The Action Replay debate.

[Ace11]

Well I'm just going to list the pros and cons of AR, or at least the pros and cons that I see.

PROS
- access to every pokemon
- you can soft reset for dialga/palkia after you beat the elite four incase you didnt before, or you can for another one
- access to all items/tms/berries/balls/keyitems/etc.
- access to desired parent IVs
- can get to darkrai/shaymin/arceus without having to travel to a different country to go to an event where they distribute them.
- you can make things shiny
- you can clone much faster
- you can get better wallpapers for your PC boxes
- you can hack EVs
- you can hack entire pokemon
- you don't have to have all the gba and GC pokemon games, or access to them to get every single pokemon

CONS
- you have to buy AR
- you have to hear how people think that you are cheap and describe your actions to be almost like those of Hitler

I'm not sure if I missed anything or even why I did this. Oh yeah, it was so I could say, does AR really look that bad now?

 

[Crash Hard]

Time spent does not equal skill, and that's the bottom line. The point of playing a competitive game is to test skill and not effort. If I had a AR and my opponent didn't, and my Pokes were better, I'd offer to shark up his team to provide a level playing field.

I completely agree. That's why I only use my AR to save time (I really couldn't care less if you just roll your eyes and call that BS, but it's true) and not change anything outside of the legal, legit framework presented by the game. Hence my breeding my own IV's. I just breed them in an eighth of the time with quick hatch.

 

[Ace11]

I completely agree. That's why I only use my AR to save time (I really couldn't care less if you just roll your eyes and call that BS, but it's true) and not change anything outside of the legal, legit framework presented by the game. Hence my breeding my own IV's. I just breed them in an eighth of the time with quick hatch.

I third that statement, even though i dont have AR, but i know someone with it, and thats what he does.

 

[General Tso]

Well I'm just going to list the pros and cons of AR, or at least the pros and cons that I see.

PROS
- access to every pokemon

Easily Wi-Fi'd plus you get other people's IDs
- you can soft reset for dialga/palkia after you beat the elite four incase you didnt before, or you can for another one

Again, Wi-Fi
- access to all items/tms/berries/balls/keyitems/etc.

See above
- access to desired parent IVs

So? Doesn't make the offspring any legitimate
- can get to darkrai/shaymin/arceus without having to travel to a different country to go to an event where they distribute them.

Your point? Once they come out, go on Wi-Fi and ask for one, easy.
- you can make things shiny

Meh, personal preference
- you can clone much faster

1st good point so far
- you can get better wallpapers for your PC boxes

Someone already came out with this calculator that lets you get the extras
- you can hack EVs

I guess so
- you can hack entire pokemon

Don't need to comment on this one
- you don't have to have all the gba and GC pokemon games, or access to them to get every single pokemon

Again, Wi-Fi, or are we talking about GBA now?

CONS
- you have to buy AR
- you have to hear how people think that you are cheap and describe your actions to be almost like those of Hitler

You're making virtual creatures for a video game, how is that anything like a dictator who killed millions of people?

I'm not sure if I missed anything or even why I did this. Oh yeah, it was so I could say, does AR really look that bad now?

 

[apocalex13]

It's all a matter of opinion:
My opinion is that if I can beat you even though you took the easy route makes my victory mean more to me than your victory could mean to you.
Plus, when I beat haxzors, it's a kick in the pants! :D

I've cloned once or twice, just so I had something to trade when I've needed to, but generally I don't like to trade at all. I like the motto "I pwn, on my own!" :P

 

[Ace11]

@General Tso
wow, youre like always the first to argue my posts, first off Im not a huge AR user, i rarely get to use it, and don't do much when I do.

anyways:
- If I want good IVed pokemon good enough that I'd have to soft reset I doubt that I'm going to find that kind of quality that esily on wi-fi
- yeah i could get every pokemon and item on wi-fi, that would be fun
- the offspring wouldn't be modified directly by the AR so I don't see how that makes them hacked
- i dont know how i would ask someone for unobtainable things like darkrai, etc. but again i could just walk right up to them and soft reset for a good one, which is what I might do, if i can.
- ive never heard about this calculator for pc backgrounds
- and, im not the one that compared Hitler to AR users, but i have seen posts that make them sound just as bad, which is annoying as hell to read.

 

[General Tso]

Sorry, but someone's got to argue right? =0

IIRC, the mods have stated a pokemon is hacked if their parents were hacked.

