Hi everyone,
I know that nobody asked for this but this has been something that's been in my head for awhile and I felt like I needed to post it eventually so here we go. The last thread about RBY in Policy Review kind of devolved into discussions about all the conflicting and controversial opinions that people have about RBY, and many threads in the past have seemed to do the same. So this thread is meant to serve as a mega-thread for all of it. That way we can argue about everything in one self-contained thread. Yay!
Some people think that the way we play RBY is fine as-is. Others want to be more cart-accurate. Others still want us to mod the game even further. In this thread, I'm attempting to address every single contentious point, and suggest a definitive ruleset. I understand that no one ruleset will make everyone happy, but PORYGON can possibly be a compromise between all parties... one that constitutes this being the "(hopefully final thread) about RBY cart accuracy vs. modding" so we can finally stop arguing every few months/weeks/days lol. Here goes.
---
Clauses:
Species Clause:
-Only including this for the sake of completeness. No one wants Species Clause gone. Next.
OHKO Clause:
-This is something 99% of players agree on. Keep OHKO moves banned.
Evasion Moves Clause:
-This is something 99% of players agree on. Keep Evasion-boosting moves banned.
Endless Battle Clause:
-Only including this for the sake of completeness. In the case of an endless battle (like two Gengars using Struggle, one frozen Pokemon on each side left, etc.) it's a draw. Next.
Invulnerability Clause:
-This is something that I wouldn't say 99% of players agree on, but maybe like 95% lol. Keep Dig and Fly banned because of the glitch. For those unaware, if you get fully paralyzed on turn two of Dig or Fly, you can't get hit until you switch out or use Dig/Fly again. This is obviously silly, and it's just easier to ban these moves than to try and play a meta where you have to play around something dumb.
Cleric Clause:
-This is the first thing that is actually a little bit contentious. Something that is possible on cart but not implemented on Showdown (as far as I'm aware) is being able to bring Pokemon to battle that do not have full HP or PP, or have a status condition already (pre-status). You might think that being able to do this wouldn't matter, as who wouldn't want a fully healthy team going into battle? However, the contentious part is really the PP thing. There are scenarios where it can be advantageous to not have max PP, as brought up in this thread. I believe that this is actually kind of broken in RBY though because of partial-trapping moves (Wrap, Bind, Clamp, Fire Spin). There's a glitch (that is properly implemented on Showdown) where the PP of a partial-trapping move can underflow to 63 or 64 (I forget which) if it is forced to use the move and the opponent switches out. Basically, if your opponent has 1 Wrap PP left and they use it, you have to stay in until the move's completion or else it will underflow and now your opponent has a fresh 63 or 64 PP to play with on their partial trapping move. The way I see it, here are the options:
1. Keep Cleric Clause as is:
-This means that the glitch is still in (which is cart accurate) but we won't have to worry about PP guessing games as detailed below. Seems ideal to me.
2. Scrap Cleric Clause and keep the glitch implemented (which is cart-accurate and gets rid of a clause):
-This leads to scenarios where Wrap and friends get a huge buff, because now you have no idea when a partial-trapping move is going to run out of PP, so you're pretty much always in danger of your opponent hitting that underflow. This is a nightmare to deal with, especially if your opponent has set up Agility. Also if you scrap Cleric Clause for this purpose, people could bring in pre-statused Pokemon that can block sleep and such (like pre-burned special attackers). You could stop this by creating a No Pre-Status Clause, but at that point you're just swapping one clause for another just to create this scenario that buffs partial trapping moves. No matter how you slice it, this sounds awful.
3. Patch the underflow glitch:
I haven't seen anyone advocate for this myself but it is an option if we're playing modded RBY anyway. If this glitch is patched, I don't think anyone is bringing moves with less than full PP, but maybe there's another scenario I'm not thinking of? Either way, I think we would still need No Pre-Status Clause to prevent pre-status stuff like mentioned above. This is for those people who think RBY is fundamentally broken and would benefit from patching the underflow glitch.
phoopes' suggestion: Option 1, keeping things as they are right now. I'm not really a fan of patching glitches unless they are inherently game-breaking (like desyncs, which we'll talk about later). And Option 2 just sound like it would make all RBY metagames actively worse. So let's keep things as they are for this clause.
Tradeback Clause:
Another controversial one. There are two things to keep in mind here: DVs and Moves.
-Tradeback DVs:
There are a few threads around the forums about this, but long story short, it is impossible in most cases for a Pokemon obtained in RBY to have perfect DVs. However, you are able to obtain one of the original 151 in GSC that does have perfect DVs, then "Tradeback" through the Time Capsule to RBY, thus giving you access to a Pokemon in RBY with perfect DVs. If we disallow Tradeback DVs, that makes for some admittedly interesting changes in the meta (off the top of my head, I think I remember that a Tauros with perfect HP/Atk/Def/Spd can only have a max Special of 7) but holy shit, is it a lot of time and work to have to work out all allowable DV spreads for all Pokemon. I'm not saying that there's no one willing to do it and then code it in, but sheesh. This may seem like a poor excuse, but here's the other thing... we don't have to be purists. I think from a common sense perspective it just makes sense to allow perfect DVs. It's easier, it's what we're used to, and it is possible in game. And we don't have to open the floodgates to...
