bringing this up to discuss "do we haaaaaave to" again
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R.I.P. Leads and Scouting
- Thread starter TheMaskedNitpicker
- Start date
bringing this up to discuss "do we haaaaaave to" again
This kinda sucks. I guess it kinda eliminates guessing and makes the game more skill based, though. It still kinda sucks.
The Team Decision Clause - Each player must discuss if either of them will or will not be viewing the other's party before deciding which Pokemon they will have enter first.
Could also be called the Courtesy Clause, or the "Don't be a jerk" Clause.
Whether it should be accepted as a standard rule is up for debate.
Could also be called the Courtesy Clause, or the "Don't be a jerk" Clause.
Whether it should be accepted as a standard rule is up for debate.
I don't see a feasible way to enforce such a rule. Unlike sleep clause which can easily be observed when it has been broken, there is no way to prove whether or not an opponent has peeked at your team.
I believe the best options would be either having a poll, for a week or so, asking people which way they prefer battling, maybe near the launch of SB2 or on PO's forums. Or maybe... simply giving people the option to turn this off on the challenge window - while it goes against Shoddy's and PO's goals of emulating local battles as much as possible, it's still quite a controversial topic, as seen in the 14 pages of discussion we have here. And well, there's always the possibility that it was unintentional by GameFreak's part, right? We don't have acid rain on either of the simulators, right? Or do we?
Tell me about it. They did the same thing in Gen IV, making Wireless and WiFi have completely different rules you could select. For instance, WiFi battles could auto-level your Pokemon to 50 or 100. Wireless battles couldn't. WTF?
If you like weather teams, I strongly encourage you to play double (or triple) battles. I can tell you from my experience in PBR doubles that knowing your opponent has a weather team beforehand doesn't give you an overwhelming advantage. If anything, it can help make up for what would otherwise be a severe disadvantage.
Although if Drought Ninetales and Drizzle Politoed are allowed, even singles weather teams might be able to hold their own despite these changes.
It would be much easier on a simulator, since there would probably be a separate rule that disallowed the use of the "mandatory feature".
STALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
But no really, stall will just have a party. The thing with stall is that it can be prepared for every single threat that comes at you. With knowledge of what your opponent has, you can easily figure out which members of your party are the most valuable. You can then carefully take the opponents. (for example if you know your opponent has a breloom, you might not want to throw toxic everywhere.) Of course we could just retreat to the simulators. How hard can it be to just disable a little screen before the battle? Its not hurting anyone.
But no really, stall will just have a party. The thing with stall is that it can be prepared for every single threat that comes at you. With knowledge of what your opponent has, you can easily figure out which members of your party are the most valuable. You can then carefully take the opponents. (for example if you know your opponent has a breloom, you might not want to throw toxic everywhere.) Of course we could just retreat to the simulators. How hard can it be to just disable a little screen before the battle? Its not hurting anyone.
The way you described the clause led me to believe you were proposing a WiFi rule. Of course on a simulator one could easily decide to implement an alternative to the pre-knowledge of WiFi matches.
oh good... more randoms using stall is what we need :chaos:
at least there's still hope with the level 50 option which promotes non revealed pokemon...
By some post I've been reading I suppose some people have the idea that you just see the opponent's Pokemon and proceed to play against his whole team.
Actually there is a lot of strategy involved in team selection as you will only face SOME of the other player's Pokemon. Predicting which he will choose is in itself a mindgame.
I suppose there is no problem in posting Youtube videos here so I'm going to post some PBR Random Wifi Battles so people who have never seen this mode will have an idea of what it looks like.
You don't even need to watch the whole battles if you don't want, just the first minute or so:
Singles Random Wi-Fi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jcuv6Z14aA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVy_cVul3iw
Double Random Wi-Fi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFUGnXd8KQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-NDASscqrM
This one is specially interesting as it's narrated and you get to know exactly what's going though a player's mind in this kind of battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsg-uLNr6bo
Actually there is a lot of strategy involved in team selection as you will only face SOME of the other player's Pokemon. Predicting which he will choose is in itself a mindgame.
I suppose there is no problem in posting Youtube videos here so I'm going to post some PBR Random Wifi Battles so people who have never seen this mode will have an idea of what it looks like.
