Event - MLG Anaheim 2014 Thinking of joining the Pro Tour

Laaaaaaaaaaawl. You know just as little about designer intent as anybody else. Options are there for a reason. You have your opinion, nearly everybody else has a different one. You've done a poor job at convincing people. And you've still yet to trump the "8 year-old argument" succesfully, other than "ur dumb".

hopefully i get a permaban i have been wanting to change my name but am too cheap to buy premium

I read this thread, and everything sounds so much worse than it really is IRL. Same thing with really any issue debated on these boards—they always seem to be overexaggerated.

Preference really is a huge factor in the Smash community. On paper, you can argue that X stages should be legal, or certain items set to some amount makes for a more in-depth competitive game, or that there should be X amount of time in matches, but quite frankly a lot of people don't care in the actual tournament-going community. It's one of the main reasons—if not the main reason— why we play with 8 minutes and 3-stocks (has anyone "proven" that this is the best method? no, it's just preference). It's the main reason we play on damage ratio 1.0, or with items turned to off and none. It's one of the main reasons why some regions have different stagelists (technically, all of these stages people argue to be legal already are legal. It's just that some TOs and regions don't like certain stages, in tournament threads people usually leave the option to argue for stages on the stagelist and people usually do.)

I honestly feel like items turned to off and none is the same way. I kinda skimmed the thread, but there's already the main ISP movement that seemed successful at WHOBO1; however it just seems that tons more people prefer to play without items. If you want them to be largely implemented in competitive play, not only do you have to somehow prove that item play done correctly is better and gives more competitive depth than non-item play, but then you have to change the majority of the community's preferences for non-item play.

The only thing I heavily disagree with is banning infinites (like really heavily). Bans on other things that, "shouldn't be banned so quickly" (pretty much stages) I don't mind as much. Sure you can call people "scrubby" for banning all these stages without extensive testing, but quite frankly many people don't care.

I read like, three posts throughout the thread and I don't really care about what your definition of "designer's intent" is. I'm saying it doesn't matter how they truly wanted it to be played, we play it the way we want to.

^ i hope you read my post because it's one of the best and most concise ones in the thread ^_^

the only question here is what the criteria should be for banning things. imo anything that gives the less skilled player a chance of winning and therefore makes the results less consistent should be banned. do items fall under this definition?

AvaricePanda said:

Sure you can call people "scrubby" for banning all these stages without extensive testing, but quite frankly many people don't care.

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I'd find this to be relevant if I hadn't heard about sirlin.net from the Smash Community. David Sirlin is practically worshiped at this website, and yet it is also the most overrun den of scrubbiness of any fighting game community I've browsed. I mean, "No Johns" originated here, but we ban stages because we don't like them? That's absurd.

It's absurd, but practically everyone in the smash community except Midwest:East bans janky stages because that's how they like it.

They'll try to argue it, but their logic is scrubby/faulty. They blame things that they can control.

I wrote this post days ago and was going to drop it and this topic, but it was suggested to me that a real response was desired. I hope this doesn't come off as running us in a circle.

The national chess organization is the USCF, but if you really wanted to change the rules of chess, you'd be better off talking to FIDE, the international organization. The idea you propose is obviously a joke in any case and doesn't actually make sense within the rules of chess, but whatever.

Jack, I'm not going to multi-quote you but will respond to your major points.

The claim about Donkey Kong being "effectively banned" if King Dedede's infinite is allowed has bizarre implications if taken to its logical extreme. Do you consider Ganondorf a banned character? I mean, he's awful, and anyone who wants to win wouldn't pick him. Is King Dedede's Jet Hammer a banned move? It has no useful applications that I'm aware of, and I never see King Dedede players using it. This is the difference between "real choice" and "viable choice". A "real choice" is a choice you are physically capable of making. Ganondorf is a real choice, and King Dedede's Jet Hammer is a real choice. A "viable choice" is a choice that is a good choice for the purpose of winning the game often enough to be a significant factor in the game. Ganondorf is not a viable choice, and King Dedede's Jet Hammer is not a viable choice. A ban is something that removes a real choice from the players. Banning Meta Knight definitely decreases the number of real choices the players have in character selection. Some would argue it increases the number of viable choices (and some would disagree), but that's game balance, the real decider of viability.

