Greener Grassy Terrain: A More Balanced Future For VGC?
VGC. Is it an esport? Maybe not. Yet. But it’s still our game. And while we’re not all the way there to playing a fully-fledged esport, it’s interesting to think about how we could get there. We know competitive Pokémon’s not a perfect game, so how could it be better?
Obviously, since I fell short of Worlds this year for a variety of reasons (several game-related), I haven’t had many Pokémon-related things to do. I’ve been away in Japan, looking into game design and wistfully yearning for a future title in a metagame that isn’t so inherently luck-influenced. So, as they say over there, the Devil makes work for idle hands, and I’ve been thinking of ways in which future generations of Pokémon could become a more enjoyable and diverse competitive game. Where even Houndour itself could be useable. How, you ask, could something so utterly revolutionary and groundbreaking ever happen, in this very video game? The first place to start… is the game itself!
Game Freak have made a huge effort in improving VGC in the last couple of Generations, and it shows. The Battle Box, online battling and rankings, the balance tweaks in Gen VI, it’s all excellent. But there’s still quite a few places that could use some shaking up if we want to see the competitive game grow bigger. So here’s a few creases to think about!
Your Type Chart is Venomous Poison
My relationship with the type chart has always been tumultuous, if passionate. If I’m Heidi Klum, the type chart is Seel. Basically, the only difference is it’s unbalanced, as opposed to having a weird face. The Pokémon, that is. It all boils down to some types being better than others. For example, the Water-type: it’s only weak to Grass and Electric, and only resisted by itself, Dragon, and Grass. Which is a problem, since every fully-evolved Water-type can learn an Ice move. This means that Water-types don’t really interact well with the metagame and are rather dry, a problem ironically only worsened by Rain. There are dozens of Pokémon of less common types that are basically tournament-unusable because they’re 100% flattened by well-played Rain. Rain and other monotype-heavy, polarised teams are very matchup-influenced and in my opinion, are the single worst thing about the game in its current state. And it didn’t take losing cut at Nats to getting re-paired (Thanks, dopey Hydreigon-owning oaf who knows who he is) to an unwinnable mono-Rock matchup for me to tell you that. Stuff like Rain, where if you don’t have a counter to it, you lose on team preview (but if you do have one, you win). Rain is boring, it’s stifling and it’s holding the game back. Rain just needs to go. It’s worse than Jim Davidson.
So how could we easily make Rain less of a problem? My best suggestion is: the Poison-type! A type so bad I forget it’s a type; instead I think of the time user Rebel sang the Alice Cooper song at a dog so horribly it bit him in the face. Poison is so bad, there isn’t a single primary Poison-type Pokémon in the top 50, despite its positive matchup with the new Fairy-types. It’s bad because Poison-types have both bad stats and hardly any resistances. Essentially, Poison is bad. However, as well as actually thematically making sense, were Poison to resist and be super-effective on Water, suddenly Drapion, Weezing, Tentacruel, Dragalge, and Scolipede all become totally viable teambuilding options and the game becomes more interactive for the player.
Similarly, you have the Bug-type and Ice-type, pure (or Vanilla) Ice-type in particular being dangled by its metaphorical ankles and forced to sign over its life savings for the funding of Death Row Records. Bug- and Ice-type Pokémon are flat-out inferior and should never be making it into anyone’s serious teams. Typical example: it’s all well and good having Mega Heracross, with its amazing stats and powerful STAB moves, but when it simply cannot win against a huge amount of popular choices (namely Talonflame and Sylveon), it might as well not exist. Mostly though, it’s the weakness to Hyper Voice spam that makes Heracross such a bad choice. Which takes me onto the next subject!
Every Man Needs a Tool
Being the type of person I am, I take great care with the items I equip, both for myself and my Pokémon. For myself, that means dressing like David Blunkett stuffed into Macklemore’s washbin. For my Pokémon, that means using the most effective items possible. Effective items, in Generation VI, are sadly lacking in number. As the kind of lover who’s actually pleased at receiving a small Swarovski crystal owl on an anniversary, you can imagine how upset I was at X/Y’s removal of type-based Gems, which comprised 9 of the 12 items on my two Worlds teams. I was so addicted to gems that I managed to take Psychic Gem Beheeyem to the World quarter finals and still have no regrets. Gems were, essentially, my entire strategy, and back in the day, my teams chewed through those carats like a less-charismatic, gold-digging Bugs Bunny. So when they were gone, I had only one option: to whinge at the lack of variety in items and demand that Game Freak add more.
