Legality Tentative: MBR Official Ruleset for 2012

[FerrishTheFish]

I suspect that the percentage-lead thing would average out in the long run ... Don't ask me to prove it, though, because although random player A and random player B in a sufficiently large tournament would have the same expectation values in terms of their character's weight and their relative skill, it is NOT true that a given character is equally likely to triumph over any other character regardless of their weight.

From a "perfect tournament" standpoint, I think it would be fine to say that time-outs with equal stock result in both players "winning," but if it is the last match, whoever was ahead in percent should get an "advantage" like in tennis. Whoever has the "advantage" gets to CP the next stage. You have to win a set by,
A) taking all of their stocks,
B) timing out with a stock lead, or
C) timing out twice with equal stocks and a percent lead.

Obviously, this has the danger of taking FOREVER. I think an equally viable method is to have time-outs with equal stock result in both players "winning," but if it is the last match, to have the TO come over and assess who should get the win based on the percentage, characters, stage, and possibly a friendly game of RPS.

EDIT: This is pretty much how it works in chess. If one player times out the other player in a position that is clearly a draw, the player who timed out can call over the TD (aka TO) and have the TD decide whether he should lose the game or draw the game. The TD's decision is final, and he cannot say, "Play the match over" when chess matches can take up to 5 hours.

EDIT2: I am perfectly ok with Falco losing time-outs due to him spawning at death percentage.

 

[EthereaL]

In terms of percent deciding match-ups...there isn't an easy solution. A "survivability" multiplier for character percent based on character weight/stage would be okay, but far too complex. And, even then, what if the percents come out to the same relative advantage? Yes, the current system is the best we can realistically implement.

Regarding the stage...Brinstar's lava provides a zoning advantage to whatever character happens to be on the top platform. To me, this is no different than the advantage a player obtains by being center-bottom of Battlefield. If the top platform is valuable, players should fight for that position when they know the lava will be coming up. Now, it is a valid concern when lava comes up when a player was recently killed. The zoning essentially guarantees that the player will be hit, or at least subjected to loads of pressure. However, this simply takes the spawnsheild advantage and amplifies it. This isn't truly any different than on Battlefield, other than giving your opponent fewer options with which to avoid you.

Regarding Mute City...everyone knows that it shouldn't be banned, that is all.

Regarding PokeFloats...it should probably be banned, but I really like it, haha.

Regarding all "player versus player"...

For true player-versus-player games, all character matchups would have to be dittos. If there is any character difference, that is then "player versus platform", because no matchup is perfectly equal. So, the argument that "this makes it microscopically more of a Player-v-player game" is not a valid argument to ban stages on, no more than it is banning sheik because she is "unfair" against Marth, or banning G+W because he is "unfair" against Pichu.

I also remember a post somewhere saying "where does the MBR claim to be the authority blah-whatever." Whoever posted that, you know damned well that MBR is viewed as the official melee-authority.

Thus ends my ramble.

 

[Xyzz]

Chess analogy is a bit flawed. In chess there are positions where no win is possible / enforceable (say black has only his king left, and white got an additional bishop.) There is no way this can result in a checkmate, so these are usually counted as draw, regardless of the time.
I doubt that[/it] situation can arise in melee :D

What is wrong with the current timeout regulation?
- it results in a nice clean guaranteed end on time (of course it's rather long in comparison to other sets, but well, at least after 40 minutes of ingame time we get a winner of a bo5)
- you are encouraged to engage and not run away if you're behind and the time will run out shortly; and the one who was more likely to win wins (slightly different "usual death percents"? Oh well, the characters who often die at low percents usually won't produce time outs in the first place. If anyone cries that the opposing Falco with 50% is more likely to die then his Peach at 70%, I'd kindly ask them what the **** they were doing in the 8 Minutes of the set, because obviously they haven't been playing Melee :D)
- and it doesn't happen that often anyways.

