Pokemon-- imaginary monsters or bits of data?

[Chou Toshio]

This is not a thread about whether you give a shit about pokemon looking cool or not!

In regard to a large variety of issues, mostly concerning the tiers, it becomes apparent that while all the members are here for competitive pokemon, we each have slightly different ideas and preferences about how we think said competitive pokemon should be shaped.

The ideas I am about to put forth will probably be frowned on by the standard cut-and-dry smogon attitute towards pokemon, as this is going to get a bit mushy.

Do we see pokemon as imaginary monsters, or simple bits of data?

Is garchomp a giant massive dragon-shark that rips enemies to pieces, is captured in a small cave in the sinnoh area as a pathetic little gible, and made Cynthia the League Champion? Or is Garchomp 108/130/95/80/85/102 [Dragon]/[Ground] with Sand Veil? Do you see pokemon as the game of raising and battling imaginary monsters, or a simple strategy game of managing odds?


Here's an interesting one: Are Smogonites Pokemon Trainers?

Do we still have any inkling of feelings towards our metagame in perspective of pokemon as an imaginary world, connected to pokemon the in game video game and pokemon the anime? I for one like to think of pokemon as a little less dryly. Ie, I see myself as a pokemon trainer when I play pokemon.

For instance, I would like to think of Ubers as not only the list of pokemon that are banned for being broken, but also the list of pokemon that we wouldn't battle with because a trainer in the game or anime would not be using it either. In pokemon the anime/movies, pokemon like Rayquaza and Mewtwo represent forces so powerful that pokemon trainers could never hope to control. The movies show legendary pokemon as forces nature that, if tampered with, leads only to destruction and misfortune, and no Non Player Character uses them. In other words, they are beings that humans should not tamper with.

While we do allow quite a number of legendary pokemon into OU (which in truth, bothers me a little), I like to think of the list of Ubers as the pokemon who are so powerful that we as trainers do not truly have the right to command.

Inversely, pokemon like Garchomp, Tyranitar, Metagross, Salamence and Dragonite, while even more powerful than some legendaries in the video game in terms of base stats, are not legendaries-- they are pokemon difficult to seek out, and difficult to raise, but represent the epitome of power as a pokemon trainer. They are pokemon carried by in game characters like Elite Four members of League Champions, because they represent the most powerful of pokemon that "can be controlled" by trainers. With GSC and breeding, the notion of pokemon that are actually pokemon who are used by trainers because connected to the idea of pokemon that are able to breed-- pokemon that are not legendary. While many would adamantly refuse that this is part of why Garchomp and its friends have never been banned, I for one do like to think of it as a very important reason.

Not only between Ubers and OU, this way of thinking of pokemon as pokemon also affects my opinions on other issues, like NFEs.


Right now in UU/BL and in other threads (even in policy review), there are a lot of arguments going on about NFEs. Many of the moderators have come to the opinion that NFEs should be treated "just like any other pokemon," and the few remaining opposers stick to the old "It'd make UU OU-Lite" argument.

Well, I think of it differently, because I think of myself as a pokemon trainer.

As a trainer, I hatched a chimchar and raised it to become strong, the best it can be in battle. For me and chimchar, evolution to monferno and eventually to infernape is not a question of tiering-- it's a question of making the pokemon the strongest it can be, and to help its team the best it can. For me and my pokemon, Evolution is a choice just like teaching moves and attaching items, a choice I make as a trainer to make the pokemon as powerful as it can become.

Infernapes don't come from no where. The pokemon that was once Monferno is now infernape, a step it took to become stronger no different from teaching it nasty plot or breeding it to have good IVs. Which is why, as a pokemon trainer, one cannot see monferno and infernape as different pokemon-- they are the same pokemon.

If Monferno does not evolve into Infernape, it's not "a weaker pokemon that should be considered different for tiering," it is "a very crappily trained infernape."

That is what makes Monferno/Infernape different from Unown/Azelf, because while becoming infernape is a choice for monferno in order to reach a certain fighting potential, the same cannot be said about Unown (unless Nintendo later allows unnown to evolve into azelf, lol).


Not just NFEs or Uber/OU/BL issues, in regards to every decision we make on Smogon we can choose to let pokemon as a game/anime/world to affect us or not. We can see Shoddy as just Shoddy, a dry view of it as a game only with regards to risk management and prediction, or we can see pokemon as pokemon.

Opinions?

 

[SuperSimon]

Im the exact same way. I refuse to use pokemon I think do not look cool regardless of how good they are. I always imagine that It is an actual battle between two trainers and the pokemon we have trained. This is another reason I do not change my team very often.

