Grim's LGL arguing thread

theunabletable said:

Hmm... I'd say easily enforceable is a bonus, but not a requirement. Like I don't think we should ever ditch a rule because we can't enforce it 100% of the time. That always seems almost analogous to just saying "We should remove speed limits, because we can't enforce them even MOST of the time". You know?

Like of course something that can almost never be enforced probably won't make a good rule, but I wouldn't put enforce ability in a criteria

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Enforceability is much more important in the context of competition than it is for a government because rule obeyers can actually get punished for obeying the rule. If a player cheats and the rulebreaking event isn't caught, that player benefits from cheating AND the rule abiding player takes the same amount of loss. That's rather brutal for the rule abiding player, and he'd be far happier playing an inferior game missing whatever benefits the rule brings rather than deal with illegitimate losses.

What constitutes a double standard? Well, if something is banned because it falls under a certain ban criteria (which we have established is anything that is uncompetitive), yet something else which falls under the same criteria isn't banned, that'd be a double standard.

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I pretty much agree, but would like to note that this definition is only effective/beneficial in far less situations than people use the term "double standard" in.

I do agree with the definition, but a lot of people use it in far too broad a sense, in ways that aren't analogous enough to be effective. For instance, if someone were to say that we should ban D3's infinite on DK, and then responded by saying "Well we should institute punch time for Ganondorf to buff him, so he can always get a warlock punch every game" would clearly be a bad analogy, because for one, that wouldn't make Ganondorf's really bad matchups any better, like it wouldn't really effect his viability very much. It's a universal change, as opposed to a more... fine tuned change, it inherently effects a greater amount of things, since it's not a change to one small situation. But really, most importantly, there's no community backing for that rule. This isn't a double standard, because there are too many important things that aren't really analogous at all.

Now that's not to say I know the answers on whether banning DK's infinite is good or not (I don't wanna get into that here), or that you'd use that argument, but I'm kinda just trying to say that with that definition of double standards, a lot of people make really vague arguments against what they say is a double standard, and it's difficult to communicate that it isn't a double standard when the difference is subtle, and the argument mirrors the original argument very closely in structure. You know?

I just want us to be aware that that kind of thing can arise easily with accepting that double standards are important, and that we should ALL be sure to take into account as much as we can before accepting any argument that claims "you're making a double standard" as accurate. There's a lot that should go into it.

Do we agree on this?

I can see the logic in this.

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c:

And they create many other problems, which is what I was saying.

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Oh, yeah, that's true that they can create more problems. But they don't always, so any sort of universal statement probably shouldn't be made, atleast imo. Like instead of saying "Doesn't cause a great amount of changes to things we weren't targetting" we could say "Doesn't cause more detriments than it causes benefits" (or something more to that effect).

Like I basically agree, but I think it would be better to instead say "doesn't cause more negatives than positives overall", instead of "doesn't cause too many changes than what we targetted" because that last one almost limits us, and the first one entails the issues that come with too many changes. I could elaborate more if you want c:

We can decide on a case-by-case basis, every rule is going to change gameplay in some way other than it's purpose. We should decide subjectively as a community whether the rule is discrete enough to be used.

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Alright, yeah I agree with this, and after reading it, I based most of my two paragraphs before this one on that general thought.

It's not as much a disagreement with what you're saying as it's an... addendum to make sure that we're more clear and stuff

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing now? Obviously we shouldn't add rules that aren't warranted because they aren't warranted. My criteria is based on common sense.

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Oh I'm sorry, I didn't make it clear enough what exactly I was addressing. I was more addressing the "fixes a basically objective problem with the game" part. This can end up kind of detrimental if we aren't careful enough, and while I do agree that it's generally a good thing to go with, it can be troublesome when one side is really convinced it is the objective truth, and is vocal about it.

Like... hmm I'm having trouble communicating the exact thought I'm having on this subject, and I do have one, but it's pretty minor, so you can just forget about these responses to the point number 4 you made in that post.

I do mostly agree with you, although I'm wondering if you'd agree with this general ban criteria, since it's a bit shorter, and I think contains the same reasons for why the things in your criteria are there:

"A rule should only be created if there are greater benefits, taking into account as much as we can, than there are negatives."

Enforceability is much more important in the context of competition than it is for a government because rule obeyers can actually get punished for obeying the rule. If a player cheats and the rulebreaking event isn't caught, that player benefits from cheating AND the rule abiding player takes the same amount of loss. That's rather brutal for the rule abiding player, and he'd be far happier playing an inferior game missing whatever benefits the rule brings rather than deal with illegitimate losses.

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This is true, that if there's a major enforceability issue with a rule, the results can be very bad, but I can't really think of any instance in a competitive game where someone has a legitimate chance of getting away with cheating, and the person being really disappointed they couldn't call them out on it.

Actually the only situations I can think of where someone has been really upset by the way the rule-calling has effected them are ones where the person is upset that the rules were actually enforced. Like when Cheese DQs someone completely for pausing during a CG, or stuff like that. I can't think of any examples where someone has been literally CHEATED out of something.

So you're definitely right, when it gets to the point where you can blatantly cheat the rule, the results are very bad. But I can't think of any rules or incidents in smash that have ever been quite like that. Well I think some MKs have used IDC a few times in tournament, like that one time 2 years ago or w/e that M2K used it against Dojo. That's the only example I can really think of, and honestly that's not even really bad in any way lol

theunabletable said:

too long to quote

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*shrugs*

It's 4:22 a.m. and I am slightly inebriated so I'll simply shrug.

theunabletable said:

The core part of this post that needs to be cleared up before anyone can get anywhere.

How would you define "competitiveness", and why would you define it that way?

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That is a tricky question.
At the very core we all know it is a contest of a skill.

Using Brawl as a context, I would have to say that anything that pulls away from that contest, of two, or in the case of team brawl, four players, facing each other to determine whom is the better player.

Veril said:

As soon as I saw someone post saying that pika had options against a planking mk... I knew this thread would be all sorts of fail, and it certainly is.

Except for DMG.


The only sorta kinda maybe plausible counter to MK planking was Diddy Kong shield sdi-ing the up air such that he transitions off the ledge and cancels shieldstun, then buffering a dair. Doesn't work outside of frame advance or even in frame advane if mk has the same magically perfect reaction time.

Either mk has to be banned or his ledge grabs have to be limited. A global lgl is something I don't care to debate.

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Nope, your testing was just wrong.

theunabletable said:

I pretty much agree, but would like to note that this definition is only effective/beneficial in far less situations than people use the term "double standard" in.

I do agree with the definition, but a lot of people use it in far too broad a sense, in ways that aren't analogous enough to be effective. For instance, if someone were to say that we should ban D3's infinite on DK, and then responded by saying "Well we should institute punch time for Ganondorf to buff him, so he can always get a warlock punch every game" would clearly be a bad analogy, because for one, that wouldn't make Ganondorf's really bad matchups any better, like it wouldn't really effect his viability very much.

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Ganondorf is absolutely entitled to punch time against King Dedede if DK gets his infinite removed from the D3 matchup. He's a character with an equally bad matchup who would get similar improvement, (less improvement, but I'm pretty sure D3 can walking CG DK so it's really not quite the discrepancy you'd think).

