The Unity Ruleset: Discussion

[[FBC] ESAM]

Again, if it is in reasonable time, there seems no reason. We aren't going to limit it explicitly since something MAY happen like that. That is why it has to be under TOs discretion. They know the players and understand what they would do (honorable vs not honorable).

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

The problem is, people pay an entry fee to play a tournament by the rules as they are written. If someone gets disqualified for breaking a rule that was not written, they deserve a full refund. You cant just make up rules on the spot after the entrant AND the TO both agreed to it when the money swapped hands.

they should also pay for the gas and/or plane ticket you bought due to legitimacy of said tactic. until it is banned or not specifically in the ruleset, the TO should have no right whatsoever to do anything about since it stated not stated in the rules and therefore is legal. other wise you could be wasting a lot of money if you main sonic. oh wait you already are jk i <3 sonic

 

[Albert.]

The idea that "OMG banning Picto enhances MK omg I'm gonna fall on a sword!"

is laughable. The stage never should have been legal in the first place. If your character(s) requires one or more of the stage-specific gimmicks to stand a fighting chance against MK or the higher tier'd characters, then your character never actually does.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

tru dat, picto has always been lame. you CP it if you are scrubby and hope the stage beats your opponent.

 

[san.]

Some people are worried that this may lead to an inclination towards banning rather than legalizing.

Anyways, time to argue for Pirate Ship now.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Some people are worried that this may lead to an inclination towards banning rather than legalizing.

Anyways, time to argue for Pirate Ship now.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=284619

If there is enough debate about this stage, I could go redo my tests again: lost the data a looooong time ago. But it's a fairly predictable stage when you actually know what to look for. If you don't, you'll get tossed around.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

not before norfair good sir

 

[ShadowLink84]

SL, go to PS1, have your opponent stand on the left edge, then HA stall from the right.

I'll be very surprised if Sonic ever goes right.

One sec I just saw this now, I'll go test it out.
Well what do you know so far he seems to always pull towards Link. Hmm, He does seem to cease pulling though once you're around the mid point of BF though.

>_> This stalling stuff is ********. If it is determined by your opponent's position, they will be forced to go to the edge and help you up. If it isn't, there is no ****ing way you are going to be under there for 6 minutes. Espy, you are being ridiculous.

Even if he was under there for 6 minutes, how would you be able to point it out? Time?
It becomes completely hearsay. Even then, considering many characters can combat it depending on the stage, no reason to ban it in the first place.
UNless of course yo wish to ban scrooging and everything else.

You guys are saying that we are biased against bad characters? Hell yeah, that is totally why we have a lower LGL on the best character in the game

Stop.
Lower LGL ont he best character in the game.
Let us get this cleared up.
First of all, the fact you even have an LGL on anyone outside of Metaknight is foolishness.
Olimar gets screwed over by DK's planking because that is a flaw in Olimar's character.
Putting LGL's to make it "fair" for other characters is no better than banning infinites. he fact you have infinites legal and then have an LGL at all is contradictory.
Moving on

and why infinites characters like PT and Yoshi have are legal.

Good, though offset by LGL.

You guys are ******** and you are basically complaining for no reason. Oh, so we banned Pictochat which OBVIOUSLY means we are eliminating CPs for characters while maintaining MKs CPs. If every stage was MKs best stage and other stages were terrible for MK but not competitively sound, THEY WOULDN'T BE LEGAL! We are currently discussing stages, so chill your ****ing grill. If we don't add them, we don't add them based on the conclusion it isn't competitively viable.

I think the issue is the following.
1. Pictochat has always been rather controversial, so banning it should have been done more quickly.
2. While pictochat was banned, something many agree with, the problem is that there are no additions to the starter stages. Making it more or less an AN ruleset outside of the infinites.

So please, relax. We aren't just back there going "Lololol this is hilarious everybody will get so mad and MK is amazing!" Hell, Pictochat benefits at least 4 people back there (Chibo with Rob, myself with Pika/ICs, and AZ with Diddy, Technical Chase with D3), so us banning it wasn't a matter of personal preference, but a matter of what is right/wrong.

If i were you I totally would have gone "Lololol this is hilarious, lets troll them some more. Quick! Let's ban everything except FD, BF and SV! =3

 

[ShadowLink84]

Double post, I fail.

 

[Alphicans]

I did some very brief testing of my own, and the HA camping seems utterly useless on every stage. If sonic is under there for 6 minutes, it's his opponent's fault. On every stage but FD if you just stand near the edge, sonic will go towards you and up to his opponent. On FD, if you stand by the ledge sonic does random stuff near the side you are on (still under the stage), but if you hang on the ledge sonic comes up.

