You are probably hitting the image limit in posts for regular users.Idk where to report Smogon bugs, it keeps redirecting me to the PS one, so i'll just share it here.
This happened to me and it won't let me continue
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Smogon Simple Questions & Suggestions Thread
- Thread starter Quite Quiet
- Start date
I've been using Showdown on and off for a few years now, but I never actually utilized Smogon until just now... Where would I find in-depth play style or team explanations other than the strat dex? Like as in-depth as possible (specifically I want to find stuff about Quagsire in stall, but knowing where to look for similar specifics would be very helpful for future ventures).
Other than searching forums, you could try going into tier-specific PS! Rooms (such as https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/pu or whatever tier you're thinking of putting Quag in) and asking them; there are probably some knowledgeable people that can answer questions.
I found an awesome UU Stall article and got suggestions from the UU Room, so I was able to piece together some semblance of a team, thanks!
It was the OU subforum, back in gen4. Gen5's was Dragonspiral Tower (later renamed OU), gen3's was Ever Grand Plateau, gen2's was Mt. Silver, and Gen1 was Indigo Plateau. They were later combined into the "Past Generations" subforum in a forum reshuffle during gen5 or something of the sort, and are now Ruins of Alph.
It was round beforehand, but everyone hated it, so I guess it's not coming by anytime soon.
I worried for a long time about whether or not I should post this, but I figured that there's always someone out there who worries about the same thing and who doesn't want to ask.
While I know that it's not the intent of the site, sometimes it can seem very intimidating to suddenly become a part of a big, established community with many regulars and an established ranking system.
If I'm anything to go by (though you'd have to go far to find someone more neurotic), it can be hard to just challenge someone to a randbat, much less register a permanent username on Showdown. With a site that has so many badges, so many now-unavailable titles and so many regular big-name users, a system where you lose your badges if you aren't perpetually active, chatrooms where someone comes in and the whole chatroom greets them merrily by name, a ranking/voting system where your opinions are only welcome if you're already a skilled player, a connected Discord in addition to a hundred-plus different forums and Showdown chatrooms, a mentor system that's only open to people who already have ladder experience and a lot of people who're very vocal about maintaining the quality of the community, there's often the feeling that people have it just fine as is and newbies are an unwelcome distraction at best.
I've been reading analyses and articles since back about The Smog issue #37, which is already a good four and a half years ago, and sure, I've had a few randbats, but mostly I've ended up only using Showdown for matches with friends.
The reason why is that as soon as you go into a chatroom, you're faced with dozens of people chatting constantly like old friends, being online almost perpetually and maintaining contacts with each other. It's not rare that they're saying all sorts of unpleasant things about people in lower ranks or those trying their own teams, either (though I'm not going so far as to say it's all that common, either). In addition, there's a Discord on top of this, meaning that someone trying to get a foot in the door would have to resign themselves to a phone that pings all night in order to have even the remotest chance of getting recognized.
The people who get more than three upvotes on the forums usually have a sparkling ribbon of badges that would make a four-starred general blush.
When you predict something wrong in a randbat or don't know an intricate mechanic, like Prankster not working on Dark-types, your opponent often just says "gg" even if you're two turns in like you've already lost.
The more I write, the more I realize that it's unnecessarily rude and distrustful to the community to run my mouth, and that half of it is probably (provably) me being a sore loser and too self-conscious, but in short it often feels to me like Smogon and by extension Showdown are sites and communities that would by far prefer it if you waited for some big-name user like Zarel to personally take a liking to you and invite you to the community.
The amount of socialization and what could less flatteringly be called Discord brown-nosing seems intimidating and ultimately pointless, since your badges will be taken away if you aren't a constant contributor.
Your votes are only welcome if you're ranked highly on the ladder, but you pause for even one day and your rating slides down and down and down.
It just feels to me as if Smogon is a community that would be the happiest if the homepage was a password prompt. It feels like so many members feel pressured by newbies to be welcoming and open to new players when they'd rather just have the opportunity to be left alone with their friends and chat and play without constantly being besieged by people who only want to play a few matches a week.
I do want to play, but it feels like I have to prepare myself for an eternity of waking up in the middle of the night because the Discord pinged and there's a tournament/someone like Zarel came on and now it's do or die.