You can't play arbiter on characters you won't have your ruleset support because they're doomed to trash tier anyway. If I think I'm really good at Ness and take him places no one else does and have neutral matchups on everyone but Marth and Olimar, you've got no right to buff DK to increase his viability and leave me in the dust because you don't believe my character is viable at all. That's my opinion that Ness is worth playing, so now you're nerfing players for disagreeing with you and that's all sorts of wrong.

Ultimatum:

-Ban MK, remove LGL
or
-Remove LGL and place a LGL on MK specfically.

Messy and arbitrary, but hey this is Brawl we're talking about. The LGL itself is messy and arbitrary.

popsofctown said:

Ganondorf is absolutely entitled to punch time against King Dedede if DK gets his infinite removed from the D3 matchup. He's a character with an equally bad matchup who would get similar improvement, (less improvement, but I'm pretty sure D3 can walking CG DK so it's really not quite the discrepancy you'd think).

You can't play arbiter on characters you won't have your ruleset support because they're doomed to trash tier anyway. If I think I'm really good at Ness and take him places no one else does and have neutral matchups on everyone but Marth and Olimar, you've got no right to buff DK to increase his viability and leave me in the dust because you don't believe my character is viable at all. That's my opinion that Ness is worth playing, so now you're nerfing players for disagreeing with you and that's all sorts of wrong.

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This is a legitimate concern.

We shouldn't buff characters based on our belief that they'll become viable/more viable with the buff.

Ganondorf is absolutely entitled to punch time against King Dedede if DK gets his infinite removed from the D3 matchup. He's a character with an equally bad matchup who would get similar improvement, (less improvement, but I'm pretty sure D3 can walking CG DK so it's really not quite the discrepancy you'd think).

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Alright, I'll agree to it if you can get a very large tournament-going populace going for that rule.

If the people want that rule, then he IS just as entitled. If they don't, then he simply is not.

You can't play arbiter on characters you won't have your ruleset support because they're doomed to trash tier anyway.

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I can't. We can. There's a bit of a difference

If I think I'm really good at Ness and take him places no one else does and have neutral matchups on everyone but Marth and Olimar, you've got no right to buff DK to increase his viability and leave me in the dust because you don't believe my character is viable at all.

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Okay, if you think you're really good at Ness, and can take him places no one else can, but Marth and Olimar give you a problem, get a large part of the community to agree with you that we would be better off, then they would be comparable.

Hypotheticals really don't work in this scenario haha

That's my opinion that Ness is worth playing, so now you're nerfing players for disagreeing with you and that's all sorts of wrong.

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Alright, you can think of it as nerfing if you want. Have I told you about my really good habit of not smoking?

This is a legitimate concern.

We shouldn't buff characters based on our belief that they'll become viable/more viable with the buff.

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Why not?

theunabletable said:

Why not?

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Player bias, we end up stepping into the territory of players/TOs purposely making rules to buff their character to give them a higher chance of winning.
Which is unfair for those players who don't play a character that's been buffed.

We should always try to be fair, and be mindful of the minority.

Player bias, we end up stepping into the territory of players/TOs purposely making rules to buff their character to give them a higher chance of winning.

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Give me 3 examples of 3 respectable TOs who have ever banned something specifically so that they have a better chance of winning.

and a lot of TOs don't enter their own tournaments.

Also if we're working with a matter of what the community as a whole decides, doesn't that for the most part remove individual player bias from the equation, other than, this is the only example I can think of, influential people pushing their opinion on other people, and convincing other people, which I'd imagine is perfectly fine anyways?

ShadowLink84 said:

No.
Ten no's.
This is the EXACT.SAME.MENTALITY that AN follows.

Or at least way more intelligible reason than "oh god its say gay ban it."

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It's gay. It also cheapens gameplay, reduces the skill involved, nerfs competitive depth, and makes the game considerably less interesting for all parties involved. I'd much rather see players playing a slightly scrubbier brawl than see players quit en masse. When I argue for stages, I'm no longer saying "you have to have this legal". I'm saying "there's no point to banning it and once you get used to it, the game is overall better".

Essentially, you're pretty much sacrificing the competitiveness of the game simply so that enjoyment can be had.

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Let's go back to the analogy I made before. I think that in that analogy, the game with the hypothetical move that instantkills snake, wario, and co. would be much less competitive than the same game with that move banned. It's a question of definition. You are a sirlinist; I am not. I do not have a logically conclusive philosophy; nobody does. What I have is my philosophy (which I admit is flawed) which I hold to because it seems to offer good results. Until we define "competitive" in a satisfactory manner, this is a moot point. Hell, at times I feel like Akuma has it right when he says that the most competitive brawl ruleset is the one where there are the most people competing. It's kind of a semantics argument at this point; in any case, I disagree.

That idea in itself isn't wrong, because after all, a competitive game needs to have some sense of enjoyment otherwise, no one would really want to watch it or play it.

The problem is such limitations and bans set the bar as to what the competitive community will allow, and the reasoning behind it will also open up other possibilities.

IF we are willing to go so far as to place a ledge grab limit, so far as to limit a part of the core gameplay is a bad idea.
We should not be altering such things unless it ensures that the competitiveness of the game is maintained, which it does not.

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Why not? And I'm pretty sure you mean "unless it is necessary to ensure the maintenance of the competitiveness of the game", no? In any case, I don't see why. It does open the doors to double standards, but to an extent, I really don't see what exactly is so bad about double standards in a ruleset. It's not logically ideal, but on a pragmatic level, it ****ing works.

All that happens is people get the nice, lovely feeling of knowing that SOMETHING is being done.
It does not matter if it is effective or not, does not matter if it actually addresses the core problem so much as it is SOMETHING.

Like recycling cans in the name of stopping global warming.

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It's better than doing nothing when the core problem is something that you simply cannot address. Like with global warming: recycling helps. Ideally, we would change to geothermal/wind/solar/etc. power and use electric cars and ban the burning of carbon-based fuels. But we can't. So instead we do things like mandating better gas mileage on cars or recycling. It doesn't address the core problem, but it helps.

Part of the reason why the smash community is mocked so very greatly by other fighting game communities i for two big reasons.

1. We are trying to make a game that is geared towards casuals, into a competitive game. That in itself gives off the idea of the community being childish, stubborn, and incapable of seeing the game in its appearance.
I do not necessarily agree with it, but when you take into account my second point..

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While we're at it: this is said core problem. In order to solve the problems inherent with brawl, we'd have to, well, stop playing brawl, or, more realistically, smash as a whole. I don't want to do that; I'd rather put a band-aid over it, limit a tactic that is demonstrably broken when unlimited, and live with a double standard.

The problem with your philosophy in this case BPC, as far as I can see, is you overestimate planking. You believe that the ability for a character to plank is a "flaw" that needs to be fixed and limits game depth, when in practice this has shown to be no more true than those who claim that PS2 limits game depth due to it's campyness. Planking has never been proven to be unstoppable, so we should assume it is stoppable until proven otherwise.

Double standards DO matter, as they are the most important deciding factor in whether a ruleset philosophy is flawed or otherwise. The reason rulesets like Smashville/Battlefield/Final Destination only are so bad (other than limiting competitive depth) is that any "logical" justification that could be made for having only those stages would introduce a double standard. A ruleset with double standards is an inherently flawed ruleset as it is not as logical as it can possible be, which begs the question: If we are going to let double standards fly, why should we try and be logical with our rulesets at all?

theunabletable said:

Give me 3 examples of 3 respectable TOs who have ever banned something specifically so that they have a better chance of winning.

and a lot of TOs don't enter their own tournaments.

