Differences in Competitive Play between WiFi and Shoddy

I have only dabbled in wi-fi so I'm not a "srs wifier". I do notice that people have to adapt because of limited resources, especially without an Action Replay or similar device. Which leads to some more gimmicky sets or in other cases just plain bad sets. The limits on certain TMs also appaears to have an impact as well as rarer pokemon like Jirachi, Celebi and pokemon containing rare event moves. On shoddy we need not worry about such things as we are free to make any moveset within legal limits, but on Wi-Fi there are more limits.

The Wi-Fi metagame, from what I have heard, develops at a much slower pace than shoddy, which is probably due to the amount of time it takes to test stuff on wifi and getting pokemon for a moveset that may/may not work seems unattractive to most people.
 
I do better on Shoddy than on Wi-fi. O_o

Mostly because I think Shoddy is a lot more fastpaced, and I tend to do things better when the pace is more faster.
 
First of all, we have to distinguish two types of Wifi-battling. There are those, who use Pokesav or other extern hardware to create there Pokemon. In my opinion, they don't really play Wifi, the play Shoddy on a DS. The usage of Pokemon is pretty much the same as in Shoddy.

Those wifi battlers, who don't use this hardware but breed their Pokes themselves or even RNG them will have to face some problems. For example you can't use the Rotom forms on Wifi without cheats. Its extremely difficult to get a perfect Latias with 31 DVs in every stat, even with RNG. The usage looks a bit diffrent.

On YouTube, there are a lot of people using Pokesav, but not all play "Shoddy" on their DS. Wilechase is the best example for one of the battlers, who only uses the top20 OUs from the Smogon tierlist.

Some of you may have noticed, that a new trend is going on on YouTube at the moment. The so calles SO tiers, started by the user XENON3120, also a famous YouTuber. In SO battles, you won't see any Smogon-sets at all, everything is pure originality. Just to name a few examples: Choice Specs Primape, Specialattack Snorelax, SubSwagger Froslass with Psycho-up and much more. Something like this you will never see on Shoddy.

For myself, I prefer playing Wifi, but unfortunately I don't have much time to breed new Pokemon. If I play Shoddy, I usually use the common Smogon sets. On wifi, I also tried out something new like Agility Skarmory. I consider Wifi more as fun and not as a competition, Shoddy is more compeditive. For this reason, I would never use Pokesav, because that would turn Wifi into Shoddy and that would be just very sad.
 
One thing I'd like to point out is that when crits and misses (even from a focus blast) occur here, it's considered "hax" and is hated, but in Wifi, the term "hax" is nonexistant.
 
UltraSkydive said:
I prefer wi-fi over shody

I only use shody to test teams before building them in-game since I dont want to waste any time

Many people are whining that the team building in-game takes weeks I dont understand those people. Once I knew what team I want it only takes me 8-10hours including geting good IVs natures egg moves and EVing

wi-fi is more fun and easy to flow the battle flow althouth it takes longer
as I sais shody is like chess it anoyins me to read some moves as Im not a quick reader wifi eliminates that problem for me with (some say silly) battle animations
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What kind of magical, unicorn filled lucky world do you live in. I tried breeding properly... and it took me 16 hours to hatch the egg thats in my sig, and I've not touched my game since that grueling task months ago. You have some serious positive karma to breed 6 perfect in 8-10 hours (and have time left to EV...)...

This arguement the thread presents was much simpler when it was IRC bots vs. Link cable... ahh the memories!
 
PikaSai said:
First of all, we have to distinguish two types of Wifi-battling. There are those, who use Pokesav or other extern hardware to create there Pokemon. In my opinion, they don't really play Wifi, the play Shoddy on a DS. The usage of Pokemon is pretty much the same as in Shoddy.

Those wifi battlers, who don't use this hardware but breed their Pokes themselves or even RNG them will have to face some problems. For example you can't use the Rotom forms on Wifi without cheats. Its extremely difficult to get a perfect Latias with 31 DVs in every stat, even with RNG. The usage looks a bit diffrent.