I acknowledge the stage selection system we use is arbitrary. However, the game offers us little choice but to devise an arbitrary system. A match won't start unless one of the players picks a stage or clicks on the "Random" button. The stages are all very different from each other. At least some of the stages are wildly broken and make the game not worth playing (for instance, Temple). No single stage is "most fair" or even particularly fair compared to all the others; the totality of stages in the game encompass a wide spectrum of balance. At some point, at least one specific stage has to be chosen, and no more than one stage can be played on at a time which affects all players. With these facts in mind, we created an arbitrary stage selection process that I feel is well crafted for our task. There are perhaps other systems we could have devised (I recall hearing the Japanese just play randomly on Battlefield, Final Destination, and Smashville), but I think ours is overall best as a matter of game design. Within this system, stages become a matter of player choice, and as the abstract system is applied to the game, we would naturally assume every stage is legal by default (any other assumption would be bizarre). We then can consider stages within the lens of being game elements subject to the criteria of a ban and attempt to reach objective conclusions about which stages do and do not reach such a criteria. Perhaps under some other system we might create to select stages the idea of a stage being "banned" wouldn't make sense; I acknowledge that's a (probably desirable) artifact of our arbitrary system. The system itself is a matter of game design, and the choices within the system (which stages to allow) is a matter of the criteria for a ban.

The mechanics of items are different from stages in a few very significant ways, mostly in the fact that we are not virtually compelled by the game into deciding on some selection algorithm so much as we are led into making a single arbitrary decision. This is just like our other settings. 8 minute 3 stock is arbitrary, but it's just a single decision from which we can work. We just made that decision as a matter of game design (making the best game), not as a statement any other settings may be broken (beyond our statement that we don't accept the default, 2 minute time mode). The game doesn't require anything more of us than to make this single arbitrary decision for items. I don't think it's hypocritical to go about it differently than we went about deciding how to handle stage selection in light of the difference in mechanics (and I feel that character selection is just very fundamentally different). I don't claim any of the advantages I listed for our current system would be justified as criteria for a ban (in fact, I should hope it's obvious none of them are), but as criteria for an arbitrary decision that is ultimately more a matter of game design, I think it's reasonable.

I would further point out that even the Street Fighter community makes these decisions of game design. They choose to play Super Street Fighter IV with the rounds always set to 3 and to play a set of 3 games, but the Japanese frequently play with rounds set to 5 but only play one game. This is actually somewhat relevant to balance since super meter transfers between rounds but not between games. Each side is just making an arbitrary decision about how to handle this setting, and the game's default setting (which I believe is 3 rounds) hardly even seems relevant.

They also have the even more arbitrary decision about permissible controllers and controller use. They typically allow any controller but disallow the use of turbo or macros. This is different from Smash which only allows controllers which are virtually identical to official controllers. It's also different from what might be logical; Capcom licenses with Madcatz for the creation of official sticks. These sticks have a turbo function. It might seem logical to allow the use of turbo, which would have little practical use other than easing the execution of a few special moves (such as E.Honda's Hundred Hand Slap) and making link combos a little easier to execute. Ultimately, everyone is just making an arbitrary decision here which is really the player community engaging in game design. It's fine.

I agree with the general principle of the community avoiding changing the game, but games don't give us all the information we need to play them as tournament games. We have to make some arbitrary decisions about settings and other little things (like legal controllers!) that maybe actually matter for how good the game is to play or for how it is balanced. We use general principles of game design to make the game as good as possible when making these limited decisions, and we try to exercise care in avoiding going too far. Smash unfortunately requires us to go pretty far compared to many other games no matter how you slice it. Changing item settings is clearly within the scope of what we have to do. How we do change that I feel is a matter toward which we can fairly apply the criteria for good game design as opposed to the criteria for a ban.

AA pretty much just ended the thread.

*sigh* Ok, I'm going to explain a concept really quick. This concept is one of the most BASE concepts in all of debate, philosophy, science, mathematics, and logic: the concept of the null hypothesis. Aaaaaand... WIKI GO:

"The null hypothesis typically proposes a general or default position, such as that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena."

When testing things, either practically (in a lab), or logically (with a thought experiment), the null hypothesis is the DEFAULT STATE of the system you are testing, and it is assumed to be correct before testing begins. Why is this? Because if YOUR hypothesis, the one you are testing, is at odds with the null hypothesis, and your experiment validates YOU, and not the default state, then it can be logically deduced that the null hypothesis WAS, in fact, wrong. But, because the null hypothesis is the DEFAULT position, this takes a lot of testing and effort to prove. Now, how does that apply to contests of skill?