Also if we're working with a matter of what the community as a whole decides, doesn't that for the most part remove individual player bias from the equation, other than, this is the only example I can think of, influential people pushing their opinion on other people, and convincing other people, which I'd imagine is perfectly fine anyways?

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It doesn't have to be an obvious buff, or even a conscious decision to be biased towards yourself, but there is definitely some inherent bias when making a ruleset to better cater towards your character/playstyle.
E.g. ADHD is quite conservative with what stages he would have legal, while someone like UTDZac is quite liberal.
While bias towards one's own character is not always the case, it's still certainly there.
e.g. Most MK mains wouldn't want their character banned unless they had a viable secondary they could use.
Player bias does come into play when making rulesets, and if you start making rules purposely to buff or limit certain characters, that certainly opens the door to other buffs and nerfs, and we end up introducing double standards which inherently give some players a better chance of winning due to an unfair ruleset.

Did I explain that right? >.>

What I have is my philosophy (which I admit is flawed) which I hold to because it seems to offer good results.

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wait

so did I like... convince you to switch philosophies?

The problem with your philosophy in this case BPC, as far as I can see, is you overestimate planking. You believe that the ability for a character to plank is a "flaw" that needs to be fixed and limits game depth, when in practice this has shown to be no more true than those who claim that PS2 limits game depth due to it's campyness. Planking has never been proven to be unstoppable, so we should assume it is stoppable until proven otherwise.

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Actually, I don't think either me or BPC are claiming that planking is unstoppable. We're saying that the criteria for what we ban should not be when something is unstoppable, but when it leads to worse results.

Having our country's best Olimar waste a week of his life, and $300, along with IIRC causing him (or contributing to, atleast. From what I remember, but it has been a little while so my memory's already a bit fuzzy haha) to take a pretty prolonged break from Smash, certainly isn't healthy for his community, and his.

And that's what happened in the first example I've ever seen of someone hard-planking someone else when it came down to a chance at money. Someone who's not MK anyways.

The reason rulesets like Smashville/Battlefield/Final Destination only are so bad (other than limiting competitive depth) is that any "logical" justification that could be made for having only those stages would introduce a double standard. A ruleset with double standards is an inherently flawed ruleset as it is not as logical as it can possible be, which begs the question: If we are going to let double standards fly, why should we try and be logical with our rulesets at all?

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The way I see it is this: if double standards largely dictate what is a logical thing to do, rather than what gives the best results, what is the point in being "logical"?

To me, it hardly seems we could call it logical to see what solves our problems, and claim it to be "illogical", and do something different because of some preconceived standard we have.

This is a reason why science is so much greater than religion for finding answers. Religion is built to never change (of course it ends up doing so, by necessity), science is made to go with what simply works best. Situations change, and there is no, not ANYWHERE in life (well unless we get into actually religious stuff, but bare with me a bit), master-key for all situations. A golden key opens all doors. However there aren't any damn golden keys. Now I'd go as far to say that this applies incredibly heavily to life, and I have a million things I could say about this, related to how neural connections are made, happiness, etc (I'm sure nothing someone hasn't considered before), but I digress, this is a thread about Brawl rulesets lol

To say "Why attempt to be logical if there are double standards" would be completely missing the beauty of being rational/logical! If you can't think of any ways to apply logic to a situation like this, and why stage debating would still be relevant, I'll give a few hints. Testing stages would be just as important, because with a fluid criteria, they could be seen as good at any time. This is your chance to make these stages look appealing. To show what it really brings to the table. Yes you could sit there going "Burden of proof is on you to show why the stage is broken," but I've seen very few people converted to liking and supporting a stage based on this. Especially since burden of proof doesn't apply in that way.

You can work on changing peoples opinions on the stage, change what they want in a stage. Asserting what you find to be clear, objective proof won't get you anymore, you actually have to be more creative than that.

For instance, I actually had an internal issue over Pokemon Stadium 2. The majority of people really hate it, but honestly, I like it, and in an ideal world I think it probably would be part of the stagelist, because I think it's the lack of being used to the stage that most people have an issue with. It doesn't feel gimmicky or anything to me, and I think if more people became accustomed to it, without having a super close mind beforehand, they would find that it really does add to the skills we generally try and test.

If you're playing with "scrubs" (non-competitive folk), you're probably not going to have a fun time if you're CGing them as Falco constantly. They'll probably leave and not play with you. You can call them scrubs if you want, but now not only are you feeling negative, you've made them feel negative, and you don't have a play buddy!

I learned this lesson about... 2 years ago now, when I was 14 I think. I was actually in this period where I tried to apply "logic" everywhere, and I was a stickler to the rules. I was playing Pool with this guy, Brad. In his 30s I think? idk had a kid and a wife, so maybe late 20s.

Anyways, so I was bringing up the obscure rules in pool (in professional pool, every penalty is a ball in hand, after shots you have to hit a rail or else there's a penalty. Stuff that really isn't relevant to lower level players, especially considering I wasn't very good at Pool), and I was also playing... well just generally gay. Safetying every possible opportunity (that's where you basically don't go for any ball, you just put the cue ball in a really ****ty position, so your opponent can't get anything either) and so on. And when he said he didn't like that, I said something along the lines of "Oh well, those are the rules". Then he told me "Well then I'm not gonna want to play with you". And I remember feeling completely defeated. Because everything ended up ****ty, even though I went with what seemed like, at the surface, the logical decision, to go with the rules, and not make arbitrary exceptions or anything.

Largely a personal story, but I'm sure you can relate. You can see how any person who's not thinking hard would look at how I acted and think "God what an *******". And sorta... that got me thinking. Why is the "logical" thing to do, the ******* thing to do, that leads to a worse, more angry social life when applied EVERYWHERE, along with being worse at whatever it is, because it contains not enough moderates, I'm not playing a "scrubby" way when it'd be most beneficial to, I'm inherently losing things by sticking to one thing.

I could elaborate on this, but I don't want to go on too long, and I'm already pretty tired, so I'm probably communicating badly anyways.

Further, I would agree that double standards can be very important to recognize, but equally important is recognizing what ISN'T a double standard. This is why defining a double standard is so important.

So in summary (the TL;DR version), what I'm saying is:

I find there to be no rational reason to go with the "logical" decision, when the rational decision doesn't actually lead to the best results. HugS had a really good blog on playing to win, with a quote that I think went "You can go ahead and learn to count the seconds on jungle japes, I'll be over here learning to not suck ****", something like that. But it's a funny, memorable way of saying the idea lol

It seems illogical to me to pick the decision that leads to worse results out of principle, if that were the case, to me, that would indicate that the principle is flawed, or has an exception (which means in its current state is flawed).

And that double standards are important, but noticing what is not a double standard is just as important.


c:

@Ghostbone: I haven't gotten to read what you're saying yet, I'm too tired to really communicate or think well, so I'll get to that tomorrow or some other day lol c:

theunabletable said:

Actually, I don't think either me or BPC are claiming that planking is unstoppable. We're saying that the criteria for what we ban should not be when something is unstoppable, but when it leads to worse results.