I am, of course, only half joking; I’m just that kind of guy. That said, currently the best items are the Sitrus Berry, Lum Berry, Life Orb, and Choice Scarf, with the resist Berries, Leftovers, Rocky Helmet, and Focus Sash being useable and the Mental Herb, Safety Goggles, and power-boosting Choice items okay for niche uses. You’re not going to see any serious players using anything not on that list. So, how about we change that? Here are some cool ideas!
- Bring back the Gems! They’re already in the game (at reduced 1.3x power), so why not? I’d still use them. Plus doing so relights the fire of Incinerate, making it hotter than a young Jason Orange and otherwise a worthwhile moveslot.
- We’re all sick of Hyper Voice, and the Safety Goggles already exist to give an Overcoat-like effect, so why not have a Headphones item that gives the holder Soundproof? Fixes Scrafty’s crippling weakness to Sylveon while still giving Sylveon the option to win with Moonblast, and gives infinitely more switch-ins to the dreadful syringomyelic death scream that is Pixillate Hyper Voice.
- How about an Eviolite that instead gives 1.5x Attack and Special Defense? High-risk, high-reward, lets more people play with their favourites. A Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 that, if viewed, does not induce involuntary seppuku by the nearest sharp object.
- And power up the Binding Band from 1/6 partial trap damage to 1/3. Then Infestation Bug-types, Cradily and Goodra instantly become a viable strategy, instead of a stupid idea used only by Weevil Underwood in real life.
Those are only a few suggestions, but they’re worth thinking about!
Everything in its Right Place
Obviously, it would be a big ask to expect Game Freak to make every single Pokémon and move into a worthwhile choice for competitive play. They’ve evidently had a go at it in Generation VI, with a lot of the lamer Pokémon receiving minor stat boosts or interesting new moves like the Terrains and Electrify. What they failed to account for, however, is that it all still gets steamrolled by the poorly-balanced Mega Kangaskhan, Sylveon, Talonflame, and Rain, so again all these options might as well not exist. You can argue that not every Pokémon needs to be viable, but I’ll always counter that there’s no harm in making more of them more useful to those that do play competitively.
So, it’s baby steps, I suppose. In the future, with the game growing as well as it has done, I’m sure Game Freak will move away from introducing broody kangaroos that can, literally, potentially one-hit KO approximately 99% of Pokémon in the game, through Focus Sash and Sturdy, with no setup, two rolls of the RNG, whilst having one weakness and with no used stats below base 100. Now, that is Dappy-in-a-petrol-station stupid. Let’s hope for a slower-paced and more interactive game based more around tactics and reaction, instead of this whole charade of having these uninteractive one-dimensional threats like Rain and Sylveon that have to be dealt with proactively and through a limited selection of Pokémon. With just a few little changes, we could very quickly have a healthier competitive game. Take a look at these ideas:
- Fix Prankster, the most irritating ability in the game! Easily done by adding base power to Swagger and by removing Full Paralysis. I lost in top cut at UK Nats by getting 5/6 turns fully paralysed by some dude who did practically nothing but spam Prankster Thunder Wave and specs Hyper Voice. That isn’t how you play to win a tournament and I’d say simply don’t be that guy, but I’d rather the game didn’t give that kind of play the chance of working in the first place.
- Remove Rock Slide’s flinch rate. A common request, and why? How did I go out of the top cut of the Major? Choice Scarf Rock Slide flinches 5/6 times. Happens to loads of people, shouldn’t be possible in the first place.
- Reduce the power of Parental Bond. I think this kind of goes without saying: I will reiterate that every single Pokémon in the game that can OHKO Kangaskhan can also be OHKOed by Kangaskhan. The destructive rage of a single mother off the rails has escaped from backstage on Jeremy Kyle. Now, it’s after you, on your Nintendo 3DS. But in Pokémon, there is no Graham in aftercare. Only the bitter draught of defeat.