Because each game has a different null state, a different "null hypothesis", as it were. The "null hypothesis" for each game is the list of skills necessary to succeed at the game. For instance, the null hypothesis for rugby would be "a good rugby player is a fast runner, has strong musculature, good hand/eye coordination for throwing/catching, and good perceptive skills for knowing other player positions on the field". If someone wants to prove that, for instance, another skill necessary for rugby is the ability to dodge oncoming rockets, or that you shouldn't need good perceptive skills, they must FIRST ASSUME THAT THE NULL HYPOTHESIS IS CORRECT, and work from there.

In Smash's null state, you need many skills to compete. Smash's NULL position can be described as a game requiring things such as good hand/eye coordination, good muscle memory, intimate knowledge of 39 characters' movesets, intimate knowledge of 41 stages' mechanics and movements, intimate knowledge of 49 items' mechanics, good reaction time, and good foresight/intuition (necessary to anticipate multiple branching probability strands), as well as the ability to utilize all of these skills to manipulate the opponent's usage of the same skills.

As time goes on, it, naturally, becomes necessary to challenge the null hypothesis. HOWEVER, we, as a community, made the SERIOUS error in judgment to deem the null hypothesis FALSE before we ever started testing things! That's why items were pre-banned (or disabled, if you really want to use semantics to your advantage ^_-), that's why "janky" stages were pre-banned, and that's how characters lost viability before a tournament was ever played.

If the null hypothesis was used CORRECTLY, we wouldn't be in this position, because the null hypothesis is EXACTLY what previous conventional wisdom tells us! The null hypothesis is, at the end of the day, a really classy way of saying "only ban what's banworthy, and ONLY after you've proven it so". It's a really high-brow, science-y way of regurgitating Sirlin (or I guess, it'd be more accurate to say that Sirlin is a really layman way to regurgitate the concept of the null hypothesis). If it's good enough for researchers, physicists, biologists, chemists, philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, professional sports referees, and OTHER comeptitive games, why isn't it good enough for us?

...oh, that's right, because we want to give ourselves the power to whine like children and say "but, but, but... I don't LIKE it!!!! >_< *whine whine cry*"

EDIT: Man, AA, you sniped me hardcore. Let me read your post now.

Eh, Jack, I like items and stuff, but you seem to be missing a truly key part that I don't think we will ever agree on.

While it makes sense to stick to defaults when possible, so that more people can stick to competative play, if players can come to a universal, or near universal agreement on a preference of play, so long as it does not disrupt competition, it is fine.

Sirlin himself states something akin to the following idea:

When you change the rules of a game, you in fact change the game you are playing, as a game is merely a competition, puzzle, or challenge in which a player or players must abide by a particular set of rules.

Sirlin and yourself are strong believers that subtracting from the game will reduce it's natural depth, and contort the original design of the game. Hence, you are both extremely anti-ban. It's with good reason. You are purists, and try to fully explore a game in it's most natural form. You cannot know your decision to shift the competitiveness of a game was indeed the best option, since you cannot yet swim to the depths of the pool which is the game in question.

However, I think many people who follow the doctrine of Sirlin often forget a very important fact. The games in question are available for us to utilize in whatever way we choose. Screw designers intent, or anything like that. Once I have purchased my own copy of Brawl, barring illegal usages of the software, I'm able to do anything I want with the game. This includes playing MK, or coin battles, or with items, or just studying the frame data, or trying to hit the invincible metal balls in coin launcher with as many coins as possible while manually keeping score. To have good competition, we simply need a game that is competitive. We can CHOOSE to play whatever game we want, and if we choose to play a game that we deem more fun (Brawl without items) that doesn't make us any worse of people or decision makers than to choose a game less fun and fair.

It is indeed scrubby to say "items are unfair" and so we ban them (let's not argue over ban or deselect, fact is we turn them off) if items are in fact, fair. However, this doesn't nullify that players can still choose to play the game however they like. If all the players are in agreement about what game to play, and they are all playing the same game, this is not a problem.

Yes, so, basically, "*whine whine cry* >_<" Look, my distaste of items is well-documented on this site; only people who don't actually know me think I enjoy playing with them. The whole reason ISP started in the first place was an ill-conceived bet by Yuna that items play could never work (and, lo and behold, it does), and because I am a firm proponent of "Majority rules, with minority rights" (meaning that just because you're in the minority that likes item play, that doesn't mean that the majority that DOESN'T like it can **** on you and say "You can't play that way, because we play THIS way").

