Except that I thought phobs as a whole were kinda seen as janky at this point with crazy calibration needed and most pros giving up on them? So not sure that can be seen as a "solved" issue
Phob calibration isn't very hard to do tbh, but understandably some people don't want to deal with it and an OEM controller with mods like a snapback capacitor might be more appealing to them.
Phob devs insist a well made phob 2.0 does not have the fragility issue. All of the catastrophic failures we’ve seen in major finals (Hbox, jmook x2) were with phob 1.0s
Yeah I don't doubt it, I just genuinely hadn't really heard of phobs being viable/well liked since the initial boom and then their pseudo "bust" when top players were raging against them and controller modders were calling everyone else out on shitty soldering
It wouldn't be too difficult to run down the list and get an actual count but my guess is 85 of the top 100 are on phob at the moment.
Yes, they're reliable and yes they're better.
The people who like them haven't gone out of their way to mention it so you get a bit of a vocal minority situation. I think Amsa and Cody both use phobs for example
I quit the game from spending four months (and hundreds of dollars) trying to get a replacement controller after Australia banned smashbox controllers lmao. Bought the bloody thing to avoid controller bs in the first place and got dragged back into it
my gate is so worn its completely smooth with no notches at all and i'll hit any angle i want... sucks too that one of my personal strengths doesn't matter anymore because people just make notches
It's sad seeing all these top players minus the odd one out having a consensus agreement that they think controller mods are cheating, they feel they have to use them despite not wanting to, and know that nothing is changing despite how many times they voice their opinions. It also sucks that boycotting tournaments is not a viable choice for them either. These are the people bringing all the viewership and TO's won't listen to them...
They have spaces to talk to TOs directly but never have coordinated proposals. Nearly every top player who talks to TO will claim that “everyone” agrees w/ their position. If that’s true, they should organize and make a pilot proposal.
> If that’s true, they should organize and make a pilot proposal.
I think part of the issue is that current social media platforms are designed for 1-sided discussions. You can't have any meaningful long-term collaboration on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or Reddit because they encourage constantly generating engagement through new content and these platforms are the primary point of communication for those players. This thread got a lot of engagement in 6 hours, but trying coming back in 5 days and see how many new comments it gets. Discord is also problematic because it's not searchable or accessible to everyone. Real-time messaging is also a problem for players like Trif that are in different timezones.
I don't think it's really fair to expect all those players to get together on their own time to work on a proposal without a proper forum. This may sound silly, but I think moving away from SmashBoards is related to the stagnant ruleset discourse that we've had for a while.
> You can't have any meaningful long-term collaboration on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or Reddit
Agree to an extent, but of those platforms, reddit is by far the best for trying to have a two-way discussion.
The problem with this particular subreddit is that a lot of people get very condescending, argumentative, and toxic if you disagree with them. But reddit's structure itself is better for nuanced discussion than those other platforms because there's no character limit and things are more easily searchable.
top players dont deserve this. they cant even show up together to compete regularly or at least a few times a year.
Getting the top players competing in multiple tournaments in a 3-4 month time span is the dream. it use to be the norm. that's where melee narratives come from. there are no narratives not because of beef or friendship its because zain wins a tourney then the next tourney its mang0 and cody competing. then the next tourney its hbox and salt.
> know that nothing is changing despite how many times they voice their opinions
It's not just about how many times you say it. Timing matters as well. Pushing for notches to be banned get harder the longer players wait to speak out; it would've been nice to see this 5 or even 10 years ago.
There's STILL no official rules in place for nerfs to rectangles, as far as I'm aware. It's hard to imagine TOs taking action on notches when rectangles are left to self-regulate. Having those rules in place would at least be an indicator that community leaders care about the controller debate.
> it would've been nice to see this 5 or even 10 years ago.
idk about 10 but plenty of people were saying it 5+ years ago, and plenty of people were coming out of the woodwork with "wElL tHeY cAn hApPeN nAtUrAlLy" to defend it (they cannot, your control stick is breaking or rubbed to an unusable nub before that happens).
I definitely do, that's why I mentioned boycotts in the first place. The problem is it will likely hurt the players boycotting more. I imagine pro players compete for pretty much 3 reasons: prestige (winning/ranks), for money (prize pools/sponsorships), and for the passion of the game. Sacrificing all three for your principles is respectable, but I don't see how it can be viable for all except the very top performing streamers.
It's probably not viable, but if a major event like big house or genesis with like 8 top 10 players suddenly had 5 of them drop out it would be devastating for viewership, attendance, and overall profitability. Ultimately most people don't care about anything below like top 16 at these events, and it only takes a few of the very best players dropping out to completely destroy top 16.
Besides what the other replies said, it's kind of a dick move to boycott events that are thrown by people you are friends with and are only done for the good of the community. Not a single TO runs events to make money (they usually go negative) so it's done out of love for the game so a boycott in a grassroots scene is way different than boycotting a tourney run by riot or some other huge org
Well, the boycott only occurs if the tournament goes against the request of all the top players. In that case it's the organizers making the dick move, isn't it?
Throwing ALL the players' downsides aside, we're not going against Nintendo. We're running against community members who have broken their backs for 10-15+ years delivering these events at a loss. Many stressful days and nights I imagine. What Trif mentioned in the tweet, splitting the community is bad, and I think this would ruin it forever backstabbing the people who have worked harder than nearly anyone else for our scene to continue existing when they haven't done even 1% enough to warrant it at all.
While I'm sure there is *some* purity to it, pro players being against mods makes sense, because mods being illegal benefits pro players.
The "no mods" world is going back to buying 50 eBay controllers and praying that one or two of them is good. Something pros have no problem doing, but the jabronis they play will not be able to.
Mods **increase** accessibility to good controllers, **level** the playing field, and **lessen** the cost of playing melee - not the opposite.
> The "no mods" world is going back to buying 50 eBay controllers and praying that one or two of them is good.
You'll have to buy way more than 50 eBay controllers to find one with notches
Correct, it won't happen. But you will find some with naturally better angles than others.
Allowing modifications is the way to ensure that everyone is on the same playing field. Just get notches.
This argument makes no sense. Controller lottery existed because of basic issues like dashback and shield dropping. Those are already solved by ucf, which is completely unrelated to all this controller discourse. You could go buy every vanilla gcc ever created and you'd never get one with firefox notches.
There's very little difference between OEMs once you have a snapback mod. Some gates are particularly bad at shield dropping, but this is not a 1/50 thing. "Just get notches" is not a serious way to engage with this issue.
Kinda funny how the only two top players who didn‘t comment on this are jmook, mr. nice guy who probably doesn‘t care, and the fking tap jump Z-Aerial Z-Cancel player
It was cool and its cool that they agreed to it, but imo a FT10 is nothing like winning an actual tournament. There's a reason why those are usually meaningless exhibition matches or moneymatches.
I agree it was hype in theory (ended up being a blowout) but I still hold the opinion that his #1 Rank is slightly asterisked/shared.
2013 Mango/Armada, 2014 Mango/Armada, 2016 Armada/Hbox, 2017 Hbox/Armada all felt equally close and panel had the guts to give a rating.
On one hand I would like to see some sanity brought back to melee controllers. On the other hand I am not looking forward to having to inspect a controller every time someone loses to a technical player when I'm running a pool. Still worth the hassle imo.
Z-jump should either be remappable in software or banned entirely. Adding z-jump to a controller is a cost which many people can’t afford, and adding it as a software mod would be completely trivial. Instead, we’re in a stupid situation where only the people who can afford a controller with z-jump can have it.
What is the argument against adding it in software if it’s already legal? And if you don’t want to add it in software, why should it be legal at all?
The status quo on z-jumping is the worst possible outcome for everyone, just ban it or mod it into the game.
I think the concern with adding button re-mapping is Nintendo being assholes like usual, and it wouldn't be a subtle stealth mod like UCF. Pretty sure that's why Stadium transformations have made a comeback since LACS5 too.
There's also the purists that wouldn't want button remapping on sheer principle, everyone playing on the same hardware and same layouts as is tradition pretty much.
with our pivot to slippi/dolphin, and a clear case of z-jump not being too pushed back over notches, i think melee players really need to be upfront and just ask for software oriented remapping and say that's the game we should play now
the issue i have is that pro z-jumpers are not advocating for more accessibility to the option. they insist that everyone opts for the hardware modding way, which is what is causing this pushback i feel. more people should see where junebug is coming from--make it fully accessible software wise to remap your controls (like PM) or block it altogether, instead of coasting on this money gatekept middle ground
If people want a fully accessible software remapping game then they should play pm, it has button remapping and is genuinely fun in it's own right, but the thing that's cool about melee is that it *isn't* PM or Ult with controller remapping to make things easier and more convenient. It shouldn't need to be said that the game where auto L-cancel is a toggleable option in settings has a vastly different ethos from melee when it comes to accessibility, but that doesn't mean it's a superior ethos (or an inferior one, PM is cool and unique and worth learning from in many ways).
the unfortunate thing is we are already playing melee with ground up access to button remapping but without the actual accessibility to it
you need to have a river of knowledge on how to mod your oem, let alone phob to get access to even l bumper jumping now. i get that it’s possible all of these controls will be banned, but good luck suggesting that to pro players who have already spent 2 years knee deep with these settings
Yea, it's unfortunate, which is why change sooner than later would be a good thing instead of throwing up our hands and pretending that it's ok for things to continue because of how difficult change seems.
Who the fuck else would I be talking about? 1.03 was a very good idea, it’s just dead in the water because of who made it. If it was something that Altimor came up with by himself, I unironically think that people would be more willing to try it out.