Go on gamefaqs, or even here, there are japanese darkrai around, better than hacks or nothing.

 

[Ace11]

Japanese pokemon, I prefer using the event items. I think I'll get an AR so I can clone, yeah, I will. Mwuahahahahahahaha. ITS SO FAST!!

 

[NC]

To the people that say they only hack because they don't have time not to-

I already posted my opinion on this on the first page, but even if you truly do not have the time to legitimately breed, here is something to consider-

Battling online does NOT require you to have perfect IVS from extensive breeding. Even if you just catch something in the wild or "nature-breed", which shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, if you EV train the pokemon, it really won't turn out much different from something that was "perfectly-breed" over a long period of time. If you have more skill or a better team than the opponent, even if they IV breed you should still be able to beat them.

You can say this puts you at a disadvantage from the people who do "IV-breed", but isn't hacking 31/31/31/31/31/31 IVs doing the same thing to the other party? Also, for the hackers who don't hack all-31 IVs, could you please clarify what exactly you are hacking? If you aren't modifying IVs, I don't really see what the problem is in terms of battling against other people.

 

[Synre]

Sorry, but someone's got to argue right? =0

Ff you call that arguing... I was debating on deleting on that just because it wasn't very well thought out.

but that said

IIRC, the mods have stated a pokemon is hacked if their parents were hacked.

Yeah, it is. While it is pretty much undetectable if that's you're game, as far as the rules go that still counts as hacked here. It is infinitely easier to get a good IVed baby starting with two 31/31/31/31/31/31 parents than with a parent and a ditto with like two 31 IVs or whatever - there's just no comparison.

Battling online does NOT require you to have perfect IVS from extensive breeding. Even if you just catch something in the wild or "nature-breed", which shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, if you EV train the pokemon, it really won't turn out much different from something that was "perfectly-breed" over a long period of time. If you have more skill or a better team than the opponent, even if they IV breed you should still be able to beat them.

No, battling online doesn't 'require' anything, but you're putting yourself at a fairly substantial competitive disadvantage by not rolling around with at least 31s in the important stats. Speed is a huge one - it puts me at a pretty big disadvantage if I am going last 100% of the time when we have Pokemon with even base speed out. The more skilled player will still probably win, but he or she is less likely to win than normal because having an inferior team is putting him or her at a disadvantage.

 

[NC]

No, battling online doesn't 'require' anything, but you're putting yourself at a fairly substantial competitive disadvantage by not rolling around with at least 31s in the important stats. Speed is a huge one - it puts me at a pretty big disadvantage if I am going last 100% of the time when we have Pokemon with even base speed out. The more skilled player will still probably win, but he or she is less likely to win than normal because having an inferior team is putting him or her at a disadvantage.

Unless the IVs are very low (which is easy to avoid, just catch like 10 pokemon in 5 minutes and pick the one with the best IVs...), you really aren't putting yourself at a substantial disadvantage, like you say. Even 31 stat points is not very much. I do realize that speed is very important, but even IV-breeders don't always get perfect speed, and having a pokemon with 10-15 points lower speed points just makes you play a little more conservatively than usual and it is more than likely that it won't make a big (or any) difference in the battle. EV training makes a much biggger difference than the "countless hours" of IV breeding in terms of overal stats.

 

[Crash Hard]

If you aren't modifying IVs, I don't really see what the problem is in terms of battling against other people.

TM's, wild pokemon modifier for quicker EV training (say only nidokings pop up when training atk), quick hatch, max cash, getting what I can't get unless I buy other cartridges.

 

[NC]

Well I guess the quick hatch is a little questionable, but disregard everything I am saying if you are not modifying IVs or the actual pokemon in any way.

 

[Home]

I've spoken to kids who can kick butt in wifi battles, but don't even know what natures do, or what the point of Effort values are. Some of these people build cardboard-cutout teams from strategy guides they find on the net, and in 5 minutes have strong, competitive teams thanks to their cheat device. That's pathetic.

Hacking and cloning creates an instant unfair advantage.
- That cloned poke you just traded to Johnny for his hard earned poke... is an unfair trade.
- That 31/x/31/x/31/x IV'd poke you hacked (because you didn't want to spend a few hours getting lesser iv's for), just barely saved you from annihilation in battle because your opponent Johnny's sweeper has a 29 attack IV... That's an unfair battle situation.

