Smogon's Sandbox: A Look Into Pet Mods
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Art by DatHeatmor.
Introduction
As Other Metagames continues to grow in both variety and popularity, its subforum, Pet Mods, continues to grow as well. But what exactly is a Pet Mod, and how does it differ from an Other Metagame? An Other Metagame's alterations follow a universal rule or set of rules that keeps all or most of the vanilla mechanics of Pokémon intact. For example, in the Other Metagame Sketchmons, the one and only rule is that every Pokémon is allowed one move it cannot naturally learn. On the contrary, Pet Mods are determined based off of the creator's decisions rather than a concrete rule. This allows for way more ways to change the game, even being allowed to make your own Pokémon, items, moves, abilities, and more. Because of this, Pet Mods allow for the community members to contribute their own ideas for others' Pet Mods or even create their own. Of course, due to their nature, there are many different possibilities for a Pet Mod; it's quite literally your own Pokémon sandbox where you and others can do anything you want. Below are some of what I believe to be prime examples of Pet Mods to help you get familiar with them and even prepare you to contribute if you choose to.
As the typing system is one the most defining mechanics of Pokémon, it's no surprise that theorycrafting different types is very popular. Enter Typing: The Mod, where the goal is to create types with a balanced metagame in mind. To achieve this, type creation is done in phases, starting with choosing the type itself, to then creating new moves, abilities, items, and type distribution, and finally deciding on the distribution of said moves, abilities, and items. This simple yet effective system of creating new types has shown to appeal to many users, with immense contributions and discussion in every phase that was able to rack up to over forty pages in the thread, something a Pet Mod can't achieve easily.
As of now, Typing: The Mod has been able to create 5 types: Heart, Time, Space, Light, and even Food, all of which have been carefully created to be balanced in the metagame along with the new additions to moves, abilities, and items. These additions give a new spin on the regular metagame, causing many mediocre Pokémon to become very viable due to their new additions. For example, Magearna in this Pet Mod now is rocking a dual typing of Steel / Heart and gains a new hidden ability, Healing Surge, which summons a brand new type of terrain that heals Pokémon that switch out by 25% and reduces the priority of Dark-type status moves to -1, giving Magearna more roles than it has in vanilla OU. This process of creation was no easy feat, however; many conflicts have occurred during the type creations, most notably the argument in regards to incorporating holiness into Light-type or not. Regardless of this, the community has been one the most defining factors in Typing: The Mod's success.
As the Pet Mod allows a lot of creative freedom, it's no surprise that there have been many contributions from many users alike. The clear path in terms of the phases also has a factor in appeal, since without a plan it would be a mess and therefore of no interest. Of course, the council itself also plays an important role as well, keeping balance through their own discussions.
Overall, Typing: The Mod's number one attribute is how it allows a lot of creative freedom, which allows the community to shape the inclusions, as well as keeping a balanced metagame. With the appeal that theorycrafting new types brings along with a clear way of doing it, it's no contest that this is one of the best examples of a Pet Mod.
Creating a Pokémon out of two existing Pokémon has always been fairly popular throughout the years, and Fusion Evolution attempts and succeeds in maintaining an entire database of them. The basic concept is obvious: take two Pokémon and fuse them together to create an entirely new one with stats based off of their stats averaged together, as well as a new ability that's a fusion of two of their abilities and even a signature move along with their fused movepool. An example of such a fusion is Theridel, a fusion of Chandelure and Landorus-T. It has a dual typing of Ghost / Ground, its signature move Hellfog, which is a Ghost-type attack that clears status and hazards on both sides of the field, and the ability Flaming Presence, which burns all Pokémon that can be burned on the field when switching in. Considering the concept is very appealing, there's no doubting that it's one of the most popular Pet Mods of all time.
Theridel sprite by AquaticPanic.
Dating back to the XY days, Fusion Evolution has stood the test of time, racking up over a thousand fusions along with their custom moves and abilities. It's so big, in fact, that there are four threads dedicated to the Pet Mod: the main thread, two threads solely for move creation, and one for the creation of pre-evolutions of the fusions, which is insane considering how huge the Pet Mod already is. Sprite creations are also a notable feature of this Pet Mod, as the artistic factors when creating sprites complements the overall creativity of fusion creation.