But, the instant that you put a personal stake in something, existentialism ceases to be a good argument for your actions. If people want to care about the way their game is played, that's all well and good, but "We'll do whatever we want because we want to" is a poor reason to hack up the rules of your game, under the guise of calling it "more competitive". I think you KNOW what the outcome is when players make that decision. We're seeing it now. MK is crazy good to the point of splitting the community in two (with the exception of the weak peace we get whenever the BBR closes a discussion thread), and I'm willing to bet part of the reason for that is the hack-job we've done to Brawl in the name of doing what we WANT to do.

Look, ultimately, only the future will be able to vindicate. We won't know until it happens...

Except, that's not at all the case here, and only a select few people ever, less than 2 percent from observation, even actually consider items a viable version of the game from tournament. Whether or not it is more or less competitive, it FEELS more competitive to them, and why wouldn't they utilize their decision making rights to play a game they enjoy more, if it's still competitive enough.

Fact is, over 95% of competitive players feel like items should not be on. The fact that you say they are "whining and crying" about this, when in fact they simply make simple decisions to decide the activities they take part in to make them more favorable baffles me, when they are clearly just using COMMON SENSE.

Of course, you could be right. By removing items without sufficient data, we run the risk of possibly bypassing a game and a metagame that is deeply rich in strategy and competitive factors, with an exaggerated degree of influential randomness, that contains both balance and fairness. However, the Smash Community exercises it's right to bypass this testing/play phase, and go straight to playing Brawl with no items. This is not scrubby, nor whiny. Considering how detached and different the two games are from each other, this is a reasonable choice.

Furthermore, due to the many different ways we could play Brawl, (all items, no items, some items, all stages, some stages, few stages, one stage, coin, time, more stocks, less stocks, one stock, DR modified, 2v2, etc) and the fact we had to pick ONE way which would be the standard relatively early on with little testing to solidify the ruleset. Our ruleset has been relatively stable since the beginning of Brawl, and outside of Metaknight, the game is deep, rich, and stable, because we picked options that were proven to work. Is it true that we could've spent years chipping away at the game, choosing to include things from every aspect in hope to find a complete list of things that could remain? Certainly. However, we said, "We'll just go with this, because it works." AND WE ARE MOSTLY SATISFIED, and satisfied with adding things back in later after additional testing. Now, I personally dislike it when people are unwilling to give different forms of play a try (even simple things, such as testing out a new stage), because it might in fact add depth and substance to an already good game. However, I'll never whine or cry about NOT FIXING SOMETHING THAT ISN'T BROKEN, like our current standards for playing (sans the MK ban issue).

I stand by my observation that there may be an entire community of people that would want to play with items. In fact, that community may even be larger than anything that we've ever seen; however this isn't the site where you are going to find that community. You'd have to create your own site that would want to promote the playing with items, get your own TOs, and so on. Smashboards is a community filled with like-minded individuals that all want to play without items, and seek the best player from the standards that we have set forth as a collective ego-mass.

Pierce7d said:

Furthermore, due to the many different ways we could play Brawl, (all items, no items, some items, all stages, some stages, few stages, one stage, coin, time, more stocks, less stocks, one stock, DR modified, 2v2, etc) and the fact we had to pick ONE way which would be the standard relatively early on with little testing to solidify the ruleset.

Click to expand...

Why? Wouldn't it have been possible to use more than one ruleset and incorporate them all in the various rounds of a tournament?

chaosmaster1991 said:

Why? Wouldn't it have been possible to use more than one ruleset and incorporate them all in the various rounds of a tournament?

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If you feel that would work, then go run a tournament that way. Have fun explaining to everyone there all the multitudes of rules, and why they are changing. Come back and post to us later telling us how the event went.

If people were perfectly intelligent with stuff like that, the only issue that the 15+ stage starter list has would be gone-specifically, the time needed to strike. Sadly, we aren't.

-Ran said:

If you feel that would work, then go run a tournament that way. Have fun explaining to everyone there all the multitudes of rules, and why they are changing. Come back and post to us later telling us how the event went.

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>_>;;
I knew there was something... fine, I'll be quiet.

Half the casuals I talk to think items are ******** anyway. Just saying.

I play with people that think chain grabs, infinites, FD's lip, MK, items, certain stages, and a whole host of other things are ********. I tell them to STFU and play the game.

If they don't like it, I point at my other TV, my 360, and SFIV and tell them to STFU again. I still think that this is the policy we SHOULD have had when seasoned players started acting like children in the first place.

