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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While I agree that a Nintendo endorsed showdown would be the Ideal solution I don’t think Game Freak is likely to make one. I think the easiest solution to the entry barrier problem is to have a character in game at the end of the main story who explains I.Vs and gives you the ability to edit them on Pokemon in your party freely. It would solve the problem without having to change the way I.Vs work thus nerfing strategies like trick room, and would leave the individuality of Pokemon around for the casuals during the entire play through. This solution would be much simpler for game freak to program in comparison to a new game.
The simple and IMO most reasonable solution to IV woes is simply making IVs be influenced by Synchronize just like Natures already are. Breed your Timid HP Ice Abra, go get your Timid HP Ice Thundurus in minutes. It takes awhile to breed the Synchronizer but it let’s Gamefreak maintain the “integrity” of IVs while giving players a reasonable means to get legendaries without wasting an unacceptable amount of time.
I agree with the article, except the part of thunder wave and swagger, RNG is a part of the game, rock slide doesn’t flinch 5/6 times, it flinches 3/10 as it should, and fails 1/10.
As barry said in one of his videos about RNG, if you don’t want thundurus to spam thunder wave don’t let him, focus him, use a faster taunt user, etc.
About the buff to some types I completely agree, specially for poison.
Finally, about rain, something has to be done, maybe not eliminate it, but it must be balanced somehow
P.S Sorry if there are some mistakes, english is not my native language
There’s exactly one faster Taunt user in the game (barring Choice Scarf, which is a terrible idea for a Prankster in basically every other scenario), and focusing only works if you’re actually able to attack in the first place.
For all those people who say that RNG is part of the game, just think about that game there for a second. At any point, have you flinched an opponent 9 times out of 10 and gone, “That was an excellent game, I sure learned a lot!”. We don’t play pokemon because the chances dictate we might win or lose, we play because it is a legitimate way of testing our ingenuity and perseverance, because it is a challenge. Sure, we all have a laugh when a random crit or full para costs us the game, but do we really get anything from it?
Luck in Pokemon is like a common cold – sure, it’s an integral part of our life, but we can imagine a world where it doesn’t exist, and are we really worse off without it?
You mean like Pokemon has a complex mechanic for catching and training that you have to learn? Like Street Fighter has an execution system you have to learn? Game designers decide to make their games as simple or complex as they want and however they want to.
…but this goes back to your argument in saying that Pokemon catching/training is ‘unrelated’ to battle, and I’ll address that by revisiting my MMA example.
Memorizing stats is more comparable to learning that a particular opponent is a really good boxer but is weak to submission (Mega Aggron has high Attack and Defense, but relatively low Special Defense). Learning the metagame is like learning that people utilize judo moves because it’s effective against a lot of fighting styles (lots of people use Amoonguss because it’s effective in a lot of roles like support, or Trick Room). That’s all pre-battle mental preparation. Working out and improving strength, is a pre-battle physical preparation. It’s about making sure the human body is brought to its full potential in terms of being the strongest, the fastest, and the toughest it can be (catching/raising Pokemon with perfect IVs), nothing to do with the mental side. Your buying equipment and gym membership example is more like buying a 3DS and the game cart.
I personally wouldn’t be able to tell which one is which. Theoretically, the person with the hacked team would have the advantage because he/she would’ve had more time to focus on mind games. If a person who mastered all the execution in Street Fighter was against someone who had a modded arcade stick that mapped attacks to a single button press, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference either, and the player with the hacked stick has the advantage because he/she didn’t have to put in the time to practice execution.
I think you misunderstood my point. The original article said adding a Showdown mode and keeping it separate would satisfy both camps, and I disagreed, saying that IF they added that mode, it would make the process of training Pokemon obsolete. I didn’t mean to say that the system is pointless as it is currently in the game. It has a purpose as it is right now, which is rewarding players who are able and willing to put in time. So I did not say it has no purpose, I said it would have no purpose if they added a Showdown mode.
