The Unity Ruleset: Discussion

AlphaZealot said:

The two soccer teams agreed to play on a not-legal field, just as the two smash players agreed to play on a not-legal field (stage). The analogy fits.

As for the imaginary problem: sorry, you can't have things both ways. Either gentlemans rule is always there or it is not, and you can't hypothetically cherry pick what you think is 'likely' versus 'not likely' just to make the gentlemans agreement seem not as radical as it really is.

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There are no counter picks in Soccer. What about having starter stages, counter picks and Gentlemen's Rule legal stages?

^ I'm ashamed to say that Jebus and I had the same idea here.

Sort of like the BBR's 3rd "counter/banned" section on the stagelist. Basically the borderline legal stages that probably wouldn't be so bad if given a shot.

Norfair, Japes, YI:M etc.


Tho tbh Jebus, most other sports don't have a gentlemen's rule about anything. Its not up to them to decide what the competition is.

Ghostbone said:

Doesn't fit, at all.
More like "The two teams decided to play on team A's home field rather than team B's home field" or something.
Except no that doesn't even apply since all the fields are the same, so idk, terrible analogy on your part.

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Wait, what?

Hang on... In professional football, all fields are meticulously crafted to have the same dimensions. The crowd can make a psychological difference, but good teams can get over that. In Super Smash Bros, the stages are massively different, at times with absolutely ridiculous results on gameplay–there is absolutely no comparison between a game on smashville or battlefield and a game on Warioware, Mario Bros, or Pictochat. To leave players the option to cheapen competition like that in such an arena is ludicrously short-sighted and, yes, bad for our image. It is indeed like being able to choose to play on a field half the size, or being able to choose to play on a field where people will randomly run out and kick the ball away. That would make football ludicrous, wouldn't it?

Oh and you all know nobody would pick Temple or Summit in GF unless they were splitting, it's an imaginary problem you're making up.

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But why would they want to even pick, say, Norfair? Hell, one could argue (if one believes that "Stage X" is a terrible competitive stage and already has it banned) that the presence of "Stage X", regardless of how controversial its legality is, cheapens competition. The whole idea is pointless. 99% of the time, this will not happen anyways. So why bother?

(That said, Jebus's idea of the "gentlemen's rule legal stages" is pretty good)

AlphaZealot said:

The two soccer teams agreed to play on a not-legal field, just as the two smash players agreed to play on a not-legal field (stage). The analogy fits.

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No, Soccer that's not on a soccer field isn't true soccer anymore.
"not-legal field"? You wish, again, Soccer only has 1 "stage" to play on.

Your example is more similar to players playing on a hacked stage, and yes, I'd definitely oppose that.

As for the imaginary problem: sorry, you can't have things both ways. Either gentlemans rule is always there or it is not, and you can't hypothetically cherry pick what you think is 'likely' versus 'not likely' just to make the gentlemans agreement seem not as radical as it really is.

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Hypothetically cherry pick?
I can use at least 3 1/2 years of data (more if we include Melee) that shows it's not a problem.
What can you do?

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

Wait, what?

Hang on... In professional football, all fields are meticulously crafted to have the same dimensions. The crowd can make a psychological difference, but good teams can get over that. In Super Smash Bros, the stages are massively different, at times with absolutely ridiculous results on gameplay–there is absolutely no comparison between a game on smashville or battlefield and a game on Warioware, Mario Bros, or Pictochat. To leave players the option to cheapen competition like that in such an arena is ludicrously short-sighted and, yes, bad for our image. It is indeed like being able to choose to play on a field half the size, or being able to choose to play on a field where people will randomly run out and kick the ball away. That would make football ludicrous, wouldn't it?

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Yea, except like I said, teams would never do that because they'd lose (or run a increased risk of losing).
You'd might as well fix stage striking since someone can strike to a bad stage for themselves if they're dumb, like they'd agree to a bad stage with the gentleman's agreement if they're dumb.
Maybe also prevent campy players from playing on streams, ruins hype and all that jazz, bad image for the community right?

