Legality Tentative: MBR Official Ruleset for 2012

[Kal]

He's claiming that it's not a dominant strategy, Beat. On Hyrule, you either pick Fox or lose. On KJ64, there is a much larger set of viable characters. There is no obvious game breaking going on.

 

[Bones0]

You need to differentiate between "There is nothing wrong with timing someone out," and "There is nothing wrong with a rule set that is centralized around timing people out." HUGE difference.

 

[Beat!]

He's claiming that it's not a dominant strategy, Beat. On Hyrule, you either pick Fox or lose. On KJ64, there is a much larger set of viable characters. There is no obvious game breaking going on.

Where is the line drawn?

 

[Kal]

That's what I'm asking, Beat. As far as I can tell, no line is drawn, and we just arbitrarily decide some things are broken while others aren't. There hasn't been any explanation for why KJ64 is broken, in the grand scheme of things, instead only listing a few of its problems, many of which are entirely subjective preferences.

 

[Beat!]

But if it's accepted that Hyrule Temple is banned because of camping being broken there, and it's also accepted that KJ64 has the exact same issue, except it's present in a smaller amount of matchups, isn't it the anti-ban side that's being subjective and putting arbitrary lines, at least when using that particular argument (it's not a dominant strategy/"doesn't break the game", etc)?

 

[Kal]

Keep in mind that the issue in KJ64 is noticeably lighter than on Hyrule. On Hyrule, the camping strategy is explicitly quite broken.

There isn't really an "anti-ban" side of things, from where I'm concerned. The default stance is to leave things on until a sufficient reason for banning them is provided (because "building a game from the ground up" is plainly a bad idea). We have a sufficient reason for banning Hyrule: you pick Fox, or you lose. What reason, exactly, do we have for banning KJ64? Some characters hard counter others by camping on it? First, the strategy (unless overtly derivative, as in the case of Hyrule) is not relevant to whether something should be banned; this is absolutely subjective, and nothing but a case of the majority deciding that Melee has to be played how they want it. So the issue falls onto how many characters are hard-countered or made unviable by said strategy. Frankly, no real evidence for why KJ64 so badly breaks the game, nor even a single criterion for what it takes to break the game, has been provided.

Moreover, the entire point from the get-go was that "broken" is a quality you can attribute to Hyrule because of the number of matchups affected by it. Yes, it's subjective to argue whether a strategy is broken based how many matchups are affected by it, but Hyrule isn't a case of "you can camp there, it's broken." The consensus is that it's broken because of how many matchups are affected by it. In other words, it's not the strategy that causes Hyrule to be banned, it's the impact of the strategy: Fox is so overpowered there that you either pick Fox, or you lose.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Fox is the "best" character on hyrule, but other characters can abuse the speed just as much to time people out. The main difference between hyrule and KJ64 is walls. Hyrule has walls to help buffer projectiles so that speed is all that really matters.

On KJ64, projectiles still matter somewhat, but only a select few characters have projectiles that matter. Fox, Falco, Peach, [Young] Link, Pikachu/Pichu (thunder), Yoshi and Ness. Even among those characters, its pretty clear that anyone besides Fox and Falco have very limited projectiles in terms of range of attack and speed.

After projectiles you have characters that can poke someone standing on the platforms without using their double jump. Sheik, Marth, Falcon, ICs, Ganon, Samus, Zelda and G&W. This gives these characters a possibility to attack if they can time their attack at the same time the opponent is standing, but that can be difficult. Also among these it is clear which moves are useful and which arent. Zelda and Samus aren't particularly useful, and I would put Marth and Sheik barely above them due to fall speed and small range of attack.

This leaves 9 other characters who can't do anything, including an S tier character, Jigglypuff. These characters have literally no chance of even touching their opponent.

I am confident that it is possible for Fox to time out any character besides Falco and Falcon. Even amongst characters that can throw projectiles, Fox can easily evade, reflect or attack through every one besides other lasers. For characters that can poke at the platform from below, fox can still exploit their mobility and attack options by using the other platforms, faster fall speed, double jumps, shine stalling, airdodges, upb and sideb.

This is the reason I agree with banning the stage. Not because I have seen someone do this, but because I know it is possible and highly effective. It effects high tiers as well as low tiers.

