Implementing proper game mechanics

[Veedrock]

DISCLAIMER: This is not a topic to debate implementation, that's going to happen. This is to discuss how we're going to implement it.

The last thread to cover the subject[/URL] was seeking an emergency solution, largely in attempt to make the metagame true while avoiding the weather completely. Multiple perfectly viable alternatives to stay true to the game (see the quote at topic's start) were stated that keeping the negative effects to a minimum. However, everybody entered with a mentality along the lines of "play with the weather or don't." Nobody acknowledged that every other alternative removes the weather from play completely, while staying true to the game. Hell, it didn't even need to be coded. So, by an overwhelming margin, people were perfectly constent to ignore it. Why is such an option acceptable? Why Smogon, which the policy reviewers represent, advocating not playing Pokemon? Again, it didn't even need to be coded with the alternatives provided, so those that voted to ignore it for convenience were largely misguided in their thoughts. Both of Shoddy's core developers, Colin and Doug, supported its coding and implementation. Well now in the advent of Shoddy Battle 2, the Weather Glitch can be perfectly replicated within our simulator, so it can no longer be ignored. Unless we come up with an alternative course of action, the glitch will be standard in all battles. "That's pokemon." We decided to neglect it and now, when it's the most difficult to change the metagame and adapt, we're being forced to face it.

Before the whining begins that nobody wants to play with the weather glitch and you happened to disregard everything up until now, here's a news Flash: there are options beyond the allowance of the weather! Everybody knows of the extreme negative implications associated with it. But we do not and should not have to ignore it and pretend its not there. There are other changes we can make to our ruleset to completely evade this. From the other thread:

Rotom formes/60% accurate Hypnosis/Skymin/Giratina-O and a fully-functional Pursuit are mutually exclusive.

Like it or not, this is our ultimatum. We have to choose between the two. Yes, both will have a very large impact on the game, but 'we' decided it was better to develop a false metagame over the last year. We can continue to ignore it and have the full effect implemented in SB2 if you'd prefer, dealing with the weather in ladder matches and so forth, or, we can begin to let the metagame adapt now so we don't have to suffer later. So now we must choose the lesser of two evils:

* Return to the Diamond/Pearl battle mechanics. All Platinum changes are withheld from Shoddy, including Hypnosis's accuracy drop, Rotom formes, Skymin, and Giratina-O. Platinum-exclusive movesets stay, however, because they can exist in Diamond/Pearl.

OR

* Ban Pursuit while keeping the Platinum changes.

EDIT: Alternatively we can allow the weather in its entirety, there seems to be enough support behind it to warrant the option.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

You seem to have forgotten that HGSS exists too ?_?

Can anyone confirm how the interaction works on a NA HGSS cart?

 

[Syberia]

Same as plat :(

That being said, my stance on this issue is the same as it has always been. We have the ability to fix Nintendo's mistake by not even doing anything at all, and we should do so. And before anyone starts splitting hairs and making the old "Splash doing nothing might be a mistake, maybe they intended it to be an OHKO" argument, I will point out that nothing else has the potential to make the game completely unplayable to the point that you have to shut it off. It's clearly not anti-piracy, since it happens on real cartridges as well as flashcarts, and the only remaining logical conclusion is that it is an unintended glitch which we can easily fix.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a topic to debate its implementation, that's going to happen. This is to discuss how we're going to implement it.

I don't see how it's not; that's a huge part of this issue.

 

[cantab]

I've brought this up before, and I'll give my views now.

1) We clearly shouldn't implement bugs that crash the game. Just make Castform and Cherrim stay in their default forms. (IIRC for Cherrim the difference is only visual, and Castform's really rare anyway).

2) Acid weather should be suspect tested. It does have a huge impact, but is that impact really exploitable? (I think it is, by a stall team that spams healing moves, which could also function well enough as a 'regular' stall team if it can't activate acid weather. But that's just a guess.)

