Playing for timeout with 22 seconds on the clock isnt the same thing as stalling. As much as smash players want to pretend timeout isn't a win condition, sometimes it's the only one left. Is Hbox just supposed to pretend the timer isn't there? Lol
It'd be like someone getting pissed because a baseball team won with a bunt or a football team won with a safety or something, like, it's literally built into the game's ruleset
Read my comment above as it is quite on point about how scummy this video is. 22 seconds? Arguably it was even shorter then that. He stalled the last 12 seconds while the OP just shrugs off the 8 minutes (or more if you include the other matches) of on/off turnip/float stalling Triff did. Dude played lame and went out lame. lol
@@NuppyZ If it was just an explanation video with no bias and no suggested banning then I would agree with that. I don't get that vibe from many of the jeers made about HBox in the video.
I dont think you can camp an entire game and then cry about the rules in the last 15 seconds. Its like when Leffen refused to approach hbox and then whined that we needed an air time limit.
"Camp the entire game" is excessive. Bu HBox was the aggressor in a vast majority of the neutral interactions, despite it being suboptimal while Trif was way more passive and evasive throughout.@andy2641
It is hilarious, you can argue that what both players did is stalling (like I did in this discussion video). Pound stalling used to be explicitly banned in the past though, so I get why Trif would bring it up.
I'm not blaming Trif because I've never been a top player losing a very long and frustrating game, but I really wish we could see Melee ruleset discourse that didn't spawn from a top player's salty Twitter post.
In fairness to Trif, this is the type of topic that will not garner attention from the larger community (or even TOs, really) _until_ the controversial set happens. Leffen can complain about Puff, for example, but it's the crucial, controversial tournament set that generates the audience for the discussion. If it's a random Tuesday and someone complains about pound stalling, there will usually be no traction regardless of the opinion.
@@BlueGrovyle You're definitely right, and I don't mean any offense to Trif specifically. I guess having an important discussion come out of a controversial moment is pretty common across communities.
@@Demortalix yeah ofc, I wasn't accusing you of dunking on Trif, as you said that you weren't at the start of your comment. And you're correct: that phenomenon happens in politics all the time. The concrete incidents are the catalyst that spurs an opinion into action on a large scale. Unless everyone's watching, you oftentimes won't have enough power to change things.
It happens in chess all the time, some people don't like it but it's just part of the game in short time controls. Don't see why it should be any different here
I do believe melee is a vibes forward game in spirit, and playing this way is its own punishment, and that the two players signed a social contract going into a matchup like this that playing to the timeout was possibility
@@thorstonk6348 that is a good and funny way of looking at it but it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma kind of thing - whichever player chooses to play slowly will have a large advantage if the opponent decides to play fast, so the safer choice is to play slow. This is an issue especially in those matchups where only one of the characters can stall in the air forever and the other character cannot.
@@SSBMNicki Sorry if this was brought up in the video, but what do you think Trif could/would have done if the situation was reversed? Would peach floating underneath stage to the other ledge not count as stalling due to her resources being more limited? I don't think her airspeed is that much slower and, if you account for reaction time, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a peach could play those last 15-20 seconds to a similar degree
@@DrZaiusDrZaius-xp5fw there's been controversy over peaches doing that in the past (not versus jigglypuff though). like how is a fast faller going to go out and hit a peach floating out in the stratosphere with 10 seconds left
I feel like it's the same as ledge grab limit. You need a specific number for this. HBox only did the rising pound stall in the last 20 seconds of the game. Not to sound harsh, but it was trif's job not to be behind before that point. HBox also had other ways to camp such as the ledge or rotating through the platforms which aren't exactly easy for peach to deal with.
Yeah, I think Trif should have made sure not to end up in that situation. In my opinion it's part of strategy. If you stall for long, Jigglypuff will stall better in the end when it counts.
I think the point is: when is excessive? You say it's not 20 seconds, but what about 30? 40? Where's the line? Rules need to be clear so that players make sure they aren't violating them and so that when they do violate them, the other player can report it to the TO. Without that, it's just pure vibes, and a player can feel cheated since they didn't know what counted as a violation
@@aegisofthegrail5888 I would say it's hard to say exact rules until it's clearly become a problem. As we don't have much to measure by. Once we know the problem, we can find the solution. Otherwise we would set clear rules but they are also based on pure vibes.
Tbh 6 pounds in air seems more reasonable. One for each jump. If you go above that it's exclusively for stalling. 4 is a little too low imo, especially since jiggs gets 5 air jumps which could be used for rising pound. 1 extra for good measure. If you get to the last 10 seconds and puff is down to use her 6 pounds to do a slow suicide in the bottom blastzone, it's on you for letting it get to that point.
As judged by TOs is a problem. A hard number is needed, IF there is a ban. HBox obviously didn't stall a lot. The last 20 seconds is exactly what he should have done
@@benjaminbravo9884 the difference of camping and stalling is very huge trif camping in peaches hardest match up is still interactable puff going off stage and pounding away for the last crucial 15 seconds is a no interactable thing the moment he commited to it the game was over which is not the same as peach attempting to camp becauseyou can still interact with her there is a chance that it isnt over thats a big difference
@@ariesomega2487 Pick up a secondary or innovate the matchup or keep losing. Genuinely just get better at the game, there are plenty of times were Trif does go in and win neutral in this set. Just be better at doing that. This was a mismatch and the loser is mad about the opponent taking advantage of the match up, that's it.
HBox did literally the same thing every peach player has done against him on Dreamland. loDD did the same thing by stalling under the stage. And you want to know why lloD did the same thing? Because it's legal. HBox also won this game without a timeout, Trif KO'd with 1 second left.
I think the word excessively is the difference maker here. Yes he was delaying the game, but I feel only for 15 seconds of the 8 minutes is not excessive. Of course it’s to’s interpretation of the rules that matter
Ik when it comes to the last couple seconds all players jump off and stall for aslong as they can. Puff is just lucky she can stay stall for 15 secs. Utilizing char. Tools & limits is smart.
Not defending Hbox, but at 11:10 you say there was no way for peach to hit him no matter what she did I do disagree. In fact she came extremely close to doing so.
I agree with pretty much everything you say, but I don't think it's that bad to rely on a TO's call to judge what is "excessive" pound stalling. It's not ideal from a competitor's view, but so far it hasn't really been an issue as people don't seem to exploit the ambiguity. I don't think many players or viewers would consider what hbox did in the last seconds as something that needs to be banned.
well one could say that most people definitely exploit it, hbox definitely makes it very difficult to engage with him in some moments, trif definitely float stalls against certain matchups, basically everyone who can uses the ambiguous stalling rule to their advantage which is fine, but what's the point of this, we should clarify or remove the rule
Stalling needs to have precise rules around them which is near impossible to do, that's the reason why it says "excessive" and "at the discretion of the TOs". To answer Trif's question, yes pound stalling in this situation was allowed since there was no specific rule against what Hbox did and not deemed to be excessive stalling by the TOs. In this particular case, it seems to me the issue comes from puff being able to hide under the stage by going back and forth between the ledges, so if I would ban anything it would be crossing the middle point more than once or twice under the stage without touching the ground. This both allows characters like puff and peach to use their unique tools while also not completely denying interaction for potentially minutes from other characters that can't reach there.
I think it should define "excessive stalling" by a set length of time in order to apply it to all forms of intentional stalling techniques on any character.
That is not quite a fair assessment, stalling takes many forms(running away like Sonic, or in this case: peach) Maintaining aerial height out of reach(puff)(this did not happen as puff was below stage, not way above) Stun locks? Zoning. Instead, having limits on specific mechanics is a more fair assessment(ledge grab limit is a good example, you can grab ledge, but you can't abuse it.) In this scenario, because puff can potentially stall for an unreasonable amount of time(did not happen here), then *limit* the mechanic(not remove it) The mechanic here, is rising pound, not pound itself. Pound is a good recovery tool, but rising pound is still useful for altitude(in case someone...is stalling in the sky for example) Limit 1 *rising* pound per jump if the community wants to throw a fit about it, but any other character would've been fine stalling under the stage and we all know it. 22 seconds is not long at all, and puff was clearly the more active player.
What I love about your content is that in situations like this you bring up thoughts from all points of view in order to spark quality discussion rather than just give your own strict opinion. I hope more people see this and start watching your videos! I agree we probably need some clearer rules on stalling.
But he did give his opinion, and it was a very weird opinion. He thinks its a good idea to impose an aerial timer or pound limit?? That's not Melee. The decisions were made what the characters are able to do over a decade ago. If you play Melee then you play Melee, not Melee2024-edition-v2.1.3-timer-extra-rules-v6.
@@snared_ I didn't say he didn't give his opinion, I understand if that wasn't clear. He of course did by the end of the video, but he also read and considered comments from differing perspectives and encouraged us to think about all of these ideas as well. He also mentions different solutions we could maybe think about. In my opinion, I agree the rules are a little too vague on stalling, but I also don't think what Hbox did was all that bad. I'm not sure what the solution is but I think coming up with more concrete rules is maybe a good idea.
