End-Game Statistic Limits - Replacing the LGL

[Life]

INTRO​

Two things: first, forgive me if this has been done before, but I haven't seen it posted yet. Second, MAJOR TL;DR WARNING.

So one of the biggest issues in Brawl is Meta Knight's ability to perfect plank, right? Multiple ways to solve this have been put forth. By far the most popular has been ledge grab limits, but those are flawed in that they have too great an effect on rules unrelated to stalling. The LGL is what I call an end-game statistic. We all know what those are...

THE LIST​

Damage Given
Damage Taken
Damage Recovered
Peak Damage
Flight Distance
Ground Time
Air Time
Swim Time
Hit Percentage
Ground Attacks
Air Attacks
Smash Attacks
Grabs
Throws
Edge Grabs
Projectiles
Items Grabbed
Max Launch Speed
Max Launcher Speed
Longest Drought
Transformation Time
Final Smashes

This is the full list of statistics given at the end of the match for player review. What I'm going to do in this post is analyze each of these statistics and what effect each of these may have when applied as a LGL-like rule. What I'm looking for is the ability to stop perfect planking in comparison to the effect that such a rule would have in the case of non-planking-related timeout.

ASSUMPTIONS​

1. That perfect planking is broken. It technically has not been proven so in tournament play.

2. That a rule change other than end-game statistic limits (EGSL), including keeping the rules as they are (based on 3.1) and banning MK, would not be better than EGSLs. For the record, I'm still a fan of 1-stock/3-minutes/food-on as a method to stop all forms of stalling. The problem is that most of the public (and more importantly, TOs and the BBR) does not seem to be ready to accept such rule changes. However, much of the public is supportive of a LGL, which is just one type of EGSL, so I see no reason a better EGSL, if proposed and decently argued for, would not be successful (even if it's objectively less effective). As for a ban on MK, I'm neutral on it (specifically, tempban and see what happens), and for the sake of not getting this thread locked I don't want it talked about here.

3. That planking other than perfect planking is "borderline" broken--imperfect planking is a legitimate, beatable strategy, but it's powerful enough that a small amount of collateral damage to it is acceptable.

4. That non-planking timeouts (through careful/normal play) are fine and don't need nerfed.

ANALYSIS​

Damage Given
In a perfect-planking scenario, MK goes up and hits the opponent once, then goes and stalls for 7-and-a-half minutes. Once time has hit, MK will have dealt more damage than the opponent. Since the object is to make MK lose, whoever dealt the LEAST damage should win. Hopefully it's obvious why this is a bad idea: in a non-planking timeout, you could not attack your opponent at all, be at 1-stock 150% to 3-stock, and you'd win even though you pretty clearly got thrashed. This changes the victor from where it is now and makes Brawl far campier than it should. I'll refer to this logic from here in as "run-away" timing out. If someone can refute it, I'll need to reconsider quite a few of these. But for now...
Rating: Poor

Damage Taken
Damage Taken has the same problems as Damage Given. In a perfect-planking scenario, we want MK's opponent to win, and they'll have taken more damage than MK, so whoever took MORE damage should win. Again with the runaway timeout.
Rating: Poor

Damage Recovered
Irrelevant, as without healing items only Lucas/Ness have consistent healing abilities in the current rules.
Rating: Useless

Peak Damage
In a perfect-planking scenario, the non-planker would have the higher peak damage, so whoever had the highest peak damage would have to win. Again with the non-planking timeouts, though. If you don't attack your opponent, you'll have a higher peak damage and win even though you were thrashed.
Rating: Poor

Flight Distance
Higher flight distance must win.

Same problem as all of the above. No attacking = higher flight distance = win.
Rating: Poor

Ground Time
Air Time
These two have been discussed at length. Basically, the problem is that they screw over Jiggs and Wario because they camp in the air, while helping characters like Snake that spend more time on the ground. Too much collateral damage to implement.
Rating: Poor

Swim Time
Irrelevant, as water only exists on something like three stages (Delfino, Pirate Ship, Japes). Might be useful for stopping water/rudder camping though, and should be noted for that, but this post isn't about water/rudder camping.
Rating: Useless in terms of planking. May be useful to stop rudder camping however.

