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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Yoom-tah ;)
That originated in RT
Which RTDX removed >:[
yo, so with the recent VGC controversy I wanted to talk about it
IMO it's more nuanced than just "make it super easy to get mons in-game or allow genning", which in of itself is a hot take, but the hotter take is just I think TPC is correct to ban people for genning. Not because oh I hate them or they aren't skillful, people like Brady Smith are skilled and I do not disrespect people for genning, I just think there are core assumptions in the conversation that are incorrect.
The motto of the series is "Train On." they want you to have to train your Pokemon, but that's obviously not wanted by the players who have to make so many teams in order to make it far. I also think people are disingenuous when they say genning is not cheating.
Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:
Who is more likely to win?
1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon
2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours making their first team, playtested for 5 hours, tweaked, played another 5 hours, realized it sucks, starts over, spend another 20 hours making a new team, retry on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak grind again
I'd hope this makes it clear how being able to have all of your teams in a split second is an advantage, because teambuilding is a skill especially in a tournament like VGC's where you cannot spend a week making a new team and prepping for your opponent. You need a shit ton of practice not just to find the team you want, but also in order to train yourself at piloting the team against different matchups. This takes a lot of time, and having to spend time tweaking or making a team is a significant time loss that otherwise could be spent practicing.
The real debate shouldn't be "is genning cheating". For one, cheating is arbitrary term, but the base assumption is that cheating means an unfair advantage. Unfair could be considered going around the rules. Cheating can be defined in a tournament not just because it's a dick move, but because said tournament says to not do x, y, z. In my opinion, genning is by definition cheating. It is not cheating inside the actual battle; it is cheating in preparation.
In this multi-step game, you have to make the ultimate recipe and win against others with it. To test the recipe, first you have to cook it. But I just got my friend Carl to get me a cake exactly as I said despite the fact that the tournament says, "Do not ask Carl to make a cake for you". Still, I do it anyways because it's an advantage and I don't like waiting for the cake to cook, and I test the recipe. I realize it sucks, and I ask Carl to make another cake.
My opponent is still making the first cake, and still is at the store buying ingredients.
The real debate should be, do we accept that training is a part of the game? And the popular answer, simply, is no. When people say "genning is not cheating", they are definitionally deciding that training is not a skill. Preparing your team is not a skill and is not tested in the actual competition that matters, how well you pilot the team, and what team it is.
Game Freak and The Pokemon Company want training to be a part of the competition, because it's part of the RPG, you have to play with more mechanics. You have to breed, grind money, do Tera Raids, etc. etc. In a way it's like an MMO in The Pokemon Company's eyes, and before playing PVP you have to go back and interact with all of these nuanced systems before you even have a chance. Sword and Shield made this even more blatantly obvious by making the game 10FPS when you run it online, by showing you a bazillion other trainers moving around the overworld, most likely training their own Pokemon.
Really, in a way, genning is a cultural battle and it's not between He Who Shall Not Be Named and the competitive players. It's between the game itself and the players. The players who are interested in Smogon or VGC want the game to be about battling, which is the part they find most interesting. It's not like these are shiny hunters, they want to battle. Game Freak, the designers, have an interest in making the game more well-rounded. They want you to interact with all of the branches of the game, as much as they possibly can edge you towards it.
But, I don't think there is no audience for this. Look at MMOs like PokeMMO, which are way harder to grind out a team than the main series games, even probably compared to the actual Black and White, especially if you want shinies. It is similarly a game that wants you to grind and interact with all of the mechanics, and it has survived for around 10 years. PokeOne is another fanmade MMO and similarly keeps an audience of competitive battlers who play within the bounds and see training as part of the game.
So, I don't think there is any perfect solution, but I have one that I can borrow from Temtem, an MMO Pokemon-like that I think has a lot of good ideas, regardless of how you feel it is quality wise (please don't quote this part of the post, I don't care!)
Temtem has three major branches of PVP play. Temtem Ranked, Temtem Showdown and Temtem Tournaments. All of these provide varying levels of time to put in before you can play.
Temtem Ranked: Your Temtem are given full IV-equivalent but not EVs, items, moves or abiltiies. This is up to you, but also removes the main problem stopping you from bringing your Temtem from the main playthrough, or needing to breed for literal hours, from being able to play with your actual in-game collection. Temtem Showdown lets you play against, to my knowledge, exclusively other Temtem Showdown players, who all are able to use teams like you would Pokemon Showdown. Tournaments are also held on Temtem Showdown, but...
The official, most real Temtem tournaments for the main game require in-game built teams. Including breeding for IVs. This means that every type of player is rewarded in some way. Those who don't care don't even need to buy the game, they can just play, just don't expect to be able to play against those who put in like 20 hours to craft their perfect team. Those who don't want to grind for hours of breeding can still play with imperfect Temtem in ranked, and you also get practice with teams without needing to put in 20 hours before you know you like the team.
I think this is the best solution personally, let me know what you all think, I put a good amount of time into this post.
