5th Gen Sleep Clause Implementation

[eric the espeon]

Since this was recently brought up in the Clauses in Generation V thread, and has significant potential to bring that thread off topic, I thought it was best to move to a separate thread. Important background reading is this thread. Making a good Sleep Clause is not as easy as it may seem.

I think that most players can agree that an ideal Sleep Clause would have the following attributes (though feel free to suggest changes):

1. Prevent sleep from becoming an overbearing strategy.
If we implement a Sleep Clause the first thought is to prevent sleep based strategies being overpowered. We do not need to force sleep to be unusable, or necessarily to prevent multiple Pokemon from being put to sleep.

2. Be consistent with ingame mechanics.
If there is no "hard" Sleep Clause (one which simply causes sleep moves to fail after one Pokemon is asleep), then we should not interfere with mechanics and cause the move to fail when ingame it would not. Likewise, we cannot force sleep moves to miss or extra effects to not activate.

3. Be fairly simple both for the user and in programing terms, and have a clear answer to every situation.
An overly complicated Sleep Clause will be harder to implement, more problematic for users to work with, and in all likelihood more arbitrary and prone to interpretation.

4. To not interfere with the game more than necessary.
The aim of a game of Pokemon is to defeat your opponent's six (or fewer in some metagames) Pokemon. I think it would be counterproductive, distracting, confusing, and harmful to introduce a second forcible win condition. If you can force your opponent to break the Sleep Clause, even only in fairly unusual situations, and win without KOing your opponent's Pokemon I think there is a flaw in the ruleset. Additionally, the Sleep Clause should not remove any more non-broken strategies than required to have a consistent, simple, all encompassing rule.

5. To avoid adding an extra element of chance.
I think that having a clause which is "lose if your Sleep Powder hits, don't otherwise", or "lose if your opponent runs Serene Grace Blissey, don't otherwise" adds a very artificial and arbitrary layer of strategy to the metagame. Ideally, the clause would deal with situations like this fairly without causing coin toss wins based not on the actual mechanics, but on a clause we make.

And to give you a few examples to consider (one Pokemon has already been put to sleep on Player B's side in each case):

Player A's Pokemon uses Magic Coat and reflects Sleep back.
What if Player A knew that the foe had no other option but to use a sleep move?
What if Player A did not know the foe had a sleep move?
What if Player A were choice locked/encored/out of PP on all other moves and trapped?
What if the foe had a Lum Berry/other way to circumvent sleep (e.g. Shed Skin activated)?
What if Player A knew the foe had a Lum Berry (it could have been tricked on, or found by frisk) and needed to have it deactivated for another strategy (burn it with another Pokemon)?

Magic Coat's, and by extension Magic Mirror's, case is interesting in that it requires both players to make a specific move in order to cause a double sleep (note: I do not say break the Sleep Clause, since that is up to us). It's not a simple chance like many possible violations.


Player A's Pokemon uses Metronome/Assist/Sleep Talk/other move which may call a sleep move indirectly (non forced).

These can be seen two ways. Either you could say that since it has a chance of putting the opponent to sleep, it should be disallowed for consistency despite none of the strategies that could be based upon them being remotely broken. Or you could say that the move selected does not actually cause the foe to go to sleep, that it calls a separate attack, so that with the correct wording there is no need to call these violations of the Sleep Clause.

Player A's Pokemon uses Yawn (non forced) and Player B does not switch out (non forced).

Again, there are two possible viewpoints for the scenario. First, you could argue that since Player B had the option to switch out it is not Player A's "fault", and they should not be punished. Player B could have avoided it. However, Player A did use the move which put a second of Player B's Pokemon to sleep, so it is also reasonable to argue that since they could have avoided it the rule should find in Player B's favor.

Player A's Pokemon's Effect Spore activates and puts the foe to sleep.

This is an interesting case, a small chance to put something to sleep each turn you have the Pokemon in (assuming they hit you with a contact move). I do not think anyone could argue that Effect Spore sleep is broken, however Player A could have avoided the situation by switching out. The Effect Spore Pokemon would still be back in play at the end, as the last Pokemon, but at this point they have no choice but to keep it in, so having the sleep clause activate would be, technically, a forcible win which I believe is best avoided.


There are several other tricky situations, especially in doubles or triples, but I believe there is a version of the clause which will cover all the niche situations in one, prevent sleep from being an overbearing strategy, be simple enough, and give a clear answer while not allowing any forcible wins.

