Legality Tentative: MBR Official Ruleset for 2012

[Bones0]

Like I said, it's frustrating repeating arguments because people don't want to read even the most recent conversation. People need to get a clue.

 

[Kal]

Maybe you need to work on those reading comprehension skills? You consistently mischaracterize (or, more likely, misunderstand) the arguments people put forth. And then, ironically, you complain about people who don't bother reading recent posts. Why don't you try understanding what you're debating before acting like a pompous buffoon?

 

[Cactuar]

All of your arguments just lead me to believe that I should simply make all rule and stage decisions by myself.

They should really put me in charge of a group of people who contribute to the changes I decide on through useful commentary and opposing positions so that I can thoroughly explore each potential change.

Oh wait.

 

[Bones0]

Kal, if you'd actually like to explain the point I'm missing instead of just being a hypocrite, that'd be great.

 

[Anand]

If Brinstar's lava were on a timer

ACID (not lava)

with regards to Brinstar, the lava

the lava on Brinstar

Maybe you need to work on those reading comprehension skills? You consistently mischaracterize (or, more likely, misunderstand) the arguments people put forth. And then, ironically, you complain about people who don't bother reading recent posts. Why don't you try understanding what you're debating before acting like a pompous buffoon?

Interesting.

 

[Kal]

It's not hypocritical, unless there is some point being made that I'm totally missing. Which isn't the case, unless one of the people on my ignore list is posting.

And no, I think I'll pass.

Anand, I know you hate me because I don't like talking to you on AIM, but that's no reason to be a stickler for such nonsense. I know it's acid, and I saw Mahone's post indicating it as such. I like calling it lava. As though the word I use to refer to "that **** that hurts you on Brinstar" has any impact on the discussion at all.

 

[Cactuar]

When they talk about lava or acid, they are just talking about the **** that rises and falls and can hurt you. It doesnt matter what they call it.

 

[Kal]

Just remove the phone option from your user CP Cactus. Nobody wants to see that ****.

 

[Mahone]

well tbh i didn't know what you were talking about for like 10 minutes when i first read your post on "lava"...

eventually i realized what you were saying from context though

 

[Bones0]

I've been calling it acid since that post.

Just throwing that out there for the people keeping score about who reads posts and who doesn't.

 

[Anand]

Anand, I know you hate me because I don't like talking to you on AIM

That's not the reason.

I know it's acid, and I saw Mahone's post indicating it as such. I like calling it lava. As though the word I use to refer to "that **** that hurts you on Brinstar" has any impact on the discussion at all.

When they talk about lava or acid, they are just talking about the **** that rises and falls and can hurt you. It doesnt matter what they call it.

I've been calling it acid since that post.

Just throwing that out there for the people keeping score about who reads posts and who doesn't.

See, Bones got my point. I wasn't trying to say the distinction between "acid" and "lava" was extremely important in itself; I was simply pointing out that it's an indicator of carelessness and failure to read posts.

 

[Bones0]

Missing the point/10. Jeez, Kal.

 

[Kal]

Yeah, except I choose to call it lava. It looks like lava to me. And the level does have sort of an "inside a volcano" feel.

Making a decision != inability to read a post. I am enjoying all the attention, however. Though I worry that Anand is bordering on stalker-crazy, rather than simply resentful because of a bruised ego. Probably should get going on writing that will.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Semantics, guys? Really?

Kal, if I may be sole executor of your estate, that'd be swell.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Bing]

Yeah like the rising and falling water on Brinstar can be a bit of a pain but who gives a ****? (Post was simply made to note that regardless of what the ****s called, its always been refered to a four letter word that burns)

On another back on topic note, FD Fox isnt bad, sure you can get chaingrabbed, but have no platforms also leaves marth with less areas to run from being waveshines to death.

 

[Kal]

If I had anything to give, Smooth Criminal, I'd give some of it to you. Probably. Maybe.

You've been hit by

You've been struck by

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

@Sveet: Really? The metagame would revolve solely around avoiding the stage hazards and playing as if they weren't there? And here I thought one of the justifications for banning Brinstar was because Peach could break apart the stage and **** Marth or something. That is a clear-cut case of banning a stage because its stage hazards can be utilized.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood my post or if I phrased something that made it misleading. I will try to make a more readable post for you.

One argument around hazards is that they add depth and that players should be accounting for the hazards in their play.

Firstly, the hazards affect each player unequally. Even if two players were hit by the acid at the same percent, the specific situations are impossible to equate. Thus the stage is always biasing one player over another, causing inconsistency in the results.

In response to Kal's response to my first argument, I do not think this is comparable to poker. The format of poker is completely different; there is hidden information, a much different win condition and a large number of hands played, among other things.