But why would they want to even pick, say, Norfair? Hell, one could argue (if one believes that "Stage X" is a terrible competitive stage and already has it banned) that the presence of "Stage X", regardless of how controversial its legality is, cheapens competition. The whole idea is pointless. 99% of the time, this will not happen anyways. So why bother?

(That said, Jebus's idea of the "gentlemen's rule legal stages" is pretty good)

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I wouldn't mind if it only applied to legal stages, so that a stage can be played on multiple times if players agree, I've said that already.
(though I don't see a real problem expanding it to all stages either, but meh)

Still, I have to ask the URC, isn't your stance basically, don't change rules unless something obviously wrong happens in tournament? Why change something that's been the standard since the beginning of competitive smash? (unless there's some tournament I don't know of where in GF the players decided to play on Summit, weren't splitting, and it was being streamed and people watching the stream started leaving)
Because atm it seems like you're saying a set like this www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGEqljmx9P8 isn't legitimate.

SaveMeJebus said:

There are no counter picks in Soccer. What about having starter stages, counter picks and Gentlemen's Rule legal stages?

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But what is the key characteristic to seperate gentleman's rule and counterpick? I mean would gentleman's rule be allowing people to pick a stage that is otherwise considered hnot competative? if so how do we put a limitation on that? If Norfair is not suitable to be a CP then why would it be suitable if both players agree? Why is this different from warioware?

I'll say the gentleman's legal stage list isn't a bad idea in a sense, but it might open up other problems like agreeing MK can be legal if both players agree.

Not really.

If we say "this is a list of stages which both players may agree to play a match on, but if either player wishes to he may ban all of them without expending his stage ban", that doesn't open up MK at all, and leaves the supporters of the gentleman's rule relatively satisfied without overly hurting the game's image as a whole. I'm not asking to be allowed to play on Temple or New Pork City, I'm asking to be allowed to play on Japes, Green Greens, or Norfair.

Judo777 said:

But what is the key characteristic to seperate gentleman's rule and counterpick? I mean would gentleman's rule be allowing people to pick a stage that is otherwise considered hnot competative? if so how do we put a limitation on that? If Norfair is not suitable to be a CP then why would it be suitable if both players agree? Why is this different from warioware?

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Any stage that was in the BBR rule set's CP/Banned list can be allowed in the gentlemen's stage list.

You guys are overthinking this. Gentlemen rule is, has been, and will always be a simple rule. It extends to more than just stages.

If anything, just have a regular Gentlemen Rule where 2 players can agree to anything, but the TO gets final say on the matter. AKA if it's Grand Finals and the TO doesn't want Sonic vs Pit on Hyrule, Captain Falcon Dittos on Wario Ware, or "planking" contests, he can say so or judge the winner by whoever is in the lead under regular rules. That way people can agree to what they want, but the TO and crowd get something better than Ganon dittos on Hanenbow or Bridge of Eldin. If the TO is a **** and won't allow any variation to the rules, then fire him and have someone else GOOD run the event.

why is the gentleman's rule even a topic for discussion? if 2 players agree to a different stage or Bo5 for a money match at the same time outside of anything being livestreamed the players aren't telling the TO and are doing it anyways and if they DO get caught it's not gonna be that big of a deal. also why not start asking about things that are actually IN the ****ing ruleset. i can't believe there are multiple pages dedicated to this stupid topic.


what the hell ever happened to tech chase giving us updates about the legality of stages like japes, norfair, ggs, etc. at one point in time he said there were probably gonna be putting a new stage in soon. that was months ago. it almost feels like they told us that to put it out of our minds so that they can ignore it. what ever happened to updates about the **** that actually matters from anyone in the bbr? all of the discussion that goes on in here nowadays is crap bar the lgl discussion which they haven't even told if they are even going to discuss it being changed and yet people argue about what will and won't be fair before they even say it's going to be an option!


god you should all be ashamed that you actually waste your time arguing this stupid crap and either discuss stuff that matters or let this thread die.