On YouTube, there are a lot of people using Pokesav, but not all play "Shoddy" on their DS. Wilechase is the best example for one of the battlers, who only uses the top20 OUs from the Smogon tierlist.

Some of you may have noticed, that a new trend is going on on YouTube at the moment. The so calles SO tiers, started by the user XENON3120, also a famous YouTuber. In SO battles, you won't see any Smogon-sets at all, everything is pure originality. Just to name a few examples: Choice Specs Primape, Specialattack Snorelax, SubSwagger Froslass with Psycho-up and much more. Something like this you will never see on Shoddy.
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Ok, I agree with the Pokesav stuff here. The only reason some people (youtubers especially) seems to play on Wi-Fi with Pokesav is to be able to face less experienced players and appear better to their audience.

I know not all of them do it, but you must realize that on Wi-Fi, especially through youtube and other common sites that aren't geared at competitive Pokemon, you have a tendency to be challenged by people who know nothing about competitive play. I have about 5 videos myself, and I've gotten a couple of challenges through them. Each time the match has been ridiculously imbalanced in my favour and I've been allowed to set up way too many dragon dances with Gyarados (as in 6) against some people who challenged me there.

Also the SO tiers, as I see them from your description isn't competitive Pokemon. Using less effective sets for the sake of originality just isn't competitive. Plus if a tier list is made and standard sets are made, it ends up ruining the whole point.

Spenstar said:
One thing I'd like to point out is that when crits and misses (even from a focus blast) occur here, it's considered "hax" and is hated, but in Wifi, the term "hax" is nonexistant.
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Not really. It might be where you're coming from, but I've known wi-fi players complain just as much as shoddy players.

In my opinion, I prefer Wi-Fi, just because I like playing the game with the mechanics as given to us and the animations XP. Shoddy does a good job, but I don't like the inconsistencies no matter how small they are.
 
Proboscidea said:
Most Youtube videos are doubles and Furret winning OU isn't very surprising because Furret is pretty much an OU Pokemon in doubles. Yea. WiFi has way less anal, competitive people. On Shoddy, everyone has Pokemon with perfect IVs (or almost perfect if you go for a Hidden Power) and on WiFi, the only people with that advantage are those who work hard raising their Pokemon. Also, there are less legendaries around so you don't have to face that many annoying, perfect IV Azelfs. Hidden Power is also rarely used because getting the right Hidden Power on your Pokemon is very tough.
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Most people hack IVs to get the HP they want though. I'm more than 99.999999999999999999999% positive on wifi pokemon are hacked with perfect IVs. I just assume anyone who says legal hacks in their sig uses 31 IVs on everything unless they specifically state what they use AR for (i.e. items, IV checker, EV checker, egg hatching, etc.). If someone says PokeSAV anywhere I immediately think hacked with IVs either at 31 or at a specific place to get 70 base power HP. You have the dedicated breeders, but most people just say it takes too much time. Heck I think even the dedicated breeders at least use the one-step egg hatch cheats, I know I do (Not saying I'm a hardcore breeder but I do use the egg hatch cheat).

And Legendaries are all over Wifi. Azelf is common enough. Latias was everywhere. I see Jirachi and Celebi often (I don't believe there's a legit one left anymore). Heatran runs rampant. Zapdos was seen a lot but not so much after Latias was, for whatever reason, made OU.

As far as Shoddy goes I've never used it so I can't make an opinion.
 
The biggest difference is how tedious it is too raise pokemon for wifi compared to how a full team can be put together in seconds. This means that trying crazy new sets or changing teams quickly is much more difficult. Also, stall is just terrible considering you have to watch all the animations and possible d/c. And then there is Rotom-A. People, take that shit to shoddy.
 