Game designers can decide to enforce whatever systems they want (like how Street Fighter can force its players to learn extremely complex button inputs when they don’t technically have to from a design standpoint), and I respect their right to make such design choices. Again, I wouldn’t mind if they tweaked the system like Tmac’s idea of Synchronize affecting IVs too, but I think it’s stupid if they decided to undermine their own system completely.
I was trying to think of some kind of limiting rule like that, but it still renders the entire system of breeding obsolete. Anyone that wants to play competitively will use Showdown mode, casual players won’t bother with breeding for perfect IV’s or Natures because campaign is easy. Nobody ends up using the system.
I remember rental Pokemon, but they didn’t let you choose which attacks they had, or the stat distribution, so yes, a stretch.
I don’t quite understand the analogy. Can you explain it a bit more clearly? I don’t think it relates at all to the issue at hand. The problem is that I can either spend a week breeding and training a team, or I can hack it in half an hour. Both methods have the same outcome. It’s just a matter of whether or not I want to dedicate so much time to creating a legit team. Someone with a modded arcade stick will have the advantage because he can access his attacks faster. This is not the case with Pokémon unless you somehow hacked your team to crit 100% of the time and flinch 100% of the time.
TL;DR I don’t think the joystick analogy makes sense because a modded joystick has a distinct advantage over a normal joystick. A (legal) hacked Pokémon doesn’t have a distinct advantage over a legit Pokémon because they can both produce the same results.
TL;DR of the TL;DR I don’t think real-time fighter games are the best analogies for a turn-based strategy game
I like the format, sorry but Kang and chalk isn’t as broken as people are making it out to be. I’m sorry that you want to use Pokemon like butterfree and then get mad when you can’t win. Use Pokemon that are established and play the odds. If your opponent can spam rock slide, thunder wave, and swagger so can you. It’s a game, if you don’t like it, don’t play. I promise you the game would get more boring if luck wasn’t involved. That’s what makes it exciting. If there wasn’t a luck factor, it would be lets see who gets board position first. Then you have your winner. For some reason a lot of people complain about everything. Like when the first CP format came out. People complained so it got changed, well then people decided it still wasn’t good enough. Same thing here, if the game got tweaked people still wouldn’t be happy with it.
These two posts legitimately made me spit out my coffee. Let’s break this down point by point….
Taunt with which user? Whimsicott is the only Taunt user faster than Thundurus-I, but at the cost of wasting a slot on an absolutely trash-tier, dead weight Pokemon. Sure you stop the RNG, but you lose on account of playing 3 v 4 against every Thundurus team. Unless you suggest using your own Thundurus Taunt which is still a 50/50 to get off the Taunt before the opponent. And 50/50s are exactly the problem people have. If you use any other Taunt user, you have to eat the first turn Twave or Swagger and the damage has already been done. You didn’t suggest this but Quick Guard is also a terrible option because if you guess wrong, you eat a LO Thunderbolt with absolutely no compensation. As for items, Lum can only be used in one slot leaving 5/6 of your team still vulnerable. That leaves no reliable counter measures to Prankster Thundurus-I Swagger and Thunder Wave.
I think the bolded text pretty much highlights the level of thought you put into team building. Consistency is obviously not your priority, but it’s something the majority of the posters in this thread actually care about.
As for the red text… Have you ever played a long set against a decent player? When I used to play against Kamaal and ryuzaki in first to 5 sets, those were some of the most exciting games I have ever played. There are hours of finals matches online where luck plays little role in the result and they are no less fun to watch. Pokemon has an incredible amount of depth. Offensive synergy, defensive synergy, resource management, matchup knowledge, prediction, etc. I am by far the harshest critic of luck in Pokemon, but the aforementioned qualities are the reasons I still play. The problem people like me have is that luck undermines all the above. Who cares if you grind it out for 7 turns to get the perfect positioning to set up a sweep if you get confused by unpreventable desperation Swagger?
And to your point about complaining. Yes we complained and we got a much improved CP system out of it! It will not please everyone, but it is an improvement that most of us can get behind. No one is seriously expecting Pokemon to remove luck from the game, but it is completely reasonable to suggest that it get toned down to a more manageable level.