Smogon is an incredibly interesting and informative community, but once in a while it seems like people are genuinely not needed or wanted unless they're the friend of someone who can mentor them and introduce them to other people in the community before they even have their first randbat.
I really apologize for posting stuff like this in a thread that's explicitly about "simple questions and suggestions", but the Showdown chatroom for advice and personal conversation is off-limits unless you've already won a ranked battle, and I can't imagine any other reason for that than that you're not desired there unless you already have someone else you know personally and can ask to tutor you. This is the closest place I can find.
TL;DR: I'm the kind of person who worries too much about too little, and want an honest answer for both my sake and other newbies' as to whether I can just pop in a few times a week for a randbat, or go for a rank without constantly maintaining my chatroom contacts and being on Discord, because once in a while it really seems as if what the Smogon community longs for the most is the opportunity to say "get out, we're full, if we want you we'll tell you" and getting miserable because it can't.
While I know that it's not the intent of the site, sometimes it can seem very intimidating to suddenly become a part of a big, established community with many regulars and an established ranking system.
If I'm anything to go by (though you'd have to go far to find someone more neurotic), it can be hard to just challenge someone to a randbat, much less register a permanent username on Showdown. With a site that has so many badges, so many now-unavailable titles and so many regular big-name users, a system where you lose your badges if you aren't perpetually active, chatrooms where someone comes in and the whole chatroom greets them merrily by name, a ranking/voting system where your opinions are only welcome if you're already a skilled player, a connected Discord in addition to a hundred-plus different forums and Showdown chatrooms, a mentor system that's only open to people who already have ladder experience and a lot of people who're very vocal about maintaining the quality of the community, there's often the feeling that people have it just fine as is and newbies are an unwelcome distraction at best.
I've been reading analyses and articles since back about The Smog issue #37, which is already a good four and a half years ago, and sure, I've had a few randbats, but mostly I've ended up only using Showdown for matches with friends.
The reason why is that as soon as you go into a chatroom, you're faced with dozens of people chatting constantly like old friends, being online almost perpetually and maintaining contacts with each other. It's not rare that they're saying all sorts of unpleasant things about people in lower ranks or those trying their own teams, either (though I'm not going so far as to say it's all that common, either). In addition, there's a Discord on top of this, meaning that someone trying to get a foot in the door would have to resign themselves to a phone that pings all night in order to have even the remotest chance of getting recognized.
The people who get more than three upvotes on the forums usually have a sparkling ribbon of badges that would make a four-starred general blush.
When you predict something wrong in a randbat or don't know an intricate mechanic, like Prankster not working on Dark-types, your opponent often just says "gg" even if you're two turns in like you've already lost.
The more I write, the more I realize that it's unnecessarily rude and distrustful to the community to run my mouth, and that half of it is probably (provably) me being a sore loser and too self-conscious, but in short it often feels to me like Smogon and by extension Showdown are sites and communities that would by far prefer it if you waited for some big-name user like Zarel to personally take a liking to you and invite you to the community.
The amount of socialization and what could less flatteringly be called Discord brown-nosing seems intimidating and ultimately pointless, since your badges will be taken away if you aren't a constant contributor.
Your votes are only welcome if you're ranked highly on the ladder, but you pause for even one day and your rating slides down and down and down.
It just feels to me as if Smogon is a community that would be the happiest if the homepage was a password prompt. It feels like so many members feel pressured by newbies to be welcoming and open to new players when they'd rather just have the opportunity to be left alone with their friends and chat and play without constantly being besieged by people who only want to play a few matches a week.
I do want to play, but it feels like I have to prepare myself for an eternity of waking up in the middle of the night because the Discord pinged and there's a tournament/someone like Zarel came on and now it's do or die.
Smogon is an incredibly interesting and informative community, but once in a while it seems like people are genuinely not needed or wanted unless they're the friend of someone who can mentor them and introduce them to other people in the community before they even have their first randbat.
I really apologize for posting stuff like this in a thread that's explicitly about "simple questions and suggestions", but the Showdown chatroom for advice and personal conversation is off-limits unless you've already won a ranked battle, and I can't imagine any other reason for that than that you're not desired there unless you already have someone else you know personally and can ask to tutor you. This is the closest place I can find.
