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

[1048576]

Running around Hyrule with Fox is camping too...

Call it what you want, playing to win due to the timer for too long is banned. That's a hideously subjective criteria, so the edge grab limit seeks to quantifiably enforce a ban on one aspect of this behavior, planking.

 

[Chuee]

Running around Hyrule with Fox is camping too...

Call it what you want, playing to win due to the timer for too long is banned. That's a hideously subjective criteria, so the edge grab limit seeks to quantifiably enforce a ban on one aspect of this behavior, planking.

Thats why hyrule is banned.

 

[TLMSheikant]

Planking puts the planker in a very advantageous position. The one being planked has 3 options:
Insta ledgehog but that is impossible against mk because of his upair.
Try to stage spike which is very risky and often results in the planker gimping the planked.
Wait for the opponent to just win the match.

Thats it theres no reliable way to stop planking, therefore it should be banned. It is clearly overpowered and is winning games.

 

[actionblackbird]

I think it should be banned. I am NOT waiting till 3 am or so to finish a tournament.
it makes me want to play melee more <=P.

 

[Mattsy]

Allow Planking at a major tournament, encourage people to do it, evaluate the results, come to a verdict, repeat if neccessary.

lolhugethread

 

[1048576]

Thats why hyrule is banned.

And your point is?

 

[Jack Kieser]

You know, I'm really tired of hearing "it's beatable" as a reason for not taking action against something. You know what else is beatable? Murder. Just pay more attention to the world around you. Work out a little. Get a concealed weapon license and learn to use it. Walk with swagger and no one will **** with you. See? Murder is totally beatable if you just put forth more effort, but we ban it because we're scrubs, right?

Oh, what's that? Murder is totally different because it isn't fair and real life isn't comparable to competition?

A ) Try telling Charles Darwin that life isn't a competition. It's already been proven that life IS competition at its core, and our society only reinforces that. Try again.
B ) As I said, totally beatable. If you are victimized by murder, you weren't living to win. If you get away with it, your victim wasn't living to win, either. Live to win, and you'll never be murdered because you'll always be paying utmost attention to your surroundings and you'll always be protected.

So, why are we ok with banning murder? Simply put, because society has decided that it doesn't want to deal with that anymore. We keep saying that we have all these reasons why we can ban something, but ultimately, the reason we ban ANYTHING is simply, at its core, because we don't want to deal with it any longer. We don't want to deal with stalling, overcentralization, etc. If we don't want to deal with something, we can FIND a justification (see: Stage Bans, which were pretty much decided a week after the game came out when people decided they didn't like stages and found reasons to justify bans WITHOUT tournament experience).

The thing is, now the community is changing. Panda's poll and this thread (plus others) is showing that the new community wants a different experience from their game. They aren't willing to put up with the same crap that the old community would be willing to. Old-school Smashers call it being "scrubs", but really, that's just hypocrisy; in Brawl, we're all scrubs, just some scrubs are accepted by the majority. I don't like some of the stuff, either, but you know what? Life is competitive, and life changes. Adapt or lose. If you don't like the way things are turning out, there are plenty of other games to play. Adapt and change with a community that wants a different (what some people call "scrubby") experience, or leave and play another game.

From the sounds of it, people aren't going to want to deal with some things (like, obviously, planking) for much longer.

 

[Melomaniacal]

But if you're dead... you can't play Smash Bros!

 

[rehab]

Things do not get banned because they are unpopular.

Adapt or lose.

If you don't like the way things are turning out, there are plenty of other games to play

Nothing has yet been banned by being unpopular. That is not "the rule."

 

[Jack Kieser]

Things do not get banned because they are unpopular.

Nothing has yet been banned by being unpopular. That is not "the rule."

Not explicitly, they don't. No one ever comes out and says "I don't like that; let's ban it!" ...but that's WHY things are banned: because the community (or at least the prominent members) don't WANT to deal with it anymore. Any justification, when it comes right down to it, at the core, is ALWAYS "we don't want that in our community anymore". Any stated justification is just that: a justification.

 

[Crow!]

