Infinites: Why, exactly, are they allowed?

[bman in 2288]

I don't think Snake's ftilt lock is an infinite (unless it's by a wall, but even then I think you can DI out of it).

 

[Tien2500]

Well lets see. DK can't camp with projectiles. Mario can't really, Luigi can't really, Ness can't really. The only character that can reasonably camp with projectiles is Samus. (out of those that can be infinited). And again saying that it is hard to grab someone in this game is frankly stupid. If you are very good you can avoid getting grabbed but it is a challenge. Its not easy to avoid being grabbed as you asserted.

 

[Patsie]

wow, 26 pages of the SAME THING over and over...

@patsie: equating jp's stalling to DDD's chaingrab is a fallacy.

DDD:
affects 4 chars
causes loss of 1 stock
"situation"

JP:
affects all chars
Causes loss of match
same "situational" as DDDs.

If you compare, which seems more severe? JP's stalling.

I know this sounds suck, but something that affects 4-5 chars isn't worth banning, as all you have to do is avoid using those chars for the first match of a set. It means that they become counter pick chars instead of mains...that isn't exactly suck--you can go though and win a tournie using them over 33% of the time, and that's if you were playing people who could viably use DDD.

There, I just saved Yuna a couple seconds of thinking/writing.

Is there a penalty for calling false checkmate, or is the humiliation enough of a punishment?

Dude, don't try to act high and mighty if you're not even following the strain of argumentation, you just look dumb.

I, at no point in this thread, said that JP stalling is less severe than infinites.

Yuna said that a move has to be a fool proof method of winning without the opponent having a chance to win EVER to be banned. That was her criterion.

I observed that, while unlikely, it is very possible to beat a JP rising pound stall if you stay below the JP player in % damage.

My conclusion was that we ban things that are possible to beat, contrary to what Yuna said.

And guess what? The second thing he did was backtrack his argument, because he was wrong. We ban things for reasons other than being fool-proof ways of winning.

On that note, I agree with you. Infinites are not as bad as stalling. But I don't have to prove that infinites are worse, I just have to prove that they're bad for the same reasons.

And your second paragraph has been answered thousands of times already; I'm sorry but I don't feel like saying it again here.

 

[Yuna]

Well lets see. DK can't camp with projectiles. Mario can't really, Luigi can't really, Ness can't really. The only character that can reasonably camp with projectiles is Samus. (out of those that can be infinited). And again saying that it is hard to grab someone in this game is frankly stupid. If you are very good you can avoid getting grabbed but it is a challenge. Its not easy to avoid being grabbed as you asserted.

And again, then it just becomes an extremely hard matchup. 5 out of 703 matchups.

 

[Yuna]

My conclusion was that we ban things that are possible to beat, contrary to what Yuna said.

No we don't.

It's impossible to defeat infinite stalling unless you're playing as one a very select few characters. You can prevent the situation where you'd lose from infinite stall from taking place by staying ahead at all times. But once you're behind and it starts, you've lost.

Notice how we didn't ban the characters who can infinite stall. Because it's quite possible to win against them. But once the infinite stall has begun, you cannot win. This why it's banned and this is why your argument fails no matter how many times you try to twist the English language around to suit your needs.

 

[Tien2500]

And again, then it just becomes an extremely hard matchup. 5 out of 703 matchups.

Wait wait wait! Its not a hard matchup. You said it was easy! Its EASY not to get grabbed right? So in other words you are wrong which is fine. I'm sure I've said wrong things in my life and probably in this very topic. But anyway at this point in time I was not arguing for the banning of chaingrabs. I was simply arguing that it was not easy to avoid grabbing... So you just completely changed the argument and I don't feel like arguing about that right now.

 

[habaker91]

That's the risk you run by maining one one of the Cursed 7.

Not to take sides, but i doubt he'd be saying that if zelda was one of the 7.

 

[Patsie]

Only, I said this way, way, way back in the thread. Like, yesterday or two days ago.QUOTE]

Wait, so since you said it two days ago, it doesn't apply? That doesn't seem like a very fair standard for argumentation, now does it?

You have consistently told me that there is a standard upon which we ban techniques, and that is the standard I was trying to refute. I successfully showed that it is not impossible to defeat a staller, but the technique is still banned.

If you're going to backtrack whenever I beat an argument, can you make it easy for me?

How do we determine whether to ban something? Please answer that concisely, and I will spend my time refuting it.

I really don't want to spend the time writing a response if you're just going to take back what you said later.

Jigglypuff could dominate the scene using stalling tactics. People used stalling tactics, it was showcased that stalling tactics do not allow the opponent to even touch you (depending on which tactic, of course). Therefore, we didn't have to wait and see each stalling tactic win a tournament before banning it. As long as it's a stalling tactic that can let you run away indefinitely and win a match without your opponent even having a chance to touch you, then it has to be banned. In other words, stalling tactics were deemed by definition broken and were therefore banned.

So at what point do we determine that is wasn't allowed?