A player may not select an attack which has a chance to directly cause more than one opposing Pokemon to have been put to sleep directly by a move used by their team unless no other move is selectable.​

Directly is defined as having a % chance to cause sleep in the move data. Calling another move is not considered to be directly causing sleep, nor is anything related to abilities or reflection of sleep moves.

On a simulator a player attempting to use a move which violates the Sleep Clause would receive a warning, and they would lose if they chose to go ahead and make the move anyway. On wifi, they would lose the game for selecting a move which may directly cause a second direct sleep.

This eliminates all forcible wins, is fairly simple to understand, prevents the kind of likely broken strategies we aim to avoid, gives a clear answer in every situation (please try and prove me wrong on this one, lets make it watertight), and even eliminates the extra luck/unknown information dependent wins as far as I can see.

 

[Syberia]

So you're saying that something like using Rest/Psycho Shift Cress to put 2 or more pokemon to sleep would not be illegal? In a specific case like this, it is clearly the user's intention to try and bend the rules, regardless of which move ends up picking the sleep. In fact, some people like Xerxes for those of you who watch YouTube, only run 3 moves on Cress for a greater chance of putting something to sleep.

If we cannot, for pedantic reasons, use the "sleep move fails" implementation, then I still like the old "if you put two of the opponent's pokemon to sleep, you lose" version. The Magic Coat / Magic Mirror problem is easily solved with the argument
that, technically, it was your own move that put something on your own team to sleep. We've never included intentional sleep (Rest) as part of the clause before, so why should we start doing that now?

If you're going to start trying to bend the rules by using Assist or Sleep Talk, you're doing so full well knowing that you take the risk of losing if the wrong move is selected.

The only exception to this rule that I can think of is if you are trapped and Encored into using the sleep move more than once, by way of Lum Berry Wobbuffet or something specifically designed for the purpose. In that case, it can be said that you didn't use the sleep move, but your opponent made you do it, and thus you did not violate sleep clause. The only potentially questionable case would be if your opponent did something like sending in Dugtrio on your scarf Breloom's Spore, trapping you and forcing you to use it again next turn as they switched. Did you assume the risk by using Spore, having seen your opponent's team beforehand and knowing they had a Dugtrio, or did they assume the risk by giving you no choice except to put two of their things to sleep? This is different from the encore scenario, as in that one it would be the opponent who did everything to force you to put two things to sleep, but here you're the one carrying the choice item and they're the one with the trapper.

 

[Hipmonlee]

At the end of every turn, if more than one pokemon is asleep on one side, and if at least two of those pokemon were put asleep by enemy moves, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then that side automatically wins. If both sides qualify, the game ends as a draw

This was Cathy's formulation for Sleep Clause, which aside from the extremely slight possibility of causing a draw (which basically requires collusion between two players to happen at this point) is pretty solid.

Have a nice day.

 

[eric the espeon]

One key point, you twice bring up the idea of "bending the rules". So long as the result does not break the rules, it is acceptable. The clause (my version or any other that would be reasonable to implement) gives a simple legal/illegal response for each situation. There are no bent rules or gray area, players should do the best they can within whatever rules there are. The last example you brought up, Choiced sleep against a trapper, shows the problems of trying to identify "intentionality". Unless you come up with an extremely convoluted version of the sleep clause, there is no reasonable way to cover intentionality perfectly. The underlying purpose of a sleep clause is not to prevent you from putting two of your opponent's Pokemon to sleep no matter how it happens, but to prevent sleep from being a broken strategy by limiting the situations which two Pokemon on the same side can be asleep at once. Because of this, intentionality can be made entirely irrelevant which vastly simplifies the clause while still being able to keep the most important benefits.

If we cannot, for pedantic reasons, use the "sleep move fails" implementation, then I still like the old "if you put two of the opponent's pokemon to sleep, you lose" version. The Magic Coat / Magic Mirror problem is easily solved with the argument
that, technically, it was your own move that put something on your own team to sleep. We've never included intentional sleep (Rest) as part of the clause before, so why should we start doing that now?

And Effect Spore? How about using Sleep Talk, surely that introduces a larger and more artificial luck element if the entire game can be given away by chance, despite Pokemon remaining? Assist? How does that clause handle situations where two foes are put to sleep, but one wakes up before the end of the turn? Magic Mirror and Coat are to an extent covered by the argument you presented.. but it seems somewhat contrived to allow Magic Coating a sleep move, but not to allow Sleep Talking it. In both cases something outside your control is required for a "sleep inducing move" to be called at all. Maybe some variant of this is workable, but you have to be very careful with the wording and have it immediately applicable to any situation with an obvious conclusion.