I've said this before, and though I've not read this thread I suspect strongly that it's been mentioned here, too:

Ban MK. Then effectual ledge stalling simply doesn't exist, so we don't need these extremely artificial, difficult to objectively apply / justify rules just to keep the game working. Plus, banning MK makes the game better anyway, but that's an argument for another thread.

If the infinite cape and ledgestalling both need to be banned just to make tourneys not fail utterly when MK is added to the picture, that should be a strong indicator that maybe MK should just be elimitated. Aside from the controller port + Bowser side-B issue (which only exists as a side effect of removing sudden death), MK is the only character who's getting specific mention in tournament rules, and it looks really weird to have to artificially restrict his actions on multiple fronts just to keep him around as the unquestioned best character.

If we ARE going to go the artificial stoppage route, it needs to be something clear cut and not open to arguments and favoritism. While counting ledge grabs is artificial, it is objective and so wins over arguing to the judge.

 

[Brinzy]

You know, I'm really tired of hearing "it's beatable" as a reason for not taking action against something. You know what else is beatable? Murder. Just pay more attention to the world around you. Work out a little. Get a concealed weapon license and learn to use it. Walk with swagger and no one will **** with you. See? Murder is totally beatable if you just put forth more effort, but we ban it because we're scrubs, right?

You are not immune to being murdered because of that. I could easily set your house aflame at night and wait for you to run out, if you do, and kill you. It's not illegal because you can get around murder. It's illegal because violence is illegal. Fighting an illegality with an illegality is stupid. That is why murder is murder and Smash is Smash.

Try again.

 

[Kyari]

You are not immune to being murdered because of that. I could easily set your house aflame at night and wait for you to run out, if you do, and kill you. It's not banned because you can get around murder. It's banned because violence is illegal. Fighting an illegality with an illegality is stupid. That is why murder is murder and Smash is Smash.

Try again.

You're also not immune to planking if it's banned. However, when someone finds out that you were planked, the guy who planked you is "DQ'ed", or punished. And if you were murdered, when someone found out who did the murder, that person is "DQ'ed"..... or punished.

He's just trying to use an analogy to demonstrate the reasoning behind an in-game ban not being a horrible injustice toward the community, stop bullying him for it.

 

[ColinJF]

You know, I'm really tired of hearing "it's beatable" as a reason for not taking action against something. You know what else is beatable? Murder. Just pay more attention to the world around you. Work out a little. Get a concealed weapon license and learn to use it. Walk with swagger and no one will **** with you. See? Murder is totally beatable if you just put forth more effort, but we ban it because we're scrubs, right?

Oh, what's that? Murder is totally different because it isn't fair and real life isn't comparable to competition?

A ) Try telling Charles Darwin that life isn't a competition. It's already been proven that life IS competition at its core, and our society only reinforces that. Try again.
B ) As I said, totally beatable. If you are victimized by murder, you weren't living to win. If you get away with it, your victim wasn't living to win, either. Live to win, and you'll never be murdered because you'll always be paying utmost attention to your surroundings and you'll always be protected.

It's impossible to "play to win" at life in a human society because there is no winning condition. To you, winning might be having a copious amount of money; to somebody else it might be curing some exotic disease. To some people it might be to ensure as many copies of his genes make it into the next generation as possible, but that's certainly not the winning condition for most people, and since we don't all have the same winning condition, it isn't much of a competitive game.

What you are proposing -- that everybody should adapt the latter winning condition -- is basically barbaric and has nothing to do with Darwin or natural selection.

That being said, one might observe that a modern system of laws and justice is a sort of evolutionarily stable strategy. Any new strategy that starts with few proponents will not be able to infiltrate this strategy. For example, if I have a small group of followers who believing in killing people for the smallest things, I will quickly be stopped by the larger society -- I cannot infiltrate the population with my strategy because the ESS is adopted by almost everybody.

 

[KoSa!]

Edge grab limit is cool. If they grab the ledge 50+ plus times, they lose the match. A judge watching the match would be tough to enforce and some judges will have a different view of what planking is, so that would be cool.