Again this is very brief testing, and I am sure the smash lab will have a much more detailed report, but basically it seems like all of that debate was for nothing.

Idk if this was just coincidence, but I managed to get sonic to kill himself if I timed grabbing the ledge just right. Probably has something to do with invincibility frames. But then again sonic still camped properly when I was on the revive platform.

 

[Tesh]

All I wanna say is that, they don't really care about us.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I did some very brief testing of my own, and the HA camping seems utterly useless on every stage. If sonic is under there for 6 minutes, it's his opponent's fault. On every stage but FD if you just stand near the edge, sonic will go towards you and up to his opponent. On FD, if you stand by the ledge sonic does random stuff near the side you are on (still under the stage), but if you hang on the ledge sonic comes up.

Again this is very brief testing, and I am sure the smash lab will have a much more detailed report, but basically it seems like all of that debate was for nothing.

Basically what I've been saying for 3 years but myself and everyone who said I was wrong never bothered to test it (except I did test it 3 years ago but people said I was HA stalling wrong). Heck, it happened in this very thread! Sigh. Oh well, hopefully the Smash lab looks at this and confirms that all every single character in the game needs to do is grab the edge and hang there and it beats the HA stall, if this is the case then there isn't a reason to ban it explicitly nor implicitly, and it is just up to people to know how to beat the tactic.

 

[Alphicans]

Are there other ways to HA stall I am unaware of? Don't you just go under the stage and press B a bunch?

 

[DeLux]

The Lab is testing. For now, I'd recommend no ban until it's proved that a ban is merited.

However, there's still a greater issue at play that has yet to be addressed: TO discretion as arbitration (TODAA)

By putting in TODAA and using it as the full-proof way to circumvent any "loophole" in the rules, two negatives occur:

1. You are defeating the purpose of a universal rulesset. Unless I'm mistaken the purpose of a universal rulesset was to promote cohesiveness throughout the community and eleminating regional/TO bias. Discretionary decisions are usually made using a value system. And like all value systems, there's a degree of subjectivity. The denotation of the rules can't be changed. However the interpretation can. If unity is truly the goal, then it would be better to form a rulesset where denotation wins the day, and the connotation of the rules are as close to the denotation as possible. This leaves less room for "interpretive wiggle room" so people like me can't sit and try to find loopholes

2. You are placing a tremendous burden on TO's. Take the HA stalling debate. Let's say Espy never brought the topic up for discussion. And for the sake of the argument, let's say that it is proven beatable (which it sounds like it is, but dont' want to conclude either way without confirmation via testing). Based on ESAM's use of TODAA, he essentially advocated the ban of a non-broken, easily beatable tactic in this very thread. Obviously ESAM knows a lot about the game, yet despite this knowledge he was ready to ban the tactic because he had incomplete information on the situation. It's fair to assume that many TO's will have equall or lesser knowledge of the metagame than ESAM; thus the expectation to have them act in this discretionary manner is deterimental to the viability of the rulesset as a whole. We should seek to remove situations of TODAA whenever possible, as to eleminate the element of human bias or knowledge of the metagame as a rule barrier. Otherwise we're expecting TO's to be omniscient, which is an unreasonable expectation.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Basically what I've been saying for 3 years but myself and everyone who said I was wrong never bothered to test it (except I did test it 3 years ago but people said I was HA stalling wrong). Heck, it happened in this very thread! Sigh. Oh well, hopefully the Smash lab looks at this and confirms that all every single character in the game needs to do is grab the edge and hang there and it beats the HA stall, if this is the case then there isn't a reason to ban it explicitly nor implicitly, and it is just up to people to know how to beat the tactic.

Not really cause then I do this *moves to the left after he bounces to the right*
There is a period where Sonic can move back to his original position.
Th timing is very tight though but doable.

 

[T-block]

^That's an interesting situation lol... if Sonic is forced to use his HA to recover, and his opponent moves around the stage to keep him under there indefinitely, is his opponent stalling?

From my experience, Sonic can adjust his position very slightly before starting the next HA. It's not much though, and certainly not enough to give him full control over his position.

 

[Tesh]

Now onto a more important issue. If AiB has teamed up with the BBRRC in this endeavor, why does the AiB ladder not use this stagelist or Unity rules?

 

[AlphaZealot]

DeLux: The main purpose of having a broad stalling rule, as has existed in Brawl and has and still does exist in Melee, is simply to cover potential bases/glitches that could arise that were previously unknown. Though it would be unlikely to occur, if someone does somehow find a 'gamebreaking' tactic then the TO needs some broad power in order to make a decision on the spot regarding it. While some people are obviously going to say "well you need to test first!" the point remains that it is a necessary power to have as a TO for the 1 in 10,000 chance someone comes in with a previous unknown stall tactic.