 

[Kal]

Supposing you're right, and that 9 characters are completely unviable on KJ64, this still leaves 17 characters who can put up a fight. Though you didn't explicitly state the actual number of allegedly viable characters, so "17" might be higher than what you think.

Listing the fact that Jigglypuff is S tier is not relevant, since qualifying that she does worse than she "should" on that stage already assumes that the stage is not enabled in the first place. It's possible that the inclusion of KJ64 would lower her position on the tier list, which isn't really a bad thing.

Whether it's possible for Fox to time out any character other than Fox, Falco and Falcon remains to be seen. You shouldn't ban something out of a silly fear that it might be abused; you should verify that it is worth abusing in the first place. Everything I've seen so far seems to be a case of confirmation bias.

Finally, you need to be careful on the distinction between timing someone out on Hyrule and timing someone out on KJ64. There is nothing inherently wrong with timing someone out in general; on Hyrule, the strategy is too easy (somewhat, though not totally, relevant) and (more importantly) too powerful. The sole fact that Fox can time someone out on KJ64 doesn't necessarily mean that it's as powerful a strategy as it is on Hyrule.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I only mentioned puff being S tier and also unviable on that stage to point out that it is not only regularly unviable characters that are effected. There was no assumption that she should or shouldnt do better on that stage comparatively.

I think any strategy that leaves no room for the opponent to fight back is a strategy that is too powerful. Its like starting each stock already being wobbled, if the opponent just doesnt mess up then its pointless to even press buttons.

So that leaves the "proof" that it is possible. What constitutes proof? One game of someone timing another person out? Two? Five? I think the fact that I have outlined the strategy and proved that it is both powerful and possible is enough.

 

[Kal]

With regards to Puff's status on the tier list, I simply wanted to make it clear that a character's status on the current tier list has no bearing on whether a particular stage is broken. If a stage magically gave all the low tiers the ability to beat Fox, Falco, Puff, and Sheik, I would not call that stage broken on that merit alone. I'm sorry if I seemed accusative. It's just an issue I see come up quite often, and I find it somewhat frustrating when people QQ about Peach beating Fox on Brinstar where she "should have lost."

As for your second statement, I'm a little unsure if you mean that there simply being a case where a character is absolutely incapable of putting up a fight qualifies the stage as broken, or if you mean something more than that. What would you say if there were a particular matchup where a character was simply unable to put up a fight at top-level play? Bowser vs. Sheik is arguably there already. The case Hylian and I have made before is, as I'm sure you know, "pick a different character."

Theorycraft can validate any stance, Sveet. I would want several examples of results really being influenced by a strategy before we call it broken, except in the cases where the brokenness is overt (like Hyrule). "Proof" should be more than just theorycraft.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

If you can land hits, you can land more hits. Sheik vs Bowser could be horrible for bowser, but sheik uses tilts and grabs to attack bowser and limit his options very effectively. This is quite different from literally not having the chance to ever hit them. Like literally you can't hit them, ever. You aren't fighting, so there is no fighting chance. You can't hit them so you can't land more hits. This type of strategy is completely broken.

 

[Kal]

So if Sheik were able to use tilts and grabs to attack Bowser and limit his options to the point of literally not having a chance to ever hit her. Like, literally you can't hit her, ever. You aren't fighting, so there is no fighting chance. That would not be ok? Your post seems to suggest that the issue is with the fact that your opponent is capable of running away without being caught, not with the opponent actually being limited in his options.

And you still haven't clarified: is this an issue with any strategy which makes it so that one or more characters loses his "fighting chance," or is there some cutoff? Does a certain proportion of the cast have to lose its capacity to fight before the ban-hammer is slammed, or does it need to only occur in a single instance?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Sheik never limits bowser to 0 options. Even if the guessing game is heavily in favor of sheik, there is still combat and bowser has a chance to retaliate.

I'm really not understanding you. Are you really saying that a bad match-up on a neutral is comparable to what can be done on hyrule or KJ64?

 

[Kal]

I think the subjunctive mood present in my question should make clear what I meant. No, Bowser vs. Sheik probably isn't a matchup devoid of options for Bowser, but the point I'm making is that you don't seem to care as much about the limited options, but instead of how those options are limited. If your opponent limits the options by pressuring you directly, that's ok, but if your opponent limits your options by running away, that's not ok.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

There just are no cases of option limitation, and i don't see the need to discuss them since they don't exist. Sheik vs Bowser has conflict and even if its 99-1, bowser can still evade an attack or attack out of shield and eventually hit. This is completely different from a camping style that has no possible successful response by the opponent. No conflict by the choice of one player regardless of the other's choices is broken in any game.

