Losing in Pokemon

[Stallion]

"I've spoken to TAY among other people about this. In the discussions we came to the conclusion that Pokemon is basically all luck. Sorry to tell you but there is almost no skill to this game once you reach a certain level."

I agree and disagree with this quote at the same time. I've had discussions with Taylor in the past that once a player reaches a certain level, battles are more of a 50/50 thing. I wouldn't say that there is no skill though, team matchups and risk vs reward are still very much skillful elements to pokemon. Having said that, in such an even match up on paper stuff like hax does tend to decide games more often then it does between Panamaxis and Dragonlord123456, where in that case the clearly better player can overcome even bad instances of hax.

 

[Phantom_IV]

Disagree that "there is no skill past a certain level." I think that sentiment stems from a lack of creativity more than anything else. There is always a way to anti-metagame, even against the best of the best. Team building is where all the skill and experience come in. However, I do agree that in battles, 50/50s are just part of life.

Note that this doesn't necessarily make the game worse or less competitive. An aspect of luck adds drama to the game. And in the long run everything evens out.

 

[Banedon]

@Jumpman16 -

I did think about that, but consider ... Player A didn't learn all that much from his turn 1 Trick. A normal player would just be happy to Choice-lock a dual screener. I think you misread as well, the screens were set up by Cresselia - Player B ran two dual screeners.

Even if Player A had been aware of Player B's plans as he saw them unfold, I'm not sure what he could've done. Take the turn when he first found out Player B has two dual screeners (i.e. turn 3). What's he to do now, switch out to Milotic and hope to Haze at once? Ambipom before using Agility is still faster than Milotic, and will obviously Taunt. Switch out to a stat-upper of his own? I don't think he has one, or if he does it's a Curse Umbreon, who's not going to scratch an Ambipom under Reflect - especially if it uses Taunt to stop more Curses. I think it was a fair move as well to set up Spikes, since it's not going to be easy to break Player B's 2x Dual Screen defense.

Then take the turn Player A first saw Ambipom. He sees the Leftovers and therefore concludes he's facing a pure Baton Passing team (which it isn't, by the way - another instance of incomplete information). So he uses Flare Blitz at once. But Flare Blitz deals ~28% damage and Ambipom carries Leftovers. This is what Ambipom's HP is going to look like:

81% (switch into 3 layers of Spikes, then recover with Leftovers)
59% (Flare Blitz #1, then recover with Leftovers) - Ambipom will use Agility this turn
37% (Flare Blitz #2, then recover with Leftovers) - Ambipom will use Nasty Plot this turn
15% (Flare Blitz #3, then recover with Leftovers) - Ambipom gets off second Nasty Plot
8% (max Attack Arcanine ExtremeSpeed vs. Ambipom under Reflect = ~13%, then recover with Leftovers) - Ambipom Baton Passes.

So unless Arcanine gets a critical hit or lots of high rolls, the BP goes off safe and sound. Nobody wants to win by haxing his opponent to death right? But if this analysis holds then Player A has basically lost once the screen shows he's versing Player B because there's nothing he could have done ... yet his team is perfectly capable, because after this game I watched it take down many more teams on ladder.

By the way I may be breaching etiquette saying this, but Player A's full team is Froslass, Cresselia, Arcanine, Milotic, Torterra and Umbreon. I'm hoping he'll comment, since he does post in Stark Mountain. I may also have remembered the damage wrong; I have a vague feeling Arcanine hit for 23% vs. Ambipom, but that's a little too low for comfort according to the damage calculator (would mean Arcanine has no attack EVs).

@Luck discussion - the major thing here is that there is no luck to blame. If you play a battle where your opponent gets 5 critical hits to start the battle and therefore you lose horribly, you've got nothing to be ashamed about. You got haxed, and the worst players can beat the best if they get inordinate amounts of luck. But in the situations I have in mind there's no luck involved. You can lose games even though you made no mistakes because you don't know what team your opponent is running. That is, you may make at every turn what is a good move, given what you know of your own team and what your opponent has revealed, but can be disastrous.

For example, let's say you see Leftovers on Hariyama and conclude it has Thick Fat when it actually has Guts. That would be perfectly valid conclusion 90% of the time, but the remaining 10% of the time it can cost you the game. You lose the game despite making a "good" move. Maybe you can look back after the game and say, "hey, if I'd known Hariyama had Guts instead of Thick Fat, I would've won. Next time I meet player XXX on the ladder I know what to do". Maybe. But you still lost, and to the winner goes the rating (or, God forbid, the tournament title in whose finals you were competing). What's more, ten games down the road you might actually make the same move in the same situation and be rewarded for it.