There is actually not a wide discrepancy, as with the HA stall debate, we will soon have a verdict and if, in fact, the opponent can easily dislodge the opposing player from the stall position then it is IN FACT NOT A STALL and therefore would not be covered under the definition.

If there is some other tactic out there that is ambiguous please point it out. As of now it only looks like the HA stall.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Has there been any talk of the following things:
-Legalizing Japes/Norfair/GG/ANYTHING
-Raising the number of starters
If so, why can you not share it with the general public?

Why are the chats that not only decide the ruleset for most of the major tournaments in the progressing brawl landscape and also will likely contain relevant false knowledge ("PTAD is random"), poor assessment of gameplay ("9 starters does not make a huge difference from 3 or 5 for most matchups"), or simply poor reasoning skills ("FD is a starter and I refuse to argue this point. Ever.") simply not available for anyone except those involved? This is exactly the same problem as with the BBR, except far more meaningful–we don't know how much of the chats that seriously matter for the future of brawl are progressive, intelligent discussion, and how much of it is circle jerks and mafia (hey, at least with the BBR, we knew that what they were doing wasn't important, right?). Okay, more realistically, how much of it is utter crap spewed by the TOs who may be great at running tournaments but just kinda suck at game design theory vs. how much of it is smart.


And because my last request, while reasonable, is never going to happen... Has there been any progress in those discussions, any stances being taken worth talking about?

 

[DeLux]

DeLux: The main purpose of having a broad stalling rule, as has existed in Brawl and has and still does exist in Melee, is simply to cover potential bases/glitches that could arise that were previously unknown. Though it would be unlikely to occur, if someone does somehow find a 'gamebreaking' tactic then the TO needs some broad power in order to make a decision on the spot regarding it. While some people are obviously going to say "well you need to test first!" the point remains that it is a necessary power to have as a TO for the 1 in 10,000 chance someone comes in with a previous unknown stall tactic.

I don't think it is a necessary power. Again, if the goal is remove elements of bias, you're essentially giving free reign for a TO to insert there own personal bias (or bias by ignorance) as a means of changing the terms of the game. By giving TO discretion as a means of ruling on gameplay elements, you're sacrificing the consistency of a universal rulesset for what you admit is only a 1-10,000 chance that discretionary power is even necessary. At the same time, you're placing a tremendous burden on the TO for that same 1-10,000 chance.

If there is some other tactic out there that is ambiguous please point it out. As of now it only looks like the HA stall.

The HA argument can be applied to the Gliding Stall Glitch on the levels it's possible. Luigi Ladder. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

But it would be better from a normative standpoint to have good specific established rules, and then amend them as needed. Rather than approaching it as having an ambiguous rule covered by elements of human judgment and inherent human bias.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

DeLux, the problem is we CAN'T possibly make a ruling that covers 100% every single thing in every single situation, considering everything about this game isn't known.

Also, BPC, please stop. The point of us NOT saying **** to the public is so that we don't get scrutinized while discussing rules. That is the same reason why people can't see the BBR in the first place, so that every thread doesn't become "Why they shouldn't be doing X." We are all watching the public (At least Chibo, TChase, and I are) and we understand what the public wants and we will bring it up to each other accordingly. Re-****ing-lax.

 

[DeLux]

DeLux, the problem is we CAN'T possibly make a ruling that covers 100% every single thing in every single situation, considering everything about this game isn't known.

Right, I'd agree.

The point I'm trying to make is that No Ruling (until it's proven that something merits a ruling) is better than Ruling by Bias/Possible Ignorance/TO Discretion.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

That is why we don't have a ruling for it yet. We can't omit a "no stalling rule" because it will be abused. It is better to have people already afraid of consequences by saying "If you stall X, Y, and Z can happen to you," and then as things become 100% bannable (Like IDC) we can ban them.

 

[DeLux]

That is why we don't have a ruling for it yet. We can't omit a "no stalling rule" because it will be abused. It is better to have people already afraid of consequences by saying "If you stall X, Y, and Z can happen to you," and then as things become 100% bannable (Like IDC) we can ban them.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't state "stalling is banned" because it's a blanket statement that doesn't have any real objective meaning. It SHOULD be omitted. However, I'd ban tactics on the reasoning that they are stalling because that isn't done by TO discretion.

Fear means nothing. When you say people should be afraid, some people see it as, I'll just find the loop hole that's logically sound. At which point if a TO rules contrary to logic, it comes off as bias even if the intent is good.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

The risk for not having the rule is far greater than the risk while having the rule.

 

[DeLux]

Why? I dont' see the risk of removing a rule that doesn't have concrete meaning.

One side demands/allows human discretion/bias as a blanket rule constantly. So there's a constant level of bias demanded. Which would mean there's the constant presence of an issue.

