Why is being subjective about it a bad thing? Melee is a game at the end of the day, so if a majority of people think wobbling should be banned, even if "objectively" (whatever that means in that context) it shouldn't be banned, why not just ban it?
I don't believe in stupid questions, but I really don't understand where this question is coming from. Competitions aren't subjective. The winner is the player who won, and it is competitive only if the winner is the player who was better. Wobbling ban being subjective is dangerous; What if Donkey Kong gets banned because someone just "dislikes him"? Like, where is this comment coming from? We don't know why people disliked wobbles. Could've as well been because some competitor had bad matchup against ice climbers, so chose to ban it. Purely subjective bans open a door to any nonsense: What then, when something you like gets banned for subjective reasons?
@@Nawakooo0 we made up the rules for reasons that directly relate to preventing overcentralisation and removing RNG as to lower variance between two players. items are RNG and buff fast, strong neutral characters. stage hazards buff fast, strong neutral characters. permanent walls buff fast, strong neutral characters. guess what describes a lot of the top tiers even with all these banned? fast, strong neutral characters. The "objectivity" is that these are based around the defined reality of the game, as much as tier lists are subjective evaluations of that reality, deep down it is based on objective things. The wobbling ban isn't based on anything within the reality of the game. It is purely down to value judgements outside of the game.
@@nickq8093 Wobbling ban makes sense from objective view. It's just people like these that give value to opinions that give ban name to rule changes. Crybabies that complain about "boringness", and we do not know what that means; Maybe they just find everything they lose to boring.
Game has been far more interesting and enjoyable without it. Having such a low skill floor for such an over powered tech is bad. Sure, at the high level you can negate it by outplaying them. But at the low/ mid level it blatantly makes the game not worth actually learning.
Wobbling and Chain Grabs should get the same treatment: either ban both or allow both. If the argument is that Wobbling should be banned because the technique is too powerful, then that is not true because ICs were not top-tier even before the Wobbling ban. With this logic, we don't care about whether or not something is boring or antithetical to how Melee should be played; all characters should have their strongest non-glitch tools available. Therefore, unban Wobbling. If the argument is that Wobbling is bad from a viewer perspective or that the game becomes boring, then Chain Grabs would serve the same purpose as it is a repeatable action that invalidates a stock using the same move over and over. With this logic, we don't care about the fact that Chain Grabs are stage, percent, or character dependent (when comparing vs Wobbling) because the focus is on the viewing experience. Furthermore, Sheik's down-throw Chain Grab is especially notorious for invalidating half the cast; you either have to be a fast faller or a super floaty character to not fall victim to this. Banning Chain Grabs would open up character viability on the lower parts of the tier list even more which further keeps the viewing experience fresh with more viable characters. Therefore, ban Chain Grabs.
Community is not ready for this kind of emotional intelligence. Need to hear your response to Andrew Unsure's take that ICs should be banned outright because there's two of them and handoffs are unfair. I think I'm happy with the ban. As a spectator, wobbling often did actually create interesting and funny sets, but non-wobbling ICs are really fun to watch and players like yourself, Slug and MOF all seem to be doing different stuff and utilizing more of the character's weird kit. I think like with a lot of guaranteed combos or kill moves, the interesting thing in wobbling was how players got the grab itself, but I'm not sure how many people actually finda neutral on its own to be that interesting. I think it did slow down the game in some cases too and reward whether actually or psychologically a camping heavy playstyle where the ICs tries to set traps for their non interactive opponent. I never played against wobbling in tourney, but i think a lot of people have probably tried to put a logical argument behind what is more emotional. It's frustrating to get hit by it, and in a way that makes you more likely to get hit by it again and again if you do get tilted, and that feels bad. Is this a phenomenon unique to the character? Of course not. Hbox has made a career off of this phenomenon, but it being so over centralizing in the character's kit, and the ICs maybe just being a bit too weird for most players to want to play them, certainly made it more controversial. As a Peach player, I've definitely still lost to my share of ICs who have managed to handoff kill me until I'm too frustrated to actually engage in the game in front of me. Regarding whether the community members on reddit and Twitter made rational arguments, I do think that just because nobody made a sufficiently rational argument doesn't mean there isn't one there for banning wobbling. Articulating a rational argument is hard!
As someone who was on the "idc" boat at the time of the wobble ban debate, I feel my take would be unbiased so here's my 2 cents: In retrospect, having even picked up a pocket ICs, I appreciate the level of hidden creativity this character offers beyond the wobble. Very expressive how you can control 2 units and develop these strategies to combine them to either tactically trap the opponent or just straight beat them down. All the points made in this video are very much valid and I have no qualms, however there is one point I feel is missing. Many ICs who were reliant on the wobble weren't exactly "playing melee". You see, melee unlike most traditional fighters has a very complex neutral game as well as just a lot more neutral in it of itself. In trad fighters, you're usually bumrushing or whiff punishing for the most part and getting to straightforward punish game. Melee plays way more heavily into neutral. Most ICs were sort of "Dumbing down" the part of melee that is the most fruitful, and that is what in my eyes encouraged the ban rather than it being "OP". You can say there is survivorship bias sure, but you cannot deny that the wobble ban DID encourage the ICs that stuck to their guns to polish up on their neutral cuz I mean look at slugs, he can get kills without even grabbing at all! Nowadays most ppl see ICs as a hero character, and idk about what others have to say, but I do find value in a character being likeable because heh, if you're playing purely to win, there's other games to be played cuz melee ain't it chief. Melee is very "for the people by the people", so it is typically ideal for players to innovate and gain respect in their skill. Theres always going to be haters yes, but the wobble ban paved the way for a new and much better reputation for ICs as a character.
that point is missing because it isn't true. Icies have always been focused on neutral, every single top icies that has ever been has prioritised a high degree of understanding of neutral over punish optimisation and technical integration, That's because you need to understand neutral extremely well in order to land grabs as icies at high levels of play, or even to find kills as sopo, as he is incredibly poor at confirming hits into taking stocks and often needs to find raw smash attacks to kill. the wobbling ban hasn't really pushed icies neutral much, because fundamentally icies are rewarded for the exact same thing with or without wobbling banned: landing a grab. The most major meta development that has occurred after the wobbling ban was literally *optimising wobbling for damage per pummel*, because maximising our reward from what was already our best neutral win is simply a logical step to take.
Deciding that wobbling isn't "playing Melee" is plainly subjective and excessively arbitrary. It's a part of every vanilla release of the game. If we're going to ban everything that goes against a collective fantasized ideal of what Melee "should" be, then I don't even think wobbling would be first on that list, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. But we don't get to decide what the game is, the game gets to decide what the game is. Of course, the community has banned things before, namely stages and items, but those objectively compromise a healthy competitive experience in a quantifiable way, something wobbling never has and never will.
@@Spunney wobbling is objectively not playing melee because literally no other character does anything remotely similar and it skips mechanics in the game. I'm not even being one bit subjective as I don't mind wobbling, but its naive to say wobbling is playing melee because it isn't.
@@nickq8093 ok I'll take you up on that. Ask Axe, Mang0, Plup and n0ne if they lost to lower level ICs back in the day because of neutral. Let's be realistic here.
@@YURTZYN42 True chaingrabs and consistent edgeguard setups both result in guaranteed death when an opponent gets locked into one. I guess using those meant you wouldn't be playing melee. And I guess Cassidy's ultimate in Overwatch isn't playing Overwatch because it skips the aiming mechanic of the game. In any case, *You are playing Melee by playing Melee.* Trying to make weird rules around what counts as playing the game properly is, frankly, textbook-definition scrubbery, not really any fundamentally different than if I argued that ""neutral skips"" in a traditional fighting game aren't "playing SF/MK/KOF/etc". because they "skip a mechanic" of the game. I'm really not trying to insult you by pointing this out, it's just kinda what your variety of argument is, unfortunately.