IMO it's more nuanced than just "make it super easy to get mons in-game or allow genning", which in of itself is a hot take, but the hotter take is just I think TPC is correct to ban people for genning. Not because oh I hate them or they aren't skillful, people like Brady Smith are skilled and I do not disrespect people for genning, I just think there are core assumptions in the conversation that are incorrect.
The motto of the series is "Train On." they want you to have to train your Pokemon, but that's obviously not wanted by the players who have to make so many teams in order to make it far. I also think people are disingenuous when they say genning is not cheating.
Because time is an advantage at a high enough level, being able to test more teams and tweak quicker is a major advantage, like:
Who is more likely to win?
1. The guy who spent 100 hours battling to find their best team, spending 20 minutes at most between play sessions to gen Pokemon
2. or the guy who spent 15 or so hours making their first team, playtested for 5 hours, tweaked, played another 5 hours, realized it sucks, starts over, spend another 20 hours making a new team, retry on the ladder, oh you're getting bad luck with practicing the team against weird ass matchups, ok now this needs a tweak grind again
I'd hope this makes it clear how being able to have all of your teams in a split second is an advantage, because teambuilding is a skill especially in a tournament like VGC's where you cannot spend a week making a new team and prepping for your opponent. You need a shit ton of practice not just to find the team you want, but also in order to train yourself at piloting the team against different matchups. This takes a lot of time, and having to spend time tweaking or making a team is a significant time loss that otherwise could be spent practicing.
The real debate shouldn't be "is genning cheating". For one, cheating is arbitrary term, but the base assumption is that cheating means an unfair advantage. Unfair could be considered going around the rules. Cheating can be defined in a tournament not just because it's a dick move, but because said tournament says to not do x, y, z. In my opinion, genning is by definition cheating. It is not cheating inside the actual battle; it is cheating in preparation.
In this multi-step game, you have to make the ultimate recipe and win against others with it. To test the recipe, first you have to cook it. But I just got my friend Carl to get me a cake exactly as I said despite the fact that the tournament says, "Do not ask Carl to make a cake for you". Still, I do it anyways because it's an advantage and I don't like waiting for the cake to cook, and I test the recipe. I realize it sucks, and I ask Carl to make another cake.
My opponent is still making the first cake, and still is at the store buying ingredients.
The real debate should be, do we accept that training is a part of the game? And the popular answer, simply, is no. When people say "genning is not cheating", they are definitionally deciding that training is not a skill. Preparing your team is not a skill and is not tested in the actual competition that matters, how well you pilot the team, and what team it is.
Game Freak and The Pokemon Company want training to be a part of the competition, because it's part of the RPG, you have to play with more mechanics. You have to breed, grind money, do Tera Raids, etc. etc. In a way it's like an MMO in The Pokemon Company's eyes, and before playing PVP you have to go back and interact with all of these nuanced systems before you even have a chance. Sword and Shield made this even more blatantly obvious by making the game 10FPS when you run it online, by showing you a bazillion other trainers moving around the overworld, most likely training their own Pokemon.
Really, in a way, genning is a cultural battle and it's not between He Who Shall Not Be Named and the competitive players. It's between the game itself and the players. The players who are interested in Smogon or VGC want the game to be about battling, which is the part they find most interesting. It's not like these are shiny hunters, they want to battle. Game Freak, the designers, have an interest in making the game more well-rounded. They want you to interact with all of the branches of the game, as much as they possibly can edge you towards it.
But, I don't think there is no audience for this. Look at MMOs like PokeMMO, which are way harder to grind out a team than the main series games, even probably compared to the actual Black and White, especially if you want shinies. It is similarly a game that wants you to grind and interact with all of the mechanics, and it has survived for around 10 years. PokeOne is another fanmade MMO and similarly keeps an audience of competitive battlers who play within the bounds and see training as part of the game.
So, I don't think there is any perfect solution, but I have one that I can borrow from Temtem, an MMO Pokemon-like that I think has a lot of good ideas, regardless of how you feel it is quality wise (please don't quote this part of the post, I don't care!)
Temtem has three major branches of PVP play. Temtem Ranked, Temtem Showdown and Temtem Tournaments. All of these provide varying levels of time to put in before you can play.
Temtem Ranked: Your Temtem are given full IV-equivalent but not EVs, items, moves or abiltiies. This is up to you, but also removes the main problem stopping you from bringing your Temtem from the main playthrough, or needing to breed for literal hours, from being able to play with your actual in-game collection. Temtem Showdown lets you play against, to my knowledge, exclusively other Temtem Showdown players, who all are able to use teams like you would Pokemon Showdown. Tournaments are also held on Temtem Showdown, but...
The official, most real Temtem tournaments for the main game require in-game built teams. Including breeding for IVs. This means that every type of player is rewarded in some way. Those who don't care don't even need to buy the game, they can just play, just don't expect to be able to play against those who put in like 20 hours to craft their perfect team. Those who don't want to grind for hours of breeding can still play with imperfect Temtem in ranked, and you also get practice with teams without needing to put in 20 hours before you know you like the team.
I think this is the best solution personally, let me know what you all think, I put a good amount of time into this post.
