Data State of the Game - 8/7/2011

[Deck Knight]

Taunt: The Pokemon taunts and sneers at the opponent, enraging the opponent and making them only capable of using attacking moves for the following 6 (six) actions. If the Pokemon is unable to witness the Taunt, like if it is asleep, the move fails; a Pokemon being ordered to look away does not make it fail.

Attack Power: -- | Accuracy: 100% | Energy Cost: 10 | Attack Type Other: | Effect Chance: -- | Typing: Dark | Priority: 0 | CT: Passive

Anyone allowing Chills or Commands during Taunt is not following the description.

2. Sluggish is not negated by STAB.

RE: Low Energy

How do you propose to Energy KO anything if you cannot use an attack without the Energy?

RE: Perish Song

One possible solution would be to lower its priority to -1, which lets all Taunt Pokemon be able to stop it (unless they are Taunted) without crushing the several Pokemon that have it as one of their few good qualities (Wigglytuff, Jynx). Perish Song can also require the Pokemon have the energy to use it, and it (like Explosion/Selfdestruct) could have its EC bumped up to 20. Perish Song used on the last action of a round also shouldn't begin counting down until the end of the next round, as it's a global effect, but that can be explicitly stated.

RE: Dodge

Dodge is fine as it is. The Volcarona example is absurd, Volcarona is bloody huge. That being said it's true the low speed mons who are small might be able to benefit, but I really don't want to get into something like a "size class" as an additional stat. You ever seen Durant? Pixies? There's a lot of small mons with plenty of punch, though if someone can convince me otherwise I'm amenable.

RE: Endure

Endure already costs 15 EN, if you use it and get down to 1 Energy, it takes 2 Chills before you can use it again, and you aren't actually attacking during the Endure action.

RE: Gyms:

The tourney is still going on, and as far as all the "work", much of it has been done behind my back and I'm not particularly appreciative. Especially when it started off as something Unofficial. Don't rub salt in the wound, please.

Now for some proposals:

Priority blocking:

I have considered at length the use of priority moves as evasive and don't like it, however I have of late been thinking of a viable way to block for another Pokemon. Essentially what it would be is a combination of a priority move and BodyBlock that specifies an opposing target and a mon to protect for. The Pokemon then Bodyblocks for the initial action and the cool down phase. (E.g. Aqua Jet + Bodyblock [Opponent A] for [Ally Y])

Substitution tiering:

After some discussion on the number of allowed substitutions, I have come to accept the argument that two substitutions is overpowered for Pokemon just starting out, but only one substitution against strong Pokemon with large movepools is too weak. I also believe that substitutions should be a hard and fast rule so that neither player can complain about the other or the ref because of the substitution rule.

Therefore I propose a substitution tiering system based on the strength of the individual Pokemon in the match.

One Substitution:

• Pokemon with a total of 14 or less in their Original Ranks regardless of moves, except Smeargle.
• Pokemon with a total of 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank), with 30 or less moves.

Two Substitutions:

• Smeargle with 20 or more moves.
• Pokemon with 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 30 moves. (ex. Pidgeot, Nidoking, Alakazam, Noctowl, Girafarig, Mismagius)
  Pokemon with 19 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 25 moves. (Ex. Machamp, Gengar, Staraptor, Magnezone, Excadrill, Conkeldurr)
• Pokemon with 20 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 20 moves. (Ex. Cyclohm, Steelix, Tyranitar, Salamence, Emboar)

 

[Objection]

RE: Low Energy

How do you propose to Energy KO anything if you cannot use an attack without the Energy?

Simple. The pokemon uses all of its remaining energy to attack, the attack fails (or maybe does a fraction of the damage it normally would), the pokemon faints.

And Deck, you missed the point about sluggishness completely! Unless you're saying that Adaptability Porygon-Z can't alternate between Hyper Beam and Tri Attack (the latter of which is 9 BP) ...

 

[zarator]

There's a whole shitload of numbers here, and yet they are all irrelevant. The point of the nerf is this.

A player should not auto-lose to Perish Song because he didn't bring in one of the few (yes when you're talking 600+ Pokemon, 80 counts as few) Pokemon capable of beating it.

I personally like to use Breloom and Aggron. They're entirely solid and pretty good Pokemon. However, they don't have U-Turn or Volt Switch, and Aggron's Taunt is balls slow (and Breloom doesn't have it at all). Should I insta-lose to Perish Song because I'm carrying these two Pokemon?