While I agree with some things you said we SHOULD NOT unban wobbling. Wobbling no matter how you spin it, skips the punish/defense part of melee. Every other character in melee has to play neutral and then punish/defense. Making it so you can just entirely skip such a big portion of the game is just unfair. Not even puff upthrow rest is close to having that privilege. You classified wobbling as a kill move so we can just consider it the same as getting hit by a fully charged Roy neutral b, just one that sends you to the blast zone really slowly. With that in mind, it becomes really scary to think that a move as powerful as Roy neutral b can be used as a whiff punishing tool, even against top players. With slippi players are only getting better and if wobbling becomes unbanned there will undoubtedly be tons of serious grinders who will get good enough to get that grab consistently. We're seeing so many do it now as DK and he doesn't have a tool anywhere near as good as wobbling. Good video but I genuinely think it needs to stay banned.
it's not "unfair" at all, it needs desync setup, which you can deal with. Main problem is how boring it is to see a wobble ice climbers take a 0-to-death with wobbles. Jigglypuff rest, even DK ding dong, all are short and sweet. Ice climbers becomes this cutscene. And if you modded it so wobbles just instakilled the target, then you wouldn't even need to learn to do them consistently. There's really no other fix for that issue than a simple ban.
your argument is starting from the assumption that every grab icies gets is a raw grab from neutral which is... not the case at all. icies generally have to work classic punish game skills to attain grabs, with techchasing, comboing, conversion from stray hits, working advantage state such as corner/light recovery situations, stuff like that. Combined with the fact that they will often lose nana and sopo needs to work all those skills to attain KO's, can you think of a good icies player who *isn't* reputed as having a good sopo?
@nickq8093 it doesn't matter if every grab isn't just a raw grab in neutral/whiff punish the fact that it exists a viable option is what's fucked. You are never hitting a top player with a full charged Roy neutral b, or a Ganon uptilt, but you can and will get plenty of grabs in neutral as ics that lead to instant death. Handoffs and desyncs are definitely good enough to make icies viable and able to win a tourney. I genuinely don't know why ic players even would WANT to wobble given how unfun it is for both the ics.
@@melee9183 > I genuinely don't know why ic players even would WANT to wobble given how unfun it is because our generally hardest matchups to play become incredibly dependant on RNG without it. Sometimes nana simply decides she only wants to upthrow peach or puff or samus or luigi and neuter our punish. Having your consistency impacted by not just the matchup volatility of your character but also the RNG volatility of your punish is extremely competitively unsatisfying. The thing that differentiates wobbling from a fast ganon uptilt or roy neutral B is that wobbling can be removed as an option, and that in order to retain access to that option icies need to work around nana's delay and restrictions. people love to ignore the fact that in regards to protecting your full character all our defensive options essentially come out 6 frames later and we straight up can't use a bunch of movement stuff to its full extent with her around. imagine all your defensive stuff coming out on a 6 frame delay. shield, dashback, spotdodge/roll as well as not being able to use extended dashdances or perfect wavelands. Icies literally play with that, you think that isn't a significant price to pay?
I like the thought process of seeing wobbling as a kill move rather than a combo. But I think the main argument towards banning wobbling is that it is a kill move that works at every %, on every character, on every stage, anywhere on the stage. It works at ledge at 100%, and it works at 0% at center stage. If you want to use puff up throw rest as a comparison, that ko's characters on different stages at different % ranges, depending on stage position. Obviously I'm not saying there's no counterplay, you know how counterplay works. But having a kill move that ko's any opponent no matter the character, percent, stage, or position on that stage, makes wobbling an immediate threat that if you make a small mistake you can lose your stock at any point, no matter what.
@@Matt_102k except for when Nana isn't in position or dead, which is at least half the time if not more in most ICs games. That caveat changes this comparison by quite a bit imo, and it's one of the reasons why wobbling ICs were not overpowered. I totally see your point though.
I agree with a lot of the points you went over, but I don't think they are good justification for wobbling. The way I look at it, banning wobbling is like items. Not in that it's random but we, as a competitive community, have decided we don't value the skills of being able to use items. I don't, and a lot of players don't, value the skill of being able to wobble, when ICs have other harder, cooler grab combos/semi?-infinites (I admit I'm not super knowlegeable). That being said, I think it's unfortonute that banning wobbling has killed off a lot of IC players, because actual tech skill ICs is pretty damn sick. My compromise would be to allow ICs to wobble on their last stock, because if they lose Nana, that's it, your chance to wobble is gone. Plus that way you can't get 4 stock wobbled, which is what I think people who make the "ICs destroys mid level" argument think happens every game. I think that would be pretty fair.
the thing is that wobbling is inherently linked to icies ability to maintain and manipulate nana. To say that you don't value the skill of being able to wobble is to say that you think icies are rewarded too much for their skill at maintaining and manipulating nana, as accessing wobbling is inherently one of the strongest rewards for keeping her around and nearby, especially in floaty matchups where they have a much more limited set of grab punish options. That's an entire skillset that 90% of people don't understand, appreciate, or can meaningfully observe in action that is being claimed is overrewarded, but with icies being ~8th on basically everyones tier lists with wobbling, how can that be the case?
@@Swampson1738 ...and? the skills to make use of it beyond lower level play aren't easy. i'm down with banning it in environments where we should prioritise fun and improvement over competition like small locals, against lower seeds of bigger ones, smashhouses, yadda yadda. but between good players wobblings ease of execution simply isn't a meaningful issue. Hell, icies being the grapplers of melee wobbling being low execution makes sense. Grapplers aren't exactly known to be the highest execution archetype.
Nice vid! I can at least attest that I've had players admit they disliked being wobbled when playing against me and were losing interest in the game due to it, I agree on your point that melee is full of stuff like that though - I've seen people drop the game due to not knowing how to punish unsafe Marth f-smashes for example. I never really wanted it to be banned and I think deciding the ruleset based on how something impacts lower levels of play is a bit strange, but ultimately that's how melee is and is likely always going to be, that is the majority of the player base. If there's enough outcry anything can be changed since TOs (rightly) want as many players as possible at events to feel like they're having a good time and fairly competing. Which is why we should all start campaigning for a Falco laser limit.
@@awakebydefault Falco laser is not that great. WDoos handles that ez. If he stays or retreats lasers you WDoos forward and take stage control and corner him. If he's approaching with them you WDoos back and watch what he does after. Your welcome.
Step back from any particular fighting game and think of a 1 hit KO move with very easy execution and very little risk for attempting it. Is a move like that good for any game's health? The only difference between that hypothetical move and wobbling is that wobbling isn't technically a 1 hit KO, but instead a "1 grab into extremely easy execution KO." Hand-offs are a good solution to me because they at least add an execution and stage location requirement. ADDED: And I understand that not everyone may agree with the "very little risk for attempting it" part. I'd be open to changing my mind with more explanation on how going for grab as ICs specifically is a substantial risk. I say "substantial" because you can explain how literally any character on the roster incurs some "risk" for attempting a grab. I'm looking for risk that's beyond whatever baseline level of risk a grab incurs as part of the game's core mechanics. In any event, this (AND ANY TAKE ON THIS ISSUE) is a subjective take. I don't think a fighting game should value moves like the ones I outlined above. And maybe I'm nitpicking your words here, but I heard you say "good objective" take a few times when it's not possible to have a "good objective" anything. An objective "take" (for lack of a better word) would be reporting a statistic. But even if there were a reported pertinent statistic to this debate, the conclusions drawn from that statistic are subjective. I don't see any way around subjectivity, and that's completely fine.
> I'm looking for risk that's beyond whatever baseline level of risk a grab incurs as part of the game's core mechanics. icies have that risk baked into the mechanics of nana. nana's delay means that in terms of protecting their entire character all their defensive options come out 6 frames later. Shield is frame 7, dashback frame 8, spotdodge frame 8, roll frame 10. they also are limited in their ability to dashdance and waveland in order to keep nana around, and have to take care beyond normal in going to ledge in order to prevent nana from killing herself and have to be aware of certain parts of stage geometry as wavedashing on a slope will often cause nana to disconnect. icies have this risk baked into the very core of their character. also, given the stock-based nature of melee calling wobbling the equivalent of a 1hit KO grab in a traditional fighter is a poor comparison.
It’s not equivalent to a 1-hit KO. There’s 4 stocks in Melee. Comparisons are hard for various reasons but I’d still say it’s much closer to a “lost 25% of health bar”. Which honestly didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me articulating it now. To me, as a spectator and a meh player, hand offs are much cooler to watch and include more of what’s interesting about Melee. So keep the ban. Though I don’t care that much either way.
My take is that wobbling is an infinite therefore it should be banned. Half measures like saying you can only wobble up to 300% are arbitrary and weird. Why 300%? Why not like 200%? Is there any character who can live past an ic f-smash or d-smash past 200? Maybe it should only be 150, sure some characters might live on dreamland but at that point the edgeguard is p much guaranteed. I think outright banning makes more sense than making up a rule to attempt at some form of balance.
falcon lives until ~280% on dl thats why the 300% number was picked iirc. the current rule is still an arbitrary limit on the infinite, just a much smaller one. You're allowed to do 4 wobble reps.
