Patsie
Smash Journeyman
I'm positive that this has been discussed before, and several 'elite' posters decided on the result to suggest that infinites remain in tournaments.
But, of all the justifications that I can think of, I can't really see why people would actually encourage infinites to be part of a tournament.
In Melee, there weren't many infinites, and the ones that existed (iirc) were not easy to perform. The result was that things like shine infinites never lasted long, because it became humanly impossible to do it over a long period of time. Wobbling was an exception (as it was a bit easier), and it proved to be one of the more controversial aspects of Melee.
Brawl is different. There are tons of characters who can be next to a wall, hold down, and press the 'A' button indefinitely until they decide to kill their opponent. Even non-situational infinites like DDD's chaingrab are extremely easy. I don't even play DDD, and I could get the timing down in 30 minutes without fail; hell, even my 13-year-old sister could do it and she plays the game maybe an hour on a weekend. Infinites are easy, TAKE NO SKILL, and they are extremely unfair.
My biggest problem with infinites is that they completely change the aspect of the game. YOU ARE NOT REALLY PLAYING A MULTIPLAYER FIGHTING GAME WHEN YOU ARE USING AN INFINITE. That is, your opponent has lost all control of your character; IT IS YOU AGAINST THE COMPUTER. All YOU have to do is input certain things in a certain time, and you're guaranteed success. It's like you're playing Pacman or Tetris, because there is no multiplayer aspect of infinites whatsoever: the only thing that depend on it are your timing of inputs, which inherently makes it a single-player mentality/ability.
Posters who want to revert to Melee tournaments often call for a competitive standard. I'm not going to get into that debate, but I will stress that infinites are the least competitive thing you can actually do. The reason why we all love multiplayer games is because there's some aspect of offense and defense: you have to react and predict an opponent's abilities.
Silly analogy: This applies to any game, sport, etc. For instance, I think basketball is infinitely (lol) more entertaining/competitive than, say, golf or bowling. This isn't because of the actual nature of the game, but rather it's because you play against a team. It's a sport, which means that you actually have someone playing defense (you actually have someone AFFECTING YOUR GAMEPLAY). Golf is more like a competition, because you just perform individually and then your performances are matched up at the end (your opponent doesn't influence you in any way aside from mentally).
Multiplayer games should be the same way. I keep playing them because I don't just have to input a command and have the computer give me a result; I play them because they are consistently dynamic because my opponent always influences gameplay. I think this is an element of fighting games (and all sorts of multiplayer games: Halo, Street Fighter, etc) that can be agreed upon as essential.
So, now you can see why, in theory, I believe infinites shouldn't be allowed: they contradict a vital element of most fighting games in that they eliminate competition.
Why do we allow it, then? I've heard some reasons, but I don't think I agree with many.
You can't impliment infinite rules into tournaments is one. First, realize that this defense tacitly accepts that infinites are wrong, but they counter that stopping them would be impractical. The main defense is that there is no brightline for when to stop infinites or how to enforce them. When do we know, for example, how many grabs from DDD count as a bannable infinite? This point has always been solid, but I don't think it's enough to stop banning infinites. Manipulating the words of some quote on pr0n, "You just know infinites when you see them." Obviously, this is arbitrary, and any tournament rule would create a brightline for itself. But, then again, all rules are kind of arbitrary; why do we ban the stages that we do, and why do we keep some on? We base decisions like that on underlying principles (for example, stages should minimize the amount of outside influence/hazards), but ultimately we make an arbitrary decision. And, to be honest, people are kind-of missing the point. If rules were implemented to stop infinites, people would stop doing them if they knew they might get kicked out. Even if they weren't, infinites overall would be limited, and I don't think anyone in the community actually enjoys getting infinite'd or enjoys seeing them pulled off (basically, the only people who would throw up arms are like the DDD forums and the IC forums, lol).
Second, people argue that we can't limit aspects of the game. Why not? We limit items from the game to minimize luck and maximize competitivity. We limit stage choices arbitrarily for the same reason. We even limit certain aspects of movesets. For instance, Sonic can't repeatedly B-stall, but he's free to use that move in any other situation that doesn't involve stalling. Basically, we wouldn't limit DDD's downthrow, as he can still chaingrab etc; he just would be banned for using it in a situation that's considered an infinite.
Third, people say it doesn't actually happen often enough for tournaments to consider them. This really doesn't make sense to me. If it happens at all, we should have a rule for it. If it wouldn't affect the majority of people that don't use infinites, then that's great, but at the very least we've limited the people who would use it. Regardless of whether not many people do it, IN NO SITUATION should a player (like DK) go into a match knowing that he will lose because he faces a DDD who is going to infinite him.
Fourth, people say it's essential to the playstyles of certain characters. That's complete horsesh*t. DDD doesn't need to infinite people to win a match. The ICs certainly don't either, and reliance on it just limits IC players for digging deeper Brawl's metagame. Stop using this excuse as a bad cop-out for not wanting to get better.
Fifth, people argue that infinites are situational. Basically: you won't get infinited UNLESS you're a) near a wall or b) you get grabbed by someone. Is it just me, or is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? Saying 'Don't get grabbed' just makes people play incredibly campy and only using ridiculous range, which ruins the game. But even then, you're going to get grabbed. Unless you're facing a BOCES candidate, you will probably not get through more than 2 games without getting grabbed, even if you're trying your best to avoid it. Look, I'm not going to even debate this point. If you think infinites are 'combos' that are justified because you allowed yourself to get grabbed, then you are an idiot. It's as simple as that.
TLDR: Infinites go against the main tenet of all multiplayer games by eliminating competitivity.
Comment and stuff, because I'm legitimately curious as to why they're allowed to exist.
