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Removing/Fixing outdated clauses

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MTI said:
@ Blame Game - Freeze and Crits are two entirely different things.

Freezing ensures that your pokémon cannot really do anything along with taking damage from a hit and there is no direct way to deal with freezing other than Flame Wheel, Sacred Fire, Natural Cure, being an Ice-type, using Heal Bell/Aromatherapy, etc. Criticals hit harder, but it doesn't afflict them with a certain status and can be healed off by recovery moves presuming the pokemon isn't killed.
None of these differences say anything about the Freeze status' "clausability" versus that of Critical Hits. "Criticals hit harder but don't afflict them with a certain status." So? That doesn't even necessarily indicate that freezes are somehow more devastating than a 100% increase in damage plus enemy stat boost negation, let alone that they'd somehow become some plague amongst shoddybattlers everywhere.

Furthermore, the critical rate for most moves is 1/16, but pokémon with Serene Grace and most freezing moves have a 20% chance of freezing. With Dragons being so common you could have a Serene Grace 'mon (ab)using trying to inflict Freeze Hax.
what I said above pretty much applies to this as well, I just wanted to point out stuff that already is "abused" like scope lens. and stick
 
Ok I removed my original post because I realised that it is impossible to create a Sleep Clause where 'doing x causes you lose' cannot become a strategy that foils what are competitive movesets or competitive prediction. I think Sleep Clause should remain as it is because of this, anything else is detrimental to competitive Pokemon in my view.

I also think Freeze Clause should be removed as it is outdated.
 
Earthworm said:
anything else is detrimental to competitive Pokemon in my view.
How so? This subject has been discussed for years and I've never seen any legitimate explanation for this. Actually, this seems to be a generic defense of the status quo that people use in all sorts of arguments, I don't really get it.
 
While I think the "real" sleep clause is too harsh on possible mistakes (instant forfeit), I really can't find any defense to keep the classic clause other than "we don't want it that way". If we're looking to accurately simulate the game, then we should implement the real sleep clause, and let players simply get used to it. Competitive players will adjust to situations to minimize such occurences like the ones you have mentioned (and if all breloom has left is spore then you pretty much lost anyway). All I see in this thread is people just not wanting to adjust because of a few farfetched examples that you as a player should try to avoid since it'll mean you lose.

Freeze clause is an ancient artifact - it should be immediately removed.
 
Well, one really common example of an instant loss that is viable with the proposed rule enforced is where someone sends in a Blissey into your Roserade or Breloom's sleep move. You then think something like: 'I doubt this Blissey will stay in to let me use Toxic Spikes or Swords Dance freely, and since Blissey almost always has Natural Cure, I should put the potentially faster switch-in to sleep before I set up to give my Pokemon potential extra turns'. It then turns out the Blissey had Serene Grace and you are awarded an instant loss because of it. The same thing happens with Illuminate over Natural Cure Starmie, which is often an accident in the first place.

When we have the capability to prevent ridiculous (in my opinion, anyway) instant losses like these on our simulators, and while doing so provide what I think is a suitable penalty (a waste of a turn by using your sleep move again), why can't we just have the rule as it is? I may actually prefer to just allow multiple Pokemon to fall asleep like what happens in the actual game than enforce a rule that can be abused in situations like these to give instant losses because someone made a fair prediction.

I am pretty sure my arguments won't be given any value because of the fact that the way our current Sleep Clause is set up can't be emulated ingame currently, but I still think that while we may not be 'playing Pokemon', we are playing a better 'version' or 'game' with our current unenforcable rules than we would be following this. I really hope Gamefreak decides to implement it soon!
 
But if we have a set rules of when it is broken or not that doesn't violate in game mechanics like it currently does, it would be identical to (or even better than) the system you currently speak of without changing any of the true battle mechanics. We can change we conditions are required for win/loss (read: using evasion/ohko moves, putting two pokemon to sleep on purpose), but not how moves work.


