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

[WingedKnight]

I'm a Meta Knight user, and I strongly believe planking is unnecessary and pretty unfair. I don't think it should be banned just for him, but it is clear that some Meta Mains seem to thoroughly enjoy being overly obnoxious and cheap in their playing! XD To me, the ledge limit sounds like the best solution. Judge would work too. I do say something needs to be done to restrict it though! My own two cents...

 

[Kitamerby]

edit:Nevermind.

 

[akkon888]

There should be an extremely low tolerance of planking, say, 10 obvious planks/game, or 2 obvious planks/minute. I really hate ledgeguarding that makes he who must not be named completely broken.

 

[masterspeaks]

Wow, I hope nobody pro is for banning ledgestalling. With good timing just about any match-up should be able to punish someone that is ledgestalling. Even if they can't punish it, you can counter pick a different stage.

Setting arbitrary limits like 10 planks a game is stupid and will be impossible to enforce. Are we gonna have a TC at every match counting?

Either stop playing Brawl or deal with it...

 

[Eyada]

I've edited the first post to include a more thorough definition of Planking, and the Axis video that everyone is linking to. For a more recent example of planking, I was thinking of linking to Anther vs Spammerer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg7h0ZIluLs ), especially the second game, but I'm not sure if it fully qualifies as "planking." What do you guys think?

For whatever it's worth, while watching the second match between Anther and Spammerer I decided to keep track of the total duration during which ledges were available (some transformations don't have ledges) and I kept track of Spammerer's Ledge Grab count.

Final tally for Spammerer:
Ledge Grabs: 35
Total duration ledges were available to be grabbed: 320 seconds. (A little over five minutes.)
Average frequency of Ledge Grabbing: 1 Grab every 9 seconds.

Take from that what you will.

 

[Falconv1.0]

How many times does Yuna have to **** the **** out of this argument for it to stop.


You cant impose arbitrary rules like this on people. You cant constitute what is/isn't too much stalling. We cant have referees watching 24/7 so they can force you to move when that will probably put you in a bad position. If your character has so much issue beating planking it's your fault not theirs.

I for one hate planking, but you cant ban it. I dont think anyone who is pro ban has ever been effected by it in a finals match anyways, which says a lot.


tl;dr no johns, no exceptions

 

[_Phloat_]

Personally, I would feel a lot better if it were a badass panda were moderating this, instead of some lame boxing one..


Really, why the change?

Also, I think 70 is waaaay enough. Thing is, Why not just go under the stage, stall with 5 jumps, slowly fall down, and then drill rush to safety? That wastes a LOT more time, and won't rack up the points.

 

[cutter]

I voted for not banning/limiting planking simply because the tactic has proven NOT be gamebreaking.

People keep saying planking is broken, but there is no true evidence showing it utterly dominates tournament play.

@ Panda: The second match of Anther vs teh_spamerer really isn't Planking. Spam is just playing VERY defensively especially on a stage with not many ledges.

 

[Ussi]

Personally, I would feel a lot better if it were a badass panda were moderating this, instead of some lame boxing one..


Really, why the change?

Also, I think 70 is waaaay enough. Thing is, Why not just go under the stage, stall with 5 jumps, slowly fall down, and then drill rush to safety? That wastes a LOT more time, and won't rack up the points.

Drill is not safe, you'll die/get hit in lag if you managed to get edge hogged.

 

[∫unk]

Hive it's just ur samus that planks that much and other chars can do it well too

Please read my post on the second page 70 is definetily too high 60 even feels high

Spam was really just camping on stage

And ppl are losing finals and money to camping there's vids wc and ec old and new but as someone that goes to multiple tournies a week the general smashboards crowd doesn't hear about the upsets thathappen everyweek

Last weekend dsf just quit a grand finals game against dehf because hewas camping him so hard (not on the ledge)

Of course most of the top players I know personally want camping and planking limited because it's not as fun and doesn't pronounce the difference in skill levels as much

 

[masterspeaks]

Hive it's just ur samus that planks that much and other chars can do it well too

Please read my post on the second page 70 is definetily too high 60 even feels high

Spam was really just camping on stage

And ppl are losing finals and money to camping there's vids wc and ec old and new but as someone that goes to multiple tournies a week the general smashboards crowd doesn't hear about the upsets that happen every week

Last weekend dsf just quit a grand finals game against dehf because he was camping him so hard (not on the ledge)

Of course most of the top players I know personally want camping and planking limited because it's not as fun and doesn't pronounce the difference in skill levels as much

This is pathetic. Camping is a legit tactic, just because some scrubs are crying cheap doesn't mean anything needs to be banned.