@@will1872 I didn't know that! 280 is really high lol I would've expected much earlier even for heavies And yeah actually disregard my comment cause indeed the handoff rules are just as arbitrary. My b
@@Thierce > cause indeed the handoff rules are just as arbitrary. My b holy shit someone able to realise handoffs are essentially RNG wobbling it's a miracle
I agree except for the popo going to sleep part. Everyone thinks of melee as "pick a tournament legal stage, no items, the better player wins". Disabling a specific character is dumb and "SSBM Nicki" says that argument has no validity. But of course banning wobbling ruins the integrity of the game. Wobbling can be overcome by S tiers. By not allowing a player to do it, you're saying, let's play melee, competitively, except my character's moveset is available and yours will be limited in a specific way to reduce your chances. That's not "Melee". That's "Character reduced Melee"
good video, and since at the end you invited me to ramble into the void about wobbling I will. I pretty much just agree with everything. I was also a non ICs main back when wobbling was banned and I was against the ban. My first smash game I tried to play competitively was Smash4 and I was quite turned off by balance patches. The politics of everyone complaining that their main wasn't good to avoid the threat of nerfs seemed really wack to me, and for that reason I think it was unfair to strip the wobblers of their technique. That being said, grinding the more interesting punishes off of a grab that ICs now use is what drew me to the character in the first place. And I think there's nothing wrong with the state of Melee without wobbling, so I would elect not to unban it if given the choice.
You can maybe handle wobbling the way Yugioh handles some cards, by limiting the number of stocks per game you can wobble instead of outright banning it. 1 stock per game, 2 stocks per game, even. More tournaments need to experiment with rulesets in general. We are already modding the game, why not experiment with brinstar with no acid, or really anything?
I think there is definitely a slippery slope argument to be made. If wobbling is banned, why stop there? That’s a dangerous road to go down and will quickly divide melee and destroy it. No qualms against anyone in particular, but z jump and box controllers are prime examples of this. Your playing the game in a fundamentally different way than it came out of the box as. THAT BEING SAID, I just recently got into IC’s from playing marth and I have a couple of fresh opinions on this. I think wobbling should stay banned personally. I dont have every argument thought out as of yet, but my biggest point in my mind is the gameplay loop of IC’s. I hate the concept of the most optimal tool always out of grab is a 0-death. Grabbing on marth is always a disaster for your opponent, he can very easily “wobble” you to death especially on FD. Oh hey, its the same stage ICs like too, and they are both playing for the exact same thing in neutral, grab. The difference tho is that zain, the best marth, constantly fumbles those combos, because they are hard and reactable to some degree. It usually ends up with a large percent lead and an edge guard but not an instakill. Thats how the gameplay loop of SSB is. SSB in general is known for being different from other fighting games where your stuck with no options. Theres neutral, defense, recovery, etc. Infinintes have always been patched out in the later games because its just not healthy for this genre. People hated metaknight, bayonetta, the few infinites in ultimate, etc. They are frustrating, its just not what people signed up for. Taking a step back and analyzing what people like and dont like and applying it to melee specifically here… Marth chain grab, puff upthrow rest, shiek chain grab, etc… These are all examples of things people find extremely frustrating, but theres a very specific reason they arent banned yet. They dont completely take away the player’s agency (Dnd buzzword haha). U at least have some say in every chain grab tech chase, even in puff upthrow rest u can DI. Theres a reason hbox hasnt beaten cody in a long time. Wobbling is the biggest feels bad you can think of, literally. Theres nothing more shitty than one simple mistake ending with a skilless insta kill. You can make the argument that neutral takes a lot of skill. Absolutely it does, ICs arent that good at anything. Even with wobbling they wont win shit. But its just not fun, plain and simple. You can call that a subjective statement if you want, but i dont believe it is. I think its objectively not fun. Theres a large majority of people that, when playing against it, dont think its fun. As an ICs player, i can say for certain that i dont want to wobble. I want to play for the more interactive kill setup like handoffs. Sure its an “infinint” too, but its more fun because it requires more inputs and technical skill. Sometimes even creativity. And based off nintendo’s actions in future ssb games, these types of mechanics are quickly removed if possible. These examples, player testemate and nintendo patches, are objective data. Objective data that shows exactly why people want wobbling out. To conclude here because ive rambled enough… Its not the power of wobbling thats the issue, its how that mechanic specifically interacts with this type of game and the audience that plays it. If every character had something like this the game would feel a lot closer to street fighter. Melee is the most unique fighting game thats out there and it hurts me to put any kind of restriction on such a perfect disaster. But ultimately, wobbling just doesnt make the cut as something people enjoy, and thats okay, us ics have and will find other ways to get around it. I do think wobbling should be legal against peach puff tho only. Loool 😂
around 12:00ish you're talking about how wobbling only helps you get one or two more sets or that it doesn't make a big difference but I disagree. In my experience wobbling allows players who are learning the game to win sets without having to learn much of a punish game outside of the wobble. I think unbanning it was worth a try but it just makes the game worse by being in it. I don't have any fancy argument against it, I just don't like it and I'm glad it's banned now you yourself are a good example! if you were just wobbling every time you got a grab it would be more boring to watch than the hand-offs you do, which I think are awesome. it's so much better. tl;drThere is no big argument imo, its just more fun to not wobble cuz not only is it boring it prevents ppl from doing hand-offs
The discourse around this is emblematic of how the melee communtity doesn't actually prioritize competition. Wobble icies were never close to dominant, and there's a clear tradeoff for it in nana being so easy to split off and kill. It was never a problem competitively, and if I recall, many top players speculated that nana optimization would only get better and more consistent over time (given that nana has predictable, exploitable ai). The real sin of wobbling is the same as brawl or jigglypuff, which people like to say is competitiveness but which is actually just it being unfun to watch (in their view). I personally was fine with those matchups on a spectator level because they were pretty uncommon and interesting in their own right, but I wish we'd be honest and stop calling this a competitive issue when that really isn't what it is.
@@AndrewRKenny I think it generally should be, although I am sympathetic to bans for the sake of variety (like banning an over centralizing top character). But that's only in very extreme cases. In my opinion, by the time your banning things based on how fun they are to watch or play against, you're not really playing in a competitive spirit anymore (which is generally what we're trying to do I think)
Ice climbers really reminds me of techies in dota. I'm someone who has over 10000 hours in dota, i reached a pretty decent rank, 6000 mmr, a few years back. Im sure its not as good now because the MMR generally inflates over time, but i mostly improved at the gameplaying techies and a handful of meta support heroes. Techies has (had) a very similar reputation to the icies, its easy(wrong), its not playing dota(wrong), its unfun to play against(fair), blah blah blah. He wasn't ever broken. He didn't even have representation in the pro scene apart from some meme picks (except old school techies, Aui2000 showed how broken that iteration was.) Im talking about like 2016-2019 techies, i was straight up addicted to it. playing 8 hours a day all the time man. Then they just decided to rework the hero, completely gut it and destroy for no real reason, I guess because people didnt like playing against it. Okay, well losing isnt fun and there was plenty of unfun shit in the game. If you lost to a techies, you didn't have a gameplan. Its not my fault you didnt do your homework. The counter play wasn't that hard, it just took discipline. Techies just had a completely unique way of playing the game, sort of similar to icies. Nothing in the game was or is really like it. I don't blame wobbling icies for quitting at all, but at least the character didn't have its identity stolen. handoffs are still hilarious and piss people off. I quit dota cold turkey after they reworked techies. I was playing since 2013 beta days. I felt like all that time was a waste at that point. Maybe wobbling icies feel the same way.
Fox and Falco lasers are worse than wobbling for new players. As you mentioned figuring out the one dimensional wobbling approach isn’t too much for a new player. On the other hand learning powershield/ take laser counterplay is wayyy more complicated than dealing with an icies who fishes for grab.
It really doesn't have to be that deep. Wobbling is a degenerate and reductive technique that melee players (mostly) don't like interacting with as players or spectators. All the nitty gritty philosophy and intellectual masturbation shouldn't matter. Wobbling is antithetical to the game that melee players tend to enjoy, and so it was banned. And, it should stay banned so long as the players want it that way. It doesn't have to be something deeper than that.