And since I just realized this, Evasion and OHKO clauses should not make the moves fail, but the person using them lose. to keep in line with how we would treat them in a wireless battle.

Edit: That is good to hear ColinJF*
 
The 'real sleep clause' is a player invented ruleset, and un-enforceable on wifi outside of the honor system anyways.
So is the sleep clause we use now. Except the real sleep clause doesn't infringe upon any specific mechanic. Unless of course, you would prefer no sleep clause.

Well, one really common example of an instant loss that is viable with the proposed rule enforced is where someone sends in a Blissey into your Roserade or Breloom's sleep move. You then think something like: 'I doubt this Blissey will stay in to let me use Toxic Spikes or Swords Dance freely, and since Blissey almost always has Natural Cure, I should put the potentially faster switch-in to sleep before I set up to give my Pokemon potential extra turns'. It then turns out the Blissey had Serene Grace and you are awarded an instant loss because of it. The same thing happens with Illuminate over Natural Cure Starmie, which is often an accident in the first place.

When we have the capability to prevent ridiculous (in my opinion, anyway) instant losses like these on our simulators, and while doing so provide what I think is a suitable penalty (a waste of a turn by using your sleep move again), why can't we just have the rule as it is? I may actually prefer to just allow multiple Pokemon to fall asleep like what happens in the actual game than enforce a rule that can be abused in situations like these to give instant losses because someone made a fair prediction.
Again - I have mentioned that I think the consequences are a bit too harsh - but you can't really defend it on that terms because if you are a competitive player, you will be fixing your mistakes ASAP and doublechecking these kinds of things to make sure. With the real sleep clause in play, now you have an extra incentive to make sure.

Yes, some people may "prefer" it (I certainly do), but I honestly think the current "oh this will give you an instant loss this is bad" issues are extremely overstated. I will state it one last time - it is your job as a competitive player to avoid those kinds of issues yourself to prevent the loss - saying "this will make me lose, let's not do this" is not a very good mentality for competitive gaming for many reasons.

And since I just realized this, Evasion and OHKO clauses should not make the moves fail, but the person using them lose. to keep in line with how we would treat them in a wireless battle.

Agreed - or we can do one better - prevent their use period saying "Your team breaks Evasion/OHKO clause" if you have such moves on your Pokemon.
 
And since I just realized this, Evasion and OHKO clauses should not make the moves fail, but the person using them lose. to keep in line with how we would treat them in a wireless battle.

This was never a policy decision, but merely a limitation of Shoddy Battle 1 at the time. However, the models are isomorphic anyway because if evasion moves fail every time you use them, then there would be no reason to put an evasion move on your team. However, as I said, this was never a policy decision. In Shoddy Battle 2, these clauses will just prevent you from choosing a team that contains these moves. (You can think of this as a system where you write down the team on paper and submit it to a judge before you play.)
 
There are also practical reason no to change the sleep clause. Pokemon is just a game, so we do not need to simulate it exactly and make it more frustrating (you will be very pissed if you are a player in ew's example), if we can have it easier. We have enough players crieing about luck, counterteaming, diconnects or random missclicks due lag. Do we also need people crieing about clauses? There's nothing wrong with the actual system, excpet that it's not 100% the system of the game, what no one cared about for years, so why should we do now?

I completly agree with ew and ipl
 
There are also practical reason no to change the sleep clause.

I'd argue the opposite: namely, the "classic" sleep clause is indefensible. It makes up a new mechanic in the game. If we can make up a new mechanic for sleep clause, why stop there? Why not "ban sand veil on Garchomp" by making it just do nothing for him? Why not make critical hits do only x1.5? Why not re-balance the move pools and stats of pokemon across the board?

I personally believe the "classic" sleep clause is a better mechanic than a real rule, but being better isn't a good reason to change the mechanics of the game, or we aren't even playing pokemon anymore, and there's no reason to stop at sleep clause when there are so many other changes we could be making.
 