Jack, I don't know where you get off asserting that play with items is the "null hypothesis" of Smash.

I don't know where you get off asserting that Smash has a "null hypothesis" period.

It basically sounds like you're saying "I'm right and you're wrong."

All of the things you mentioned are ******** lol.

Jeez, why are you guys focusing on the items so much? It's like, every discussion where they are used as a point of argument, even in a peripheral sense, becomes some great debate with them at the center.

Everything has a null state. Everything. You booted the disc for the first time with no save file, and that was its null state. The game was most complete in that null state. Like I said, there comes a time in every theory's life when it becomes a man and is challenged for the first time; it's inevitable. So, the null hypothesis was challenged, and it was found that this, that, or the other needed to be changed in order for the game to work.

As long as the changes are justified, everything is gravy. Once the changes are NOT justified, you start down the path to "No items, MK only, Final Destination", or as its known nowadays, EC rules. I don't get how it's such a stretch to come to the logical conclusion that unjustified bans are unjustified.

*cough* signature *cough*

*cough* Read the thread. *cough*

I covered that in another post in this very thread.

^ Yeah, I know...the rule about not revealing all of your cards at once in debating or whatever. Hardly an answer, but I digress. I was mostly just messing with you anyway.

Also, should the "null hypothesis" include 2 minute time matches?

Just playing devil's advocate.

Jack Kieser said:

As long as the changes are justified, everything is gravy. Once the changes are NOT justified, you start down the path to "No items, MK only, Final Destination", or as its known nowadays, EC rules. I don't get how it's such a stretch to come to the logical conclusion that unjustified bans are unjustified.

Click to expand...

Tell me, then why doing anything other than two minute timed matches is justified. Why is any particular game format justified over another? A two minute timed match isn't really all that broken. It's enough time for one KO, or for one player to gain a percent advantage, at least. Plus, it's significantly faster than an eight minute match that goes to time because players are campy. Real talk, I want to know how you justify moving away from that, since it can't be about fairness or time constraints.

ph00tbag said:

Tell me, then why doing anything other than two minute timed matches is justified. Why is any particular game format justified over another? A two minute timed match isn't really all that broken. It's enough time for one KO, or for one player to gain a percent advantage, at least. Plus, it's significantly faster than an eight minute match that goes to time because players are campy. Real talk, I want to know how you justify moving away from that, since it can't be about fairness or time constraints.

Click to expand...

Word. It's more than "less campy" though; you can't camp out a two minute timed match AT ALL, because then you face the Sudden Death round. And no, you can't get rid of that either, because the game designer obviously intended for dodging bombs to be a necessary skill for the player to achieve a discreet win state.

ph00tbag said:

Tell me, then why doing anything other than two minute timed matches is justified. Why is any particular game format justified over another? A two minute timed match isn't really all that broken. It's enough time for one KO, or for one player to gain a percent advantage, at least. Plus, it's significantly faster than an eight minute match that goes to time because players are campy. Real talk, I want to know how you justify moving away from that, since it can't be about fairness or time constraints.

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That's an interesting notion.

If we made matches with less stock and/or less time, would matches thus become less campy? Would we be fine with having three stocks, but a lower amount of time that may have matches end with time rather than a final KO?

I think it'd be pretty interesting to try 2 stocks instead of 3, six minutes instead of eight, etc. Things that could make the game potentially less campy. While less stocks probably wouldn't make the game less campy, I'm sure less time would make it more aggressive.

Jack, I might point out the null state of the game also does not have about 1/3 of the cast available and is missing a good chunk of stages. I'm curious what your justification for allowing unlockable characters is since they aren't in the default state of the game.

Similarly related, do you think teams should be played with Team Attack off?

Amazing Ampharos said:

Jack, I might point out the null state of the game also does not have about 1/3 of the cast available and is missing a good chunk of stages. I'm curious what your justification for allowing unlockable characters is since they aren't in the default state of the game.

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I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure other communities do exactly this. I could be talking out of my *** though.

Why do all of you think that I'm in support of only playing the game as shipped? When did I ever say that? Jesus, you're all putting words in my mouth. Even you, AA! I expected more from you.

First of all, I can think of discreet and rational competitive reasons for stock matches, for time limits, for team attack, for unlockable characters, for all of that stuff. If you'd all like, I can list them. That's not the point I was trying to make, however. You're all missing that. Some of you, I'm sure, are missing it for legit reasons, but I'm just as sure some of you are missing it ON PURPOSE, because its easier for you to argue against a fake point than the real one I'm TRYING to make.

