Coaching

[Mahone]

Should coaching be banned?

Even if you don't think coaching should be banned, i think it is important to make all of the rules clear...

For example, can you coach during the match? It was my understanding that the unwritten rule was that coaching was only in between matches, but at apex i saw non-stop coaching during the match a couple times...

Also, how long can you coach in between match? This is another unwritten rule... right now it seems like it's acceptable to coach for a minute or two before the next match, but what is the limit?

 

[Jonas]

Imo it should be allowed between matches, but steps should be taken to ensure that both players have a good coach. Otherwise it doesn't seem fair.

 

[Warhawk]

Coaching should only be in between matches unless its ok with the other player, but it should definitely be allowed because it still requires that the other player have the ability to adapt based off of the information he is receiving.

 

[CloneHat]

Apex Grand Finals

Get this in the rulebooks.

 

[twizzlerj]

Coaching seems fair since sometimes people in the crowd give advice anyway. Coaching happens in almost all competitive things why not video games to.

 

[Bones0]

Nevermind.

 

[The Star King]

This thread again

Where you at Amsah

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

As long as both players are okay with it I dont see a problem

 

[Jonas]

This thread again

Where you at Amsah

He's probably tired of this discussion

 

[The Star King]

Well, I remember being indifferent at first in the last thread, but Amsah's arguments made so much more sense than the opposition's and I was convinced coaching should be banned

So if you're reading this, bro, know that words DO have power

 

[stelzig]

When it's in crews then I don't mind, but I am against it in tournament. IMO all coaching should be done before the set starts and not during it - that means not between matches either.

It is kinda hard to prevent though, especially in europe where you can't tell what your opponet and their friends are talking about during the games. Unless they're from UK or something (and for me sweden, norway, germany to an extent i guess)

 

[Kal]

Well, I remember being indifferent at first in the last thread, but Amsah's arguments made so much more sense than the opposition's and I was convinced coaching should be banned

So if you're reading this, bro, know that words DO have power

Can you link to the thread?

 

[The Star King]

www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=291203

It's a long one though

 

[Kal]

What the **** did I just read?

 

[ajp_anton]

www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=291293

It's a long one though

"ajp_anton, you do not have permission to access this page."

 

[The Star King]

wtf oops wrong link, edited

 

[Kal]

You weren't kidding when you said it was long. That's what she said.

 

[kevo]

For some reason that link does not work for me, but I'll add my two cents.

Let's break down what a coach/coaching is. I'll use a metaphor familiar to me, and probably most people as well: a caddie in golf. They not only carry clubs, but they are a useful resource for yardage/angle information, strategy, and support. Coaches and caddies both enhance the competitiveness of a player by providing an alternate point of view than the competitor. Coaches can share matchup information, general advice, observations, or simply emotional support. This creates an invaluable advantage for the player, assuming the player prefers to be coached (some players do not and find it distracting).

As a TO, I don't allow it at my tournaments. Players may consult the audience for 30 seconds between games in a set. The most important factor for me is fairness. I would allow coaching in an event where it is feasible that most all competitors would have access to a reliable coach. At small smashfests south of 50 people, too many conflicts of interest exist (most coaches are obviously playing in the tournament as well). Additionally, I don't want to see some first time tourneygoer from out of state get completely outmatched feeling that they didn't even get a chance because they had no coach. It's unfair because it's who you know instead of how good you are at the game.

I think coaching at Apex during bracket is fine because it's a huge event and all these big name players have someone they can rely on. It builds some hype for the livestream, and it is totally fair. Bracket at a national tournament is very stressful and I don't see anything wrong with both players having someone to calm them down and offer them some assurance. In conclusion, for me it depends on both players having fair access to a coach and the situation having the adequate logistics and scale so as to not disturb the tournament. Whatever the choice may be, like all rules, it's up to the TO.

Crew battles on the other hand, I think coaching should always be allowed. It enhances the "team" mentality.

 

[stelzig]

For some reason that link does not work for me, but I'll add my two cents.

Maybe you're clicking the link from AJP's post? The link in his quote is still the old one.

 

[Kal]

Wobbles posted something pretty awesome against coaching. In my opinion, it's all arbitrary and subjective, so we should unban Rainbow Cruise.

 

[kevo]

Yeah he changed it while I wrote the post. I read Amsah's response and it's pretty convincing. His argument lines up most strongly with my point "It's unfair because it's who you know instead of how good you are at the game."

I think my paragraph on Apex, which got weaker and weaker in my head as I read Amsah's post, was more inspired by the fact that I didn't care that there were coaches as long as both players get one. I'm not in the mindset that we should ban stuff; the coaching was obviously controlled and regulated.