-Tradeback Moves:
Along with DVs, you can also "Tradeback" moves to Pokemon that normally don't learn them in RBY. This includes things like Lovely Kiss Snorlax, Hypnosis Persian, Ice Punch Gengar, etc. Some people argue that standard OU play should allow Tradeback moves since we're already allowing Tradeback DVs. I disagree with this. Yes, the decision to ban Tradeback moves was made over 20 years ago and was not done via a formal "suspect test" or anything like we have nowadays, but Tradebacks is its own metagame that some people enjoy playing, and I think the two should be kept separate. I don't think there's high enough demand to change the standard by introducing new moves to normal OU.
phoopes' suggestion: Allow Tradeback DVs but don't allow Tradeback moves. Yes, we're picking and choosing what we want here and it's not "consistent." I say oh well, this is easier and doesn't throw a huge wrench into the metagame.
Mods:
HP Percentage Mod:
-No one is calling for the removal of this, just including it for completeness' sake, yadda yadda.
Sleep Clause Mod:
-This has been debated to death so I'll try to keep it short. Sleep Clause is a mod that we've played with for years. It's not cart accurate. However, I believe that it is a mod that makes the metagame more balanced and fun while not taking away player choice or making an "insta-lose" button as some people have suggested. I think MrSoup summed it up pretty well in the most recent thread on Sleep Clause in RBY:
MrSoup said:
The goal (at least my goal) is to make the most fun experience as possible based off vanilla RBY. If we have to mod the game, so be it. I think Sleep Clause Mod is a worthy mod because it helps achieve that goal.
phoopes' suggestion: Keep Sleep Clause Mod as is. As I said before, I think we should only patch glitches in the case where they are game-breaking. Similarly, I think we should only add mods if they enhance the player experience. I think Sleep Clause Mod enhances the player experience significantly, so that's why we should keep it.
Freeze Clause Mod:
-...on the other hand, I don't really think Freeze Clause enhances the player experience enough to be worth keeping. For those unaware, if you get frozen in RBY, the only way you can be thawed is if you get hit with a Fire-type move (except for Fire Spin, lol). I understand that getting frozen multiple times in one game would suck really hard. But it can already happen since the mod is "one Pokemon frozen at a time" not "one Pokemon frozen the entire game." So why bother keeping it? It's very rarely worth it IMO to keep around a frozen Pokemon just for the sake of not getting another one frozen. I think the scenarios where you'd actually have multiple Pokemon frozen at a time are few and far between, since freeze chance is only 10%. And if it happens to you... well, sometimes it's just not your day and you have to accept that you got unlucky. As said before, I think we should only add mods/patch glitches if they really add to the player experience or fix something crazy game-breaking.
phoopes' suggestion: Ditch Freeze Clause Mod. While it sucks to get frozen multiple times I think you just need to suck it up and deal with it if it happens.
Desync Clause Mod:
-Okay, yet another controversial one. Desyncs are a uniquely RBY thing (with the exception of something with Beat Up in GSC IIRC? I don't remember exactly lol) and they're something that need to be addressed, because the game becomes literally unplayable if one happens. Currently, Desync Clause Mod reads like this: "If a move would cause a situation that leads to battles desynchronizing during a Link Battle on cartridge, the move will fail." Sounds reasonable, right? Well, there's controversy around it, mostly because of the move Counter. But I'll cover all the cases of desyncs since I'm trying to be exhaustive anyway (as best as I can anyway, because I don't exactly understand some of the desyncs).
1. Psywave
-There's cases where Psywave can do 1 damage on one side and 0 damage on the other, causing a desync. Whoop-de-doo. We have it implemented such that Psywave fails in these cases. Seems simple enough to me. Never occurs outside of like lower tiers where Butterfree uses Psywave sometimes (I really don't know of any other Pokemon that ever uses this move).
2. Freeze/Thaw
-This is one that I don't fully understand tbh because I've never seen it happen due to how rare it actually is to hit a frozen Pokemon with a Fire-type move. But from what I understand, if a Pokemon would cause a desync on the turn it is thawed, the selected move just fails instead of creating the desync. Again, it's so rare that I think this makes more sense than... banning Fire-type moves other than Fire Spin? Banning Ice-type moves? That would suck.
