The Growth of Competitive Pokemon

[CCM30]

Coming from other competitive communities, many of which have games that are in tournaments almost every few months to literally every weekend, I've always wondered why Pokemon isn't the same way.

What I mean is, why isn't Pokemon on that same path? Why don't we have big tournaments in real life, ones that would most certainly grow the competitive market for our game?

Granted, it is obvious that we use WiFi because it works. With a turn-based game, lag doesn't matter, but still, it limits the competitive scene to the internet community, namely ones like ours. Sure, Smogon is big, but most of the people that play Pokemon probably have no idea what it is.

I just went to a VGC tournament yesterday and saw how awesome the game can be in real life. Tons of people, all of different skills and intellects, all having an amazing time. Sure, it is VGC, but hell did we have an awesome time. It's different playing in real life where emotions can be expressed and people can truly connect with one another as opposed to just playing over the internet.

So, my question is, why don't we have more irl Pokemon tournaments? Do you think we should? Would you support them or attend them?

It wouldn't be to replace online tournaments, but I feel like Pokemon has the potential to grow competitively if we were to do so. Again, look at VGC. It comes once a year and still gets a ridiculous amount of people to go.

Just hosting local tournaments would be awesome. Very similar to what the Smash Bros community does. We already have a huge competitive base with people from all across the globe, so why don't we take advantage of that?

 

[VKCA]

VGC has actual prizes for the victors, which is always a fantastic way to ensure lots of competitors. Most smaller tournaments lack this, so less people feel inclined to drive a very far way to them.

 

[CCM30]

True, but if there are locals/semi-large tournaments happening around the country, people wouldn't need to drive too far to get to one.

Let me reference the Smash community again. At most, people just win money from the pot. That's it. But, they are hosted so frequently and in so many numbers that the potential winnings exceeds the cost.

Not only that, but I think it'd strengthen the community, as well, since more players are likely to meet each other irl rather than just on an internet forum.

 

[Sudo]

I feel that the prevalent and copious amount of luck is a dissuading factor when it comes to playing tournaments for money.

'Critical hit! there goes your entrance fee XD'

 

[ultimifier]

its true. i have never entered a tournament with anything related to luck ever since i entered a yugioh tournament 5 years ago. I literally lost 2nd turn because my opponent topdecked a auto win. Painful choice, chaos emperor dragon, yatagarasu (wia WotBF) and i lost 2nd turn. If anyone has played competitive yugioh you know of this cheap ass strat (which was banned like 1 week after i lost).

SO yeah, paying to enter when luck is involved sucks ass. Id go to a casino if i wanted to pay for luck

 

[BlackHatGuy]

Give me a tourny near saskatchewan and I'll come.

 

[Not Scicky]

I think it has a lot to do with how instantaneous team building is on Shoddy, but I could be wrong.

Though I guess people would just be going in their with the teams they've done the best with on Shoddy, only reproduced in-game, at least I would <___<

 

[DDRMaster]

The luck based aspect of Pokemon can't be the only turn off, considering Yu-Gi-Oh is 90% luck. The main reason that Pokemon doesn't have as many tornaments as something like Yu-Gi-Oh is simply because of money. You can spend 40 bucks on HG/SS and have basically every Pokemon you need right there (and the Pokemon you can't get, you can always trade for). With Yu-Gi-Oh, you could spend 100 bucks on packs to get one card that you need and Konami makes a more profit because of that. Granted, you do usually need to buy the newest game to go to the tornaments but when you consider the fact that new Yu-Gi-Oh cards come out more often than Pokemon games and every third pack or so brings something gamebreaking, you often need to buy the packs to counter some of the new strategies (or beef up your own).

I'm not really sure why things like SBB tornaments are more prevelant. I would probably go to a Pokemon tornament if it was in my city but I doubt I would drive a few hours for a tornament.

 

[Efemera]

Pokemon is slower paced than most competitive games and requires everyone to have a copy of the game and to assemble a team to bring with them. The team assembly is probably the biggest hindering factor. You can set up a team on Shoddy in a minute or two once you have it planned out, but an actual in-game team often takes over 10 hours to put together assuming you know how to RNG, and may require trading if you're using legendaries.

 

[wavedash]

1. Not everyone owns a DS and Platinum / HG / SS (I don't)
2. It's Pokémon. Not everyone is comfortable announcing their passion for it to the world (I do not fall under this category)
3. It's more convenient to stay at home. You don't have to drive hundreds of miles to go to a tournament.

