Originalist vs. Constructivist

I've hit on this before as a side item, but never took the time to make a post about the subjects at hand. Like it or not, you are part of what I'm about to say, and this might help you see where people are coming from. This was first introduced by KishPrime, who proposed these terms to be exchanged for the terms "liberal" and "conservative" (because technically they are backwards, as conservative is used to describe a group that often wants to ban the most things, when in reality a conservative would want to conserve aspects of the game)



The "Originalist" and "Constructivist" philosophy are two sides of the same coin. The goal for both is the same: to create a fun, balanced, and healthy game to play.

Originalist

The originalist is the philosophy I agree with personally. You'll obviously see some bias in the article because of it, but I'll do my best to be straightforward.

The Originalist wants to keep the game as intact as possible. They open the game, put in the disc, and say "Is this competitive?" and decide after if they need to change anything.

The originalist often goes against the grain of common thought, and opposes knee-jerk reactions vehemently. If there are ten counterpick stages that several characters have good win rates on, the originalist accepts this as the standard of the game rather than attempting to cut them out to make a more "50-50" matchup in all cases.

The originalist is strongly opposed to surgical changes as well; the originalist philosophy doesn't really accept surgical changes except in very very VERY odd circumstances. This means if Dedede can infinite 5 characters, the originalist accepts D3 as a hard counter to those characters and tells those 5 character mains that they need to deal with it.

The originalist also has an open mind when it comes to stages. Instead of banning every stage that might be a problem, they want to wait for actual problems in the tournament scene. If someone says "Hey... Onett is broken! You can just camp the edge and win that way!", the originalist challenges him to abuse this to its fullest. If it turns out to be broken it'll be obvious in the tournament scene quickly and we'll have enough data to justify a ban. If someone asks why a stage is banned, we can tell them. Whoever the person who discovered why it was broken wins some extra money, so there's built-in incentive for testing this stuff at a high level. It won't be someone winning a few friendlies; it'll be someone winning multiple tournament matches against people trying to beat it.

You know you're an originalist if:

-You saw a stage used well in a single tournament by the winning player, and said you needed to see it happen more than once to show it is broken

-you've tested stages like Onett, Shadow Moses, Hyrule Temple, Port Town Aero Dive, and other controversial stages just to see if they're as bad as people say they are

-Character-specific infinites, bad stages, etc., are all okay with you and considered an aspect of the matchup, just like priority, speed, or grab range.

Advantages to being an Originalist

-You're never far off the mark.

Seriously, you can't be if you stick to the philosophy. "Is it broken" isn't a question of debate but a question of action. The worst situation an Originalist can be in is if something is kind of dominant, but not over-encompassing; when this comes into play it is generally a value call, and that's foreign territory for most originalists.

-Your game ends up better than any game the Constructivist creation

Since the Originalist starts with a huge heap of clay and slowly takes away pieces at a time, they end up with a masterpiece by the time they're done. They never get any sudden realizations that they've created balance problems through the banning of stages, because they have tournament justification for their bans that have come about naturally. Nothing is removed unless necessary, and in the end everything that needs to be removed is removed.

Problems with Originalist philosophy

- It's slow

Very slow. Some people say "it's obvious that (stage) should be banned" and they could be right, but the originalist philosophy doesn't really allow for that. They require extensive testing of everything.

-It's unable to deal with close calls

Let's say we have a stage that Olimar never loses on, except against Metaknight, ROB, and Pikachu. Metaknight is able to run the timer on Olimar because this is a vertically themed stage, and ROB and pikachu can run away and out-spam Olimar's horizontal projectiles. This results in a match slightly favored towards MK, ROB, and Pika on this stage; every other matchup has a 90% win rate for Olimar (that is ridiculous, btw). Other than Olimar usage, there is no problems with this stage reported. This is an example of a close call. Should the stage be banned? Strong counterpicks are okay, after all. There's nothing inherently wrong with them; we have plenty. In addition to this, we have three clear winners vs. Olimar in this matchup, and one of them is the most common character in the game AND we don't have many Olimar mains out there abusing his dominance on this stage. People are crying out to ban this stage, but we have insufficient data because Olimar isn't a popular character at a high level of play and Olimar has yet to do well in a tournament solely because of this stage due to the high numbers of MKs able to beat him on this stage. What do we do? This creates a value judgement through a long series of debates, and is outside of the "comfort zone" of Originalist thought.

Constructivist

The constructivist comes at the game with a scalpel. They know the game can be better and intend to remove the fluff that creates unsatisfactory results.

The constructivist is a huge fan of surgical changes. If they see Dedede infinite DK, they wonder why anyone would ever allow that technique. It obviously eliminates DK from the game, so why not just ban it and allow DK to play in tournaments without this threat?

The constructivist doesn't necessarily do whatever knee-jerk reactions tell them to do, but they take notice of gut feelings, community outrage, and things that go against the grain of what they feel is competitive. While pictochat's hazards may have no outcome change to a series of sets, they may be unacceptable to a constructivist because they do not fit the standard of play on other stages. While the klap trap on Japes comes on a strict timer, the constructivist may not believe that timing the klap trap is a skill we should ever be tested on.