I think it's correct of TPC to ban people for genning purely because it's clearly defined in their rules. On the other hand Kaphotics has been pointing out the common issues with bad hacks for years, so there should really be no excuse for showing up at worlds with nonsense like a wild-caught natural 6IV shiny rare mark max size mon at this point. Of course, accessibility within the game is a different matter that gamefreak should address themselves.
What concerns me about attempting to require the grind is the ability to get an advantage in time efficiency by using real-world resources. Even if somebody needs to be doing the IV breeding, there's no way to enforce that said somebody is the same one actually battling in the tournaments. A person with spare money or influence could just have another do the tedious parts while they focus on battles (or sleep, for that matter). They'd probably have to ban all traded mons to even start to enforce a restriction against doing this, which is completely untenable for several reasons. Heck, I recall hearing about tricks with the Switch's System Transfer functionality used for distributing Mario Maker levels that get taken down on the main servers, those would probably let someone else do all the grind in one place and pass the competitor the save file.
This is technically a possibility with any game where a grind is required, this is also an industry with literal pay to win tactics. In my opinion, focus more on actual realistic issues: Like lacking the ability to obtain certain Pokemon within the game itself. This is an actual monetary challenge every competitive player will have to face, unless they already have every game.
The problem you are describing could happen with theoretically any PVP game with a grind, like any MMORPG. But is that really even a big issue?
Also, like I said, there isn't forced in-game teams in Temtem Showdown tournaments for obvious reasons. They are two different types of players, and I think making tournaments only for one type of player is a problem with the game design, both ways. Why should those uninterested in doing the grind be forced when they don't consider it an interesting challenge? And why should those who want it to be a part of the preparation of the game have to play against those who don't want to, and thus likely fight hacked teams that bypasses that anyways?
Realistically, a player who does not bring hacked Pokemon to the tournament can still use hacks or use Showdown to practice. Such a player will lose some time preparing their team right before the tournament, and have less time to make changes, but it's not by as much as you're saying. In the end, I'd argue that the advantage provided by hacking your team for the tournament is vastly outweighed by various factors which Gamefreak has no control over (such as how long your work hours are, or how much time you need to dedicate to family responsibilities).
"But we should still make the tournament as fair as possible"
I'd argue that access to hacked Pokemon makes tournament preparation far more far. If Gamefreak could magically prevent all hacking from occurring, the gap between players who have access to resources and those who do not might be significantly greater. Although it does cost money to get a hacked Switch, a player without resources could probably still find someone else to hack their team for free (which might be what happened, judging from his comments). If no hacking could occur, then it would be much more difficult for someone without money/influence to get competitively trained Pokemon without spending the time personally.
I mean, there is a very simple solution for Gamefreak that lets them remove grind and remove monetary challenges to the greatest extent possible. Most games with serious competitive events (other than pay-to-win card games) put all players at the same level. It's not like you're forced to prove that you bought the Smash DLC or completed the story mode since they'll give you a device with all characters unlocked.
Most people spend some of their free time on activities other than practicing competitive Pokemon. Is there a reason why someone who chooses to spend time training in-game needs to be separated from people who choose to spend time on other unrelated things?
Can the player who also likes to spend time in cake-baking competitions claim that it's unfair that they're matched against people who spend all of their time practicing competitive Pokemon? The only difference between the two situations is that an out-of-touch game company has arbitrarily connected the training minigame with the competitive game, even though the two activities are completely different. The reason why the official Temtem tournaments require you to grind is not because it has intrinsic value, but because encouraging that makes them the most money, despite the fact that it makes the tournament objectively less fair and less competitive.Hypothetical situation for the sake of argument said:
Edit: You could argue that it should be up to the playerbase to decide whether or not in-game grinding should be given value, but judging from the fact that most of the top-level VGC players are using hacked teams, it doesn't seem that they care about it very much.
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1. yes some people do like grinding and don't like fighting people who skipped the grind if they did do it
2. giving people more options is better, your only argument against a several pronged approach is "oh why split the players", why not? why force people with different views on the game to all compete in the same format
"why does capitalism exist, because capitalism exists we cannot have grinding in competitive games"
guess what, the world is not a meritocracy, I'm sorry you had to learn this on Smogon Forums, but all competition is flawed due to material conditions, including real ass sports
you could argue that it's actually a design flaw that Pokemon is not free to play to be more accessible and fair, or that having to buy the latest game is unfair, yadda yadda and I'd never take you seriously, at the end of the day it ain't that fucking serious, competitive Pokemon is not that serious and it having barriers to entry is not the end of the world
statistically if you care about pokemon the barrier to entry is not money, its fucking understanding dumb shit like how levitating pokemon ignore certain parts of terrains, learning niche facts about stats and slowly coming to understand the game
brady fox is not an example of "guy who needed to hack because money", he paid for a vacation to go to japan and admitted he could have just bought the game
competitive Pokemon is not a real esport and probably won't ever be one
you pay money to travel to play one of the most volatile competitive videogames to either mostly just get nothing, maybe the costs of travel accounted for and some more, or what is still practically a feeble amount compared to what a giant company overlord could afford, and will maybe pay off 1/5th of your college loan
there is no intrinsic value to competitive pokemon, smogon or vgc. it does not matter, and never will. I think you should put it in the hands of different players to figure out how they want to play. It is you who has arbitrarily decided what should matter, and wants to force that as the standard, and for what?
why is it up to you or anyone to decide what someone values in a giant ass RPG turned competitive game? How about I fucking exclude battles, would you like that? Pokemon is about training not battling, why do I have to do this side minigame when I'm just trying to speedrun making great Pokemon? Why is one thing "the minigame", and the other the main event? Most casual players think the fucking battles suck! That's why all of their ideas to change Pokemon involve removing turn based gameplay, to them is not the minigame?
