Pokemon Philosophy: Is abusing the RNG cheating?

[Ash Borer]

I consinder rng abuse, along with gts cloning cheating.

I really dont care though. As long as everything is completely legal.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Did anyone read the OP?

The topic of this thread is "RNG abuse, is it cheating".

My point boiled down is "AR and RNG abuse (and yes any calculators/guides if you want to go there, but that's off topic) both require the use of external devices. Therefore if AR is "cheating" then RNG abuse is "cheating".

In today's battling arena you have to have pokes with at least near flawless stats just to be competitive at all, so I'm not saying either one is wrong, evil or whatever slur you want to call it. I'm just saying if you want to call AR "cheating" then you should probably call RNG abuse "cheating" because while they use different methods, they both use non-sanctioned external devices to acheive the exact same goal (shiny or flawless IV pokes, not L1 Jirachis). I like RNG. It is great. No argument about that. That is not what this thread is about. This thread is about is it "cheating" or is it not.

And about the Bulldozer/quick shortcut, apple/orange, #3/#16 arguments. Yes, AR is a bulldozer/apple/#3 and RNG is a quick shortcut/orange/#16, but they're both shortcuts/fruit/numbers. Are they different. Yes. RNG does not involve plugging a little black plastic thingy into your DS and physically changing the flow of electricity between the game and cartridge. But they both use non-sanctioned external devices to acheive a goal you could never achieve without them (flawless IV/shiny pokes quicker than you could breed for them). It's not that they are exactly the same. Pokesav and AR are different, but nobody would argue that they one is cheating and the other is not.

This post is already way too long.

My vote: it's cheating, but who cares. Shigeru's already got my cash!

;D XD

and BTW, riverside's post was on topic you just didn't get it.

Yet again, IV calculator.

What if by some freakish chance MissingNo. and other glitches were to appear in HGSS/Gen V/whatever, and these glitches were usable in WiFi? Would/Should they be allowed? They were in the game without the use of external devices

If they were usable and stable, they'd be like any other pokémon, thus they would get banned or not depending on their strength (just like a Garchomp, but with an ugly sprite!). If they were usable on WiFi, but unstable, then they should get banned, just like Cherrim and Castform MUST be banned when you allow Glitch Weather in a battle.

But did Nintendo expect the hardcore gamers to crack the foundation of the game, the random number ganerator?

They could have made the delay part a LOT more random. But they didn't. So, it's useless to try to grasp why they didn't do so. Developer intent really won't get us anywhere here.

Honestly, I don't think RNG abuse is cheating, but rather discouraging. I would prefer to have a 25+/25+/25+/25+/25+/25+ non-RNG abused pokemon than an RNG abused one because RNG is just a matter of exploiting numbers to get the pokemon you want(correct me if I'm wrong), and it DOES require an external device(s) to get the pokemon you want.

IV calculator.

The right way to play pokemon is to Soft Reset and Chain like people did in the old days.

Prove it.

In my opinion a chained shiny is much better than an RNG abused shiny...

I got a chained shiny Floatzel the other day... with RNG abuse. What does that make me ?_?

Average pokemon players are able to open up a box and get playing like the game is meant to play.

I didn't know you worked for Game Freak.

RNG abuse is just like figuring out a glitch in the game, which is kind of like cheating.

Except it wasn't a glitch. It was an algorithm that was just lying there.

Nope:
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/6...atinum-Particle-Physics-Bridges-And-More.html

Whaaaat. They hear us players?

The point is...

• AR is an external used device to get unusual results that you could get without it, just much faster
• PRNG Reporter is an external device used to get unusual results that you could get without it, just much faster
• Pokesav is an external device used to get unusual results that you could get without it, just much faster

Still sounds the same to me. If one's a cheat, the other's a cheat.

Please remember, I'm not trying to say PRNG is "bad". I'm just trying to say it's just like AR.

IV.

Calculator.

 

[Darkflagrance]

You know, there is actually a distinction between ARs and calculators that "external device" does not really touch on.

The AR modifies the actual game you play so that you are no longer playing it, because it modifies the coding. If the coding defines the game (which it might not, this is just my conjecture etc) then the AR-modded DS game is akin to a different game, even if it is not termed that way conventionally.

However, PRNG manipulation is ultimately done without adulterating the code. Therefore, it is within the confines of the game that we play, which is pokemon as packaged by Nintendo.