Do note that the people pushed for it, benefits from it even now (except for hax i think, last i saw he was kind of banned), so yea competive integrity got compromized for subjective politics benefitting certain people(easier prizemoney). Same thing with box controllers (pay and reprogram(!) )the game to win advantage. If reprogramming the game is a valid option, the top platform in battlefield should at least be a bit lowered for bigger balance issues than wobbling ever were, yet not even brought up. Also, from what I've seen, no IC's atm is as good as back in 2010 or around that time, so would really like to see anyone that is even close to that level today (resultwise i check some top 8 at times and basicly never see any ics there) and thats without the actual good peach blocking top 8 spots every event).
for me its about the principle no patches unless absolutely necessary i also think it makes our roster more dynamic and diverse if we have one unhinged cheese archetype character it also gives commentary something to joke about(which is needed these days imo, way too much hyper serious ult style commentary recently imo) and its a meme that can draw attention to the game without ruining it in any serious way
its also a slippery slope, i bet box and z jump would have been banned by now if we hadn't left the door open for patches by changing the game for petty trivial reasons
Wobbling was banned way before box and z jump became a thing. Banning wobbling is more comparable to banning stages that allow fast characters to circle camp, or banning items when certain characters might benefit from items more than others.
Bro, this is more unhinged than my mom. Slippi's been popping and if you think Melee's any deader than when I entered that big old Melee documentary (or HBox doc) came out you're delusional. This sounds like all those people who complain that the Melee community is too "gay". It's just like, disconnected from reality.
Top players complaining ab wobbling to get it banned for easier tournament runs is exactly like Dream convincing all of his 9 year old gremlins to vote against adding mobs that deal damage so he can stay at the top of speedrunning leaderboards
To me, wobbling was alway an intended mechanic. Now, I know that sounds like crazy talk but hear me out. You're able to wobble with 2 different characters in games modes with 3+ characters on screen w/o the icies already. Now if I was a game developer at HAL in 2001 and I tested 2 player grab interactions and found this, my next thought wouldn't be to not test this on the character who's sole gimmick is being two characters, 13 month development or not. Even if they didn't know about wobbling exactly, the character almost seems designed around the possibility of broken grab game, because they definitely knew about handoffs because of freeze glitch being patched in PAL, even more evidence they were looking at ICs grab interactions. Another thing to add to this, If you do the lvl 9 ganon challenge on hyrule with 2 or more ganons, the ganons will wobble you if theyre close enough.
Wobbling turns melee from a videogame to homework for the opponent Overly punishes risky playstyles and buffs people with solid unimaginative gameplans It's not a coincidence that the biggest wobbling haters are all fan favorites with flashy playstyles (Axe, n0ne, Plup, you can even include mango in this even though he never publicly complained. Everyone knows he struggled in the matchup. The reason is that his playstyle of "fuck it let's go in, if this dosen't work, my defense is cracked enough to make the risk reward fine" gets fried by a shieldgrab) Down to talk about this next time you are at a jedo if you want haha
@@MagikMKW i agree that it buffs one dimensional gameplans, but I disagree that punishing risky playstyles is necessarily a bad thing. If you can only play one style (one of the most powerful ones), it's healthy to have something in the metagame that punishes that without being OP on its own. If hyper offense is by far the best style in the metagame, punishing that risky style with balance or stall while keeping stall a rare occurence is a good thing imo.
@@SSBMNicki Eh there's an argument to be made that a risky and creative playstyle is more difficult to develop than a more doing-your-taxes playstyle, so do we really need to punish players that are brave enough to take that deep dive? Note that here I'm not talking about the highest level of the game anymore, I think creative playstyles are buffed at that level because there's a lot of counterplay developed around the basic meta options. All I'm saying is that there's a reason why "bad player that thinks he's mango but really SDs 3 times a game trying to style" is a trope. In other words, do we really want mid level melee to be a pile of accountants?
@@YURTZYN42 would it? I think that offense IS better, just a lot harder to do correctly. Also how do you think the tier list would change? Most people agree that spacies are at the top, so what do you mean?
@@MagikMKW spacies def top, falco jumps over Marth, sheik a little better, Samus ICs a little better, Luigi MUCH better, puff and DK drop, Roy better, stuff like that. Somany defensive mechanics and playstyles melee has destroys certain characters.
All the reasons wobbling was banned set up an argument for DK nerfs You can pick up DK and get an "armada level" punish game in a relatively low time commitment The problem is focusing on characters as problems with melee instead of focusing on important issues limiting melee's growth including the high school-esque ingrouping and hatred of player/styles/controllers taking attention away from central narratives that drive people picking the game up The general negativity and snobby angry gamer behavior is far more offputting to newcomers than wobbling ever was
You cannot just get "Armada level punish" by picking up DK. At most he has 0 to death combos on 2 characters on one stage. That's it. DK does not have guaranteed punish on the entire cast on every stage. But wobbling is works universally on the entire cast.
People don't play melee, they play a neutered and hacked version of the game released years after the original release with wobbling removed. Keep in mind competitive melee always takes place on the original game where inputs are inputs and the game is the game. If you cry about wobbling then you are more likely crying because you're afraid to lose. Cry so hard that they said I won't even compete. Because playing a game of melee on a neutred copy (non original) with wobbling removed, banned, or illegal, is inherently just playing a modded copy of the game. You may as well play Project M if you are competitive in "Melee where ice climbers have been neutered". The icies have not gotten any worse with wobbling - the issue is that with the ban, foxes and other S tiers have not been getting the proper practice against it. It is the Fox's bad, because wobbling will come back, since it is simply an input that produces a fighting platform game on the original copy. Sure it doesn't on the modded or "banned" version of the game, but that isn't melee, that's something called "Melee where a specific character has been neutered" which is fine if you want to play and compete on that version of the game, but it's hilarious that they actually call that "Melee" when it's not. Melee is the original game, NTSC where falco down air meteor, and where IC's have wobble. It's as simple as that. By banning wobbling you are crying that you aren't good enough to overcome it, meanwhile Gods have overcome significantly harder challenges. But anyway, so long as you know you are playing a neutered version of melee released 5 years after original or whatever it was, then that's fine. But you shouldn't call yourself a melee competitor unless you compete in Melee, which inherently allows IC's to wobble.
You are damn right. UCF, phob/programmable controllers and Boxes have really ruined what made the game what it is. Neutered is the perfect description.
@@ariesomega2487 1. Ice climbers are SS tier in Melee unless you remove freeze glitch and wobbling. 2. Master hand is not playable so long as you force port 1 and 2 and one controller per player. 3. 60hz polling, I'm sorry if your stick was in the wrong place at the clock hit even if a few milliseconds later you're in cardinal L/R but learning to live with 60hz poll has always been a part of the game. Using a controller which doesn't write your inputs 1 to 1 such as a controller that "readjusts" your input so that dash back will occur would be cheating. So all 3 points you made were invalid.. Sure, you can play melee no ice climbers, since wobbling/freeze glitch puts ice climbers above every other character. But you can't neuter ice climbers and still call it Melee, that's what you can't do.
Of course banning wobbling hurts the integrity of competition. You should be allowed to choose any character and play Melee. You shouldn't say "you can do this in the game but you can't do it against me because I want to win". That ruins the competitive integrity. Wobbling can be overcome.
Why is being subjective about it a bad thing?
Melee is a game at the end of the day, so if a majority of people think wobbling should be banned, even if "objectively" (whatever that means in that context) it shouldn't be banned, why not just ban it?
I don't believe in stupid questions, but I really don't understand where this question is coming from. Competitions aren't subjective. The winner is the player who won, and it is competitive only if the winner is the player who was better.
Wobbling ban being subjective is dangerous; What if Donkey Kong gets banned because someone just "dislikes him"?
Like, where is this comment coming from? We don't know why people disliked wobbles. Could've as well been because some competitor had bad matchup against ice climbers, so chose to ban it. Purely subjective bans open a door to any nonsense: What then, when something you like gets banned for subjective reasons?
@@benshulz4179 What does objectivity mean in a game where we made up all the rules?
@@Nawakooo0 we made up the rules for reasons that directly relate to preventing overcentralisation and removing RNG as to lower variance between two players.
items are RNG and buff fast, strong neutral characters. stage hazards buff fast, strong neutral characters. permanent walls buff fast, strong neutral characters.
guess what describes a lot of the top tiers even with all these banned? fast, strong neutral characters. The "objectivity" is that these are based around the defined reality of the game, as much as tier lists are subjective evaluations of that reality, deep down it is based on objective things.
The wobbling ban isn't based on anything within the reality of the game. It is purely down to value judgements outside of the game.
A majority does not mean they're right or should make the decision. Unless you really love rang gape.
@@nickq8093
Wobbling ban makes sense from objective view. It's just people like these that give value to opinions that give ban name to rule changes. Crybabies that complain about "boringness", and we do not know what that means; Maybe they just find everything they lose to boring.