I do much better on Wifi than Shoddy battle. I also battle using Wifi much more often. The Wifi battling just feels more real. On wifi you have a better chance of getting somewhere with Unorthodox sets and it takes a while for the trands on shoddy to catch up with wifi, so you can dominate if you get the new sets quickly. For instance, I used Wish/CM Jirachi about a year and a half ago [I just put CM on the wish support jirachi and gave it thunder bolt and psychic]. It dominated on my team [no one else was using it or bothered to ask about it] but Scarf Jirachi broke out and at the time it was better, and it worked better on my team than CM Jirachi. In other words, the latest sets on shoddy can dominate Wifi because it takes a little longer for Wifi to catch up.

I also noticed that on wifi, UU and NUs have a much better chance and Gyrados can destroy with little worry because there are no Rotom forms.

@Spenstar: The term "Hax" on Wifi is very prevalent. I heard it almost every match.

Even though I haven't Wifi battled in a while, I think it's safe to say that Shoddy is a much more stable and centralized way of batting, but I prefer Wifi.

If you use stall teams on Wifi, not many people will want to battle you. They will also DC and chew you out.
 
Spenstar said:
One thing I'd like to point out is that when crits and misses (even from a focus blast) occur here, it's considered "hax" and is hated, but in Wifi, the term "hax" is nonexistant.
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Why do you say that? I hate hax on wi-fi just as much as shoddy.
 
I like Wi-Fi because I actually have pride in making my own teams, and while I can't upload them as fast as Shoddy, I'm forced to test pokemon I've worked hard on longer, which is actually pretty rewarding. Besides, no matter what people say, I prefer the real thing to a simulator anyday!
 
Toby said:
What kind of magical, unicorn filled lucky world do you live in. I tried breeding properly... and it took me 16 hours to hatch the egg thats in my sig, and I've not touched my game since that grueling task months ago. You have some serious positive karma to breed 6 perfect in 8-10 hours (and have time left to EV...)...
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With RNG abuse, it takes me about 20 minutes to find and capture a perfect Pokemon in the wild. Breeding takes a bit longer, but it's still reasonable.

But before RNG abuse, I was perfectly willing to "settle for less" on IVs. Speed is typically the only one that needs to be as high as possible. Suboptimal IVs in the other stats usually don't make a huge difference.
 
I play more WiFi then Shoddy. The difference between th two is huge!

As an example I recently used a Level 1 Clefable with the Endeavor + Focus Sash and so on...
I've almost caught 99% of the players on shoddy with that trick. Unfortunately this will never work on WiFi!

As you mentioned the battles are longer and players seem to be more careless on shoddy! AI am a stall players and most of my teams run leftovers ,sand storm and all other stuff....
It usually takes about 5-8 minutes to finish a stall battle on shoddy! Once it took me 2 1/2 hours to finish a stall battle on WiFi! Another thing is disconnecting! Since my style of battling is "boring" many people have disconnected on WiFi!
I've also noticed that I seem to think and predict more on WiFi then shoddy.
Shoddy is a quick way to battle and WiFi is the old school long fun style of battling.
There are many cheating devices for the games such as AceKard, R4, AR etc. So no point is arguing about the team building process.
 
As a so-called "Youtube wifi-er" (albeit a relatively unknown one), I know the differences between the two metagames, and they're pretty huge.

Since it's impossible to use Rotom appliances on wifi without AR codes, hardly anyone uses them, so Machamp tends to have an easier time since there's one less ghost running around that could screw up his strategy. Also, not everyone packs the pre-requisite "two steels and a dragon" combo synonymous with Shoddy.

The main difference is that, unless it's a tournament, people on wi-fi tend to play for fun, not to win, so they'll just use whatever they feel like (for example, I use Donphan a lot even though it's UU and there aren't a lot of opportunities to spin SR away). A lot of people on Youtube just try and impress their viewers by setting up sweeps with ridiculous Pokemon like Magikarp (there are hundreds of these videos around). Someone earlier mentioned Xenon's SO tier, which again reflects the need for creativity on Youtube to attract viewers. I think it's a stupid idea personally, since most people who consider themselves part of it tend to see it as a revolution against Smogon, as for some reason, to the majority of the Youtube community, Smogon = bad.

