Pokémon+ Luck-free metagame : Server up and running !

[Innocent Criminal]

Pokémon+ Custom server
Connect to "PK+ Luck-Free Server" on PO's server list or using Advanced Connection : 90.61.223.175:5080​

(Edit: OmegaDonut gave me the permission to post this)


IMPORTANT NOTE : This is IN NO WAY an "improved Pokémon" supposed to be better than the official metagame. This is an alternate server, designed to target a very specific kind of player, as described below. If you're not one of them and think this is retarded, do not feel the need to post here as I already know most players won't like it and this will never be even considered for the official server. If you feel the official metagame is retarded and crits should be removed, feel free to open a new thread in in Policy Review (you don't need rights) to discuss it with the staff, but this is not the place to talk about it. To everyone, should you see more of these off-topic posts, just ignore them. So what, they're only text data stored a server, don't feed the haters and they won't cause any trouble.
This thread is not a debate on luck in Pokémon, but only for discussion of the metagame, suggestions and constructive criticism from the players actually interested in this. Don't worry, this will never become standard, as both myself and all of the Smogon staff are very strongly opposed to it : I have myself never whined about "hax" because it's indeed part of Pokémon and I feel like it spices up the game, but still, it doesn't mean that there can't be an alternate game, having the different qualities of other games some enjoy. You want to to tell us to "go play chess/go/whatever" ? Well, that's what it is : a deterministic game (like chess and go) sharing Pokémon's qualities.

NB : For now, the topic is playtesting and discussion of the metagame, if you have suggestions, please PM them to me (I will answer all of them) or post them on the development thread.




While some people say "play another game if you don't want any luck", there are very good reasons why such a luck-based game has a very active competitive community : no other game has the nearly infinite amount of options offered by teambuilding to prepare a strategy, with actual battling skillful and diverse in its own right. In this regard, luck becomes a hindrance as it makes strategies less reliable, removes options by forcing redundancy and, by its very nature, reduce competitive appeal.


I made this server for all of those who play this game for these reasons but feel held back by its randomness. The only case when luck will ever be involved is a speed tie on the first turn : everything else is purely determined by known factors that you have control over. If you enjoy this luck spicing up the game, this server is not for you, but if you play Pokémon for its unique qualities but usually prefer deterministic games, then you will most certainly enjoy this.

Here are the current changelist and move banlist :

Move Banlist

Acupressure, Assist, BeatUp, Double Team, DynamicPunch, GrassWhistle, Hypnosis, Inferno, Magma Storm, Magnitude, Metronome, Minimize, Present, Sing, Sleep Talk, Zap Cannon, OHKO moves

Magma Storm is a temporary ban, we can find out how to balance it when a proper metagame develops.

BeatUp is banned for technical reasons.

Mechanics Changelist

• Random critical hits can't happen anymore, but moves that always crit still do.
• No move will ever miss, no matter what.
• Damage is always be the average of min and max rolls, rounded down. Using 92 as the random multiplier.
• Protect, Detect and Endure always fail when used consecutively.
• Phazing always sends the first available pokemon in the party.
• Sleep always lasts two turns and the sleep counter does not reset upon switching (similar to 4th Gen Rest).
• Trapping moves (Bind, Magma Storm) always last 4 turns (5 with Grip Claw).
• Multi-hit moves always hit min+1 times (max with Skill Link).
• Outrage, Petal Dance and Thrash always lasts two turns and lowers the user's Atk and SpA 2 stages when it ends.
• Charge Beam always raise SpA, but every other luck-based secondary effect was scraped. A consequence is that freezing can't happen anymore. Sheer Force still boosts the moves it used to (intended).
• Hustle has no effect.
• Full paralysis never happens and confusion was banished to the moon. Machamp is reportedly crying under a tree.
• Moves such as Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge, Body Slam and Force Palm always inflict status on the second attempt on the same target. Thunder does not. Abilities such as Flame Body activate after hitting the bearer twice consecutively with a contact move. Shed Skin always activates after three turns (including the turn when you get statused).
• Def and SpD boosts will go away after being struck 20 times (counting from when you got the first boost). It will be announced as a critical hit because the server can't send custom messages, but damage doesn't get doubled. This prevents endless PP*stalling that would have been prevented by critical hits.
• Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Megahorn and Gunk Shot lowers the user's corresponding offensive stat one stage. Thunder, Hurricane and Blizzard do not under their respective weathers, but the rain moves lose half of their power under the sun. Seed Flare, Power Whip and lolMegaKick do not have downsides for now.
• If both leads tie in speed, the first pokemon to be sent will go first. After that, every tie will be determined by the previous turn :
  ** If both sides moved, whichever side moved last will win the tie.
  ** If one side switched, it will win the tie.
  ** If both sides switched, the outcome will be determined from the previous turn.

