Preface: Indefinite stalling does not seem to be a problem in Ultimate, thanks to a variety of mechanics and good design choices. This article is half retrospective on past rulemaking decisions, half relevant to Ultimate through the lens of stage policy and Little Mac viability.
It's generally accepted by serious competitors that all in-game strategies are valid except indefinite stalling. Let's articulate exactly why this is:
We used to have rules against stalling, in early Melee, and Brawl. Anti-stalling language still existed in final Brawl and Smash 4 rulesets, but was increasingly ignored--as evidenced by the inclusion of additional rules banning specific stalling techniques, which should have been redundant.
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(Please don't confuse Smash's 420-480 second event logistics timer to the 99 second round timer in traditional fighting games. We're not talking about characters playing defensively or turtling in the corner; that's no different than some aspects of Smash advantage/disavantage state. This post is referring to situations where the opponent has no options to engage, due to some specific exploit of ledge mechanics or stage layout.)
The thing is, to ban something, as David Sirlin says, it has to be warranted, enforceable, and discrete. That last bit means you have to be able to define it--you can't vaguely say "No spamming! Spamming is banned!" Unless you can specifically define the problem, how can you say it's warranted or enforceable? What's more, if your dumb cousin insists that you aren't allowed to Wolf laser more than 10 times a stock, you're just going to do 9; his stupid scrubby rule has not even changed the strategies of the game like he wanted because his rule wasn't sufficiently discrete.
Pretty much everyone agrees with all that. So it's not a big stretch to say that the same applies to stalling, right? "Stalling" is too vague, so we cannot ban it?
Wrong.
According to Wikipedia, Les amants "is a 1958 French drama film directed by" and then I stopped reading because I really don't care. It apparently won a bunch of awards and was a big hit in its home country, but I could not care less about what was hot in 1950s french cinema.
Some random county in northern Ohio sure did.
Outraged at France's national pastime of justifying extramarital affairs, some puritanical local prosecutor decided to save America by charging the manager of the local theatre with obscenity. Sure, there's the whole pesky First Amendment thing, but if you shout "fire" in a public place where the KKK are watching porn, everyone gets arrested. What I mean is, society and the courts long agreed that okay yeah "obscenity" isn't allowed, but they never really nailed down what that is.
It went all the way to the SCOTUS, and the result was striking. The Justices agreed that this film was dumb and not as hot as they had been let to believe, maybe 2 stars at best, and not deserving of high praise like "obscene" or "a threat to the children." But they struggled to discretely define why this film was okay and yet Sorority Trainbang 6 was not.
Enter Justice Potter Stewart.
Now, I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure this is how it happened.
The dipwad prosecutor--let's call him Dennis--was addressing the court in his extra-nasaly voice that he reserved for extra-smug victories. "So you see--" he said with a note of triumph, "if you allow this so-call 'film' into our society, you forfeit any right to block anything even worse. Pornography will be everywhere, and our culture will rot from the inside out!"
"By God, he's right!" Chief Justice Warren sat stunned.
"B-Baka!" cried out Justice White, anime sweat flying off his face.
"How could he successfully use a slipperly-slope fallacy, our one weakness?!?" stammered Justice Brennan.
"CHECKMATE LIBERALS!" Dennis cried, ignoring that half the court was appointed by Eisenhower as he pumped a bony fist into the air.
Suddenly, all heard an engine rev. A fresh 1963 Chevy Impala--which was cool before Supernatural showed up--burst through the courtroom doors. Justice Steward emerged, in a leather jacket, "Walk Like A Man" blasting out the radio.
Now, you need to understand that Stewart was formerly a member, the member, of the Ohio Supreme Court, and the Sixth Circuit after that. So the fact that this trashpile of a case made it out of his state, his region, through the courts he used to preside over? This was personal.
"The prosecution assets that Constitution doesn't protect against 'hard-core pornography'?" Justice Steward strode through the courtroom, making no apology to his tardiness. "I'll have you know, I agree with the prosecution on this point. But where this gentleman and I differ, is that--forgive my uncouth tongue--my equipment downstairs is in full working order. And what I mean, son, is with how much action I get I don't need a dictionary for 'pornography'." The other Justices nodded in deference, as Dennis stood paralyzed, suddenly feeling unfit to be a lawyer, or even a man.
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so." Justice Steward opined, as he strutted across the room before crashing into his chair on the bench.
"But I know it when I see it"
Stewart flipped his cigarette at Dennis, who exploded.
It would later turn out that pornography would get everywhere regardless, and that the actual threat to civilization was Twitter. But either way, freedom of speech and bad french movies were saved that day.
Steward's point was that some things you don't have to define. He didn't need some pencil-necked contrarian to tell him if something did or did not send blood into his generously endowed member.
