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What does it take to be banned?

Mew2King

King of the Mews
Joined
Jul 18, 2002
Messages
11,263
Location
Cinnaminson (southwest NJ 5 min drive from Philly)
ally isn't even proban he just wants to get rid of mks. I talk to him like almost every day and he changes his mind from anti, neutral, and proban depending on his recent experiences. He's changed his mind on his stance on this more than anyone else i know
 

strawhats

Smash Master
Joined
Feb 19, 2009
Messages
4,273
Location
Bronx
As for TOing, I know for a fact that people would love more tournaments around here with reasonable rules. All you need to do is talk to them to know what they would want more and then run a tournament. A true TO for their region is very close to most players and should run tournaments depending on what they want... unless you want to go large scale but I have no experience with that so I can't really have an opinion on that. You definitely don't need to listen to whatever standard someone else tries to force on you.. What I'm trying to say is stop being ****ies in this 2011 era lol.
seriously your new Avi is ****ing epic. :awesome:

also @Jackie rabbit: I think you meant number 2 ranked Ally >.>
 

KirbyKaze

Smash Legend
Joined
Nov 18, 2007
Messages
17,679
Location
Spiral Mountain
You can't really blame the people that copied M2K's MK for copying M2K's MK. This happens literally all the time in competitive games. Someone comes up with something that's freaking amazing and wins everything? Of course people are going to try it. Like, why wouldn't they? If it's visibly the best way to win, it makes perfect sense to emulate it...

In this day and age, doing something in a competitive game that won't be copied isn't a real expectation unless the thing is excruciatingly hard to do (and requires tons of dedication, etc. in order to replicate it) or meets some other limiting factor. Even then, people will try to do it if it's a winning strategy and you can't be surprised if some of them pull it off.
 

AllyKnight

Banned via Administration
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
10,881
Location
*'~-East Coast/Quebec/Michigan-~'*
ally isn't even proban he just wants to get rid of mks. I talk to him like almost every day and he changes his mind from anti, neutral, and proban depending on his recent experiences. He's changed his mind on his stance on this more than anyone else i know
Once again, dude's saying stupid **** >.>

I said, I'm mostly neutral, if I voted FOR in AiB, it's only to see how the scene for 1-3 months without MK would be. I'm mostly going towards pro-ban so you can go focus on good stuff, not stupid **** like this.

Mew2King didn't just advance or make most of MK's metagame, he also invented how to hate the character itself with his gayness.
 

Black Mantis

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 5, 2008
Messages
5,683
Location
Writing my own road...................
Brawl players are a bunch of durper *******. One of our best players shows them how it gets done in the smash series and they go cry about it.

When people didn't know what DI was and shiek kept comboing everything to 80%, nobody cried about it. People got better

Then fox came along and you had nerds emerging out their rooms with all these waveshines and technical crap, still it wasn't banned

In most recent years, jigglypuff. BUT mango and dr pp still get it done.

Point? Melee community > brawl community.

They are all a bunch of whiney babies who are a disgrace to competitive gaming LOL

every time I think about brawl players I just imagine a bunch of noobs who play runescape playing with their vibrating wii motes and giggling.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PetqKh7lr8g&feature=channel_video_title
 

Divinokage

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
16,250
Location
Montreal, Quebec
ally isn't even proban he just wants to get rid of mks. I talk to him like almost every day and he changes his mind from anti, neutral, and proban depending on his recent experiences. He's changed his mind on his stance on this more than anyone else i know
You're one to talk when you change your mind about matchups as well huh? Don't be ridiculous with the hypocrisy. Of course people change their mind.. you NEED change if you want something to evolve.. lol. Only fools don't change.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
Yes, but that's assuming the ban is warranted. Akuma's ban in ST was warranted. Meta Knight's ban, probably not, definitely not yet.