Here is your warrant for why it was bad: People used stalling tactics, it was showcased that stalling tactics do not allow the opponent to even touch you (depending on which tactic, of course).

So did the community just decide that it was unfair? Because at this point, it's not strictly impossible, as I've said, it's just really unfair and it gives a huge disadvantage to people playing against it. If that's the standard, then we can go ahead and ban infinites for the same reason.

Yes. It's unwinnable the second Jiggz gets ahead. It's not that the matchup is inherently broken. It's that whenever Jiggz is ahead, he just won the match... without allowing you even a chance of touching him.

At least with infinites, they're not infinitely running away afterwards, preventing you from even trying to even the match out.

*The second Jiggs gets ahead* -- So what if JP never gets ahead in the match? What if he's facing Marth and can't perform the stall tactic because he never gets ahead? You still haven't responded to the FACT that isn't NOT impossible, it's just highly unlikely. You HAVE to meet certain prerequisites to perform the stall, so it's not impossible.

And yes, the reward for stalling is greater than infinites. Stall = match. Infinite = 1/4th or 1/3rd of a match. But the severity of the punishment is not the criteria we ban things on, it's the reasons behind the strategies, and in this case, stalling is similar to infinites.

Infinite stalls ruin the game. If at any time someone with an infinite stall is ahead, they have just won the match. And they work against everyone (except for maybe the character itself)... and have no requirements. See the connections here?

It's like "DeDeDe just grabbed DK" or "ICs just grabbed X-character"... only the arguments "It only works on 5 characters" and "It has requirements" do not apply to infinite stalls.

You said they don't have any requirements, but I've mentioned in the past thread like 6 times that they do. In fact: you even mentioned it in your own post. The prerequisite is that you need to get above a certain percent to begin the stall. You don't enter the match with a win. It's just highly likely that you'll leave with the win, which is fundamentally different from why you said we ban things.

Look, I know the prereqs for infinites are less severe than stalling, and that stalling is much worse. But they still don't apply to your reasons for a ban, which is why I'm waiting for something else.

You just argued against yourself. Is it possible to win against DeDeDe as Donkey Kong? It is! All you need to do is to win! Just kill him before he kills you!

It's impossible to never ever fall behind by even 1%, at which point you just lost the game. And matches ending the second one side is ahead by even 1% are broken enough for us to ban.

Is it possible to win against a rising-pound stalling JP? Of course it is! Just don't fall behind in percentage!

It's the same thing to a different degree. It's not probable, but it's possible. Which is all I needed to prove.

Have you never played a match where you're up in % the whole time? I have, several times. It's very possible to do, so I don't know what you're talking about.




Look, I've got to get going home. This quoting post nonsense isn't getting us anywhere, because you're not going to make any concessions. I'll come up with something so that we can argue on more constructive means when I'm back.

But essentially:

Your response to my post consisted of:

-Saying that the pound had a greater reward than an infinite.

-Saying that the pound stall has no prerequisites.

You just miss the boat consistently, Yuna.

The stall does have a prerequisite. You need to get above in %. Despite how easy that is, or despite the fact that you will probably win with it, you still do NOT enter the match with an automatic win. You said you needed an automatic win to ban something. I proved you wrong.

 

[Yuna]

Wait wait wait! Its not a hard matchup. You said it was easy! Its EASY not to get grabbed right? So in other words you are wrong which is fine. I'm sure I've said wrong things in my life and probably in this very topic. But anyway at this point in time I was not arguing for the banning of chaingrabs. I was simply arguing that it was not easy to avoid grabbing... So you just completely changed the argument and I don't feel like arguing about that right now.

I'm sorry, I said this when? Quote or it didn't happen.

Not to take sides, but i doubt he'd be saying that if zelda was one of the 7.

Yes I would. I would just switch to another character.

 

[Yuna]

Wait, so since you said it two days ago, it doesn't apply? That doesn't seem like a very fair standard for argumentation, now does it?

I'm saying that you didn't "trick" me (or whatever you think you did) into doing anything. I've been saying it all along.

You have consistently told me that there is a standard upon which we ban techniques, and that is the standard I was trying to refute. I successfully showed that it is not impossible to defeat a staller, but the technique is still banned.

You're doing it unsuccessfully. It is impossible to defeat stalling once it has started. You can prevent the situation from which the stall will be preferrable (since they have to be ahead to win) from arising, but once it starts, it's unbeatable.

If you're going to backtrack whenever I beat an argument, can you make it easy for me?

I'm not backtracking anything. Proof I did or this is just more slander from you.

How do we determine whether to ban something? Please answer that concisely, and I will spend my time refuting it.

I've said this one jillion times. You keep trying to (unsucessfully) twist this around.

I really don't want to spend the time writing a response if you're just going to take back what you said later.

I've never taken anything back.

Inane stuff.

Your lack of logic concerns me.

Jigglypuff is not banned because Jigglypuff does not auto-win. Getting ahead as Jiggz is also not banned. However, infinite stalling as Jiggz once you're ahead guarantees victory against everyone but a very select few who might be able to hit her, which is why it's banned!

