A proposition to consider.

[eric the espeon]

I would not play this kind of metagame myself (I believe that a bit of luck makes a game more interesting) and so will not try to discuss how to remove Hax.
However I really like the idea of having an alternative metagame in which those players who strongly disapprove of Hax can play. I think may make it more probable that the "anti-hax" clauses (Evasion and OHKO bans) will be removed. If those things are proven to be not broken, (but a cause of more Hax) the existence of a place where the people who want to remove hax for the sake of removing hax can play happily could help the chances for the normal meta to allow Hax so long as it is not broken.

Anyway I support this idea, and hope you do well with it. Do you plan to start up a modded server at some future stage?

 

[Cynthia]

I'm a little worried about what happens to the Pokemon who use a lot of these effects, namely Pokemon who have the abilities Snow Cloak/Sand veil (same chance of activation as Waterfall flinch by the way, so that probably should go for consistency's sake.) Now Garchomp is obviously good enough to survive with no ability, but poor Froslass/Glaceon/Cacturne etc. get nerfed in the process unnecessarily and are left without abilities. Mamoswine also has to go Oblivious, and we all know how useful Oblivious is.

 

[TDS]

Some good Idea's but heres a few things you might want to consider
1. Some battles rely on Critical Hits to break stall wars. Maybe you can adjust it so that crits will activate after certain moves have been repeated 5 times or something like that
2. You'll also have to keep critical hits on Sniper Kingdra, Drapeon and Octillery and any other snipers I've missed

 

[Farewell]

5.) "Expected" moves missing, sometimes twice in a row - Listen, I am a damned good competitive Pokemon player and I know all about the risk you take when you choose to use a move like Hypnosis or Focus Blast, or the risk you take when choosing Fire Blast over Flamethrower. Patronize me all you want about choosing to complain about this, but I'll venture to guess that most of the good players on this site will agree with me that missing with Focus Blast twice in a row on Tyranitar is "fucking bullshit," or missing with Fire Blast twice in a row on Celebi is "fucking bullshit." I initially had a much more controversial idea of increasing the accuracy of all the expected moves by some common percentage just to increase the "expected" factor, but I have a different idea now: if the expected move misses the first turn, it will always hit the second turn, or will have a significantly increased Accuracy. After the turn the move hits, Accuracy resets back to the original value.

What about moves such as Zap Cannon, and Dynamic Punch, and other moves that are 100% going to make a secondary effect occur?

Let's not forget about Sheer Cold, when KO clause is off.

Maybe there should be a rule that sets certain accuracy percentages a minimum for this effect you propose to occur. Say 55% so it would help moves like Sing, but not moves like Dynamic Punch or Sheer Cold.

(Sing is only used once when Sleep clause is considered, so it is not as cheap as Zap Cannon/Dynamic Punch)

 

[Wishy]

Interesting topic.

The thing is that appeal in team building essentially says that "The better team must always win", is a similar attitude in Poker where "The better hand always win". Of course, unlike Poker, there is much thought to be put into each team - and executing strategies.

I believe that luck is something gamefreak put into the game simply to increase the variety within the battle. Without luck, matches are essentially over the second the battle starts - much like in Chess where people know the "best moves" based on the situations and, without a luck factor, people put in a lot of thought into the moves and try to predict what the opponent to do. In this sense, the only "luck factor" in chess is your opponent - which isn't really "luck" at all.

EDIT: This statement is based on the assumption that both players are equally skilled - nearly all my statements I ever make assume both players are "experts" at the game.

Hence, we see that gamefreak wanted the game to be a more instinctive, much like the bullshit they advertise in the anime - this is done through luck, where the best planned strategy does not always win, and there is always this factor. Don't say people don't play by instinct - because many good players are unable to explain clearly why they think certain things are "uber" or not - there is a huge factor of "instinct" within the game.

Hence the removal of luck essentially limits choices within the battling appeal of the game.