For a guy with a song called stalling. Going for timeout at 20 secs isnt stalling. It aint like hes pulling a sonix and making it his entire gameplan. He saw an opportunity, saw the little bit of time left and knew what he had to do. Especially for a guy who used to have this kind of playstyle optimized back in the god melee days. He knows exactly just how much he needs to do to stay just under the limit
There was no excessive delay, therefore it does not break rules. 15-20 seconds is not excessive delay. I hope Trif doesnt become Leffen, and constantly whine about trying to enforce a rule that specifically targets a matchup. Excessive Pound Stalling is banned, emphasis on Excessive.
what is excessive does it refer to time, or circumstance, or both why does random user on youtuube (or random TO at tournament) get to decide that? isn't it weird
@@ThunderbackOG in some events it is, but not in any of the recent majors. And even when it is banned it just states "pound stalling is banned", which brings us back to the same issue: what is pound stalling? When is it stalling?
So, as someone that knows basically nothing about competitive smash, here's a rule suggestion/inspiration that I think might be somewhat enforceable: Any jump (undamaged take-off) that results in you leaving the left/right/bottom boundary of the stage is a "camp jump". After any match, your opponent may call into question your "camping time". If the combined air time of "camp jumps" exceed 1 minute (insert realistic amount of time here), you lose the match. If the combined air time of "camp jumps" do not exceed that time, and also is not within 10 seconds of that, your opponent gets a warning. If you receive 3 warnings, you're disqualified for being a whiny brat. The point being: Defining camping is hard. Some might camp the edge of a "safe zone", while others just go out and return later. By including all jumps that cross the threshold, you get a better indicator of how much time that player spent away from the action, rather than having to limit what could in some cases just be an attack combo. The point of this type of rule, was to suggest something that will allow most types of play, while still making camping an objective measurement.
Puff has five jumps (excluding her ground jump). Here's a rule, it goes something like: 5 pounds underneath a stage results in a lost stock, game, or dq. Whatever your pick is.
But it's what puff do mid games. Idk if this would be full proof. It was the last 15 seconds of the game. Could this ban be applicable for a dk vs puff mu. Because let's say if a dk player manages to get hbox down to 15 seconds and loses his stock. All hbox would have to do is either jump towards the blast zones and 3 pounds would make it game or do the same thing here if he wants it will result into the same conclusion. So I honestly would actually have to go against this ban now that I think about it a little bit more. Like peach followed puff underneath the stage and miss back air. Would he have complained if he landed the back air? Probably. Who knows
I dont get why people make this controversial these are the rules of the game this is completely fairplay if trif had the stock lead he could float high or under the stage as well
"These are the rules of the game" Well the rules state that stalling is not allowed. It's a rule that in spirit tries to prevent -something-, but the rule is so badly worded and defined that no one actually know what it is meant to disallow. That's why this discussion is worth having - we either remove the rule or we make it actually enforcable. I am okay with either.
I wanted to watch the entire vid before saying something but I just can't I'm 14 mins in and Trif is a cry baby whos just mad that he took a fat L I don't need to watch the rest of the vid to know that lmao. Good vid tho Nicki I did enjoy it
I think the best rule to put in place is a simple rule on airborne pounds. Something like using 8 or more airborne pounds without touching the ground constitutes a game loss in the event of a timeout. Obviously this number is based on vibes, it could afford to be higher. In this case I think Hbox's play was fine, with no hard and fast rule on stalling I don't think stalling under the stage for like 12 seconds is absurd, although this could be abused much harder, and players could feasibly stall for much longer in this way.
A role generally on pound stalling under a stage to force timeout could be considered, because that position puff can pound infinitely left + right, even 15s thats an issue where no interactivity can happen without a player going for a hit that results in SD cause they cant recover after unlike puff
i cant believe you even made a video about this. what if this vid contributes to trif's tantrum blowing up? like theres no world in which this game should spark serious debate about the health of the game
Air time limit is terrible, because it punishes a very airborne puff, especially in a matchup like puff vs Samus. I think doing 3 pounds in a row, similar to how we check wobbling is fair.
so what about puff recovering to stage on dreamland and his best mix up to get back safely is using 3 pounds? then it's stalling and the puff player loses for mixing up recovery
When it comes to stuff like this, you really can't argue what should and what shouldn't be allowed, since at this point, you're just hurting the fundamentals of the character's playstyle. Like, doing a few pounds in the air to get away from your opponent when you have the lead and the timer is about to end is normal for a camping strategy.
@@zenabompeg well the same can be said for any stallign ban or ledgegrab limit, the fundamentals of marth, peach, puff, shiek, etc. include t he ability to slow down and prolong games, and removing it does limit their options. it's just up to people to decide how much is acceptable
I think this is the point where the community will have to decide which way they want to go. The rules of stalling being this ambiguous makes it impossible to know what is and isn't stalling. What is stalling needs to be decided on what you guys want the competitive scene to be. The rules of smash competitive scene already ban items because we see it as luck and want to value play skill. We also ban infinites cause we deem them to be unfair and not fun. If we want as little stalls as possible we might as well just ban jigglypuff pound stalling with a limit on how many she can do in the air before tou hing the ground. Or we if we keep stalling we just except as a win condition where it is allowed after there is a certain amount of time in the clock. If I had to pick one I think stalling is allowed with any character only in the last 10 seconds of gameplay. So jigglypuff can pound offstage all she wants, peach can sideB all she wants in Fountains of dreams, etc. However, limitations on what we can stall with needs to be placed before the last 10 seconds. Jigglypuff can only use pound 6 times when she is off the ground allowing for recovery and mix-ups, peach can do her sideB stall in foutains of dreams for 6 times, etc. (These are just arbitrary numbers.) Of course if it becomes too harsh or leniant we can always adjudt it. TLDR; Community needs to decide what they want the competitve scene to be. Do we limit any form of stalls so we can get interaction or just decide that it is a winning condition to play for. Items were bann cause we wanted it that way, the same should be done here.
I completely agree with your point about things not needing to be overpowered to be banned. My go-to example is that if there were a simple, uninteractive, passive technique that ensured a loss but only after eight minutes (e.g. freezing both players at game start, setting your % to 999 and your opponent's to 0), it would be banned despite it literally forcing the player using the technique to lose, strictly because it would enable complete logistical nightmares. Very hard to define some of these rules but does that mean we shouldn't? Is a suboptimal but clearly defined rule better than any unclearly defined rule? A difficult question. For now "loose rules enforced at TO discretion" is fine, but everything is fine until it's not, you know? I don't think HungryBox broke the rules but that's significantly more of a factor in how rules are written and enforced than anything, and unfortunately, the way the rules are right now, there is a "vibes" element to enforcing stalling.
I can see why hbox’s play looks bannable, but I don’t buy it tbh. This is just Puff’s version of running away to secure a timeout. Like yes he did “stall” in that he ran away to avoid interaction with Trif, but doing that for a timeout is normal and good and healthy for the game. The difference would be doing it with 2 minutes in the clock instead of 12 seconds. If you *really* want to impose rules on that sort of behavior, the only way I can see it working with a numbered limit is pounds per jump, and limiting it to like 2-4. Pounds in the air is absurd, because it forces Puff to lose a stock she might have recovered otherwise, and air time limits are absurd, kind of self-evidently? I’m genuinely shocked we have to keep reiterating that characters should be allowed to jump as much as they want in a platform fighter
great video! i personally think puff should just be banned from tournament. no rules will make that character fun to fight or watch.. maybe that's just me
Tough situation. I do not think that matchup win percentage should matter. However, Puff pounding under the stage repeatedly feels a step to far as far as uninteractive gameplay goes. I believe that stalling needs to have strict hard rules to them, no vibes and no TO opinions. If Puff pounds X times before touching the stage, the player forfeits the game; If Peach Side-B's against a wall X times, game loss; etc. Any vibes check rules or TO discretion rules will guaranteed lead to people being upset.
How long can Puff stall for? If they can stall for 20 seconds from just one jump, with 5 jumps can they stall for about a minute and a half? Mostly just curious.
There should be a limit on the amount of times moves like pound, bomb, peach bomber can be used in a game similar to ledge grab limit. If the game goes to time and the move limit is exceeded then the player that exceeded the limit loses.
I cannot believe that a character stalling for like 10 seconds to end the match is somehow ban worthy behavior, like okay. If he was doing it all match, sure. Makes sense. But it's 10 seconds, like come on. Who cares.
And 20 ish seconds isnt excessive by any means necessarily anyways. Taking your opponents stock is a win condition, timeout is a win condition. Wanna see a truely egregious match that should have resulted in a DQ? Sonix Vs DeeDee Momocon Top 8 I swear, its as is smash community as a whole tend to forget other fighting games exist and how stalling vs timeouts actually qualify (And no i dont mean u nicki)
I don't think people understand how rules or laws work when complaining about "vibes" or asking "what is considered excessive." Every rule is vibes. There are people whose job it is to interpret laws called Lawyers or Referees. There are issues IRL that are impossible to codify because you need to talk back and forth in a court room of what is considered X or this or that. Why is the timer 7 minutes and not 8? Why is this stage banned and not this one? Why is there a fussy stage pick selection between players? It's just a preference that everyone agreed to for a homemade variant of the game. The only """"objective"""" way to play the game is to only play what's on the 1.02 disc. Anything beyond that is a series of social constructs we invented to make for a spectator sport. Trif getting titled at this game in particular and wanting a rule change is just as emotional and vibes based as the stalling rule he's complaining about. "At the TOs discretion" already solves the issue because constraining a "playstyle" is just impossible and a never-ending debate. Banning something like a freeze glitch outright is easy to codify because it's very specific, obvious why it should be banned, there is little to argue. Banning a method or playstyle that Puff sometimes has to do anyway that's dependent on a stage and circumstances? Just get a referee to decide it. Don't like the decision? Find another tournament.