There are some really great battlers on Youtube, though, like SebK94, who created a layout for other battlers to use, and Nbz, who's only just come back but always provides really good quality battles.

Of course, wifi has the whole "Pokesav vs breeding" issue, but usually it doesn't really matter who uses which method, just as long as they can get themselves a team together.
 
Nbz is definitely one of the most entertaining YouTube battlers around, his accent makes everything he says hilarious.

However, this thread has completely de-railed itself from its purpose. Once people started talking about YouTube gimmick battlers (as good as they are, they're still gimmick battlers), its stopped being about competitive battling. When I made the thread I was referring to Smogon wifi battlers and the Smogon server on Shoddy. I thought this was made clear enough through the title saying "competitive." Not that I don't find the other stuff interesting and fun to talk about, its just that its kinda off-topic.
 
I have never played over Wi-Fi before, but I imagine that the difference would be huge.

-You can't get the Pokemon you need for your team. Celebi and Jirachi are good examples. I usually have Jirachi on shoddy, but in real life, I can't have one. Well, you can hack for one via AR, but for me, that would take the fun factor out of the match. (for me, that is.)

-It takes time to build a good team. If you can build a good team with semi-perfect IV's, perfect EV spreads under a day, good for you. The rest of us have to endure weeks (that's just for me) of breeding to get perfect IV's in the stats I want, then i have to EV train the guy, then i need to get the right moves for it! That's just for one Pokemon.

-Time. As previously stated, battles can take much more time on Wi-Fi than they do on shoddy. Maybe the the other guys' style is "boring", so you disconnect. Or you face a stall team and that would mean you have to bring your DS down to lunch and dinner to complete a battle!

-Prediction. Also mentioned in this thread, prediction plays a HUGE effect in battles. However, shoddy players tend to be careless, while Wi-Fier's tend yo rely on prediction much more.

However, there is something new I'm trying, I don't know if you know it, but PBC's simulator has a more user-friendly interface and double battles. (puts up flame shield) it comes at the cost of less experienced battlers.
 
It's almost impossible to get perfect IV's in the game. People will often breed for perfect speed, but engineering the IVs to get exactly what you want for a perfectly typed BP 70 hidden power is nigh on impossible without hacking.

Also, you don't see certain event-only pokemon such as wish bliss (or even just plain ole jirachi) nearly as often
 
The available pokemon make the biggest difference in my mind. Havent really seen Jirachi (only the colosseum event one) and never Celebi or Rotom-A.
 
baboon 101: RNG Abuse. You can get perfect Pokemon relatively easily.

There is a lack of good Celebi on Smogon, the best being Jibaku's(forget IVs). But otherwise, it's pretty easy to get perfect events and things you can't usually access with the Wi-Fi forum, since many of these are redis.
 
I play in local tournaments (no hacks allowed) and often play live on pbr, as well as on shoddy. The major problem with shoddy is that the game is non-immersive; no animations and no sound, no real effort needed to make a team. This makes the shoody game much more about team building selections, and players that enjoy it tend to really enjoy making strong or innovative teams and testing them.

wifi/local matches require that you pick your 6 and take time to train them, meaning its harder to replace members or switch sets, as you'll need to re-ev your pokemon. This means you will often be pressed to find ways in battle to fight around your teams weaknesses, and improve your strategy without replacing your pokemon.

All in all wifi players are good and research their sets. wifi and live matches generally elicit a higher level of concentration than non-tournament shoddy because the dialogues are cleaner and moves require confirmation and take time to execute. they're also really hype, and I've learned a lot about pokemon from building teams for live play. I recommend it to everyone : )
 
mzenken said:
abusing rng for pokemon doesn't take a stupid amount of time

sure it takes longer than pokesav but it doesn't take insanely long
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but Pokesav is faster so why RNG? some kind of twisted Pokemon pride..or, like I mostly suspect, just lacking the means to use Pokesav and getting pissed that other people are using it
 
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