Emergency Solutions for Platinum Weather Glitch

How should we immediately handle the Platinum weather glitch?

  • Ban weather while keeping Platinum changes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    37

Jibaku

Who let marco in here????
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We don't take ubers into account when we talk about balancing things, because ubers is by definition unbalanced. In other words, Giratina-O, Shaymin-S, and Groudon are irrelevant to this discussion. Yes, I enjoy playing ubers, too (it's my favorite tier), but as a matter of policy, it doesn't come into "balance" discussions at all. The issue of banning a Pokemon because it causes a draw is not an issue of balance so much as allowing the game to end. (this is similar to how Arceus is banned from even uber play. it's not a matter of balance in either case)
This was simply a reply to what I felt as an opinionated question. The question asked what would I do-it doesn't tell me to put myself in another person's shoes and then decide upon what's most logical.

I feel as if this argument is going nowhere. I used to feel that we needed to stick to game mechanics, but after realizing that even with the glitch excluded we are already playing Pokemon Shoddy Version, I want to ask everyone what makes adding this mechanic into Shoddy more important in determining what kind of game we play in when there are other Shoddy bugs that need to be dealt with to play "Pokemon Platinum Version"? I'm still in not any side, but even the smallest bugs (I see the smallest things could matter in the eyes of a few) on Shoddy tarnish the supposed purity of the game mechanics. The only reason I would think of is that this glitch is on a higher magnitude but that doesn't change the fact that with, or without the field glitch/mechanic, we are still playing Pokemon Shoddy version unless every other bug is fixed.

Unless you've made it your destiny to fix all the other bugs, even those largely irrelevant to play, then there's no use going on. And even then, there are probably many dubious bugs in Shoddy that you can't find it in ordinary means (e.g. Shadow Force glitch). How far are we going?
 

obi

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Again, is it a fact or your opinion that we are trying to simulate "Cartridge Pokemon Battles" as closely as possible? I admit that my position makes no sense logically if that is the case, but I do not believe that the point of Pokemon simulators is to mimic the game as faithfully as possible.
Either it's a fact or calling Shoddybattle a simulator is a lie.

"Simulation is the imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system."
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulator

That a Pokemon simulator should attempt to be accurate to the game mechanics is a definitional truth. If it doesn't, it's not a simulator.

For me, it's a 100% intent issue.
I was going to argue against your point, but someone else has already disproved it for me. I'm going to first frame the debate:

Only when intent is 100% clear and obvious would I depart from what is in the game. If intent isn't 100% clear, though, then "what is in the game" is my default definition of intent. I believe it irresponsible to try and define intent any other way.
I will now lay out the argument in favor of the "developer intent" point of view with regard to acid weather:

Why in the world would Game Freak intend to put in something that created a condition that rendered two Pokemon completely unplayable?
I took issue with this claim, but I have laid out my arguments already. The were not convincing enough, so I'm going to have to quote someone else who said it better than I could why your statement is wrong:

Is that really true? Show me the official statement from Nintendo or Game Freak that says that that wasn't their intention.
We don't actually KNOW what Game Freak wanted in this case because they don't TELL US anything! Until I get clear evidence from Nintendo or Game Freak about their intent on this matter, then I have my doubts about what was intended.
Therefore, I would conclude that the [Pursuit / weather] interaction is intentional because it is in the game (even if it doesn't make Pokemon sense) and intent isn't otherwise 100% clear.
Whether it could have been intentional or not doesn't matter to me.
I couldn't have said it better.

In a "Gotta catch 'em all!" world, such a thing goes against the very notion of what Pokemon is all about. Why would we want to catch Castform and Cherrim if we couldn't even use them whenever we wanted to? Pokemon at its core is about the freedom to choose the Pokemon that you send into battle. Didn't Karen of the Johto Elite Four encourage trainers to play with "their favorites?"
I was browsing the top competitive Pokemon site on the internet (Serebii) today, and I came across another essay in a similar vein:

http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?t=204831

Allow me to quote some of the most salient points:

