OPEN DISCUSSION - Gym Concerns and Issues

[Gale Wing Srock]

"1 fresh NFE Pokemon of rank B or below"

This is a 2 CC value. Why is it included?

Texas where are you getting that quote from? You typed it? ^_^

Sorry! I think I made a Typo, the 12th Badge's prize should have 1 Fresh FE pokemon of Rank C and below.

So that would mean:

12 BADGES: Raid Heirloom: Old Book of Tricks + 40 UC + 1 Fresh FE pokemon of Rank C and below

And it basically saves you some training and some CC. Useful for Raids and TLRs if you need one at that point.

 

[Frosty]

Can we seriously stop including and excluding and including new stuff on the list? It only drags this on further. There are a billion possibilities of minor prizes and if we are to discuss every single one of them one after the other, we might as well close this thread and move on.

As for the new pokemon...eh. I fail to see any C-Rank or B-Rank that I would want to get now. At 12 Badges you already have the team you want. Sure you may want eventually a mon for an specific raid or TLR, but that isn't that common, nor is something that would give most people with 12 badges much trouble. Seeing how easy Emma or myself evolve mons needed quickly, it just seems "fluff". And I would much rather have less fluff than more.

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

I think the prizes seem a bit steady now and we may / may not have some minor changes.

Frosty, the prizes are for all of us. Some of us don't mind getting a Sunflora as a prize, it is still a prize ^_^
As for you or Emma not needing a part / whole of a prize; It is really upto you if you want to claim a prize or not. The whole point of prizes may be unnecessary for you, if you think so. But we are here to discuss on what should be available for everyone to claim. Also, some of us like fluff ^_^

Have some patience please. You have waited three years to achieve such a wonderful feat, a few more days wouldn't hurt much.

-------

Also, putting myself up for reffing a Flying Quals battle. Atleast I can ref one, if not be in it ^_^

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Gale. 12 badges. 12 BADGES! In no universe ever will a 2 CC fresh pokemon be of ANY value to you when you have 12 BADGES!

 

[zarator]

As much as I like it from a flavor perspective, I concur with Frosty and Texas. FE mon at 12 badges is kinda unneccessary. Please let's not turn the list of prizes in a Christmas tree^^

 

[tavok]

Sorry Gale, but I agree with them. Giving those things as rewards for that amount of badges is kinda dumb. Maaaaaaybe if you were talking, I dunno, about the 2-4 th badge, but imo it is completely unnecessary.

Also throwing my hat into reffing a Flying Quals match. But only one :)

 

[Its_A_Random]

Vetoing Free Pokémon for Badges outside of Victini et al. A free non-legendary Pokémon is a worthless reward when I can gust get that Pokémon for 2 CC and build it up.

Stop changing the prize tree.

Disagree with zarator's opposing Heirlooms of choice on the account that "most people will go for the healer one first" is a terrible argument. I firmly believe people should choose what they want to choose and if that means healer artefact first then so be it. What is wrong with everyone choosing a healing heirloom first just because of its practicality is beyond me.

Let's just implement EM's list in Post #288 and be done with it imo.

 

[waterwarrior]

This may sound a little silly, but for the TLR items, can we possibly institute a policy of being able to "trade in" the previous reward for the new one i.e. be able to pay 10 UC for a Hyper Potion, 30 UC for a Max Potion/ Max Revive, etc. ONLY ONCE instead of having to go through the entire gym again? It seems to me a bit superfluous to go through the entire gym again, especially since some gyms are closed and it just extends the queue for people that want to challenge it for the fist time as well as puts an extra burden on the leader itself- if they lost once to that team, disregarding hax it's probably go end up being the same product.

Probably going to get shot down, but this just makes more sense to me.

