action replay/pokesav questions

[kingbattlus]

i'm wondering where most people draw the line on this though...

let's say i still breed using all of the same pokemon that i've been breeding with for the last few months... but i use something to hatch my eggs faster. is it cheating now? or i hack the items to get the event legendaries... is it cheating now? no actual pokemon have been altered, so have i crossed into the dark area, or am i still somewhere in the gray?

 

[PixelTwist]

Okay, I have heard both sides of the story, Hackers hack to save time, to try to make the DS and GBA metagame like the Shoddybattle and Netbattle game. Non hackers think that the handheld metagame should be comprised of having to raise your own pokemon and such. Harder working people get better stuff. I can see that point. I think that nowadays pokemon is NOT purely battling, but it is raising pokemon and investing time in a team also. Oh, and we have contests and such so that is also pokemon now. Battling may be the original pokemon spirit but now many other aspects are included too. Keep the Insta-battle to the World wide web. The main pokemon games are for all additives, not just a quick battle.

This was a good way to put it, and it's how I feel.

If I'm going to battle someone on my DS over Wifi, I'm going to expect to fight caught/bred pokemon with imperfect EVs and not ideal movesets. There are more things that can go right or wrong. The game is a little different because there are a ton more variables. In a game where pokemon are tied in speed, it's not going to come up to a coin toss, it's going to be whoever spent the time to get 31 instead of 30 in speed.

There are ways to have instant battles with the ideal team that everyone has access too. The game is different then, it's more predictable, but then you have to be more solid on what you're going to do next.

Pokemon is a very interesting game and you almost need an AR to explore all the mechanics. However, using that AR to put yourself at an advantage, be it hatching your pokemon faster, catching flawlessly IVd parents and breeding them, fixing natures and abilities and whatnot makes it unfair. Sure, your IVs are 25/31/20/26/27/30. Mine are too, but it took me 3 weeks to get them.

'Keep the Insta-battle to the World wide web.'

 

[GeddyLee]

Hey, I'm new here, so what I say probably won't sway anyone's opinion.

I don't consider pressing up and down on the D-pad, for hours on end, as playing. I don't use perfect IVs, illegal moves, yada yada... but I do create and tweak my pokemon via action replay.

If you're not into trading, I don't see why using action replay is taboo, as long as you keep them legit enough.

 

[y2zipper]

Nintendo won't find a way to stop hacking because they don't care about competitive battling in general. They only care about selling games (which I don't like on one hand, but can't blame them for on the other hand).

Hacking is all about how you handle it. A lot of people have an intolerance for hackers not necessarily because of time spent or the handheld metagame, but because there are idiots out there that hack all 999 pokemon or Pokemon with illegal moves/traits or whatever, and nobody wants to play against that garbage.

From what I've gathered from previous dicussions here and the mods is that hacking is defined here as using any cheating device outside of the game to enhance the creation of a pokemon. This includes parents, egg time, or anything else that could make the hatched pokemon you're actually going to use better than it normally would be without such a device.

Personally, whenever I fight somebody over Wi-Fi with my DS, I assume that their pokemon has perfect IV's and is EV trained in some way (Assuming I play on Smogon). The focus of this website is competitive battling as opposed to the handheld metagame.

My personal stance on the matter aside, if your going to hack (in other words, if you do anything that falls under the definition of hacking that I put in this post), there are courteous ways to do it on Smogon that are generally accepted by the majority of players here...

1. Don't ever ever ever ever offer a hacked pokemon for trade. There's just no reason for it. Hack it yourself if your just going to trade a hacked pokemon. Certain pokemon (Deoxys, Arceus, Dakrai) and clones obtained via AR are generally exceptions, but you should still note that were obtained with the use of a cheating device, because some people don't want to trade for them at all.

2. If you're battling with sharked/ARed pokemon, you should notify your opponent. It's as easy as putting that you're an AR user in your sig or telling your opponent that the pokemon you are using is ARed or sharked. This applies even if only 1 pokemon on your team is hacked. Most people won't turn down a match if your stuff is hacked and you tell them beforehand. It's likely someone who will turn you down for this isn't someone you want to play anyway.

3. Don't play people with illegal shit (meaning stuff that can't be obtained in the game). It's completely BS, most people here will catch you, it does get you banned from here, and it gives credible hackers a bad name. Do careful research on legal breeding combinations, EV combinations, Natures, Abilities, and the like before you make your teams. There's so much information out there that there's no excuse for illegal combinations.

4. Don't enter hacked pokemon in tournaments that explicitly exclude hacking. This includes official Nintendo events, all tournament battles here on Smogon, and any other tournaments you run into where hacking is not allowed. You're just asking for trouble by doing this. This is a rule that is expressed in most tournament settings (because of the metagame), although my personal tournaments don't because I've modified the rules to make the playing field more level whether or not people hack and I only have a PBR to use in my area, but that's enough about my personal stuff.