I think this element of uncertainty is present in other games as well, it's just particularly bad in Pokemon. A single mistake can leave enough repercussions that cost you the game ... yet you have plenty of time to think through your actions. Battles in a game like DotA might be over in as little as 10 seconds. There is no time to do deep calculations or risk evaluations, and a lot of it is reflex. But in Pokemon you have plenty of time to think, so you can't even blame the clock if you make a bad play.

It's because of things like this that I'm not going to make the UU voter cutoff this round; I've got well over 1600 rating but high deviation as well since I've only played like 30 games >_< The pressure of playing is simply too high ...

PS:

Mind explaining what skill is presented in the battle at lower levels that is absent from the top?

I don't think iKitsune meant that, it's just that it's a lot easier to beat bad players than good ones, and that at high levels luck's effects get more and more pronounced.

 

[THB]

Based on your opponent's team, I'd say he was using stall, and Arcanine without attack EVs is common on a defensive build.

Anyway, this battle is simply an example of a bad team matchup. Stall teams are usually not built to defeat a team like yours. They can't phaze Ambi because of Taunt, and they can't hit Ambi hard enough for a kill, especially behind screens. Just looking over your opponent's six, I see no way for him to stop Ambi's BP setup after Cresselia inevitably sets up screens.

The only Pokemon likely to be used on a stall team that can stop BP Ambi is Hitmontop, and I'm sure your team has a Fighting resist that Ambi can BP out to anyway.

 

[mtr]

I really don't know what to say except that team advantage is really important. If I lose a match because of serious team disadvantage, I'm usually unperturbed, unless I lose a crapload of matches from team disadvantage, in which case I make a new team. Most of the strategy in Pokemon is team building, with a part of it being in-game thinking. I file prediction under guesswork, educated as it might be.

 

[Smurf.]

Look, at the end of the day you can play the perfect match and still lose. For example, I can trick a scarf onto a curse umbreon (which by all accounts is the right thing to do) only to have it outspeed me and get a KO in the end game. I cannot then turn around and say if i hadnt tricked you i would have won, because umbreon would have cursed up and swept me.

Team match-ups are also a key element, as sometimes, I've lost even before turn 1, simply because its player X who has every one of my teams few exploitable weaknesses.

 

[Every1XplodeNOW]

This game is mostly based on probability. You try to make the best move for the current situation and then adjust accordingly. For example, Blissey has come in twice on my specs Latias. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect it to come in again, therefore i might trick. The logic and reasoning that players employ is what makes a good battler in my opinion.

As for coping with losing, at the end of the day, you have to take a step back and say "its pokemon." Does it make a real difference in the long run if you got haxed by that Scarfrachi?

That's the term I've been looking for. This is just not based on luck and skill alone, it's based on luck, skill, and probability.

But anyway, you're saying player A played with no mistakes or in other words, played perfectly? I don't care if you're the Einstein of pcb, you will never play perfectly. It just goes to show that the smallest mistake can cost you the game. I mean, even people in this thread is seeing the mistakes he made.

Coping with a lose-- failure is part of everyday life, so you just have to except that you might lose when you're going into a battle. Yeah close ones, the ones you played your best are the tough ones to swallow, but you I bet you will learn something new from a lose. There is always something new to learn.

 

[jErry07]

That is called "over-predicting" if i'm not mistaken.

But there was a part where he predicted ambipom was a "lead" variant even tough it was healed by leftovers(Instead of having focus sash or life orb). If cress had thunder waved, player A should have won.

Things happen.

 

[))))))))Come((((((((]

I consider myself a very skilled battler, and yet I don't ever expect to win every battle. In fact, I personally believe that, given the nature of Pokémon, a trainer, regardless of how skilled he or she may be compared to the opponent, would be extremely arrogant to believe that his or her victory in a Pokémon battle can ever possibly be guaranteed before the battle has even started.

 

[Aminar]

Most competitive games are this way. Victory should always be difficult. The best way to alleviate this is best 2/3(or more but that takes a ton of time), and a level of sideboarding/counterpicking can help as well. In addition double elimination in tournaments helps. Both of these greatly increase the amount of time taken though.

