New way of playing

[WiteMic]

So I've recently been getting into competitive battling (Pokemon Showdown for now because I'm also learning how to breed) and to be honest, it's boring. It's rare to find a player who isn't using T-Tar, Greninja, Talonflame & the other basic OU Pokemon that EVERYONE else uses. It's rare to see someone actually trying some random Pokemon out.

It also sucks seeing someone use 3 legends and a mega. And yes, I know they can be taken down like the rest of the Pokemon but, you loose 3 Pokemon taking the legends down, two taking the Mega down and your last Poke is at 7 HP and they still have two fully healthy Pokemon.

So I sat there thinking about how I can actually have fun doing these battles and came up with this idea: (Please don't bag on it. Please do not leave negative comments.) Standard Battles. Two Tiers: Uber and Regular. Basically, legends and megas are in the uber and the rest are regular. If you want to do uber, let the person you're battling know that's what you wanna do.

I know this isn't for everyone. This is for the people who want to get away from the same old teams you see on Showdown and VGC. This is for the people who want to actually strategize as opposed to using Mega Char Y to sweep a whole team.

So if you like the idea and wanna try it out, leave Friend Codes and talk to each other. Also, there's no way to actually ban this but, let's go by the same code as VGC and Showdown and lets not overuse spore, swagger & evasive moves. That just makes the battle even more boring than it is now. Happy Battling.

[wraith89]

These commonly seen Pokemon all have a reason they're overused you know... that's because they do what they do best. Most of the time, the mentality I get from some people who challenge me is that there is direct correlation of fun and winning. Though, some of us actually like some strong mons: they just happen to be our favourites. I do like Tyranitar for example, but not because he is strong: that's merely bonus. He just happens to fit my tastes. Talonflame, on the other hand.... is exactly like a parvenu. As soon as one sees that he had Gale Wings: lolol priority bird spam. I hated facing that thing in Battle Spot: I swear that thing cannot be only 81 Attack.

Whenever I play with people, I usually assume people try to play fair with "no legends" and the likes, asides from minor legendaries such as the Kanto legendary birds, that is. If a passerby challenges me and I find them cheesing with a team of all legends, they're usually people who did not EV train them properly and have no idea how to make movesets or synergise, so they usually go down after I see that Yveltal spamming Hyper Beam, or something.

However, Mega Pokemon are not all that broken as you make out to be (not counting the already broken Mewtwo). Sure, there are things with incredibly gamebreaking capabilities, such as Mega Kangaskhan (she is too strong), Gengar (pro players can abuse his ability) or Mawile (just what were they thinking with Huge Power?), but usually all the others are able to be taken care of. It is generally fair game though because you are able to bring your own Mega Pokemon too.

Sure, I hate seeing everybody using the same Talonflame, Aegislash, Greninja, etc, but there is not much one can do about it really. It's too bad I got really attached to Aegislash: its playstyle and its design is exactly what I like about it, and I played it too much without really realising how overpowered it was while I swept Japanese passerbys when I was not even up to the 7th gym badge yet.

With that said, you are probably best off playing on Pokemon Showdown (either for fun or to test out what Pokemon work), as passerbys are a completely random variable which can go either/or, or Battle Spot where that ugly 3v3 Singles battle is too offensively oriented you will see Mega Kangaskhan or Garchomp 99% of the time. Or us Easterners who don't really play by Westerners "square rules" and massively abuse Double Team/Minimise and whatever tools that are actually given (people in Japan do go out of their way to breed Mud Bombs to Chansey: yes Mud Bomb/Minimise sets do exist). They also expect this from each other so they carry Sleep Talk on random Pokemon just to counter Sporespam. Because Nintendo apparently supports double battles only despite the fact most of us grew up with Single Battle format all throughout the games' existence, Doubles in Battle Spot is a lot more cleaner in my opinion. I have not exactly made Pokemon for Doubles quite yet, though some are because things like Cherrim function much better in doubles than in singles.

One thing I dislike about Showdown is the OU tier is filled with overpowered new legends like the kamis (Westerners tend to call them "genies") and Black Kyurem and such. I would not use those Pokemon in-game honestly, but seeing things like Landorus everywhere is disturbing. Landorus is what you would call a "minor legend" though, so he would be allowed, but the power creep from the old gen Pokemon to new gen Pokemon is real.

If you would like "fun battles" as you say, sure, go ahead and message me if you'd like. I have only bred some common mons so far and not all the Megas quite yet though, so you would not see me using overpowered mons as you say. I am more of a defensive player than offensive, and I tend to struggle when people lead with their Mega Tyranitar Dragon Dancing and the likes.