Having our country's best Olimar waste a week of his life, and $300, along with IIRC causing him (or contributing to, atleast. From what I remember, but it has been a little while so my memory's already a bit fuzzy haha) to take a pretty prolonged break from Smash, certainly isn't healthy for his community, and his.

And that's what happened in the first example I've ever seen of someone hard-planking someone else when it came down to a chance at money. Someone who's not MK anyways.

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If Rich Brown can't adapt to a perfectly beatable strategy, that isn't the strategies fault. Remember in the early days of Brawl where people made a fuss about Dedede's chaingrab? In the long run, we didn't end up banning that.

You see, a LGL is no more warranted than a laser limit for Falco, or a down throw limit for King Dedede. Yes, it's gay. But it is beatable and overall adds to the options the game provides for it's player.

The way I see it is this: if double standards largely dictate what is a logical thing to do, rather than what gives the best results, what is the point in being "logical"?

To me, it hardly seems we could call it logical to see what solves our problems, and claim it to be "illogical", and do something different because of some preconceived standard we have.

This is a reason why science is so much greater than religion for finding answers. Religion is built to never change (of course it ends up doing so, by necessity), science is made to go with what simply works best. Situations change, and there is no, not ANYWHERE in life (well unless we get into actually religious stuff, but bare with me a bit), master-key for all situations. A golden key opens all doors. However there aren't any damn golden keys. Now I'd go as far to say that this applies incredibly heavily to life, and I have a million things I could say about this, related to how neural connections are made, happiness, etc (I'm sure nothing someone hasn't considered before), but I digress, this is a thread about Brawl rulesets lol

To say "Why attempt to be logical if there are double standards" would be completely missing the beauty of being rational/logical! If you can't think of any ways to apply logic to a situation like this, and why stage debating would still be relevant, I'll give a few hints. Testing stages would be just as important, because with a fluid criteria, they could be seen as good at any time. This is your chance to make these stages look appealing. To show what it really brings to the table. Yes you could sit there going "Burden of proof is on you to show why the stage is broken," but I've seen very few people converted to liking and supporting a stage based on this. Especially since burden of proof doesn't apply in that way.

You can work on changing peoples opinions on the stage, change what they want in a stage. Asserting what you find to be clear, objective proof won't get you anymore, you actually have to be more creative than that.

For instance, I actually had an internal issue over Pokemon Stadium 2. The majority of people really hate it, but honestly, I like it, and in an ideal world I think it probably would be part of the stagelist, because I think it's the lack of being used to the stage that most people have an issue with. It doesn't feel gimmicky or anything to me, and I think if more people became accustomed to it, without having a super close mind beforehand, they would find that it really does add to the skills we generally try and test.

If you're playing with "scrubs" (non-competitive folk), you're probably not going to have a fun time if you're CGing them as Falco constantly. They'll probably leave and not play with you. You can call them scrubs if you want, but now not only are you feeling negative, you've made them feel negative, and you don't have a play buddy!

I learned this lesson about... 2 years ago now, when I was 14 I think. I was actually in this period where I tried to apply "logic" everywhere, and I was a stickler to the rules. I was playing Pool with this guy, Brad. In his 30s I think? idk had a kid and a wife, so maybe late 20s.

Anyways, so I was bringing up the obscure rules in pool (in professional pool, every penalty is a ball in hand, after shots you have to hit a rail or else there's a penalty. Stuff that really isn't relevant to lower level players, especially considering I wasn't very good at Pool), and I was also playing... well just generally gay. Safetying every possible opportunity (that's where you basically don't go for any ball, you just put the cue ball in a really ****ty position, so your opponent can't get anything either) and so on. And when he said he didn't like that, I said something along the lines of "Oh well, those are the rules". Then he told me "Well then I'm not gonna want to play with you". And I remember feeling completely defeated. Because everything ended up ****ty, even though I went with what seemed like, at the surface, the logical decision, to go with the rules, and not make arbitrary exceptions or anything.

Largely a personal story, but I'm sure you can relate. You can see how any person who's not thinking hard would look at how I acted and think "God what an *******". And sorta... that got me thinking. Why is the "logical" thing to do, the ******* thing to do, that leads to a worse, more angry social life when applied EVERYWHERE, along with being worse at whatever it is, because it contains not enough moderates, I'm not playing a "scrubby" way when it'd be most beneficial to, I'm inherently losing things by sticking to one thing.

I could elaborate on this, but I don't want to go on too long, and I'm already pretty tired, so I'm probably communicating badly anyways.

Further, I would agree that double standards can be very important to recognize, but equally important is recognizing what ISN'T a double standard. This is why defining a double standard is so important.

So in summary (the TL;DR version), what I'm saying is:

I find there to be no rational reason to go with the "logical" decision, when the rational decision doesn't actually lead to the best results. HugS had a really good blog on playing to win, with a quote that I think went "You can go ahead and learn to count the seconds on jungle japes, I'll be over here learning to not suck ****", something like that. But it's a funny, memorable way of saying the idea lol

It seems illogical to me to pick the decision that leads to worse results out of principle, if that were the case, to me, that would indicate that the principle is flawed, or has an exception (which means in its current state is flawed).

And that double standards are important, but noticing what is not a double standard is just as important.

Click to expand...

I will dwell on this, thanks for writing it up. Though I believe it is irrelevant for this argument because of my belief that planking is completely and easily beatable and shouldn't be treated differently to other 'gay' things in this game.

Beatable doesn't mean its what we want.

I'm sure majority of the community would rather a LGL than none.. And i think it'd be a good majority (66%+) as well.

If the majority of the community supported Ike being banned, would you agree that his ban is warranted?

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

It's gay. It also cheapens gameplay, reduces the skill involved, nerfs competitive depth, and makes the game considerably less interesting for all parties involved. I'd much rather see players playing a slightly scrubbier brawl than see players quit en masse. When I argue for stages, I'm no longer saying "you have to have this legal". I'm saying "there's no point to banning it and once you get used to it, the game is overall better".

Click to expand...

Firs tof all, where is your proof?
Where is your proof that planking in itself is harmful to the game?
Where is the proof that if Sonic, Ike, Ivysaur, Sheik, Link, Zelda, Bowser, G&W and anyone else for that matter, is on the ledge and camping on it is truly harmful to the competitiveness of the game?

You have none, there is no data to support such an argument of ledge play being harmful to the game because the one who created the issue was MetaKnight, and the one who is insanely strong on the ledge, is again, MetaKnight.

I find it silly that you're even trying to say the game is cheapened by planking when the only issue is a single character.

Banning or limiting a tactic that is only truly problematic for a single character is essentially demanding player's change the way they play simply for the sake of the other individual's enjoyment, and not because it is necessary.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

Let's go back to the analogy I made before. I think that in that analogy, the game with the hypothetical move that instantkills snake, wario, and co. would be much less competitive than the same game with that move banned. It's a question of definition. You are a sirlinist; I am not. I do not have a logically conclusive philosophy; nobody does. What I have is my philosophy (which I admit is flawed) which I hold to because it seems to offer good results. Until we define "competitive" in a satisfactory manner, this is a moot point. Hell, at times I feel like Akuma has it right when he says that the most competitive brawl ruleset is the one where there are the most people competing. It's kind of a semantics argument at this point; in any case, I disagree.

Click to expand...