You don't even need to watch the whole battles if you don't want, just the first minute or so:
Singles Random Wi-Fi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jcuv6Z14aA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVy_cVul3iw
Double Random Wi-Fi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFUGnXd8KQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-NDASscqrM
This one is specially interesting as it's narrated and you get to know exactly what's going though a player's mind in this kind of battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsg-uLNr6bo
Beat me to it. Unless you trust your opponent, this'll never work. Even if it does, opponent can be a sore loser and say you "peeked" even if you didn't.
IMO this feature is a godsend for VGC players. A while back, when I was thinking of things that BW could introduce to improve VGC, this was at the top of the list (along with a built-in legality checker) Now, rather than going into a match completely blind, hoping your opponent doesn't completely counter your leads, you can take steps to prevent getting the worst possible matchup. I could definitely see it giving a more consistent advantage to the better player.
While this probably won't have as much of a positive effect in 6 pokemon singles, I believe this feature has the potential to enhance competitive play as much as it will shift things around. That's why I urge you all to not turn your nose up at it just because it's different from what you're used to, especially if you've never seriously played it before. I know, people are going to play what they want and all that, but if you're going to bend over backwards to justify not using this feature, could you at least play with the damn thing first and then give valid reasons not to use this feature?
While this probably won't have as much of a positive effect in 6 pokemon singles, I believe this feature has the potential to enhance competitive play as much as it will shift things around. That's why I urge you all to not turn your nose up at it just because it's different from what you're used to, especially if you've never seriously played it before. I know, people are going to play what they want and all that, but if you're going to bend over backwards to justify not using this feature, could you at least play with the damn thing first and then give valid reasons not to use this feature?
Because, it's still not so simple. From here, we really have a choice as to what we want to do: do we want to use Wi-Fi/local wireless, with this new mechanic, or stick to IR, which doesn't reveal teams but has us at auto-Level 50? Each has their own benefits and flaws, and it would be a real disappointment to be if we didn't weight and consider them, and instead simply went with what we're more familiar with, as the changes local Wireless mechanics offer are very intriguing, and as this is the start of a brand new generation, Shoddy 2 isn't even finished yet (not to even get into Gen 5 moves and such yet), this would be the perfect chance to switch to such a format, if the community so desires (and, like I said, I really do hope we give it a fair chance and don't just jump to IR, but based on the responses, I'm really doubtful of that happening as of this point, especially due to very limited programming resources, etc). Beyond that, there are still some key questions that need to be answered, like whether or not Rotom's forms can be used over IR (and over Wi-Fi, while we're at it), which could affect the decision, depending on the answers.
Are the mechanics between Level 100 and Level 50 really that different? I always assumed everything was halved. I have like 0 Exp with Level 50 battles.
For the most part, they are the same. However, auto-level 50 means no stuff like FEAR Pokemon or other such sets that rely on the Pokemon being at a low level, but they aren't used much anyway, so that would hardly be noticeable. That's pretty much it, though.
Also, I suppose this may be considered irrelevant, especially since there isn't a LC ladder on the Smogon server, but it would nonetheless be an interesting question as to how doing this might affect the Little Cup ladder on CAP. If going with IR rules means setting the Ladders to only allow Level 50 Pokemon, would servers like CAP still be able to run a Little Cup ladder, if they so desire (in other words, would servers still be allowed to modify the level restrictions for the ladders in Shoddy Battle 2 or not in that case, is what I suppose I'm asking)? I'd assume this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but just making sure that things of that nature wouldn't be affected if we decide to go this route.
However, I suppose the most pressing issue isn't the differences between Level 50 and 100, which are completely irrelevant as far as deciding something like this goes, but whether or not the Rotom forms are usable on Infrared or not and any other such restrictions that this format may have, as that's the reason why it was decided that Shoddy was supposed to simulate Wireless instead of Wi-Fi last generation. If it doesn't, that makes the decision on what to do more complicated than people seem to think now.
Can you confirm that confirmation? Because it's not like I know whether it is true or not. All I know is everything is still speculation. Besides, I was just merely stating why that wouldn't work out.
Mixed opinions in regards to this change (or a move to PBR-style).
I did like how people were assuming Single Wi-Fi battles were 3v3, at a point. I just watched several videos of Wi-Fi battles and they were single and 6v6. Only one where I've seen 3v3 has been in the use of Random.
On to the point of selecting the lead according to the opponent's team, and "lack of surprises". Doesn't quite eliminate the prediction, it makes you less likely to make poor plays, that's about it. By that, I mean you're less likely to see Gyarados, and despite the fact they'll almost obviously switch, use Thunderbolt. I see that as a correction rather than anything else.