Many of these are arbitrary and widely subject to change, depending on what the metagame turns out to be. For example, should Sun prove overpowered, SleepPowder and/or Power Whip might get nerfed.

Among notable consequences, you will always be able to revenge kill fast sweepers with speed ties and special sweepers (*cough*thundurus*cough*) won't be able to Focus Blast through everything and sweep. Since countering also becomes more reliable from the lack of crits, freezes and flinches, these mechanics should inherently help balance the game, so we should be able to follow Smogon's BW OU banlist. Since no stat spread or move BP was altered, analyses should still be mostly relevant.

I'll try to keep the OP updated and gather here useful info, such as new, effective strategies and sets, server stats, etc...

Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback here !


Strategy : Phazer-pinning.

Similar to the chess strategy, you can use team preview and threaten to severely punish any phazing attempt by putting a counter to your opponent's phazer in second position. This is most effective with Magnezone against Skarmory, but can also be used with strong, frail wallbreakers such as Darmanitan or Infernape.

 

[Kepperino]

Hmm, this sounds like a good idea.
It's all based on skill, playing like this.
But personally, I'm more fond of the normal metagame, with the hax involved. It's a part of it.
But generally, great idea. Wouldn't mind this.

 

[waterwarrior]

-This pretty much destroys the point of some pokes, like Togekiss (although he's more 4th gen) and Jirachi
-the fact that every Pokémon essentially has No Gaurd is a huge downside.
-You banned DynamicPunch, but that also means banning Machamp, who isn't ever going to be considered for a ban in OU (no one uses Guts Machamp).
-The fact that pseudo-No Gaurd Charge Beam always raises Sp. Atk sounds pretty broken even without testing.
-Def and Sp. Def drops going away is just a stupid idea.
-Scald, Tbolt, etc. having mandated secondary effects is stupid, Ice Beam is now a broken move.
-The only poke that uses Bind, Wrap, etc. is Shuckle, why put a clause for it?
-Phazing isn't hax, it should follow the regular game mechanic
-Outrage lowering Atk. That's just no. Also with Outrage, I think the 2-turn Outrage should be banned, not 3-turn, as I almost always get 3-turn Outrage, as do most people
-Full paralysis being banned pretty much makes the most useful status condition useLESS
-Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Megahorn and Gunk Shot the user's corresponding offensive stat on stage. <-- What the fuck does this even mean?

A highly underdeveloped idea, go back to the drawing board before releasing it.

 

[Xephyr]

While I don't really agree with this a whole lot, I can still at least see some sort of merit for every single point EXCEPT the one where your attack and stuff are lowered after Outrage. What's the point of that?

 

[chrisrandom9]

While I don't really agree with this a whole lot, I can still at least see some sort of merit for every single point EXCEPT the one where your attack and stuff are lowered after Outrage. What's the point of that?

