Infinites: Why, exactly, are they allowed?

[Yuna]

Here it is:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=174575

I found this by going to the Zamus forums -> The sticky "The Zero Suit Samus Resource Center"

OK, so the study is incomplete (only a few characters were tested) and she can only chain two of the tested characters to a high % (Fox and Wolf). But that's pretty bad now, isn't it?

Edit: That's v2 of the thread. The original thread was lost.

 

[Patsie]

Yep, that clears it up. I don't think anyone, then, should be attacking you for arguing your opinion.

Basically, to answer your original question is a more terse manner, they aren't banned in tournaments because, honestly, they are rarely used and have never been a deciding factor in the results. They're good, but even outside of tourneys a character like Snake will beat an equal skill IC player who's going for grabs. And, of course, a better player will still beat a weaker player even if the weaker player is attempting to utilize infinites.

On another note, they are not good for competitive play. Now, this seems like a no-brainer for a ban; if something hurts competition, then it can only help to get rid of it!

Here's the problem with that: there are a lot of things in Brawl that are much worse for competitive play than chain grabs and situational infinites. If we wanted to make Brawl a better competitive game, since the developers did a poor job of it, we'd start by modding it and increasing hitstun, banning Snake, banning projectile camping, forcing fair matchups... as you can see, most of these options are pretty crazy. If we aren't doing stuff like that, then banning something as trivial in comparison as situational infinites seems pretty unimportant.

Finally, Melee had a LOT more chaingrabs than Brawl, yet they didn't dominate competitive play, either (although they were definitely helpful), because Melee is a good competitive game.

Even GANONDORFFFFF had a chain grab 0-death. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsNbCkzRF-s&feature=related

My advocacy wouldn't be to limit CG like DDD's or Falco's. It would be to a) ban DDD's standing infinite on the 5 chars, b) ban the ICG infinite, and c) ban dtilt (etc) infinites against walls. I've given a reason for why they are special as infinites (so it wouldn't be something like 'Banning Snake'). I think those are very fair rules, and the people who have actually defended infinites (like, suggest that they should be used) haven't given a reason aside from saying "Play to win!"

 

[Yuna]

My advocacy wouldn't be to limit CG like DDD's or Falco's. It would be to a) ban DDD's standing infinite on the 5 chars, b) ban the ICG infinite, and c) ban dtilt (etc) infinites against walls. I've given a reason for why they are special as infinites (so it wouldn't be something like 'Banning Snake'). I think those are very fair rules, and the people who have actually defended infinites (like, suggest that they should be used) haven't given a reason aside from saying "Play to win!"

Umm... it's not a standing infinite since he moves forward slightly?

 

[Inferno_blaze]

I dislike infinites, they stand against everything that was the point in why we banned stuff, to make the game as fair as possible to each player, why the hell aren't we using items if infinites are in the game and can be used to win?

 

[missingnomaster]

I dislike infinites, they stand against everything that was the point in why we banned stuff, to make the game as fair as possible to each player, why the hell aren't we using items if infinites are in the game and can be used to win?

because infinites aren't random?

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

It's still an almost unwinnable matchup against characters who get crushed by camping.



It's a reaaaaally ba dmatchup. Also, it's OK if Ganondorf gets screwed over in a 10-0 matchup since he's sheit anyway? So if someone can infinite Yoshi, you wouldn't mind? Something is either broken or it isn't, regardless of who it's possible on.

infinites of any kind should be banned... but terrible matchups should not

 

[Zankoku]

infinites of any kind should be banned... but terrible matchups should not

Should we ban combos, too? The real ones, not the silly strings that people do because the other player was stupid. I mean the true combos that are inescapable and end in you dying that only gauge your skill and not your opponent's.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Should we ban combos, too? The real ones, not the silly strings that people do because the other player was stupid. I mean the true combos that are inescapable and end in you dying that only gauge your skill and not your opponent's.

not the same at all and you know it

 

[Grunt]

not the same at all and you know it

i don't. please, enlighten me.

