Other Pokemon: Smogon Version OU [Route 4]

[Salemance]

About Porygon-Z, wouldn't it be better to show why it is inferior to Porygon2, rather than shoving it down the player's throat by not allowing it period? The same could be said of Gallade, Glalie, most of the Eevolutions, and even Phione; would Rotom-W be independent of Rotom? Aside from that, if Mantine and Escavalier are included as being OU viable, then Shelmet and Remoraid will need to be included as well, unless a perfect Escavalier was given to the player and Mantyke was wholly taken out.

It seems like it would be a good idea to have a few unviable pokemon out there, if only to show what works and what doesn't, and even to force some creativity; one of the best battlers I know runs an OU team half comprised of RU mons, so it isn't too far out there. I'm not saying that every pokemon should be included, but at the very least, those who would normally be obtainable simply because they're related to someone who's actually on the list should be.

Problem with comparing P2 to P-Z is that..........you sorta cant. P-Z is a sweeper with ridiculous base strength, while P2 has a respectable attack prowress and phenominal bulk. One does not out class the other, but here in OU P2 is more viable only because it doesn't face a lot of competition in mixed walling that can comfortably say they are on his level. If we were, we would demonstrate how the OU metagame prefers one over the other and that as a team choice P-Z is inferior option, but if people like using P-Z, then let em use him and congratz if they get him to work. Be more happy to give the option than deny it.

We will show what works and what doesn't, but as expressed by most, lots of good mons work in OU that are actually UU or lower, and if they use em great, let em. One excellent example is Hippowdon. xD

 

[Chou Toshio]

Also, this is a long way down, but I realized that the Smogon administration doesn't really have a role in this game. (The administration is different from the top players, who will be represented by the Gym Leaders and E4). My proposal: We take the "Lance" role of GS where Lance appears and helps you beat the crap out of the baddies, and give it to a tiering leader on each of the various islands (we can have team lucksack put up small issues here and there on the later islands). I propose Haunter for this position later on in the plot line.

 

[Kiga]

Problem with comparing P2 to P-Z is that..........you sorta cant. P-Z is a sweeper with ridiculous base strength, while P2 has a respectable attack prowress and phenominal bulk. One does not out class the other, but here in OU P2 is more viable only because it doesn't face a lot of competition in mixed walling that can comfortably say they are on his level. If we were, we would demonstrate how the OU metagame prefers one over the other and that as a team choice P-Z is inferior option, but if people like using P-Z, then let em use him and congratz if they get him to work. Be more happy to give the option than deny it.

We will show what works and what doesn't, but as expressed by most, lots of good mons work in OU that are actually UU or lower, and if they use em great, let em. One excellent example is Hippowdon. xD

I didn't say to compare them, just to simply show why PZ is inferior to P2; I probably could have been more clear there. What I did mean was if, for example, Porygon-Z really is so outmatched in OU, then it would be noticeably different upon evolving Porygon2. It's play style would change, and it would be noticeably more frail, harder to use, and more difficult fit in. The player would either have to learn to adapt and use it, or start again to go back to Porygon2. The player could even be warned, prior to trading P2, that evolving it could be disastrous to its play style, or that it would become an "unviable" Pokemon if evolved. My impression was that this game was meant to help teach OU battling, but how is it teaching if the player isn't allowed to make their own choices and mistakes? This isn't just about Porygon-Z, but about every other OU related pokemon, Rotom, Poliwrath, Gallade, and so on.

Viability is a poor argument anyway; we already have the pool of pokemon to draw from, but if viability is the main concern, then is everyone expected to go with Charizard and Keldeo and Aegislash, because they're more viable? I'm just saying that it may be a good idea to allow pokemon who would be allowed in a normal game because they have accessible relatives, even if they aren't necessarily viable. I do understand what you mean, but I'm just arguing my point; it's ultimately up to the group to decide.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Also, this is a long way down, but I realized that the Smogon administration doesn't really have a role in this game. (The administration is different from the top players, who will be represented by the Gym Leaders and E4). My proposal: We take the "Lance" role of GS where Lance appears and helps you beat the crap out of the baddies, and give it to a tiering leader on each of the various islands (we can have team lucksack put up small issues here and there on the later islands). I propose Haunter for this position later on in the plot line.

Well that could work, problem is though was the lance was to OP as a partner, seriously he made all the battles in there two easy with a level 40 Dragonite in a point where your pokemon should be there high 20s low 30s, and I'm pretty sure team rockets pokemon where mid to high 20s, I'm afraid doing the Same with Haunter will cause the same problem, but yeah we will walk that bridge when we come to it. For now I think we should focus on more of the Early game stuff

 

[a fairy]

Pizza that was a really isolated issue with the design of Lance himself that is easily remedied.

