ANiny Rant

[ANinyMouse]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23602

I like this thread.

I like it because it kind of takes the whole of competitive Pokemon battling and explains it through a very honest and simple truth: You can not counter everything, and so you will eventually find opponents that you cannot defeat by any other means than "out-foxing the fox."

The more I step back and look at D/P and all the new conventions and Pokemon, the more I realise that the only thing GameFreak did to balance the game was to make sure there were enough varried offensive threats with few counters as possible by carefully balancing the defensive effectiveness of key defensive Pokemon.

In R/S/E we had iconic teams that could counter nealy anything defensively while still posing moderate offensive threats. We no longer have that luxury. In R/S/E it took me an hour of lunchtime planning to make a great, competitive team that would net me more wins than losses. In D/P I can easily spend days and even weeks going aroud in circles in the planning stage without ever hatching so much as one egg at the daycare.

To be honest, D/P's metagame, when viewed under the perfect lens of the soon-to-be-released Competitor (right, guys?) -- with it's 31 IVs, perfect natures and hard-to-get Pal Park move/ability combinations -- will craft an endless time sink. Assuming you never get sick of it, one could conceivably play D/P forever and never reach the satisfaction of dominance. This has been the theoretical nature of Pokemon since Red and Green, but only now do I see it as a realistic concept.

Pokemon is an endless puzzle if you seek absolute victory. It cannot exist any longer, if it ever did in fact exist in the earlier generations.

***

Pokemon is fun as hell. There's so much creativity that went into designing this game, as evidenced by it's virtually endless potential and combinations. BUT I no longer care or desire to take part in a elite competitive metagame. It was fun in R/S/E, but now everything has expanded exponentially, and there's no fun to be had in crafting "perfect" teams.

I will still come to Smogon and I will still participate as I normally do, but I do not expect that you should see me on Competitor ever, nor should you expect that when you face me on Wi-Fi that I will use the best or most effective strategies.

Remember when Footnte first joined our community? Do you remember how his radical ideas on de-centralizing the metagame caught all kinds of debate and attention? But where has it gotten us thus far? If anything, I feel the forum members now have either forgotten or have chosen to ignor his ideas because it goes against the very nature of the Pokemon competitive strategy genre.

Now, I am not going to finish this post as a plug for a radically different "OU/Standard" setup -- even I love to use Pokemon like Heatran. My point is this. If you appraoch Pokemon from a funloving standpoint and make it your goal to seek out fun and unique ways to use Pokemon you love, then you are morel likely to find satisfaction in your battles.

What is the result of increased satisfaction? I don't know. It seems like a result in and of itself. It certainly sounds appealing.

Yes, in the end Pokemon is a video game that requires a vast ammount of time investment, a pleasant escape from the day's troubles and a way to feel the joys of lasting achievment through accomplishment and planning. But at the end of the day, Pokemon has not actually improved your real life, nor the lives of anyone around you. In fact, the moretime you spend playing, the less time is devoted to real-world tasks.

No, I'm, in essence, "quitting" "competitive Pokemon battling" because I recognize a quality in its innate nature which desires to soak up as much of your attention as possible.

What then to do? Obviously, I love the game. How, then, should I go on playing?

Trivially. At a whim. I don't care about being able to counter everything anymore, because it can't be done. And so, while I will still find myself in this loveable black hole of endless strategy, winning and losing no longer matter to me. If my record was 42 wins and 87 losses after a year's time, it ultimately won't matter to me since I had a lot of fun getting to that point.

I'm afraid of waxing loquacious, so this is the end of my rant.

TL;DR: I just don't agree with the idea behind the smogon community anymore, but I still wanna hang out. 'Cause you guys are cool.

-Adam

 

[Inferno838]

Hm... Well put...? You certainly have a point...

 

[Discord]

Nice read. Your absolutely right, although I barely play standards anymore(just to make my friend shut up). It's impossible to counter everything, especially that jackass Tyranitar. Anyway, great read.

 

[Nicar]

I completely agree with you. While it's enjoyable to play a very close and balanced game where everyone has similar teams and basically every game will be a matter of skill in prediction and a fair bit of luck, I have a lot more fun studying unorthodox Double battle strategies, finding the potential of UU Pokémon and just playing for the fun of it.