Maharba the Mystic said:

why is the gentleman's rule even a topic for discussion? if 2 players agree to a different stage or Bo5 for a money match at the same time outside of anything being livestreamed the players aren't telling the TO and are doing it anyways and if they DO get caught it's not gonna be that big of a deal. also why not start asking about things that are actually IN the ****ing ruleset. i can't believe there are multiple pages dedicated to this stupid topic.


what the hell ever happened to tech chase giving us updates about the legality of stages like japes, norfair, ggs, etc. at one point in time he said there were probably gonna be putting a new stage in soon. that was months ago. it almost feels like they told us that to put it out of our minds so that they can ignore it. what ever happened to updates about the **** that actually matters from anyone in the bbr? all of the discussion that goes on in here nowadays is crap bar the lgl discussion which they haven't even told if they are even going to discuss it being changed and yet people argue about what will and won't be fair before they even say it's going to be an option!


god you should all be ashamed that you actually waste your time arguing this stupid crap and either discuss stuff that matters or let this thread die.

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Grim Tuesday 449
SaveMeJebus 437
Tesh 360
Budget Player Cadet_ 301
Player-1 280
Twinkie 276
Maharba the Mystic 274

>_>

Raziek said:

Grim Tuesday 449
SaveMeJebus 437
Tesh 360
Budget Player Cadet_ 301
Player-1 280
Twinkie 276
Maharba the Mystic 274

>_>

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lmao, the call out

Can the supporters of the Gentlemen's Agreement as a concrete aspect of the ruleset explain to me the inherent value of such a rule?

Removing the rule clearly supports consistency in the context of set terms to evaluate skill and the lessening of TO discretionary power (and therefore room for abuse) and burden as enforcer of verbal "contracts".

The Gentlemen's Agreement is supposed to not exist within the context of the rules because of the precedent that it sets that allows the players to change the rules at a whim. In order to properly maintain a tournament environment, I would contend that competing claims from the TO ought to be valued above the claims of the players without any discretionary wiggle room in the sense that players have a conflict of interest while a TO is to remain impartial. For the sake of consistency, which ultimately leads towards a more professional level tournament, the Gentlemen's Agreement should not exist within the concrete rules.

If your goal is ultimately to have a Gentlemen's Agreement, it should not involve the rules or the TO. It is an honor agreement strictly between and to be enforced by players.

The only gentlemans rule that ever existed was sheik dittos in melee.

CG legal or no CG

SaveMeJebus said:

Any stage that was in the BBR rule set's CP/Banned list can be allowed in the gentlemen's stage list.

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What? If the stage is already legal why do we need a gentleman's rule?

DeLux said:

With that same money you would spend traveling to a tourney, you could spend it on getting a venue and hosting a tournament. Even if it's once every six months, you'd be doing a huge part towards working to a solution on things.

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Aside from the fact that my community is dead. (see: Attendance: 30 to Attendance: 3 in Brawl tournaments in 1 year.)

My community also sucks. I would be ASHAMED to have to represent them at any level, and would end up representing myself and only myself so as to not risk being kicked out of the URC for saying nothing of use.(assuming I got in, ofc)

DeLux said:

The entire ruleset is viewable to the public: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=12492158

How to fix the ruleset:
1. Go find flaws with it.
2a. Host tournament fixing flaw in ruleset
2b. If not 2a, Convince local TO to fix flaw in ruleset
2ci. If not 2b, Make a thread on why the flaw should be fixed.
2cii. Use thread to rally other TO's to your cause, getting them to change their ruleset
3. Get significant number of players to attend tournaments hosted by TOs with amended ruleset
4. You have now changed the ruleset for the better

If people won't host your rule or people won't attend your tournament, then your rule is probably detrimental to the community. It's nothing personal and may or may not mean you're wrong. It just means that the rule doesn't serve the community and is therefore bad in the eyes of the community.

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So basically, starting from something close to the biggest possible psychological(and phsyical) disadvantage ever,(psych being that I'm going against the status quo, hard. Physical being my region) don't get unlucky, and convince people to follow you.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been trying. The problem? Aside from the fact that my threads are barely noticed, nobody seems to be able to understand what I'm saying. I get very few logical refutes and a lot of 'why is this what you say?' when it's basic knowledge to me why it is what I say.

Note that there are some rule changes(see: my only current thread) people might just leave out because 'it wouldn't affect anything'. If this happens, am I just screwed while you basically say "eh, can't do anything guy"?

