Legality Tentative: MBR Official Ruleset for 2012

[Kal]

that or we went all the way with our criteria and banned the stages that didn't fit them...
whichever way you want to look at it

The point being that the criteria are still crafted in order to ban the stages you dislike.

The fourth criterion is "ban broken stuff." We can all agree to that.

The third is to ban walk-off edges. This is a good example of scrubsville, and for some reason the community as a whole decided to preemptively ban walk-off edges instead of simply developing a metagame around it and proving that it was actually "uncompetitive." Since decent arguments exist both against and in favor of these stages, the best choice would be to keep them legal until proving otherwise. Of course, given that this criterion has been in effect for a very long time, it's a pointless endeavor to try and convince people to give these stages a try.

"Being forced to move or die." Aren't you required to move or die on every stage? What distinguishes being forced to move on Final Destination since you can be chain grabbed from being forced to move on Brinstar because there is lava? The layout of the stage causes you to move. In my opinion, this criterion is really just "stages must sit still. Except Pokémon Stadium."

Finally, "hazards that can damage the player directly" still hasn't been defined. Every time I've ever asked anyone to explain what a hazard is, I don't get a definition. Because it's impossible to come up with a definition without realizing that every stage has hazards except in the cases where matchups play exactly the same on every stage. A real definition of hazards will cause people to realize that, for Fox, the lack of platforms on Final Destination is a hazard against Marth. For Samus, the low ceiling and closer knockout zone on Yoshi's Story is a hazard.

Let's just play Battlefield only. Or D&D style Melee with pen and paper and no stages. But we'll need rules.

Rule number 1: You can't use a sharpy. That **** is broken.
Rule number 2: If you use a fountain pen, you lose two points of agility.
Rule number 3: I don't really know what agility does.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I really wouldn't care much if we played BF only. Just sayin'



edit- all that BS on the last page, i'm just moving on unless it keeps happening.

 

[Cactuar]

Walk off stages were not preemptively banned. They used to be legal. They were clearly and obnoxiously in favor of certain strategies and characters. They have a laundry list of flaws. They were removed after being in play and seeing people abuse them. There is no decent argument to keep them. It is entirely one sided towards them being removed.

You are starting to make statements that expose your inexperience and lack of familiarity with the subject you are arguing about.

As for the stage damaging thing... Do you guys not know the difference between direct and indirect? The stage being able to put percent on your character independently is direct damage. The stage doing something that results in you being hit by your opponent is indirect.The latter is open to some discussion, as some stages have greater indirect effects than others. The former is not.

 

[Kal]

I'd happily concede on walk-off edges with some real evidence. I haven't personally seen any. I didn't take the game very seriously until 2007, after which these stages were already banned. Most of the arguments I've seen in favor of keeping the walk-off edges mention that they are high risk and high reward, but not explicitly broken. Again, I would happily concede on this point with some real evidence.

If I'm proven wrong about this, it invalidates one point I've made. Doesn't mean I'm suddenly unfamiliar with all things Smash. It's pretty condescending to act like my stance on this issue implies unfamiliarity and inexperience. You can point out that a single facet of my case is wrong without acting as though that invalidates everything I have to say. KishPrime happens to share the same view on walk-off stages, if I remember correctly.

As far as "direct vs. indirect damage," why are you distinguishing one as good and one as bad? We're tending towards the discussion we've had before, so it may be best to drop this particular line of logic, but you're just choosing an arbitrary preference. Though I have to ask if this is solely dependent on doing damage, i.e., if the lava on Brinstar had only knockback, would it still be bannable? If not, then this criterion relies entirely on being able to do damage, which seems silly to me (or, rather, contrived and made solely to ban the stages you dislike). If so, then the criterion is not reliant on damage alone (so there is something more at play than the fact that the lava damages the player directly causing it to be deemed ban worthy).

 

[Beat!]

'BF only' wouldn't be that bad. It would be interesting to try.

 

[Cactuar]

If brinstar lava only did knockback, brinstar would be awesome. If brinstars lava never actually rose high enough that someone doing things on the main platform would get hit, it would be legal.

I will gladly call Kish an idiot for supporting walk off stages, if that happens to be true.

And I said you are starting to. Not that it has been a trend or that you will in the future. It is more of a cautionary "you are making statements without actually doing any research or having any preexisting knowledge of the topic".


Actually, nvm. It isn't my job to make an argument for banning something that is recognized community wide as being ********. You want to make the argument for their legality, you provide evidence for legalization, and you get some support for it.


Again, you are going in with this approach of "Is it bannable?", while I'm going in with "Can I make it legal?" A majority of the community has pushed for the stricter stage list. I have to fight to legalize stages, not ban them. People who don't like those stages already have their reasons for disliking them. You have to give them reasons to like the stage/show it isn't broken. I've been saying your approach is backwards the whole time, and you are still playing the same tune.

