The Gaming Den

http://pokemonshowdown.com/

Some folks put the battle system for Pokemon Black/White online. You can form any teams, or just hop right into random battles.

It's a fun game, but I do feel like there are some glaring flaws which were never addressed, or ways to make the game better.

How most people play is they ban the "30% accuracy instant KO" moves, and all evasion upping moves, and you can only put one enemy pokemon to sleep at any time (because Sleep is waaaay too good)

How would you improve Pokemon? Or a Pokemon-like game.

Or what do you enjoy about it as is.

Online Pokemon has been around forever.

OgreBattle wrote:How would you improve Pokemon?

Gold/Silver, but without the Dark/Steel types. Steel just shouldn't exist and everything Dark has should go to Ghost.

I don't think I'll ever get into the later games, even the remakes. Expecting people to manage EVs in addition to DVs is insanity.

The rules you see there are competetive rules started, as far as I can tell, by smogon. It's effectively the Legion of Butthurt. The type of people who turn Smash Brothers into No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination. Here is an accurate (NSFW) write-up of the smogon situation :3c

I'm fine with Dark or Steel - and when they were introduced, the game needed something to resist Dragon and something to beat Psychic. These days, with the existence of Bugs that aren't Poison, Ghosts that aren't Poison and actual decent Bug and Ghost attacks? Not such a big deal.

I'd fold Ground and Rock together into the same thing. I'd want to change the weaknesses around a bit to make a bit more sense, but from a balance perspective, being able to smash rocks is what makes Fighting worth taking.

But perfect pokemon experience? I'd honestly start with the HGSS system, then update with the new pokemon, moves and abilities introduced in 5Gen, and then focus most of the game not on actual battles, but on Pokemon Contests (RSE/DPPl), Pokeathlon (HGSS) and Pokestar Studios (B2W2). Seriously, I'd focus the game on "not the battles".

If we're talking about type streamlining:

Dragon shouldn't exist thematically, it's not even handed out with any consistency (Charizard and Gyarados are not dragons, but Kingdra is) and balance wise it's rather close to what Normal should have been (offensively, at least, defensively it's much better)

I don't think Normal should either, it doesn't add much to the game and isn't good against anything while being bad at a lot of things (most of its shit could be folded into Fighting, with a few moves tossed into other types.)

Agree with LR on Dark and Steel (Steel could easily be folded with Rock and Dark with Ghost or Psychic for the 'creepy moves' and Fighting for the 'dirty fighting' moves) and with Koumei on Rock/Ground.

Bug and Poison should probably be tweaked a bit and put into one type as well, as Poison sucks in type matchups except against Grass (which Bug does well against anyways, and 99% of Bugs are Bug/Poison or Bug/Flying)

Which would leave us with:
Fire
Water
Grass
Ice
Flying
Electric
Bug/Poison
Fighting
Ghost
Rock/Ground (and Steel? type match-ups need to be rejiggered for this)

Which seems workable.

Engine-wise I agree with Koumei, although I would prefer the focus to remain on battling (minigames should still exist, but as minigames)

EDIT: That all being said, Heart Gold/Soul Silver remains one of my favorite games of all time, and more Pokemon games like it would be wonderful with or without any reworking of types.

Koumei wrote:The rules you see there are competetive rules started, as far as I can tell, by smogon. It's effectively the Legion of Butthurt. The type of people who turn Smash Brothers into No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination. Here is an accurate (NSFW) write-up of the smogon situation :3c

That article has a few mistruths, such as claiming the species clause is used. I've never had a problem with the smogon rules. In fact, the worst battles I've ever had were without the sleep/evasion clauses.

The article goes on to call pokemon luck-based, which sounds like the whining of someone who failed to realize how in-depth pokemon really is.

Koumei wrote: But perfect pokemon experience? I'd honestly start with the HGSS system, then update with the new pokemon, moves and abilities introduced in 5Gen, and then focus most of the game not on actual battles, but on Pokemon Contests (RSE/DPPl), Pokeathlon (HGSS) and Pokestar Studios (B2W2). Seriously, I'd focus the game on "not the battles".

Wat? No fun, awful minigames, final destination?

1) Remove Steel because fuck Steel.

2) Rename Dragon to something else. Recategorize existing pokemans as needed. Probably going to end up moving a lot of things into Flying.

3) Improve poison because I'm pretty sure its the worst type ever.

4) Make more Normal Type pokemon that are worth a damn. Alternatively, do some stat normalizing.

Smogon rules have gotten a wee bit ridiculous since my time at the top there. I'm an advocate of removing the OHKO, evasion, and species clauses -- these items are simply not overpowered anymore.