RaikouSpecialLover said:
Besides, tiers actually hurt a Pokemon's image. Didn't Karen of Johto's Elite Four say that to say a Pokemon is strong or weak is a matter of perception?
ShinyManafi said:
Eh, IMO, Smogon only looks at everything by numbers...
kirbical said:
honestly it isn't just the pokemon. it is also what it uses and how the player use it. like you could give a belly lax to your little sibling and without any knowledge of it he may fail with it. plus i have seen more of the under to never used pokemon on all the pokemon battle revolution videos. heak, remember that dunsparce that reflected a gengars hypnosis, koed an articuno. and put a hiddoran in the red before fainting. that video should be somewere in the PBR thread.
Emperor Giratina said:
For the last darn time, I say scardy cats battle with the tiers enabled! All this tier madness is insulting Pokemon! When I get my Nintendo DS, my Pokemon Diamond, my Pokemon Pearl, and of course, Wi-Fi Connection. There will be NO SUCH THING AS TIERS!! ..... If you're planning to battle me that is.... And I will not mind if you will use a full team of Ubers against me..... That's COMPLETLY okay with me! Get it?
I now know that the uber tier is against the spirit of Pokemon. We shouldn't ban Pokemon like Groudon and Garchomp. Gamefreak put them in the game for a reason. What's more, Double Team and OHKOs should be allowed.
 

Stallion

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Implementing this glitch would harm the metagame, since its unfair to one side. And since this glitch doesn't even happen all the time, what would the point even be of implementing it? It only occurs for the host of the wifi match, and since nobody hosts in shoddybattle.....
Thank you!

I think this isn't an important issue imo. As jr^7 has stated, it only happens for the host of the wifi match, its not like it happens in regular battles etc. And whoever made that Shoal salt argument, its kinda moot and void because Shoal Salt's purpose intended by Gamefreak is to make a Shell Bell, not to have a purpose in battles.

Similarly, it is clearly not Gamefreak's intention to have this glitch to exist. If we have to stay completely true to the game, then why not have level 147 Mewtwo's or Snorlax's in RBY? This glitch doesn't even enhance the metagame, it wasn't intended so why even bother with it?

Bottom line: If something ain't broke, don't fix it. We were fine with the game the way it is before we found this glitch, so why change it?
 

TAY

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TAY said:
Again, is it a fact or your opinion that we are trying to simulate "Cartridge Pokemon Battles" as closely as possible? I admit that my position makes no sense logically if that is the case, but I do not believe that the point of Pokemon simulators is to mimic the game as faithfully as possible
Obi said:
Either it's a fact or calling Shoddybattle a simulator is a lie.

"Simulation is the imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system."
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulator

That a Pokemon simulator should attempt to be accurate to the game mechanics is a definitional truth. If it doesn't, it's not a simulator.
Are you seriously voiding my argument based on the dictionary definition of "simulator"? Come on Obi, you know exactly what I mean, even if I used the word wrong.

The question is whether or not we (as in Smogon) have actually taken a position that whatever program we play "Pokemon" on over the internet should do its best to mimic the cartridge games. Any personal response to this is just a belief, which has no logical foundation, which is why I would like to know if there is an official position on this so we can stop debating with "I think"s.
 

Syberia

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Flight simulators take the dying out of crashing, yet we still call them simulators.

And obi, you're aware that your definition contains the phrase certain key characteristics, right? Meaning that certain other things that are deemed harmful, such as the mechanic of dying when you crash in a flight simulator, need not be simulated. A harmful and unintentional glitch is not a "key characteristic." It's right there in the definition you provided.
 

obi

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Similarly, it is clearly not Gamefreak's intention to have this glitch to exist. If we have to stay completely true to the game, then why not have level 147 Mewtwo's or Snorlax's in RBY? This glitch doesn't even enhance the metagame, it wasn't intended so why even bother with it?
It's possible to ban those Pokemon (which we do). The only way to ban this glitch is to ban weather or Pursuit (options I proposed).

Bottom line: If something ain't broke, don't fix it. We were fine with the game the way it is before we found this glitch, so why change it?
OK, I'll lock the research thread right now and stop updating the dex. No need to add anything new. Smogon is pretty good right now, so I'll tell chaos to lock the SCMS so we can't edit it anymore. It's a waste of time, since right now things aren't broken.

As you can tell by my sarcastic tone, I don't subscribe to a defeatist philosophy of rejecting improvements because what we have right now isn't horrible.
 

Tangerine

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Intent hardly matters anymore - it's the effectiveness that really matters. If we measured everything on intent, we would have a few users that would be badged because they really care.