I am also a hardcore professional smash watcher
Game has been far more interesting and enjoyable without it.
Having such a low skill floor for such an over powered tech is bad.
Sure, at the high level you can negate it by outplaying them. But at the low/ mid level it blatantly makes the game not worth actually learning.
This
it's funny that no one wants wobbling back except Icies mains
I think it's pretty crappy that icies are mid tier but wobbling is banned anyway.
Exaaaaaactly
@@jiaan100 Wobbling is banned not to nerf Icies, but to remove a mechanic from the game that is antithetical to how we want melee to played
@@oliverrainer5771 guaranteed combos are antithetical to how you want melee to be played? Don't tell the top tiers
Wobbling and Chain Grabs should get the same treatment: either ban both or allow both.
If the argument is that Wobbling should be banned because the technique is too powerful, then that is not true because ICs were not top-tier even before the Wobbling ban. With this logic, we don't care about whether or not something is boring or antithetical to how Melee should be played; all characters should have their strongest non-glitch tools available. Therefore, unban Wobbling.
If the argument is that Wobbling is bad from a viewer perspective or that the game becomes boring, then Chain Grabs would serve the same purpose as it is a repeatable action that invalidates a stock using the same move over and over. With this logic, we don't care about the fact that Chain Grabs are stage, percent, or character dependent (when comparing vs Wobbling) because the focus is on the viewing experience. Furthermore, Sheik's down-throw Chain Grab is especially notorious for invalidating half the cast; you either have to be a fast faller or a super floaty character to not fall victim to this. Banning Chain Grabs would open up character viability on the lower parts of the tier list even more which further keeps the viewing experience fresh with more viable characters. Therefore, ban Chain Grabs.
Community is not ready for this kind of emotional intelligence.
Need to hear your response to Andrew Unsure's take that ICs should be banned outright because there's two of them and handoffs are unfair.
I think I'm happy with the ban. As a spectator, wobbling often did actually create interesting and funny sets, but non-wobbling ICs are really fun to watch and players like yourself, Slug and MOF all seem to be doing different stuff and utilizing more of the character's weird kit. I think like with a lot of guaranteed combos or kill moves, the interesting thing in wobbling was how players got the grab itself, but I'm not sure how many people actually finda neutral on its own to be that interesting. I think it did slow down the game in some cases too and reward whether actually or psychologically a camping heavy playstyle where the ICs tries to set traps for their non interactive opponent.
I never played against wobbling in tourney, but i think a lot of people have probably tried to put a logical argument behind what is more emotional. It's frustrating to get hit by it, and in a way that makes you more likely to get hit by it again and again if you do get tilted, and that feels bad. Is this a phenomenon unique to the character? Of course not. Hbox has made a career off of this phenomenon, but it being so over centralizing in the character's kit, and the ICs maybe just being a bit too weird for most players to want to play them, certainly made it more controversial. As a Peach player, I've definitely still lost to my share of ICs who have managed to handoff kill me until I'm too frustrated to actually engage in the game in front of me.
Regarding whether the community members on reddit and Twitter made rational arguments, I do think that just because nobody made a sufficiently rational argument doesn't mean there isn't one there for banning wobbling. Articulating a rational argument is hard!
As someone who was on the "idc" boat at the time of the wobble ban debate, I feel my take would be unbiased so here's my 2 cents:
In retrospect, having even picked up a pocket ICs, I appreciate the level of hidden creativity this character offers beyond the wobble. Very expressive how you can control 2 units and develop these strategies to combine them to either tactically trap the opponent or just straight beat them down.
All the points made in this video are very much valid and I have no qualms, however there is one point I feel is missing. Many ICs who were reliant on the wobble weren't exactly "playing melee". You see, melee unlike most traditional fighters has a very complex neutral game as well as just a lot more neutral in it of itself. In trad fighters, you're usually bumrushing or whiff punishing for the most part and getting to straightforward punish game. Melee plays way more heavily into neutral. Most ICs were sort of "Dumbing down" the part of melee that is the most fruitful, and that is what in my eyes encouraged the ban rather than it being "OP".
You can say there is survivorship bias sure, but you cannot deny that the wobble ban DID encourage the ICs that stuck to their guns to polish up on their neutral cuz I mean look at slugs, he can get kills without even grabbing at all! Nowadays most ppl see ICs as a hero character, and idk about what others have to say, but I do find value in a character being likeable because heh, if you're playing purely to win, there's other games to be played cuz melee ain't it chief. Melee is very "for the people by the people", so it is typically ideal for players to innovate and gain respect in their skill. Theres always going to be haters yes, but the wobble ban paved the way for a new and much better reputation for ICs as a character.
that point is missing because it isn't true.
Icies have always been focused on neutral, every single top icies that has ever been has prioritised a high degree of understanding of neutral over punish optimisation and technical integration, That's because you need to understand neutral extremely well in order to land grabs as icies at high levels of play, or even to find kills as sopo, as he is incredibly poor at confirming hits into taking stocks and often needs to find raw smash attacks to kill.
the wobbling ban hasn't really pushed icies neutral much, because fundamentally icies are rewarded for the exact same thing with or without wobbling banned: landing a grab. The most major meta development that has occurred after the wobbling ban was literally *optimising wobbling for damage per pummel*, because maximising our reward from what was already our best neutral win is simply a logical step to take.
Deciding that wobbling isn't "playing Melee" is plainly subjective and excessively arbitrary. It's a part of every vanilla release of the game. If we're going to ban everything that goes against a collective fantasized ideal of what Melee "should" be, then I don't even think wobbling would be first on that list, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. But we don't get to decide what the game is, the game gets to decide what the game is. Of course, the community has banned things before, namely stages and items, but those objectively compromise a healthy competitive experience in a quantifiable way, something wobbling never has and never will.
@@Spunney wobbling is objectively not playing melee because literally no other character does anything remotely similar and it skips mechanics in the game. I'm not even being one bit subjective as I don't mind wobbling, but its naive to say wobbling is playing melee because it isn't.
@@nickq8093 ok I'll take you up on that. Ask Axe, Mang0, Plup and n0ne if they lost to lower level ICs back in the day because of neutral. Let's be realistic here.
@@YURTZYN42 True chaingrabs and consistent edgeguard setups both result in guaranteed death when an opponent gets locked into one. I guess using those meant you wouldn't be playing melee. And I guess Cassidy's ultimate in Overwatch isn't playing Overwatch because it skips the aiming mechanic of the game. In any case, *You are playing Melee by playing Melee.* Trying to make weird rules around what counts as playing the game properly is, frankly, textbook-definition scrubbery, not really any fundamentally different than if I argued that ""neutral skips"" in a traditional fighting game aren't "playing SF/MK/KOF/etc". because they "skip a mechanic" of the game. I'm really not trying to insult you by pointing this out, it's just kinda what your variety of argument is, unfortunately.
15:43 National Park coming on right as you start to get a little sentimental about reasons for playing is some cosmic poetry.
While I agree with some things you said we SHOULD NOT unban wobbling. Wobbling no matter how you spin it, skips the punish/defense part of melee. Every other character in melee has to play neutral and then punish/defense. Making it so you can just entirely skip such a big portion of the game is just unfair. Not even puff upthrow rest is close to having that privilege. You classified wobbling as a kill move so we can just consider it the same as getting hit by a fully charged Roy neutral b, just one that sends you to the blast zone really slowly. With that in mind, it becomes really scary to think that a move as powerful as Roy neutral b can be used as a whiff punishing tool, even against top players. With slippi players are only getting better and if wobbling becomes unbanned there will undoubtedly be tons of serious grinders who will get good enough to get that grab consistently. We're seeing so many do it now as DK and he doesn't have a tool anywhere near as good as wobbling. Good video but I genuinely think it needs to stay banned.
I think the fully charge Roy neutral b analogy is a bit much but for the most part I agree with you. I think it's more like a random triple knee
it's not "unfair" at all, it needs desync setup, which you can deal with. Main problem is how boring it is to see a wobble ice climbers take a 0-to-death with wobbles. Jigglypuff rest, even DK ding dong, all are short and sweet. Ice climbers becomes this cutscene. And if you modded it so wobbles just instakilled the target, then you wouldn't even need to learn to do them consistently. There's really no other fix for that issue than a simple ban.
your argument is starting from the assumption that every grab icies gets is a raw grab from neutral which is... not the case at all.
icies generally have to work classic punish game skills to attain grabs, with techchasing, comboing, conversion from stray hits, working advantage state such as corner/light recovery situations, stuff like that. Combined with the fact that they will often lose nana and sopo needs to work all those skills to attain KO's, can you think of a good icies player who *isn't* reputed as having a good sopo?