There is nothing wrong with anything else there, though.

This isn't new though. Online pokemon has been a thing since at least 1999.

Stealth Rock is the most bullshit move ever.

That's the change I'd make, just take Stealth Rock out of the game.

Anyone who advocates removing types because it 'makes sense' is an idiot because it fucks balance. Just let the Sacred Cow stay alive.

Smogon rules are honestly pretty good, have you ever tried battling without them? Shits just not as fun.

Only thing I agree with is fuck Stealth Rocks. It's too fucking good and prevents entire dual typing from ever being competitive.

Of the 153 possible type pairings, 6 are dual-weak to Rock.

Bug/Fire
Bug/Ice
Bug/Flying
Fire/Ice
Fire/Flying
Ice/Flying

Two of them, Bug/Ice and Fire/Ice, don't even have any Pokemon associated with them. And Bug/Flying sucks anyway. And Volcarona, the only Bug/Fire, is still pretty cool. But yes, it would be nice if Fire/Flying and Ice/Flying were more viable.

44 type combinations are singly weak to Rock. But those typings aren't completely obliterated from being competitive.

It's still a pretty extremely centralizing move, but I don't know about it nullifying the competitive viability of legions of Pokemon.

Make EVs selectable on level-up, rather than the current bullshit of "you must beat a bajillion absols to raise your attack."

John Magnum wrote: It's still a pretty extremely centralizing move, but I don't know about it nullifying the competitive viability of legions of Pokemon.

I think it's mostly the way that it kicks so many pokemon while they are already down that pisses people off--there's a ton of marginal pokemon out there that are easily killed in one go or hosed in two shots of decent neutral damage once you factor in a dab of Stealth Rock. I've learned to accept it, but I can sympathize with people who are annoyed by how much crap you can't switch into while it is up.

Soda: with the exception of EV-training, searching for stupid 1% edge case things (I'm going to include Feebas Fishing in 3-4Gen), nature-breeding and IV-breeding, battling is the least interesting part of the game. The minigames make them properly enjoyable for me.

But pokemon walking after you and acting cute when you talk to them is mandatory.

BearsAreBrown wrote: Smogon rules are honestly pretty good, have you ever tried battling without them? Shits just not as fun.

Yes, it's called "the actual game". Even the few changes of PWT/Battle Castle/Subway/Your Mum (no duplicate critters or items, no legendaries, no player-item-usage*, no free switch-out when you score a KO, everyone set to the same level, final destination) are stupid and annoying. But let's look at the following stipulations:
[*]Sleep Clause: because fuck status effects that aren't Burn (the only one people advocate using in competetive play, sometimes with the exception of Toxic if you can force them to stay, or Paralysis for the right types). No, let Jigglypuff/Darkrai/Hypno/whatever do their thing. Yes, if your team gets put to sleep, things are going to be bad for you if you don't have Chesto/Lum berries, Snore or Sleep Talk. Guess you should have thought of that.
[*]Double-Suicide is a loss: this doesn't bother me - you'd lose the battle in single player doing this at a gym or whatever. Forcing a draw isn't that clever, so whatever.
[*]Abloobloobloo the giant cock and balls is broken, it's banned, so is Manaphy, so is Garchomp: grow up. Not even Arceus or hacked Wonder Guard Spiritomb are unbeatable. And WoooBUFFET** vs WoooBUFFET is just funny and should happen more often (never mind that they're no longer locked in).
[*]Drizzle is OP, we must ban it: I never use weather effects without the rock to double the duration to "worth using at all" or always-on abilities that save the turn activating it. If you're making a Swift Swim/Rain Dish/Dry Skin team, then you're already saying "Grass and Electric attacks are super effective. Also, Thunder and Hurricane always hit" to the enemy, so just do it. If you're making a Chlorophyl team, you're going to be obliterated by Fire moves, so go for it (note: Drought isn't banned). If you want a Snow Veil/Ice Body team, then fuck, you're Cold type so you're going to get hammered (note: the Hail ability isn't banned). Sandstream is a bigger issue (three separate types benefit from it, with vaguely different defences), but still not a real issue.
[*]OHKOs are baaaaad: they totally are bad, in that they're not worth using. Unless you're the AI in PWT (you're not), where it works more often. Given so many pokemon can be one-shotted by the right move anyway, a very inaccurate move that does that if it hits is no big deal. And yes, Articuno can use a Mind Reader + Sheer Cold combo. Good for it.
[*]Evasion ablublublu: look, the game uses a RNG. That's part of the game, and you use it to your advantage just like everything else. This includes the attack roll/miss chance. People don't whine about Thunder not having 100% accuracy, saying non-rain has to be banned. So yeah, your Bright Powder + Sand Veil, or Minimise, should totally be allowed. It just makes auto-hit attacks a more appealing idea.

