Pokemon Battles

[Ash_Junior]

Recently in my Pokemon battles, I have been finding it hard to write them like everybody else. True, I'm jumping perspective all over the place, but I focus on one part, and ignore everything else.

You know, like Tunnel vision. In the last chapter of Now for Something Completely Different, I had a 3 on 3 Pokemon battle, and I did a combination of 2 different perspectives, and only really described the actions of 2 Pokemon, and kind of a third.

I completely ignored, really, the other two. They didn't really have any impact on the end of the battle--in fact, the ignored three went down pretty quickly. All in the same attack.

My question is do you think that describing every single attack is important for a battle, or only the important parts?

the second part that I'm having trouble with is I'm finding that the battles move far too fast and the Pokemon are too independent-minded to follow orders. They start strategies that their trainers would never use and never ordered. Then, of course, there's the problem that I keep forgetting to give commands....

>.<

'course, my opinion is "screw the commands, get to the action!" most of the time. In my opinion, commands just slow everything down. Pokemon would move much faster if they acted independently than if they relied totally on their trainers to tell them their every move.

That's why more and more I'm having the trainers just tell the Pokemon generally what to do and then they leave it at that.

All this has been a direct result of my mass battles experiences...

 

[Yami Ryu]

Eh pokemon are smart, but I don't think they're smart enough to keep in mind many, many past battle experiences, unless they're smarter than the average monster.

Like with Ann McCafrey's dragons. They're smart, they could work on their own, but they need humans, as they think in the now not the tomorrow or the yesterday, just the today. They aren't stupid, they are just animals, and animals usually don't worry about the when and the what if.

There's a fine line between making a pokemon smart, and humanising it. The only fic I saw pull off pokemon fighting well on their own, was well, a dark fic. And it had more to it than just the pokemon being smart. If you're gonna have a pokemon trainer fic, what's the point in trainers, badges, or doing anything when it's not you and the pokemon battling, but the pokemon battling themselves? Mean it kinda makes being a trainer moot point- mean, you aren't doing crap. It's the pokemon.

But eh, that's my view on things.

 

[Orange_Flaaffy]

I agree . In the case of human fighters coaches are important, even in my pokemorph fic there is a commands feature .
All and all pokemon, even smart ones or human like ones, need help. That doesn’t mean you can't have action, but a battle should have more depth behind it than just two pokemon beating on each other by themselfs .
Plus, I think showing every attack is important. What's the point of having a three on three battle if you don't even talk about half of them? IMHO, if that many pokemon is too much for your POV it is better to just do the classic one on one battle...

 

[Ash_Junior]

the point of it is that there are a group of three people that annoyed an existing team (not evil), and that team sent a trio of their own to shut them up (to sum it up, it would have wrecked the story to have a 1 on 1). but the important part is the stuff that I put forward.

if I had spent the time to cover the 3 as-of-now undescribed's actions, it would have disrupted the flow.

it essentially became a 1 on 1 battle. a short battle.

I tend to shy away from battles, actually, focusing more on what is happening with the character. Sometimes I just skip away from the battle when it begins at the end of a chapter and pick up after someone wins or loses in the beginning of the next chapter.

with this fic I'm experimenting switching perspectives from the trainer to the Pokemon and to other people that are important in the fic.

and as for the commands thing, I'm just saying it's hard for me...as for the Pokemon benig animals--in my fics, Pokemon are sentient (i.e. intelligent).

Flaaffy, to use your coach example, in most sports the coaches tell the general strategy, but the athletes themselves decide what to do (i.e. baseball, tennis, running sports, etc.).

I'm used to doing huge Pokemon battles (i.e. 100s vs. 100s), so one person wouldn't physically be able to tell everyone what to do, so they do general strategies (i.e. charge, flank 'em, pull back, etc.).

I find the turn-based thing totally ludicrous in the face of real combat. in REAL combat, Pokemon would be able to fifre off a bunch of beams in the time it took for one tackle, Surfs could last pretty long depending on the strength of the Pokemon, etc.

let's take the example of boxing:

Trainer 1: "right hook!"

TRainer 2: "hit him in the nuts!"

now obviously TRainer 2 wouldn't happen, but in the seconds it took the trainers (and I mean that in the actual sports trainers that athletes have today, not Pokemon trainers) to say it, four or five punches could have occured.

see? it takes WAY too long and saves so much time to have a general strategy and the Pokemon moves smoothly from one attack to the next.

Now, beginning Pokemon would need the sequence of attacks explained to them in order for them to know what works, but as they gain experience, they gain more and more autonomy because they know what works better.

meh, just my opinion.