We ban something if it guarantees victory against everyone except maybe that character itself or 3 others or at least makes it extremely improbably you'll lose. You're allowed to play as Jiggz, you're allowed to get ahead as Jiggz. But infinite stalling guarantees a victory, which is why that is banned and the same goes for stages that enable infinite stalling to prevent it.

 

[Tien2500]

It doesn't require perfect play to not get grabbed. Heck, spotdodges and rolls have so many invincibility frames now, it's pretty hard to get grabbed. .

it's pretty hard to get grabbed. Thats what you said verbatim. If its hard to get grabbed it would have to be easy to not get grabbed.

 

[KosukeKGA]

Who exactly are the "Cursed 7"?

Just wondering.

 

[Yuna]

it's pretty hard to get grabbed. Thats what you said verbatim. If its hard to get grabbed it would have to be easy to not get grabbed.

It's "pretty" hard to get grabbed =/= It's easy to not get grabbed.

"Pretty" is a nice little word.

Also, really, it's not that easy to grab someone if they space, auto-cancel and camp. It doesn't mean they'll win, but it's gonna help them not lose as badly.

 

[Yuna]

Who exactly are the "Cursed 7"?

Just wondering.

I presume:
Bowser (DeDeDe chaingrab)
Samus (DeDeDe infinite)
Mario (DeDeDe infinite)
Luigi (DeDeDe infinite)
Donkey Kong (DeDeDe infinite)
Wario (Yoshi grab-release chain)
Ness (Marth and Pokémon Trainer grab-release chain)

 

[Sliq]

I presume:
Bowser (DeDeDe chaingrab)
Samus (DeDeDe infinite)
Mario (DeDeDe infinite)
Luigi (DeDeDe infinite)
Donkey Kong (DeDeDe infinite)
Wario (Yoshi grab-release chain)
Ness (Marth and Pokémon Trainer grab-release chain)

Dedede doesn't have an infinite on Bowser? Care to elaborate?

 

[Yuna]

Dedede doesn't have an infinite on Bowser? Care to elaborate?

He has to move slightly forward in order to regrab... which allows for him to trip (and run out of stage).

 

[Pythag]

It is impossible to defeat stalling once it has started. You can prevent the situation from which the stall will be preferrable (since they have to be ahead to win) from arising, but once it starts, it's unbeatable.

...this is different from an infinite how?

 

[Jack Kieser]

It's "pretty" hard to get grabbed =/= It's easy to not get grabbed.

"Pretty" is a nice little word.

Also, really, it's not that easy to grab someone if they space, auto-cancel and camp. It doesn't mean they'll win, but it's gonna help them not lose as badly.

Um... I hate to exacerbate the problem here... but they are the same thing.

- ( -1 ) = 1. The negative of a negative is the exact same thing as a positive. Even if you take 'pretty' out of the sentence, you said, 'It's hard to get grabbed.'

It's easy to not get grabbed = It's hard to get grabbed
It's easy (+) to not (-) get grabbed = It's hard (-) to get grabbed

Both statements come out to the same thing.

 

[Tien2500]

Pretty means fairly. So how does the word pretty really change the statement you made? Now you're saying "its not that easy to grab someone". Now that is actually a different statement. Which I don't feel like arguing with you about. In fact I'm really not going to argue with you because you seem incapable of admitting any degree of error. (As in I said pretty hard. Not hard. Its totally different!!!)

 

[Yuna]

...this is different from an infinite how?

Because an infinite only takes one stock and doesn't auto-win. Also, even if you're behind against a character with an infinite on you, you can still win. You cannot against an infinite stall once it has begun.

Um... I hate to exacerbate the problem here... but they are the same thing.

"It's pretty easy to avoid getting grabbed"... but as Tien said, what I really meant was "It's not that easy to grab someone". I used the wrong words, I apologize. Tien, I've admitted to being wrong in this very thread.

 

[IronGorilla]

Patsie, you're the one that's ********. You cannot equate infinites to stalling.

I don't always agree with Yuna, but he's right here.

What you, Patsie, are trying to do is find a magic formula that says whether or not a technique is bannable. You cannot do this. Stalling is broken, and this is unanimously agreed upon. Therefore, in your magic formula world, if x is stalling and y is banned, then x=y.

However, infinites are not banned, and are clearly not agreed upon unanimously. Why? Because infinites have definite prerequisites and are not 100% reliable, even in the few matchups where they actually work. They don't break characters and are not necessary for characters to win matches, let alone tournaments. They are easily defeated. So if x is the infinites, y must be % reliability, z the prerequisites. We'll have a be banned. We'll call b the capacity for the technique to win a match.

x + y + z + b = a

x must be 1, because the infinite must exist.
y must be 1, because it must be 100% reliable.
z must be <0.0001, because the prerequisites have to be minimal.
b must be 1, because it has to win matches.

If a technique has all of the above, then it is broken will be banned. However, infinites do not. y <1, because they are not 100% reliable. z >0.0001, because the prerequisites are not minimal. b <1, because we do not see ICs and DDD winning every tournament.