I want to win like most people but having a few numbers next to my lose: doesn't really affect me. As long as the battles fought have been fair and fun they've been good battles in my opinion. And like a friend of mine said: "Seek losses to get better." Every time you lose you will hopefully learn something and want to change something in your team. If you stop to lose you might get satisfied and believe that your team is close to perfect. But if you stop there you have only stopped getting better. So even if you're really concerned about winning you shouldn't settle for the most common standards, try to make something new and creative instead.

So, either way, just play how you want and always have fun, that's my opinion.

 

[Dan Dan]

I think most people will end up just using their favourites in the end. At the moment, the game is fresh and those playing want to try out the most "powerful" stuff, as will those competing against said person. As TSS vs. TSS battle get boring, people will branch out their preferences and what they choose in their teams. This is why my aim in pokemon is not to create an "all powerful" team, but to EV train EVERY pokemon in the game, maybe some more than once depending on their sets etc. This way I can mix and match pokemon I feel like using whenever I want, and it allows me to keep matches from becoming too stale from using the same 6-10 pokemon over and over.

 

[Andren]

Very well put.

I usually end up using Pokes who look cool (i.e. Electivire, Cresselia), not because they can battle well.

I don't even use Electivire and Gyarados in tandem in my team.

@Dan Dan: I love your goal. It's almost the same as mine.

 

[StrangerDanger]

I agree, but i believe everything can be countered, with a little thought.
I've found myself predicting switches to pokemon i would have had trouble with, and then 2HKOing them.

But i know what you mean.
Especially about the standards.

Recently, i've seen a ton of threads in RMT about "YEAH SORRY IT'S SO OU."

You dont have to be sorry, without extreme ingenuity, things have to be standard to stay alive.

I run, say, Swampert/Gyarados/Electivire/Gliscor/Cresselia/Heatran

All standards, but they're also my favorites, all except cresselia being favorites of old, or before the games came out! (i've always seen my Choice Scarf Heatran as something of a flaming metallic spider-train, which is awesome)

I fought a team today, of Skarmory/Blissey/Tyranitar/Salamence/Dragonite/Garcohomp, and i dont get it. What could force someone to pick the 'magic pokemon' and think to win?

I'll still play, in the face of the time investment, because i need a hobby.

I'm almost done with school, i dont have/cant afford getting a job because of the next years schedule, i dont sleep too much, and i only watch The Daily Show/Colbert Report/Countdown on Msnbc, so i think people like myself with alot of apparent time to waste will enjoy this very much

So my advice to anyone reading this thread is--Play with your favorites, but know, you can have favorites that are 6 standard/BL pokes, and you can have 6 NU favorites, but only one of those teams can get you anywhere.

 

[Cooper]

Hm... Well put...? You certainly have a point...

His point is that he feels that he has better things to do than to play pokemon all the time, which breeding, EV training, testing IVs, and building teams, tends to make us do. And he's right. We all have better things to do. However, ANiny has just revealed to me that he is, in fact, one of the jackasses who I hate. A jackass who can't consider competitive battling to be anything more than competitive. Training, breeding, and building is fun, if you can really appreciate it every step of the way. However, you, Adam, have made it clear that you do all of this simply for the joy of winning.

In RSE, it was possible to dominate. You said that there were teams which no one could beat. Which is true. That is why people rose to the task of "de-centralizing" the metagame, because EVERYONE picked the same six pokemon (Tyranitar, Salamence, Blissey, Skarmory, and the like) to throw onto teams. But by simply adding 106 new pokemon, GameFreak has made this impossible. Nothing can counter everything anymore, which is why the game is fun. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've disguised your selfish resignation from pokemon as a moral refusal to accept a new metagame, because you feel you have to much integrity to accept that you just enjoy winning. And since there is no one team which can dominate anymore, you've lost your desire to play competitively, becuase you'd have to deal with the fact that there would always be someone better than you.

I imagine you're not the only person who's quitting with the release of the fourth generation. There were plenty of discussions of how pokemon can either be played for fun or for records, not both, which spawned my hate of purely competitive battlers. And frankly, I'm glad to lose people like you, because you're a disgrace. Pokemon can be played for both fun and profit, and the less people who don't feel that way, the better.

But if you just don't want to play with the same old Cresselia/ Rhyperior teams, that doesn't mean you have to quit. Go out there, design sets no one has ever seen before, and blow away the metagame. Revolutionize it! You talk of Footnote, and how no one listened to him. He didn't do anything to change standard. He talked of how we should, but he never did. So be a positive influence. Prove me wrong.