If you're going to start trying to bend the rules by using Assist or Sleep Talk, you're doing so full well knowing that you take the risk of losing if the wrong move is selected.

I ask this, is a three move Psycho Shift Cresselia (or any other Psycho Shift sleep Pokemon), an Spore/Assist team, or anything of that kind extremely likely to be broken? If the answer is no, then why on earth should a player using those strategies have to risk losing at any point? Just because they appear to be violating the old sleep clause does not mean they are "bending the rules" if the rules allow it.

The only exception to this rule that I can think of is if you are trapped and Encored into using the sleep move more than once, by way of Lum Berry Wobbuffet or something specifically designed for the purpose. In that case, it can be said that you didn't use the sleep move, but your opponent made you do it, and thus you did not violate sleep clause. The only potentially questionable case would be if your opponent did something like sending in Dugtrio on your scarf Breloom's Spore, trapping you and forcing you to use it again next turn as they switched. Did you assume the risk by using Spore, having seen your opponent's team beforehand and knowing they had a Dugtrio, or did they assume the risk by giving you no choice except to put two of their things to sleep? This is different from the encore scenario, as in that one it would be the opponent who did everything to force you to put two things to sleep, but here you're the one carrying the choice item and they're the one with the trapper.

We cannot measure what something is "designed to do" with any objective metric, and all clauses must give clear objective answers to any situation. I argue that if there is no other selectable move, no matter who's fault it appears to be, the sleep clause should not punish players for double sleeping. Unless you consider those two situations to be the same, you have to define a specific response to a huge range of different situations which is impractical and not at all useful.


Finally, if there is good reason to believe that indirect sleep is likely to be broken, then the clause can be reworded to include moves which may call sleep moves. However, unless you want to accept entirely violating the fifth attribute of a good Sleep Clause (maybe it is not in fact desirable to avoid adding an artificial luck element?) then you end up significantly interfering with the fourth, because the only way to stop a coin flip based not on an added win condition is to prevent that coin from being flipped, ban the use of a move if it has the potential to break the Sleep Clause.


Edit:

At the end of every turn, if more than one pokemon is asleep on one side, and if at least two of those pokemon were put asleep by enemy moves, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then that side automatically wins. If both sides qualify, the game ends as a draw

This was Cathy's formulation for Sleep Clause, which aside from the extremely slight possibility of causing a draw (which basically requires collusion between two players to happen at this point) is pretty solid.

Cathy's proposition is indeed pretty solid, and definitely one of the better proposed in that thread, however it is far from perfect. The first problem is the possibility for forced wins, adding an extra win condition to the game is something that I think should be avoided if possible. Secondly, it fails to address attribute 5. It also gives two moves by name, which is not exactly a problem, but ideally the clause should be able to cover every situation without having to state names of specific moves.

 

[Syberia]

long, philosophical disagreement about what we want in a clause

A simple rule is not always the best rule. Exceptions can be made for specific circumstances when the original rule gets it wrong, leading to an outcome that is unfair or, since you'll undoubtedly argue that fairness is subjective, undesirable. A small list of exceptions which most players would probably just on gut feeling prefer anyways is not going to cause any unnecessary confusion.

 

[eric the espeon]

If we can take parts of one game and apply it to another, then the classic sleep clause would be ideal as far as being simple/easy to use/giving a straight answer. I'm not sure whether we should be picking and mixing between games, but if most feel that it would be acceptable then I would go with that.

A simple rule is not always the best rule. Exceptions can be made for specific circumstances when the original rule gets it wrong, leading to an outcome that is unfair or, since you'll undoubtedly argue that fairness is subjective, undesirable.

However, given a straight choice, a simpler rule or ruleset is better than a complex one. If we can design a rule that does not need exceptions made, then we should.

 

[Slobroking]

I find the proposed sleep clause a bit too complicated. Missclicks happen, and sometimes you forget that you put something to sleep. The 'you can use x move, but only on y condition' just complicate matters too much. Either ban the move completely, or allow it to be used whenever, if that makes sense.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the old 'traditional' sleep clause that causes sleep moves to fail after one Pokemon is asleep.

And apparently the traditional sleep clause is actually implemented in a Pokemon game.

