Should Planking (i.e. Ledgestalling) be Banned?

[Eddie G]

Jigglypuff may have an easier time beating planking but she's still trash vs Metaknight, you're giving a horrible example. It doesn't increase viability for anyone it only slightly hurts some characters. This stupid idea of a ledge grab limit does, it hurts the characters who have trouble with it and anyone with any sort of an option against it make planking useless. The ledge grab rule only hurts viability, not increase it.

Why do I post like a moody pregnant woman?

I think he meant it defensively helps her, but don't quote me on it. I agree with you on the limit harming viability overall though. Some characters who would have to rely on grabbing the ledge against certain matchups would be forced into a ridiculous corner.

 

[Falconv1.0]

I think he meant it defensively helps her, but don't quote me on it. I agree with you on the limit harming viability overall though. Some characters who would have to rely on grabbing the ledge against certain matchups would be forced into a ridiculous corner.

I guess, but he used the words INCREASE viability.


Either way, I'd like to stop seeing anymore conversation about how it effects the metagame, it's obviously not over centralizing anything and obviously not being a big factor in winning tourneys. People posting videos of a bad case of planking aren't going to prove anything.

/discussion.

 

[Orange_Soda_Man]

Nevermind.

 

[XienZo]

Jigglypuff may have an easier time beating planking but she's still trash vs Metaknight, you're giving a horrible example. It doesn't increase viability for anyone it only slightly hurts some characters. This stupid idea of a ledge grab limit does, it hurts the characters who have trouble with it and anyone with any sort of an option against it make planking useless. The ledge grab rule only hurts viability, not increase it.

I was under the impression that Jigglypuffs use planking themselves against troublesome opponents like Olimar, who totally owns jigglypuff otherwise. I meant increase viability by USING planking, not by countering planking better than others can.

Edit: What King Beef said.

Why is everyone in this thread insane now.

1. Because we can.
2. It's more fun than you'd think.


Anyhow, just because the ledge grab limit may not do us any good doesn't mean planking is neccesarily OK. I mean, what happens is that the TIME LIMIT forces players to move to disadvantageous positions, just like how the Ledge grab limit does, so if the ledge grab limit can't be used for that reason, why is the time limit ok?

 

[Falconv1.0]

I was under the impression that Jigglypuffs use planking themselves against troublesome opponents like Olimar, who totally owns jigglypuff otherwise. I meant increase viability by USING planking, not by countering planking better than others can.

Ah, that makes a bit more sense. Still, she has match ups that basically make her unusable so some match ups made better by planking still wont save the day. =/

But point taken.

 

[1048576]

You won't hit 56 grabs unless you're stalling. If you have to stall to win you shouldn't win.

 

[AvaricePanda]

It's not stalling. It's possible to hit the other person, you're just put into a disadvantageous position. Also, the fact that quite a bit of the cast can get around it...why should it be banned?

I still have yet to see any known characters that have trouble with planking (re: Falco)...I've never seen their character boards bring up the issue of planking. If they haven't experimented with it, how do we know how broken it is?

I think we've debated heavily that planking wasn't stalling like...60 pages ago, so saying that, "PLANKING IS STALLING BAN IT," is a very moot point without any evidence.

 

[1048576]

WALLBOMBING

show how it's different or show that the Melee community is a bunch of scrubs for bannign it. If you can't, you have no argument.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Jigglypuff is seriously not THAT bad; you guys are talking like she's useless or something. She's definitely a low tier character, but she can win and her strengths do matter to the game as a whole. You could say her strength against it "helps" her in the same way that Falco's chaingrab does. By not being effective against her but being effective against some other characters, these things make her better by comparison to the rest of the cast (presuming they hurt more characters than they directly help, which is probably true for both planking and Falco's chaingrab). Her own abilities to directly play stallish ledgegames are positive for sure as well.