In my view, hax becomes a problem when it’s exploitable. In other words, when it is possible to build a strategy that makes hax likely to happen and is effective at winning games. At this point, hax replaces other tactics and elements of the game, and the game becomes less strategic and less enjoyable as a result.
Freeze, for example, is not exploitable. You are not spamming ice moves just for the chance of getting a freeze. With only a 10% chance, chances are the move won’t freeze and your pokemon will be KO’d in the meantime. You use an ice move because of the damage, and if the freeze happens, great.
On the other side, we have Swagger, which is totally exploitable. You are spending a turn to directy add an element of hax to the game, knowing there is a very high chance it will have an effect in the outcome of the match sooner or later. Instead of attacking or using another support move that may help in the long run, you are appealing to hax.
Things like freeze, critical hits (unless you use focus energy + scope lens but then it’s less hax and more stat boost), single target flinch, random stat drops… those are not exploitable, so they don’t end becoming anyone’s main tactic. Things like full paralysis, rock slide flinch, swagger… those are exploitable. You could argue there are other exploitable things like Serene Grace Flinch, but Togekiss isn’t nearly as powerful as the genies, so people don’t mind it too much. And that’s another problem of those moves, they are exploitable AND are in the hands of pokemon who can check a lot of things otherwise, so they put a lot of pressure on the opponent either way, and make it hard to play around the hax move.
I feel like we should eliminate every instance of hax that can be exploited by a player as part of their strategy. Ignoring stuff like critical hits is fine, but when we have Worlds players putting Swagger on their moveset instead of an extra coverage move because appealing to hax is more effective than playing the type chart, we are doing something wrong. Movesets shouldn’t be allowed to be based on hax. Strategy shouldn’t be based on hax. It removes some of the deepness of the game and replaces it with coinflips.
Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it wasn’t already manageable. Sure I have games where I get haxed quite a bit, but when I think on what I could have done differently usually I could have made a play to stop the hax move from even being used. And you totally missed my point about rockslide, thunder wave, and swagger. If the opponent uses those moves, his/her chances of winning go up. The chance of RNG being in their favor is higher because they are using the moves. So who wouldn’t want to maximize their odds of winning. It seems if I also use these moves the playing field becomes a bit more even. I wasn’t talking about consistency. You automatically jumped to the conclusion I use those moves and that’s all I use and try and hax my way through the game.
If you don’t have Whimsicott, what exactly can you do to stop Thundurus from using hax moves? Stopping Scarf Landorus from using Rock Slide is a little easier, but still requires Wide Guard, a really strong Ice Shard, or a faster scarfed mon with a super effective attack. Other than Wide Guard, none of those things are common team features. No amount of smart playing will stop them unless your team is specifically equipped to counter them, and most of the counters aren’t very useful against any other common threats so you’re making your team weaker overall for the sake of being less likely to lose to luck.
Yeah, I’ll explain it more clearly. It may not make sense if you don’t understand buffering and frames for fighting games, but I’ll try to explain in layman’s terms. In the broad sense, my analogy is that Player A absolutely mastered the inputs, doesn’t mess up, and pulls off the attack the fastest it can be executed within the limits of the game engine. The hacked stick makes the attack inputs easier for Player B, but doesn’t give an advantage as far as accessing attacks faster because of the aforementioned limits. What are these limits?
A, for the first hit, and “>
“>
“>
“>
“>
“>
A+B+K, for the second hit, and there are 20 frames of recovery after the first hit connects with the opponent. That means in order to successfully string together the two hits into a combo, you have 1/3 of a second to buffer the input for the second hit. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for you to buffer the input, only as long as you buffer it within the 1/3 of a second. So let’s say Player A can do the input for the second hit in a quarter of a second, and Player B can do the input even faster because he hacked it so he only has to press A+B+K. In both cases, the second hit comes 20 frames after the first hit (not a frame faster or slower), and both result in a successful combo. Because the game engine doesn’t allow players to execute attacks while another attack is still in the recovery animation, there’s a limit to how fast successive attacks can be done, so as long as Player A devoted enough time to practice the inputs, there’s no difference in battle outcome between the legit input method and the hacked stick method.