If Acid weather is found too powerful, I would then suggest merely banning its deliberate induction. Basically, Pursuit is allowed, Weather is allowed, but using Pursuit under Weather is not allowed. There will be annoying corner cases - if one player uses Pursuit while the other uses Sunny Day, who if anyone is to blame? What if the Pursuiter is choiced, but could switch? But these are similar difficulties to those we face with sleep clause.

This does mean that a team can use weather to guard against pursuit. But is that really very different from a team having Starmie, Blissey, Roserade, or Corsola absorb sleep, leaving their opponent unwilling to sleep another Poke since the first slept Poke might not have natural cure?

Incidentally, RBY had plenty of glitches (mostly glitch Pokemon) that could crash the game. To my knowledge none of them were implemented - though of course it's very easy to ban a Pokemon in cartridge play anyway)

EDIT: There's a similarity to my first point, which is what I based it on really. The samba development team reverse-engineered Microsoft's SMB protocol. One of the key aspects was to match many of the apparent bugs in Microsoft's implementations (since some software and users in an all-MS environment may actually depend on such bugs) - but not crash bugs or security holes!

 

[RBG]

I've brought this up before, and I'll give my views now.

1) We clearly shouldn't implement bugs that crash the game. Just make Castform and Cherrim stay in their default forms. (IIRC for Cherrim the difference is only visual, and Castform's really rare anyway).

2) Acid weather should be suspect tested. It does have a huge impact, but is that impact really exploitable? (I think it is, by a stall team that spams healing moves, which could also function well enough as a 'regular' stall team if it can't activate acid weather. But that's just a guess.)

If Acid weather is found too powerful, I would then suggest merely banning its deliberate induction. Basically, Pursuit is allowed, Weather is allowed, but using Pursuit under Weather is not allowed. There will be annoying corner cases - if one player uses Pursuit while the other uses Sunny Day, who if anyone is to blame? What if the Pursuiter is choiced, but could switch? But these are similar difficulties to those we face with sleep clause.

This does mean that a team can use weather to guard against pursuit. But is that really very different from a team having Starmie, Blissey, Roserade, or Corsola absorb sleep, leaving their opponent unwilling to sleep another Poke since the first slept Poke might not have natural cure?

Incidentally, RBY had plenty of glitches (mostly glitch Pokemon) that could crash the game. To my knowledge none of them were implemented - though of course it's very easy to ban a Pokemon in cartridge play anyway)

1) Shoddy 2 has draws. If Cherrim or Castform ever go into glitch mode, then it will be a draw.

2) Ummm, I don't see why we would suspect test that at all. Having a suspect test to see if people should be allowed to use Pursuit under All non-rain weather is stupid. The difference between OHKO/Evasion clauses and this, is that one is promoting overuse of hax that benefits one side, while the Platinum Weather effects each side the same. Sleep Clause, which is the closes thing this is to, also gives a big advantage to one side.

3) All in Battle Glitches in RBY were added to the best of the programmer's abilities. Like I have said before, we can control what people can bring into the battle (i.e. Early Japan DP Mimic/Ditto Glitches), but not what happens while in battle (i.e. Pursuit during Trick Room/Hail/Sand/Sun/Gravity causing crazy weather)

-----

Anyways, although I really support the inclusion of the Platinum Weather, I feel that editing Shoddy 1 to make it so we are playing either DP w/ PHGSS moves or HGSS minus Pursuit is a waste of our limited programming staff, when they could instead be working on finishing Shoddy 2, which has most of Platinum Weather programmed in.

 

[Syberia]

We can control what happens in battle, and the only reason "we" won't is because of some arbitrary mental block to the contrary. How does a forum whose members are so liberal on virtually all other issues get off taking the conservative approach here?

 

[cantab]

1) Shoddy 2 has draws. If Cherrim or Castform ever go into glitch mode, then it will be a draw.