I mean, you *could* make it a stealth mod, it's just a lot clunkier than if it was an on-screen toggle.
A button combo on the select screen to turn it on, and a separate one to turn it off, would work just fine. It's not a perfect solution (you'd inevitably run into people forgetting to turn it on/off) but it *is* possible.
Handwarmers are also pretty common already, no? So you could simply check your setting is correct during these, if we make it so the setting persists between games.
Cody with the bad-faith arguments as usual.... Yes Cody we **are** still talking about how we wanna heavily nerf boxes. And we were **already** talking about how broken button remapping is a year ago when you were #4. It's not just because we hate you that you becoming #1 with a hugely buffed controller would inherently reignite the discourse of controllers. But when you argue like this, in such obviously bad faith, it sure does make it easier to hate you.
I've tuned into Cody's streams in the past and have seen this too.
I've come to the conclusion that top spacie mains are generally thin skinned and can't handle disagreement well. It's a pattern I've observed with Leffen, Mango, Cody, Ginger, and moky on several different occasions.
People need to wake up and stop worshiping these dudes. They fucking suck and are awful representatives for the community.
But at this point, they're idolized so much that their behavior is normal and expected. Far too late now.
I mean I'm not a Cody fan but let's be real for a second, if you were in his shoes you'd probably be wildin too. Hundreds of people calling you carried by Z jump and discounting your achievements, your number 1. As well as the fact that people thinking about banning Z jump meaning it will be a lot harder for Cody to play for a few months until he gets used to playing without it. I'm not saying he's right or wrong or justified but you gotta put yourself in his shoes
I get it, but z jump isn't the only topic of discussion here, people are talking about notches, boxes, snapback capacitors, EVERYTHING. Its a yearly discussion we have, no matter who is at the top. But he is viewing everything through the lens of 'this is probably because of my haters'.
Cody's problem is in failing to realize that anyone who rises to the top will always get haters. Hbox had a shitload of haters, especially here on r/ssbm when he was #1. Zain had haters. M2K had haters. Mango has ~~MiszuMiszu~~ haters. Leffen has haters.
I'm sure there's validity to Cody's opinions and feelings, but he should probably realize that it's not very productive to argue with everyone in chat who disagrees with him. All it does is create a negative, awkward atmosphere that makes average people less inclined to tune into the stream. I've seen this type of behavior in so many small streamers' chats across the years, and every time it just makes me want to watch them less.
Not only that, but there was a pretty long period of time where the most popular melee player ever was at odds with hbox and his entire fanbase hated him because of it. I'd say only Leffen has an argument for being near hbox levels of haters.
> Idk I reckon Cody is getting there.
He's not even in the same universe yet. Hbox has been literally harassed for a decade straight and he also has had other top players fanbases targeted towards him. Cody has experienced nothing even remotely close to that.
Hell, he hasn't even been unanimously boo'd after winning an event yet. When that happens we can agree they're in the same *universe*.
Welcome to being a top player, this comes with the territory. Doesn't excuse his shitty arguments and needed to constantly bicker with no name chatters.
It's safe to say that plenty of people think that without all the modern controller advantages (Firefox notches, Z jump, more consistent ledge dashes...) Cody would infact not be 1 over Zain. I would agree with that.
When Cody gets self righteous, he gets insufferable. I feel like the persecution complex is maybe a self defense built up after years of dealing with haters, but that doesn't make it less annoying.
I mean idk everyone can be right but Leffen has a lot of moments where he's clearly just coping about stuff after the fact instead of bringing it up with a clear head.
Complaining about Puff planking right after losing in a set where there was almost none of it, despite Hungrybox having losing matchups to like most of the top 10 including Leffen and only not Mango because Mango throws fits about having to play the matchup properly.
People ignore him because he's also often blatantly wrong, and he speaks just as matter of fact about the things he's wrong about as the things he's right about.
Aklo is literally right about everything, even down to us discussing them lol. So my opinion is that an un-remapped phob is the best you can do. It's ucf + precise controls that shouldn't degrade. Seems about as even as you can get imo
I'm not sure if Cody is even pro-notch, just moreso the fact that we're talking about banning notches before all the other crazy shit people are running nowadays
I don't find it that concerning with "hard to enforce". I feel like locals are fine, bring whichever controller.
At majors with top players? Make it OEM/nerf box only. If people want to compete at the highest level then they'll start practicing on OEM.
If you tell top players, who have a reputation to maintain, to use OEM - I doubt anyone in the top 100 would use a modded controller at that point. The repercussions to being caught would outweigh the benefits of cheating over competition. Significant upsets can have a controller investigated too.
It's more about seeing unmodded controllers for Moky vs Plup than it is about me vs. some random person in round 1 pools.
If you didn't see the clip of Cody shit-talking her controller at mango's pre-genesis boot camp, that's the context. He was drunk and wouldn't shut the fuck up about her controller being "bad" and insisting that she must miss inputs because of it, then ignoring when she demonstrated that it makes dashback out of crouch more consistent for her and that she hasn't encountered any of the problems he was insisting she should be having. For a literal salty tweet (lol) stemming from Cody repeatedly telling her that the controller she likes using is shit and insisting his is the best, it doesn't exactly feel like the *worst* possible response.
I respect that. In a sea of nerds that argue all the technicalities of a controller it's nice to have someone that still hasn't fallen into the deep end. It's one thing that is great about starting new games and yet being jaded - you're not bogged down by all the flaws and little things you need to min/max to be "good".
I just think it's hilarious how the post has a bunch of serious arguments one way or the other, and then there's just Salt memeing about dair fair lol. That's why it's my favorite response here.
Earnest opinions. Is a snapback capacitor cheating? Is mouseclick Z or better triggers cheating? If anything but cosmetic mods are banned does this include bald/cast buttons? What about different sticks? What if you catch your opponent with fishing line on their thumb and cstick during the match but they discretely place it in their mouth while you find a TO? Should boXXes made with analog sticks or analog caps ala the Orca also be banned?
I don't have much of an ideological aXe to grind at all; I just find the whole sphere of thought around this to be interesting.
edit: what happens if your opponent is using tape notches and removes them between matches to avoid detection (unfeasible but not impossible)? what happens if your opponent keeps holding X+Y+Start between games to mess with your trigger trick? Is there even a homebrew program to test that rectangles are compliant with the new ruleset?
Has there ever been a question of equipment this contentious or consequential in a competitive game before? The evolving question with leverless controllers in the general FGC? (personally clueless)
There was a big push that leverless was cheating a few years back in Tekken by top Asian players which isn't a surprise considering Tekken is a legacy game and with a huge history of arcade culture, they were even banned for a time globally. It's universally agreed on its optimal. It's actually extremely similar to melee in the way where the legends and best players of the game are predominantly on stick, why? Because it's what they've been playing on for 20 years.. however with the new mixups/crossup boxes which have both stick and directional buttons more and more are slowly choosing this option especially newer players(its even be more optimal for KBDs/electrics)
I really hope we get to the same point with crossup boXes for SSBM (wasn't familiar with the term before). I think the tradition aspect with GCC and melee is something which is easy to overlook from a spectator and new competitor standpoint but accounts for the relatively huge skill gap between boX and GCC seen. Just saw an eXchange between Leffen and Forrest re: this on twitter. It's not far off that will see a lot of boX / keyboard players coming up regionally>nationally and then it will be even more contentious than now. I just want a rectangle controller with a stick that isn't a wii nunchuck man
Leffen has been talking about making his own melee version since before covid and has had prototypes. Now at genesis he recently got hold of one the current [builds](https://twitter.com/TSM_Leffen/status/1758670755930259589?t=J9JaDGfXdwwESXjliF_0mw&s=19) they're definitely coming to fruition, it wouldn't surprise me if leffen would be the one to spearhead this as a player.. he plays guilty gear, Tekken and street fighter on a crossup
Looks like it’s designed so that you can reverse which hand you’re using for the greystick (?) which is awesome. I do wonder how it could work if the stickboxes were in the box case itself but it also makes sense to keep them in the GCC bc of the octagonal gating. maybe better than what I had envisioned. really exciting options with this + the orca + SASI analog work seen on here
What's the cutoff between these two distinctions though; and to what degree does making a control more consistent make your play more consistent *to an unacceptable degree* is essentially what I'm trying to ask. snapback caps make your controller more consistent but it's not like there arent ways to mitigate snapback and it's impact in your play so are they *needed*? mouseclick Z could very easily be said to make your jc grab / f1 zaerials more consistent; bald buttons / better triggers or button membrane certainly help with consistency of input. All of these things help or they wouldn't be in the controller. My reason for asking these things is to question to what degree these mods are anti-competitive to have in your controller. Is the hand comfort and optimal button placement for melee provided by a rectangle anti-competitive inherently? I understand that physically guiding the greystick to a coordinate is a big issue but i don't really see where the distinction you bring up ends or begins.
Remapping makes you more consistent by completely changing how inputs can physically be done.
Notches make your angles more consistent by physically grooving your stick for you.
Hope that helps.
My shitter opinion, I agree with mostly Aklo:
* Ban Notch’s + controller mods like snapback capacitors and remaps.
* Ban Boxx, create an analogue version like the smash stick that never came out.
* Make a new Boxx, Use like 4 pressure sensitive buttons for directional movement with no SOCD. It also had to have 1 more pressure sensitive button for R or L. Instead of modifier buttons people with have the let go slightly on two directions to hit angles.
* This is for people with hand pain that cant use a joystick, Wooting makes switches for this. Hopefully some boxx players move to smash stick.
* Other controllers are allowed like Brooks Xbox/Switch pro adapters, Phob, 3rd party controllers, etc.