Each attack in a fighting game has an animation with a set length of duration, usually measured in frames (60 frames = 1 second usually). In most cases, you have to wait until the animation is completed before you can initiate another attack. During the duration of this ‘recovery’, you can dial-in (or buffer) your inputs, and the game will initiate the next attack as soon as the animation of the first one is finished. So let’s say the combo is “>
The problem is he can either spend weeks practicing, or he can hack an arcade stick. Both produce the same results. It’s just a matter of whether or not he wants to dedicate so much time to fighting with the legit method.
This goes back to my argument about how it’s perspective whether game systems like these are arbitrary. You can say these systems are absolutely arbitrary, but you have to be consistent in your perspective. It’s contradictory to say a complex execution system is related to the competitive aspect, but catching/training Pokemon isn’t.
Let’s just take the IVs and make them more manipulable. The best solution I can provide is making items that can increase/ decrease IVs that you can buy at the Battle Resort using Battle Points. Sounds much more simple and we can still retain the integrity of breeding through this addition.
As for SRing, enough with this system. I can’t take it anymore. When I spend a whole month trying to SR a Calm Thundurus with 5 perfect IVs and I still don’t have one as of today, there is a problem. For the love of god could Game Freak please allow Synchronize to also affect IVs because we are already using Synchronize pokemon to catch legendaries. It would save everyone weeks of gameplay wasted trying to catch that one Landorus, Thundurus, Heatran, etc. Heck, the IV modding items could help solve this frustration that every VGC player faces. Rant over.
Making iv’s completely manipulable and adding in move tutors for old moves that can’t be taught in gen 6 would benefit everyone and has basically no negative consequences (and removes the incentive to hack for stats/moves). It wouldn’t even exclude the casual crowd cause they wouldn’t have to care about it, or alternately could even appeal to them (hey you can train your starter, the one you’re attached to, to be super strong!)
An insightful article. The current metagame is so flooded with Mega Kangaskhan, Landorous-T, Thundurous-I, Cresselia and Heatran. Mega Kangaskhan seemed to be in almost every teams that made to Day 2 in the Worlds, making other Mega evolutions seemingly unworthy. More than 50% of all the parties brought Landorous-Ts(probably most of them Scarfed), brought Cresellias for bulk, Thundurus-Is(and with Sitrus Berries) to Prankster Thunderwave. The Worlds was great with so many players of outstanding performance, but I’d say it was quite boring to see the same Pokemon, while I was expecting something like last year’s Pachirisu bringing excitement(and chaos).
Please, NERF Landorous-T(with that base stats, Intimidate is IMBA), take that Prankster away from Thundurus-T, and please, I expect to see Mega Kangaskhan taking more damage when Double-edging.
I agree with most things you said the main 2 I dint agree with are bringing back gems and an officially supported showdown. On gems I don’t see a need to bring them back they make item solutions to simple and would be niche at 1.3 the same power as a life orb but on 1 type and 1 use. On the officially supported showdown it just wouldn’t feel like the same game being able to legitimately create any Pokemon with no effort. Sure breeding isn’t exiting but it makes you feel like you earned it more than showdown which makes it so easy to make a team and carelessly make bad plays and easy to abandon a team after just a few games . I think breeding should be easier to get a spesific hidden power which could easily be fixed by adding a system to change ivs by 1 in each stat and the ability capsule could be a solution to get the right ability on any mon if they added the option to change to a hidden ability from a normal ability. Legendaries are the biggest problem as they can be ridiculous to obtain, 1 solution would be too make synchronize 100% and make the synchronize pokemons ivs have an influence. I would appreciate if the time to get a 5 perfect iv legendary were cut down to 2 hours on average.
I’m a small-town player who doesn’t really know much about the greater future or picture of the meta, but after testing Mamoswine I just felt like half my Lando-T/Thundy problems would be solved with a Special equivalent of Mamoswine. While I know that’s off topic, it’s something we can hope for.
