Poll for our default simulator tiering level

[Adamant Zoroark]

My biggest problem with this is that you're not even talking about the metagame and what makes a more competitive metagame, you're talking about what makes building teams on the cartridge more convenient for you.

But yeah, I guess having both really isn't an issue, although I'm sort've opposed to dividing the community over something so arbitrary. Sims are not cartridges and Smogon is not Nintendo.

So? "Convenience" was my point anyway.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

There might be other things to take into account though. For example, Chansey and Blissey? We all know the comparisons between them at L.100, what about at L.50? Would some people choose a different one in a L.50 metagame than they would in a L.100 metagame?

i.e. The metagames might be more different than some people think.

 

[Scorpiopt]

Playing mostly random matches and doubles tripple battles on console and ou ladder on simulator Using level 50 on simulator is nothing new to me it would make my life easier on the battlefinder so yes 50 level all the way

 

[Tribute]

The question shouldnt be "Where do we draw the line adhering to cartridge", it should be "where do we draw the line straying from it". Cart is the norm, smogon exists to make guidelines and create a metagame to make it more fair/competetive/easy to access, we're the deviation-from not the norm. The repair men, not the builders.

Not giving whatever mon access to an obscure move functionally change that mons reach and role, which is bad, so we give them access.

100 v 50 fundamentally changes how the entire metagame functions, thats a basic core that should be honored.

 

[Roadsigns]

So? "Convenience" was my point anyway.

So...making it slightly easier for you to build your teams on an entirely different platform isn't a good reason to change a bunch of really fundamental things about the way people build their teams on simulators (speed tiers and ev counts, for example), on a site that is far more dedicated to a simulator battles anyhow.

 

[Haruno]

The question shouldnt be "Where do we draw the line adhering to cartridge", it should be "where do we draw the line straying from it". Cart is the norm, smogon exists to make guidelines and create a metagame to make it more fair/competetive/easy to access, we're the deviation not the norm.

Not giving whatever mon access to an obscure move functionally change that mons reach and role, which is bad, so we give them access.

100 v 50 fundamentally changes how the entire metagame functions, thats a basic core that should be honored.

but we don't even have a metagame yet .-. so it's not changing the metagame at all yet.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

So...making it slightly easier for you to build your teams on an entirely different platform isn't a good reason to change a bunch of really fundamental things about the way people build their teams on simulators (speed tiers and ev counts, for example), on a site that is far more dedicated to a simulator battles anyhow.

Well then call me crazy for disliking simulators and only using them to test my teams before I build them in-game, and preferring to do everything else on Wifi.

 

[Aldaron]

This OP seems very biased to me. It was stated at the first page but I'm going to go a bit further.


What gap exactly? There's absolutely no gap that exists between simulator and Wifi players, because the people who are dedicated enough to play on Wifi instead of simulators will use a simulator maybe once and then never touch it again. The only thing this could possibly affect that's actually relevant are VGC players, and we make separate tiers just for the event. You also didn't have to rely on action replays, you could just run through the elite four enough times.



Alright. That's great and all, but in Heart Gold / Soul silver people never legitimately leveled their pokemon to level 100 either because it auto leveled so they didn't even need to cheat to do that. Which makes your argument worthless. You also can't say that both players won't just level up to level 100 either.
Honestly this is your only real point not seemingly touched by bias, really. Though, I haven't met anyone who actually levels their pokemon past either 50 or when they evolve, simply because VGC is the only major reason to even use the games to play competitively.



Again, you really can't assume that people won't just raise their pokemon to level 100 on the cartridges, although that point is moot since there's no reason to with simulators around. I really think you overestimate how many people seriously play on the actual consoles competitively when it's so much easier to just download a simulator and instantly have everything at your fingertips. Everyone I've ever met has dropped the idea of raising pokemon and battling seriously when I've shown them Pokemon Online and Pokemon Showdown.

Laziness on cartridge/console player's parts is not a solid reason at all to change something like this. We create separate tiers for both GBU and all of the VGC players who want to practice.

Even the majority of VGC players who know about simulators don't level up and breed their pokemon without testing on simulators first. That should speak volumes on how flawed your logic in this opening is.

We emulate what we can do on the cartridge, not the metagame that exists in wifi play on the consoles. At least, I thought that's what Smogon's policy was in a nutshell.

just to be perfectly clear; this is not my op, I merely copied it


you kept saying "you" so i'm not sure if you're aware of that

 

[Time Mage]

I am completely in favor to the change to a default lv50 for the simulator.