 

[Armada]

Pick a different character? There is nothing wrong with timing someone out.

It is nothing wrong to time someone out and I have never claimed that (I timed out Hbox ).

My point is that a stage like Kongo make it way to easy against to many chars. When a strategy that dosen´t need any skill is autowin against a lot of chars the stage should not be allowed.

You also have to think about the players that have to play in the stage also need to pick char first.

Many players will have the scenario

1:Stick with my main and can´t do anything becasue of timeout
2: Pick a way worse char for me.

No other allowed stages have this kind of scenarios.

 

[Kal]

That depends on who you main, really. Though if you can present a good argument for the stage dominating against too many characters, and strengthen this argument by explaining how the strategy is too easy or an "autowin" (i.e., show that this tactic is derivative), I think both Hylian and I would agree with a ban. Thus far, we haven't seen anything close to that.

 

[Hylian]

What Kal said. There is pretty much absolutely no evidence to support the claim that Kongo Jungle is over-centralizing. I mean in Hyrule there is a huge block in the middle of the stage preventing anyone from catching fox, because he can run in circles around it while shooting lasers and be in no danger. Kongo doesn't have this huge block, it just has high platforms and rotating platforms in the middle (which people can certainly use to zone and catch players trying to camp them).

Show me the tournaments where people are constantly winning by abusing circle camping on KJ64. If no one is doing it, we don't know it's a problem because it's not nearly as obvious as Hyrule.

The fact that it's easier to time someone out makes it a good counterpick stage for fast characters and ones that can zone well with projectiles. Following this logic if you pick a character that sucks at both of the above criteria then it's really your fault, you had a chance to pick a more viable character. I can think of many ways for many characters to get damage on a fox running away on KJ64, I can think of absolutely none for Hyrule.


Hell, I've seen people use Cosmo's Zelda as an example. I played Cosmos Zelda in tournament on pokemon stadium with fox, and ran away and camped him with SHDL and he couldn't do ANYTHING. I JV 3 stocked him. He then switched to Falco and Marth and beat me, because he is a much better player than me. The stage didn't matter I was able to beat him because his character is not viable lol. Having a stage not be viable for your character makes your character inherently worse, the same way that having an unwinnable match-up makes your character inherently worse(though the match-up is more significant if you can ban the stage). The line that defines broken and overcentralizing is a hard one to find, but can be agreed on best by looking at a variety of results specifically for trends that coincide with what you are trying to define as broken/overcentralizing. I probably could have said that in a much simpler way but the words escape me :/.

 

[Kal]

You can always just ban anyone who disagrees. Since you disagree with the recent MBR ruleset, you've got a good place to start.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Oh hey guys I just stumbled across this thread on TL. The author did a lot of math and basically calculated how much difference a Best of N series has on the result.

What I got out of it is that the difference between a Bo3 and a Bo5 is an increase of about 5% chance the better player will win.

 

[Kal]

The guy's math isn't even clear. I can't tell what distribution he's using to model anything. All he says is "after some calculations, I've found" and then starts listing things. People in the thread mention that he should use a binomial distribution (which seems right to me, given that there are only two possible outcomes and assuming that they are independent (i.e., that a win/loss won't influence the outcome of the following matches)), and I think that's how such a calculation should be done. Statistics has never been a strong suit of mine, so maybe Ferrish could provide a better analysis, but I might write something like this up later. I frankly just don't like Probability.

 

[Bones0]

I think a simpler method would be to go through tournament results and see how many sets go to 5 games. I think a fair "guesstimate" for gauging skill gap would comparing how many games players win by. For instance, the skill gap between players will be wider later in the bracket than it would be in pools. You can measure it roughly by looking at how many games were won. Sets that go to a 5th game are typically more important because two players must be pretty evenly matched in order to be tied 2-2. If players are getting blown out 3-1 or 3-0, then obvious bo5 has less of an influence because the skill gap is wider. This would really only be useful for someone curious about skill gap comparisons. Overall, it's largely irrelevant because it isn't like tournaments are being run as efficiently as possible where room can not be made for bo5 instead of bo3. Bo5 offers more games for entrants, increases competitiveness, and is standard in Europe (proving time constraints shouldn't be an issue). There are literally no significant downsides.