The amazing freedom and creativity that has come from Fusion Evolution has made it one of the most notable Pet Mods and the greatest one in terms of size and age. That being said, due to the sheer amount of content in this Pet Mod, it's also one of the Pet Mods that doesn't actually have an established metagame. In a concept that contains nearly three generations of basically brand new Pokémon, not to mention their new moves, it would be extremely hard to completely organize and pinpoint exactly what's the best, what creates a good core, what counters and checks what, and so on. This issue doesn't stop Fusion Evolution from being a great Pet Mod to play, however. The endless possibilities you have with all the new Pokémon is almost like playing with an entirely new generation of Pokémon, or even playing Pokémon for the first time in general.
Overall, Fusion Evolution, despite being very different from the visions other Pet Mods have, has proven to be the most vast Pet Mod in terms of variety. Its lack of metagame gets blown out by the amazing potential in its creative aspects, thanks to the community.
Playgrounds With Order
It's a common misconception that Pet Mods in general are pure anarchy; the supposed absolute freedom inclines people to believe that there's no real thought in the activities posted in the subforum. However, this is completely false, as many of the contributors take Pet Mods seriously, being passionate about owning their own metagame playground fit to their liking. Of course, that doesn't mean the contributors can't have fun, but this fun is achieved usually in a concrete system, so it isn't completely chaotic.
Many Pet Mods have the same structure in terms of concept, but utilize a certain key component to make them vastly unique. The most popular formula these types of Pet Mods use is to alter Pokémon individually, most commonly with slates. The process of these slates is fairly simple: you're given a few Pokémon to change however you like, then you vote between other contributors' alterations on which one is the most favorable. After the winners are chosen, the cycle continues. What sets these types of Pet Mods apart from each other are why and how the Pokémon are being changed. Their ideals allow for a simple process to become more fleshed out and have purpose instead of just allowing change because you want it.
Though these types of Pet Mods already have somewhat of a focus on optimizing Pokémon, this Pet Mod fully embraces its objective of making every Pokémon viable. OptiMons allows contributors to optimize certain Pokémon so that their flaws become only small annoyances, which are easy to work around. No Pokémon gets nerfed, so it's fair game for everyone. In my opinion, if you would like to become part of the Pet Mods community, OptiMons is a great start to your future contributions, as the whole gist is beginner friendly but very enjoyable for anyone who wishes to shake up the meta with Pokémon now free of their burdens.
This Pet Mod's main goal is somewhat self explanatory: create an entirely different metagame completely separate from the traditional Smogon tiering systems. What's unique about its slating system is that instead of giving Pokémon to change, it's giving specific roles, such as hazard control, mixed wall, cleric, and the like, which allows contributors to choose their own Pokémon to alter to fit the given role or roles. This method arguably allows for more creative freedom, since it's not restricted to certain Pokémon within slates like most common Pet Mods. Also, unlike most Pet Mods which include every Pokémon, this Pet Mod in particular only has a small amount of Pokémon available, an attribute that stands out compared to other Pet Mods. Relating to its unique contributions, Clean Slate has recently opened up opportunities for analysis writing. Although you'll probably need to experience the Pet Mod for a good amount of time to actually write an analysis, Clean Slate overall has the most uniqueness in opportunities to contribute.
Cool Funky Mode, or CFM for short, does not follow a slate format, unlike the Pet Mods listed so far. Instead, a group of people are the ones to decide the changes in the community in no particular order; however, any contributor is welcomed to suggest a change as well, which would be considered by the ones running the Pet Mod. Also unlike the Pet Mods listed above, CFM branches out its alterations to not only just Pokémon, but also moves, abilities, and even the vanilla mechanics as well. Some of CFM's changes include making forgotten Pokémon such as Kricketune, Luvdisc, and Silvally viable and versatile, revamping underwhelming moves, abilities, weather, and reducing the distribution of common and somewhat polarizing moves like Scald, Stealth Rock, and Toxic. The philosophy of CFM in regards to such changes is simple: they don't buff for the sake of buffing, but rather buff for the sake of creating a fun and healthy metagame. They're mainly based on the OU metagame, but they have metagames ranging from Ubers to even PU. If you want a completely fresh experience of competitive Pokémon to take a break from traditional metagames, this Pet Mod is fit for you.
Conclusion
It's amazing how Pet Mods allows us to break our creativity out in so many different ways. However, every Pet Mod will always share one thing: the community's contributions. Every Pet Mod listed in this article has some if not all of its reliance on the Pet Mod community, which is why we are always welcoming new people into the subforums. Coding the actual Pet Mod itself is done by people of the community as well and is also a great opportunity to start or get better at coding. Whether it be one slate submission to running a Pet Mod of your own, any contribution is appreciated to help the Pet Mod community to thrive and grow.
Pet Mods Forums | Pet Mods Discord
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