It's not 80 out of 600+ mons, as I'm taking into account only fully evolved Pokémon. Not counting legendaries, and counting CAPs, fully evolved Pokémon are 312. So they aren't a few.

And yes, I know that if someone has the same position of yours, he won't change idea no matter how many mons I can show beating Perish Song. But I'm sure there are many people out of the detractors of Perish Song who take into account Perish Song's supposed lack of an acceptable number of ways for dealing with it. I want to ask to these people if 49.7% of the Pokédex is enough counters to you. People like SDS will tell me it is not objective, as only "none" or "all" are objective value to them. It's a perfectly acceptable way of seeing the question. I just wanted to point how, for those who didn't knew or merely guesstimated it, how many ways you have to deal with Perish Song.

 

[Gerard]

RE: Endure

Endure already costs 15 EN, if you use it and get down to 1 Energy, it takes 2 Chills before you can use it again, and you aren't actually attacking during the Endure action.

you're attacking on the next two actions and who cares if you faint afterwards if you can deal enormous damage to your opponent (more if it's their second mon), combos just make this even easier to abuse

 

[Pallas Athena]

Uh... size has nothing to do with Dodge.

The point is, Jirachi also has a 4% chance. Size has nothing to do with it, and it was never proposed. My point is, I gave two alternatives: allow more moves to dodge, or make the speed based dodge command capable of doing something. Size was never a factor.

 

[Deck Knight]

Simple. The pokemon uses all of its remaining energy to attack, the attack fails (or maybe does a fraction of the damage it normally would), the pokemon faints.

And Deck, you missed the point about sluggishness completely! Unless you're saying that Adaptability Porygon-Z can't alternate between Hyper Beam and Tri Attack (the latter of which is 9 BP) ...

So a particular mon can alternate between two moves that never hit for SE damage? Tri Attack also only has 8 BAP, so you're wrong on your facts as well. Porygon-Z having powerful Normal STAB is what Porygon-Z does. It's not getting a nerf because someone decided not to to use Protect or Substitute against the stronger of the attacks. HBeam already has a goodly Energy Cost (9 after STAB) and 90% Acc. A perfect move it ain't.

As far as the IRC conversations, I'm not going to entertain basing Sluggish on Energy Cost.

RE: Evasion in general

I hate Evasion. Period.

I do not intend on implementing any more proposals on evasion. Just deal with it. You already have Protect, Detect, Double Team, Agility, Mimimize, and Dodge Command, with Fast Guard and Wide Guard having niche uses. And Accuracy lowering moves, technically. Stop making proposals for evasive everything. The refs have enough RNGs to roll already.

 

[Athenodoros]

One Substitution:

• Pokemon with a total of 14 or less in their Original Ranks regardless of moves, except Smeargle.
• Pokemon with a total of 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank), with 30 or less moves.

Two Substitutions:

• Smeargle with 20 or more moves.
• Pokemon with 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 30 moves. (ex. Pidgeot, Nidoking, Alakazam, Noctowl, Girafarig, Mismagius)
  Pokemon with 19 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 25 moves. (Ex. Machamp, Gengar, Staraptor, Magnezone, Excadrill, Conkeldurr)
• Pokemon with 20 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 20 moves. (Ex. Cyclohm, Steelix, Tyranitar, Salamence, Emboar)

Just going to say that this is a bad idea. It is punishing people for buffing up movepools with those semi-good attacks at the end. The number of attacks that a Pokemon has at the time shouldn't be a factor.

 

[Deck Knight]

[/LIST]Just going to say that this is a bad idea. It is punishing people for buffing up movepools with those semi-good attacks at the end. The number of attacks that a Pokemon has at the time shouldn't be a factor.

The number of attacks is a proxy. Most mons have something on the order of 14 moves to start after you include the 3 Egg and 3 TM choices. By the time you flesh out a level-up movepool you're up to about 25. Once you hit 30 moves you're already making more selective competitive choices like Protect, Sub, Bide, etc. My Gastrodon for example has exactly 25 moves and I've been building it up for a bit, and it has the whole suite of Toxic/Protect/Sub/Weather/Coverage attacks and it still doesn't qualify for two substitutitions because its Rank Sum is 18. My Steelix is probably my most built up and it hit 33 only after my most recent shopping spree.

While it probably would be easier to qualify with say "two of Protect/Disable/Bide/Taunt" I don't think it'd be the best tracking mechanism.