 

[Kal]

I've realized, I think, that the way the guy Sveet links to does it is to assume that the skill-gap leads to some sort of probability that you will win individual matches and see how that affects sets. For example, if I have a 60% chance of beating my opponent, then my probability of winning a best of one is 0.6. For best of three it is (.6)^2 + (.6)(.4)(.6) + (.4)(.6)^2 = 0.648. For best of five it is (.6)^3 + 3(.4)(.6)^3 + 6(.4)^2(.6)^3 = 0.68256.

 

[Divinokage]

Are you really trying to mathematically prove your chances of winning vs someone? You've got to be kidding me lol.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I think the term he uses is the chance the player has to win in a vacuum as the independent variable and the chance the player wins the series as the dependent.



i hope i didn't forget how to use those since high school lol

 

[Kal]

Are you really trying to mathematically prove your chances of winning vs someone? You've got to be kidding me lol.

I'm going to let this one slide, and just suggest that you reread what I wrote.

 

[Deleted member]

Hell, I've seen people use Cosmo's Zelda as an example. I played Cosmos Zelda in tournament on pokemon stadium with fox, and ran away and camped him with SHDL and he couldn't do ANYTHING. I JV 3 stocked him. He then switched to Falco and Marth and beat me, because he is a much better player than me. The stage didn't matter I was able to beat him because his character is not viable lol. Having a stage not be viable for your character makes your character inherently worse, the same way that having an unwinnable match-up makes your character inherently worse(though the match-up is more significant if you can ban the stage).

YES this used to happen to me ALL THE TIME as zelda. I eventually go to the point where I learned sheik simply to surprise people that thought i was going to stay zelda on them.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Hylian wasn't that set streamed? I recall you beating him game 2 on poke stadium after losing game 1, and cosmo stayed zelda and won game 3.

 

[Divinokage]

Meh, I personally don't really like it because there's too many factors which can determine how a player would win a match, it's impossible to make it clear cut.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

It never says who does win. Its just statistics to show how changing the numbers of games played affects the chances of the better player winning.

 

[Doser]

Are you really trying to mathematically prove your chances of winning vs someone? You've got to be kidding me lol.

Meh, I personally don't really like it because there's too many factors which can determine how a player would win a match, it's impossible to make it clear cut.

Pro Tip: It's not cool or funny to act like an idiot.

 

[Divinokage]

Acting? What?

 

[Hylian]

Hylian wasn't that set streamed? I recall you beating him game 2 on poke stadium after losing game 1, and cosmo stayed zelda and won game 3.

No, it wasn't. It was at a tournament my girlfriend and I hosted so I know this for a fact. I played him first round in bracket(80 person tournament) and he went zelda and I Jv 3 stocked him. He then went falco game 2 and marth game 3 and beat me(2 stocked me in both I believe). I believe I was the only person he didn't play Zelda against.

I won't lose to Zelda as fox lol I really don't know how anyone can, the match-up is absurdly easy for fox. I beat his zelda solidly while at the time heavily playing brawl, I hadn't played melee for probably 6 months before the tournament.

 

[Sinji]

What about Corneria. Can that stage get legalized? Despite the lasers, is their a reason why Corneria got banned?

 

[Kal]

There are decent arguments for it "overcentralizing," i.e., being broken, because of the low ceiling, fin-camping, and the stage's size. I don't think the Arwings have an overly adverse effect on gameplay, so I personally would not ever ban it for that reason. However, given that it's not flat and boring, I think that lots of players would be more than willing to attribute the ban to the randomness of the Arwing, when really their justification is "it's not flat and boring."

 

[Sinji]

I like how you said not flat and boring.

 

[Kal]

It's got an hourglass figure, son.

 

[Divinokage]

You can easily out-camp someone too, pick spacies.. win. =)

 

[Kal]

You can out-camp people on a lot of stages. Whether it's broken is a deeper than noting that slow characters do badly there. Slow characters do badly on all large stages after all.

 

[Divinokage]

I'm saying slow characters can't do ANYTHING at all. You can shoot lasers all day.