 

[Syberia]

If (and this is a big if, since nothing has been decided yet) we choose to follow the game 100%, "misclicks happen" could be avoided by popping up a dialog box saying something to the effect of "you're going to break sleep clause if you go through with this, do you want to choose a different move?"

Of course, I am in the camp that likes the sleep clause in its current form, regardless of whether we are technically "playing pokemon" or not. My arguments are the same as they were for my opposition of implementing the acid weather glitch - minor changes to certain mechanics, especially if what you are doing is for the purpose of mirroring another game whose mechanics are more desirable, but which cannot be used "in full" because it has not been updated, are acceptable. This is nothing like giving Flareon Flare Blitz or subtracting two points from Garchomp's base speed, and in fact no slippery slope argument exists.

 

[Heysup]

The user of the offensive Sleep move should always be at a loss whenever it comes into question.

No one is forcing anyone to use Choice Scarf Sleep, and if you use it knowing full well that you're going to lose a couple matches because of Dugtrio and the like, then that's your problem. I don't see what any of the controversy is. If you use an offensive Sleep move, then you are taking that risk.

 

[RBG]

For the record, I oppose using Classic Sleep Clause in any simulation of a form of battling that does not have it automatically included. If Gen 5 produces a Pokemon Battle Revolution-esque game with Classic Sleep Clause in it, then I would have no problem at all implementing it, provided we change our simulators to state we are emulating that game. However, since it appears that Gen 5 Wireless does not have Classic Sleep Clause included, then we have to settle with a Sleep Clause that is compatible with Gen 5 Wireless.

 

[Slobroking]

The user of the offensive Sleep move should always be at a loss whenever it comes into question.

No one is forcing anyone to use Choice Scarf Sleep, and if you use it knowing full well that you're going to lose a couple matches because of Dugtrio and the like, then that's your problem. I don't see what any of the controversy is. If you use an offensive Sleep move, then you are taking that risk.

There should be no risk of losing the game by default for using a legal move. I disagree with "and if you use it knowing full well that you're going to lose a couple matches because of Dugtrio and the like, then that's your problem.". It is not the fault of the player, it means the sleep clause is flawed.

IMO Either allow sleep moves to be used whenever with classic sleep clause enabled, or ban sleep moves completely. Seems like the most practical solution to me.

 

[Delta 2777]

Adhering to in-game mechanics is probably something that the majority of Policy Review members are going to agree to I'm sure; I for one enjoyed classic Sleep Clause, as it would simply enforce the rules with no negative side effect for either player. However, after brainstorming, I would like to propose a new form of Sleep Clause that may be frowned upon by quite a few of you, I can't be sure. I have two ideas.

If the opponent has one Pokemon that is asleep on their team that was inflicted Sleep status by the player, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then the player will not be allowed to use any Sleep-inducing moves. If the player forcibly has to put a second Pokemon to sleep, due to Encore, Shadow Tag, no other PP, or a Choice item, the player using the Sleep move loses (assuming it hits). If the combination of Sleep Talk and Psycho Shift also put the opponent's Pokemon to sleep, the user will also automatically lose.

While somewhat complicated, this simply means that players unfamiliar with Sleep Clause will not make the mistake of putting an opposing Pokemon to sleep by accident. Essentially all sleep moves will have "disabled" status, meaning they do not have the option of selecting it. This still adheres to in-game mechanics, as we are simply saying "you can not use this move right now because it is against the rules," and we are simply forcing them to follow the rules. No mechanics are broken.

At the end of every turn, if more than one Pokemon on either player's team is either asleep or "drowsy" (from the move Yawn), and if at least two of those pokemon were forcibly put asleep by enemy moves, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then the player who last used the Sleep-inducing move will be forced to continue using it until the opposing Pokemon wakes up.

Essentially, if you put a second opposing Pokemon to sleep, you have to continue using the sleep move until the target wakes up; think of it as a forced Encore. This once again still adheres to in-game mechanics, as we are simply enforcing the rule that if you put a second opponent's Pokemon to sleep, you have to do this protocall because that is the rule. Obviously there would be several issues with this, such as if the user runs out of PP while the opponent is still sleeping, however those can be worked around.


I'd like to hear your opinions.

 

[Veedrock]

Rule 1

While nice in theory, it doesn't allow players any room to gamble. If something is staying in and burning turns of sleep while you're in play (doing whatever), and you suspect they'll wake up this turn, it may be worthwhile to use the Sleep move again. With this rule they wouldn't be allowed to. On top of that, in a case of Scarf Venusaur sleeping a Dugtrio, you've kind of locked the sim at that point (and would lose to timeout anyways). Kind of lame, but most practical solution I've seen.