TL;DR: I'm the kind of person who worries too much about too little, and want an honest answer for both my sake and other newbies' as to whether I can just pop in a few times a week for a randbat, or go for a rank without constantly maintaining my chatroom contacts and being on Discord, because once in a while it really seems as if what the Smogon community longs for the most is the opportunity to say "get out, we're full, if we want you we'll tell you" and getting miserable because it can't.
Welcome to Smogon!
While it's undeniably true that joining a community can be intimidating at first on one hand, especially when you don't know where to start, I also think that you're right when you say that you're worrying too much on the other hand.
Everybody is welcome here and the community only gets rid of users that cause serious trouble. The community never gets rid of people just because they don't contribute to any of the sub-forums or because they're not good enough at the game it revolves around. Instead you'll find guides that'll help you get involved with the community (if you want too of course, nobody is being forced to) and there are of course teambuilding workshops and tutoring programs thar can help you improve as a player. You'd be surprised to find out that a lot of people here don't actually play the game competitively. They rather hone their artistic skills in the Smeargle Studio sub-forum, pursue their hobby as writers when writing articles, discuss and share opinions regarding the non-competitive aspects of the games in a relaxed and amicable atmosphere in the Orange Island sub-forum etc.
As you can see, the Smogon community caters to a wide range of different Pokémon fans. You should take your time to find out where you want to start. Maybe you'd like to share your taste in movies, music and books with us in The Great Library sub-forum? It might be a good way of introducing yourself. A lot of people start there, including myself.
Again, contributions are welcome, but always voluntarily and by no means mandatory. Neither do you have to be online on the Discord servers. We all have a life outside of this and everybody is free to come and go as he or she pleases. Remember, this is a hobby site!
As for battles and Pokémon Showdown!, there will always be people that take the game too seriously. You can find that attitude in plenty of games played online. To cut out these players you can use the /mute command or you can report them to the helpful staff over in the "Help" room. Use the /report command and describe what happened.
I'd suggest that you read around a bit and familiarize yourself with how things are organized here. Feel free to post whenever you feel comfortable.
I hope that this helped!
Hi Megafritz, I can understand your feelings. When I first joined showdown the chatrooms were intimidating for me as well. Everyone is chatting away with their friends and I didn't know any of them or have any on showdown myself. The way I got into the community was by looking for a room I enjoyed chatting in and participating in there. For me that was Textquest (now Battle Dome) and Mafia, both of which host games in the chat. I've never been much of a battler myself and still am not, so this worked out for me. Eventually after playing for a while and getting to know the other regulars well, I became a part of the group there. While my experience is going to be different than yours or anyone elses, the idea here is to hop in and comment when you feel you have something to add to the current conversation, or start a new one when theres a lull.
As for ranks and badges, these shouldn't really be the ultimate goal in my opinion. You should contribute to areas you enjoy contributing to. For example, I enjoy programming and I wanted to give back to PS, so I started fixing bugs and (eventually) programming new features. This lead to me rising through the ranks, expanding my contributions to PS's policy areas too, and receiving these badges as well. I also continued to play and contribute in mafia leading to a room owner position there. I don't contribute for the shiny badges/ranks, or for the fame/recognition, I do it because I want to and enjoy it. If your interested in contributing, I suggest looking into what areas you can contribute, and trying some that interest you. Even if thats as simple as enjoying time in a PS chatroom (being a good and active user can lead to promotions).
As for this:
I hope this helps answer some of your questions, if I haven't addressed everything, you are still confused, or have new questions feel free to PM me, I'd be happy to help!
As for ranks and badges, these shouldn't really be the ultimate goal in my opinion. You should contribute to areas you enjoy contributing to. For example, I enjoy programming and I wanted to give back to PS, so I started fixing bugs and (eventually) programming new features. This lead to me rising through the ranks, expanding my contributions to PS's policy areas too, and receiving these badges as well. I also continued to play and contribute in mafia leading to a room owner position there. I don't contribute for the shiny badges/ranks, or for the fame/recognition, I do it because I want to and enjoy it. If your interested in contributing, I suggest looking into what areas you can contribute, and trying some that interest you. Even if thats as simple as enjoying time in a PS chatroom (being a good and active user can lead to promotions).
