Data ASB Gym League Signup Thread+Rewards system Included [Update RE: Training Items]

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Its_A_Random

A distant memory
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It was mentioned somewhere that the minimum is 3v3 for singles & 4v4 for Doubles. So your answer, I'm afraid, is no. Someone should edit this into the OP...

Also, C$FP & I are awaiting a (GL Approved) ref...

CURRENT QUEUE (2)

Its_A_Random (Challenger) vs. C$FP (Leader)
Rediamond (Challenger) vs. Korski (Leader)
 
I'll also get in line for C$FP's queue. This should be an interesting match :)
gfdi, my two first challengers are two gym leaders whose types are super-effective against mine... anyway, I accept your challenge, and here are the rules we'll use:

3v3 Singles
2 Day DQ
Switch=KO
Items On
All Abilities
2 Substitutions
2 Recoveries/5 Chills per mon
 
I can't quite accept your challenge yet Solstice. SDS, for whatever reason, has yet to fully approve me. If you can get him to do so, then I'll accept your challenge.
 

Engineer Pikachu

Good morning, you bastards!
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I challenge that bastard Engineer Pikachu's Poison Gym extravaganza!
Yeah, things still haven't been sorted out but it won't hurt to take on another challenge.

3v3 Singles (B3P3 for Challenger, B8P3 for Leader)
DQ: 72 Hours
Switch: OK
Items: ON
Abilities: ONE
Substitutions: TWO
Infinite Recovers / chills
Turn Order: Coinflip
 

Korski

Distilled, 80 proof
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Hello everyone, I know we've only very slightly begun with this whole gymstravaganza business, but I think even at this early stage it's apparent to me at least that there are a few problems with the way things are playing out. First and foremost, imo, are the clear and formidable arena advantages of several of these gym arenas for the Gym Leaders. Now I'll preface the rest of this post by stating that I do not think my own arena is immune to some of these concerns, but I will reference its particular qualities as examples, since I know them best. I'm not trying to be an asshole. That said, when I look through some of the arenas I see quite a bit of overcompensation for potential counter-teaming, and the overcompensation takes on pretty much two forms.

The first is the "B8P3vB3P3" format. This system is admirably designed to avoid counterteaming by the Challenger, but when you look at the diversity of secondary typings, the uniquely advantageous Abilities, and the vastness and variety of movepools for most of the GLs' Pokemon, the B8P3vB3P3 format actually seems more like an opportunity for the GL to counterteam the challenger.

The second is the nerfing of types that can damage the gym's theme-type super-effectively. While I understand the anxiety around having a Steel or Electric or Rock-type gym and facing a team of all Ground-types, there just isn't any way that three or more Pokes on a GL's team can't handle a type disadvantage in any way, be it by secondary typing, movepool, Ability, or even by Item. Cutting the BAP of incoming SE attacks is skirting the line of unfairly removing legitimate tactical options from the challengers, while all the while the GL is free to pick on every last weakness the challengers' Pokes may have.

Most of the gym battles so far have included both of these elements, and from the (not-completely undeserving) blowouts (but still...) we've seen so far it's clear to me that together these GL advantages make the Gym League pretty futile to try and get through unless your plan is to mirror-match every gym AND outplay "the best" battlers in ASB. If I were to make a suggestion, then I'd say one or the other of these things is just fine because having both breaks your gym and each are tremendously advantageous if you agree with my previous two paragraphs. In my gym I've given myself a sizable advantage by allowing myself two teammates with which to counterteam my opponent and an extra mindgame boost with Zoroark's Illusion Ability. Beyond that, I am aware that, exactly like the other GLs, my Darkmons are amongst the "best-trained" Pokes in ASB and have the movepools, stats, typings, etc. to not get dumptrucked by a team of Heracrosses (my match with Rediamond will be a close and fair fight, despite his counter-teaming me probably as best as possible, because of my aforementioned advantages), so I leave it at that. Electric-types have Magnet Rise, or better yet Levitate. Flying-types have Roost. Bronzong has no weaknesses. Everything learns Counter. You get the point.