Anyway, the difference from wallbombing is simple. Let's assume it's being done on Fountain of Dreams back in melee so we can easily represent the position. Peach is under the stage very low and can stay there basically forever. How many characters can attack her down here? Ness obviously can. Jigglypuff and Kirby and probably make it down there, try to hit her, and make it back. Another Peach could start wallbombing even. Everyone else doesn't really have a chance (remember you have to do an aerial attack extremely low and then recover so the elaborate recoveries that a few characters like Mario can make from that low won't be working). In order to even try to hit her, they have to commit to literal suicide. Ness and Kirby weren't really tournament viable anyway (unless Ness is on Corneria!) so basically the whole metagame is now Jigglypuff and Peach with Jigglypuff being at a pretty big disadvantage. This is in sharp contrast to planking. With planking, most of the cast have very reasonable counters. The balance of the game isn't going to change a whole lot either way. Even the FEW characters that don't have practical counters only have to put themselves in a position they are very likely to get hit to try, not put themselves in a position where they are absolutely guaranteed to die even if they hit.

For that matter, even if planking were something that most of the cast had serious trouble answering (it isn't), it would still be worlds better than wall bombing. If you attempt to dislodge a planker, what are the possible outcomes? You could hit the planker and be safe, trade hits with the planker, and get hit by the planker. That's one winning, one potentially neutral (trading is situationally good and bad), and one losing. When you approach a wall bomber, what are the possible outcomes? You can fail to hit Peach and then die or succeed at hitting Peach and then die. That's one option that's losing and another that's probably losing but has a small chance of being neutral. Even if planking were a ridiculously strong tactic, it doesn't risk death unless the player really screws up or dies in the way getting hit normally kills (high damage, recovery situation, etc.) and has a clear possible winning outcome for the person playing against it. With wallbombing, death is not only likely but absolutely certain if you are using any but a VERY small number of characters and even the best possible outcome is still probably losing for the person playing against the tactic. They are seriously not analogous at all.

 

[Falconv1.0]

1048576 you're so misinformed it's not even funny. Get this wall bombing topic out of here, now, AA just ***** the **** out of that idea.

You're stating ideas like it's a fact. No, 56 ledge grabs does not equal stalling you bloody fool, it means you're camping. There is no argument for this, PLANKING IS CAMPING NOT STALLING.

 

[Dantarion]

Camping the edge while your opponent just stands there onstage has to be stalling.

If someone starts to plank me, I will just stand there.
Am I stalling for not approaching?
Is the opponent stalling by staying away from me?

If 8 min go by in each match and then my opponent tries to hit me in the last 15 seconds, is that okay?

 

[Falconv1.0]

Camping the edge while your opponent just stands there onstage has to be stalling.

Are you seriously going to pull a thrillagorilla here and say something as stupid as "if you're not in range to do damage you're stalling"? If so I'm going to bash your skull in with tru fax.

If you just stand there while the guy planks it's your own **** fault, do something about it but dont call it stalling because you're too big of a ***** to do something.

 

[XienZo]

Heh, well I'm sure AA convinced all of us that wallbombing in Melee is different from Planking in Brawl due to a massive difference in viable characters, but what about HA stalling, pound stalling, and gliding under stages in Brawl? Those are banned, but it seems as if more than a handful of characters that can stop them, especially HA and gliding.

Also, what is the cutoff point in how many characters a technique makes unviable to become an issue?

 

[Popertop]

Camping the edge while your opponent just stands there onstage has to be stalling./QUOTE]

Are you seriously going to pull a thrillagorilla here and say something as stupid as "if you're not in range to do damage you're stalling"? If so I'm going to bash your skull in with tru fax.

If you just stand there while the guy planks it's your own **** fault, do something about it but dont call it stalling because you're too big of a ***** to do something.

this.

I planked in a MK ditto and got DQ'ed for it.

I would have won anyways, but honestly, it's not like MK doesn't have an answer to it. :/

I was ahead by a stock, and then I did it just to see what it would be like.

It was really boring. but then I zoned out and the match was over lol.

I had around 138 ledge grabs.