The competitive community to me seems to be against draws though. Case in point - the self-KO clause. Also, it seems like a 'cheap' way to get a draw. Finally, a nitpick - on a cartridge it would AIUI not be registered as a draw, but as no result (as with a disconnect, since that's what the players are forced to do).

2) Ummm, I don't see why we would suspect test that at all. Having a suspect test to see if people should be allowed to use Pursuit under All non-rain weather is stupid. The difference between OHKO/Evasion clauses and this, is that one is promoting overuse of hax that benefits one side, while the Platinum Weather effects each side the same. Sleep Clause, which is the closes thing this is to, also gives a big advantage to one side.

The weather effects benefit a team prepared to take advantage of them. All teams based on field effects rely on the same principle. Remember there was serious talk of Damp Rocked Rain being overpowered in UU, and it "affects each side the same". (It was decided it wasn't overpowered, but the fact it was even nominated and tested indicates a weather effect can be considered suspect).
The fact that Acid Weather is more complicated to initiate than just using a single move does not IMHO make it immune to suspect testing.

Of course, you could just let it in, and wait and see if acid weather becomes a problematic strategy on the ladder. But if it does become apparent it's powerful, how do you propose to deal with it? To work out the details of my suggested clause and then implement it would I presume take time, a blanket ban of either weather or pursuit has negative side-effects, and disabling the acid weather implementation goes against the idea of faithful simulation.

I would argue that it is worth considering now what we will do if acid weather is a problem - but then the way to determine whether it's a problem is by observing the metagame with it and/or suspect testing it.

 

[RBG]

We can control what happens in battle, and the only reason "we" won't is because of some arbitrary mental block to the contrary. How does a forum whose members are so liberal on virtually all other issues get off taking the conservative approach here?

"We" can not control what happens in battle if "we" want to continue to play pokemon. And just because people are liberal/conservative on one issue doesn't mean they are on all issues.

The competitive community to me seems to be against draws though. Case in point - the self-KO clause. Also, it seems like a 'cheap' way to get a draw. Finally, a nitpick - on a cartridge it would AIUI not be registered as a draw, but as no result (as with a disconnect, since that's what the players are forced to do).

The weather effects benefit a team prepared to take advantage of them. All teams based on field effects rely on the same principle. Remember there was serious talk of Damp Rocked Rain being overpowered in UU, and it "affects each side the same". (It was decided it wasn't overpowered, but the fact it was even nominated and tested indicates a weather effect can be considered suspect).
The fact that Acid Weather is more complicated to initiate than just using a single move does not IMHO make it immune to suspect testing.

Of course, you could just let it in, and wait and see if acid weather becomes a problematic strategy on the ladder. But if it does become apparent it's powerful, how do you propose to deal with it? To work out the details of my suggested clause and then implement it would I presume take time, a blanket ban of either weather or pursuit has negative side-effects, and disabling the acid weather implementation goes against the idea of faithful simulation.

I would argue that it is worth considering now what we will do if acid weather is a problem - but then the way to determine whether it's a problem is by observing the metagame with it and/or suspect testing it.

The ladder can allow for draws. Tournaments, however, can not. AFAIK, Self-KO Clause will not be active on Shoddy 2, but instead, Last Pokemon exploding will result in a draw as well.

And the arguments you put forth for Damp Rock were not at all the arguments used against its banning, so they hold no real value in this situation. I see it being really hard to build a team that can abuse Platinum Weather Mechanics, so I don't see how it will be broken. It affects both teams in the same manner, and building a team that is made to "abuse" it will be weak to many other threats. Point is, I don't see this being broken or easily abuseable at all and not needing a suspect test.

