I doubt it was their intention to see level 1s in VGC, but if they wanted everything to auto-level to 50 in VGC and PGL they would have enabled it outright. The fact that people are clever enough to find a use for a level 1 Pokemon in a tournament environment is a testament to its player base.
Change isn't inherently a good thing, one can point to pretty much countless real life examples as to why. There is also the fact that we have no say in any Gamefreak changes, they are pretty much forced upon us for a new metagame, so if there is a change you like in it, all the power to you. Perhaps this is just me, but one shouldn't change something unless given sufficient reason for doing do. People being happy over Galvantula are just embracing the changes already made.
Kyurem-B was meant to be OP, it is one of the box mascots.
I think the fact that you are alienating a population of players is short-sighted. There are more WiFi players that follow Smogon rules than sim players. Therefore, offering a small convenience to players with a minor learning curve for past players should mean virtually nothing. Old gen skills do not require any correlation to a new one. That I believe is an important point. It's a new game, and the only real possible time to change. The fact that you're ignoring our WiFi population, which has grown to include previously sim-exclusive players, is not good and must be addressed.
One good reason is the fat that the meta-game has basically been the same since 4th gen. you basically see the same 15-20 pokemon in nearly every match, and many people refuse to use other pokemon especially from lower tiers because of the stigma behind it.
Play gen 4. Now play gen 5. Do you see sedicated leads as often? Mix nape? Mi mence? Mew, azelf, keldeo, terrak, all of those gen 5 mons? Rain, sun, weaher wars?
Actually, the fact that Gamefreak set the auto-level threshhold to lv.50 instead of lv.100 suggests to me that they meant to balance the lv.50 metagame. Most of all doubles, which is the official metagame; but it's clear between the weather nerf, Stealth Rock nerf and better ways to counter dragons, that they also kept singles in mind as well.
This is basically my line of thinking. I can't see any justification at leaving it at level 100 besides "we feel like it". That said, being at level isn't inherently "wrong" since it is possible and many people will probably continue to do it anyways, because who doesn't want to have a big bad level 100 brawl? My personal vote is for level 50, but having it go either way won't bother me.
The only real difference i actually see is the abuse of weather even more, and the fact that a select few pokemon like Zapdos and suicune are dropped down to UU and promptly forgotten about just because they are not OU anymore. Sandstorm and SR still compltely rule the meta-game and the stuff that might have actually kicked it (or at least T-tar) off the throne were banned.
This isn't the place to argue about Blaziken and Garchomp. Nor do I think you understand how Blaziken is used and I think you're overestimating your own ability while underestimating the decision-making skills of the community. Lastly, Blaziken has Speed Boost. What Choice Scarf user are you sending to revenge something at +2 or +3 Speed?
Immense being a couple of hours with improved exp share and lucky egg. The amount of time people spent abusing rngs and EV training I think is a testament to the fact that people will actually spend some time training their pokemon.
weather abused more in gen 5 as opposed to gen 4 is a massive understatement................
1. I am not very good at the game competitively and I admit it.
This is way off topic (infact I am not sure how you managed to tangent to this) but this is just so untrue. A clear example to the contrary is Swampert, yes in the beginning of gen 5 people did you use because it was good before, but within 6 months it dropped out of OU entirely because it had no niche. If something is good it will garner use eventually. The reason why those same handful of Pokemon keep on popping up in OU is because they are good overall, with excellent typing, movepools, abilities, ect.
I'm sorry, I know this is off topic and of no use to discussion, but this reminded me of this:
Perhaps so, but in generation five we determined it to be just barely manageable. I doubt Game Freak intended for Blaziken to be OP when they gave it speed boost, but it was, so we banned it. Are you suggesting we should avoid banning Pokemon like Excadrill and Blaziken because it might not be the intention of Game Freak that they be overpowered? That's a preposterous proposition. Game Freak probably intended for Mew to be OP, but we have determined that it very clearly is not.
Perhaps for lesser-skiller players this is true, but any top player is well aware that copying and pasting a generic team only functions reliably against a sufficiently skilled opponent if the facets comprising the team are better than the norm for the metagame; in a properly balanced meta this is untrue, and thus creative teambuilding is rewarded with a more successful team. Of course people are going to copy the fotm team - people like to win, and copying a good team and spamming it is a low-effort way to do that when the majority of your competition consists of fairly average players. The best players will always buck these trends by innovating against the established norm, that's what makes them so successful.
If you don't like change, and feel that Gamefreak is forcing changes on you, then why play the newer games? Why even consider diving into the Gen VI meta? We will still be maintaining older-generation metas, which are still quite fine to play. Compared to changes like the addition of 70-ish new pokemon, the addition of the Fairy typing, the alteration of move powers, etc., setting the Level cap to 50 is ridiculously minor in comparison.
So is being able to use any Pokemon in the game, with any moves you have on it and any ability you can get. Yet, we ban ubers and disallow things gotten through glitches and hacks. This itself is not a good argument because we already arbitrarily restrict things. The very existence of smogon tiers is 100% based on arbitrary restrictions. The difference is that this one is not something we came up with, but a part of the game itself. Or, in other words, not actually arbitrary at all.
Sleep Clause. Species Clause. Moody Ban. Arbitrary restrictions. In ubers.
And as soon as you get a game freak developer to say they were not meant to be, you can make that argument. But until then, it is just an assumption on our part. You should not assume developer intent as you have no way of knowing the truth.
People do play ubers over wi-fi though, and any other tier.