And, when too much needs to be banned, and when rules which are plain and simply scrubby are required to maintain a decent game (e.g. ledge grab limit), this is indicative of a problem with the game.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
You clearly lack basic reading skills. Or perhaps just the endurance to read this entire thread. Why bother understanding the fact it's irrelevant that Meta Knight is used most when you can just reiterate that he's used the most? Because,

everybody knows his banned was warranted.
 

Denthorn

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
32
Location
Lewisville, TX
The evidence for banning isn't something that's hidden from the public. The fact that he's used the most is one of the reasons he was banned. It states that in the banned thread.
A character being used more often than others isn't a legitimate reason to ban them. Go take a look at some 3rd strike tourney results and count the number of Chun Li players. You'll notice that the 3rd strike community hasn't banned her, and that game has been around a hell of a lot longer than brawl has with a pretty damn strong community.
 

HomeStylePie

Smash Cadet
Joined
Apr 23, 2011
Messages
40
You know what's comparable to Akuma? The Master Hand glitch. Metaknight was created to be played against your friends and your competitors. Akuma was not, so stop falling back on that. Besides, if you read the comments on the original article Sirlin took a lot of **** for saying Akuma should be banned.

This **** makes the entire smash community look like whiny children.
 

Divinokage

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
16,250
Location
Montreal, Quebec
A character being used more often than others isn't a legitimate reason to ban them. Go take a look at some 3rd strike tourney results and count the number of Chun Li players. You'll notice that the 3rd strike community hasn't banned her, and that game has been around a hell of a lot longer than brawl has with a pretty damn strong community.
Normally for banning a character, the requirement for that is that you have to use the same character to beat him which is obviously not true in Smash. But, we already have put a ton amount of rules inside of smash to make it competitive. In SF, they don't need a ton of rules because the game is already made that all you need to do is press start and fight without changing any rules. So already it's not right to compare between fighters, you can't do that.

So.. ya since Smash is uniquely made that way, it's pretty tough to know where to draw the line. I can't really have a concrete opinion on MK but he does have a lot of tactics you can use to win and the opponent can't do **** about it.
 

Denthorn

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
32
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Lewisville, TX
Normally for banning a character, the requirement for that is that you have to use the same character to beat him which is obviously not true in Smash. But, we already have put a ton amount of rules inside of smash to make it competitive. In SF, they don't need a ton of rules because the game is already made that all you need to do is press start and fight without changing any rules. So already it's not right to compare between fighters, you can't do that.

So.. ya since Smash is uniquely made that way, it's pretty tough to know where to draw the line. I can't really have a concrete opinion on MK but he does have a lot of tactics you can use to win and the opponent can't do **** about it.
My comment was more directly aimed at the "lots of people use him, so we should ban him" arguement. I realize that there's more going into the decision than that, but that shouldn't really even be an issue. If you look back over 3rd strike tournament results from evo in the past, at least half of top 8 is Chun Li almost every time. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a good chunk of people that play the game main her as well, given how stupidly good she is. She also obviously wins quite a large portion of the prize pools at tournaments.

Furthermore, yes we have options to change a lot of rules in smash. This actually lends more credence to my point here, since we have the option of trying to tweak the rules to make the character in question be less stupidly good (which, according to most of what has been posted so far, was proposed by a number of players and rejected). Case in point, a character being popular should not be a factor in deciding to ban them.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
So.. ya since Smash is uniquely made that way, it's pretty tough to know where to draw the line.
This is vaguely true. For example, we turn items off despite items-on not being broken in any sense. There are ways around this, but without giving it proper thought you realize that such arguments will be arbitrary and thus allow arbitrary bans. For example, you could claim "well, items-off is just better than items-on." But, even with a majority approval, this is still subjective, and thus would allow for a similar argument for anything: "x being banned is better than x not being banned."