And, we can also set a = 0 by eliminating walled stages for many infinites. Then all you have is some messed up algebra.

 

[Pythag]

Because an infinite only takes one stock and doesn't auto-win. Also, even if you're behind against a character with an infinite on you, you can still win.

uh, sorry, but isn't it YOU who have been claiming that you should just switch characters to win against someone using infinites?
now you're telling me there's hope?

 

[Jack Kieser]

uh, sorry, but isn't it YOU who have been claiming that you should just switch characters to win against someone using infinites?
now you're telling me there's hope?

This whole thread is one big logical clusterf**k; this is nothing new.

 

[Yuna]

uh, sorry, but isn't it YOU who have been claiming that you should just switch characters to win against someone using infinites?
now you're telling me there's hope?

I've also said that if it works against everyone and if the only way to combat it is to either play as the same character or a very select few, then it's "too broken" and must be banned. What are you gonna do when Jigglypuff Infinity Pound stalls you? You're gonna lose... unless you go Jiggz and try to chase him with Infinite Pound yourself or something.

What can you do when DeDeDe infinites your DK? Switch to Zelda, Pit or one of the other 30 characters he cannot infinite.

 

[acv]

and the point of this thread is....

 

[fkacyan]

What can you do when DeDeDe infinites your DK? Switch to Zelda, Pit or one of the other 30 characters he cannot infinite.

Equivalently, you could just get your DK good enough to the point that the CG doesn't hurt your game that much.

 

[St. Viers]

@Patsie, you didn't adress anything I said.

You're a great writer, but you CAN'T except when some makes a valid point against you.

You said that --according to Yuna definitions-- JP's stall was equivilent to infinite combos. I proved how it wasn't, and you obfuscate, rather than admit you made a groundless accusation against Yuna.

I'm bowing out of this thread, because if Patsie was going to listen to me, she would have already listened to Yuna. I can just argue a *bit* more logic based than Yuna, but this really should be too easy...

@Yuna, have fun with this, I hear banging your head against a concrete wall is pretty entertaining too ^_^

 

[habaker91]

Taking a side now, i am.

We ban something if it guarantees victory against everyone except maybe that character itself or 3 others or at least makes it extremely improbably you'll lose. You're allowed to play as Jiggz, you're allowed to get ahead as Jiggz. But infinite stalling guarantees a victory, which is why that is banned and the same goes for stages that enable infinite stalling to prevent it.

i'd surely say that infinites make it 'extremely improbable that you lose'
As a Wario, i get grabbed by Yoshi with one stock left...pretty low chance i'll get out of this one alive.
Pretty sure even the greatest of Warios cannot KO a Yoshi (one completely focused on grabbing) before being grabbed first. It tips scales to an insane degree.

One character needs to build up damage by attacking and hitting the character many times, and then hit the other character off the screen with a well timed smash.

The other character needs to attack and hit the character...once.

Eliminating entire characters that fit the individual playstyles of certain people due to errors in coding is much less agreeable than banning these errors in coding in characters that can hold their own without using their infinites, i'm sure the snake mains can still win without using whatever infinite they have, but i'm not so sure lucas mains can still win with marths chain grabbing them all over the place.

 

[WaterTails]

...this[stalling] is different from an infinite how?

Stalling and infinites are exactly what their names suggest!

Stalling (or turtling, in some games) gives the "sufferer" chances to do something (whether it's chargin' your lazur or attempting to stop the other guy). One example (I couldn't find any high-quality ones like the infinite) would be Sonic's ceiling stall

Infinites are essentially inescapable. Pretty much the only chance of getting out is the person executing it screwing up. One example would be Dedede's d-throw infinite

Do you see the difference?

 

[Frate]

Equivalently, you could just get your DK good enough to the point that the CG doesn't hurt your game that much.

Now, wouldn't that be facing isai versus someone who owned melee a week or something?
Maybe not in that extremity length, but...

 

[Yuna]

i'd surely say that infinites make it 'extremely improbable that you lose'
As a Wario, i get grabbed by Yoshi with one stock left...pretty low chance i'll get out of this one alive.
Pretty sure even the greatest of Warios cannot KO a Yoshi (one completely focused on grabbing) before being grabbed first. It tips scales to an insane degree.

Wario gets quasi-infinited against one character. Solution? Switch to someone other than Wario!

Solution against Jiggz' Infinite Pound Stall? Play Jiggz.

One character needs to build up damage by attacking and hitting the character many times, and then hit the other character off the screen with a well timed smash.

The other character needs to attack and hit the character...once.

Eliminating entire characters that fit the individual playstyles of certain people due to errors in coding is much less agreeable than banning these errors in coding in characters that can hold their own without using their infinites, i'm sure the snake mains can still win without using whatever infinite they have, but i'm not so sure lucas mains can still win with marths chain grabbing them all over the place.