 

[Mentlegen]

Im typing this from my DSI so Im gonna keep it short.

first, a metagame is the standard method (in pokemon, it would be team type like offensive, stall, etc.) of winning a competitive game. this can be pokemon, but it could also be CoD or Guild Wars, or any other game with a PVP type play-style.

In most competitive games, they keep the metagame from stabilizing by making it easy to get the top of the line gear for different strategies, but for pokemon this isnt the case.

if one were to try to IV/EV train 6 pokemon for one team, it would take a long time without RNG-abuse, right?

The way to keep the competitive pokemon metagame from stabilizing is making it relatively easy for a dedicated player make teams for new strategies quickly. The easiest way would be using an AR, but since that is obviously cheating, the easiest legit way is RNG-abuse.

so thats how I see RNG-abuse, a way to keep the metagame from stabilizing, and therefore keeping the game interesting.

 

[xabu1]

IMO the difference is that with an AR and Pokesav, you force the game to certain numbers that might not have been possible within the game's means, with the RNG, it is just a way to get to a certain point in the game, with the RNG, you would get there eventually, you would just have to wait alot longer and hatch alot more eggs, the RNG skips the eggs, AR forces the values
and if you have a problem with the RNG reporter, then you should have a problem with IV calculators and damage calculators, heck that is like having a problem with ALL calculators, the RNG reporter is just a claculator to do the math for you, someone had to have figured out the equations and put them into the RNG reporter, so anyone who knows the equations would have been able to do everyhting by hand. there is no way that using the RNG reporter and advancing the RNG is cheating, AR and pokesav, are.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I think this point is worth repeating:

In normal gameplay, you're stopping the PRNG at certain points in time. In "PRNG abuse," you're stopping the PRNG at certain points in time, only you're looking for particular points in time. That doesn't sound dirty to me.

Besides, "PRNG abuse" does its thing all within the constraints of the game (the numbers are generated in the same manner as always). Action Replay can change the constraints. I don't see how they're the same at all.

 

[Space Guard]

IMO, its definetaley not cheating, as your not using external devices, but merely exploting something in-game. IMHO, it is totally possible for someone to accidently get a Shiny Pokémon through Pokétch taps and the like, your not using an external codes or modifiying anything within the game itself. using the logic that RNG is 'cheating' then surely breeding any Pokémon in-game is 'cheating', since they are largely created using the RNG also..

Just my small view :)

 

[Atomic Theory]

I found this in site with a similar debate

Based on your previous post that basically says "RNG is or is not cheating". EV training and IV breeding is NOT how, you say, what Nintendo intended to happen in their game. But it did. Why? Because of research. Now, you say RNG is cheating, because of that sole reason, that it is not "intended to be that way". EV training is cheating and IV breeding is cheating because it isn't what was intended at all. Yes Nintendo created EVs and IVs, HOWEVER, they did not expect players to actually abuse it and utilize it to make their Pokemon even stronger than usual. If you say RNG alters the game, I can safely say EV training and IV breeding alters it as well, especially the Pokemon you want.

Intriguing but somewhat hard to understand

Logic, is it true or false. Anyone? Comments?

 

[MegaMewtwo]

I found this in site with a similar debate

Based on your previous post that basically says "RNG is or is not cheating". EV training and IV breeding is NOT how, you say, what Nintendo intended to happen in their game. But it did. Why? Because of research. Now, you say RNG is cheating, because of that sole reason, that it is not "intended to be that way". EV training is cheating and IV breeding is cheating because it isn't what was intended at all. Yes Nintendo created EVs and IVs, HOWEVER, they did not expect players to actually abuse it and utilize it to make their Pokemon even stronger than usual. If you say RNG alters the game, I can safely say EV training and IV breeding alters it as well, especially the Pokemon you want.

Intriguing but somewhat hard to understand

Logic, is it true or false. Anyone? Comments?

I'd like to point out that Nintendo's been dropping hints as to IVs as far back as Stadium. In the manual, one piece of advice it gave was "catch a few of the same Pokemon, see which one best suits what it's for" or something similar, I don't have the manual anymore.

And the official guides lately talk about EV training, they even call them EVs.

To be honest, I dislike RNG abuse, but it appears I'm in the vast minority here.

EDIT: Something else I saw here that I have issues with:

Arguing about legality is pointless in this topic. Any pokemon obtained through RNG abuse will be legitimate in a tournament. Therefore the argument in this topic is primarily whether the "unfair" advantage given to people who've taken the time to study the game's internal coding mechanisms is moral or immoral. Your argument that RNG abuse is cheating is a moral argument, not a legal one. You are, to put it bluntly, a scrub in this matter.

