You used a glitch for your score! That's cheating!
You used an AT for your score! That's cheating!
You got a better score than me and that's not fair because I suck! That's cheating!
Spend any time in a high score thread, and you'll hear something along these lines regarding any given tactic. What the SSBM community considers to be cheating is constantly debated. Some strats used in SSBM that have been used for years are still being debated by some high-level Stadium players. Unfortunately, the SSBM community has never had a system of any kind to determine the legitimacy of a strat.
Until now.
I recently came up with 3 tests to determine the legitimacy of a strat. Any strategy can be measured against these three tests. If the strategy passes all three of them, then it's a legitimate strategy. If it fails any of the three, it's not a legitimate strategy aka cheating. I've debated the merits of them on AllisBrawl, and ran into little opposition. I wrote the tests for Melee, but if correct, they should apply not just to any SSB game, but for any competitive high-score activity, period.
The three tests for SSBM are as follows, taken from my original post on the subject:
Test 1 - Duplicability test
-Is the strategy duplicable? Can it be easily repeated by a sufficiently skilled player? (aka the "OMG THE GAME GLITCHED AND I GOT 50,000,000 FEET IN BtT WITH PRESIDENT OBABMA" test) If the strat is not duplicable, then it's not a legit strat.
- Pass - IC Freeze Glitch
- Pass - MMM Immo
- Pass - All ATs
- Pass - Shield Stupidity Glitch (henceforth referred to as SSG)
- Pass - Black Hole Glitch (henceforth referred to as BHG)
- Pass - Master Hand Glitch (henceforth referred to as MHG)
- Pass - Action Replay (henceforth referred to as AR)
- Pass - Hardware mods (turbo controllers, rubber bands, controller mods, extra systems/cards, etc)(henceforth referred to as HM) (extra systems/cards might fail this test, as not everyone has access to them, and therefore aren't repeatable by anyone)
- Pass - Adventure Mode Shell Trick (henceforth referred to as ST)
- Pass - Training Mode Red Shell Trick (henceforth referred to as RST)
- Pass - "luck frame" scores (proven repeatable in this video)
Test 2 - Game/mode breaking test
-Does the strategy make the mode uncompetitive? Meaning, does it give an instant/near instant maximum possible score with no effort? If it makes the mode uncompetitive, then it's not a legit strat.
- Pass - IC Freeze Glitch
- Pass - MMM Immo
- Pass - All ATs
- Fail - SSG
- Fail - BHG
- Fail - MHG
- Fail - AR
- Fail - HM
- Pass - ST
- Pass - RST
- Pass - "luck frame" scores
Test 3 - modding/cheating test
-Does the strategy involve altering or manipulating hardware or software to play the games in noncompetitive ways, or ways outside the means of the game? If so, then it's not a legit strat.
- Pass - IC Freeze Glitch
- Pass - MMM Immo
- Pass - All ATs
- Pass - SSG
- Pass - BHG
- Pass - MHG
- Fail - AR
- Fail - HM
- Pass - ST
- Pass - RST
- Pass - "luck frame" scores
Conclusions
In my opinion, any strat that fails any of these three tests is not legitimate (aka cheating), and any strat that passes all three of them are legitimate.
Here's a handy chart for I made for organization. Again, a strat must pass all three tests to be considered legit:
Strat- - - - - - - - - - Replicable test - - - Game breaking test - - Mod/cheat test - - Conclusion
IC Freeze Glitch - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - PASS
MMM Immo - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - - PASS
SSG- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -PASS - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - FAIL
BHG- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -PASS - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - FAIL
MHG- - - - - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - FAIL
AR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - FAIL
HM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -PASS - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - FAIL - - - - - - - - - - FAIL
ST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - PASS
RST- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - PASS
"luck frame" scores - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - PASS - - - - - - - - - - PASS
Some users consider tactics that only works on certain versions to be unfair, and thus cheating. They think I should make a fourth test, that asks "Does the tactic work on all four versions? If not, then it is cheating.". The problem is that such a test would make pretty much the entire game a cheat. There are just too many differences between all four versions to enforce such a rule.
None of this is particularly revolutionary, but I think my tests are the first time the Stadium community has had hard-set guidelines to determine whether or not a strat is legitimate and fair to competition. I think these ones I've proposed are very simple ones that pretty much everyone can agree to.
I recently proposed at AllisBrawl.com that we start enforcing these three rules in the still-in-beta Stadium highscores section of the site, often incorrectly referred to as the "Stadium portal". Again, I've had very little opposition so far. While I haven't heard anything official yet (except from a few staff members that support it), I hope AiB will start implementing these guidelines in Stadium competition.
Side note: Trek is buying Durem/Gambino fish again! PM to negotiate a price! The more you sell, the more gold-per-fish I pay! ^_^
Stay tuned for more exciting news from Treklink256! ^_^
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