To me, competitive Pokemon is barely even the same videogame as Pokemon. Most of my time playing Pokemon mainline games is exploring, managing resources and zoning out as I click buttons, hunt a shiny, do whatever. How can you make a definition of competitive Pokemon that is not arbitrary?
Simple: Your standards are arbitrary. Is creating a team of Pokemon quickly not a skill? What is stopping me from creating a competition where all you do is prep teams? If I put a prizepool of $1,000 to be best at training up a new team with proof, I'd probably have more competitiveness in my event than the average Smogon tournament.
in case it isn't clear because post is long: I think it is very stupid to act like there is only one standard for what can be considered competitive in a videogame. I think it is wrong to say that the entire rest of the game is a "minigame", and I think that there is enough skill in learning to proficiently create Pokemon that you could even make it its own competitive game. There is also speedrunning which is basically a form of competitiveness, and that is very cool and competitive too.
I don't want training to be part of Smogon at all, but I'm not going to stop people who see the game as something beyond just the match. Because it's not up to anyone in particular, and there is no authority, it's subjective.
im not even anti genning i literally have done it before but my god the dickriding goes CRAZY
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So I play a little-known MMO called Final Fantasy XIV, so I can confidently say this mindset on their part is flawed. Why?
Because in FFXIV, the high-end content people want to do (Savage raiding) is intertwined with the grind. Pokémon locks its comparable content (PVP) completely the behind the grind.
Want to get the best gear to max your damage, healing, and bulk? Then go do the Savage stuff, learn the fights and your job (or jobs), beat the bosses weekly, get your gear and slowly get all the pieces until you have best-in-slot, and eventually obtain the shiny weapon and rare raid tier mount for sweet sweet bragging rights. You play the content to get the gear that enables you to play the content better. It feeds into itself.
Wanna learn how to play competitive Pokémon? Then go do a bunch of completely unrelated and boring shit before you can even test teams. The system is inherently flawed from the outset because the gameplay loop doesn't even loop.
Of course people want to skip it. Grinding for the resources to perfect your Pokémon is absolutely unrelated to the actual combat. At least in an MMO you have crafters who will make stuff you need and throw it on the market board so they can make a profit to buy houses or whatever. Like trading is a thing but, it's not exactly convenient when you probably still have to interact with the systems you hate to provide something of value. Or just pay a dude real cash I guess.
This sticks out to me because it's something that I used to get out of Pokemon. I was completely fine with having most high-end held items and several TMs locked behind Battle Points because my primary drive was to be playing the Facility anyway. In USUM, I generally avoided the more point-efficient minigame because it wasn't what I was playing for. Now, with the standard Facility being missing, I don't see any reason to engage with postgame content at all (which in turn leads into a general lack of interest in the game).
Same, but his point (which is correct in my opinion) is that Pokemon locks most of its PvP related shenenigans behind non pvp ones.
You are not learning anything about battling people by grinding raids or doing contests.
the least popular part of the SV grind is tera raids which is literally an entire unique batyle system inside the game that is multiplayer, mostly because it's the longest part of the grind (for an arbitrary reason I will add)
but to say the grind parts of Pokemon have nothing to do in battling is weird, though with SV it is less so than games like USUM because the game isn't finished so no battle facility.
SWSH had a cool thing where when you played battles online you'd get BP and rewards to help you make new Pokemon even between rank ups, ir seems SV doesn't have that but does have rank up rewards
that is to say that Pokemon does integrate your battling back into making new Pokemon to continue battling, giving Bottle Caps, money, important TMs, etc. I do think SWSH did a better job though.
this is subjective, I think that learning how to effectively breed, how to take down raids efficiently, make a strategy for EV training (money grind or killing grind) and get more efficient at it is fun
That being said I did stop
Wanna know why I don't do it anymore? 15-20FPS game gets real tiring after playing it for hours. I made a few VGC teams, shiny hunted some and then when I touched not grass, but Splatoon 3 a 60FPS game again, I was like "yeah nvm"
and I'd like to reiterate that they should let people who want both play with and without real Pokemon in-game but let people play with others in a Showdown-like way, on cart, if they want. But completely cutting out a lot of systems is in my opinion not a "better designed game", just a different one for different people.
