The Action Replay debate.

[NC]

In the end, who the **** really cares? Those who use AR need to admit that its cheating. Those who don't need to get over themselves and and realize that a few extra stat points isn't going to make *that* much of a difference. If your team was beaten, it would have probably been beaten either way. And those that clone need to realize that exploiting glitches is also cheating. Stop trying to rationalize it.

I mostly agree with this, but in some parts the opposite way. Breeeding is not "completely" luck based (read the breeding guides) and it is not hard at all to legitimately breed something with at least decent stats in the important ones. You may not have as "perfect" of stats as your opponent in battle, but like you said, if you win or lose, it probably would have happened either way. Also if you win, your opponent can't bitch at you for using all perfect stats, like they can (probably will >_>) if you do.

I also agree that cloning is "cheating," but battling with cloned pokemon that were obtained legitmately is different from battling with hacked, perfect stat pokemon.

 

[Shen]

I find it weird that so many people who've actually put in the time to breed their perfect/near perfect Pokemon are actually against ARing them. After spending hours upon hours breeding a decent poke, I managed to try it online, where it failed quite miserably.

If I'd sharked it, I'd have got the same result in a fraction of the time, and would be able to move on to a new strategy. Cheating in this way allows you to get on with doing what you actually want to do, which I imagine for most of us is battle and build new teams. If you spend 10-20 hours on each team member, how often are you going to try out new ideas?

If I were to use a cheating device, I'd probably not max every stat, but would take liberties with something like 31/0/29/31/29/31, cos its funny to me and pretty much makes no difference.

 

[Metabou]

I use it for duplicating Pokemon, and rare candies. I don't see why anyone cares about you using rare candies on Pokemon for easier ev training because when you battle it auto levels your Pokemon, and i am sure people have iv hacked Pokemon. So in my opinion, as long as you re not using it to hack iv's or hack Pokemon, then i am find with it. It is basically a time saver.

 

[Familiar Trainer]

I find it weird that so many people who've actually put in the time to breed their perfect/near perfect Pokemon are actually against ARing them. After spending hours upon hours breeding a decent poke, I managed to try it online, where it failed quite miserably.

If I'd sharked it, I'd have got the same result in a fraction of the time, and would be able to move on to a new strategy. Cheating in this way allows you to get on with doing what you actually want to do, which I imagine for most of us is battle and build new teams. If you spend 10-20 hours on each team member, how often are you going to try out new ideas?

If I were to use a cheating device, I'd probably not max every stat, but would take liberties with something like 31/0/29/31/29/31, cos its funny to me and pretty much makes no difference.

Competitor's main purpose will be for testing things.

Once you know you have something you like, breed it in-game.

It's a simple process, if you ask me.

Somebody mind telling me whats so great about AR when you can get all the possibilities on a simulator? "It feels different on WiFi" isn't really much of an answer on a competitive battling site imo. Not to mention Nintendo certainly doesn't approve of hacking, and chances are you'd be squashed out of some future large tournament for doing it. Nintendo can apparently time travel to your past save files, maybe even past what your Journal keeps track of, and see if a Pokemon pops out of nowhere/something fishy happens. So unless there's an AR code for destroying your past save files, even the best hacked Pokemon can still be detected.

If it can be done in-game without use of a hacking device though (cloning, Rare Candies (Emerald cloning), Event Pokemon (just waiting to be caught!) and etc) though, it's fine with me.

 

[NC]

I find it weird that so many people who've actually put in the time to breed their perfect/near perfect Pokemon are actually against ARing them. After spending hours upon hours breeding a decent poke, I managed to try it online, where it failed quite miserably.

If I'd sharked it, I'd have got the same result in a fraction of the time, and would be able to move on to a new strategy. Cheating in this way allows you to get on with doing what you actually want to do, which I imagine for most of us is battle and build new teams. If you spend 10-20 hours on each team member, how often are you going to try out new ideas?

If I were to use a cheating device, I'd probably not max every stat, but would take liberties with something like 31/0/29/31/29/31, cos its funny to me and pretty much makes no difference.