[WiteMic]

But that's why I made this post. So people can connect and play this certain way with out having legend and mega spam. And I know megas could be easy to take out. Fully IV'd and all. But They're still on that high platform because they can OHKO most things. I stopped using Mega Char Y because all I had to do was Mega Evolve and take out EVERYTHING with Solar Beam, Flamethrower, Dragon Pulse and Air Slash. Rocks didn't even stop him.

This thread is for the people who basically just want to have a fair battle without worrying whose going to Mega evolve or why is there 2 legendaries on this team or even how many times Breloom is going to spam Spore. Smogon has there thing. Other sites have there rules. Why not Project Pokemon? And I'm in no way saying this should be PP standard of battling but, it's one form of many it could have.

[wraith89]

I don't think you will find many people who will want to play with limits like "no Megas". A lot of Megas tend to be people's favourites, and it caters to their teambuilding as they can build a team around their favourites (like Mega Houndoom, for example, who likes to be in a sun team).

Charizard's problem is the massive amount of fanboyism it gets and has not one but two Mega forms, making it hard to stop when you predict wrong. Mega Charizard Y is powerful in its own right, but I would not say unstoppable. I don't like facing it, but it is not as overpowered as you make it. Some Megas are inherently broken, however, but that is because of the mechanics of some of them. And that all depends too if you can play them right. Mega Gengar is one cheese, for example, because he can basically choose who to KO and who not to. People who kept complaining he is too weak are clearly not playing him right. And Megas OHKOing other Pokemon is different from regular Pokemon OHKOing each other how? Having a Mega doesn't always guarantee a win. I don't think I have used my Megas to powerhouse through my opponents by using it as an unfair advantage, ever. Okay... Battle Maison is an exception with Mega Kangaskhan, but they are cheaters.

Perhaps you can try finding a wider scope of people to fight with. Showdown has a broad range of people, and of course you are bound to find people who copy pastes sets from the top 10 OU Pokemon of those simulator rules. If you really tend to hate that aspect about Showdown, try the lower tiers. NU/RU/UU... all of those can accomodate to your style because you will never see things like Garchomp or Talonflame or Thundurus ever. There, also, lays the problem of seeing highly used mons in those tiers as well (Volcarona in UU led to people using Fletchinder of all things...), and the problem will keep repeating, because in the end, people want to win. When given the tools, why not use them?

I get where you are coming from, but the limitations are also quite arbitrary. Just where does one draw the line about how fair one can make the game? What makes one's opinion of one's game's level of fairness more fairer than whatever else there is?

We tried the whole PP tiers stuff, but this isn't a community with that sort of interest, unfortunately. Generally, I think the most widely accepted rulesets are no supers (legends with BST over 600s like Kyogre or Mewtwo, can extend to Nintendo banned Pokemon list), do not put more than one Pokemon to sleep at once, and usually, no evasion moves, as it makes the game more luck based than it already is. I see some people play with Species clause (no duplicate Pokemon) and Item clause (no duplicate items), but the latter is uncommon asides from Nintendo VGC rules. Most people would not have a problem playing with those rules. That's as fair as the game can get, really.

This is not exactly a "new way of playing" either. Many people do try something like this, and it ultimately doesn't work and turns out it is not popular. What the game gives, people use and I guarantee you, many people will find a way to abuse them as much as possible. That's how this game is. We cannot exactly go and say what is fair and what is unfair. But sure, I'll give it a bite. I try using newly bred mons and test them out against some friends of mine if I want to. And I have not even tried my competitive Talonflame yet to even speak of it. If you want, we can try experimenting with the lower class mons and see how well they fare.

[WiteMic]

Ok Wraith, now let me ask you this: How do these people in ratings battles have 0 eggs hatched, have less than 100 BP, Less than 100 Pokemon obtained & have all shiny Pokemon keep beating me? Now If you ask me, it's all hacks.

I have faced Garchomps that OHKO all my Pokemon. Even the walls. I have faced Mamoswines that OHKO all my Pokemon AND out speed Crobat, Greninja & Talonflame. I've also seen Sheer Force Feraligatr which, to my knowledge, has not been even released. And this is all my games.

I am currently 12 and 22 in ratings. The 12 people I faced all had legit raised Pokemon. Everything matched there Pokemon. Nothing seemed odd. But I promise and swear up and down, on every whole book that everytime I loss, it was to a person with the aforementioned Pokemon and stats. So I ask you Wraith, how am I suppose to have fun when I keep losing to Pokemon with hacked everything?