Secondly, if both players were to account for the stage perfectly, what would the metagame be like? At best, the stage would not have an effect. If that is the case, what is the point of even having the hazard? Keep in mind that this is similar to a limit in math, where even at really high levels of play the hazard would still have an affect and cause inconsistency. At worst there would be impossible situations where one player may have zero equal or better options, thus making the stage broken.

Assuming the former (the hazard has no effect in a perfect metagame) is true for Brinstar, then we look at how the stage is played without the hazard's effect. This is the point where we consider how breaking the stage apart affects gameplay.

 

[Kal]

The hazards affect everyone equally in the long run. This is entirely the same in Poker: bad beats affect everyone equally often. Again, this is why I'm pointing out that it's a subjective preference against randomness. I wasn't arguing that Poker is, as a game, similar to Smash played on Brinstar; that comparison isn't really relevant. What I pointed out was that this randomness (a "dynamic hazard") causing players to learn to react to things exists in Poker, and yet it isn't deemed an uncompetitive aspect of the game (far from it; it is praiseworthy when someone in a winning position gets put in a losing position by luck and accounts for it properly).

You haven't provided any real evidence to suggest that the metagame would advance in the way you have described. Why would the stage have no effect? If there is lava at the bottom of the stage, and there is some advantageous way I can use it (e.g. spiking Falcon into the lava), then what sense does it make to say that the hazards have no impact? They certainly have an impact. To say that the metagame would advance towards the hazards being irrelevant would be like saying that the metagame would advance towards platforms being irrelevant.

If both players were to account for the stage perfectly, what would the metagame be like? At best, the stage would not have an effect. If that is the case, what is the point of even having the hazard platforms?

You keep going back to this "inconsistency" thing. It has been addressed in two ways:

1) The degree of the impact is relevant. If you disagree, then you should ban Peach, because there is necessarily going to be at least one occurrence of an "undeserved" win as a result of luck. In this regard, Brinstar does not really impact consistency in a significant way.

2) Impacting consistency does not make the game inherently worse. Yeah, I'm sure most people prefer a game with greater consistency, a priori. But we're not dealing "from the earlier." In order to increase consistency, you eliminate a stage, and decrease depth by doing so. We probably all would prefer the non-random version of Brinstar, but to claim that no Brinstar is better is what I have a problem with. You can certainly hold the opinion that it's better, the same way I hold the opinion that Falco-free Melee is a better game. We'd agree that, in the latter case, a ban is not justified on that alone. Why not the former?

 

[The Star King]

Kal and Bones should stop antagonizing each other and form a witty comedic duo IMO

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Those are good points Kal. I still disagree about the comparison to poker, though. The rules are set up to account for the randomness: folding a hand has minimal losses, a large number of hands are played and there is hidden information which allows for bluffing. I don't imagine poker would be played competitively if the win condition was to be the first to win 2 hands.

 

[KishPrime]

Those are good points Kal. I still disagree about the comparison to poker, though. The rules are set up to account for the randomness: folding a hand has minimal losses, a large number of hands are played and there is hidden information which allows for bluffing. I don't imagine poker would be played competitively if the win condition was to be the first to win 2 hands.

Um. It may not be the win condition but it certainly can be the losing condition and people still play it competitively. Surprisingly easy to lose with a straight to a flush. And the rules aren't set up to account for randomness at all. Not one ounce. The STRATEGY accounts for what you're talking about - minimizing risk, maximizing gains, which is a fantastic part of play on some of these stages.

Which is exactly the point I'd be making if I was participating in this discussion.

Oh well. I've never believed in MBR rulesets since the beginning anyway.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

The rules allow the strategy. If folding didn't exist or if the rules made the optimal strategy to just go all-in every round regardless of your hand, then the randomness in the cards would have a much bigger role in the outcome.

I probably shouldn't have made an assertion of whether or not the rules were created to account for the randomness or whether that is coincidental, though

 

[Kal]

Right, but the rules in Smash don't prevent players from optimizing how they handle the randomness. The reality is that the current metagame does this: players are so fixated on how the game is played on the starter stages that they apply these strategies to stages like Brinstar. And, when it doesn't work, who is to blame? Well, certainly not the player!

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I completely disagree, Kal. In fact, I believe I did a pretty accurate analyzation in that sense. I have played brinstar quite a bit and understand how to play it with characters that supposedly don't do good on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYz-8WHninA#t=4m25s

I think it would be beneficial if you dropped the assumption that everyone simply has no idea what they are talking about.

 

[Kal]

That's not an assumption I'm making, and I'm not referring to you in particular. Rather, it's more a critique on the Smash community in general, who tend to react to the stage with complaints about how it interrupts their combos or the like. Most of the community, I think (obviously this is not something I can say with any real certainty), has no clue how to properly play the stage. And when they utilize bad strategies on these stages, and they don't work, they jump to blame the stage. There doesn't appear to be analysis along the lines of "how could I better play on this stage?" Rather, "I can't play on this stage the same way I would one of the 'neutral' stages. This stage is janky" seems to be the usual analysis.