DeLux said:

I live in the Midwest. At this time last year, my local scene was pretty dead. I had to make a choice. If I don't make my own luck and host my own tournaments and recruit people outside of my normal social network, I have to drive 3.5 to 4 hours for the next closest local tournament. I got a job specifically to do both. I can now host local tournies AND travel. All while at one point maintaining 2 jobs, an internship, going to KU, Smash Lab, URC, and a relationship.

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I could host tournaments. It would require me getting a job and some other things, but I could likely do it.

And I would, if I felt my community would be worth representing.

3 People are not worth representing.

Going to other tournaments is also doable, aside from me missing 1 day of school per tournament I go to.

I would need a job, and being 16 and living where I do that could be difficult, but it's possible. However, my inability to host a tournament is out of my hands.

DeLux said:

If you really want to change things, stop arguing rules on the internet with "the community". Go make your own local smash community and play with them. You'd serve "the community" better by helping it grow. Go out and do something about it and actively work towards the solution instead of saying you aren't being heard. You absolutely can be your own voice, but I can confidently say without even knowing your situation that you are choosing not to exercise that power.

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I wasn't saying I'm not being heard, actually. See, your post confused me a good amount, mostly because we got way off track.

My main complaint was that you guys aren't telling us anything. EVERYTHING goes on behind closed doors and we don't hear see or know anything except the very infrequent and usually conclusionless information you give us. This makes no sense.

DeLux said:

I don't know what you are trying to say here.

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If I talk to my local TO it doesn't fix the problem as I still have no idea what goes on or even what is being said by my own TO and if I have any influence on that.

(And reading your posts again...is what your telling me 'don't ask?' You seem to just want to give ways around it instead of addressing the actual problem. I proabably should've called strawman somewhere in here a long time ago.)

Judo777 said:

What? If the stage is already legal why do we need a gentleman's rule?

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I think they mean if it isn't legal for the given tournament.

@Gentlemans Clause: Inherently bad for competition.(Am I assuming too much in that people can understand why this statement is logically true?)

Unless there is an extremely large reason it should be put in over the above, no reason at all to consider it.

@Arcansi: when everyone else seems to be full of ****, maybe it's time to make sure your position isn't the problematic one? Not saying that you're wrong, but if you think like that about your community, one of two things is happening: either they're acting as stupidly as places like Nova Scotia, Finland, and (if what I've recently heard is true) France (ooh, dat callout), or you've got a mindset issue. Judging by your recent "ban infinites" thread... Well, I'll stop talking. ^^

Ghostbone said:

Yea, except like I said, teams would never do that because they'd lose (or run a increased risk of losing).

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You can't say that, because there will always be exceptions. But hey, why wouldn't this apply to literally anything you could do with the rule? Ideally, it would never see use in the first place! Also: this happened at a recent tournament. That was the Lucas's counterpick. And yes, that commentary is me, mostly apologizing for the stage and throwing out comments like "It's a shame people don't know how to deal with stages in this country", which in retrospect was a bit of a **** move.

You'd might as well fix stage striking since someone can strike to a bad stage for themselves if they're dumb, like they'd agree to a bad stage with the gentleman's agreement if they're dumb.

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The problem is not "creating a disadvantage". The problem is creating an anticompetitive, stupid situation. Even excluding **** like Pictochat or Mario Bros... Listen to the commentary and reactions in this vid: ADHD vs. Atomsk. That's Norfair. Like, number two or three on the list of "stages that are next on the 'legalize this' list". And people are *****ing and moaning like it's the end of the world. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

Maybe also prevent campy players from playing on streams, ruins hype and all that jazz, bad image for the community right?

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You know damn well there's a difference between something that is an innate part of any match in brawl seeing play and something which the ruleset is explicitly crafted to exclude sneaking into the stream anyways. It's the difference between seeing Football teams play incredibly conservatively while in the lead, leading to a lot of turnovers, and seeing Football teams in the NFL play two-hand touch.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

@Arcansi: when everyone else seems to be full of ****, maybe it's time to make sure your position isn't the problematic one?