I don't think "tournament legality" should be the driving force of thought here. Pokemon from hacked parents will also pass as legit in a tournament, but hardly anyone here approves of that. There was a thread a while back where someone tried to give away something from hacked parents, and they didn't get a very positive response.

Also, I imagine a Pokemon that had its IVs hacked and its PID hacked to match the IV combination would get into tournaments. Is anyone here going to approve of doing that? I doubt it.

 

[Jikos]

abusing the RNG is not cheating because you are confined to the parameters of the game and thus playing by its intended rules. No data is being overwritten and no memory is being changed.

You answered your own question.

 

[Rook]

Atomic Theory: That's false. There was an interview with Gamefreak (I think) on the previous page. They clearly said, they wanted us to figure that stuff out, and then exploit it.

As for RNG, I don't think it's cheating. Let's some kid walks up to Dialga, gets lucky and get's an extremely good spread. You may say this is very unlikely, but it will never happen for soft reseters. If you read the RNG thread, you'll know why. So the kid, provided he had luck, he got the fantastic Dialga.

What I'm trying to say is, RNG kind of puts everyone on an even platform, unlike luck would. All they're doing is exploiting what is already in the game. Not rewriting the game's code. Now you could say you need an external device (RNG Repoter), but in reality you don't. Technically, you could do the equations yourself. But good luck rewriting the game's code. And for the people who think it should be done the old-fashioned way, I think RNG abuse requires more skill than regular breeding. Why? Your breeding "skill" is just devoting a bunch of time trying to get lucky. Not hitting a button down to the 60th of a second.

 

[BoozeVGC]

Ok, I was wrong about the "external device" you need anyway computer if you catch pokemon without RNG abuse to find out their IVs, I was wrong about that. But the thing about PRNG abuse is just like a program.


AR=Modifying/Generating Random Numbers.
PRNG=Exploiting to modify random numbers.


So really, AR is just a faster way of PRNG abuse. When you, let's say put an IV modifier into AR and go catch a wild pokemon that will come up 31/31/31/31/31/31, well, we know it is hacked and you're doing that the wrong way.

But when you enter some information into the RNG reporter and it gives you 31/31/31/31/31/31 it's just telling you how to cheat the game to get that spread basically.(Do X amount of journal flips) isn't this just like pressing certain buttons on an AR to get that spread? Both are telling you what to "perform" in order to get those spreads.


Keep in mind , I don't think RNG abuse is necissarily cheating, but rather, discouraging and a glitch.

 

[turtwigpal]

Keep in mind , I don't think RNG abuse is necissarily cheating, but rather, discouraging and a glitch.

Glitches are things that are in games that can or can't be exploited that were not intended to be in the game. The RNG was intended to be in the game, otherwise everyone's Pokemon would be the same.

On abusing the RNG, I don't think it's cheating. It's kinda like science and human curiosity, where we have certain objects, and explore what they're made of and how they work, just like cracking the RNG.

 

[X-Act]

Is it possible that the RNG generates a 31/31/31/31/31/31 Modest Azelf? Yes, it is possible. So suppose I load up my game and catch such an Azelf normally, without any outside help. Would you call me a cheater? Most people probably would... even though I caught my Azelf with no cheating whatsoever.

My personal belief is that if something in the game is possible, it is legal. I don't care if the odds are ridiculously low. If I caught my Azelf legitimately, you can too. Hence, you shouldn't take 2465 years to do it: if I did it in 10 minutes, you should too. I would actually use a cheating device to get such an Azelf.

Let's face it, it doesn't make sense that I have an edge over you in battling just because I was lucky when I caught my Azelf and you weren't.

 

[Rayne Sylvan]

I think it's interesting that all the people who claim that abusing the RNG is "not how the game is meant to be played" are perfectly happy to soft reset for a legend the hard way, which is also very likely not how the developers intended you to catch legends.

Also, I keep laughing out loud every time I read a post where someone claims to know with perfect certainty what the developers did or did not intend =/

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Ok, I was wrong about the "external device" you need anyway computer if you catch pokemon without RNG abuse to find out their IVs, I was wrong about that. But the thing about PRNG abuse is just like a program.


AR=Modifying/Generating Random Numbers.
PRNG=Exploiting to modify random numbers.


So really, AR is just a faster way of PRNG abuse. When you, let's say put an IV modifier into AR and go catch a wild pokemon that will come up 31/31/31/31/31/31, well, we know it is hacked and you're doing that the wrong way.