Intent is hardly something to make up for ineptness. All we have to work with here is what is actually coded into the game. From a simulator standpoint, there is no reason why this shouldn't be in the simulator battle engine. However, we look at it from a competitive view point.

First, we note that

It is obviously most important to note that this glitch is only activated when the host is the user of the move Pursuit. The opponent HAS to switch for the glitch to activate.
This means that, whether you are player 1 or player 2 matters significantly. Imagine a fighting game but your player position matters - if you're player 1, you have to be wary of using a move, if you're player 2, you have to be wary of switching, (unless of course, both characters want to activate the glitch, however, that case is irrelevant since we're looking at the case it matters - you can account for team differences this way). The player number affects your line of thinking and the moves you do.

People may argue that "competitive sports often have home field advantage" - but home field advantage does not affect the mechanics of the game. It does not give a mechanical advantage of exploit, but only a psychological... this "glitch" contains both.

Competitive play is the act of letting skill and only skill matter. This is why things like map balance to even computer specs are important. The idea is to take away as many variables as possible to let skill be the final arbiter. When mechanics work differently for player 1 and player 2, this is at risk - and to say that this doesn't matter - I really don't want to hear it especially from people like Obi considering the "we shouldn't ban Wobbuffet because a move doesnt work properly" argument that he gave a long time ago - the idea is that these little things do matter and if they matter enough then we should remove it just on that basis.

Second point. The glitch has the potential to freeze the game by simply sending out castform or cherrim. Why should we ban the characters to allow this glitch to run past, when we can just not implement this infinite loop? Sure, to an extent, this is like the Wobby vs Wobby stalemate in ADV... and we rightfully banned Wobbuffet because there was no glitch we can "ban" to fix this... other than banning leftovers on Wobbuffet which could have been the better solution.

I think Sirlin sums up my two points well.

There are some things so extreme that they can be banned without much testing. These include glitches that crash the game or have radical effects, such as blanking out the opponent’s entire screen, removing his characters, units, or resources from the game, and so forth. Glitches so extreme that they undeniably end or prevent gameplay are worthy of being banned. Likewise, so are glitches that are not equally available to all players. Some glitches in a two player game can only be performed by player 2. It is reasonable to ban such a tactic, even if it’s not overly powerful, just on the basis that all players do not have equal access to it.
Simulator wise... yes, it should be coded into the game, but there should be a clause preventing this from happening within competitive environment, such as the ladder or tournaments.
 

Stallion

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It's possible to ban those Pokemon (which we do). The only way to ban this glitch is to ban weather or Pursuit (options I proposed).
But if it is a glitch, if it wasn't intended in the game, then why not just ignore the glitch. And banning a move such as Pursuit or effects such as weather is stupid because they were intended to be in the game. Throwing away one or two key components of our metagame just for a stupid glitch is just plain wrong, much more wrong then banning a move or weather effect that isn't even broken.

OK, I'll lock the research thread right now and stop updating the dex. No need to add anything new. Smogon is pretty good right now, so I'll tell chaos to lock the SCMS so we can't edit it anymore. It's a waste of time, since right now things aren't broken.

As you can tell by my sarcastic tone, I don't subscribe to a defeatist philosophy of rejecting improvements because what we have right now isn't horrible.
Now you're just twisting my words, or what I meant by them anyway. New pokemon sets can be discovered, and new mechanics (such as the legal IV combinations on legendaries) are important, I'm not saying to stop researching the game because that is what we do. I'm just saying that why on earth would we implement a glitch that obviously wasn't meant to be there, and does nothing but detract from the quality of our play when we could leave it the way it is. You're not thinking about the implications, without stuff like Pursuit, shit like Gengar, Starmie, Azelf etc etc reign supreme, without weather pokemon like Tyranitar are left without an ability. Anyway, I could go on about this forever, but the point is that if the mechanics of pokemon today are fine as it is, then why fuck them up with something that wasn't even meant to be there.

It's like your saying "Well the designers fucked up, so instead of improving the game which we have the power to do, lets copy their mistakes and make the game much less enjoyable"
 
This is really a conundrum. From my point of view, the opposing position I'm up against says that we should implement something that is unfaithful to the game of Pokemon because not implementing it would be unfaithful to the game of Pokemon.

...Huh? Trying to make sense of that is making my head hurt. Unless you can convince me that the glitch is not unfaithful to the game of Pokemon, I'll still find implementing this glitch illogical.

