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Old 02-24-2014, 10:31 PM   #1301
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...I don't see how proving that Blissey is a suitable answer is a good idea. It's only proving that you _need_ a Blissey to counter Liepard. And Blissey has no place in any offensive team, and Jeri, hyper offense is literally the only reason some people play Pokemon at all.
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Old 02-24-2014, 11:05 PM   #1302
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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
...I don't see how proving that Blissey is a suitable answer is a good idea. It's only proving that you _need_ a Blissey to counter Liepard. And Blissey has no place in any offensive team, and Jeri, hyper offense is literally the only reason some people play Pokemon at all.
No one is saying that a one-Pokémon solution proves that this stratagem isn't unfair or should not be banned. All we're noting (and we're thoroughly amused by how potent it is, as you will see from our battle logs) is that Blissey utterly devastates this strategy despite claims to the contrary by hysterical detractors in the thread.

However, if in addition to Blissey this strategy is also devastated by Safeguard ... and Rotom-W ... and Electric or Ground types primed to counter ... so on and so on and so forth, then I would say that perhaps the mechanic is less broken and more "a new facet of life in Gen 6." Or at least, what would be life in Gen 6 if Smogon wasn't busting out the hunting rifle at first sight of an Indian elephant.

I dunno. I find this new life form intriguing, even if I personally find it annoying to play against. It's much like how I find many of Muyo's best YGO decks annoying to play against yet marvelous at the same time. I love how clever Muyo is and how well his decks work ... but good God do I hate playing against most of them as they make me feel like a fly caught in a spider's web. >_< These Parafusion Prankster teams feel much the same way to me. They're not for me to use, and they're not my cup of tea to have to beat either ... but they're neat. They represent a niche that wouldn't have even existed two generations ago, and that's kinda cool to me.

Aside: While I'm here, Posts 9 and 10 because WHEEE PROBABLE DELETION TALON U R SUCH A REBEL.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryolain, post: 5267372, member: 202744
No. This argument is completely and utterly wrong and makes no sense when applied to any of the other things that have been banned. Obviously not every single person that ever put a Mega Lucario on their team won every single battle they played...
You're misrepresenting what I wrote. I'm not suggesting that in order to ban something you must prove that it 100% guarantees victory. I did write that if something 100% guarantees victory then it deserves a ban, but that should be a given and I hardly think you want to argue that point.

What I wrote to Jukain is that the challenge he presented Slayer95 with was, as written, unreasonable. Any strategy in the history of Pokémon can be shown to enable the unskilled to triumph over the skilled. All you need do is provide one simple replay. "Look here! Kevin956C just defeated the tournament champion using [Strategy X]! :o That proves it's broken!" No, it doesn't. One citable loss does not prove that a mechanic or strategy is broken; and challenging someone to prove that no such losses exist else his arguments hold no water is unreasonable. Drizzle in conjunction with Swift Swim, Sand Rush Excadrill, and Blaziken were not banned in the early days of Gen 5 OU because no one was able to show that they never empower victory for unskilled players: they were banned because copious amounts of evidence pointed to them empowering victory for unskilled players time and time again.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SmashBrosBrawl, post: 5267411, member: 171074
My lord i wasnt even going to post in this thread anymore, but for fuck sake you just intentionally ignored an important part of what [USER=77748]Jukain[/USER] posted just to make a point
There's no need for personal attacks. Haunter expressly said in the OP post that they have no place in this discussion. Please. We're all friends here. We all want the best, healthiest meta even if we don't all agree on what that is or what it takes to get there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmashBrosBrawl, post: 5267411, member: 171074
Thats the thing that people are trying to get through anti-ban users's head. Bad players can beat good players without using any sort of skill, all they need to do is rely on rng, and this has absolutely no place in a competitive enviroment.
I understand Jukain's stipulation about the complete lack of skill. But I ask you: is it really so much more skilled to lead with a Politoed in BW1, switch to a Kingdra, apply a Dragon Dance, and Waterfall away? Is it really so much more skilled to lead with a Hippowdon or a Tyranitar in BW1, switch to an Excadrill, and spam Iron Head or Earthquake? I thought it was almost hyperbolic to even list the Choice Scarf as an example, but I did so precisely to make clear the point that I did appreciate Jukain's stipulation about no skill being required to use SwagPlay: there can be no less skill involved than slapping a Choice Scarf onto some slow but powerful creature and saying "GO FORTH AND DESTROY!"