My point is that if you're going to hack, don't be an idiot about it and most people won't care as long as it's in a casual battle setting.

 

[Kijin]

I've recently changed my stance on this issue. It is clear that players who use hacked-but-possible pokemon have a huge advantage over players who breed.

Ignoring the obvious difference in time investment (which seems to be the payoff between buying AR, using it to hack pokes, and then have the "wholly legit players" rag on you for being t3h h4xx4r), how do you figure? Knowing the difference between a 26 in a given IV other than speed vs 31 in a non-speed IV is ~1%, I don't really get how either side, assuming each is creating the highest caliber pokemon possible, would be at any kind of disadvantage.
For example.
I just bred a 24/1/29/31/26/31 Yanma. The 7 HP points missing kind of suck, but everything else on it is going to be pretty much the same in combat as any hacked 31/31/31/31/31/31 IV pokemon. In a mirror match, neither would have the advantage beyond the coin toss of who gets to attack first. Ignoring that only shot of luck, who wins the fight is down purely to who has more skill as a battler. If you're a breeder, at least one who prides him/herself on breeding the best, you should take pride in battling against any "making it look legit" hacked team, because oftentimes you are showing a pure outskilling of your opponent. If you lose, you can always just blame "t3h h4x."

When it comes to trading, it's unfortunate that people are out to scam others in a market where no actual currency and (usually- obviously Nintendo events offer money and having a hacked pokemon will ruin your wonderful time) no palpable gain comes from your product. And head-hunting pokes is entirely possible w/ Action Replay without a single trade (just look at the number of people offering cloning services), so there really is no obvious bragging rights gain from, "LOL I tuk teh giez poge 4 mi hax shinee pigy" Really, aside from trolling people over WiFi GTS cloning, populating the trading market with hacked pokemon serves no real purpose or gain; some people just suck and honor and pokesav hack-checking is all we really have to rely on.

 

[DaveJ]

Kijin, for the most part I agree with you, however the basis for my argument was the matter of time investment. Player A spends weeks preparing a single team. In that time, Hacker prepares 8 teams, and spends the week testing and fine tuning. If the players are of equal skill, hacker should know what he needs to do to win, and his team will be of higher quality.

The Action Replay/pokesave essentially flatten this game's learning curve, which is why I placed an order for one today.

 

[GeddyLee]

Learning curve? The learning curve in this game is choosing the right moves, evs, team members and strategy. Whether you hack or not this doesn't change. I have great IV pokes with good natures, but I do have a number of losses because I'm still learning. Hacking to get the good stuff quicker doesn't automatically make you a high calibur battler.

For me, breeding is not a worthwhile investment. It 100% luck. You could breed for months and not get a pokemon with good IVs, while your friend could breed twice and get almost perfect IVs. Please tell me if there is some kind of skill involved that I'm missing, besides trying to avoid having the day care erase your guy's moves.

 

[TSPhoenix]

I believe this skill is perseverance, you can't skip all the crap in real life.

That said this is a game, you should not be forced to do all this rubbish to get a good Pokemon, if eggs hatched super-fast and the games had better measures to help you check your hatchling's quality I'd say people shouldn't be hacking at all, but with hatching taking phenomenally long and checking the offspring being difficult and tedios, I can understand why people cheat.

 

[GeddyLee]

Yes, this is a video game. No need to punish ourselves here. Unlike in real life, the payoff of breeding is very little, as I see it.

I was going to say what you said, but I figured that reason would be obvious.

 

[Kijin]

Kijin, for the most part I agree with you, however the basis for my argument was the matter of time investment. Player A spends weeks preparing a single team. In that time, Hacker prepares 8 teams, and spends the week testing and fine tuning. If the players are of equal skill, hacker should know what he needs to do to win, and his team will be of higher quality.

The Action Replay/pokesave essentially flatten this game's learning curve, which is why I placed an order for one today.

My point was, more or less, that neither party will be battling one another until both sides have prepared. Additionally, I would imagine that the breeder would take the time to try and test his/her team on a simulator of some sort or running it through RMT or just try to trade for the missing pieces (causing you to only need 1-2 fully bred pokemon, about 2-3 days worth of playing, vs. a whole week).
I think if each party is of the same quality in regards to strategy and battling, the two teams will be of equal quality. As I said, fine tuning and kinks can be worked out without even talking to the daycare couple. Any real disadvantage afterwards would come from any major deficiencies in breeding in playing against a hax team (ex: only ~15 EVs in a defense vs. the 31 respective attack compared to 31 attack vs. 31 defense in that stat, breeder v. hax respectively), which is more the dilemma of a breeder not holding out for a better egg than anything else.