 

[Kal]

I mean, it really is all arbitrary. What skills do you personally want to test? But, at the very least, I see where Wobbles and Amsah are coming from, and it's arguably quite unfair to some players to allow coaching.

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, after considering how not everyone has someone knowledgeable to coach them, it really does seem unfair. One issue seems to be differing between the crowd yelling and a coach sitting next to the player. I think the easiest way to identify coaching is if information is being conveyed privately. If you have someone in the crowd yelling "he has a stitch," that may not even be helping you. Perhaps you saw the stitch but the Peach player hadn't realized it themselves. As far as pointing out things like them camping or their teching patterns, this also only really helps in private. If someone yells that your opponent keeps teching a certain way and escaping, not only are you alerted to the fact, but your opponent is alerted to the fact that you now know as well. It's still a slight advantage, but again, this could go against you if you realized they kept teching a certain way and you were ready to punish, but as soon as someone in the crowd shouts it out, your opponent has the foresight to mix it up next time.

I also wish people would stop referencing others sports as evidence that coaches add to competition. Main stream sports are hardly organized to maximize competitiveness. Teams are built to be as even as possible. Coaches are virtually required because there are large numbers of players, and a franchise that relied on the players cooperating on every decision (should we challenge the play? should we put so-and-so in the game? etc.) is doomed to fail.

 

[Zodiac]

Coaching seems fair since sometimes people in the crowd give advice anyway. Coaching happens in almost all competitive things why not video games to.

people in the crowd yell things like "Dont go down there!" and "grab the lege!" its hardly coaching, a real coach will say "You need to space your bair better so he cant nair you oos every time, then you can can safely throw out another move"

but I believe it should be allowed between matches, when someone coaches during a match its like 2 brains vs 1. In simple terms, its not fair. When the match starts its 1v1, and coaching during the match dilutes that.

Edit: After looking at the post above mine a thought occurred to me, would it be viable to have appointed coaches at tournaments? on smashboards or AIB thread we could ask for volunteers for coaching, and if a player requests a coach a volunteer can help them out. Thoughts?

 

[Kal]

And really, we all know that we should be telling the crowd to be silent. We just don't because we either think the adverse effects of them not shutting the **** up are outweighed by the awesome "crowd-hype," or because we think there is no practical way to keep them silent. And some people think that telling the crowd to remain silent might have worse results, as far as attendance and keeping the scene alive, than having them shout poorly thought-out, non-constructive advice.

Also, if anyone were to refer to coaches in professional sports, MMA, Boxing or Kick-Boxing would be the sports to reference. These, however, are clearly different than coaching in a game like Melee.

 

[Bones0]

I think assigned coaches would pretty much fail because you'd still have some players getting better coaches than others, and there's bound to be a bunch of conflict of interests since most coaches will be good players. It's also still unfair to the players that are good at picking up on habits/patterns without coaches because they gain very little whereas their opponent has someone basically holding their hand when it comes to reading habits/patterns, even if it's only in between matches.

 

[Mahone]

I agree with Kal...

I think the crowd "should" be quiet during the match, but we are willing to sacrifice that small bit of fairness for the hype it brings....

I don't feel the same way about coaching though, i really think it should be banned, but the purpose of this thread is to not only discuss whether it should be banned, but if it remains legal, what are all the rules that go with it?

And if you guys feel strongly about this one way or another, try posting in the official rules thread, so that some changes can actually be made, rather than just arguing with no resolution.... which is what happened in the last thread that someone quoted above.

 

[LLDL]

Morpheus gave Neo clear instructions on how to get out of the cubicle / office safely.

It was up to him to execute.

He failed.

 

[the_CAM_factor]

i am all for coaching between matches. during is kinda a gray area, i think that the actual match should be just between the actual players and their respective ability.

 

[Zodiac]

I agree with Kal...

I think the crowd "should" be quiet during the match, but we are willing to sacrifice that small bit of fairness for the hype it brings....

I am in the boat of "there is no practical way to keep the crowd quiet". Other than the player themselves asking politely, I believe at one point mew2king asked a large crowd to be silent for his matches and for the most part they were.

I think assigned coaches would pretty much fail because you'd still have some players getting better coaches than others

that would happen anyway, at least this way both sides get input from a second party, but I wasnt really talking about assigned coaches, I was talking about players volunteering to coach, I.E. a ranked sheik player volunteers, an unranked sheik player asks for them to be their coach.

 

[cmac]

While I don't have the same experience as most of the people posting this is my thoughts on coaching:
I think coaching is perfectly legitimate between games, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get advice from my friends at tournies but it was always in between my matches or even before or after. Coaching during the middle of the game seems unfair because (as DOH put it in an old post) it becomes me v.s you and your crew (or vice versa.)

 

[Deleted member]

Should coaching be banned?

Even if you don't think coaching should be banned, i think it is important to make all of the rules clear...