The constructivist has a very close-minded approach to stages. Instead of taking the originalist approach of "Does this stage take away anything from the tournament scene", the constructivist asks "What does this stage add to the tournament scene". There may be no problems with a stage like PS2 in tournament; it could have consistent results, a clear and obvious pattern, and no balance complaints. This doesn't stop a constructivist from saying "Why should we be playing in zero gravity, on ice, and on conveyor belts?" and banning the stage because it doesn't add substance to their idea of balance.

You know you're a constructivist if:

-You have a strong distaste for isolated anomalies. Character specific infinites are a big no-no for you.

-You have no problem removing bits and pieces from the game if you feel it causes a problem; if the solution doesn't work, you just remove more later until you hit the sweet spot and the problem (whether it is planking, time outs, infinites, whatever) is resolved.

Advantages to being a Constructivist

-It's fast

Real fast. Within a week you can remove everything from a game you don't like and have a solid competitive game to play. There's no need for extensive testing or heaps of evidence; if you know about it, you know about it.

-It's the winning side

When something is effective, people hate it. When people hate something, they want it removed. This leads to many situations where constructivists have the ability to "do something" when it comes to an issue, and the majority won't raise their voices until long after the ban has been made. You could have 0 instances of planking winning a tournament in your region, but a TO could add a planking rule because he doesn't want that skill to be tested; the odds of that rule being removed are slim to none.

-It can deal with close calls

Hell, it can deal with them BEFORE they're close calls. If something becomes a problem but it isn't a HUGE problem, the originalist bites his nails in anticipation while the constructivist says "Why don't we just ban it? It's obviously a problem if it's up for discussion like this"

Problems with being a Constructivist

-The risks outweigh the rewards

When you ban something early, you're taking a gamble. You're proclaiming that you know enough about that to know it is bad, and it needs to be removed. More often than not you're wrong, and when you're right you'll never even really know for sure. The "risk" with this is that you could inadvertantly destroy the game via a snowball effect and not see it coming. A recent phenomenon has been the reduction of the starter stage numbers; instead of the 9 we had in the beginning, we have 5, and three of those are Battlefield, Smashville, and Final Destination. Many top tier characters, including Diddy, Falco, and ICs, use those stages as counterpicks. This results in those characters getting two counterpicks every set they play, regardless of stage strike and bans, and can be a huge balancing issue. Many TOs using this will not change this quickly, regardless of the obvious issue with it. This could have already altered our tournament scene, and I believe it has contributed tremendously to the results of Diddy, Falco, and ICs. Just imagine if our three starters were Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise, and Smashville. Do you think Metaknight and Wario would go up on the tier list? Would Falco and ICs and Diddy go down?

-You're game is inferior to the Originalist creation

In the short term, the constructivist creation will nearly always be closer to the final rule set of a game than an originalist one. In the long term though, the constructivist creation is often missing crucial details and elements in a rule set that are incredibly important, and the bans they make shift the game in a specific direction.

A hypothetcial example would be if we decided chain grabs and tech chases were "too broken" early in the game when Dedede was dominating. People claimed his down-throw was too easy to use, even on non CGable characters due tech chase. If we had banned the technique of using two consecutive grabs, we'd have never gotten things like Falco's chaingrab, D3's chaingrab, pika's buffered d-throw chaingrabs, Wario infinites, Wario d-throw infinites, Snake's d-throw tech chase, any wall grab infinites (like Ike's), and would have shifted the metagame of today. Falco would be much lower on the tier list, D3 mains would be non-existant, Snake would be much weaker vs. characters like ROB or Olimar, etc., etc.

-You can't unban something

Well, you can, but it's hard. Once something is banned people often don't want to go back to it. That's a huge problem when your philosophy dictates that you remove problems as they come up.

-There's no universal "this is competitive" mindset

This is the worst problem with constructivist philosophy. Two people can have the same mindset, but one can think that something is completely unnecessary in the tournament scene while others don't have a problem with it. This creates a clash of interests. Originalists don't have this, and instead clash over the interpretation of data. Over the course of time, originalists will generally get enough data to sway one side over the other. Constructivists do not. If one feels that infinites are anti-competitive because you can't do anything once you're in their grasp, but another feels they are only anti-competitive if they are near impossible to avoid, you have a clashing of values that can never be resolved.




Conclusion

Like it or not, you're somewhere inbetween those two camps. It might be a good idea when debating with someone to recognize where they're coming from. If someone is an originalist, try to discuss with them the data they're presenting and explain to them what will happen if they get their way and what will happen when you get your way. Showing two potential paths to an originalist will allow them to analyze data to see if your predictions are correct, and if it makes a better game he should be all for it. If someone is a constructivist, try to isolate any individual thoughts on balance they have and argue those rather than the technique. If someone is arguing to ban ICs chain grabs, you'll never convince them not to ban it because it isn't broken; it doesn't matter to them. It's a problem, and if it wasn't they wouldn't hate it. Instead approach it in a fashion that allows them to explain why they hate infinites and debate from there. If it's a value clash, you can't change much.

Good Read OverSwarm. Nicely Phrased for the 2 sides

Sounds like I'm an orginalists. Pro banners of MK would be constructivists. *cough cough*

That's not necessarily true. I'm a strict originalist, and feel there has been more than enough evidence to ban him.

