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have the current game mechanics made competitive play less fun?

Profesco

gone gently
Well said, jstinftw!, but I'm sure SBaby will reply by pointing out that, when he raised the topic of elitism in competitive Pokémon, he claimed not to have been speaking specifically or exclusively about Smogon. Nevertheless, remove the narrative focus on Smogonites and you've still posted an excellent commentary on the all too human tendency to develop a superiority complex (with all the standard out-group enmity) when participating in a culture of competition. Also, your statement that "The people who want to have fun aren't playing while the people who just want to win are" is one of the most quotable phrases about competitive Pokémon that I've ever seen on the internet.



While I'm here, though, I'd like to sketch out slightly a disagreement about your reason why having "standard" Pokémon is a blessing. I would argue that, rather than building a team (say, in UU) that has only to prepare for 12 (or so) specific Pokémon, what we actually do is build a team that prepares for certain threats, and by that I mean we have to prepare for certain strategic capacities (i.e. type, ability, stat distribution) that can in principle - and frequently in practice - be performed by multiple Pokémon.

Let me illustrate it this way: why is Entei in a lower tier (used less often) than Arcanine? Because Arcanine fulfills the same general role that Entei would, and does so better by virtue of its somewhat superior stat distribution and movepool. But the point is that anyone who has prepared for an Arcanine has also automatically prepared themselves for an Entei. So when we build, say, an OU team, we are not just preparing for the threat of Salamence, but also of every other Pokémon, OU and down, that could perform the same general role as Salamence. We are actually preparing for a far larger percentage of that total 649+ bestiary than you imply, see, and that's a large part of the reason I think the game would not actually be substantially less manageable if all (or most) Pokémon were competitively viable options on the same level.

(In other words, if my team requires a Normal/Flying physical sweeper in its last slot, I'd like to be able to choose Staraptor, but also Pigeot, Fearow, Dodrio, Farfetch'd, Swellow, or Unfezant if I so desired, and have a comparably good chance of that Pokémon performing its role regardless of which I chose. Nor do I think my opponent will be any harder-pressed to prepare for and defend against this team member despite there being more than a single viable Pokémon to be it.)
 

jstinftw!

hey trainer
Well said, jstinftw!, but I'm sure SBaby will reply by pointing out that, when he raised the topic of elitism in competitive Pokémon, he claimed not to have been speaking specifically or exclusively about Smogon. Nevertheless, remove the narrative focus on Smogonites and you've still posted an excellent commentary on the all too human tendency to develop a superiority complex (with all the standard out-group enmity) when participating in a culture of competition. Also, your statement that "The people who want to have fun aren't playing while the people who just want to win are" is one of the most quotable phrases about competitive Pokémon that I've ever seen on the internet.



While I'm here, though, I'd like to sketch out slightly a disagreement about your reason why having "standard" Pokémon is a blessing. I would argue that, rather than building a team (say, in UU) that has only to prepare for 12 (or so) specific Pokémon, what we actually do is build a team that prepares for certain threats, and by that I mean we have to prepare for certain strategic capacities (i.e. type, ability, stat distribution) that can in principle - and frequently in practice - be performed by multiple Pokémon.

Let me illustrate it this way: why is Entei in a lower tier (used less often) than Arcanine? Because Arcanine fulfills the same general role that Entei would, and does so better by virtue of its somewhat superior stat distribution and movepool. But the point is that anyone who has prepared for an Arcanine has also automatically prepared themselves for an Entei. So when we build, say, an OU team, we are not just preparing for the threat of Salamence, but also of every other Pokémon, OU and down, that could perform the same general role as Salamence. We are actually preparing for a far larger percentage of that total 649+ bestiary than you imply, see, and that's a large part of the reason I think the game would not actually be substantially less manageable if all (or most) Pokémon were competitively viable options on the same level.

(In other words, if my team requires a Normal/Flying physical sweeper in its last slot, I'd like to be able to choose Staraptor, but also Pigeot, Fearow, Dodrio, Farfetch'd, Swellow, or Unfezant if I so desired, and have a comparably good chance of that Pokémon performing its role regardless of which I chose. Nor do I think my opponent will be any harder-pressed to prepare for and defend against this team member despite there being more than a single viable Pokémon to be it.)
The flaw in my explanation! xD Thank you for pointing that out.

What you say is true haha. I guess I meant it more in that with standard Pokemon and standard teams being what they are, you have a good idea of what's going around in the metagame. With that in mind, it's easier to build your team as opposed to hoping to the Arceus that your team is built soundly. In a stagnant environment, you're able to see flaws in both your opponent and your own team.