Showdown at the OK Computer
Now, these are all just small balancing changes, which are relatively inconsequential and not enough for Pokémon to explode as an e-sport. So what do I think would be the single healthiest thing for the game? A separate game mode for competitive battling. Basically, an officially-implemented Showdown. Make your Pokémon in-game, choose everything about them, battle with them. No need to worry about time commitments or Pokémon availability, and no need for hack checks or anything else at all. Just pure and simple competitive Pokémon. Don’t like it? Stick to the main game and play like you have done before. Do like it? Then wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Greener Grassy Terrain, Indeed
Anyway, those are a few of my thoughts on how to re-tune the game we love into something more sporting. Who knows, maybe some of this stuff might actually happen? Interesting, right?
Something a lot of people don’t pick up on with competitive Pokémon is, a lot of the winning comes down to building the most effective team that beats everything. Not a team that has a strategy as such: a team that beats as much as possible. That generally means finding the most overpowered combinations, and exploiting them to the max. How to win more games? Learn how to identify what’s good, and how to build with it. How better to do that than think about what is strong and how you could beat it? Even though it might seem like it’ll never happen, it’s always useful to challenge yourself by analysing the game and its balance. If you’ve never tried it before, give it a go!
So, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable read! Maybe have a think yourself on what really is unbalanced about the game, and how you’d change it. It’s a really good topic, so I’d like to hear what you think!
About the Author
Zog A veteran tournament player, Daniel "Zog" Nolan is proud of his no-nonsense attitude and silly sense of humour. When he's actually doing work, Zog likes to hide toy snakes in the wilderness (and other decidedly more lab-based activities) in the name of scientific progress. Follow on Instagram at dan_z_nolan and Twitter @Zoggykins!
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If anyone thinks Poison is a bad type, remember that Greninja getting Gunk Shot as a tutor move was a big part of the reason Smogon banned it.
Poison is a bad type. Greninja with high speed and offensive stats, with access to other type moves as well to exert offensive pressure against the entire OU metagame is why it was banned.
Defensively, Poison is weak to Ground, one of the more common types in the metagame, can’t touch Steel, and has difficulties against half the fairies it tries to snipe (M-Gardevoir, namely). One pokemon getting one move to allow it to cover the rest of the metagame is strong– the type itself, frankly, is not.
My main issue with critical hits is that it ignores both your negative stat changes (Atk/Sp.Atk drops) and the opponent’s positive stat changes (Def/Sp.Def increases) but still takes your positive changes and the opponent’s negatives into account.
I think the best way to balance critical hits, without removing them from the game completely, is to have it take the user’s negative stat changes into account. That way, if you’ve used Draco Meteor, you’re not going to fire off a second one at 1.5x the original power, you’re going to fire one off at 1.5x the power you have at -2.
I agree that criticals are questionable for the game, but with such a high luck factor elsewhere as well (those 10-30% secondary effects, accuracy, etc), I feel there’s no way to justify completely removing them unless the mechanics of the game are changed to a point where luck is barely (or not even) a factor, which would remove a little bit of the fun of the whole thing.
I think this is an amazing article but do agree with most of the things mention by Omari.
Critical hits exist so you can’t boost to +6/+6 def/Sdef or drop the opponent to -6 attack and turtle all day. It adds an element of risk to these strategies. I think the nerf to crits was a great thing but they shouldn’t be removed from the game entirely.
As for Thunder Wave, I think they should make it so you never get fully paralyzed on the turn you get paralyzed and leave everything else the same. In my eyes paralysis is about playing the odds and you’re making a long term investment to gain 2-3 free turns over a long match. What I take issue with is when they TWave your Pokemon that was going to KO Thundurus and it gets fully para’d immediately and then they repeat this until your whole team is paralyzed. If you couldn’t get fully paralyzed on the turn you got paralyzed there is still the long term benefit but less potential to cheese out a win.
Rock Slide’s flinch rate could use a drop, in my perfect world it would become a 90 BP / 100 accuracy move with either no flinch chance or at most a 10% flinch chance.
I honestly just want changes to parental bond. Maybe we could trade the rock slide flinch chance for 100% accuracy. But in all seriousness kangaskhan makes me sad and it’s the reason i take breaks from vgc.