EDIT: and Yami, about animals thinking only about the "now", then how do you explain learned behavior, such as fetching, flinching from a newspaper, etc?

animals have a very good memory most of the time (except for Goldfish, etc.)

 

[Yami Ryu]

I mean generally, they only worry about the now. Because the now is happening. My dog Hiedi was abused, but she doesn't go over the past, doesn't act like we're gonna beat her, because that was the then, this is the now. And while she remembers poor, sweet and dear Adam 'disappeared', she attached his disappearence with going 'byebye' and for a week freaked out when we left her at the vets overnight for a bath, but she has gotten over it. She doesn't think about the future, because to an animal, usually, all they worry about is the here and the now. That's usually all they think about. Yes traumatic things can stay marked in their mind. But do I think Hiedi has the mentality to plot out her own battle stratigy if she was protecting me? No. She would mindlessly, at the risk of her own life, try to savage whatever was attacking me.

And fighting dogs are the same. Just mindless beasts :/ but they don't count.

You see, there is a difference between being intelligent and well, thinking ahead. Yes pokemon, for the most part, would know this and that can take down that, but this and that is weak to whatsitcalled like I am so I can not fight whatsitcalled. I mean I can understand pokemon like mewtwo and the legendaries and Alakazam, Dragonite, Charizard, Arcanine and most other third stagers being smart enough to deduce moves and know strategies from experience, but most would still lack the ability a human has. So it would be act/react over a human thinking up a stratigy cause I doubt pokemon really, truely, take types into well, the whole battle thing unless it's obvious.

And how hard is it for a human to be on their toes and order out attacks for their pokemon? I mean completely writing out the human element? Teams in sports might do their own thing, but coaches still throw out who to play, give them plays, they try to make the whole point of 'team' work, the players just don't do it by themselves. For then, what is the point of a coach if the coach really does nothing when the team plays? :/ I mean, that's pretty pathetic. I know coaches can't do crap for Tennes platers. But it's not the same about football, basketball, baseball. Yes the teams and players do their own stuff, but coaches still do in the effort, planning, and half the plotting too.

So really, with how smart you're making pokemon out to be, training is really not important, or getting pokemon to trust you, or your judgement in battle.

 

[Psychic]

*started typing this up yesterday but SPPf craped out on me and it wouldn’t let me post*


Well the way I see it, Pokémon need humans to help them battle. Isn't that the main point in capturing them- this partnership benefits both humans and Pokémon. It gives humans something to do, a way to compete where the winner is based off how well you trained your friend, pretty much. In return, Pokémon are trained and become stronger, which, we are led to believe, is something most Pokémon want. Even in the first games you see that even a level 18 Beedrill you trained yourself will be far stronger than a wild Beedrill at the same level, thanks to their trainer’s love and guidance and all that.

In theory, this could have to do with the simple fact that when faced with an enemy, a Pokémon will always fight it the same way. So a Water Type will use Water Gun against a Fire Type as well as a Grass Type, not knowing about type weaknesses. Or an Electric type might not think of Paralyzing an opponent who is faster than it is so as to land in a few more attacks.
Pokémon can't think that way. Generally, they aren't good at coming up with strategies and using different tactics depending on their opponent.

But humans obviously can. We can use our own knowledge of what works and what doesn't and apply it to each specific situation. So they usually depend on humans, because in a sense, humans know more about battling, even though they're not the ones on the field.


Of course, that isn't to say that a Pokémon can't be creative and think on its feet without a trainer's help. Naturally, there's the classic "It doesn't need to be told to dodge" but a Fire Type might suddenly think of burning the leaf of the Grass Type opponent to distract it or something.

But generally, they rely on us to give them commands since in most cases, they wouldn't be very efficient in battle alone.




And on your other point...well, I don't really know what to tell you. What sorts of things would you leave out? I mean, sure if you want you can just say "the main character's friend swiftly beat her opponent with multiple Rock Slides and one last Earthquake attack during a round the main character missed" but I think it might be best to describe all the action, at least if the battle is an important one. Maybe if the battle consisted of mainly using a bunch of weak attacks you can skimp out if you want, then just mention the cooler stuff. Or maybe if you're doing it from the right point of view, the character was distracted and wasn't paying attention to the battle, so it's left undescribed while they're not watching it.

Meeeh, do what seems right. If you think the battle is important or your readers might want to hear about it, describe it. If it's long and boring, not very important or something like that, you can opt to skimp out in your description.
Just do whatever you think looks best. ^.~


~Psychic