Instead of game losses for stalling, I’d be curious what would happen if we made both players re-do the game altogether. Maybe they’d get more fatigued doing it and realize it’s not worth the risk. This is only hypothetical of course, I doubt TO’s would re-do a game unless absolutely necessary
I have a solution of the pound issue Jigglypuff may not use pound offstage outside of advantage our edgeguard situations, pertaining to either player. If Jigglypuff goes offstage in other situations and the opponent approaches Jigglypuff, that shall not be deemed an edgeguard situation until the opponent grabs the ledge, performs an attack, or Jigglypuff attempts to return to the stage.
The language about "excessive" stalling in the ruleset is necessary because some amount of stalling is inevitable in Smash Bros. Every time your opponent loses a stock you have to stall until their respawn invincibility runs out for instance, unless you want to idiotically charge in and get hit for no reason. So there are clearly some situations where stalling is the only reasonable behavior. Was this game one of those, or was it "excessive"? Seems like most people agree it was reasonable given the circumstances and the short duration.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the set, I do think it's important to point out the ambiguity within the current ruleset. TO discretion sucks. They have enough going on without that sort of thing and tbh most of them would probably rather not be "that guy" when making an unfavorable decision that affects a popular top player. A concrete rule with actual specifications makes it easier to be enforced without the potential pushback
i wished the video wouldn't have started from the assumption that stalling is automatically bad and instead evaluated the benefits and problems of having it in the game. It feels weird to me to try to ban entire playstyles. Its like saying engaging or zoning should be banned.
Camping is allowed, stalling is not. Trif was camping, hungrybox was stalling. That's a game loss for hbox imo imo Obviously this doesn't resolve the discretion/opinion language, that's just me participating in the issue i guess
If there is to be any ruleset change, I think that the feelings you expressed at the end of the video should remain clear of it. Your opinion may be that because a certain manner of playing is less beautiful or goes against what you personally enjoy about the game it could warrant a ban, but I sternly disagree. If playing neutral game is a skill that can be improved, this means that one player or their chosen character will be more proficient than the other. The weaker must be allowed to flee and the stronger to press, so the weaker may opt for a strategy that utilises a different skill. Fleeing in this manner to infuriate an opponent is also a psychological strategy that players would be denied from using. Also, this case should be judged in isolation, on its own merits, without past actions affecting the outcome. In my opinion, as it's not infinite and must sometime end (as a player must land), can be countered, can be avoided without over-centralisation of play (such as wobbling did), nothing whatsoever should be done. The pointless pedantry can be avoided, anyway. The tournament organiser deemed that the behaviour was not excessive by not disqualifying Hungrybox. If Trif is resolute in his disagreement, rather than something said in the heat of the moment, he is welcome to host his own tournament and write his own rules. If he were to also compete, perhaps his own rules would force him to change his own play, too!
60(seconds) times 8(minutes) = 480 (seconds) 480(seconds) divided by 15 (seconds spent going under stage) is 32 That’s under the ledge grab limit. If this was a solved situation, how come he didn’t just explicitly do that?
3 pounds being banned sounds really harsh and I think most players and spectators enjoy seeing puff go down to the bottom of stages like FOD to guard ledge (and also the recovery from puff takes so long that she can sometimes lose a stock after the opponent respawns). This situation very obviously isn’t stalling in my opinion, it’s for edge guarding and recovering, so maybe unlimited pounds should be legal as long as they serve a real purpose other than stalling? I agree that HBox’s 13 pounds to avoid interaction should be illegal. But I don’t think making a blanket rule for 3 pounds without landing would be bad for the game. (You might not have even been suggesting that, if so, my b).
it doesn't have to be 3 specifically, I feel like the number of pounds is relatively arbitrary, it just has to be an actual number. He mentioned 4 pounds at the end, honestly 5 would also be okay for the most part unless you're also trying to ban air stalling.
@@SuperAmazingJared how many pounds does it take to get from the bottom right/bottom left blast zone back on stage? I think that’s the number I’d pick if I had to find a number
Imo, Trif could have played more aggressive to not let it go close to time. He let Jigglypuff get the advantage in the end. I believe it should be part of strategy to not let a Jigglypuff end up in the advantage where they can keep away well at the end. Any character can do it but Jigglypuff is just better at it. He lost due to faulty strategy. He was really close to hitting Jigglypuff in the end anyway so seems like a non issue.
I think that by the rules as they are Hbox didnt do anything wrong, but the rules should probably change to make things less ambiguous (for example, completely banning using pound under stages and explicitly stating some of the other cases where stalling could happen like peach side-b on FOD)
Airtime limit is just a bad option, and the pound limit feels like a bad option, maybe use opposite direction pounds (which are the ones you use to stall)
Tbh I think a lower timer would be a good thing. Some matchup take longer is a good argument, but I also think that with say a 5 minute timer those matchups would become a case of who can do the most in 5 minutes rather than who can take 4 stocks first. It might not be a bad thing for competitors or spectators and the only way to find out is to try it out a few times in some tournaments.
It would make things worse. With 8 minutes on the clock, timing out is hard. With five minutes, every single puff peach DL game would go to time, and the player with the lead would always lead. A high timer dissuades players from timing out by making it harder.
@@lwi_sandwich It would make every puff peach dreamland game last 5 minutes. Which is probably shorter than most puff peach dreamland games as it stands. Whether or not a match times out doesn’t really matter. We can see that if players want to time out a match even at 8 minutes they can make it happen, this would just waste a bit less of everyone’s time.
So not only is playing peach against puff a death sentence, but he played defensively the whole game, and it backfired. 20 seconds of stalling is nothing compared to the minutes done in ultimate with sonic. Box did literally did nothing wrong, trif is just a sore loser
I'm of the opinion there should be a universal rule to limit the amount of time you can be in the air without touching the ground or ledge or taking a hit. Don't base it on subjective language like "excessive stalling" make it something objective like 25 seconds or something. In this particular situation, Trif is reaching because the game could've been decided by many different things, not just that one interaction at the end. It came down to one hit. But he does bring up a good point about the rules. "Excessive stalling" leaves a lot of room for interpretation. That part of the rules should be more clearly defined imo. Also I don't agree with him on top plat camping I think that involves too many factors to make a ruling over. LGLs are ok
But what if Puff is trying to recover after getting spiked by Marth's down air or something and she happens to go past the time limit during her recovery? The problem with limiting time in the air is that it hurts the character's fundamental gameplay with Puff and Peach being the most affected for being two of the most airborne characters in the game. Now that I think about it, Samus might get screwed over too (no pun intended) because she spends forever getting back on stage.
If we are gonna start enforcing pound stalling, there needs to be a number so that Puff players can calibrate. If we just leave it to a subjective judgement by TOs I would say just air on the side of saying its not banned.
Ur incredibly articulate, which I find impressive. Never forget Hbox getting coached at evo. Top player privilege and EVO not enforcing their own ruleset smh
i don't think pound stalling OR wobbling should be banned frame perfect pound stalling is insanely hard, I just tried it's not realistic, and without that you just lose height every pound use all your jumps and make yourself super vulnerable to edgeguards by pound stalling
Its not about getting frame perfect pounds, its the fact that you can throw out like 30 in a completely unpunishable space before you have to interact. Just cause it's not as broken as Brawl MK dimensional cape doesnt mean it's fair/good for the game. Also as an IC main I can tell you wobbling is 100% banworthy lol we just never had wobblers with the level of neutral & non-wobbling punish that Slug and Nicki have shown.
@@mlalbaitero every stall you are making your position worse, if they stall off stage then just keep refreshing ledge invuln, you have 30 frames of invuln every time its insane, to say puff is in a good position pound stalling is ridiculous
@@sampletext7925 you really can't, more like 15, and then once you do you have no jumps and are extremely vulnerable, there's a reason why nobody actually does this
Bro why am I 5 minutes into the video and I still don't know what the video is about? From the title and thumbnail it seems like hbox got dqed for something, but I still, 5 minutes in, don't know any more than that. I would prefer if you didn't take so long getting to the point
The goal of a competitive formst is to make players battle agaibst each other to see who is the best, if there is an element that prevents this from happening then that element is limited or banned Performing this with Jigglypuff isnt something you can do en every game, you have to actually get in the position to be able to do that in the first place, and that requires a lot of skill, enough skill to require the player to outplay his opponent in order to do that air time stall, had the timer not been so low, then he wouldve not been able to do that Objects, for example, are banned because they increase variance in games too much Some characters are banned because winning with them is too easy compared to other characters You cant just make a rule thag says "you cant stall timer in the air" like man, ur literally banning a core game mechanic, not an element of the game So yeah, the guy whos complaining is just whining cuz he got outplayed
Idk how feasible it would be to enforce but air time limit in specific zones around the stage maybe. Like a box around the stage to top plat and outside that is where airtime limit gets counted
It’s so dumb to try and punish Puff players when the actual top 3 most OP characters don’t get any criticism, Marth players are campy af, falco can perfectly camp top platform very effectively and fox can straight up run around lasering 24/7. Hbox developed his campy playstyle because it’s the way he counters Fox players, if he didn’t play this way he wouldn’t be top 10. So this feels not like a Punish on puff, it feels like a straight punish to Hbox, just say y’all don’t want him to play anymore. Or grow up a little and accept that melee is not always gonna have the super fast paced fox vs falco matchups and players are allowed to use timeout since it’s a perfectly reasonable strategy and there’s money on the line. Now if HBOX was consistently going for timeout in friendlies, that would be an ass move but he’s not, he’s doing it because it’s part of his way of living, don’t mess with a man’s work.