In play tests I've conducted with Swagplay teams, I have found that they require more skill than many of their most ardent detractors are implying they require. They're good, certainly, and they're very easy to pick up and learn. Certainly they require less skill than the very best stall teams of Generation 4. And they have an enormous advantage over teams that lack defensive cores with low attack. But these SwagPlay teams do not guarantee victory, and they come nowhere near guaranteeing it against teams with able defensive cores in competent hands. The SwagPlay player must know when to switch and when to stay put; and if he should stay put, he must know whether to go for a sub, go for an attack boost / restore confusion, or go for a Foul Play. These may sound like simple concerns, and they are! But they're no more simple than the ordinary decisions we make when deciding what to do with our Pokémon most of the time. That's the problem I have with many of the detractors' attitudes in this thread: they are deliberately misrepresenting SwagPlay as some unholy guarantee of victory for the user the likes of which the community has never seen.
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Old 02-24-2014, 11:50 PM   #1303
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But Talon, I think the question is, doesn't forcing things to run Safeguard or specific versions of pokemon- which, by the way, are very open to being countered themselves- give you a pretty valid argument for overcentralisation in itself? It's a little like how Salamence got banned in DP despite not being too overpowered- granted, that was mostly because of Salamence's different movesets with no way to predict which it was running- but I think the point still stands that if you have to run something, especially multiple layers of counters, just to deal with one threat, it's not good for the metagame.

And the thing is, with Swagger/Foul Play, you have to make sure multiple pokemon can stop it. Because there's a very good possibility you can't attack at all, even with walls. I think that's one of the big problems, because a 50/50 chance is really too huge.
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Old 02-25-2014, 12:15 AM   #1304
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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
But Talon, I think the question is, doesn't forcing things to run Safeguard or specific versions of pokemon- which, by the way, are very open to being countered themselves- give you a pretty valid argument for overcentralisation in itself? It's a little like how Salamence got banned in DP despite not being too overpowered- granted, that was mostly because of Salamence's different movesets with no way to predict which it was running- but I think the point still stands that if you have to run something, especially multiple layers of counters, just to deal with one threat, it's not good for the metagame.

And the thing is, with Swagger/Foul Play, you have to make sure multiple pokemon can stop it. Because there's a very good possibility you can't attack at all, even with walls. I think that's one of the big problems, because a 50/50 chance is really too huge.
People keep playing the overcentralization card, and here's the thing: no. No, I do not think it would not be overcentralizing. On the contrary ...

If we want to dichotomize the meta, there were two dominant playstyles in late Gen 4: aggro (a.k.a. offense & hyper-offense) and stall. Gen 5 witnessed the decline of the latter and the full dominance of the former. Things only amplified in Gen 6 with the emergence of megas, powerful priority hitters (like Aegislash), and powerful speedy hitters (like Talonflame). Many of the key players in stall -- Blissey, Skarmory, Gliscor -- have found themselves out of a job in Gen 6 as they are now too fragile to complete their old jobs and yet too incapable of doing anything else better than other Pokémon can.

So if we want to trichotomize the meta now, imagine that players discover the following:
  • Parafusion Pranksters destroy aggro
  • aggro destroys stall
  • stall destroys Parafusion Pranksters
What would we have then? Would it be a more centralized meta? A less diverse meta? No. What we would have ...



... is Pokémon StarCraft. And that's a right deal better than what we currently have which is one archetype (HO) ruling the roost with no one else allowed to be good.

I say this as a fan of offensive play styles. I say this as someone who has hated fighting against enemy Blisseys for over ten years. I am neither a stall player nor a SwagPlay player. But I do believe that if the prevalence of the one would ensure the rebirth of the other and together they would give us a meta that is more archetypically diverse and robust, then we should be welcoming the new play style with open arms rather than shooting it on sight.