But when you enter some information into the RNG reporter and it gives you 31/31/31/31/31/31 it's just telling you how to cheat the game to get that spread basically.(Do X amount of journal flips) isn't this just like pressing certain buttons on an AR to get that spread? Both are telling you what to "perform" in order to get those spreads.


Keep in mind , I don't think RNG abuse is necissarily cheating, but rather, discouraging and a glitch.

You still have to do the work in order to get that Pokemon to appear. In your example, the Action Replay is doing all the work--all you have to do is catch it.

Either way, with "PRNG abuse," you're never going to be able to catch an Adamant 31/31/31/31/31/31 Dialga no matter how much you try. That's the difference IMO; "PRNG abuse" stays within the limits of the PRNG, but Action Replay does not.

 

[Goodbar]

I'm not sure if this point has been made, but a lot of the information required to realize PRNG abuse required hacking into the game. In a world with just our Pokemon carts and nothing else, PRNG abuse wouldn't exist (besides Emerald breeding to an extent). So yes, I think it's pretty much as "hacky" as AR, pokesav, etc, the hacking was just done all at once. But mind you, I don't think gaining that knowledge was a bad thing, and if I ever got back into wifi, I would prefer abused Pokemon just for the sake of seeing it be captured/bred kinda like old school and still have a battle-ready Pokemon.

 

[obi]

To say that it's cheating is to say that you can do something and it's not cheating, but if you do the exact same thing except with knowledge of what you're doing, it suddenly is cheating. That doesn't seem like a consistent definition of cheating.

 

[Darkflagrance]

I'm not sure if this point has been made, but a lot of the information required to realize PRNG abuse required hacking into the game. In a world with just our Pokemon carts and nothing else, PRNG abuse wouldn't exist (besides Emerald breeding to an extent). So yes, I think it's pretty much as "hacky" as AR, pokesav, etc, the hacking was just done all at once. But mind you, I don't think gaining that knowledge was a bad thing, and if I ever got back into wifi, I would prefer abused Pokemon just for the sake of seeing it be captured/bred kinda like old school and still have a battle-ready Pokemon.

To more clearly state the argument, Mr_Goodbar is saying that the means does not justify the ends. PRNG required hacking (which is unethical) to learn, and is therefore unethical, the same way people sometimes object to data obtained in unethical experiments.

Of course, I don't think this is a good argument, primarily because I don't consider such things unethical.

 

[mattj]

You still have to do the work in order to get that Pokemon to appear. In your example, the Action Replay is doing all the work--all you have to do is catch it.

In the case of PRNG abuse you aren't doing all the work. The program is doing most of the work (calculations) and you are just doing what it told you to do (flip a coin/page X amount of times). In the case of AR, you have to look up IV codes and whatnot on the internet and then download or in some cases manually input them into your AR. The AR does most of the work, but you're still doing some. Just my opinion, but it still sounds the too similar to me.

I think this whole thread has really come down to splitting hairs. If you happened to have supported RNG before this thread you split them one way. I you happened to have not supported RNG before this thread you split them the other way. If you're a smartaleck and are just jerking everybody's chain, you split it one way one time and the other way the other time.

On that last note, I heard an interesting debate on the radio that might apply to this one. It involves swimsuit technology at the World Swimming Championship going on right now in ...?Italy?...I think that's where they said it was. It's completely accepted in the competitive swimming community to study and scrutinize an individual swimmer's technique with all the latest technology (videotaping them and then analyzing them second by second to find flaws in their swimming technique and looking for every single millisecond they could save), but this year they announced that the new speedo swimsuit would be banned from later competitions because it singlehandedly caused dozens and dozens of World Records to be broken by those that were wairing it. It alone gives people who would otherwise not have won an edge over all the competition.

Sound familiar?

 

[Nightmare]

I equivilate the RNG Reporter to a strategy guide or a random insert code: It's the same as using any guide or anything you've ever used to a video game. It doesn't affect the game in any matter.

I have also found a way to get a Flamethrower Latios in-game without the use of any type of cheating device (granted an earlier version of the game, but not an R4 or Pokesav or anything).

These things happen. Are they legal and should they be used? I'd be stupid if I didn't use my Flamethrower Latios that I obtained legally on people.

Tournaments, another matter. The group running it has to make it fair to everybody involved, which Nintendo and to some degree the Smogon people do for their individual tournament.

Also, don't worry: There won't be a Poketch for HG/SS, so there won't be RNG abuse in that game for some time, and game designers will fix things that people break in their eyes. Enjoy it while you can in Platinum.