It's to make trying to spam Outrage through confusion less effective

 

[Kipper]

-This pretty much destroys the point of some pokes, like Togekiss (although he's more 4th gen) and Jirachi
-the fact that every Pokémon essentially has No Gaurd is a huge downside. How, in particular?
-You banned DynamicPunch, but that also means banning Machamp (no one uses Guts Machamp). Not sure what you're talking about. Machamp can still use Guts and Cross Chop. It may not be as good, but that's just a sacrifice that has to be made. Dynamicpunch causes confusion, which is banned.
-The fact that pseudo-No Gaurd Charge Beam always raises Sp. Atk sounds pretty broken even without testing. Ehhh, I don't see it being that bad.
-Def and Sp. Def drops going away is just a stupid idea. The idea is that since crits don't exist, there's no other way to breaking through something with boosted defenses. It needs to be balanced somehow.
-Scald, Tbolt, etc. having mandated secondary effects is stupid, Ice Beam is now a broken move. They didn't list Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Only the 30% activation rate moves have that effect.
-The only poke that uses Bind, Wrap, etc. is Shuckle, why put a clause for it?
-Phazing isn't hax, it should follow the regular game mechanic
-Outrage lowering Atk. That's just no. Confusion won't happen, so there needs to be some sort of downside.
-Full paralysis being banned pretty much makes the most useful status condition useLESS Uhh, the speed drop is still very nice.
-Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Megahorn and Gunk Shot the user's corresponding offensive stat on stage. <-- What the fuck does this even mean? Presumably they lower your attack stat one stage, to counteract the fact that they now have 100% accuracy.

A highly underdeveloped idea, go back to the drawing board before releasing it.

Comments in bold.

Not a fan of simulators myself, so I doubt I'll play it, however.

 

[Stratos]

Confusion doesn't exist.

The point is that he's trying to balance out a hax-based downside with a non-hax-based one. @ WaterWarrior, what he means is that since they will always hit, they lower the attack stat used to deliver the move instead.

This sounds like a good idea and a cool server for some, but it almost seems like a whole new game, and as of now I'm not up for learning two Pokemons. Strategies sound like they could be completely altered in this new server.

 

[reyscarface]

good job with this, i like the thought you put with all the changes, specially the fire blast / hpump / etc ones to give choice between them and the 95 BP moves

 

[undisputed]

i really like it, dont let the haters make you feel bad. I think any good player on this site is probably open to this idea and thinks its pretty cool. maybe a couple features can be tweaked over time with testing, but at its core, this is very interesting.

 

[waterwarrior]

IMO, confusion should still be casued by Outrage, but that's it. People normally switch out after Outraging anyways, so it's their fault if they got hax'd.

Also, OHKO moves aren't on the move banlist. Everyone knows they're banned, but just put them there anyways.

 

[Zoap]

Acupressure, Assist, BeatUp, Double Team, DynamicPunch, GrassWhistle, Hypnosis, Inferno, Magma Storm, Magnitude, Metronome, Minimize, Present, Sing, Sleep Talk, Zap Cannon

I'm a little confused on why you felt it necessary to ban Grass Whistle, Hypnosis and Sing yet Spore was allowed to stay?

Is the act of putting a Pokemon asleep hax(assuming every move hits like you said), if so then why have your 2 turn rule to begin with.

Also what do you plan on doing about things like Bright Powder, Sand Stream and Snow Cloak. Or how about stuff like Intimidate, Effect Spore, or even Liquid Ooze.

Just somethings off the top of my head.

 

[SlimMan]

OMG: "no move will ever miss."
If you look at the ban list, OHKO moves aren't banned! Given that he listed Evasion moves, I assume that this server doesn't gave OHKO and Evasion Clauses!

edit: Also, what Zoap said^^^ about sleep. And what he said about Evasion as well.

Okay, to be serious now, I personally still prefer the haxy, OU metagame. There are some changes here which I disagree with, and I just don't like the idea of changing the game itself.

But getting past lame moral problems, the idea is quite intriguing. I do like how you balanced moves such as Focus Miss, Hydro Pump, etc. to make it so that they are not always superior. Again, although I probably wouldn't like this, it would be a very cool metagame. Good job getting this up, IC, after all the talk about it, it's now a reality.