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

Well I don't mind guys, I was just trying to stir things up a bit so these prizes are ironed out sooner than later. I am fine by any prizes that we agree to. So Emma's post (#288) is fine by me. I only spaced the prizes out a bit and added a few things to balance them out a little. Can't wait for the updated prizes ^_^

 

[Elevator Music]

Ok, since it seems we're set on the general prize list and retroactivity, whether or not there should be an order to heirlooms is all that's left to discuss. From a perspective of someone that doesn't really raid seriously (or, rather, from a perspective of someone that wants people to aim to get as many badges as possible :>), I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, my immediate concern with a static line-up in the prize list is that it's unfortunately unrealistic to expect people to get 15 or even 11 (or even 7) badges. While I'd really really really love if people were that enthusiastic about fighting gyms, I don't know if the people that want these raid prizes could even get them. From a glance [from someone who doesn't know really anything about raids], apparently aside from the healer heirloom(which doesn't seem to be leagues above the others), they all seem roughly equal in terms of power. At the very least, I don't think there is a big enough difference in how powerful they are to give them such a wide range in how difficult they are to get.

On the other hand, if the healer heirloom really is better than the others(?), then I don't want people choosing it first. Partially because I don't think it makes sense, but more importantly because that would give more incentive to keep working to get badges without making it too impossible to get. Though, I don't want it to be a static 15th prize for reasons above.

So, I think maybe one way to handle it would be that for badge 4, people can choose any heirloom except the healer one? This is ofc assuming that the others are relatively equal in power to each other (and that the healer isn't insanely better than the others)... which I could be wrong about so correct me?

 

[zarator]

After thinking about it, I believe that no order for heirlooms is the best solution. My reasons for it (in no particular order, pun unintended), are:

1) As others put it, it's highly unrealistic to expect more than a couple people to get 15 or so badges. Therefore, a fixed order would mean that some heirlooms would be nothing but a distant dream (more distant than a Victini!). Sure, maybe everyone will follow a specific order because it's established that some heirlooms are better than others. Or maybe not. But one thing is getting a heirloom after 15 Badges because you COULD have gotten him but you didn't. Another is knowing you will NEVER get a certain heirloom because it takes 15 badges to get it.
2) Perhaps heirlooms are not as unbalanced between each other as I make them out to be. So I don't see any strong reason to order them
3) WoW heirlooms can be acquired in any order

 

[Elevator Music]

OK, looks like everything is settled. We're going to go forward with the prizes that were listed in post #288, letting everyone automatically gain whatever prizes they have the badges for (except the UC). People should claim the Raid heirlooms in the Raid thread, but everything else in PCT.

There will be a new topic of discussion coming as soon as this is implemented and I get my laundry.

 

[Elevator Music]

Right. So, new topic.

Gym qualifier format

This is something I've talked about with Dogfish and Stratos a while back ago, but I wanted to get the gym prizes settled before moving on to a new topic (because otherwise they'd never get done). I'm just gonna pretty much paste what I proposed to them. I've mentioned it on IRC a couple of times in the past, and I haven't heard any clear objections to it.

I really think the way qualifiers are set up now are kind of lame. For one, they take a really long time if there's more than 2 people running for a gym, as it's basically a mini-tournament. More importantly, however, is how inherently counterteam-y they are, which causes people to train up Pokemon solely for the qualifiers that potentially might not even be that useful for the actual gym. Similarly, if we're only looking at who wins, we're ignoring potential hax that could swing the game.

What I propose is the following: instead of the current style of qualifiers, all of the people trying out for the Gym fight me (or someone else, but I'd prefer they all fight the same user) in a mock Gym battle. The battle itself would be probably something generic like B6P3 for them, in a 3v3 singles. The opponent fighting all the gym candidates would bring the same team against each opponent, but that team probably wouldn't be announced beforehand. To select who becomes the gym leader, the three Gym committee members will look at each battle and decide which candidate played the best (doesn't matter if they didn't win, or if other people did win, etc.). If it's a really close call, I suppose we can have 'ties' fight it out.

This method is obviously way more subjective, but IMO more appropriate and mostly solves the issues I outlined before. It also [theoretically] ensures we get the most skill candidate as leader? I tossed the idea around on IRC and a couple people seemed interested (and nobody was outwardly opposed?).

Thoughts? Questions?

This obviously wouldn't apply to Flying Gym qualifiers (which, as another reminder, start in 2 days -- Avnomke Rainman Legends P2X7 plz confirm via PM if you are still interested. Also anyone else that is interested please PM the gym committee as well).