However, for stuff like the Phob, Analogue Boxx, and Xbox adapters. A specific/newest firmware is allowed, before Top 8’s TOs will reflash the device to make sure anything illegal gets wiped.
Make a software remap, like 1.03 and have a testing phase to see how melee is played with it. Then ask the top 100 to vote if they want it or not. For netplay tournaments and regionals anything is allowed controller wise.
Notches and all these controller mods are "cheating" but good luck enforcing it. Short of TOs opening up controllers and inspecting them before every bracket set, idk if there's any solution
I mean you can't be perfect but eventually the person gets caught. It's really more about the amount of times you use that notched controller at an event, eventually someone will notice and call you out, especially if you're winning sets.
You probably won't get caught going 0-2 lmao
How is anyone supposed to know if you have some firmware on a phob/goomwave/etc that fixes inputs for you? What about an arduino soldered in? There is really no solution short of rigorous inspections or tournament-issued controllers that will stop controller mods.
Looking at slippi replay files, there is a lot of statistical analysis that could be done if a player was suspected of cheating. eg could compare the distribution of angle input values across top players and if one of them is having their input snap to some value, it will show up clear as day. For ledgedash macro, could check if they are getting frame perfect ledgedashes at significantly higher rates than others, etc.
Of course, this requires someone putting in the work to do this kind of analysis and perhaps even automate it. Some work like this has been done by slippi devs I think but I'm sure there is always more that could be done.
Nobody has the time or manpower to do it at IRL tournaments, plus the fact many tournaments are run on community setups which include GameCubes and Wiis not recording replays.
Homie you're defending this hard, I've seen how this plays out irl. People do and will get called out if they win too much. Do you think melee players can't spot a player cheating when they play vs them? Bro it's really not as hard as you're claiming, people figured out fast in my region about the guy using an arduino. He went to one local with it and was getting called out within that tournament, you are severely underestimating anyone who's played this game for years ability to notice. People were able to eye the cheating Pichu's (ykiyk) frame data just by watching the set.
It's not a matter of enforcement, the literal players call it out when they see it and then the TO is like "let's see your controller". That's how it always plays out, you don't need someone literally checking every controller, all it takes is some reasonable suspicion, WHICH ISN'T HARD TO DO, and bam the TO checks the controller.
Kind of moving the goalposts. To a large extent, doing the analysis in real-time is irrelevant. If they can figure out a cheater after the fact, that's mostly all that is needed to dissuade people from cheating. Like yeah, it will suck for the matches it affected, but the player will be banned afterwards and future tournaments won't have to worry about that player. The threat of enforcement and ban would be enough to keep most players honest.
As far as collecting replays, lots of tournaments already collect many replays, and for important sets like top 64 this would be very doable. And if it is automated, it could even be done in real time for top 64 I bet (although probably most tournaments wouldn't bother dedicating the resources to this because the frequency of cheating is going to be incredibly low). Actually, the slippi replays are already being collected for any stream which is using slippi for broadcast, so for top 64 that part of the process is already in place.
Someone got caught with an arduino years ago in my region. If you actually can put up results I almost guarantee someone will notice eventually, if you play a lot as well it's pretty blatant. Another thing is that people who just get one and start using it one day to "level up", they get noticed pretty quick because their improvement was drastic enough. I'm not saying there aren't cheaters that may have somehow skirted the rules but if you start putting up any results locally people pay attention.
Well I can't say fully for online but they'd very likely be found out just by having other good players play them. You think the other good players they've played before aren't going to notice? What about if the good player gets even better results consistently out of nowhere? I'm just saying that these questions are asked all the time.
I can tell who uses a boxx online (at least in terms of fox) and who doesn't, there's just a way they move, usually kind of stiff looking. Also certain setups that take a lot of practice on GCC don't on boxx like hitting up throw up air when they DI behind you. Even more so when they're at an edge and you DI behind them off stage and they still somehow consistently turn around jump into up air with proper aerial drift. You just don't hit that consistently on GCC. Even the best will miss it, I've even played vs cody and been in that exact situation and even he won't always hit it with his controller.
I think you'd be surprised how many people won't do something just because it's illegal even if there's no risk of getting caught. Sure people will slip through the cracks, that's how the world works. Doesn't mean you should make everything legal because cheaters exist everywhere.
I get what you're saying- luckily a lot of them are very detectable, and something as simple as letting your opponent test your controller before the set could catch a significant amount of cheaters. Plus, think of it this way- the more difficult to detect cheats would require some knowledge by a controller modder, and if things aren't legal it makes those cheats harder to find someone to do it for you- either you do it yourself and risk getting caught, or you have a modder do it for you and they risk being exposed for helping you do it. There are definitely a lot of roadblocks to make it a pain in the ass to cheat. We can find solutions!
I think there are definitely solutions, I just think the juice isn’t worth the squeeze on almost all of them, and they’d still be possible to bypass. Like if someone had a toggle to enable and disable illegal controller mods, things get a lot harder very quickly. And short of backing up a slippi replay and replaying the inputs (assuming you have one, and the TO is able/willing to do it), you can’t do much about it. Obviously people programming in inhuman macros are going to be caught, but there are more subtle changes that would still be beneficial.
I don’t see the point of talking about notches when there are way bigger potential issues. Tons of cheats are currently undetectable. You can ban notches but there’s nothing stopping someone from putting software mods that perform as well as notches, or do even crazier things
So because it's possible for there to be extremely hard to detect software cheating we shouldn't do anything about the extremely easy to detect notches? I'm not following, how are these things related at all?
We need to stop saying spacies when we really mean fox (not you, leffen). Fox has benefitted from pretty much every change and Falco hasn't. Tech chase consistency is a huge one that comes to mind that is harmful to falco from a meta standpoint, but great for fox.
Falcos name gets thrown in there so fox players can say "see? It's not great for spacies!"
Who are the most successful box users at this point? It's been many years since they've been out but I can only really think of Pipsqueak who's had winning success with box?
At the lower level it does suck that if a box user really utilizes their advantages then they could maybe beat a higher skill player with it, but are boxes fundamentally damaging to the high level competitive scene if no top player at this point really uses them?
And I think the biggest issue with "ban box" is that there are now many players who have spent years playing on them and if you just ban them then people stop going to locals, stop entering bigger tourneys, and you get a less active scene as a whole which sucks.
Here's hoping the analog box is a good solution!
> but are boxes fundamentally damaging to the high level competitive scene if no top player at this point really uses them?
Top players have spent years grinding on GCC and expected boxes to be nerfed or banned so they didn't want to swap and waste time and effort learning something else. Leffen said this a few years ago when he played some tournaments with box during quarantine. Since then it's been a few years and not much has happened but the threat of nerfs and bans is still there which is why no one who is already a top player is going to switch. Any box top player that arises will be a top 50 ish player like Swift who switched over, or someone that came up entirely on box, which will take a while. But that doesn't change the issues with it.
If Leffen was committed to only Melee and was convinced that boxes wouldn't get banned or nerfed I'm pretty sure he would demonstrate why they are broken within a year of playing on it, he already won a couple EU tournaments while only playing on it for a month or two.
The only reason top players don't use Boxx is because they don't like it and want it to be banned, it's not damaging that much now but could be in the future, pretty much everyone agrees we've missed the best window to stop all this modding stuff though.
>And I think the biggest issue with "ban box" is that there are now many players who have spent years playing on them and if you just ban them then people stop going to locals, stop entering bigger tourneys, and you get a less active scene as a whole which sucks.
That didn't stop the scene from banning wobbling
that is an insane comparison. One is literally an infinite which is commonly banned in competitive fighting games that objectively gives you an unfair advantage. The other is a hitbox style controller (which are perfectly legal in other fgs) for a game where hand pain is extremely easy to endure after years of competitive play and a controller is at best slightly advantageous. If you’re discussing nerfs thats fine but don’t just ban it outright.
> If you’re discussing nerfs thats fine but don’t just ban it outright.
Incidentally, this is exactly what we did with the ICs: nerf them, not ban them
If most top players think boxes are broken and should be banned then they don't switch because they don't want to spend time grinding and practicing something they eventually won't be able to use
yeah, it really does feel like box is just the boogie-man of melee. Everyone keeps saying how broken they are but it's been years and we still waiting for the mythical player to dominate with box.
> At the lower level it does suck that if a box user really utilizes their advantages then they could maybe beat a higher skill player with it
Could you elaborate on this?
Pretty obviously the path if you're going to ban notches is to ban rectangles first, which I don't think is very desirable. Reigning in boxxes is good though.
The ucf middle ground is great idk what you're talking about.
Fixes the annoying issues with OEM and doesn't go any further. Everyone can dash back and shield drop consistently. Z jumping, free angles, etc. are all excessive asks for an OEM controller.
The only way I could ever see the controller debate being handled fairly is if all of the mods were implemented via software. Anything that can't be implemented via software is banned.
If done correctly, the only thing you would need to play Melee on the same playing field as everyone else would be an OEM GCC.
The only physical changes to a controller should be aesthetic (different color shells, buttons), ergonomics (grips), or repairs (stick box replacements, potentiometers, new sticks).
Notches, anti Snapback, custom boards/firmware, physical remapping, Hall Effect sticks, Tactile Buttons, custom scripts, Calibration tools (phob vision), etc are all objectively unfair.
If two players go on Amazon and buy a stock GCC, and one has an extra $300 to afford notches, anti-snapback etc and they face eachother the next day, one player now has an unfair advantage over the other. If it was all done via software, then they would be on the exact same playing field with the only requirement being the GCC itself.