If you don't want to think of it like StarCraft, think of it like YGO. Does YGO ban every single deck type out there except for aggro decks and Exodia decks? No. YGO allows for God knows how many deck archetypes, and each of them has its own unique strengths and weaknesses against other decks. Does the fact that Archetype A loses to Archetype B 90% of the time mean that Archetype B needs to be banned? No. I'm sure Archetype A players would love it, but no, it does not mean that.

You can also think of it like the ecosystem if you like. "Talon," you say, "isn't it true that coyotes eat deer and rabbits? So shouldn't we exterminate coyotes if we want a more diverse forest?" Yeah, you do that: and then watch as the deer and rabbit populations spiral upwards out of control, all of the edible vegetation is devoured, the land becomes barren as the harsh winds erode the topsoil, leaving behind only nutrient-poor sand and clay, and now no animals can survive here save a few bugs. Sometimes it's for the best for everyone -- including the prey -- to have a predator in the ecosystem. It keeps things in check and allows every species to prosper.

Mind you, these thoughts all hinge upon the validity of the assumption that SwagPlay is a) a whole new archetype rather than some trite little gimmick and that it is also b) the predator of HO teams and the prey of stall teams.
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Old 02-25-2014, 02:30 PM   #1305
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Originally Posted by Escalion View Post
Just jumping by here to say I agree with Talon for the full 100% percent. I already think Smogon is getting way to trigger happy when it comes to banning. And I have a feeling it's only the tip of the iceberg :/
Just want to say that I called this back when they banned Garchomp in Gen 4.


Also that thread... I don't understand how anyone is that stupid... to want to ban parafusion + Prankster.

really?
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Old 02-25-2014, 04:44 PM   #1306
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Originally Posted by Firewater View Post
Just want to say that I called this back when they banned Garchomp in Gen 4.
NO YOU WERE JUST SLIPPERY SLOPIN' DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE YOU FOOL! FOOL! FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

fool.

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Also that thread... I don't understand how anyone is that stupid... to want to ban parafusion + Prankster.

really?
The thing is, there's an apparent divide between those who enjoy elements of chance in their games and those who do not. Smogon has established an anti-chance precedent in years past with bans like the Evasion Clause and the OHKO Clause; consequently, we now have many players arguing that Smogon is the scene for those seeking chance-minimized Pokémon play. In other words, "If you want the game Game Freak intended, go fucking play the cartridges, scrub. We're going to play our dream game over here. And our dream game is one with all of the chance removed from it." I think only a minority of staff members think to this extreme a degree, but ... I feel like it's only a matter of time before Smogon drops the idea of wanting to create rules for people to apply to cartridge-based play and embraces the idea of creating what to them is the perfect format instead. It's clear that those in positions to effect policy changes are anti-chance, so I can only imagine further chance elements being removed from Smogon's games as time goes on.