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that's not the reason why
literally almost if not all high level vgc players are middleclass people who can afford to travel out to a fucking videogame tournament with a low prizepool that can threaten to end your run with just some bad luck
people will gen no matter what because they don't want to grind, and that's cool
people should gen if they want to, but to try and make this out to be some issue with accessibility is whack imo, like are you telling me Pokemon fans of all people are generally those who hold off on buying buggy games day 1 no matter what
no, the reason people gen is because they don't wanna grind shit that they don't care about
the people in competition are gonna buy the DLC, and then also gen
and most of them will already have Legends Arceus, they will just gen anyways, which is totally fine and fair, but the minority of genning is because something is impossible.
brady smith could have bought legends arceus, as he said, he literally bought a vacation to Japan
he just didn't want to and genned, based
I genned the Shiny Zacian in SWSH because I was too lazy to do the event, so I just made the mon lol.
I think that this is all trying to cross hairs with different playerbases. People who are actually competing for something like top VGC, is genning and also probably has the money or already has bought all recent pokemon games. People who want to practice and play without worrying about in-game team have Showdown or also gen. And are also generally the least likely people to buy the games, or even care about playing on Game Freak's servers. Those who see training as a big part of the game, will generally not use genning, but also isn't the same demographic of people competing for top VGC.
Pokemon is arguably pay to win, but something that makes pay to win games egregious is you are just buying things to obtain a competitive advantage. The official format is for specifically the mega fan nerds who probably already buy Pokemon games. Also, these games are, you know, real ass fuckin games! You are buying an entire videogame with its own campaign, a lot of content, etc.
The only real argument I see is that of Legends Arceus, being a game that never had a competitive format, or even PVP to begin with meaning it could have reasonably been skipped if you are truly only in it for the competitive aspect. However, I still mostly see it like this: It is a reasonable expectation to expect players to buy the games as they come out, especially as a creature collecting game. The problem is, again, a lack of options. On official cart, there needs to be a way to play with uncaught Pokemon, be it used in actual tournaments or not, at minimum for practice.
Genning will exist regardless of monetary value because time is important. A lot of people just don't want to, and it's based to gen if so. But I think trying to take one side and make it "the right one" is silly, there is a place for genning/Showdown and a place for preparation.
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I mean just because cases like Brady can afford the multiple games without issue doesn't mean that isn't a concern for other people playing: in TPC's world, you wouldn't see the player for whom this is an issue because they don't get to build the teams that let them participate at a visible level. What if some people can only afford to participate because of the time save on Genning. Being able to Gen a team and play it on a simulator saves on 2 things
Yes, Pokemon fans who play VGC do not have accessibility issues, but I think the causal relationship is being reversed here: the inaccessibility without Genning is why the playerbase is mostly middle-class people who can buy multiple games and spare that time.
Imagine an in-person Fighting Game Tournament in which each competitor had to unlock the character they wanted to play on their copy before participating, or had to complete Arcade move to change something like an assist character or Super Move choices. Individual iteration isn't a large time expense, but the amount of times one would have to do that to experiment and then practice before arriving at their choice would add up to untenable amounts of time for a hobby even with a prize pool, much less something played mostly as a large-scale hobby like Pokemon.
- Money spent on acquiring the old games that several Pokemon are exclusive to (for the sake of argument I am including emulating and trading the old Pokemon up because this still entails external resources even if the Pokemon aren't "generated" outright)
- Time to iterate on the team, in the form of playing matches, making adjustments, and playing more matches. Resources are available within SV but they're not bottomless, and things like Tera Raids to restock on them is a time sink if your expense exceeds your supply.
Yes, Pokemon fans who play VGC do not have accessibility issues, but I think the causal relationship is being reversed here: the inaccessibility without Genning is why the playerbase is mostly middle-class people who can buy multiple games and spare that time.
Imagine an in-person Fighting Game Tournament in which each competitor had to unlock the character they wanted to play on their copy before participating, or had to complete Arcade move to change something like an assist character or Super Move choices. Individual iteration isn't a large time expense, but the amount of times one would have to do that to experiment and then practice before arriving at their choice would add up to untenable amounts of time for a hobby even with a prize pool, much less something played mostly as a large-scale hobby like Pokemon.
the discussion on twitter got reignited because the genning was made for the reasons I stated. it's also extremely disingenuous and shitty to just go "well they have the money for it"
1. vgc is not an adult only tournament. there are kids and teens that play these games that don't have the freedom to just spend more money on buying games for competitive pokemon, even if their parents are well off.
2. people from different countries have different prices they must pay. in brazil, for example, a pokemon game is around 300+ brl, around 1/3rd the minimum wage.
3. people save for things. they dont have to be middle wage to save for a trip, poor people can travel too boss
4. why are we ignoring the people that want to play vgc but are already priced out of it? why do we want to make it harder for them? out of petty spite to some random who didn't use his middle class dollars to buy pokemon swsh?
the fact is that pokemon is artificially making vgc more and more expensive (and difficult) to participate in, and the answer shouldn't be "who cares they can pay", it should be to make things more accessible lol?
it's also stupid to go "but you're getting an actual game so it's ok". not only this ignores that it makes it awful for any vgc newcomers, but if someone wanted to play swsh... they would have bought swsh? these people most likely aren't going to buy these games and go "wow I can't believe this amazing experience was lost to me! thank you pokemon company for forcing me to buy this game!", they're going to buy it, grind for the legends and then put the game down. It's artificially inflating sales price.
imagine if to get the old characters of smash ultimate you had to buy ssb4 and then unlock them there and transfer them to ssbu. insane
You know, this is fair and all, but you speak as if people playing the various TCGs don't have to spend significant money to keep their collection up to date, on top of having to deal with banlists suddently invalidating cards you may have spent several hundred bucks on.
