Should Metaknight be Banned? ***Take 3***

[Tommy_G]

...


Overcentralization has NO relationship with a character being the best in the game, it requires that the character renders non-viable 50% of the cast or more.

I meant just because soooo many people play them because the character is the best(causing overcentralization) doesn't mean that character is good enough to be banned.

 

[adumbrodeus]

The main disagreement in this debate is behind what actually constitutes a ban, and what is meant by the loose wording in the proposed bases (plural of basis?) of his banning. Before I begin, I'm speaking from what I view as the pro-ban side. I'm merely telling you guys why I'm opposed to adumbrodeus' list as is, from the pro-ban side of the debate- both sides of which I've been a part of, and as of right now I'm neutral between. Here we go.

Fair enough.

I do believe human error is taken into account with most matchup ratios, and I think most others would agree as well. Otherwise characters like Olimar (the perfect camp crud everyone talked about a while back) and the IC (desynch mastery) would dominate everyone. The amount of human error taken into account is not calculated evenly for all the matchups though. I do agree in that aspect. However!, I think until someone from the anti-ban side comes up with another way to view matchups more accurately, the way we do it now suffices. The same logic applies to banning Metaknight: until the pro-ban side proves that he's worthy of a ban, he should not be banned. In other words, I think coming up with a better way to analyze matchups should be a part of anti-ban's "To do list."

The point is NOT that it's not incorporated period, but that it's not incorporated in a quantifiable way.

In other words, people refer to human error as something that "happens", but there's no community information available that actually defines how human error actually works at the top of the metagame and how to properly apply this.


As for whether it should be anti-ban's to do list as well, that's actually the idea. This is meant as something that should be worked on by both sides of the debate, at least as far as getting data. However, pro-ban cannot prove that MK is bannable without this, since "no ban" is the null hypothesis, anti-ban wins if this isn't done anyway, so pro-ban has a vested interest in doing this. Anti-ban's vested interest is when the process starts, keeping pro-ban honest.

But hey, I've already started working on it.

Firstly, one must define nonviable. Many take this to mean the arbitrary "destroying the character" or "at least a 70-30 matchup." Others may explain it as "having an infinite that's very easy to employ or set up" or something else. Others think that no character in Brawl is nonviable because there's a counterpick system, and so you're not forced to play any particular matchup. Because you haven't defined it, I can only suspect that by "nonviable" you mean "DDD-infinite-on-Mario proportions." (although, personally, I do not think Mario is a "nonviable" character because of an infinite that one character has on him.)

Now that that's covered, I do not think Metaknight should have to render 50% +1 of the cast nonviable for him to be banned. There's an implication behind this. For Metaknight to render that many characters completely nonviable, his moveset would only have to be comparable to the infamous Akuma's, in which case he would make all the other characters nonviable as well. In fact, I think it's impossible for Metaknight to be able to render half the cast +1 nonviable without making the others useless as well, and here's why.

If Metaknight ever got to the point where he left 50% of the cast nonviable without having an infinite chaingrab/combo or one broken tactic that wrecks those specific and that many characters, (which he doesn't have) his moveset as a whole would have to make up for not having one of these. As we all know, movesets of characters do affect the entire cast as far as matchups go, and having this good a moveset would definitely affect the characters not in the proposed 50% +1. If Metaknight rendered only 50% +1 of the cast nonviable with his moveset, that would be equivalent to having DDD's infinite on half the cast, but it not affect the rest as nearly as much. That's impossible. If his moveset was that good, it would indeed affect the rest of the cast as well, and even more characters would be pretty useless than just 50% +1. This leads me to my point. This is too excessive an amount of dominance to be the standard minimum required to ban Metaknight.

Actually, I did define nonviable in that post, before I posted my to-do list.

...

In order to make a character non-viable, a character has to be:

1. A hard counter to that character at least (80-20 min would probably be more proper).

2. Has to be either
a. Omni-present enough in the metagame that not being eliminated by this character is near impossible given the hard counter status (even if you're a superior player).

OR

b. the match-up is easy enough that an opponent can virtually pick up the character to beat you.


3. No other character fits these attributes.

4. This pattern has to be backed up by tournament data.


While it's nearly unarguable that metaknight fits attribute number 3 (version a), all of the other attributes have extremely questionable.

For 1, we don't even have a full reliable match-up chart yet, how can we even hope to say that MK hard-counters half the cast or more.

For 3, most characters MK hard counters it doesn't even seem like MK's their hardest match-up anymore, he really seems to be like an empowered Marth in the current metagame, great overall match-ups, but he doesn't kill any characters the worst of any common characters, or there's characters that can obliterate other characters so easily it doesn't even matter.

4, not yet, but there's an empirical match-up chart in progress which basically categorizes win rates in various match-ups at the highest levels of play (in theory). That would be useful for your match-up.


Understand that ultimately I am disinterested in the result of the ban (ok... maybe I would prefer MK to be banned), however I am completely opposed to any ban before the criteria is satisfied.

So, here's your to do list if you want to satisfy the criteria.



Pro-Ban's To Do List


...

And DDD doesn't infinite Mario until kill percentages, Mario can break out.

Since this changes how my post is interpreted I'll wait on your response before going over any other points.