In addition to this, I was able to make the value judgement when MK's dominance was less than it is now.

This isn't the thread to talk about MK being banned (Especially since OS is pro-ban. <_<)

Eh, I seem to be in the middle road, though I'm looking to be more of an originalist than Constructivist. If anything though, I'm a realist.

Legalize Green Greens, you anticompetitive constructivist noobs.

CaliburChamp said:

Sounds like I'm an orginalists. Pro banners of MK would be constructivists. *cough cough*

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That's not true; wanting to ban something isn't necessarily a constructivist act.

An originalist would believe there is sufficient evidence that the game is worse off if it is not removed and that he will continue to increase in metagame domination and more importantly that sufficient evidence has been collected to demonstrate this.

A constructivist might want MK banned because "he's obviously too gay".

On the other hand, an originalist might not want MK banned because he believes that there is sufficient evidence that he is beatable at top level.

And a constructivist might not want MK banned because their personal philosophy bars banning a character and they'd rather make up a bunch of arbitrary rules to limit planking/scrooging/IDC/aircamping instead of removing the character.

I think I'm an Originalist

Just because I like to test why a certain character is broken

I'm definately an origonalist.
For the record, in your "Close Call", I would keep the stage unbanned.

For even more of a record, I find anyone that is pro-MK ban to be a constructivist. Melee is still evolving after all these years, so Brawl is easily still in its infancy. You're all being too hasty with MK. MK places high because hes good, not broken. This isn't like Pokemon where like 60% of all people used Garchomp, no, its not that bad. If it ever gets that bad, go ahead and ban MK, but until then, you're being too hasty.

UltiMario said:

For even more of a record, I find anyone that is pro-MK ban to be a constructivist.

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Stop being stereotypical.

I'm not being stereotypical, I'm telling the truth.

****

I would definately be an originalist. Slow and steady and all that.

UltiMario said:

I'm not being stereotypical, I'm telling the truth.

****

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I'm pro-ban and am basically the originalist poster child.

My outlook has grown to be a kinda funny one.

I in the end consider constructionism the best approach to make the best game, but I believe it's only true if we use all tools. To cut to the chase, the game simply has to be hacked for constructionism to work. By doing things like removing infinites from the game (as opposed to banning them), making low tier characters actually better, and making more stages more fair, it seems obvious to me the game can be better than it is in its default state. I mean, who could honestly suggest we couldn't make the game better by buffing Ganondorf and Captain Falcon? There's a risk in incompetent game design making a worse game, but I feel I'm intelligent enough at least on my own to avoid that. I honestly can't see the logical reason a constructionist could oppose this either; making our own game with rules seems to be a just plain weaker approach to me than making the game with hacking. We agree to make the game on our own; I'm merely saying we need stronger tools that avoid the fuzzy enforcment situations and can accomplish more.

However, I see the political disadvantages to hacking the game, and I generally view originalist as the clear best approach to working with an unhacked game. Constructionism with rules creates a lot of problems, mostly just making a worse game, but also making an inconsistent game. I think there have been many tournaments that ban King Dedede's standing chaingrab on Mario, Luigi, Samus, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. I can easily list the myriad ways this is inconsistent. For one, it doesn't address his walk forward chaingrab (which is similar in principle to his Bowser one in the sense that King Dedede moves forward but not as far as running) which works against Wolf and himself. Against himself it really doesn't matter too much, but isn't this really unfair to Wolf? We added a rule to specifically make King Dedede easier to handle for Donkey Kong, but Wolf who was in a somewhat less bad situation but still worse than usual situation ends up worse off. The second issue is that the cg isn't a practical infinite against Mario, Luigi, and Samus. They can mash out of it except at very high damage, and the rule encourages them not to master an element of the game. The third issue is that tons of abuse that is just as devastating is not banned usually. In particular, Marth and Charizard have a horribly crippling chaingrab against Ness and Lucas. Ness is just as good as Donkey Kong, and Lucas is just as good as Bowser. It's really just unpopularity on the side of Ness and Lucas that results in this inconsistent ruleset; the rules are crafted to save Donkey Kong and leave Ness out to dry. Even if you address this, you have Pikachu vs Fox or Ganon vs Ice Climbers which get harder and harder to rulecraft to fix; the situation is really an unavoidable mess with a constructionist approach. I don't even think an originalist approach creates an immediately bad game; even if you get cp'd to Mario Circuit by King Dedede as Lucario, is the game suddenly trash? I really don't think so...

Garchomp shouldn't have been banned in Pokemon; he was barely more used than someone like Gengar. Neither should Wobbuffet, Wynaut, or Deoxys-E; they weren't even used very much just hated (Wobbuffet and Wynaut were literally UU Pokemon when they were banned again). For that matter, Pokemon rules in the first place just presumed a wide class of broken Pokemon. From day one with zero testing, Mewtwo, Mew, Wobbuffet, Wynaut, Lugia, Ho-oh, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Deoxys (all forms, which are all different Pokemon), Latios, Latias, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Darkrai, and Arceus were banned by the Pokemon community (and as soon as he was introduced in Emerald, Giratina-o was also banned with no testing). That is a very large number of Pokemon that really should have been given a chance to balance each other out as the core metagame in the beginning, and the ultimate way they decide on their rules is popularity. In terms of good rule making, Pokemon is a very difficult game to handle for a lot of reasons, but in the end, their approach is a severe constructionist one that I strongly feel the smash community should not emulate or look to for examples in any way whatsoever.