 

[Kal]

Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, and Onett. Mushroom Kingdom is sort of janky, and arguably should be banned in a vein very similar to Icicle Mountain, which is that it's just absurdly difficult to fight on. On the other hand, there hasn't been a lot of evidence that it's broken, as far as I can tell. Mushroom Kingdom II was legal all the way to FC7 if I remember correctly, and I haven't been presented with much reason that it should be banned outside of the walk-off ledges and terrain allowing for some camping strategies. Onett is more of a "TO's choice," since Fox is clearly very, very strong there. The question is if he's overpowered, which is debatable (leaning towards a ban, in my opinion).

I also don't really see it as "making them legal." More of not banning them because I haven't been presented a good enough reason to. Of course, we've had this discussion before. I don't think what you're doing really makes sense. At the very least, where to start (i.e., this "ground" your building up from) is an arbitrary choice. Though there is certainly merit in trying to make the masses happy, I just don't particularly like the idea of making rules just to satisfy poorly thought-out dissent from the community.

Also, given the criteria you've issued, it's obviously not going to be possible to unban any of the currently banned stages. Instead, we will most likely see additional stages being banned in the future. I don't expect to convince you of anything. It's a forum, and I'm just discussing what I like to discuss, and stating the opinions that I have. Nothing will change because the community is too far-gone to expect anyone to stop being scrubby.

In other words, I know I'm singing the same tune. If I were to sing anything else, it would not be in this thread. There's nothing of which I'll be able to convince you. Contradictory premises and all that.

 

[Cactuar]

(edit: sorry, thought this was pipes) MK1 - Camp potential, internal edges to abuse for invincibility, platforms cannot be passed through and cause hitlag and can be abused to ridiculous percents to prevent death by teching and camping mid platform, excessively strong positions for projectile characters on the outsides, excessively strong positions for characters sitting under blocks otherwise, waveshines.

MK2 - Random direct damage hazard, excessively abusable lower area vs characters with only horizontal kill moves, camping potential, Fox strength in mid area, Fox strength in top areas, excessively strong defensive position at top against non-spacy characters due to jump requirement/waiting for clouddude requirement, random log floats saving the opponent(might be mistaken on this one), 4 closely spaced edges for invincibility refresh in primary combat area.

Onett - Random direct damage hazard, excessively abusable lower area vs characters with only horizontal kill moves, relatively low ceiling buffing characters with strong vertical kill moves, edge located in primary combat area can be abused for invincibility, walls for Fox/1.0 ness/pikachu/etc.

 

[Kal]

A lot of the points you've made are a little too vague to demonstrate brokenness, though I agree that they are issues. Of course, our criteria for banning things is quite different, so while you've provided sufficient reason to ban all three, it's only sufficient under your criteria. I would need demonstrable brokenness or proof that the randomness present on the latter two stages is severe enough to significantly increase variance on results.

 

[Cactuar]

Right, only I don't need to provide that proof, as, once again, that isn't how it works. You need to prove that all of those are perfectly reasonable things for a stage to do in competitive play. And then you need to prove that combining those factors doesn't add up to something that is not fit for competitive play.

The reason I don't need to prove variance at this point is that you haven't proven direct stage damage to be fit for competitive play in the first place.

Side note: I stick by these methods you know. Guess what I had to do to defend Japes being tested as a CP for teams.

 

[Kal]

As I said, our criteria are different. I could just as easily say that the reason I don't need to prove that "direct stage damage" is fit for competitive play is because you haven't provided any reason for it to be worth banning in the first place. There's no need for this sort of discussion, because we aren't using the same methodologies to reach a stage list.

And yeah, I'm sure you do stick by these methods, as evidenced by Jungle Japes. So far, you're one of the only people who makes a ruleset I would consider scrubby and actually justifies it in a meaningful way. My issue, as I've stated before, is the choice of which starting ground to choose when using this "build from the ground up" method, as well as with a few other issues I've stated before.

As my own aside, I would like to mention that I prefer this ruleset personally and think it will give me an advantage in tournament (that is, I would expect to do better on average with this ruleset than the previous one). This really isn't the case of someone desperately trying to hold onto the rules he wants; I am merely standing by what I think is the right way of creating a ruleset.

To make one final thing clear: if I grant that you have this criterion that people must, rather than prove something is ban-worthy, prove that something is worth legalizing, then all I mean when I say you have proved something should be banned is that you've explained why it cannot possibly be legalized within your criteria. this is obviously the case with, well, everything. In other words, there is no need to get caught up on the word "ban" and the burden of proof. I think we both fully understand how our methodologies work.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

If you're in the kitchen making a meal, do you have to justify why not to use every ingredient in the cupboard? Seems like a better idea to find the ones that taste the best and compliment each other.