 

[Pikapwnd]

Low Energy - I believe that its possible to pull of attacks as a last ditch effort. When your on the verge of passing out and then you push through you surprise yourself. (Experience moshing tells me this) However Leaving one energy and pulling off a gamebreaking perish song, explosion, Hyper Beam, Etc.

The percentile damage thing is nice, But it doesnt deal with my experience its just personal, but maybe force a cap on what moves can be used. An energy cap of 10, or something similar you all like is what I'm game for.



Endure - I have little problem with endure as most pokes pack some form of status or indirect damage, and pretty much all can learn.

Dodging - I think Creative dodging is great, using the map, whatever. But the dodge command is bull. And regardless to Deck's opinion, this is huge now, and one man regardless of him being the creator gives him the right to determine one thing on his own. I am not discrediting Deck's opinion, I understand that if we start allowing evasion en mass, that it will make this game a energy stall war. Which would be homo, but the dodge command should alteast be viable as a last ditch effort. Either that or get rid of it instead of tricking bad players into doing it. (as frosty mentions below)

Maybe create a formula that gives two pokemon with equal speed a 25% Chance. and for every X points faster than the opposing poke it gains a percent, maxing out at 50%. Same with lower speed, reaching a minimum of 10%. But also Creating a hefty energy cost. What that would be would require alot of theorymon and testing.

Perish Song - No poblem with this

Substitution tiering:

After some discussion on the number of allowed substitutions, I have come to accept the argument that two substitutions is overpowered for Pokemon just starting out, but only one substitution against strong Pokemon with large movepools is too weak. I also believe that substitutions should be a hard and fast rule so that neither player can complain about the other or the ref because of the substitution rule.

Therefore I propose a substitution tiering system based on the strength of the individual Pokemon in the match.





One Substitution:

• Pokemon with a total of 14 or less in their Original Ranks regardless of moves, except Smeargle.
• Pokemon with a total of 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank), with 30 or less moves.

Two Substitutions:

• Smeargle with 20 or more moves.
• Pokemon with 18 or less in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 30 moves. (ex. Pidgeot, Nidoking, Alakazam, Noctowl, Girafarig, Mismagius)
  Pokemon with 19 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 25 moves. (Ex. Machamp, Gengar, Staraptor, Magnezone, Excadrill, Conkeldurr)
• Pokemon with 20 or more in their Original Ranks (convert HP and Speed to a Rank) with more than 20 moves. (Ex. Cyclohm, Steelix, Tyranitar, Salamence, Emboar)

Dont Like this idea at all.



and Gyms - YAY! I got you guys a cookie

 

[Frosty]

1) Perish Song
I never was on the end of it except against a last pokemon and I still find it ridiculous. The movepool argument is void simply because Gengar has it (Kitsunoh too is very common, but I'll stick with Gengar for this argument).

You know, Gengar, the probably most used pokemon (or close to it) CAP ASB has to offer. With its insane movepool, you can easily stall 3 rounds with Hypnosis (with a positive nature), Protect, Disable and Pain Split alone (also confuse ray if you feel ballsy). And if you have another pokemon and your Gengar is weak you can just stall 2 rounds, sacrifice Gengar and watch as your opponent has absolutely no way of winning.

Also, on last round pokemon situation, or when you don't have a pokemon to switch to, a semi-relevant, yet irritating situation occurs: You can't win unless you have like...deoxys-a on your team (or if the opponent doesn't feel like stalling). If you are on a 3 vs 3 triples where you only have 2 moves per round, your chances of winning is pretty much none (Yes I am looking at you Athenodoros). So if you are worse than your opponent you'll lose (team-wise or decision-wise or in whatever sense of the word "worse" that suits your beliefs best), but if you are better you'll draw? What the hell?

I do know that win/loss records are useless and all, but it is STILL a forced tie that doesn't reflect the match's outcome. An extremely frustating tie if I may add.

"But you can Taunt/Whirlwind/Roar"

And you can haze Moody boosts ingame and it is still ridiculous. Whirlwind and Roar are options limitated to doubles and triples and on them you still lose one poke (which means that Perish Song will still be DAMN useful). Also the same moves can be used by the gengar's partner to save the ghost to Perish Song later or to just attack (vast movepool + great Spa = Very good pokemon), so that point works both ways.

As for Taunt...really? See the main users of Perish Song (Gengar and Kitsunoh). I will give you 2 cents if you tell me what they have in common. If you say "high speed" you are right. A move isn't less broken just because Whismiscott can maybe counter it if it happens to be out and with taunt.