Praxis said:

Legalize Green Greens, you anticompetitive constructivist noobs.

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Yes!

I'm probably an orginalist.

the thing with pokemon (iirc) is that pokemon is a game of numbers, and all of the stats for those pokemon are readily available, easy to research, and completely set themselves apart from the rest of the cast.

was it constuctive? yes. Was it better for the pokemon community? I dunno, I'm not a part of it, I'm just going on what i've heard.

i do know that akuma in super street fighter 2 turbo was banned without any tournament play because his stats were clear and concise (possibly like the pokemon if i'm right). the thing with brawl is that MetaKnight's brokenness isn't clear and concise... but the reasons for that are because people don't want to pick up MetaKnight just to win, the people who do play metaKnight don't necessarily use all the cheap tactics at his disposal due to social issues, and the rules, although they aren't clear on not using the cheap tactics, deter from metaknights using those cheap tactics.

There was never a real test of whether the "ubers" should have just been standards themselves in Pokemon. There are stats available, but they aren't really even the end-all for decisions (going by stats, Wobbuffet was probably not even good, let alone broken).

In ST, Akuma is not only very obviously broken in a way demonstratable very quickly with things like infinite fireball traps and totally insurmountable zoning (he is a million times better than every other character and has a few attributes that are very obviously broken), but he is literally just a better version of Ryu who is already a high tier character. Seriously, Akuma is just Ryu with no super (the only real downside), way better fireballs that create literally infinite blockstrings, a f1 Shoryuken (which is like Ken's and prevents safe jumps on him), better normals, and an extra special move in the form of a totally broken air fireball. On some level, there is an obviousness principle I'll agree with. Akuma just obviously has to be banned, and he doesn't really need much testing.

In Brawl, Temple should obviously be a banned stage. I can demonstrate countless 100-0 matchups on the stage (as in one side at a high level has a substantially less than 1% chance of winning on the stage). We don't need a tournament with Temple legal; it's just trivial to show how broken it is. However, Temple is extreme. Then you have Flat Zone 2. There are a lot of ways it's easy to see it causing problems, but it is actually broken? I'm not sure that's so obvious, and I think it was just robbed of testing it deserved. By the time you get to stages like Norfair, you reach stages I'm convinced have proven themselves not broken, and therein lies the big battleground for stage legality. So yeah, there is an obviousness principle, but it is necessarily extremely limited.

I'm an Originalist when it comes to stages (Anybody who wants Green Greens or Pirate Ship banned is a scrub and needs to learn how to play the game. ), a Constructivist when it comes to banning characters (>_> <_< Screw MK, the tournament scene will be healthier with him gone, who cares if he's actually bannable as a character or not), and somewhere inbetween when it comes to rules outside of stages and banning characters, but leaning towards Constructivist. (Ban Planking and Scrooging, items should be banned though I would be fine with Food and a few other things on low, there is nothing wrong with water camping however as it's very beatable for most characters.)

AKA: I'm weird.

First of all, congrats to OS for pressing a particular point of view by convincing people to pigeonhole themselves into one of two stereotyped mindsets - as though the ideas presented in them are mutually exclusive and complete. There are not only mindsets halfway between the extremes but also mindsets which are not covered by either category.

Anyway, here's my view on the matter:

I see no reason to regard what the company shipped, and especially not the permission to use the full range of options contained inside it, as sacred. In the case of Smash, competitive players just don't - we ban every item selection in the item switch list, and we ban what, a little more than half of the stages? With only a few allowed in game 1? We also ban the choice of coin matches and free for alls, and we standardize the number of stocks per game. We ban the choice of any of the various Special Brawl options (in principle, we could allow "heavy brawl on Japes" to be a counterpick choice. How's that for lols?)

Why do we remove stuff? Well, because it's the easiest thing to do in order to improve and standardize the game. Until Brawl, hacking just wasn't sophisticated enough to seriously consider adding brand new content.

But that actually didn't stop us from adding things to the game, either. See counterpicking, which adds quite a few rules to the game. Also, we use a timer for stock games, yet we ignore the Sudden Death which is created by the timer.

We even have rules to regulate specific actions mid game. (all of them target an unnamed character's ability to abuse some of the other rules we've created, but that's a different debate entirely).

My point is, the current status quo is not "originalist" in any way, and neither should it be. The status quo itself should not be regarded as any more sacred than the game which we've already twisted into the form it's in right now, either. Let the new rules fly, I say. We wouldn't have a game as good as the one we're playing if conservatives had kept items on, or refused to let stages be banned. Or kept all the char... oh wait.

Afraid of a bad rule being implemented that removes something in the game that actually was good? Consider hacking projects. Once a change is in the game, there's no guarantee it's staying. Stuff gets scrapped all the time if it proves not to actually help.

In principle I strongly support hacked versions of the game, but the problem of lack of standardization and feature creep keep me away from any of the projects out now. Balanced Brawl would have been amazing if it actually kept itself limited to merely balancing Brawl, but it's VERY hard for a project to resist further improvements once it opens itself to the possibility.