 

[Cactuar]

We represent different groups of people really. ^.^


@Sveet: The thing is, if you had no idea how to cook or what those ingredients are, you would have to go through and do that/try out different combinations blind. We go through our lives collecting knowledge that we can hopefully use as a justification for taking a shortcut, allowing us to go straight for the things that "taste the best and compliment each other". I feel very comfortable defending my approach because of my background, but I understand that others don't have the same knowledge that I do, hence the importance of being able to identify the points of contention when asked.

 

[Varist]

kal and cactus been arguin about the same thing for 40 pages, they just don't realize it.

and every once in a while they dip into the "okay proofproof" argument

dis thread silly, kal silly.

my post right here is actually more valuable to the thread because someone might actually read it instead of just scrolling down the walls of text

 

[Cactuar]

I think Kal and I have both stated things like "like I said earlier" or "we already went through this, but...".

I'm under no delusion that the argument has really changed much. The argument is based on approach to creation, not necessarily criticizing the output.

 

[Varist]

but neither of you are going to bend to the other. if one of you had some enlightening argument that would make the other go "oh my god you're right" you would've pulled it out of your hats already, and if 40 pages won't inspire it, it's not gettin' inspired

edit: i assume everyone puts on a hat before they get on smashboards

 

[Cactuar]

My hat determines if I'm going to troll heavily, post something insightful, or troll heavily AND post something insightful.

Edit: **

 

[Kal]

If you're in the kitchen making a meal, do you have to justify why not to use every ingredient in the cupboard? Seems like a better idea to find the ones that taste the best and compliment each other.

Come on Sveet, bad analogies again? You can craft an analogy to justify whatever you want. An analogy is only as good as your inability to discover a flaw in it, and your analogy is clearly flawed: we're not starting with nothing and adding things to it. We're starting with Melee, and no matter what you do, there is always some ground you have to start with. In other words, you're not starting from nothing in the kitchen.

What you guys are doing is taking a fully-made sandwich recipe, going down to the bread and meat, then asking me to justify the use of each condiment. While some of condiments on the original recipe might have been bad, this doesn't mean I have to prove why every single one is not terrible. Except this analogy isn't even right, because the choice of dropping down to just bread and meat is a logical, consistent one (it's absolutely the "core" of a sandwich). The choice to drop down to only the starter stages is arbitrary.

Regardless, as you see, this type of argument is absolutely ****ing stupid. If you have an argument to make, make it, but analogies are to try and explain something to someone who is having a hard time understanding. Not to prove a point.

kal and cactus been arguin about the same thing for 40 pages, they just don't realize it.

and every once in a while they dip into the "okay proofproof" argument

dis thread silly, kal silly.

my post right here is actually more valuable to the thread because someone might actually read it instead of just scrolling down the walls of text

Varist, it's great that you think our discussion is useless, but if you do think that, it may be more beneficial to just increase the size of your ignore list. Pointing out that our discussion is pointless in a discussion thread is asinine.

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, I keep checking this thread for new posts, but it's pointless to even regard posts that discuss stage legality because it's pretty obvious that, at least for the time being, the stage list isn't ****ing changing.

 

[Kal]

I've never expected it to change, honestly. People are set in their ways. Wobbles essentially proved that Wobbling isn't broken, yet it's still banned at a lot of tournaments. I'm pretty sure it's banned at APEX.

The reality is that people will use the rules they like. The majority doesn't want to learn additional stages, and they don't want to deal with whatever their groupthink has deemed "janky." Regardless of the MBR's stance on things, most tournaments will have this hyper-liberal ruleset in effect.

But what frustrates me is the need to constantly point out how "pointless," the discussions are. As though every aspect of conversation and intellect has to lead towards practicality. Sometimes we can discuss things for the sake of discussing them.

 

[Bones0]

Yeah sure, you can discuss something just for the sake of it, but after 40 pages of the same discussion it's run its course. There ARE other things to talk about, but the topic keeps getting hijacked so you can circle jerk about how stages are chosen incorrectly.

 

[Cactuar]

I don't think it is pointless. I like hearing other people's opinions. :D

 

[Bones0]

If you don't know Kal's position by now, you never will.

 

[Smasher89]

OK, lets get back to basics, what makes walkoff stages broken?, I know for sure dks grab gets a huge boost, but other then that I thought shieldgrab "outside" the stages vision was the reason it usually got banned in the past?, I´m sure you can lcancel to avoid that, but was there anything more then it was a low risk high reward situation?

 

[Divinokage]

Waveshine = gg.

 

[Beat!]

Yeah, Fox says hi.

 

[Bones0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zdso_7HbKY

I like the part where he loses a stock because he got bthrow -> fthrown.