This. Melee fans act like Puff is the only character that can camp even though I've played plenty of campier Fox players online. If air time limit becomes a thing, then so should top platform camp limit and laser limit imo.
@@coffeewithginseng3812 for real lmao I’d die for a laser limit, laser is insanely OP because it can de-stale other moves as it is also racking up damage on the opponent, because of this campy fox is by far than any other campy character and the community is still trying to punish other characters for having to play campy against a character as cracked as fox lmao. I don’t get why they get so mad at Hbox flying around trying to bait a move but a fox player that lands a hit then runs to the other side of the stage to drop 13 lasers 5 times every minute is HYPE.
@@coffeewithginseng3812 FR, watching fox players find a Back-air hit and then run to the other side of the stage to spam lasers 10 times only to then spam dash dance to try and fish an up smash for their kill confirm is boring AF, there has been good fox play displayed by guys like Cody, Leffen, and some other but most of the time and for most fox players the gamestyle I mentioned earlier is always what they do.
Why do traditional fighting games have such short timers compared to Smash? Their arenas are much more confined, so you don’t really need a short timer to force interactions imo.
Traditional fighters have much shorter rounds in general, to the point where most rounds do not go to time anyway, so making the timer longer isn't necessary. Removing the timer is certainly not an option because it helps resolve the edge case where both players may refuse to approach or interact (and no, being in a more confined space does not solve that issue by default).
@@tenslein8977 I wouldn't simplify it as a "leftover tradition" -- timers have their place in modern fighting games too. They keep the matches going as a reasonable pace and encourage more interactive gameplay without needing to literally force the players closer together.
The wobbling ban was always openly subjective how I remember it. It was bad for viewership and frustrating to play against so it was banned even though it wasn't that powerful
@@MegaStunfiskandHat something can be insanely powerful and still not make a character top 5... ICs are and would be complete ass without being able to grab using only one of them. Arguably wobbling is the only reason ICs were top 10 even for so long. I think it's also so insane because fundamentally it's so strong, and extremely easy to learn and do. Nobody wants hand offs banned because they're actually expressive of skill, not pressing A at 200bpm and being guaranteed a kill from it.
The rules I remember in my time playing melee said that stalling is defined as making the game unplayable (infinite wobbling, freeze gltich, continuous fox laser locking in shine with a stock lead) for the other opponent or making it so attempting to reach them is essentially suicide. This situation is a textbook example of that second situation, so I fully agree with trif here. The length of time, it being at the end of the game where the rest of the game wasn't played in an objectionable way, is irrelevant information. Ledgestalling and using float on platforms like people were comparing may be lame as hell, unhealthy, and arguably warrant its own rules (a separate discussion to be had), but it still carries risk and allows for the possibility of getting hit or getting the ledge stolen. This is more comparable to peach bombering the bottom of fountain. It's a checkmate situation and that should be illegal. It also blows my mind that people argue that it was "only" 15 or 20 seconds and so it doesn't qualify as excessive. Can you imagine in any traditional fighter, a community allowing players to stall for 15-20 seconds guaranteeing a win because they have a lead?
sounds like terf was just being a "heulsuse-bastart" for losing. you keep bringing up how it makes the match boring or whatever, hbox was aggressive the whole match until then, the entire match was unwatchable because of the garbage peach stall on top, let alone the last 15 seconds. i don't even like hbox but thats just absurd. ban both if you want but don't be white-knighting one over the other. i already knew your opinion before i even clicked on the video. overall boring match and boring takes. also, smash rules are so arbitrary and TOs are corrupted so both sides lose imo.
Adding aerial timer or pound limit is a horrible take. There's a reason the developers gave these characters these abilities. It's not up to you to play God and take those away. You can't time travel to when the game came out and impose your own decisions. The game is the game, stop crying about what the developers allow the characters to do. If you're upset that puff wins if they have stock advantage and there's 60s or less left on the clock by default, then I don't know what to say to you. That's just how the game is. The definition of stall: "stop or cause to stop making progress". By Jiggly having stock lead, inherently the timer running down while she is de facto invincible IS progress. She is reducing the chance she loses every second that passes, and since there is progress being made in the position, it is not stalling. People cry so much about what the developers allow the characters to do, well, if you're really that upset, you can play some other game. You aren't going to play God by pseudo-time-travelling and saying "No no no no I know I have nothing to do with the development of this game but right before you release it I, yes I, ME, I am going to put my own patch over it changing what YOU were allowing characters to do!". It's purely ego, they want the game to be how they see it, not to play the game for what it actually is. They think they are a God who can change things that happened over a decade ago. Well, wake up, because you can't. What's done is done, and for you to say "I play Melee", then you must play Melee. For you to say "I play a version of Melee where over 10 years after it was created I created some patch where I changed the characters and their abilities", then that's totally fine, say that and play that, but don't you dare play on the latter while claiming the former.
We already have done a bunch of shit to make the game more fair and competitive. UCF, Controller Mods, Wobbling Ban. Sing Stalling, Peach bomber stalling, etc etc etc. We do not play pure melee and nobody has ever claimed we do.
Why can't we let puff win if they have stock lead and there's 60s left on the clock if that's what the game says to do? It makes it so peach has to get the last hit even with multiple stocks left if timer gets low. Why isn't that "the game", why does it have to be anything else? You're forcing your own will upon the game in hindsight
Because a last stock match between a puff vs most characters is then a 100-0 mu. It is neither fun to watch or to play or really skillful. It is a bit like why we banned wobbling/freeze glitch. Those mechanics just take away a big part of the game (and why we play it) (punish game and interacting with your opponent)
#FreeIceClimbers and stop changing melee characters Legitimately a slippery slope having character nerfs on the table for ruleset discussion Always benefits the most popular players and characters
The only reason this isn't more controversial is because it only affects characters people don't care about as much When fox players stall a slow low tier for minutes at a time no one blinks an eye; hbox goes under dreamland for under 20 seconds and everyone loses their minds The objective measure for stalling is that a match can't go more than 8 minutes
why not just ban this stuff on intent. hungrybox's intent was clearly to run out the clock in a way unique to the character to avoid a one stock rematch
Playing for timeout with 22 seconds on the clock isnt the same thing as stalling. As much as smash players want to pretend timeout isn't a win condition, sometimes it's the only one left. Is Hbox just supposed to pretend the timer isn't there? Lol
It's cause they dont even know the first thing about actual win conditions in fighting games
It'd be like someone getting pissed because a baseball team won with a bunt or a football team won with a safety or something, like, it's literally built into the game's ruleset
Read my comment above as it is quite on point about how scummy this video is. 22 seconds? Arguably it was even shorter then that. He stalled the last 12 seconds while the OP just shrugs off the 8 minutes (or more if you include the other matches) of on/off turnip/float stalling Triff did. Dude played lame and went out lame. lol
@@yoda4520 the video isnt scummy its just explaning a situation in play.
@@NuppyZ If it was just an explanation video with no bias and no suggested banning then I would agree with that. I don't get that vibe from many of the jeers made about HBox in the video.
>Plays defense entire game
>Loses lead and loses to 20 seconds of defensive play
>Cries about it
They both are playing defensive
>meme arrows on youtube
@@Gilburrito it is objectively hilarious that trif is the one to complain about it, I think what trif does could also be regulated better
@@mlalbaitero cry
trif sucks
The moment we introduce a "taunt X times = win" rule is the moment we solve all this.
Kirby taunt meta bout to be wild
Do all characters have the same crouch frame data? If so i would say a teabag x times ruleset could be good direction to go in
7 times
Teabags are optimal tho
Truuuuuue
I dont think you can camp an entire game and then cry about the rules in the last 15 seconds. Its like when Leffen refused to approach hbox and then whined that we needed an air time limit.
Camp the entire game? When
"Camp the entire game" is excessive. Bu HBox was the aggressor in a vast majority of the neutral interactions, despite it being suboptimal while Trif was way more passive and evasive throughout.@andy2641
It is hilarious, you can argue that what both players did is stalling (like I did in this discussion video). Pound stalling used to be explicitly banned in the past though, so I get why Trif would bring it up.
why not
if the rules are bad you need to use them to your advantage! that's how rules get changed
Peach has to play super passively and use turnips to have any chance in this Mu. 75% of the interactions are Puff favored
"Hasn't garnered that much controversy, maybe we're gonna change that today" is devious
HBOX doesn’t break rules he breaks chairs
I'm not blaming Trif because I've never been a top player losing a very long and frustrating game, but I really wish we could see Melee ruleset discourse that didn't spawn from a top player's salty Twitter post.
In fairness to Trif, this is the type of topic that will not garner attention from the larger community (or even TOs, really) _until_ the controversial set happens. Leffen can complain about Puff, for example, but it's the crucial, controversial tournament set that generates the audience for the discussion. If it's a random Tuesday and someone complains about pound stalling, there will usually be no traction regardless of the opinion.