So yeah, I approve of the "if the user of Perish Song faints, the effects vanish" proposal. Effusively. I mean, if you are going to use Perish Song, at least be forced to stall the entire 3 rounds, like ingame (I still find it OP on Gengar, and would prefer also a time extension, but beggars can't be choosers).

2) Endure

I like the "2 actions instead of 3" proposal, but I don't really have a formed opinion about this.

3) Energy and final attacks

On my reffings I do like Korski and just make the attack deal proportional damage. If the move has variable energy cost (like protect or pain split) I make it act like if the situation asked only for the energy the poke has (now that sentence was horrible, let's try one example):

Let's say you have a Dusclops with 20hp and 20 energy facing a quilava with 80hp. A normal Pain Split would exchange 30hp to each pokemon for 26 energy. But since Dusclops has only 20 energy, it's Pain Split will act in a way that it spends exactly 20 energy. Since the formula is 6 + hpdifference/3, you will need the hp difference to be 42 for the result to be 20 energy. A hp difference of 42hp means 21hp to each pokemon, so that is the end result. Dusclops goes to 41hp and 0 energy and Quilava goes to 59hp.

Or something like that.

But yeah, I feel that the damage should be proportional, or else the players that prefer to energy stall will have to face "Explosion + Explosion Combo" or "Pain Split" wondering why did they chose such a bad strategy.

4) Taunt

Fine as is

Dodge

...to be honest, if the intention is making dodge suck, just forbid it. At least that way me as a ref can say "you can't dodge, please change your actions" instead of "thanks to dodge your evasion increased by 1%...yeah the move still hit and you wasted an action".

Codify Rounding

Do it plz. Every ref does his/her way and it doesn't seem that any option will prevail anytime soon. Different kinds of rounding mean that the battle is less predictable and this is something we should avoid. Pokemon is unstable enough as is.

 

[Deck Knight]

Dodging - I think Creative dodging is great, using the map, whatever. But the dodge command is bull. And regardless to Deck's opinion, this is huge now, and one man regardless of him being the creator gives him the right to determine one thing on his own. I am not discrediting Deck's opinion, I understand that if we start allowing evasion en mass, that it will make this game a energy stall war. Which would be homo, but the dodge command should alteast be viable as a last ditch effort.

Maybe create a formula that gives two pokemon with equal speed a 25% Chance. and for every X points faster than the opposing poke it gains a percent, maxing out at 50%. Same with lower speed, reaching a minimum of 10%. But also Creating a hefty energy cost. What that would be would require alot of theorymon and testing.

You can already make a 75% chance to dodge an opponent as a last ditch effort. It's called Double Team (3 clones). Every Pokemon in the game (with a select few with no TM access) can do it, and it works against every single target combination (which tend to be the most powerful outside the suicide combinations). If you succeed, you will then have a 33% chance to dodge the next attack due to the destruction of your clone.

Alternatively if your mon has it, you can use Agility to dodge a single target attack once.

Alternatively you can use Protect or Detect and dodge any attack at a larger Energy Cost.

If you happen to be a much faster Pokemon with a +Speed nature, say a Weavile, your BASE chance to succeed with a dodge command against an opponent with equal speed is 24% (on a 100% accurate move, since Dodge actually subtracts from the opponent's base accuracy, it actually gets stronger against less accurate moves). The Dodge Command was designed with faster Pokemon in mind, after all. That people want it to be as immediately powerful as Protect is something I've shot down time and time again.

Furthermore, I am the game master, and I am responsible for game balance. My opinion does in fact rule the day, and I use the SotGs primarily to gauge the concerns of the players, not because I think this game should be a democracy.

It isn't. It is a benign dictatorship. It has to be, otherwise if the faction that hates combos and wants to nullify them gains power or the faction that hates evasion and wants to nerf all evasive actions gains power, the rules of the game are inconsistently applied over time. I'm aiming for continuous improvement, and continuous improvement requires direction and the willingness to say no.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

In terms of codifying rounding, I'd say don't round until the end of a round. That is, if you attack 3 times for 17.5 damage, you'll do 52.5 (53) damage instead of 18 x 3 (54).

So basically, add including decimals, then round at the end of the round.

Also... rounding .5 up or down?

 

[zarator]

@Frosty: I think that, if the tie is forced because the Perish Song user brought both to death, there should be some sort of self KO clause which gives the win to the other, you're right on this (although I don't see it as a fault of PS more than of our current WLT policy).