@ Obi, you're trying to twist my words because you believe that the intent of the glitch isn't 100% clear just because Game Freak has said nothing on the matter. I disagree with that. To me, intent is 100% clear because the entire Pokemon franchise has defined what Pokemon is, and I believe that the glitch isn't Pokemon.

By the way, by arguing that the uber tier and clauses are against the spirit of Pokemon, you're indirectly saying that setting rules to make Pokemon competitive is against the spirit of Pokemon, and that WE are against the spirit of Pokemon. If that's the case, then what's the point to our existence? I know that what you said is sarcasm, but that's not a good comparison to try and destroy my position.



I am glad that Tangerine said we should instead clause this because that's actually what I suggested late in the Stark thread. I would still support clausing this because the net effect would be virtually the same. Two questions:
  • How are you going to deal with the "host" issue?
  • How are you enforcing the clause?
Those are the only decisions we would need to make concerning the clause. Glitch implementation wouldn't matter at this point because we're not dealing with the side effects if we're preventing it from happening in the first place--that is, assuming that the clause would be "ON" for all battles. If anyone actually wanted to play with the clause "OFF," then we'd still have to deal with the whole can of worms. Still, I don't know that many people that would actually choose to play with the glitch given the choice with absolutely no strings attached, thus I don't see that being a problem.
 

Syberia

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I have no problem with clausing the glitch so that it doesn't happen in ladder and tournament play (and by clause I assume you mean the option to remove it entirely, not something stupid like banning Pursuit) but if no one is ever going to use it, then there's really no point of taking all the time it's most likely going to take to program it into the server. I recall Doug saying some time ago that it would pretty much require re-writing half the code.
 

Jibaku

Who let marco in here????
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I'm going to try and think of a solution. It might sound stupid, but at least it's an idea. While you all are arguing about the intentionality or whatever of this glitch, I'm going to stick to the original intent of this post. This is mostly an attempt to address the host issue in ladder, and at the same time the hate people have for this glitch.

If you have a non-rain field inducer and Pursuit on your team (read #4), you will not be a host in ladder. If both sides have a field inducer and Pursuit, then the host is chosen randomly. To prevent an advantage on one side, the information on the host will not be disclosed.

1) Because I see that most of you dislike this glitch, I'm trying to find a way to restrict is as much as possible while attempting to be true to the game mechanics. At the same time, I'm proposing a possible solution that does not include the reverting of mechanics or the ban on Pursuit.

2) Ladder =/= local battling/WiFi battling. Local battling/WiFi battling = Unrated battles. In a random WiFi battle (PBR), we are all uncertain of the host, so we should still have that degree of uncertainty. However, we'll also recall that in PBR nothing is affected by the host/slave system, and thus it's an acceptable option to modify how the host is set up

3) Now it's going to be a pretty likely situation that both teams have Pursuit and a field changer (TTar/Hippo/Aboma). There is no other option but to randomly select the host if game mechanics are to be adhered. Again, the information regarding the host will not be disclosed to prevent abuse.

4) If for instance you only have Pursuit, but your opponent has a field changer and Pursuit, the host will be random as iirc the glitch can be activated if you didn't set up the weather...just as long as you're the host

5) If for instance you have Pursuit and the opponent only has a field changer, your opponent will be the host.

6) If one side is capable of activating the glitch and either side has a Castform/Cherrim, the match is a loss for the Cherrim/Castform user if one of them is sent out during glitch field.

In any rate I hope this solves the host/slave issue and at the same time reduce the chances of this glitch happening. The "I'm the first one on ladder" idea doesn't fly as chances are you'll know that you're the host or slave, and you could intentionally activate the glitch. That or you know your opponent can intentionally activate the glitch.

This is only an idea. Tear it apart if you wish.
 
I personally like Jibaku's idea and I support that. If that doesn't fly for some reason then I like the idea of going back to DP since I really don't care for any of the new pokemon(sorry Jibaku), and I hate Rotom period >_>
 

obi

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Jibaku, it is my understanding that people are aware of who the host is in the battle. What this means is that information that they should have to be able to determine what to do, we aren't giving them. In other words, we aren't escaping from the "changing game mechanics" thing.