Matchup ratios should already be taking into account who beat who, how, when, and why as well as the other deciding factors behind the matches such how much matchup experience each player has. When they don't, you've just got to ignore them. >_>

Well understand, the way I'm using tournament results, it's a self-check to the theory, to make sure we're not missing something.

So, while it should be considered in light of tournament results as a continuous self-check, the meta-data should also be presented at the end of the process to justify the ban, assuming it's warranted.


Edit:

I meant just because soooo many people play them because the character is the best(causing overcentralization) doesn't mean that character is good enough to be banned.

As was explained in the post THAT YOU QUOTED, overcentralization has nothing to do with being the best, or the raw number of people playing the character. Hence it has a theoretical self-check to prevent exactly that from happening.

Just because a bunch of scrubs say that's overcentralization doesn't make it true, overcentralization has a very specific meaning in competitive gaming.

 

[RDK]

I meant just because soooo many people play them because the character is the best(causing overcentralization) doesn't mean that character is good enough to be banned.

You obviously have no idea what overcentralization means.

It has nothing to do with a character being simply "the best"; it has to do with a character breaking the game.

 

[Tommy_G]

You obviously have no idea what overcentralization means.

It has nothing to do with a character being simply "the best"; it has to do with a character breaking the game.

It just means too many people are playing that character. It's also subjective to what people think excessive is.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/overcentralization

It has nothing to do with the character being broken. People banned akuma because they had no approaches against him if akuma knew how to do an air fireball and it combo-ed into raging demon. It would be like if falco's laser had the stun time of ZSS's laser and it combo-ed into a link style final smash.

 

[adumbrodeus]

A heads up, I decided to collect my thoughts on the Pro-Ban to-do list into a blog post.

It includes exhaustive reasoning as to why overcentralization is the proper standard, what exactly overcentralization means, and what that requires of the community in order to prove that it is satisfied.

If anyone's interested, read and comment, it's a wall of text, but broken up into conveniently labeled sections.

It just means too many people are playing that character. It's also subjective to what people think excessive is.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/overcentralization

It has nothing to do with the character being broken. People banned akuma because they had no approaches against him if akuma knew how to do an air fireball and it combo-ed into raging demon. It would be like if falco's laser had the stun time of ZSS's laser and it combo-ed into a link style final smash.

As has been explained to you SEVERAL times before, no. Overcentralization has a very specific meaning within competitive gaming (well, at least non-Pokemon competitive gaming, Pokemon's community uses terminology very oddly).

RDK was perfectly correct in stating that the standard is "breaking the game" or more explicitly, "renders 50% of the cast nonviable".

You see, when you're in a technical field/group/organization/whatever sometimes vocabulary chances. It might be due to habit (like the AT names) or it might be due to a need for more technical meanings of words (law, medicine, and science all are perfect examples of this with "theory" in terms of science being a wonderful example, in English it means "an educated guess", in science it means, "a model of an effect with a substantial amount of evidence"), overcentralization is one such case, it means something VERY DIFFERENT in English and competitive gaming parlance.

 

[Tommy_G]

As has been explained to you SEVERAL times before, no. Overcentralization has a very specific meaning within competitive gaming (well, at least non-Pokemon competitive gaming, Pokemon's community uses terminology very oddly).

RDK was perfectly correct in stating that the standard is "breaking the game" or more explicitly, "renders 50% of the cast nonviable".

Overcentralization has nothing to do with making 50% of the characters unviable. It is when someone/something gets excessive. If everyone played Cpt Falcon, then the game would be overcentralized on Cpt Falcon and I know he wouldn't make 50% of the cast unviable.

MK being broken is cute on paper, but is it generalizable? No

 

[ShadowLink84]

Overcentralization has nothing to do with making 50% of the characters unviable. It is when someone/something gets excessive. If everyone played Cpt Falcon, then the game would be overcentralized on Cpt Falcon and I know he wouldn't make 50% of the cast unviable.

MK being broken is cute on paper, but is it generalizable? No

Are you seriously trying to force the definition of a word in one context, onto another one with entirely different context?

Over-centralization, for the competitive community means that the game begins to circle around one character/tactic due to how incredibly good that character/tactic is.

For example Ravager Affinity, SF2 Akuma, SF2 HD Akuma, Magical Scientist OTK, etc etc etc.

Overcentralization for the competitive community refers to the definition provided by RDK and Adumbrodeus.

Not the definition that is more commonly used.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Overcentralization has nothing to do with making 50% of the characters unviable. It is when someone/something gets excessive. If everyone played Cpt Falcon, then the game would be overcentralized on Cpt Falcon and I know he wouldn't make 50% of the cast unviable.

MK being broken is cute on paper, but is it generalizable? No

You ninja-edited, my edited response reflects the actual objection to your opinions, which I'll repeat because it addresses the new point as well.


You see, when you're in a technical field/group/organization/whatever sometimes vocabulary chances. It might be due to habit (like the AT names) or it might be due to a need for more technical meanings of words (law, medicine, and science all are perfect examples of this with "theory" in terms of science being a wonderful example, in English it means "an educated guess", in science it means, "a model of an effect with a substantial amount of evidence"), overcentralization is one such case, it means something VERY DIFFERENT in English and competitive gaming parlance.


