Fly and Dig implementation and possible ban, opinions wanted

[Joim]

Discussing with Marty D about, quoting him, "saying "we're using cartridge mechanics" and then making changes here and there is a farce". I totally agree. What I'm proposing here, and I want the opinion of the active RBY community, is whether to implement properly Fly and Dig invulnerability glitches to follow the game mechanics and ban them from competitive play (they aren't used anyways).

So that's basically it. Thoughts?

inb4 "what's the point": They would be available through custom games.

 

[Lutra]

I think it's better they are implemented, simply because you can raise awareness of the mechanics better. If people see Fly and Dig listed as banned moves, then they'll find out why this is the case.

 

[froggy25]

I still think there should exceptions for extreme cases (for example, Gen IV Acid Rain + Castform, or Encored Metronome on Bounce / Dig / Dive / Fly, as they both lock the game), but aside from that follow the cartridge mechanics as much as possible.

 

[Isa]

I would vastly prefer that the glitch wouldn't be implemented in the first place, but if you're not doing that, then ban Fly and Dig.

RIP

ps. ban Metronome as a logical extension.

 

[Lutra]

I don't think Metronome needs to be banned. I think of it more as an OHKO move kind of ban (powerful and not low enough chance of succeeding).

 

[Disaster Area]

I don't actually agree with them being banned yet, Marco tried to prove to me how they were broken and failed. They're really really big ways to force plays and explosions early for example, but as of yet I don't see them as deserving a ban. I will agree they're f***ing stupid but I personally still disagree with them being banned without a full suspect test allowing us to feel out whether they really cause games to become worse..? I dunno, I don't think using dig/fly like that's especially skillless.. imo dig slowbro's actually less threatening than regular, and on zard it's fairly constrained for moveslots, I guess you could run Dig/SD/BSlam/EQ .. although I think reflect chansey probably walls it, and it won't be all that easy to set it up since literally everything gets SE damage on it, although I guess lax is sort of bait. Zapdos just becomes a bit scarier since paralysing it isn't as great an option in the lategame now, meaning with the rocks out it becomes more threatening with the option to carry fly too. Anything else relevant I missed? Imo all it does is make Zard relevant, gives slowbro another option, makes zapdos a bit scarier late game, and paralysis overall having to be used more carefully.

 

[Jellicent]

despite being a ban minimalist, i'd rather see this implemented and the moves banned. essentially, either way we're "banning" it, but one way involves us pretending not to while ignoring mechanics.

i don't really think we need a suspect test for this. it's a totally game-breaking mechanic that relies purely on luck and offers little competitive value outside of abusing this mechanic. we don't really have a huge playerbase and a proper test would be awkward anyway, considering players might not even encounter the problem while laddering. unless there's a huge demand for a test, i think we're safe with just banning the moves. they've been faux-banned for ages anyway.

 

[Marty]

Just to clarify, the point I was trying to make is that you can't have it both ways. Either you follow accurate mechanics and deal with them as they affect the game(s) in question through rules or bans, or follow the mechanics most of the time but explicitly make it known somewhere that certain "bugs" are "fixed", with a list if necessary and perhaps a note on what was changed about each situation.

So for example in this case you could have "No invulnerability glitches: An interrupted Dig or Fly does not cause the Pokemon to remain invulnerable to most moves."

For Acid Rain: "Using Pursuit while an opponent switches out and KOing it during certain field effects does not activate more field effects" or whatever the case is. (I've never actually researched the real mechanics myself but I don't really see the point since it sounds like it would take a very long time and no one wants it implemented anyway.)

Basically, if we can avoid getting people on the sim who are used to playing the cartridge games (recently or not) and finding that nowhere on PS or on Smogon does it say "this (game) bug doesn't exist here" from reporting a (sim) bug about the fact that the (game) bug is missing when it's unnecessary since it was already decided that certain mechanics are ignored for the sake of competition, then that's something worth doing. (This kind of thing is not unheard of.)