Instead, I think a good point to make is that we want to limit randomness. We do not wish to ban randomness in general. However, even this is arbitrary, and your mileage may vary as to whether items-on is random enough to warrant a ban. One thing we can agree on, however, is that Peach's down-B is necessarily random, and we will likely never ban that move. With that in mind, we always have some sort of "minimum amount of randomness" with which to compare everything. Most players would agree that items-on impacts results in a far more serious manner than Peach's turnip, and so, if Peach's turnip is your "threshold" for randomness, you would disable items.

What is nice about the above logic is that it prevents unwarranted bans on randomness alone. Things like the cars on Mute City and the lava on Brinstar do not necessarily have a large enough impact to warrant a ban.

However, there are problems with this "Peach's turnip threshold:"

For one, the threshold is arbitrary. Luckily, it's a "canonical" choice (but this doesn't make it any less arbitrary!). However, what's to stop someone from choosing a stronger threshold (e.g. "all random is bad") and banning even more?

For two, the threshold is still scrubby (though this is debatable). If things aren't broken, instead simply impacting results in the short-term, why should we ban them?

Another way to address this issue is to come up with a "skeleton" as to what our starting game should be. However, this is just as arbitrary: what's the difference between saying "items-off is toggled" and "Mute City is banned?" There isn't really any.

Note however that this problem does not apply to things like "stock vs. timer," in which you're making a choice between two different, equally valid, rulesets. One analogy for this specification with regards to stages would be if versions 1.1 and 1.2 had different stages; you would not call anyone scrubby for picking one over the other. They legitimately are different games.

For the most part, I can't reconcile Playing to Win with our choice to disable items. To a degree, I accept that this game is not meant for out-of-the-box competition, and so changes can (and should) be made to the starting rules. But this leads to the valid conclusion that we can ban basically whatever we want for virtually any reason: "Mute City is janky. What do you mean I'm a scrub? We banned items for no reason too, didn't we?"

Such is Smash. Too bad Sakurai didn't specify any guidelines when he designed this ****. Though his guidelines probably would have sucked anyway.
 

tarheeljks

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
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land of the free
what if i don't agree with your premise that we should necessarily start from the exact framework of "playing to win" (i.e. sirlin's philosophy)?

edit: what if i think that while we should be wary of haphazard/ad hoc bans and should protect the "competitive aspect" of the game (in the sense that we don't weaken competition by bannig out of laziness or something to that effect), i feel that when taken to the extreme the play to win mentality belies the notion that a game being fun to play is a necessary condition for large scale survival of competitive aspects? and that while what makes something fun is completely subjective, the protection of entertainment value must be catered too nonetheless
 

Divinokage

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
16,250
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Montreal, Quebec
Ya but do you really want tournaments with all items on for example? I mean if you really want to play people with items on in friendlies you can always do it, they probably won't mind. I don't really get why some people would actually want tournaments like that, it seems a bit ridiculous. I mean we all are free to play smash however we want with friends and stuff already, isn't that enough?
 

Pr0jecT

Smash Ace
Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
509
Location
SWFL/NY
if I cant beat it because I don't want to put the effort into finding a way of beating it, it should be banned

/thread
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
Sorry, I should have said "for clearly subjective reasons." That is, items are not broken, but we ban them because we think the game is better without them. What's to prevent us from applying that logic to everything?

Nothing. The MBR has banned Mute City and Pokéfloats for (what I guess is) largely the same reason.

Ya but do you really want tournaments with all items on for example? I mean if you really want to play people with items on in friendlies you can always do it, they probably won't mind. I don't really get why some people would actually want tournaments like that, it seems a bit ridiculous. I mean we all are free to play smash however we want with friends and stuff already, isn't that enough?
Do you see how this logic can be applied to anything?

what if i don't agree with your premise that we should necessarily start from the exact framework of "playing to win" (i.e. sirlin's philosophy)?
You don't have to agree with the philosophy. You just have to see that it's definitely the fairest one, i.e., it doesn't prevent players from playing how they want for subjective reasons.