Finding each team member really does not take 10-20 hours. All you really need to do is breed (or soft reset for) one good pokemon. There are thousands of great pokemon that people from smogon have bred and if you have even just one great competitive pokemon, it is easy to get many more just by trading. For example, look at my trade thread in my sig. When I first made it a couple months ago, I pretty much only had a good magikarp that I bred myself (and it took less than a week to breed when I started out with nothing good.) Once you get just one good pokemon, it is easy to either get other good ones by trading or using the original good one to breed other good pokemon (use the breeding guide if you have trouble with this.) By doing this, in less than 4 months I have gone from having one good magikarp to having great, IV-bred versions of a majority of the standard and some Ubers and UU pokemon.

Also in my thread, for people who have trouble getting that one good pokemon, I have the "breeding pokemon section" where I trade male pokemon with multiple 31 IVs that are great for breeding for very little in return. Unfortunately, most people who don't have any IV-bred pokemon tend to just ask for all my "finished" pokemon and just offer pokemon with random IVs that I wouldn't be interested in.

 

[McGrrr]

Everyone understands that to be competitive at pokemon, one must invest time and/or money. The question is how much do you value your time? If the answer is infinitely small (or if the cost is offset by the pleasure of breeding), then by all means, spend your days breeding for perfection. If however, you value your time above the cost of an action replay, then go ahead and cheat for perfect IVs.

I cannot see how my reasoning is unfair to anyone. It is the individuals' fault for putting a value on the outcome of a random number generator.

 

[Carl]

Somebody mind telling me whats so great about AR when you can get all the possibilities on a simulator? "It feels different on WiFi" isn't really much of an answer on a competitive battling site imo. Not to mention Nintendo certainly doesn't approve of hacking, and chances are you'd be squashed out of some future large tournament for doing it. Nintendo can apparently time travel to your past save files, maybe even past what your Journal keeps track of, and see if a Pokemon pops out of nowhere/something fishy happens. So unless there's an AR code for destroying your past save files, even the best hacked Pokemon can still be detected.

I think you're forgetting the part where there still isn't a 100% reliable battling simulator yet. Shoddybattle still crashes when I use it and nobody seems to be willing to learn how to use the IRC bot besides a select few which I've already battled quite a few times. And I won't get into what Nintendo can do but if you were an active reader of this forum around this time a year ago you'd know there's an easy loophole to get around all that.

Everyone understands that to be competitive at pokemon, one must invest time and/or money. The question is how much do you value your time? If the answer is infinitely small (or if the cost is offset by the pleasure of breeding), then by all means, spend your days breeding for perfection. If however, you value your time above the cost of an action replay, then go ahead and cheat for perfect IVs.

I cannot see how my reasoning is unfair to anyone. It is the individuals' fault for putting a value on the outcome of a random number generator.

Yes!

 

[NC]

Everyone understands that to be competitive at pokemon, one must invest time and/or money. The question is how much do you value your time? If the answer is infinitely small (or if the cost is offset by the pleasure of breeding), then by all means, spend your days breeding for perfection. If however, you value your time above the cost of an action replay, then go ahead and cheat for perfect IVs.

I cannot see how my reasoning is unfair to anyone. It is the individuals' fault for putting a value on the outcome of a random number generator.

I mostly agree with this. However, first, it's not like spending time to breed is some bad or wrong, you should just say it's their "decision", rather than "fault". Although hackers may disagree, breeding is not a complete waste of time for no reason to some people, just because you are relying on a random number generator. Secondly, I don't really have a problem with hacking all 31 IVs (although I would rather people use alternatives I posted above) except for two situations-

First, if you are battling someone using perfect IV hacked pokemon, you should at least tell them your team is hacked. It may not matter to you, but it does to other people and they should have a right to know if they aren't battling completely "legitmate" pokemon.

Second, you should never use hacked pokemon in tournaments where the rules specifically state- "No hacking." This is definately cheating to win.


Really though, like I said, you can definitely be competetive at this game without having great-IVed pokemon so you don't necessarily have to invest alot of time of money.

 

[Fire Electric Cat-Gonk]

"It feels different on WiFi" isn't really much of an answer on a competitive battling site imo.

Neither is "time spent = skill", "breeding makes you feel better" or "i want to play with pokes I've bred against other pokes people have bred"

 

[Chozo]

If you actually read my initial post you'd realize I wasn't using that to support anything other than my assertion that IVs were not initially implemented to be a reward.

That IVs were not originally implemented as a reward does not necessarily mean that the same view holds any weight at Game Freak now. Egg moves, IV inheritance, everstone breeding etc. implies that Game Freak does place value on and rewards breeding.