But, of all the justifications that I can think of, I can't really see why people would actually encourage infinites to be part of a tournament.
In Melee, there weren't many infinites, and the ones that existed (iirc) were not easy to perform. The result was that things like shine infinites never lasted long, because it became humanly impossible to do it over a long period of time. Wobbling was an exception (as it was a bit easier), and it proved to be one of the more controversial aspects of Melee.
Brawl is different. There are tons of characters who can be next to a wall, hold down, and press the 'A' button indefinitely until they decide to kill their opponent. Even non-situational infinites like DDD's chaingrab are extremely easy. I don't even play DDD, and I could get the timing down in 30 minutes without fail; hell, even my 13-year-old sister could do it and she plays the game maybe an hour on a weekend. Infinites are easy, TAKE NO SKILL, and they are extremely unfair.
My biggest problem with infinites is that they completely change the aspect of the game. YOU ARE NOT REALLY PLAYING A MULTIPLAYER FIGHTING GAME WHEN YOU ARE USING AN INFINITE. That is, your opponent has lost all control of your character; IT IS YOU AGAINST THE COMPUTER. All YOU have to do is input certain things in a certain time, and you're guaranteed success. It's like you're playing Pacman or Tetris, because there is no multiplayer aspect of infinites whatsoever: the only thing that depend on it are your timing of inputs, which inherently makes it a single-player mentality/ability.
Posters who want to revert to Melee tournaments often call for a competitive standard. I'm not going to get into that debate, but I will stress that infinites are the least competitive thing you can actually do. The reason why we all love multiplayer games is because there's some aspect of offense and defense: you have to react and predict an opponent's abilities.
Silly analogy: This applies to any game, sport, etc. For instance, I think basketball is infinitely (lol) more entertaining/competitive than, say, golf or bowling. This isn't because of the actual nature of the game, but rather it's because you play against a team. It's a sport, which means that you actually have someone playing defense (you actually have someone AFFECTING YOUR GAMEPLAY). Golf is more like a competition, because you just perform individually and then your performances are matched up at the end (your opponent doesn't influence you in any way aside from mentally).
Multiplayer games should be the same way. I keep playing them because I don't just have to input a command and have the computer give me a result; I play them because they are consistently dynamic because my opponent always influences gameplay. I think this is an element of fighting games (and all sorts of multiplayer games: Halo, Street Fighter, etc) that can be agreed upon as essential.
So, now you can see why, in theory, I believe infinites shouldn't be allowed: they contradict a vital element of most fighting games in that they eliminate competition.
Why do we allow it, then? I've heard some reasons, but I don't think I agree with many.
You can't impliment infinite rules into tournaments is one. First, realize that this defense tacitly accepts that infinites are wrong, but they counter that stopping them would be impractical. The main defense is that there is no brightline for when to stop infinites or how to enforce them. When do we know, for example, how many grabs from DDD count as a bannable infinite? This point has always been solid, but I don't think it's enough to stop banning infinites. Manipulating the words of some quote on pr0n, "You just know infinites when you see them." Obviously, this is arbitrary, and any tournament rule would create a brightline for itself. But, then again, all rules are kind of arbitrary; why do we ban the stages that we do, and why do we keep some on? We base decisions like that on underlying principles (for example, stages should minimize the amount of outside influence/hazards), but ultimately we make an arbitrary decision. And, to be honest, people are kind-of missing the point. If rules were implemented to stop infinites, people would stop doing them if they knew they might get kicked out. Even if they weren't, infinites overall would be limited, and I don't think anyone in the community actually enjoys getting infinite'd or enjoys seeing them pulled off (basically, the only people who would throw up arms are like the DDD forums and the IC forums, lol).
Second, people argue that we can't limit aspects of the game. Why not? We limit items from the game to minimize luck and maximize competitivity. We limit stage choices arbitrarily for the same reason. We even limit certain aspects of movesets. For instance, Sonic can't repeatedly B-stall, but he's free to use that move in any other situation that doesn't involve stalling. Basically, we wouldn't limit DDD's downthrow, as he can still chaingrab etc; he just would be banned for using it in a situation that's considered an infinite.
Third, people say it doesn't actually happen often enough for tournaments to consider them. This really doesn't make sense to me. If it happens at all, we should have a rule for it. If it wouldn't affect the majority of people that don't use infinites, then that's great, but at the very least we've limited the people who would use it. Regardless of whether not many people do it, IN NO SITUATION should a player (like DK) go into a match knowing that he will lose because he faces a DDD who is going to infinite him.
Fourth, people say it's essential to the playstyles of certain characters. That's complete horsesh*t. DDD doesn't need to infinite people to win a match. The ICs certainly don't either, and reliance on it just limits IC players for digging deeper Brawl's metagame. Stop using this excuse as a bad cop-out for not wanting to get better.
Fifth, people argue that infinites are situational. Basically: you won't get infinited UNLESS you're a) near a wall or b) you get grabbed by someone. Is it just me, or is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? Saying 'Don't get grabbed' just makes people play incredibly campy and only using ridiculous range, which ruins the game. But even then, you're going to get grabbed. Unless you're facing a BOCES candidate, you will probably not get through more than 2 games without getting grabbed, even if you're trying your best to avoid it. Look, I'm not going to even debate this point. If you think infinites are 'combos' that are justified because you allowed yourself to get grabbed, then you are an idiot. It's as simple as that.
TLDR: Infinites go against the main tenet of all multiplayer games by eliminating competitivity.
Comment and stuff, because I'm legitimately curious as to why they're allowed to exist.
. Do you even know the definition of an infinite? A chaingrab can be an infinite, not vice versa, *******. 