There is an easy solution to all of this - to increase the appeal of "team buliding" and battling at the same time. Much like one round in Poker does not decide the game, make each match best out of 3, with counterpicking with "sideboards". This is an idea that was suggested multiple times in the past through one way or another. By having more matches, the "better team builder" wins overall, and not only that, but increases the appeal of team building by offering greater variety through sideboards. It also adds to a level of mindgames that the battlers will want, and critical hits suddenly matter less unless you are unlucky enough to get haxed a few times in a row. But then, it's "Pokemon".

Hence, I believe multiple matches, best out of 3 or 5 or whatever, is the best thing to do rather than modify game mechanics. We modify our playing format, not the game itself. That is how the metagame is, no? We modify the format we play the game to be the most competitive.

I like OD's idea of speedtie though

EDIT: Alternatively, we can create a god and claim that he dictates the realm of competitive Pokemon, and blame it whenever we get haxed. And we can write epic poetry about the rise and fall of great Pokemon players because of the fickle mother of chaos during the great War known as the Smogon Tour. We can also exalt our admins to the position of half god half man so they have absolute authority over everything without petty questioning from us mortals because they are INFALLIBLE

Wow, Tangerine... Well said. I agree with this 100% (Well, obviously except for the edit <_<). But all that you said was perfect.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

What about moves such as Zap Cannon, and Dynamic Punch, and other moves that are 100% going to make a secondary effect occur?

Let's not forget about Sheer Cold, when KO clause is off.

Maybe there should be a rule that sets certain accuracy percentages a minimum for this effect you propose to occur. Say 55% so it would help moves like Sing, but not moves like Dynamic Punch or Sheer Cold.

(Sing is only used once when Sleep clause is considered, so it is not as cheap as Zap Cannon/Dynamic Punch)

This is exactly the reason that I like the Fire Emblem way of RNGing. At 50%, the chance to hit is exactly the same as it was with a single-RNG method, but it arbitrarily reduces the chances of low-hit occurrences and increases the chances of high-hit occurrences. The exact amount isn't nearly as pronounced or exact as I stated before, but it's still a strong boost to the accuracy of moves around 70%. Also, anyone using Sing knows that it's unreliable as hell, and it should stay that way (which the FE RNG does perfectly).

 

[IggyBot]

I'm a little worried about what happens to the Pokemon who use a lot of these effects, namely Pokemon who have the abilities Snow Cloak/Sand veil (same chance of activation as Waterfall flinch by the way, so that probably should go for consistency's sake.) Now Garchomp is obviously good enough to survive with no ability, but poor Froslass/Glaceon/Cacturne etc. get nerfed in the process unnecessarily and are left without abilities. Mamoswine also has to go Oblivious, and we all know how useful Oblivious is.

I don't know about you, but when I use any pokemon with a evasion boosting ability, I don't think "Oh wow I'm going to attempt to abuse Snow Cloak". I really can't think of any pokemon where I would want to rely on an ability to use them.

Some good Idea's but heres a few things you might want to consider
1. Some battles rely on Critical Hits to break stall wars. Maybe you can adjust it so that crits will activate after certain moves have been repeated 5 times or something like that
2. You'll also have to keep critical hits on Sniper Kingdra, Drapeon and Octillery and any other snipers I've missed

What about moves such as Zap Cannon, and Dynamic Punch, and other moves that are 100% going to make a secondary effect occur?

Let's not forget about Sheer Cold, when KO clause is off.

Maybe there should be a rule that sets certain accuracy percentages a minimum for this effect you propose to occur. Say 55% so it would help moves like Sing, but not moves like Dynamic Punch or Sheer Cold.

(Sing is only used once when Sleep clause is considered, so it is not as cheap as Zap Cannon/Dynamic Punch)

Obviously certain attacks are going to be "expected" to miss multiple times, just like others are expected to hit. I doubt whatever (if any) accuracy modifier is put into place would apply to attacks such as OHKO's (which ignore accuracy modifiers anyways, and shouldn't be changed in my opinon), and low accuracy attacks such as Zap Cannon and Sing. You should expect these attacks to miss multiple times.

