Legality Tentative: MBR Official Ruleset for 2012

[Beat!]

There are people who don't know the exact order of operations. To them it's unclear. If this was a dedicated math forum then I would've agreed with you that the parentheses are unnecessary, but it's not. It's a Super Smash Bros. forum.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Wat.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Geenareeno]

Screw the rules I have green hair.

 

[odinNJ]

Screw the rules I have money

 

[Shai Hulud]

We'll just work in a ring of characteristic 2, then bam, -4^2 = 16.

I'm trying to figure out how this could be true but I don't get it. My understanding of ring theory is pretty limited, but if the ring has characteristic 2, wouldn't 4^2 = 4*4 = 4+4+4+4 = (4+4)+(4+4) = (4*2)+(4*2) = 0 + 0 = 0? Or are you saying -4^2 = -16 = 0 and 16 = 0 mod 2 therefore -16 = 16?

 

[Kal]

Yeah, or equivalently 1 + 1 = 0, hence 1 = -1, so -16 = 16.

 

[Krynxe]

This is not the social thread. Feel free to continue math debate or other irrelevant discussion there.

 

[Bing]

We need to settle this like we do all our problems

With a Childrens card game.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

You guys won't have any chance against my Ganobelisk, the Tormentor.

 

[Bing]

And once again Domestic Violence has solved all my problems.

 

[Bones0]

Wobbling should only be legal in bracket.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Forget that, this is all you need to tell people to get them to deal with wobbling:

Spoiler

You know how you usually suck at this game? Try doing the opposite of that.

 

[Bing]

Ha..Haha.. Ha?

Helpful?

 

[Shai Hulud]

Wobbling should only be legal in bracket.

What's your reasoning?

Does anyone think ICs are the best character in the game if wobbling is allowed? If not, I don't see how they could possibly think it's "broken." And if so, that doesn't mesh with tournament results. But even if it made them the best character I don't think it should be banned, unless it makes them so good that other characters can't compete. We don't ban Fox even though he's the best character, because there are several other characters who can compete. And I don't think it should be any different with ICs (not that I think they are the best character, or even close, with wobbling).

 

[Strong Badam]

I don't think anyone thinks Wobbling should be banned due to a balance issue. Wobbles' placing at nationals seems to fluctuate between 5th and 9th regardless of Wobbling's legality.
Popular arguments I've seen usually involve the lack of player interaction. In a wobble, after you get the grab it's just ftilt and pummel forever. With a traditional CG/Combo, and even ICs other grab combos, DI and SDI ensure that the victim still has a degree of control/ability to escape. Whether or not you find this to be justification to ban it is a matter of opinion and varies from person to person.
There's also the issue of the inconsistent effect it has depending on level of play. At low levels, Wobbling is utterly devastating, demoralizing, a very skewed reward for the little effort it takes to learn. At top level play, it certainly makes ICs' punishment game more effective but at that point avoiding grabs is actually a viable strategy, so it's certainly beatable. A ruleset of course should be catered toward higher level play than lower level play, otherwise you'd get silly rules like banning Fox's shine, or Marth's upthrow chaingrab, or Sheik's fair, but there's certainly some merit to wanting to make a rule to prevent people from leaving the competitive scene because of a technique.
Overall, members of the MBR have different opinions on the legality of the technique, so it's intentionally left out of the recommended ruleset and is left to the TO's discretion.

 

[Bones0]

^Basically what he said. At lower levels it makes ICs drastically better because new players are MUCH less adept at avoiding shield grabs. To some extent, I would say avoiding shield grabs is a central strategy for new players. Wobbling has a ridiculously disproportionate difficulty to punish ratio at low levels. At high levels, where not getting grabbed by synced ICs every stock is a reasonable expectation, the difficulty falls much more in line with the level of punishment. For the Melee community, even a soft ban would probably be sufficient to not ruin new players' days. I'm sure top IC players already omit wobbling when they're tapping newbs in pools (I've even seen examples of them doing chain grabs at high levels even with wobbling allowed), so it's more of an issue of low-level ICs being one-trick ponies and getting away with it. I could similarly get behind a pseudo-ban for Sheik chain grabs on certain characters. I just don't know enough about how difficult/devastating her chain grab is on any characters other than Marth (who handles it well enough).


I do think the MBR leaving it out of the rule set is dumb though. New TOs won't know whether or not to make it legal, so I think having it default to legal is the best course of action. It's funny how wobbling seems to have actually gone from being banned more frequently to less frequently even though it's extremely rare for things to ever become unbanned in games.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Well, last time I debated about wobbling was years ago when it was first being used. At the time, the primary argument being made was that wobbling was broken. I guess now that that argument is known to be false, anti-wobblers have picked up other arguments?

The reasoning that it should be banned due to lack of player interaction is suspect, IMO. Wobbling can be escaped below 30ish% (can't remember exactly). After that it should be considered a kill move, not really any different than Jigglypuff's rest. The only difference is the other player might have to sit there for 20 seconds before he gets killed, with wobbling. Considering how few people play ICs (3%), and that some of those ICs won't wobble, noobs should not encounter wobbling enough to make them want to quit. And if they want to quit after getting wobbled, are these players really enriching the community?