 

[Leethoof]

pls make it for flying quals :>

EDIT: bc srsly we dont know when next quals are and we might as well test it now

 

[Rainman Legends]

Agreed, make it like that for flyings :p

 

[ZhengTann]

Heck, I'd join if it's Flying quals :D

 

[Elevator Music]

pls make it for flying quals :>

EDIT: bc srsly we dont know when next quals are and we might as well test it now

Well, Grass and Dragon need to be filled again, so expect qualifiers for those to happen in say, 2 or 3 months maybe?

My concern about doing this for Flying is that you have all already prepared for the qualifier being in the current format. I'd also like more feedback on the idea, and I think it'll take more than a day to get a proper amount of feedback/details to get ironed out (and I don't want to push Flying qualifier back any more). I suppose if everybody participating really wants to do it this way we can, but otherwise we should probably stick with the format you've prepared for.

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

Oh btw, I was thinking that with Emma's suggestion:

• Every Contender Challenges Emma / Any GL or Mod who is interested in doing this. Since there are only two types left, I think Emma can do both of them. But if Emma is busy, we can have a vote for the person who would accept the contender's challenge.
  
• Emma brings the same team to all challenges.
• After the Battle, the Current Gym Leaders vote on who performed the best among the contenders.
• The contender with most number of votes wins the Gym Leader Position.

What do you guys think?

 

[tavok]

Not sure if Gym Leaders should do the voting: I think it is more of a committee decision.
Maybe GL could give feedback? I dunno.

 

[waterwarrior]

Basically gonna echo what tavok and emma already said: I think that it would be better if all the potential GLs fought the same team and opponent of the same skill level (aka the same person), committee decided who battled the best and Gym Leaders are encouraged to give feedback on what they think.

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

Sure, Cool thing.

There are some good responses Emma, please implement them when you would, If at all it has to be. Not sure if it needs to be marked somewhere though.

So we finally have a Legit Qualifier, where the potential Gym Leaders wouldn't have the need to train specific pokemon for the qualifiers. Swell!

 

[Elevator Music]

OK, sorry for the delay but Flying qualifiers are finally starting.

The users participating are:
- Leethoof
- Rainman Legends
- P2X7
- Avnomke (still hasn't confirmed, but he hasn't been on to do so so I'm assuming he still wants to participate)

Qualifiers will use the standard method (not the one still being proposed, sry zt) with the follow battle rules:

Format:
Send 6, Play 3 Singles
2 Day DQ
Recoveries / Mon: 2
Chills / Mon: 5
Substitutions: 3
Abilities = All
Items = All
Switch = OK
1 Megas

Since we have 4 people, it'll be standard tournament style with the following matchups:

Leethoof vs. Avnomke
Ref: Frosty

Rainman Legends vs. P2X7
Ref: tavok

Post or PM with any questions, but hopefully we can get this over with smoothly.

 

[Avnomke]

Yeah I am in, btw.

 

[Frosty]

indeed you are

Av vs Leet: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/flying-qualifiers-avnomke-vs-leethoof.3534851/

Good luck you two and you better open real soon.

 

[Birkal]

A bunch of things.

1) Fine with Elevator Music challenging all qualifiers. I would prefer he use rentals over his own Pokemon, but either works I suppose. I worry that Elevator might be a bit too good, especially since part of being a gym leader is being able to defend your title through pressure and abusing subs. Emma rarely has subs to abuse... That being said, I'm not sure we can find a "middling" player that is as active as the moderators.

2) Similar to allowing more than one mega evolution, can we require gyms by default to require at least one mega evolution? Dropping to zero can severely limit what you bring. Given that mega evolutions are such an integral part of the game, gym leaders should have to use up an arena effect to justify dropping down to zero.

3) Can we get a standard on what is acceptable for DQ limit and amount of Pokemon to bring? 6v6 with a 4 day DQ is a massive battle (Geodude6 just started one) that will likely take over three months. I propose that 5v5 is the maximum format with 3 day DQ being the highest one can go.