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I had two reactions:

1. You've changed.
2.[collapse="potential flamebait, sorry"]You don't have him on ignore yet?[/collapse]

InferiorityComplex said:

I had two reactions:

1. You've changed.

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Yes, this is quite ludicrous coming from me, I gotta admit.

Hey, as long as you're self-aware/introspective I'm not going to judge TOO harshly. <.<

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

You can't say that, because there will always be exceptions. But hey, why wouldn't this apply to literally anything you could do with the rule? Ideally, it would never see use in the first place! Also: this happened at a recent tournament. That was the Lucas's counterpick. And yes, that commentary is me, mostly apologizing for the stage and throwing out comments like "It's a shame people don't know how to deal with stages in this country", which in retrospect was a bit of a **** move.

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I laughed more than I should have at Ravenlord's fail there....
And whenever someone gets screwed by stages because of their lack of knowledge....

@BPC and DeLux
Well, it seems I'm in the minority wanting the Gentleman's agreement to apply to every stage, so I'll stop arguing for that.

What's the reasoning behind not letting players play on a legal stage if they agree to it?
e.g. Playing on Smashville after you've won on it.

I have heard that in some tournaments, the rules allow a player who loses to CP a 'random' stage but the winner has to stay their character. Is this in effect for the Unity ruleset?

no.... but sounds neat.
And fun.

And horrible for competition.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

@Arcansi: when everyone else seems to be full of ****, maybe it's time to make sure your position isn't the problematic one? Not saying that you're wrong, but if you think like that about your community, one of two things is happening: either they're acting as stupidly as places like Nova Scotia, Finland, and (if what I've recently heard is true) France (ooh, dat callout), or you've got a mindset issue. Judging by your recent "ban infinites" thread... Well, I'll stop talking. ^^

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I'm known to think differently then almost everyone I know.

And you want to come here and tell me that my points aren't logically sound because nobody agrees with me?.

I consider everything. Unfortunately, it seems you didn't consider the fact that I'm reasonable. I concede points regularly, and am constantly learning.

Until my points are logically disproven, they stand, BPC.

Are you able to grasp this concept without attacking me because I think differently then you?

needs fix.

Maharba the Mystic said:

why is the gentleman's rule even a topic for discussion? if 2 players agree to a different stage or Bo5 for a money match at the same time outside of anything being livestreamed the players aren't telling the TO and are doing it anyways and if they DO get caught it's not gonna be that big of a deal. also why not start asking about things that are actually IN the ****ing ruleset. i can't believe there are multiple pages dedicated to this stupid topic.

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This is how I feel with so many of the rules discussed here, good **** Abraham.

Arcansi said:

I'm known to think differently then almost everyone I know.

I've been tortured almost all my f***ing life because of this.

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No one cares about your sob story.

And you want to come here and tell me that my points aren't logically sound because nobody agrees with me?.

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Yah... Argumentum ad populum in a debate is lol

Grim Tuesday said:

No one cares about your sob story.

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Duly noted, that was stupid of me.

Ghostbone said:

What's the reasoning behind not letting players play on a legal stage if they agree to it?
e.g. Playing on Smashville after you've won on it.

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Now this makes more sense. I could get behind this if I was in the headspace of the URC, mostly because it seems that "game depth" is not an overarching goal, merely potential for it. Plus, I honestly think the stream viewers would much rather see 3x an MK getting ****ed up on SV than SV-RC-BF or SV-Norfair-BF (although that tournament had an absolutely horrible rule in regards to MK and counterpicks)...

Arcansi said:

I'm known to think differently then almost everyone I know.

I've been tortured almost all my f***ing life because of this.

And you want to come here and tell me that my points aren't logically sound because nobody agrees with me?.

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This is not what I'm saying at all. I'm just pointing out that most of the time, when everyone disagrees with you, you're not going to be the one who is right. Stuff like Dunning-Krüger, confirmation bias and whatnot... See,

I consider everything. Unfortunately, it seems you didn't consider the fact that I'm reasonable. I concede points regularly, and am constantly learning.

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This is all I really ask. Sorry if you inferred anything else. But seriously, dude?

"I've been tortured almost all my f***ing life because of this."

O.o what the hell?