If I could make one modification to it it'd be a warning dialog asking you to confirm your choice rather than complete diability. The problem with this though is situations like Serene Grace Blissey or Illuminate Starmie, as the dialog (or even disability of your original suggestion) would immediately inform you that the opponent was trying to manipulate sleep clause in their favor.

Rule 2

Sandstorm and other passive factors make this unpleasant.

---

As much as I like "classic" sleep clause, I accept that it's a forbidden mechanic. We can't mix and match platforms, the same reason we can't mix and match moves and abilities on pokemon. It's a double standard to advocate the allowance of Dream World abilities and event pokemon as they're released, and then turn around and advocate changes to battle mechanics.

At the end of the day, I'd rather have Sleep Clause play exactly as it does on wifi, where if you mess up (or get put into a bad spot) you forfeit. The only thing that changes is that sleep is no longer a zero risk, immense reward mechanic. I'm going to respond later in regard to the OP about what exactly should trigger Sleep Clause.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I'd have no issue with a sleep clause that causes the immediate "surrender" (loss) of a player upon using a sleep inducing move for the second time.

On wifi too, this is completely implementable. You need to have outside contact with a player in order to set up a battle. Implementing this sleep clause is as simple as PMing him/instant messaging him/whatever informing him that he has lost the match and must choose "run" as his next move.

This is completely enforceable (is enforced) by the wifi battling community, and I myself have also forced opponents to surrender by this means multiple times.

 

[Firestorm]

Veedrock and Hipmonlee, I see where you're coming from. Once there is a Nintendo simulator (so Stadium line of games) for Black & White, I'd like for PokeLab to simulate that. For now, I agree that the only version of the game we can simulate is Black & White either through local or wifi play.

The fact that people are actually considering giving out losses to players who break sleep clause is pretty ridiculous. Nobody should automatically lose a match because of a misprediction or misclick. This isn't competitive at all and I'm sure all of the active DPP players will agree with this.

I don't think being an active DPP simulator-based Singles player is relevant to this. I played WiFi Pokemon and we always lost if we broke sleep clause. I just had to take into account whether the possibility of the loss was worth it or not. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. I don't see what's not competitive about it. We can remove sleep clause if you'd like and this wouldn't be a situation that comes up.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I played WiFi Pokemon and we always lost if we broke sleep clause. I just had to take into account whether the possibility of the loss was worth it or not. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. I don't see what's not competitive about it. We can remove sleep clause if you'd like and this wouldn't be a situation that comes up.

I really want to emphasize this. We have a lot of simulator players that are used to not having to deal with Sleep being any risk whatsoever, but one side effect- it widens the gap between simulator play and wifi play, which I think is a bad decision as far as the site goes. There will always be some level of difference between simulator play and Wifi play, simply due to the ease of obtaining rare Pokemon and moves, as well as the ease of getting high IVs and EVs, but introducing distinct mechanical differences such as Classic Sleep Clause needlessly widens the gap.

Remember that a "second sleep loses" sleep clause is in effect in Wifi play, and while there may not be the best outlook on Wifi players, it's hard to brand it as just wholesale uncompetitive.

 

[Cathy]

Cathy's proposition is indeed pretty solid, and definitely one of the better proposed in that thread, however it is far from perfect. The first problem is the possibility for forced wins, adding an extra win condition to the game is something that I think should be avoided if possible. Secondly, it fails to address attribute 5. It also gives two moves by name, which is not exactly a problem, but ideally the clause should be able to cover every situation without having to state names of specific moves.

First of all, the two moves identified by name are identified for greater clarity; they are not additional provisions. Similarly, your rule has a whole paragraph of clarification after it. Unlike my clarification, your clarification actually introduces new information that cannot be ascertained from the rule proper.

Your rule also isn't really what most people would expect from Sleep Clause at all.

A Pokemon with a choice item can use a sleep move repeatedly to put opponents asleep, because it cannot select any other move. Similarly, a sleeping pokemon can use Sleep Talk to use a sleep move repeatedly. Neither of these is prevented by your rule, and seem like things that people would intuitively expect to be prevented.

[Edit: I also forgot to mention one of the big ones. Your rule apparently does nothing to interfere with Yawn, so it can just be used at will.]