-James

 

[Zeo]

I don't think is cheating, why? Speed runners do this kinda of stuff on instinct, if Pokemon wasn't so complicated that it was beyond subconscious processing to do this, then it wouldn't even be being discussed. Its ridiculous to compare this to Action Replay, where you are MODIFYING GAME CODE VARIABLES. Cracking the random number generator is the same as decrypting the the stats level up/boss HP algorithms/values when you can;t see your stats, which a lot of RPGS do. That's knowing your game inside and out, NOT cheating, like an action replay is.

 

[InfernoTowel]

Honestly, if EVERYONE could do it EASILY, I would say yes. Just have a team of RNG abused and a team of Non-RNG abused and use them depending on what the other person has.

Honestly, overall it kind of is, because it's random for a reason.

 

[Deck Knight]

EDIT: Something else I saw here that I have issues with:
I don't think "tournament legality" should be the driving force of thought here. Pokemon from hacked parents will also pass as legit in a tournament, but hardly anyone here approves of that. There was a thread a while back where someone tried to give away something from hacked parents, and they didn't get a very positive response.

But the hacked parents still require changing the actual game coding through AR. Using such a device is required somewhere along the path. Even still though, a pokemon bred legitimately from two hacked parents is not going to have perfect IVs.

I can think of no more objective a standard than tournament legality. There are an infinite number of subjective standards we could use. For instance, our standard could be Pokemon that have more than 20 Spe IV and are green is cheating, because green is the color of grass and grass is immobile.

Ease of access is irrelevant. Is it easy to access top level tournaments? No, it isn't? Why? Because people in high tournaments have better skills. Should good players be forced to use 1 UU pokemon because allowing the US champion to use 6 of any pokemon makes him too hard to beat?

Also, I imagine a Pokemon that had its IVs hacked and its PID hacked to match the IV combination would get into tournaments. Is anyone here going to approve of doing that? I doubt it.

I don't have any such advices but I imagine tourney officials could check that.

Using the PRNG gets you a valid, repeatable result without altering the game's code or variables. Some people just get lucky. I always soft reset my starter, and refuse to start with one that has 19HP or less. We might as well be arguing pokemon that use the Super Luck ability are cheating because they increase the internal probability of a game-changing result.

Pokemon is a game of luck, right down to the selection of your starter pokemon in FirstTownVille. If you have an unfair advantage because of luck, I guess your opponent will just have to deal. If there is a stunning upset in a tournament in which every one of a player's attacks critical hits their opponent, who misses with each attack under 90% accuracy, do they rule the game invalid? As far as I'm aware, they do not.

This entire topic can be boiled down to two camps:

Those that "feel" than PRNG use is cheating, and those who believe if it's in the game's code, it's legit.

Feelings are for scrubs. No one ever won a serious tournament by feeling that XYZ characters' 6-6-B combo was cheap, and therefore cheating. Nor, in a non-fighting related example, did a tournament result ever get thrown out because of a critical hit at a crucial moment.

You didn't have to learn wavedashing in Melee either. You just shouldn't have expected to win any tournaments without that tech skill.

Obligatory shoutout to Sirlin here.

 

[Atomic Theory]

Yet another confusing logic.

Point is, RNG deals with values, and so does EVs and IVs. If RNG is cheating because it "manipulates" then consider EV training and IV breeding cheating, because it also manipulates. EV training and IV breeding is also external because you deal with math, in the same way this RNG does it. EVs were there ever since and so were IVs. Players discovered it and abused it. Nintendo didn't expect it and had to deal with it. RNG is a rather recent discovery, and it will follow the same flow. RNG has been there ever since and the players did one hell of a research. And so far, I see nothing about Nintendo making a fuss out of it.

And about the "timing" part, that can't be compared with critical hits. Because critical hits are done in the midst of battle. I doubt your Pokemon will live long enough to get every single Thunder attack hit with 100% accuracy.


Anyway, I conclude this debate with the following statements: RNG is by no means a hack, a glitch, or a cheat. It gives advantage, yes, but in a LEGAL and LEGITIMATE way as compared to Pokesav and Action Replay. In the same way we can say IV breeding and EV training gives advantage as well over those who play the game as "it was intended" to be played.

I leave it to the audience to determine who's logic is actually flawed here.

Guys, people here really want to compare EV/IV with RNG.

Comments? Reactions or Violent Reactions?

RNG is Cheating or not Cheating that is the question