So there you go, a slightly more favorable representation of one of the possible liberal views of rulesets than the one which claims adherence to "originalist" ideas will make it so "Your game ends up better than any game the Constructivist creation."

Hacking the game doesn't factor into the mindsets presented. This is about balancing a game, not creating one.

You used the wrong expression Amazing Ampharos. Pokemon is my thing. Now to crush your expression.

Amazing Ampharos said:

There was never a real test of whether the "ubers" should have just been standards themselves in Pokemon. There are stats available, but they aren't really even the end-all for decisions (going by stats, Wobbuffet was probably not even good, let alone broken).
extremely limited.

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-There are many things like Kyogre's amazing base 150 SpA, or Arceus' highest BST in the game make them clealy Uber. They didn't need tests, they clearly has the potential to sweep and wall the entire OU Metagame with ONE moveset, such as "Ultimate Killer" Arceus, which would only lose in OU against an entire team of Scarfed Extremespeed resistors.

-Wob is banned because it is JUST BARELY fast enough to outspeed every Major wall at max speed as compared to most used sets. It can Encore, then switch out into something to set up, and get FREE KILLS, Wobuffet is not banned in its own regard of Countercoating and walling, but the immense support it brings to its team allowing FREE SWEEPS. Shadow Tag is THE best ability in the game. END OF STORY.

Amazing Ampharos said:

Garchomp shouldn't have been banned in Pokemon; he was barely more used than someone like Gengar.

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Last time I checked, Garchomp was used on 42% of all teams in the OU teir at his peak. Also, "Barely used more" is a HUGE understatement. Garchomp consistantly has 20,000 uses more than Gengar who was #2, and Chomp has consistantly 40,000 more uses than the 3rd place. According to the character ranking list, but dividing MK's points by the point total between all characters, MK gets about 26% of all wins. Garchomp was definately across the line of getting banned. MK, not so much, the Pokemon's current largest threat, Scizor, even has more usages than MK, and is not banned!

Amazing Ampharos said:

Neither should Wobbuffet, Wynaut, or Deoxys-E; they weren't even used very much just hated (Wobbuffet and Wynaut were literally UU Pokemon when they were banned again)..

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Wob was banned for being able to come in just about anytime he wanted. Trap with Shadow Tag. Encore. POSSIBLY Destiny Bond or CounterCoat, but more probably, encore a non-damaging move, and get a free switch in, and get a free, say, Dragon Dance in. Wynaut was grandfathered into Ubers, and is quite consistance with Wob in terms of brokeness, but being slower and more frail, is currently being looked at again to see if it can be undone to OU. Also, this is like Diddy Kong. It doesn't matter that only a few People were using them, its that they were being used AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF PLAY EFFECIENTLY AND WINNING BECAUSE OF THEM AND THEM ALONE.

For Deoxys-E, I was not really into the competative scene in early D/P, I sorta went from 3rd Gen -> Late D/P, right before Chomp was banned really. But from what I've heard, Deoxys-E was just too fast, it was the ultimate lead, it was the ONLY lead. Heck, its the MOST USED LEAD IN UBERS TODAY because its so good. Being able to set up Stealth Rock, Spikes, AND Taunt the foe without ANY risks because you outspeed EVERYTHING in the tier barring a Ninjask after a speed boost (Which doesn't really matter anyway) is just too good.

Amazing Ampharos said:

For that matter, Pokemon rules in the first place just presumed a wide class of broken Pokemon. From day one with zero testing, Mewtwo, Mew, Wobbuffet, Wynaut, Lugia, Ho-oh, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Deoxys (all forms, which are all different Pokemon), Latios, Latias, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Darkrai, and Arceus were banned by the Pokemon community (and as soon as he was introduced in Platinum, Giratina-o was also banned with no testing).

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Mewtwo and Mew were Uber EASILY since RBY, Lugia is one of the greatest walls in the game, Ho-oh a beastly physical attacker, the rediculously high stats going into the Base 150s of Groudon and Kyogre, their stat up moves Bulk Up and Calm Mind respectively, and infinate Sun/Rain make them the strongest in the Uber tier, Kyogre even has over 50% of usage in Ubers currently! Besides, you have to agknowlege when a Pokemon game comes out, Pokemon have to be put in a proposed tier first, and monsters like this with immmense power are predicted in Ubers, which they've proved to be amazing there. Rayquaza has a similar story, but with ruining weather rather than introducing it. Normal Forme Doexys and Attack Forme are the same story, frail, but powerful sweepers, with priority attacks so they don't get ruined by prioirty itself. Deoxys D is currently the only Deoxys forme being considered to OU, but it'll probably never get down there, it'll definately get testing, as al suspects have, but it won't fall I'm 90% sure. Dialga and Pakia are just insane, resist everything, and are just gods in Ubers. Theres no testing even NEEDED for them. Darkrai having an 80% accurate sleep move, an ability to hurt sleepers, amazing special attack and speed..... no testing is EVER needed. And once again, Arcues can LITERALLY sweep an OU team that isn't deisngned to take out Arcues and Arcues ONLY. Giratina-O simply being a Giratina-A with less bulk, more power, and enougn Bulk in the first place, making it an excellent physical, special, and mixed sweeper, which can also tank hits VERY well.