So, overcentralization in this context isn't opinion-based because it was given a precise definition in competitive gaming parlance, namely, "renders 50% of the cast or more nonviable". Since this is a competitive gaming community, the parlance of competitive gaming is used, and therefore the term "overcentralization" is the proper term for the concepts we are discussing.


Which by the way, you have yet to address.

 

[Maniclysane]

I like how the pro-ban side is so dead, anti-banners are now arguing with each other.

 

[aeghrur]

I like how the pro-ban side is so dead, anti-banners are now arguing with each other.

Either that or pro-banners are smart enough to stop having a bashing contest with an equally stubborn opponent who won't change their views.

 

[.AC.]

Either that or pro-banners are smart enough to stop having a bashing contest with an equally stubborn opponent who won't change their views.

or maybe it is that evry point has been brought up and as of right now the only way to prove wether he fits the overcentralization criteria is to define wether he breaks the game or not by making an accurate matchup list or chart.This chart would represent MK´s matchups and would define wether he makes a certain percentage of character´s unviable,yet this chart has to take in to account human error and it has to be somewhat accurate,well at least i think this is what is happening,i could be wrong.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Either that or pro-banners are smart enough to stop having a bashing contest with an equally stubborn opponent who won't change their views.

Are we? As it seems that a lot of the anti-banners agree with me on my "to do list" at least a good portion of us merely think that it's important to have certain standards met before you ban, standards which either MK does not meet or hasn't been shown to meet.

Personally, I'd change in a heartbeat and I know that a number of other anti-banners would, all that we ask is that you show, based on the criteria of overcentralization, that MK is bannable.


Ultimately, even for reasons beyond this ban, I think that that list needs to be finished because useful match-ups are important and empirical knowledge is important, the realities of MK's dominance (or lack thereof) is merely a derived effect.

So, interested in helping?


Edit:

or maybe it is that evry point has been brought up and as of right now the only way to prove wether he fits the overcentralization criteria is to define wether he breaks the game or not by making an accurate matchup list or chart.This chart would represent MK´s matchups and would define wether he makes a certain percentage of character´s unviable,yet this chart has to take in to account human error and it has to be somewhat accurate,well at least i think this is what is happening,i could be wrong.

Pretty much, human error and mindgames potential are two very important points that have been neglected from match-ups up to this point. Ok, not so much neglected as never dealt with in a formal manner.

There could very well be others, we as a community simply don't know yet, that's why we need to work together to formalize the way we deal with match-ups, otherwise we'll never get this solved.

So, we hope everyone is working on that.

 

[.AC.]

im interested in helping,if anybody cares.

 

[adumbrodeus]

im interested in helping,if anybody cares.

Sweet, keep an eye out, as I find people willing to help we'll begin work on it. I dunno if I'll be taking the lead on it, but I'll add you to my list.

In the meantime, lurk on the character discussion boards to get a feel for how match-ups are currently discussed if you aren't already familiar, the more established boards tend to be more analytical.


Or, if you're already really established in terms of match-up discussions I apologize for assuming based on your join date and post count.

 

[aeghrur]

Are we? As it seems that a lot of the anti-banners agree with me on my "to do list" at least a good portion of us merely think that it's important to have certain standards met before you ban, standards which either MK does not meet or hasn't been shown to meet.

Personally, I'd change in a heartbeat and I know that a number of other anti-banners would, all that we ask is that you show, based on the criteria of overcentralization, that MK is bannable.


Ultimately, even for reasons beyond this ban, I think that that list needs to be finished because useful match-ups are important and empirical knowledge is important, the realities of MK's dominance (or lack thereof) is merely a derived effect.

So, interested in helping?

Oh, I don't doubt that there are people on both sides who are willing to change.
It's just, when I look at this thread, it disgusts me with the way both sides were both completely stubborn.
And personally, I'm not really interested in helping, lol. It won't affect me much as I stick to melee more. I'd much rather learn about law from you.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Oh, I don't doubt that there are people on both sides who are willing to change.
It's just, when I look at this thread, it disgusts me with the way both sides were both completely stubborn.

Ok, fair enough, we are talking about banning a character, people have strong opinions with this. But the only way to make people change is to present them with overwhelming evidence.

And personally, I'm not really interested in helping, lol. It won't affect me much as I stick to melee more. I'd much rather learn about law from you.

I play melee a lot more too, but I think that we need some people to light a fire under the community's *** occasionally, especially since Brawl and melee share a community. Plus, the human error and mindgames potential modeling if properly explored will be really helpful for melee match-ups too.



Lol, get somebody to intelligently poke me more on the student right's thread. What I really wanted was somebody else to disagree with my legal analysis and attempt to start a real legal debate with me.

Unfortunately I got was peachy stating her opinions without even referencing to the ethics behind them. I dunno, I've been to a couple of forums where there were extremely intelligent highly conservative thinkers and we managed to debate legal issues for pages, it was really fun, and it forced me to do a lot of case law research, plus research into legal theory.