Part of the appeal of Mamoswine to deal with Genies was its priority Ice Shard-so you’d need some sort of priority, ice type special move to deal with this.
And anyway, in regards to my thoughts on the article. For all the RNG moves, like Rock slide, Thunder Wave and Swagger (well those are the most common ones right?) wouldn’t the solution be to make them less accurate? Swagger is already 90% accurate, something i didn’t know until I actually saw it miss once (quite late into this season I will add). Thunder wave is 100% accurate, couldn’t that be changed? And Rock slide is 90% too…maybe we reduce these to 80%?
Or maybe we take inspiration from the ability Hustle, which increases power but reduces accuracy. What if Prankster increases priority of non-attack moves, but decreases accuracy of them against other targets (e.g. it wouldn’t affect protect). Reducing accuracy should reduce the number of incidences of people getting hit by swagger/t-wave on all 4 pokemon in a game in 4 turns.
Or maybe, make confusion an actual status move? So it ranks alongside paralysis, burn, freeze and sleep, and cannot be applied simultaneously with them? That removes rage-inducing para-fusion tactics which only allow you to attack half the time, pretty much as the last pokemon, and if you don’t attack you have a chance of dealing significant damage to yourself.
Zog, I can’t thank you enough for bringing this to attention! As someone who lacks the efficacy of a seasoned gamer like you, all I could do was throw tantrums at the incredibly depressing Worlds Games this year. I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve written here, and I wish you the best in the future!
I really hope you’re basing your opinions on the whole worlds metagame, not just the top 8..
Since we’re comparing apples to oranges ITT, how about we get a sideboard/sidebox of Pokemon to rotate in to Bo3 matches and players have to publish their teams at pre-reg? More strategy, less RNG and luck that way.
Just like in MTG, but without the Bo5 finals matches. Would everyone side board Milotic and Bisharp? Probably.
Simple solution for IVs: go to eBay, buy unupdated DS, use PKHex. Voilà!
There are…several things wrong with this.
But one of the biggest arguments in favor of the make-IVs-easier side is that there’s less incentive to want to hack in the first place.
Please take a look at the article Teams from the 2015 Pokemon World Championships, and you’ll see the statistics about 43 teams(57% of all teams) bringing Land-Ts and 32 teams(41% of all teams) bringing Mega Kangaskhans. Couldn’t it be said that the whole metagame is heavily influenced by Land-T, Thundurus-I, Cresselia and Heatran if the top teams that made it to the worlds are so frequently using these Pokemon? I am DEFINITELY not talking about the Top 8 of the Worlds but about the whole metagame, and I would say the current metagame is not without problem.
I do enjoy all of the points you make, and believe they would lead to a healthier competitive game in the future, however if any of these were put into effect, it would take three more generations and it would be due to children being upset with flinch hacks rather than Game Freak caring about competitive play.
The game is under the stranglehold of Nintendo, which means they’ll do whatever they can to keep Pokemon from ever becoming an Esport. Just look how long it took Smash to become a thing…
I would rather it not be a full fledged eSport. eSports are stupid and should not be a thing. They are not sports at all and should not be named as such. I’m all for people playing video games competitively, that’s pretty cool, but they’re not athletes and video games are not sports.
You may say, but it’s an eSport, not a sport. eSport stands for Electronic Sports, which they are not. They are just electronic.
Every single resource I can find defining what a sport is applies easily to the top competitive games once you apply the word electronic to them to imply lesser physical influence and greater mental influence. Sports started off being games people played for fun and leisure to pass the time in many cases and then turned into competitive sports once people started surrounding it with spectators and staking pride in it. There are very very arbitrary differences between competitive games and sports once you remove the physical aspect of it.
It doesn’t really matter what we call it though, it is what it is and what it will be. I doubt pokemon will reach that level of Smash or League when it comes to sponsors and such because the RNG element can so heavily prevent players from dominating others through skill alone. No one really wants to sponsor people in a game where it’s so possible for winning positions to be stolen through luck.