Again, we do not ban things to ensure the maximum number of viable characters, be it due to them just randomly sucking or because of a specific tactic that's extremely powerful against them due to "erorr in coding" or whatever.

Stalling and infinites are exactly what their names suggest!

Stalling (or turtling, in some games) gives the "sufferer" chances to do something (whether it's chargin' your lazur or attempting to stop the other guy). One example (I couldn't find any high-quality ones like the infinite) would be Sonic's ceiling stall?

Turtling and stalling are completely different things. For one thing, Infinite Stalling like in Smash is only possible in Smash (and maybe 1 or 2 other games... maybe. I can't think of any, I'm just saying "maybe" to be safe).

 

[GofG]

I hope to reorganize this argument around Sirlin's "What Should Be Banned?" article. Structuralization will help clear out some of the ad hominem argumentums, hopefully.

This post will be an argument as to why D3's infinite and the Ice Climber's Alt Grabbing do not conform to Sirlin's article. This post makes a very important assumption:

Sirlin is always correct.

If you wish to argue against this, please do so elsewhere. Assume that he is at least correct enough for his article to have merit in this case.

Instead, please argue as to why the infinites mentioned do not match the criteria that Sirlin outlines.

Criteria of a Ban

A ban must be enforceable, discrete, and warranted.

etc

Enforceable

Sometimes, a tactic can be hard to detect. If you can’t reliably detect something, you certainly can’t enforce penalties on it. In a fighting game, a trick might make a move invulnerable that shouldn’t be, but actually detecting every time the trick is used might be nearly impossible. Or consider a real-time strategy game, where a trick might give your units a few more hit points than normal, but again, detecting this might be nearly impossible in a real game. If something is to be banned from tournament play, it must be reasonably easy to identify when it happens or to prevent it from ever happening at all.

Also in a fighting game, a move might be “unfairly” unblockable, but only when that move is executed in a certain situation with precise 1/60th of a second timing. Did the player execute it during that “unfair” time window? Or 1/60th of a second late? Perhaps he accidentally executed the move at the unfair time through sheer luck. Is he to be penalized? Imagine trying to enforce a rule that states “You may usually use move X, but there’s 1/60th of a second where you may not use move X.”

Both D3's and the IC's infinite are enforcable, simply hard to define, which is covered next. Both certainly are hit hard by this criterion.

Discrete

The thing to be banned must be able to be “completely defined.” Imagine that in a fighting game, repeating a certain sequence of five moves over and over is the best tactic in the game. Further suppose that doing so is “taboo” and that players want to ban it. There is no concrete definition of exactly what must be banned. Can players do three repetitions of the five moves? What about two reps? What about one? What about repeating the first four moves and omitting the fifth? Is that okay? The game becomes a test of who is willing to play as closely as possible to the “taboo tactic” without breaking the (arbitrary) letter of the law defining the tactic.

I will await Patsie's response to this. Obviously he sees the problem.

Or in a first-person shooter game, consider the notion of banning “camping” (sitting in one place for too long). No friendly agreement between the players is necessary for the ban, which at least means it’s enforceable. The server can monitor the positions of players, and it knows exactly who breaks the rule and can hand out penalties accordingly. The ban is enforceable, but the problem is being able to completely define camping. If camping is defined as staying within one zone for 3 minutes, and if it really is the best tactic, then sitting in that zone for 2 minutes 59 seconds becomes the best tactic. It’s a slippery slope because there will always exist camping tactics arbitrarily close to the specific kind of camping that is banned.

This is why we don't ban camping, obviously, but we can clearly ban stalling. Stalling is very clearly definable; the opponent has no possible way to touch you, it can be done forever with an incredibly large margin of error.

Here’s an example of a completely defined game element. In the card game Magic: The Gathering, if a particular card is deemed to be too good, then it is possible to ban it. One can define completely that “that card cannot be used.” There is no fear of players still “sort of” using it, in the same way they could still “sort of” repeat the moves from the fighting game, or “sort of” camp for 2 minutes 59 seconds above. The card is a discrete entity that can feasibly be banned.

This would be like banning grabs altogether, which is something we absolutely do not want to do.

Here's the big one:

Warranted

Here is the whole issue, of course. If it isn’t warranted to ban something, we don’t need to even consider whether it’s enforceable or discrete. The great lesson of competitive games is that hardly anything warrants a ban.

A bug that gives players a small advantage does not warrant a ban. In fact, it’s common. Many players don’t even realize they are using bugs, but instead view them as “advanced tactics.” Even bugs that have a huge effect on gameplay are usually not warranted to be banned. The game may change with the new tactic, but games are resilient and there tend to be countermeasures (sometimes other bugs) to almost everything.

The Ice Climber's alt grabbing passes the "small advantage" test. It gives a small advantage, only, as it is virtually impossible to actually have an infinite with it; an ice climber player will almost never get above 50% with it, making it an extremely good move but not broken. Consider Fox's dair>utilt combo; he can get quite an amount of percent with this, more than alt grabbing can. Why don't we ban it? Because the Ice Climbers have the POSSIBILITY of getting more than that, even though it will never happen?