@@BlueGrovyle You're definitely right, and I don't mean any offense to Trif specifically. I guess having an important discussion come out of a controversial moment is pretty common across communities.
@@Demortalix yeah ofc, I wasn't accusing you of dunking on Trif, as you said that you weren't at the start of your comment. And you're correct: that phenomenon happens in politics all the time. The concrete incidents are the catalyst that spurs an opinion into action on a large scale. Unless everyone's watching, you oftentimes won't have enough power to change things.
Running out the clock with an established lead in the last few moments of the game is a part of most games with clocks.
It happens in chess all the time, some people don't like it but it's just part of the game in short time controls. Don't see why it should be any different here
I do believe melee is a vibes forward game in spirit, and playing this way is its own punishment, and that the two players signed a social contract going into a matchup like this that playing to the timeout was possibility
@@thorstonk6348 that is a good and funny way of looking at it but it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma kind of thing - whichever player chooses to play slowly will have a large advantage if the opponent decides to play fast, so the safer choice is to play slow. This is an issue especially in those matchups where only one of the characters can stall in the air forever and the other character cannot.
@@SSBMNicki Sorry if this was brought up in the video, but what do you think Trif could/would have done if the situation was reversed? Would peach floating underneath stage to the other ledge not count as stalling due to her resources being more limited? I don't think her airspeed is that much slower and, if you account for reaction time, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a peach could play those last 15-20 seconds to a similar degree
@@DrZaiusDrZaius-xp5fw there's been controversy over peaches doing that in the past (not versus jigglypuff though). like how is a fast faller going to go out and hit a peach floating out in the stratosphere with 10 seconds left
I feel like it's the same as ledge grab limit. You need a specific number for this. HBox only did the rising pound stall in the last 20 seconds of the game. Not to sound harsh, but it was trif's job not to be behind before that point. HBox also had other ways to camp such as the ledge or rotating through the platforms which aren't exactly easy for peach to deal with.
Yeah, I think Trif should have made sure not to end up in that situation. In my opinion it's part of strategy. If you stall for long, Jigglypuff will stall better in the end when it counts.
@@spicymajsy yeah. It's ok for Jiggs to have a checkmate in the last 20 seconds. That's not why the matchup sucks. It just makes it worse
I think the point is: when is excessive? You say it's not 20 seconds, but what about 30? 40? Where's the line?
Rules need to be clear so that players make sure they aren't violating them and so that when they do violate them, the other player can report it to the TO. Without that, it's just pure vibes, and a player can feel cheated since they didn't know what counted as a violation
@@aegisofthegrail5888 I would say it's hard to say exact rules until it's clearly become a problem. As we don't have much to measure by. Once we know the problem, we can find the solution. Otherwise we would set clear rules but they are also based on pure vibes.
@spicymajsy clearly there was an issue they wanted to fix when they said stalling is banned. But parameters must be clearer than that
The worst part of this imo is that tournaments link to rules that don't exist
Tbh 6 pounds in air seems more reasonable. One for each jump. If you go above that it's exclusively for stalling.
4 is a little too low imo, especially since jiggs gets 5 air jumps which could be used for rising pound. 1 extra for good measure.
If you get to the last 10 seconds and puff is down to use her 6 pounds to do a slow suicide in the bottom blastzone, it's on you for letting it get to that point.
As judged by TOs is a problem.
A hard number is needed, IF there is a ban.
HBox obviously didn't stall a lot. The last 20 seconds is exactly what he should have done
Why are there talks about punishing Hbox when Trif is the one consistently going to time?
Cuz puff bad peach good, people just like to hate puff and hbox despite the clear proof that trif was actually the one stalling the game
What is trif supposed to do? Peach puff is just unwinnable for peach if she tries to approach
@@benjaminbravo9884 the difference of camping and stalling is very huge trif camping in peaches hardest match up is still interactable puff going off stage and pounding away for the last crucial 15 seconds is a no interactable thing the moment he commited to it the game was over which is not the same as peach attempting to camp becauseyou can still interact with her there is a chance that it isnt over thats a big difference
@@ariesomega2487 Pick up a secondary or innovate the matchup or keep losing.
Genuinely just get better at the game, there are plenty of times were Trif does go in and win neutral in this set. Just be better at doing that.
This was a mismatch and the loser is mad about the opponent taking advantage of the match up, that's it.
@@ariesomega2487this is actually like saying it's valid to air camp as Kirby vs Fox because it's a hugely losing matchup for Kirby like what???
HBox did literally the same thing every peach player has done against him on Dreamland. loDD did the same thing by stalling under the stage. And you want to know why lloD did the same thing? Because it's legal. HBox also won this game without a timeout, Trif KO'd with 1 second left.
Calling controversy on a 3-0 match is. . . a choice.
I think the word excessively is the difference maker here. Yes he was delaying the game, but I feel only for 15 seconds of the 8 minutes is not excessive. Of course it’s to’s interpretation of the rules that matter
Ik when it comes to the last couple seconds all players jump off and stall for aslong as they can. Puff is just lucky she can stay stall for 15 secs. Utilizing char. Tools & limits is smart.
Not defending Hbox, but at 11:10 you say there was no way for peach to hit him no matter what she did I do disagree. In fact she came extremely close to doing so.
If Trif had a turnip in hand he may have been able to punish HBox too
I agree with pretty much everything you say, but I don't think it's that bad to rely on a TO's call to judge what is "excessive" pound stalling. It's not ideal from a competitor's view, but so far it hasn't really been an issue as people don't seem to exploit the ambiguity. I don't think many players or viewers would consider what hbox did in the last seconds as something that needs to be banned.
well one could say that most people definitely exploit it, hbox definitely makes it very difficult to engage with him in some moments, trif definitely float stalls against certain matchups, basically everyone who can uses the ambiguous stalling rule to their advantage
which is fine, but what's the point of this, we should clarify or remove the rule
Stalling needs to have precise rules around them which is near impossible to do, that's the reason why it says "excessive" and "at the discretion of the TOs". To answer Trif's question, yes pound stalling in this situation was allowed since there was no specific rule against what Hbox did and not deemed to be excessive stalling by the TOs.
In this particular case, it seems to me the issue comes from puff being able to hide under the stage by going back and forth between the ledges, so if I would ban anything it would be crossing the middle point more than once or twice under the stage without touching the ground. This both allows characters like puff and peach to use their unique tools while also not completely denying interaction for potentially minutes from other characters that can't reach there.
I think it should define "excessive stalling" by a set length of time in order to apply it to all forms of intentional stalling techniques on any character.
That is not quite a fair assessment, stalling takes many forms(running away like Sonic, or in this case: peach)
Maintaining aerial height out of reach(puff)(this did not happen as puff was below stage, not way above)
Stun locks?
Zoning.
Instead, having limits on specific mechanics is a more fair assessment(ledge grab limit is a good example, you can grab ledge, but you can't abuse it.)
In this scenario, because puff can potentially stall for an unreasonable amount of time(did not happen here), then *limit* the mechanic(not remove it)
The mechanic here, is rising pound, not pound itself. Pound is a good recovery tool, but rising pound is still useful for altitude(in case someone...is stalling in the sky for example)
Limit 1 *rising* pound per jump if the community wants to throw a fit about it, but any other character would've been fine stalling under the stage and we all know it. 22 seconds is not long at all, and puff was clearly the more active player.
What I love about your content is that in situations like this you bring up thoughts from all points of view in order to spark quality discussion rather than just give your own strict opinion. I hope more people see this and start watching your videos! I agree we probably need some clearer rules on stalling.
But he did give his opinion, and it was a very weird opinion. He thinks its a good idea to impose an aerial timer or pound limit?? That's not Melee. The decisions were made what the characters are able to do over a decade ago. If you play Melee then you play Melee, not Melee2024-edition-v2.1.3-timer-extra-rules-v6.
@@snared_ we changed the ruleset and what a character can do 4 years ago, we can do it again
@@snared_weirdo
@@snared_ I didn't say he didn't give his opinion, I understand if that wasn't clear. He of course did by the end of the video, but he also read and considered comments from differing perspectives and encouraged us to think about all of these ideas as well. He also mentions different solutions we could maybe think about.
In my opinion, I agree the rules are a little too vague on stalling, but I also don't think what Hbox did was all that bad. I'm not sure what the solution is but I think coming up with more concrete rules is maybe a good idea.
For a guy with a song called stalling. Going for timeout at 20 secs isnt stalling. It aint like hes pulling a sonix and making it his entire gameplan.
He saw an opportunity, saw the little bit of time left and knew what he had to do.
Especially for a guy who used to have this kind of playstyle optimized back in the god melee days. He knows exactly just how much he needs to do to stay just under the limit
There was no excessive delay, therefore it does not break rules. 15-20 seconds is not excessive delay. I hope Trif doesnt become Leffen, and constantly whine about trying to enforce a rule that specifically targets a matchup. Excessive Pound Stalling is banned, emphasis on Excessive.
what is excessive
does it refer to time, or circumstance, or both
why does random user on youtuube (or random TO at tournament) get to decide that? isn't it weird
I had no idea that pond stalling was not defined in the rules. Dang, specifics are important.
@@ThunderbackOG in some events it is, but not in any of the recent majors. And even when it is banned it just states "pound stalling is banned", which brings us back to the same issue: what is pound stalling? When is it stalling?