Uhhh...what?
Of course in a game where one can OHKO the other player it would not be competitive.
There would be no skill involved if all an individual needed to do was hit a button and win.

Let alone it is simply laughable that you say we need to define what competitive means in a satisfactory matter just to discuss as to what is and what is not competitive.
Such an argument is ultimately fruitless, because it is entirely cyclical.

Noidea what you mean by sirlinist so I'll ignore it.

Tactics/characters/stages are banned only in the event great over centralizing occurs.
Peach Wall Bombing, Akuma, and Hyrule temple.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

Why not? And I'm pretty sure you mean "unless it is necessary to ensure the maintenance of the competitiveness of the game", no? In any case, I don't see why. It does open the doors to double standards, but to an extent, I really don't see what exactly is so bad about double standards in a ruleset. It's not logically ideal, but on a pragmatic level, it ****ing works.

Click to expand...

Uh, no it doesn't, because then you end up with the situation regarding stages that YOU argue for but have an issue getting to be legalized because of the ideals that transferred from the last smash game.

Part of the reason why so many stages were banned in Brawl, wasn't due to them being an actual hindrance to the competitiveness of the game, but because they were so much different from the one's in melee that many felt it being ban worthy.


The problem with planking is...again...the only problematic character is MetaKnight.
Character's like Falco/Olimar suck against people on the ledge, and I find that is perfectly acceptable because limiting the tactic buffs them, and nerfs other characters such as ROB who needs the ledge in some of his matchups.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

It's better than doing nothing when the core problem is something that you simply cannot address. Like with global warming: recycling helps. Ideally, we would change to geothermal/wind/solar/etc. power and use electric cars and ban the burning of carbon-based fuels. But we can't. So instead we do things like mandating better gas mileage on cars or recycling. It doesn't address the core problem, but it helps.

Click to expand...

No, that's stupid. EXTREMELY stupid.
let us put it this way.
Even if every single individual changed their lightbulbs, inflated their tires, used less water etc etc, it would not be enough.

What the LGL accomplishes is the EXACT,SAME,THING.
It's essentially slapping a a bandaid on a severed finger.
IT DOESN'T WORK!

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

While we're at it: this is said core problem. In order to solve the problems inherent with brawl, we'd have to, well, stop playing brawl, or, more realistically, smash as a whole. I don't want to do that; I'd rather put a band-aid over it, limit a tactic that is demonstrably broken when unlimited, and live with a double standard.

Click to expand...

Or maybe...just maybe...we should..you know...stop acting as if planking is the issue since no one outside the bat has planking that kills the competitiveness of the game.

Edit: Furthermore, what is with people thinking the criteria for banning something is it needs t be unstoppable? That's just...stupid...
It has to actually hinder the competitiveness of the game as a whole, does the entire list of character's, or at least a majority of them cause issues when they are on the ledge?
nope.

This thread greatly amuses me.

I am reading all of your souls atm.

Who was saying that Jebus is smarter than Shadowlink, again? o_O

Grim Tuesday said:

If the majority of the community supported Ike being banned, would you agree that his ban is warranted?

Click to expand...

:| He got banned at a casualfest i went too >_>

So I just used someone else.

How to Fix Planking.

You know, you guys get so off track at times that I sometimes lose hope in waiting for someone to take my bait, and have to come out of lurking.

Whether or not the LGL is necessary is irrelevant. Before we figure out if it's necessary or not, we have to figure out if it's a viable option or not. So let's break this down:

• What is our current issue?
  1. Planking techniques (MK, Pit, Marth, GaW, Pikachu, DK, etc.)
     • This is an issue that's related to stalling, and skewing risk/reward drastically.

So, what are our options to fix this, assuming this is a genuine issue that needs dealing with?

1. Ban the technique that is planking.
2. Implement a ledge-grab-limit, since the issue is ledge oriented.
3. Ban all characters with (close to) unbeatable planking.

So lets go one by one on the check list real quick.




1. Ban the technique that is planking.
-Honestly, I hope we all understand why this isn't an option at this point in time, cause I don't think it's worth explaining again. However, I'm a nice guy at times, so I'll do this real quick. Banning the specific technique is not discrete, and it's hard to enforce. Taking Marth as an example, his planking technique would require him to Fair the ledge as he unsnaps from it, and UpB very quickly back on the ledge. In that case, we could just say "Ban Fair to UpB" and he'll never plank again.

This doesn't work though because there are multiple reasons why Marth would want to Fair to UpB that doesn't involve stalling. Banning that technique would nerf him to a degree that's unfair, because he's getting nerfed for things that aren't aimed at the issue (stalling).

There's also the issue that doing Fair to UpB once isn't broken, it's doing it in succession that can be considered questionable in legality. If you do it once, you would be punished by a rule designed to prevent stalling, when in reality, you only stalled for ~1 second. >_>



2. Implement a ledge-grab-limit, since the issue is ledge oriented.
Ledge grab limits seem like the most logical choice of end-game stats to choose from to limit planking, but in reality, they are just as viable as an air-time limit, or a swimming limit even.

The reason for why I'm saying it's not viable because it has very obvious flaws in it, and that because of those flaws, it's just about as reliable as any other endgame statistic limit.

Here are all the flaws I can think of with applying a LGL:

1. A number can't answer the yes or no question, "Did planking occur or not?". This means that we can't use this as a tool to decide if planking occurred or not.
   
   • Example: Kirby vs. Falco on FD. Kirby has 37 ledge grabs. Did planking occur? How many ledge grabs went to planking? How many went to regular use? Can you tell the difference?
2. An LGL can't tell you how much time someone stalled for. This means that we can't use this as a tool to prevent stalling, because a number can't give us a time frame.
   
   • Example: Marth vs. Snake on FD. Marth has 42 ledge grabs. How long was he on the ledge for? How long was he planking for, as opposed to simply using the ledge regularly? Can you tell me the amount of time in frames? How about seconds?
   • The above two reasons are why there can never be a magic LGL number that solves all our problems. A number cannot pinpoint the technique, nor can it pinpoint the amount of time the technique was used. In other words, the LGL is a useless tool for our situation. Why? Because if it can't measure stall time, and if it can't identify planking, than what can it do that's useful?
     
     Well the answer is simple. It disqualifies people. It disqualifies people using data that cannot properly measure what we're trying to limit. Because of this, people can get disqualified unfairly. How?
     
     
     • Example: Imagine two separate matches in which MK plays regularly until around the last minute, where he decides to PPlank the timer out. Match 1 involves an MK getting 35 ledge grabs, in which 30 of them are from planking, and the other 5 are from regular use. Match 2 involves the another MK getting 35 ledge grabs again, but this time, only 15 of them were from planking and the other 20 were from regular use. Is it fair that both players can get the same amount of LGLs and get disqualified for it, when one was "supposedly" planking for more time than the other? The MK from match one scraped the LGL, and got disqualified for it, while the MK from match two scraped the LGL just as much as the other MK did, but instead, used the ledge for less time. How is that even fair?
       
     • You don't see the LGL until the game is over, which means we're making it unreasonably difficult for players to keep track of their ledge grabs. Players are being put in a position in which they don't know whether they are breaking a rule or not, until the timer is up. Simply put, it's unacceptable to expect players to follow a rule they can't reasonably measure mid game. It's an incredible and unnecessary burden, and anyone who doesn't see how this is wrong is foolish.
       