That's because porn that goes only halfway is not porn, it's a tease. Either something is made to get people off or it isn't, and trying to be in the middle costs $154 million for two seasons on Netflix. (Just ask the Wachowskis) For porn to fulfill its fulfillment, it has to exist in a way that is unmistakeably erotic, unmistakeably taboo.
Stalling in Smash Bros. is the same way.
I know indefinite stalling if I see it. You know indefinite stalling if you see it. We even agree, pretty much unanimously, on what it is we're seeing.
That's because the point of indefinite stalling is in the adjective. This isn't like your dumb cousin and his gripe with Wolf laser, where you can do half as many Wolf lasers and it's still at least half as good and still the dominant strategy. Stalling for half the match accomplishes nothing and does not help you win! It fails to exploit the logistical needs of the event. To win by stalling, you always have to go all the way, or at least be willing to.
So, imagine this:
If a player starts stalling, their opponent or a spectator has ample time to summon a TO/ref/judge/Liam Neeson. If the game actually does goes to time, and the TO says "Yup, that guy was clearly refusing to let his opponent play, which is a pretty asshole thing to do at a video game tournament and against our rules" then the guy is DQ'd; simple.
Even in the worst-case scenario where the judge has to check a replay, the event would still save time by basic virtue of DQing someone trying to clog the bracket with 8 minute games.
But hold up. You are probably picturing some nightmare dystopia where every tourney has to have panels of judges watching replays of every match, arguing whether Fox lasers constitute "intent to engage." Stop, zoom out.
Incentive to stall follows a Laffer Curve with respect to time limit. A match with a 3 minute timer is WAAAAAY more likely to exhibit stalling than a 7 minute timer. Want proof? Go play Wi-Fi. Paradoxically, the longer the timer, the shorter the average match is--because it gets more difficulty/annoying to stall. And if there was no timer, there would be zero stalling. Unfortunately, the realities of both event logistics and human life make this unacceptable. (All games have "a timer"; we've all got places to be.)
Lemme tell you a story, of when I was a TO. At the time my region had a major issue with events running on time, because people wouldn't show up until 10 minutes after their match was called. They'd go get a milkshake, and the TO would yell at them, but nothing would happen and the pattern would continue until Grand Finals is at 3am.
But when I became a TO, I adopted a hard-line no-show instant-DQ policy. No 10-minute grace period, no search party, just instant DQ. People thought it was "too strict"--but guess what? I never once had to actually DQ someone for being late! And you better believe my events ran on time as a result.
The point of a rule is not to punish people, it's to change behavior.
Threatening to DQ people who go to McDonald's changes behavior. Setting a higher timer changes behavior. And promising people that planking for 7 minutes will get them red card'd changes behavior.
Stalling is rare enough as it is, even in older games with more exploitable mechanics. The percentage of games that time out, even with existing incentives for stalling, is very low. If you adopt a serious policy of simply banning stalling, it will drop to be miniscule. If it happens at all, it will just be some obstinate non-serious troll who wants to be made an example of.
All TOs need to do is establish a clear, transparent procedure of how an incident would be handled, and what executive decision-maker (never a commitee!) is responsible for making the call. As TO, I would communicate that my staff would be specifically looking for deliberate avoidance of both their opponent and the center of the stage indefinitely, but it--like all aspects of player behavior--remains at their discretion.
"But won't that be giving TOs too much power? If they can just DQ anyone they feel are 'too defensive'?"
Uh, first I think you need to up your understanding of TOs. They already have the full power to eject you from their event for any reason at any time.
And we expect them to wield this power to enforce all sorts of rules, spoken or unspoken. For instance, it's obviously against the rules of the tourney to get up in the middle of my set and break my opponent's hands. It's also obviously against the rules to block her view of the screen, or pause, or unplug his controller, or scream in their face until they stop wobbling you. We'd expect any TO worth their salt to instantly DQ this behavior.
As such, these behaviors all-but-never happen. Because we trust the TO to enforce them if needed, it isn't needed.
Second--nevermind all that, we're only talking about games that go to time. Most events have entire brackets without a single match going to time as it is, and that's with the incentive to stall.
"But what if someone exploits this?"
So they are going to... what exactly? Trick their opponent into stalling for 8 minutes so they can persuade the TO to DQ them? Hypnotize them into planking until you say the codeword? "Well what if the movie studios trick their rivals into making pornos so they get arrested!?!" Shut up Dennis.
Again, the entire point of you know it when you see it is that some things only fulfill their purpose when done in an obviously deliberate fashion. The only type of porn that doesn't exist is accidental--that's voyeurism.
In conclusion:
It's generally accepted by serious competitors that all in-game strategies are valid except indefinite stalling. Let's articulate exactly why this is:
- It's not actually "in-game"--it's exploiting a timer that only exists as a logistical requirement for running a timely event or online session.