Now, for Latias... Latias is OU. Dumb****.
For Latios. Latios, like Garchomp, Shaymin-S, Wob, Deoxys-S, and a few others, went though suspect. Each of them came to the same conclusion after MONTHS of testing: These Pokemon are ALL too strong for the OU Metagame. They Sweep/Support so well that you have to base entire teams around handling a single one of them, and still that may not be enough. They break the metagame becase of the extreme ease to take down any team lacking one of these Pokemon, and a reliable counter for it.

Amazing Ampharos said:

That is a very large number of Pokemon that really should have been given a chance to balance each other out as the core metagame in the beginning, and the ultimate way they decide on their rules is popularity. In terms of good rule making, Pokemon is a very difficult game to handle for a lot of reasons, but in the end, their approach is a severe constructionist one that I strongly feel the smash community should not emulate or look to for examples in any way whatsoever.

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Some Pokemon didn't need to even be tested because you could see that once a Kyogre got a single Calm mind it, it could take down everything in OU without even trying, or how Giratina-O can sweep the whole tier AND wall the whole tier at the same time. Unlike Smash, we can do calculations and we can predict with a decent accuracy how a Pokemon will influence a tier. In the end, the tier list would look EXACTLY the same, it just would've take 50x longer the way you want it.


Pretty much. Don't make ****ing arguements unless you know what the ****ing you're talking about. Unlike Meta Knight, Garchomp could switch in, and it was pretty much GG unless you had Weavile, ScarfGar, or Mamoswine to revenge kill. You CAN beat MK much more than you can beat Garchomp. 3/100-ish Pokemon that were POSSIBLY EVEN VIABLE in OU could beat Chomp, which is SIGNIGICANTLY SMALLER than anything we can muster with a much smaller roster. And remember, you had to deal with Chomp AND THE OTHER 5 POKEMON WITH IT. They PROVED THIS. They didn't MAKE THESE FROM SCRATCH. It took months and months, and even years for some Pokemon to get banned. They didn't look at this like building a new game, they could were able to systematically approach this. They took this pretty much as slow as possible so every ban is justified, as every unban. Pokemon is one of the slowest metagames to develop because they go through the trouble to use MONTHS of testing MULTIPLE times to justify a ban. This is not a constructionist effort. This is an Originalist one. I highly recommend the HUGE example Pokemon has set forth. They're MUCH more patient than we are, thats for sure. They have to handle 493+, we've got a mere 39.


Edit: Made some edits, added quite a bit to the last paragraph for clarification.

Overswarm said:

The originalist is strongly opposed to surgical changes as well; the originalist philosophy doesn't really accept surgical changes except in very very VERY odd circumstances. This means if Dedede can infinite 5 characters, the originalist accepts D3 as a hard counter to those characters and tells those 5 character mains that they need to deal with it.

The originalist also has an open mind when it comes to stages. Instead of banning every stage that might be a problem, they want to wait for actual problems in the tournament scene. If someone says "Hey... Onett is broken! You can just camp the edge and win that way!", the originalist challenges him to abuse this to its fullest. If it turns out to be broken it'll be obvious in the tournament scene quickly and we'll have enough data to justify a ban. If someone asks why a stage is banned, we can tell them. Whoever the person who discovered why it was broken wins some extra money, so there's built-in incentive for testing this stuff at a high level. It won't be someone winning a few friendlies; it'll be someone winning multiple tournament matches against people trying to beat it.

You know you're an originalist if:

-You saw a stage used well in a single tournament by the winning player, and said you needed to see it happen more than once to show it is broken


-Character-specific infinites, bad stages, etc., are all okay with you and considered an aspect of the matchup, just like priority, speed, or grab range.



Nothing is removed unless necessary, and in the end everything that needs to be removed is removed.








-You can't unban something

Well, you can, but it's hard. Once something is banned people often don't want to go back to it. That's a huge problem when your philosophy dictates that you remove problems as they come up.

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Good read OS!
Okay so everything in BOLD sounds like me. So I must be Oringinalist.

And, the stuff in RED is stupid. I'd luv for stages like Distant Planet or Green Greens to be unbanned or DDD's infinite to be unbanned (so DDD's don't have to small step).

I do know what I'm talking about. Do you think I have the word "Ampharos" in my name because I never played Pokemon? I was around in Pokemon; I don't play the game anymore because I couldn't reconcile myself with the community and their rule policies. I really don't want to drag this off topic, but I can sum up the error you're making really easily. This is a question of baseline. You assume a certain power level (the power level of the current OU metagame) is the "baseline", and any one Pokemon that is too good at that power level needs to be banned. However, there are so many "uber" Pokemon that one might ask if the community simply placed the bar too low. Maybe "uber" should be the standard level of power, and only Pokemon broken at that power level should be banned. Maybe this means no Pokemon should be banned at all, or maybe only 1-2 Pokemon really need to be banned. The community is so closed-minded; they never explored this. They also never explored whether OHKO moves or evasion moves were actually broken; they just kinda assumed they were. High level play barely even exists in Pokemon, and the real reason Wobbuffet was banned was that most influential people thought the style of gameplay he promoted was "gay" so they refused to use him even when he was legal, and they just kept saying he was broken despite being able to generate zero proof. It's actually exactly what some smash players do about some stages, come to think about it. I don't see a big difference between "Wobbuffet is gay" and "Norfair is gay".