Seriously, we need somebody like that for the debate hall, or at least a really liberal thinker, somebody I can debate with on relatively even ground, cause if I'm just teaching everyone how to debate like this, I can't even get a debate going, I need at least one person who's good at it, then others will catch on.

 

[aeghrur]

Ok, fair enough, we are talking about banning a character, people have strong opinions with this. But the only way to make people change is to present them with overwhelming evidence.

Oh, interestingly enough, sometimes that's not enough.

I play melee a lot more too, but I think that we need some people to light a fire under the community's *** occasionally, especially since Brawl and melee share a community. Plus, the human error and mindgames potential modeling if properly explored will be really helpful for melee match-ups too.

Ah, very good point. Also, I have recently tried to use your mindgames potential idea in multiple threads of the sonic boards, but I currently cannot think of a way to quantify that aside from possible options out of moves. See, what I currently think is mindgames is basically baiting or manipulating your opponent into doing something which puts them at a bad position while you at a good position. However, this also means you must be able to punish their mistake, so if you use an approach you're dedicated to, it obviously has a lot less mindgame potential. Thus, a character with less flexibility has less potential for mindgames because they cannot bait and then punish after. So, to quantify mindgames, I believe we need to look at a character's approaches first and find which are flexible and which aren't, compare them with other character's possible approaches, and possibly rank them. Of course, I doubt this will be very efficient, and I'm sure there are many holes in this plan.

Lol, get somebody to intelligently poke me more on the student right's thread. What I really wanted was somebody else to disagree with my legal analysis and attempt to start a real legal debate with me.

I was starting that, except I started wandering off, didn't finish reading the first or last link, and started playing fire emblem, lol.

Unfortunately I got was peachy stating her opinions without even referencing to the ethics behind them. I dunno, I've been to a couple of forums where there were extremely intelligent highly conservative thinkers and we managed to debate legal issues for pages, it was really fun, and it forced me to do a lot of case law research, plus research into legal theory.

Hm, see, I would like to be able to do that, but I have no idea where to start, lol. I know how to direct exam and cross-ex people, but not much on legal theory beyond the basics. Gimme some time to read up on this stuff and I'll try to argue against you, lol.

Seriously, we need somebody like that for the debate hall, or at least a really liberal thinker, somebody I can debate with on relatively even ground, cause if I'm just teaching everyone how to debate like this, I can't even get a debate going, I need at least one person who's good at it, then others will catch on.

Find someone like that in the PG.

 

[zyth]

look the reason MK is so awesome is because Sonic sucks something gooey and warm. it balances out

 

[Lialey]

Gosh, I don't know.. LET'S ASK FALCON! 8D

Captain Falcon approves. Click here.

If the above link does not work,
click here.

 

[Kamikaze*]

Captain Falcon approves. Click here.

If the above link does not work,
click here.

You know...I'm really starting to understand why new members are so hated.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Oh, interestingly enough, sometimes that's not enough.

Unfortunately, true.

But still the best way to accomplish something.

Ah, very good point. Also, I have recently tried to use your mindgames potential idea in multiple threads of the sonic boards, but I currently cannot think of a way to quantify that aside from possible options out of moves. See, what I currently think is mindgames is basically baiting or manipulating your opponent into doing something which puts them at a bad position while you at a good position. However, this also means you must be able to punish their mistake, so if you use an approach you're dedicated to, it obviously has a lot less mindgame potential. Thus, a character with less flexibility has less potential for mindgames because they cannot bait and then punish after. So, to quantify mindgames, I believe we need to look at a character's approaches first and find which are flexible and which aren't, compare them with other character's possible approaches, and possibly rank them. Of course, I doubt this will be very efficient, and I'm sure there are many holes in this plan.

It's ultimately a way of quantifying positional advantage that can be used in every possible situation in the game.

You can run those in every situation you can possibly think of during a match, though the most important positions are, 1. the neutral state, 2. the "need to approach position", and 3. offstage positioning.

Other important ones are (and generally the importance within the overall match-ups various from character to character), above the opponent, below the opponent, grabbed by the opponent, etc. There are many others, but you generally pay attention to the most important ones, AKA, the ones you'll be in most of the time.

I was starting that, except I started wandering off, didn't finish reading the first or last link, and started playing fire emblem, lol.

Lol

Hm, see, I would like to be able to do that, but I have no idea where to start, lol. I know how to direct exam and cross-ex people, but not much on legal theory beyond the basics. Gimme some time to read up on this stuff and I'll try to argue against you, lol.

Well, I'm basically giving an intro course in jurisprudence here so, if you pay attention you'll understand soon enough.

Find someone like that in the PG.

Trying, no luck. We've got smart people, but no lawyers.

 

[|RK|]

I'd try, but I'm mostly in agreement with you Adum...

Although I'd be better in lawyerly fashions after July 27...

 

[aeghrur]

Unfortunately, true.

But still the best way to accomplish something.

Yeah, that's true.

It's ultimately a way of quantifying positional advantage that can be used in every possible situation in the game.

I thought mindgames was the process used to allow you to get into that positional advantage in the first place. For example, 2 people are in a neutral position, but a mindgame allows one person to bait the other into a disadvantaged position. I see how we need to quantify how disadvantageous this position is though.