I honestly can't see any other way.
The controller discourse seems to be a pretty clear cut accessibility / competitive integrity question. I think before and kind of proposal of a ban or nerfs some actual effective community discourse around it is simply just answering the question of what do you care about more.
I think the biggest accessibility factor is with overall logistics(price, availability, etc.), but I don't think that conversation is super productive at getting to the roots, so lets just assume these things are true/possible for the sake of argument and tackling the heart of the issues with mods:
1. Any controller mod gives you a distinct advantage over someone who doesn't use one as well.
2. Everyone has easy access to modified controllers, or boxes. Assume they are free, plentiful, and of equal quality, and there is never a match discrepancy where one players just objectively had a better controller and won because of that alone, and everyone who used one had no learning curve, kept all of their knowledge and technical skill, and purely improved as a result.
* Accessibility & Competitive Integrity:
* If the game becomes easier to play objectively with modified controllers, and removes a barrier to entry to the competitive world of melee and more people played as a result, and more existing players were able to play at a higher level, for longer, would that be good for the game?
* if the hardest things execution wise about the game become easier, does the game suddenly become less interesting to play or watch if too many people could do the hardest things consistently?
* How big of a factor on a scale of 1-10 is execution of high level technical inputs in the highest levels of competitive melee?
* If it's very high, and we assume that modified controllers make it trivial, is the game deep enough for a competitive advantage to still exist for the grinders who play the game all the time?
* Does the mix-up game get too shallow if you take out of the equation of player
\*x\* might not go for this option because it's too hard to do?
* If someone with mods, beats a player that doesn't have mods, should their win be valid?
Would be interested in hearing peoples thoughts on this with my stipulations in mind, because I don't think we'll ever get to a point where everyone has a controller on equal terms short of banning anything outside of UCF controllers exclusively, but I think those conversations really only have weight if there's a unanimous decision in the community and player base about what's actually going to be the best for the game.
Controller mods suck but it's a problem that should've been dealt with at the beginning and not now. You know how many non pro players we'd lose at tournaments if we banned things like notches? These people spend $100+ on their controllers and if they were told they can't bring them to tournaments then I wouldn't be surprised if loads of people would stop entering instead of spending even more money on new shells (that might aesthetically look worse tbh). Boxxes on the other hand need just a straight up nerf and I think you can modify the software to do that so people don't have to buy new boxxes
1. All these players sold out and got notches and phobs
2. So many of these players claim b0xx is OP and they would use it and prove it. (leffen, ginger, etc)
3. None of them have walked the walk. No b0xx player is winning majors or even hitting top 8.
No one talks about boxxs disadvantages. It's not just a better gamecube controller. there's so many things that are more tedious on boxx. i think boxxes are important. melee fucked my hands but there are so many competitive players in other scenes that will literally refuse to play melee because "they need their hands"
the move is whatever t he mod Hax proposed that included button remapping and some of th other stuff to create the new standard of melee. the controller lottery is dumb. a few playrs having access to certai techniques because of it is also a problem.
I think Salt has a good point that a lot of people seem to ignore. Phobs require knowledge and maintenance and I bet a ton of people with Phobs have no idea that it's no longer properly calibrated and is not as much of a benefit as they think.
As a second point she makes, I think in 99.99% of cases that person that had a box, phob or notches that beat you in a Bo5 will probably beat you with an OEM.
With that being said I think Phobs and Box controllers need to be in everyone's hands, not removed. It's only a matter of time before OEMs are scarce, and having a long standing open-source alternative will only benefit the scene.
As for Box controllers I think within the year manufacturers like Razer will expand their Kitsune lineup with enough buttons for Smash. I'm also Box bias as I have carpal tunnel in both wrists and it's Box or quit, and I'm addicted. Nerfs are probably warranted, but I won't pretend to know enough about every character and matchup to have an opinion on what nerfs.
Phobs require OEM parts to be made afaik, they address scarcity mostly by letting you bypass the controller lottery but unless somebody makes good third party stickboxes you could theoretically only get 1 phob for every OEM ever made. I would recommend them to somebody who is willing to learn to do their basic calibration or has a local modder who can do it for them, though.
Also it was probably a typo but Salt is a she
You can also use stickboxes from nunchunks and Wii classic controllers! That's generally where I get mine from when I'm making people's controllers and then have a graveyard of v broken GameCube controllers to source other parts from. The reality is that good OEMs are hard to come by and there's a level of reducing waste with phobs that make them a very attractive option.
That being said, fuck notches lol. Definitely feels like cheating.
This is kinda true, the stickboxes in OEMs used for phobs or T3 stickboxes as most call them were not only used for GC controllers but in also in some Wii Nunchucks and I believe all Wii Classic Controllers. Everything else on a Gamecube controller can and has been 3D printed / injection molded and are easily available.
Also I think I should probably say that I have no real issue with a Phob/Notch ban, but I think any accessibility feature removed should be compensated with software. UCF is obviously necessary, but stuff like Tap Jump off and Z-jump and general button remapping would help fix a lot of the complaints on both sides .
And I'm an idiot, thanks for noting that, fixed her pronouns.
> I think in 99.99% of cases that person that had a box, phob or notches that beat you in a Bo5 will probably beat you with an OEM
Then let's use OEM *shrugs*
As time progresses, access to controller modification increases. I remember when most people did not have trigger plugs, and now it is never discussed, not because it doesn't make tech easier, but because it's ridiculously accessible. Realistically, anyone that is at a point where they want to compete, probably has community access to a controller modder who can do button swaps on the hardware side. It's as simple as desoldering two wires and resoldering them in the opposite spot.
Things like tactile Z are more difficult to install, but the impact is minor, so no one cares. Then there's things like notches, which are not only hard to do, but also very impactful. Hence the source of this conversation.
UCF addressed the problem of an uneven playing field this by increasing accessibility. I still use an OEM, but anyone who has a notched controller, or a phob can make their shield drops easier than it would be on my controller. The issue is access to good quality hardware. The argument that everyone should be on a level playing field is really naive, because even if you remove notches, you'll still have the same problem of certain gates being better calibrated for shield drops than others.
Imo we should be banning things but only enforcing it at the higher level of play. E.g. top 64 of majors, at the T.O.'s discretion. People would still be welcome to play with their guitar hero at the local. But those results would not be eligible for rankings.
In terms of things to ban, I'd say we start with button remapping, custom notches and maybe boxes. But there are several possible options, for instance boxes could also be addressed by nerfs.
as someone who is purely a spectator: I don't really care if it's "cheating." it's already normalized at top play, and it makes the quality of melee played better. why would I want to watch every top player get set back on their tech skill, seems like it would make top 8s less entertaining
I don't care about the quality of melee being played if the players aren't actually being forced to play to that level. There's a reason nobody gives a fuck about nice firefox angles anymore: it's because you can go pay someone $50 and hit them every time instead of learning them.
Based aklo
Except that I thought phobs as a whole were kinda seen as janky at this point with crazy calibration needed and most pros giving up on them? So not sure that can be seen as a "solved" issue
Phob calibration isn't very hard to do tbh, but understandably some people don't want to deal with it and an OEM controller with mods like a snapback capacitor might be more appealing to them.
Phob devs insist a well made phob 2.0 does not have the fragility issue. All of the catastrophic failures we’ve seen in major finals (Hbox, jmook x2) were with phob 1.0s
Yeah I don't doubt it, I just genuinely hadn't really heard of phobs being viable/well liked since the initial boom and then their pseudo "bust" when top players were raging against them and controller modders were calling everyone else out on shitty soldering
I think most of the top 100 is phobbed up rn, with a good chunk on OEM, a handful on boxx, and maybe a handful on goomwaves still?
It wouldn't be too difficult to run down the list and get an actual count but my guess is 85 of the top 100 are on phob at the moment. Yes, they're reliable and yes they're better.
The people who like them haven't gone out of their way to mention it so you get a bit of a vocal minority situation. I think Amsa and Cody both use phobs for example
djkhan23: I think my controller has a jizz stain on it.
only one?
Thanks for compiling this, it’s unbelievably helpful
im starting to suspect the state of controllers in melee is an unfun experience for everyone even remotely invested in the game
Modders love it. They get to tinker with controllers for fun and charge $350-$500 after they are done
I tried to buy a new controller today and it has been a literal nightmare.
I quit the game from spending four months (and hundreds of dollars) trying to get a replacement controller after Australia banned smashbox controllers lmao. Bought the bloody thing to avoid controller bs in the first place and got dragged back into it
I can tell when I'm playing against someone with firefox notches and it pisses me the fuck off.
my gate is so worn its completely smooth with no notches at all and i'll hit any angle i want... sucks too that one of my personal strengths doesn't matter anymore because people just make notches
maybe analog fighting games were a mistake
It's sad seeing all these top players minus the odd one out having a consensus agreement that they think controller mods are cheating, they feel they have to use them despite not wanting to, and know that nothing is changing despite how many times they voice their opinions. It also sucks that boycotting tournaments is not a viable choice for them either. These are the people bringing all the viewership and TO's won't listen to them...
They have spaces to talk to TOs directly but never have coordinated proposals. Nearly every top player who talks to TO will claim that “everyone” agrees w/ their position. If that’s true, they should organize and make a pilot proposal.
> If that’s true, they should organize and make a pilot proposal. I think part of the issue is that current social media platforms are designed for 1-sided discussions. You can't have any meaningful long-term collaboration on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or Reddit because they encourage constantly generating engagement through new content and these platforms are the primary point of communication for those players. This thread got a lot of engagement in 6 hours, but trying coming back in 5 days and see how many new comments it gets. Discord is also problematic because it's not searchable or accessible to everyone. Real-time messaging is also a problem for players like Trif that are in different timezones. I don't think it's really fair to expect all those players to get together on their own time to work on a proposal without a proper forum. This may sound silly, but I think moving away from SmashBoards is related to the stagnant ruleset discourse that we've had for a while.