 

[Despotar]

You could bet flawless pokemon. :P I would!

 

[wavedash]

That's actually an interesting idea. Use Pokémon as entry fees.

 

[JonTheRed]

Even on Shoddy itself, tournaments are an extremely rare breed. It's weird, I'd like a few more tournaments to show up even if there's no entry fee and no prize. The tournament format is just plain cool, you know?

 

[cim]

I would say the main reason is unlike most competitive games, there is no reason that one would need to play offline. IRL tournaments are still fun and have their niche, but when you can get more players more quickly for less effort, it's pretty obvious why online tournaments outnumber offline tournaments.

I've been interested in hosting a LAN Shoddy Battle tournament for awhile, but there's no interest in any area I've resided in.

By the way, 100% of entry fees in competitive gaming are used for prizes and venue, it's in bad taste for the organizer to take any of it. Pokemon as a prize is a rather weak incentive.

 

[Sandstreamer]

In Germany, we basically have that. =)

 

[CCM30]

Well, I mean, understandably putting a team together takes time, but it tournaments tended to run the same rules, it wouldn't be that much of a hassle since team variants wouldn't change much.

I just feel like that there's this whole other dimension to what we have here competitively, but don't do anything about it. What if we had TOs in every state getting a venue together and putting a tournament together, gathering top players from each region? Having streams, twitter updates, wartstories of all of these tournaments, the top players from each region gathering in all these spots to have an awesome time.

Just the feel of VGC gave me something I think we could recreate all too easily, especially when Pokemon is very simple to put together competitively wise. No need for TVs (except one or two for some featured matches if people know how to set DSs up to them), just chairs and tables and people's games and DSs.

Essentially, if Smash and other games can do it, why can't Pokemon, a game that is just as competitive?

 

[acinod]

Non-competitive Pokemon, which has a larger community, is directed at children. On the other hand, competitive Pokemon is a much smaller community and most prefer to play on Shoddy. A tournament for competitive 'adults' would be laughed upon by the world as it is believed, by the rest of the world, as 'a child's game'. However if there was a Pokemon tournament in Australia (practically none) I'll be happy to compete.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

It's the teambuilding aspect. Too high a barrier for most people, I think, and you have to perform some outside research to even learn how the stat min/maxing side of the game even works at all. Other video games that amass a large competitive community (fighters, shooters, etc.) don't have such a huge prep-work barrier other than actually practicing the game itself.

I feel that the prevalent and copious amount of luck is a dissuading factor when it comes to playing tournaments for money.

Then why is Poker so popular these days? :P

 

[purple crobatchop]

Now... I must agree. I mean, what are the chances of getting a Magnezone with HP grass/ice/fire? You see, even strategy on Smogon has to be refined every now and then. Frankly it will take years to actually make a good team I think (even with Ditto/RNG)

 

[Dave [old]]

I'm under the assumption that such a thing will grow eventually, the reason why it hasn't so far is a lack of "set to level X" in local battles. The addition from HG/SS may allow small local tournaments to happen, I've attended a few at game shops.

purple crobatchop, check out the trade section of Smogon, there are thousands of near-flawless Pokes with good hidden powers on the market.

 

[Ondore]

It's probably more common in Japan, the problem is that in North America especially the long distances between potential competitive players makes it harder to find a good local matchup. Without that, you have no incentive to go through the trouble of actually raising a competitive team.

I mean, I've thought about throwing a World Series of Pokemon with a whole bunch of formats (Little Cup, ubers, VGC rules) but it's one of those things that you need a boatload of cash to get enough players to justify it.

 

[CCM30]

I figured I'd take some recent comments and, well, comment on them.

Non-competitive Pokemon, which has a larger community, is directed at children. On the other hand, competitive Pokemon is a much smaller community and most prefer to play on Shoddy. A tournament for competitive 'adults' would be laughed upon by the world as it is believed, by the rest of the world, as 'a child's game'. However if there was a Pokemon tournament in Australia (practically none) I'll be happy to compete.

Not necessarily.

Super Smash Bros Brawl was made pretty much to be non-competitive, so most of the community is truly casual. However, the competitive community still thrives. And, it's not really...well, adults...or adults playing a kiddy game. No one is saying that we have to advertise this to a world, as no one really does. It's for the community, by the community, not to make ourselves look good to the rest of the world.