Of course, from a competitive gaming perspective it's terrible, hence this now seven-page thread.

 

[Familiar Trainer]

I think you're forgetting the part where there still isn't a 100% reliable battling simulator yet. Shoddybattle still crashes when I use it and nobody seems to be willing to learn how to use the IRC bot besides a select few which I've already battled quite a few times. And I won't get into what Nintendo can do but if you were an active reader of this forum around this time a year ago you'd know there's an easy loophole to get around all that.

If you can't get a simulator to work, I don't see a problem with hacking. If you do have that option in front of you however, it'd certainly be what I'd choose. I wasn't really active in the later months of 2006, so admittedly I don't know if there is a loophole. That was a year ago though, I'd assume before the Japanese release of Diamond/Pearl (late September, 2006).

Neither is "time spent = skill", "breeding makes you feel better" or "i want to play with pokes I've bred against other pokes people have bred"

Where did I say any of those things? I certainly don't think breeding makes you better at competitive Pokemon, and I rarely battle on WiFi for that matter. Time spent = Skill in my opinion, but that time invested in battling rather then breeding. My argument is mostly based on the fact that if AR wasn't taken into account when the game was designed, and Nintendo bans people from tournament if they get caught using AR AND chances are you have a fairly accurate simulator which gives you most of the options in the game, why bother?

Again, if you insist on using Wifi with hacked Pokemon, if you tell your opponent beforehand your using hacked Pokemon, I have no problem with it.

 

[Fire Electric Cat-Gonk]

Where did I say any of those things?

Not you, but I wanted to get that out there.

Time spent = Skill in my opinion, but that time invested in battling rather then breeding.

well, time battling makes you more skillful, as opposed to "i have played the game for longer therefore i deserve to win" or "i have an inherent advantage because i have played the game longer despite not knowing how to battle".

My argument is mostly based on the fact that if AR wasn't taken into account when the game was designed, and Nintendo bans people from tournament if they get caught using AR AND chances are you have a fairly accurate simulator which gives you most of the options in the game, why bother?

Sanctioned/organised tournaments, perhaps?

I agree with you completely in that it doesn't actually matter what you play on, but it's something of a side issue.

 

[DEL337ED]

To start, I do think people should admit that they IV hack or whatever. It's technically cheating and some people pride themselves on hatching eggs for hours and hours in a video game.

I find some things hypocritical though. For one, 99% of people simply don't care when Pokemon are AR-cloned. What? Everyone has that stapled rule "Legit stuff only" in their threads, but then they accept and offer Pokemon created using Action Replay? I'm not necessarily complaining, I do this too (and I do mention that my guys are AR-cloned). I just find it hypocritical. Not to mention people requesting nicknaming services. These are done with "cheating devices" too.

Also, there's the whole simulator business: Shoddybattle, Netbattle, Competitor, etc. By the looks of it, more people do (or will) battle using these simulators. When you think about it, people playing on these makes all the "hard work" you did breeding essentially useless - you're not going to use those Pokemon online. And you have the power to do what you basically do with the AR - create Pokemon without the leg-work. Pokemon that are completely legal and battle-ready.

But there's a difference between entering some numbers/codes on the computer/AR and breeding right? Well, not so much. Whether it's breeding or creating Pokemon, the end result is just a bunch of 0s and 1s inputted into the DS, ultimately displaying something on your screen. But with the AR you don't have to worry about random number generators, and you have more control. And it's all battle-legit, so when it comes down to it, what really is the difference?

As a breeder myself, I'm starting to see less and less of a difference. I don't notice the difference between my self-bred Lucario and one my friend hacked for me. What I do notice, however, is a large chunk of my time going down the drain breeding things.

Considering everything, I'm really perplexed as to why people (myself included) continue to breed, knowing they could get everything however they want with the same capabilities much easier. Integrity? Please, it's a video-game, you're pushing buttons. The only moral issue is honesty and admitting you create your Pokemon using a device.

Well, those are my views on the issue. To sum things up, I think that there is nothing wrong with using an AR to create Pokemon, and nobody should have a problem battling an AR-user if their stuff is all legitimately possible in-game. I would assume most of you would feel similarly, since this is after-all a competitive Pokemon community. Competitive with regards to battling using your skills, not breeding and using your time.