So my statement was wrong hahah. Good catch.

And thank you! I'm glad that someone else agrees with what I said. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who sees things a certain way haha. :)
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
I'm not gonna bother with Sbaby's amazing story that he/she found jerks on the Internet, but I found this funny:

Look at it this way. If you're in a cooking competition and your dish is criticized, you don't turn to the judges and tell them that what they said is hearsay, do you? You don't call it 'anecdotal evidence' because they didn't like the way your dish tasted, do you? No. You take their advice and find ways to improve your dish. There's a reason that people in cooking competitions generally don't last long when they argue with the judges.

Man, those judges sound like a bunch of elitist jerks, don't they? Why can't those judges just let people cook their favorites and have fun?
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
The main reason why hearsay is actually an accurate description of whats going on is because most of the problems incoming competitive players have with Smogon players and elitism does not come from Smogon players.

The people directly associated with Smogon as well as the more well-known respected members actually are focused on helping newer players get better at the game. They can be a bit narrowminded in that their brains are wired towards what is good vs. what you like and favorites, but they are respectful people.

The people everyone complains about are not directly connected to Smogon. Some have accounts on Smogon. Sure, but a majority of the "elitist jerks" are nameless people who do keep up with Smogon rules, trends and discussion, but are just nameless trainers who are playing on Pokemon Showdown/Pokemon Online/ Shoddy or whatever. They get on and play, and do their whole d-baggery bit without any connection to Smogon.

You could liken it to a vigilante group. They go around, parading Smogon's rules and name, but aren't actually representative of Smogon. They just parade around like they are.

But people who go on for the first time and encounter this don't know this, and they come back with all these complaints, and then rumors get started and eventually, the truth was covered up. Smogon is mot the culprit, but because everyone assumes they are, they are the ones who take the hit.

Of course there is overlap. Their are d-bag Smogonites, but I mean, have you looked in SPPF's own competitive forums? I have faced much more ignorance, elitsim, and d-baggery from a select few of SPPF's members than I ever have people on Smogon, or on any Battle Simulator. Being an elitist jerk is not a right solely exclusive to Smogon, or any other community. Where there is competition, there will be elitists who think they are good (regardless of whether this is true or not) and parade it around, shoving it down other people's throats.

I have come across many friendly, jovial competitive players, and have actually made a few friends out of them. They give me a healthy dose of competitive insight and pressure to counter my overall relaxed view on competitive battles. Its healthy. Of course I've had bad experiences, but those are bound to happen. If you really can't take it, try finding like-minded competitive trainers (there are plenty, trust me), and battle with them. Keeps you in the competitive game, playing for the right reasons, and you get to skim the bad parts.

Now to tie all this into the main topic!

I get kind of sad that potential competitive players get turned off solely because of elitism. This fear is exactly why metagames get stale and such; the wrong people aren't competitive. The people who want to have fun arent playing while the people who just want to win are.

Having people scare people away and spread rumors plus the actual elitist trainers that these possible competitive players do encounter just shut them off to the game. Which is really sad, because if you stick around a while and find a few people to play around with til you get your bearing on competitive, you eventually get over it and start to enjoy it (example: me).

Pokemon is one of the best, most complex yet customizable online competitive games out there. There's so much creativity and strategy involved, plus luck and socialness, creating an overall exciting and fun game. Thats why I love it, and I think the current competitive game is great, due to all the options we now have available. And when people have bad experiences and get turned off to the game because of it, or are scared away from it because of a few bad days and lots of spread rumors, it makes me sad.

Thats actually my biggest problem with the current competitive game; the people, both from competitive and non-competitive players.

I'm just going to have to quote the whole post, because it'll take me forever to break it down. But before I start, I have to say this is probably the most tactful rebuttal to my statements regarding elitism, that I have ever seen on this site. I know that's not a big point that's relevant to the topic, but I thought it should be said.

Now, I'm going to be going kind of backwards here, because it'll help me to put my thoughts together in a way that hopefully makes sense. Or at the very least, I hope you can see where I'm coming from. You hit on alot of key points with your post, and whether you know it or not, you did in fact illustrate some of what I was attempting to get at, regarding the issue (particularly when you mentioned people on this site, which I do agree can sometimes be worse). So admittedly, alot of what you said is indeed accurate.

