***[VOTE] Event Moves, Legendary IVs. How "real" do we want it to be?***

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Precedent isn't absolute, but it becomes precedent for a reason. You usually need a hell of a good reason to break it.

Still, this has become quite a quandry. On one hand, Event moves have been, for the most part, highly documented, thus a blanket ban on them might not be faithful to the cartridges. On the other hand, we don't know all of the restrictions placed on the distributions of Event-move Pokemon, thus allowing Event-move Pokemon to be unrestricted might not be faithful to the cartridges.

Damn.

I cannot think of any compromise other than to allow everyone to use what we can document to, at least, have existed at one time or another, since many of those Pokemon can/could be cloned with relative ease.

Of course, I'm operating under the assumption that we are trying to simulate the WiFi environment--after all, I typically think of Shoddy as "the perfect WiFi environment." However, how do I know that such an assumption is even true?

 

[Syberia]

No matter how much you like Wish Blissey, we cannot overcome the issue with choosing one not corresponding to an actual process without a trustee of event moves system. Either the trustee system should be set up, which is a lot of work, or these event pokemon must be banned. It is the only way to make the simulator logically consistent.

No, it's not. This is a simulator, not Wi-Fi. If the event moves and pokemon existed at one time, then they were intended to be part of the community and therefore should be allowed in simulation. This whole "trustee" system you've thought up to try and justify your position is absolute nonsense. Completely unneeded and impractical, as we're trying to simulate the perfect environment. An environment in which "human error" of either losing a pokemon or being unwilling to trade it is absolutely irrelevant.

What if the only person with a 31/31/31/31/31/31 Garchomp is unwilling to trade it? Should this be banned as well? And before you try to counter this with "you could breed it yourself in an infinite amount of time," I will say this - "you could have gone to the event yourself and gotten a WishBliss."

 

[Thorhammer]

What if the only person with a 31/31/31/31/31/31 Garchomp is unwilling to trade it? Should this be banned as well? And before you try to counter this with "you could breed it yourself in an infinite amount of time," I will say this - "you could have gone to the event yourself and gotten a WishBliss."

The key being "could" versus "could have".

Any person with a 4th gen game had, has, and always will have it within their ability to get a legit full perfect Garchomp. The same cannot be said for Blissey with Wish.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

When you choose a pokemon with astronomically low odds of existing, that is simulating the process of following the algorithm that could obtain that pokemon (for an arbitrary long amount of time). When you choose an event pokemon with arbitrary stats, what is that simulating? Without my proposed "trustee of event moves" system, it is not simulating an actual process that would allow you to obtain the pokemon.

This topic has six pages of people saying "event moves exist in the game so they should be allowed" but that is not good enough because choosing an event move pokemon in the team builder does not correspond to an actual process allowing you to obtain that pokemon (even an infinite time process). Here's a secret: Arceus also exists in the game, you just can't ever leave once you catch him from the glitch. But we don't allow him, because choosing Arceus in the team builder does not simulate an actual process.

So basically, you're defining breeding and SRing as processes but going to an event and downloading an event Pokemon is not a process? Because the act of going to the event is "not ingame" so it's not simulating anything ingame?

The key being "could" versus "could have".

Any person with a 4th gen game had, has, and always will have it within their ability to get a legit full perfect Garchomp. The same cannot be said for Blissey with Wish.

Playing these "what if" games is exactly what we shouldn't be doing with regards to a battling simulator. What if I accidentally ran away from Cresselia and I can't catch one anymore? What if I don't own any 3rd gen games so I can't catch the Pokemon that are "insert GBA cart" exclusive?

We should be more concerned with what is available to the entire population of Pokemon gamers rather than what is available to gamer X IMO. Again, if these limitations are so desirable, why not play the actual DS game and battle on WiFi?

 

[Cathy]

So basically, you're defining breeding and SRing as processes but going to an event and downloading an event Pokemon is not a process? Because the act of going to the event is "not ingame" so it's not simulating anything ingame?

The difference (which Nate River already pointed out) is that you can follow the algorithm to get a non-event pokemon right now, but you can't for event moves, since they were in the past, and they only gave out a finite number of pokemon anyway. When you make a team, it is something you are doing "right now" and hence the act of choosing that event pokemon has to simulate something you could do right now.

I'm aware not all event move pokemon worked like this, but some, including the ever-popular Wish Blissey, did.

 

[Thorhammer]

Playing these "what if" games is exactly what we shouldn't be doing with regards to a battling simulator. What if I accidentally ran away from Cresselia and I can't catch one anymore? What if I don't own any 3rd gen games so I can't catch the Pokemon that are "insert GBA cart" exclusive?

We should be more concerned with what is available to the entire population of Pokemon gamers rather than what is available to gamer X IMO. Again, if these limitations are so desirable, why not play the actual DS game and battle on WiFi?