I think removing full paralysis isn’t the right way to go. Gimmick and reliant on RNG as it may be, it’s the surface reason for using the move, just as the chip damage from Toxic or Will-o-Wisp are the surface reason for using the move. Even when using it, the game tells you that the Pokemon may be unable to attack and, like burns, the stat drop isn’t directly obvious until your next turn when you realize your Pokemon is slower when it was once faster. I’m sure many people here would still use Wisp if it just reduced attack by half but the burn damage is also a big reason for it. I think Starmetroid’s solution of not allowing full paralysis on the first turn of using it is a good one. I also think it’d be fair to reduce its accuracy by 10%. Everything else about it is fine, honestly.
The problem with it is how easy it is to stack Thunder Wave on top of Swagger on top of Rock Slide, especially from a Prankster Pokemon+Fast Rock Slider (aka the two most common non-mega Pokemon right now). Rock Slide flinches alone steal games but putting paralysis or confusion (or both) on top of that drastically reduces your odds of moving to the point where it’s actually more likely you won’t. If it weren’t as easy to do that, however it meant changing the game to accomplish that, the game would be a lot healthier right now. It’s definitely the quality of the Genies that I’d point to if you were to ask me what I hate most about them. Nobody was building teams deliberately intending to use hax last year but it’s gotten to the point where I can’t believe anyone when they tell me “sorry about the hax” after I lost due to a lucky Rock Slide flinch or a necessary hit from confusion.
I don’t think the problem is with flinching and RNG. Well, it wouldn’t be bad if Rock Slide’s flinching rate got nerfed, but I think the problem really boils down to CHALK (+Thundurus)
I don’t care what anyone else says, they are clearly broke and needs to go, or at least be nerfed. Maybe not Amoongus because it’s not a strong threat offensively, and maybe not Kangaskhan because it’s a normal pokemon mega-evolved and as VGC 2014 statistics had shown, can be dealt with. But rest of the “Legendaries?”
Landorus-Intimidate + Flying/Ground typing + High Stats?
Thundurus-Prankster/Defiant + Flying/Electric typing + High Stats + Thunderwave, Swagger?
Cresselia-Levitate + Incredible Bulk that makes it hard to be OHKO and many times need three hits + plenty of support moves?
Heatran-Flash Fire + Steel/Fire typing + High Stats?
What the heck is this? These guys, in addition to high base stats (Cause they’re the “Legends”), get great abilities, and a wide range of movepool to capitalize on that.
Remember there are pokemon who are not used because they lack one of the three.
I don’t know what GameFreak was thinking when they were desigining, but they shouldn’t have given a pokemon everything just like that.
If they get everything because they are legendaries, why doesn’t GameFreak just bring their tier up? Make them play with someone their own size,
like Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon and Mega Mewtwo Y. Yeah, I’d like to see how well they do.
I played Showdown VGC2015 format this weekend quite a lot, and literally 9 out of 10 teams had more than two of the pokemon mentioned above.
It was fun at first, trying to overcome such a strong team, but you know what? After seeing the same thing over and over again, it came down to the point that it’s NOT FUN.
After having so many losses, I played with another CHALK team “again”, and I tried very hard and lost by an inch because of few turns of Para+Confusion and last turn full Paralysis.
Then the other guy says, “gg, well played.” and that was it for me.
And I’m not even asking for something as niche as Se Jun’s Pachirisu, just a little bit more diversity.
Keep saying to yourselves “I should do everything to win” (And man, what a good excuse it is!) and keep using the same teams over and over again guys.
If this kind of trend continues, I wonder how many people will even bother with VGC formats in the future. Well, at least I won’t.