In the fighting game Street Fighter Alpha 2, there is a bug that allows the player to activate a very damaging move (called “Custom Combo”) against an opponent who is standing up (not crouching). The designers surely intended a standing opponent to be able to crouch and block this move upon seeing it, but if executed correctly, he cannot. It has a huge impact on the way the game is played (standing up is now quite dangerous), but there is still an excellent game left even after this technique is known. At first glance, one might think that attacking is too dangerous because it usually involves standing up. Closer examination shows that the attacker can stick out moves to knock the defender out of his Custom Combo, should he try it. Basically, the bug can be dealt with. This game-changing tactic is referred to by players as the “Valle CC” after its inventor, Alex Valle (more on him later).

This is similar to the "don't get grabbed" argument, except perhaps worded in a way that you can understand. Not avoiding the grab is dangerous in a way that standing up is in SFA2. The Custom Combo is similar to a grab infinite, albeit not quite as much punishment. Still, if all a SFA2 player does is sit and wait for his opponent to stand up so he can Custom Combo him, he will be destroyed, utterly *****. If he manages to pull off a Custom Combo in a game, he will be given an advantage, in that he has just gotten an extremely damaging combo to hit.

I'll admit, the sheer amount of punishment that D3's infinite deals is infinitely greater than the Custom Combo, but this is a great example of how a similar situation was delt with in the SFA2 scene; they found a way around it rather than banning it immediately (which some people did want to do.)

I snipped a bit out about Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo as it doesn't really have any merit in this discussion.

How does one know if a bug destroys the game or even if a legitimate tactic destroys it? The rule of thumb is to assume it doesn’t and keep playing, because 99% of the time, as good as the tactic may be, there will either be a way to counter it or other even better tactics. Prematurely banning something is the scrub’s way. It prevents the scrub from ever discovering the counter to the Valle CC or the diamond trick. It also creates artificial rules that alter the game, when it’s entirely possible that the game was just fine the way it was. It also usually leads to an avalanche of bans in order to be consistent with the first. When players think they have found a game-breaking tactic, I advise them to go win some tournaments with it. If they can prove that the game really is reduced to just that tactic, then perhaps a ban is warranted. It’s extremely rare that a player is ever able to prove this though. In fact, I don’t even have any examples of it.

Obviously Sirlin wants us to test in tournaments, which we're doing, but you seem to want to jump the gun so I guess just ignore him.

Only in the most extreme, rare cases should something be banned because it is “too good.” This will be the most common type of ban requested by players, and almost all of their requests will be foolish. Banning a tactic simply because it is “the best” isn’t even warranted. That only reduces the game to all the “second best” tactics, which isn’t necessarily any better of a game than the original game. In fact, it’s often worse!

The only reasonable case to ban something because it is “too good” is when that tactic completely dominates the entire game, to the exclusion of other tactics. It is possible, though very rare, that removing an element of the game that is not only “the best” but also “ten times better than anything else in the game” results in a better game. I emphasize that is extremely rare. The most common case is that the player requesting the ban doesn’t fully grasp that the game is, in fact, not all about that one tactic. He should win several tournaments using mainly this tactic to prove his point. Another, far rarer possibility is that he’s right. The game really is shallow and centered on one thing (whether that one thing is a bug or by design is irrelevant). In that case, the best course of action is usually to abandon the game and play one of the hundreds of other readily available good games in the world.

Only in the ultra-rare case that the player is right and the game is worth saving and the game without the ultra-tactic is a ten times better game—only then is the notion even worth fighting for. And even in this case, it may take time for the game to mature enough for a great percentage of the best players and tournament organizers to realize that tactic should, indeed, be banned. Before an official ban takes place, there can also be something called “soft ban.” Let’s look at an example.

Patsie, you are the player described in the first and second paragraphs.

The character in question is the mysteriously named “Old Sagat.” Old Sagat is not a secret character like Akuma (or at least he’s not as secret!). Old Sagat does not have any moves like Akuma’s air fireball that the game was not designed to handle. Old Sagat is arguably the best character in the game (Akuma, of course, doesn’t count), but even that is debated by top players! I think almost any expert player would rank him in the top three of all characters, but there isn’t even universal agreement that he is the best! Why, then, would any reasonable person even consider banning him? Surely, it must be a group of scrubs who simply don’t know how to beat him, and reflexively cry out for a ban.

But this is not the case. There seems to be a tacit agreement amongst top players in Japan—a soft ban—on playing Old Sagat. The reason is that many believe the game to have much more variety without Old Sagat. Even if he is only second best in the game by some measure, he flat out beats half the characters in the game with little effort. Half the cast can barely even fight him, let alone beat him. Other top characters in the game, good as they are, win by much more interaction and more “gameplay.” Almost every character has a chance against the other best characters in the game. The result of allowing Old Sagat in tournaments is that several other characters, such as Chun Li and Ken, become basically unviable.