 

[Acritter]

Most competitive games are this way. Victory should always be difficult. The best way to alleviate this is best 2/3(or more but that takes a ton of time), and a level of sideboarding/counterpicking can help as well. In addition double elimination in tournaments helps. Both of these greatly increase the amount of time taken though.

You're implying that's a BAD thing.

 

[Aminar]

The time aspect? I staff an anime convention where a ton of tournaments are run. The longer a tournament the less gets done. So it can be. Finding that balance is hard.

 

[cantab]

It's clear to me that best-of-one single elimination tournaments in Pokemon are not fair. (They're not fair in most games or sports really). There is nothing per se wrong with that, but if people want their tournaments to be fair they need to do them differently. Making matches best-of-three would help, and for online tournaments shouldn't greatly increase time - correct me if I'm wrong but I think the main delay is people trying to organise times to battle, so whether they battle once or three times should make little difference on Shoddy where battles are usually quick.

 

[TSPhoenix]

Pokemon (as it's usually played) is a game of imperfect information. It's also a game in which both players must take their action without knowing what the other player takes.

Those two facts mean that Pokemon is a game not so much of luck in the usual sense, but of prediction and guesswork.

You could play with pre-disclosed teams, making it a game of perfect information. But even then, the fact that you choose your move without knowing the other player's choice will mean predicting or guessing your opponent's actions will still play a major part.

I wonder if people have tried playing chess in the same manner. Each player writes their move and passes it to the umpire, who carries out both moves together. I suspect such a variant of chess would have much of the prediction element we see in Pokemon. For example, if your Queen is threatened your instinct would be to move it away. But the opponent could predict that and not bother attempting the capture, but instead make a move elsewhere. Then you counter-predict and leave your Queen put, and then it just degenerates into guessing.

I'd say this is a fair summary.

Team building is important, luck has a size-able role, but beyond that its just a mind game of trying to guess what your opponent is thinking both in battle and in the construction of their team. Its an interesting experience as it is so different to play a new opponent as it is to play one you know or have played before.

3) Did not adjust his strategy to the flow of the battle until it was too late...

it was like in Advance when Skarmory would switch in and Spike absentmindedly...

Why would you care about entry hazards when you could outspeed and kill virtually everything in one shot and perhaps not have to take any hits?

This is one of the biggest reasons you can lose. Sometimes it can't be helped as I've lost a final before simply because every opposing Pokemon laid out a new surprise for me that I never expected. By the time I figured out how to defend myself and start my comeback I didn't have enough HP across my team to do so.

However when you are on the offensive its easy to see where your opponent is slipping up and I'd have to agree that the #1 source of bad moves I see is from stall teams that are too busy trying to setup screens, entry hazards and shuffling with Roar/WW to pay the proper attention to what their opponent is doing.

Far too many times have I seen players Roar/WW to rack up entry damage instead of just playing an using pressure to make me switch. One match stands out in my mind where I faced a Roserade lead, they slept my first Pokemon and I went straight to Lucario and Swords Danced up for a sweep.

I can't count the number of times I've seen people underestimate Lucario, Gyara, Metagross, Empoleon or other various setup sweepers. When I see on of these Pokemon I try to counter it immediately. If I see Gyara I bring in my counter straight away because if I don't stop it when it has just one DD up its sleeve I know its going to do far more damage to my team than I want to take. Yet time and time again I see opponents let Lucario SD as if it weren't dangerous.

"I've spoken to TAY among other people about this. In the discussions we came to the conclusion that Pokemon is basically all luck. Sorry to tell you but there is almost no skill to this game once you reach a certain level."

Disagree that "there is no skill past a certain level." I think that sentiment stems from a lack of creativity more than anything else. There is always a way to anti-metagame, even against the best of the best. Team building is where all the skill and experience come in. However, I do agree that in battles, 50/50s are just part of life.

Note that this doesn't necessarily make the game worse or less competitive. An aspect of luck adds drama to the game. And in the long run everything evens out.

I also have to disagree with the idea that there is no skill beyond a certain point. In some ways Pokemon is like poker, its all about reading the opponent and even if you count cards you still don't necessarily have complete information. Problem is on shoddy or wifi its just like online poker, you have to read opponents based on actions alone, you can't read their faces which makes things much harder.

I find that not always making what might seem the optimal move can be very profitable in Pokemon. Sometimes instead of predicting it can be better to mindlessly pick a move at random. It makes your strategy harder to predict and that can be a big advantage. Similarly it can sometimes be profitable to use an inoptimal move to hide the optimal one for later in the game where they suspect you don't have it because you didn't use it earlier then you surprise then with it later. Similarly hiding a Pokemon that would currently be useful for later can be very advantageous.