 

[Tangerine]

what a great idea, let's ruin the game even more by being even more pedantic. that'll be great for the metagame, and it's even going to save us a lot of time in the future. oh boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

afaik colin said something about there being a weather clause in sb2, which simply just removes the weather. I vote that we go with that.

stop fucking with the metagame "just because you can". who gives a fuck we're not implementing some shit no one wants properly? is some rival site really going to cash in on this? "oh boy smogon isn't implementing acid weather, i bet we're going to beat out smogon if we do it".

in all fuck the "we play the game as it is" as a law. it is a guideline. everything is a guideline. stop ruining the game and help improve the game instead, if you really give a fuck about competitive pokemon

 

[imperfectluck]

Disagreeing with Tangerine that implementing this is "ruining the game." Should we relax standards just for the sake of convenience? If nobody is looking, would you steal from the cookie jar, Tangerine?

Edit:
Argument: "Ruining the game" is purely subjective opinion, it is in the game, therefore it should be included
Argument: "who gives a fuck we're not implementing some shit no one wants properly?" indicates that you are willing to compromise accuracy for your personal opinion that nobody wants, as a matter of fact I certainly care.
Argument: "in all fuck the "we play the game as it is" as a law. it is a guideline. everything is a guideline." This is getting into breaking the rules just because you make them. Joywalking is illegal, but tons of people do so anyways. Just today at college, while on my way to class, a biker cut across the crosswalk and was run over by a car not even 10 feet away from me. Morals sure can get into our beliefs, if you want to champion logic over morals at all times, be my guest. Why allow for something like this to bend the rules?

 

[Tangerine]

and through this post I will show you how people can twist shit around to turn them into strawmans. ie, please dont do shit like this.

Should we relax standards just for the sake of convenience?

original argument: enforcing guidelines at "laws" ruin the game. ie, we dont want to enforce these "standards" because there are negative consequences, as in, they hurt the game.
new argument: not having the "negative consequences", is, for the sole purpose of "convenience". It obviously glosses over the key point where i pointed out that it hurts/ruins the game, to make the argument seem more convincing. Fuck if it ruins the game, it's just convenience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If nobody is looking, would you steal from the cookie jar, Tangerine?

Even better, we're even breaching morality now. Shit, my argument promotes stealing! It's bad! It's really bad!

ps: cookies are very delicious

 

[reachzero]

So now we must choose the lesser of two evils:

Originally Posted by Fat EeveeTrainer
* Return to the Diamond/Pearl battle mechanics. All Platinum changes are withheld from Shoddy, including Hypnosis's accuracy drop, Rotom formes, Skymin, and Giratina-O. Platinum-exclusive movesets stay, however, because they can exist in Diamond/Pearl.

OR

* Ban Pursuit while keeping the Platinum changes.

First of all, I see no reason to think of the weather glitch(es) as an "evil", until such is proven to me. It's simply the way things are. As a result, I don't see why we would feel the need to ban Pursuit or anything like that under any circumstance. The only Pokemon or move that I believe the weather glitch(es) will definitely force us to ban are Castform and Cherrim.

I've brought this up before, and I'll give my views now.

1) We clearly shouldn't implement bugs that crash the game. Just make Castform and Cherrim stay in their default forms. (IIRC for Cherrim the difference is only visual, and Castform's really rare anyway).

2) Acid weather should be suspect tested. It does have a huge impact, but is that impact really exploitable? (I think it is, by a stall team that spams healing moves, which could also function well enough as a 'regular' stall team if it can't activate acid weather. But that's just a guess.)

If Acid weather is found too powerful, I would then suggest merely banning its deliberate induction. Basically, Pursuit is allowed, Weather is allowed, but using Pursuit under Weather is not allowed. There will be annoying corner cases - if one player uses Pursuit while the other uses Sunny Day, who if anyone is to blame? What if the Pursuiter is choiced, but could switch? But these are similar difficulties to those we face with sleep clause.

As I noted above, I see no reason not to just ban Cherrim/Castform, particularly since both are really irrelevant competitively.