 

[Kyari]

It's impossible to "play to win" at life in a human society because there is no winning condition. To you, winning might be having a copious amount of money; to somebody else it might be curing some exotic disease.

Before you discount his analogy, remember that if you're murdered, you can no longer satisfy these winning conditions.

 

[Brinzy]

You're also not immune to planking if it's banned. However, when someone finds out that you were planked, the guy who planked you is "DQ'ed", or punished. And if you were murdered, when someone found out who did the murder, that person is "DQ'ed"..... or punished.

He's just trying to use an analogy to demonstrate the reasoning behind an in-game ban not being a horrible injustice toward the community, stop bullying him for it.

Oh please, I made *one* post as to why I don't agree with his logic and I'm bullying him?



Also, no, the guy who is planked is not automatically DQ'd, at least yet. They could be placed under a limit (option 2). They could have no consequences (option 3). Maybe we're not ready to decide an official rule for it (option 3).

Making an analogy using murder states that murder is illegal for many reasons or a very good one; associating it with planking makes us assume that planking is illegal for many reasons or a very good one, which it is not. This would apply if we were trying to legalize planking because then planking and murder would both be illegal, but they are not equal, so I don't believe that his analogy holds. That's not "bullying"; that's called disagreeing.

Before you discount his analogy, remember that if you're murdered, you can no longer satisfy these winning conditions.

"If you are planked, you can no longer win"?

Nonsense.

 

[ColinJF]

Murder isn't banned. There is nothing stopping you from murdering somebody and the only punishments you will receive are within the context of the game -- not from some external arbiter.

However, I showed above (in the paragraph about ESSes) that murdering people is not generally a good strategy to adopt. Basically murder is nothing like ledge camping because murder isn't a good strategy.

 

[Brinzy]

Yeah. brainfart. Should be using "illegal", not banned.

 

[TLMSheikant]

"If you are planked, you can no longer win"?

Pretty much.Its almost impossible to win against ledgestalling unless ur opponent is not planking well.

 

[Kyari]

Some of your responses to me, Raphael, are misrepresentations of what I said, and although I want to point them out, I honestly don't feel like even bothering because it's not that important. What's important is that you guys are still completely missing his POINT - which is that planking is undesirable, and murder is undesirable, and murder is something society does not want to occur, and so it is punished by an established law, and that running out the timer with planking is something the smash community does not want to occur, and so this could also be punished. He's just trying to explain a different approach to making a rule in-game, other than that it has to be broken in order to be banned. The heart of the disagreement isn't whether planking is broken or not, but whether something has to be broken in order to be limited or discouraged with a rule.

EDIT: His analogy is not so much an attempt to justify the planking rule, but rather to explain it.

 

[BBoyindo]

Ok, so my vote went to the Judge rule. I think this is the best rule, because you can plank without grabbing the edge every two seconds. With Metaknight, you can jump five times right under the ledge and easily get back on it again. Also when the opponent approaches the ledge, you can just up-b back, or fly to the other side. With this, you can easily plank without getting over the ledge grab limit.
Also, a judge can stop a match when he sees planking. With the ledge grab rule, you have to finish the match which is just waiting untill the timer runs out. This means that tournies will take longer, and it will be less fun.
I think that for every tournament, a number of judges should be chosen that can check on matches. If a tournament is small, or nobody wants to be a judge, the ledge grab rule is a good alternative though.

Opinions?

 

[Brinzy]

Some of your responses to me, Raphael, are misrepresentations of what I said, and although I want to point them out, I honestly don't feel like even bothering because it's not that important. What's important is that you guys are still completely missing his POINT - which is that planking is undesirable, and murder is undesirable, and murder is something society does not want to occur, and so it is punished by an established law, and that running out the timer with planking is something the smash community does not want to occur, and so this could also be punished. He's just trying to explain a different approach to making a rule in-game, other than that it has to be broken in order to be banned. The heart of the disagreement isn't whether planking is broken or not, but whether something has to be broken in order to be limited or discouraged with a rule.

EDIT: His analogy is not so much an attempt to justify the planking rule, but rather to explain it.