I've been really loving your content, it's really reminiscent of a melee version of VeigarV2 which I mean as a huge compliment
So, as someone that knows basically nothing about competitive smash, here's a rule suggestion/inspiration that I think might be somewhat enforceable:
Any jump (undamaged take-off) that results in you leaving the left/right/bottom boundary of the stage is a "camp jump".
After any match, your opponent may call into question your "camping time".
If the combined air time of "camp jumps" exceed 1 minute (insert realistic amount of time here), you lose the match.
If the combined air time of "camp jumps" do not exceed that time, and also is not within 10 seconds of that, your opponent gets a warning.
If you receive 3 warnings, you're disqualified for being a whiny brat.
The point being:
Defining camping is hard.
Some might camp the edge of a "safe zone", while others just go out and return later.
By including all jumps that cross the threshold, you get a better indicator of how much time that player spent away from the action, rather than having to limit what could in some cases just be an attack combo.
The point of this type of rule, was to suggest something that will allow most types of play, while still making camping an objective measurement.
Puff has five jumps (excluding her ground jump).
Here's a rule, it goes something like:
5 pounds underneath a stage results in a lost stock, game, or dq. Whatever your pick is.
But it's what puff do mid games. Idk if this would be full proof. It was the last 15 seconds of the game.
Could this ban be applicable for a dk vs puff mu. Because let's say if a dk player manages to get hbox down to 15 seconds and loses his stock. All hbox would have to do is either jump towards the blast zones and 3 pounds would make it game or do the same thing here if he wants it will result into the same conclusion. So I honestly would actually have to go against this ban now that I think about it a little bit more. Like peach followed puff underneath the stage and miss back air. Would he have complained if he landed the back air? Probably. Who knows
I dont get why people make this controversial these are the rules of the game this is completely fairplay if trif had the stock lead he could float high or under the stage as well
"These are the rules of the game" Well the rules state that stalling is not allowed. It's a rule that in spirit tries to prevent -something-, but the rule is so badly worded and defined that no one actually know what it is meant to disallow. That's why this discussion is worth having - we either remove the rule or we make it actually enforcable. I am okay with either.
I wanted to watch the entire vid before saying something but I just can't I'm 14 mins in and Trif is a cry baby whos just mad that he took a fat L I don't need to watch the rest of the vid to know that lmao. Good vid tho Nicki I did enjoy it
I think the best rule to put in place is a simple rule on airborne pounds. Something like using 8 or more airborne pounds without touching the ground constitutes a game loss in the event of a timeout. Obviously this number is based on vibes, it could afford to be higher. In this case I think Hbox's play was fine, with no hard and fast rule on stalling I don't think stalling under the stage for like 12 seconds is absurd, although this could be abused much harder, and players could feasibly stall for much longer in this way.
A role generally on pound stalling under a stage to force timeout could be considered, because that position puff can pound infinitely left + right, even 15s thats an issue where no interactivity can happen without a player going for a hit that results in SD cause they cant recover after unlike puff
*a rule
i cant believe you even made a video about this. what if this vid contributes to trif's tantrum blowing up? like theres no world in which this game should spark serious debate about the health of the game
Air time limit is terrible, because it punishes a very airborne puff, especially in a matchup like puff vs Samus. I think doing 3 pounds in a row, similar to how we check wobbling is fair.
so what about puff recovering to stage on dreamland and his best mix up to get back safely is using 3 pounds? then it's stalling and the puff player loses for mixing up recovery
@@blufferoniandcheese3628Agree
When it comes to stuff like this, you really can't argue what should and what shouldn't be allowed, since at this point, you're just hurting the fundamentals of the character's playstyle. Like, doing a few pounds in the air to get away from your opponent when you have the lead and the timer is about to end is normal for a camping strategy.
@@zenabompeg well the same can be said for any stallign ban or ledgegrab limit, the fundamentals of marth, peach, puff, shiek, etc. include t he ability to slow down and prolong games, and removing it does limit their options. it's just up to people to decide how much is acceptable
I think this is the point where the community will have to decide which way they want to go. The rules of stalling being this ambiguous makes it impossible to know what is and isn't stalling. What is stalling needs to be decided on what you guys want the competitive scene to be.
The rules of smash competitive scene already ban items because we see it as luck and want to value play skill. We also ban infinites cause we deem them to be unfair and not fun. If we want as little stalls as possible we might as well just ban jigglypuff pound stalling with a limit on how many she can do in the air before tou hing the ground. Or we if we keep stalling we just except as a win condition where it is allowed after there is a certain amount of time in the clock.
If I had to pick one I think stalling is allowed with any character only in the last 10 seconds of gameplay. So jigglypuff can pound offstage all she wants, peach can sideB all she wants in Fountains of dreams, etc. However, limitations on what we can stall with needs to be placed before the last 10 seconds. Jigglypuff can only use pound 6 times when she is off the ground allowing for recovery and mix-ups, peach can do her sideB stall in foutains of dreams for 6 times, etc. (These are just arbitrary numbers.) Of course if it becomes too harsh or leniant we can always adjudt it.
TLDR;
Community needs to decide what they want the competitve scene to be. Do we limit any form of stalls so we can get interaction or just decide that it is a winning condition to play for. Items were bann cause we wanted it that way, the same should be done here.
I completely agree with your point about things not needing to be overpowered to be banned. My go-to example is that if there were a simple, uninteractive, passive technique that ensured a loss but only after eight minutes (e.g. freezing both players at game start, setting your % to 999 and your opponent's to 0), it would be banned despite it literally forcing the player using the technique to lose, strictly because it would enable complete logistical nightmares.
Very hard to define some of these rules but does that mean we shouldn't? Is a suboptimal but clearly defined rule better than any unclearly defined rule? A difficult question. For now "loose rules enforced at TO discretion" is fine, but everything is fine until it's not, you know?
I don't think HungryBox broke the rules but that's significantly more of a factor in how rules are written and enforced than anything, and unfortunately, the way the rules are right now, there is a "vibes" element to enforcing stalling.
I can see why hbox’s play looks bannable, but I don’t buy it tbh. This is just Puff’s version of running away to secure a timeout. Like yes he did “stall” in that he ran away to avoid interaction with Trif, but doing that for a timeout is normal and good and healthy for the game. The difference would be doing it with 2 minutes in the clock instead of 12 seconds.
If you *really* want to impose rules on that sort of behavior, the only way I can see it working with a numbered limit is pounds per jump, and limiting it to like 2-4. Pounds in the air is absurd, because it forces Puff to lose a stock she might have recovered otherwise, and air time limits are absurd, kind of self-evidently? I’m genuinely shocked we have to keep reiterating that characters should be allowed to jump as much as they want in a platform fighter
great video! i personally think puff should just be banned from tournament. no rules will make that character fun to fight or watch.. maybe that's just me
Trif says this but everyone knows that if he played puff he would 100% pound stall anyone to win a game
Tough situation. I do not think that matchup win percentage should matter. However, Puff pounding under the stage repeatedly feels a step to far as far as uninteractive gameplay goes. I believe that stalling needs to have strict hard rules to them, no vibes and no TO opinions. If Puff pounds X times before touching the stage, the player forfeits the game; If Peach Side-B's against a wall X times, game loss; etc. Any vibes check rules or TO discretion rules will guaranteed lead to people being upset.
How long can Puff stall for? If they can stall for 20 seconds from just one jump, with 5 jumps can they stall for about a minute and a half? Mostly just curious.
There should be a limit on the amount of times moves like pound, bomb, peach bomber can be used in a game similar to ledge grab limit. If the game goes to time and the move limit is exceeded then the player that exceeded the limit loses.
But what if they used those moves not as a way to stall but to recover or attack their opponent?
shoutouts to the scarlet/violet battle music, W choice
I cannot believe that a character stalling for like 10 seconds to end the match is somehow ban worthy behavior, like okay. If he was doing it all match, sure. Makes sense. But it's 10 seconds, like come on. Who cares.
It didn't brak the rules, because there were NO RULES to begin with.
They had a missing link that they didn't fix.
And 20 ish seconds isnt excessive by any means necessarily anyways.
Taking your opponents stock is a win condition, timeout is a win condition.
Wanna see a truely egregious match that should have resulted in a DQ? Sonix Vs DeeDee Momocon Top 8
I swear, its as is smash community as a whole tend to forget other fighting games exist and how stalling vs timeouts actually qualify
(And no i dont mean u nicki)
I don't think people understand how rules or laws work when complaining about "vibes" or asking "what is considered excessive." Every rule is vibes. There are people whose job it is to interpret laws called Lawyers or Referees. There are issues IRL that are impossible to codify because you need to talk back and forth in a court room of what is considered X or this or that. Why is the timer 7 minutes and not 8? Why is this stage banned and not this one? Why is there a fussy stage pick selection between players? It's just a preference that everyone agreed to for a homemade variant of the game. The only """"objective"""" way to play the game is to only play what's on the 1.02 disc. Anything beyond that is a series of social constructs we invented to make for a spectator sport.
Trif getting titled at this game in particular and wanting a rule change is just as emotional and vibes based as the stalling rule he's complaining about. "At the TOs discretion" already solves the issue because constraining a "playstyle" is just impossible and a never-ending debate. Banning something like a freeze glitch outright is easy to codify because it's very specific, obvious why it should be banned, there is little to argue. Banning a method or playstyle that Puff sometimes has to do anyway that's dependent on a stage and circumstances? Just get a referee to decide it. Don't like the decision? Find another tournament.