Forcing your opponent to make less informed decisions even at the cost of playing the best strategy can often work out in your favour.

The other problem I often see is people playing with the goal of not losing instead of aiming to win. For instance your opponent is clearly trying to setup some kind of strategy. I've found that instead of reacting to them it often works very well to just execute your own strategy instead if you can set it up faster. I've won many games by ignoring an opponent trying to setup screens/hazards/trick room and just going for my own sweep.

Sometimes its a case of "The only way I can win now is with a Lucario sweep" and while its a long shot and will result in a swift death if I fail, I might as well go for it. You can often catch your opponent by surprise by going on the offensive in moments like these.

In general I find switching to Lucario the first moment you are given room to breath is often very advantageous, then just Ice Punch to see what comes out, if its Gliscor then good for you. Also while we tend to think of setup sweepers as frail, one thing I don't see much of is people switching them into attacks. Lucario can actually take hits decently and I've won games by switching into things like Suicune Surf.

In short just doing anything that isn't common metagame behaviour can often net you a big advantage. Anti-metagaming is very real and in an imperfect information enviroment it is very powerful. Simply using Pokemon that have multiple viable sets is enough to keep your opponent on their toes.

 

[Taylor]

I don't think this has been mentioned.

The ladder itself, or a continuation of battles played by one user, usually has its own influence on how he/she plays. By the sixth match, you could've simply become so frustrated with being unable to set up Stealth Rock in your previous last game that, you will do whatever it takes to set it up in the current match; even at the cost of an immediate 5-6 disadvantage.

Also on the subject of setting up entry hazards, Stealth Rock has been a major influence in the fourth generation. People can be so dependable on it that they "must" set it up. In any given match, any player can be so fixiated with setting up SR (even in a situation when it isn't the best move) that battles can be won or lost simply because of the desperate attempt to have SR present.

It's knowing when to do this sort of thing and when not to that seperates the "good" and the "name you predict in every tournament".

 

[Aminar]

Factoring in a players emotional stability destroys the integrity of all systems. A tournament should be designed for theoretically perfectly equal, perfectly skilled, perfectly controlled players. The best way to look at what we're doing is the scientific method. The more repetition the less the results are flawed by random chance.(Hence best two out of three being better than a single game, while best 51/100 is theoretically perfect it would get boring and overlong quickly. best two out of three limits flukes alot.(And i really want to see a sideboard of one to two secret pokes to be subbed in on game two, I think it would be interesting to see what people chose to sub for what etc.)

Magic the gathering is succesful competitively for a reason. They have a good system)

 

[husk]

And so my original statement should have read:


"I've spoken to TAY among other people about this. In the discussions we came to the conclusion that Pokemon is basically all luck. Sorry to tell you but there is almost no skill to this game once you reach a certain level."

You're still overstating the impact of luck. Of course it's annoying to lose thanks to luck but let's not be pessimistic whiny bitches. Of course the better you get the difference between you and someone who is "better" than you is smaller and smaller. And finally, at the very peak of battling these differences cease to be significant. I'd say there are only around 10 active battlers who can safely say that they, on their best day, are at a level where only luck decides the outcome between their battles.

The funny thing about that argument is that a scenario where only luck determines the outcome would only matter if they built their teams perfectly and those teams were evenly matched AND they were both playing at their highest level on the given day. These factors rarely match up so instead of whining about luck how about whining about the factor that actually ruins DPP matches and inhibits skill: team match ups.

At this point there are just too many threatening pokemon with too many move options to create a team that can match up well against any other competitive team.

And finally as far the first post goes with iKitsune talking about "once you reach certain skill level" the two people in the battle clearly aren't there yet. At least the player who lost makes a number of mistakes. And I saw the earlier post describing how Arcanine probably couldn't have beaten ambipom anyway and etc. Well if you can know the opponent's strategy and still not beat it, you have a flaw within your own team and certainly throughout the battle there were plenty of indications that he was using a dual screen + BP team. Why would you ever set up 3 layers of spikes while letting them execute their strategy?