If the match times out against the will of a player, I'd probably blame the stage for being stupid; and there is no more stupid stages in the new ruleset *yay*.
Otherwise both of them were pretty much fine with hopping around and throwing stupid bombs / bairs at each other, the timeout serves them quite right then, and they don't really deserve a ruleset that caters to them :D


I think the proposed rule set is looking really fine. I'm not sure about Jungle Japes in doubles, but well, camping is less of an issue there, so it might be nice to have for a change.
Oh, and forcing CF to play on FoD in bo5s is not too nice, but I'm sure they're manly enough to pull through :D

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I still dont think FoD is that bad for falcon. I think it was hax that said FoD is better than YS for falcon


falcon players just like to whine about anything they can

 

[KishPrime]

Mute City is an amazing stage. That is all.

 

[Kal]

I agree with Kish.

 

[ShroudedOne]

I agree with Kal and Kish.

It's funny how I make that stupid mostly pics post, and then conversation becomes serious. Lol, you guys.

Regarding all "player versus player"...

For true player-versus-player games, all character matchups would have to be dittos. If there is any character difference, that is then "player versus platform", because no matchup is perfectly equal. So, the argument that "this makes it microscopically more of a Player-v-player game" is not a valid argument to ban stages on, no more than it is banning sheik because she is "unfair" against Marth, or banning G+W because he is "unfair" against Pichu.

Ethereal, let me debate this with you a bit. You say that for all MUs to be pure player vs player, all matchups would have to be dittos. The moment that character difference exists, the player vs player becomes player vs platform. Because, as you say, no matchup is equal.

Think of it this way. Character MUs that are unequal are still player vs player, because the character is an extension of the player's style/strategies, while the stages are not an extension of the player, and exist separate from the player. When I say separate from the player, it is not the player's skill that makes the cars hurt people on Mute City. But it IS the player's skill that allows Peach to secure a downsmash on Falco, or Fox to secure an upsmash on Jigglypuff. In both instances, you are fighting the player just as much as you are the character, because the player and the character are the same. Characters can be used differently and act different, as a result of the people playing them. Stages remain the same. This is why uneven matchups do not discount the "player vs stage" criterion as being suitable for banning a stage.

I also remember a post somewhere saying "where does the MBR claim to be the authority blah-whatever." Whoever posted that, you know damned well that MBR is viewed as the official melee-authority.

Thus ends my ramble.

Ethereal, whatever people want to view the MBR as is NOT the same as they themselves claiming to be the authority. If everyone views the local pastor as a God, that does not mean that he himself claims to be. Those are two very different concepts (although I'm not sure if my analogy works there. Oh well).

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I still dont think FoD is that bad for falcon. I think it was hax that said FoD is better than YS for falcon


falcon players just like to whine about anything they can

Statements like this don't actually make Falcon players think more positively about FoD, but rather just make them complain about Yoshis all the more lol

 

[Kal]

I'm not going to write a long-winded post about this, ShroudedOne, because I'm super tired and lazy. But I think the point he's getting at is that the "player vs. stage" criterion is not well-defined in the first place. Fox has to account for lack of platforms on Final Destination the same way Marth has to account for Fox's stage control on Rainbow Cruise. However, the first is an example of "player vs. player" while the second is not. Why? The stage is completely non-random, and it does not damage the player in any way.

Because the stage moves. "Player vs. stage" just doesn't seem well-defined here. I understand arguments banning things for randomness (though I disagree with them because I think that preference is subjective). What I don't understand is banning things for "player vs. stage," because I still haven't seen any well-defined explanation of it.

 

[KishPrime]

The cake is a lie.

 

[Kal]

I've never played Portal. I feel that I should give it a try.

 

[KishPrime]

It's a good game.

Man, MELEE-FC10 is going to be awesome tonight.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Kish you should host FC10 and i'll co-host and we can bicker on stage about stages

 

[Kal]

I feel that I have earned the right to co-host, or at least be a very high-ranking errand boy, should Kish host FC10.

 

[KishPrime]

I doubt either of you will make it in time.

 

[Sinji]

Mute City and Corneria needs to come back. Those stages were awesome.

 

[Hylian]

I doubt either of you will make it in time.