     • An LGL can be and has been used backwards to gain wins via technicality. Characters like Toon Link get stuck on the ledge often, so any patient player can pressure a Toon Link to continuously grab the ledge (note: not planking, just using the ledge), even when the TL player doesn't want to. Again, players can be FORCED into a situation where they are at risk of breaking a rule that they cannot reasonably measure, and it's worse when the character doesn't deserve an LGL in the first place. This would be an unfair nerf, which means a global LGL has unnecessary negative side-effects attached to it.
   
   
3. Ledge combat = Grounded Combat = Airborne Combat = Combat while Swimming. They are all integral pieces to Smash, there's no reason why we should be favoring one over the other, and trying limit one instead of the other.
   
4. Nerfing Metaknight with LGLs has taken us down the slipperiest slope ever.

...and last but not least...

• An LGL won't keep everyone from complaining about a Metaknight simply using the ledge to his advantage, so as a tool to make everybody shut the **** up, it won't work.

On another note, the application of the rule is flimsy in itself. The current rule in the URC is 50 ledge grabs for all characters but Metaknight, who has 35 ledge grabs. Does anybody know why the number is at 35/50 ledge grabs? If the reason for adding an LGL was to stop planking from occurring, then the LGL doesn't work. If the purpose was to limit planking, then one would have to ask themselves, "For how much time should planking be acceptable for?"

I think it's obvious that nobody went and researched this, because if they did, they would have realized that an MK PPlanking for 35 ledge grabs would mean that he planked for ~30 seconds, the duration of a single transformation in PS1. Also, if they had researched the rule a little more, wouldn't you think that each character would have a different LGL?

And there you have it. There are most of the flaws with the LGL. They don't identify planking. They don't identify stalling time. Stalling time hasn't even been researched. You can't keep track of them in-game. They've opened up the door for a million other stupid rules that are discussed in these forums. All of that, and people have still not stopped complaining yet. We've adopted them, and people complain less about planking because it has the power to disqualify players, but that's about it. People still complain about it because the number is wrong (too high, too low) and will forever keep on complaining about it. Why? Because there is no such thing as a magic number.



3. Ban all characters with (close to) unbeatable planking.
Once we realize that limiting planking cannot be done, by process of elimination, this is the only option we're left with.

Will banning all involved characters prevent broken planking from occurring? Yes.
Will banning all involved characters prevent stalling via planking from occurring? Yes.
Is it enforceable? Yes.
Is it discrete? Yes.

Hey look, what an amazing option to choose from. The only downside is that it would probably cause a community uproar, and people probably won't stfu about it over time, but at least the balance of the game would be fixed.

So what's our conclusion? We find out that if action to prevent planking is necessary, the LGL is not a good way to patch the problem. Like DMG said, it's a bad fix to a problem, and there are no better alternatives to limiting planking, thus making the attempt to limit planking useless. If we had to take action against planking, LGLs absolutely cannot be an option unless you want to make a mockery of the ruleset, and hence, we shouldn't talk about planking and how to stop it with an LGL. It won't work, and trying to make it work is foolish.

That is all.

Oh hey, I am not the only one that came to the conclusion of banning the source of the issue.
Do I get cookies now?

I'll bake them for you myself.

I want some too!

god damn it, I wrote way too much in that last post

If the majority of the community supported Ike being banned, would you agree that his ban is warranted?

Click to expand...

Yes, I would, if the community legitimately wanted him banned. Of course this well never happen in our community, but I've experienced something just like this in more... non-competitive communities. Back before I really played competitively, I'd play with my friends at a rec-room type place, and I was the best there, but they banned me from playing Ice Climbers, my then main, because they didn't have fun when I played ICs. And it wasn't just a majority, it was unanimous at that community that I shouldn't play ICs. I wouldn't gain anything from telling them "Get better!"

If Rich Brown can't adapt to a perfectly beatable strategy, that isn't the strategies fault.

Click to expand...

You can blame it on Rich Brown if you'd like, that'll get people to like the strategy more.

And just wondering in short, what is it that Rich Brown should've done against Will's planking?

You see, a LGL is no more warranted than a laser limit for Falco, or a down throw limit for King Dedede. Yes, it's gay. But it is beatable and overall adds to the options the game provides for it's player.

Click to expand...

If we were all emotionless robots, programmed to only ban things that are completely unbeatable, then yes you would definitely be correct that an LGL is as warranted as a laser limit for Falco.

But in this world, with people, emotions, and is, well, not a world based on idealistic principles, an LGL is more warranted than laser limit for Falco.

No, that's stupid. EXTREMELY stupid.
let us put it this way.
Even if every single individual changed their lightbulbs, inflated their tires, used less water etc etc, it would not be enough.

Click to expand...

Let's refrain from words like "stupid" for the sake of civility and respect, please?

And to solve the problem? The world isn't so black and white that you either solve a problem, or you fail utterly.

Let alone it is simply laughable that you say we need to define what competitive means in a satisfactory matter just to discuss as to what is and what is not competitive.

Click to expand...

Words don't inherently mean something. These characters that I'm typing right now don't mean anything by themselves, they mean something because of the understanding that I, and everyone who attempts to decipher them, have, which is that they have a meaning, a generally accepted meaning.

If you're using a collection of symbols, which is what we call a word, in a way that you intend for it to mean something different than how other people interpret it, then your entire message won't be getting across, because not everyone is using the same definitions, or the same language (a weird, over the top way to say it, but you get what I mean). Now often, this is negligible, but when the core of your argument is based upon a word that does not have a generally accepted understanding of its meaning, then we will never get anywhere.

To say it is "laughable" that we ask for clear communication, either shows a lack of knowing why we need to define competitiveness (which is perfectly fine, not knowing something is not a bad thing if you learn it when it is presented to you), or that you are very dishonest.

theunabletable said:

god damn it, I wrote way too much in that last post

Click to expand...

The best part is when it gets deleted.

theunabletable said:

Yes, I would, if the community legitimately wanted him banned. Of course this well never happen in our community,

Click to expand...

Saying never is a defeatist statement.
It is part of why it is so difficult to implement such a banning,because people may want to have it happen, but ultimately have given up on the attempt.
Let's not go for the next best thing when its more harmful.

theunabletable said:

but I've experienced something just like this in more... non-competitive communities. Back before I really played competitively, I'd play with my friends at a rec-room type place, and I was the best there, but they banned me from playing Ice Climbers, my then main, because they didn't have fun when I played ICs. And it wasn't just a majority, it was unanimous at that community that I shouldn't play ICs. I wouldn't gain anything from telling them "Get better!"

Click to expand...

Simply because the majority of the community agrees on something does not mean they are right, after all, that is how many of the stages in brawl were baned despite the legitimacy of them.

theunabletable said:

You can blame it on Rich Brown if you'd like, that'll get people to like the strategy more.

And just wondering in short, what is it that Rich Brown should've done against Will's planking?

Click to expand...

As Olimar? There really was nothing he could have done since Olimar has a very hard time dealing with DK's planking.
It is basically, the same as DK having a difficult time with DDD.
Placing a limit buff's characters like Olimar and Falco.

theunabletable said:

If we were all emotionless robots, programmed to only ban things that are completely unbeatable, then yes you would definitely be correct that an LGL is as warranted as a laser limit for Falco.