 

[Stagnant]

You should ban moves with imperfect acc not allow all moves to have 100% acc

 

[Kipper]

In regards to the sleep thing... I assume it's because the other sleep moves wouldn't miss, making them on par with Spore, except they have a MUCH wider distribution. Spore is there so, uhh, sleep is still a part of the game? Not sure.

As for abilities like Sand Veil, Cute Charm and Effect Spore, they should probably be simply deactivated. The always-hit thing already neutralizes the evasion abilities, but Cute Charm (and Attract!) and Effect Spore should probably just do nothing. That's something that can be done with servers like this, correct?

Edit @ Zoap: Intimidate and Liquid Ooze aren't at all related to hax, though. They have guaranteed effects, nothing luck-based about them.

 

[Woodchuck]

Meh, that's a neat idea but as others said it isn't really pokemon anymore. I actually would have called it Pokemon- (pokemon minus) but that's taken. lol
Still, I may give this a try eventually.
Is Moody banned?
Also, Venomoth is now a boss with perfect-accuracy Sleep Powder + Quiver Dance.

 

[Zoap]

^ so how does wider distribution make it hax? I don't see why they should be banned.

Also since phazing is being nerfed, will baton pass receive the same nerfs, as in you can only pass to the pokemon next to you, and will the pass continue or reset the counter for defense.

What about abilities like Torrent, Blaze and Overgrow. Will there effect be nullified.

 

[reyscarface]

In the programming thread he mentioned he didnt ban the luck abilities, but instead, he disabled their effect.

and yeah lol why the fuck would you mention intimiadte and liquid ooze

and @ Zoap, sleep powder is also around, i think he removed those others because its basically a coinflip, sleep powder is more on the "will not miss" side, so he bumped it to 100 accuracy. but also nerfed it with the set 2 turns.

Edit:

Zoap I dont think you have a clue of what youre talking about. I suggest understanding what "hax" means before posting here at all.

Torrent, Blaze, and Overgrow dont have ANYTHING related to luck. AT ALL.

Baton Pass isnt luck at all either. You PICK the Pokemon you pass to, its not a random chance, unlike Whirlwind, Roar, and company.

 

[BurningMan]

sounds cool you have really put some thought into this, after some testing and balancing it could be a very cool metagame.

 

[Kipper]

^ so how does wider distribution make it hax? I don't see why they should be banned.

Also since phazing is being nerfed, will baton pass receive the same nerfs, as in you can only pass to the pokemon next to you, and will the pass continue or reset the counter for defense.

What about abilities like Torrent, Blaze and Overgrow. Will there effect be nullified.

But... just because it isn't hax doesn't mean it should stay the same. The 100% accuracy changes a lot of things, so there need to be alterations to avoid making things imbalanced. Like I said though, I'm not entirely sure about it, I'm just guessing here.

Phazing was changed because it usually brings in a RANDOM opponent, therefore it is luck-based. Baton Pass has nothing to do with it.

Same for Torrent, Blaze and Overgrow. They have guaranteed effects, not luck-based ones.

 

[alphatron]

I'll just say this. Whatever nerf Outrage and Thrash recieve should not apply to Petal Dance. Grass type offensive moves already get special treatement in game due to grass being a horrible offensive type that is resisted by 7 types in the game. Power whip has more pp than the other moves of its kind, and leaf blade has more base power than night slash, psycho cut, etc.

It's already bad locking yourself into the move when nearly every team in the metagame, both bad and good, contain pokemon who probably 2x or 4x resist it. It does more good than bad when you petal dance against an enemy politoed and then a skarmory, ferrothorn, latias, etc, switches in.

Making it lower special attack 2 stages just makes it one of the worst moves in the game. I suggest you reconsider the mechanics on it.