The actual metagame differences won't be much and will be easily assumed, as, like mentioned before, more extreme changes occured on past generations and people just got used to them. That, coupled with the ease in which players will be able to jump from playing on a simulator and playing on the actual games, will definitely make the community grow. Specially now that GF has finally made a really easy and well-thought online battle system, without the hurdles of the past.

People that played on the games at level 50 will get used to the simulator fast, and that will mean more players in the simulator, who will then learn quickly there and improve their level, and will raise the overall level of skill of the community, thus making all our games much more fun.

 

[Valentine]

• There is no Lv100 option in XY battles: Heart Gold and Soul Silver were the last Pokémon games to support an auto-Lv100 option. Since then, cartridge players have had to rely on Action Replays to level their Pokémon to Lv100 for competitive play. We kept the auto-level 100 ruleset last generation, but is it really worth widening the gap between simulator and Wi-Fi players?

If you wanted to use this argument, you should have used it last generation. The precedent has already been set. While players cannot rely on AR to get their level 100 pokemon yet, in two months, they will be able to transfer them over from previous games. This makes 6th gen pokemon the only ones you have to spend a few hours grinding for. Maintaining Lv100 metagames did not hinder Wi-Fi players last generation, and it won't this generation either.

• All cartridge and officially supported metagames are Lv50: As previously mentioned, all XY Wi-Fi battles will be at Lv50. You will never find two players who legitimately leveled all six of their Pokémon to Lv100 in order to fight each other. GBU and VGC already use the LV50 format; many players are already familiar with it.

Before anything, i want to highlight 'many players are already familiar with [Lv50 formats (including speed tiers, EV spreads, scarf magnezone outspeeding your starmie)]' No. No they are not. How many people play VGC? GBU? Compared to the amount of people that play NU, RU, UU, OU, Ubers, and any other oddball Lv100 metagame? Making lv50 the default, as you've addressed, would force every one of those players to relearn every stat of every Pokemon. Keeping lv100 the default only requires players to learn the new pokemons stats. That is a lot more convenient than anything you get from making the tiers lv50.

But, moving on. How often did we get to see matches where players leveled their whole team legitimately last generation? I mean honestly, any generation after GameShark? Competitive Wi-Fi players always use hacks (ar/gs) to obtain their pokemon, and it won't be any different this generation, once the codes come. Again, in two months, we will be able to transfer our Lv100 pokemon from games where you can hack rare candies, if not hacked pokemon themselves.

 

[CQC]

1. Perfect EV's are now actually decently easy to get now, and the event pokemon, while rare, are probably still possible to have.

"Still possible to have"... So, your opinion is that everything that is "possible to have" should be included. Wait...

Anyway, the whole point of smogon is not only to simulate, but also to provide a healthy metagame. Since lvl100 is perfectly fine with actual ingame battle mechanics, smogon already succeeds at simulating. So, the question we have to ask ourselves is whether changing to lvl 50 has any advantages at promoting a healthy meta; And I don't see these advantages, in fact, stuff like the damage increase only makes an already offensive-leaning metagame even more offensive.
All in all, even though I don't care much about tradition, I'm DEFINITELY going with lvl 100.

 

[pokemonnerd]

just to be perfectly clear; this is not my op, I merely copied it


you kept saying "you" so i'm not sure if you're aware of that

I was not, somehow I missed the "from Stellar." Well, know they're not aimed at you specifically, then.

 

[Roadsigns]

Well then call me crazy for disliking simulators and only using them to test my teams before I build them in-game, and preferring to do everything else on Wifi.

No, no, don't get me wrong. That's totally fine.

The problem is that you expect the entirety of smogon to conform to that just because it makes it a little easier for you. Say you get what you'd like and there's now a second tier for just level 50 pokemon, people have to spend HOURS doing analyses of the same exact pokemon with slightly different stats because EVERY POINT COUNTS.

That's a lot of extra work on other people's behalf just so that you don't have to level your pokemon to 100 or so that you can test out a team on the simulator.

