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Team Ethics

sagacious

I wasn't sure where this should go, so I'm putting it here. If it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it!

Is it wrong to use a team someone else made?

I can see how it would be, but:
1) How would you know how well a team works in the current metagame without giving it a try? Not everything works like it does on paper.
2) Smogon has a pretty comprehensive listing of movesets, so what is the difference between copying one Pokemon and copying five or six?

I tried looking for rules that discuss this but I found nothing. If it's an obvious issue of plagiarism, then how much unique material should be in a team for it to be acceptable?
 
There isn't really anything stopping you fromm using someone esle's team, and it doesnt really make much of a difference to be honest. Of course, if all you ever did was use others' metagame defining team to reach the top spots then maybe you might be looked down upon (I suppose), but I really don't see why others would bother you if you did.

Its generally helpful to use someones team on the ladder when youre starting out a new tier, especially metagames completely alien to you. In those cases, you get a feel for what Pokemon work for you, see the commonly used sets and mons, and particularly the common threats that seem to sweep you every game. Later you can then base your own team around some idea which you come across and become a good battler yourself.

So IMO its not really wrong to use someone esle's team, but there is an extent to which this is "acceptable".
 
i don't feel any guilt for using other people's teams, in fact i hardly ladder with my own teams, i usually use rotom, charge! and sugarless girl, the team makers have no problem with this and i usually get pretty high up the ladder with them :x
 
Now that I've started getting into new metagames (Ubers and NU) I take someone else's team to practice with and once I get a feel for it I'll make my own team.
 
sagacious said:
I wasn't sure where this should go, so I'm putting it here. If it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it!

Is it wrong to use a team someone else made?
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If the team has been published, no. If you reverse engineer the team from battling against it, that's probably still fine.

There are a couple of unlikely situations where it would be wrong to copy a team. One is if it has been sent to you (for example to request a rate) on the understanding that you will not copy it. The other, extremely outlandish, is if a team were patented.

1) How would you know how well a team works in the current metagame without giving it a try? Not everything works like it does on paper.
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Precisely. The only way to know how good a team is is to play with it.
2) Smogon has a pretty comprehensive listing of movesets, so what is the difference between copying one Pokemon and copying five or six?
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Synergy. You can't just throw any six Pokemon together and expect it to work.

While it is not wrong to copy teams, it may not be very helpful either. Team-building is a skill, and one you must learn if you wanna be the very best.
 
If people post their teams in the RMT forum, they have agreed that people might use it. If they didn't want it to be copied, they shouldn't have posted it in the first place.

Also, you might use the same team as someone else, but that doesn't mean you'll use it in the same way.
 
I don't see it as necessarily wrong to use someone else's team but I would say that if you do and you use it to achieve a high leaderboard rating it somewhat diminishes the accomplishment in comparison to if you had built the team yourself.
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with using another person's team as long as credit is given when asked whether or not the team is created by yourself or someone else.
 
There's nothing wrong with using another person's team, but if you ladder well with it it makes it somewhat less valid if you didn't make the team.

I use RMT teams sometimes, but I try to make at least one or two changes.
 
In my opinion, there isn't anything wrong with using someone else's team. Although, I would never use someone else's team in tournaments, events, or anything important due to respect. Even if someone did use someone else's team on me, I wouldn't insult or that person for using it. That would only make me ignorant.

If I used someone else's team in that manner and won a battle, I wouldn't add it to my record as "I've won." While in my philosophy, it doesn't matter if it's your team or not, what matters is how you use the team to win.
 
I see the issue as kind of being analogous to chess openings. There have been named variations on openings, and many people use them because they're very good "movesets" (literally) to use in chess games. Obviously if you have an unskilled player, once you get past opening theory they're toast, but a good player understands the concepts behind the openings, and uses their own skill to tweak the midgame depending on their own personal style or skill.

Similarly, players can copy other players' teams, but without being good battlers themselves, won't be able to use it effectively. If they -are- good players, they'll probably have their "aha" moments, and be able to win consistently with good teams. Additionally, through the course of their experience, they may end up modifying the team a bit. For example, find that they're losing to +1DDmences a lot, so they end up changing their Azelf to hold a focus scarf (for always outspeeding +1DDmence given Azelf has correct EVs).

I see nothing wrong with using other people's teams.
 
I like using others teams to test out new strategies, as well as learning new metagames in the case of UU and Ubers. I like to use some of the archive teams as well to see how well I personally can use them. I don't care if someone uses my team, although I doubt anyone would want to.
 
YJiang said:
I see the issue as kind of being analogous to chess openings. There have been named variations on openings, and many people use them because they're very good "movesets" (literally) to use in chess games. Obviously if you have an unskilled player, once you get past opening theory they're toast, but a good player understands the concepts behind the openings, and uses their own skill to tweak the midgame depending on their own personal style or skill.

Similarly, players can copy other players' teams, but without being good battlers themselves, won't be able to use it effectively. If they -are- good players, they'll probably have their "aha" moments, and be able to win consistently with good teams. Additionally, through the course of their experience, they may end up modifying the team a bit. For example, find that they're losing to +1DDmences a lot, so they end up changing their Azelf to hold a focus scarf (for always outspeeding +1DDmence given Azelf has correct EVs).