Either of those can be remedied at any time. Anyone has the option of restarting a file to get Cresselia, catching it on a file on a separate game, or simply trading for someone else's Cresselia, because anyone has the option of getting one regardless of what any one person may have done about their option. Similarly, you can at any time buy a 3rd gen game to catch the corresponding Pokemon in Sinnoh, or trade with someone who already has it for one of the potentially infinite number of them that exist in the world.

There is a potentially infinite number of everything in Pokemon so far, with the exception of Celebi, Deoxys, Darkrai, and your precious event moves. The event moves are really the only ones that count, though; both Deoxys and Darkrai have been given out at fairly recent events as opposed to Wish Blissey, and the second half of their events (this weekend's Deoxys giveaway and the future Member Card or whatever it's called) have not even happened yet. As for Celebi, recently there were three Pokemon only available from events from several years ago- Mew, Celebi, and Deoxys. Two have had recent releases, leading to the logical conclusion that the third will be released as well not particularly long from now. The only things where an opportunity has completely come and gone are the event moves, and as such, their removal cannot be compared to anything else.

 

[EeveeTrainer]

I don't understand why these IV restrictions would apply to the Regi's since they are obtainable through an event as well.

 

[Tangerine]

I don't understand why these IV restrictions would apply to the Regi's since they are obtainable through an event as well.

Fixed.

 

[Iraff]

My question is, why try to emulate the cartridge as closely as possible? I thought the purpose was to remove hours of grinding and breeding. It seems to me that cartridge consistent IVs are, as Misty said, too complex to be practical, and, more importantly, not game-changing enough to be worth it.

 

[ChaosAkita]

I am for correct legendary IVs, as we already have these in place.

I am also for event moves. I don't care about IVs, as having 100% cartridge consistency is not worth having a less diverse metagame, but I do care about having event-move pokemon having the correct natures.

 

[Bozo]

of course it is "theoretically possible" that i could sit down and hatch eggs until i hatch a 31/31/31/31/31/31 gible. so i see the logic in allowing people to use teams with 6 flawless pokes (not that i actually believe that most of the brain dead morons are capable of breeding/SR'ing 6 perfect pokes).

realistically though, to be completely sure about this kind of thing, all that can really be done is travel through time and inspect the IVs of EVERY SINGLE (legit) POKEMON that ever existed, and make a catalogue of the full IV spreads of each, and only allow them to be used. some spreads would only be legal to use after a certain date. eg there may not be a 31/31/31/31/31/31 garchomp today, but i might hatch one tomorrow. i might not put it up in my shop for a couple of weeks after that, so maybe im the only one allowed to use one on shoddy. not to mention that you might want to use an egg move which i forgot to give it. then what? are we going to have a list of allowable pokemon to choose from? imagine building a team and having to choose your garchomp from a list of 50bazillion legal nature/IVs/move combinations.

as for event pokes, unless you can round them all up, there is no way to prove that a 31/31/31/31/31/31 wish-bliss does not exist somewhere. so, "in theory" i might meet someone who has one, trade them for it, and use it in real life.

so, if we are trying to make things as real as possible, i think allowing 31/31/31/31/31/31 regular pokes is about as good/bad as allowing event moves (as long as we know they really existed).

as for the legendary IV thing, surely thats just too hard to implement. do i understand correctly that there are only a fixed number of IV spreads possible for certain legendaries? if we tried to "implement" that, wouldnt it mean that when i decide to put regigigas in my team, i would have to look at a list of billions of allowable IV spreads to determine which is the one i want to use?

i've always understood that netbattle/shoddy is simply an idealised battle simulator. not a computerised representation of the real world. i would hate it if my computer pinball games simulated the flippers getting stuck for no apparent reason.

why dont we just let shoddy allow anything that "might" be possible? (and by possible i mean IF someone bred perfect IVs, IF an event poke turned out perfect). not "its possible that they might give out judgement porygons).

man, too much rambling, and i dont know if it all makes sense, and no time to check. hopefully fragments of sense can be picked out.

 

[merubin]

Colin: I see your position now, and it makes sense. It's an awfully particular frame of reference for the whole thing, though, so I think it's going to have a hard time garnering support even if it were more easily explainable.

My question is, why try to emulate the cartridge as closely as possible? I thought the purpose was to remove hours of grinding and breeding. It seems to me that cartridge consistent IVs are, as Misty said, too complex to be practical, and, more importantly, not game-changing enough to be worth it.

They're not really too complex to be practical. In every case save some event Pokemon people who know the PID mechanics know exactly what the nature/IV restrictions should be. Now, the current implementation in Shoddy for non-breedable Pokemon is cumbersome, but unless there's something weird I'm not aware of, it's possible to have automatic IV-setting for Hidden Powers on Legendaries just like there is on breedable Pokemon. Just because it hasn't quite been done yet isn't a very good reason for officially voting down that mechanic.

