Clai
Smash Lord
Considering the amount of discussion people have been having about the ruleset, how to change the rules, banning Metaknight, and other issues, I have decided to create this thread because any change that the people in charge would make regarding the moveset would be tailored to one thing: keeping Brawl in the spirit of a competitive fighter.
By definition, the purpose of a competitive fighter is to knock out your opponent's health while preventing your opponent from doing the same thing. While, to achieve fairness, the defensive purpose of a fighter (preventing your opponnt from knocking you out) must be given the same amount of attention as the offensive purpose (knocking out the opponent), there are several features of our current ruleset (I will also use Melee's ruleset as examples) that encourage the offensive approach more than the defensive playstyle:
1) The fact that we have rules/recommendations about stalling
2) Stage/Item Bans
While I will go into these points later, I will say that they prove that they contribute to keep the intention of this game as knocking out your opponents and depleting their stocks. While a timer is absolutely necessary to keep tournaments at reasonable lengths, methods to abuse the timer in order to win have been discouraged as much as possible while still retaining the principle of "playing to win."
The most easily identifiable rule is the choosing of which stages are legal to play on and which stages are banned from play. The people in charge of the rule-set could have just as easily give people a choice to play on Hanenbow or Luigi's Mansion, but with these stages, tournaments would envelop into chaos and people would quit in masses. No matter how obvious these bans may seem, though, let's delve into the reasoning of why these stages are banned in the first place.
Melee:Some kind of stalling prevention is highly recommended. Since a definition of stalling is too potentially ambiguous here, all instances of stalling are determined by the Tournament Host.
Brawl:Stalling: The act of deliberately avoiding any and all conflict so that one may make the game unplayable. Running away from an opponent to reach a better position is not stalling, while doing an infinite grab endlessly against a wall is. Any infinite chain grabs must end quickly after 300% has been reached so as to prevent excessive stalling. Stalling is banned.
While the Melee rule-makers didn't want to get too hairy with the definition of stalling, the Brawl rule-set provides a good explanation, and the Melee rule-set would likely agree. What catches my eye about this rule is that offensive strategies (at least those that don't result in glitches/freezes), that make the game unplayable don't result in problems. Get caught in Ice Climber's chain grab? Well you can't do anything about it. Nope. Zilch. Nada. You lost a stock and no amount of playability will change that. This isn't just true for Brawl. Infinite comboes, as long as they don't promote overcentralization, are for the most part allowed and if an opposing player can pull them off, tough luck for you.
*NOTE: The Official Ruleset for Competitive Brawl says nothing about Dedede's infinite chaingrab. Just because regions ban them does not mean that it is a universally banned tactic*
No, the part about this rule that gets to me is the "delibrately avoiding any and all conflict" phrase. After all, Metaknight's Infinite Dimensional Cape Glitch was banned for this very purpose- a MK player can use this tactic and become invincible and invisible, avoiding any form of contact until the clock runs out (Of course Metaknight had to have had this- we wouldn't be talking about 'creating rules to keep MK in the game' if Marth was the only character with this technique... sorry I digress). If an offensive strategy that makes the game unplayable isn't banned, why is a defensive strategy that accomplishes the same purpose get the banhammer? Both strategies are going to result in a certain amount of centralization, and both strategies follow the 'play to win' principle by the letter. As for the last sentence, the statement about infinite chain grabs being forced to end at 300%, you aren't going to be more dead at 999% than at 300%, so this statement also attempts to discourage using the tactic to run out the timer.
All of this brings me to my conclusion as to why stalling is banned in the Brawl rule-set: Stalling (delibrately avoiding any and all contact) detracts from the purpose of Brawl as a competitive fighter- to win by knocking out the opponent.
*NOTE: While the following topics have been discussed and set into use by Tournament Directors, there is no official policy established in the Official Brawl ruleset concerning these issues*
Think about the specifics of grabbing the ledge. You grab the ledge, you become invulnerable for a period of time, and then become vulnerable again. Characters that are good at planking are likely to be very effective in reducing the amount of time that they are vulnerable on or near the ledge and aim to spend as much time being invulnerable as possible. However, while your character is on a ledge, he/she/it is in a dangerous position, as the character has greatly reduced mobility and has only a few options to use when he/she/it is hanging. So what makes keeping to the ledge so enticing? It's the invunerability frames, of course. Even if you can't do anything back to the opponent, you have the pleasure of knowing that the opponent can't touch you while you're holding on for those set amount of frames. Here, of course, is where the trouble begins.
