Mithost said: My intention from posting my original reply was not to immediately unban the controllers, but to get more information from those in charge on what the current barriers are. If you don't mind me asking, what are some examples of the logistical issues you mention?



Outside of Smash, I am an active member of the wider fighting game community. At both local tournaments and large scale events, I have seen people play with everything from a PS1 gamepad with a converter to a pizza box with 20+ buttons on it without any issues. Controller configurations that prove to be problematic from a logistical or competitive point of view are banned when they prove to be problematic at an event (most wireless controllers, turbo buttons, and certain buggy platform converters). If a community so similar to our own in terms of logistics can run well with very lax controller rules, what is different about Smash that changes the logistics enough to warrant banning the controllers? Click to expand...

The main difference between Melee and other FGs, as I'm sure you know, is the use of analog controls. Replacing left, right, up, and down with digital buttons is not a huge change for the average FG. For Melee, being able to hit precise angles is obviously a very powerful technique. Whether it's for perfect up-B angles, airdodges, wavedashes/wavelands, or DI, hitting specific angles is a skill that has been an inherent part of the game since its inception. If you have a controller that can do all of this for free, you're removing skill from the game and creating an unearned skill gap between the players who use a custom controller vs. the standard. Hax himself has admitted that his perfect wavedash angles were obnoxiously good, so he has attempted to mitigate this advantage by preventing perfect angles on the B0XX. There are plenty of other issues, such as multiple SDI inputs. Due to the nature of a button vs. a stick, you can easily double/triple tap fightstick buttons to get multiple SDIs. I'm not very experienced on a fightstick, but it still only took me a few minutes of testing to get 3 inputs in a 5 frame window. This kind of capability would result in people triple SDIing shines, and would greatly ruin the integrity of the game.All of these advantages that make custom controllers able to perform things that are normally difficult or impossible would have to be limited before these controllers could be allowed. That means TOs have to decide how good of an angle can your controller do? Is 1 degree off perfect too good, should we increase it to 5 degrees off of perfect? How many frames does it reasonably take to get multiple SDI inputs on a stick? How do we prevent custom controllers from doing that kind of input?Then the real kicker is, how in the world do you enforce these limitations in tournament? If someone does a really good angle and you suspect him of using a box with angles that exceed the permitted limitations, you would have to somehow check to see how the box works. How do you prove someone's controller is doing unfair things when they built it themselves? Even if they let you open it up (which is an arduous process in its own right), how do you check the code of the arduino or whatever they are using? Even if you are able to access the code of their controller, how are you able to ascertain what exactly is going on without pouring over the code for hours? Custom controllers can't work for all these logistical reasons, and if you want to establish some sort of "second standard" for a different kind of controller that uses a specific codeset, you still need a way to check it. The community was largely up in arms against the recent attempt to allow arduinos inside GCCs, which would have been just as impossible to check as custom controllers. Basically it comes down to the fact that if your custom controller has macros or some other unfair element, the only way TOs can evenis to somehow look at the code of your controller.You also need widespread agreement from the community as to what is acceptable and what isn't. Our community is grassroots, so we don't have a committee the same way every other major sport does. This is what the ruleset committee that has recently been formed is trying to solve, but they have no authority other than the fact that they run most of the majors. Even within their group, MDZ went ahead and ran UCF at Shine and GTX despite the fact that the ruleset committee hasn't made a decision on it. There's no accountability, and any TO can run any ruleset they want. A simple example is the recent ruling of coaching being allowed between GF sets. If you are running a major, you can ban coaching between GF sets and there's nothing anyone can do about it. When you extend this problem to controller standardization where there are virtually infinite variables with what is acceptable and what isn't, the idea that the community can agree on specific angle or SDI limitations is very unlikely.I'm only really familiar with traditional FGs from online so I've never been to a tourney with traditional fighters. I don't know how much people think about it, but don't they ever worry about people using macros in their controllers? Is there any sort of method for checking them? It seems ridiculously easy for that guy with the pizza box to switch one of his buttons to an instant DP or instant 720 motion. I've only really played 3rd Strike, but even from a relatively small amount of time playing it, I can think of tons of ways to abuse macros or other custom programming to gain a significant edge. All I would have to do is reprogram one of my end buttons that may not be needed, and I could even include a tricky button combination (eg. up up down down left right select LK+HK) to turn the macro on and off so anyone playing on my stick would think it works normally.