That's not even considering perma-weather or made-up weather or arbitrary move restrictions based on typing or other things that add even further to the uncompetitiveness of the Gym League as it stands. The root of the problem, in my opinion, is the pressure on us GLs to win 3 out of our first 5 matches (or 50+% of total matches at all times) or else face deposition or challenge for our positions. Of course, given near-complete freedom to manipulate our own battle conditions, we would overcompensate for theoried weaknesses, especially since monotype teams are more or less a competitive joke in every other aspect of Pokemon and that's how we all think of them.

There is another problem with this 50% rule in that I imagine we will one day expect to have an E4 and an ASB Champion, but with overwhelming arenas and each GL winning a majority or vast majority of battles, there won't be anyone around long enough to spend the years, yes, calendar years it would take to challenge and rechallenge (statistically likely due to the rule) the gyms, wait in the queues, go through the weeks-at-time battles, and actually earn enough victories to get to that point. Players with the goal of becoming Champion would be too easily discouraged by 17 gyms where you strategically suffer for using SE moves AND get counterteamed by 50+ move monsters. As the League stands so far, I don't think I would be very hopeful trying to make any kind of progress toward earning "badges" (not mentioned anywhere, btw; maybe no one's expected to ever get one?); instead I would probably just use it for the counters and a neat, one-or-two-time experience.

50% W/L should not be the minimum; it should be the goal. If you've won 10/10 gym matches as GL, your gym is broken and needs to be fixed, and if you're 1/10 as GL, you are being too easy on your opponents. I don't see anyone out there spending months and months building up a strong team of Dark-types just in case I lose my first 3 battles as GL, so I think this rule should be abolished along with any shame or hurt pride or whatever that could come out of losing a gym battle as GL. A "lifetime appointment" as GL in this forum is not going to step on anyone's toes; in fact, most of the folks who lost their GL battles have quit or politely stepped aside (I said most), so the next time the issue of "taking turns" comes up will be when we've already got 17 full gyms up and running AND THEN someone new wants in on the GL game. In the meantime we can enjoy an RP that is damn near impossible to beat instead of completely not worth trying at all.

EDIT because Jesseus mentioned it on IRC: To any "just testing so chill out" responses, I would just respond that you don't test out different cars by driving them all at once. How will you know what to cut when any one aspect could push your advantage overboard? The goal of this post, besides to take the weeks-long conversation off IRC and onto the forum, is to remind the other GLs and gym mods that ASB is designed mechanically to limit unfairness and inequality as much as possible while still allowing for variety and strategy to keep things interesting. That is why I belive it's so unessary to take such strong precautions against potential threats. I like clever and/or unusual arenas, but when it comes to an arena's competitive aspects I'd rather lose a fair fight than win a fixed one, and I think the arenas currently being "tested" and counted toward the GLs' official W/L records are more fixed than they are fair.
 
It's worth noting that I don't actually consider "this is just a test" a valid excuse for what's happening here, it's been apparent for ages (long before the Gyms actually opened) that Gyms were gonna be broken.
I agree with Korski 100%.
 
I agree, but 50/50 being the goal is only appropriate depending on how strong challengers have to be to not be denied by the gym committee. I promise, if I beat both IAR and Kaxtar, I will absolutely make it easier for challengers against my gym, but I will probably make adjustments if I win one of those matches. If I lose both, then it would be simply unwise of me to make it easier to lose.
 

Its_A_Random

A distant memory
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Just posting to say that, true to my word, now that the mock-Gym Battle is finished, the Ground-Type Gym is now pending approval from the the Gym Administration, so you lot may soon be able to fuck me over with your Water-Types/whatever!
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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Alright folks, you should know you have to monitor arenas far, far better than you are doing.