I know this is not a TCG discussion, but I think TPCi’s philosophy on banning Lysandre’s Trump Card will give you insight into why your “issue” with the meta is a clear over exaggeration out of frustration. TPCi’s official statement reads that the card “created an undesirable play environment because it … allows drawing through your deck quickly with minimal repercussions.” The banning was not due to an overuse of the card but rather it was due to its ability to increase the users win condition while minimizing risk, in essence removing a sense of competitive counter play from the opponent. The Pokemon you mentioned above are far from being considered something that has no element of counter play. In fact, two of the Pokemon mentioned above carry a 4x weakness (Landorus/Heatran) and in addition to that one Pokemon is almost completely countered by not only Grass-type Pokemon, but also the item Safety Goggles (I’ll let you figure out which one that is). While I agree that they create a “stale” environment, that is the byproduct of almost ANY competitive game. There is almost always a “winning” strategy or combination that ensures consistency against other types of strategies and more often then not people who play competitively tend to gravitate towards the same strategies. In essence, I think this “stale” environment (with the removal of factors such as ‘flinching’,’full paralysis’, and the dreaded ‘freeze’) creates a stage in which individual skill shines. You have not considering enough the weight of the players ability to predict and outplay their opponent, you merely blame losses on the combination of certain Pokemon (which in itself is part of the strategy of Pokemon, picking and choosing). The Pokemon themselves have very noticeable weaknesses and a good player will utilize means to extort that, whether it be running a ‘wildcard’ move/item on something to surprise and counter your opponent or merely strategic counter play by maneuvering your own Pokemon in a way that is favorable against the opposing match-up. So if your chances of winning are increased by a combination of the Pokemon you listed, why then would you not use them? and then complain as if you are entitled to a match with someone else who does not utilized them to increase their chances of winning? I’m not saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them,” but if you are going to place the sole blame of a loss in the current meta on the combination of six Pokemon, then I think you have severely misunderstood what it means to compete.
(warning, lots of rambling here, so it may come off as a very messy post, but the points I want to make are in there)
Competitive play is playing to win. VGC is probably one of the least “play to win” competitive environments, as most players actually like just going to events and seeing people. Anyways, back to my point.
You should expect to come across a lot of CHALK Pokemon considering how the metagame has shifted drastically in their favor since Worlds, it’s how metagames work. Pokemon such as Kangaskhan, Cresselia, and Amoonguss slowly dropped as the year went on due to counters becoming more popular, but as people started using Gardevoir over Salamence, Milotic over Bisharp, and only Heatran/Thundurus as the common Amoonguss counters, these Pokemon could come back, very quickly, and with force, as they counter every single one of the Pokemon that the western meta had set out to use (ironically, to counter the original CHALK counters).
Landorus-T, Thundurus, Heatran, and Kangaskhan have all been dominant forces in the 2015 metagame, and you should expect players that are playing to win to use them. The question is, if you’re not using them, is it because they’re too common, because you dislike how they play, or because you’re playing to counter them? If it’s the first option, then you need to throw that mentality out the window, as it holds you back. The second one is reasonable enough due to comfort being a major part in how some players play, and as for the third, playing to counter is fair enough, but you need to be prepared for anything and everything.
There is diversity in VGC, and it’s starting to show again, it’s just the teams that are setting out to be different and do new things, they’re still being polished. They’re not all perfect yet, and need some more time to actually prove they’re something big. Saying “I’m not asking for Pachirisu but I want to see diversity” is saying “I want to see the next Pachirisu” basically. You want to see players use things that are different. That’s what diversity is, a wider range of viable Pokemon. And heck, a lot of Pokemon past CHALK are perfectly viable, but if you go full tunnel vision on the “omg chalk is the only thing that works” mentality, then you won’t notice that.
Also, luck factor is part of the game, and people will try to turn RNG in their favor using moves like Thunder Wave, Swagger, and Rock Slide, to increase the effect of RNG on the opponent.
I couldn’t agree more, with a little bit of tweaking the game would be way more interesting!
One thing I don’t think any of us has touched on yet is how a sport or esport is supposed to be entertaining to watch. I recently turned an older friend onto competitive Pokemon, and told him about the Chalk domination at Worlds. He watched the footage and recapped with me the next day, saying that it was one of the most boring video game tournaments he’d seen. Then he watched the 2014 Worlds Finals that same night, and was on the edge of his seat the whole time.
What’s entertaining about watching a game where the power vacuum is so strong that all the successful teams have 5 of the same 6 Pokemon?
I think the real easiest way to fix Swagger Thundurus is to remove it from the TM list and have another pentagon rule next generation, cutting off thund’s (and like, every prankster) access to swagger.