Unfortunately, the wrong people aren't playing competitively. This is true. And it is because casual gamers that look at things like the reaction some people have to me when I bring it up, are saying to themselves 'Is this how all competitive battlers act?'. And this isn't the only time that people have brought up elitism in competitive battling, and it isn't going to be the last time. This is something that isn't going to go away, no matter how much people try to make it go away. It's unfortunate, but here's the reality of the situation. My father's drill instructor once said this, "One 'oh ----' wipes out 100 'atta boys'." This sounds like a harsh generalization, I admit that. But it's not far from the truth. The general public historically remembers the bad stuff more than the good stuff.

I agree that people who want to have fun should be the ones playing competitively. But here's the hard truth. As long as competitive battling is so regulated, this will never happen. Until people relax these cosmic tier and ban rules, casual gamers are going to stay intimidated by competitive battling, and they won't want to do it. That's the bottom line. And it doesn't help when people try to justify it, any more than it helps when Microsoft tries to justify the price of its new console or the DRM stuff. And if you think it does, take a look at MS and see how well that attitude is working for them. Casual gamers don't care. They want to have fun, not have to learn a bunch of new rules and abide by new regulations. People want freedom. And you can't take that freedom away. If you want competitive battling to be successful among casual gamers, you've gotta give them the freedom. You've gotta let them pick their team. You've gotta let them play it the way they want to play it.

Finally, before I talk about anything regarding competitive battling on this site, I'll say this. Initially, I was stoked about competitive battling. Gradually, my opinion of it degenerated and was reduced to me being less inclined to do it. Understand that I was not the first person that brought up the elitism in the sport, because despite not being all too fond of it at the time, it never really had crossed my mind that it was elitist. But I did see the reaction people had to that person. And it pretty much did nothing but make me think the person who brought up the elitism might be onto something.

Now I don't really want to go too much into Smogon or anything like that (oh, they see right THROUGH ME!!!). But a I said before, when you turn a video game, any video game into a sport, and you install a bunch of rules and regulations regarding what's allowed and what's not allowed, you are going to alienate casual gamers. Street Fighter, DotA, Pokemon, Smash Bros, it doesn't matter. It's still going to intimidate casual gamers. And when people react the way I've seen people react to criticisms of said rules, words like 'elitist' are inevitably going to show up.
 
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IAintObeezy

Ban this Trainer
I just came to say evasive clause is butthurt bullcrap and freeze claus is pointless because you cant control what pokemon get frozen. That's is all. Continue with epic wall text battle.
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
I just remember when Pokemon was just about fighting and not constructing machines of war.

Exactly. I miss the days when you just took your team, found a friend, and battled.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
Exactly. I miss the days when you just took your team, found a friend, and battled.
I loved that in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, where I battled my cousins with their Kyogre. Won first time, lost the second.

Pokemon is just as causal/competitive as you want to make it.
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
I just came to say evasive clause is butthurt bullcrap and freeze claus is pointless because you cant control what pokemon get frozen. That's is all. Continue with epic wall text battle.

Evasion is one of those things newcomers (including myself at the time) to competitive battling think is crap but quickly come to appreciate it after the Double Teaming Dusknoir in a Battle Tower or Factory Pressure Stalls you to death and you can't hit him with anything besides the weak base 60 never miss moves.

Freeze clause is something enforced in simulators. Some clauses have, in the past, been enforced in Pokemon console games such as Stadium enforcing a Sleep clause.

I just remember when Pokemon was just about fighting and not constructing machines of war.

People play the game differently. There is no right or wrong way to play Pokemon

Unfortunately, the wrong people aren't playing competitively.

This is a point of contention I don't understand, that jstin bought up. That somehow, people play to win aren't having fun. What's wrong with winning? Not to turn this into a philosophy course, but is this stemming from the "everyone gets a trophy" culture? Is there something bad about winning a battle or a tournament?

This is true. And it is because casual gamers that look at things like the reaction some people have to me when I bring it up, are saying to themselves 'Is this how all competitive battlers act?'. And this isn't the only time that people have brought up elitism in competitive battling, and it isn't going to be the last time. This is something that isn't going to go away, no matter how much people try to make it go away. It's unfortunate, but here's the reality of the situation. My father's drill instructor once said this, "One 'oh ----' wipes out 100 'atta boys'." This sounds like a harsh generalization, I admit that. But it's not far from the truth. The general public historically remembers the bad stuff more than the good stuff.

Well what do you propose people do? You can't stop jerks from being jerks. This isn't like a team from your school where you can kick people off for misbehaving. This is a loosely connected community within an entire fandom spread across several Internet sites and chat rooms and message boards that participate in online and real-life events.