I see nothing wrong with using other people's teams.
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A focus scarf? Sounds cool. (kidding)

This is a good comparison.
 
Felix91 said:
There's nothing wrong with using another person's team, but if you ladder well with it it makes it somewhat less valid if you didn't make the team.

I use RMT teams sometimes, but I try to make at least one or two changes.
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I agree with Felix.
 
Thorns said:
i don't feel any guilt for using other people's teams, in fact i hardly ladder with my own teams, i usually use rotom, charge! and sugarless girl, the team makers have no problem with this and i usually get pretty high up the ladder with them :x
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I used to do that, but for some reason, my oown teams, despite being sub-par, work better than the expert's teams. That proves playstyle is far superior.
 
Felix91 said:
A focus scarf? Sounds cool. (kidding)

This is a good comparison.
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Haha totally meant choice scarf. I meant switching from focus sash to choice scarf to deal with the mence but was obviously thinking about both items when I was typing XD
 
Yeah, in certain circumstances I do use other people's teams, but I always ensure they give consent prior to using it. For example, when i was starting out in UU, I borrowed a team made by a highly regarded member, and he said he had no problem as I was getting to learn the metagame. Also, having never ventured into the stall playstyle, I borrowed a team from trickroom to learn the intricate details before making my own attempt at a team. I think learning by example, so to speak, is the best way to pick up a metagame/playstyle
 
Some players do better with their own teams because they have a particular type of strategy that they like to employ. For the most part, though, it just depends on the person and what they like. I find that customization is what makes pokemon so fun, but if you could care less about having made your own team, there is certainly nothing "unethical" about using someone else's team, unless they have specifically asked you not to (which would be pretty egotistical).
 
Black Budha covered everything there is to say here tbh. I remember when I used AP's birdie power team to get back into UU, and really, if someone say, posts a team in the RMT forum, he or she can't blame someone for copying it, since from that point on the team is open for public.
 
cantab said:
While it is not wrong to copy teams, it may not be very helpful either. Team-building is a skill, and one you must learn if you wanna be the very best.
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It's actually a common misconception I think that you have to learn yourself through playing with terrible teams how to make good ones. Quite the opposite in fact, playing with tried and true teams is actually more benificial to learning how to make your own teams because they already have the necessary synergy built in.

There are two variables when learning how to play Pokemon, prebattle teambuilding, and in battle strategy. When you take out one of those variables by using a team you KNOW is good, then you can begin to learn a hell of a lot faster. It's what I and a majority of tutors do with their tutees to help them learn the ropes of the game. Not only that, but some strategies may look really good on paper but be terrible in practice. When you have a team ready made for you, you can learn through practice what about the team is good, rather than always having to theorymon your way to a team.

I guess what I'm trying to say is using other people's teams can be a very helpful learning device for people struggling with the game.
 
Anything goes during a battle IMO, whether it's copying someone's team (I do it frequently and adjust it as I go), copying strategies, deliberately going for hax (you have no way to kill, go for an ice beam freeze!), and using the top pokemon of the tiers. I don't think a lot of people on smogon care about "OU whores" but I see it come up sometimes and it makes me cringe. If you don't use the pokemon available to you, you deserve to lose. They're top pokes for a reason ;)
 
LonelyNess said:
It's actually a common misconception I think that you have to learn yourself through playing with terrible teams how to make good ones. Quite the opposite in fact, playing with tried and true teams is actually more benificial to learning how to make your own teams because they already have the necessary synergy built in.

There are two variables when learning how to play Pokemon, prebattle teambuilding, and in battle strategy. When you take out one of those variables by using a team you KNOW is good, then you can begin to learn a hell of a lot faster. It's what I and a majority of tutors do with their tutees to help them learn the ropes of the game. Not only that, but some strategies may look really good on paper but be terrible in practice. When you have a team ready made for you, you can learn through practice what about the team is good, rather than always having to theorymon your way to a team.

I guess what I'm trying to say is using other people's teams can be a very helpful learning device for people struggling with the game.
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This is very true. When I first started playing competitively, I was on my own. I made countless subpar teams before learning what really worked and what didn't. However, when I taught my friend how to play, I gave him one of my tried and tested teams to start with. It took him about a month to match me in skill level, which had taken me about a year to get to.

I've never copied or used someone else's team, but I think it's completely fine. As a chess player, I agree with the analogy YJiang gave.
 
During some point in your experience, chances are you will have made a team including the exact six team members as someone else. I mean I sit back, think of six pokemon in my head to use and I will realise that a very similar build was posted by one of our community members already. So I may then discuss my idea with the user who originally built the team, and go from there.

Most members are "cool" with it anyway.
 
I ask because I used other peoples' teams to learn the ropes, and one of my opponents called me out on it. He said it was a bannable offense...

Glad to know you guys feel this way.
 
Wow, who was it? What a jerk.

I'm sure every player has at one point has taken inspiration from another, and if not an entire team, a Pokemon. There are countless examples of players, including myself, taking some new set of a Pokemon that kicked their ass on Shoddy and using it for themselves to good result.

Not much else to say, the other posters pretty much nailed it
 
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