This shouldn't be a problem. Johnny should be pissed off that you just traded him a cloned pokemon, and Johnny should be proud of that 29 attack IV. He has every right to be. He put serious effort into getting it through IV breeding, and subsequent EV training.

Anyone who uses cheat devices to build (read: generate) teams of perfect IV'd pokes, instantly create an unfair advantage. No pokemon are meant to have perfect IV's. That's why GameFreak made a lot of it random. If you bred for weeks to get perfect iv's, or just got extremely lucky, then congrats, whatever... Breeding a whole team of perfect IV'd pokes... That's called having no life and entirely unnecessary.

If you don't have time to play Pokemon, then perhaps there's a reason to start reconsidering why you play it in the first place? Pokemon is NOT a game of quick-assemble teams for battle. Its a game of breeding, training, trading and imbalance. The way it was meant to be.
It can take between 1 and 6 hours to breed a single pokemon with IV's good enough to battle. You don't need perfect IV's at all. I, personally, tend to settle for 25+ in the stats I need, and 20+ defenses whether I need them or not. It isn't hard at all to get a a couple of 31 IV's. I'd go insane trying to get lots of perfect IV'd pokes, or just get sick of the game and quit.


Cloning for trading purposes, isn't even trading. Its accumulation! When you trade; you lose something, and you gain something. The basic concept of trading is to give and therefore receive. Several times I've arranged trades with someone and they ask me to wait while they clone. I won't even entertain those types of people anymore. I give them a "fuck no" and a "have a nice day" then block them if they give me any trouble.


If you pump some testosterone before a boxing match, and fight against a clean opponent, is the fight still fair regardless of the result? Even if you lose, was it fair?

If you cheat in a friendly game of Poker, you'll probably get your ass beat, with bricks and bottles and such. Cheat in a friendly game of pokemon, and you can get away with it. Heck, some people won't even care if you do. But getting away with cheating doesn't make it right.

The use of cheat devices for team-building is like using steroids in a weight-lifting competition. It's deceiving, its immoral and it deteriorates the value of the game for anyone and everyone who plays fair.
But I get the whole "FREEDOM OF CHOICE" thing. People CHOOSE to use their 3rd-party cheat device, so whatever... I CHOOSE not to trade or battle with those people. At the end of the day we both get our own ways, even if the community becomes segregated in the process.


People often ask me why I don't battle teams created with AR/etc.. My answer is short and simple: I'm playing a Pokemon game; They're playing their cheat device.

If the cheat device users battled only cheat device users, then there wouldn't be any problem. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in most communities.


Of course, there are worse (BAN ME PLEASE)s around... like the kind who hack 999 stats, illegal moves and abilities. I once battled someone who used a shiny Cresselia that resisted Crunch and lost about 3 HP from it (It made me laugh when he used Future Sight). But that's another story...

 

[pear]

I've spoken to kids who can kick butt in wifi battles, but don't even know what natures do, or what the point of Effort values are. Some of these people build cardboard-cutout teams from strategy guides they find on the net, and in 5 minutes have strong, competitive teams thanks to their cheat device. That's pathetic.

And you should be able to deal with these noobs with minimal effort because they probably suck. Unless you suck as well, then you might have problems.

This shouldn't be a problem. Johnny should be pissed off that you just traded him a cloned pokemon, and Johnny should be proud of that 29 attack IV. He has every right to be. He put serious effort into getting it through IV breeding, and subsequent EV training.

Why should Johnny be pissed? Because user Home said so?

If you cheat in a friendly game of Poker, you'll probably get your ass beat, with bricks and bottles and such. Cheat in a friendly game of pokemon, and you can get away with it. Heck, some people won't even care if you do. But getting away with cheating doesn't make it right.

This is because the only viable cheating in poker that I can think of is more like modifying the game code so you always do max damage, or always CH, or get the AncientPower boost 100% of the time and then be able to have their Tyranitar BP it to their Pure Power Slakoth. That is inexcusable for any game.

The use of cheat devices for team-building is like using steroids in a weight-lifting competition. It's deceiving, its immoral and it deteriorates the value of the game for anyone and everyone who plays fair.

You're comparing an extra 6 or so Sp.Def points to use of anabolic steroids? Riiiiiight.

Of course, there are worse (BAN ME PLEASE)s around... like the kind who hack 999 stats, illegal moves and abilities. I once battled someone who used a shiny Cresselia that resisted Crunch and lost about 3 HP from it (It made me laugh when he used Future Sight). But that's another story...