 

[peng]

@ everyone who argues we should simulate the games as closely as possible - Correct me if I am wrong here because I don't 100% know the ins-and-outs of current WiFi mechanics, but I'm under the impression that XY cartridges (like all portable Pokemon games before it) doesn't have Smogon's current Sleep Clause mechanics implemented - i.e. on cartridge Spore / Sleep Powder etc will not fail if used when another Pokemon has already been put to sleep. As far as I'm aware we have already have different mechanics on our simulator than are actually achievable in-game. At this point I think its absurd to argue we should use lv50 autolevel for the sake of "simulating cartridge mechanics" when we've already made up our mechanics and nobody seems too bothered by that.

I'm not saying I'm 100% against a lv50 autolevel rule as there are good pro-arguments for it, but I don't think the reasoning behind it should be anything to do with "simulating cartridge mechanics" when 1) there are more important mechanics we don't simulate accurately and 2) lv50 isn't even an obligatory mechanic anyway.

---

I really like the pro-100 argument that its almost impossible to have a good IV copy of any gen III event and I hate that its getting shot down so easily. Somebody keeps saying that "its possible to get a Wish Chansey but nobody is ever going to level a Pokemon up to level 100" or something. Do you really think someone would go out of their way to get a good IV wish Chansey but couldn't be bothered to level up their Pokemon to lv100 (given Audino, Lucky Egg, broken EXP share now exist)? I think you are massively overestimating how easy it is to come across a legitimate Wish Chansey lol, and as a former dedicated WiFi player in 2007-8 I know that way more people are willing to level up Pokemon to lv100 than you are giving credit for

---

My only other problem here is: why are we suddenly supporting WiFi so much out of the blue? These new breeding mechanics don't change the fact that WiFi is still a massive inconvenience compared to simulator play and I feel confident in saying that whilst a lot of people may think WiFi looks easier now, the numbers of WiFi players will crash once the "gimmick" wears off and people return to simulators. There will always be people who play WiFi but for the most part these aren't the people who vote in suspect tests or play in smogon tournaments. In all honesty I don't see why "we" should be inconveniencing ourselves in terms of majorly altering how pokemon is played, all for the sake of what will almost definitely be a massive minority (that being highly competitive, exclusive WiFi players) in a few months time.


We don't run suspect on WiFi, we don't play major tournaments on WiFi and its still enough of an inconvenience that this will not change in competitive XY.

 

[PKMN1]

But, moving on. How often did we get to see matches where players leveled their whole team legitimately last generation? I mean honestly, any generation after GameShark? Competitive Wi-Fi players always use hacks (ar/gs) to obtain their pokemon, and it won't be any different this generation, once the codes come. Again, in two months, we will be able to transfer our Lv100 hacked pokemon to XY.

Not ENTIRELY true, it is possible that GameFreak has made it impossible for pokegen to even work or at least impossible for people to transfer hacked pokemon over.

 

[Manaphy]

Oh, in auto-level-to-50 play level 1 Endeavor Mons can't exist anymore, just food for thought.

 

[Innocent Criminal]

Also it finally came to me.

"We put wishmence w/ perf IVs on sims, its different"

We dont put unreleased hidden abilities on sims, its not.



Wifi, and more importantly, spot battles, are 6 not 3

That might be because the OP is a bit misleading, but Gen 6 is actually just like Black and White: LVL 100 battles are still possible, it's just less convenient than playing LVL50 on Wifi because you have to level your pokemons yourself. The one and only difference between this gen and the last on that point is that you can't hack your 3DS to level up your pokemons faster.


More to the point: the whole basis of simulators, and the reason it is so different to legitimate wifi battling, is that it allows you to use your Pokemons to the highest extent that is technically possible within the limits of the game, regardless of how reasonable it is. The main advantage of this is that competitive play thrives on getting the best out of what the game gives you regardless of the practicality of it. Wish Blissey and Tri-Attack Togekiss are additional options that contribute to the depth. Just like we let people get the additional option of a perfect Wish Blissey in a few clicks, we should let them get an instant LVL100 pokemon, which similarly gets the best stats out of it while allowing more fine-tuned EV spreads.


The question is, are we supposed to imitate on computers the way people end up playing the game on their console, or simulate the way people would optimally play Pokémon if they were not restrained by the the RPG aspects of the game and were free to set their own (cartridge-enforceable) rulesets?