We start with a null state. That null state IS NOT PERFECT, because nothing is perfect. We play the null state until we find a problem with it, an ACTUAL COMPETITIVE PROBLEM, not just something we don't like. So, we test it, find out it is indeed a problem, test possible ways to fix it, and find the BEST way, then implement it. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Find a problem, test the problem, test the solutions, fix the problem.

BUT THIS APPROACH ONLY WORKS IF IT IS APPLIED TO ACTUAL PROBLEMS.

If you start applying this to every little thing you may or may not like, the system breaks down. That's because, as I'm sure AA knows from experience, EVERY change we make, small or large, has lasting repercussions that we cannot POSSIBLY anticipate. Even the most minor metagame change can send ripples throughout the whole metagame. THAT'S why you don't ban things like it's a trivial action. BANS ARE SIGNIFICANT for that reason.

You ban a character, you change EVERY matchup in the game. You ban a stage, you change EVERY matchup in the game. You change the time limit by 2 minutes, or the stock limit by one, and you CHANGE EVERY MATCHUP IN THE GAME. You activate Mr. Saturn AND YOU CHANGE EVERY MATCHUP IN THE GAME. Are you seeing the point now?

How causally did we deactivate items? VERY casually. Like it was nothing. How casually do we ban stages? All the time, and for NO OTHER REASON than "well, this stage just gets on my nerves". How casually does, like, 50% of SWF want to ban MK? Pretty **** casually; some would do it right now without a second glance. We ban PPlanking, we ban scrooging, we ban IDC, we ban all sorts of tactics and moves, we ban, we ban, we ban, and we do it causally. And every time we do, we change every matchup in the game.

So, yeah, doing things the proper way is a BIG deal. Having a certain reverence for the null state (IN THE BEGINNING) and having a certain reverence for EVERY NULL STATE WE CREATE SINCE THEN is necessary to ensure we are JUSTIFYING every ban we make.

Just because you have the ability to do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Just because we CAN hack Brawl into anything we want doesn't mean we SHOULD (and I don't mean code hacks; I mean hack jobs). Just because we give ourselves power to do something doesn't mean we should exercise it.

Jack Kieser said:

Why do all of you think that I'm in support of only playing the game as shipped? When did I ever say that? Jesus, you're all putting words in my mouth. Even you, AA! I expected more from you.

First of all, I can think of discreet and rational competitive reasons for stock matches, for time limits, for team attack, for unlockable characters, for all of that stuff. If you'd all like, I can list them.

Click to expand...

I don't want "discreet and rational reasons," I want DATA. You know, the same kind of data that proves items are broken. Your "rational justifications" for removing these things mean nothing, just as rational reasons against item play mean nothing. It's like you said; test it first.

Jack Kieser said:

That's not the point I was trying to make, however. You're all missing that. Some of you, I'm sure, are missing it for legit reasons, but I'm just as sure some of you are missing it ON PURPOSE, because its easier for you to argue against a fake point than the real one I'm TRYING to make.

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Who are these "some of you?" Come on now. If you're going to call people out, have the balls to go all the way with it.

Jack Kieser said:

We start with a null state. That null state IS NOT PERFECT, because nothing is perfect. We play the null state until we find a problem with it, an ACTUAL COMPETITIVE PROBLEM, not just something we don't like. So, we test it, find out it is indeed a problem, test possible ways to fix it, and find the BEST way, then implement it. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Find a problem, test the problem, test the solutions, fix the problem.

BUT THIS APPROACH ONLY WORKS IF IT IS APPLIED TO ACTUAL PROBLEMS.

Click to expand...

You've already convinced me with this portion of your argument. Your reasoning thus far is sound.

Jack Kieser said:

If you start applying this to every little thing you may or may not like, the system breaks down. That's because, as I'm sure AA knows from experience, EVERY change we make, small or large, has lasting repercussions that we cannot POSSIBLY anticipate. Even the most minor metagame change can send ripples throughout the whole metagame. THAT'S why you don't ban things like it's a trivial action. BANS ARE SIGNIFICANT for that reason.

You ban a character, you change EVERY matchup in the game. You ban a stage, you change EVERY matchup in the game. You change the time limit by 2 minutes, or the stock limit by one, and you CHANGE EVERY MATCHUP IN THE GAME. You activate Mr. Saturn AND YOU CHANGE EVERY MATCHUP IN THE GAME. Are you seeing the point now?

Click to expand...

Lol, we get it. You explained that already.