 

[1048576]

Jigglypuff is seriously not THAT bad; you guys are talking like she's useless or something. She's definitely a low tier character, but she can win and her strengths do matter to the game as a whole. You could say her strength against it "helps" her in the same way that Falco's chaingrab does. By not being effective against her but being effective against some other characters, these things make her better by comparison to the rest of the cast (presuming they hurt more characters than they directly help, which is probably true for both planking and Falco's chaingrab). Her own abilities to directly play stallish ledgegames are positive for sure as well.

Anyway, the difference from wallbombing is simple. Let's assume it's being done on Fountain of Dreams back in melee so we can easily represent the position. Peach is under the stage very low and can stay there basically forever. How many characters can attack her down here? Ness obviously can. Jigglypuff and Kirby and probably make it down there, try to hit her, and make it back. Another Peach could start wallbombing even. Everyone else doesn't really have a chance (remember you have to do an aerial attack extremely low and then recover so the elaborate recoveries that a few characters like Mario can make from that low won't be working). In order to even try to hit her, they have to commit to literal suicide. Ness and Kirby weren't really tournament viable anyway (unless Ness is on Corneria!) so basically the whole metagame is now Jigglypuff and Peach with Jigglypuff being at a pretty big disadvantage. This is in sharp contrast to planking. With planking, most of the cast have very reasonable counters. The balance of the game isn't going to change a whole lot either way. Even the FEW characters that don't have practical counters only have to put themselves in a position they are very likely to get hit to try, not put themselves in a position where they are absolutely guaranteed to die even if they hit.

For that matter, even if planking were something that most of the cast had serious trouble answering (it isn't), it would still be worlds better than wall bombing. If you attempt to dislodge a planker, what are the possible outcomes? You could hit the planker and be safe, trade hits with the planker, and get hit by the planker. That's one winning, one potentially neutral (trading is situationally good and bad), and one losing. When you approach a wall bomber, what are the possible outcomes? You can fail to hit Peach and then die or succeed at hitting Peach and then die. That's one option that's losing and another that's probably losing but has a small chance of being neutral. Even if planking were a ridiculously strong tactic, it doesn't risk death unless the player really screws up or dies in the way getting hit normally kills (high damage, recovery situation, etc.) and has a clear possible winning outcome for the person playing against it. With wallbombing, death is not only likely but absolutely certain if you are using any but a VERY small number of characters and even the best possible outcome is still probably losing for the person playing against the tactic. They are seriously not analogous at all.

*sigh

Samus, Link, Young Link, Pikachu, Pichu, Jiggs, Kirby, Ness, Mewtwo, Peach, Ice Climbers, Yoshi?.

Anyways, nearly every character can suicide with the Peach, and several others can do something risky to hopefully kill the Peach and then recover. Not to mention the cast that can hit her on other stages, like FD.

Notice how I don't flame. I expect the MK mains to post in similar fashion.

You can't weigh the possible outcomes evenly. You will likely get gimped. You won't often hit them. With wallbombing, you will almost always hit them if you're using one of the viable characters with no risk to you.

You guys are too easily convinced. I know you all want to believe that it's different, but try to at least consider all arguments before saying that almost nobody can beat wallbombing. (Referring to the people who posted after the quote.)

 

[Orange_Soda_Man]

Falconv1.0, although your points may be valid, you're fighting a losing argument. There's around 10% of the community that feels that planking is fine without bias. In coming up with that number, I figure ~ 73% of SWF didn't vote that planking is fine and 20% of the field is generally metaknight.

It may be inaccurate to say MK Main = planking voter, but it doesn't make sense for any player to vote against a tactic that works so well for them, like if DDD mains voted to ban CGing. Individual exceptions aside, this surly is a generality.

 

[1048576]

Although Yoshi prolly won't be able to hit a wallbombing Peach, I forgot about Luigi with his tornado, so meh.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

I believe the japanese ledge rule

It is impossible for a tourney host to go to every TV and check what happens if everyone starts to complain

Though I think 60 would work better

 

[brinboy789]

In coming up with that number, I figure ~ 73% of SWF didn't vote that planking is fine and 20% of the field is generally metaknight.

if you click on ban by judge ruling, the first name is affinity, a widely renowned MK user. hell, even M2K wanted an edge grab limit. dont go saying stuff w/out checking first

 

[adumbrodeus]

Heh, well I'm sure AA convinced all of us that wallbombing in Melee is different from Planking in Brawl due to a massive difference in viable characters, but what about HA stalling, pound stalling, and gliding under stages in Brawl? Those are banned, but it seems as if more than a handful of characters that can stop them, especially HA and gliding.