It's actually kind of funny and sad how many Pokémon would be fixtures of OU or UU if Smogon were to unban certain things. For example, I didn't quite remember what Keen Eye does so I had to look it up. In older gens, it prevented accuracy drops; but in this generation, it also ignores evasion boosts. Can you imagine? Pokémon who are unable to be Mud-Slapped or Double Teamed on. In a meta where Double Team was a thing, this would be a pretty amazing ability to have. And just look who gets it! Drapion ... Braviary ... Meowstic ... Skarmory ... Can you imagine? Can you imagine what that meta might look like? I'm not saying that I love the idea of somebody winning because they spammed Double Team six times ... but honestly, how is that any different from somebody winning because they spammed Dragon Dance three or four times? People talk about how it's your fault if you get Dragon Danced on but it's beyond your control if somebody does a Double Team sweep of your team. How is it any less or more my fault one way than the other? I switch in something that can prevent him from running away with DD. Done. I switch in something that can prevent him from running away with DT. Done. But because Smogon is so infuriated by luck-based victories and defeats, we don't live in a world of Braviaries and Ninjasks in OU. We instead live in a world of one beatstick after another, with Braviary and Ninjask oddly relegated to lower tiers, forced to wear shoes that don't fit their feet.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of the Smogon situation myself sometimes. While I really yearn for a more diverse meta on the one hand, I really do hate having to fight stall, evasion, or gimmick teams on the other. It's such a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for me. In many ways, the Gen 5 and Gen 6 meta is all I ever dreamed of. A meta where weather is actually popular? A meta where almost everyone is running teams just like mine, filled with fast, hard-hitting attackers and special attackers? A meta where almost every fight feels fair provided they're not running too many Suspect Test legendaries and megas? All I know is, if YGO were nothing but people playing Six Sam, Bujin, and Fire Fist decks, I would have quit before we even got past Round One of the tournament. What makes YGO so appealing is the diversity, the range of play styles in the decks. I want that same diversity for Pokémon.
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Old 02-25-2014, 05:52 PM   #1307
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I wrote up this post that I feel is important ... but in the time it took me to write it, the thread moved ahead by three to four pages. I felt that posting it now would be seen as flamebaiting (when that's not the intent) or trying to derail the conversation, so my options were either let it go to waste or share it here. I hate to pester you with these posts, especially since some find this Smogon drama suffocating, but hopefully you can find this post enjoyable (whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say) and perhaps it will even make you want to offer a reply of your own.

Spoiler: show
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yilx
Let's take a good look at the Pokemon that get Own Tempo:

Glameow/Purugly:
If swagplay forces you to use a generic Normal type with bulk worse than Lucario, barely passable offense (82) and okay speed, something's very wrong here. "Hurrdur i can switch into Swagger" you might say, except, face it, Glameow is doing jack back to Klefki and co.
Lickitung/Lickilicky: Unless you run some kind of full-on support set or a Special attack with 0 investment in attack, Foul Play will still do a good number on you. And, again, if you're forced to run LICKILICKY in OU something is very wrong here.

Lilligant: lol

Slowbro/King: Because beating a potential Swagplay team warrants use of Own Tempo over Rengenerator.

Smeargle: lol

Spinda: lol

Spoink/Grumpig: I don't know, I'd rather give my Special Tank (lol) 2 more resists instead of immunity to something that it should have no buisness staying in on anyway.

Ludicolo: Because switching into Swagger is FAR MORE important than sweeping with Swift Swim or being bulky with Rain Dish (lol)
Specifically:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yilx, post: 5268250, member: 3892
Ludicolo: Because switching into Swagger is FAR MORE important than sweeping with Swift Swim or being bulky with Rain Dish (lol)
If natural evolution of the metagame produced an environment where confusion runs rampant, you better believe that switching into confusion-inducing moves with an Own Tempo Ludicolo could be far more important than attempting to sweep with Swift Swim or prolonging longevity with Rain Dish. What people don't seem to understand every time they attack non-standard abilities is that whether an ability is standard or non-standard wholly depends on the landscape of the meta. Why do people run Dry Skin Jynx instead of Oblivious Jynx? Because rain and Water-type attacks are far more prevalent than attraction-inducing attacks. If Game Freak were to invent a Fairy-type Outrage that had the side effect of making the user fall in love with its opponent after it calms down, people would certainly attempt to pair it with Oblivious. If changes made to the game punished the use of Ground-type attacks and consequently Earthquake's usage plummeted, people would certainly investigate dumping Levitate for better options. Whether an ability is gold or garbage isn't always intrinsic to the ability itself: often times it is dictated by the state of the metagame.

Am I saying that Own Tempo is the be-all, end-all solution to SwagPlay? No.

Am I saying that Own Tempo is a viable solution in OU? Not necessarily, no.