Instead of game losses for stalling, I’d be curious what would happen if we made both players re-do the game altogether. Maybe they’d get more fatigued doing it and realize it’s not worth the risk. This is only hypothetical of course, I doubt TO’s would re-do a game unless absolutely necessary
dude that was so sick I didnt saw this before thanks
I'm actually glad Trif got roasted in the tweets for this cuz that's such a crazy leap when he is one of the MOST campiest players.
I have a solution of the pound issue
Jigglypuff may not use pound offstage outside of advantage our edgeguard situations, pertaining to either player. If Jigglypuff goes offstage in other situations and the opponent approaches Jigglypuff, that shall not be deemed an edgeguard situation until the opponent grabs the ledge, performs an attack, or Jigglypuff attempts to return to the stage.
Too ambiguous tbh
insane rule
The language about "excessive" stalling in the ruleset is necessary because some amount of stalling is inevitable in Smash Bros. Every time your opponent loses a stock you have to stall until their respawn invincibility runs out for instance, unless you want to idiotically charge in and get hit for no reason. So there are clearly some situations where stalling is the only reasonable behavior. Was this game one of those, or was it "excessive"? Seems like most people agree it was reasonable given the circumstances and the short duration.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the set, I do think it's important to point out the ambiguity within the current ruleset. TO discretion sucks. They have enough going on without that sort of thing and tbh most of them would probably rather not be "that guy" when making an unfavorable decision that affects a popular top player. A concrete rule with actual specifications makes it easier to be enforced without the potential pushback
i wished the video wouldn't have started from the assumption that stalling is automatically bad and instead evaluated the benefits and problems of having it in the game. It feels weird to me to try to ban entire playstyles. Its like saying engaging or zoning should be banned.
I thought this was going to be about Hbox popping off midset against you and if that should be allowed.
Camping is allowed, stalling is not. Trif was camping, hungrybox was stalling. That's a game loss for hbox imo imo
Obviously this doesn't resolve the discretion/opinion language, that's just me participating in the issue i guess
If there is to be any ruleset change, I think that the feelings you expressed at the end of the video should remain clear of it. Your opinion may be that because a certain manner of playing is less beautiful or goes against what you personally enjoy about the game it could warrant a ban, but I sternly disagree. If playing neutral game is a skill that can be improved, this means that one player or their chosen character will be more proficient than the other. The weaker must be allowed to flee and the stronger to press, so the weaker may opt for a strategy that utilises a different skill. Fleeing in this manner to infuriate an opponent is also a psychological strategy that players would be denied from using. Also, this case should be judged in isolation, on its own merits, without past actions affecting the outcome. In my opinion, as it's not infinite and must sometime end (as a player must land), can be countered, can be avoided without over-centralisation of play (such as wobbling did), nothing whatsoever should be done.
The pointless pedantry can be avoided, anyway. The tournament organiser deemed that the behaviour was not excessive by not disqualifying Hungrybox. If Trif is resolute in his disagreement, rather than something said in the heat of the moment, he is welcome to host his own tournament and write his own rules. If he were to also compete, perhaps his own rules would force him to change his own play, too!
"DISQUALIFIED!"
60(seconds) times 8(minutes) = 480 (seconds)
480(seconds) divided by 15 (seconds spent going under stage) is 32
That’s under the ledge grab limit.
If this was a solved situation, how come he didn’t just explicitly do that?
3 pounds being banned sounds really harsh and I think most players and spectators enjoy seeing puff go down to the bottom of stages like FOD to guard ledge (and also the recovery from puff takes so long that she can sometimes lose a stock after the opponent respawns).
This situation very obviously isn’t stalling in my opinion, it’s for edge guarding and recovering, so maybe unlimited pounds should be legal as long as they serve a real purpose other than stalling?
I agree that HBox’s 13 pounds to avoid interaction should be illegal. But I don’t think making a blanket rule for 3 pounds without landing would be bad for the game. (You might not have even been suggesting that, if so, my b).
it doesn't have to be 3 specifically, I feel like the number of pounds is relatively arbitrary, it just has to be an actual number. He mentioned 4 pounds at the end, honestly 5 would also be okay for the most part unless you're also trying to ban air stalling.
@@SuperAmazingJared how many pounds does it take to get from the bottom right/bottom left blast zone back on stage?
I think that’s the number I’d pick if I had to find a number
Did we watch the same match ? Triff literally was staying away from Hbox all game then complains when puff does it in the last 13 seconds lmao
Imo, Trif could have played more aggressive to not let it go close to time. He let Jigglypuff get the advantage in the end. I believe it should be part of strategy to not let a Jigglypuff end up in the advantage where they can keep away well at the end. Any character can do it but Jigglypuff is just better at it. He lost due to faulty strategy. He was really close to hitting Jigglypuff in the end anyway so seems like a non issue.
I think that by the rules as they are Hbox didnt do anything wrong, but the rules should probably change to make things less ambiguous (for example, completely banning using pound under stages and explicitly stating some of the other cases where stalling could happen like peach side-b on FOD)
Airtime limit is just a bad option, and the pound limit feels like a bad option, maybe use opposite direction pounds (which are the ones you use to stall)
Yall want puff to be worse so bad Cope
8:26 - I knew it was gonna be a dead link lmao. Tourneys often mess up with ruleset stuff
Tbh I think a lower timer would be a good thing. Some matchup take longer is a good argument, but I also think that with say a 5 minute timer those matchups would become a case of who can do the most in 5 minutes rather than who can take 4 stocks first. It might not be a bad thing for competitors or spectators and the only way to find out is to try it out a few times in some tournaments.
It would make things worse. With 8 minutes on the clock, timing out is hard. With five minutes, every single puff peach DL game would go to time, and the player with the lead would always lead. A high timer dissuades players from timing out by making it harder.
@@lwi_sandwich It would make every puff peach dreamland game last 5 minutes. Which is probably shorter than most puff peach dreamland games as it stands.
Whether or not a match times out doesn’t really matter. We can see that if players want to time out a match even at 8 minutes they can make it happen, this would just waste a bit less of everyone’s time.
secrets mentioned
Europe v. Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma
So basically trif tried and failed to stall hbox and now he's salty about it. Honestly not surprised to see such classless behaviour from trif
So not only is playing peach against puff a death sentence, but he played defensively the whole game, and it backfired.
20 seconds of stalling is nothing compared to the minutes done in ultimate with sonic.
Box did literally did nothing wrong, trif is just a sore loser
Good video but I think it would benefit from trimming the fat. Seriously before uploading try watching all 22 minutes without fast forwarding.
If we gonna pull air time bans we better start laser spam banning
I'm of the opinion there should be a universal rule to limit the amount of time you can be in the air without touching the ground or ledge or taking a hit. Don't base it on subjective language like "excessive stalling" make it something objective like 25 seconds or something.
In this particular situation, Trif is reaching because the game could've been decided by many different things, not just that one interaction at the end. It came down to one hit. But he does bring up a good point about the rules. "Excessive stalling" leaves a lot of room for interpretation. That part of the rules should be more clearly defined imo. Also I don't agree with him on top plat camping I think that involves too many factors to make a ruling over. LGLs are ok
But what if Puff is trying to recover after getting spiked by Marth's down air or something and she happens to go past the time limit during her recovery? The problem with limiting time in the air is that it hurts the character's fundamental gameplay with Puff and Peach being the most affected for being two of the most airborne characters in the game. Now that I think about it, Samus might get screwed over too (no pun intended) because she spends forever getting back on stage.
If we are gonna start enforcing pound stalling, there needs to be a number so that Puff players can calibrate. If we just leave it to a subjective judgement by TOs I would say just air on the side of saying its not banned.
Ur incredibly articulate, which I find impressive.
Never forget Hbox getting coached at evo. Top player privilege and EVO not enforcing their own ruleset smh
He got bad information from a to you can’t really fault hbox for that
i don't think pound stalling OR wobbling should be banned
frame perfect pound stalling is insanely hard, I just tried
it's not realistic, and without that you just lose height every pound use all your jumps and make yourself super vulnerable to edgeguards by pound stalling
If you were a fox and the jigglypuff started pounding under the stage what would you do to hit them? Honestly I don’t think there’s much you can do.
Pound stalling is stupid ru insane just cause it's hard doesn't mean it doesn't make it impossible for lots of characters to do anything to you
Its not about getting frame perfect pounds, its the fact that you can throw out like 30 in a completely unpunishable space before you have to interact. Just cause it's not as broken as Brawl MK dimensional cape doesnt mean it's fair/good for the game.
Also as an IC main I can tell you wobbling is 100% banworthy lol we just never had wobblers with the level of neutral & non-wobbling punish that Slug and Nicki have shown.
@@mlalbaitero every stall you are making your position worse, if they stall off stage then just keep refreshing ledge invuln, you have 30 frames of invuln every time its insane, to say puff is in a good position pound stalling is ridiculous
@@sampletext7925 you really can't, more like 15, and then once you do you have no jumps and are extremely vulnerable, there's a reason why nobody actually does this
This video is way longer than it needed to be.
Hungry box just out played the guy and won clearly. Peach could have won if it was just played better. Do better.