 

[bman in 2288]

I think we're all going on about this the wrong way. Infinite grabs aren't the easiest things to pull off, and if you do get grabbed, you were probably doing something wrong (like bad spacing), or the other player was think farther ahead than you were (I'm pretending that two mildly competitive players are pitted against one another, so I can forgo the luck factor a bit). If he was able to pull that infinite off on you, you should congratulate him for getting the right set-up, or use hindsight to see what you were doing wrong.

But even then, for the IC, the infinite makes them only slightly better, and even then it's just barely. Yes, they can build up your damage and screw up your stock. Solution? Split them up. It's just like everyone in this thread has been saying. Yeah, the infinite is annoying, but it's easily fixed if you thin their ranks before-hand. In other words, it's easy to prevent (according to what everyone in the thread said). If you get caught, then you're doing something wrong, or the other player is just better than you.

Also, for the Dedede thing, again like everyone else said, if you don't want to be caught in an infinite, use your secondary, save your secondary doesn't also suffer the same problem. If they do, you're doing something wrong. But if you're unwilling to switch characters, then at the very least play defensively as to not be grabbed. There's always that.

 

[Zankoku]

I too am curious as to what differentiates this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BioGaB4G2gk
from this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jzegZ0PzISE

 

[Yuna]

infinites of any kind should be banned... but terrible matchups should not

Zamus has a near-guaranteed (not sure, it might actually be guaranteed) Dsmash chain into killer aerial/smash on Fox and quite possibly Wolf. Should we ban that? After all, she only needs one dsmash at near 0%.

 

[takieddine]

How easy something is to do is inconsequential. If it's possible, then someone will learn how to do it properly and reliably.

Will you stop saying this...You are just plain wrong. If something is possible that doesnt mean someone will master it at all if just a little bit.

Eg. Doubleshine against a wall infinite, to do some considerable damage.

 

[Yuna]

Will you stop saying this...You are just plain wrong. If something is possible that doesnt mean someone will master it at all if just a little bit.

Eg. Doubleshine against a wall infinite, to do some considerable damage.

Let me rephrase that:
If it's humanly possible (as in, the timing isn't 1 frame and randomly generated between 5 different frames), then someone will learn to do it.

Even 1-frame timing techs have been pretty much mastered by players in the past, ensuring that 99 out of 100 times, they'll nail it. Double shining against a wall? Since when is this unheard of?

 

[Jack Kieser]

This is an honest question here... how many people mastered the stuff in SuperDoodleMan's Perfect Control vid?

EDIT: Well, I guess Yuna beat me... but I'd still like to know.

 

[Zankoku]

SCOTU managed to get about 15 iterations of multishine to wear down a shield, shieldpoke it, and proceed to wallshine-infinite about 7 hits in one second.

 

[Yuna]

This is an honest question here... how many people mastered the stuff in SuperDoodleMan's Perfect Control vid?

EDIT: Well, I guess Yuna beat me... but I'd still like to know.

Off topic and Professor Pro (Peach - ridiculous float-canceling speed), for one. Also, double shining? Calle W triple shines... as Falco (for shield-pressure, that is).

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

I too am curious as to what differentiates this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BioGaB4G2gk
from this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jzegZ0PzISE

- The 2nd one was from an entirely different game, the original SSB
-The stage had to be set up PERFECTLY for that to happen

seriously iceclimbers will work on every charcter on almost all if not all tournament legal stages.

 

[Foxy]

I too am curious as to what differentiates this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BioGaB4G2gk
from this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jzegZ0PzISE

The only difference is that infinites and chain grabs in Brawl are almost the only guaranteed combos, and in 64 that particular combo is only one of thousands of variations possible.

That's the only difference.

Brawl sucks.

 

[Pye]

Will you stop saying this...You are just plain wrong. If something is possible that doesnt mean someone will master it at all if just a little bit.

Eg. Doubleshine against a wall infinite, to do some considerable damage.