As for this:
The autoconfirmed limit exists not to alienate new users but rather block trolls and spammers. It work quite well in my experience, since those trolls can't get autoconfirmed accounts that aren't already punished at a rapid rate.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions, if I haven't addressed everything, you are still confused, or have new questions feel free to PM me, I'd be happy to help!
Not exactly a simple question, but not a simple answer either. There are three pieces of advice I always give members of my tier’s community. One, everyone has to start somewhere. Two, grow at your own pace in your own way. Three, do what you enjoy. Nobody starts doing anything, Pokémon or not, and is an expert immediately. Everyone has to go through the phase of being confused, being unknown, and being inexperienced. Some people grow out of that faster than others, but that’s okay because you’re here to have fun the way you do.
You don’t need to be “in” to be part of Smogon or Pokémon Showdown. If you stick around and contribute positively, that will happen naturally and you’ll find yourself being “in” with the community you’ve chosen. You also don’t need to, and quite frankly can’t, be a part of everything or contribute everywhere when you’re new. In fact you probably shouldn’t. Focus on improving your game, lurking the forums to learn how things work, and just plain having fun first. When you’re new, people know that and give you allowances. Make friends and have a good time; community acceptance will come sooner or later if you are a positive user whether you stress over it or not.
I think the above people did a very good job responding to your overall point, however, as an experienced ladderer on one UM, I can say that the general animosity you may sometimes feel when people talk about newbies is generally directed to those with an unwillingness to learn about the meta/tier. Most users that aren't trolls are completely fine with you running theme teams on ladder, or battling with their favorite pokemon. You're solely doing that for fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, most people do not like users who show anger towards learning whatever tier they are playing, thinking they know better than mods/experienced users when they are unironically using a Delcatty in RU. Sometimes it may come off like more known users dislike newbies, but in reality they just dislike people who blatantly disregard advice, and don't bother trying to learn about the meta when they are trying to play it seriously. As long as you don't be arrogant, or do some of the things I said, there shouldn't be anyone coming after you. Hope this helps! :)
Can we get an F in the chat for Kris' lack of programmer badge even now
Sincerely, though, an active goal in the discord is to provide a place for comfortable, casual discussion (especially thanks to Don Honchkrorleone making a constant effort to welcome newbies). It should be one of the least unapproachable environments; the majority of people in there hardly even participate in 'mons proper as HoennHero was saying. It's certainly a bit of a close-knit friend group that can be awkward to chat in at first, but lurking certainly helps in acclimating to the "mood" of the room. Before you know it, you're hooked, like my friend Lee who mostly was just curious about politics in there at first.
I am a recent joiner of this community, having only been here for a few months, and I feel like I have had almost none of the issues you seem to face. The people above have made excellent points, and i advise the same as they. It is intimidating to be in a community that is so active with so many people, and i do agree that the login and register interface is seriously fucked up. It's not intuitive by any means, and your idea of a login/register screen as the home page makes a lot of sense. As for the autoconfirmed part, it should not be hard for you to get autoconfirmed. Just wait a week, play some randbats, and you will be confirmed. (there should be better autoconfirming methods, i agree, perhaps running it by a moderator in a special confirming chat room or smth).
You can play as little or as much as you like. I play a lot, but i know some friends that prefer to just sit back in their armchairs and debate the meta, or just are here for art or whatever.
As for the mechanics, I don't think most people know all the mechanics. I still fuck up with priority in psychic terrain nearly constantly. Also, the somewhat toxic behavior is (mostly) confined to the low ladder.
How do I receive notifications for when I'm tagged in a thread?
I have all of the options for alerts checked in preferences.
I have all of the options for alerts checked in preferences.
Check the top right of the window. Next to your name there's a thing that says "Messages" and "Alerts". Messages are PMs, Alerts are thread tags. Note that if you post and edit in a tag afterwards, it links but doesn't notify the user.
Ah okay thank you, I think it's that I'm getting tagged in edits because I have received alerts for being tagged before.
Is there a way to calc Heavy Slam BP in chat?
You'll have to use the damage calc.
A few, though the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Battle-by-Post forum.
Can someone please link me to some battle ready pokemon sets? Im looking for a very competitive team for ultra moon
here, you just need to search for the Pokémon you want
How does one become a moderator or forum leader?