 

[Varist]

that magnifying glass is the wonkiest **** ever. totally degenerative, even if Fox couldn't waveshine

 

[Kal]

Yeah sure, you can discuss something just for the sake of it, but after 40 pages of the same discussion it's run its course. There ARE other things to talk about, but the topic keeps getting hijacked so you can circle jerk about how stages are chosen incorrectly.

It takes a group to circle jerk. You like to come in with "it's hilarious that [insert dissenting view]," in agreement with the rest of the MBR and I'm the one circle jerking?

If my posts bother you, just add me to your ignore list. God knows it'll be one fewer person to whom I have to explain that wanting to play on Brinstar isn't the same as wanting to compete in Homerun Contest.

And really, what's with the pompous attitude? I've discussed making Kongo Jungle neutral over Pokemon Stadium in teams with you. Don't blame me because the discussion isn't heading where you want it. Bring up these "other things to talk about" and people will discuss them. It's not like everyone is waiting for me to ****ing post before they say anything.

OK, lets get back to basics, what makes walkoff stages broken?, I know for sure dks grab gets a huge boost, but other then that I thought shieldgrab "outside" the stages vision was the reason it usually got banned in the past?, I´m sure you can lcancel to avoid that, but was there anything more then it was a low risk high reward situation?

Well, there are three stages with walk-off edges that are worth considering. The other two stages are Pipes and Flatzone, which I think are obvious to ban. However, if you don't think so, we can provide explanations for those as well.

The three stages that are worth considering are Mushroom Kingdom I, Mushroom Kingdom II, and Onett. Cactuar has a post here that explains why he bans those three stages. Whether the stages are broken is a somewhat different question, but he does provide lots of reasons to think that they are. The main issue is that logical step between simply listing a strategy's problems and explicating those problems to reveal that the strategy is actually broken.

Of course, keep in mind that "brokenness" is not a necessary condition for being banned in Cactuar's ruleset. Or, perhaps more accurately, that he does not need a stage to be demonstrably unbroken in order for it to be excluded from his stage list.

The consensus is that walk-off edges are high-risk, high-reward. This alone doesn't demonstrate brokenness. Even if it's not the case that walk-off edges alone are broken, it could be the case that all of the stages with walk-off edges are broken anyway (as a result of more than simply having walk-off edges).

 

[Bones0]

You and Cactuar are circle jerking. Ignoring your posts doesn't help because you're still interrupting any potential conversation the thread could have.

 

[Kal]

Yeah, no one will ever address anything other than what I'm currently discussing. Because people check "who posted" before coming into the thread, notice that I have the overwhelming lead on number of posts, and figure "wait, Kal isn't the most recent poster. I guess the stickied thread has died."

 

[Varist]

But what frustrates me is the need to constantly point out how "pointless," the discussions are. As though every aspect of conversation and intellect has to lead towards practicality. Sometimes we can discuss things for the sake of discussing them.

yeah okay

but then you always post crap like this

I'd happily concede on walk-off edges with some real evidence. I haven't personally seen any. I didn't take the game very seriously until 2007, after which these stages were already banned. Most of the arguments I've seen in favor of keeping the walk-off edges mention that they are high risk and high reward, but not explicitly broken. Again, I would happily concede on this point with some real evidence.

you always say "yeah well prove it broken first, you have to strike out and prove it's borked to me." but that's bringing practicality right into the argument, and in fact letting practicality DECIDE the argument.

 

[Kal]

How is practicality deciding anything there? I'm merely saying that I haven't seen enough evidence to suggest that it's broken. It doesn't mean I think the discussion has to result in the manifestation of some wonderful ruleset Cactuar and I magically agree on.

 

[Varist]

why get others to create evidence for you if you don't want anything to come of it? douche way to argue imo

 

[Cactuar]

Man. Why you *****s gotta come in here and gay up Kal and me having a gentlemanly conversation.

Let's hug it out!

**

 

[Bones0]

Kalctua r

 

[Kal]

why get others to create evidence for you if you don't want anything to come of it? douche way to argue imo

It's not that I don't want anything to come out of it, man. It's that I don't expect anything to come out of it. I'm not going to be super disappointed if tomorrow Cactuar says "Kal, I realize now that you're right about everything. We're going to use Kish's ruleset."

Though if that happens, I will probably change sides just so I can keep arguing.

Kalctua r

That would be like Adolf Ghandi. Though I can't say which of us would be Hitler.

Seriously, though, Kalctuar would be a badass mother****er. If I were any good at Smash I would ask Cactus to team. Double Fox + instant team name = win.

 

[Divinokage]

Ya but Double Fox is as bad as Fox alone in singles. lol

 

[Kal]

Double Fox is awesome man.

 

[Divinokage]

Well I haven't seen many double Fox win tournaments though... actually I don't think I did..