My previous thread under the same name got permanently deleted by a moderator, even though there was no trolling, derailing, or flaming in that thread. Just insightful discussion. But apparently any discussion on banning, or guidelines for banning, is considered "flame bait" now. -_-

So because of that, I will commit to personally deleting any posts in this thread that come off as flaming or trolling. Hopefully we can continue the mature and insightful discussion that was taking place in my previous thread.

To start off, here is a slightly altered quote of what the original post of that thread was:

This thread isn't about trying to force people to agree on a set of guidelines. In fact, I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me. What I hope this thread will accomplish is an exchange of ideas. So that myself and others, especially those who run tournaments, can have a better idea on what they should look for in the future in regards to banning, and ensuring a more prosperous community. And hopefully if people do agree on a set of guidelines for banning, it will mean that there will be less debate and less problems, and most importantly, less drama when the game comes out.

I think the most important thing to do is cement what exactly classifies as broken. Hilde is debatable, but Algol and the bonus characters definitely are not.

You guys are trying to cement something that you can't cement. Plus no one is going to follow these guidelines.

Also, there's plenty of time to discuss SC5 when it actually comes out, and probably won't be out until 2011. Why not just wait to then instead of discussing guidelines that no one is going to follow to a game that ain't even out yet.

But if you are going to discuss this, then do so with people who actually go to tournaments.

Yes, OOF. Hilde issue had to be adressed one way or another. Having 1 hit KO was absurd. Having it depend on stage select was moronic. Why not play roulette instead - same game , but more fun.

Thing is, it didnt get adressed at all. Like everybody was blind or something. No kind of restrictions ever took place, until its two years into the game. I think exactly b/c some good players like yourself and S-U kept waving a "no-ban" banner all over the threads without putting some thought into it.

Even now, when it is finally adressed threads get locked and deleted all over the place. Instead of cleaning up trolling nonsense and bullshit comments, moderators delete and lock thread instead ("there is no problem with Hilde" *clicks delete* - "see? no problem!"). Community further realize there is no point in discussing something. Thus "Hilde tragedy" is doomed to repeat itself.

I'm not trying to cement anything. You must have overlooked some of my post. Here it is again:

Even though SC5 is a long way off, I like to base ideas for guidelines for an 'unknown', such as SC5. Trying to make guidelines for SC4 at this point may bring in bias. I'm hoping we can discuss guideline ideas based off our past mistakes.

I don't think it is possible to make a ban-list everybody agrees with. And you guys here are the ones who have to maintain it. I'll just write my opinion on a few things.

-> I fully agree with the banning of glitches and I think everyone should.

-> Banning single moves should always be prefered instead of banning whole characters.

It's true that on the seesaw stage there are many characters which are able to 1-hit-KO. On the other hand Hilde can 1-hit-KO on almost every stage. Noone exept her can do this. Another aspect is the way she does it: completly save. If it was a slow steppable or duckable attack which could be punished easy or something like that everything would be completely different. So I don't see this guideline bringing other things to question.
The hilde-hate was not intended: This is supposed to be an example...
-> Moves that are uber-strong should be banned.

No insult intended: I think lines like: "...don't belong in the game..." and "... will not be in SC5..." sound as a lame excuse to me.

A poll also brings problems. If there would be a poll the only people allowed to vote should be the tourney-players. There just may be a little problem. Let's say on one tourney the players agree to ban character x while he isn't banned on another one. You can't compare those tourneys then (Ladder). On the other hand making an universal poll brings up the question who is allowed to vote.

Can't say too much about the "greater good" aspect. I didn't know people were leaving just because of hilde/algol.

All in all I would always let marginal moves/characters be unbanned. You can always ban them later but I don't think things once banned can come back.

Good luck finding guidelines.

I understand what you are trying to do Oofmatic, but the end result is still the same.

Plus why even go into SC5 with the mindset of thinking that the game needs a guideline for bans. Who knows, Namco may get it right and nothing needs to be banned. And who knows, they may give it the support that it needs so that it's perfect.

If your goal is to forge a more prosperous community, that's not going to come about with what is said on a forum, but what's done by each local community to keep the game going in their region. That's what really matters. Our game is not like Street Fighter or Tekken where there are plenty of scrubs that will go to tournaments to keep the game going which also keeps the top players competing. You need motivated people in each region that can support players, hold sessions and keep things going.

My suggestion is to just wait a year to see how the game turns out unless there's something that obviously needs to be removed from tournament play. Most will drop the game after a year unless they only play online. And if anything needs to be changed, you can go from there. Other than that, there's no real need to discuss guidelines for SC5 because by the time it comes out, this thread will be long forgotten.

Actually it was because of the mods. They closed every topic about what should be done about Hilde. It was always wait until after Evo before anything gets discussed, and now you have the end result. If anything I believe SU was one of the people who tried to make a topic about Hilde so I don't understand how you blame him.

Taking something from someone like myself who's at the lower end of the spectrum...

I agree with almost all of what Oof said, EXCEPT the last point. I don't necessarily disagree with it either, but rather I think the community in itself should make a choice.

What matters more than even principle sometimes is precedence. In that last point, you have two -perfectly- good reasons in banning someone and not. Principle is indeed important in playing this kind of game in this format since competition does need to be brought out. If everyone thought that they could just overlook a character since it's "overpowered" and "bound to get banned", that doesn't seem competitive at all.

On the other hand, principle won't do you any good if it drives everyone off playing the game. Do you want to be as big as Tekken or not? Arguably, sacrifices may have to be made in order to appeal to masses more; unless people want SC to be a niche game forever.

See what I mean? Both sides are both arguable and quite frankly, doesn't have anything innately wrong about them. And if something isn't innately wrong, then that means that the choice would then depend on what direction the community wants to take the game.