If someone had made these claims in the game’s infancy, no sort of ban would be warranted. Further testing through tournaments would be warranted. But we now have ten years of testing. We don’t have all Old Sagat vs. Old Sagat matches in tournaments, but we do know which characters can’t beat him and as a result are very rarely played in America. We likewise can see that this same category of characters flourishes in Japan, where Old Sagats are rare and only played by the occasional violator of the soft ban. It seems that the added variety of viable characters might outweigh the lack of Old Sagat. Is this ban warranted then? To be honest, I am not totally convinced that it is, but it is just barely in the ballpark of reasonableness since there is a decade of data on which to base the claim.

The second paragraph is an excellent description of what is happening with D3 right now, except not nearly as drastic as he doesn't make half the cast unviable, only 6 characters. However, Old Sagat is only banned because there have been years upon years of testing in-tournaments (and Sirlin, btw, still isn't convinced the ban is warranted. We aren't even waiting on that; we are simply waiting for a D3 to win a tournament because of his infinite, or for Ice Climbers to win a tournament at all.

I hope I haven't wrecked the thread.

 

[MookieRah]

Nothing ever changes, people argue infinites all the time yet very few competitive scenes ban them. It's silly. I come back from my smash vacation just to see the same kind of stuff that is always discussed, and see that Yuna is still blasting dudes XD.

 

[kainsword]

Regardless of what anyone else says, Patsie has been presenting a d*mn good argument. And really, the only way you can disagree about banning infinites is if you have a different philosophy concerning infinites... (But then again, argumentation results from opposing ideologies anyway.)

And yes, infinite difficulty does have a very valid point. If MetaKnight could chaingrab by repeatedly grabbing, throwing down, rinse, repeat, then the sheer ease of not even having to move or press any buttons other than Z to grab and pressing down to use the throw, then that would make the infinite unbalanced. If 99% of all Smash Players can use this infinite (and by definition an inescapable combo) then the game would be crushed. The more players that can use the infinite, the more reason to ban the technique.

But then, where does one draw the line in a broken infinite? When 70% of all SmashBoards users can effectively use the combo and kill the opponent after grabbing them? Infinites by stipulation of the name, are incredibly powerful. Ease of the infinite does affect whether it should be banned or not. The only saving grace we have here are the people that aren't willing to play characters that can perform infinites in Brawl. If everyone was willing to play King DDD and learned how to chaingrab, then that would instantly mean that the entire game has degraded to King DDD vs. King DDD.

It's impossible to draw a line on whether an infinite is broken or not. Down the line of the Smash Bros series, it's possible that we find a character has an infinite that is broken to the extreme.

Yuna's point that it doesn't matter whether the infinite is difficult or not, and that people would still master it flawlessly only strengthens this argument. And what if everyone mastered the infinite? What then?

That's why I also agree that all infinites be banned. Characters in brawl cannot live by being one-trick-ponies whose main strategy is to set up an infinite and proceed to decimate the opponent. We should learn to deviate and grow in areas other than sources of infinite damage; it shows more skill to be able to consistently rack up damage with non-infinite combos than an infinite combo.

Yuna's Response: But competitive games are about winning! Not skill!

If competitive games were solely, and absolutlely SOLELY about winning, then there'd be no reason to play them. Many join the competitive scene not to win, but to test eachother's skill.

Scratch this crap. GofG just won the thread. But I keep what's below as flamebait to Yuna, because apparently that's his favorite snack. Let's see how he responds, shall we?

No we don't.

It's impossible to defeat infinite stalling unless you're playing as one a very select few characters.

Literal paradox. You defend that infinite stalling is impossible to beat, but you also defend that King DDD's infinite chaingrab is legal because it's only a very bad matchup.

By your logic, JP's infinite stall should be legal because it's a very bad matchup, however in this case it's a bad matchup with almost every Brawl character. According to your idealogy, if it's possible to counter/prevent it, then it should be allowed.

It's possible to counter Sonic's B-stalling if he's using it under Final Destination if we use Snake's Nikita to target him under the stage. Therefore, since it's counterable, it should be allowed. However, that's not the case. B-stalling is indeed banned.

The reason we ban things in Brawl is NOT because it's an auto-win, but because it promotes a very unhealthy and undesired atmosphere in the game. We ban stages with walls because getting caught by wall infinites creates a very unhealthy atmosphere. We ban Sonic's B-Stalling because it promotes a very unhealthy atmosphere. Either we play as Snake and spam Nikatas under the stage, or we lose.

If people used B-stalling, it'd make for a horrible experience in the game. However, it's no longer a problem because it's banned.

In the case where Sonic uses B-stalling as a strategy to win the match, he forcefully creates every other character other than another Sonic B-Staller and Snake as horrible match up.

 

[kainsword]

I posted again, expecting someone would post already after my comment, meaning I wouldn't have double posted...

However nobody has responded, meaning I've edited this post.

 

[St. Viers]

kainsword...I will try to make this easy for you.

By forcing someone to go jigglypuff to o****er jigglypuff, you are completely limiting the game. It makes the game unplayable in all except on case. That's called gamebreaking.