Then replace it with Flatter. Oh wait…
I, for one, found the finals this year to be really fun to watch. That’s not to put down the 2014 Worlds finals as that deserves the praise it has, but I generally hate the mentality where people find things to be boring because the same things are being used. Sure, Chalk dominated, but the players did bring up unique surprises of their own (Sunny Day Amoonguss people)
Honestly, a great example in sports is how dominant the Miami Heat were during their title run from 2010-2014. We got the same team from the Eastern Conference, but each version of that team had different players that all brought something to the team throughout the years. They received hate because people got tired of seeing the same team, but forget the small detail they have that made each variation of that team different from the last (Also can’t forget about the luck they had about playing in a horribly weak conference too)
Basketball aside, that’s how I view about the comment you posted. Top-Tiered stuff will always be what people lean to because we as humans like consistency, or the easy way. Variety is not bad by any means, but unless your an Ashton Cox (Cosplay Pikachu in Lancaster Regionals, wow), you’ll have to prove your unique choice is good enough to do well. The players are what make the finals to me exciting, especially in a game of pokemon where anyone can win, you may see the same stuff used, but it’s the small stuff and way the player plays that makes it fun to watch.
PS: I heard a lot of the teams outside the Top 8 had variety too, heh…Wolfe’s Bulky Zard-X was a sight for sure
I came to this thread hoping for some Grassy Terrain strats and was disappointed.
Throwing my 2 cents into the pond.
Judging from precedence, a Showdown mode doesn’t seem likely because of how Pokemon TCG online is. They had the opportunity to lower barrier to entry but they didn’t. You have to complete challenges or scan codes from irl booster packs you purchased in order to get new cards. This indicates that Nintendo/Pokemon still values spending additional effort into building your competitive tools. Otherwise they’d just give everyone access to all the cards right after you sign up, but no, it’s still random and/or based on spending.
If a Showdown mode was added to the game, obviously that’d lower the barrier to entry, but having to breed and SR for Pokemon gives a reward to people who put the time into the game. Perhaps it’d be more healthy for the growth of competitive Pokemon, but you’d also lose that sense of having raised the team yourself. So while it can be argued it’d add something, it can be argued that it’d remove something unique as well. I’d vote for leaving it as is, or maybe adding more mechanics that’d make breeding and SR’ing easier (another charm key item that increases chances of encountering Pokemon with perfect IVs or something), as opposed to making catching and raising Pokemon irrelevant altogether.
Don’t forget Kotaro’s Geomancy Smeargle and Se Jun’s Monferno.
I didn’t find the finals to be that boring. True, I was a bit disappointed that the variety was lacking, I didn’t view the games in a bad light because of that. It was still fun to watch and thrilling to the last second.
(I think the real problem is that CHALK domination takes away all the fun of betting against friends. Rather than “I bet [swaggy underdog Pokémon]’s gonna win,” it becomes “I think the guy with the Kangaskhan is going to win… wait… hold on…”)
Going to have to disagree with leaving the system the way it is. I can see the reward that people have with getting a pokemon yourself, but time is just something a lot of people do not have these days. Priorities in studies and life take precedence over Pokémon and usually when free time comes, it doesn’t last long. You basically need to be lucky as Detroit that you get what your looking for with breeding or SR or you won’t get another opportunity by the time your free time is done.
If you have lots of time, by all means, go for it. I just personally feel that separating the Showdown mode with the Casual mode would satisfy both sides. Great for those who don’t care about competitive and great for those who want to get into it but just don’t have the time to. The last thing I want to deal with is having trouble getting what I need because one time RNG lets me get my HP Ice Thundy in a few hours but punishes me by making me wait a very long time for an Adamant Lando
Also, with such a mode in-game instead of traditional methods, genning and hacking in general would be worthless. If I can get what I want for competitive in-game that’s already setup easily for me without cheating, that’s easily worth more than anything else
I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case. Most of the cards in TCGO come from real packs people purchased. If they could get everything they needed for free, or with minimal effort, then the company would be losing a lot of money. Teambuilding for the video game, in contrast, provides nothing but an arbitrary barrier to entry.