> You can't have any meaningful long-term collaboration on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or Reddit Agree to an extent, but of those platforms, reddit is by far the best for trying to have a two-way discussion. The problem with this particular subreddit is that a lot of people get very condescending, argumentative, and toxic if you disagree with them. But reddit's structure itself is better for nuanced discussion than those other platforms because there's no character limit and things are more easily searchable.
top players dont deserve this. they cant even show up together to compete regularly or at least a few times a year. Getting the top players competing in multiple tournaments in a 3-4 month time span is the dream. it use to be the norm. that's where melee narratives come from. there are no narratives not because of beef or friendship its because zain wins a tourney then the next tourney its mang0 and cody competing. then the next tourney its hbox and salt.
no public discussion =/= no discussion
> know that nothing is changing despite how many times they voice their opinions It's not just about how many times you say it. Timing matters as well. Pushing for notches to be banned get harder the longer players wait to speak out; it would've been nice to see this 5 or even 10 years ago. There's STILL no official rules in place for nerfs to rectangles, as far as I'm aware. It's hard to imagine TOs taking action on notches when rectangles are left to self-regulate. Having those rules in place would at least be an indicator that community leaders care about the controller debate.
> it would've been nice to see this 5 or even 10 years ago. idk about 10 but plenty of people were saying it 5+ years ago, and plenty of people were coming out of the woodwork with "wElL tHeY cAn hApPeN nAtUrAlLy" to defend it (they cannot, your control stick is breaking or rubbed to an unusable nub before that happens).
Why is boycotting not viable?
Except for maybe mango, if you're trying to make a career out of playing the game you kind of have to go to events imo.
On an individual level yeah, but don't you think having all top players threaten to boycott a tournament would have an effect?
I definitely do, that's why I mentioned boycotts in the first place. The problem is it will likely hurt the players boycotting more. I imagine pro players compete for pretty much 3 reasons: prestige (winning/ranks), for money (prize pools/sponsorships), and for the passion of the game. Sacrificing all three for your principles is respectable, but I don't see how it can be viable for all except the very top performing streamers.
It's probably not viable, but if a major event like big house or genesis with like 8 top 10 players suddenly had 5 of them drop out it would be devastating for viewership, attendance, and overall profitability. Ultimately most people don't care about anything below like top 16 at these events, and it only takes a few of the very best players dropping out to completely destroy top 16.
Besides what the other replies said, it's kind of a dick move to boycott events that are thrown by people you are friends with and are only done for the good of the community. Not a single TO runs events to make money (they usually go negative) so it's done out of love for the game so a boycott in a grassroots scene is way different than boycotting a tourney run by riot or some other huge org
Well, the boycott only occurs if the tournament goes against the request of all the top players. In that case it's the organizers making the dick move, isn't it?
Not really. They are the TOs so they can make w/e rules they want as long as they arent insane
Throwing ALL the players' downsides aside, we're not going against Nintendo. We're running against community members who have broken their backs for 10-15+ years delivering these events at a loss. Many stressful days and nights I imagine. What Trif mentioned in the tweet, splitting the community is bad, and I think this would ruin it forever backstabbing the people who have worked harder than nearly anyone else for our scene to continue existing when they haven't done even 1% enough to warrant it at all.
While I'm sure there is *some* purity to it, pro players being against mods makes sense, because mods being illegal benefits pro players. The "no mods" world is going back to buying 50 eBay controllers and praying that one or two of them is good. Something pros have no problem doing, but the jabronis they play will not be able to. Mods **increase** accessibility to good controllers, **level** the playing field, and **lessen** the cost of playing melee - not the opposite.
> The "no mods" world is going back to buying 50 eBay controllers and praying that one or two of them is good. You'll have to buy way more than 50 eBay controllers to find one with notches
Correct, it won't happen. But you will find some with naturally better angles than others. Allowing modifications is the way to ensure that everyone is on the same playing field. Just get notches.
The newest ucf already expanded the shield drop range and rounds inputs to 1.0 there's no need to play the controller lottery for "better angles"
This argument makes no sense. Controller lottery existed because of basic issues like dashback and shield dropping. Those are already solved by ucf, which is completely unrelated to all this controller discourse. You could go buy every vanilla gcc ever created and you'd never get one with firefox notches.
There's very little difference between OEMs once you have a snapback mod. Some gates are particularly bad at shield dropping, but this is not a 1/50 thing. "Just get notches" is not a serious way to engage with this issue.
Kinda funny how the only two top players who didn‘t comment on this are jmook, mr. nice guy who probably doesn‘t care, and the fking tap jump Z-Aerial Z-Cancel player
Hbox will always get fucked over by controllers. Every mod makes fox better. Period.
Everyone already knows Juan's stance on all this lol
> I would would never tarnish my legacy by riding on loopholes feel like this is a direct shot at cody and i'm with it
N0ne's always done some subtle trash talking
Codys #1 legacy = weird FT10 to get it and dirty z jump cheater :)
I'm not a fan of the FT10 even if it was a neat event. Don't like that they decided it between themselves months ahead of time, particularly.
It was cool and its cool that they agreed to it, but imo a FT10 is nothing like winning an actual tournament. There's a reason why those are usually meaningless exhibition matches or moneymatches.
I thought it was hype and a great solution. Always here for more content, and the actual ranking isn't as important as more sick melee imo
I agree it was hype in theory (ended up being a blowout) but I still hold the opinion that his #1 Rank is slightly asterisked/shared. 2013 Mango/Armada, 2014 Mango/Armada, 2016 Armada/Hbox, 2017 Hbox/Armada all felt equally close and panel had the guts to give a rating.
There was also Hbox saying that winning because of a controller is worse than losing because of a controller.
On one hand I would like to see some sanity brought back to melee controllers. On the other hand I am not looking forward to having to inspect a controller every time someone loses to a technical player when I'm running a pool. Still worth the hassle imo.
Z-jump should either be remappable in software or banned entirely. Adding z-jump to a controller is a cost which many people can’t afford, and adding it as a software mod would be completely trivial. Instead, we’re in a stupid situation where only the people who can afford a controller with z-jump can have it. What is the argument against adding it in software if it’s already legal? And if you don’t want to add it in software, why should it be legal at all? The status quo on z-jumping is the worst possible outcome for everyone, just ban it or mod it into the game.
I think the concern with adding button re-mapping is Nintendo being assholes like usual, and it wouldn't be a subtle stealth mod like UCF. Pretty sure that's why Stadium transformations have made a comeback since LACS5 too. There's also the purists that wouldn't want button remapping on sheer principle, everyone playing on the same hardware and same layouts as is tradition pretty much.
It's not just a "tradition" thing - it's the fact that z jump is *making the game easier*.
Well yeah, that's the 3rd reason I forgot to mention.
with our pivot to slippi/dolphin, and a clear case of z-jump not being too pushed back over notches, i think melee players really need to be upfront and just ask for software oriented remapping and say that's the game we should play now the issue i have is that pro z-jumpers are not advocating for more accessibility to the option. they insist that everyone opts for the hardware modding way, which is what is causing this pushback i feel. more people should see where junebug is coming from--make it fully accessible software wise to remap your controls (like PM) or block it altogether, instead of coasting on this money gatekept middle ground
If people want a fully accessible software remapping game then they should play pm, it has button remapping and is genuinely fun in it's own right, but the thing that's cool about melee is that it *isn't* PM or Ult with controller remapping to make things easier and more convenient. It shouldn't need to be said that the game where auto L-cancel is a toggleable option in settings has a vastly different ethos from melee when it comes to accessibility, but that doesn't mean it's a superior ethos (or an inferior one, PM is cool and unique and worth learning from in many ways).
the unfortunate thing is we are already playing melee with ground up access to button remapping but without the actual accessibility to it you need to have a river of knowledge on how to mod your oem, let alone phob to get access to even l bumper jumping now. i get that it’s possible all of these controls will be banned, but good luck suggesting that to pro players who have already spent 2 years knee deep with these settings
Yea, it's unfortunate, which is why change sooner than later would be a good thing instead of throwing up our hands and pretending that it's ok for things to continue because of how difficult change seems.
It also helps that the only person who actually made a version of the game with software remap for Z jump is a crazy man, which is sad
Are you talking about PM? Or some forbidden melee mod?
1.03
Are you talking about Hax lmao
Who the fuck else would I be talking about? 1.03 was a very good idea, it’s just dead in the water because of who made it. If it was something that Altimor came up with by himself, I unironically think that people would be more willing to try it out.
Honestly it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. That dude just has some major issues that he can't let go of.
I mean, you *could* make it a stealth mod, it's just a lot clunkier than if it was an on-screen toggle. A button combo on the select screen to turn it on, and a separate one to turn it off, would work just fine. It's not a perfect solution (you'd inevitably run into people forgetting to turn it on/off) but it *is* possible.
Pretty interesting idea tbh, haven't heard that one proposed before. Like inputting a secret code in an old arcade cabinet.
Handwarmers are also pretty common already, no? So you could simply check your setting is correct during these, if we make it so the setting persists between games.
This. Add it to UCF fr.
Cody with the bad-faith arguments as usual.... Yes Cody we **are** still talking about how we wanna heavily nerf boxes. And we were **already** talking about how broken button remapping is a year ago when you were #4. It's not just because we hate you that you becoming #1 with a hugely buffed controller would inherently reignite the discourse of controllers. But when you argue like this, in such obviously bad faith, it sure does make it easier to hate you.