But if it is a glitch, if it wasn't intended in the game, then why not just ignore the glitch. And banning a move such as Pursuit or effects such as weather is stupid because they were intended to be in the game. Throwing away one or two key components of our metagame just for a stupid glitch is just plain wrong, much more wrong then banning a move or weather effect that isn't even broken.
Because it doesn't matter what the developers intended. Using the game itself is objective and stable. Using developer intent means that they can come out at any time and tell us that Scyther was supposed to be able to finish off its foes with False Swipe if it just concentrates hard enough.

Also you didn't address my previous point. Double Team, Sheer Cold, Fissure, Rayquaza, and Groudon were intended to be in the game, so banning them must be stupid.

Now you're just twisting my words, or what I meant by them anyway.
I can't argue against the points you intended to make, only those you actually make. I am not, however, twisting your words. What I am doing is a proof by contradiction, also known in this case as reductio ad absurdum. I temporarily assume your premises are true for the sake of argument, and then show that they lead to absurd results when taken to their logical conclusions. I know you never specifically said that we should stop researching game mechanics, but it is an inescapable conclusion from saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.". I don't believe that what we have now is broken (if you don't consider an imperfect simulator broken, which by your idea that we shouldn't implement all game mechanics I must conclude you believe), therefore, we should stop trying to fix Shoddybattle and the SmogonDex.

You're not thinking about the implications, without stuff like Pursuit, shit like Gengar, Starmie, Azelf etc etc reign supreme, without weather pokemon like Tyranitar are left without an ability.
Imagine if the discussion were about putting Kyogre into the game.

You're not thinking about the implications, with stuff like Ludicolo, Kingdra, Zapdos etc. etc. reigning supreme.

In other words, if a Pokemon is broken, it will be banned. If a Pokemon is not broken, it will not be banned.

Also Tyranitar wouldn't be left without an ability, it would be banned completely. It's impossible to have Tyranitar without Sand Stream, so if we decide to ban weather, then Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Hippopotas, Abomasnow, and Snover would all have to be banned. This is only if we ban non-Rain weather, rather than Pursuit, and rather than deciding we can live with this glitch and just banning Castform and Cherrim.

This is really a conundrum. From my point of view, the opposing position I'm up against says that we should implement something that is unfaithful to the game of Pokemon because not implementing it would be unfaithful to the game of Pokemon.
That's a straw man of our position. Your premise that the glitch is unfaithful to the game is wrong. It's impossible for anything in the game to be unfaithful to the game. There is no higher metric for "faithful to the game" than what's actually in the game. Not implementing the glitch is unfaithful to the game; following what's in the game is.

@ Obi, you're trying to twist my words because you believe that the intent of the glitch isn't 100% clear just because Game Freak has said nothing on the matter. I disagree with that. To me, intent is 100% clear because the entire Pokemon franchise has defined what Pokemon is, and I believe that the glitch isn't Pokemon.
How did I twist your words? My post with regard to you had two major points:

1) When I was quoting you, I was showing how contradictory your own words are. At one point you are arguing against the evils of implementing this glitch because it's unfaithful to the game, while in the sentence immediately before it you state that we have no way of knowing 100% what their intent is, other than what's in the game, and at the beginning of your post you say that we should implement anything where intent is not 100% known. Do you see the contradiction of your own words? Just because I point out that your argument leads to an absurd conclusion doesn't mean I'm twisting your words; it means that your positions are contradictory and lead to illogical conclusions (and thus you must have a false premise).

2) When I was quoting Serebii, I was showing how anti-competitive your position is. What Karen says at the Elite Four doesn't matter any more than the anime telling Pikachu to aim for the horn. I literally had just read the Serebii thread about an hour or two before reading your post, and I had linked it to a few people to laugh at how ridiculous the thread was. Then I read your post and all I could think was "fuck smorgon! tiers hurt pokemon's feelings! the butterfree analysis made my sister cry!". There is are several reasons Smogon is the #1 competitive site, not Serebii, and one of those is that we don't accept non-competitive arguments for anything, and one such argument is "Karen in GSC says...".

By the way, by arguing that the uber tier and clauses are against the spirit of Pokemon, you're indirectly saying that setting rules to make Pokemon competitive is against the spirit of Pokemon, and that WE are against the spirit of Pokemon. If that's the case, then what's the point to our existence? I know that what you said is sarcasm, but that's not a good comparison to try and destroy my position.
That's not the point I'm making. My point is that if we follow the logic of your post, we must remove tiers from the game. At the very least, we have to unban Garchomp, Latios, etc. and ban Celebi, Jirachi, etc.. To do anything else is contrary to the spirit of the game.