All I'm saying is that it's a very poor argument to keep making that if some new threat emerges in the metagame that can be easily dealt with by an as-yet unpopular ability then we shouldn't even consider allowing that threat to stay because Heaven forbid we ever use abilities that have up until now been seen as worthless. Some of you act like you'd rather die than be caught using abilities like Own Tempo or Battle Armor. I don't understand why. In Gen 4, we saw Pokémon dumping Thick Fat and Swarm for Guts with the advent of Flame Orb as Guts morphed from being "too situational" to being completely within the player's control. Not only that, we saw Pokémon that had been running Guts to begin with soaring in usage now that they could reliably trigger their ability.
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Old 02-25-2014, 06:25 PM   #1308
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In other news ... Blaze and I have wrapped up our play testing. (Or at least our first round of it, should we decide to do more. @_@) I don't want to bias you guys one way or the other, so I'll just go ahead and provide the replays below and let you watch the ones you'd like to watch.

Team Electrode = Talon, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Blaze:
Match 1 (21 turns)
Match 2 (64 turns)
Match 3 (13 turns)

Team Electrode = Blaze, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Talon:
Match 10 (55 turns)
Match 11 (145 turns)
Match 12 (30 turns)

Team Klefki = Blaze, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Talon:
Match 4 (82 turns)
Match 5 (48 turns)
Match 6 (49 turns)

Team Klefki = Talon, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Blaze:
Match 7 (69 turns)
Match 8 (71 turns)
Match 9 (42 turns)

Team Klefki = Talon, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Blaze, Swagger replaced by Confuse Ray:
Match 13 (60-odd turns)

Team Klefki = Blaze, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Talon, Foul Play replaced by suitable standard moves:
Match 14 (60-odd turns)

Team Klefki = Blaze, Team Gen 3 Heroes = Talon, Team G3H upgraded to Gen 6 standards and Team Klefki given non-PFP movesets except they do still have Swagger since we want to examine if Swagger alone is too broken:
Match 15 (33 turns)

I'll offer my own thoughts later, but for now I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. For those who simply want the W:L data, I'll provide that below inside the spoiler tag.

Spoiler: show
For the first twelve games (which constitute the main experiment):

Team Electrode won 2 out of 6 games.
  • Shortest win was 30 turns.
  • Longest win was 64 turns.
  • Shortest defeat was 13 turns.
  • Longest defeat was 145 turns.
Team Klefki won 2 out of 6 games.
  • Shortest win was 42 turns.
  • Longest win was 69 turns.
  • Shortest defeat was 48 turns.
  • Longest defeat was 82 turns.
Team Gen 3 Heroes won 8 out of 12 games.
  • Shortest win was 13 turns.
  • Longest win was 145 turns.
  • Shortest defeat was 30 turns.
  • Longest defeat was 69 turns.
Of the twelve initial games, Talon won eight and Blaze won four.
  • In matches involving Team Electrode, Talon won 3/6 and Blaze won 3/6.
  • In matches involving Team Klefki, Talon won 5/6 and Blaze won 1/6.
  • In matches piloting Team Electrode, Talon won 1/3 and Blaze won 1/3.
  • In matches piloting Team Klefki, Talon won 1/3 and Blaze won 0/3.
  • In matches piloting Team G3H, Talon won 5/6 and Blaze won 3/6.
For the thirteenth game, Blaze @ Team Klefki won. (Swagger replaced with Confuse Ray.)

For the fourteenth game, Talon @ Team G3H won. (Foul Play replaced with other good moves.)

For the fifteenth game, Talon @ Team G3H won. (Team G3H with Gen 6 upgrades, Team Klefki with Swagger but otherwise non-PFP movesets.)

I realize that the sample size is small but these games took quite a while to complete.
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Old 02-25-2014, 08:45 PM   #1309
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"I GET IT, OKAY!?" (Random Battle; 38 turns because of PP stall but it really ended on Turn 19 or so)

The battle is unremarkable but for my opponent's final message following a battle of almost total silence, punctuated only by a command he accidentally typed aloud on Turn 9 and my engaging the battle timer on Turn 17 because he refused to pick a move for over a minute. But that final message ...! Weird. (And for the record, he didn't leave instantly. I responded within one second of seeing his message and he then sat there for a good three to five seconds before leaving the room without saying another word.)
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Old 02-25-2014, 09:13 PM   #1310
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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
...I don't see how proving that Blissey is a suitable answer is a good idea. It's only proving that you _need_ a Blissey to counter Liepard. And Blissey has no place in any offensive team, and Jeri, hyper offense is literally the only reason some people play Pokemon at all.
This has got to be one of the stupidest arguments I've ever seen ever.