And as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing anyone could do to get you off the mindset that competitive battlers aren't, in fact, elitist jerks. Sure, I've mentioned dozens of bits of evidence that shows competitive battling communities are welcoming of new members but you've dismissed that as it doesn't suit your narrative.

As long as competitive battling is so regulated, this will never happen.Until people relax these cosmic tier and ban rules, casual gamers are going to stay intimidated by competitive battling, and they won't want to do it. That's the bottom line.

So competitive battling needs to completely abandon what it is at its core so that people who aren't interested will be interested?

That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Why not just let competitive players do their thing and casual players do their thing? Seems to work just fine.

Casual gamers don't care. They want to have fun, not have to learn a bunch of new rules and abide by new regulations. People want freedom. And you can't take that freedom away. If you want competitive battling to be successful among casual gamers, you've gotta give them the freedom. You've gotta let them pick their team. You've gotta let them play it the way they want to play it.

In no way, shape, or form has any gamer, casual or otherwise, been forced to use some team that they didn't want to use or use some rule they don't want to abide by. You are free to use any team or whatever you want. But that doesn't mean you can waltz into VGC event or a community's simulator battle server and expect them to accept your team if it breaks their rules.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
The only thing is that sometimes, you have to think of move choice and move viabilty. You don't want to teach Wrap to Attack Deoxys or Rock Slide on Shuckle. Also, if you are pitted against a Kyogre with a Flygon with Dragonbreath and Crunch as your last chance, do not select Crunch. I would have won too.
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
In no way, shape, or form has any gamer, casual or otherwise, been forced to use some team that they didn't want to use or use some rule they don't want to abide by. You are free to use any team or whatever you want. But that doesn't mean you can waltz into VGC event or a community's simulator battle server and expect them to accept your team if it breaks their rules.

You're missing the point though. Casual gamers don't care. They don't want to hear about justifications and rationalizations. And they don't want to deal with those rules. They want freedom. When you take that freedom away, you alienate them. It's as simple as that.
 
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IAintObeezy

Ban this Trainer
Evasion is one of those things newcomers (including myself at the time) to competitive battling think is crap but quickly come to appreciate it after the Double Teaming Dusknoir in a Battle Tower or Factory Pressure Stalls you to death and you can't hit him with anything besides the weak base 60 never miss moves.

Dusknoir is never used because its laughably small hp and speed makes it two hit ko'd by any move thats super effective against it on an average pokemon. if you cant hit it before it sets up that many double teams is just bad luck. and considering half of the game is luck based, this is just another factor affecting it. but seeing as how a lot of pokemon (especially better tanks) can learn double team I can see why its ban, but banning abilities for raising evasiveness was stupid. If you cant change the goddamn weather condition then you werent prepared and deserve lose because "they got lucky that you missed."
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
You're missing the point though. Casual gamers don't care. They don't want to hear about justifications and rationalizations. And they don't want to deal with those rules. They want freedom. When you take that freedom away, you alienate them. It's as simple as that.

And how is that freedom lacking now? There is no limitation on what you can or can't use in a Wi-Fi FC match or a local wireless match. You are free to battle whoever you like with whatever Pokemon you like assuming you can find someone who'll agree to whatever rules you set.

Dusknoir is never used because its laughably small hp and speed makes it two hit ko'd by any move thats super effective against it on an average pokemon. if you cant hit it before it sets up that many double teams is just bad luck. and considering half of the game is luck based, this is just another factor affecting it. but seeing as how a lot of pokemon (especially better tanks) can learn double team I can see why its ban, but banning abilities for raising evasiveness was stupid. If you cant change the goddamn weather condition then you werent prepared and deserve lose because "they got lucky that you missed."

That's more of a Gen 4 example but my point still stands. Evasion is something that de-emphasizes strategy and just reduces matches to button mashing and hoping something hits. It also doesn't help the one never miss move that doesn't suck has low distribution. Being "prepared to change the weather" practically means a weather conditon changing move or ability is required, which justifies banning those abilities rather than arguing for their reinstatement.
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
And how is that freedom lacking now? There is no limitation on what you can or can't use in a Wi-Fi FC match or a local wireless match. You are free to battle whoever you like with whatever Pokemon you like assuming you can find someone who'll agree to whatever rules you set.

Regular offline and online battling in general is fine. It's the competitive battling that casual gamers take an issue with.

Casual gamers don't want rules. They just want to battle, have fun doing it, and joke about it later. That's why they don't do competitive battling.
 
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randomspot555

Well-Known Member
Regular offline and online battling in general is fine. It's the competitive battling that casual gamers take an issue with.