Upon thinking about it some more yeah it seems silly to enforce Freeze Clause. I still think it has the potential to be utterly ridiculous on teams that will try to spam an Ice move on every Serene Grace 'mon that they have, but probably not to the point of it being gamebreaking.

Now back to Sleep Clause...

Like IPL said it still boils down to the player's choice of how to enforce Sleep Clause on Wireless. Some players would probably the second slept pokémon to wake up, while others may say hey, you slept two pokémon of mine, so you lose. With people here preferring simulators over real, wireless battling its hard to say what people exactly want for things such as the Sleep Clause because it hasn't been really tested at the competitive level of players that Shoddy has. If it was explored as competitively then we would have a better basis to go with.

All in all though the general consensus seems to be that the way we currently enforce the Sleep Clause makes life all the more easier, so we stick to that.

Tangerine said:
Yes, some people may "prefer" it (I certainly do), but I honestly think the current "oh this will give you an instant loss this is bad" issues are extremely overstated. I will state it one last time - it is your job as a competitive player to avoid those kinds of issues yourself to prevent the loss - saying "this will make me lose, let's not do this" is not a very good mentality for competitive gaming for many reasons.
Technically this supports my side's point.

My playstyle is based on low risk factors. As a competitive player I feel that if something gives me the risk of potentially being an automatic loss over two or three turns I would not want to do it at all. Sleeping is great, but by risking an automatic loss I see it as too great of a risk to make me want to use it. We're human, we all misclick, we all make mistakes, so to avoid an automatic loss at the hands of something like an auto-loss due to a misclick I would simply avoid using Sleep moves. People use all kinds of teams on the ladder and I want to be prepared for as many of them as possible, even if they are dreadfully gimmicky. If the proposed version of Sleep Clause becomes a reality its likely people will use teams that can exploit wins justified under that Clause.

It would be smart to play it accordingly, but I think its just smarter to avoid using Sleep altogether. Naturally, I would want to opt for the smarter play. Sleep is already risky and it would be even more riskier with the proposed change to Sleep Clause. So, why would you even want to use it?

I know people have various different playstyles, but it seems like going what is safe and effective is what one of the directions that the metagame is headed in. If you change Sleep Clause to this you eliminate some of the safe factors of using Sleep inducing moves.

This has the potential to really change the metagame and make some commonly used sets unviable. I would be more open to a test of it and vote first before actual enforcement of the Clause.
 
Freeze clause was intended to make sure that a better player beats a worse player more consistently by attempting to control the uncontrollable luck factor. Personally I don't like Weavile freezing my Skarmory, Scizor, and Infernape with Ice Punch(a scenario that HAS happened to me on wifi), but really it was beyond the players control regardless and it has usually such a small factor in battles I guess it can go....

The 'real sleep clause' is a player invented ruleset, and un-enforceable on wifi outside of the honor system anyways.

Assuming your playing Platinum(which seems to be the current medium, stated by Nintendo tournament holders), you can record matches. This includes online matches, iirc. So basically, if they break it, you

1) start by bringing it up with your opponent(through whichever medium of communication you used in the first place to establish said wireless battle), and get them to forfeit so it doesn't affect your record.

2) if they are stubborn, you can leave yourself and still save the match, allowing you to have a "log" of it to show to the current tournament provider.

3) if it's just a friendly match, what's stopping you from just turning off the system if the loss on your record is going to mean so much to you? If he's being a dick by not taking his loss fairly then be a dick back. Or just put up with it since it doesn't matter regardless.

The rule itself is only skipping the process of proving the accused guilty and goes straight to the loss, which would have been the outcome regardless. It only stops people from spamming what is a broken status. And even if it creates "unique" situations where the opponent is forced to lose(example PP stalling), then kudos to the player who forced it. Maybe the opponent will think twice before trying to stall with that Sing Blissey.
 