edit: what if i think that while we should be wary of haphazard/ad hoc bans and should protect the "competitive aspect" of the game (in the sense that we don't weaken competition by bannig out of laziness or something to that effect), i feel that when taken to the extreme the play to win mentality belies the notion that a game being fun to play is a necessary condition for large scale survival of competitive aspects? and that while what makes something fun is completely subjective, the protection of entertainment value must be catered too nonetheless
Wow, these sentences are ****ing hard to read. Anyway, the point I made earlier addresses this: you're catering to players who don't appreciate the game in the first place. For a more in-depth explanation of why I think catering to scrubs for entertainment value is bad, see this post.
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
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Jarrettsville, MD
Mew2King, why don't you just create your own committee of 15 MK mains and vote over his ban. Most people won't take it seriously, but I think it'd do a great job of showing just how irrelevant a decision made by the URC is. People will complain everyone in the committee uses MK, and then you can point out that no one in the URC uses him. From what I can tell, there is nothing actually forcing TO's to start banning MK now. It's still something that is completely up to the TO, but once it becomes the standard it's never switching back. Anyone still playing 3 months from now certainly won't be playing MK anymore.

Or you could just play Melee. ^_^
 

tarheeljks

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
1,857
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land of the free
Kal said:
You just have to see that it's definitely the fairest one, i.e., it doesn't prevent players from playing how they want for subjective reasons.
no one is being "prevented" from playing with, for example, items. not by anything other than their own lack of initiative anyway. when i want to try something, i suggest it/do it at the tournaments i run (we're currently using a modified stage set).

Kal said:
you're catering to players who don't appreciate the game in the first place
what is wrong with liking smash more with items off than on (or the reverse)? also, i think the idea that altering the rules compromises the integrity of the game is grandstanding (kind of), esp when the game has built in mechanisms to make said alterations
 

Mr.Jackpot

Smash Lord
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Messages
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WA
Mew2King, why don't you just create your own committee of 15 MK mains and vote over his ban. Most people won't take it seriously, but I think it'd do a great job of showing just how irrelevant a decision made by the URC is. People will complain everyone in the committee uses MK, and then you can point out that no one in the URC uses him. From what I can tell, there is nothing actually forcing TO's to start banning MK now. It's still something that is completely up to the TO, but once it becomes the standard it's never switching back. Anyone still playing 3 months from now certainly won't be playing MK anymore.

Or you could just play Melee. ^_^
Both of these ideas are good. But I like the second one better.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
no one is being "prevented" from playing with, for example, items
Obviously, I mean that, within a ruleset which bans items, you are prevented from playing with items. Not sure why this strawman comes up every time rulesets are discussed.

what is wrong with liking smash more with items off than on? also, i think the idea that altering the rules compromises the integrity of the game is grandstanding (kind of), esp when the game has built in mechanisms to made said alterations
Nothing's wrong with having subjective preferences. An issue comes up when you're forcing them on other players by means of your ruleset. For example, I have no problem with players who hate Marth. Marth is ****ing annoying. What I have a problem with is players who would ban Marth for this reason.

And yeah, I might be able to see an argument in favor of this sort of thing strictly because it is an in-game option. However, I would need an argument which explains why this makes it more "ok" than to ban a stage or a character for similar reasons. The fact that the latter types of bans are strictly contrived does not, on face value, differentiate them from the former.

To clarify, you can imagine a toggle switch which allowed characters to be played. That is, for each character, there is an in-game option which basically allowed them to show up on the character select-screen. Would you then use this fact to ban characters, given that, other than this toggle, the game is exactly identical to regular Melee?
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
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Jarrettsville, MD
Nothing's wrong with having subjective preferences. An issue comes up when you're forcing them on other players by means of your ruleset. For example, I have no problem with players who hate Marth. Marth is ****ing annoying. What I have a problem with is players who would ban Marth for this reason.
By not banning dumb stages, you're forcing me to play them. ;)