You can run those in every situation you can possibly think of during a match, though the most important positions are, 1. the neutral state, 2. the "need to approach position", and 3. offstage positioning.

Hm, I don't really understand this part, lol. The thing that throws me off is, how can we quantify the positional advantage of a neutral position?

Other important ones are (and generally the importance within the overall match-ups various from character to character), above the opponent, below the opponent, grabbed by the opponent, etc. There are many others, but you generally pay attention to the most important ones, AKA, the ones you'll be in most of the time.

Completely agree here.

Well, I'm basically giving an intro course in jurisprudence here so, if you pay attention you'll understand soon enough.

Cool.

Trying, no luck. We've got smart people, but no lawyers.

Lol, I guess they're to busying studying their cases instead of playing smash. xP
Lawyers do have a busy job. =/

 

[adumbrodeus]

I thought mindgames was the process used to allow you to get into that positional advantage in the first place. For example, 2 people are in a neutral position, but a mindgame allows one person to bait the other into a disadvantaged position. I see how we need to quantify how disadvantageous this position is though.

Ah, but mindgames potential is created to derive the degree of a mistake (though by working in reverse, it can, basically the lower it is in raw chance and margin of error, the greater the mistake is), instead it's created to examine how likely a mistake is to occur in that position before factoring player skill, and how dangerous mistakes are in that position.

Basically it's built to define what your chances are of ripping your opponent apart, prior to applying skill, in a given position.

Hm, I don't really understand this part, lol. The thing that throws me off is, how can we quantify the positional advantage of a neutral position?

Because somebody's gotta make the attempt to approach, most neutral positions will be quantified based on approaching, though it can vary based on stage.


For example, when the Ganon boards were discussing Marth, my explanation of why Marth had a tremendous advantage mostly centered around how, since neither character can interact at the neutral position, Marth can walk up to poking range unmolested.

From there, Marth has many safe on block options and can safely poke Ganondorf, and Ganondorf has to approach. Because of the hitboxes on Marth's moves and their extreme safety to get through the poking, Ganondorf has to predict what Marth will do with great precision, otherwise he'll either impact the hitbox, or hit shield, which is a guaranteed dancing blade or dolphin slash.

It's NOT a fun match-up to play.

Lol, I guess they're to busying studying their cases instead of playing smash. xP
Lawyers do have a busy job. =/

Lol true.

I'd try, but I'm mostly in agreement with you Adum...

Although I'd be better in lawyerly fashions after July 27...

Sweet, as far as being in agreement, I sort of have that effect on people, lol.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Well it could be worse people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbS7AOhysSk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvD26Vbgov0

In case anyone was offended by the above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYxo_9u_KIE

This one will make you laugh.

 

[aeghrur]

Ah, but mindgames potential is created to derive the degree of a mistake (though by working in reverse, it can, basically the lower it is in raw chance and margin of error, the greater the mistake is), instead it's created to examine how likely a mistake is to occur in that position before factoring player skill, and how dangerous mistakes are in that position.

Basically it's built to define what your chances are of ripping your opponent apart, prior to applying skill, in a given position.

Ah, Okay.

Because somebody's gotta make the attempt to approach, most neutral positions will be quantified based on approaching, though it can vary based on stage.


For example, when the Ganon boards were discussing Marth, my explanation of why Marth had a tremendous advantage mostly centered around how, since neither character can interact at the neutral position, Marth can walk up to poking range unmolested.

From there, Marth has many safe on block options and can safely poke Ganondorf, and Ganondorf has to approach. Because of the hitboxes on Marth's moves and their extreme safety to get through the poking, Ganondorf has to predict what Marth will do with great precision, otherwise he'll either impact the hitbox, or hit shield, which is a guaranteed dancing blade or dolphin slash.

It's NOT a fun match-up to play.

Then why not just eliminate the "neutral" position altogether and just leave the must approach situation?

 

[.AC.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0seAOBHjxE&feature=related

this one´s good too

 

[adumbrodeus]

Then why not just eliminate the "neutral" position altogether and just leave the must approach situation?

Because the neutral varies a great deal depending on the match-up.

In match-ups where you're out-camped, it is the "must approach" situation with the added dimension of the projectile, unless the projectile's effective range stops short of approach distance, in which case they're treated separately, especially since you're gotta account for the influence of the projectile in getting spacing.

In match-ups with neither character able to outcamp the other, and neither has a safe poke move, the neutral position becomes a spacing game, where they can toss out projectiles (if they have them) and try to bait their opponent into doing that'll allow them to approach (very VERY complicated to model btw), and then it goes into approach situations.


Marth and MK have a ton of "poke" match-ups and for melee characters, or characters with bad projectiles, the neutral position ends up becoming the poke position. But with characters with powerful or complex projectiles (cough cough snake), the neutral position becomes very complex to model and very influential, and can be very distinct from approach position if character can't use a projectile to fully force and approach.


So, yeah, in some match-ups it's distinct, in others it's not. That justifies leaving the neutral position in there, even though that particular match-up effectively ignored it.

 

[rathy Aro]

why does the pro-ban side still exist?.....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

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.

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).

As another example, consider the puzzle game Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. It’s vaguely like Tetris. In this game, blocks of various colors fall into your basin and you try to match up the colors to break these blocks to fill up your opponent’s basin. If you fill up his basin to the top, you win.