How does one suspect test a game mechanic? I would rather just ban anything found to be too powerful under acid weather (i.e. potentially Kingdra or Kabutops or whatever), or in extreme circumstances, just ban Tyranitar (or Hippowdon or Abomasnow) under the Support Clause. Acid weather is a game mechanic the same as critical hits or secondary effects, I believe there is no good reason not to implement it if it is feasibly possible.

 

[chaos]

Why are we considering making the weather glitch apart of the metagame? It's obviously not meant to be apart of the game mechanics, and it arguably makes the metagame less enjoyable (as well as stirring a lot of policy related shit up). I advocate intelligent interpretation of the game mechanics--no weather glitch.

 

[lilyhollow]

I agree with Reachzero 100%.

 

[Veedrock]

-_-

Those of you being ridiculous need to stop the bitching and put your heads on straight. Stop with the end of the world nonsense and exaggerations, it's complete and utter bull. The effects of this can be minimalized (which is the entire point of this thread). Very few people are advocating the allowance of the entire effect, the alternatives presented in the original post are perfectly viable methods of not incorporating the complete negative effects and keeping the game playable and intact.

afaik colin said something about there being a weather clause in sb2, which simply just removes the weather. I vote that we go with that.

Is weather clause a simulation or a bonus feature Shoddy 2? If he includes a clause that removes critical hits can we make that standard?

stop fucking with the metagame "just because you can". who gives a fuck we're not implementing some shit no one wants properly? is some rival site really going to cash in on this? "oh boy smogon isn't implementing acid weather, i bet we're going to beat out smogon if we do it".

Seems I wasted my breath above. We're not doing this "because we can." In fact it's the complete opposite; up until now we've ignored it "because we can." And when did this become about keeping Smogon's popularity up?

in all fuck the "we play the game as it is" as a law. it is a guideline. everything is a guideline. stop ruining the game and help improve the game instead, if you really give a fuck about competitive pokemon

As far as I'm concerned, you're a guideline (this isn't meant to be a cheesy comeback, the point is that your word and opinion isn't law nor does it hold any merit over any other opinion). Stop ruining the game, because your opinion no longer makes it a game.

original argument: enforcing guidelines at "laws" ruin the game. ie, we dont want to enforce these "standards" because there are negative consequences, as in, they hurt the game.

And our goal is to keep the negative effects to a minimum, not change the essence of the very game we're playing.

new argument: not having the "negative consequences", is, for the sole purpose of "convenience". It obviously glosses over the key point where i pointed out that it hurts/ruins the game, to make the argument seem more convincing. Fuck if it ruins the game, it's just convenience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Convenience' is leaving it as we have it now, a false interpretation of the game. It's harder to program the shit and harder to change the game than it is to implement it.

First of all, I see no reason to think of the weather glitch(es) as an "evil", until such is proven to me. It's simply the way things are. As a result, I don't see why we would feel the need to ban Pursuit or anything like that under any circumstance. The only Pokemon or move that I believe the weather glitch(es) will definitely force us to ban are Castform and Cherrim.

I worded it in such as way because of the large gathering behind doing nothing; I don't think either option in particular is 'evil.' And, while I have zero clue as to how the actual weather itself would affect the game, the other two alternatives definitely come off as less disruptive and that's why I stand behind choosing one of them rather than

(of course, everybody so far is under the impression that we either implement the weather in every battle or we ignore it, god forbid we take alternative action to stay true to the game while avoiding the entirety of the issue)

How does one suspect test a game mechanic? I would rather just ban anything found to be too powerful under acid weather (i.e. potentially Kingdra or Kabutops or whatever), or in extreme circumstances, just ban Tyranitar (or Hippowdon or Abomasnow) under the Support Clause. Acid weather is a game mechanic the same as critical hits or secondary effects, I believe there is no good reason not to implement it if it is feasibly possible.

