Pending Allow guests to play guests

[aesf]

(Idk if this exists already)

TLDR requesting way to challenge people by just sending a link. Perhaps this would mean guests would have to be able to play guests.

So ive been on this site a while, im a sweat who plays with other sweats. For several years everyone ive played this game with has been someone ive met and only known on this site. And its been fun, the whole smogon clout thing is lowkey funny as fuck and entering team tournaments and individual tournaments has been a blast.

But the games been getting bigger now. As of late ive found a fair amt of people irl playing the game. And given the amount of sweat ive put into this game theres no greater feeling than thoroughly shamoning someone 6-0 while they just look at me funny, say something like “aight whatever,” and proceed to never play with me again. Ud understand if this happened to u.

Anyways (and i will tie this back to the point above) sometimes in life u just get owned. Its a fact of life, true for everyone. If u think u have never gotten owned u got some soul searching to do. Im sure even the pope has gotten hit with a deez nuts joke at some point in his life. Getting owned sucks and its important to strike back fast and hot. In these situations I want the ability to respond by sending a pokemon showdown challenge link, where i know ill win cause ive put like 15000 hours or some shit into this game and they dont know what the fuck a terapagos is. Someone says ur bad at sports? Aight click this link. Someone calls u incompetent? Yea so what, hows ur competence at managing terastalization?? And so on. The possibilities are limitless. U would be able to post challenge links on shit like discords, slack (new watercooler activity), linkedin threads (this would save that boring platform), canvas discussion boards.

Anyways currently i could post play.pokemonshowdown.com but its not the same. We gotta both make accounts, confirm our usernames, then pick a tier, then challenge. The tiktok gen is here so ur already filtering out like 75% of potential people with this series of steps. With the new method, u just send a link and they start playing randbats or some shit. 10 clicks to like 0. i work in tech & can confirm its a well known fact that less required customer clicks ====== more engagement ==== more site exposure. But yea pls i need this like asap

 

[Irpachuza]

So you are saying you create a battle and sit there until someone clicks the link?
Also, from a moderation and general user safety I don't think letting guests create battles is a good idea, specially letting them chat. And without having full informed, seems easily spammable to the point of bitting.

 

[PokeChess]

I'd like to take advantage of aesf's suggestion and bring something NEW to this thread.

I don't think the idea of creating a shareable link is necessary in the first place. You will only be able to play as a guest if you are on the site page.

Instead, allow guests to play formats only on the ladder, but with three conditions:

(01) They won't be able to say anything in chat (not even in pms, rooms or battle chat);

(02) They can only play random formats on the ladder (so no changes to the pokémon's nickname);

(03) Guests can only play against Guests.

There is some truth in the aesf's speech when he says that the site will get more exposure as it will make it easier to use the site without the need for registration or enter a nickname. Playing as a guest is a way of inviting a new user to want to register because they enjoyed the simulator experience. Sites like chess.com also have a similar guest system, where you fight against other guests without needing to register. But to make the most of what the site has to offer, you need to create an account on chess.com (and it would be similar here).

With the 3 conditions above suggested by me, no user of the site would be harmed, since guests can only play against guests and cannot communicate in any way.