The numbers trick you used for Garchomp was also really weak; how lowly do you think of the average reader of that post to fall for that? That is intellectually dishonest to the extreme, and you should be ashamed for making this argument since it's basically deliberate fraud. You used a percentage for Garchomp and then an absolute value to describe Gengar's placement relative to Garchomp probably because 20000 is a big sounding number. You never mentioned the total number of usages nor the percentage worth of #2 so really you provided no information about how much less Gengar was used. I don't deny that Garchomp was on a whole lot of teams, but Gengar was not on that many fewer teams. I am not going to bother looking it up, but I think it was something like 35-40% of teams Gengar was on at the time. 35-40% versus 42% is not that big. Also, when Wobbuffet was used he ranked in very low OU or UU every month, and to my knowledge only one notable player actually used him (imperfectluck). No one actually tried to counter him; losing badly to imperfectluck and not building new teams to deal with him made their case seem better. Contrary to what your post is saying, I was actually around and actually do know what was going on; you're not going to fool me with numbers tricks or things like that.

If you want to continue this, let's take it to PM, but please don't use intellectually dishonest numbers tricks like that, and please try to be a little more open minded. Unwritten assumptions to reasoning are the main reason Pokemon's ruleset could ever look so attractive; we don't want that and don't need that here in smash. Honestly, the main reason I care so much about arguing for stuff in smash is because I don't want it to turn out like Pokemon. I feel like I was a failure in instituting positive change in the Pokemon community, and I hope I can do my part to prevent smash from seeing the same fate.

Off topic.
Hey, AA I just realized that our post count is the SAME. lol.
1,358

AA, theres a Pokemon forum on Smashboards for a reason.

If I alone can't beat sense into you, then maybe they can. Also, the reason why Gengar was so high? Scarfgar, Hidden Power Ice, to COUNTER Garchomp. Gengar's numbers were only up there to counter Garchomp. Oh, and by the way, Gengar's numbers were around 29% of all teams, 20,000 makes a lot of difference when its out of 287,000 matches. Its like something rising up because they have a decent matchup against MK, but a lot worse.

For Wob, it's like ADHD, AA.

It takes one amazing player to change everything.

For Ubers in general.... There is a EASY line... when you can tell BST suddenly jump..... every single stat skyrockets... and also... Ubers tend to be version legendaries, making them even easier to spot. Ubers mean that they're stronger than all the average Pokemon and a single Uber can easily take on an entire team of conventional Pokemon with ease. Thats why we have the Uber Tier, and the Uber Metagame. They have their own metagame. Its not liked they're banned from Pokemon alltogether like Meta Knight would.

You just can't compare.

Amazing Ampharos said:

I do know what I'm talking about. Do you think I have the word "Ampharos" in my name because I never played Pokemon? I was around in Pokemon; I don't play the game anymore because I couldn't reconcile myself with the community and their rule policies. I really don't want to drag this off topic, but I can sum up the error you're making really easily. This is a question of baseline. You assume a certain power level (the power level of the current OU metagame) is the "baseline", and any one Pokemon that is too good at that power level needs to be banned. However, there are so many "uber" Pokemon that one might ask if the community simply placed the bar too low. Maybe "uber" should be the standard level of power, and only Pokemon broken at that power level should be banned. Maybe this means no Pokemon should be banned at all, or maybe only 1-2 Pokemon really need to be banned. The community is so closed-minded; they never explored this. They also never explored whether OHKO moves or evasion moves were actually broken; they just kinda assumed they were. High level play barely even exists in Pokemon, and the real reason Wobbuffet was banned was that most influential people thought the style of gameplay he promoted was "gay" so they refused to use him even when he was legal, and they just kept saying he was broken despite being able to generate zero proof. It's actually exactly what some smash players do about some stages, come to think about it. I don't see a big difference between "Wobbuffet is gay" and "Norfair is gay".

The numbers trick you used for Garchomp was also really weak; how lowly do you think of the average reader of that post to fall for that? That is intellectually dishonest to the extreme, and you should be ashamed for making this argument since it's basically deliberate fraud. You used a percentage for Garchomp and then an absolute value to describe Gengar's placement relative to Garchomp probably because 20000 is a big sounding number. You never mentioned the total number of usages nor the percentage worth of #2 so really you provided no information about how much less Gengar was used. I don't deny that Garchomp was on a whole lot of teams, but Gengar was not on that many fewer teams. I am not going to bother looking it up, but I think it was something like 35-40% of teams Gengar was on at the time. 35-40% versus 42% is not that big. Also, when Wobbuffet was used he ranked in very low OU or UU every month, and to my knowledge only one notable player actually used him (imperfectluck). No one actually tried to counter him; losing badly to imperfectluck and not building new teams to deal with him made their case seem better. Contrary to what your post is saying, I was actually around and actually do know what was going on; you're not going to fool me with numbers tricks or things like that.