Sounds like dsf was being a *****. I mean how immature do you have to be to quit a match just because you are losing.

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. If my version of fun is spamming attacks off a ledge, why should there be arbitrary limitations specific to that playstyle?

 

[Rapid_Assassin]

I liked the idea that someone came up with earlier:

If time runs out, and it's MK vs. someone else, the MK loses. Rule doesn't take effect if it's a ditto.

This allows camping without being too gay. Just to put it in perspective, I've NEVER run out a timer unless I did so intentionally, or faced an opponent who did so intentionally.

 

[OFY]

This is pathetic. Camping is a legit tactic, just because some scrubs are crying cheap doesn't mean anything needs to be banned.

Sounds like dsf was being a *****. I mean how immature do you have to be to quit a match just because you are losing.

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. If my version of fun is spamming attacks off a ledge, why should there be arbitrary limitations specific to that playstyle?

Agreed.

10charizards

 

[Sukai]

I vote for the second one, but I feel the limit system should be revaluated.
Instead of having a limit, there should be a standard time fame which stalling is allowed.
Like persay:
Ledgestalling is allowed 10 seconds at a time with a 30 second cool down between non recovering ledgegrabs. However, upon recovering ledgegrabs before cool down time expires, the time which ledgestalling is allowed is half as normal.
Of course, practically, the time frame should be increased and the cool down slightly decreased for doubles.
Test it out.

 

[OFY]

I vote for the second one, but I feel the limit system should be revaluated.
Instead of having a limit, there should be a standard time fame which stalling is allowed.
Like persay:
Ledgestalling is allowed 10 seconds at a time with a 30 second cool down between non recovering ledgegrabs. However, upon recovering ledgegrabs before cool down time expires, the time which ledgestalling is allowed is half as normal.
Of course, practically, the time frame should be increased and the cool down slightly decreased for doubles.
Test it out.

That would be too hard to enforce.

Possibly the easiest way to enforce is by allowing a certain number a times you can grab the edge.

Still though, it should not be banned.

 

[Nic64]

And ppl are losing finals and money to camping there's vids wc and ec old and new but as someone that goes to multiple tournies a week the general smashboards crowd doesn't hear about the upsets thathappen everyweek

Last weekend dsf just quit a grand finals game against dehf because hewas camping him so hard (not on the ledge)

Of course most of the top players I know personally want camping and planking limited because it's not as fun and doesn't pronounce the difference in skill levels as much

lol we need to ban camping now too.

And was DSF losing by a large margin? I think at some point a lot of people can say ok, a comeback just isn't happening, it's not as if DSF never camps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwvpX-TTw_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kmLXBWsVo

That being said, not voting on this, not totally sure where I stand, it is incredibly gay but it's hard to justify a ban on something even as lame as it is and also very difficult to enforce a rule that actually changes anything(70 ledge grabs still allows you to get a lead and plank away the end of the game, the less ledge grabs the more limited it becomes, but at some point you're infringing on normal play, some degree of campy gayness will always exist in brawl). I think brawl's poor design just lends competitive play to gay tactics, the more and more I play it the more I realize that brawl is just a bad game for competition. We'd all love it if brawl wasn't such a camp dominated game where approaching almost always puts you at a massive disadvantage, but it's not. If there were a practical way to change that, I'd be all for it, but there isn't.

 

[Matador]

How many times does Yuna have to **** the **** out of this argument for it to stop.


You cant impose arbitrary rules like this on people. You cant constitute what is/isn't too much stalling. We cant have referees watching 24/7 so they can force you to move when that will probably put you in a bad position. If your character has so much issue beating planking it's your fault not theirs.