Oh no, you have to change your playstyle to adapt to changes in the meta! Oh no, you can't use the same old tired cookiecutter team you've used for 3 months straight!

This is my biggest problem with the Smogon format. There's this overarching sentiment behind every ban - be it justified or not - that things should be banned because it interferes with the current playstyle, not because it's balancing. In some cases, like with the ban of Mega Mom, it's one in the same, since Mega Mom overwhelmed Hyper Offense by being so hyperoffensive she tore through the frail teams. But in this case, it just makes Smogoners who are clinging to their Azumarill/Greninja/Talonflame/Rotom-W/Tyranitar/Aegislash teams look petty because they've been outmaneuvered.

This is the reason why I play VGC. Even if it is centralized around a set of Pokémon, there's enough factors outside of one or two major offensive players that allow a much wider stock of threats to be viable.
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Old 02-25-2014, 09:16 PM   #1311
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The Comeback

Spoiler: show
I have to say, I didn't think that I would win this one. I'm sure glad that I did though. I was so happy when I discovered that Whimsicott didn't have attacking moves, or it did but my opponent didn't use them. MVPs are definitely Cresselia (who would've been much better with Lefties) and Basculin.
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Old 02-25-2014, 10:44 PM   #1312
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Quote:
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This has got to be one of the stupidest arguments I've ever seen ever.

Oh no, you have to change your playstyle to adapt to changes in the meta! Oh no, you can't use the same old tired cookiecutter team you've used for 3 months straight!

This is my biggest problem with the Smogon format. There's this overarching sentiment behind every ban - be it justified or not - that things should be banned because it interferes with the current playstyle, not because it's balancing. In some cases, like with the ban of Mega Mom, it's one in the same, since Mega Mom overwhelmed Hyper Offense by being so hyperoffensive she tore through the frail teams. But in this case, it just makes Smogoners who are clinging to their Azumarill/Greninja/Talonflame/Rotom-W/Tyranitar/Aegislash teams look petty because they've been outmaneuvered.

This is the reason why I play VGC. Even if it is centralized around a set of Pokémon, there's enough factors outside of one or two major offensive players that allow a much wider stock of threats to be viable.
It's the question of how many viable playstyles are shut down by certain pokemon that I'M talking about, Jeri. Or would you be saying that Garchomp was completely balanced because as long as you ran Garchomp and five other pokemon that would be completely fine? You're just whining about how YOUR playstyle can't win! If you want to compete then you have to use this!

I'm pretty sure that's not what you're going for.

When someone comes into pokemon, are they really going to want to make a stall team? No. They're going to want to make an offensive team, and yes, because they're not experienced at that point they ARE going to slap together some Smogon team at first.

And they are going to win against people who've made a team that can't handle one or more of those smogon threats. But they're also going to lose against most people who know how to create a proper team. If they only lose, that's going to disillusion them from continuing. But in a perfect meta, they would win some, lose many, then think "Hey, I wonder if I could make a team that's better..."

The entire point of what Smogon is trying to do- to balance the metagame- is to make sure it's enjoyable for everyone. But that's going to be almost impossible, so they settle for trying to make it enjoyable to the most people possible, and a lot of those people are serious hardcore players, so obviously it has to be balanced.

If you are forced to run multiple counters for one pokemon- if an entire playstyle, whether complete stall, or hyper offense- is wiped out, then that's not going to happen.

That is what you need to sit back and look at. Liepard may not be a threat to you- but you only need to look at countless replays to see it is a huge threat. Yes, if everyone played stall you wouldn't have to.

But this is pokemon, not Starcraft, not rock paper scissors. A stall team can very well defeat a hyper offensive team, a Prankster team can very well defeat a stall team, and a hyper offensive team SHOULD be able to defeat a Prankster team if its bases are covered.