@nickq8093 it doesn't matter if every grab isn't just a raw grab in neutral/whiff punish the fact that it exists a viable option is what's fucked. You are never hitting a top player with a full charged Roy neutral b, or a Ganon uptilt, but you can and will get plenty of grabs in neutral as ics that lead to instant death. Handoffs and desyncs are definitely good enough to make icies viable and able to win a tourney. I genuinely don't know why ic players even would WANT to wobble given how unfun it is for both the ics.
@@melee9183 > I genuinely don't know why ic players even would WANT to wobble given how unfun it is
because our generally hardest matchups to play become incredibly dependant on RNG without it. Sometimes nana simply decides she only wants to upthrow peach or puff or samus or luigi and neuter our punish. Having your consistency impacted by not just the matchup volatility of your character but also the RNG volatility of your punish is extremely competitively unsatisfying.
The thing that differentiates wobbling from a fast ganon uptilt or roy neutral B is that wobbling can be removed as an option, and that in order to retain access to that option icies need to work around nana's delay and restrictions. people love to ignore the fact that in regards to protecting your full character all our defensive options essentially come out 6 frames later and we straight up can't use a bunch of movement stuff to its full extent with her around.
imagine all your defensive stuff coming out on a 6 frame delay. shield, dashback, spotdodge/roll as well as not being able to use extended dashdances or perfect wavelands. Icies literally play with that, you think that isn't a significant price to pay?
I like the thought process of seeing wobbling as a kill move rather than a combo. But I think the main argument towards banning wobbling is that it is a kill move that works at every %, on every character, on every stage, anywhere on the stage. It works at ledge at 100%, and it works at 0% at center stage. If you want to use puff up throw rest as a comparison, that ko's characters on different stages at different % ranges, depending on stage position. Obviously I'm not saying there's no counterplay, you know how counterplay works. But having a kill move that ko's any opponent no matter the character, percent, stage, or position on that stage, makes wobbling an immediate threat that if you make a small mistake you can lose your stock at any point, no matter what.
@@Matt_102k except for when Nana isn't in position or dead, which is at least half the time if not more in most ICs games. That caveat changes this comparison by quite a bit imo, and it's one of the reasons why wobbling ICs were not overpowered. I totally see your point though.
Banning Melee killed wobbling
I agree with a lot of the points you went over, but I don't think they are good justification for wobbling. The way I look at it, banning wobbling is like items. Not in that it's random but we, as a competitive community, have decided we don't value the skills of being able to use items. I don't, and a lot of players don't, value the skill of being able to wobble, when ICs have other harder, cooler grab combos/semi?-infinites (I admit I'm not super knowlegeable). That being said, I think it's unfortonute that banning wobbling has killed off a lot of IC players, because actual tech skill ICs is pretty damn sick. My compromise would be to allow ICs to wobble on their last stock, because if they lose Nana, that's it, your chance to wobble is gone. Plus that way you can't get 4 stock wobbled, which is what I think people who make the "ICs destroys mid level" argument think happens every game. I think that would be pretty fair.
the thing is that wobbling is inherently linked to icies ability to maintain and manipulate nana. To say that you don't value the skill of being able to wobble is to say that you think icies are rewarded too much for their skill at maintaining and manipulating nana, as accessing wobbling is inherently one of the strongest rewards for keeping her around and nearby, especially in floaty matchups where they have a much more limited set of grab punish options.
That's an entire skillset that 90% of people don't understand, appreciate, or can meaningfully observe in action that is being claimed is overrewarded, but with icies being ~8th on basically everyones tier lists with wobbling, how can that be the case?
@@nickq8093 yeah but it's so free to input it's just wrong man
@@Swampson1738 ...and? the skills to make use of it beyond lower level play aren't easy.
i'm down with banning it in environments where we should prioritise fun and improvement over competition like small locals, against lower seeds of bigger ones, smashhouses, yadda yadda.
but between good players wobblings ease of execution simply isn't a meaningful issue. Hell, icies being the grapplers of melee wobbling being low execution makes sense. Grapplers aren't exactly known to be the highest execution archetype.
Nice vid! I can at least attest that I've had players admit they disliked being wobbled when playing against me and were losing interest in the game due to it, I agree on your point that melee is full of stuff like that though - I've seen people drop the game due to not knowing how to punish unsafe Marth f-smashes for example.
I never really wanted it to be banned and I think deciding the ruleset based on how something impacts lower levels of play is a bit strange, but ultimately that's how melee is and is likely always going to be, that is the majority of the player base. If there's enough outcry anything can be changed since TOs (rightly) want as many players as possible at events to feel like they're having a good time and fairly competing. Which is why we should all start campaigning for a Falco laser limit.
@@awakebydefault Falco laser is not that great. WDoos handles that ez. If he stays or retreats lasers you WDoos forward and take stage control and corner him. If he's approaching with them you WDoos back and watch what he does after. Your welcome.
Step back from any particular fighting game and think of a 1 hit KO move with very easy execution and very little risk for attempting it. Is a move like that good for any game's health?
The only difference between that hypothetical move and wobbling is that wobbling isn't technically a 1 hit KO, but instead a "1 grab into extremely easy execution KO." Hand-offs are a good solution to me because they at least add an execution and stage location requirement.
ADDED: And I understand that not everyone may agree with the "very little risk for attempting it" part. I'd be open to changing my mind with more explanation on how going for grab as ICs specifically is a substantial risk. I say "substantial" because you can explain how literally any character on the roster incurs some "risk" for attempting a grab. I'm looking for risk that's beyond whatever baseline level of risk a grab incurs as part of the game's core mechanics.
In any event, this (AND ANY TAKE ON THIS ISSUE) is a subjective take. I don't think a fighting game should value moves like the ones I outlined above. And maybe I'm nitpicking your words here, but I heard you say "good objective" take a few times when it's not possible to have a "good objective" anything. An objective "take" (for lack of a better word) would be reporting a statistic. But even if there were a reported pertinent statistic to this debate, the conclusions drawn from that statistic are subjective. I don't see any way around subjectivity, and that's completely fine.
> I'm looking for risk that's beyond whatever baseline level of risk a grab incurs as part of the game's core mechanics.
icies have that risk baked into the mechanics of nana. nana's delay means that in terms of protecting their entire character all their defensive options come out 6 frames later. Shield is frame 7, dashback frame 8, spotdodge frame 8, roll frame 10.
they also are limited in their ability to dashdance and waveland in order to keep nana around, and have to take care beyond normal in going to ledge in order to prevent nana from killing herself and have to be aware of certain parts of stage geometry as wavedashing on a slope will often cause nana to disconnect.
icies have this risk baked into the very core of their character.
also, given the stock-based nature of melee calling wobbling the equivalent of a 1hit KO grab in a traditional fighter is a poor comparison.
It’s not equivalent to a 1-hit KO. There’s 4 stocks in Melee.
Comparisons are hard for various reasons but I’d still say it’s much closer to a “lost 25% of health bar”. Which honestly didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me articulating it now.
To me, as a spectator and a meh player, hand offs are much cooler to watch and include more of what’s interesting about Melee. So keep the ban. Though I don’t care that much either way.
My take is that wobbling is an infinite therefore it should be banned. Half measures like saying you can only wobble up to 300% are arbitrary and weird. Why 300%? Why not like 200%? Is there any character who can live past an ic f-smash or d-smash past 200? Maybe it should only be 150, sure some characters might live on dreamland but at that point the edgeguard is p much guaranteed.
I think outright banning makes more sense than making up a rule to attempt at some form of balance.
falcon lives until ~280% on dl thats why the 300% number was picked iirc.
the current rule is still an arbitrary limit on the infinite, just a much smaller one. You're allowed to do 4 wobble reps.
@@will1872 I didn't know that! 280 is really high lol I would've expected much earlier even for heavies
And yeah actually disregard my comment cause indeed the handoff rules are just as arbitrary. My b
@@Thierce > cause indeed the handoff rules are just as arbitrary. My b
holy shit someone able to realise handoffs are essentially RNG wobbling it's a miracle
instead of banning wobbling, 3 inescapable pummels should make the opponent and nana both instantly die and popo goes to sleep
I agree except for the popo going to sleep part. Everyone thinks of melee as "pick a tournament legal stage, no items, the better player wins". Disabling a specific character is dumb and "SSBM Nicki" says that argument has no validity. But of course banning wobbling ruins the integrity of the game. Wobbling can be overcome by S tiers. By not allowing a player to do it, you're saying, let's play melee, competitively, except my character's moveset is available and yours will be limited in a specific way to reduce your chances. That's not "Melee". That's "Character reduced Melee"
Anyone know the name of the song at 25:20 ?