 

[StarmanXL]

Er...perhaps I missed a lot of it, but I have to say that while I do think of pokemon as imaginary monsters instead of bits of data (one of the reasons why I love Farfetch'd and Delibird while I hate Garchomp), I generally don't apply that kind of thinking to competitive. I dunno, really...it's past midnight and I can't think straight for some reason, so I'll leave this topic for tomorrow.

 

[Darth Meanie]

While I have to admit that outside of battle I like pokemon as creatures, in a shoddybattle fight I'm all numbers. I like your argument about UU, but I'm sort of confused what this thread is asking. I think that nobody on this site got into pokemon for the number crunching, they got into the number crunching from pokemon. I still don't know exactly what you want us to do or say. How would seeing pokemon as pokemon be different than seeing pokemon as data practically?

Until I get a clear understanding of what you mean I can't answer this topic.

 

[Green Mage]

As a strategy game, pokemon fails a bit, and hax is the reason. All the math and prediction in the world won't save you from a few key crits or misses. Without the flavor of pokemon, the function would be utterly lame.

Magic: The Gathering is the same way. It's sold as a mental sport, but half of your winning condition is literally luck of the draw. The real strength of M:tG is deck building, and i think it's the same way with pokemon. People just enjoy raising their favorite pokemon and building teams.

That being said, I love the design of Lumineon, but i'm never friggin' raising one because it completely blows ass. I also recognize that Blissey is one of the best pokemon in the game, but i'll never raise one because of how mind-bogglingly stupid it looks. Therefore, I think it's a mix between the two mindsets: people use their favorite pokemon competitively.

 

[Bourbon]

Yeah, I still have some attachment for Pokemon. That's why I still try and use stuff like Crawdaunt, Vileplume, Flygon, Alakazam, etc even though they suck. I also find it very difficult to release my old, crappy Pokemon. I still have my first team from Sapphire in my game because I can't bring myself to get rid of them, even though they're all Lax, Bashful and stuff, and have crap movesets. I find it very difficult to replace my favourite members of my teams as well. In UU, I never venture forth without my trusty Crawdaunt, and I tend to try and get as many kills with him as possible to satisfy crawdaunt, even when I could be doing the same thing but better with another team member. In OU, I rely on Porygon2 a lot, and I'll often sacrifice pokemon that may have been useful as long as I can keep Porygon2 alive and kickin' butt.

I have also found that I tend to view other people's pokemon as stupid or evil when compared to mine, which look friendly and cool. Even when it's a mirror match-up, like Salamence vs Salamence, I'm like "ugh, frickin' salamence, why won't it crawl in a dark hole and just die" while I'm like "woohoo, salamence is so cool" when I think of my own. Same thing when I use something annoying like Celebi, I'm like all happy at how good it's doing, but then I see my opponent try doing the same thing with his Celebi in another match and I'm all annoyed at how stupid his Celebi is.

Sometimes I will grow attached to a new pokemon if it performs well in battle, such as Gengar. I used to hate Gengar with a passion, and I was so annoyed at how common it was, but after tearing up teams with that smug grinning ghost on my side, I changed my mind about him.


So anyways, in short, while Smogon has taught me the ways of competitive battling, I still try and shoehorn my favourites into my teams. I don't do it because I want to be a "unique snowflake" I do it because deep down inside I still care about the little critters.


PS: fun fact, my parents are extremely religious and told me pokemon was evil, so I had to play it at my friends houses until I was about 13... because of my parents I used to avoid psychic types like the plague, thinking they were evil or something but now Alakazam is one of my favourite pokes.

 

[Chou Toshio]

No, "Using pokemon I think are pretty" and "seeing myself as a pokemon trainer" are different.

In the mentality of pokemon, the 10 year old kid does not leave Pallet Town to "find the pokemon I like," he goes out to become a pokemon master. He goes out to be come strong-- he goes out to win. Pokemon as an fantasy world has an inherent competitive nature. Even the 7 year old kid who uses the lax metagross steve gave him wants to crush his friends in battle. It is about battle.

What I'm talking about is whether we see that competition, if we see the battle as numbers and data or as fights to become the strongest trainer.

Ultimately since both ways of thinking are competitive, it ends up not adding to a really big difference (probably why we don't talk about it most of the time), but there are some cases where it could affect our rules.

That is, if we were to make the rules of competitive pokemon such that it would be more similar to the shape of in-anime.