Hit Percentage

Oh yes, lets have people lose for lowest hit percentage. TAKE THAT SPAMMERS!

To be more serious, MK lands one hit and planks, while the opponent lands zero hits, so MK has a higher hit percentage. So lower percentage would have to win. The obvious problem, again, is the no-attacking timeout. Whiff one attack at the beginning for kicks, and your percentage is lower and you win.
Rating: Poor

Ground Attacks
At first glance, this seems irrelevant. However, note that while perfect planking, MK cannot launch a ground attack without making himself vulnerable. So you can make a ground attack rule that says something like "If you launch twice as many grounded attacks as your opponent, you win in a timeout" (just an example, exact numbers or wording may need changing). I don't know of any stalling techniques involving ground attacks, and this also screws up the run-away-and-don't-attack timeout as you aren't attacking on the ground much in that case.
Rating: Worth looking into.

Air Attacks
At first glance, a perfect planker launches a ton of air attacks and should lose for it. The problem, again, is the run-away time out. You get thrashed but you have fewer air attacks so you win anyway.
Rating: Poor

Smash Attacks
Irrelevant to perfect planking. It's a worse version of the Ground Attack Rule. Why is it worse?
DSMASH DSMASH DSMASH DSMASH DSMASH DSMASH DSMASH
MK's is one of the fastest smashes in the game. It's a very minor difference, but it's there. Then again, dtilt is also really fast.
Rating: Decent, should be compared to Ground Attacks by someone more knowledgeable than myself.

Grabs
Irrelevant to perfect planking. Could be used to replace the 300% rule since most infinites that don't involve walls are grabs.
Rating: Useless

Throws
See Grabs.
Rating: Useless

Edge Grabs
Ah, the infamous LGL. I'm not gonna critique this since it's been done a thousand times.
Rating: LGL

Projectiles
MK doesn't have one, so a highest-projectile rule might work. But he's not the only character without a projectile, and not everything that can be thrown or used against the opponent is a projectile (I'm not 100% sure what the game counts and what it doesn't).
Rating: Poor.

Items Grabbed
Irrelevant unless Diddy Kong, Link, TL, Snake, ROB, ZSS, or Peach is involved.
Rating: Useless

Max Launch Speed
Max Launcher Speed
Top speeds you reach during knockback and the top speed you KB your opponent to, respectively. Again with the planking versus runaway timeouts. Also seems kind of arbitrary in the case of a "normal play" timeout. A kill with Snake's FSmash and a kill by edgeguarding with low-KB moves should be counted the same, no?
Ratingoor

Longest Drought
Longest time between damage dealt. Unfortunate: if it were simply time between attacks out would be excellent against planking (though again with the run-away). As it stands, longest drought would have to win (run-away aaargh), but you'd have to stand there and let MK **** you if he hits you first, or else when you attack he can run to the ledge and your longest drought is now shorter than his and he can scrooge all day. (Run on sentence FTW?) More importantly, it makes unrelated timeouts totally arbitrary.
Rating: Useless

Transformation Time

Records the amount of time in seconds that a character spent transforming from one form to another. This includes Zelda transforming into Sheik, growth from a Super Mushroom, etc.

A grand total of like two characters can use this with items off.
Rating: Useless

Final Smashes
Irrelevant as they're turned off. It should be noted that some can beat planking though (Sonic, Pikachu to name two). However the whole risk-reward thing with Smash Balls applies.
Rating: Useless

Conclusion/TL;DR​

The majority of EGSL rules are garbage. A couple of them might be useful (and swim time limit might be useful to limit rudder/water camping on Pirate Ship, if not planking). I'm not saying they're the best answer to perfect planking (they all have the same weaknesses as the LGL, those being collateral damage, arbitrary-ness (?), and the fact that you don't see them until the end of the game), but I thought they were worth looking into nonetheless.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Tesh]

This is exactly why Melee is better than Brawl. If we had a bonus points mode, we could decide who had the cooler win.