I disagree about wobbling dominating low-level play. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by low-level play, but I'm assuming you mean the level of your average local tournament goer? Undoubtedly a top ICs player could 4-stock many randoms with wobbling, but top players can do this with a lot of characters. With similarly skilled players, I don't think wobbling is that dominant. My ICs aren't as good as my Fox, even with wobbling, and I understand how to play them at least moderately well. Of course such evidence is anecdotal, but so is the idea that wobbling dominates at low-level play. Or has this been systematically tested? If true, it would suggest that ICs should dominate at small tournaments and/or scrub tournaments.

 

[stelzig]

Wobbling doesn't take that long to learn to play against for low-level players either. If they're really that low level they probably won't be able to DI other IC combos very well either anyway. Besides there aren't enough ICs players for this to be a problem that would need to be handled with a ban to begin with either.

 

[KishPrime]

Conversely, you could also look at it as a favor to low-level players. If 1 of their 3-5 pool matches is against a Wobbler, there's a useful lesson in there about spacing and stage control, if they keep their eyes open.

I've always used the rest analogy because it's basically the same thing.

 

[Kal]

Along with all of this scrubsville justification for banning Wobbling, it also is extremely hard to make explicitly clear what constitutes Wobbling. That's Sirlin's second criterion, folks.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

As a low level noob player, you should all listen to my opinion.

I vote we ban wobbling and rest. And Peach's bomb pluck. Actually, let's just ban kill moves. That still seems bad for players like me, though. Let's just ban any move that can kill

 

[Kal]

Lasers, Yoshi's dtilt, and Pichu's uair only. Did I mess any other fixed knockback moves? Not actually sure about Pichu's uair.

 

[Beat!]

Drill.

And some jabs, I think.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Luigi's down angled ftilt, I think.

 

[Shai Hulud]

Along with all of this scrubsville justification for banning Wobbling, it also is extremely hard to make explicitly clear what constitutes Wobbling. That's Sirlin's second criterion, folks.

I don't think the definition is that big of a problem. It may be hard to define precisely and in a workable sense, but if you run a tournament and say "no wobbling" ICs players seem to get the message. I mean, there have been plenty of tournaments that banned wobbling and ICs players didn't use it. They weren't confused about what wobbling meant.

I guess the only issue would be if an ICs player wobbled someone for like 25% then dsmashed. Would that be considered wobbling? Even if this is a problem, TO's could always limit wobbling duration to 25% or 2 seconds or something. This would be hard to enforce, but a lot of rules are.

 

[Kal]

Well, I feel that rules should be easily enforced. A rule serves no purpose if you are unable to enforce it.

The point you bring up about Ice Climbers players merely suggests that none of them were willing to push boundaries. If an Ice Climbers player decides he wants to go through the motions of Wobbling, and you haven't clearly defined it, we wind up having a TO being forced to make decisions arbitrarily. What constitutes Wobbling should not be a subjective matter (let alone should it require an arbiter to be present just to watch the match).

 

[Shai Hulud]

Well, I feel that rules should be easily enforced. A rule serves no purpose if you are unable to enforce it.

The point you bring up about Ice Climbers players merely suggests that none of them were willing to push boundaries. If an Ice Climbers player decides he wants to go through the motions of Wobbling, and you haven't clearly defined it, we wind up having a TO being forced to make decisions arbitrarily. What constitutes Wobbling should not be a subjective matter (let alone should it require an arbiter to be present just to watch the match).

The fact is that without numerous referees, the enforcement of most rules falls on the honor system. How do you prevent a Jigglypuff from just doing rising pounds above DL64? Or even if they won't do it for 3 minutes, what happens if they do it for 20 seconds every time they get hit up high? For that matter how do you even know who won the matches without referees? Someone could just lie. That doesn't mean these rules have no purpose. If they are self-enforced 99.9% of the time, then they clearly are accomplishing something.

And there are ways to define wobbling unambiguously. Like you could define it as any grab that inflicts X% of damage or more (from one grab, so this wouldn't include CGs). Enforcement of this is only difficult to the extent it's difficult to enforce other similar, widely accepted rules.

I don't think the argument should be made that wobbling shouldn't be banned because such a ban is unenforceable. There's a much better argument to be made: Wobbling shouldn't be banned because it isn't broken, and it doesn't drastically change the nature of the game.

 

[Kal]

I haven't been arguing that the technique in question being difficult to define or hard to enforce a ban around is a better argument than it not being broken. I would personally leave it at that; being "warranted" is the most important criterion, since it won't matter how a ban is defined or how it is enforced if it is unwarranted in the first place.

However, it's a little silly to pretend this a much better argument here. When we have a community of scrubs getting together and banning most of the stage list because of stupid bull **** that has nothing to do with brokenness, it seems "but Wobbling is not broken!" would not do much in convincing them not to go through with the ban. Which is actually quite the case, with Wobbling still frequently banned at many tournaments.