I made this thread for the people who actually want to play fair and have fun. I don't mind losing especially if it's against someone who has done the work to raise their Pokemon and actually is playing to have fun and not to troll and cheat. Maybe the Mega's stipulation was reaching a little but, the legendaries and hacked mons need to stop. Stone Edging a Focus Sashed Zapdos doesn't even work anymore due to HP Ice.

Bottom line is in order to have fun in a Wi-Fi battle, you need to either have a group of friends that play, which I don't because all my friends don't care for Pokemon, or you need to have hacked mons which is something I refuse to do. So whats your take on this?

[wraith89]

0 eggs hatched and what? What kind of people have you been battling? I do not know that kind of extreme hacking is available to nearly everyone, because if there was, we would have all heard about it by now. It can also be that they imported their Gen V hacked legal mons and are using those instead, as there are many incentives to that, such as old move tutors and such. I didn't play Wifi during those generations and actually skipped on Gen V for the most part because it wasn't level grounds. Or... they're people with two versions, but one version is used to breed while the other is used for battling and Pokebanking stuff to transfer from one version to another for that is also possible (that is a bit of a stretch though, but I am speaking of all possibilities here... and I did plan on doing that once).

Usually I would tell you if you are getting swept by Garchomp completely then you would need a better team that can deal with it. And that is usually right. Was Mamoswine spamming the same moves over and over? It may be that it is a Jolly Choice Scarfed version, or was using priority Ice Shard (with possibly Choice Band in that case). Base 80 speed can go over base 130s if they have a + 1 speed, if I'm correct. Is Sheer Force Feraligatr or Contrary Serperior actually usable online? Right... it was Battle Spot that kicked those out (which I don't like the 3v3 Singles metagame there: doubles is better). I am usually reluctant to accept passerby battles nowadays because they do like hacking.

Legendaries are actually a bit easier to get in XY now because they come with at least 3 perfect IVs. I have a Timid Moltres with 31 HP/31 Atk/31 Def/30 SpA/24 SpDef/31 Speed... I didn't bother soft resetting too much although I wanted max SpA and SpDef over that Attack... the older ones like the OP Landorus and such on the other hand... are deliberately hacked or RNG abused. However it is considered legal. I'm sure I stated it someplace long ago but I disliked fighting everybody with their perfect Hidden Power Fire Latios and such from Gen IV on Wifi.

There has always been hackers and unscrupulous people who only play to win. Remember that time when that devious tool that allowed a person to see the person's moves before it was even done? I always wondered... do people REALLY want to win THAT much? I understand your frustration. You don't even have to compete with the largescale amount of people if you're afraid of such. In fact, I don't even participate in those either. I never did. If I wanted to battle, I'd do exactly as you did: have close friends (I don't have friends who play Pogeymanz much though) or some group of people and play in a local setting. I'm not really shooting you down for it: in fact, go ahead and do it. I'd encourage it if you love that kind of thing. Or take a break in Pokemon if it isn't fun: I don't play the game much to be honest (let alone games in general), but when I do, I play it for fun with usually people I know.

I do miss those days when XY was out in the fresh and passerbys battling me was actually fun. Mind you, I was in middle of the game so I had no access to VS Recorders and such, but I've had unbelievable battles and overall fun ones when nobody knew anything. You wouldn't believe me if I told you my in-game Pidgeot made this Japanese guy's Mega Mawile forfeit. I had my in-game Swords Dancing Aegislash sweep a Japanese lady on a 3v3 which along with other battles afterwards made me believe that Aegislash was too useful and I probably shouldn't use it too much. But alas, time corrupts and taints what was once innocent, and things get devilishly dangerous now that some people (it's not an overwhelming population mind you, but it does exist) have access to hacks. I still do, however, have recorded some fun battles I've had. In fact, maybe you and I can try the same, such as "in-game team battle" or "ocean Pokemon only" battle or "wild Pokemon freshly caught no EV but TM allowed" battles or "bring 6 potential megas and guess which one is mega" battles and such. I found those fun if you don't want to see Gale Wing Talonflames and Garchomps everywhere.