 

[Disaster Area]

I personally feel that we should implement the game as accurately as possible, avoiding game-breaking glitches though. I feel that some stuff can be made illegal (e.g. bringing pre-statused Pokemon in RBY OU - in spite of it being possible to do this in link battles, it was disallowed by Nintendo to my knowledge, and it'd be overly complex to implement, or mimic glitch in gen 4 which acts as sketch essentially - whilst the glitch doesn't exist in later gens, transferring a pokemon with an illegal moveset and sketch being 1 move means gen 5/6 moves are obtainable (only one though) - perfectly reasonable for this to be considered illegal) but I feel that otherwise we should implement the game as accurately as possible and then make bans accordingly (this means my stance on the acid rain glitch is that it should be implemented, with castform/cherrim banned, or at least this alternative being permitted). I don't see the purpose of playing an idealised version, or lol fixing bugs that existed in RBY (except those which cause desyncing, like psywave and counter - HOWEVER I feel that we should also have a metagame where all game-breaking potentially moves aren't permitted, and thus allow the game to be played in a way which would be emulatable on the cartridge within this context) and thus I feel that if Dig and Fly are 'broken' [or whatever the reasoning is going to be for banning them] then they should be banned, rather than allowing a 'fixed' implementation. Note also that Fly and Dig are basically never used anyway outside of the somewhat niche Toxic+Fly Zapdos (assuming debugged implementation of dig/fly). This is my stance, and I hope you can understand why I hold it.

 

[Joim]

Personally I leant to implement it and ban Fly and Dig and, since you guys mention it, add an informative clause on acid rain on gen 4 telling it is not implemented.

 

[Crystal_]

I think the real question is whether we should implement desyncs and divisions by zero

 

[Disaster Area]

I think the real question is whether we should implement desyncs and divisions by zero

I don't see the purpose of playing an idealised version, or lol fixing bugs that existed in RBY (except those which cause desyncing, like psywave and counter - HOWEVER I feel that we should also have a metagame where all game-breaking potentially moves aren't permitted, and thus allow the game to be played in a way which would be emulatable on the cartridge within this context).

 

[Crystal_]

It was just a joke lmao

 

[Golden Gyarados]

Philosophically I like what Marty D brought up (whether he was serious or not) - sometimes the simulator fixes things and we have a readily available report explaining what. Dig and Fly aren't my hill to die on here but I'd rather the simulator simply fixed game breakers like those moves, and desyncs, etc, without simply banning the moves. True, Dig and Fly aren't used much (it's most competitively viable on Ninetales, which no one has mentioned yet), nor is Psywave, but on principle I'm all for fixing something like this

 

[Loudo]

I don't like messing with game mechanics. I play on simulators out of convenience, not because I want to play someone else's revised version of the game. I believe all additional rules should be implementable in a cartridge game.
So I am for the correct implementation of Fly and Dig and their ban.

As far as desyncing and division by zero are concerned, if I understand those glitches correctly, they could be handled without changing game mechanics as well.
You need only ban the move Psywave on Pokémon of the levels that cause the glitch, while the issue of Counter can be ignored because you can pretend in a cartridge game tournament that there is a referee that will forbid a player from switching out with the wrong move selected.

Incidentally, and since I couldn't voice my opinion before the topic was closed, I also dislike mixing the Freeze Clause with non-Stadium mechanics for the same reason, and I really hate the way that topic was handled.

 

[Jorgen]

But... but what will Farfetch'd use for Flying STAB now? How will Parasect be able to do damage to Gengar?

...actually, on second thought, I think I'm being serious. There's a legitimate use of these moves somewhere, it's a shame to need to ban them because we want to implement a mechanic that, like Acid Rain, is so broken it's one of the few situations where it's reasonable to patch it instead.

 

[Disaster Area]

Maybe if we played tiers lower than OU.. Also lol Dig Parasect, apart from the fact that it's bad, it's already really constricted for options with Spore/Leech Life/Mega Drain/Hyper Beam/Slash/Swords Dance.. Dig isn't just all that relevant on it. Anyway, I'm holding the stance that they don't currently even require a ban. However, if we played lower tiers on PS [See: we don't currently play BL or UU, and there's not strictly even a up to date tierlist for them in the wrap meta] then I might consider in some metagames there to be a merit for it. But as it stands I feel it's not with merit of being banned in any tiers that we do play, that I don't feel there's merit to implementing a 'debugged' version enough to consider it over keeping it as accurate.

I don't like messing with game mechanics. I play on simulators out of convenience, not because I want to play someone else's revised version of the game. I believe all additional rules should be implementable in a cartridge game.