I know one of them. When his shiny Arceus outsped my Naive Deoxys-A (which was hacked but that's beside the point) I knew something was up. The next day he used a No Guard Luvdisc with all the OHKO moves.

 

[Carl]

I wouldn't base much about the current metagame on Red and Blue, otherwise you'd have to argue against a ton of things they've added since then. Were balancing psychics, the physical/special split and adding more than 300 Pokemon "afterthoughts" too?

Um yes? The "standard" RBY team has multiple psychics on it and tends to have more special than physical attackers. Mewtwo was broken because of its ability to boost both its offense and defense through Amnesia, etc. If the series didn't sell well I doubt you'd see more pokemon either. They were afterthoughts because they weren't in the initial game plain and simple. The were corrections or add ons in later games. 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.

 

[Raikou]

I think a good compromise would be something like Surgo has stickied at the top of the wifi trading forums. Hacking items and things that don't affect the creation of a Pokemon are okay, because it's really not going to affect anything and can already be done via the cloning glitch. Speeding up EV training and whatnot is still somewhat on the fence, but using a cheat device to create or modify a Pokemon in any way is not allowed, and if you do it, at least let the person know. Those of us who have good teams aren't afraid of fighting sharked stuff, it's just common courtesy to let someone know you're cheating.

So anything the game is capable of doing by itself is pretty much allowed. Anything the game is NOT capable of doing by itself, is not allowed. And for those of you who think all 31's are theoretically obtainable, they're actually not unless you know the exact characteristic number that corresponds with that IV set, and there are like, oh, a million of those. Which means there's a .0000000001 chance that Pokemon you hacked is actually "legit", no matter what iv's you gave it.

 

[QibingZero]

Well, I always wondered what kind of thread would eventually bring me out of lurker status, and it appears this is it.

On the surface this discussion is as old as video games themselves. What exactly crosses the line into cheating? Do in-game codes count? Is a third party required before actions become looked down upon? What about glitches, are they okay? Everyone has an opinion on this, of course, and it often gets nasty. I tend to be more of a purist and only play along with what I believe to be the intended spirit of the game (i.e. - I don't even like glitches most of the time), but stating that is far from the point I wish to address here.

I think we're missing something with all this. Before a tried and true simulator was ever available, this kind of an issue wouldn't have even come up.

Bear with me here.

The argument in favor of hacking seems to be an extension of the idea presented by the NetBattle metagame. Possibility over probability. It was incredibly unlikely for anyone to actually have a 70 power HP Ice (or Grass) Raikou or Zapdos, but certainly not impossible, so it was allowed. The same goes for max IV pokemon. We all know the probability is extremely low, but it can happen, and because of that fact it is deemed 'legit'. Even rare NYPC pokemon movesets were allowed.

There is, however, a difference that not a lot of people seem to grasp at first. The actual game is about a whole lot more than battling various pokemon teams against each other. Granted, that's the part we enjoy the most, but a well crafted pokemon is not just thrown together - it requires quite a bit of dedication to create. The entire process of obtaining the pokemon in question, along with getting workable IVs, EVs, and it's moveset and held item, can be very time consuming. I don't want to sound too self-righteous here, but it is in the spirit of the game that it all takes time. The time invested into one of my Weaviles, which included use of over 125 battle tower points, makes me a lot more proud of it than if I had just gone and hacked it, or created it on a battle simulator.

The distinction I'm trying to make is this: With NetBattle and other simulators, you never even played the game to obtain those pokemon. You were basically playing on a public chess set or something. It definitely made pokemon battling strictly skill-based and less of a timesink, but it was a little bit different than, say, an official offline tournament where you had to use pokemon you caught/hatched in your actual game. Hacking up 'legit' pokemon to battle with seems to be an attempt to create a simulator-ish metagame again. Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy the entire process of molding a great pokemon (or at least the rewarding feeling at the end of it), this hacking, along with cloning and the wi-fi availability of it all, seems to have somehow tainted the process. Mind you, I have no problem with people who want to just hack and battle each other with created teams, but I think it's necessary to note that they are playing a completely different game than those of us who are breeding and training. In that sense, I agree 100% with the other posters who have noted that they don't mind playing against hacked pokemon, they would just like to know that they are doing such.