Casual gamers don't want rules. They just want to battle, have fun doing it, and joke about it later. That's why they don't do competitive battling.

So you agree. No one is lacking the freedom to battle as they wish
 

SBaby

Dungeon Master
So you agree. No one is lacking the freedom to battle as they wish

I agree that there is less freedom when battling competitively. And that's why casual gamers don't do it. Casual gamers want freedom. And they don't find it in competitive battling. If they have freedom in competitive battling, they'll do competitive battling.

Understand that I have nothing against people that do competitive battling. This is just how casual gamers view it. And yes, it isn't an easy issue.
 
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Profesco

gone gently
The flaw in my explanation! xD Thank you for pointing that out.

What you say is true haha. I guess I meant it more in that with standard Pokemon and standard teams being what they are, you have a good idea of what's going around in the metagame. With that in mind, it's easier to build your team as opposed to hoping to the Arceus that your team is built soundly. In a stagnant environment, you're able to see flaws in both your opponent and your own team.

So my statement was wrong hahah. Good catch.

And thank you! I'm glad that someone else agrees with what I said. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who sees things a certain way haha. :)

It was a reply I was very pleased to be able to write. As I was doing so, I was thinking to myself how similarly (and positively) we conceived the qualities of competitive Pokémon play that make the game as wonderful as it is, and that it would be an honor and a joy to battle with a like-minded trainer. ^_^

This is a point of contention I don't understand, that jstin bought up. That somehow, people [who] play to win aren't having fun. What's wrong with winning? Not to turn this into a philosophy course, but is this stemming from the "everyone gets a trophy" culture? Is there something bad about winning a battle or a tournament?

I think the clarification can be understood by repeating something from one of my earlier posts. It's not that people who play to win aren't having fun along the way, it's rather that everybody plays to win, but some folks play only to win. And by that we mean a person who values "how you play the game" far less than "whether you win or lose," where "how you play the game" includes things as diverse as Pokémon choice, strategy preference, and even the phenomenon of disconnecting from Wi-Fi when it becomes clear you're about to lose.

It's illustrated by the case of the guy who hates Blissey from an aesthetic standpoint and dislikes facing it in battle because it is monotonously the best at what it does... and yet who uses Blissey in his own teams for precisely the reasons he doesn't like facing it. (I'm sure everyone who learned competitive play before the 5th gen can relate to the Blissey experience.)

There is nothing wrong with wanting to win so badly, but prioritizing your win record over every other factor involved in playing Pokémon (like aesthetic preference, originality, or even sportsmanship) ends up being worthy of reproach.
 

sizida

CoconutIsTheAnswer
It can be fun if only people don't go for perfect IVs. Even so different stats makes the battles more interesting.
 

IAintObeezy

Ban this Trainer
That's more of a Gen 4 example but my point still stands. Evasion is something that de-emphasizes strategy and just reduces matches to button mashing and hoping something hits. It also doesn't help the one never miss move that doesn't suck has low distribution.

Dude hoping something hits is half the game of pokemon. When your paralyzed your hoping your pokemon will attack next turn, when your accuracy is less than 100% your hoping it doesnt miss when you need it, when your asleep your button mashing and hoping you wake up next turn to hit. This is nothing new.

Being "prepared to change the weather" practically means a weather conditon changing move or ability is required, which justifies banning those abilities rather than arguing for their reinstatement.

Thats like saying you may run into a fire type so a water type will be required so its better to ban all water types.
 

randomspot555

Well-Known Member
Dude hoping something hits is half the game of pokemon. When your paralyzed your hoping your pokemon will attack next turn, when your accuracy is less than 100% your hoping it doesnt miss when you need it, when your asleep your button mashing and hoping you wake up next turn to hit. This is nothing new.[/quote[

Yes, that is true. There's going to be luck in Pokemon such as the built in accuracy of moves, critical hits, and side effects of moves such as flinch rates, burns, etc... But evasion is something that pretty much has to be purposely caused. Because of that, it makes sense to control it at least as far as Double Team/Minimize. I disagree about banning the evasion items and abilities, but the fact is that process was open to the public if they met the requirements, and no one is forced to play by those rules anyway. But overall I agree with an evasion ban since there's so much luck inherent in Pokemon, that enhancing it is just kind of a jerk move.

Thats like saying you may run into a fire type so a water type will be required so its better to ban all water types.

There's more than one way to deal with a Fire type. You can't change weather on a non-weather team without wasting a move slot for Sunny Day/Hail/Sandstorm.
 
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