Fighting the elite fourfive, with no stupid bonus stipulations, is way more fun than taking on extra rules because it made some net-player butthurt.

The game is more fun being played the way it was made, the single player way. Or to put it another way, who gets to design new rules just to eliminate "stuff they don't like"? When I play RTS games, I don't get shitty with other players and ban all attacks for the first X minutes just because I'm obsessive-compulsive about building awesome bases and getting all the upgrades rather than making batches of cheap troops early on and focusing on "sending troops out to win the actual game". In Street Fighter, you don't ban your foe from using Ryu and Ken just because you want to use Zangief. If we let people just add stipulations that favour them, I hereby ban the following:
[*]Rock type pokemon and attacks
[*]Electric type pokemon and attacks
[*]Water type pokemon and attacks
[*]Dragon type pokemon and attacks
[*]Flashfire
[*]Heatproof
[*]Anything else that makes Charizard sad

*I understand the problem here. In pvp, both players could have any number of Full Restores and it'd go forever. Protip: fuck pvp, it takes the least interesting part of the game (see exceptions above - but it requires using those exceptions) and makes it worse. It would also make PWT etc. really easy. To which I say "good".

**Some pokemon require you say the name like they do in the anime. They are WooooBUFFET, KADABRA!, KOFFING! and Meee-yowth, that's right! I'm tempted to watch more of the anime just to see which other ones fit this category.

Koumei, you want to play casual pokemon. That's cool, man. Very cool. I can dig that. Personally, I stack my team with as many fire and fighting types as possible (which means Rape Ape is always on my team).

Unfortunately, Pokemon isn't really balanced, which isn't good for competitive play, which is what the Smogon rules were made for.
And this is also cool.

I think it would be easier if you just considered it a separate game.

-e-
on magicarps

I hereby ban people from using anything except for Magikarp and Feebas.

Koumei wrote:Abloobloobloo

Princess Bubblegum?

Maxus wrote:I hereby ban people from using anything except for Magikarp and Feebas.

Magikarp! Splash Attack!

In that way, Smogon kind of sounds like TheDen.


I do wish that Gamefreak would say, tweak how SLEEP, evasion, and FREEZE works rather than use those goofy clauses for game mechanics that haven't changed in a decade.
Something as simple as "Sleep: wakes up when damage is taken".


As for evasive moves, Predict, Protect, they already represent that sort of ninja dodging/shadowimage thing good enough. Substitute is also interesting, though I'd want to reflavor it as something other than a teeny doll you hide behind.

If evasion is banned, Protect/Detect should be too. And they're way more annoying than regular evasive foes.

And seriously, the Den takes a look at the top tier - Garchomp, Arceus, Kyogre and so on. Then we make everything else that level (where Garchomp is a Wizard). Indeed, giving Dragonite the Multiscale ability would be a Den move. Smogon is basically Mike Mearls with 4E. Yes, a vote for Smogon clauses and rules is a vote for 4th Edition D&D. Everyone is a fighter, no, fuck you.

So yes, while I am a casual player, the fact is that their approach actually makes the games worse and is stupid. Other video games actually have grown-ups that either adapt to use whatever is the best option, or who get together to strive to make everything equal without simply banning stuff.

As for the stupidity of changing types: we're not suggesting just taking the game as it is and changing the types around with no regard to the balance that isn't even there in the first place. The idea is more "In an ideal world, had I made the game, the types would already be..."

I probably would have done something like Fire, Air, Water, Ground, Ice, Electric, Psychic, Undead* and Normal. Normal would literally be "Takes x1 from everything, deals x1 to everything". The ordinary type. Birds would not be Normal/Air, they'd be Air - just like fish wouldn't be Water/Normal. Yeah, it'd be a bit limited. But that's probably what I would have made had I been the one making these back in 199?.

*In 1Gen this would have covered Cubone/Marowak just for wearing the skulls. Yes, there'd be all of FIVE undead.

Koumei wrote:no free switch-out when you score a KO

You can swap between "Shift" and "Set" battlestyle for most of the game. I use Set most of the time already just to make the game a tiny bit harder, since it's a pretty easy game.

So, if you're used to using Set already then it's not even a deal in the Battle Whatever events. They'd be too easy with Shift battle style.