Thus, everything that was said before the last point will determine where to draw this line. The last point is to determine whether we actually would draw the line in the first place.

I do think we can make this choice now. Once the choice has been made though, friggin' stick with it.

My two cents.

I didn't get to see the other thread after I posted in it, so I'll just post the same thing.

"No character should be banned until they have won at least one major."

Wouldn't this promote sandbagging?

The funny thing is. It's i21 which is reasonably slow. Flashes before it initiates. Can be stepped.
The ban on hilde was never about her being broken - she's never won a major, and it's proven that you can deal with it. It's purely about hate.
But the point was raised that if we don't ban stuff that's hated, then people will refuse to attend tournaments. Honestly, people need to grow up, but that'll never happen.

Namco can't make a game that will satisfy the SC community enough for them to not ban anything. Plus, it's VERY likely that bonus characters of some kind will be in the game again, so people will inevitable argue about that at the very least. Namco wouldn't release SC5 without the create a character feature.

i think in sc5 there shouldnt be low tiers to the the degree of sc4 they could tweak a few moves for characters like tira, rock, talim, mina, and zas and theyd be right up there but who knows if thatll ever happen and the same could be said for the top tiers. I think they should try to email specific people from this site like great offline players and probably online players too cause they make up the majority and try to work some things out.

Playtesting with Offline tournament results during the game's first 6 months(if possible). If the game gets patched, reset the rulings with another 6 months of tournament results(regardless how little may have changed). Even if the first 6 months were not up before the patch hit. (and chances are, it'll just be ONE patch. saying from experience)

And look at the feedback from players who ACTUALLY PARTICIPATED in said tournaments(namely, how they felt about their matches if they talk about them at all). Only thing that should be banned outright is any console exclusive characters.(Yoda, Vader, Link, Spawn, and Heihachi come to mind and those bans should be lifted should they become available for the other consoles(regardless whether its pay or free DLC) and should be judged on the characters Soul Arena discussions, keep eyes out for stuff deemed "broke" or "too good" and see how it does in tournament play for a few months.) Don't call it broken unless there really isn't anyway around the problem(The community can play a vital role in this with online play and offline sessions/gatherings.)

Play it before you slay it.

You really think people will continuously sandbag, forfeiting first place time after time just to prevent an arguably overpowered character from potentially being banned?

Good point, but there could be temptation for manipulating the result nonetheless. The less obvious stuff you know?

There's also the possibility that a mediocre player snags third place with a broke character. Truth of the matter is no matter if a character is broke a significantly better player will defeat them regardless. I mean if players who are recognized as solid and that have a good understanding of the game(and good understanding of a broke character) lose to people who have far less experience and knowledge, that's a situation that requires observation. If winning a major was the only way to define broke than this would make everyone suffer because an elite few would consistently win against a broke character because those elite few are just too good. And at the highest level of play the rules almost change. If two decent players of equal talent face off in a FT20 with one using the top tier in the game and the other using the bottom tier the game the results might look something like 20 - 6. But if two very high level players of equal talent played that set it could look more like 20 - 18. The results still don't change the tier ranking.

In my personal experience(although it was online, but at this point I had a better idea of how to fight Hilde) I faced a Hilde who I consistently(or at least in the majority of our matches) brought down their health to 10-30%(while mine was above 70%) but wound up losing to ring outs and the final score between me and this opponent was 1 - 7(to his advantage) if I remember correctly. Does this mean that this opponent was far superior to me? No, it just means that every time I slipped up once, it cost me the match. This is the reason that I don't agree that if someone knows how to deal with Hilde they will defeat their opponent(assuming this opponent is at most, equally skilled) in an extended set of matches.

It's a known fact that playing a top tier will usually increase your placing in a tournament, but when it gets to the point where you are defeating a significant number of people who truly are superior to you than there is a problem(not saying my past tournament placing were affected by Hilde, I'm just speaking generally)

In support of this criteria I think it is misreprsented and misnamed.

Nobody can tell you how the game is meant to be played. Anything put into it is meant for the individual to experiment with and find their own way to enjoy the game. Soul Calibur 4 was meant to include the skills and custom characters for example.

I think that what should instead be said is

"They change or remove fundemental aspects of the game with their presence"
Many fighting games include oddball or freak characters and no I'm not talking Voldo. I mean characters who are different purely from a technical aspect. For example when I used to play the Mortal kombat games there were some characters in there like Shao Kahn, Onaga, Goro, Kintaro etc etc. Who changed the very game themselves, they would never suffer from hitstun in the same way as other characters (In some games they had none in some merely less), could not be grabbed and could not be knocked down.

I did not mind the inclusion of these characters in the game itself however were I to play competitively I would not like to see these characters used regardless of how effective they were I would not care if they were good or bad. I just believe them to be far too different and game changing to have a place in the intended setting of a Tournament.

If SC5 were for example to make Night Terror a playable character with a bigger Health Bar, no Hitstun and slow but powerful attacks even if he was not very good I would not want him in a Tournament because he simply defies the universal laws of the game that all other characters have to conform to. To clarify Hilde's charging aspect or Seong Mi-na's tip or Xianghua's SXS are entirely different, these are quirks or traits of characters, every character should have their own niche and unique aspects but there are some things that all conform to like Health, Block, Impact, Grabs etc and I believe no characters presence should be able to change these core components of the game.

This is what I mean when I think of Change the way the game is meant to be played.

Fixed.

Oof you may want to make a thread to discuss each individual idea. You put a lot of things on the table with your first post and I feel it being broken up with an thread devoted to each individual issue would be more productive. It would require more effort for sure but the payout for narrowing down what is acceptable would be well worth it.