DDD simply stops you from playing your first set as one of the 4 chars that are truely infinated. This only slightly affets a majority of the game. Hence, tough break for DK/mario/luigi/etc players, but NOT breaking the entire game, or even preventing you from using the chars in tournaments.


@whoever brought up the sirlin's guide. If you haven't noticed, both Yuna, and to a lesser extent myself have been basing our arguments off of that, even if we didn't quote. Thank you for an extremely well thought out post ^_^

 

[kainsword]

kainsword...I will try to make this easy for you.

By forcing someone to go jigglypuff to o****er jigglypuff, you are completely limiting the game. It makes the game unplayable in all except on case. That's called gamebreaking.

DDD simply stops you from playing your first set as one of the 4 chars that are truely infinated. This only slightly affets a majority of the game. Hence, tough break for DK/mario/luigi/etc players, but NOT breaking the entire game, or even preventing you from using the chars in tournaments.

I explained that in my post as well, if you didn't see. B-stalling and JP's stalling creates very unhealthy environments to play the game in. People don't want to be forced to play as Sonic or Snake to combat a B-Staller, or JP or Snake to combat a JP staller.

 

[ftl]

Sirlin pretty much covered exactly this case. The issue with DDD's infinites appears to be pretty much exactly the same as the issue with Old Man Sagat in his example - essentially, allowing him/them makes several characters pretty much unusable by anybody who wants to win. Or so we think, since we don't have 10 years of tournament experience with a several-month-old game.

It feels like the issue is more the unbalanced character matchup it creates rather than the infinite itself. The IC's have infinites on everybody, but a lot fewer people take issue with that, because the ICs overall end up fairly balanced, with the power of the infinites being balanced out by the fact that they're really hard to start up and avoidable, and by the fact that other than that, the ICs kinda suck. If DDD had an infinite on DDD, I don't think there would be as much of an issue with letting DDD dittos become all about that one grab - I, personally, would laugh at him getting a taste of his own medicine

So perhaps the better way of approaching the problem is to rethink how we let people pick characters instead of trying to go into the game mechanics and micromanage how you're allowed to play? If you rephrase the issue as 'if character X has ONE extremely bad matchup, it becomes impossible to safely use character X more than about one-third of the time without running the risk of ending up in an unwinnable match', it might be simpler to approach. This was less an issue in Melee, because there weren't as many characters that 'could be quite good except for that one absolutely horrible unwinnable matchup'.

The simplest way I can think of is just to allow either player to opt for a ditto (or maybe to opt to take Random?) instead of [whatever matchup] - allow the person to take the disadvantage of trying to beat the opponent at his own character instead of the greater disadvantage of being stuck in one of those matchups. Or give each player one chance to 'rechoose' characters, essentially giving the opponent the advantage of counterpicking characters to get out of the disadvantage of That One Bad Matchup.

Or something else, I'm sure there are other ways to set up the character select to give those Unlucky 7 a way to [usually] get out of the matchup, ones that don't end up changing too much else, the ones I listed are just ones I thought up off the top of my head right now, I'm sure there are better ways of setting it up, maybe even make it matchup-specific ('A DK vs a DDD is allowed to switch to ___' or soemthing).

Not like my opinion on this matters, I'm neither a smash expert or a tournament organizer, but just thowing some things out there that you more knowledgeable people may be interested in discussing

 

[ShadowLink84]

I forgot who mentioned something about hope and what not.

Alternatively I also recommend making use of that lovely Bair that DK has, it can really help. *nod nod* and since many of Dk's moves have good range it isn't as difficult to maintain one's distance, especially with DDD's relatively slow speed.

One can still win with a character

Literal paradox. You defend that infinite stalling is impossible to beat, but you also defend that King DDD's infinite chaingrab is legal because it's only a very bad matchup.

No paradox. so far.

By your logic, JP's infinite stall should be legal because it's a very bad matchup, however in this case it's a bad matchup with almost every Brawl character. According to your idealogy, if it's possible to counter/prevent it, then it should be allowed.

Wait para- not really.
For one the difference between Sonic's homing B stall and DDD's is that one is character specific while the other is not character specific.
Sonic's homing B stall is capable of being used against every character and places him in areas that are near impossible for most characters to go and if they do go, more often than not they will die.

It's possible to counter Sonic's B-stalling if he's using it under Final Destination if we use Snake's Nikita to target him under the stage. Therefore, since it's counterable, it should be allowed. However, that's not the case. B-stalling is indeed banned.

Except Snake is the ONLY one that can counter it. Not the case with DDD's infinite chaingrab which cannot be used on over 30 characters in the game.

The rest is just irrelevant *shrug*

 

[Miller]

Is it possible to win against a rising-pound stalling JP? Of course it is! Just don't fall behind in percentage!

If that is a valid argument, so is "Don't get grabbed"

This debate is going no where, your just using pathetic fallacy to try and win this debate, and now, Yuna has already beaten your "logic" in every way possible.

All that is being said right now are things that have already been mentioned beforehand.