 

[Vyse]

@Tesh: Keep Melee vs. Brawl out of here. Although I do agree with you about bonus mode.

@InferiorityComplex:

Take another look at hit percentage and flip the situation around. Make the player with higher hit percentage win. How does perfect planking work? By throwing out Uairs. If you merely bait them, you've quickly got the advantage.

Now higher healing = win. That's interesting. If you turned food on, the original idea is that this would mitigate planking, but the failing was the scenario when planking began a stock up. Using the higher damage healed scenario as the win condition, food to mitigate planking becomes viable.

Now, I'm not saying looking for an alternative to the LGL is a good idea, but if you're looking at alternatives, I think these may be worth looking at.

 

[deepseadiva]

It's great we're looking at options, and you know, applying some thought.

Fantastic thread.

 

[Ussi]

I was so mad when Bonus mode wasn't there anymore ;~; it was the only other mode i played in melee.

Ground attacks rule hurts jiggs cause she doesn't have a ground game..

But some character has to be sacrificed, better one jiggs than multiple with LGL like ROB, Samus, etc.

 

[Rickerdy-doo-da-day]

Would it be fair of me to say that you also need to assume that MK is going to be perfect planking for the full time of the match once requirement X is met? (Although there isn't really any reason for MK to stop Pplanking once he has lol)

I'm glad someone has got a list together and analysed of all the end game statistics (lol at all of them being poor or useless)
The ground attacks one sounds....interesting. You could argue that its just the same as the Ground time rule, only you have to spam as much as you can before your opponent catches up to you

I'm concerned about characters with fast ground speed and quick, repeated jabs where you can simply hold A (do they count as multiple attacks?). Characters like Sonic or ZSS as examples...or Snake. Lol mortar dash to hold A

 

[Ussi]

We'd also need to figure out the average ground attacks %.

 

[-LzR-]

Might not be really useful, but was worth reading it.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

I find the ground attacks option to be interesting. If someone reduces themselves to planking, the grounded opponent can just start dtilting repeatedly. Snake vs MK would favor snake instead of MK in the war of attrition. Snake will already use more ground attacks than MK so MK can't really afford to plank at all. He can go for dair camping, but that's more aggressive than perfect planking and can be more considered to be legitimate play.

The interesting part about this rule is the fact that it doesn't shift too much power back to Snake. He can't really counterplank MK. He's got his projectiles and such, but he can't protect himself in a way that induces invincibility.

==

So let's look at another controversial MU (with respect to these types of rules).

Snake VS Wario. Ground time rule was deemed too game changing here because Wario, WITHOUT THE INTENT TO PLANK, will spend most of this time in the air. This means if snake is losing percentage wise and the game times out, Wario loses.

The same thing happens with the ground attack rule. Wario can gain the lead and still lose. Since he spends most of his time in the air, he'll never have more ground attacks than snake has. In the event of a time out, a loss is unavoidable on Wario's part.

===

Given this, the rule is shaky at best. It will still change the metagame to an extent that most players will dislike.

 

[san.]

I highly disagree with this. The arbitrary statistical results of a match shouldn't have a strong influence on the outcome of a match. These types of things negatively impact a variety of MUs. Just look at the post above for one example, or any player who prefers their characters' aerial options.

 

[xDD-Master]

When MK is the only problem we could just put in the rule: Whenever a timeout happens, MK will loose. If both players were MK, who ever has more LGs looses.

With this, the infinite Cape rule would also be useless ^^

 

[Pierce7d]

If MK is the only problem we could just put in the rule: Whenever a timeout happens, MK will lose. If both players are MK, whoever has more LGs loses.

With this, the infinite Cape rule would also be useless ^^

You know . . . for some reason I'm liking this idea. Even though it goes against everything normally labeled competitive it's such a frikken good idea.

I didn't sleep, so I'm probably not thinking straight.