And that's the point. That's why this isn't Dragon Dance. It's because however many bases you cover, there's the element of chance that isn't there with Dragon Dance. If you let a Gyarados DD up once, you will always know exactly what can outspeed and OHKO it. But once you get Swaggered- you can't possibly know for sure. A 50/50 chance is too huge.

For some people, they say "Chance is part and parcel of Pokemon." But then some people say "I don't want this much hax in my Pokemon." That's why the base is divided.
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Old 02-25-2014, 10:54 PM   #1313
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If they don't want hax, they can play a different game, as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT: The amount of mouthbreathers in the Smogon thread is just staggering. There are people calling for the ban of Foul Play and Foul Play alone.
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:07 PM   #1314
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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
When someone comes into pokemon, are they really going to want to make a stall team? No. They're going to want to make an offensive team
Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there, 'Geet. I think there are many fans who, when they first enter the world of competitive Pokémon, desire to make a defensive team. Stall is not unique to Pokémon. You have stall in Magic: the Gathering (alias control decks). You have stall in Yu-Gi-Oh!. You have stall in RTSes like Civilization. Not everyone is signing onto Pokémon Showdown for the first time going, "I want to build a team with Zekrom and Genesect and ...! " I'm sure a lot of 'em are signing on saying, "I want to build a team that can weather anything. That's my challenge."

As for people picking up Pokémon the Game Freak story mode video games for the very first time ... ehhhhhhhhhhh, I would tend to agree with you that 99.9% of people who pick the games up for the first time go for a linear aggro playstyle, but that's just a combination of human nature and what the game encourages. I mean, the game is designed from the bottom up to punish -- severely -- those players who opt for a stallier approach. You can beat Brock in under an hour if you power through ..................... or you can beat him in eight hours if you treat every single battle along the way like it's a 60-turn Toxic Stall death match. The game design is not kind to players who may otherwise wish to play more defensive or combo-heavy playstyles.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
If you are forced to run multiple counters for one pokemon- if an entire playstyle, whether complete stall, or hyper offense- is wiped out, then that's not going to happen.
Sure: but have you looked at Blaze's and my battle replays? SwagPlay doesn't require multiple counters for one Pokémon: SwagPlay requires a counter for multiple Pokémon. It's the very reverse of what you've just described.

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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
But this is pokemon, not Starcraft, not rock paper scissors.
I hate to break it to you, Rangeet, but Pokémon is totally Rock Paper Scissors. Rock Paper Scissors with lots of bells and whistles, oh sure. But at the end of the day it's still Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire. Pokémon is essentially Rock Paper Scissors meets Tug of War, with each player vying to be in control of the match. If you don't want to play a Rock Paper Scissors variant, then Pokémon really isn't the game for you. ^^; It's one reason why competitive Pokémon is such a hard sell to professional game enthusiasts: because everyone knows it's a simple game hiding underneath many layers of rules. In this respect, it's the inverse of Go: a complex game with very few rules.
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:07 PM   #1315
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>ban of Foul Play

Just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:14 PM   #1316
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ugh the first page of the thread has people wanting to ban confusion god smogon is full of idiotic children.
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:16 PM   #1317
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there, 'Geet. I think there are many fans who, when they first enter the world of competitive Pokémon, desire to make a defensive team. Stall is not unique to Pokémon. You have stall in Magic: the Gathering (alias control decks). You have stall in Yu-Gi-Oh!. You have stall in RTSes like Civilization. Not everyone is signing onto Pokémon Showdown for the first time going, "I want to build a team with Zekrom and Genesect and ...! " I'm sure a lot of 'em are signing on saying, "I want to build a team that can weather anything. That's my challenge."

As for people picking up Pokémon the Game Freak story mode video games for the very first time ... ehhhhhhhhhhh, I would tend to agree with you that 99.9% of people who pick the games up for the first time go for a linear aggro playstyle, but that's just a combination of human nature and what the game encourages. I mean, the game is designed from the bottom up to punish -- severely -- those players who opt for a stallier approach. You can beat Brock in under an hour if you power through ..................... or you can beat him in eight hours if you treat every single battle along the way like it's a 60-turn Toxic Stall death match. The game design is not kind to players who may otherwise wish to play more defensive or combo-heavy playstyles.
You're overestimating the average person who gets into Pokemon. There may be some people going into it who want a proper competitive atmosphere- but the vast majority are going to be 10 year olds who think it's fun just like what you said. Surely YOUR Pokemon Showdown experience should make you understand this? Just the amount of people who consider Legends being cheating? They are the people who are going to go on and make proper teams later.