 

[_Flygon_]

The funny thing about that argument is that a scenario where only luck determines the outcome would only matter if they built their teams perfectly and those teams were evenly matched AND they were both playing at their highest level on the given day. These factors rarely match up so instead of whining about luck how about whining about the factor that actually ruins DPP matches and inhibits skill: team match ups.

can't tell how true this is

I've played for many years now, but for some reason it seems to me in this state of the platinum metagame, team advantage is more decisive than it ever was. I've seen so so many good players lose against statistically far worse players just due to bad team matchup, and you can't do anything against it. If your opponent has the right team aginst you, you will lose unless he plays like a complete, really a complete dickhead.

still, luck is a factor that ruins dpp for some part but it's more because the battles are faster and more aggresive in comparison with for example adv, so a critical hit matters more, but in my opinion teams matter far far more.

 

[Aminar]

So now we've started to complain that the metagame is undercentralized? That there are too many good Pokemon?

 

[_Flygon_]

yes, in some way there are too many good pokemon because they don't balance eachother out, so it is impossible to prepare for everything with an at least solid answer..

 

[iKitsune]

You're still overstating the impact of luck. Of course it's annoying to lose thanks to luck but let's not be pessimistic whiny bitches. Of course the better you get the difference between you and someone who is "better" than you is smaller and smaller. And finally, at the very peak of battling these differences cease to be significant. I'd say there are only around 10 active battlers who can safely say that they, on their best day, are at a level where only luck decides the outcome between their battles.

The funny thing about that argument is that a scenario where only luck determines the outcome would only matter if they built their teams perfectly and those teams were evenly matched AND they were both playing at their highest level on the given day. These factors rarely match up so instead of whining about luck how about whining about the factor that actually ruins DPP matches and inhibits skill: team match ups.

When i talk about the element of skill I'm referring almost exclusively to what occurs in the field of battle. Where by sheer maths your options are so limited that you can't make better and better decisions, and predictions by definition are just estimations. I then go on to conclude that team building, is in fact, the way you can show skill in pokemon, particularly with just the one battle format, heavily decided by team matchup. But the team matchup is in itself, in part, a luck based thing (the best teams try and minimise this as much as possible), and that is what i was attributing a lot of the luck i mentioned to. The luck element in the battle is only a part of it. I hope this clears the matter up somewhat.

 

[Pollux-Castor]

One time I was on my last Poke, Choice Band Flygon, the foe had Tyranitar out and 1 last mystery Pokemon in reserve. I thought about using Earthquake because it's Super Effective on Tyranitar. But I decided to use Outrage instead because it was the stronger neutral move and there was a higher probability they would have someone who is immune to Earthquake.

Of course the final Pokemon was Metagross. And I lost.


Edit: Not that I wasn't on the path to losing anyway, but the point is that I made the smarter choice and lost. Had I been stupid and hit Earthquake I would have won.

 

[pikmin]

To me, pokémon is never predictable, and you never know if your opponent is hiding a sweeper as their last pokémon that can easily take out your whole team.
I think the easiest way to cope with a loss is just accept that there will always be someone better than you, and there will be always be someone worse that you.
Now, even if you know one of your opponents moves, you can never predict their strategy, since ivs, evs, and natures are hidden.
also, if pokémon makes anyone upset, just take a break from it, no sense making yourself misrable.
also, whether your opponent runs stealth rock and or spikes really changes the battle, (half my team has focus sashes, I should change that)
In conclusion, you never know when your opponent will send out a team-sweeping blissey as thier last pokémon

 

[ToF]

Once you get to a certain level, its a lot more skill than luck. First off, great players can play around certain unlucky instances, depends on the magnitude of them of course. I mean luck can definitely change the outcome of a game, but when you are constantly playing top-tier players, I think getting lucked 'continuously' is more of a bullshit tilt excuse than anything else, when you should really be evaluating your own playstyle and team.

Speaking of teams, that's probably the biggest thing that determines wins versus losses. With the vast amount of Pokemon available to a battler, its impossible to cover everything, so every single playstyle will always have things that will tear it apart. In this aspect, there might be nothing that can be done to obtain a win, and that's part of the game too.

More often than not though, just judging by usage statistics, a good, competent player will win. I wish team-building was more creative than all these common teams nowadays, like when DP first started. Maybe this will kick up again come Gen 5.

 

[cantab]

More often than not though, just judging by usage statistics, a good, competent player will win. I wish team-building was more creative than all these common teams nowadays, like when DP first started. Maybe this will kick up again come Gen 5.

My fear is that Gen 5 will make the issue of battles being decided by team advantage - and thus essentially the result decided before it starts almost regardless of players' battling skill - worse than ever. The whole thing could end up no better than rock-paper-scissors.