Like, I get that most other videogames don't require monetary investment other than "buy the current videogame", but having to invest money to keep up with collectible competitive games isn't *exactly* a new concept and Pokemon isn't isolated in it.
Like, I get that most other videogames don't require monetary investment other than "buy the current videogame", but having to invest money to keep up with collectible competitive games isn't *exactly* a new concept and Pokemon isn't isolated in it.
I think the main difference is of a videogame vs a trading card game. the whole point of trading card games truly is just buying packs over and over, its extremely telegraphed and people who want to play competitively are often aware of it. For maingames, your roster can and should be available for purchase in the game youre playing, and at worse dlc for the same game (there's already discussions of dlc characters and how much pay to win can a dlc be. I think it's an interesting one too).
I still think theres some scummy factors on it though, and we can talk about multiple things that may be unfair, innacessible etc. Honestly, I'd love to hear more about it from players.
I completely understand the desire to skip the grind -- life is short, and spending it soft reseting for things like 0 speed IV Enamorus, 0 atk IV Heatran etc, does not seem like the best use of one's time on this rock.
At the same time, whether or not one agrees with TPC's rules on the issue, I think it's fair for TPC to enforce its rules on genning, especially when they specifically reiterated they would be checking for hacked mons ahead of the event (which is taking place in a country with strict laws on modifying games). Ignoring the warning because they have been lax in the past is a risk some players choose to take, and it didn't work out this time around.
I find the responses of some of those who were DQ'd or are in general in favor of genning to be coming off as rather... entitled. That sort of raw reaction is understandable enough in the immediate wake of a disqualification, but this also came up time and time again when Kaphotics would analyze rental code teams. "Everyone does it, it's not fair to DQ a few people and not everyone" "it's just a waste of time," "it offers no competitive advantage," "I didn't realize Ray Rizzo won VGC 3 times because of his egg hatching skills," etc. Again, while many of the reasons for preferring to gen over grind are understandable, I don't think they constitute any kind of moral justification for breaking the rules that some players seem to act like it does. It's just a risk they take and they got burned this time. If I get a speeding ticket because I got caught and other drivers didn't, I will be grumpy about it, sure, but I knew that driving at what I think is a still safe speed above the speed limit, getting a ticket is a possibility even if I've never gotten one before.
There is one of the pro-genning arguments that I don't like, though, because I find it to be disingenuous: "genning offers no competitive advantage." I find it disingenuous because it is only true insofar as all players show up to event with optimized spreads or all the mons they want. But events like Regulation D worlds demonstrate explicitly that in some events you cannot reasonably guarantee you will be able to get all of the mons you need with the exact IVs you want by only 'legitimate' play. Players without PLA or SwSh may have a hard time getting Legendaries like Urshifu, Glastrier, Enamorus, etc., and they may also be unable to guarantee they get the right IV spread. And that's the crux: genning or using custom firmware allows you to eliminate pre-game variance that doing things legitimately cannot always guarantee you to do, and that's where possible advantages for genning can arise.
I remember back in SwSh Edu did an "experiment" in which he built an entire team for a Player's Cup from scratch and compared his results to previous results and concluded that using fully legitimate mons did not cause any detriment to his performance results, just wasted months of his life:
However, the thing that irks me about this "experiment" is that this an erroneous conclusion that applies only to the stupidest interpretation of the 'no competitive advantage' claim, which is that hacked mons with legitimate stats are somehow magically superior to legit mons. Of course you should have no advantage or disadvantage if all of the stats are legitimate, the important question is whether your results suffer if you aren't able to grind until you get your 0 atk 0 speed Cresselia and whatever else you need. This is why I find the argument disingeneous: it relies on striking down the trivial worry about hacked mons having jacked up stats and pretends that legit players are always guaranteed to obtain optimal mons, just at an increased time cost.
If someone actually wants to demonstrate that genned mons offer no competitive advantage then the proper way to test it would be to look at the performance of players with suboptimal Pokemon (not completely random stats, but attack/speed IVs or using a suboptimal mon because a better option requires a past game) and show that they do not underperform players with perfect Pokemon. Ideally it would be a blind test so that the Players do not know if they are using a suboptimal vs optimal team, to eliminate the possibility of them playing worse---or more focused---because they're stressed about having suboptimal mons, but I don't think that's possible because experienced players would be able to figure out which type of team they're using by looking at the stats in battle or by underspeeding/underdamaging compared to optimal spreads. More precisely, rather than providing a binary result, one could quantify how often things like not having optimized spreads could turn out not to matter -- e.g., how many games foul play or confusion came into play, and how often having imperfect trick room IVs screws you over. (This could potentially be simulated to get some estimates, though that requires careful consideration of meta trends, because the answer could be very different in Regulation A with Foul Play Murkrow everywhere vs. Reg D with some Hurricane running around or trick room mons like Enamorus and Cresselia).