Also, what is the cutoff point in how many characters a technique makes unviable to become an issue?

He was wrong...


Stalling is an "on occurrence issue", if a character is unable to touch you period or the requirement for touching you is a suicide then it's stalling.


The thing with planking is, some characters may be bad at it, but there's never any permanent invincibility, just a bad situation for the attacker.

 

[1048576]

We ban several stages for causing similarly "bad situations" for a given player/character.

 

[Dantarion]

Camping the edge while your opponent just stands there onstage has to be stalling.

Are you seriously going to pull a thrillagorilla here and say something as stupid as "if you're not in range to do damage you're stalling"? If so I'm going to bash your skull in with tru fax.

If you just stand there while the guy planks it's your own **** fault, do something about it but dont call it stalling because you're too big of a ***** to do something.

No. You misunderstood me, or at least, I hope you did

A lot of people say they plank until their opponent gives them space to get back on stage.
If I fight someone who runs to the edge at the beginning of the match and starts planking, are you saying I am supposed to try to attack them even though I have a like 5% chance of even hitting them with DK?

I am not gonna do that, I am just gonna stand there and wait. I can apply pressure, but for the most part, i can't hit below the stage without risking being gimped.

I am not saying that if you arent in range to do damage you are stalling. I am saying that if you are just sitting on the edge while your opponent isn't even pressuring you, it should be counted as stalling.

 

[Orange_Soda_Man]

if you click on ban by judge ruling, the first name is affinity, a widely renowned MK user. hell, even M2K wanted an edge grab limit. dont go saying stuff w/out checking first

I most certainly know of both M2K and Affinity. I also know I mentioned something along the lines that few exceptions to a generality does not change a generality.

Just because two great MK players make a decision doesn't mean that most other MK players will make the same decision.

 

[Flayl]

I most certainly know of both M2K and Affinity. I also know I mentioned something along the lines that few exceptions to a generality does not change a generality.

Don't assume because two great MK players make a decision that most other MK players will make the same decision.

brinboy didn't make any assumption, you did.

 

[Orange_Soda_Man]

brinboy didn't make any assumption, you did.

I certainly did. A reasonable assumption to make, mind you.

I misread his post a little. fixed for accuracy.

 

[adumbrodeus]

We ban several stages for causing similarly "bad situations" for a given player/character.

Stage bans have a much lower threshhold then character and tactic bans.

 

[1048576]

I can see character, but why tactic?

 

[KarateF22]

Planking should be banned via 70 edge grab limit because it is extremely anti-competitive. Those who argue you can "technically" do something, i ask you. What? What can we do that is at least a 50% chance of stopping you or hurting you more than you can hurt us? Why would you plank if we could easily/reliably stop you? Makes no sense at all.

 

[AvaricePanda]

If you're asking the question, "What can we do?" then that's just another reason to not ban Planking.

This topic of planking has RARELY EVER been brought up to any character boards, and I find it funny, because I didn't find a thread or anything about planking in the Falco boards even though the character is notorious for getting owned by planking.

Here's the question: What CAN Falco/Fox/Sonic/any other character that deals with planking do? What tactics and attacks do these characters have that beat planking? That go even with planking? That get kind-of-beat-although-kind-of-work against planking? That just get ***** against planking? Except for the arbitrary individuals out there and characters that can just beat planking (Diddy, Kirby, MK, etc) we don't know what we can do against planking.

If you don't know how "broken" a tactic is, banning it is just silly.

@1048576: Why does it make any sense at all to ban a tactic that's not fully explored, that about half the characters can get past with relative ease, that top pros (Azen) are known to not have trouble with, and that is hardly used in tournaments as of now?