And also, I agree with DK about evasion.

 

[Elevator Music]

In terms of codifying rounding, I'd say don't round until the end of a round. That is, if you attack 3 times for 17.5 damage, you'll do 52.5 (53) damage instead of 18 x 3 (54).

So basically, add including decimals, then round at the end of the round.

Also... rounding .5 up or down?

I like the idea of this (although I am also not opposed to just rounding every calc .5 up). Literally the only problem I can think of is Substitute. What do you do if an attack does 14.5 (or 14.25 etc) when your opponent has a Substitute with 15 HP? Or 24.5/etc with a 25 HP Substitute? It doesn't seem completely 'fair' to have it do (essentially) 14 or 15 damage in that case...

If there is a good solution to that that people can for the most part agree with, I wouldn't mind rounding that way. Although, like I said, I wouldn't mind rounding every calc either.

 

[Gerard]

In terms of codifying rounding, I'd say don't round until the end of a round. That is, if you attack 3 times for 17.5 damage, you'll do 52.5 (53) damage instead of 18 x 3 (54).

So basically, add including decimals, then round at the end of the round.

Also... rounding .5 up or down?

I gotta say, this is an interesting proposal, Arceus knows i've had some calcs where, because of rounding, a pokemon fainted, this is something I actually think I'll apply at least in a couple of matches to see how it goes, my only concern is when 1 point really matters and can't wait 'till the end of the round (a pokemon fainting, a substitute braking, a substitution being triggered), but otherwise it seems like a nice silution

 

[Pallas Athena]

24% dodge? I thought the dodge command was the passive evasion formula I designed in the SotG we made the command, (user speed-attacker speed)/5.

In that case, it's still a 0% chance to dodge something with equal speed. In fact, a +speed Weavile would only get a 25% evaion chance if the Pokemon had 44 speed that was attacking it. Did I miss the command being changed?

And yes, I do support the abolition of the dodge command at this point if it is indeed the formula I outlined above. Only Ninkask can even get a 25% chance reliably, and it is just a trap for new players who assume it works like the anime.

And surpsingly, the dodge command actually saves the ref RNG rolls If it works successfully on quite a few moves (all with a secondary effect). Of course, that's off-topic.

As for Perish Song, I still like my old proposal:

Make it nine actions. Literally 14 FE, and only 2ASB OU iirc, Pokemon can use it. Almost all of them are frail enough to be killed quite quickly, leaving the way open to finish off or seriously injure the next Pokemon. And, as zarator put it, you can pick what counter you switch into a mon that is likely to use Perish Song. And honestly, I try to have at least one taunter, and it normally works out a U-turner, in longer battles. And seriously, if you see you're facing someone with one of the 14 Pokemon who knows Perish Song, bring something to deal with it.


On one final note, this is turning into a debate oddly matching "Ban Sand Veil."
I don't care about Jynx or Cacturne. The elephant in the room is Gengar. And Gengar will not be hurt by crippling one option. He still has, among other things, Destiny Bond, Explosion, and Toxic to hurt the next Pokemon. Nerfing PSong will do nothing.

tl;dr Remove Dodge, Perish Song should be slightly nerfed, but still viable. And stop acting like we aren't talking about Gengar.

EDIT: Ouch. Never saw that. And to be fair, I research most of my claims. I just thought I knew the dodge command, writing the initial formula and all. As for my inconsistency, I want to remove a trap that new players often fall into, or make it viable. Since the latter is impossible, I would prefer to go for the former.

 

[Objection]

I like the idea of this (although I am also not opposed to just rounding every calc .5 up). Literally the only problem I can think of is Substitute. What do you do if an attack does 14.5 (or 14.25 etc) when your opponent has a Substitute with 15 HP? Or 24.5/etc with a 25 HP Substitute? It doesn't seem completely 'fair' to have it do (essentially) 14 or 15 damage in that case...

If a rounding literally makes the difference between life or death for the targeted pokemon or its substitute, I'd always rule in favour of life, even if it's 14.999 damage against a 15 HP substitute.

Quite how you achieve exactly 14.999 damage I do not know, but still ...

 

[Deck Knight]

Rediamond:

We have the formula up. It isn't esoteric knowledge.

If you aren't even going to bother doing the research before you expound, why are you wasting everyone's time?