Actually, I'm sure most of the better players are more than savvy on how to play on the stage. I would expect no less; regardless of your opinion on what the rules should be, you always play a tournament based on what the rules are. And, if Brinstar is legal, I would expect a good player to know how to use it, even if he thinks it should be banned.

I mean, I know how to abuse Hyrule. >_>

 

[Strong Badam]

i still like the "stages require the same justification as characters to ban! ban falco!" strawman

 

[Kal]

Yeah, screw global criteria. We'll just make up whatever the **** we want. And when people ask why we made one ruling here, and a different one there, we'll say "they just have different justification."

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I like this discussion Kal, but I think its going off topic from the ruleset debate. Lets pick this up via IM

 

[Kal]

let's talk about integrals look like the letter s

it's taller and skinnier than a normal s though

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

What about that one that looks kinda like an E??

 

[Strong Badam]

They do require different justification, though, otherwise we'd be banning G&W even though it's clear he doesn't need to be banned. A stage's randomness affects every match-up; a character's randomness affects 25 (and a ditto). A character need to be broken to be banned, and no such character exists in Melee other than Meta Knight, who we promptly banned in 2010. Stages, however, seem to trend based on public desire and inconsistent impact.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

But the stages really only affect the viable ~8 characters, yet we ban them

 

[Kal]

Strong Bad, I agree with distinctions based on actual intrinsic differences. However, these distinctions are arbitrary, and seem to just reflect a preference towards disliking certain stages but not characters (more specifically, reflecting "being ok" with banning stages, but not characters). The number of matchups something impacts is irrelevant. What matters is the impact on results in general. If it turns out that playing Game & Watch gave results very high variance, you would not reply "yeah, but only in like, 26 matchups." At least, I hope you wouldn't. Not if there were any logical consistency to this "pro-consistency" stance.

I need to come up with a loaded term to describe anti-ban people, the same way people who are ok with abortion are "pro-choice." So that, when I refer to my point of view, people automatically think less of those who disagree me. Which they rightfully should, of course.

I guess I could refer to us a pro-choice.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I actually can't read that post, the image is too distracting. Done with my paper, no immediate homework to do. Good Night SWF

 

[Kal]

What's your favorite thing about space? Mine is space.

 

[FerrishTheFish]

I need to come up with a loaded term to describe anti-ban people, the same way people who are ok with abortion are "pro-choice." So that, when I refer to my point of view, people automatically think less of those who disagree me. Which they rightfully should, of course.

I guess I could refer to us a pro-choice.

Yeah, "anti-scrub" has thus far been a sub-par loaded term (surprisingly). I don't think "pro-choice" is loaded enough, tho: maybe we should just call ourselves "pros."

 

[Varist]

Sure thing Mahone. I just don't feel like arguing this anymore.

Bones, you should read A Mathematician's Lament. It's a short read, but is pretty scathingly critical of the way mathematics is taught.

i just read this

 

[Kal]

I just read your sig.

 

[Strong Badam]

Kal, you often times refer to things as arbitrary. However, while something might be arbitrary, it isn't necessarily bad. You argue that my distinction is arbitrary but don't prove that it is anything else; therefore, I don't see any issue with my distinction, and neither does any other TO or player.

 

[Kal]

As if it makes any ****ing sense to prove anything is "bad," as though it's not all subjective in the first place. There isn't overwhelming popularity for games sharing virtually nothing in common with Smash.

"Arbitrary" in this case is what's bad. Making decisions on the ruleset on a whim, based on little more than subjective preference, is what's bad. Not because there is any intrinsic quality of being worse for the new ruleset, but because you're eliminating options from players for no justifiable reason.

This is a terrible fallback argument. I could substitute "character" and "stage" with "blue character" and "non-blue character," an arbitrary distinction, and it would be clear that any bans made on this differentiation is bull ****. The entirety of your distinction was addressed in my earlier post. Different justification should be based on actual intrinsic differences; there is no intrinsic difference between variance due to randomness in a stage and variance due to randomness in a character.

That I called you out on the logical consistency of your stance, and your response is "all you do is call things arbitrary, you haven't proven that they're bad" just perplexes me. Because it's more or less the universal response to any decision you ever make:

Oh yeah? Prove to me that it's bad.

And, quite frankly, it makes no sense to have a group get together to try and form a ruleset, only to have things fall down to arbitrary preference. The concepts are diametrically opposed: if we're just going to have things fall to preference alone, why even have a "committee" of players discussing what should and should not stay in the game? And would you really be ok with TOs banning things this way, only to reply to dissent with "while it might be arbitrary, it isn't necessarily bad?"

Arbitrary decisions that don't need to be made shouldn't be made, except in extreme circumstances. Though I'd agree that what makes constitutes an "extreme circumstance" is arbitrary, so we should be careful when using this as justification.