MaxX
Prosmasher Tim

And just another example to ease your mind: Phanna

I think Yuna is right. How difficult a technique is does not influence whether it will be used or not. It will. Someone will perfect it and use it.

 

[Foxy]

- The 2nd one was from an entirely different game, the original SSB

YAEH[ SRSLY ANKUKOU, HOW COOD U MIKS THAT UP

 

[Yuna]

- The 2nd one was from an entirely different game, the original SSB
-The stage had to be set up PERFECTLY for that to happen

seriously iceclimbers will work on every charcter on almost all if not all tournament legal stages.

But we didn't ban such combos in 64 or Melee, now did we? Also, Ever seen Squirtle U-tilt someone? Or Sheik F-tilt someone (into Usmash)? There's a vid someone of truly broken combos possible due to Stale Move Negation.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

But we didn't ban such combos in 64 or Melee, now did we? Also, Ever seen Squirtle U-tilt someone? Or Sheik F-tilt someone (into Usmash)? There's a vid someone of truly broken combos possible due to Stale Move Negation.

still doesn't have the sheer damage capability, deadliness or duration of the ICs. And most of those combos can be DId out of or at least affected by doing things (airdodging, attacking, DIing, powershielding, etc.)

the point is, the other player has some ability to escape such things. Iceclimber infinite is completely innescapable at any damage with any character

 

[Yuna]

Then what about this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CPcXrYv1p-Y

 

[The_NZA]

I completely agree with Patsie. There is no reason why Ness shoudl be unuseable against Marth, or why we should have to ban perfectly good stages that actually offer legitimate fair advantages from the counterpick pile simply because there is an exploit that takes teh skill out of the game. The answer is ban the exploit. A "softban" would simply be great enough to make infiniting taboo.

Also, a note against the "Dont get Grabbed" statement.

This isn't melee. In this game, if your opponent wants to grab you, they will. If they want to grab you 3 times in a match, they will. You cant L cancel, you are floatier, you aren't fast enough to dodge every hit, and you dont even have 4 stocks to rely on, to say "Oh, I just lost 1 stock, I can make the comeback". In Melee, sure they allowed Wobbling, but there was a LOT required for you to wobble. The expectation was you could 1. Desync, 2. Grab, 3. Do the action.

One could prevent wobbling by simply
a. L cancelling (everytime)
b. Playing fast
c. Adequate Spacing
d. Keeping the IC's separated (pk fire, shining, whatever you want)
e. Killing nana

all of those were much easier and actually possible in melee.

 

[Hyrus]

It's not about being the best, it's about winning.

It doesn't get more shallow than that, huh?

I don't know the economic science behind it, but let me take a venture. Tournaments exist to draw a crowd and people watch to be entertained. They're entertained by seeing which fighter is the best (its the same deal with boxing or any sport). While it may be all about winning from the seat of a pretentious armchair warrior, to the blood of a tournament it is about entertaining an audience - no audience, no tournament.

Entertainment.

Don't get grabbed.

Show me any individual who can play the game and never get grabbed without their performance taking a significant drop.

Zamus has a near-guaranteed (not sure, it might actually be guaranteed) Dsmash chain into killer aerial/smash on Fox and quite possibly Wolf. Should we ban that? After all, she only needs one dsmash at near 0%.

It wouldn't be wise to use an unproven example in an argument.

 

[Yuna]

still doesn't have the sheer damage capability, deadliness or duration of the ICs. And most of those combos can be DId out of or at least affected by doing things (airdodging, attacking, DIing, powershielding, etc.)

the point is, the other player has some ability to escape such things. Iceclimber infinite is completely innescapable at any damage with any character

I'm sorry, did have you seen Sheik's F-tilt?

 

[Zankoku]

I don't know the economic science behind it, but let me take a venture. Tournaments exist to draw a crowd and people watch to be entertained. They're entertained by seeing which fighter is the best (its the same deal with boxing or any sport). While it may be all about winning from the seat of a pretentious armchair warrior, to the blood of a tournament it is about entertaining an audience - no audience, no tournament.