 

[Raikou]

well, time battling makes you more skillful, as opposed to "i have played the game for longer therefore i deserve to win" or "i have an inherent advantage because i have played the game longer despite not knowing how to battle".

From my experience, most of the people who hack are far from the best battlers- it's a crutch. Many of the younger players hack. The people who don't use it as a crutch should have the courtesy and common sense to let their opponent know they cheated and the manner in which they did.

So, let me get this straight. Certainly you deserve the advantage because you spent a whopping $15 for a cheat device, and breeders deserve to be at a disadvantage for not cheating? So in this communist Russia, you cheat to gain the advantage over honest people and that is perfectly okay. Wow.

I'm tempted to start a charity for these time-constrained people and just give them some competitive pokes so they have no excuse.

And to the above poster, most of us aren't purists who look down on cloning or even touching your game with an AR. If it doesn't affect the other people you play against, then who cares. Hacking TM's, rare candies, and cloning fall into this category. I don't care if you have a 999 stat Mewtwo (just don't use it in battle). But hacking to gain the advantage in a battle where you are playing against other people is just blatantly unfair.

 

[Fire Electric Cat-Gonk]

So, let me get this straight. Certainly you deserve the advantage because you spent a whopping $15 for a cheat device, and breeders deserve to be at a disadvantage for not cheating? So in this communist Russia, you cheat to gain the advantage over honest people and that is perfectly okay. Wow.

Incorrect. No-one should have an inherent advantage over anyone else in a competitive game.

As stated earlier in the thread, if I owned a flash cart I would quite gladly fix the IVs and EVs of my opponents to provide a level playing field. Winning simply because your mans were better isn't a win at all.

I'm tempted to start a charity for these time-constrained people and just give them some competitive pokes so they have no excuse.

That would be "unfair" to the people who you didn't give Pokes to.

edit:

But hacking to gain the advantage in a battle where you are playing against other people is just blatantly unfair.

gain the advantage

The point of this argument is to discuss if it is kosher to use hacking devices to provide a level playing field. Not to gain any advantage over anyone else.

 

[Raikou]

Incorrect. No-one should have an inherent advantage over anyone else in a competitive game.

As stated earlier in the thread, if I owned a flash cart I would quite gladly fix the IVs and EVs of my opponents to provide a level playing field. Winning simply because your mans were better isn't a win at all.


By "give" do you mean "clone"?

You understand that you're being a hypocrite by saying no one should have the advantage, yet you cheat to gain it. Right? If this game was meant for everyone to have perfect IV Pokes, it would have come with an AR.

And Pokemon is not yet recognized as a competitive game like Counterstrike, Halo, etc. I don't think WoW is even recognized as one yet due to the imbalance issues. Look at all the clauses we have to put into effect just to attempt balance- this game is far from it imo.

 

[DEL337ED]

I'm tempted to start a charity for these time-constrained people and just give them some competitive pokes so they have no excuse.

There's a solution...Let me know if you ever decide to actually do this.

 

[Castlevaynia]

I have no problems with people using an AR to put together hacked, but legal, pokémon.

I complain about ridiculous things like a Roar of Time Darkrai, though (which I have seen on PBR.)

It's from a Japanese event, Dumbass. They come with Spacial Rend and Roar Of Time

You phail

 

[Lee]

Been following this thread from the start, and I've agreed with most of what Raikou has said.

The simulators are in place so that we can battle with 31 IV's, Hidden Powers and such at the drop of the hat. If you "don't have time/don't want to rely on random number generator" then go for the simulators. The game itself doesn't have those luxuries and players are encouraged to work for them, which, I find, enhances the experience.

If you can't set aside the time to breed and train 6 decent Pokemon, then you're in the wrong game tbh. I dunno where you're gonna find the time for countless WiFi battles.

 

[Fire Electric Cat-Gonk]

You understand that you're being a hypocrite by saying no one should have the advantage, yet you cheat to gain it. Right?

Using a AR negates any advantage anyone has over anyone else. As repeatedly stated above, if someone doesn't have access to an editing device yet their opponent does, their opponent should offer them the use of it.

I don't actually own a AR/flash cart, by the way.

If this game was meant for everyone to have perfect IV Pokes, it would have come with an AR.

"If the game was meant to ___" will never be a proper argument, ever.