 

[merubin]

realistically though, to be completely sure about this kind of thing, all that can really be done is travel through time and inspect the IVs of EVERY SINGLE (legit) POKEMON that ever existed, and make a catalogue of the full IV spreads of each, and only allow them to be used.

You're misunderstanding Colin's position. I suggest you go back and read through his posts again.

as for event pokes, unless you can round them all up, there is no way to prove that a 31/31/31/31/31/31 wish-bliss does not exist somewhere. so, "in theory" i might meet someone who has one, trade them for it, and use it in real life.

We're not saying there can't be a straight-31 Wish Bliss. It can exist in Timid, Modest, Docile natures. We know enough about Wish Bliss distribution, though, to know that there can't be a 31 Bold Wish Bliss. For that, your ideal would likely be all 31s but with a 16 in attack.

as for the legendary IV thing, surely thats just too hard to implement. do i understand correctly that there are only a fixed number of IV spreads possible for certain legendaries? if we tried to "implement" that, wouldnt it mean that when i decide to put regigigas in my team, i would have to look at a list of billions of allowable IV spreads to determine which is the one i want to use?

Do you have to look at billions of IV spreads to get the best possible Hidden Power 70 combination for breedable Pokemon on Shoddy? No, unless you have very particular needs in which case you should definitely know enough to figure it out on your own with a minimum of hassle.

 

[Bozo]

i should probably read the discussion, but i wasnt actually replying to anything specific. just adding my thoughts.

i think the defining feature of these simulators is that anyone who knows the first thing about battling can start straight away with pokes with perfect IVs, no need to breed/train. games are faster and easier to initiate also. so its definitely very different to real life.

if we KNOW things like that the only wish-blisseys have a certain nature, then that should probably be programmed in. along the same lines, i guess i see the point of the legend-IV thing too. but i think it's always going to be an approximation to the real world, and is going to err on the "yeah right" side of things.

but yeah, interesting topic.....

 

[Bender]

Some problems I have with the legendary IV's is that can be annoying and a little time consuming when trying to figure out a hidden power. Also it really makes no difference and usually means 1 less hp or an unused attack stat being lowered and for such little change is it really worth the hassle? My vote goes for no legendary IV's.

 

[Lord Alchemy]

I am for cartridge consistent Legendary IVs. There isn't much to say here. We're attempting to simulate the game that Nintendo made, not make up our own. When provided clear limitations on certain aspects of the game, we should follow suit with our simulators.

I am for Event Moves. If we remove them, we're violating our simulation of Pokemon as we know that they exist, regardless of the IV/Nature limitations. If we allow them, we again have a violation of our simulation. But I believe that removing the moves is a larger violation, as the loss of moves is larger then incorrect IVs and/or natures.

 

[Spaniard]

My vote is for legal in-game IV's since I feel that we should be emulating the game.

Also I vote that we allow event moves as they are obtainable and since they make the metagame evolve, turning it more interesting.

 

[Efreet]

No, it's not. This is a simulator, not Wi-Fi. If the el, as we're trying to simulate the perfect environment. An environment in which "human error" of either losing a pokemon or being unwilling to trade it is absolutely irrelevant.

There are basically 2 ways of see a simulator:

1-a simulator as name imply must simulate as close as possible it's model, in this thinking IV consistency and no (or limited) event moves makes sense.

2-a simulator is an power up version of the true enviroment (the perfect enviroment as you state)

then (since my personal preference go to definition 1), i would like to know the opinion of the people who choose 2 on this issue:

Do you think the simulator should be used as enchanced practice of the real thing or do you want a different utopia enviroment where all goes?
Because as you have already notice this influence (in a negative way IMO) also the wi-fi enviroment (thanks to all the hacking involved in getting those moves), the first analysis set on blissey page is the wish set now why a simple wi-fi player should prepare to counter that thing when he will probably never face one?
Also doing so the practice on simulator is less useful to partecipate sactioned tournament event.
This of course has no relevance if you just want it to be a different enviroment but then the main point of smogon philosophy will not be respected since we will play a total made up enviroment with no connection with the actual game.

 

[Firestorm]

The difference (which Nate River already pointed out) is that you can follow the algorithm to get a non-event pokemon right now, but you can't for event moves, since they were in the past, and they only gave out a finite number of pokemon anyway. When you make a team, it is something you are doing "right now" and hence the act of choosing that event pokemon has to simulate something you could do right now.

I'm aware not all event move pokemon worked like this, but some, including the ever-popular Wish Blissey, did.

There is no such thing as a finite amount of Pokemon. With cloning, there is an infinite amount of every Pokemon. Considering the entire Pokemon "economy" is based on cloning, I don't see how this is a factor.