If you want to put it in such a way that it's here or not, then I think you'd have a long battle ahead of you to actually define what counts as planking and what doesn't. Something can be beatable and still be banned/limited - Shadow Moses, for example, has the walls that are breakable, yet the stage is still banned, partially because of that possibility, unless I am mistaken. His argument might be true, but to me, it does not say much as to why this particular issue should have a discouragement. All it does is state that beatable things are not necessarily exempt from being discouraged/banned, which is something that has been proven, but what about planking?

 

[Ills]

My vote went to the edge limit.

A game is not biased- but a judge can easily be.

 

[DanGR]

wow you're a ****ing *******. you probably don't even go to tournaments or you're just some planking pansy who only gets wins from playing that way.

planking is the gayest thing in this game, and pretty much the only people who defend it are people who abuse this cheap and easy tactic. but whatever, make brawl an even ****tier game.

Huh? I've been to 10+ brawl tournaments. I've won two, and placed no lower than top8 at all of them. I've never planked in tournament, and I use Olimar.

I defend planking for several reasons.

1.) It's easily beatable by a lot of characters including the characters that already have an above average matchup against Metaknight, the best planker. (Snake, Diddy, Marth, MK, Pikachu)

2.) It doesn't overcentralize the game. I already gave you 5 characters that are very capable of winning a tournament and do win tournaments with planking alowed.

3.) It's not stalling. Stalling is making the game impossible to play. This is entirely beatable by a lot of characters.

4.) The only difference between camping and planking is that one is on the ledge. In concept, this is the same thing as Wario camping. When some camps with Wario, they jump around the stage dodging attacks until the opponent leaves himself open. He airdodges along the way, granting him invincibility frames. (similar to grabbing the ledge) Planking= Camping.

Murder analogy

That's an awful analogy.

When it comes down to it, governments across the world "ban" murder because the majority of the people living in a country don't like it for whatever reason. I shouldn't have to tell you what would happen if the SBR operated that way.

 

[SwastikaPyle]

I wonder how Plank feels being the universal joke of the smash community.

 

[Gea]

I wonder how Plank feels being the universal joke of the smash community.

He loves the attention.

 

[Crystanium]

I wonder how Plank feels being the universal joke of the smash community.

I don't think he cares, just as long as he wins.

Anyway, I checked where the planking began with the match between Plank and SK92. It's relative. I could understand that Plank would grab the edge to avoid getting hit by Falco's Blaster. I've done that myself. But the moment Plank hit SK92 away, he went straight for the edge again instead of going out and attacking. I really don't think banning this will help. Sometimes a player using a specific character is forced onto the edge and struggles to get back onto the stage, but is not sure how without getting hit.

I'll use an example from my experience. I have brawled with different Snake mains. I'm using Samus, and at times, I feel forced off the stage. The Snake mains I've played take control, and when they do that, I really have a hard time returning. If I jump, Snake will use n-air. If I roll, Snake will move back and use u-tilt. If I get up, Snake will use neutral A, and I'll get hit, thus landing back off the stage. Or, Snake will shield and wait for me to attack. During these times, it is difficult to get onto the stage again, and thus, I am forced to "plank."

From the looks of this, it would seem like I am planking. Or, what if I am fighting Bowser or Charizard, and I'm returning from the stage, and Bowser or Charizard use neutral B. I could tether, but that is limited on time. Eventually I'll fall and have to grab the edge again. One of the better ways to avoid this is by dropping from the edge, using Up+B to get back onto the edge, and repeating the process until Fire Breath or Flamethrower are worn out, since I am getting invincible frames to avoid getting hit.

I understand that people don't like planking, and there are others who do not care, but I find it relative. In the example between SK92 and Plank, that was unacceptable, simply because Plank could've attacked head on when SK92 was not firing his Blaster. Heck, he could've used Mach Tornado to approach. I don't know if the Blaster will affect it when it starts up. So yeah, it's relative.

 

[Gea]

If it is relative and you do think Plank was stalling, how do you define each objectively? I'm all for banning *stalling*, but that must be defined.

 

[1048576]

You wouldn't get to 70.

I didn't know MK had an above average matchup with MK.