 

[Manaphy]

@ everyone who argues we should simulate the games as closely as possible - Correct me if I am wrong here because I don't 100% know the ins-and-outs of current WiFi mechanics, but I'm under the impression that XY cartridges (like all portable Pokemon games before it) doesn't have Smogon's current Sleep Clause mechanics implemented - i.e. on cartridge Spore / Sleep Powder etc will not fail if used when another Pokemon has already been put to sleep. As far as I'm aware we have already have different mechanics on our simulator than are actually achievable in-game. At this point I think its absurd to argue we should use lv50 autolevel for the sake of "simulating cartridge mechanics" when we've already made up our mechanics and nobody seems too bothered by that.

I'm not going to take you're word that it actually does that, but I can assure you that we've never edited the main metagames with things not possible in-game. Glitches and unintended effects are going to occasionally happen but those get fixed quickly and usually never affect anything.

 

[666lumberjack]

Smogon has never been about Wi-Fi battling. Competitive battling is, and always will be, two players fighting a local game, initially with link cables and later with local wireless as it became available. Generations 1, 2 and 3 didn't have Wi-Fi - do we propose to suggest that we were not competitively battling back then? Simulators exist to simulate a local multiplayer battle while adding the convenience of near-instantly matchmaking and instant team changes. It has never been about simulating Wi-Fi and it shouldn't be. This is a choice between a major change to our ruleset with wide implications that will have a negative affect on the metagame as a whole purely to make things a little easier for the tiny minority who only wish to use simulators for testing purposes versus keeping things simpler, more competitive and better adherent to Smogon's philosophy.

I think the OP should be be at least a little tweaked because right now it implies (at least in my interpretation) that it is not possible to have a level 100 battle over multiplayer at all, whereas in fact it is completely possible to have a level 100 battle over local connecion - that is, the format that Smogon strives to simulate.
I would not be opposed to having an additional Smogon Lvl.50 tier, but it should not be the main tier for Smogon's competitive battling; rather, a convenience that exists for Wi-Fi players so that they may test teams if they wish without the difference in format skewing games.

 

[Icy_eagle]

But it is not really replicating what competitive battles would be like on the cartridge.

Neither are NU/RU/UU/OU/Uber tier separation

 

[Runic]

@ everyone who argues we should simulate the games as closely as possible - Correct me if I am wrong here because I don't 100% know the ins-and-outs of current WiFi mechanics, but I'm under the impression that XY cartridges (like all portable Pokemon games before it) doesn't have Smogon's current Sleep Clause mechanics implemented - i.e. on cartridge Spore / Sleep Powder etc will not fail if used when another Pokemon has already been put to sleep.

This is enforcing a rule, not adding a mechanic. However, I do think the simulator should just not let the person use the move to begin with instead of making it fail.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

No, no, don't get me wrong. That's totally fine.

The problem is that you expect the entirety of smogon to conform to that just because it makes it a little easier for you. Say you get what you'd like and there's now a second tier for just level 50 pokemon, people have to spend HOURS doing analyses of the same exact pokemon with slightly different stats because EVERY POINT COUNTS.

That's a lot of extra work on other people's behalf just so that you don't have to level your pokemon to 100 or so that you can test out a team on the simulator.

I did say have both, right? You can have analyses assume Level 100 OU since that's clearly the Smogon standard, and people playing Level 50 OU can modify their EV spreads accordingly, if even necessary at all (sometimes it is but for 4/252/252 etc. spreads it isn't)

Also it's not JUST me who has a problem with spending lots of time leveling everything up to 100; I apologize if that's what you got from that but there are other people who don't have the time to do that.

 

[Manaphy]

This is enforcing a rule, not adding a mechanic. However, I do think the simulator should just not let the person use the move to begin with instead of making it fail.

Actually, according to Smogon rules, if Sleep Clause is in affect in in-game battles, and another Sleep move is used, that person instantly loses.

So yeah, still following the game perfectly.

 

[peng]

No, saying "you can't bring Arceus to OU" is a rule. Saying "don't use Double team" is a rule.

Making Spore fail on simulators where it otherwise would work on cartridge is altering a core game mechanic.

 

[PKMN1]

Neither are NU/RU/UU/OU/Uber tier separation

yup, and i disagree with those too (besides most of the uber tier of course), but that has nothing to do with this thread so i will not go on.

This is enforcing a rule, not adding a mechanic. However, I do think the simulator should just not let the person use the move to begin with instead of making it fail.

But that goes against the game mechanics as well, even in the games where Sleep clause was allowed, the move just did not do anything and it was up to the player to not be stupid.