Puzzle Fighter has a game-altering bug. A feature called the diamond lets the player break all blocks of a certain color on his own side (even if they aren’t lined up) and send blocks to the opponent’s side. Usually, doing this means sending much, much fewer blocks than if the player had broken all the blocks of that color manually. It’s a tradeoff since the diamond allows the player to break all those blocks instantly, but at the price of a smaller attack. There is a bug, though, called the “diamond trick” that allows the player to send even more blocks with the diamond than he would have sent breaking all his blocks of that color manually. The diamond goes from “get me out of trouble” to being a serious, game-ending thwomp. It’s nearly impossible to defeat a player who uses the diamond trick without using it yourself.

Amongst players who all know this trick, there is still a good game. One player can use his diamond trick to cancel out the other player’s. Each player gets diamond every twenty-fifth piece, so you can count on the other player getting his diamond about the same time you get yours. You can also just break a lot of blocks right when the opponent does his diamond trick. This will allow you to cancel some of the incoming block, but still give you a pretty full basin. A peculiarity of Puzzle Fighter is that when your basin is nearly full, you then have a lot of ammunition to send back to the opponent. A clever player can turn the other player’s huge diamond trick into a stockpile of ammunition to fire back for the win. In the end, the trick merely changes the game and does not destroy it, and is certainly not worthy of banning.

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.

A note to game developers: fix your bugs after release if you have the opportunity to do so. But beware that players enjoy the feeling of wielding “unfair” tactics, and taking that away from them can be a mistake if the “unfair” tactic isn’t powerful enough to single-handedly win tournaments.

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.

“It’s Too Good!”

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.

The Two Excellent Examples of “Super Turbo”

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, or “Super Turbo,” is a wonderful example of bannings in fighting games. As of this writing, the arcade game is ten years old and still played in tournaments. In fact, there are one or two tournaments per week in this game in Tokyo alone. The game is quite mature, and there is a decade of data about the game’s balance.

furthermore....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/cheating.html

Many versions of Street Fighter have “secret characters” that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good; sometimes they’re not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game as in the game Marvel vs. Capcom 1. Big deal. That’s the way that game is. Live with it. But Super Turbo was the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character: the untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don’t mean it’s a tough match—I mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is “broken” in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn’t designed to handle. He is not merely the best character in the game, but is at least ten times better than other characters. This case is so extreme that all top players in America immediately realized that all tournaments would be Akuma vs. Akuma only, and so the character was banned with basically no debate and has been ever since. I believe this was the correct decision.

Japan, however, does not officially ban Akuma from tournaments! They have what is called a “soft ban.” This is a tacit understanding amongst all top players that Akuma is too good to be played, and that he destroys an otherwise beautiful game, so they unofficially agree not to play him. There are always a very small number of people who do play him in tournaments, but never the top players. Usually a few poor players try their hand at the god-character and lose, which is utterly humiliating and crowd-pleasing. This is an interesting alternate take on the “hard ban” we have in America.

That’s all well and good, but Japan has also shown signs of a soft-ban on another character in Super Turbo. I bring up this example because it lives on the threshold. It is just on the edge of what is reasonable to ban because it is “too good.” Anything less than this would not be reasonable, so perhaps others can use it as a benchmark to decide what is reasonable in their games.

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.

By Sirlin's criteria, no ban. In fact its not even close. And pro-banners if you have time check out Sirlin's definition of scrub. Its in the previous pages. =P

 

[Remzi]

What's the Smash Lab doing? Have they found optimal solutions to ledge camping yet? Why didn't they discover pivot chain grabbing before BengalsRZ? Why is Distant Planet banned yet Pirate Ship is counterpick? Why isn't this thread locked yet?

Because I should be in the smash lab ^_^

 

[P. O. F.]

why does the pro-ban side still exist?.....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html


furthermore....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/cheating.html


By Sirlin's criteria, no ban. In fact its not even close. And pro-banners if you have time check out Sirlin's definition of scrub. Its in the previous pages. =P

I read that and thought that it was an amazing post. I also skimmed the Sirlin link and thought a majority of it to be accurate to the T. However, I do think that if a good half of the SBR did not main Meta Knight...he would be banned. Once again gentleman, politics.

I think that we can get the most accurate idea of if Meta Knight should be banned by basing our pro ban or anti ban thought process on tournament results for high level players but, is the average smash player DSF, Azen, or M2K? Do those results have anything to do with the general public who play this video game? No, not really. Anti banners are simply stating "He's not broken, he can be beaten." while pro banners are saying "He puts the game at a horrible balance, ban him." That is exactly what Meta Knight does to Brawl. He makes the game imperfect and disrupts the whole presentation of the game. I know that some of you can think of players who use Meta Knight against you and you often lose to. Now ask yourself this question: If they DID NOT use Meta Knight would you probably two or three stock them every time? Honestly ask yourself that....don't just say yes to support me and bandwagon. I even see this scenario in friendlies amongst smashers. Brawl players say that "they like Brawl more because it's all about the mind games." Please; show me the mind games in a lagless d smash, invincibility frames w upB, a tornado that can barely be stopped, limitless recovery options, the best tilts in the game, arguably the best dash attack, gimps as low as 10% on rainbow cruise, an infinite cape glitch, the best planking ability in the game, the best offense in the game, and the ability to be aggressive against every character with NO NEED to camp. It has nothing to do with "you don't know the match up, you don't know how to adjust..." It boils down to you give your opponent a handicap when you use Meta Knight and they don't ditto you. You Are At A Disadvantage On Every Stage Unless You Choose Meta Knight. You're right though, that doesn't warrant a ban.