Click to expand...

That is a terrible argument because there is no such thing as unbeatable.
In theory, you can still beat an Akuma user in ST, they just need to make enough mistakes to do so.

It is only when it is unreasonably difficult to win, that the entire game falls down to using a single character/strategy that a ban would be necessary.

Let alone that the ledge grab limit does nothing at all to solve the problem, if any, regarding ledge camping.
Olimar and Falco have isues with characters on the ledge, so what?
the only character that makes it a universal problem is the bat, every other character can be beaten when they begin to ledge stall.

A number is just a number, it is our interpretation that matters.
Simply because one grabbed the ledge 35 times does not mean they were stalling, let alone that it is flat out impossible to keep track of the number of times you grabbed the ledge in the middle of a game.

Ask any player in the middle of a set how many times they have grabbed the ledge in each match.

theunabletable said:

But in this world, with people, emotions, and is, well, not a world based on idealistic principles, an LGL is more warranted than laser limit for Falco.

Click to expand...

No it isn't, and you do not have any proof that an LGL is at all necessary outside of MetaKnight, who can circumvent it.
Let alone that there are many, many flaws with an LGL in itself that people flat out refuse to acknowledge.

Again, people only want an LGL because it means that something is being done, even though it is the same as doing nothing at all.
So long as people see action, they'll be satisfied, even if it has absolutely NO effect on the issue.

theunabletable said:

Let's refrain from words like "stupid" for the sake of civility and respect, please?

Click to expand...

You are not being disrespected nor is civility being lost.
Too sensitive bro.
My point still stands.

theunabletable said:

And to solve the problem? The world isn't so black and white that you either solve a problem, or you fail utterly.

Click to expand...

Reycling cans, saving hot water, growing a tree, inflating your tires etc etc etc isn't going to do squat in the end since it fails to address the source of the issue.

I think we're failing utterly considering the community ever implemented the LGL on a NATIONAL scale.
I think its delusional that anyone truly thinks that an LGL in itself, does anything about planking.
I find it sad that an LGL is placed globally when clearly, the only character who causes a global problem is MetaKnight.

We aren't addressing the problem at all, we're running away from it and creating a terrible status quo.
Just as the melee community had a great influence on Brawl's stagelist, so will this LGL have an effect on what we can, and cannot implement in our competitive scene when faced with problems like the ledge grab limit.

You're better off not doing anything than wasting resources, time and money and only creating more conflict on the matter.

theunabletable said:

To say it is "laughable" that we ask for clear communication, either shows a lack of knowing why we need to define competitiveness (which is perfectly fine, not knowing something is not a bad thing if you learn it when it is presented to you), or that you are very dishonest.

Click to expand...

snipped to save space and since much of it was unnecessary filler.

You are making a massive assumption in your statement if you truly believe it is out of ignorance or dishonestly.

The reason it is a laughable thing is because much like the concept of math, it is a cyclical argument.
Change the symbols and character all you wish, because the concept in itself is still the same.
It just wastes time and goes around in circles around an issue that needs to be dealt with directly.

Let alone that it makes little sense to demand a definition for competitiveness, and then within the same argument endorse an LGL.
Would you not need to create that definition before implementing such changes
?
You can't say "I approve the LGL, oh but we need to come up with a definition of competitiveness if you are trying to disprove it."
That just makes no sense, hell it makes even less sense considering it was outlined so clearly the issues with an LGL.

The best part is when it gets deleted.

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Ironically, I had just written a response to your post, and it all got deleted >_>

Saying never is a defeatist statement.

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I apologize. I normally don't like to make statements of certainty with words like "never", but I figured the chance of Ike getting banned in our community seemed very small, small enough that it never happening seemed exponentially more likely than it ever happening. You can change that never to a "very, very unlikely" if you'd like.

It is part of why it is so difficult to implement such a banning,because people may want to have it happen, but ultimately have given up on the attempt.
Let's not go for the next best thing when its more harmful.

Click to expand...

What exactly are you referring to, when you say "the next best thing"? I think I have an idea, but I'm not really sure if I've understood what you're saying clearly enough, and I don't want to misrepresent your argument, or take you out of context or anything. So elaborate or rephrase if you could?

Simply because the majority of the community agrees on something does not mean they are right, after all, that is how many of the stages in brawl were baned despite the legitimacy of them.

Click to expand...

I would say that I agree that there being a majority consensus does not indicate "right", although I would say that the majority is very often right when it comes to subjective matters like these, as when it comes to subjectivity, a majority of opinions is likely to lead to the best results.

As Olimar? There really was nothing he could have done since Olimar has a very hard time dealing with DK's planking.
It is basically, the same as DK having a difficult time with DDD.
Placing a limit buff's characters like Olimar and Falco.

Click to expand...

Oh, cool! No wonder people are lining up to play LGL-less Brawl, it has 2 characters potentially automatically unviable from tactics designed to run the clock out and take 8 minutes to finish a game!

That is a terrible argument because there is no such thing as unbeatable.

Click to expand...

gah, fine, "nearly unbeatable". If you add "nearly" before every time I said unbeatable in what I quoted, I believe the meaning of what I said pretty much remains the same. Is that satisfactory?

It is only when it is unreasonably difficult to win, that the entire game falls down to using a single character/strategy that a ban would be necessary.

Click to expand...

I do not agree with this. Why is that the only time we ban something? What is it about this that makes it the best course of action? Why does banning something ONLY when it makes it completely unreasonable to expect to be able to defeat it lead to the best results?

Or are we not going for the best results?

Olimar and Falco have isues with characters on the ledge, so what?

Click to expand...

This statement leaves out all of the extra information relevant to the question, and summarizes parts of the evidence in a very... concealing manner. And then asks what line of that that summary should lead to. Now I'm sure this wasn't your intention, but I can't answer this question in any way that will lead to anything good.

the only character that makes it a universal problem is the bat, every other character can be beaten when they begin to ledge stall.

Click to expand...

Except DK with Olimar?

A number is just a number, it is our interpretation that matters.
Simply because one grabbed the ledge 35 times does not mean they were stalling, let alone that it is flat out impossible to keep track of the number of times you grabbed the ledge in the middle of a game.

Ask any player in the middle of a set how many times they have grabbed the ledge in each match.

Click to expand...

So is your implied conclusion here that LGLs are bad, because it's unreasonable to keep track of them mid-match? Or have I misunderstood?

No it isn't, and you do not have any proof that an LGL is at all necessary outside of MetaKnight, who can circumvent it.

Click to expand...

and right here is exactly why we need to define "competitiveness", "good", and a few other things before this debate will get anywhere.

Again, people only want an LGL because it means that something is being done, even though it is the same as doing nothing at all.

Click to expand...

Oh the LGL doesn't accomplish anything? In 3 years that the LGL has been the standard, there must be many cases of someone planking out the timer in the same manner they would without an LGL, especially considering that in the past 2 major LGL-less tournaments, there has been a controversial incident involving planking.

So long as people see action, they'll be satisfied, even if it has absolutely NO effect on the issue.

Click to expand...

This truly is not the case.

You are not being disrespected nor is civility being lost.
Too sensitive bro.
My point still stands.

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I'm not being disrespected, you said that to BPC lol. I felt that what you said to BPC was borderline disrespectful, and was just saying we should tone down a bit.