And Pokemon is not yet recognized as a competitive game like Counterstrike, Halo, etc.

And if people need to spend so much time breeding instead of battling, it never will be.

I don't think WoW is even recognized as one yet due to the imbalance issues.

WoW will never be a competitive game because time spent = skill, which is what you are advocating. This is in addition to Blizzard's complete failure to organise the Arena season..

 

[General Tso]

I'm tempted to start a charity for these time-constrained people and just give them some competitive pokes so they have no excuse.

I think this is a good compromise.

I've been thinking and, if you don't have the time for breeding but still want to battle, just turn off the DS and continue with your everyday business until Competitor comes out, simple no? You won't have to waste countless hours of breeding, yet you don't have to buy/use AR and be constantly scolded because you do. You'll just get more done without playing the game and all you have to do is wait.

But, if you're like me and just want to battle straight-away, go ahead and AR your pokes. I view that as a level playing field, one person has more time to get good pokes, one person has the AR, in the end, it's the person with more skill.

 

[GB_Packers_Ftw]

I think this is a good compromise.

But, if you're like me and just want to battle straight-away, go ahead and AR your pokes. I view that as a level playing field, one person has more time to get good pokes, one person has the AR, in the end, it's the person with more skill.

Interesting. So a pokemon is a pokemon, no matter where it came from, or how it's stats were created. I implore to differ. As stated above we need to establish a level playing field. geting a 31\31\31\31\31\31 252\252\6 swellow from AR is legit, and you really dont have any advantage over the hardcore breeders 31\31\31\31\31...blah swellow. BUT you had a 100% chance at perfection. He only had 1 in a million. This is like shooting a bullet into millions of adoring Packers fan, hoping to kill the Bears (lmao, or in your case lions :p) fan. It's just not going to happen. A simple solution? hack a swellow such as this one: 29\31\28\31\31\31. No. its not more legit than the last 31\31\31\31\31\31. They just are not the same, its not fair, AR is wrong. Even to make them shiny it annoys me because of the possibility of altered IVs. Your first paragraph was true though..seriously play shoddy or something (ffs if it worked for me) Cloning is generally accepted via AR...infact i practice it myself

 

[Duckster]

Okay there is no way in Hell I can read this whole thread, but I suppose I'll chime in with "my two" cents. I'm pretty sure I stand alone when I say this, but when I play Pokemon, I tend to look at "the whole" picture. This includes time spent breeding, resetting, and EV Training my competitive Pokemon.

I'm not even going to argue as to whether or not that takes any skill, because clearly people who spend weeks taking their shot at a random number generator aren't doing anything that takes any more skill than winning a game of snakes and ladders. Sadly, this is part of the game, and if I were to attach an action replay to my game, or clone my HP Ice 68 Gengar and mass distribute it, I would be doing something that really isn't in the spirit in of this game anymore, and that would really ruin the fun for me.

I do understand, however, that many of you guys play this game entirely for competitive purposes, and honestly, I could care less what you do to achieve the ultimate goal of having a team of 6 Pokemon, and I'll look past this when we are on the battle field, since we are practically on equal playing grounds. Even if you hack for perfect DVs, you really aren't at that much of an advantage any ways with luck being a huge deciding factor in damage calculations.

Of course, if you were to tinker with the statistics of a Pokemon by a single point, that would change my stance entirely, because you really aren't playing Pokemon anymore. I really can't grasp what's fun about having statistically illegal Pokemon and battling others on a competitive level, which is why I lol when I see people on Serebii Wi-Fi chat who constantly post "need hacker for Dragon Dance Heracross" or "PM for 999 stat R0x0rz Arceus". Thankfully you all seem to unanimous on that one.

 

[Confessor]

I think people should stop saying that hackers are "in the wrong game", because I may hack (As I've said it's fair not not all 31 IVs) but I WANT to play Pokémon.
Who are you to tell me I can't play one of my favourite games just because I choose to use another device with it?

 

[Familiar Trainer]

I think people should stop saying that hackers are "in the wrong game", because I may hack (As I've said it's fair not not all 31 IVs) but I WANT to play Pokémon.
Who are you to tell me I can't play one of my favourite games just because I choose to use another device with it?

Because your using a device not intended to be used on one of your (apparently) favorite games by the developers, or your just lazy is what most people would say.

But since your not hacking 31-everything Pokemon, your fine with me!