That is the whole issue with the "OMG YOU CAN'T BAN THINGS WILLY-NILLY!" arguments. At the end of the day, NOT banning something is just as much a decision as banning something is. No matter what, by creating a rule set you are forcing the rules onto the players. Melee hasn't had to deal with ruleset drama because the players are the ones hosting, and anyone can host with any ruleset. The reason there is all this drama over the MK ban is because it's being delegated as the only valid ruleset that can be used (as seen from the fact that tournaments that do not ban MK will not be featured). The censorship of other peoples' rulesets are the real issue.
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
By not banning dumb stages, you're forcing me to play them. ;)
No, I'm not forcing you to play them. You don't have to choose them. Your opponent forcing you to do something is not the same as the TO preventing you from doing something. Your logic can be taken in virtually any direction: "by not banning Falco's lasers, you're forcing me to play against Falcos who laser."

It's absurd.

That is the whole issue with the "OMG YOU CAN'T BAN THINGS WILLY-NILLY!" arguments. At the end of the day, NOT banning something is just as much a decision as banning something is.
No, leaving something unbanned is the default stance. And, as an aside, if you're trying to choose what not to ban, you're going to have to make way too many subjective decisions.

No matter what, by creating a rule set you are forcing the rules onto the players.
In a sense, this is true. But forcing the entire ruleset onto a player is not the same as forcing any particular rule, nor is it the same as preventing them from exercising a particular strategy.

Again, it's a question of fairness. You're not preventing people from exercising certain strategies when you ban as little as possible. Sure, you might be forcing players to adapt to strategies they dislike, but this is true unless there exist exactly zero strategies.

Melee hasn't had to deal with ruleset drama because the players are the ones hosting, and anyone can host with any ruleset.
Melee had quite a bit of ruleset drama with regards to items back in the day. Moreover, there are plenty of debates on SWF about whether stages like Brinstar, Mute City, Pokéfloats, Jungle Japes, Green Greens, etc. should be banned. To say there is no drama is pretty much false. Further, when there exists a faux-authority like the MBR, there will necessarily be drama. You can't really tell someone "you don't like it? Don't use it!" when there is a pseudo-authority having a real influence on the "legitimacy" of your tournaments.

The reason there is all this drama over the MK ban is because it's be delegated as the only valid ruleset that can be used (as seen from the fact that tournaments that do not ban MK will not be featured). The censorship of other peoples' rulesets are the real issue.
No, the legitimacy of the ban is also an issue. The censorship is a separate (though very relevant) issue.
 

Mew2King

King of the Mews
Joined
Jul 18, 2002
Messages
11,263
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Cinnaminson (southwest NJ 5 min drive from Philly)
Mew2King, why don't you just create your own committee of 15 MK mains and vote over his ban. Most people won't take it seriously, but I think it'd do a great job of showing just how irrelevant a decision made by the URC is. People will complain everyone in the committee uses MK, and then you can point out that no one in the URC uses him. From what I can tell, there is nothing actually forcing TO's to start banning MK now. It's still something that is completely up to the TO, but once it becomes the standard it's never switching back. Anyone still playing 3 months from now certainly won't be playing MK anymore.

Or you could just play Melee. ^_^
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLl

OMG, I wanna do this now LOL
 

Bones0

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
Messages
11,153
Location
Jarrettsville, MD
No, I'm not forcing you to play them. You don't have to choose them. Your opponent forcing you to do something is not the same as the TO preventing you from doing something. Your logic can be taken in virtually any direction: "by not banning Falco's lasers, you're forcing me to play against Falcos who laser."

It's absurd.
Well if I get one stage ban and there are two bad stages, your rule set is, in essence, forcing me to play them. Same with your example of Falco's lasers, or even Falco himself. A rule set that allows Falco makes the decision that I should have to play against him. You can't just call something absurd and then act like it isn't true.