Ultimately, I think many people on both sides of the issue would agree that GameFreak should really just relent already and make an in-game team builder for competitive purposes. At very least we need a way to precisely control IVs and mons should not be allowed in official formats if they cannot be obtained in-game. SwSh did this perfectly if I recall correctly, I do not know why SV took a leap back in this regard.
At the same time, whether or not one agrees with TPC's rules on the issue, I think it's fair for TPC to enforce its rules on genning, especially when they specifically reiterated they would be checking for hacked mons ahead of the event (which is taking place in a country with strict laws on modifying games). Ignoring the warning because they have been lax in the past is a risk some players choose to take, and it didn't work out this time around.
I find the responses of some of those who were DQ'd or are in general in favor of genning to be coming off as rather... entitled. That sort of raw reaction is understandable enough in the immediate wake of a disqualification, but this also came up time and time again when Kaphotics would analyze rental code teams. "Everyone does it, it's not fair to DQ a few people and not everyone" "it's just a waste of time," "it offers no competitive advantage," "I didn't realize Ray Rizzo won VGC 3 times because of his egg hatching skills," etc. Again, while many of the reasons for preferring to gen over grind are understandable, I don't think they constitute any kind of moral justification for breaking the rules that some players seem to act like it does. It's just a risk they take and they got burned this time. If I get a speeding ticket because I got caught and other drivers didn't, I will be grumpy about it, sure, but I knew that driving at what I think is a still safe speed above the speed limit, getting a ticket is a possibility even if I've never gotten one before.
There is one of the pro-genning arguments that I don't like, though, because I find it to be disingenuous: "genning offers no competitive advantage." I find it disingenuous because it is only true insofar as all players show up to event with optimized spreads or all the mons they want. But events like Regulation D worlds demonstrate explicitly that in some events you cannot reasonably guarantee you will be able to get all of the mons you need with the exact IVs you want by only 'legitimate' play. Players without PLA or SwSh may have a hard time getting Legendaries like Urshifu, Glastrier, Enamorus, etc., and they may also be unable to guarantee they get the right IV spread. And that's the crux: genning or using custom firmware allows you to eliminate pre-game variance that doing things legitimately cannot always guarantee you to do, and that's where possible advantages for genning can arise.
I remember back in SwSh Edu did an "experiment" in which he built an entire team for a Player's Cup from scratch and compared his results to previous results and concluded that using fully legitimate mons did not cause any detriment to his performance results, just wasted months of his life:
However, the thing that irks me about this "experiment" is that this an erroneous conclusion that applies only to the stupidest interpretation of the 'no competitive advantage' claim, which is that hacked mons with legitimate stats are somehow magically superior to legit mons. Of course you should have no advantage or disadvantage if all of the stats are legitimate, the important question is whether your results suffer if you aren't able to grind until you get your 0 atk 0 speed Cresselia and whatever else you need. This is why I find the argument disingeneous: it relies on striking down the trivial worry about hacked mons having jacked up stats and pretends that legit players are always guaranteed to obtain optimal mons, just at an increased time cost.
If someone actually wants to demonstrate that genned mons offer no competitive advantage then the proper way to test it would be to look at the performance of players with suboptimal Pokemon (not completely random stats, but attack/speed IVs or using a suboptimal mon because a better option requires a past game) and show that they do not underperform players with perfect Pokemon. Ideally it would be a blind test so that the Players do not know if they are using a suboptimal vs optimal team, to eliminate the possibility of them playing worse---or more focused---because they're stressed about having suboptimal mons, but I don't think that's possible because experienced players would be able to figure out which type of team they're using by looking at the stats in battle or by underspeeding/underdamaging compared to optimal spreads. More precisely, rather than providing a binary result, one could quantify how often things like not having optimized spreads could turn out not to matter -- e.g., how many games foul play or confusion came into play, and how often having imperfect trick room IVs screws you over. (This could potentially be simulated to get some estimates, though that requires careful consideration of meta trends, because the answer could be very different in Regulation A with Foul Play Murkrow everywhere vs. Reg D with some Hurricane running around or trick room mons like Enamorus and Cresselia).
Ultimately, I think many people on both sides of the issue would agree that GameFreak should really just relent already and make an in-game team builder for competitive purposes. At very least we need a way to precisely control IVs and mons should not be allowed in official formats if they cannot be obtained in-game. SwSh did this perfectly if I recall correctly, I do not know why SV took a leap back in this regard.