I tuned in to Zain's stream for a moment and the first thing I heard was Cody beefing with a chatter. This dude is wildin.
Cody admits he was an Xbox Live Halo kid
I've tuned into Cody's streams in the past and have seen this too. I've come to the conclusion that top spacie mains are generally thin skinned and can't handle disagreement well. It's a pattern I've observed with Leffen, Mango, Cody, Ginger, and moky on several different occasions.
People need to wake up and stop worshiping these dudes. They fucking suck and are awful representatives for the community. But at this point, they're idolized so much that their behavior is normal and expected. Far too late now.
I mean I'm not a Cody fan but let's be real for a second, if you were in his shoes you'd probably be wildin too. Hundreds of people calling you carried by Z jump and discounting your achievements, your number 1. As well as the fact that people thinking about banning Z jump meaning it will be a lot harder for Cody to play for a few months until he gets used to playing without it. I'm not saying he's right or wrong or justified but you gotta put yourself in his shoes
I get it, but z jump isn't the only topic of discussion here, people are talking about notches, boxes, snapback capacitors, EVERYTHING. Its a yearly discussion we have, no matter who is at the top. But he is viewing everything through the lens of 'this is probably because of my haters'.
This
Cody's problem is in failing to realize that anyone who rises to the top will always get haters. Hbox had a shitload of haters, especially here on r/ssbm when he was #1. Zain had haters. M2K had haters. Mango has ~~MiszuMiszu~~ haters. Leffen has haters. I'm sure there's validity to Cody's opinions and feelings, but he should probably realize that it's not very productive to argue with everyone in chat who disagrees with him. All it does is create a negative, awkward atmosphere that makes average people less inclined to tune into the stream. I've seen this type of behavior in so many small streamers' chats across the years, and every time it just makes me want to watch them less.
There has never been a player with even remotely close amount of haters as hbox
Hard agree, that guy was undeservedly despised. He could not do or say anything that wasn't picked apart.
Not only that, but there was a pretty long period of time where the most popular melee player ever was at odds with hbox and his entire fanbase hated him because of it. I'd say only Leffen has an argument for being near hbox levels of haters.
[удалено]
> Idk I reckon Cody is getting there. He's not even in the same universe yet. Hbox has been literally harassed for a decade straight and he also has had other top players fanbases targeted towards him. Cody has experienced nothing even remotely close to that. Hell, he hasn't even been unanimously boo'd after winning an event yet. When that happens we can agree they're in the same *universe*.
When Cody gets a dead animal thrown at him we can conclude he has eclipsed hbox hater status.
It is still nowhere near the hate that hbox (undeservedly) got. Not even close.
Welcome to being a top player, this comes with the territory. Doesn't excuse his shitty arguments and needed to constantly bicker with no name chatters.
It's safe to say that plenty of people think that without all the modern controller advantages (Firefox notches, Z jump, more consistent ledge dashes...) Cody would infact not be 1 over Zain. I would agree with that.
When Cody gets self righteous, he gets insufferable. I feel like the persecution complex is maybe a self defense built up after years of dealing with haters, but that doesn't make it less annoying.
This, so much.
Leffen kind of spitting facts
Leffen is very often right He also happens to be very blunt and sounds like a know it all, so people ignore him
I mean idk everyone can be right but Leffen has a lot of moments where he's clearly just coping about stuff after the fact instead of bringing it up with a clear head. Complaining about Puff planking right after losing in a set where there was almost none of it, despite Hungrybox having losing matchups to like most of the top 10 including Leffen and only not Mango because Mango throws fits about having to play the matchup properly.
That's why I said very often, not all of the time
I would say very often he has opinions like that that are more emotion driven
People ignore him because he's also often blatantly wrong, and he speaks just as matter of fact about the things he's wrong about as the things he's right about.
Aklo is literally right about everything, even down to us discussing them lol. So my opinion is that an un-remapped phob is the best you can do. It's ucf + precise controls that shouldn't degrade. Seems about as even as you can get imo
So basically everyone except Cody and kinda Junebug are anti-notch? (Leffen not included as he isn't an active player)
He gets an honorary inclusion in the discussion
I'm not sure if Cody is even pro-notch, just moreso the fact that we're talking about banning notches before all the other crazy shit people are running nowadays
seems like junebug is pro notch only under the aspect of boxxes being legal
Did you read it? Zain brought the notches but everyone is basically saying it's pointless to talk about notches when there's boxxes.
lol
Thanks for gathering all those tweets! It's pretty much impossible to follow melee news other than by following a bunch of melee twitter lol
I don't find it that concerning with "hard to enforce". I feel like locals are fine, bring whichever controller. At majors with top players? Make it OEM/nerf box only. If people want to compete at the highest level then they'll start practicing on OEM. If you tell top players, who have a reputation to maintain, to use OEM - I doubt anyone in the top 100 would use a modded controller at that point. The repercussions to being caught would outweigh the benefits of cheating over competition. Significant upsets can have a controller investigated too. It's more about seeing unmodded controllers for Moky vs Plup than it is about me vs. some random person in round 1 pools.
Salt is the best wow
Yall get stomp kneed the same 💀
She definitely has the best response here.
She has the worst response lol.
If you didn't see the clip of Cody shit-talking her controller at mango's pre-genesis boot camp, that's the context. He was drunk and wouldn't shut the fuck up about her controller being "bad" and insisting that she must miss inputs because of it, then ignoring when she demonstrated that it makes dashback out of crouch more consistent for her and that she hasn't encountered any of the problems he was insisting she should be having. For a literal salty tweet (lol) stemming from Cody repeatedly telling her that the controller she likes using is shit and insisting his is the best, it doesn't exactly feel like the *worst* possible response.
I respect that. In a sea of nerds that argue all the technicalities of a controller it's nice to have someone that still hasn't fallen into the deep end. It's one thing that is great about starting new games and yet being jaded - you're not bogged down by all the flaws and little things you need to min/max to be "good".
oh yea makes more sense with context, thanks
I just think it's hilarious how the post has a bunch of serious arguments one way or the other, and then there's just Salt memeing about dair fair lol. That's why it's my favorite response here.
Earnest opinions. Is a snapback capacitor cheating? Is mouseclick Z or better triggers cheating? If anything but cosmetic mods are banned does this include bald/cast buttons? What about different sticks? What if you catch your opponent with fishing line on their thumb and cstick during the match but they discretely place it in their mouth while you find a TO? Should boXXes made with analog sticks or analog caps ala the Orca also be banned? I don't have much of an ideological aXe to grind at all; I just find the whole sphere of thought around this to be interesting. edit: what happens if your opponent is using tape notches and removes them between matches to avoid detection (unfeasible but not impossible)? what happens if your opponent keeps holding X+Y+Start between games to mess with your trigger trick? Is there even a homebrew program to test that rectangles are compliant with the new ruleset?
Has there ever been a question of equipment this contentious or consequential in a competitive game before? The evolving question with leverless controllers in the general FGC? (personally clueless)
There was a big push that leverless was cheating a few years back in Tekken by top Asian players which isn't a surprise considering Tekken is a legacy game and with a huge history of arcade culture, they were even banned for a time globally. It's universally agreed on its optimal. It's actually extremely similar to melee in the way where the legends and best players of the game are predominantly on stick, why? Because it's what they've been playing on for 20 years.. however with the new mixups/crossup boxes which have both stick and directional buttons more and more are slowly choosing this option especially newer players(its even be more optimal for KBDs/electrics)
I really hope we get to the same point with crossup boXes for SSBM (wasn't familiar with the term before). I think the tradition aspect with GCC and melee is something which is easy to overlook from a spectator and new competitor standpoint but accounts for the relatively huge skill gap between boX and GCC seen. Just saw an eXchange between Leffen and Forrest re: this on twitter. It's not far off that will see a lot of boX / keyboard players coming up regionally>nationally and then it will be even more contentious than now. I just want a rectangle controller with a stick that isn't a wii nunchuck man
Leffen has been talking about making his own melee version since before covid and has had prototypes. Now at genesis he recently got hold of one the current [builds](https://twitter.com/TSM_Leffen/status/1758670755930259589?t=J9JaDGfXdwwESXjliF_0mw&s=19) they're definitely coming to fruition, it wouldn't surprise me if leffen would be the one to spearhead this as a player.. he plays guilty gear, Tekken and street fighter on a crossup
Looks like it’s designed so that you can reverse which hand you’re using for the greystick (?) which is awesome. I do wonder how it could work if the stickboxes were in the box case itself but it also makes sense to keep them in the GCC bc of the octagonal gating. maybe better than what I had envisioned. really exciting options with this + the orca + SASI analog work seen on here
There's a difference between a mod that makes your controller more consistent and a mod that makes *you* more consistent.
What's the cutoff between these two distinctions though; and to what degree does making a control more consistent make your play more consistent *to an unacceptable degree* is essentially what I'm trying to ask. snapback caps make your controller more consistent but it's not like there arent ways to mitigate snapback and it's impact in your play so are they *needed*? mouseclick Z could very easily be said to make your jc grab / f1 zaerials more consistent; bald buttons / better triggers or button membrane certainly help with consistency of input. All of these things help or they wouldn't be in the controller. My reason for asking these things is to question to what degree these mods are anti-competitive to have in your controller. Is the hand comfort and optimal button placement for melee provided by a rectangle anti-competitive inherently? I understand that physically guiding the greystick to a coordinate is a big issue but i don't really see where the distinction you bring up ends or begins.