Think about it: Meta Knight is Melee Jigglypuffs gimp ability and recovery along with Falco or Captain Falcons on stage pressure.

In your post (near the end) it said something along the lines of the Japan players doing a "soft ban" on old Sagat because a good half of the cast could not beat Old Sagat. Forget the Akuma aspect of that post for a second. That is exactly what Meta Knight does to Brawl. Any top level player (getting back to how SBR wants to determine if MK should be banned, correct?) who does not use the following players

GAW
Snake
Marth
Falco? (maybe?)

simply cannot beat a good Meta Knight IN TOURNAMENT WHEN IT COUNTS. and would not dare to try.


Edit-Oh yeah, found out today that -Darc- uses Meta Knight too. Great. More SBR players who use Meta Knight. This is the real reason why he is not banned.

 

[adumbrodeus]

why does the pro-ban side still exist?.....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html


furthermore....

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/cheating.html


By Sirlin's criteria, no ban. In fact its not even close. And pro-banners if you have time check out Sirlin's definition of scrub. Its in the previous pages. =P

You realize that we were JUST DISCUSSING whether or not MK fits into that criteria. I'm anti-ban, but when you drop in with things like this and act like it's a revelation, it just makes people think you haven't followed the thread at all.


Ultimately, it's an open question whether or not MK actually fits the criteria because there's so much of our metagame which isn't known. An easy example is the fact that the game's match-ups aren't REALLY known because our theoretical model for doing match-ups is catastrophically flawed, and we need to fix that.

I discussed what needs to be done in order to prove that MK overcentralizes the metagame if he does in a post in my Blog if he does overcentralize the metagame, I suggest you read it.



Because he could very well overcentralize the metagame and nobody would know because we don't have the information to tell and we don't even have the models to properly analyze in order to get the information.

I read that and thought that it was an amazing post. I also skimmed the Sirlin link and thought a majority of it to be accurate to the T. However, I do think that if a good half of the SBR did not main Meta Knight...he would be banned. Once again gentleman, politics.

You realize that 99% of the intelligent anti-banners made that point at least once, many did it many times.

Heck, I did heavy analysis of Sirlin and explained concrete steps that pro-ban could take to prove whether or not MK was bannable in addition to showing exactly what threshold was viable.

This is nothing new, it's all been cited, and cross-referenced, and quoted many many many times before.

Because I should be in the smash lab ^_^

Yes, you should.

 

[thrillagorilla]

However, I do think that if a good half of the SBR did not main Meta Knight...he would be banned. Once again gentleman, politics.

How in the world can you justify that statement? Or prove it? What purpose does it serve in this debate? Also, you do realize that not all of the Meta-mains in the BR voted anti-ban in previous polls (or this one), right?

 

[P. O. F.]

How in the world can you justify that statement? Or prove it? What purpose does it serve in this debate? Also, you do realize that not all of the Meta-mains in the BR voted anti-ban in previous polls (or this one), right?

True...that might be true.

You also do realize that a big reason why most Brawl top level players play Brawl is for the $$$, right? I'm pretty sure if the money was in Melee, they would play Melee.

Some players play for the $$$$, not for the fun of it. Cort and M2K are prime examples of this. When Brawl first came out Cort dominated tournaments and actually beat M2K at the first Esticle along with PC Chris when he played as well (Back when M2K mained DDD) but then stopped playing because he found the game to be dumb. At one of his last tournaments Cort actually killed himself with a C4 because he was just so sick of playing even though money was on the line. Had Melee still been strong and lively, he would have hosted Melee...but the $ was in Brawl and is at this current time. He just stopped playing because he simply does not enjoy Brawl/smash as much anymore. We all move on and do our own thing.

M2K LIKES BRAWL, I know this to be true...but I'm pretty sure that M2K enjoys Melee over Brawl so if the money was in Melee...he would be playing that more.

So my point is this: People don't want him banned because they want to make $$$$

I mean sit back and think about it for a second, is that really poor logic? Is that really so out of line to assume/think that? I don't think so.

Darc looks pretty happy with his money. I love you Darc. Darc is too good....we shouldnt ban him though. lol.

No homo

 

[.AC.]

True...that might be true.

You also do realize that a big reason why most Brawl top level players play Brawl is for the $$$, right? I'm pretty sure if the money was in Melee, they would play Melee.

Some players play for the $$$$, not for the fun of it. Cort and M2K are prime examples of this. When Brawl first came out Cort dominated tournaments and actually beat M2K at the first Esticle along with PC Chris when he played as well (Back when M2K mained DDD) but then stopped playing because he found the game to be dumb. Had Melee still been strong and lively, he would have hosted Melee...but the $ was in Brawl and is at this current time. He just stopped playing because he simply does not enjoy Brawl/smash as much anymore. We all move on and do our own thing.

