Edit: I am working on putting together a comprehensive "guide" to how one goes from Sirlin's criteria to the diversity argument. Rather than trying to prove that my current draft of the diversity argument doesn't have any minor flaws that can be nit-picked, I am simply going to show why Sirlin's criteria inevitably leads to the idea of the diversity argument. I am going to prove the "essence" behind the diversity argument. I know it isn't readily apparent why Sirlin's ideas lead to the diversity argument, and it's difficult to believe that it truly is the completion of Sirlin's criteria. Once I have the guide finished, it should be much easier to see the connection; it should be much easier to see that Sirlin laid the groundwork for the diversity argument, but he never realized the full implications of his ideas.
The "guide" will start with Sirlin's criteria, and then go step by step through the journey I took to find the diversity argument. Hopefully, it will make it clear why the idea of the diversity argument is correct and necessary, even if my current written version of the idea has flaws due to poor wording or bad organization.
Because in a game with many options, having only one is not acceptable by current Competitive standards. It is no longer an ensemble fighting game, it's a solo character fighting game.
This is the problematic idea that led to me developing the diversity argument. It is a fundamental problem with Sirlin's criteria, and I couldn't think of a way to get around it without modifying Sirlin's ideas.
Having only one option is not acceptable by current Competitive standards. I agree; and the truth of that statement is intuitively obvious. A competitive game is better if it doesn't have just one single viable option. Look at all of the competitive games we play, and you'll see that none of them have only one option. Yet, when I try to think of a justification for that standard, nothing good is available. Why does the current competitive standard demand more than one option? Saying that it's "because overcentralization is bad" is really just a tautology. Overcentralization, in this context, is being used to mean only having one option. So, claiming overcentralization as justification is like saying that it's wrong to only have one option because that means you only have one option; which is a useless tautology. All the attempts at providing justification for this "standard" using only Sirlin's original ideas result in tautologies or weak arguments that don't hold up to scrutiny.
Perhaps not though? Can anyone think of a valid reason why competitive players are justified in wanting more than one viable option available in their games? Am I wrong in thinking that that desire seems intuitively justified, that the preference towards having more than one option seems reasonable? If it seems intuitively obvious, surely there must be a logical explanation why it is reasonable.
I eventually found a valid answer to that question; however, the answer I found had a great deal of implications, the exploration of which resulted in my diversity argument.
One of the steps to finding my answer involved addressing your next point:
But, yes, if we truly want to see who is the most skilled, maybe we should ban all characters except a single one.
But is this really true? Is a game with only Character A vs. Character A ditto match-ups really any more skilled than a game with a wide variety of match-ups? Is a game with only one usable option actually more skillful than game with a wide variety of options?
I don't think that the answer to that question is readily apparent. When I reached this point in my deliberations 3 weeks ago, it eventually became clear that the only way to get a valid answer to that question is to first ask what constitutes "skill". How can we decide whether something is more "skillful" than something else if we don't even have a clear understanding of what "skill" means? It's like trying to decide if one object weighs more than another without first defining what "weight" means.
So I ask, what is the definition of the word "skill" as we use it in competitive gaming?
When someone says "M2K is a really skilled player", what do they mean? When someone looks at a simple little game made for children and says "That game takes no skill", what do they mean?
I have never gotten infractioned by double posting with a disclaimer that the 2nd post is a result of the 10,000 character limit. I really don't see why anyone would.
That's a good point. Hopefully I can have the argument up on Sirlin's forums before the end of the day.
Why don't you just tell me what it is you're trying to say? Because obviously by ingenious and bulletproof responses are not leading me into the traps you're trying to set.
This line of questioning is failing badly, so I'll just save everyone some time and end it. The point I'm trying to get at is that a fundamental part of a game being competitive is that the outcome of the game is determined by decisions made by the players. The relevance of this point isn't readily apparent. I hate to say this again, but it's become apparent that this part of our discussion would go more smoothly if we resolve the diversity argument portion first. This line of questioning is relevant to the diversity argument, but we haven't reached the point in that discussion where it is apparent why we need to concern ourselves with player decisions.
Are you saying that Competitive tourney rules anti-Competitive? Because that's a very broad generalization. By that generalization, Random Stage Select is anti-Competitive.
I just told you time and again what I view as anti-Competitive in a lot of detail. Why would you then ask me to make a broad generalization? I go into elaborate detail in order to prevent people from distorting my words.
My questioning is failing supremely at accomplishing anything productive, so, as I said earlier, I'll just end it for now.
Ah, but there are several characters who under the "70-30 = unviable" philosophy would become viable again if IC infinites were banned,I believe. So at the end of the day, there would be a net gain.
It helps if you list which characters you mean, but I'll address the characters I think you're talking about.
I'll just use
Rajam's chart since it's a handy reference.
First, Ganondorf and Captain Falcon. Both of whom are ***** by a vast number of characters. So they wouldn't be viable even if IC's were banned.
Next, Bowser. The various character boards disagree on this match-up. The IC and Bowser boards agree that the IC's **** him, but the Diddy boards and ZSS boards also apparently think that they **** Bowser. I don't really agree that Sheik ***** him, but Zelda/Sheik probably has an advantage. D3 obviously ruins him if the Infinite is legal. (Which it shouldn't be.) Regardless, this isn't a clear cut case, so it is difficult to say that banning the IC's would make Bowser viable.
Next, Sheik and Fox. As to Fox, Sheik, Pikachu, and ZSS **** him. As to Sheik, yeah, it's a hard match-up, but I think 80-20 and perhaps even 70-30 is pushing it a bit. This is even less relevant given that one of Sheik's moves causes her to turn into Zelda, and Zelda can handle the IC's.
Edit: Forgot the good King. D3 hates life when he has to face IC's, but he hates life even more when he has to face Falco.
Overall, I fail to see how banning the IC's would result in increased diversity.
"By banning a match-up", he means "If Player A picks Character X, Player B is banned from using any character against whom Player A doesn't have a 50-50 match-up". Because according to the part of your Criteria I didn't even address, you claim we maximize the need of skill.
If that's the case, then his criticism isn't valid. My argument doesn't result in the banning of all non-50:50 match-ups. Remember, a ban must increase diversity. I fail to see how banning the vast majority of match-ups within the game results in greater diversity. I can see how doing so results in a massive
loss of diversity, but I cannot see how it causes an increase.
No, we don't. Stop needlessly and fallaciously make the claim that we ban and shape the rules to maximize things. We do not. If we did, then as ColinJF says, we'd have to ban all match-ups that aren't 50-50. A vast majority of match-ups in the game would have to be banned!
The premise he was addressing is the introduction to the section where I show that the point of making a Competitive Rule Set is to maximize the competitiveness of the game.
Since you object, is it fair to assume then that you don't believe that the goal of a Competitive Rule Set is to maximize the competitiveness of a game? If that's the case, can I ask what you think Competitive Rule Sets are supposed to do?