Dodge: The Pokemon uses its innate speed and evasiveness to dodge an opponent's attack. Dodge reduces an incoming attack’s accuracy by (User’s Speed - Opponent’s Speed) / 5. In Trick Room, the effect is reversed; an incoming attack’s accuracy is reduced by ((User’s Speed - Opponent’s Speed) * -1) / 5. The accuracy boost from a +Spe nature is added directly to the Dodge command's accuracy reduction (e.g. +20 accuracy will result in dodge adding +20 to its oncoming accuracy reduction.). If a move's accuracy would be increased by the Dodge command, the Dodge command instead simply fails and the move has normal accuracy.

Command Type: Universal | Accuracy: -- | Energy Cost: 5 | Priority: 4 | CT: None

Seriously, you oscillate between demanding more evasion, then you want to shut down one of the forms of evasion currently available (one that needn't necessarily be, but was implemented in part BECAUSE a bunch of people were trying to do "evasive xyz"). Pick something and stick to it. Don't whine about it for being useless when you show an ignorance if its mechanics, despite those mechanics being public knowledge.

I apologize if my posts make it look like I'm in a bad mood, but seriously - don't be down on yourself for being unpopular when you routinely don't make the effort to understand the game.

RE: Rounding:

I support making any instance of .5 or greater round up for that action. Substitute is powerful enough to where those rounding instances will make a difference and weaken Substitute. It also stresses that ASB is designed to reward offense in general.

 

[jas61292]

OK, so I want to make one more point on dodging. Dodging has and always will be an important part of battling in the Pokemon Anime. As this is Anime Style Battling, we like to take that into account. However, we know not all things can be made exactly like the anime, for various reasons.

However, the reasons for not having a reasonable dodging move do not seem very valid to me. I'm sorry Deck, but while I respect most of the decisions you make for this game, your reasons in this case just don't seem like they have much to back them up. I understand that you are the game master, and that this is not a democracy, and I understand why that is necessary. Yet I only see two real reasons that you have brought up for not entertaining the desire for a better dodge.

First is that there are alternatives. I agree with this. However, that does not mean that we should not have a good dodge. There are alternatives to every move or command, but the existence of alternatives does not justify the removal of something. If something exists we should allow it. And by allow it I do not mean say it exists but make it so bad that no one in their right mind would use it. It should be at least decent such that it merits consideration, just as it does in the anime.

The only other reason you really brought up though was this:

RE: Evasion in general

I hate Evasion. Period.

As I have said, I respect your authority, but to me this seems like more of a personal grudge than a decision made with the quality of the game in mind. It just seems to me that there are many people who would like to see dodge be usable, and very few who think it would be harmful. Having game mechanics (even just one) decided due to personal bias would not be a good way for this game to develop.

That being said, I do not have any specific ideas for how I would want it to be changed. A changed formula would be nice, but just allowing certain moves that involve speed to be codified to allow dodging would also work. To be quite honest I don't really care how it is done. All I know is that the current system is just plain stupid.

 

[Deck Knight]

So what you're saying jas is:

Protect, Detect, Double Team, Agility, Minimize, Fast Guard, Wide Guard, and a Dodge Command based on speed are not enough for evasive options.

I just want to be absolutely clear that all of the actual moves in the game that evade attacks, plus an Anime-based interpretation of the moves Double Team and Agility, and the Dodge Command which I added for these reasons:

1. Give a further boost to faster Pokemon with +Spe Natures.
2. Give a further purpose for pure speed boosting attacks, given the Dodge Command calculates using actual speeds.
3. Avoid idiocy exactly of this kind that demands ever more evasion and attempts to re-codify what the Anime "Dodge it!" hallmark should do.

Means I have insufficiently considered the canon I'm working with and am operating without the interests of game balance in mind.

I want to be absolutely clear that this is your argument.

Because I find your very premise to be ludicrous. Evasion is a very dangerous element of any game. In the cartridges your only options are Double Team and Minimize for true evasion. In the Anime "Dodge it!" does not have any clear hard and fast rules for success or failure, it just sort of happens, and thus is impossible even for an avid watcher to objectively analyze.

Therefore I have sought to codify it in a manner that greatly favors fast Pokemon using speed boosting natures that have speed boosting attacks, and alternatively reverse such an advantage under Trick Room, though usually to a lesser extent.

You say you want the dodge command to be reasonable. It is already rational - and therefore in my opinion reasonable by extension. Reasonable does not mean "what the user wants it to do in any given battle." There can only be one interpretation for the command in order for it to be refereed properly. Moreover because it is a command, it should not be comparable in power to any of the existing attacks whose purpose it duplicates.