How I'm seeing this is with this question:
Do Event Pokemon with different natures and IVs from what is possible change the game more or less than removing these Event Pokemon altogether?

And by that, I mean what is possible in game. In my opinion, the event Pokemon are there and movesets have a much larger impact than IVs or Natures do.

 

[Duckster]

I believe we should allow legal legendary IVs only. Despite the underwhelming effect this has on the metagame overall, it still more accurately reflects the game we are trying to simulate (even if it effects the metagame by a fraction of a percentile, it still effects the metagame). If there was not yet a program capable of producing legal, in game stats, I'd probably tell you guys not to worry about. This is not the case, and I really do appreciate the feature.

A few of you were saying not to over-complicate things? Well, its been implemented into the program already and isn't that hard to work with.

I also believe we should leave event moves for the extended game only. There seems to be a unanimous decision here that we want to allow event moves because 'they're allowed in the cartridges', but when you factor in the rarity of these guys I don't see how this is a practical argument, really. All of the main events that see usage on shoddy are practically non-existent in the carts as it is (Wish bliss and friends). Yet you say we're trying to accurately simulate the carts? If that were the case then I don't see how you'd be opposed to banning WishBliss and co. at all.

Obviously, putting a blanket ban on events would undercomplicate things in the long run, as opposed to trying to draw a line between WishBliss and the mighty FlyPika (which I'll admit was never an issue in this thread).

Its really not fair to allow moves that were only obtained by a few people into a competitive game like this. Anyone who obtained Wishbliss in 2005 now has one more Pokemon that they can use against any of us in battle, while we still do not have access to it. Not everyone clones, and not everyone is going to be willing to trade their events.

I know what you're thinking. Some of you are going to say that the entire point of Shoddy is to provide an even playing ground for all battlers (therefore removing any 'advantage' the kid from New York might have who went to the event). I say: no, the point of Shoddy (at least it is my interpretation) is to provide an equal playing ground within reasonable constraints of the game. These events are not reasonable.

This is coming from someone who would severely miss WishBliss by the way. But I might as well ask; are you really advocating the use of these moves because they're 'possible in the carts'? Or is there another reason? Possibly your interpretation of whatever positive impact they have on the metagame. (If not then obviously disregard this comment). I only bring this up because if it were the case that you liking the moves was your only reason for defending them, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other tweaks we could implement into the game to make it 'better'. But that would not be an accurate simulation of the GameBoy carts, at all.

Really, we should be trying to simulate what's probable here, not just what's possible for a few lucky kids living in NY.

 

[Cathy]

There is no such thing as a finite amount of Pokemon. With cloning, there is an infinite amount of every Pokemon. Considering the entire Pokemon "economy" is based on cloning, I don't see how this is a factor.

This is an awfully pedantic response, considering I mentioned cloning myself.

What I meant was that there are a finite number of different IV-Nature spreads for some event pokemon.

And if you want to pedantic, which you evidently do, then I was actually right. What I said is that there were a finite number given out at the event, which is true. You'll need to do better for your next pedantic correction.

 

[Metallic]

I am for cartridge-consistent IV combinations. Aren't we trying to emulate the cartridge as closely as possible?

For the same reason, I am for allowing event moves.

 

[Jimbo]

I am for cartridge-consistent IV combinations. Aren't we trying to emulate the cartridge as closely as possible?

For the same reason, I am for allowing event moves.

Well you say you want to make the simulator as close to the cartridge as possible, well does your cartridge have a WishBliss/WishMence/Wish Gallade, etc.? You, (probably), like myself and most other people would say no. Most cartridges in the world don't have all the event Pokemon, especially not competitive event Pokemon, allowing event moves to "emulate the cartridges" is really only emulating <10% of the carts in the world =l

Even with the advent of cloning and wi-fi there are still not enough legit event Pokemon circulating to make allowing event moves "similar to the cartridges."

 

[Sunday]

I am in favour of event moves, as it's pretty pointless to deny their existence.

I have no opinion on the other matter at this time.

 

[Ancien Régime]

I am in favor of IV restrictions because we actually KNOW what IVs exist, and therefore, no reason not to have them.

EDIT: I made this vote earlier, but then changed my mind.

With that said,

I am in favor of Event Moves, because why is it that big of a deal to perfectly emulate what you can do on the cartridge? I don't think at all that when we have 95% emulation, we need to diminish the metagame in order to achieve that 100% emulation. What if "100% emulation" means allowing that "any move learned" glitch, to give an example?

It's not like Event Moves clearly don't exist - it's just confusion about IVs/Natures and such. It's not like we're slapping Outrage on Salamence or Close Combat on Azelf; it's just something that we're not 100% sure about that we actually know exists to some extent.