I fully echo this stance (even if I currently disagree with them deserving being banned)

 

[Mowtom]

Um. Stupid question alert.

What exactly IS the Dig/Fly glitch?

 

[Jellicent]

Um. Stupid question alert.

What exactly IS the Dig/Fly glitch?

If a Pokemon uses Fly or Dig and either gets fully paralyzed or hurts itself in confusion during the turn it's in the air / underground, it'll remain semi-invulnerable (immune to every attack sans Swift and Bide) until it either uses a charging move (Fly, Dig, SolarBeam, etc.) or switches out.

 

[Jorgen]

Put this video on repeat forever. That's basically what happens when this glitch activates.

 

[Karxrida]

I say ban it. Even if it's uncommon, being completely invincible to everything bar 2 useless moves is pretty broken.

 

[Mr.E]

With the ubiquity of PAR in RBY, the glitch basically a 3/16 chance to win the game everytime you get a turn with a Dig/Fly mon. There's plenty of them that have boosting moves to ensure PP stalling isn't an option as well. Are we just absolving the use of all paralysis-causing moves, including the de facto primary STAB attack for Normals (Electric too but 10%), carrying Acid Armor Rest Vaporeon and random Swift users to prevent abuse? That's ridiculous. I honestly don't mind if the glitch isn't implemented but it's more than banworthy if it is.

Ninetales is fringe competitive and Dig is probably the best fourth move to put on it. Toxic/Fly Zapdos is bad and Piexplode should feel bad.

No point banning Metronome anymore than we ban it for the possibility of casting evasion or OHKO moves, which we don't.

 

[Disaster Area]

why should I feel bad..? I hardly use zapdos anyway and when I do it's standard or very close to, and toxic+fly is way far behind screen+rest sets.

Slowbro you can PP stall, charizard.. I guess not? Seriously though, what threats actually can abuse dig/fly? Afaik Zard is the only one with set up and dig/fly and decent stats, and even still that typing gives horrible weaknesses to ice, electric, and rock. Basically, everything that's not alakazam, exeggutor, or raish chansey (or I guess a lot of lax variants too) is able to hit it super effectively and none of those are exactly comfortable to switch in on. I guess egg is your prime target..

Mr.E if this gets banned I'm gonna have to copy your sig and put FREE DIG AND FLY :] unless someone ppersuades me we legitimately need to ban this.

 

[froggy25]

Dig / Fly:

6 Charizard
9 Blastoise
18 Pidgeot
22 Fearow
20 Raticate
24 Arbok
26 Raichu
28 Sandslash
38 Ninetales
47 Parasect
51 Dugtrio
55 Golduck
57 Primeape
59 Arcanine
65 Alakazam
68 Machamp
75 Graveler
76 Golem
80 Slowbro
83 Farfetch'd
85 Dodrio
95 Onix
105 Marowak
112 Rhydon
142 Aerodactyl
144 Articuno
145 Zapdos
146 Moltres
151 Mew

Dig Rhydon as a 4th slot instead of Substitute ? Dig Alakazam seems to be wasting a moveslot.
Dig Raticate in UU ? It can't take a single hit so getting it Paralyzed is probably not the greatest idea ever.

 

[Disaster Area]

Can Fly be used in normal play on Raichu? Don't see it on the PO teambuilder; it might do more damage to exeggutor so I'd consider it potentially legitimate o3o There's no way u can really keep it around enough to cheese with Fly though, and chansey and exeggutor still wall you in that scenario, so it's not broken. In a scenario where Flychu would be useful, so would Hbeam. Fly would I guess offer you the option of cheese scenarios, and cements its dominance versus zapdos (raichu beats zapdos) and most things are hitting it with EQ rather than bslam anyway. Flychu's definitely viable though.

Alakazam can be PP stalled. Fitting rest on rhydon would beat zapdos more consistently (giving up blsam/sub/rock slide is an option tbf). Articuno's got issues even when up in the air. The potential of Dig Rhydon means getting it para'd with stun spore from eggy is suddenly less fun. Slowbro can be PP stalled.

I think Charizard and maybe Raticate (?) are your strongest options to abuse dig/fly, flychu sounds fun though. I'm still not sure it's broken in OU. Sorry. Someone please give me a logical common scenario where dig/fly would make the game stupid at least some of the time.