Our opinions don’t differ in regards to thinking the current system is a big time investment. I don’t even bother with Hidden Power or Legendaries in-game (props to those who have the patience to get those). I voted for leaving it as is OR making the process easier. If they introduced a key item that made getting the Hidden Powers you want easier or some method to increase the chances of encountering Legendaries with good stats, then I’d be for it. And there’s precedent for it since mechanics like DexNav were added to make the process easier. Make it more accessible without outright handing over everything to everyone for free. Where we differ in opinion is that I don’t think adding a Showdown mode is the right approach.
I’m against adding a Showdown mode because it would basically render catching/raising Pokemon (quite literally a core mechanic that defines Pokemon as a series) completely useless. “If you have lots of time, by all means, go for it”? No. There is absolutely no point in breeding and catching Pokemon if you could just select them via Showdown mode. If given the option between getting a perfect IV Pokemon in Casual mode by spending hours grinding away or getting the same Pokemon in Showdown mode by clicking a button, then I’d be crazy not to chose the no effort option. By adding the no effort option, you eliminate the purpose of the spend effort option.
So again, I understand the complaints of how time-consuming it is, I’d be perfectly fine with the system being tweaked so that it was more accessible and took less time, but I’m opposed to introducing a new mode that makes the existing established system completely pointless.
There are ways to get cards for free without real world purchases. So it’s not just about profit. People who put in enough time can build a competitive deck without spending money.
And saying the video game system is an arbitrary barrier to entry is just perspective.
In the example of competitive Street Fighter, someone might say having to practice frame-perfect button inputs for combos is an arbitrary barrier to entry. “Why can’t I just have access to a character’s full potential right away so I can focus on learning matchups and mind games? Wouldn’t the game be more accessible if they introduced an ‘Easy Input’ mode for combos?” Yes, but the makers of Street Fighter don’t completely compromise the complexity of their system just so they can accommodate players who can’t or won’t put in the time. The player that puts in the time and effort to master combo execution gets rewarded with a competitive edge; whereas, other players can still compete, but they won’t have that tool in their arsenal because they can’t get over that ‘arbitrary barrier to entry’.
Same could be said about breeding and SRing for Pokemon.
That’s a standard microtransaction model that allows you to label your game as technically free-to-play: you can get everything for free eventually, but it takes a lot of time and/or effort when you could instead spend money to get it immediately. There’s not really anything analogous in the video game unless they were to introduce a store where you can buy flawless Pokémon/training/whatever, and I think most people really don’t want to see that happen.
As for your Street Fighter example, the difference is that practicing inputs is a skill that’s directly relevant to fighting. Any game that’s not 100% luck-based has things you have to practice if you want to improve – aside from the general things like learning the type chart, stats, and other facts, you also have to practice understanding the metagame, learning to predict and read opponents, practicing with your team to master everything it can do, etc. People who play on Showdown still have to do all of these things.
Breeding, SRing, and training, on the other hand, have absolutely nothing to do with battling other than as an arbitrary time sink to get better tools. I’d say it’s more analogous to unlocking characters, gear, etc. in other games, but I can’t think of any other competitive game where unlocking everything necessary to become competitive takes nearly that long.
I mentioned TCGO not because there’s an analogous system currently in the game or because one should be implemented. It was mentioned because I was using it as an example of Pokemon company not simply giving its users a competitive mode with everything unlocked. Although, the rebuttal that it was a necessary financial model is a strong point.
Mastering attack inputs and execution isn’t a thing you have to practice for any game because it doesn’t exist in every game. There are fighting games like Divekick that only have two buttons total, “Dive” and “Kick”, so you don’t have to practice complex execution to overcome any barrier to entry, you just focus on the competitive mind games. So while it’s relevant to fighting, mastering attack inputs can’t be lumped in together with the necessary core mechanics and skills of a competitive game such as metagame and prediction.
Saying raising and training Pokemon has nothing to do with battling is like saying working out and improving your strength as an MMA fighter has nothing to do with the actual match. I know Pokemon is probably the only competitive video game with this kind of system, but that doesn’t make it arbitrary and unrelated.
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B to execute a command grab.