Suspect testing it never occurred to me, but I described why above (not wanting the weather period). We'd test it the same way we'd test the evasion and OHKO clauses. Now regarding evasion and OHKO, in order to stop both mechanics we simply ban moves associated with it. The same would apply to this weather, or we can take the alternative and remove the auto-weather from play (the most drastic option by far, one reason I edited it out of the quote from EeveeTrainer in the OP).

Why are we considering making the weather glitch apart of the metagame? It's obviously not meant to be apart of the game mechanics, and it arguably makes the metagame less enjoyable (as well as stirring a lot of policy related shit up). I advocate intelligent interpretation of the game mechanics--no weather glitch.

No disrespect intended, but this is the game you chose to sponsor with your website; this is the game we choose to play and simulate; and this effect is a part of this game.

 

[Hipmonlee]

I advocate allowing the entire effect.. Its such a minor issue I dont see why its worth doing anything but implementing it.

Have a nice day.

 

[Tangerine]

Is weather clause a simulation or a bonus feature Shoddy 2? If he includes a clause that removes critical hits can we make that standard?

Slippery Slope

Seems I wasted my breath above. We're not doing this "because we can." In fact it's the complete opposite; up until now we've ignored it "because we can." And when did this become about keeping Smogon's popularity up?

and your point is?

As far as I'm concerned, you're a guideline (this isn't meant to be a cheesy comeback, the point is that your word and opinion isn't law nor does it hold any merit over any other opinion). Stop ruining the game, because your opinion no longer makes it a game.

Irrelevant

And our goal is to keep the negative effects to a minimum, not change the essence of the very game we're playing.

Bullshit.

'Convenience' is leaving it as we have it now, a false interpretation of the game. It's harder to program the shit and harder to change the game than it is to implement it.

who cares?

 

[Veedrock]

Slippery Slope

Doesn't matter, by allowing leeway with game mechanics we don't have boundaries anymore.

and your point is?

If you'd follow along...

up until now we've ignored it "because we can."

stop fucking with the metagame "just because you can".

Bullshit.

I know that we're not aiming to create our own game, so what is it?


Can you please stop the big bad Tangerine gimmick?

 

[lilyhollow]

Irrelevant

You're just wrong here. "We're simulating Pokemon" is one of the precious few "stock assumptions" we've maintained over the years. Maybe you have some other characteristic in mind that allows us to maintain the same "spirit" while remaining less harmful to the metagame, but in that case you should either post it or accept that we actually have a concrete standard to hold ourselves to for once (and thankfully, in my opinion).

 

[Cathy]

These weather mechanics are seriously not a big deal. And considering most of the small number of people complaining about it haven't even played with it (I know some of them have), it is as if we were witnessing a series of threads insisting that we must not implement the physical-special split some months before Pokemon DP were even released. It's just different mechanics.

Also, I implemented the correct weather mechanics around six months ago. (In fact the Shoddy Battle 2 pokemon engine has been mostly done for a long time although that is probably hard to believe at this point...) I am sure these mechanics will reveal themselves to be a complete anti-climax "when" we finally deploy Shoddy Battle 2.

It's not even clear that Castform and Cherrim will need to be banned, because attempting to get draws with them doesn't seem very broken intuitively.

I'm confused why this is even a renewed issue, when nothing has changed recently with regard to this. Actually, one thing has changed since last time, and that is that the authorial intent argument has become even weaker. If you recall, I usually adopt the position that authorial intent is irrelevant, but more than that, we can now argue that these weather weathers are in fact intentional; after all, the developers left them in Japanese HGSS and then also left them in North American HGSS. Many forum members talked about sending emails to Game Freak and Nintendo, tons of videos on youtube talk about these mechanics, and they've likely been discussed on Nintendo's own forum as well.

It is simply inconceivable that the developers were unaware of the mechanics before the North American release of HGSS, but the weather mechanics are still in. The only conclusion a reasonable person can draw is that these mechanics, although unorthodox, are completely intentional. If you say "the mechanics were unintentional, but they chose not to change them!" then attempts to read intention become even more futile, because I can say that about any mechanic. If you are going to talk about intention, you have to be guided by what is actually in the game, not vague hypotheses based on no evidence at all.