Entertainment.

If entertainment for the audience was all tournaments were about, I'd have to wonder why we're playing Brawl.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

I'm sorry, did have you seen Sheik's F-tilt?

I main shiek along with Zelda... so yes... and your video was a bad example of your point since it was almost entirely chaingrabs... which is what I said should be banned.

if it wasn't a chain grab, it was a wall combo... and, walls ARE banned.

only think that didn't fit that was the shiek ftilit combo which doesn't work like it's shown in videos. The Ftilt lock can be escaped rather easily for the first hit or so of the combo for one thing... which automatically makes it fair game: even after initiated, the oponent has a chance to break out.
if you don't break out in thos few frames, you can still DI out, you'll get hit a few times first, but the combo is far from infinite and wont work at high damages.

Also, even at low damages, it barely "locks" anyone in it at all... Any non space animal can get out with minimal DI after maybe one or two hits.

so yeah:
-Chaingrabs that have the potential to be infinite: broken
-shiek's Ftilt... not so much,

but thank you for playing maybe next time.

 

[The_NZA]

Yuna you are completely wrong. Competitive gaming is about finding the best at an art. Not about winning. If it was just about winning, there is no reason why we WOULDN'T put on items. We take out variables to see who is the best with the best characters. Albeit, its not equal opportunity for everyone. There ARE tiers. But still, if something is deemed broken, it is taken out. You act like there weren't banned techniques in Melee. You act like the IC freeze glitch never existed. And btw Yuna, I thought you'd like to see this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tztxdBpl-Zw

 

[Foxy]

It doesn't get more shallow than that, huh?

I don't know the economic science behind it, but let me take a venture. Tournaments exist to draw a crowd and people watch to be entertained. They're entertained by seeing which fighter is the best (its the same deal with boxing or any sport). While it may be all about winning from the seat of a pretentious armchair warrior, to the blood of a tournament it is about entertaining an audience - no audience, no tournament.

Entertainment.

No. You are ABSOLUTELY wrong here.

Have you ever attended a Smash tourney?

It's not about the audience. There usually is no audience other than eliminated players.

Tourney directors make no money from "entertaining", there are no seat tickets to be sold.

Nobody's going to be taking advice from someone who thinks that a Smash tourney is the same thing as an NFL game.

 

[The_NZA]

Originally Posted by Inferno_blaze View Post
"I dislike infinites, they stand against everything that was the point in why we banned stuff, to make the game as fair as possible to each player, why the hell aren't we using items if infinites are in the game and can be used to win?"
"because infinites aren't random?"

Thats not entirely true. First rounds is Blind pick. If you main dk and someone else mains DDD you are screwed. Lets say you Cpick. Sure you have a chance at winning Round 2 but we should never settle for that kind of a forfeit of a round.

 

[Foxy]

Thats not entirely true. First rounds is Blind pick. If you main dk and someone else mains DDD you are screwed. Lets say you Cpick. Sure you have a chance at winning Round 2 but we should never settle for that kind of a forfeit of a round.

You'll hate me for saying this, but that's a risk you're going to take when you decide to main DK, and a perk you enjoy if you choose to main DDD.

 

[The_NZA]

No, good matchups are perks. Forfetting a round is a stupid risk to be allowed.

 

[nitnit]

****, I might actually have to agree with Yuna for the most part here. Usually I'd love to jump on the wagon about how (s)he always dismisses whatever arguments are difficult, and makes completely unrelated retorts... but regardless... OP is also an idiot.

How exactly does one define an infinite/unfair chaingrab? If it's using 10 throws, then it would make perfectly logical sense to stop at 9, still giving an advantage. Is it using more than 2 throws in a row? If so then using "doublethrows" will be the new chain grab. It doesn't matter what you do, Brawl is a game of many different fighting styles, even more so than Melee. This is brawl's biggest strength, making it a unique fighting experience, and also its biggest weakness; the more diverse characters are, the easier it is to create unfair advantages.