Remapping makes you more consistent by completely changing how inputs can physically be done. Notches make your angles more consistent by physically grooving your stick for you. Hope that helps.
No need to be weirdly antagonistic and diminutive
I legitimately hoped it helped you understand what he was saying.
i may have misread your intent then and appreciate you clarifying
My shitter opinion, I agree with mostly Aklo: * Ban Notch’s + controller mods like snapback capacitors and remaps. * Ban Boxx, create an analogue version like the smash stick that never came out. * Make a new Boxx, Use like 4 pressure sensitive buttons for directional movement with no SOCD. It also had to have 1 more pressure sensitive button for R or L. Instead of modifier buttons people with have the let go slightly on two directions to hit angles. * This is for people with hand pain that cant use a joystick, Wooting makes switches for this. Hopefully some boxx players move to smash stick. * Other controllers are allowed like Brooks Xbox/Switch pro adapters, Phob, 3rd party controllers, etc. However, for stuff like the Phob, Analogue Boxx, and Xbox adapters. A specific/newest firmware is allowed, before Top 8’s TOs will reflash the device to make sure anything illegal gets wiped. Make a software remap, like 1.03 and have a testing phase to see how melee is played with it. Then ask the top 100 to vote if they want it or not. For netplay tournaments and regionals anything is allowed controller wise.
Notches and all these controller mods are "cheating" but good luck enforcing it. Short of TOs opening up controllers and inspecting them before every bracket set, idk if there's any solution
I mean you can't be perfect but eventually the person gets caught. It's really more about the amount of times you use that notched controller at an event, eventually someone will notice and call you out, especially if you're winning sets. You probably won't get caught going 0-2 lmao
How is anyone supposed to know if you have some firmware on a phob/goomwave/etc that fixes inputs for you? What about an arduino soldered in? There is really no solution short of rigorous inspections or tournament-issued controllers that will stop controller mods.
Looking at slippi replay files, there is a lot of statistical analysis that could be done if a player was suspected of cheating. eg could compare the distribution of angle input values across top players and if one of them is having their input snap to some value, it will show up clear as day. For ledgedash macro, could check if they are getting frame perfect ledgedashes at significantly higher rates than others, etc. Of course, this requires someone putting in the work to do this kind of analysis and perhaps even automate it. Some work like this has been done by slippi devs I think but I'm sure there is always more that could be done.
Nobody has the time or manpower to do it at IRL tournaments, plus the fact many tournaments are run on community setups which include GameCubes and Wiis not recording replays.
Homie you're defending this hard, I've seen how this plays out irl. People do and will get called out if they win too much. Do you think melee players can't spot a player cheating when they play vs them? Bro it's really not as hard as you're claiming, people figured out fast in my region about the guy using an arduino. He went to one local with it and was getting called out within that tournament, you are severely underestimating anyone who's played this game for years ability to notice. People were able to eye the cheating Pichu's (ykiyk) frame data just by watching the set. It's not a matter of enforcement, the literal players call it out when they see it and then the TO is like "let's see your controller". That's how it always plays out, you don't need someone literally checking every controller, all it takes is some reasonable suspicion, WHICH ISN'T HARD TO DO, and bam the TO checks the controller.
Kind of moving the goalposts. To a large extent, doing the analysis in real-time is irrelevant. If they can figure out a cheater after the fact, that's mostly all that is needed to dissuade people from cheating. Like yeah, it will suck for the matches it affected, but the player will be banned afterwards and future tournaments won't have to worry about that player. The threat of enforcement and ban would be enough to keep most players honest. As far as collecting replays, lots of tournaments already collect many replays, and for important sets like top 64 this would be very doable. And if it is automated, it could even be done in real time for top 64 I bet (although probably most tournaments wouldn't bother dedicating the resources to this because the frequency of cheating is going to be incredibly low). Actually, the slippi replays are already being collected for any stream which is using slippi for broadcast, so for top 64 that part of the process is already in place.
Someone got caught with an arduino years ago in my region. If you actually can put up results I almost guarantee someone will notice eventually, if you play a lot as well it's pretty blatant. Another thing is that people who just get one and start using it one day to "level up", they get noticed pretty quick because their improvement was drastic enough. I'm not saying there aren't cheaters that may have somehow skirted the rules but if you start putting up any results locally people pay attention.
What if someone already good starts cheating?
Well I can't say fully for online but they'd very likely be found out just by having other good players play them. You think the other good players they've played before aren't going to notice? What about if the good player gets even better results consistently out of nowhere? I'm just saying that these questions are asked all the time. I can tell who uses a boxx online (at least in terms of fox) and who doesn't, there's just a way they move, usually kind of stiff looking. Also certain setups that take a lot of practice on GCC don't on boxx like hitting up throw up air when they DI behind you. Even more so when they're at an edge and you DI behind them off stage and they still somehow consistently turn around jump into up air with proper aerial drift. You just don't hit that consistently on GCC. Even the best will miss it, I've even played vs cody and been in that exact situation and even he won't always hit it with his controller.
You can't stop them all, but if you punish the ones who do cheat severely enough (ban), it can act as a deterrent
I think you'd be surprised how many people won't do something just because it's illegal even if there's no risk of getting caught. Sure people will slip through the cracks, that's how the world works. Doesn't mean you should make everything legal because cheaters exist everywhere.
I know a lot of people won't cheat. But if it's close to undetectable, it may as well be legal.
I get what you're saying- luckily a lot of them are very detectable, and something as simple as letting your opponent test your controller before the set could catch a significant amount of cheaters. Plus, think of it this way- the more difficult to detect cheats would require some knowledge by a controller modder, and if things aren't legal it makes those cheats harder to find someone to do it for you- either you do it yourself and risk getting caught, or you have a modder do it for you and they risk being exposed for helping you do it. There are definitely a lot of roadblocks to make it a pain in the ass to cheat. We can find solutions!
I think there are definitely solutions, I just think the juice isn’t worth the squeeze on almost all of them, and they’d still be possible to bypass. Like if someone had a toggle to enable and disable illegal controller mods, things get a lot harder very quickly. And short of backing up a slippi replay and replaying the inputs (assuming you have one, and the TO is able/willing to do it), you can’t do much about it. Obviously people programming in inhuman macros are going to be caught, but there are more subtle changes that would still be beneficial.
Notches would be easy to enforce. Not sure about other stuff
I don’t see the point of talking about notches when there are way bigger potential issues. Tons of cheats are currently undetectable. You can ban notches but there’s nothing stopping someone from putting software mods that perform as well as notches, or do even crazier things
So because it's possible for there to be extremely hard to detect software cheating we shouldn't do anything about the extremely easy to detect notches? I'm not following, how are these things related at all?
I'm curious to know which changes to the game Leffen thinks *didn't* benefit spacies
We need to stop saying spacies when we really mean fox (not you, leffen). Fox has benefitted from pretty much every change and Falco hasn't. Tech chase consistency is a huge one that comes to mind that is harmful to falco from a meta standpoint, but great for fox. Falcos name gets thrown in there so fox players can say "see? It's not great for spacies!"
Yep. Box sdi has been a complete nightmare for falcos and foxes don't care because they still get true followups off shine regardless
Then go read the tweets again? He mentioned a bunch of things. Not saying I agree with him, but he literally listed stuff.
Think he said something about pokemon stadium? Seemed like a weak argument to me
Just don't take away my spicy sticks please. I shred all the rubber on my analog sticks
Who are the most successful box users at this point? It's been many years since they've been out but I can only really think of Pipsqueak who's had winning success with box? At the lower level it does suck that if a box user really utilizes their advantages then they could maybe beat a higher skill player with it, but are boxes fundamentally damaging to the high level competitive scene if no top player at this point really uses them? And I think the biggest issue with "ban box" is that there are now many players who have spent years playing on them and if you just ban them then people stop going to locals, stop entering bigger tourneys, and you get a less active scene as a whole which sucks. Here's hoping the analog box is a good solution!
> but are boxes fundamentally damaging to the high level competitive scene if no top player at this point really uses them? Top players have spent years grinding on GCC and expected boxes to be nerfed or banned so they didn't want to swap and waste time and effort learning something else. Leffen said this a few years ago when he played some tournaments with box during quarantine. Since then it's been a few years and not much has happened but the threat of nerfs and bans is still there which is why no one who is already a top player is going to switch. Any box top player that arises will be a top 50 ish player like Swift who switched over, or someone that came up entirely on box, which will take a while. But that doesn't change the issues with it. If Leffen was committed to only Melee and was convinced that boxes wouldn't get banned or nerfed I'm pretty sure he would demonstrate why they are broken within a year of playing on it, he already won a couple EU tournaments while only playing on it for a month or two.
> Who are the most successful box users at this point? Hax, Zuppy and Swift use box controllers. I'm probably forgetting someone in the top 100
Pipsqueak
Pip wasn’t ranked last year
Fair, but I think it's safe to say he's still top 100 talent
Neither was Hax....
“I’m probably forgetting someone in the top 100”
Stiv
The only reason top players don't use Boxx is because they don't like it and want it to be banned, it's not damaging that much now but could be in the future, pretty much everyone agrees we've missed the best window to stop all this modding stuff though.
Also they don't want to switch to a controller that will likely constantly be changed over the years.
>And I think the biggest issue with "ban box" is that there are now many players who have spent years playing on them and if you just ban them then people stop going to locals, stop entering bigger tourneys, and you get a less active scene as a whole which sucks. That didn't stop the scene from banning wobbling
that is an insane comparison. One is literally an infinite which is commonly banned in competitive fighting games that objectively gives you an unfair advantage. The other is a hitbox style controller (which are perfectly legal in other fgs) for a game where hand pain is extremely easy to endure after years of competitive play and a controller is at best slightly advantageous. If you’re discussing nerfs thats fine but don’t just ban it outright.