Incidentally, the fact that part of the mechanic crashes the game is not even evidence that the whole mechanic is "unintentional". For example, it could have been intended to be a draw, but they were too lazy to implement it properly. Too lazy sounds weak, but it's exactly what you are advancing if you maintain that the mechanics were unintentional despite their still being in North American HGSS. In any case, it is at best evidence that the Castform interaction was unintentional, not the whole weather mechanic.

Now that we know there is no reason to raise "intentionality" in this argument, what other possible reason is there to complain about this mechanic? That some people, most of whom do not even know the details of the mechanics, dislike it? That would be like banning confusion because it makes a pokemon attack itself five times in a row, both in how hasty it is and in how uninformed. The bottom line is that, if there is any pretence of being "competitive" in this discussion, there isn't very much to discuss at all. The weather mechanics are just unorthodox mechanics.

 

[DougJustDoug]

It is pointless to argue about whether acid weather is a glitch or not. In any program, bugs can only be classified as bugs by the people that know the intended behavior of the system. Everyone else can simply identify functions and behavior that seem inconsistent with their understanding of the system, and then wait and see if the developers confirm that the behavior is actually unintentional. But, in the absence of a developer to affirm the intended behavior of a system -- there is no such thing as a glitch.

I realize that statement may seem odd to some of you that are used to "reporting bugs" or "finding glitches" in a system. But the fact is -- in the absence of a knowledgeable developer to evaluate bug reports, you cannot determine what system behavior is intentional or not. You can speculate and make opinions, but you cannot definitively settle any claims of what is a bug or not.

I could claim that many things in Pokemon are "glitched":

• "I think it's a glitch that Acupressure doesn't work if you have a Substitute up."
• "I think it is a bug that Confuse Ray hits Normal types."
• "I think it's an obvious programmer error that Flareon doesn't get Flare Blitz in its movepool."

I could go on and on... The point is that there are MANY things in the game of Pokemon that are inconsistent according to my subjective assessment of the general design of the game. I have no idea if the things listed above were coded into Pokemon as part of the intentional design or not. At best, all I can say is that they are odd from my point of view as an avid player of the game. As a programmer, I have some good technical guesses as to why things like Acupressure and Confuse Ray work the way they do. As for possible errors of omission, like Flareon's shitty movepool -- I have no idea why that is the case. For all of the above listed things, and every other supposed glitch in Pokemon -- all I can say is, "This is how the game works." That's it. Full stop. I didn't say it is good, bad, correct, or incorrect -- I'm just listing the game behavior that is exhibited in the program that has been released to the general public.

To say "Acid weather is a glitch" is no more "factual" than my statement that Flareon is glitched because it lacks a big physical fire move to utilize that massive 130 attack stat.

So, all we can do is argue over our subjective opinions as to whether we believe acid weather is intentional or not. I see no point in that. Any argument over the intentionality of acid weather is about as worthwhile as an argument about Flareon's movepool. If the latter came up in Stark Mountain -- the thread would be closed. So I see no reason to debate the former here in Policy Review.

Acid weather is a known, proven, and well-understood phenomenon in the Pokemon game. Period.

With that said, if it were left to me to program this phenomenon into a battle simulator -- this would be a low-priority item for me. If the general public was clamoring for it, I would move it up the list. But, in the absence of public outcry in favor of it, I would consider acid weather to be one of a long list of obscure game mechanics that "should" be implemented in the system, but likely never gain importance over other pressing problems.