No, leaving something unbanned is the default stance. And, as an aside, if you're trying to choose what not to ban, you're going to have to make way too many subjective decisions.
What makes items on more default than items off? Because that is how the game is packaged? The day rulesets for competitive games are chosen by whatever comes out of the box will be a sad day indeed. I guess we should also be playing 2 minute time matches without any unlockable characters.

In a sense, this is true. But forcing the entire ruleset onto a player is not the same as forcing any particular rule, nor is it the same as preventing them from exercising a particular strategy.

Again, it's a question of fairness. You're not preventing people from exercising certain strategies when you ban as little as possible. Sure, you might be forcing players to adapt to strategies they dislike, but this is true unless there exist exactly zero strategies.
You prevent many things by leaving certain elements of the game unbanned. Not banning items makes camping much more difficult, so you are therefore limiting a strategy based on your decision.

Melee had quite a bit of ruleset drama with regards to items back in the day. Moreover, there are plenty of debates on SWF about whether stages like Brinstar, Mute City, Pokéfloats, Jungle Japes, Green Greens, etc. should be banned. To say there is no drama is pretty much false. Further, when there exists a faux-authority like the MBR, there will necessarily be drama. You can't really tell someone "you don't like it? Don't use it!" when there is a pseudo-authority having a real influence on the "legitimacy" of your tournaments.
The item debate seemed largely amplified by the EC-WC rivalry. It's pretty rare for debates to end with everyone agreeing, but a year or so after the arguments I doubt anyone seriously still argued for items as a valid addition to the game. As far as stage lists go, I don't consider internet arguments drama. By drama, I am referencing the level of discord currently seen in the Brawl community. It's to the level that one group is actively trying to limit the other via not being allowed to sticky their threads. People will argue over rule sets all day, but in the end none of us really care enough to not attend a particular tournament. And I am unaware of the MBR attempting to muscle other people into using their rule set. They clearly present their rule set as a guideline to what tournaments should be like, and even national level tournaments have deviated from their rule set without so much as a peep from any of the MBR members (I wouldn't be surprised if many of them actually favored the new rule sets with reduced stages). Aside from helping out a new TO from having to make his own rule set, the MBR rule set has very little influence on anyone.


No, the legitimacy of the ban is also an issue. The censorship is a separate (though very relevant) issue.
It's possible, but I've seen Brawl tournaments in Tournament Listings that had MK banned in doubles and no one seemed to outrage at this. It's possible banning him in singles crossed the line, but I think people would mostly get over it if it were just a couple people who preferred MK-banned tournaments. The combination of the ban being unwarranted and the ban being forced onto the community is probably the true cause of the turmoil.
 

tarheeljks

Smash Lord
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land of the free
Kal said:
Nothing's wrong with having subjective preferences. An issue comes up when you're forcing them on other players by means of your ruleset. For example, I have no problem with players who hate Marth. Marth is ****ing annoying. What I have a problem with is players who would ban Marth for this reason.
well let's take items. would you say that itemless rulesets force players to deal with subjective sets of preferences since the default setting has items on? b/c i would say that the decision (not) to toggle is already subjective since we know we have the option. as a result i don't think my statement that "no one is being prevented from using items" is a strawman at all. is it more fair to leave them on than to turn them off?


And yeah, I might be able to see an argument in favor of this sort of thing strictly because it is an in-game option. However, I would need an argument which explains why this makes it more "ok" than to ban a stage or a character for similar reasons. The fact that the latter types of bans are strictly contrived does not, on face value, differentiate them from the former.
i view banning stages as (far) more comparable to banning items than to banning characters, though all bans are different degrees of the same thing. my reasons for this aren't fleshed out in my head enough to articulate them well, but it's essentially that the characters-- especially the good ones-- are the backbone of the game. as such, i have a higher threshold for banning them (and their abilities)


as far as banning at large goes, i'm not really sympathetic to the view that it being difficult to draw a line means that no line should be drawn. if i want to do something new at a tournament i suggest it, it is discussed, and maybe a change is made-- we are running a modified/experimental ruleset at the norcal tournies now. we tweak, we argue, we evolve and that will hopefully achieve a desirable result. we may scrap ideas and revert along the way, but that's fine. i don't think that should deter us from exploring changes