If you want to continue this, let's take it to PM, but please don't use intellectually dishonest numbers tricks like that, and please try to be a little more open minded. Unwritten assumptions to reasoning are the main reason Pokemon's ruleset could ever look so attractive; we don't want that and don't need that here in smash. Honestly, the main reason I care so much about arguing for stuff in smash is because I don't want it to turn out like Pokemon. I feel like I was a failure in instituting positive change in the Pokemon community, and I hope I can do my part to prevent smash from seeing the same fate.

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The thing is... pokemon separates their metagame into tiers and each tier has play, so nothing is banned outright. Yes OU is the most used tier, but that's only because it's the most interesting metagame, otherwise people would just play ubers.



So, what's wrong with setting a baseline for power for each of the tiers and then running off it? If ubers gets too large, they can adjust the baseline up, but in general there's a very large divide between ubers and OU, so adjusting the baseline up tends to overcentralize unless you include... well the entire uber tier in OU.

ITT: amazing ampharos gets schooled by someone who's better than him at pokemon

Dekar173 said:

ITT: amazing ampharos gets schooled by someone who's better than him at pokemon

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sorry AA, but I lol'd

Good read OS.

Why not balance the two?

It depends on the original balance... e.g. you could make a better case for "reconstructing" Brawl than Melee.

john! said:

Why not balance the two?

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That's basically a Realist.

Dekar173 said:

ITT: amazing ampharos gets schooled by someone who's better than him at pokemon

Click to expand...

Absolutely correct.

john! said:

Why not balance the two?

It depends on the original balance... e.g. you could make a better case for "reconstructing" Brawl than Melee.

Click to expand...

HeroMystic said:

That's basically a Realist.

Click to expand...

-.-
What HeroMystic said.

john! said:

avatar combining the Bayeaux tapestry and Wombo Combo

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I just noticed your avatar turned the Bayeaux tapestry into Wombo Combo. That's awesome.


OS' Originalist argument is pretty convincing- but I agree that being a Realist is the best solution. A strict Originalist would oppose banning items, while a Realist would do the easier, more popular, and seemingly "better" thing and ban them anyway, simply because he doesn't want to deal with them and neither do most players. I would define a Realist as an Originalist who does the popular rather than "right" thing, but doesn't go as far as a Constructivist.

I wouldn't go that far: A realist wouldn't always cave into the popular demand, he'd instead tip the positive/negative scale and see which is the best choice, or do the Originalist's idea and gather information.

Taking the middle road isn't always the best road. Sometimes the extremes of an originalist or constructivist are needed. For instance, I don't think a realist would be able to handle the MK ban. I know I certainly can't.

I'm definitely originalist.

I'm a Constructivist.

**** infinites.

I'm an Originalist with some Constructivist tendencies.

UltiMario said:

Also, the reason why Gengar was so high? Scarfgar, Hidden Power Ice, to COUNTER Garchomp. Gengar's numbers were only up there to counter Garchomp. Oh, and by the way, Gengar's numbers were around 29% of all teams, 20,000 makes a lot of difference when its out of 287,000 matches.

Click to expand...

Did you look at any of the statistics from July-October 2008? If Gengar was only used to check Garchomp, why was it still #1 in usage in the Suspect Ladder in August 2008, where Garchomp wasn't allowed? Why has it still never dropped below #12 in usage in the Standard Ladder since, even though Garchomp was banned from OU over a year ago? Gengar is a great Pokemon regardless of Garchomp's tier position, and you and I both know the only reason Gengar even dropped down from #2 in usage after September was because Platinum introduced Bullet Punch Scizor (who was basically built to exterminate Gengar) and Rotom-A (who pretty much usurps Gengar's role on teams that need a Rapid Spin blocker).

UltiMario said:

Its like something rising up because they have a decent matchup against MK, but a lot worse.

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Your example would make more sense if it were an obscure Pokemon like, say, Cloyster, moving up into OU because "it can switch into an EQ/Outrage and kill Garchomp with Ice Shard" and then going back to UU after Garchomp got banned. A better example would be comparing Gengar to Snake, and then having some Brawl DLC that gives, say, Toon Link, a Goron Tunic that makes him immune to any attacks that do fire based damage (like Snake's grenades/nikita/C4). Either way though, comparing Brawl tiers to Pokemon tiers isn't a good idea in general due to the way they are made

Also, there's no need to be so rude, UltiMario. I get that you don't agree with what AA is saying at all, but that doesn't justify your swearing and namecalling :/

interesting read. provides some very good perspective, for sure.

I hope no-one takes the "versus" title seriously. The two perspectives aren't on equal ground. The originalist viewpoint is simply the correct one, and constructionist is simply the wrong one.

A reason why brawl plus fails alot.
They gave lucario 2x up b's. Yet pit up B is still the same.
There is no sweet spotting the ledge so, if pit up B, he flies past it and get jabbed or tapped.
Lucario now doesn't go into special fall state after the Up B. Pit on the other hand stays the same.


They personalized so many things to make it a game they wanted it to be, but didn't pay attention to quite punishing details.

They can simply turn sweet spotting on but that would kill their original intention of punishing recoveries.
They can modify pit's Up B to be used again after being hit, but that would make his recovery far broken because of a coding needed to fix his ( jump attack, up b attack, jump attack, up B attack etc.)

Next would've been a rob for his UP b duration. Then so on.

guess who I am.