In this case, though -- it is not my burden to implement. Colin already did it. And although I consider it to be too obscure for me to waste my time on it -- I did not disagree with Colin figuring it out. Not because I think acid weather is good, and not because I think we need to exactly implement every single nuance of the game mechanics -- I was glad Colin figured out acid weather because it gave great insight into how to properly model ALL weather and field effects in the game. I thought it was a cool learning exercise in how field effects are probably implemented in the actual game code. While I'm not sure whether Colin has it exactly right or not, I'm quite confident that the Shoddy2 model for field effects is much more robust and adaptable than Shoddy1. For that reason, I think the "feature" of acid weather has been a valuable endeavor.

Once again, I want to remind you that I did not say I think acid weather is good for the metagame or not. But it is an implementation I was interested to see Colin complete -- even though I openly admit that I personally would not have spent my personal programming time on it. I am much more interested in working on other things. But, Colin and I are different programmers, with different interests, and different judgement on what is "high priority" or not. Now that it is done, I don't see any reason we shouldn't use it though. If it proves to be a problem, or even a distraction -- then we can evaluate each of those problems on the merits when they are identified.

 

[Veedrock]

Not to belittle your posts Colin and Doug (I greatly appreciate them), but if we're done doing exactly what I said not to do in the OP, can we move on to the subject of the matter? What course of action do we want to take in regards to this? The only valid opinions so far have been full implementation, but many people have not chimed in and I know there's opposition out there. If you're hellbent on the opinion that this will destroy competitive pokemon, let it be known which of the options that circumvent it you would like us to follow. If you genuinely feel we should play with the full effects of the weather, even if just to test its overall effect on the game and take action from there, voice your support.

Personally, reading cantab's post, I actually see the merit to allowing it and then taking action from there if it gets out of control. Before now I was supporting one of the options EeveeTrainer suggested in the OP. Of course this way requires us to wait for Shoddy Battle 2 but as long as the decision is made beforehand then then I'll be satisfied.

 

[mtr]

I'm posting to say that I agree that something needs to be done, and that we must emulate everything to as true an extent as possible. RBY had plenty of "glitches", but people played with them anyways. For example, Hyper Beam didn't recharge after a KO. We may have thought that was a glitch, and many people did (Game Freak fixed it later) but it's not our place to change it: it's our place to play with Pokemon as it is given to us.

If, to ensure a fully functioning metagame while remaining true to cartridge mechanics, we need to ban alternate forms or Pursuit, then it must be done. I'm not too familiar with how bad Acid Rain is to know offhand if it should be banned or not.

 

[Veedrock]

There seems to be a large misunderstanding concerning the point of this topic, so let me simplifiy it.

When SB2 is released, a large portion of the community expects us to leave this weather effect out completely, just as we're doing now. This thread is to serve as a reminder that it will not be, and more importantly to gather a consensus on how we want to approach it (be it full implementation on the ladder and such, or choosing an alternative listed above).

I can't put it any simpler than that.

 

[Tleilax]

I think the obvious answer is to implement it and see what happens. To say it will destroy the metagame or something along those lines seems silly when we don't know if that's the case. Smogon is all about testing something before deciding what should be done, not just implementing or removing aspects of the game blindly. Allow the weather glitch into Shoddy 2, see how it pans out before coming to a sure conclusion. If it breaks the metagame, then we can come to a conclusion as to what needs to be done, whether it be banning Castform/Cherrim, banning Pursuit, or removing it entirely.

To be honest, the glitch annoys me too. But it's part of the game. Nintendo hasn't fixed it, so whether we think it's intentional or not is irrelevant. It exists, it hasn't been fixed, and we play the cards we are dealt. We are a Pokemon metagame site, not simply a Shoddy metagame site. The metagame we choose affects more than Shoddy, it affects the people who use the standards of Smogon as the standard for their WiFi battles as well. To ignore this and pretend it doesn't exist would work fine for Shoddy, but would be a disservice to those who simply link up with people they know. The glitch can't be brushed under the rug. It's there, and people who play the real game have to deal with it. We need to think about that too when making a Pokemon SIMULATOR, and how that simulator needs to reflect the real game, not the ideal one we wished we played.