Shoddy Battle could be seen as the battle ground for elite trainers-- elite trainers that through their adventures sought out and raised the best they could find like Garchomp and Blissey.

Or it could be seen as a simple data crunching where one says "lets allow jirachi because it's not over-powering" despite the fact that in the pokemon movies, if humans capture Jirachi the world would explode. Not to mention that Jirachi is only awake for 1 week out of evern 1000 years . . . >.<

 

[tgva8889]

Magic: The Gathering is the same way. It's sold as a mental sport, but half of your winning condition is literally luck of the draw. The real strength of M:tG is deck building, and i think it's the same way with pokemon. People just enjoy raising their favorite pokemon and building teams.

While the comparison does exist in some manner, it's not the same. Magic is highly different from Pokemon in that there are not only many ways to manage how luck affects your game, there are many good ways to do so. While you can, say, increase your Critical Hit chance with Focus Energy or a Scope Lens, both of these choices are generally inferior to other things you could be doing, like using Swords Dance or Leftovers. In Magic, however, learning how to manage, for example, what lands you put in your deck and how many separates a good player from a bad one. So, Magic is generally a better competitive game than Pokemon in that aspect.

I see them as the monsters, yeah. I crunch the numbers, but I only do so for the Pokemon that I find interesting enough to use. I've never used a Garchomp or a Blissey in a battle I considered real because if I had my choice of any Pokemon, I just wouldn't use those. I'd rather use Yanmega or Pichu (whom I would never use in a real battle by choice).

 

[Darkartisan]

I see pokemon as cute and clever. In the games, PVE, I choose the coolest team around. Usually always having a dragon, etc.

In shoddy and smogon, I don't see pokemon. I stare down a chessboard. Strategy is everything, and who cares what something looks like? It achieves victory, and that is what you use it for. In shoddy, pokemon are tools of victory.

When I see a garchomp in diamond and pearl, vs Cynthia, I instantly think, wow that pokemon is awesome.
In shoddy, I see a Garchomp, and instantly think 333max speed, and if it outruns my scarfnape it must be scarved.'

As for the UU, I must say that I agree with you. This goes for common sense. Why send out a baby monkey against a landshark, when you can send a bigger, meatier karate monkey?

It logically makes sense. Sure in the anime they pull alot of B.S stunts, I.E pikachu destroys all, etc, but it's not like that.

Anyways, this thread sparked my interest, so thank you.

-Dark

 

[Chou Toshio]

Darkaristan-- edit: a post that came from Darkaristan accidentally writing "disagree" when he meant to write "agree"

It's exactly because you'd never use monferno when you could use Infernape that I said that creating tiers to allow monferno in UUdoes not make sense in-anime, because evolving is a choice monferno has available to it. In other words, monferno and infernape are the same pokemon-- one is just a better, stronger, more trained version of the later.

In other words, making Monferno part of UU would make Monferno the end product of training, rather than infernape. We would see level 100 Monferno's in UU battles, which if you think about pokemon as pokemon, does not make any sense. Who would train a monferno so that it would be a monferno forever?

 

[OmegaX]

The reasons that every smogoner has for playing the game can be very diverse and that is fine. If you are the kind of person that likes to think himself as Ash from the anime and aims to be a "Pokemon Master" (whatever that means), that is fine for you I suppose.
Some people get more immersed in the game universe than others but that shouldn't blind you when stating opinions in regard to what the Smogon community should do to balance the tiers. Stating that using legendaries in standard play bothers you because they are to powerful for the trainer or that NFE pokemon shouldn't be used because they are not trained well enough are things that are in complete opposition to the philosophy of this site: http://www.smogon.com/philosophy
In my opinion the fun part of the game is not taking it literally to the point that I wouldn't allow Jirachi because this isn't the day every 1000 years that it should be awake but finding good strategies in battle that can lead you to victory.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Philosophy is something not set in stone, and it never hurts to have more discussion about philosophy.

edit: Also, if Smogon is going to see out rules that make Monferno, rather than Infernape, the end result of training rather than I'd have to say that sounds pretty ridiculous for "competitive pokemon."

Because, if Monferno is allowed in UU, it will probably develop sets someone different from Infernape, and wifi battlers will raise chimchars for the sole purpose of becoming monferno, not infernape. That to me sounds stupidly not on the path of seeking strength.

 

[Darkartisan]

Yes I did, but like you said, it's pointless to use Monferno, when you could use a stronger pokemon such as Infernape, even though essentially it's the same pokemon.