Gang-Plank Galleon, it's King K Rools Theme in Smash Ultiate :)
They did good handoffs after wobbling was banned
good video, and since at the end you invited me to ramble into the void about wobbling I will.
I pretty much just agree with everything. I was also a non ICs main back when wobbling was banned and I was against the ban. My first smash game I tried to play competitively was Smash4 and I was quite turned off by balance patches. The politics of everyone complaining that their main wasn't good to avoid the threat of nerfs seemed really wack to me, and for that reason I think it was unfair to strip the wobblers of their technique. That being said, grinding the more interesting punishes off of a grab that ICs now use is what drew me to the character in the first place. And I think there's nothing wrong with the state of Melee without wobbling, so I would elect not to unban it if given the choice.
You can maybe handle wobbling the way Yugioh handles some cards, by limiting the number of stocks per game you can wobble instead of outright banning it. 1 stock per game, 2 stocks per game, even. More tournaments need to experiment with rulesets in general. We are already modding the game, why not experiment with brinstar with no acid, or really anything?
I think there is definitely a slippery slope argument to be made. If wobbling is banned, why stop there? That’s a dangerous road to go down and will quickly divide melee and destroy it. No qualms against anyone in particular, but z jump and box controllers are prime examples of this. Your playing the game in a fundamentally different way than it came out of the box as. THAT BEING SAID, I just recently got into IC’s from playing marth and I have a couple of fresh opinions on this.
I think wobbling should stay banned personally. I dont have every argument thought out as of yet, but my biggest point in my mind is the gameplay loop of IC’s. I hate the concept of the most optimal tool always out of grab is a 0-death. Grabbing on marth is always a disaster for your opponent, he can very easily “wobble” you to death especially on FD. Oh hey, its the same stage ICs like too, and they are both playing for the exact same thing in neutral, grab. The difference tho is that zain, the best marth, constantly fumbles those combos, because they are hard and reactable to some degree. It usually ends up with a large percent lead and an edge guard but not an instakill. Thats how the gameplay loop of SSB is. SSB in general is known for being different from other fighting games where your stuck with no options. Theres neutral, defense, recovery, etc. Infinintes have always been patched out in the later games because its just not healthy for this genre. People hated metaknight, bayonetta, the few infinites in ultimate, etc. They are frustrating, its just not what people signed up for.
Taking a step back and analyzing what people like and dont like and applying it to melee specifically here… Marth chain grab, puff upthrow rest, shiek chain grab, etc… These are all examples of things people find extremely frustrating, but theres a very specific reason they arent banned yet. They dont completely take away the player’s agency (Dnd buzzword haha). U at least have some say in every chain grab tech chase, even in puff upthrow rest u can DI. Theres a reason hbox hasnt beaten cody in a long time. Wobbling is the biggest feels bad you can think of, literally. Theres nothing more shitty than one simple mistake ending with a skilless insta kill. You can make the argument that neutral takes a lot of skill. Absolutely it does, ICs arent that good at anything. Even with wobbling they wont win shit. But its just not fun, plain and simple. You can call that a subjective statement if you want, but i dont believe it is. I think its objectively not fun. Theres a large majority of people that, when playing against it, dont think its fun. As an ICs player, i can say for certain that i dont want to wobble. I want to play for the more interactive kill setup like handoffs. Sure its an “infinint” too, but its more fun because it requires more inputs and technical skill. Sometimes even creativity. And based off nintendo’s actions in future ssb games, these types of mechanics are quickly removed if possible. These examples, player testemate and nintendo patches, are objective data. Objective data that shows exactly why people want wobbling out.
To conclude here because ive rambled enough… Its not the power of wobbling thats the issue, its how that mechanic specifically interacts with this type of game and the audience that plays it. If every character had something like this the game would feel a lot closer to street fighter. Melee is the most unique fighting game thats out there and it hurts me to put any kind of restriction on such a perfect disaster. But ultimately, wobbling just doesnt make the cut as something people enjoy, and thats okay, us ics have and will find other ways to get around it.
I do think wobbling should be legal against peach puff tho only. Loool 😂
fox's ntsc upsmash is more over centralizing to the Meta than wobbling ever was. If wobbling is banned, we should switch to PAL.
around 12:00ish you're talking about how wobbling only helps you get one or two more sets or that it doesn't make a big difference but I disagree. In my experience wobbling allows players who are learning the game to win sets without having to learn much of a punish game outside of the wobble. I think unbanning it was worth a try but it just makes the game worse by being in it. I don't have any fancy argument against it, I just don't like it and I'm glad it's banned now
you yourself are a good example! if you were just wobbling every time you got a grab it would be more boring to watch than the hand-offs you do, which I think are awesome. it's so much better.
tl;drThere is no big argument imo, its just more fun to not wobble cuz not only is it boring it prevents ppl from doing hand-offs
whats the music playing at the start
Zora's Domain from BOTW: ua-cam.com/video/Ud9ktw40mPQ/v-deo.html
@@SSBMNicki thank u nicki
i dont udnerstand what people found "hilarious" about the wobbling.
1:54 it is hilarious lol
Banning killing wobbled melee
ima keep it real with u
i aint watching a 43 minute wobbling apologist video
@@fartpatrol4148 my conclusion is that it should stay banned. Make of that what you will
Hey nice vid nicki
You are just killing it with the content lately
wobbling is just gay and boring
The discourse around this is emblematic of how the melee communtity doesn't actually prioritize competition. Wobble icies were never close to dominant, and there's a clear tradeoff for it in nana being so easy to split off and kill. It was never a problem competitively, and if I recall, many top players speculated that nana optimization would only get better and more consistent over time (given that nana has predictable, exploitable ai).
The real sin of wobbling is the same as brawl or jigglypuff, which people like to say is competitiveness but which is actually just it being unfun to watch (in their view). I personally was fine with those matchups on a spectator level because they were pretty uncommon and interesting in their own right, but I wish we'd be honest and stop calling this a competitive issue when that really isn't what it is.
Do you think "competitive viability/integrity" is the only reason to ban things?
@@AndrewRKenny I think it generally should be, although I am sympathetic to bans for the sake of variety (like banning an over centralizing top character). But that's only in very extreme cases.
In my opinion, by the time your banning things based on how fun they are to watch or play against, you're not really playing in a competitive spirit anymore (which is generally what we're trying to do I think)
Ice climbers really reminds me of techies in dota. I'm someone who has over 10000 hours in dota, i reached a pretty decent rank, 6000 mmr, a few years back. Im sure its not as good now because the MMR generally inflates over time, but i mostly improved at the gameplaying techies and a handful of meta support heroes. Techies has (had) a very similar reputation to the icies, its easy(wrong), its not playing dota(wrong), its unfun to play against(fair), blah blah blah. He wasn't ever broken. He didn't even have representation in the pro scene apart from some meme picks (except old school techies, Aui2000 showed how broken that iteration was.) Im talking about like 2016-2019 techies, i was straight up addicted to it. playing 8 hours a day all the time man. Then they just decided to rework the hero, completely gut it and destroy for no real reason, I guess because people didnt like playing against it. Okay, well losing isnt fun and there was plenty of unfun shit in the game. If you lost to a techies, you didn't have a gameplan. Its not my fault you didnt do your homework. The counter play wasn't that hard, it just took discipline. Techies just had a completely unique way of playing the game, sort of similar to icies. Nothing in the game was or is really like it. I don't blame wobbling icies for quitting at all, but at least the character didn't have its identity stolen. handoffs are still hilarious and piss people off. I quit dota cold turkey after they reworked techies. I was playing since 2013 beta days. I felt like all that time was a waste at that point. Maybe wobbling icies feel the same way.
26:07 this
Fox and Falco lasers are worse than wobbling for new players. As you mentioned figuring out the one dimensional wobbling approach isn’t too much for a new player. On the other hand learning powershield/ take laser counterplay is wayyy more complicated than dealing with an icies who fishes for grab.
It really doesn't have to be that deep. Wobbling is a degenerate and reductive technique that melee players (mostly) don't like interacting with as players or spectators. All the nitty gritty philosophy and intellectual masturbation shouldn't matter. Wobbling is antithetical to the game that melee players tend to enjoy, and so it was banned. And, it should stay banned so long as the players want it that way. It doesn't have to be something deeper than that.