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

This is not what I'm saying at all. I'm just pointing out that most of the time, when everyone disagrees with you, you're not going to be the one who is right. Stuff like Dunning-Krüger, confirmation bias and whatnot... See,

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I know this is true and I tend to look at my point or take breaks from smashboards so I can look at my point again. I just keep finding my points stand, is all.

Budget Player Cadet_ said:

This is all I really ask. Sorry if you inferred anything else. But seriously, dude?

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I argue to learn, actually. And yeah, I've gone through some horrible stuff. So have most people, though.

Arcansi said:

Until my points are logically disproven, they stand, BPC.

Are you able to grasp this concept without attacking me because I think differently then you?

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A clue:

Your points stand on NOTHING. NOOOTHING.
They have nothing to be disproven of, since they don't actually DO anything. You're just spewing nonsense everywhere and failing to see WHY it's nonsense.

That's also why what I just said will look like nonsense to you, and the cycle continues.

ElDominio said:

A clue:

Your points stand on NOTHING. NOOOTHING.
They have nothing to be disproven of, since they don't actually DO anything. You're just spewing nonsense everywhere and failing to see WHY it's nonsense.

That's also why what I just said will look like nonsense to you, and the cycle continues.

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My latest points in this thread were that the URC doesn't release enough information and that gentleman's clause is a bad rule.

Neither of these do anything?

To be fair, I've been VERY upfront about exactly what we've been discussing.

For example, a vote that was occurring in the URC was to remove "Battleship Halberd" from the legal stage list and amend the list to "Halberd". I portrayed that to the public.

Another vote that was occurring in the URC was to change "Pokemon Stadium 1" to the correct version as well, although we haven't decided what we were changing it to.

I've told you the majority stance of the URC members on numerous different topics that I've noted that have been given preliminary discussion. It's not like you don't see the final product of our decision making system. I contend you do in fact know the position of the URC on nearly every rule, despite your claims to the contrary. The URS is officially our stance on every rule topic. And our reasoning as to why those rules are in place is because a majority of URC members supported the rule as it stands.

I can accept this for the time being.

I would appreciate more URC representation in discussions, but that's just me. (And being a lot more online then offline, I guess.)

I just want to clarify this:

I think people are mistaking our lack of active rule changing for not listening. We haven't had much to say to the public about the ruleset because there really hasn't been very much discussion on changing anything as of late.

It's not like we're in the backroom hiding our actions. When actions do come, the community will be alerted. Until January, we're going to sort of idle and watch what happens. And then after January, I imagine we'll observe even more.

Which is why I keep bringing up the fact that it would take some sort of extreme incident for rule changes at this point. We just made a major release that technically isn't fully in effect until January. We want the rules to at least be used before we start going back into changing things.

Strong Bad said:

As long as the game is 3 stock 8 minutes, I don't see an issue with people going to New Pork City if they both agree on it.

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Competitive integrity, streams, and sponsors. You know, like, not looking like we did back at Evo '08, where a clearly better player got wrecked... mostly because of ******** items (seriously, I just looked at that set again, and holy **** did Ken outplay CPU).

Strong Bad said:

You are the reason why the smash community is hated. You are an idiot.
You feel that Ken outplayed CPU within the ruleset by throwing items off the stage or at CPU and ignoring them for the most part, while CPU intelligently made use of items (Grabbed Ken during Final Smash for epic damage, sniped Smash Ball from across the stage with Laser, etc.). No. Just. No. Within the ruleset, CPU outplayed Ken. Ken's ability to place 2nd at such a huge tournament by mostly ignoring items further proved that in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, items did not significantly randomize results, and that the two best players got top 2. CPU used items better than Ken did and deserved to win. I am sick of hearing people say that Ken outplayed CPU at Evo 2k8 when CPU played to win within the ruelset and Ken largely ignored a huge part of the metagame during it. Evo 2k8 finals are still the most entertaining "serious" Brawl videos I've ever seen.

You're full of ****.

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Umm, no.
This post is bad and you should feel bad.

Having items spawn near you isn't skill, it's luck.

Edit:
Since you'll read this wrong, I'm not saying Ken outplayed CPU, I'm saying in that ruleset it's impossible to tell as luck is too prominent.