Again, this isn't my plan, but it is the only logical conclusion to what you've posted.



I have a question to everyone who wants to take developer intent into account.

Do you support no longer using Shoddybattle? The intent of the developers is that we play the game on the cartridge. In fact, there is more evidence to support the idea that playing Shoddybattle is more against the developer's intent than any in-game glitch.

Especially now that Wi-Fi is available, Shoddybattle cuts into their market. Their first goal is to make money, and it seems likely that simulators such as Shoddy cut into that margin.

The NSider forums--the official Nintendo forums--explicitly banned discussion of any simulators. This is the strongest evidence to support the idea that the developers do not want us playing on simulators.

In other words, people who care about developer intent should not play or talk about Shoddybattle. If this is true, then they also should not care what mechanics Shoddybattle implements. Therefore, any arguments factoring "developer intent" as a universal truth are self-defeating with regard to Pokemon simulators.
 

Syberia

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If you have a non-rain field inducer and Pursuit on your team (read #4), you will not be a host in ladder. If both sides have a field inducer and Pursuit, then the host is chosen randomly. To prevent an advantage on one side, the information on the host will not be disclosed.
If you want to "simulate the game exactly," then you cannot ignore the mechanic that the host is always known. There is no way to determine the host based on team criteria without both players knowing at least a significant portion of eachothers' teams.

Unrated battles. In a random WiFi battle (PBR), we are all uncertain of the host, so we should still have that degree of uncertainty. However, we'll also recall that in PBR nothing is affected by the host/slave system, and thus it's an acceptable option to modify how the host is set up
First, you'd have to research if PBR even has a host/slave system, then you'd have to revert to D/P mechanics with Plat forms banned, and at that point you don't even need to implement the glitch.

If you want to do this, you're willing to change mechanics, which is enough to say that you would allow the glitch to be banned.


Obi said:
Do you support no longer using Shoddybattle? The intent of the developers is that we play the game on the cartridge. In fact, there is more evidence to support the idea that playing Shoddybattle is more against the developer's intent than any in-game glitch.

Especially now that Wi-Fi is available, Shoddybattle cuts into their market. Their first goal is to make money, and it seems likely that simulators such as Shoddy cut into that margin.

The NSider forums--the official Nintendo forums--explicitly banned discussion of any simulators. This is the strongest evidence to support the idea that the developers do not want us playing on simulators.

In other words, people who care about developer intent should not play or talk about Shoddybattle. If this is true, then they also should not care what mechanics Shoddybattle implements. Therefore, any arguments factoring "developer intent" as a universal truth are self-defeating with regard to Pokemon simulators.
I support Shoddy Battle making the game better if possible, not being forced to implement some stupid glitch because "it's in the game." Actually, it's your position that would seem to support not using Shoddy Battle, because "the developers didn't give us an online simulator."
 
Your premise that the glitch is unfaithful to the game is wrong.

How? That is my opinion. Opinions can't be right or wrong. For me to change my opinion, you have to convince me to think differently. I provided the basis for my opinion. I think the glitch is unfaithful to my perception of what the Pokemon franchise has defined Pokemon to be. I provided examples of what Pokemon has promoted. Unless Game Freak says anything different on the matter, I assume that those examples will continue to reflect on the principles of Pokemon as a whole. Unless those examples are factually incorrect or have no reflection on what Pokemon actually is, my opinion will not change.

It's impossible for anything in the game to be unfaithful to the game. There is no higher metric for "faithful to the game" than what's actually in the game. Not implementing the glitch is unfaithful to the game; following what's in the game is.

Actually, I think there are two higher metrics: tradition and stated authorial intent. The previous Pokemon games established traditions and basic principles. If X violates those principles and nothing is said about intent when it comes to X, then I assume that X is unintended as it would be stupid to go against a winning formula. As for stated intent, if Game Freak one day says, "Oh, we didn't mean for X to happen; we wanted Y to happen, instead," then that tells me that X (which is currently in the game) is not faithful to the game and Y is, instead, faithful to the game.

How did I twist your words? My post with regard to you had two major points:

1) When I was quoting you, I was showing how contradictory your own words are. At one point you are arguing against the evils of implementing this glitch because it's unfaithful to the game, while in the sentence immediately before it you state that we have no way of knowing 100% what their intent is, other than what's in the game, and at the beginning of your post you say that we should implement anything where intent is not 100% known.