I agree...oh great I said "disagree"

 

[the_artic_one]

Who would train a monferno so that it would be a monferno forever?

Ash...

>.>

<.<

 

[OmegaX]

Philosophy is something not set in stone, and it never hurts to have more discussion about philosophy.

edit: Also, if Smogon is going to see out rules that make Monferno, rather than Infernape, the end result of training rather than I'd have to say that sounds pretty ridiculous for "competitive pokemon."

Because, if Monferno is allowed in UU, it will probably develop sets someone different from Infernape, and wifi battlers will raise chimchars for the sole purpose of becoming monferno, not infernape. That to me sounds stupidly not on the path of seeking strength.

You are only enforcing my point with your edit, you are blinded by your definition of "competitive pokemon equals game-universe competitive". I agree that if I lived in a real life version of the Pokemon universe I would prefer to raise my newly given Chimchar until it becomes an Infernape because that way it will be way stronger but you are missing a point, in the game universe there are not tiers, you can see a Luvdisc battling an Electivire and wining (heck even Pikachu thunderbolted a Golem in the first movie and OHKOd it).
The reason tiers exist is because we want to be able to use pokemon in an enviroment where they can remain competitive so we make rules for that to happen. So in the case you are trying to debate here, we would be able to use a NFE like Monferno in UU because it has a level of power similar to other pokemon in UU and as a result we would increase the diversity of the format. Actually I know that there are good reasons for not wanting to allow NFE in UU like not wanting to make it a "OU-lite" but that reason is a lot more valid than refusing their use based on reasons inspired in the anime (and you might remember that even Ash has refused to let A LOT of their pokemon to evolve along the series, also Little Cup is a valid format for battling and that uses all kinds of NFEs).

 

[obi]

Mewtwo is awesome. It's my favorite Pokemon. I don't use it much because a combination of things make it generally not a top-tier Pokemon among ubers (except on a few teams). I do not try and change the rules to make sure Mewtwo dominates.

Or it could be seen as a simple data crunching where one says "lets allow jirachi because it's not over-powering" despite the fact that in the pokemon movies, if humans capture Jirachi the world would explode. Not to mention that Jirachi is only awake for 1 week out of evern 1000 years . . . >.<

I don't see why that should have any influence on the competitive rule-set. Despite your protestations, this is a non-competitive mindset. You are taking factors that have no bearing on the actual match and are trying to make them relevant.

 

[garo]

i have to congratulate you because you posted a different and interesting thread, your thread make the reader think about himself and his preferences rather than if Z counters X, i know about pokemon since my childhood, when i saw the anime and played the game thinking i was ash and i was training creatures called "pokemon" i didnt even know about types i just trained the starter pokes, gengars, alakazams, dragonites and mewtwos only because i thought they were cool, then because i wanted to know more about the pokes i was initiated on the metagame from scratch and learned that even if blastoise looks better and stronger than milotic, milotic is better overall and blastoise can only accomplish a very few tasks in a team and most players simply choose another water type because the better stats, abilities, movesets, etc.

so even if we pick the best pokes to play competitively, obviously everyone has is favorite pokes and use them sometimes just for fun and to remember the old days when each player started playing just because the "creatures" called pokemon looked cool.

i just think than easily more than half of the smogonites think that pokes are more than just some bits in a cartridge, otherwise battling would be so boring lololol.

 

[Chill]

Someone once said 'you can have a team of your favorite UU's and a team of your favorite OU's. But only one of those teams will get you anywhere'.

You don't have to be against picking favorites to be a competitive player. I don't think I would go so far as to say I "think" of myself as a pokemon trainer when I battle. To be honest, that sounds a bit weird to me. :P

But I have never put a pokemon on my team that I dislike just because it performs well. I guess I'm admitting that I don't just think of pokemon as base stats and move pool but I do think of what is the most competitive option available to me. Yes, Garchomp is a beastly land shark but he's also the most dominating force in OU due to his stat allocation, typing, movepool and ability.

 

[Voltron]

I didn't think any actually interesting thoughts would be in this thread when I read the title, but here I am replying so... I tend to think of them as monsters some times, and it bugs me. I don't like using a lot of Pokemon because I don't like them. I've almost gotten over it, for a while in ADV gen I would refuse to use Blissey because I hated it, now I'll use Blissey if it makes my team stronger which often is the case. Although I rarely use Garchomp for the same reason, so I haven't been cured. Smogonites lean to the data side because obviously it's a competative battling community. In Shoddy it's even more focused on Pokemon as data since you don't go through the time to breed, EV train and level them as you would ingame. As cool as it may be to have Jirachi only useable for a week every thousand years, the movie doesn't and shouldn't effect competative battling at all. I mean if you look at the anime from a competative viewpoint it's absolutely terrible, we all know that. Ignoring your likes and the backstories of Pokemon will put you in a better position to win and as much as we want to have fun, we still want to win. After all winning is more fun.