Since it's early on into the games, a lot of questions remain about Wi-Fi, including (as was just pointed out by Naxte) forme use. I'd imagine that the new formes were Wi-Fi compatible, since they come out according to ability and moves rather than item-based changing like Platinum introduced. This doesn't answer the question of Rotom, Shaymin and Giratina, though.
I'm still more focused on Wi-Fi rather than IR and Wireless, but don't get me wrong I do care about the other choices and which I'd prefer in the end. Wi-Fi just seems, at this point, a nicer way to go for me. That's without including biased views because of playing in the 4th Generation.
And here's a rather redundant way I could look at it; We won't see the same leads all of the time, anymore. Could this possibly make lead statistics useless for us to consider? Who knows?
I did like how people were assuming Single Wi-Fi battles were 3v3, at a point. I just watched several videos of Wi-Fi battles and they were single and 6v6. Only one where I've seen 3v3 has been in the use of Random.
On to the point of selecting the lead according to the opponent's team, and "lack of surprises". Doesn't quite eliminate the prediction, it makes you less likely to make poor plays, that's about it. By that, I mean you're less likely to see Gyarados, and despite the fact they'll almost obviously switch, use Thunderbolt. I see that as a correction rather than anything else.
Since it's early on into the games, a lot of questions remain about Wi-Fi, including (as was just pointed out by Naxte) forme use. I'd imagine that the new formes were Wi-Fi compatible, since they come out according to ability and moves rather than item-based changing like Platinum introduced. This doesn't answer the question of Rotom, Shaymin and Giratina, though.
I'm still more focused on Wi-Fi rather than IR and Wireless, but don't get me wrong I do care about the other choices and which I'd prefer in the end. Wi-Fi just seems, at this point, a nicer way to go for me. That's without including biased views because of playing in the 4th Generation.
And here's a rather redundant way I could look at it; We won't see the same leads all of the time, anymore. Could this possibly make lead statistics useless for us to consider? Who knows?
It would be for those with poor connections, however shaky IR is.
I guess on an airplane it makes sense.
Anyway why can't we just simulate having matches / tournaments run with the top screen covered until the game starts? What's so hard about that?
Because it's completely arbitrary, with no basis on any real-world condition. It seeks to create an artificial setting that is not being replicated in the game environment, when the whole point of Shoddy is to provide a convenient way for people to enjoy the in-game system without going through the trouble of laboriously training a team and/or looking for a link/ friend/ wireless battle.
You might as well ask why Shoddy can't program in a 'no switching' clause simply to satisfy those people (yes they do exist) who want to play Pokemon in a manner closer approaching the initial few anime seasons (fight until fainting before sending out a new Pokemon). It is entirely conceivable that, somewhere, there will be people who play out a competition under those rules, so why not?
What's sad is people will still argue these semantics. What's beautiful is people have different opinions and it keeps threads flowing and alive. But I concur.
The other point to consider is the fact that 'prediction' is possible within the confines of DPP (and, most likely, BW) because there are a very limited number of Pokemon capable of presenting a credible threat to those we have decided belong to the OU tier. One might postulate the existence of certain Pokemon in his/her opponent's line up based on the Pokemon they -have- revealed due to their popularity and their synergy with the rest of the team, but this is only possible because there are only so many Pokemon capable of fulfilling a given function and with a certain set of type resistances available. When this is no longer the case, and there are literally hundreds of possibilities, prediction becomes less and less about strategy and more about simple guesswork. A system such as this, when you consider this, is more than merely sensible - it was inevitable and necessary.
That there will be a 6th generation of Pokemon to follow BW is almost certain. That there will be a 7th after it, also likely. Pokemon has shown no signs of losing steam over the years, and as long as it does not, GF will keep cashing in on it. Every generation will broaden the scope of competitive Pokemon. Presuming they continue constructing new Pokemon with an eye to competitivity and balance, we are eventually going to reach a point where we have such an overabundance of viable Pokemon that it just becomes impossible to make any kind of accurate judgement on the character of an opponent's team -without- a system of this kind.
That there will be a 6th generation of Pokemon to follow BW is almost certain. That there will be a 7th after it, also likely. Pokemon has shown no signs of losing steam over the years, and as long as it does not, GF will keep cashing in on it. Every generation will broaden the scope of competitive Pokemon. Presuming they continue constructing new Pokemon with an eye to competitivity and balance, we are eventually going to reach a point where we have such an overabundance of viable Pokemon that it just becomes impossible to make any kind of accurate judgement on the character of an opponent's team -without- a system of this kind.