YOU. ARE. WRONG.
After some further thinking, I've come around a bit on this issue. No longer will I blindly follow the cartridge and say "If it's in the game, then we have to simulate it no matter what." For me, it's a 100% intent issue. At the same time, however, I'm not going to look at each possible bug and say "Well, I don't think that was meant to be in there, so let's change it." If there is ANY question as to whether something was intended or not, then I'm leaving the matter alone and going along with what is in the game. Only when intent is 100% clear and obvious would I depart from what is in the game. If intent isn't 100% clear, though, then "what is in the game" is my default definition of intent. I believe it irresponsible to try and define intent any other way.

That is now what I believe. You'll have to work hard to convince me to believe something different.
Nowhere in that paragraph do I say that we should implement anything where intent is not 100% known. If there is ANY question as to whether something was intended or not, then I'm leaving the matter alone and going along with what is in the game. As far as Acid Weather is concerned, I have NO question whether it was intended or not.

2) When I was quoting Serebii, I was showing how anti-competitive your position is. What Karen says at the Elite Four doesn't matter any more than the anime telling Pikachu to aim for the horn. I literally had just read the Serebii thread about an hour or two before reading your post, and I had linked it to a few people to laugh at how ridiculous the thread was. Then I read your post and all I could think was "fuck smorgon! tiers hurt pokemon's feelings! the butterfree analysis made my sister cry!". There is are several reasons Smogon is the #1 competitive site, not Serebii, and one of those is that we don't accept non-competitive arguments for anything, and one such argument is "Karen in GSC says...".

I do give you that much. However, I don't believe that this issue is a matter of competitive vs. anti-competitive. To me, this strikes at the very heart of what Pokemon (NOT competitive Pokemon) is all about. This glitch isn't anti-competitive; it's anti-Pokemon, and I don't want anything anti-Pokemon in my game of Pokemon.

That's not the point I'm making. My point is that if we follow the logic of your post, we must remove tiers from the game. At the very least, we have to unban Garchomp, Latios, etc. and ban Celebi, Jirachi, etc.. To do anything else is contrary to the spirit of the game.

Again, this isn't my plan, but it is the only logical conclusion to what you've posted.

Competitive balance isn't anti-Pokemon, IMO. Pure Pokemon is, for the most part, anti-competitive, thus we need to set rules to maintain competitive balance in order to make it more competitive. Without this, Smogon has no purpose for being.

I have a question to everyone who wants to take developer intent into account.

Do you support no longer using Shoddybattle? The intent of the developers is that we play the game on the cartridge. In fact, there is more evidence to support the idea that playing Shoddybattle is more against the developer's intent than any in-game glitch.

Especially now that Wi-Fi is available, Shoddybattle cuts into their market. Their first goal is to make money, and it seems likely that simulators such as Shoddy cut into that margin.

The NSider forums--the official Nintendo forums--explicitly banned discussion of any simulators. This is the strongest evidence to support the idea that the developers do not want us playing on simulators.

In other words, people who care about developer intent should not play or talk about Shoddybattle. If this is true, then they also should not care what mechanics Shoddybattle implements. Therefore, any arguments factoring "developer intent" as a universal truth are self-defeating with regard to Pokemon simulators.
For me, Shoddy is nothing more than a venue for competitive Pokemon. I don't care whether it is a completely accurate as in strict-to-the-cartridge accurate simulation. What I'm concerned about is that everything in Shoddybattle is Pokemon as it was intended to be played. 99.9% of the time, Pokemon as it was intended to be played = Pokemon as per the cartridges. This glitch just falls into that 0.1%.


While I'm thinking about it: why should we have to play with an exact simulation? IMO, the only reason to play with an exact simulation is because no better definition of intent exists. If this was Gen 1 or Gen 2, then I would be inclined to agree with that since I wouldn't have yet acknowledged the existence of traditions based on only two games. Now, though, Pokemon has existed for over 13 years. I believe we have some traditions established by now.
 

Jibaku

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If you want to "simulate the game exactly," then you cannot ignore the mechanic that the host is always known
If you're going that far, I do not know how we're trying to stay true to game mechanics when ladder doesn't even exist in the game, so therefore there's nothing we can simulate. In a WiFi match, you can set the host/slave before the battle even begins. But you can't do that on ladder. WiFi/Link battles =/= ladder because host can be chosen.
 