 

[Frost]

I do a little of both. My favorite Pokemon is Dewgong, but I'm not about to use him seriously in an OU battle anytime soon. I like Cacnea more than Cacturne, but I definitely wouldn't use Cacnea in a battle before Cacturne (not that Cacturne is the team staple of the century or anything). There are multiple UU Pokemon that I like more than the OU Pokemon who have shut them down to the lower tiers, but sometimes I'll stick with the OU incarnation anyway, e.g. Quagsire vs. Swampert.

But on the flip side of the coin, I hate some OU Pokemon like Garchomp and it doesn't matter how awesome he is; I'm just not going to use it because I don't like it. I love Magneton and absolutely despise Magnezone, so I'd use the unevolved form before the final evolution. My own personal philosophy is that it's satisfying to win, but it's also satisfying to win with things that I like instead of things that I don't. Say what you will, but I'd rather battle truer to my own preferences than winning every match. Of course, there's an eventual line drawn in the sand because, even though I love Caterpie and Weedle, I'm not going to win with them.

Only low-end UU and NU Pokemon are so disadvantaged that they really would get you nowhere if used at the expense of an OU Pokemon, so, if I like a less common/NFE Pokemon more, I might be tempted to use it over the more common/fully evolved alternative. Example: the general consensus seems to be that Celebi is better than Land Shaymin, but I like Land Shaymin a hell of a lot more than I like Celebi, and Land Shaymin isn't giving up an amount of usefulness in battle that makes things completely hopeless, so I'd definitely be more inclined to go with the hedgehog.

 

[X-Act]

For me, a Pokemon is just a set of numbers. Yes, the movepool and abilities are technically numbers also (moves are stored as Move 1, Move 2, etc. and then a movepool would comprise of moves 5, 28, 103, 46, etc. say.)

The sprite of a Pokemon is redundant data, as it doesn't affect anything in a battle at all.

Sure, Dewgong is my favourite Pokemon, but that's only if I take looks into account. If you want to maximize your chances of winning, you don't look at how a Pokemon's sprite looks like; you look at the Pokemon's numbers.

 

[Shiny Crobat]

I completely agree with X-Act. On shoddy, I play Pokemon to win. I do not care about sprites. I only play Pokemon (DS game) for fun, nothing more.

 

[Glen ^^]

I think we shouldn't compare the anime to the games.

In the anime, you raise Pokemon as friends and they will eventually become strong.

The games, however, how strong your Pokemon will be is set at the moment its egg hatches. We're even worse than Paul, releasing babies into the wild. This breaks the whole feeling of being a Pokemon Trainer, IMO.

As long as Game Freak doesn't change the IVs and Nature systems (get rid of IVs and make Natures selectable?), Pokemon are still a bunch of numbers, with a sprite and 8 bit sound so you can recognize them easier.

 

[Great Sage]

When building my teams, I only take a Pokemon's numbers (and movepool which kinda boils down to numbers) into account. I really don't care what a Pokemon's sprite looks like; if it was the coolest thing in the world and sucked competitively, I wouldn't use it, but if it was extremely ugly but very good, I would.

 

[Squarehead42]

Pokemon can be treated either as imaginary monsters or as bits of data, but it falls to why the player plays Pokemon.

Treating them as "imaginary monsters" would fall more into how a casual player would see the game. Casual players use a team of their favorites because these favorites express what the player likes while playing, not because it wins every match. Casual players battle because they enjoy the experience they feel from it.

Competitive players, however, would see them as "bits of data" because their purpose to playing is to win. They don't care if Garchomp looks horrible to them, they will use it becauses it frequently beats other Pokemon and acheives victory. Competitive players battle because they enjoy the expereince they feel from winning.

Although I see myself as a Pokemon Trainer while playing anything related to Pokemon, my objective is to win, and I treat Pokemon more often as data than imaginary monsters. I don't care if Jirachi only can be used every thousand years in the anime, I still use it because it helps me win. My favorite Pokemon are generally the most powerful ones simply because I win with them. Treating Pokemon as imaginary monsters might be fun, but it usually fails to help you win.