Jack Kieser said:

How causally did we deactivate items? VERY casually. Like it was nothing. How casually do we ban stages? All the time, and for NO OTHER REASON than "well, this stage just gets on my nerves". How casually does, like, 50% of SWF want to ban MK? Pretty **** casually; some would do it right now without a second glance. We ban PPlanking, we ban scrooging, we ban IDC, we ban all sorts of tactics and moves, we ban, we ban, we ban, and we do it causally. And every time we do, we change every matchup in the game.

So, yeah, doing things the proper way is a BIG deal. Having a certain reverence for the null state (IN THE BEGINNING) and having a certain reverence for EVERY NULL STATE WE CREATE SINCE THEN is necessary to ensure we are JUSTIFYING every ban we make.

Just because you have the ability to do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Just because we CAN hack Brawl into anything we want doesn't mean we SHOULD (and I don't mean code hacks; I mean hack jobs). Just because we give ourselves power to do something doesn't mean we should exercise it.

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Forgive me if I wasn't clear about where I stood before. I AGREE with you about items and stages. What you need to understand, though, is that null state logic applies to far more than just these factors. If you're going to apply this style of logic, you can't compartmentalize it. You have to have reverence for every default setting the game provides. That includes time matches, that includes sudden death, and that includes the character roster. Changing these things for "discreet and rational competitive reasons" without trying them first is just as silly as when we do it for items and stages. I don't see how we're "putting words in your mouth" by bringing your idea to its logical conclusion.

Djent said:

I don't want "discreet and rational reasons," I want DATA. You know, the same kind of data that proves items are broken. Your "rational justifications" for removing these things mean nothing, just as rational reasons against item play mean nothing. It's like you said; test it first.

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You realize that the "discreet" part of that phrase is the one that refers to DATA, right? Also, rational reasons are ALMOST as good as hard data, in some instances. It's REALLY situational, I'll give you that. For instance, is there any doubt that circle camping would be an overcentralizing tactic, were it allowed? No, not at all; it's too good. We tested it in tournaments, too, although its a kind of "chicken and egg" situation as to which came first. Also, sometimes practicality does take precedence, as in the case of the timer; being able to time people out leads to heavy camping, and if we all had perfect patience and venues gave us infinite time to play, we wouldn't need the timer at all. Unfortunately, there are only 24 hours in a day, and we need the game to end at some point. Pure time matches WERE tried back in the day, dating all the way back to SSB64, but the problem ended up being that all you needed was one KO, and then camping the timer took precedence. Also, what happens when you're TOTALLY outclassed by your opponent, as in early bracket matches or pools? Well, without stocks, you HAVE to play to the timer, which means ALL tournaments take longer. No bueno. Sudden Death was also given a chance, but the Bob-Ombs were shown to have the tendency to randomize the results of the match, and as we all know, if results aren't reasonably consistent, we have a problem.

You're trying to make an argument for applying the standards I'm proposing to THINGS WE'VE ALREADY DONE THAT FOR, only you're trying to (disingenuously) make the argument that we never did so in the first place. We did. Luckily, the basic mechanics of Smash AND the real world haven't changed so much that most of the basic settings problems we had in the 64 days haven't carried over, hence the heavily similar time/stock settings and the way with which we deal with sudden death. If that wasn't the case, I'd be arguing more for it; for instance, say in Brawl, Sudden Death didn't have bombs. If you just started out at 300%, I'd argue that we'd need tournaments to test out using Sudden Death as a tie-breaker, because the mechanics have changed that much.

Djent said:

Who are these "some of you?" Come on now. If you're going to call people out, have the balls to go all the way with it.

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It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but if it makes you feel better, you're one of them. I'm sure you knew that, though. ^_-

Djent said:

Forgive me if I wasn't clear about where I stood before. I AGREE with you about items and stages. What you need to understand, though, is that null state logic applies to far more than just these factors. If you're going to apply this style of logic, you can't compartmentalize it. You have to have reverence for every default setting the game provides. That includes time matches, that includes sudden death, and that includes the character roster. Changing these things for "discreet and rational competitive reasons" without trying them first is just as silly as when we do it for items and stages. I don't see how we're "putting words in your mouth" by bringing your idea to its logical conclusion.

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See above. We HAVE applied my own standards to a lot of the default settings, but most of the testing was done in previous generations, and the mechanics HAVEN'T changed enough that simple tweaking / thought experimentation couldn't suffice. Some things HAVE changed (like stages), some things were NEVER TESTED PROPERLY in the first place (items were never given a CP system). We've cocked a lot of things up, but we haven't cocked EVERYTHING up.