The other sets clear logical precedent that can be amended as needed IF the need occurs. So there's an issue only on rare occasions.

Again, I'm not saying stalling should be encouraged. It's a good enough of a reason to ban a tactic. But banning the reason that bans a tactic is redundant. So you either ban the reason (which leaves it open to TO discretion bias) or you can ban the tactic (which doesn't).

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

So you are saying basically make all the things that we put at the end in the "Such as" in their own rules? Like instead of saying "No stalling: Stalling includes blah" Just be like "No blah?"

 

[DeLux]

Right. With the intent to remove stalling, you should remove the tactics. Like there is no real acceptable definition of stalling that isn't judgment based. But it's easy to determine if a tactic is being done. So you remove those tactics on the premise that they are stalling tactics.

Stalling is now banned without needing TO Discretion to ban it.

 

[MK26]

^That's an interesting situation lol... if Sonic is forced to use his HA to recover, and his opponent moves around the stage to keep him under there indefinitely, is his opponent stalling?

I laughed irl
no, he's edgeguarding

@Delux: and if a sitaution arises that is stalling but isnt covered by any rules?

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

But again, as AZ said, there might be a new form of stalling that we don't know about and somebody abuses it and wins a tournament with it because we didn't have a vague rule like that. Considering we already basically say "You can't stall and X, Y, and Z are stalling" it is literally covering more options.

 

[DeLux]

@mk26: Then you confirm that it's unbreakable stalling via testing, and the next day you go from Rulesset X.Y to an updated Rulesset X.(Y+1) that bans it.

@ ESAM: You were ready to ban HA Stalling just a few pages ago because you didn't know there was a counter tactic. How do you know there isn't a counter tactic without testing if a new tactic appears? It's superior to not effectively change the rules mid tournament (which is what TO Discretion is allowing in this case) and amend it for future tournaments. It's such a loose criteria that it's open to more abuse. The only problem with what I'm proposing is that you lose one tournament to the stalling tactic. I'd rather lose one tournament than lose all of them to TO Bias Discretion.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Outlining every single little thing that is banned would be super tedious and we would have to have knowledge on every single thing.

 

[DeLux]

That's why you have a committee good sir

Spoiler

And why you need me/more lab members in the BBR-RC

 

[T-block]

Agreeing with Lux here. Knowledge requirement isn't something to hide behind. It's part of the challenge of constructing a ruleset.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Which is why we have the vague rule, but I see where you guys are coming from.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

Which is why we have the vague rule, but I see where you guys are coming from.

cool. i've been at work and since you said this i would just like to make my suggestion to you personally since you can see the point that i happen to agree with.

so esam, you say it is there to cover things that may not be discovered yet. i can understand why you guys think that people could discover broken tactics on spot and abuse them as i personally have discovered ATs and tactics with my own character and thus understand the point you are making about the randomness that a game changing discovery could be made in tourney. however, i think it would be better to just allow the discovered technique to be allowed in the tourney it is discovered in even if it leads to that player winning the tourney because of it, because then the tactic will be recognized by everybody.
then when it is known, the smash lab can test it to find out if the tactic was truly broken and should from that point on be limited/banned or whether there was a way to beat it and if there was make the way to beat it known. then let it be done in another tourney with it's weakness known, and if it no longer is unbeatable thx to the power of knowledge, then leave it unbanned/unlimited and if it is indeed broken, well it will be dealt with afterwords. but i agree with lux when he says to just deem it unbeatable on spot is too unfair to the person who discovered it at the time to disqualify him for it or watever action the TO decides to take.

 

[AlphaZealot]

So who wants to help us compile all known examples of stalling?
This will probably cause some discussion, like for:
-MK getting stuck under the stage in Halberd. It isn't infinite stalling because eventually the stage lifts off again. But it is a good stall for what? 2-2.5 minutes
-MK glide stall on Halberd (does it work on any other stages?)
-Scrooging...is this stalling? Yumm that could be a fun one
-What else? Infinites/Chaingrabs are already covered under the 300% rule.

-As of now I'm going to say Sonic's HA isn't a true stall since the opponent controls where he goes (unless I'm proven otherwise)

 

[T-block]

If "glide stall" means what I think it means, I think any character with a glide can do it on PS1 as well?

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Not big enough on PS1. Also, MK is the only one that can ever do it since he maintains momentum significantly better than Charizard/Pit.

 

[Albert.]

Of the top 10% of all smashers, or even just say- the people that place and do well, very very few of them spend their time squabbling over petty nonsense like the people do in this thread. Maybe you guys should stop worrying about insignificant circumstantial bull---- and start practicing the game.

(obvious exceptions for people on the committee that are defending/explaining their discussions)