- It is preventing your opponent from playing the game--true stalling has no counter-play.
- It does all of this in a way that skews character viability.
We used to have rules against stalling, in early Melee, and Brawl. Anti-stalling language still existed in final Brawl and Smash 4 rulesets, but was increasingly ignored--as evidenced by the inclusion of additional rules banning specific stalling techniques, which should have been redundant.
(Please don't confuse Smash's 420-480 second event logistics timer to the 99 second round timer in traditional fighting games. We're not talking about characters playing defensively or turtling in the corner; that's no different than some aspects of Smash advantage/disavantage state. This post is referring to situations where the opponent has no options to engage, due to some specific exploit of ledge mechanics or stage layout.)
The thing is, to ban something, as David Sirlin says, it has to be warranted, enforceable, and discrete. That last bit means you have to be able to define it--you can't vaguely say "No spamming! Spamming is banned!" Unless you can specifically define the problem, how can you say it's warranted or enforceable? What's more, if your dumb cousin insists that you aren't allowed to Wolf laser more than 10 times a stock, you're just going to do 9; his stupid scrubby rule has not even changed the strategies of the game like he wanted because his rule wasn't sufficiently discrete.
Pretty much everyone agrees with all that. So it's not a big stretch to say that the same applies to stalling, right? "Stalling" is too vague, so we cannot ban it?
Wrong.
According to Wikipedia, Les amants "is a 1958 French drama film directed by" and then I stopped reading because I really don't care. It apparently won a bunch of awards and was a big hit in its home country, but I could not care less about what was hot in 1950s french cinema.
Some random county in northern Ohio sure did.
Outraged at France's national pastime of justifying extramarital affairs, some puritanical local prosecutor decided to save America by charging the manager of the local theatre with obscenity. Sure, there's the whole pesky First Amendment thing, but if you shout "fire" in a public place where the KKK are watching porn, everyone gets arrested. What I mean is, society and the courts long agreed that okay yeah "obscenity" isn't allowed, but they never really nailed down what that is.
It went all the way to the SCOTUS, and the result was striking. The Justices agreed that this film was dumb and not as hot as they had been let to believe, maybe 2 stars at best, and not deserving of high praise like "obscene" or "a threat to the children." But they struggled to discretely define why this film was okay and yet Sorority Trainbang 6 was not.
Enter Justice Potter Stewart.
Now, I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure this is how it happened.
The dipwad prosecutor--let's call him Dennis--was addressing the court in his extra-nasaly voice that he reserved for extra-smug victories. "So you see--" he said with a note of triumph, "if you allow this so-call 'film' into our society, you forfeit any right to block anything even worse. Pornography will be everywhere, and our culture will rot from the inside out!"
"By God, he's right!" Chief Justice Warren sat stunned.
"B-Baka!" cried out Justice White, anime sweat flying off his face.
"How could he successfully use a slipperly-slope fallacy, our one weakness?!?" stammered Justice Brennan.
"CHECKMATE LIBERALS!" Dennis cried, ignoring that half the court was appointed by Eisenhower as he pumped a bony fist into the air.
Suddenly, all heard an engine rev. A fresh 1963 Chevy Impala--which was cool before Supernatural showed up--burst through the courtroom doors. Justice Steward emerged, in a leather jacket, "Walk Like A Man" blasting out the radio.
Now, you need to understand that Stewart was formerly a member, the member, of the Ohio Supreme Court, and the Sixth Circuit after that. So the fact that this trashpile of a case made it out of his state, his region, through the courts he used to preside over? This was personal.
"The prosecution assets that Constitution doesn't protect against 'hard-core pornography'?" Justice Steward strode through the courtroom, making no apology to his tardiness. "I'll have you know, I agree with the prosecution on this point. But where this gentleman and I differ, is that--forgive my uncouth tongue--my equipment downstairs is in full working order. And what I mean, son, is with how much action I get I don't need a dictionary for 'pornography'." The other Justices nodded in deference, as Dennis stood paralyzed, suddenly feeling unfit to be a lawyer, or even a man.
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so." Justice Steward opined, as he strutted across the room before crashing into his chair on the bench.
"But I know it when I see it"
Stewart flipped his cigarette at Dennis, who exploded.
It would later turn out that pornography would get everywhere regardless, and that the actual threat to civilization was Twitter. But either way, freedom of speech and bad french movies were saved that day.
Steward's point was that some things you don't have to define. He didn't need some pencil-necked contrarian to tell him if something did or did not send blood into his generously endowed member.
That's because porn that goes only halfway is not porn, it's a tease. Either something is made to get people off or it isn't, and trying to be in the middle costs $154 million for two seasons on Netflix. (Just ask the Wachowskis) For porn to fulfill its fulfillment, it has to exist in a way that is unmistakeably erotic, unmistakeably taboo.