I for one hate planking, but you cant ban it. I dont think anyone who is pro ban has ever been effected by it in a finals match anyways, which says a lot.


tl;dr no johns, no exceptions

I love how when the low tiers have their myriad of problems like infinites, it's all about "that's your fault for using a terrible character". There were dozens of times where people would hypothetically suggest "If a high tier got screwed over like this, you'd hop right to banning it". Of course, since it was impossible to prove what the community's movement would be if that WERE the case, anti-ban debaters said "we'd ban it just the same". Well it looks like good ol' Plank turned that scenario into a reality.

I completely agree with Falcon. If your character has a vulnerability to planking, then it's your fault for choosing him. Learn to deal with it or pick up another character. It's just that simple. If that wrecks Falco and whoever else's viability, there's still characters like Lucas, Sonic, Pika, and Mario that have answers to it, so counterpicking is still an option.

Do people even win tourneys with this strategy?

 

[Mr.-0]

I say don't ban it or if you can't do that enforce a large egdge grab limit. It's probably my third biggest thing to do in a game after woping and gimping. ( I use Mk. )

 

[Anth0ny]

Edge grab limit. 70 might be too high a number though.

Remember, this doesn't have to be enforced at every tournament. Stuff like COT4 would have been a lot better with a rule like this in effect, and I'm sure that a certain three Michigan smashers would agree with me.

 

[Ussi]

Spammer didn't really plank, as in delfino there weren't ledges to always plank. He was very defensive thats all :\

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Some of you might profit from the realization that Brawl is far from the only fighting game in which hardcore camping is rewarded. Street Fighter IV can be a good example; look at this lovely Akuma vs Zangief match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYX-Y7Dc0rM

No one who is taken seriously at all in the Street Fighter community is going to question the validity of a match like that. Why do we in the Brawl community like to challenge the validity of hardcore camping matches? I mean, okay, let's say Plank wins by ledgecamping. So what? He won, didn't he? Why isn't it legitimate? Unless it's broken as in "impossible to beat" and not "really hard to beat", I'm not sure why we need to implement rules here instead of just accepting the game as it is.

Meta Knight always losing in time over is a terrible strategy. I'd just counterpick Sonic on Meta Knight and not even try to fight; I'd just run for 8 minutes. I'd probably be down a stock or two by the end of the game, but I bet I could consistently not lose all of my stock in that time.

 

[Anth0ny]

Spammer didn't really plank, as in delfino there weren't ledges to always plank. He was very defensive thats all :\

Really? I heard that he planked Lain and Judge. There were no vids for those...

Nonetheless, the ledge grab limit should be enforced.

 

[KRiMz0N]

there should be a 5 second rule or something

 

[King~]

yea, lain let him take him to norfair :/


judge, not so much

 

[SexTornado]

If you ban planking then you'll have to ban camping and spamming as well. They are all cheap and they all suck but you can't just ban planking. I'd rather the campy characters weren't allowed to camp for forever than have it so that some mk player who would win anyway isn't allowed to grab the edge more than 4 times in a row. It's very rare that they run out the clock and a good player wouldn't let it happen. IMO if its fine that the falco just wants to sit there and lazer the whole match then I should be allowed to just hold on to the ledge.

 

[bludhoundz]

I don't think a # of ledgegrabs should be the number to define the ban.

I think it should be the # of consecutive ledgegrabs. Consecutive as in not standing on the stage between them.

Sometimes it's necessary to ledgestall a few times -- against an edgeguarding Snake sometimes its really difficult to get back onto the stage without being punished, so your best option is to wait until you find a good opportunity to make it back onto the stage. If this happens a lot, then you could get DQ'd due to "planking"

This is why I don't think it should be the total # of ledgegrabs in a game, but rather a consecutive #.

I guess that does kind of mean that if it's 10 in a row people will always do 9 and then go back onstage -- this is predictable though, and generally you could punish it.

Either way maybe it requires a limit on BOTH # of total ledgegrabs and # of consecutive ledgegrabs.

Just an idea... I'm not really a part of the competitive scene. I am just throwing it out there for you guys who it actually matters for.