 

[mirza]

Dan Dan, I disagree with you. In RSE, did people ever stop using Tyranitar or Swampert competitively? No, and they were some of the most used pokes the whole time in NB and still are. This generation is the exact same.

I'm glad some people are branching out, but the majority will stay with standards and I'm sure that's why Adam posted this.

Adam, I think you should still keep playing competitively. Try out your own strageties and underestimated teams. I know someone as smart as you has those skills. =)

Either way, whatever you do I wish you good luck and you seem like a cool person so hopefully I can chat with you sometime. =) Good luck bro.

EDIT: Cooper you're an asshole. The guy expressed his feelings in his own thread and you simply bash him. Training, breeding and all of that shit is not fun. I can guarantee you that. Unless you have mental issues, I think you know that breeding isn't fun. He's not a jackass either, and he didn't say he doesn't want to play because he can lose. He simply doesn't like the metagame for his own reasons and that's his business.

 

[Nicar]

IThis is why my aim in pokemon is not to create an "all powerful" team, but to EV train EVERY pokemon in the game, maybe some more than once depending on their sets etc. This way I can mix and match pokemon I feel like using whenever I want, and it allows me to keep matches from becoming too stale from using the same 6-10 pokemon over and over.

I have a few friends who are into pokémon battling too and we are planning something similar where we'll trade our trained Pokémon around sometimes to increase the variation in our teams and hopefully have more great matches. Having a huge pool of Pokémon to choose from is a great goal, but Competitor kinda does that already. But I still like your thinking, having a pokémon on Competitor or your own, bred and EV trained creature is very different for most people, including me.

 

[Lupo Aro]

This is a great topic, a wonderful read.

I also plan to raise most every Pokemon.

 

[Familiar Trainer]

Amazing read. Last night I was just going through every single Pokemon, thinking of some Pokemon I would love to use, "favourite" Pokemon. To my dismay though, I couldn't find one. Not one of the many many many Pokemon did I "like" besides current standards. Sure, I used to love Alakazam, Gengar and Miltank before I started viewing things from a competitive standpoint. I used to view Alakazam as the "super smart" Pokemon. Now? Special Attacker that cannot switch into a fairly strong Physical hit without fainting.

Oddly, I started considering all these things after a simple in-game quote of "Isn't this place perfect? It's the perfect place to get away!"

So now my problem isn't "use your favourite Pokemon", be instead "find some Pokemon you like but aren't terrible".

 

[Glen ^^]

The only reason I play Pokemon is because I was needing a hobby, and between Pokemon and MMORPGs I choose Pokemon.
There isn't anything better than winning with my favorites.

 

[StrangerDanger]

While cooper is being an asshole, i think without the flame, it's a necessary argument. Look at it this way. Assume everyone who comes to smogon wants to get better, wants to invest time to be good, or better than his friends. Then, time passes, and from lurking, to patchworking teams, they've made something worthwhile. Then, with all the information, they craft an elite team. Then, someone comes along, and in a very truthful message, states to us that "This is just a game." All those feelings of a well-earned win, or a good-job are lost, either in compensation for the time wasted on what's "only a game", or for the fact that no one in the "real" world would care too much, outside of this internet poke-ring we've worked ourselves into.

So i understand the anger.

However, both bring up points, that leads us to one of the very basic truths of mankind--we have free will.

So, ANinyMouse can quit for whatever reason, and Cooper can play for whatever reason, as can all of us.
Some people just can't adapt, or looking at the metagame, dont want to adapt, and some of us through sheer habit have had the metagame become a part of us. Countless times a gyarados or skarmory with switch into my Electivire, and i know there's another one around the corner.

So, what i'm saying is.
Good read?

I dont know, i found myself typing all of a sudden.
eh.

 

[Lord Alchemy]

The more balanced Pokemon becomes the better. It is a good thing that there isn't a single team that dominates everything (and hopefully this will never be the case). Pokemon is getting closer and closer to what Fighting games have, constantly evolving competitive play that lasts until the next iteration of the game.

The more balanced this game becomes the more I love it. Building teams is just fun for me.

 

[gabriel]

I love to play pokemon and to play competitive battles. A Pokemon Metagame is so, SO complex you can't summarize it in counters.

As mentioned before, prediction can counter your pokemon counter, and prediction means "taking risk" more often than I see people doing on Wi-Fi.

More than counters and predictions, it depends on your effort by raising/reading/playing. And it also depends on your mood. I've lost some ridiculous battle because I was nervous or in a bad mood.