Presumably, the main thing you are trying to deal with with your complicated wording is Encore. However, when a Pokemon is affected by Encore, they merely choose to "Attack", not to execute a particular move. As such, a Pokemon under the effects of Encore will never "select" a sleep move, even without the additional provisions.

Worst of all, the language about "having a chance to..." is far from clear, even with your clarification. It is actually impossible in general for a person to tell whether she is allowed to select a restricted move on her turn. Suppose you are facing off against a team that has exactly two pokemon left. One of those pokemon is asleep already. The other pokemon is out on the field and is a Pokemon that can have either Insomnia as its ability, or some other ability. Your moveset consists of a direct sleep move and some other moves. If the enemy pokemon has Insomnia, then your direct sleep move cannot "cause more than one opposing Pokemon to have been put to sleep directly by a move used by their team", but if it has the other ability, it can. (This is just one example; there are other situations which I leave to the reader as an exercise to come up with.) As such, you cannot know in general what moves you are allowed to use under your rule.

There are other problems with your rule as well.

My rule's "failure" to observe "attribute five" is highly insignificant since most of the time, the rational thing to do is going to be not to take the action that causes you to lose. My rule does handle locked situations differently from yours, but I don't see introducing another win condition as a particularly big deal. Whether it's introducing another win condition, or altering what moves you can use, the whole point of Sleep Clause is to modify the game strategy in some ways related to Sleep, so modifying strategy is not a failure of the rule.

I am sure you can patch up your rule to address all these issues, but in doing so, the rule itself is either going to become more complex, or you will push the complexity into more clarifying paragraphs that actually adduce new information.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

This argument frustrates me so I don't want to get too involved I just want to point out that by implementing classic sleep clause in their more competitive oriented games, Game Freak was clearly acknowledging that it was the most logical way to implement a workable sleep clause. They acknowledged that in a competitive environment for sleep clause to work it needs to be tweaked. Yes we're playing Pokemon, but we're playing it in a competitive environment much like PBR, therefore making classic sleep clause the most logical choice.

 

[RBG]

People were pushing to have a cartridge workable sleep clause in the middle of 4th gen, and we stopped arguing because Aeolus said that, sure we should do it, and Cathy said it would be in the next simulator.

For the record, it was never really a problem in RBY, because you didn't have choice items, encore, yawn, ect.... The only way to break sleep clause there was last pokemon with Sleep Move only left, but at that point you already lost. GSC was the same, except the only way to force it was Encore + Mean Look. in ADV, it started to become a little more troublesome with Choice items/Arena Trap/Effect Spore ect... If I was here then, I would have advocated for cartridge viable sleep clause, but I wasn't.

Anyways, just because we did something in the past, doesn't mean we did it right, and past tradition does not mean we need to continue it if we were using faulty logic to begin with.

Edit @ Jabba: Yes, we are playing in a competitive environment like PBR, but we aren't playing PBR. During the time PBR was out before platinum, I would have advocated using that as our simulator of choice, but since Plat/HGSS and BW don't have it built in, I am against adding it.

 

[eric the espeon]

First of all, the two moves identified by name are identified for greater clarity; they are not additional provisions. Similarly, your rule has a whole paragraph of clarification after it. Unlike my clarification, your clarification actually introduces new information that cannot be ascertained from the rule proper.

Fair point, If having the second paragraph is a problem it could easily enough be condensed. The move identification by name being necessary is arguable as far as general understanding is concerned, but I can see that at least from someone with a deep understanding of the mechanics it would be clear that Magic Coat changes the target rather than actually putting the foe to Sleep.

Your rule also isn't really what most people would expect from Sleep Clause at all.

A Pokemon with a choice item can use a sleep move repeatedly to put opponents asleep, because it cannot select any other move. Similarly, a sleeping pokemon can use Sleep Talk to use a sleep move repeatedly. Neither of these is prevented by your rule, and seem like things that people would intuitively expect to be prevented.

A choiced Pokemon would only be allowed to repeatedly use a sleep move if it was inable to switch out. Maybe my choice of word, "move", is does not clearly enough convey that if a player has any other option they must take it. It is true that a Pokemon can use Sleep Talk repeatedly to call sleep inducing moves, and that some users would not expect this from a sleep clause given the implementations they are accustomed to. I thought that having a rule that did not ever bring an element of "you can make this move, but if you're unlucky you will be punished by an automatic loss.", and one that did not needlessly restrict a players options (if you use a move which has a chance of calling a move which may induce sleep, you lose) was more important than simply following expectations.