Regarding the Pory family, when you get a Porygon, have a trainer nearby, or the person who gives you Porygon himself, mutter something about <pokemon that is already available> being so much better than Pory-Z and have him say he regrets evolving his Pory2. Hell he could go all out and say "For the sake of your Porygon, don't evolve it into a Porygon-Z."

 

[Salemance]

Pizza that was a really isolated issue with the design of Lance himself that is easily remedied.

Regarding the Pory family, when you get a Porygon, have a trainer nearby, or the person who gives you Porygon himself, mutter something about <pokemon that is already available> being so much better than Pory-Z and have him say he regrets evolving his Pory2. Hell he could go all out and say "For the sake of your Porygon, don't evolve it into a Porygon-Z."

*twitches as that sorta pisses me off*

You could just make it to where instead its someone explaining the pros and cons of it, where one guy who uses a team for Pory 2 while another does it to the strength of PoryZ. I might be getting my bias in atm, but to have an npc do that without much reasoning is a little much I think.

 

[a fairy]

Are there pros to P-Z? I was under the impression it was utterly outclassed.

 

[Salemance]

Are there pros to P-Z? I was under the impression it was utterly outclassed.

I'm saying not by P2 in its role, as ones a tank, the other a sweeper. I just think give them the opportunity to see both. Its not like telling em to use Dusknoir when its painfully outclassed by Dusclops (from a role perspective).

 

[a fairy]

But why should we encourage them to use P-Z if the most effective member in the Pory line is P2 and it's evolution is (seemingly) completely outclassed?

 

[Chou Toshio]

Can we not argue about something so manini?

Just make dubious disk not appear until the UU island... end of little side-track discussion that has nothing to do with the first town.

Lower tier mons can be used on the higher tier islands, but there's no reason that we have to go out of our way to give access on OU island to a Pokemon that's not viable in OU. There's no need for an NPC to even discuss Pory-Z v. Pory2, because as mentioned, they're not even comparable. It's not that P2 is even better than PZ--

but it IS that P2 is viable where PZ is not.

 

[Salemance]

As deleted that post, sorry. Just got hung up on it I guess.

 

[mad dawg]

If most of the NPCs you battle have OU viable teams then potions, revives etc will have to be accessible early and cheap enough to use after every battle (yes backtracking to a pokemon centre is possible i guesss but super annoying especially for longer routes). Also for team preview as a bad lead could lose you the battle (inb4 smashpass).

Also will the protagonist get the pokeballs straight after getting the starter or will they have to do a 'quest' to another town (that town in the south sounds like a good example) like in the gf games.

 

[ck49]

If most of the NPCs you battle have OU viable teams then potions, revives etc will have to be accessible early and cheap enough to use after every battle (yes backtracking to a pokemon centre is possible i guesss but super annoying especially for longer routes). Also for team preview as a bad lead could lose you the battle (inb4 smashpass).

Also will the protagonist get the pokeballs straight after getting the starter or will they have to do a 'quest' to another town (that town in the south sounds like a good example) like in the gf games.

I do feel like we should use the town in the south to our advantage when it comes to the early story line. I don't know about the pokeballs, I think that would be part of the story though.

Also, I think we agreed you would get healed after every trainer battle, though I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed.

 

[Chou Toshio]

If most of the NPCs you battle have OU viable teams then potions, revives etc will have to be accessible early and cheap enough to use after every battle (yes backtracking to a pokemon centre is possible i guesss but super annoying especially for longer routes). Also for team preview as a bad lead could lose you the battle (inb4 smashpass).

Also will the protagonist get the pokeballs straight after getting the starter or will they have to do a 'quest' to another town (that town in the south sounds like a good example) like in the gf games.

typical trainers are not going to be super strong... that seems pretty self-explanatory. It's just like any other in-game experience, where it starts of easy and gets harder. Sure, they'll all have Pokemon from the SmogSmog region, meaning Pokemon that are long-term OU viable, but a team of Azurill's, Fletchlings and Electrike's doesn't add up to anything especially intimidating.

Can we please exercise our common sense, as to not have to address every manini detail? Even if it's the "Smogon Version OU" doesn't mean you're fighting OU battles from the very start... that should be obvious when you only start off with a single low level unevolved Pokemon.

 

[white9old]

Just want to add that horde battles should be included. They can be used to give hidden abilities(assuming pokemon can't be found in the wild w/ them) and for ev training. Using hordes you can fully ev train a stat in like 6 battles, allowing for non-grindy ev training.