Edit:
The flip side is that, if all pokemon are allowed, then the list of pokemon types that you'll ever see used becomes really small. Since we know that the pokemon are unbalanced and we can't change the balance, we have to make do with what we have. So, while the clauses are all bunk, splitting the pokemon into Tiers and saying that specific matches are limited to X tier and below is a totally fair move.

I accept the tiers. That's handy for making the best of a bad situation and making it so you can have your Arbok and Friends team still see play. Though it does make it a little harder to do a "Sonic Rejects" team (Rollout users) that all fit in the same tier.

And I don't want to make the base game any harder. It's nice the way it is, with only occasional instances of "whoops, guess I need to grind for a bit here". I mean, Pokemon Conquest has already found its way into the circular filing cabinet known as the bin, and just a few hours ago I went and bought the ingredients for Venusaurs, if the games get actually hard then I'll be shitfaced 24/7. People waiting on the completion of my projects wouldn't want that.

What Lok and Ogrebattle said. I'm not a big fan of just banning shit willy-nilly because you're butthurt about losing but at the same time Pokemon has been around for a helluva long time now so it's not like all of the restrictions are totally kneejerk. Besides cartridges and online simulators have fundamental barriers that make anything but gentleman's agreements a bitch to implement.

I'm biased though since my brother and I have been agreeing to arbitrary handicaps since small times. It wasn't really a matter of perceived fairness but just curiousity--At some point we realized we would never find out what Honda or Boxer could really do in SF2 until we quit fireballing the shit out of eachother.

These are things I enjoy about Pokemon battling:


The rock/paper/scissors way of many moves defeating each other. I don't mean the elemental weak/resis stuff, but more like SuckerPunching somebody at the right moment.

What Sucker Punch does is makes you attack first with a medium strength attack, but it only works if your opponent is also attacking that turn. Otherwise it fails.

So it's strength is in taking out an opponent with a surprising hit
It's weakness is, if your opponent chose to use a non-attack move, you've wasted your turn. Say he boosts his stats or uses Substitute.


Substitute. Interesting move. It takes 25% of your HP and partitions it into a decoy to absorb hits. An attack that would otherwise be a 1hitKO can only KO your substitute. Multihit moves can blow through it though, or if you are too slow and an attack reduces you to below 25% it fails.

There's moves that tie in with that, such as the very powerful Focus Punch which is "always strikes last, if you were hit this turn it fails".

So I enjoy that rock/paper/scissors predicting aspect, or setting up a nice combination.

I don't really like the idea of Spikes/Stealth Rock though, there's only ONE move that clears them.
I'm not really fond of shuffling pokemon around either to nullify attacks, it breaks my immersion.

When I first played I liked moves that 'made sense'. Nidoking has a horn on his head, his pokedex entry also says he has a tail that can crush iron. So I gave him Horn Attack and Iron Tail.... which makes sense from the in-game lore, but is bad in the gameplay sense.

Koumei wrote: The game is more fun being played the way it was made, the single player way.

This is exactly wrong. The single player game is a chore. It's so unbelievably boring. That's why you don't like battling. The single player game is "press A six hundred thousand times with your charizard".

Battling with your friends is very fun if you both know what you're doing. There are endless layers of strategy. I'd say 2player vs 1player is like chess vs checkers, but it's more like chess vs chutes and ladders.


And again, you've clearly never played a real match without the sleep/evasion clauses. They're broken options. You can put a whole team to sleep before they ever get to move. You can have your evasion so high as to be unhittable. And OHKO moves make everything entirely too random.

Holy shit pokemon has gotten complex.

Soda wrote: And again, you've clearly never played a real match without the sleep/evasion clauses. They're broken options. You can put a whole team to sleep before they ever get to move. You can have your evasion so high as to be unhittable. And OHKO moves make everything entirely too random.

Oh no! Someone might win!

On sleep: the only 100% effective sleep move is Spore, which is only available for Parasect and Shroomish. Those are not speedy mcsppedies by any means. Butterfree as a nearly 100% effective sleep move (Sleep Powder + compound Eyes), and is moderately OK in the speed department. But let's be honest here: Butterfree is only slightly over half the speed of Aerodactyl and takes x4 damage from Rock moves. There's Yawn of course, but that doesn't put the enemy to sleep before they have a chance to act by definition.

On Evasion: there are fucking moves that ignore evasion completely. You can just have one of them. There are also moves that reduce enemy evasion. If you don't have any of those on your team and you don't have an attacker capable of killing a Drifblim before it can get off Minimize three times in a row and baton pass to a sweeper, you should probably lose.

-Username17