Presumably, the main thing you are trying to deal with with your complicated wording is Encore. However, when a Pokemon is affected by Encore, they merely choose to "Attack", not to execute a particular move. As such, a Pokemon under the effects of Encore will never "select" a sleep move, even without the additional provisions.

Dealing with Encore was not my main intention, and thank you for reminding me of the mechanics of move selection when under Encore. The wording will need a minor change to cover this situation in an unambiguous way.

Worst of all, the language about "having a chance to..." is far from clear, even with your clarification. It is actually impossible in general for a person to tell whether she is allowed to select a restricted move on her turn. Suppose you are facing off against a team that has exactly two pokemon left. One of those pokemon is asleep already. The other pokemon is out on the field and is a Pokemon that can have either Insomnia as its ability, or some other ability. Your moveset consists of a direct sleep move and some other moves. If the enemy pokemon has Insomnia, then your direct sleep move cannot "cause more than one opposing Pokemon to have been put to sleep directly by a move used by their team", but if it has the other ability, it can. (This is just one example; there are other situations which I leave to the reader as an exercise to come up with.) As such, you cannot know in general what moves you are allowed to use under your rule.

You have picked up on what is perhaps the hardest difficulty to solve (if you want to comply with the attributes I suggest), namely imperfect information. The example I had in mind was of a foe Blissey which may or may not have Natural Cure which has been put to sleep, and another Pokemon which your opponent is likely to switch to. If you use a sleep move and Blissey has Natural Cure, you will not have put two foes to sleep at once. However, if they decided to use Serene Grace, you will. There are several other ways to prevent this situation from being ambiguous, my preferred one is to simply disallow the use of the move if there is a chance at all (given no information about the teams), in that situation (both yours and mine) the player would be unable to select the sleep inducing move, and unable to take the risk with the rules. I will try to come up with a concise way of summing this up to clarify my proposed rule.

There are other problems with your rule as well.

Please elaborate, I would very much like to solve them if possible.

My rule's "failure" to observe "attribute five" is highly insignificant since most of the time, the rational thing to do is going to be not to take the action that causes you to lose. My rule does handle locked situations differently from yours, but I don't see introducing another win condition as a particularly big deal. Whether it's introducing another win condition, or altering what moves you can use, the whole point of Sleep Clause is to modify the game strategy in some ways related to Sleep, so modifying strategy is not a failure of the rule.

I strongly dislike just discarding this by saying "it's a risk you take, get it wrong and you lose". It feels like a significant, artificial, and unnecessary change to the common sense rules of the game. "You win if you KO all the opponent's Pokemon, or they give up.". Not "You win if you trick your opponent into taking a risk which may or may not make them break the rules, and instantly lose. Or KO their Pokemon.". I also feel that introducing a new win condition is bad in the way that the old hax clause April fools was bad, chancing the win conditions to suit our needs is not "as bad" as not following game mechanics, but it seems incredibly wrong. Especially given how possible it would be to abuse, and how much of an influence this would have on the game (Choiced sleep suddenly means an instant loss if they switch to a trapper).

The aim of the Sleep Clause is to prevent sleep from becoming a dominant strategy. I think that this can be done without introducing extra win conditions, without introducing risk taking based around potential rulebreaking, and without changing the game more than required.

I am sure you can patch up your rule to address all these issues, but in doing so, the rule itself is either going to become more complex, or you will push the complexity into more clarifying paragraphs that actually adduce new information.

Yes, you have brought up several points which do need clarifying and will most probably add to the length of the rule. I think that the advantages in my previous reply outweigh the disadvantage of a small increase in complexity, but this may be subjective.

 

[Cathy]

You basically conceded most of my points so there isn't much to respond to. I did edit another issue into my post above (Yawn).

I also feel that introducing a new win condition is bad in the way that the old hax clause April fools was bad, chancing the win conditions to suit our needs is not "as bad" as not following game mechanics, but it seems incredibly wrong. Especially given how possible it would be to abuse, and how much of an influence this would have on the game (Choiced sleep suddenly means an instant loss if they switch to a trapper).

The main problem with that "hax clause" was that it made no sense. Playing multiple games already corrects for short-term statistical anomalies. Adding an additional win condition to deal with that reveals a deep misunderstanding of basic statistics, and is particularly ironic in that it would actually make the game far more luck-based since it normalises all games to the same amount of "bad luck", whereas "susceptibility to bad luck" isn't a freestanding constant, but a property of the team and the strategy employed.