I don't think they know the history of the FC's Kish lol.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I've heard the story for why it went from fc3 to fc6, if that has anything to do with it

 

[Kal]

Sveet, the next time we see Hylian we'll just jump him. That'll teach him to think he's better than us!

There's a good chance we'll get modded afterwards.

 

[FerrishTheFish]

Chess analogy is a bit flawed. In chess there are positions where no win is possible / enforceable (say black has only his king left, and white got an additional bishop.) There is no way this can result in a checkmate, so these are usually counted as draw, regardless of the time.
I doubt that situation can arise in melee :D

True, but it is very rare for a TD to be called over in such a (forgive me) black-and-white position--an assistant TD would be enough, and most people aren't big enough a**holes to try stealing a win that way anyways. The positions that a TD has to evaluate are usually pretty unclear, and sometimes the two players will be brought aside and questioned/tested on their knowledge of similar positions to determine if the winning player knows how to win from that position and/or if the losing player knows how to draw from that position. Not that I expect something like this to happen in a Melee tourney, but I think stalling would become a much less attractive option if the staller knew their victory might just end up depending on a round of RPS at the TO's discretion.

Note that I don't really think that the current timeout regulation is deeply flawed in any way, but I at least acknowledge a reasonable argument for how it might possibly be improved.

 

[Mattnumbers]

If time outs always end in a tie, then you will have 150%-10% match resets. It happened before we did tiebreakers by percent in the sudden death era, and it's not a good solution. In that case, the rules actually encourage stalling even more than the percent tiebreaker - by the loser! If anything, the winner should hold control over the match per the ruleset.

While it is true that it encourages stalling by the loser, in my opinion this is made up by the fact that their stalling will never directly result in a win. Although I can see people abusing this after thinking about it more, I think the idea to only decide a win by stock lead would mostly stop this. This will also further deincentivise stalling because it becomes viable only if the player is both losing and not behind a full stock. And even then, as I said earlier, the stalling could never directly result in a win.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Why cant a game be won by a time out? There are two win conditions. I dont understand why the current system is bad. It is simple to understand as well as enforce.

 

[Kal]

Sveet, we've explained the problems with the current system (this doesn't necessarily make it bad): your goal isn't to increase damage, it's to take stocks from your opponent. Winning by having a percent lead isn't indicative of actually playing the game (within the goal mentioned above) better than your opponent. There is also the issue that Jigglypuff being at 50% on Pokémon Stadium against Fox at 51% would not be indicative of Jigglypuff "leading." Any commentator would say "my bet is on Fox."

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Thats only true if you ignore the fact that there are two win conditions, one of which is to win by a percent lead. Why is this win condition bad?

 

[Strong Badam]

A bit late but also multiplying by a survivability factor doesn't even work because there's no way to tell what your decimal percentage is without recounting a bunch of moves in a recording and doing stale moves calculation every time a hit is landed.

 

[Mattnumbers]

Kal just explained why it is a bad win condition Sveet, it's because it assigns a winner based on something that doesn't actually imply that they were close to the primary win condition (them losing all of their stocks). It's like if time outs were determined by bonus points.

Percentage doesn't work as a win condition by itself either because the entire game is built around knocking your opponent off the stage, not building damage on them. The entire percent system is designed only to help you KO opponents in the first place.

Also SB stop being a troll lol

 

[Strong Badam]

? I'm not trolling. The game does keep track of decimal damage.

 

[Mattnumbers]

I know it does, but that would only affect matches where the outcome after the multipliers had a 1% difference wouldn't it? Plus the whole idea of having specific survivability multipliers for each character is a bit too complex for a rule that's going to be suggested for every tournament, especially since such multipliers would be based off of opinion and not concrete fact.

 

[Strong Badam]

You could easily just use weight which would be subjective, though it wouldn't take into account falling speed.

 

[Mattnumbers]

But that isn't the only factor. Recovery, how easily that character is comboed, etc also plays a role.

 

[Strong Badam]

Obviously.

 

[Kal]

Thats only true if you ignore the fact that there are two win conditions, one of which is to win by a percent lead. Why is this win condition bad?