I blame this generation's emphasis on competitiveness and such... which happened to the likes of many other games I do play that it just is not fun anymore. I don't strive to get high in rankings or such: I just want to have fun. Stuff like that is what made things like Starcraft II so less popular in Korea than it should have been... when games punish you so hard for small mistakes. I feel like XY in general had many flaws, only because as an adventure game it was completely lacking: clearly many aspects of the game that could have been developed more in the single player part was left behind and yet they thought they "had it right" for the competitive aspect of the game, that it really serves as a "small platform" to get kids to compete against each other. "Gotta Catch 'Em All" is more like "Gotta Catch All 30 usable Pokemon and compete against one other". And the chances are, you can only use Pokemon you bred from eggs if you are to compete in such, and not exactly your in-game mons that you've loved and cherished for the time being (which wasn't too long in XY tbh). But I think that is the fundamental flaw of the nature of this game as a whole. I think it was bound to shift this way in the end: grabbing them all seems trivial now (though I still have not done that and still striving for that atm), and the new gen kids idea of "communication" with one other isn't always just trade and innocuous battling, but rather a cutthroat fast-paced kill or get killed environment that you see in many games. I've seen many games ruined that way. And while Pokemon is headed that way (or was since Gen IV when things got globally connected), perhaps there may be hope, but I won't hold my breath.

And I'm sorry if your experiences have made you bitter in that sense. I can understand why. The question is, why do you continue playing? (It's just an honest question: nothing said to offend you).

수정: Okay, one more thing. I remember long ago back in Gen IV days we made groups like these for people who wanted to get a small group for wifi battling. I did not really participate back then much because of apparent nervousness or whatnot, but now that the game is more easily accessible to us and all, it might be nice to bring activity back for this. However, the activity of that kind of community in PP has long since died out. You may have more luck finding others from Serebii or such general interest places and the likes. Happy battling.

[WiteMic]

I do take offense to that because you might as well say, "conform to the format of the same Pokemon everyone else is using.". You're basically saying stop playing Pokemon if you're not gonna do what everyone else is doing. F that.

I could easily go on Smogon and take the top used Pokemon, make them exactly the same and be just like everyone else or I could use the Pokemon I actually like and have a bond with and try to get some people who feel the same to battle with. But unfortunately people have a Call of Duty camper mind state. Using the same Pokemon with the same moves and all the same strategies is basically like camping in a corner with a bouncing betty & shock charge on each entrance with the Scavenger perk on.

And to say you don't see how people can hack like that is BS. I'm not even into that crap and I know all about the new stuff. It's actually pretty sad that I still see posts on here asking how to do certain things when all it takes is a Japanese version of the games, Cyber Gadget and Pokebank. OR a Save Dongle/Action Replay and Pokemon BW/B2W2. I've faced FOUR people this morning ZERO eggs hatched, never been to the Battle Maison, apparently haven't obtained or evolved any Pokemon AND, get this, haven't even beaten the Elite 4. BUT somehow have all Maison items & perfect IV/EV trained shiny Pokemon.

I remember coming to this site 4 years ago and feeling at home. I didn't fit in with the Serebii people and I didn't even know Marriland existed. I even remember when X/Y first came out. How the friend safari thread was cool because we all met and traded and stuff. Now, there is more posts about hacking and crap than there is about anything else. Oh well. Guess I'll just close my DS up and wait until ORAS come out to t least enjoy the game play and story of Pokemon.

And to answer your question, I play Pokemon because it's the only thing from my childhood that I could still do and still have fun with it but, with this competitive OU/UU BS, fun is far from what I'm having.

[WiteMic]

And Wraith, just to let you know how far the hacking is going, I just got swept by Mega Latias... in Rating Battles. Also watched a Greninja randomly boost its speed with speed boost... in ratings battle. This is what I'm dealing with.

[wraith89]

Are you trying to have a negative attitude to everything I'm saying? I'm not here to shoot you down mate. Good grief. You're putting words into my mouth when I'm not even saying things like that.

You don't have to use everyone's top Pokemon. In fact, many "lower Pokemon" can be used just as effectively and take down the higher ones. It's really about teambuilding and smartplay. And to blame all your bad experiences from hacking... I'm starting to wonder. I'm not saying it cannot be from hacking, but was everything all from hackers?

No, I have never heard of widespread hacking ever. Powersaves can only take you that far. And Cyber Gadget is not that widespread and I think those stuff can only work in passerby battles. All shinies isn't that hard for some people especially now that there are known ways of getting the SV of eggs (I don't do this because I'm not a shiny freak, but I have multiple friends who do this).

Try to save those battles in the VS Recorder if you're getting swept by the likes of those... in rated battles even. I want to see it because it's the first time I've ever heard of these situations. It is possible in Passerby battles but I think those are blocked in Battle Spot.

It's great that you like Pokemon then and I hope you find other people you can have fun with. But with that downer attitude you may turn off people who are sympathetic to your cause, so I'd be careful.