 

[Farewell]

Well, I mean there should be like a minimum amount of accuracy, say 70% for Focus Blast, where the accuracy % goes up.

So moves with less than 70% do not get an accuracy boost, but moves with > 70% do get an accuracy boost.

Perhaps a 15% boost, so its 80.5% for Focus Blast instead.


My concern with Sing was that it seems like it isn't any better than Zap Cannon/Dynamic Punch when you factor in Sleep Clause, so perhaps boosting its accuracy would be beneficial (I mean cmon, Hypnosis does the same thing with better accuracy)

That is why I originally set the minimum required accuracy for a boost at 55%, so it would include Sing, but still disclude Zapcannon/Dynamic Punch.

 

[Zephiel]

What a great thread.

While I am actually a good player, I've lost to the worst players because of bullshit luck. I have this many times everyday. People who clearly win with luck say it was skill!

You have my support.

 

[Cynthia]

I don't know about you, but when I use any pokemon with a evasion boosting ability, I don't think "Oh wow I'm going to attempt to abuse Snow Cloak". I really can't think of any pokemon where I would want to rely on an ability to use them.

The issue is then that these Pokemon are left with no ability, and are significantly worse than they were before. Randomly nerfing stuff like Glaceon is not the point of this IMO.

 

[BlueAizu]

What a great thread.

While I am actually a good player, I've lost to the worst players because of bullshit luck. I have this many times everyday. People who clearly win with luck say it was skill!

You have my support.

I'm with this statement all the way.

I'll never forget the battle I had with someone who used Ho-Oh when he wasn't supposed to, a Blaziken with Poison Jab (it poisoned me every time), me getting burned by Flamethrower, and used an out-of-place Tyranitar... that was the worst!

 

[IggyBot]

The issue is then that these Pokemon are left with no ability, and are significantly worse than they were before. Randomly nerfing stuff like Glaceon is not the point of this IMO.

My point is that taking away their ability doesn't make them "significantly worse" in my opinion, because you don't plan to rely on their ability in the first place. Sure, having your opponent miss is cool, but that's not why I choose to use Glaceon/Froslass/Mamoswine, or even Garchomp. I use them because they have something to offer that I can't get from any other pokemon.

 

[Ancien Régime]

Why does luck make a game more interesting from the standpoint of "principle"? I think that the purpose of playing competitively (btw if you're "playing for fun" you are NOT playing competitively - is to determine "who is the most skilled" and luck, at least in the short term, is an impediment to that.

I understand that over time, the most skilled players will reveal themselves to be the most skilled. But I think that in principle, players who are more skilled should defeat players who are less skilled as much as possible, and the game should be set up for that to make that happen.

Obviously luck exists in what we call "Pokemon" and other than stuff like OHKOs/DT, freeze clause, soft bans on "hax" items, we really can't escape that aspect of pokemon.

 

[Bogmire]

Going back to OD's idea for speedties, what would happen if it was 1-1 at the end of a match and there was a speed tie and both pokemon attacked and fainted? Would the battle result in a tie?

 

[Pocket]

I have nothing to say for the damage range, because I don't see anything inherently lucky or chancy about it. This got to do more with the team building skill than fortune. If the monster wants a solid OHKO, it should be EVed to have a min of 100% KO on that particular monster. If the monster is fine with an average OHKO with a range from upper 92 ~ 108%, then the chance of the opponent surviving is a risk willingly made.

 

[Amelia]

Well, if this is even implemented ( i hope not... i rely on hax a lot of times), i suggest that this would be implemented in a different metagame. Or rather, different clause or different option. It should be our right to choose.

And yeah... i kinda agree with Jumpman, we're further making it less and less Pokemon, but i can't really argue with the majority.

 

[Taylor]

Well, if this is even implemented ( i hope not... i rely on hax a lot of times), i suggest that this would be implemented in a different metagame. Or rather, different clause or different option. It should be our right to choose.

Well... it will be on an entirely different server, so you will have your choice as to which metagame you would prefer to play.