While chain grabbing and infinites are gamebreaking, and damage brawl's viability, creating very shaky limitations also do. The only true solution to what is being complained about is to force players to use the same character as each other every match. And yes, I do think that's a rather ****ty solution.

 

[Tien2500]

I'll try to play both sides since I'm ambivelent on the matter.

In favor of infinites

1. Ice Climbers are not broken. They simply aren't. I've played chaingrabbing iceclimbers and it can be tough but its not unbeatable. Nana is a moron and once you're familiar with the way Nana is controlled you can use moves that will hit her reliably. Also the Ice Climbers approach is awful. And they're not winning tournaments. I don't think they're even among the best.

2. You can counterpick. Tournaments are designed with this in mind thats why you don't just choose a character and play with them. To neutralize the effect of bad matchups on tournament results.

3. DK has been winning tournaments. Now I'm assuming the DK player will switch his character if he encounters DDD but DK is still tournament viable despite being vulnerable to a chaingrab.

Opposed to infinites.

1. I have only one real thing to say against infinites and that is that it seems to limit the game.

DDD vs DK
DDD vs Mario
DDD vs Samus
DDD vs Luigi
DDD vs Bowser
Marth vs Ness
PT vs Ness
Marth vs Lucas
Yoshi vs Wario (I think)

So thats nine matches that we'll likely never see at a tournament level which I think is a bummer. We've also lost all stages with walls and possibly walk off ledges (I'm not sue about this one. Are they still legal? It seems they may be banned since Dedede would have easy KOs against lots of characters and Falco would have an east time). And infinite grabs may discourage people from playing certain characters. So I think infinites take something away from the metagame and (except for possibly the ICs) don't add anything... So I'd personally ban them. But on the other hand if infinites are allowed its not a gamebreaking problem.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

****, I might actually have to agree with Yuna for the most part here. Usually I'd love to jump on the wagon about how (s)he always dismisses whatever arguments are difficult, and makes completely unrelated retorts... but regardless... OP is also an idiot.

How exactly does one define an infinite/unfair chaingrab? If it's using 10 throws, then it would make perfectly logical sense to stop at 9, still giving an advantage. Is it using more than 2 throws in a row? If so then using "doublethrows" will be the new chain grab. It doesn't matter what you do, Brawl is a game of many different fighting styles, even more so than Melee. This is brawl's biggest strength, making it a unique fighting experience, and also its biggest weakness; the more diverse characters are, the easier it is to create unfair advantages.

While chain grabbing and infinites are gamebreaking, and damage brawl's viability, creating very shaky limitations also do. The only true solution to what is being complained about is to force players to use the same character as each other every match. And yes, I do think that's a rather ****ty solution.

but isn't the case normally (as in with games other than smash) to be overly harsh as opposed to overly lenient?

IE ban all chaingrabs of any length as opposed to allowing them all or making an arbitrary "only this many chaingrabs" clause

 

[Straw Dog]

but isn't the case normally (as in with games other than smash) to be overly harsh as opposed to overly lenient?

IE ban all chaingrabs of any length as opposed to allowing them all or making an arbitrary "only this many chaingrabs" clause

How could you possibly enforce a "only this many chaingrabs clause."

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

How could you possibly enforce a "only this many chaingrabs clause."

honor system, or replay videos and disqualification of offenders.

 

[The_NZA]

First of all, thats not how it would be done. Most infinites are very specific. Everyone knows when a marht is attempting to infinite a ness, or when a dedede is attempting to infinite DK. IC's is fairly specific as well since no IC intending a chain grab would throw grab throw grab throw grab (or at least wouldn't ever forwrad throw grab, and then turn around and bthrow grab unless they WERE intending an infinite). Thtas how a ban would be put in place, and it wouldn't necessarily be enforceable in the strictest sense. A soft ban would make it taboo enough that peole would stop doing it.