Do note that the people pushed for it, benefits from it even now (except for hax i think, last i saw he was kind of banned), so yea competive integrity got compromized for subjective politics benefitting certain people(easier prizemoney). Same thing with box controllers (pay and reprogram(!) )the game to win advantage. If reprogramming the game is a valid option, the top platform in battlefield should at least be a bit lowered for bigger balance issues than wobbling ever were, yet not even brought up. Also, from what I've seen, no IC's atm is as good as back in 2010 or around that time, so would really like to see anyone that is even close to that level today (resultwise i check some top 8 at times and basicly never see any ics there) and thats without the actual good peach blocking top 8 spots every event).
for me its about the principle
no patches unless absolutely necessary
i also think it makes our roster more dynamic and diverse if we have one unhinged cheese archetype character
it also gives commentary something to joke about(which is needed these days imo, way too much hyper serious ult style commentary recently imo) and its a meme that can draw attention to the game without ruining it in any serious way
its also a slippery slope, i bet box and z jump would have been banned by now if we hadn't left the door open for patches by changing the game for petty trivial reasons
Wobbling was banned way before box and z jump became a thing. Banning wobbling is more comparable to banning stages that allow fast characters to circle camp, or banning items when certain characters might benefit from items more than others.
@@tenslein8977 yes but its still rule changes, constitutional amendments
@@TylerClibbonconstitution amendments? When was the Melee ruleset codified?
banning wobbling killed melee
@@cgyh68748 Fact checkers have deemed this comment TRUE and BASED
i mean it certainly was a mistake, it led to box and z jump and cody, we should never patch more than absolutely necessary imo
Bro, this is more unhinged than my mom. Slippi's been popping and if you think Melee's any deader than when I entered that big old Melee documentary (or HBox doc) came out you're delusional.
This sounds like all those people who complain that the Melee community is too "gay". It's just like, disconnected from reality.
@@HighDeafRadio melee will never die
More players than ever before. The only people that stopped are the annoying ice climber players that nobody gave a f about anyways.
Top players complaining ab wobbling to get it banned for easier tournament runs is exactly like Dream convincing all of his 9 year old gremlins to vote against adding mobs that deal damage so he can stay at the top of speedrunning leaderboards
How intellectually dishonest of you
I think a middle ground between ban and 300% needs to be considered. Maybe you can't wobble over 100% or increase the pummel count from 3 to 4 or 5.
To me, wobbling was alway an intended mechanic. Now, I know that sounds like crazy talk but hear me out. You're able to wobble with 2 different characters in games modes with 3+ characters on screen w/o the icies already. Now if I was a game developer at HAL in 2001 and I tested 2 player grab interactions and found this, my next thought wouldn't be to not test this on the character who's sole gimmick is being two characters, 13 month development or not. Even if they didn't know about wobbling exactly, the character almost seems designed around the possibility of broken grab game, because they definitely knew about handoffs because of freeze glitch being patched in PAL, even more evidence they were looking at ICs grab interactions. Another thing to add to this, If you do the lvl 9 ganon challenge on hyrule with 2 or more ganons, the ganons will wobble you if theyre close enough.
Wobbling turns melee from a videogame to homework for the opponent
Overly punishes risky playstyles and buffs people with solid unimaginative gameplans
It's not a coincidence that the biggest wobbling haters are all fan favorites with flashy playstyles (Axe, n0ne, Plup, you can even include mango in this even though he never publicly complained. Everyone knows he struggled in the matchup. The reason is that his playstyle of "fuck it let's go in, if this dosen't work, my defense is cracked enough to make the risk reward fine" gets fried by a shieldgrab)
Down to talk about this next time you are at a jedo if you want haha
@@MagikMKW i agree that it buffs one dimensional gameplans, but I disagree that punishing risky playstyles is necessarily a bad thing. If you can only play one style (one of the most powerful ones), it's healthy to have something in the metagame that punishes that without being OP on its own. If hyper offense is by far the best style in the metagame, punishing that risky style with balance or stall while keeping stall a rare occurence is a good thing imo.
@@SSBMNicki Eh there's an argument to be made that a risky and creative playstyle is more difficult to develop than a more doing-your-taxes playstyle, so do we really need to punish players that are brave enough to take that deep dive?
Note that here I'm not talking about the highest level of the game anymore, I think creative playstyles are buffed at that level because there's a lot of counterplay developed around the basic meta options. All I'm saying is that there's a reason why "bad player that thinks he's mango but really SDs 3 times a game trying to style" is a trope.
In other words, do we really want mid level melee to be a pile of accountants?
@@MagikMKW man melee's tier list would be quite different if hyper offense was better than defense. Might make for an interesting video 🤔🤔🤔
@@YURTZYN42 would it? I think that offense IS better, just a lot harder to do correctly.
Also how do you think the tier list would change? Most people agree that spacies are at the top, so what do you mean?
@@MagikMKW spacies def top, falco jumps over Marth, sheik a little better, Samus ICs a little better, Luigi MUCH better, puff and DK drop, Roy better, stuff like that. Somany defensive mechanics and playstyles melee has destroys certain characters.
All the reasons wobbling was banned set up an argument for DK nerfs
You can pick up DK and get an "armada level" punish game in a relatively low time commitment
The problem is focusing on characters as problems with melee instead of focusing on important issues limiting melee's growth including the high school-esque ingrouping and hatred of player/styles/controllers taking attention away from central narratives that drive people picking the game up
The general negativity and snobby angry gamer behavior is far more offputting to newcomers than wobbling ever was
You cannot just get "Armada level punish" by picking up DK. At most he has 0 to death combos on 2 characters on one stage. That's it. DK does not have guaranteed punish on the entire cast on every stage. But wobbling is works universally on the entire cast.
That's not even remotely true what are you talking about?
And at every % and position lol it's not even a little close, there is no punish in melee that's even comparable@@rickmoranisstan
People don't play melee, they play a neutered and hacked version of the game released years after the original release with wobbling removed. Keep in mind competitive melee always takes place on the original game where inputs are inputs and the game is the game. If you cry about wobbling then you are more likely crying because you're afraid to lose. Cry so hard that they said I won't even compete. Because playing a game of melee on a neutred copy (non original) with wobbling removed, banned, or illegal, is inherently just playing a modded copy of the game. You may as well play Project M if you are competitive in "Melee where ice climbers have been neutered". The icies have not gotten any worse with wobbling - the issue is that with the ban, foxes and other S tiers have not been getting the proper practice against it. It is the Fox's bad, because wobbling will come back, since it is simply an input that produces a fighting platform game on the original copy. Sure it doesn't on the modded or "banned" version of the game, but that isn't melee, that's something called "Melee where a specific character has been neutered" which is fine if you want to play and compete on that version of the game, but it's hilarious that they actually call that "Melee" when it's not. Melee is the original game, NTSC where falco down air meteor, and where IC's have wobble. It's as simple as that. By banning wobbling you are crying that you aren't good enough to overcome it, meanwhile Gods have overcome significantly harder challenges. But anyway, so long as you know you are playing a neutered version of melee released 5 years after original or whatever it was, then that's fine. But you shouldn't call yourself a melee competitor unless you compete in Melee, which inherently allows IC's to wobble.
😂
You are damn right. UCF, phob/programmable controllers and Boxes have really ruined what made the game what it is. Neutered is the perfect description.
Right!! Lets allow the freezing glitch and master hand and make dash backs a pay 2 win mechanic
Great idea ????
@@ariesomega2487 1. Ice climbers are SS tier in Melee unless you remove freeze glitch and wobbling. 2. Master hand is not playable so long as you force port 1 and 2 and one controller per player. 3. 60hz polling, I'm sorry if your stick was in the wrong place at the clock hit even if a few milliseconds later you're in cardinal L/R but learning to live with 60hz poll has always been a part of the game. Using a controller which doesn't write your inputs 1 to 1 such as a controller that "readjusts" your input so that dash back will occur would be cheating. So all 3 points you made were invalid.. Sure, you can play melee no ice climbers, since wobbling/freeze glitch puts ice climbers above every other character. But you can't neuter ice climbers and still call it Melee, that's what you can't do.
@@ariesomega2487 Not to mention fox is better than master hand in competitive play.
Of course banning wobbling hurts the integrity of competition. You should be allowed to choose any character and play Melee. You shouldn't say "you can do this in the game but you can't do it against me because I want to win". That ruins the competitive integrity. Wobbling can be overcome.
Nikki if wobbling was unbanned 😁🏆🥇🥇🥇🏆🥱👑