M2K LIKES BRAWL, I know this to be true...but I'm pretty sure that M2K enjoys Melee over Brawl so if the money was in Melee...he would be playing that more.

So my point is this: People don't want him banned because they want to make $$$$

Wether people play for money or not does not make MK more deserving of a ban.Besides you cant prove people dont want him banned just for the money.

 

[P. O. F.]

Wether people play for money or not does not make MK more deserving of a ban.Besides you cant prove people dont want him banned just for the money.

You're right, I can't.

But can anyone really say that MK does not deserve a ban? In all honestly, we are placing this decision in the hands of other Brawl players that "have a purple name." That's it really. lol. What separates those Brawl players from us is the fact that they do better in tournaments and have a purple name. That's it. You can feed people the whole Akuma BS and say "literally guys, he CANT be beat" but if you put the controller in the hands of an inexperienced SF player against someone who knows what hes doing and goes Ryu VS the lesser competitively active Akuma....Ryus going to win. You do that in Brawl and the margin of how close the match is much lower. That's the whole point. Meta Knights skill is much more superior than the rest of the cast. Bottom line.

I understand where you guys are coming from about MK can be beaten and all that...I'm not stupid. I understand the whole synopsis of competitive fighters and what "warrants" a ban and I strongly believe MK deserves this.

 

[.AC.]

You're right, I can't.

But can anyone really say that MK does not deserve a ban? In all honestly, we are placing this decision in the hands of other Brawl players that "have a purple name." That's it really. lol. What separates those Brawl players from us is the fact that they do better in tournaments and have a purple name. That's it. You can feed people the whole Akuma BS and say "literally guys, he CANT be beat" but if you put the controller in the hands of an inexperienced SF player against someone who knows what hes doing and goes Ryu VS the lesser competitively active Akuma....Ryus going to win. You do that in Brawl and the margin of how close the match is much lower. That's the whole point. Meta Knights skill is much more superior than the rest of the cast. Bottom line.

I understand where you guys are coming from about MK can be beaten and all that...I'm not stupid. I understand the whole synopsis of competitive fighters and what "warrants" a ban and I strongly believe MK deserves this.

You are right about the people with the "Purple names" having the decision.Yet there is a reason these people have purple names,and that is because they have more knowledge on the game and generally are better at the game.By the way you all these arguments are assuming both players are at the top of their character´s game so your "Ryu Vs Akuma" is not really very convincing or valid at all.

 

[Lugiatina]

Banning Metaknight?

First of all, I just want to ask, how would banning Metaknight affect the metagame? If Metaknight is banned, then Snake would be top tier, then people would start complaining about him being cheap and ban him also. Then, the characters in the same tier as Falco would be complained about. That would lead to a lack of diversity in people's choice of characters, plus, lets get to the point, the game would not be very fun if some of the characters were banned, would it? Then, the characters in the lower tiers would become top tier in tournaments. And then, the cycle would go on again and again and again until no one would really want to play competitively anymore, and that would basically be the end of Brawl in competitive play. My point, this whole banning thing is stupid, dumb, and a waste of time to complain about (no offense).

This is why I vote no, since for one thing, I like Metaknight and I think he is a great character and also, we should think of the consequences before deciding to ban a certain character, they could become dire.

 

[Melomaniacal]

First of all, I just want to ask, how would banning Metaknight affect the metagame? If Metaknight is banned, then Snake would be top tier, then people would start complaining about him being cheap and ban him also. Then, the characters in the same tier as Falco would be complained about. That would lead to a lack of diversity in people's choice of characters, plus, lets get to the point, the game would not be very fun if some of the characters were banned, would it? Then, the characters in the lower tiers would become top tier in tournaments. And then, the cycle would go on again and again and again until no one would really want to play competitively anymore, and that would basically be the end of Brawl in competitive play. My point, this whole banning thing is stupid, dumb, and a waste of time to complain about (no offense).

This is why I vote no, since for one thing, I like Metaknight and I think he is a great character and also, we should think of the consequences before deciding to ban a certain character, they could become dire.

...you obviously have no idea why people think MK should be banned. Protip: It's not because he's the best character.

Another protip: Fun is not a valid argument.

 

[P. O. F.]

First of all, I just want to ask, how would banning Metaknight affect the metagame? If Metaknight is banned, then Snake would be top tier, then people would start complaining about him being cheap and ban him also. Then, the characters in the same tier as Falco would be complained about. That would lead to a lack of diversity in people's choice of characters, plus, lets get to the point, the game would not be very fun if some of the characters were banned, would it? Then, the characters in the lower tiers would become top tier in tournaments. And then, the cycle would go on again and again and again until no one would really want to play competitively anymore, and that would basically be the end of Brawl in competitive play. My point, this whole banning thing is stupid, dumb, and a waste of time to complain about (no offense).

This is why I vote no, since for one thing, I like Metaknight and I think he is a great character and also, we should think of the consequences before deciding to ban a certain character, they could become dire.

Falco, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Marth, GAW, and many characters do just fine against Snake.