To clarify, you can imagine a toggle switch which allowed characters to be played. That is, for each character, there is an in-game option which basically allowed them to show up on the character select-screen. Would you then use this fact to ban characters, given that, other than this toggle, the game is exactly identical to regular Melee?
no, i wouldn't use this as a reason for allowing bans of characters. i note the toggling of items/stages b/c it muddies the water in terms of what changes are subjective

edit: and it does so for characters as well in your example, but i view the banning of characters to be so extreme in principle that the existence of such a feature wouldn't really matter to me
 

Kal

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
Messages
2,974
Well if I get one stage ban and there are two bad stages, your rule set is, in essence, forcing me to play them. Same with your example of Falco's lasers, or even Falco himself. A rule set that allows Falco makes the decision that I should have to play against him. You can't just call something absurd and then act like it isn't true.
You ignored my point entirely where you're not being forced to make use of any strategy. Your opponent may force you to adapt to a strategy, but that's normal in any game (and is different than the ruleset forcing you to do anything). Again, unless there exists exactly zero strategies, there will necessarily exist strategies some people are not ok with. This does not mean you should ban them for that reason alone.

What makes items on more default than items off? Because that is how the game is packaged? The day rulesets for competitive games are chosen by whatever comes out of the box will be a sad day indeed. I guess we should also be playing 2 minute time matches without any unlockable characters.
I didn't say it had to do with being "out-of-the-box." Don't put words in my mouth. And if you would take the time to read any of my above posts, you'd see that I made it clear that my logic does not at all imply that we should play two minute time matches.

When you disable items, you're clearly banning items. "Banning items-off" is not a sensible notion, because you're not preventing the use of any strategy or option.

You prevent many things by leaving certain elements of the game unbanned. Not banning items makes camping much more difficult, so you are therefore limiting a strategy based on your decision.
I'll address this argument in two ways:

First, you're not banning a strategy here. It may become less viable, but it's still permitted to be used. There is, as what seems to be the norm, a logical difference between what I'm saying and what you're objecting to.

Second, apply this argument to something other than items: by allowing Sheik, you are limiting the options of two-thirds of the cast. But, if I were to somehow reason that this would be a good reason to ban Sheik, you would call that reasoning absurd.

And you very well should! The reasoning that we should disable anything because it limits other strategies only holds in the case where said thing is broken. For example, we disable Hyrule because exactly one over-simplified strategy becomes viable: counterpick Hyrule, choose Fox, run the **** away.

well let's take items. would you say that itemless rulesets force players to deal with subjective sets of preferences since the default setting has items on? b/c i would say that the decision (not) to toggle is already subjective since we know we have the option. as a result i don't think my statement that "no one is being prevented from using items" is a strawman at all. is it more fair to leave them on than to turn them off?
It has nothing to do with the default rulesets. I've explained this already. Your argument is a strawman, because the point isn't that players are forced, i.e., through some authority (say, the National Guard) to play with items on. You don't have to play with items, of course. But the point is that, within a certain ruleset, you are forced to play with items banned. Thus, anyone who wishes to use items is being forced not to.

as far as banning at large goes, i'm not really sympathetic to the view that it being difficult to draw a line means that no line should be drawn. if i want to do something new at a tournament i suggest it, it is discussed, and maybe a change is made-- we are running a modified/experimental ruleset at the norcal tournies now. we tweak, we argue, we evolve and that will hopefully achieve a desirable result. we may scrap ideas and revert along the way, but that's fine. i don't think that should deter us from exploring changes
I don't really see this as relevant. I'm not against making rulesets. I'm against people forcing subjective preference down everyone's throats.