Nah this is a garbage matchup for Peach. These peach players need to learn from Armada and pick up a secondary Fox specifically for this matchup.
Bro why am I 5 minutes into the video and I still don't know what the video is about? From the title and thumbnail it seems like hbox got dqed for something, but I still, 5 minutes in, don't know any more than that. I would prefer if you didn't take so long getting to the point
The goal of a competitive formst is to make players battle agaibst each other to see who is the best, if there is an element that prevents this from happening then that element is limited or banned
Performing this with Jigglypuff isnt something you can do en every game, you have to actually get in the position to be able to do that in the first place, and that requires a lot of skill, enough skill to require the player to outplay his opponent in order to do that air time stall, had the timer not been so low, then he wouldve not been able to do that
Objects, for example, are banned because they increase variance in games too much
Some characters are banned because winning with them is too easy compared to other characters
You cant just make a rule thag says "you cant stall timer in the air" like man, ur literally banning a core game mechanic, not an element of the game
So yeah, the guy whos complaining is just whining cuz he got outplayed
Nerf Melee! Nerf Melee!
Bunch of babies
Ride the momentum!!
Interesting discussion, but yeah the question on how TOs will judge “excessive” just seems dubious
Idk how feasible it would be to enforce but air time limit in specific zones around the stage maybe. Like a box around the stage to top plat and outside that is where airtime limit gets counted
It’s so dumb to try and punish Puff players when the actual top 3 most OP characters don’t get any criticism, Marth players are campy af, falco can perfectly camp top platform very effectively and fox can straight up run around lasering 24/7.
Hbox developed his campy playstyle because it’s the way he counters Fox players, if he didn’t play this way he wouldn’t be top 10. So this feels not like a Punish on puff, it feels like a straight punish to Hbox, just say y’all don’t want him to play anymore.
Or grow up a little and accept that melee is not always gonna have the super fast paced fox vs falco matchups and players are allowed to use timeout since it’s a perfectly reasonable strategy and there’s money on the line.
Now if HBOX was consistently going for timeout in friendlies, that would be an ass move but he’s not, he’s doing it because it’s part of his way of living, don’t mess with a man’s work.
This. Melee fans act like Puff is the only character that can camp even though I've played plenty of campier Fox players online. If air time limit becomes a thing, then so should top platform camp limit and laser limit imo.
@@coffeewithginseng3812 for real lmao I’d die for a laser limit, laser is insanely OP because it can de-stale other moves as it is also racking up damage on the opponent, because of this campy fox is by far than any other campy character and the community is still trying to punish other characters for having to play campy against a character as cracked as fox lmao.
I don’t get why they get so mad at Hbox flying around trying to bait a move but a fox player that lands a hit then runs to the other side of the stage to drop 13 lasers 5 times every minute is HYPE.
@@coffeewithginseng3812 FR, watching fox players find a Back-air hit and then run to the other side of the stage to spam lasers 10 times only to then spam dash dance to try and fish an up smash for their kill confirm is boring AF, there has been good fox play displayed by guys like Cody, Leffen, and some other but most of the time and for most fox players the gamestyle I mentioned earlier is always what they do.
Why do traditional fighting games have such short timers compared to Smash? Their arenas are much more confined, so you don’t really need a short timer to force interactions imo.
cuz they have finite health bars and no floaties lmao???
@@freddiekruger3339 i fail to see why that necessitates a short timer.
I’ve figured it out. Trad fighters come from arcades whose goal is to quickly drain quarters. The short timer is a leftover tradition from arcades.
Traditional fighters have much shorter rounds in general, to the point where most rounds do not go to time anyway, so making the timer longer isn't necessary. Removing the timer is certainly not an option because it helps resolve the edge case where both players may refuse to approach or interact (and no, being in a more confined space does not solve that issue by default).
@@tenslein8977 I wouldn't simplify it as a "leftover tradition" -- timers have their place in modern fighting games too. They keep the matches going as a reasonable pace and encourage more interactive gameplay without needing to literally force the players closer together.
Was a brilliant play, stop crying
Nicki always making the best case for how subjective the wobbling ban was. Love the content!
The wobbling ban was always openly subjective how I remember it. It was bad for viewership and frustrating to play against so it was banned even though it wasn't that powerful
slippery slope is slippery
Wasn't that powerful is a bold statement
@@ariesomega2487 ICs still weren't a top 5 character with it, and it had counterplay it was just equally interesting
@@MegaStunfiskandHat something can be insanely powerful and still not make a character top 5... ICs are and would be complete ass without being able to grab using only one of them.
Arguably wobbling is the only reason ICs were top 10 even for so long.
I think it's also so insane because fundamentally it's so strong, and extremely easy to learn and do.
Nobody wants hand offs banned because they're actually expressive of skill, not pressing A at 200bpm and being guaranteed a kill from it.
Losiento Nicki :/
- Juan
Dude if I saw this game I would’ve just turned it off I get camped on unranked I ain’t trying to see that again in a professional game
Lmao this is so stupid, no that’s not cheating
At the end it doesn't count it's hype.
Time outs are hype lol?
The rules I remember in my time playing melee said that stalling is defined as making the game unplayable (infinite wobbling, freeze gltich, continuous fox laser locking in shine with a stock lead) for the other opponent or making it so attempting to reach them is essentially suicide. This situation is a textbook example of that second situation, so I fully agree with trif here. The length of time, it being at the end of the game where the rest of the game wasn't played in an objectionable way, is irrelevant information. Ledgestalling and using float on platforms like people were comparing may be lame as hell, unhealthy, and arguably warrant its own rules (a separate discussion to be had), but it still carries risk and allows for the possibility of getting hit or getting the ledge stolen. This is more comparable to peach bombering the bottom of fountain. It's a checkmate situation and that should be illegal. It also blows my mind that people argue that it was "only" 15 or 20 seconds and so it doesn't qualify as excessive. Can you imagine in any traditional fighter, a community allowing players to stall for 15-20 seconds guaranteeing a win because they have a lead?
This game was Boring as fuck
sounds like terf was just being a "heulsuse-bastart" for losing. you keep bringing up how it makes the match boring or whatever, hbox was aggressive the whole match until then, the entire match was unwatchable because of the garbage peach stall on top, let alone the last 15 seconds. i don't even like hbox but thats just absurd. ban both if you want but don't be white-knighting one over the other. i already knew your opinion before i even clicked on the video. overall boring match and boring takes. also, smash rules are so arbitrary and TOs are corrupted so both sides lose imo.
Adding aerial timer or pound limit is a horrible take. There's a reason the developers gave these characters these abilities. It's not up to you to play God and take those away. You can't time travel to when the game came out and impose your own decisions. The game is the game, stop crying about what the developers allow the characters to do. If you're upset that puff wins if they have stock advantage and there's 60s or less left on the clock by default, then I don't know what to say to you. That's just how the game is. The definition of stall: "stop or cause to stop making progress". By Jiggly having stock lead, inherently the timer running down while she is de facto invincible IS progress. She is reducing the chance she loses every second that passes, and since there is progress being made in the position, it is not stalling. People cry so much about what the developers allow the characters to do, well, if you're really that upset, you can play some other game. You aren't going to play God by pseudo-time-travelling and saying "No no no no I know I have nothing to do with the development of this game but right before you release it I, yes I, ME, I am going to put my own patch over it changing what YOU were allowing characters to do!". It's purely ego, they want the game to be how they see it, not to play the game for what it actually is. They think they are a God who can change things that happened over a decade ago. Well, wake up, because you can't. What's done is done, and for you to say "I play Melee", then you must play Melee. For you to say "I play a version of Melee where over 10 years after it was created I created some patch where I changed the characters and their abilities", then that's totally fine, say that and play that, but don't you dare play on the latter while claiming the former.
We already have done a bunch of shit to make the game more fair and competitive. UCF, Controller Mods, Wobbling Ban. Sing Stalling, Peach bomber stalling, etc etc etc. We do not play pure melee and nobody has ever claimed we do.
@@jamesonsockstoes5470 We move as far away from pure melee only as necessary. The question is whether this makes the cut.
Why can't we let puff win if they have stock lead and there's 60s left on the clock if that's what the game says to do? It makes it so peach has to get the last hit even with multiple stocks left if timer gets low. Why isn't that "the game", why does it have to be anything else? You're forcing your own will upon the game in hindsight
Because a last stock match between a puff vs most characters is then a 100-0 mu. It is neither fun to watch or to play or really skillful. It is a bit like why we banned wobbling/freeze glitch. Those mechanics just take away a big part of the game (and why we play it) (punish game and interacting with your opponent)
@@ariesomega2487 it doesn't force non-interaction. It forces you to win earlier
#FreeIceClimbers and stop changing melee characters
Legitimately a slippery slope having character nerfs on the table for ruleset discussion
Always benefits the most popular players and characters
The only reason this isn't more controversial is because it only affects characters people don't care about as much
When fox players stall a slow low tier for minutes at a time no one blinks an eye; hbox goes under dreamland for under 20 seconds and everyone loses their minds
The objective measure for stalling is that a match can't go more than 8 minutes
I agree slippi removing wobbling from the game is a big mistake and I don't want to see other changes like it at all
why not just ban this stuff on intent. hungrybox's intent was clearly to run out the clock in a way unique to the character to avoid a one stock rematch