 

[Turtleye]

Okay regarding the catchable pokemon in the first town

I'll separate the viable Pokemon (according to coolking49 's list) by freshwater/saltwater/neither according to where they should be found:

Freshwater:
Magikarp
Carvanha
Tympole
Slowpoke
Poliwag
Azumarill
Wooper

Saltwalter:
Magikarp (it's everywhere, damnit!)
Squirtle
Staryu
Alomomola
Clamperl
Mantyke
Horsea
Shellos
Shellder
Piplup

So, if we can decide on the aesthetics of our first town, we can make our list of Pokemon. No point in trying to make a list of Pokemon if we don't know what type of town it is.

Okay regarding the catchable pokemon in the first town, the town has a pond. That means Fresh Water.
I used the lists Mew King and coolking49 made (well, Mew King used Coolking's list, I didnt). We have 6 Pokemon catchable. Now lets split this list up in Fishing and Surfing. Also they forgot Corphish (I assume this is decently viable)

Fishing:
Magikarp
Carvanha


Surfing:
Tympole
Slowpoke
Poliwag
Wooper
Marill
Corphish

Note that Marill is usually found on land instead of water, with X&Y being the only exeptions to this. It is possible that Marill would be catchable here, however I'd save it for a later route.

Note that the Fishing list is very short. This is the same case with the Saltwater Pokemon, simply because most fishable pokemon are not good enough for in OU. This leads to a problem of lack in fishable Pokemon while having a little too much surf pokemon. Therefor I think the surfable list should be cut down. However I wouldn't know which one should be removed from the list.

Another way is to make the evolutions of the fishable pokemon catchable with a Good/Super rod, something that's common in the normal games (i.e. you can catch Gyarados with the super rod).

Any opinions?

 

[ck49]

Note that Marill is usually found on land instead of water, with X&Y being the only exeptions to this. It is possible that Marill would be catchable here, however I'd save it for a later route.

You can catch Marill in the water in emerald (iirc its in the pond south of Fortree). I do agree that we should save if for later, though.
Also, corphish was catchable via rod in both Emerald (in Petalburg) and X/Y. Poliwag is also fishable. I don't think that't too much of a problem.

I feel like Carvanah is a little to vicious for the safe haven of your home town. It should definitely be reserved for routes with water. No one lives in a town with piranahs in the lake... Lastly, given that this is a small pond and I don't know how many people would actually come back to the first town without a purpose, I feel like having a very small variety of pokemon available is completely acceptable.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

You can catch Marill in the water in emerald (iirc its in the pond south of Fortree). I do agree that we should save if for later, though.
Also, corphish was catchable via rod in both Emerald (in Petalburg) and X/Y. Poliwag is also fishable. I don't think that't too much of a problem.

I feel like Carvanah is a little to vicious for the safe haven of your home town. It should definitely be reserved for routes with water. No one lives in a town with piranahs in the lake... Lastly, given that this is a small pond and I don't know how many people would actually come back to the first town without a purpose, I feel like having a very small variety of pokemon available is completely acceptable.

Well, they'll come back for a Master Ball. Which they could then save for one of the legendaries. (Speaking of which, roaming Lati@s like they are in the other games? Yes/No?)

 

[Turtleye]

Don't forget that the daycare is located there as of now, so thats another reaosn. However I am almost 100% sure that that will change.

Also now I think about it, Wooper and Tympole are more or less found in swampy areas (like the Safari thing in DPPt and Pinwheel forest in BW). Maybe we can save them for those areas?
I'm not sure on having Magikarp as the only fishable 'mon, maybe we can place Corphish on that list too. And Poliwag as well.

 

[Durant]

Just because I was bored I made a list of all the Pokemon on the viability ranking and their pre evolutions. This could be helpful since all these Pokemon together are kind of gonna be the national Pokedex:

http://pastebin.com/MZkbi4wV

There are 25 legendary Pokemon on the list and 9 unviable Pokemon that have an alternative evolution that is OU like Poliwrath and Politoed. I left out Pokemon that are needed to evolve certain other Pokemon because they aren't OU viable ( Remoraid line, Shelmet ). I also left out Pokemon that are needed to breed certain important egg moves onto other Pokemon because again they aren't OU viable. If we go with the idea of the breeding safari then maybe there could be a breeding safari Pokedex similar to the Unown Pokedex is Gold and Silver / HGSS. By the way does 254 sound like a good number of Pokemon for the region? It is almost the same number of Pokemon as in the HGSS Pokedex but those were two regions. But then BW2 and XY has even more Pokemon in one region.