It's the teambuilding aspect. Too high a barrier for most people, I think, and you have to perform some outside research to even learn how the stat min/maxing side of the game even works at all. Other video games that amass a large competitive community (fighters, shooters, etc.) don't have such a huge prep-work barrier other than actually practicing the game itself.

What's the point if people don't have the opportunity to, you know, put effort into it? Teambuilding isn't that extensive, especially when it seems like a lot of the competitive community has access to the abilities to train a team themselves or acquire part or a whole one from someone else?

And, that's not necessarily true. Ask top Smash players and you'll learn how much time they spend not playing the game, but learning matchups and frame rates, theorizing, going over gameplay, etc. It isn't just playing. Same with other games. Halo players will literally sit in a lobby together and just talk about strategies for hours. Not just playing.

It's probably more common in Japan, the problem is that in North America especially the long distances between potential competitive players makes it harder to find a good local matchup. Without that, you have no incentive to go through the trouble of actually raising a competitive team.

I mean, I've thought about throwing a World Series of Pokemon with a whole bunch of formats (Little Cup, ubers, VGC rules) but it's one of those things that you need a boatload of cash to get enough players to justify it.

I haven't seen a gaming community yet that lacks enough competitive players to have locals. Look at how many people we have on Smogon, or Skarmbliss or any other site? What about all the people that don't affliate themselves or don't even go to sites at all, but are still competitive?

And, I mean, will people play for the money or for fun? Probably both, but who knows. I'm just saying, it doesn't have to function only on tons of money. Smash tournaments rarely do so. Gears LANs rarely do so. Sure, you have the exceptions (VGCs, MLG, WCG, CPL), but they are exceptions for a reason.

 

[asdfrozen]

You'd have to hack-check every entrant's party.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

What's the point if people don't have the opportunity to, you know, put effort into it? Teambuilding isn't that extensive, especially when it seems like a lot of the competitive community has access to the abilities to train a team themselves or acquire part or a whole one from someone else?

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. It's the grinding. Legitimate teambuilding is a huge grind, with breeding, IVs, etc., and grinding is hugely antithetical to competitive gaming, as it emphasizes neither strategy nor dexterity nor ability. It's just a timesink. While there is skill involved in determining optimal stat builds for individual Pokemon, there is little skill or fun involved in going through the process of actually creating those Pokemon.

Game Freak has made a lot of strides in this respect. Flat Battle auto-leveling eliminates the need to grind past level 50, and it puts those who do so on an even playing field. The changes to EV mechanics in gen 3 shifted that aspect from another mindless grind to strategic rationing. There are a lot of items and techniques that can cut the time needed to train into something fairly reasonable. But it's still a big hurdle for new players. I've known more than a few people who, after spending what felt like an eternity to raise and train a team or two of their own, were dismayed at how easily they could be picked apart in practice and would rather give up the game than go all the way back to the drawing board.

And, that's not necessarily true. Ask top Smash players and you'll learn how much time they spend not playing the game, but learning matchups and frame rates, theorizing, going over gameplay, etc. It isn't just playing. Same with other games. Halo players will literally sit in a lobby together and just talk about strategies for hours. Not just playing.

You can immediately apply new knowledge obtained from such match videos and discussions the very next time you pick up the controller. In Pokemon, you have to spend a day or so grinding away each and every time you make changes before you can get to that point.

What is particularly aggravating to me is that I prefer double battles, and most people will refuse to play doubles with me because all of their teams are built for singles and they don't want to put in the time to make one for doubles.

I first tried to get into competitive Pokemon in early D/P, and I found the initial situation to be a bit of a Catch-22: In order to make training easier on myself, I need a lot of BP to get the training items. In order to get a lot of BP easily, I need a well-trained team, as my in-game team won't cut it. I eventually ragequit Pokemon for a year because I was tired of losing to Palmer, and when I did get back into it I opted to use an Action Replay until I became adept at RNG abuse. I don't think my situation is atypical. Most people on Smogon seem to prefer simulator play to cartridge play for some of the same reasons.

 

[Tortferngatr]

...They'd need to remake breeding mechanics in Gen V so you wouldn't have to grind as much. I'm not sitting 95 days just to get a non-RNG'ed Aqua Jet Totodile, I just want a half-decent one for casual battling. On the other hand, you HAVE to spend a long time before you can RNG, and outside of RNGing breeding is pointless. I suggested something around page 60-something of the Pokemon B/W spectulation thread that might actually work, you might want to check that out.