 

[Flayl]

As long as the TO realizes it's a "dumb" rule (specifically changing the victory conditions for a character because he's too good instead of just removing the character), then fine.

He must also accept he cannot deem infinites and the like not ban worthy without being a hypocrite.

 

[Spelt]

any rule that hurts any character besides MK should be automatically rejected.

You know . . . for some reason I'm liking this idea. Even though it goes against everything normally labeled competitive it's such a frikken good idea.

No it isn't ... timing out by non perfect planking methods are completely legitimate.
that would just be an unnecessary nerf.
a HUGE unnecessary nerf, actually.

 

[[TSON]]

Ground Attacks
At first glance, this seems irrelevant. However, note that while perfect planking, MK cannot launch a ground attack without making himself vulnerable. So you can make a ground attack rule that says something like "If you launch twice as many grounded attacks as your opponent, you win in a timeout" (just an example, exact numbers or wording may need changing). I don't know of any stalling techniques involving ground attacks, and this also screws up the run-away-and-don't-attack timeout as you aren't attacking on the ground much in that case.
Rating: Worth looking into.

This would have to be worded very very very very very carefully.

 

[Crow!]

LOL @ what the "ground attacks" option would do to matches. Consider this amusing hypothetical anecdote.

*Person unfamiliar with the Ground Attack Tiebreaker watches a stream of a MK vs Wario match alongside someone who's a big fan of it*

"Hey, what the heck, I thought this was a tourney match, not some goofy friendly."
"It is. This is winner's finals. This is going to be close."
"Surely this is a joke. Why is Wario doing jab canceled jabs and MK is repeating FTilt on the opposite side of the stage?"
"They're having a Groud Attack Count upping war."
"A what?"
"If Wario flails his fists fast enough, he wins when the timer expires. The MK thinks the Wario has miscalculated his Ground Attack count lead compared to the timer, so that instead he will win upon time out."
"You win if you attack faster than your opponent?"
"Only if you're on the ground, of course. Pikachu is so pro at this, I bet the Wario's wishing he changed mains right now!"
"Weird. So, uh, who's winning?"
"I haven't a clue."
".... so they're both just guessing that the other hasn't done enough pointless moves while standing on the ground?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Oooh, the timer's run out! They're about to check the Ground Attacks! This is so tense!"
".... I've got to go ... play, uh ... solitaire now. Bye."

 

[Yikarur]

lol too good

 

[[FBC] Papa Mink]

Danm, That was a good read.
Good thoughts. I enjoyed the runthrough.

 

[abhishekh]

LOL @ what the "ground attacks" option would do to matches. Consider this amusing hypothetical anecdote.

*Person unfamiliar with the Ground Attack Tiebreaker watches a stream of a MK vs Wario match alongside someone who's a big fan of it*

"Hey, what the heck, I thought this was a tourney match, not some goofy friendly."
"It is. This is winner's finals. This is going to be close."
"Surely this is a joke. Why is Wario doing jab canceled jabs and MK is repeating FTilt on the opposite side of the stage?"
"They're having a Groud Attack Count upping war."
"A what?"
"If Wario flails his fists fast enough, he wins when the timer expires. The MK thinks the Wario has miscalculated his Ground Attack count lead compared to the timer, so that instead he will win upon time out."
"You win if you attack faster than your opponent?"
"Only if you're on the ground, of course. Pikachu is so pro at this, I bet the Wario's wishing he changed mains right now!"
"Weird. So, uh, who's winning?"
"I haven't a clue."
".... so they're both just guessing that the other hasn't done enough pointless moves while standing on the ground?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Oooh, the timer's run out! They're about to check the Ground Attacks! This is so tense!"
".... I've got to go ... play, uh ... solitaire now. Bye."

Laughed so hard.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

how bout since MK is the only character who can perfect plank, only apply th lgl to him and lift it off every other characters shoulders. no1 can even come close to planking like MK can so by limiting just him you have still stopped his gayness and actually given other characters an option against him.

also, hella lol at the top scenario