Say a character has X frames of invulnerability on the ledge. That means that for Y amount of times the character grabs the ledge, that character is completely invulnerable for XY amount of frames. The total amount of time spent being invulnerable may not be much, but when you consider that some characters have great methods that keep their opponents away from the ledge, that time can really add up. In addition, while the character is invulnerable, he/she/it is completely incacpable of mounting an offense, or do anything else for that matter, so abusing these invulnerability frames provides no benefit outside of running out the clock. While I repeat that it's likely that a character will spend no more than a handful of seconds being invulnerable while on the ledge, tournament directors are still trying to place limits on how many edgegrabs a player can have. Since these limits are done to hinder the onset of planking, the TO's are likely carrying them out because they find this tactic to be too similar to stalling.
In conclusion, I have analyzed Brawl's rule-set in accordance of maintaining its image as a competitive fighter, provided reasons as to why the ruleset includes issues such as stage bans and stalling, and gave my own opinions to the problems that we face regarding the ruleset today. If we're going to make changes to the rules, the reasoning for doing so has to be consistent with the reasoning behind the rules we already have in place.
- Brawl: A Timed Battle with Stocks or a Stock Battle with a Timer?
By definition, the purpose of a competitive fighter is to knock out your opponent's health while preventing your opponent from doing the same thing. While, to achieve fairness, the defensive purpose of a fighter (preventing your opponnt from knocking you out) must be given the same amount of attention as the offensive purpose (knocking out the opponent), there are several features of our current ruleset (I will also use Melee's ruleset as examples) that encourage the offensive approach more than the defensive playstyle:
1) The fact that we have rules/recommendations about stalling
2) Stage/Item Bans
While I will go into these points later, I will say that they prove that they contribute to keep the intention of this game as knocking out your opponents and depleting their stocks. While a timer is absolutely necessary to keep tournaments at reasonable lengths, methods to abuse the timer in order to win have been discouraged as much as possible while still retaining the principle of "playing to win."
- Stage Bans: Why do they exist?
The most easily identifiable rule is the choosing of which stages are legal to play on and which stages are banned from play. The people in charge of the rule-set could have just as easily give people a choice to play on Hanenbow or Luigi's Mansion, but with these stages, tournaments would envelop into chaos and people would quit in masses. No matter how obvious these bans may seem, though, let's delve into the reasoning of why these stages are banned in the first place.
Walk-off Stages
These type of stages have the most concrete reason as to why they are banned: they create overcentralization. King Dedede, along possibly other characters, can easily chaingrab opposing characters to the blast zones and then promptly dispatch of them. This creates a huge problem as it catastrophically reduces the amount of viable options a player has to choose from. Having permanent blast zones so close to the stage has an incredibly disdainful impact because it allows people to gain KO's far beyond what their character is normally capable of.
Stages with Hazards
These stages don't cause any overcentralization, but they bring up another problem: Outside forces start having a greater impact on the battle than the ability of the characters. Any hazard that can kill a combatant far earlier than the opposing combatant could have is a serious issue, as the purpose of a fighting game is to use the character's abilities to prevail over the opponent. Items are banned for the same reason, as they become a dominating force that circumvents the abilities of the characters in battle.
Huge Stages
Here we come to the most intriguing situation: stages that are simply way too big to function. You can say that these stages cause overcentralization, but that isn't true: numerous characters are capable of performing a hit-and-run strategy, using the stage's enormous size to benefit them- Sonic, Fox, heck even Captain Falcon could be viable if the only thing he was asked to do was run away a lot. These stages don't introduce dominant outside forces because everything that contributed to these stages' banning involves nothing more than the ability of the characters to use the stage to their benefit. With that being said, I believe that the reason that huge stages are banned is because they promote camping for the sole purpose of running out the clock, and that is a discouraged outcome by those establishing the rules.
These type of stages have the most concrete reason as to why they are banned: they create overcentralization. King Dedede, along possibly other characters, can easily chaingrab opposing characters to the blast zones and then promptly dispatch of them. This creates a huge problem as it catastrophically reduces the amount of viable options a player has to choose from. Having permanent blast zones so close to the stage has an incredibly disdainful impact because it allows people to gain KO's far beyond what their character is normally capable of.
Stages with Hazards
These stages don't cause any overcentralization, but they bring up another problem: Outside forces start having a greater impact on the battle than the ability of the characters. Any hazard that can kill a combatant far earlier than the opposing combatant could have is a serious issue, as the purpose of a fighting game is to use the character's abilities to prevail over the opponent. Items are banned for the same reason, as they become a dominating force that circumvents the abilities of the characters in battle.