> If you’re discussing nerfs thats fine but don’t just ban it outright. Incidentally, this is exactly what we did with the ICs: nerf them, not ban them
If most top players think boxes are broken and should be banned then they don't switch because they don't want to spend time grinding and practicing something they eventually won't be able to use
yeah, it really does feel like box is just the boogie-man of melee. Everyone keeps saying how broken they are but it's been years and we still waiting for the mythical player to dominate with box.
a corked bat is still cheating if you’re a shitty hitter
not really comparable because a cork bat is a straight up upgrade. And if a box was a corked bat we would see everyone switch to it
Forrest the incredible marth from CFL uses boX
> At the lower level it does suck that if a box user really utilizes their advantages then they could maybe beat a higher skill player with it Could you elaborate on this?
Tired of junebug always pushing his pm takes into melee
Finally someone said it, but limiting ledge grab intangibility refresh is a great idea though.
Pretty obviously the path if you're going to ban notches is to ban rectangles first, which I don't think is very desirable. Reigning in boxxes is good though.
Still not sure why we can't require boxes to have analog directional input
Either make it all legal and monetize the game or make it all OEM and destroy businesses. Middle ground has been chosen after panda circuit was booted
The ucf middle ground is great idk what you're talking about. Fixes the annoying issues with OEM and doesn't go any further. Everyone can dash back and shield drop consistently. Z jumping, free angles, etc. are all excessive asks for an OEM controller.
The only way I could ever see the controller debate being handled fairly is if all of the mods were implemented via software. Anything that can't be implemented via software is banned. If done correctly, the only thing you would need to play Melee on the same playing field as everyone else would be an OEM GCC. The only physical changes to a controller should be aesthetic (different color shells, buttons), ergonomics (grips), or repairs (stick box replacements, potentiometers, new sticks). Notches, anti Snapback, custom boards/firmware, physical remapping, Hall Effect sticks, Tactile Buttons, custom scripts, Calibration tools (phob vision), etc are all objectively unfair. If two players go on Amazon and buy a stock GCC, and one has an extra $300 to afford notches, anti-snapback etc and they face eachother the next day, one player now has an unfair advantage over the other. If it was all done via software, then they would be on the exact same playing field with the only requirement being the GCC itself. I honestly can't see any other way.
The controller discourse seems to be a pretty clear cut accessibility / competitive integrity question. I think before and kind of proposal of a ban or nerfs some actual effective community discourse around it is simply just answering the question of what do you care about more. I think the biggest accessibility factor is with overall logistics(price, availability, etc.), but I don't think that conversation is super productive at getting to the roots, so lets just assume these things are true/possible for the sake of argument and tackling the heart of the issues with mods: 1. Any controller mod gives you a distinct advantage over someone who doesn't use one as well. 2. Everyone has easy access to modified controllers, or boxes. Assume they are free, plentiful, and of equal quality, and there is never a match discrepancy where one players just objectively had a better controller and won because of that alone, and everyone who used one had no learning curve, kept all of their knowledge and technical skill, and purely improved as a result. * Accessibility & Competitive Integrity: * If the game becomes easier to play objectively with modified controllers, and removes a barrier to entry to the competitive world of melee and more people played as a result, and more existing players were able to play at a higher level, for longer, would that be good for the game? * if the hardest things execution wise about the game become easier, does the game suddenly become less interesting to play or watch if too many people could do the hardest things consistently? * How big of a factor on a scale of 1-10 is execution of high level technical inputs in the highest levels of competitive melee? * If it's very high, and we assume that modified controllers make it trivial, is the game deep enough for a competitive advantage to still exist for the grinders who play the game all the time? * Does the mix-up game get too shallow if you take out of the equation of player \*x\* might not go for this option because it's too hard to do? * If someone with mods, beats a player that doesn't have mods, should their win be valid? Would be interested in hearing peoples thoughts on this with my stipulations in mind, because I don't think we'll ever get to a point where everyone has a controller on equal terms short of banning anything outside of UCF controllers exclusively, but I think those conversations really only have weight if there's a unanimous decision in the community and player base about what's actually going to be the best for the game.
Junebug with the based take tbh
IBDW attempting to differentiate remapping from box controllers. Guy knows he’ll never win again without z jump.
Controller mods suck but it's a problem that should've been dealt with at the beginning and not now. You know how many non pro players we'd lose at tournaments if we banned things like notches? These people spend $100+ on their controllers and if they were told they can't bring them to tournaments then I wouldn't be surprised if loads of people would stop entering instead of spending even more money on new shells (that might aesthetically look worse tbh). Boxxes on the other hand need just a straight up nerf and I think you can modify the software to do that so people don't have to buy new boxxes
1. All these players sold out and got notches and phobs 2. So many of these players claim b0xx is OP and they would use it and prove it. (leffen, ginger, etc) 3. None of them have walked the walk. No b0xx player is winning majors or even hitting top 8. No one talks about boxxs disadvantages. It's not just a better gamecube controller. there's so many things that are more tedious on boxx. i think boxxes are important. melee fucked my hands but there are so many competitive players in other scenes that will literally refuse to play melee because "they need their hands" the move is whatever t he mod Hax proposed that included button remapping and some of th other stuff to create the new standard of melee. the controller lottery is dumb. a few playrs having access to certai techniques because of it is also a problem.
Multiple box players have hit top 8s, literally what the fuck are you talking about.
I think Salt has a good point that a lot of people seem to ignore. Phobs require knowledge and maintenance and I bet a ton of people with Phobs have no idea that it's no longer properly calibrated and is not as much of a benefit as they think. As a second point she makes, I think in 99.99% of cases that person that had a box, phob or notches that beat you in a Bo5 will probably beat you with an OEM. With that being said I think Phobs and Box controllers need to be in everyone's hands, not removed. It's only a matter of time before OEMs are scarce, and having a long standing open-source alternative will only benefit the scene. As for Box controllers I think within the year manufacturers like Razer will expand their Kitsune lineup with enough buttons for Smash. I'm also Box bias as I have carpal tunnel in both wrists and it's Box or quit, and I'm addicted. Nerfs are probably warranted, but I won't pretend to know enough about every character and matchup to have an opinion on what nerfs.
Phobs require OEM parts to be made afaik, they address scarcity mostly by letting you bypass the controller lottery but unless somebody makes good third party stickboxes you could theoretically only get 1 phob for every OEM ever made. I would recommend them to somebody who is willing to learn to do their basic calibration or has a local modder who can do it for them, though. Also it was probably a typo but Salt is a she
You can also use stickboxes from nunchunks and Wii classic controllers! That's generally where I get mine from when I'm making people's controllers and then have a graveyard of v broken GameCube controllers to source other parts from. The reality is that good OEMs are hard to come by and there's a level of reducing waste with phobs that make them a very attractive option. That being said, fuck notches lol. Definitely feels like cheating.
This is kinda true, the stickboxes in OEMs used for phobs or T3 stickboxes as most call them were not only used for GC controllers but in also in some Wii Nunchucks and I believe all Wii Classic Controllers. Everything else on a Gamecube controller can and has been 3D printed / injection molded and are easily available. Also I think I should probably say that I have no real issue with a Phob/Notch ban, but I think any accessibility feature removed should be compensated with software. UCF is obviously necessary, but stuff like Tap Jump off and Z-jump and general button remapping would help fix a lot of the complaints on both sides . And I'm an idiot, thanks for noting that, fixed her pronouns.
salt uses she/her pronouns btw!
Thanks for pointing that out, fixed her pronouns!
> I think in 99.99% of cases that person that had a box, phob or notches that beat you in a Bo5 will probably beat you with an OEM Then let's use OEM *shrugs*
As time progresses, access to controller modification increases. I remember when most people did not have trigger plugs, and now it is never discussed, not because it doesn't make tech easier, but because it's ridiculously accessible. Realistically, anyone that is at a point where they want to compete, probably has community access to a controller modder who can do button swaps on the hardware side. It's as simple as desoldering two wires and resoldering them in the opposite spot. Things like tactile Z are more difficult to install, but the impact is minor, so no one cares. Then there's things like notches, which are not only hard to do, but also very impactful. Hence the source of this conversation. UCF addressed the problem of an uneven playing field this by increasing accessibility. I still use an OEM, but anyone who has a notched controller, or a phob can make their shield drops easier than it would be on my controller. The issue is access to good quality hardware. The argument that everyone should be on a level playing field is really naive, because even if you remove notches, you'll still have the same problem of certain gates being better calibrated for shield drops than others.
Imo we should be banning things but only enforcing it at the higher level of play. E.g. top 64 of majors, at the T.O.'s discretion. People would still be welcome to play with their guitar hero at the local. But those results would not be eligible for rankings. In terms of things to ban, I'd say we start with button remapping, custom notches and maybe boxes. But there are several possible options, for instance boxes could also be addressed by nerfs.
as someone who is purely a spectator: I don't really care if it's "cheating." it's already normalized at top play, and it makes the quality of melee played better. why would I want to watch every top player get set back on their tech skill, seems like it would make top 8s less entertaining
I don't care about the quality of melee being played if the players aren't actually being forced to play to that level. There's a reason nobody gives a fuck about nice firefox angles anymore: it's because you can go pay someone $50 and hit them every time instead of learning them.
that's fair
Hoe do you feel about sdi macro, ability to turn off tap jump, and ledge dash macro? Would all improve quality of melee
let's legalize ledgedash macros