Chou Toshio
Over9000
So, four years ago, this very same forum hosted the most epic prank of Smogon History.
While it was a great joke for people to even think that wins or losses could be re-calculated based on incidents of hax; the idea only got as far as it did because actual discussion was able to be made on the subject. Let's face it, we smogonites hate hax.
Thinking back on that epic prank, and also about my own loathing of hax, I came upon this idea:
What about creating a rating system where rank-drops are reduced by hax? (crits against you prevent you from losing rank points when you lose) The winner would still win-- he'd still EARN the same # of points regardless
To put it simply, this would be a rating system where, if you got critical hit, frozen, fully paralyzed, missed focus blast, etc. etc., your rank would drop less than it normally would.
We could even set it such that if enough incidents of hax occurred, your rank would be completely unaffected.
I think that, unlike the "anti-hax formula" that tried to assign wins and losses, this would actually be a fair and implementable system. This would effectively reduce the effect of hax in competative battling, but without re-assigning the winner, removing hax from the game, or altering the mechanics of Pokemon. The rating system is something totally our own; we control it as we see fit. The games themselves will be unaffected, but we can make it so people have less reason to care about hax. Granted this does nothing to stop hax's influence on tourneys, but it would potentially improve laddering greatly.
The winner of the match could care less, because he gets his points regardless-- while players in general could enjoys some "ease" laddering knowing that the effect of excessive hax on their hard-earned ladder scores would be padded against. This would make laddering less frustrating in general, especially during suspect tests.
While I'd like people to discuss specifics, I'd imagine that we could assign % value decreases to rank drop based on the frequency of an event.
Example (JUST an example, not a proposal):
F = Events with 10% or less chance to occur (Freeze from Blizzard, Critical hits, etc.)
H = Events with 15-20% chance to occur (Fire Blast Miss, Waterfall Flinch, etc.)
A = Event with 25-30% chance to occur (Full paralysis, Thunder miss, Burned by Scald, etc.)
X = Event with 55-60% chance involving Serene Grace (lol)
And then we make a formula like:
% Rank Drop Reduction = 33%F + 25%H + 20%A + 10%X
So, in this example, if I got crit 3 times in a match, I would lose zero ladder points.
If I got fully paralyzed 4 times in a match, I'd lose zero ladder points.
If I missed 5 Focus Blasts, I'd lose zero ladder points
And if Jirachi Flinched me 10 times, I'd lose zero ladder points
So, if I got crit once, and fully paralyzed once, the drop reduction would be 58%. If it was a loss that should have cost me 20 points, instead, I'd only lose 8.4 points. Again though, this is just an example-- we'd have to talk about how we'd weight the various types of hax, and what types of hax should even be included.
We'd have to talk about exactly what kind of drop-reduction formula we want, and what types of hax should be accounted for (for instance, I didn't include Confusion in this model), but I'm sure we could work something out as a community-- if you guys like this idea.
In this example I'm just trying to illustrate the concept behind the overall idea.
What do you guys think? Is this something you guys would want? I know it's a totally bizarre proposition, and I don't even know the challenge of technical implementation, but I think we could potentially alleviate a lot of our community's frustration without compromising the game itself.
Please keep in mind: This is not a proposal that can completely eliminate the effect of hax on scoring-- but it would be a system that provides great insurance for battles that experience inordinarily high incidence of hax.
While it was a great joke for people to even think that wins or losses could be re-calculated based on incidents of hax; the idea only got as far as it did because actual discussion was able to be made on the subject. Let's face it, we smogonites hate hax.
Thinking back on that epic prank, and also about my own loathing of hax, I came upon this idea:
What about creating a rating system where rank-drops are reduced by hax? (crits against you prevent you from losing rank points when you lose) The winner would still win-- he'd still EARN the same # of points regardless
To put it simply, this would be a rating system where, if you got critical hit, frozen, fully paralyzed, missed focus blast, etc. etc., your rank would drop less than it normally would.
We could even set it such that if enough incidents of hax occurred, your rank would be completely unaffected.
I think that, unlike the "anti-hax formula" that tried to assign wins and losses, this would actually be a fair and implementable system. This would effectively reduce the effect of hax in competative battling, but without re-assigning the winner, removing hax from the game, or altering the mechanics of Pokemon. The rating system is something totally our own; we control it as we see fit. The games themselves will be unaffected, but we can make it so people have less reason to care about hax. Granted this does nothing to stop hax's influence on tourneys, but it would potentially improve laddering greatly.
The winner of the match could care less, because he gets his points regardless-- while players in general could enjoys some "ease" laddering knowing that the effect of excessive hax on their hard-earned ladder scores would be padded against. This would make laddering less frustrating in general, especially during suspect tests.
While I'd like people to discuss specifics, I'd imagine that we could assign % value decreases to rank drop based on the frequency of an event.
Example (JUST an example, not a proposal):
F = Events with 10% or less chance to occur (Freeze from Blizzard, Critical hits, etc.)
H = Events with 15-20% chance to occur (Fire Blast Miss, Waterfall Flinch, etc.)
A = Event with 25-30% chance to occur (Full paralysis, Thunder miss, Burned by Scald, etc.)
X = Event with 55-60% chance involving Serene Grace (lol)
And then we make a formula like:
% Rank Drop Reduction = 33%F + 25%H + 20%A + 10%X
So, in this example, if I got crit 3 times in a match, I would lose zero ladder points.
If I got fully paralyzed 4 times in a match, I'd lose zero ladder points.
If I missed 5 Focus Blasts, I'd lose zero ladder points
And if Jirachi Flinched me 10 times, I'd lose zero ladder points
So, if I got crit once, and fully paralyzed once, the drop reduction would be 58%. If it was a loss that should have cost me 20 points, instead, I'd only lose 8.4 points. Again though, this is just an example-- we'd have to talk about how we'd weight the various types of hax, and what types of hax should even be included.
We'd have to talk about exactly what kind of drop-reduction formula we want, and what types of hax should be accounted for (for instance, I didn't include Confusion in this model), but I'm sure we could work something out as a community-- if you guys like this idea.
In this example I'm just trying to illustrate the concept behind the overall idea.
What do you guys think? Is this something you guys would want? I know it's a totally bizarre proposition, and I don't even know the challenge of technical implementation, but I think we could potentially alleviate a lot of our community's frustration without compromising the game itself.
Please keep in mind: This is not a proposal that can completely eliminate the effect of hax on scoring-- but it would be a system that provides great insurance for battles that experience inordinarily high incidence of hax.