Shorter version for those avoiding the wall of text:
- Pokemon is not NetBattle. NetBattle is just the battling aspect that we all love.
- If hacking pokemon to battle with is your way of waiting to move from the NetBattle metagame to the D/P simulator metagame, fine. If not, you're just being dishonest and that's sad.
- 'Legit' hacked pokemon are okay for battling, but will never be true pokemon. *queue cheesy ash+pikachu music*

 

[Confessor]

I use it in a "legit" way, all moves and stats that can be obtained through breeding and training. The IV's are sorta difficult but I tend to roll a dice or something because I want my Pokémon to be fair.
I love Pokémon battling but to be honest I just can't be bothered breeding so much.

Also, I like the hidden PC boxes.

 

[-Nitro-]

I mostly use Legit. However I've had to use the re-battle legends code so I could SR for them. (Wasted round one just catching them. D=) The few times I do battle I let people know this. (I haven't battled with them, yet. Still Soft resetting.)

 

[QuickDraw]

i don't consider people that hack their pokemon true pokemon fans. items and whatnot i have no problem with because they are easily attainable and don't affect the outcome of a battle but pokemon that have been hacked to attain perfect stats just degrade the game and the idea of pokemon. the "i don't have time" excuse is complete horse shit. anyone can take 30 mins to an hour a day to sit and breed, sure it will take more time but boo fuckin hoo, its not like everyone else who trains and breeds the honest way doesn't go through the same process. i don't really view cloning as hacking because it is accessible through an in game glitch. basically people that hack pokemon for IVs and natures are all on the same level as GGFan and should be shunned by every true pokemoner

 

[Confessor]

If you'd read my above post you'd see I try to obtain IVs as fairly as possible, I'm just as much a true pokemoner as you or anyone else, I'm just lazy as fuck.

 

[Bliksem]

Let's see... when I first started playing competitively, I was avidly against using cheating devices. But ever since I've gone through the frustration of two boxes of Feebas looking for a Modest one, I realized... things could be a whole lot faster. I use an AR to make Pokemon with the natures and IVs that I want, with legal movesets that would take ages for me to procure any other way. With a person whose luck is as bad as mine, doing something that literally devolves into 'luck of the draw' is not fun. The AR takes out the unfun part of Pokemon; EV training and IV breeding. I'm certain this has been said before.

I once gave my best friend in NJ a gift. A Parasect with False Swipe, Spore, Thief and Aromatherapy. It was hacked. Does she know that? No. Does she need to know that? No. It's a completely legal Pokemon in terms of its abilities and stats, and I gave it to her because she had trouble catching Pokemon.

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.

 

[Fire Electric Cat-Gonk]

So anything the game is capable of doing by itself is pretty much allowed. Anything the game is NOT capable of doing by itself, is not allowed.

On this subject, personally I wish people wouldn't play with Hidden Power at all. Because, yeah, you hatched how many thousand eggs to get HP Grass on that Jolteon?

And for those of you who think all 31's are theoretically obtainable, they're actually not unless you know the exact characteristic number that corresponds with that IV set, and there are like, oh, a million of those. Which means there's a .0000000001 chance that Pokemon you hacked is actually "legit", no matter what iv's you gave it.

Characteristic number? Last I checked there wasn't any sort of hidden checksum or anything in the Poke's stats, or am I wrong?

 

[Maslada]

I don't understand the argument that you feel better for using pokemon you bred for yourself. Before i bought my action replay i did breed quite a lot, i wracked up 100+ hours, went through all the frustration of being unlucky with the random generator.

And what for? The slightly good temporary feeling you get after you breed a usable pokemon? After i switched to an action replay I won the same proportion of games i used to and i felt just as good about those wins as before. And now if i find a new team i have been using isn't working i haven't just wasted many hours of my life.

Breeding is boring and the only alternative is the AR or a simulator, so an equal ground can be obtained. Yeah i have the spare time to breed, but i'd much rather spend that time battling.

If you don't like the slight advantage i have over your pokemon then i'd gladly reduce my IV's to be more in line with yours, though from what i heard the difference between a 25 and 31 IV pokemon in a defense stat would just be a 1% difference in damage.

I did not pay £25 for an action replay to waste its potential on simply cloning items. I valued my 100 hours to be worth more than the £25 (funnily enough that would be 25 pence an hour if your resulting pokemon were money, my part time job pays nearly 25x that amount and even my job is less boring than breeding).