You can already get the effect you want on most attacks with Double Team. Even 1 clone will get you a 50/50 shot for a pittance at 4 EC. Pony up the 2 TC. It doesn't have priority? Use Protect or Detect. It will cost you more energy, but it will spare you the damage. Even greater still, if the attack is blocked by Fast Guard or Wide Guard, you can also get away unscathed for relatively cheap, as these attacks do not increase Energy Cost based on the damage they avoid. What if you don't have those, but the attack is single-target normal priority attack and has an accuracy? Maybe you have Agility, which will also allow you to avoid it at a low energy cost, though you won't get a Speed boost. Have none of the above (difficult given Protect and Double Team have nearly unlimited distribution)? Well, if you're naturally quick or have a +Spe nature, you can always gamble on Dodge.

Are you going to now say I didn't consider the balance of the game, or the anime? If so, I have nothing nice to say to you, and it would be better not to pursue the subject further. Each evasive move works on different targets in different ways. Protect casts the widest net, Double Team can last the most actions, and the rest of them are more limited either by distribution or target but are cheaper.

As an addendum, this is actually why I floated a "size class" idea, since smaller mons like Weedle/Caterpie et al should in general be able to dodge better than lumbering brutes like Conkeldurr and Aggron, despite having similar Base Speeds.

 

[Fire Blast]

I'm not going to bother posting the other stuff because everything has already been said, or there is no point in sharing my opinion.

However, I will suggest something for the subreffing system of ASB, which seems to have a problem.

Right now, the amount of RC given to a subref is based on the amount of KOes. While often this is a fine system, there are many cases in which this has, and could go wrong. The problem is that the amount of KOes reffed does not accuratly display the work done by a ref. A KO can take 1 action, or 30 actions. For example, in a 2v2 Singles, a subref could ref the last action and recieve half the tokens of the battle. However, this is clearly not representive of the work done by a subref.

What I suggest is awarding RC using the percentage of rounds reffed by the subref, and the total amont of RC given from the battle. So a subref who reffed 4 rounds of a 6 round 2v2 Doubles, would recieve 2/3 (4/6) of the counter. The amont given would always be rounded normally. 2/3 * 4 = 2.66 ~ 3. The subref would recieve three ref counters, and the original ref would recieve one.

tl;dr

Equation for RC given to subref: [Rounds subreffed/Rounds in the battle] * Amount of RC given out from the battle. (Rounded normally)
Equation for RC given to original ref: [Amount of RC given out from the battle] - [Amount of RC given to the subref]

Also, as a user of Minimze, I think that it could use some fixing up.

Also, Minimize is broken. Permanent +2 evasion? You've got to be kidding.

 

[jas61292]

No Deck, I am not saying that all those moves aren't enough. But just because they are enough does not mean we should stop there. I could say Hyper Beam, Tri Attack, Return and Double-Edge are enough Normal moves, but that does not mean we should disregard all others. As dodging is an important part of anime battling, I believe that saying that we should not have it because we have enough similar things to be a ridiculous concept.

Looking at your argument there, one thing really stands out to me:

Evasion is a very dangerous element of any game.

I have argued in many different places that evasion is not nearly as powerful (in regular Pokemon battling) as people make it out to be. The truth is that people don't like missing. But is it actually any good? Not really. Sure, skilled players can use it well, but the same goes for anything. Yet the simple fact is that it is part of Pokemon, and should be treated as such.

Now I will agree that it is not easy to codify dodging, and despite having seen nearly every episode of the anime, I could probably not even come up with a general success rate for it. The problem I have is that whatever that rate is, it is significantly higher than what the current formula allows. I don't know about that Vulcarona example being thrown around, but I have personally used the dodge command, with a Pokemon with a +Speed Nature, who was faster than the opponent, only to have a 6% success rate. I just cannot believe that this is a rational formula.

Basically, to summarize, I am not saying there are not alternatives, or that it needs to be overpowering, but the current for of dodge is just not as rational as you say.

Just from briefly looking it over, I think that all that really needs to be done is to reduce the 5 in the formula to a lower number, and raise energy appropriately. If it is balanced in this way, alternatives should not even be taken into account.

Additionally, I believe that +Speed Nature really doesn't belong in the dodge formula. Dodging should be based on speed compared to your opponent, not speed compared to other members of your species.