 

[Anth0ny]

If you ban planking then you'll have to ban camping and spamming as well. They are all cheap and they all suck but you can't just ban planking. I'd rather the campy characters weren't allowed to camp for forever than have it so that some mk player who would win anyway isn't allowed to grab the edge more than 4 times in a row. It's very rare that they run out the clock and a good player wouldn't let it happen. IMO.

Except we can.

By enforcing the ledge grab limit rule, we have an actual number to look at, and we are presented the number of times that one grabs the ledge at the end of the match. For camping and spamming, there is no number to look at. You can't say "You can only camp for 30 seconds!" or "You can only shoot 100 lasers!". It just wouldn't work. The ledge grab limit, however, does work. It's already used in Japan and Alpha Zealot has started to use it at some of his tourments with success.

If you can actually manuver around the stage without getting touched and win the match that way, then so be it. Obviously your opponent can't predict your moves well enough to win. However, if you are going to go on the ledge, drop down and re grab for the entire match, not allowing your opponent any way to land a hit on you, then that's just stupid and not fun. You're not playing the game.

Wilt Chamberlain used to leap from the free throw line and lay in his free throws because he was an awful free throw shooter. When it became apparent that the only reason he was scoring his free throws was because of this technique, the league decided to ban it and stated that you must have your feet planted when shooting a free throw. Suddenly, Wilt's FT percentage became crap again. This is pretty much the same situation we are faced with. Wilt was Meta Knight. The fact that only he, with his athleticism, could score 100% of the time at the free throw line, made it unfair to the rest of the league. The same goes with Meta Knight and planking. It's unfair to the rest of the cast in the game, and it pretty much 100% assures a win for the character, regardless of the skill of the player.

 

[AlAxe]

In my opinion if you are on the stage and your opponent is on the ledge it's their responsibility to get onto the stage. You are not obligated to try to attack a ledgestaller where your odds of success are almost zero. So ledgestalling is the same as stalling which is already banned. So if you think your opponent is stalling by abusing the edge you should call them out for stalling.

 

[1048576]

I love how when the low tiers have their myriad of problems like infinites, it's all about "that's your fault for using a terrible character". There were dozens of times where people would hypothetically suggest "If a high tier got screwed over like this, you'd hop right to banning it". Of course, since it was impossible to prove what the community's movement would be if that WERE the case, anti-ban debaters said "we'd ban it just the same". Well it looks like good ol' Plank turned that scenario into a reality.

I completely agree with Falcon. If your character has a vulnerability to planking, then it's your fault for choosing him. Learn to deal with it or pick up another character. It's just that simple. If that wrecks Falco and whoever else's viability, there's still characters like Lucas, Sonic, Pika, and Mario that have answers to it, so counterpicking is still an option.

Do people even win tourneys with this strategy?

D3 affects two-five chars. Planking affects all but 2-5 characters. Do you understand?

Hint: overcentralization

 

[Matador]

overcentralization = Use X or lose.

And 2-5 is an arbitrary number. Fail less pl0x

 

[gallax]

i dont think you should ban it. but planking can bland competition. so at most i would say limit it.

 

[Maleboocado]

Planking IS NOT like stalling. With stalling, you are avoiding any contact with the another player, so he won't hit you. But when you do planking, you ONLY has an advantage above your rival. A good advantage.

Although is really hard to hit a planker, you has always opportunities to hit him or prevent this tactic. Even if you are Ganondorf and your rival is Metaknight, the solution is not ban planking, is "prevent planking" or "be smarter than your rival" or "choose another character". Nobody force you to use the same character in all the battles, don't you?

If we are playing to win, we should accept this phisolophy, not banning all the really good moves/tactics because these are really good moves/tactics. We should ban X move/tactic only if this move/tactic is impossible to counter. Planking is not impossible to counter, so we won't ban it.

It's simple.

PD: Sorry for my english.

 

[PathToEternity]

A strategy to overcome planking will never be developed if it is banned.

 

[rehab]

lame

boxing

boxing is lame

How dare you imply such a thing

Overcentralization? It's not like only one character can edge camp hard, and it's not like there aren't characters that make hardcore ledgecamping an inferior option. Using a character that does bad against it, and losing against it, are the faults of the people getting camped. It's not an abuse of the the game's edge system, it's using it in a way that people aren't accustomed to.