 

[1048576]

We banned wallbombing before fully exploring it... it's just obvious that half the cast of characters can't do anything against it and we don't want the game to come down to who can plank anti-plank the best.

 

[fallenangemon0]

Edge Grab limit, its very easy to enforce, and its the most easy to modify.

Not to mention since its set by a computer instead of a human, it'll be universal.

That about says it. Two people with different stories < A number displayed on the screen

 

[AvaricePanda]

Stop bringing up wallbombing. AA already said all the reasons why wallbombing was broken and much different than planking. Only 3 characters could viably do something against wallbombing, 2 of which weren't tourney viable. For every other character, you had to LITERALLY die to beat it (which isn't beating it), AKA if the Peach is ahead a stock, you're guaranteed a loss if she wall-bombs.

Only one person can counter wallbombing, the rest completely die. About half the characters can counter planking, the rest are put in a bad situation. That's hardly equal.

Also, you don't ban something that's debatable for a pre-emptive strike. Not only is planking easily beatable, but hardly anyone does it. There are hardly any tourneys where you see an MK placing well solely because of planking, and absolutely no one has won a tournament by only planking. Planking is hardly used in general. It was known since September, it's now April, and not any more people do it. If it became a problem and it really wasn't beatable (even though it is) THEN we ban it, but it's not a problem now, and it's beatable.

Also, saying, "We banned wallbombing before fully exploring it," doesn't justify that you should be able to ban planking before fully exploring it. We don't know enough about planking. It may be realized that quite a bit more characters have feasable ways of beating it. But you don't ban something that you hardly know much of.

 

[adumbrodeus]

I can see character, but why tactic?

Because tactic bans are in effect the entire match as opposed to other bans which effect choices prior to the match actually beginning.

Basically, tactic bans are something we do to prevent a character from being banned because of this.

 

[1048576]

Stop bringing up wallbombing. AA already said all the reasons why wallbombing was broken and much different than planking. Only 3 characters could viably do something against wallbombing, 2 of which weren't tourney viable. For every other character, you had to LITERALLY die to beat it (which isn't beating it), AKA if the Peach is ahead a stock, you're guaranteed a loss if she wall-bombs.

Only one person can counter wallbombing, the rest completely die. About half the characters can counter planking, the rest are put in a bad situation. That's hardly equal.

Also, you don't ban something that's debatable for a pre-emptive strike. Not only is planking easily beatable, but hardly anyone does it. There are hardly any tourneys where you see an MK placing well solely because of planking, and absolutely no one has won a tournament by only planking. Planking is hardly used in general. It was known since September, it's now April, and not any more people do it. If it became a problem and it really wasn't beatable (even though it is) THEN we ban it, but it's not a problem now, and it's beatable.

Also, saying, "We banned wallbombing before fully exploring it," doesn't justify that you should be able to ban planking before fully exploring it. We don't know enough about planking. It may be realized that quite a bit more characters have feasable ways of beating it. But you don't ban something that you hardly know much of.

I refuted AA's post with a list of twelve characters.

We banned IDC as a pre-emptive strike, and there's no way anyone can do that for eight minutes.

Adumbrodeus, can you please clarify? I don't see how banning something that takes place during the match is worse than banning something that takes place before the match. Also, your second sentence is strange. It's not really a reason as much as it is a blind assertion.

 

[adumbrodeus]

We banned IDC as a pre-emptive strike, and there's no way anyone can do that for eight minutes.

Want a bet? Will take me a bit to get back into form, but before it was banned I got a lot of practice on that tech and I got quite good at it.

But, here's the thing. As a general rule, infinite stalling is banned because it's been proven broken previously. Anything that qualifies as such is immiediatly banned under the pre-existing rule to the point where it is indistinguishable from infinite stalling.

Adumbrodeus, can you please clarify? I don't see how banning something that takes place during the match is worse than banning something that takes place before the match. Also, your second sentence is strange. It's not really a reason as much as it is a blind assertion.

You're misunderstanding.