EDIT: So I didn't know Deoxys got banned today. I can't remove it from the pastebin but that means it's actually 253 Pokemon in the Pokedex.

 

[QuickBH]

snip

Remove Deoxys in that, for it is banned. :P

 

[Darth Manaphy]

Just because I was bored I made a list of all the Pokemon on the viability ranking and their pre evolutions. This could be helpful since all these Pokemon together are kind of gonna be the national Pokedex:

http://pastebin.com/MZkbi4wV

There are 25 legendary Pokemon on the list and 9 unviable Pokemon that have an alternative evolution that is OU like Poliwrath and Politoed. I left out Pokemon that are needed to evolve certain other Pokemon because they aren't OU viable ( Remoraid line, Shelmet ). I also left out Pokemon that are needed to breed certain important egg moves onto other Pokemon because again they aren't OU viable. If we go with the idea of the breeding safari then maybe there could be a breeding safari Pokedex similar to the Unown Pokedex is Gold and Silver / HGSS. By the way does 254 sound like a good number of Pokemon for the region? It is almost the same number of Pokemon as in the HGSS Pokedex but those were two regions. But then BW2 and XY has even more Pokemon in one region.

EDIT: So I didn't know Deoxys got banned today. I can't remove it from the pastebin but that means it's actually 253 Pokemon in the Pokedex.

I personally WOULD add those that aren't OU viable but necessary for making OU viable Pokemon. It'll teach trainers that certain Pokemon have uses that may not necessarily be directly related to battling but that you need to "love all the Pokemon" because they all are good at something or some typical crap like that.

Though we can have a guy who just sells Heart Scales to trainers who catches and kills Luvdisc because "They aren't useful for anything except what they hold" and that he's "Doing society a favor by getting rid of them".

Also, has anyone thought of maybe having 8 Pokemon slots? Six slots are dedicated for battling but we have an extra two slots for HM slaves? That'll solve the HM problem. We can introduce the premier HM slaves and have people mention like "Oh, you have a Bibarel? You should probably teach it Strength, Surf, Waterfall, and Cut. That's the only thing it's really good for." and "Oh, there are Tropius in that part of the route. It makes an ideal member of your utility team. It can learn Cut, Fly, Strength, Flash, Rock Smash, as well as Sweet Scent. The latter move is excellent when you want to EV train using Hordes. You shouldn't really use them for battling though unless you like trolling the lower ladders."

 

[Durant]

I personally WOULD add those that aren't OU viable but necessary for making OU viable Pokemon. It'll teach trainers that certain Pokemon have uses that may not necessarily be directly related to battling but that you need to "love all the Pokemon" because they all are good at something or some typical crap like that.

Though we can have a guy who just sells Heart Scales to trainers who catches and kills Luvdisc because "They aren't useful for anything except what they hold" and that he's "Doing society a favor by getting rid of them".

Also, has anyone thought of maybe having 8 Pokemon slots? Six slots are dedicated for battling but we have an extra two slots for HM slaves? That'll solve the HM problem. We can introduce the premier HM slaves and have people mention like "Oh, you have a Bibarel? You should probably teach it Strength, Surf, Waterfall, and Cut. That's the only thing it's really good for." and "Oh, there are Tropius in that part of the route. It makes an ideal member of your utility team. It can learn Cut, Fly, Strength, Flash, Rock Smash, as well as Sweet Scent. The latter move is excellent when you want to EV train using Hordes. You shouldn't really use them for battling though unless you like trolling the lower ladders."

Well personally I think the OU viable ones that are necasary for getting OU viable Pokemon could also be fit in the friend safari sort of thing that may come. Heart Scales can also be given by random NPC's or can be found on beaches since those have already been ways of obtaining Heart Scales.

As for HM's maybe we can also cut down the total of HM moves. Waterfall, Surf and Defog are all viable moves so those could be kept in the game. In BW HM's weren't really necessery for completing the game outside of Cut after the first gym. If we could have random obstacles like a Sticky Web in front of the cave entrance or simply a police officier standing in front of the next route it can also work like that.

 

[a fairy]

There's no reason to change such a basic and cherished part of the game to address a simple issue that could be bypassed in so much easier ways (no need for HMs, not needing HMs on a Pokemon to be used, only 'legitimate' HMs like Waterfall and Surf are needed, et cetra). We could just as easily say 'give a pokemon 5 moveslots to fix the HM issue" but I think many would agree that isn't the best option available to us.

 

[Karxrida]

The problem with making Defog an HM is that it would make a ton of previously illegal move combinations legal, since only Pokemon from Gen IV can have it. We'd have to put in a message saying something like "You can't teach your [[placeholder]] Defog! Why? Because reasons!"