-_____- items, go play alone at your basement against the CPU with items. that way you are happy using them and others are happy by not having to see that argument again.

Not taking the bait, troll. Post constructively, or don't post at all.

Jack Kieser said:

Not taking the bait, troll. Post constructively, or don't post at all.

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I am not trolling -________- . Is just that the "items arguments" gets old.

Jack Kieser said:

You realize that the "discreet" part of that phrase is the one that refers to DATA, right? Also, rational reasons are ALMOST as good as hard data, in some instances. It's REALLY situational, I'll give you that. For instance, is there any doubt that circle camping would be an overcentralizing tactic, were it allowed? No, not at all; it's too good. We tested it in tournaments, too, although its a kind of "chicken and egg" situation as to which came first. Also, sometimes practicality does take precedence, as in the case of the timer; being able to time people out leads to heavy camping, and if we all had perfect patience and venues gave us infinite time to play, we wouldn't need the timer at all. Unfortunately, there are only 24 hours in a day, and we need the game to end at some point. Pure time matches WERE tried back in the day, dating all the way back to SSB64, but the problem ended up being that all you needed was one KO, and then camping the timer took precedence. Also, what happens when you're TOTALLY outclassed by your opponent, as in early bracket matches or pools? Well, without stocks, you HAVE to play to the timer, which means ALL tournaments take longer. No bueno. Sudden Death was also given a chance, but the Bob-Ombs were shown to have the tendency to randomize the results of the match, and as we all know, if results aren't reasonably consistent, we have a problem.

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As to the first part about "discreet:" sorry, no I didn't. The timer argument makes sense, especially coming from a tournament director. I still don't understand why camping the timer is a problem (since your opponent made a mistake to put himself/herself in that position to begin with), but that's irrelevant since the other argument is sound. I'm not sure what "reasonably consistent" is supposed to mean, as it's not very precise language. But again, I have no issue with it if significant testing went into that decision.

Jack Kieser said:

You're trying to make an argument for applying the standards I'm proposing to THINGS WE'VE ALREADY DONE THAT FOR, only you're trying to (disingenuously) make the argument that we never did so in the first place. We did. Luckily, the basic mechanics of Smash AND the real world haven't changed so much that most of the basic settings problems we had in the 64 days haven't carried over, hence the heavily similar time/stock settings and the way with which we deal with sudden death. If that wasn't the case, I'd be arguing more for it; for instance, say in Brawl, Sudden Death didn't have bombs. If you just started out at 300%, I'd argue that we'd need tournaments to test out using Sudden Death as a tie-breaker, because the mechanics have changed that much.

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If it's all been tested thoroughly already, then I have nothing further to argue. You'll have to forgive me for assuming it wasn't. As I'm sure you know, the legacy of modern Smash doesn't have much to do with testing. If the community was different a long time ago, then I understand.

Jack Kieser said:

It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but if it makes you feel better, you're one of them. I'm sure you knew that, though. ^_-

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No, I honestly didn't know I was purposely building a strawman. I guess you learn something everyday. I'm rather upset that you would accuse me of dishonesty, but to be fair, I can understand why you'd think that.

Jack Kieser said:

See above. We HAVE applied my own standards to a lot of the default settings, but most of the testing was done in previous generations, and the mechanics HAVEN'T changed enough that simple tweaking / thought experimentation couldn't suffice. Some things HAVE changed (like stages), some things were NEVER TESTED PROPERLY in the first place (items were never given a CP system). We've cocked a lot of things up, but we haven't cocked EVERYTHING up.

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Fair enough, I'm done. You have proven that you are more knowledgeable than I in the history of Smash, and so I will resign from this discussion. I'm relieved to know we weren't always in such a "ban-happy" state.

Well, I'm sorry, too; I made the (in retrospect, pretty foolish) assumption that you knew the history of Smash. Yeah, we used to be totally NOT banhappy at all. Smash 64 was a LOL-fest; that game was nothing but 0-deaths and broken ****. Not much we could have done then, though. You play what you're given, or at least, we did back then. Melee, I think, had a nice balance; nobody complained about ANYTHING back then, and Fox / Falco had so straight up STUPID reflector tricks on some stages, not to mention Sheik's ledgestalls, chaingrabbing, much more IC play...

If you took today's community and gave it Smash 64 or Melee, they'd have torn those games APART.