The baffling part for me is that normally the first VGC season of a generation only uses Pokemon within the games regular Pokedex, so everyone is on relative even ground in terms of accessibility and newer Pokemon can get their moment in the spotlight. That's why remakes, rereleases, and DLC released after the first game in a generation make a point to include a whole bunch of legendaries from all generations, to have a way legendaries from outside of the region are available easily within a generation in preparation for later VGC seasons, hence the Hoopa portals, Ultra Wormholes, Dynamax Adventures, and Ramanas Park. With Gen 9's first VGC season, Pokemon outside of the regular Paldea dex are allowed, which include "minor" legendaries from Sw/Sh, BD/SP, and Legends, so anyone who didn't already brought those games are at a major disadvantage because good VGC Pokemon like Heatran, Cresselia, Landorus, and Enamorus are not available to them. Basically, the devs somehow forgot why they only allowed Pokemon from the current generation to be used in VGC, why they implemented the battle ready system, and why movesets reset when transferring to S/V, to not punish people starting off in the current gen.
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I think that the cost and logistics of travelling to another country is a higher barrier for entry to newcomers than buying a Switch and some Pokémon games. Unless TPC gives consoles, games, plane tickets, hotels for free to anyone who wants to play on VGC championships these hurdles will always be present for anyone that wants to compete on those.
I will make my take clear so there is no confusion, and it will be slightly harsher considering this is a hot takes thread anyways, so whatever. I know this will probably catch some flak.
I do not care about financial accessibility to VGC, nor will I. Because it's not a real esport. There are no stakes. Play on Showdown or gen, I don't care, but I also don't care if Game Freak makes it so you need an old game to get Pokemon in the new game, or doesn't pay for tickets to go to Worlds, or makes it time consuming to get into the game. I don't care. The next season could require a $20,000 entry fee, and I would not care. Why? Because competitive Pokemon is decentralized, and not serious. Any day someone else could just start a new competitive Pokemon tournament with a prize pool and get probably about the same results.
It's not that serious, and never will be. VGC is a marketing expense.
For the record, if you had to grind for characters in a fighting game? I don't care, that's cool if the developers want it and make it a fun game.
The end point of this whole accessibility take is that everything should be free as to remove all barriers to players, but who cares. VGC is not real. The official solution is only accessible via a product, and to participate you have to buy the products.
Out of all competitive videogames, Pokemon is one of the least serious, like period. By the way, if you think TPC/Game Freak do not deliberately allow Pokemon Showdown to exist, you are being fooled.
To get slightly political, I am anti-capitalist. But I do not hate on the players. I hate on the game. I think that what TPC is doing is bad, but I just do not care, and neither should you, it is a waste of energy. Competitive scenes should do everything in their power to ignore and separate themselves from what companies who only see them as a marketing expense want them to do. The official solution does not matter.
Something that isn't a waste of energy is talking about the thing that the actual game developers have more agency over, and that is how they design the game. Because even if VGC spontaneously combusted tomorrow, in-game tournaments would still have a genning debate.
My dog in this fight is not the accessibility argument, but the game design argument. It is not bad game design to require grinding for PVP. Period. Pokemon Sword and Shield's PVP, for instance, is not badly designed. There are minor errors such as no 0IV item, but overall the PVP gameplay loop is in my opinion well designed. Having to explore the game world and mechanics outside of just the battles, is not bad game design. Having to breed is not bad game design.
These games are more cohesive by telling players that if they want to get the best Pokemon, they interact with different systems. Go breed, go do Raids, go do Battle Dungeon or whatever the fuck it is called except in SV, an unfinished game. Go get some money by doing X, Y, Z. Figure out the best odds of this and assess your strategy of how to efficiently get your things done, go actually collect them.
It can be immensely satisfying and rewarding, and make it more enjoyable all around to use your party. That is why my problem with genning is not that it exists or makes the game more accessible, it's that the people who advocate for it actively deny the fact that other ways to play the game, and design the game other than straight up doing Pokemon Showdown officially, is bad game design. It is not.
I do not think that people who do not want to gen and people who want to gen should be forced to compete with each other. I think that preparation is in fact a skill that effects the game, even inside of the actual match. Time to learn matchups, pilot, make tweaks is something that matters much less when you have way more time. I do not think that one philosophy is simply superior. I do not think Pokemon is stronger as an overall package when you can just skip everything and play the game with spontaneously created Pokemon. I do think that Pokemon should have options to support both playstyles.
To extend the tangent a little further, I find the high emphasis on card pricing is the main thing keeping me out of TCGs as a hobby. When I'm trying to relax by making weird gimmick sets, real-world money is the last thing I want to think about.
The thing is, the existing rules don't actually require you to put in any work. You're allowed to have friends just trade you everything; genning doesn't really offer a competitive advantage over that. It's perfectly justifiable to be upset when you're punished for doing something that is functionally basically the same as something which is explicitly allowed.
What's really ironic is that 90% of this genning issue is doing to 0 IVs.
They've gone so far to make obtaining legitimate competitive pokemon quick (currently it takes uuuh 5 mins to make a competitive team if you've got an advanced SV save), but we're *still* missing 0 IV bottle caps...
They've gone so far to make obtaining legitimate competitive pokemon quick (currently it takes uuuh 5 mins to make a competitive team if you've got an advanced SV save), but we're *still* missing 0 IV bottle caps...