If people don't like it, they can play a game without edges to camp. An strategy being unpopular doesn't make banworthy.

 

[fromundaman]

Here's the thing I love about this whole scenario:

Stalling is banned. The OP calls this 'edgestalling'. We are having a conversation about whether or not to ban it. I just find it very funny.


Anyway, on to the actual topic: I can't say I have a vast amount of tourny experience, but a while back, I went to a tourny and, at one point, was just hanging to the ledge (in vulnerability) and waiting for my opponent to approach me, since as a Kirby player, I tend to have a better chance offstage. he backed off and I was informed that I was stalling.

Now considering that planking is more or less the same thing except that there IS invulnerability, I don't see why this isn't considered stalling...

 

[Dekar173]

50 grabs would be more realistic, as that's roughly 7 per minute (Japan uses 70 because they have 10 minutes per match) and if someone just so happens to hit 50 while not actually planking or stalling, but it was just a freak game that occurred almost entirely off of the edge, we have judges for that.

Planking isn't a defensive maneuver, it is a stalling maneuver. It's just a character (AKA MK) chanting "Haha you can't hit me" while dropping off then regrabbing the edge, over and over and over again. If someone wanted to see who could get the first hit off then plank for seven minutes, it'd be a different story.

 

[Matador]

He's not completely safe on the ledge. Stalling is Sonic doing his neutral B at the bottom of FD for the entire 7 min where nobody can safely hit him. Stalling is MK's infinite dimension cape thing. Stalling is shooting someone once with Fox then running around Hyrule where nobody except for Fox has a chance of catching him (Melee).

With planking, he's still vulnerable, just not often. It's a very very very gay tactic, but it's not the same. With Stalling, he can't be touched. The game won't allow it.

 

[rehab]

If you get far enough out of the range for Sonic's neutral B to register you, which everybody can jump high enough to do, he homes down towards the blast zone

 

[Sukai]

Pick another character.....
Pick another character.........
.......
..............
There something about that phrase that rolls off the tongue with an infuriating sensation.

Why don't you just say, "Remove what little tournament diversity that remains in smash."
Ideal to get across planking, but is in no way fair or productive.
Planking is hard to get around, possible, but not very probable, same thing applies to wobbling, and last time I checked, that's banned.
Dedede's standing wall infinite is allowed but limited, and once in, there's no getting out.
The point of this is that possibility and/or probability of escape or "getting around it" is not taken into account when banning something.
What does[b/] determine what gets banned/limited is it's overall effectiveness.
If a move is too effective that the metagame begins to revolve around that one move as a base for victory, that move will be taken into consideration for being banned/limited.
An SBR member told me this himself.

It's been long proven that planking is an effective move, that can even win tournaments.
People play to win, there's no refuting that.
So they will do what it takes to win, and you can't go wrong with planking.
Do the math.

Now, I need to address this "pick another character" bull****.
When reading, take into account the effectiveness of planking.
Planking can win matches, too true.
Now in a setting full of people who play to win, they're gonna plank.
You're character cannot handle planking very well. You try, fail, next match starts.
Knowing your opponent will plank when the going gets tough, you're going to pick a character who can deal with it.
Now thats fine and all, having a pocket character to handle the things your main cannot, but this alienates a handful of characters from tournament play.
I don't care what anyone says, that's not productive, to the metagame or to the community.
The basic reason why planking hurts the metagame is because every character can do it.
It's not something that's particularly esoteric, it universal, but same time, it's effectiveness is high, enough to win a match.
Granted if it wasn't universal, it would be an even bigger issue to handle, but at least it wouldn't control the metagame as much as if it was universal.
Just limit it, it's a viable option to win, but it shouldn't be abused.

And all those who compare camping with planking: Camping is not limited to projectiles, it's easy to get around, not all characters can do it, and it's not effective on every character.
It's a perfectly balanced tactic.

 

[Luigi player]

I don't think it has to be banned. MK is also in a bad position if he's on the edge the whole time. Especially if his enemies have spikes. I'm seeing some things SK92 could've done, but didn't try.

But yeah, I never faced one that did it so maybe I'm not seeing how bad it really is... (I don't think so though =P)