(Incidentally, the same deep misunderstanding is often revealed when people in a ladder context talk about "losing to hax" or the need to reset their rating to counteract "hax" losses, etc.)

The "hax clause" could have easily been envisioned as "You cannot select a move with a chance of a secondary effect if you have already given the opponent six secondary effects in the battle." It's obvious that the "new win condition" isn't the primary flaw with such thinking.

The possibility of forced wins sounds mainly like something that would nerf Sleep, which is the point of Sleep Clause. People would be aware of the existence of them when playing the game, and not play the same as they would have under the Classic Sleep Clause.

Anyway, the main flaw with your rule is the need for clarification of many words and phrases, and has some counterintuitive and ambiguous results. That it doesn't have a new win condition isn't a flaw with it obviously.

[I deleted a bunch of posts from this thread for arguing about whether to play Pokemon, since that's off topic, but I accidentally hard deleted them. Sorry, it was just meant to be a soft delete.]

 

[obi]

4. To not interfere with the game more than necessary.
The aim of a game of Pokemon is to defeat your opponent's six (or fewer in some metagames) Pokemon. I think it would be counterproductive, distracting, confusing, and harmful to introduce a second forcible win condition.

Are you opposed to having a battle timer?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I think the point is "forcible" which is underlined. There is no way for you to force your opponent to time out, which makes it less a "win condition" and more a "penalty".

I also think this is going way over the top and assuming that it's super easy to just force your opponent to violate Sleep Clause. With the exception of Wobbuffet, no trapper has access to Encore, meaning the only way to "force" someone to break the clause is to switch a trapper into a choiced Sleep move, which still isn't forcing that player to lose. Sure, it makes choiced Sleep moves a little bit more of a liability, but this is something that WiFi players have to deal with every time that they play.

Maybe this will cause players to think a little bit more about how they use Sleep moves in situations where normally there would be no risk. Maybe you don't want your Roserade to use Sleep Powder as a sleeping Blissey switches out, just in case it's Serene Grace. Maybe you might rethink using that Choice Scarf Breloom's Spore until you know they don't have Dugtrio or Wobbuffet. All it does is add choices and make players consider more carefully when they use Sleep moves. It's not like it's impossible to account for these risks, and WiFi players account for these risks all the time. Hell, even Ubers sim players have to deal with this risk when using stuff like Choice Scarf Darkrai with Dark Void. It may not be as extreme as "you lose when you sleep a Wobbuffet with Choice Scarf Darkrai", but it is definitely a risk, since all Wobbuffet has to do is wake up and Safeguard, and then his team gets to set up whatever it wants for free with no danger at all, which is a very bad position to be in.

I'd also like to drop my support behind Cathy's suggested sleep clause, which is, again:

At the end of every turn, if more than one pokemon is asleep on one side, and if at least two of those pokemon were put to sleep by enemy moves, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then that side automatically wins. If both sides qualify, the game ends as a draw.

It's clear, it's explicit, it's simple, and as far as I can tell it has no major failings.

 

[undisputed]

At the end of every turn, if more than one pokemon is asleep on one side, and if at least two of those pokemon were put to sleep by enemy moves, excluding Magic Coat, but including Yawn, then that side automatically wins. If both sides qualify, the game ends as a draw.

The only hesitation I have with that rule is the possibility of misclicks. I have Spored twice by accident countless times on PL because I can't cancel my move, and I would really hate to lose a match in that way.

Personally I can't see what's wrong with the current rule. It's pretty clear that you cannot force more than 1 opposing Pokemon asleep, and its really simple and makes the game fun. Why fix what isn't broken?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

The only hesitation I have with that rule is the possibility of misclicks. I have Spored twice by accident countless times on PL because I can't cancel my move, and I would really hate to lose a match in that way.

Personally I can't see what's wrong with the current rule. It's pretty clear that you cannot force more than 1 opposing Pokemon asleep, and its really simple and makes the game fun. Why fix what isn't broken?

The problem is that the current implementation isn't mechanically accurate, and mechanical accuracy is an important part of a Pokemon simulator.

The issue of misclicks can be avoided simply by being more careful in battles. When you used a sleep-inducing move last turn, you just have to be absolutely sure you aren't using it again. It may be a minor inconvenience, but people being careless is no reason to reject a valid and mechanically sound rule.