Explain to me the following:


Athenodoros:

-No plant life
-PermaRain, which can only be altered with the help of the weather rocks
-Dig users hit by Surf
-Fly/Bounce/Sky Drop users/victims (in the case of Sky Drop) take 5 Ice Damage, adjusted for type
-Ice-type Stealth Rock
-Electric attacks suffer -5 Base Power while the rain is up, and -2 otherwise.

The italicized here are fine in my estimation considering it's a water-based arena. The bolded are ridiculous.

Water is the largest type in the game. There are no less than 7 Fully Evolved Water types completely immune to Electric (Seaking, Quagsire, Lanturn, Swampert, Whiscash, Gastrodon, and Seismitoad) and several more neutral to it which just happen to be asskickin' in Rain (Kingdra, Ludicolo, Wash Rotom). The idea you can counterteam Water is nuts.

dogfish44:

- Electricity in the sand means that electric types are always under the effect of charge.
- The sand reduces the BP of Seismic attacks by 3, and gives Dig a -3 Priority to tunnel down, and -4 to surface.
- Attacks which require natural sunlight cannot work.
- Attacks which cannot work in an artificial environment do work, but paralyse the user 5% of the time as if hit by Thunder Wave, since the "Nature" is electric.
- Nature Power is treated as Shock Wave.
- There is a constant rainfall in the arena, which is unchangable.
- Mud Sport is washed away at the end of each round.


The vast majority of this stuff is fine, but given the fact every Electric has access to Magnet Rise bar Lanturn which does just fine in rain, Electric types really don't need to have +3 BAP -- Acc Thunders with constant +1 SpD, especially when their only natural weakness is equally nerfed.

Engineer Pikachu:

If you want to make Chills like Regenerator with the +6 HP fine, but axe the +6 EN. The rest of the arena is quite balanced.

Kaxtar:

This one seems the most balanced. A little busy but not much bad.

C$FP:

Constant Shrapnel weather (2 DPA on anything that isn't part Steel)
Steel types have constant Magnet Rise effect
Sandstorm and Rain may occur in addition to the Shrapnel, but no Hail or Sun
Dig can only be used by Steel mons (and Ground mons by virtue of STAB description
BAP of Fire attacks reduced by 3

One of the two bolded things should go, your choice. Magnet Rise isn't as powerful as it is in-game, but it's still plenty strong.

Korski:

Pretty complicated, but not unbalanced.

In any case, you should as a committee know you can't just eliminate all the type weaknesses of your Gym through arena effects. I trust you to monitor this in the future and not allow such blatant weakness lowering in the future.
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
I've already sent off a PM to the other two and SDS with an arena, where both of those are removed. In fact, most of it was. I'm still waiting to hear back, but I'll probably self-approve or something if I can get on the internet properly to actually get on IRC and things.
 

Dogfish44

You can call me Jiggly
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Sure, I've been after a legitimate reason to drop arena power.

Lowering the BP decrease on Seismic Attacks (Bone Rush etc. still work) to 2 (Like I suggested, but Kax overruled), shifting Dig to simply be a -0.5 to dig down and the usual to surface, and removing the free charge in exchange for charge being learnt by all electric types, and lasting 9 actions.

Is that suitable?
 

Athenodoros

Official Smogon Know-It-All
Arright, an announcement:

My gym is ready and rearing to go!

I've picked which attributes the gym is going to have, and here is the tl;dr:

-Everyone brings 8
-No plant life
-Default weather is Rain (i.e. Sunny Day works, but when it ends it goes back to rain.)
-Best of Three, alternating sending out first and then blind send out - 2v2 Doubles + 2v2 Doubles + 1v1 Singles (If necessary)
-All Pokemon on each side must share a type in each battle, and can't be used in more than one battle


I'll edit this in to the OP.

Also, about gym difficulties: this first round of gymming (a nice verb I've just decided on) was always about working out how hard to make everything. We decided to err on the side of caution, and that we'd look at it to see how it works afterwards. As it is, they do look too hard, although I don't feel that lowering it too much would be that good an idea. But we'll think about it later and work out exactly where they need to be, once we look at how each gym went.
 
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