Stalling in Smash Bros. is the same way.
I know indefinite stalling if I see it. You know indefinite stalling if you see it. We even agree, pretty much unanimously, on what it is we're seeing.
That's because the point of indefinite stalling is in the adjective. This isn't like your dumb cousin and his gripe with Wolf laser, where you can do half as many Wolf lasers and it's still at least half as good and still the dominant strategy. Stalling for half the match accomplishes nothing and does not help you win! It fails to exploit the logistical needs of the event. To win by stalling, you always have to go all the way, or at least be willing to.
So, imagine this:
If a player starts stalling, their opponent or a spectator has ample time to summon a TO/ref/judge/Liam Neeson. If the game actually does goes to time, and the TO says "Yup, that guy was clearly refusing to let his opponent play, which is a pretty asshole thing to do at a video game tournament and against our rules" then the guy is DQ'd; simple.
Even in the worst-case scenario where the judge has to check a replay, the event would still save time by basic virtue of DQing someone trying to clog the bracket with 8 minute games.
But hold up. You are probably picturing some nightmare dystopia where every tourney has to have panels of judges watching replays of every match, arguing whether Fox lasers constitute "intent to engage." Stop, zoom out.
Incentive to stall follows a Laffer Curve with respect to time limit. A match with a 3 minute timer is WAAAAAY more likely to exhibit stalling than a 7 minute timer. Want proof? Go play Wi-Fi. Paradoxically, the longer the timer, the shorter the average match is--because it gets more difficulty/annoying to stall. And if there was no timer, there would be zero stalling. Unfortunately, the realities of both event logistics and human life make this unacceptable. (All games have "a timer"; we've all got places to be.)
Lemme tell you a story, of when I was a TO. At the time my region had a major issue with events running on time, because people wouldn't show up until 10 minutes after their match was called. They'd go get a milkshake, and the TO would yell at them, but nothing would happen and the pattern would continue until Grand Finals is at 3am.
But when I became a TO, I adopted a hard-line no-show instant-DQ policy. No 10-minute grace period, no search party, just instant DQ. People thought it was "too strict"--but guess what? I never once had to actually DQ someone for being late! And you better believe my events ran on time as a result.
The point of a rule is not to punish people, it's to change behavior.
Threatening to DQ people who go to McDonald's changes behavior. Setting a higher timer changes behavior. And promising people that planking for 7 minutes will get them red card'd changes behavior.
Stalling is rare enough as it is, even in older games with more exploitable mechanics. The percentage of games that time out, even with existing incentives for stalling, is very low. If you adopt a serious policy of simply banning stalling, it will drop to be miniscule. If it happens at all, it will just be some obstinate non-serious troll who wants to be made an example of.
All TOs need to do is establish a clear, transparent procedure of how an incident would be handled, and what executive decision-maker (never a commitee!) is responsible for making the call. As TO, I would communicate that my staff would be specifically looking for deliberate avoidance of both their opponent and the center of the stage indefinitely, but it--like all aspects of player behavior--remains at their discretion.
"But won't that be giving TOs too much power? If they can just DQ anyone they feel are 'too defensive'?"
Uh, first I think you need to up your understanding of TOs. They already have the full power to eject you from their event for any reason at any time.
And we expect them to wield this power to enforce all sorts of rules, spoken or unspoken. For instance, it's obviously against the rules of the tourney to get up in the middle of my set and break my opponent's hands. It's also obviously against the rules to block her view of the screen, or pause, or unplug his controller, or scream in their face until they stop wobbling you. We'd expect any TO worth their salt to instantly DQ this behavior.
As such, these behaviors all-but-never happen. Because we trust the TO to enforce them if needed, it isn't needed.
Second--nevermind all that, we're only talking about games that go to time. Most events have entire brackets without a single match going to time as it is, and that's with the incentive to stall.
"But what if someone exploits this?"
So they are going to... what exactly? Trick their opponent into stalling for 8 minutes so they can persuade the TO to DQ them? Hypnotize them into planking until you say the codeword? "Well what if the movie studios trick their rivals into making pornos so they get arrested!?!" Shut up Dennis.
Again, the entire point of you know it when you see it is that some things only fulfill their purpose when done in an obviously deliberate fashion. The only type of porn that doesn't exist is accidental--that's voyeurism.
In conclusion:
- Everyone agrees indefinite stalling is bad
- It turns out you actually can just ban indefinite stalling
- Arguing otherwise is a misapplication of Sirlin-esque principles that ignores how stalling works
- If indefinite stalling doesn't win, even fewer people will stall than they do now
- Justice Potter Stewart was a boss