There is a clear distinction between the time sink in learning Street Fighter’s execution heavy system and the time sink in Pokemon’s tedious raising/training system, but it’s not because one is ‘related’ and the other isn’t. It’s how they’re implemented. In Street Fighter, unlocking characters is relatively easy, but the makers decided to make it’s players devote hours into learning and mastering inputs in order to execute powerful attacks. In Pokemon, precise input isn’t required to execute your attacks (you just navigate a menu), but the game makes you devote hours into catching and raising Pokemon in order to access the most powerful. They’re both barriers to entry, but Street Fighter placed it into execution, while Pokemon decided to put it into access. And just because the Pokemon system makes accessing a perfect IV Pokemon a tedious task doesn’t make it any more arbitrary than a game forcing you to learn “>
I never said it was a necessary component of every game, but that it’s a component of THAT game. Some games are going to be more complex and have more mechanics to learn than others. The distinction I’m trying to make is whether that mechanic is relevant to the actual competitive aspect.
I disagree. Working out and improving your strength is like memorizing stats and learning the metagame. Breeding and SRing are like working another job so you can afford to buy equipment and pay for your gym membership. Sure, it’s technically necessary, but it has absolutely nothing to do with actually fighting.
Look at it this way: say you have a person who legitimately bred and trained their team, and another person who hacked the exact same team. Would you be able to tell which one is which? If they were to battle each other, would either side have an advantage?
i think variation is a necesity, if every attack makes the same damage every single time, hits every time, it becomes an equation which means certain pokemon never beats another, ever. not even out of luck or anything, thats why swagger, or confusion, fullparal, will o wisp exist, to give variance.
i think we need more randomness, not less, fix thunder wave, by giving it a less than 100 % success, give paralysis/willowisp a recovery time in the same way sleep. so after being crippled you can recover from paralysis and the game will be more dynamic. you can enter Stall mode when crippled but come back… after a few turns.
In that way is less obvious that the only way to win is to cripple all the oponent speed and just sweep them.
I dont think you can use something better than rockslide.
stone edge is the gamblers choice.
I love you Zog, great article, as usual <3
*sigh*
Huh, I see a lot of people disagree with my opinion that some pokemon are broken. Well, I was pretty angry when I wrote the post but I still think some pokemon need to be “balance patched.”
I don’t think some people understand the importance of spectators, the general public. Not everyone’s a competitive battler, and people want to see something new, something exciting. And if the game is such that top teams (not just one or two, but EIGHT of them) have very similar members, and consequently very similar teams shows up over and over again in Ratings, that’s going to hurt the popularity of the game. It’s repetitive and it’s boring (Which final heard more cheers, Seniors or Masters?). And guess what happens when a game, a sport, or anything that relies on a lot of people participating, no longer has something new and interesting to keep its users satisfied.
I’m going to stop here. Let’s see how VGC 2016 goes. People who responded to my post mentioned that a counter meta is on the way and it will be more diverse in the future.
(Which I think is the point of this article. Give some boost to unused pokemon and moves, make changes where it’s needed, let’s see some more diversity).
If that’s the case, good. But if that’s not the case and we see very similar teams dominating on VGC again, that should be taken as a sign that there’s something wrong with the game.
If that’s the case, then why do you want the breeding option to exist at all? You agree it’s useless and that you would prefer to do the one without breeding, then why do you want it to keep existing?
You just proved the point you are arguing against: the “spend effort” option has no purpose, unless it’s enforced. In other words, it’s an arbitrary barries that only exists because the game designers decided to enforce it. If it was optional, nobody would use it, because as you said, it has no purpose.
Actually I’d say the one who hacked has the advantage, because they spent more time battling and practicing their skills at the actual game than playing the bike simulator. That’s why many competitive players use Showdown to practice, and only breed teams when they know they are going to use them in tours. Spending time breeding instead of playing is ultimately detrimental to competitive skill.
It’s like if a football player was forced to work a 40h/week job to purchase sports equipment. Which one will be the best player, that guy, or a football player who spends all that time practicing football?
To those against the “Showdown Mode,” what if they developed a special box in your pc that held these particular mons, and only allowed you to battle with them on things like Battlespot and VGC events? This would maintain the in-game sanctity of legit mons.
I could actually see this happening, although it’s a massive long shot. In Pokemon Stadium I remember they let you build teams with a click of the button based on “rental” mons. So although it’s a stretch, there is at least some foundation.