Tangerine

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Can we stop being pedantic and get to the heart of the debate instead of arguing over such nonsense?

I proposed a solution in my post. I would like you guys to comment on it.
 
How do you propose we go about "preventing this from happening within competitive environment, such as the ladder or tournaments."? Do you mean violate game mechanics by removing the glitch? Or do we ban what causes the glitch?
 
I addressed that solution. In fact, I already said that I proposed a similar solution in the now-closed Stark thread.
Let's add a clause that makes anyone that triggers the glitch automatically lose. We won't need to simulate what happens during the glitch; all we have to do is establish the conditions for triggering the glitch, and if those conditions are satisfied, the Pursuit user loses. That way we can save some work in implementing the glitch, avoid banning moves/Pokemon, not have to deal with the harmful side-effects, and still stay true to the mechanics.

Of course, there's still the issue of selecting the "host," or the battler to impose those conditions on. Whomever is selected as the host for the battle could be at a disadvantage. Is there a fair way of selecting the host? Should it be random? Should it be based on who clicks the "Find Match" button first? Should it be based on something else?
 

Tangerine

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How do you propose we go about "preventing this from happening within competitive environment, such as the ladder or tournaments."? Do you mean violate game mechanics by removing the glitch? Or do we ban what causes the glitch?
We "violate" game mechanics, since it's the best option we have. Banning Pursuit or Banning weather is something that limits the options on the table, and the simplest solution is to not implement the glitch itself.

I don't see the reason why we should always adhere to some rigid philosophy 100% of the time like it applies to everything - we should look at "exceptions" such as these in a case by case basis and find the best possible option - the option that leaves us with as much diversity possible (weather, pursuit, etc).
 

Jibaku

Who let marco in here????
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Due to the possible loop any suggestion could start, I say the best course of action is to have Doug decide upon the final coding. Rather than wasting our time, it's quicker if he decides whether to put it on or not. If he says no then we can drop the whole thing, because obviously we can't force Doug into doing something he doesn't want. If he says yes then we'll just have to live with the glitch and the way he sets it up. We're simply not progressing at all.
 
Well Colin's going to implement the glitch regardless of what we decide so it would be more about asking Doug create a clause to disable it for our purposes.

I still don't like doing that though since it's basically saying "it is impossible to play standard competitive pokemon using a pokemon game cartridge", which to me just seems ridiculous regardless of developer intent or any of that nonsense. We really should solve it another way either by banning pursuit or reverting to tradeback d/p.

Another option we haven't considered, we could make it illegal to use pursuit while weather is up.
 

Cathy

Banned deucer.
As I said repeatedly I don't think implementing the glitch is a top priority and I only support implementing it as a matter of policy, not as something I am personally going to do.

I already solved the host/client issue above though.
 
First we need to actually finish reseaching all the effects of the glitch. This is made even more complicated by the fact that if Pursuit is used in Trick Room it creates permanent Gravity/Fog/Uproar conditions (which means Fog condition needs to be coded into Shoddy Battle as well). And believe me, there is still a LOT of stuff to test even if it doesn't look like it in the Stark thread.

However, I would like to bring up the point that no matter what we do with this glitch (besides ignoring it), means that the last few suspect tests we have done are completely compromised. I guess using D/P tradebacks lessens this effect because the only thing we're missing out on is Shaymin-s and Rotom-A, one of which is a suspect which actually saves a bit of time. Still, if we ban Pursuit or ban weather (the latter is a horrible, horrible idea btw), there are obvious reprocussions on the metagame that need to be taken into account. Would Latias still be OU in a Pursuit-less metagame? How much better would [Pokemon] be now (Cresselia I'm looking at you!)? We may even have new suspects without Pursuit keeping them in check.

So basically, if we decide not to ignore this then the past few months of competitive battling have been wasted. Whether or not this needs to be taken into consideration is up to the rest of you.
 

SoT

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I'm going to have to agree with Elevator Music here. We need to wait it out until we know all of the "effects of this glitch" before we make action. Right now it seems the only thing we can do is just ignore it until we now how it will effect the metagame, and as stated before and above all the effects. He also brought up a great point about how this could and most likely compromise the most recent suspect tests, and maybe even the tests before it.
 

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