My playstyle is based on low risk factors. As a competitive player I feel that if something gives me the risk of potentially being an automatic loss over two or three turns I would not want to do it at all. Sleeping is great, but by risking an automatic loss I see it as too great of a risk to make me want to use it. We're human, we all misclick, we all make mistakes, so to avoid an automatic loss at the hands of something like an auto-loss due to a misclick I would simply avoid using Sleep moves. People use all kinds of teams on the ladder and I want to be prepared for as many of them as possible, even if they are dreadfully gimmicky. If the proposed version of Sleep Clause becomes a reality its likely people will use teams that can exploit wins justified under that Clause.
Okay. Cool. Don't use sleep then, if you want to stretch it that far. If that's how you choose to adjust, then that is how you adjust.

If you really think this makes commonly used sets less viable then you should really re-evaluate how much you understand this game. My point does not support your point in any way, in fact, it completely disagrees with it if you actually read the context.

Let's not twist words around. Stop clinging to straw - nearly everyone agrees that the old sleep clause is the better mechanic - the issue is there is zero justification we have of keeping it around, and I don't think we can just say "people like this better" even without trying it.
 
I do think it makes sleep moves less viable, but not to the point of making them completely unviable; making one of your opponent's Pokemon almost unable to do anything for a few turns is still valuable, it just has greater inherent risk with the new clause.

Anyway, assuming this is implemented, I'd like to support what Colin or someone said on IRC before during a discussion of this (I think I heard it there, anyway) where a dialog box comes up asking if you're sure you want to use 'Sleep Move' when it could cause you to lose (as in, where one of your opponent's Pokemon has already been put to sleep by you). That would at least help to resolve the misclick issue.
 
Let's not twist words around. Stop clinging to straw - nearly everyone agrees that the old sleep clause is the better mechanic - the issue is there is zero justification we have of keeping it around, and I don't think we can just say "people like this better" even without trying it.

Is there any justification that the "new" sleep clause would be "better"?

Why bother with something that is perfectly fine? As for Freeze Clause I'm fine with its removal.
 
The whole point of doing this is not because of which method is "better" or "perfectly fine". The whole point is to more realistic to wireless battles where sleep moves don't fail if you break sleep clause. I don't care how well you argue that "classic" sleep clause is better. In order to be true to playing REAL pokemon, we have to fix sleep clause.
 
We don't want to play REAL pokemon, we want to play competitive pokemon
So let's be as competitive as possible
 
We can do both at the same time. Real pokemon involves not changing any of the game mechanics at all. Currently, sleep clause changes some of these mechanics. If you want to play this way with "classic" sleep clause, then you aren't really playing "pokemon".
 
Being competitive means that you are playing with the rules given, not making up your own.

The second you make up your own rules because you like it better and no reason past that, you're not being competitive.
 
Tangerine said:
Let's not twist words around. Stop clinging to straw - nearly everyone agrees that the old sleep clause is the better mechanic - the issue is there is zero justification we have of keeping it around
The justification is that almost nobody wants to change sleep clause except very few people

Being competitive means that you are playing with the rules given, not making up your own.
The second you make up your own rules because you like it better and no reason past that, you're not being competitive.
We made up sleep clause
 
The justification is that almost nobody wants to change sleep clause except very few people

"don't want to change" is a misleading of the argument. There is no way to justify it mechanically, so unless you want to say "we aren't playing Pokemon as defined by the cartridges (the only way to play)", you have to either back "no sleep clause" or "wi-fi sleep clause with forced loss". There's secret option c, "PBR sleep clause (the current one)", but choosing that means that you can't use the Rotom forms, Giratina-O, or Shaymin-S.

Pick one. The current implementation of Sleep Clause is not Pokemon, it's something different. If you want to make a "better than Pokemon" simulator, go right ahead, but if you're trying to replicate the game of Pokemon, you have to choose one and only one of the above three options. Anything else is not Pokemon, and is for all intents and purposes completely irrelevant to this argument.
 
Then let's not play ''Pokemon," let's play our own made up game. I am perfectly fine with not having to mechanically justify our current Sleep Clause. Our current made up game is what the (apparently) general population is ok with, you guys want to make up a new one that will probably prove massively unpopular.
 
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