Again, Fox on Hyrule = camping. Some camping strategies are overpowered, like planking. Some are not, like airdodging w/Wario.

If you're MK, and you run to the edge after a % lead, what do I do?

 

[TLMSheikant]

If you're MK, and you run to the edge after a % lead, what do I do?

Watch him win. Theres not much u can do against a planking mk to win.

 

[Ills]

You wouldn't get to 70.

I didn't know MK had an above average matchup with MK.


Again, Fox on Hyrule = camping. Some camping strategies are overpowered, like planking. Some are not, like airdodging w/Wario.

If you're MK, and you run to the edge after a % lead, what do I do?

You follow MK to the edge. Continue the fight there.

Also, 70 was an example. I doubt we'd be using that amount of time if we were to implement the limit.

 

[bobson]

I didn't know MK had an above average matchup with MK.

Any character that isn't disadvantaged against MK has an above average matchup with him.

 

[masterspeaks]

You wouldn't get to 70.

I didn't know MK had an above average matchup with MK.


Again, Fox on Hyrule = camping. Some camping strategies are overpowered, like planking. Some are not, like airdodging w/Wario.

If you're MK, and you run to the edge after a % lead, what do I do?

First stop being a scrub. Then go after him. The reason Fox on hyrule got banned was because there was no way for most characters to catch up to him with such a wide open stage. Hyrule becomes banned stage end of story. MK on the ledge is different... he HAS to let go of the edge time your attack to punish that, bait an attack then shield, etc. The only way a planking metaknight wins is if you sit back like a idiot firing falco's lasers.

 

[Bladewing]

ban it. please ban it.

It makes the game stupid and pointless. i don't care whether you go with a number or a judge ruling just stop planking PLEASE!!!!!

Also i think 70 is too high a number and should be changed to 35. (you'd think 35 is too low but honestly if you do reach that number you were probably planking)

 

[1048576]

Actually, shuttle loop has invincibility frames from the start until he reaches the edge. Drill rush is pretty much impossible to hit MK out of from that angle.

Seriously, pick any character you want. I'll be a planking MK. Devise a strategy to make my planking disadvantageous for me.

Protip: taking a hostile tone is not a substitute for sound logic.

 

[OFY]

ban it. please ban it.

It makes the game stupid and pointless. i don't care whether you go with a number or a judge ruling just stop planking PLEASE!!!!!

Also i think 70 is too high a number and should be changed to 35. (you'd think 35 is too low but honestly if you do reach that number you were probably planking)

Putting a number on grabbing the edge does not eliminate planking, it probably reduces it, but it is still there.

That would defeat the whole purpose of what you're trying to do, because players CAN still plank.

Either way planking should not be banned as it is a strategy. As more players do it, people will come to learn how to overcome it.

This is also applied to Metaknight as to why he is not banned.

 

[bobson]

Actually, shuttle loop has invincibility frames from the start until he reaches the edge.

Shuttle Loop has no invulnerability frames when used in the air.

Seriously, pick any character you want. I'll be a planking MK. Devise a strategy to make my planking disadvantageous for me.

I pick Mario and fireball you, I pick Ness/Lucas and PK Thunder you, I pick Snake and grenade drop/C4/Nikita you, I pick Pit and arrow you, I pick Zelda and Din's Fire you, etc. etc.
And remember, Metaknight's standard attacks don't cancel projectiles.

 

[Brinzy]

Do his specials clank with projectiles that don't have laser priority? Like, would he just clash with my Din's Fire? I only know that this is sometimes the case with the tornado, depending on how strong my Din's is.

 

[SwastikaPyle]

Shuttle Loop has no invulnerability frames when used in the air.



I pick Mario and fireball you, I pick Ness/Lucas and PK Thunder you, I pick Snake and grenade drop/C4/Nikita you, I pick Pit and arrow you, I pick Zelda and Din's Fire you, etc. etc.
And remember, Metaknight's standard attacks don't cancel projectiles.

Just because some projectiles can beat it doesn't mean the tactic should be viable.

By this logic, Sonic's stalling shouldn't be banned because half a dozen character can projectile him out of it.