Great thread, hope we can enjoy a good discussion about "the point of pokemon" here.

 

[SuperOrange]

I agree with you so much. I'm sick of everyone trying to make counters to everything, all that leads to is about 100 identical teams of counters. Let's just have a Wobb on Wobb battle guys! :/

 

[Easton]

Nicely summed up ANiny. As stated many times before, you can't counter everything. One moment, Tyrannitar is under control, the next, you find yourself scrambling to figure out a way to counter an Octillery / Ledian that has been BPed 6+ Special Attack and Speed boosts out of nowhere. I'd rather use a team of favorites that all work together and produce a team strategy. They make battling fun, and at the same time I enjoy using my favorites.

 

[CT20]

I disagree with this thread.

Not only is it a, "Fuck the way this game is played" type of thread, it is also a goodbye thread stuck into one. This is not what smogon is about, the game of pokemon develops on its own.

But at the end of the day, Pokemon has not actually improved your real life, nor the lives of anyone around you. In fact, the moretime you spend playing, the less time is devoted to real-world tasks.

This is a clear example of a fucking goodbye thread, you are basically telling us that we should stop doing what we like, just because you think it a waste of time. Aniny, if you find yourself at the point where you can't be creative enough to find a good place in the competitive community of the game, then please do not waste our time with a post like this.

Please go to Serebii or some other place where this kind of shit is appreciated.

 

[Synre]

While somehow I don't think this is going to make you feel too much better about your current situation but this is a pretty thinly veiled 'goodbye to pokemon' thread so I am going to lock it - and to be completely honest I think a large portion of your problem here is that you're looking to the wrong users for inspiration.


Either way this is a competitive battling forum(at least in the Pokemon sections), and judging by this post you aren't terribly interested in competitive battling anymore... I have to wonder why you are still here.

The other main reason I am locking this is that as expected this is just spewing stupid replies, for example:

As stated many times before, you can't counter everything. One moment, Tyrannitar is under control, the next, you find yourself scrambling to figure out a way to counter an Octillery / Ledian that has been BPed 6+ Special Attack and Speed boosts out of nowhere. I'd rather use a team of favorites that all work together and produce a team strategy. They make battling fun, and at the same time I enjoy using my favorites.

Yes, clearly countering Tyranitar will cause +6 Speed and Special Attack to get passed 'OUT OF NOWHERE' even though in even the best circumstances that takes a minimum of six turns and is completely obvious every time. I'm not certain how any of that 'point' is supposed to make the rest of the post make sense; since I'm pretty sure teams that use something other than 'your favorites' are still plenty capable of 'working together and producing a team strategy,' but you have a serious problem if your 'team strategy' is getting beat by a BPed Ledian no matter what you are doing.

I agree with you so much. I'm sick of everyone trying to make counters to everything, all that leads to is about 100 identical teams of counters. Let's just have a Wobb on Wobb battle guys! :/

This post makes perfect sense. I mean, obviously, not being swept by common pokemon by including pokemon that counters them is like, the exact same thing as Wobb on Wobb! Have you ever even played competitive Pokemon before? Do you know how this game works? Why don't you try and lurk a bit more before you post.

EDIT1: I really like StrangerDanger's posts here, I would take note of them if I were many of you.

EDIT2: I think basically what I want to say here is that no, it is not impossible to counter everything. Not even close. That said, you all are grossly exaggerating the ability to do that in Advance. Switching something that is a 100% counter that takes 6% damage from whatever you are switching into's attack is an impossibility in Advance as well as in DP. There's a difference between something being an effective and workable counter and completely walling what is coming in. Good team creation and a balanced team and a solid overall strategy are still plenty capable of giving you a good chance against any team you come across when played correctly. If no matter what you do while you're building a team you end up getting 6-0d by a given Pokemon when it shows up you probably need to learn how to teambuild a bit better, so I'd do that instead of complaining about the metagame being 'overcentralized'. It's not like you can't do it with a few UUs or BLs on your team; hell my OU team is built around fucking Venusaur. This topic is almost exclusively a bunch of players who don't really seem to 'get' this game whining; take some time to learn how the game works rather than complaining because you haven't been as success full as you'd like to be from the moment you started playing.

Honestly guys, I'd try and actually learn how to play the game before making stupid posts like these, there is an incredible fundamental lack of understanding about competitive Pokemon emanating from the replies in this topic.