 

[Bad Ass]

I'm confused with how Hydro Pump, FocusBlast, etc work.

 

[Innocent Criminal]

While this will undoubtedly change the metagame, the objective is to make it similar enough to BW OU so that analyses are still relevant as having to learn two pokemons is something I'd like to avoid, and almost every decision was partly motivated by this. *Thunder shouldn't be used on defensive Zapdos, while Power Whip should definitely be on most Ferrothorns.
*Outrage's downside should still force out its user, unless he holds a specific item (Lum Berry/White Herb).
*You shouldn't hit Volcarona twice with contact and expect to be fine, and you should expect the opponent's Scrafty to have healed his burn three turns later.
*No BP will be changed, and Encourage still boosts the moves it used to
That's also why Petal Dance is still similar to Outrage : this move basically didn't exist in BW OU, so I don't think anything should be made to make it viable.

Still, none of this is set in stone, but I did my best to make it so the initial release isasclose as possible to what you're used to and your old teams can still be used, for starters, with only minor modifications.

About luck abilities, Cute Charm and Effect Spore do nothing, but I described the likes of Flame Body and Shed Skin in the OP

Since some asked, this isn't made through server configuration or scripting, all of these changes were made directly to the server's source code, as PO is free software (open source). So, pretty much everything can be done at this point, as long as it's worth the trouble.


I'll answer the rest later, thanks for the feedback !

EDIT : The Hydro Pump family lowers the user's SpA one stage under normal conditions, while Megahorn and Gunk Shot lower Atk. Under Hail/Rain, Blizzard/Thunder and Hurricane do not. Under the sun, Thunder and Hurricane only have 60BP.

 

[reyscarface]

they never miss but they lower your special attack 1 stage after use (at badass)

 

[waterwarrior]

*Thunder shouldn't be used on defensive Zapdos, while Power Whip should definitely be on most Ferrothorns.

That's only because Ferrothorn doesn't get Leaf Blade, so there's no other option, while Zapdos gets Thunderbolt.

Also, would Hydro Pump's sp. atk drops stack? And is the sp. atk drop only for that move, or does it have -1 sp. atk until it switches?

 

[skitz0phrenic]

Eliminating luck from something supposedly competitive is exactly what should happen. Why this site has been hypocritical about luck for all of time is far beyond me. You can't embrace any game to its fullest competitive merit without eliminating aspects of luck that can allow the game to sway in the less skilled players advantage. That is literally a definition of "uncompetitive".

There is virtually no reason to try so hard to stick to GameFreaks exact design as much as possible. There are no benefits for competition with this mindset. Anything that is blatantly harmful to competition (random crits, freeze, full paralysis turns, random sleep counter, etc..) should have been immediately removed upon any of the games releases without question.

Pokemon is absolutely not a competitive game out of the box. With no altering structure this game would never even be taken seriously. Why half-ass it with tiers? Why not go the full distance and balance the damn game, instead of leaving half of it to chance. Chance =/= Competitive.

Every competitive gaming league in the world alters their games for maximum competitive merit. Why does Smogon not do this for Pokemon?

- Quake is not competitive out of the box. It is always altered entirely for competition, and it is a staple in competitive FPS.

- Halo is far from competitive out of the box, and leagues such as MLG alter it significantly into something millions of viewers and competitors enjoy at every event each month. It is a staple in competitive console gaming.

- Starcraft is not competitive out of the box. It is altered for many leagues as well. Starcraft is the most popular competitive game on the planet, and even it has been changed significantly from its default configuration to showcase the ability of the competition at its finest.

These are mere examples, but they all have one thing in common. They are maximized for competitive value, which is something Smogon only partially does for Pokemon.


Having said all of that. I think this server is a great idea, and takes massive steps towards what competitive Pokemon should be... as luck free as we can possibly make it. However this early on I, as well as many others, can see some substantial issues with some of these mechanics changes. Keep up the good work though. You are doing a good thing for this game.