Well the point is that we're introducing an arbitrary, contrived win condition. There's nothing wrong with this (hence why I said it's not necessarily bad). It's just frowned upon by most. Most people want to the methodology to determine who would win in the case of a tie to be the same as what would determine who would win otherwise, somehow.

I mean, you could also play a game of Chess in the case of a tie. There's nothing wrong with this, and it's just a second win condition. But the example should showcase that that alone doesn't justify it. We want the second win condition to reasonably resemble whatever the first win condition is. This is why I usually use a "rematch with one stock" rule. However, this actually favors the "losing" player, so it's hardly perfect.

Strong Bad, the issues you've mentioned don't actually make a "survivability factor" bad, they just make it hard to calculate properly. I wouldn't want to make use of such a thing anyway, since it seems all to contrived and arbitrary to me, and the factor would change as the metagame developed.

 

[FerrishTheFish]

Strong Bad, the issues you've mentioned don't actually make a "survivability factor" bad, they just make it hard to calculate properly. I wouldn't want to make use of such a thing anyway, since it seems all to contrived and arbitrary to me, and the factor would change as the metagame developed.

The whole thing is arbitrary. That's why I say, screw it, just hand it over to the arbitrary decision of the TO, aka the main arbiter. His arbitrary can't be better or worse than my arbitrary (different, perhaps, but not better or worse).

 

[Varist]

today i played my friend in melee.

it was going pretty good, pretty well, doing some good stuff

except that i lost every god damned match.

because i've been reading this ****ing thread.

 

[Bones0]

No johns.

 

[Varist]

what about people named john? that's pretty johnist.

and at this thing sveet said that is a wrong thing:

The problem with anti-camping rules is that the best strategy simply becomes to get as close to breaking the rule as possible. If standing in 1 spot for 30 seconds is defined as camping, then players should stand in one spot for 29 seconds. Anti-stalling rules have a similar problem. At what point does rising pound cease being recovery and become stalling? If its after 10 pounds in place the goal is to do 9 in place. Obviously this is only an issue if the ideal strategy is camping/stalling, which i'm not sure it is.

edit- it should be noted that puff's rising pound does not maintain height. Even if you do it perfectly you lose a small amount of height each time.

objective ruleset for determining stalling has already been created, no arbitrary amounts need be set fool.

edit: WAIT WHAT THE **** ARE YOU DOING UP AT 4:40 AM?

 

[Bones0]

Me? I work overnight so I fell asleep around 4.

 

[FerrishTheFish]

objective ruleset for determining stalling has already been created, no arbitrary amounts need be set fool.

Measures to prevent stalling have been implemented effectively, but they've all been subjective. I agree that no arbitrary amounts need to be set; you just can't call these measures objective unless you do. Stalling is like porn: it's hard to legally define it, but you know it when you see it 8D Just haul the TO over if you run into an opponent who tries to stall, he'll tell the other guy to quit stalling whether he's surpassing some arbitrary limits or not.

 

[Bones0]

I was actually wondering what would have happened if Hbox vs. Armada game 1 at Genesis had ended with Hbox "sort of" stalling. Instead of jumping into the top corner to avoid the up-B, it would have been really easy for him to just start pounding underneath the stage in that last few seconds, but would the TO have reviewed the video and determined he was stalling? In a situation like that, you really do need some sort of discrete number of pounds to determine if it was stalling or not, but even then, how can it be enforced in matches without video? No one is going to be counting pounds or whatever in the last 10 seconds of a match with a small % difference.

 

[Varist]

Stalling in a tournament match is prohibited. Stalling includes:

• Maintaining any map position not on or immediately above the stage via stalling techniques, when in possession of a stock/percent lead (null when both players are using the same character).
• Using an inescapable technique to damage your opponent past the 300% threshold (null when waiting for PS to return to its default layout).
• "Stalling Techniques" include:
  -Peach Bomber
  -Wobbling
  -Blizzobbling
  -Rising Pound
  -BF infinite walljump
  -(etc.)

this seems pretty objective.