With bans of tactics, it's a constant option, in other words, the ban doesn't come into play at one decision point, but instead happens thousands of times in the space of one match.


In essence, it's the level of intrusion that the artificial rule adds to the match that makes banning stages easier then banning tactics, banning tactics is a high level of intrusion into a player's gaming, whereas banning stages is a low level (since it only takes effect once per match), therefore the standards are lower.



And yes, the last sentance was an assertion based that idea, tactics bans are last resort when the only alternative is to ban the character.

 

[XienZo]

He was wrong...

Who?

Stalling is an "on occurrence issue", if a character is unable to touch you period or the requirement for touching you is a suicide then it's stalling.

For how many characters? What if that condition applies to some characters, like Falco, but not others? Or is it different for each match, as in HA stall is stalling against Falco but is OK against Jigglypuff? Is suicide coming back only 1% of the time? 5% of the time? .01% of the time?

The thing with planking is, some characters may be bad at it, but there's never any permanent invincibility, just a bad situation for the attacker.

How is gliding under the stage a "permanent" invincibility? The invincibility just lasts longer, but eventually, they're going to have to go for a ledge, and its apparent which one they're aiming for a time before they actually reach it.

 

[illinialex24]

Yeah, but I think any continuous use of MK or G&W's ability to come back is a form of stalling. So is any safe lightstep infinite.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Who?

AA

For how many characters? What if that condition applies to some characters, like Falco, but not others? Or is it different for each match, as in HA stall is stalling against Falco but is OK against Jigglypuff? Is suicide coming back only 1% of the time? 5% of the time? .01% of the time?

Different every match, if some characters can fight it, but not others, then it's perfectly fine against the characters that can fight it.

If they can get back (assuming the opponent doesn't have a guarenteed KO against them), then it's not stalling, unless the deciding factor is random chance.

How is gliding under the stage a "permanent" invincibility? The invincibility just lasts longer, but eventually, they're going to have to go for a ledge, and its apparent which one they're aiming for a time before they actually reach it.

It can be if the character is physically incapable of imposing a hitbox on the opponent for the rest of the game once they begining this action (or doing so is a guarenteed stock loss, barring random chance) or preventing them from continuing to be in this state.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Falconv1.0, although your points may be valid, you're fighting a losing argument. There's around 10% of the community that feels that planking is fine without bias. In coming up with that number, I figure ~ 73% of SWF didn't vote that planking is fine and 20% of the field is generally metaknight.

It may be inaccurate to say MK Main = planking voter, but it doesn't make sense for any player to vote against a tactic that works so well for them, like if DDD mains voted to ban CGing. Individual exceptions aside, this surly is a generality.

I dont play MK at all and I'm against a ban. I have friends who main characters that aren't very good vs MK already/ledge camping that are against it.

Yes, it does make sense to not want a broken tactic banned. It's been brought up that character boards dont even discuss it, ever thought as to why that might ****ing be? Dont tell me I'm fighting a losing battle when over half the people voting for a ban are voting due to it being 'broken', stalling or, lololololol, DISHONORABLE.

It's not stalling I refuse to even try to reason with someone who believes it is. No one seems to give a **** when Plank and others mention that they wont plank at all in some matches vs certain people. You guys have your theory craft, I HAVE MY GOD **** FACTS. So dont go off tell me I'm fighting the losing battle because of some stupid ****ing poll numbers.

 

[Praxis]

There are hardly any tourneys where you see an MK placing well solely because of planking, and absolutely no one has won a tournament by only planking. Planking is hardly used in general

WHAT?

Go to SoCal. That's how all of the top players fight FICTION's Wario- get a stock lead and plank him. It's completely standard among all of them.

SoCal planks so horribly. I saw so much of it at BIO2. Sky got planked for 8 minutes by CubaIsDeath and lost to it.

And disregarding that...how horrible is that as a ban criteria? By your logic, we can't ban Bridge of Eldin or Hyrule Temple because nobody has won a tournament because of it. In fact, no stages are eligible for ban by this criteria since you can't win a tournament based on picking those stages.