3. Counter
-This is the doozy. Counter is an actual viable move that a lot of Pokemon get, and a lot of Pokemon can actually make use of it because it's a good move. It is a move that adds a lot to the meta IMO, with it causing interesting mindgames and counterplay, etc. However, it can cause desyncs under the right circumstances (circumstances that I don't understand fully), which led to a divide in the community a few years back. There was a vote held that led to the creation of "Desync Clause Mod" as we know it today. This has been controversial, and while most people just accept it, there's been some understandable pushback about the whole thing ever since. I personally think that we play a modded game as is, so I don't mind a mod that fixes a game-breaking bug and adds to the player experience by allowing the use of Counter. However, I understand the viewpoint that Counter should just be banned as well because it causes too much trouble.
phoopes' suggestion: It's been like four years since the Counter vote, people were unhappy with how the vote was run, and there wasn't an overly clear consensus on it, so there should be a newer, better vote on it. As for how to determine voters and how to make it better, I'm sure other people who are actually in charge can come up with something as far as reqs go. But my suggestion is that this is a vote on only Counter... Psywave and the freeze/thaw should remain as is. The voting options are "Ban Counter" or "Keep Counter patched as is."
If you want my personal opinion, I'd say Keep Counter patched as is. It fixes the game-breaking bug while adding a lot to the player experience IMO.
Mechanics:
1/256 chances:
Here's one that's a little less controversial, but has some support to be changed. Basically, any time anything is "100%" in RBY, it's actually a 255/256 chance. This sounds like it's insignificant, but comes up more often than you would think. This not only includes stuff like a 100% accuracy move missing, but also things like Persian's chance to crit on Slash only being 255/256 as well. Some people think that this is silly that 100% chances aren't actually 100% like in other generations, so we should patch this bug out and get rid of this true accuracy nonsense. I think we should keep to the status quo though. These are not game-breaking bugs. And while they make RBY ever-so-slightly more volatile, I don't think patching out the 256 stuff would greatly improve the player experience.
phoopes' suggestion: I feel the same about this as I do Freeze Clause. If it happens to you/for you, you're either lucky or unlucky that day. So be it. Deal with it.
FIGHT! button:
Ugh, this is such a long post already and I was going to link to a post that explains this better than I could but it seems to have been deleted? Anyway, this is another thing that has buffed partial-trapping moves and I think that this should be implemented as to not have that be the case. Basically, when you click a partial-trapping move (say, Wrap), in-game you don't know when the move ends necessarily. You click the "FIGHT!" button and if the move is continuing, you're locked in. You only know that the move is over if it's already hit five times or if your four moves show up again. On Showdown, however, you always know whether or not you're locked in with the way partial-trapping moves are currently implemented. This means that it's easier for the player using the partial-trapping move to position via switching because they always know whether they're locked in or not.
I feel like I'm not explaining this very well, but just know that as it's currently implemented, players using partial-trapping moves have an advantage on Showdown as opposed to if they were using the move in-game. This is something that I feel like has been approved to be implemented already, but idk if there's record of that anywhere on forums.
phoopes' suggestion: Implement the FIGHT! button. Please. I'm tired of hearing about how busted Wrap is every few weeks lol.
First 10 RNG rolls quirk:
Read this really interesting thread. A lot of work was put into understanding this. However...
phoopes' suggestion: Do not implement this under the banner of "common sense" that I used for Tradebacks DVs. It adds nothing to the player experience and would be an incredible pain in the ass to code I'm sure on top of all of the other things that are being requested in this thread.
Quality of Life Features:
Recovery Failure Tooltip:
This has already been approved but we haven't heard an update in quite some time about this. This is another 256 thing, where if your HP is 256 (or 512) below its maximum, Recover and friends fail. This has come up in casual games and important tournament games alike, and I think it's time that we have the "Recover Failure Tooltip" or whatever so we as players don't have to keep track of this on our own. It's a huge QoL feature that if it can get coded, would be super helpful.
Speed/other stats Display Accurately:
Another approved one that we haven't heard about in awhile. This is most often needed for checking Speed, but also can apply to other stats as well, such as using Agility to halve a Burned Pokemon's Attack stat again. If we can get this coded in, again, this would be huge QoL feature. Thanks to our wonderful programmers, we <3 you and appreciate you.
---
OKAY THAT WAS SUPER LONG SORRY BUT LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED ANY CONTENTIOUS POINTS ABOUT RBY
TL;DR: This is intended to be the final thread on cart accuracy vs. modding in RBY. Argue here to your heart's content, but here are my suggestions (also known as phoopes' Original Ruleset for Your Gen One Needs) (PORYGON):
- Keep Cleric Clause as is (don't mess with PP, pre-status, etc.)
- Keep Tradebacks DVs allowed but Tradebacks moves banned
- Keep Sleep Clause Mod as is
- Scrap Freeze Clause Mod
- Have a new community vote on Counter (ban or keep as is)
- Keep 256 stuff
- Implement the FIGHT! Button
- Don't do the first 10 RNG rolls thing
- Add Recovery Failure Tooltip
- Implement correct display of Speed/other stats during reapplication
---
That's it from me. Thanks for reading!