Jesus christ asking to be respectful isn't being overly sensitive.

Yeah I suppose BPC's analogy wasn't all that great, but are you saying you don't get the concept behind it? If not, I could elaborate.

The reason it is a laughable thing is because much like the concept of math, it is a cyclical argument.
Change the symbols and character all you wish, because the concept in itself is still the same.
It just wastes time and goes around in circles around an issue that needs to be dealt with directly.

Click to expand...

Asking for definitions wastes time?

No.

What wastes time is sitting here having a discussion where what we mean, our ideas, etc are the important parts of the discussion, yet when we say a word, the other party interprets it as meaning something different, and vice versa.

That does literally nothing but waste time. If I understood, or defined competitiveness as "a squad of 3 or 5 ducks", and you meant it to be whatever it is you mean it to be, then our discussion will NEVER go anywhere. Literally. It has no where that it can go, as the words being used are understood as different things by the other party.

Of course that is a severe analogy, but the idea remains the same, and if you need more elaboration I'm free to do so. If I'm using competitiveness in a way that it means something different than what it means to you, and both of us have no idea that competitiveness means something different to the other person, this discussion will also go no where, almost exactly like the squad of ducks one.

Let alone that it makes little sense to demand a definition for competitiveness, and then within the same argument endorse an LGL.
Would you not need to create that definition before implementing such changes
?
You can't say "I approve the LGL, oh but we need to come up with a definition of competitiveness if you are trying to disprove it."
That just makes no sense, hell it makes even less sense considering it was outlined so clearly the issues with an LGL.

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What, it doesn't make sense to have an opinion of something?

Simply all I had done was have an opinion on an LGL, based on my understanding of what competitiveness, and good, mean. That's why it is CRUCIAL that I ask you what those words mean to YOU. If your meaning of that word is essentially different from my own, we could decide to use a different word for what I'm talking about, and the same word for what you are, or vice versa.

I'm not saying "I approve the LGL, oh but we need to come up with a definition of competitiveness if you are trying to disprove it," I'm saying "I approve the LGL based on my definition of competitiveness, and if we want to have a debate, we need to define this word, and the crucial words in defining it as well, before we continue to try and decide who is correct."

There's a very large difference. Not even a difference, they're simply different things. I apologize if I have not expressed what I meant clearly enough before now, but I believe now I have done so quite clearly, and this really comes down to 1 very large thing before we can even hope to proceed effectively. Actually, I would go as far to say don't respond to ANYTHING in my post other than the next line, and then after we settle what the corresponding debate is, we can try and settle the other things I've said here.


What does it mean to for something to be competitive? What do you mean by "competitiveness"?

Olimar's forward smash knocks Donkey Kong off the ledge if correctly timed right. It's possible, it just makes the match-up more difficult for Olimar.

Anyway, your claim that we should have a LGL so as not to invalidate Olimar and Falco in the community's eyes is exactly the kinds of double standards I am talking about. I could go on for paragraphs about how many characters are rendered unviable due to Dedede's chaingrab, but I think you get the picture.

Anyway, your claim that we should have a LGL so as not to invalidate Olimar and Falco in the community's eyes is exactly the kinds of double standards I am talking about.

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Actually I'm not saying that. But it is certainly a contributing factor among many.

It's not a really solid argument, but I don't want this game to become super ledge bros Brawl.
There is no competitive argument to allow LGL, but for the quality and popularity of the game, it's pretty much needed.

If people stopped being so scrubby and learnt how to counter it, it wouldn't be needed.

It's such a simple tactic to just go to the ledge, drop and do a move and regrab the ledge when considering it's so risky and hard to counter. It sucks.

That's the thing: It isn't that risky if you are a good player. Meta Knight, Marth and G&W are the only characters who you have to put yourself at risk to stop, and Marth/G&W have very linear predictable planking anyway.

Characters like Jigglypuff and R.O.B. have lots of options but also lots of weak-spots, effectively making it ledge-based combat. Which is A-Ok as far as I can see.

-LzR- said:

It's such a simple tactic to just go to the ledge, drop and do a move and regrab the ledge when considering it's so risky and hard to counter. It sucks.

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Sometimes the counter to something is more complicated than the tactic itself. A community not willing to make that effort looks a lot like casualfests with every effective projectile camper soft banned and little left but Marth vs. DK.

:sigh: Seriously. Theres shouldnt be a LGL. People need to learn how to deal with planking. People need to learn how to deal with the tactics. If it cant be beaten, then the character can be banned; the end. A lot of people simply dont practice dealing with planking with their said characters. They just look at it, complain about how gay it is (such a dumb term), and then go off and get owned. In fact people dont practice crap in this game. Our community is ridiculous, people who usually do the research suck and the people who are simply good at fighting games dont dive into the game and study EVERYTHING as they should.

I dont give a damn about people leaving the community because they dont want to figure out crap. Theres WAAAYYYY too many people like that. Go let them play Wifi or something. This game is way easy to give into "competitively" so a lot of people go to tournies, think they understand things then something comes along and they put NO effort into understanding it and they moan about it. Too many people *****ing about how bad a game Brawl is when they dont put in the effort to learn how to deal with things. That makes us no better than the shoryuken.com forum people who trash talk it all day. / rant

Seriously though; take off the LGL, let people figure out what to do. If it cant be beaten then ban who needs to be banned and lets move forward. This community stays in purgatory man i swear. I believe we are all here because we believe brawl is a competitive game right? then break it down as such and learn. Im tired of hearing ' oh thats gay.' and thats that. Like i know if Sonic could iSDR on every stage, this community would deem it the most broken thing ever, when its something thats easily stopped. Its sickening.

theunabletable said:

Having our country's best Olimar waste a week of his life, and $300, along with IIRC causing him (or contributing to, atleast. From what I remember, but it has been a little while so my memory's already a bit fuzzy haha) to take a pretty prolonged break from Smash, certainly isn't healthy for his community, and his.

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Trying to see why we should cater towards higher level players.......
I mean really, they're higher level players, they should be able to adapt.
You don't see people complaining when some mid level player gets ***** by his Olimar, but really why should we differentiate that, neither pivot grabbing repeatedly with Olimar or planking with DK is broken. Plus he knew there would be no LGL, we shouldn't be catering towards players who don't bother to prepare is what I'm saying.

In the end we can't call players not being good enough to win a tragedy (since planking is beatable, you can just time f-smashes properly >.> You don't have to jump off the stage to try to beast it like Rich did) The amount of money one spends shouldn't have any bearing on the ruleset either, that's just silly to take that into account.
If he doesn't want to go to a tournament where he can be planked he shouldn't go to a tournament where there's no LGL, but he did knowing full well what could result, and then complained when that did result >.>
If all the top players just refused to go to tournaments without LGLs or with rules changed that they didn't like we wouldn't have to worry about these "tragedies"

Grim Tuesday said:

That's the thing: It isn't that risky if you are a good player. Meta Knight, Marth and G&W are the only characters who you have to put yourself at risk to stop, and Marth/G&W have very linear predictable planking anyway.

Characters like Jigglypuff and R.O.B. have lots of options but also lots of weak-spots, effectively making it ledge-based combat. Which is A-Ok as far as I can see.

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And also, in 90% of scenarios, if the planker messes up they get stage spiked and put at a very bad position.