 

[Blazikenmaster-Zeo]

I think that Blast's Idea is competely fair, and subref's do get the short end of the stick too, seeing as you could ref 7 rounds but only get 2RC or whatever cause only one pokemon was KO'd where as a normal match where you would recieve 2RC a 1v1 would only last 3-4 at most sometimes, unless setting up is happening.

td;dr, I agree with Blast and more people would subref if they knew they'd get fair amounts of counters.

 

[Deck Knight]

No Deck, I am not saying that all those moves aren't enough. But just because they are enough does not mean we should stop there.

Actually yes, yes it does mean we should "stop there" when we have exhausted every single evasive move in the game, plus adding a few based on their Anime counterparts.

I could say Hyper Beam, Tri Attack, Return and Double-Edge are enough Normal moves, but that does not mean we should disregard all others. As dodging is an important part of anime battling, I believe that saying that we should not have it because we have enough similar things to be a ridiculous concept.

Dodging is not and never has been "important" to the extent you are making it out to be. You want the Dodge Command to have an effect it presently does not for no reason other than you, personally don't find it rational. You don't think it complies with what you think the anime does with dodging, when you yourself submit you could not come up with a rate for it.

I have argued in many different places that evasion is not nearly as powerful (in regular Pokemon battling) as people make it out to be. The truth is that people don't like missing. But is it actually any good? Not really. Sure, skilled players can use it well, but the same goes for anything. Yet the simple fact is that it is part of Pokemon, and should be treated as such.

I didn't say evasion was powerful, I said it was dangerous. As in it is dangerous to make a universal way to evade attacks that is consistently as good as attacks designed canonically for that purpose.

Now I will agree that it is not easy to codify dodging, and despite having seen nearly every episode of the anime, I could probably not even come up with a general success rate for it. The problem I have is that whatever that rate is, it is significantly higher than what the current formula allows. I don't know about that Vulcarona example being thrown around, but I have personally used the dodge command, with a Pokemon with a +Speed Nature, who was faster than the opponent, only to have a 6% success rate. I just cannot believe that this is a rational formula.

I'll want a link for that, since the only way a +Spe nature would result in a 6 point evasion drop is if you were a very slow Pokemon dodging a Pokemon with 5 less Base Speed. If you believe a 6 point drop in such a scenario is unbearably low, you aren't operating in good faith.

I am not buffing the Dodge Command because you found it insufficiently useful against a foe that by all rights you should not have a good chance of dodging just by ordering "Dodge".

Basically, to summarize, I am not saying there are not alternatives, or that it needs to be overpowering, but the current for of dodge is just not as rational as you say.

Just from briefly looking it over, I think that all that really needs to be done is to reduce the 5 in the formula to a lower number, and raise energy appropriately. If it is balanced in this way, alternatives should not even be taken into account.

The entire point of Dodge is that it is a Command, meaning universal, meaning weaker than Attacks. This is a feature, not a bug. If there is ever any attack (or a command in this case ffs) that is powerful enough that its alternatives need not be taken into account, that attack (or command) is by definition overpowered. Dodge is a speed based evasive command with a low energy cost. If you want an evasive action that is more reliable but costs higher energy, you have both Protect and Double Team.

Additionally, I believe that +Speed Nature really doesn't belong in the dodge formula. Dodging should be based on speed compared to your opponent, not speed compared to other members of your species.

The formula specifically states it uses your speed and the opponent's speed. The +Spe nature bonus is a benefit given in exchange for a lower offensive or defensive stat.

tl;dr

Dodge Command isn't changing. It is balanced precisely the way I want it to be and I spent a good amount of time developing it.

 

[jas61292]

OK, fine. I still don't completely agree, but I will just stop pushing the issue as obviously nothing here will change.

I believe most of the arguments for both sides have really been personal opinion and interpretation, and my main disagreement is on how effective it should be, which of course is really subjective. I feel the current formula is not just weaker than normal attacks, but overly weak and utterly useless, and simply there so it can be said to exist. You seem to feel differently. There is nothing I can do about that.


Also, about the example I gave, you picked it out exactly. In fact, the difference was even less than you assumed. It was my Ditto (55) dodging a move from a Tynamo (53). Basically, what I am trying to say is that while you obviously think dodging here would be irrational, I think it should still at least have a shot at working. Once again, this is purely opinion. It makes sense to me, based on anime precedent, but from a pure numbers standpoint, I can see why you would think it ridiculous.

(Oh, and just so you know, I didn't dodge with any actual hope of evading the move. I did it because Thunder Wave was being used and I needed an excuse not to Transform right away, so that Limber would negate it. I hold no personal resentment about its failure in this situation).