I'm gonna reply to some of the arguments that GofG made in the thread he linked to here:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=192432
The first point was on ease of use. I think it's unimportant as he and Yuna are right that people will learn to do anything that is possible, but the second issue of impossibility of recovery is very important IMO. Even on many combos that are very solid, DI is influential. You need to follow and react to DI to best continue a combo. Or at the very least, on something like Falco's CG, you can DI and best avoid the spike or Usmash at the end, or whatever. On an infinite like DDD or ICs, it is literally equivalent to me not holding the controller. It becomes a one player game, where I might as well be eating Cheetos and checking out the match on the TV next to mine while I'm being infinited. And don't get me wrong, being punished for mistakes is a very important part of Smash, but it's unacceptable to the extent that you may as well not be holding your controller.
The example was brought up in the thread comparing getting grabbed and punished with DDD's infinite to getting your shield broken and getting hit with a Snake charge fsmash. These are different cases for several reasons. For one, the mistake leading to the infinite is less of a mistake, yet yields a greater punishment. Typically when we think of the punishment for shield breaks/missed rests, we think of the greatest punishments in the game, i.e., charge fsmashes, ridiculous combos/CGs, whatever the player can do. And yet, all of these things can be reacted to. In the case of Snake, you can DI the fsmash. Now I know it's insanely powerful, but it's better to DI it at low percent than put your controller down and watch it. And that's key. If you're getting infinited by DDD/ICs, you literally can do nothing.
The thread proceeded to bring up Sirlin's criteria for banning. It was argued that infinites fail his criteria of being "discrete," such as his example with camping for 2 minutes and 59 seconds if 3 minutes plus of camping is banned. But guess what, Brawl already has bans that fail to be discrete. It's called "stalling."
SBR ruleset said:
Stalling: The act of deliberately avoiding any and all conflict so that one may make the game unplayable. Running away from an opponent to reach a better position is not stalling, while doing an infinite grab endlessly against a wall is. Any infinite chain grabs most end quickly after 300% has been reached so as to prevent excessive stalling.
When the SBR released this ruleset, it decided that doing DDD's infinite past 300% is considered stalling, as opposed to a free kill. 300% was chosen because it was a percent that could certainly lead to a free kill as DDD (or whatever chaingrabber) deserved, yet was not unreasonably high. But if 300% is enough, isn't 299% enough? Couldn't we argue that DI isn't going to be enough to save a player at a mere 1% lower at 299? What about 290? 280? 250? And so on. The definition of stalling is not discrete. Why should a DDD or IC not just be allowed to win a match after one grab by stalling? And if we're concerned about time, we could just have the other player resign after the first grab to save the rest of the eight minutes.
The final issue is whether a ban is warranted. Infinites don't meet Sirlin's definitions of warranted, true. But he does have a brief section on things that warrant immediate banning:
Sirlin said:
Immediately Ban-worthy Glitches
There are some things so extreme that they can be banned without much testing. These include glitches that crash the game or have radical effects, such as blanking out the opponent’s entire screen, removing his characters, units, or resources from the game, and so forth. Glitches so extreme that they undeniably end or prevent gameplay are worthy of being banned. Likewise, so are glitches that are not equally available to all players. Some glitches in a two player game can only be performed by player 2. It is reasonable to ban such a tactic, even if it’s not overly powerful, just on the basis that all players do not have equal access to it.
Here, obviously he's referring to things that crash the game like he just mentioned, but infinites are preventing gameplay too. (EDIT: What I mean here is that I'm aware that it's not actually on the same scale as crashing the game, removing characters, etc. Sorry if that wasn't clear) While I am being infinited, I am not playing the game! While I'm being infinited, I'm as good as my 10 year old cousin who's as good as this keyboard that I am typing on.
