. If nothing else I think this will help the collective community organize the common thoughts that keep being brought up in ban debates.
You can propose your own way to categorize them but please try to justify your choices. Like I put Randomness into good because I think we have all already agreed that items for example are terrible for competition, because anyone can just collect an item that randomly spawns close to them and use it for a lucky win when skill should decide. And I put Hard evidence into good because its like the only sure thing we have in a ban discussion.
Also maybe once we think we have all the possible ban criteria it would be helpful to discuss each element one by one if you think that's a good idea, or whatever works best. And like if one of the criteria is agreed to be slightly bad but mostly good then it can still go into good, unless its too debatable.
Keep in mind the elements in the good/important criteria category may not necessarily lead to banning something, but are just important to consider (for example Maintaining a consistent ruleset is more likely to lead towards not banning something actually). The list may need to be restructured around what leads to a ban if the element is inherent within the thing up for ban discussion tbh. Still contemplating, may just need to rephrase the criteria points. Or maybe the good/important criteria can be split?
tl;dr: Please try to read, but lets think of ban criteria and how to sort them as good or bad, justifying and discussing these choices. (well maybe not necessarily good or bad, but important or unimportant)