Huge Stages
Here we come to the most intriguing situation: stages that are simply way too big to function. You can say that these stages cause overcentralization, but that isn't true: numerous characters are capable of performing a hit-and-run strategy, using the stage's enormous size to benefit them- Sonic, Fox, heck even Captain Falcon could be viable if the only thing he was asked to do was run away a lot. These stages don't introduce dominant outside forces because everything that contributed to these stages' banning involves nothing more than the ability of the characters to use the stage to their benefit. With that being said, I believe that the reason that huge stages are banned is because they promote camping for the sole purpose of running out the clock, and that is a discouraged outcome by those establishing the rules.
- Stalling
Melee:Some kind of stalling prevention is highly recommended. Since a definition of stalling is too potentially ambiguous here, all instances of stalling are determined by the Tournament Host.
Brawl:Stalling: The act of deliberately avoiding any and all conflict so that one may make the game unplayable. Running away from an opponent to reach a better position is not stalling, while doing an infinite grab endlessly against a wall is. Any infinite chain grabs must end quickly after 300% has been reached so as to prevent excessive stalling. Stalling is banned.
While the Melee rule-makers didn't want to get too hairy with the definition of stalling, the Brawl rule-set provides a good explanation, and the Melee rule-set would likely agree. What catches my eye about this rule is that offensive strategies (at least those that don't result in glitches/freezes), that make the game unplayable don't result in problems. Get caught in Ice Climber's chain grab? Well you can't do anything about it. Nope. Zilch. Nada. You lost a stock and no amount of playability will change that. This isn't just true for Brawl. Infinite comboes, as long as they don't promote overcentralization, are for the most part allowed and if an opposing player can pull them off, tough luck for you.
*NOTE: The Official Ruleset for Competitive Brawl says nothing about Dedede's infinite chaingrab. Just because regions ban them does not mean that it is a universally banned tactic*
No, the part about this rule that gets to me is the "delibrately avoiding any and all conflict" phrase. After all, Metaknight's Infinite Dimensional Cape Glitch was banned for this very purpose- a MK player can use this tactic and become invincible and invisible, avoiding any form of contact until the clock runs out (Of course Metaknight had to have had this- we wouldn't be talking about 'creating rules to keep MK in the game' if Marth was the only character with this technique... sorry I digress). If an offensive strategy that makes the game unplayable isn't banned, why is a defensive strategy that accomplishes the same purpose get the banhammer? Both strategies are going to result in a certain amount of centralization, and both strategies follow the 'play to win' principle by the letter. As for the last sentence, the statement about infinite chain grabs being forced to end at 300%, you aren't going to be more dead at 999% than at 300%, so this statement also attempts to discourage using the tactic to run out the timer.
All of this brings me to my conclusion as to why stalling is banned in the Brawl rule-set: Stalling (delibrately avoiding any and all contact) detracts from the purpose of Brawl as a competitive fighter- to win by knocking out the opponent.
*NOTE: While the following topics have been discussed and set into use by Tournament Directors, there is no official policy established in the Official Brawl ruleset concerning these issues*
- Ledge-grab Policies and Planking
Think about the specifics of grabbing the ledge. You grab the ledge, you become invulnerable for a period of time, and then become vulnerable again. Characters that are good at planking are likely to be very effective in reducing the amount of time that they are vulnerable on or near the ledge and aim to spend as much time being invulnerable as possible. However, while your character is on a ledge, he/she/it is in a dangerous position, as the character has greatly reduced mobility and has only a few options to use when he/she/it is hanging. So what makes keeping to the ledge so enticing? It's the invunerability frames, of course. Even if you can't do anything back to the opponent, you have the pleasure of knowing that the opponent can't touch you while you're holding on for those set amount of frames. Here, of course, is where the trouble begins.
Say a character has X frames of invulnerability on the ledge. That means that for Y amount of times the character grabs the ledge, that character is completely invulnerable for XY amount of frames. The total amount of time spent being invulnerable may not be much, but when you consider that some characters have great methods that keep their opponents away from the ledge, that time can really add up. In addition, while the character is invulnerable, he/she/it is completely incacpable of mounting an offense, or do anything else for that matter, so abusing these invulnerability frames provides no benefit outside of running out the clock. While I repeat that it's likely that a character will spend no more than a handful of seconds being invulnerable while on the ledge, tournament directors are still trying to place limits on how many edgegrabs a player can have. Since these limits are done to hinder the onset of planking, the TO's are likely carrying them out because they find this tactic to be too similar to stalling.
- Gliding under the staaaaaage......
In conclusion, I have analyzed Brawl's rule-set in accordance of maintaining its image as a competitive fighter, provided reasons as to why the ruleset includes issues such as stage bans and stalling, and gave my own opinions to the problems that we face regarding the ruleset today. If we're going to make changes to the rules, the reasoning for doing so has to be consistent with the reasoning behind the rules we already have in place.