In my opinion, there is a clear difference between a player explicitly lying about the results of a set (something very discrete) and a player simply pushing the boundaries of what defines "Wobbling." It's not much different than banning chain grabs; if I were at a tournament where "chain grabs are banned" was a rule, I would not equate someone lying about the results of his set with someone performing three consecutive grabs. I would not consider the rule which declares one player the winner of the set "unenforceable" in the same way I would consider a rule banning chain grabs unenforceable, or a rule banning Wobbling unenforceable.

I do think this thread does a decent job of addressing how difficult it is to define a Wobbling ban, anyway. In the end, we both agree that Wobbling is unbroken and therefore unworthy of the ban-hammer.

 

[Strong Badam]

depending on how FC goes if i ever host another tourney I'll be running a modified version of the FC stagelist

 

[Kal]

I plan on doing something similar. The three bans per player create a really good compromise. I would probably include more stages, though. >_>

 

[_eternal]

Along with all of this scrubsville justification for banning Wobbling, it also is extremely hard to make explicitly clear what constitutes Wobbling. That's Sirlin's second criterion, folks.

This has always bugged me. Same with ledgegrab/stalling rules AFAIK. I think I heard before that some tournaments run a 50 ledgegrab limit, but couldn't someone just do 49, waveland off the stage, and do another 49? Banning is weird in this game.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

ledgegrab limits are for the entire game. Brawl actually has a counter in the stats screen after the game for how many times you grabbed the edge. I'm not sure if melee does, i never looked.

When you are using a modified no johns ruleset, be careful you don't alienate your audience. Try to talk to your locals about their opinions on the FC ruleset. Personally, I have talked to a few; particularly one notable veteran has said he wasn't very happy about the rules, and thinks they are uncompetitive, etc. I won't name him but he was a name even back at the old FCs.

 

[iffy525]

So when will this be not-tentative?

 

[KishPrime]

Try to talk to your locals about their opinions on the FC ruleset. Personally, I have talked to a few; particularly one notable veteran has said he wasn't very happy about the rules, and thinks they are uncompetitive, etc. I won't name him but he was a name even back at the old FCs.

Opinions on stages have always been split always, so I wouldn't care if you named him and I probably wouldn't be surprised if you do. It goes to the core of your philosophy on the game of Melee, and there's not much merging to be done. There were plenty of vets that both liked and were opposed to the old-school stagelist, and the same is true nowadays.

I would love to hear actual arguments for why it is "uncompetitive," though I don't know that this is the place to do it in regards to FC. Frankly, most people use a pretty funky definition of competitive, so I couldn't even begin to answer such a claim without that info.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but if we could get consistent and reasonable results under a 26-stage random system at Snexus 2 and all the way through the MLG era, I'm pretty sure that people far overvalue stages in terms of their actual match-end effect.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

But it makes significantly fewer characters viable. In the MBR ruleset I'd say the viable tier goes down to mario/luigi, while in the FC ruleset the viability stops around falcon/ICs. Thats practically half the viable characters.

 

[Strong Badam]

I don't think a stagelist should be made with the justification that it makes some characters better or worse unless something is actually broken and needs to be addressed via stagelist e.g. Fox on a lot of older stages. I also think you're overplaying the affect a stage list has on balance; Bum was able to perform well in 2007 with Donkey Kong, and Taj was always a monster with Mewtwo. Chu Dat also wrecked **** from 2004-2008 with ICs. I'm also willing to bet that if Mango of today was back in 2006, he'd still be able to beat most players with Mario, despite the stage list difference.
And I think duplicity is also a good reason. For all intents and purposes PokeFloats and Rainbow Cruise serve the same purpose and affect matchups very similarly. It'd be like if there were two stages that were 100% flat like Final Destination but one was bigger. It's detrimental to the counterpicking system we've used for nearly a decade now.

I actually used to be a strong supporter of the MBR Stage List until recently when KishPrime made the argument that results have been consistent regardless of stage list. If the best players still win, is it really that big of a deal if stages sometimes "interfere" with gameplay? It's also a perspective thing. To some people a stage not interfering is weird, and a stage interfering is the standard.

Now, on the actual stage list itself, I think there are a lot of possibilities but the main thing is that there's a lack of testing of different stagelists. It's not surprising since the game is a decade old, but I'd like to see more stages being tried out in a competitive setting. It'd be great if these stages where the only justification for banning that some people can find is that it's "janky" (what's that even mean? lol) were discovered to actually have problems found through testing. Regardless, I'll always find Melee fun and competitively sound no matter what the stagelist is. Except Flatzone. Get that **** out of here.

 

[Kal]

Flatzone is objectively the best stage, Strong Bad. Stop being arbitrary.

 

[Strong Badam]

No, your objectivity is arbitrary. Stop being Flatzone, Kal.

 

[Kal]

If I had a dollar for every Flatzone you weren't, I'd have one dollar.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

If I had a dollar for every Flatzone you weren't, I'd have one dollar.

GIVE ME TWENTY-FIVE SILVER!!!

Smooth Criminal