For example, can you coach during the match? It was my understanding that the unwritten rule was that coaching was only in between matches, but at apex i saw non-stop coaching during the match a couple times...

Also, how long can you coach in between match? This is another unwritten rule... right now it seems like it's acceptable to coach for a minute or two before the next match, but what is the limit?

We had a big coaching debate back around 2006 and 2007 where coaching WAS BANNED at large in a community sense. The rule WAS written. Coaching at that time was strictly banned during and in-between matches of a set, and it was only legal before/after the set as a whole.

That being said, the recent MBR recommended rule sets don't address coaching in any way, nor did APEX's rule set. Therefore, coaching should have been legal at APEX by default.

Personally I don't think coaching should be banned. Game results aside, it's simply not practical to watch each and every match at a tournament with the scrutiny it would take to flag coaching. How concisely can you differentiate coaching from cheering? Even if you do successfully catch someone coaching, how do you fairly punish a third party? How do you fairly punish the recipient player? These are complex questions in a setting where your solutions MUST be practical for time efficiency.

Since it's not really simplistic or feasible to ban coaching, I think it should just be allowed and accepted as a necessary evil.

 

[Kal]

Practicality of monitoring the events aside, it seems pretty easy to just eject the third party (the coach) from the venue if he coaches. Instead of trying to enforce the rule, it would be best to require that the two players involved in a match sit alone, with the crowd a certain distance from them, I think.

 

[Mahone]

We had a big coaching debate back around 2006 and 2007 where coaching WAS BANNED at large in a community sense. The rule WAS written. Coaching at that time was strictly banned during and in-between matches of a set, and it was only legal before/after the set as a whole.

That being said, the recent MBR recommended rule sets don't address coaching in any way, nor did APEX's rule set. Therefore, coaching should have been legal at APEX by default.

Personally I don't think coaching should be banned. Game results aside, it's simply not practical to watch each and every match at a tournament with the scrutiny it would take to flag coaching. How concisely can you differentiate coaching from cheering? Even if you do successfully catch someone coaching, how do you fairly punish a third party? How do you fairly punish the recipient player? These are complex questions in a setting where your solutions MUST be practical for time efficiency.

Since it's not really simplistic or feasible to ban coaching, I think it should just be allowed and accepted as a necessary evil.

It would be the same as stalling imo...

It's not like there are refs looking for stalling in matches, instead, if you see your opponent stalling, you pause and find the TO...

Of course if EVERYONE stalled, it would not be practical for everyone to wait in line for the TO and tournaments would not run efficiently, but the fear of some sort of punishment would stop people from doing it, just like stalling.

 

[Zodiac]

If the rules were written like this...

"Coaching is only permitted when both players have a coach, if your opponent has a coach and is using them and you do not, notify a tournament organizer right away"

and the players without the coaches followed them I don't think there would be a problem other than the inevitable "My coach is better than your coach"

 

[Deleted member]

It would be the same as stalling imo...

It's not like there are refs looking for stalling in matches, instead, if you see your opponent stalling, you pause and find the TO...

Of course if EVERYONE stalled, it would not be practical for everyone to wait in line for the TO and tournaments would not run efficiently, but the fear of some sort of punishment would stop people from doing it, just like stalling.

You're exactly right. So much so that I put that into my first post, then thought better of it and removed it because I don't want to set up any opposing strawman arguments for this thread. But yes you're basically 100% correct.

Thankfully a lot of people in this community really hate stalling. The edge is still quite abusable in this game. Stalling is also somewhat easier to pick out than how people talk, but that's a minor technicality.

 

[jbro]

From the perspective of a not-very-good player, I would say that coaching in between matches is fine. How many people really go to tournaments completely by themselves, anyway? If I know who I'm playing next and my friend can give me some pointers about the MU beforehand, I would appreciate that, and I wouldn't be upset at all if the person I'm playing did the same. However, I'm against it mid-match. You have to fight your own battles in the end.

 

[Ørn]

I'm against coaching, but I'm not sure I feel like going to the extremes to stop it. I think people should respect the opponent if he specifically requests no coaching though; I remember playing against someone at BEAST (I think it was the first BEAST, anyway) who was coached after our first match, and I specifically said "hey, no coaching", but I was promptly ignored. I won anyway, but it still annoyed the hell out of me.

I think having a "no coaching in the middle of a set" rule would be a pretty good thing to have. It would be annoyingly arbitrary to enforce though, and there's always the problem of multi-lingual tournaments where you're not sure if someone is being coached or not.

 

[knightpraetor]

well don't care much one way or the other, though i think between matches is fine. However, i think we should just accept it by default because we can't police those from foreign countries...what are you going to do..ban me speaking in korean?

 

[Jonas]

Ban Americans and British from coaching