no, i wouldn't use this as a reason for allowing bans of characters. i note the toggling of items/stages b/c it muddies the water in terms of what changes are subjective
I can't even comprehend what you're trying to say here.
 

tarheeljks

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Kal said:
It has nothing to do with the default rulesets. I've explained this already. Your argument is a strawman, because the point isn't that players are forced, i.e., through some authority (say, the National Guard) to play with items on. You don't have to play with items, of course. But the point is that, within a certain ruleset, you are forced to play with items banned. Thus, anyone who wishes to use items is being forced not to.
and i don't see how this is not the case if items are left on. or am i mistaken and you aren't saying that items being off is bad?

I can't even comprehend what you're trying to say here.
as far as i can tell the rub for you is making people adhere to subjective rules. the presence of a mechanism to turn elements on/off necessarily brings subjectivity into play whenever you make rules
 

Kal

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and i don't see how this is not the case if items are left on. or am i mistaken and you aren't saying that items being off is bad?
You're not being forced to use items if they're on. You obviously should, but you're not banning any strategies when you don't ban anything. That's the whole point.

as far as i can tell the rub for you is making people adhere to subjective rules. the presence of a mechanism to turn elements on/off necessarily brings subjectivity into play whenever you make rules
Only if the mechanism doesn't explicitly disable anything. There is a clear distinction between the following toggles:

enable items / disable items
time / stock / coin / bonus

And so I'm making the point that the simple fact that these are toggles does not actually make every choice equally fair. Consider, again, the example I provided earlier about being able to toggle characters. Would you say a game where Falco was effectively banned ("Falco Toggle set to off") just as fair as one where he was not?

To clarify, I mean "fair" as in "players get to play with the strategies they want." Not as in "that player has an unfair advantage." Because every game is fair in the latter sense so long as everyone gets the same options. Even Smash with Hyrule and random deaths is "fair" in the latter sense.
 

tarheeljks

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Kal said:
You're not being forced to use items if they're on. You obviously should, but you're not banning any strategies when you don't ban anything. That's the whole point.
well how much of the item list are you opening up? a player needs to be able to compete reasonably without using items for the bolded to be true in a meaningful sense and i don't see how that is possible without banning certain items. and this doesn't address stuff like random stage hazards that cannot necessarily be avoided


And so I'm making the point that the simple fact that these are toggles does not actually make every choice equally fair. Consider, again, the example I provided earlier about being able to toggle characters. Would you say a game where Falco was effectively banned ("Falco Toggle set to off") just as fair as one where he was not?
well, as i said above i disagree that a ruleset with items gives everyone the option to do what they want in practice
 

Kal

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well how much of the item list are you opening up?
Presumably the entire thing. However, it's possible that some particular items are broken and should be disabled.

a player needs to be able to compete reasonably without using items for the bolded to be true in a meaningful sense and i don't see how that is possible without banning certain items.
If you don't want to use items, don't pick them up?

and this doesn't address stuff like random stage hazards that cannot necessarily be avoided
I don't even see where I claimed it addressed anything of that sort. I mean, what exactly doesn't address random stage hazards?

well, as i said above i disagree that a ruleset with items gives everyone the option to do what they want in practice
If you want to do something you would normally do with items off, then do it. There's nothing explicitly preventing you from doing it (save for the player perhaps actually preventing it, which is normal, and is a problem regardless of the ruleset). The strategy becoming worse doesn't say anything about the validity of the ruleset. I mean, you could argue that players "can't" play Bowser when Sheik is enabled, under your very loose definition of "can't," which is strictly that the strategy becomes less viable. But it would be absurd to say that we should ban Sheik so that Bowser players (or all of the other characters she hard-as-****-****ing-counters) have a fighting chance.
 

ShroudedOne

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I dunno. Maybe I'm one of the few people who appreciate thoughtful points/discussion.

*sigh* Whatever. It's still interesting to read. That being said, this is quite off topic from the OP. :)
 
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