Quote:
Sure: but have you looked at Blaze's and my battle replays? SwagPlay doesn't require multiple counters for one Pokémon: SwagPlay requires a counter for multiple Pokémon. It's the very reverse of what you've just described.
Not so sure I'd take that as too good an example, Talon- after all, you don't always know that your opponent is going to have a Prankster team. You need to be able to handle EVERYTHING else as well. That's the problem. And Salamence couldn't smash through everything by itself- it needed support- but the problem was that if it had that support, you really needed to cover your bases too damn much.



Quote:
I hate to break it to you, Rangeet, but Pokémon is totally Paper Rock Scissors. Paper Rock Scissors with lots of bells and whistles, oh sure. But at the end of the day it's still Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire. Pokémon is essentially Paper Rock Scissors meets Tug of War, with each player vying to be in control of the match. If you don't want to play a Paper Rock Scissors variant, then Pokémon really isn't the game for you. ^^; It's one reason why competitive Pokémon is such a hard sell to professional game enthusiasts: because everyone knows it's a simple game hiding underneath many layers of rules. In this respect, it's the inverse of Go: a complex game with very few rules.
What something is at heart and what something is in practice is completely different. A Fire type can't always beat Venusaur, lest it OHKO you with Earthquake. Gyarados can wreck Jolteon with a DD EQ, again. It's not very much like rock paper scissors, and I really don't think that it should become one with playstyles.


Now this I'll agree with that banning Foul Play is completely and utterly ridiculous. (If anyone wants to know my views on the matter it's that only one pokemon with Swagger and Foul Play in a team should be allowed. I never have had any problem with complex bans.)
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:17 PM   #1318
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Originally Posted by Jerichi View Post
ugh the first page of the thread has people wanting to ban confusion god smogon is full of idiotic children.
You really, really don't want to see the climate by Page 59 then. ^^;; 80% of the members and about half of the staff have worked themselves into an anti-chance hysteria. As in, "elements of chance are the Devil and must be cast into the fires whence they came! " hysteria. It's gotten to such a Salem witch trial point that anyone like myself who even tries to voice reason as a neutral third party is accused of being a Devil worshiper and is castigated. I'm sitting on a post right now that I am 99% sure once I post it it will not only be deleted by one of the addressees (who just so happens to be the mod who deleted my posts last night -- lovely -_-; ) but that it may even get me banned from the thread given the current hysteria. It's ... pretty darn ridiculous.

But hey. If you've got a bag of popcorn ready, search the thread for posts submitted by users Suisho and blazeVA and follow along from there!
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:26 PM   #1319
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That's another major problem with Smogon; debates tend to devolve into shouting matches between ignorant newbies and arrogant regulars and each side ends up taking a more and more extreme position. And, of course, a number of the arrogant regulars are part of the OU review board.

idk I don't know why I even care anymore. Smogon has always been a massive shitshow and I don't even play OU.

EDIT: And to clarify I'm not against some sort of complex ban (Swagger + Foul Play + Prankster would be my choice, since there's not a lot of application outside of troll sets), but all this ridiculous simple banning is totally silly.
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Old 02-25-2014, 11:38 PM   #1320
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Half of the reason the simple bans are happening is because people REALLY hate complex bans for some reason.
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Old 02-26-2014, 12:13 AM   #1321
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So much poisonous drama. :'D This will hopefully be the last post I have to worry about crossposting here anal-retentively. Either the mods are going to delete it in the next couple of hours ... or else some guardian angel on the staff (and not you, phoopes! Don't get your wings sooty on my account! ) is going to upvote my post and that's going to hopefully put an end to trigger-happy mods deleting my posts.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jukain, post: 5268944, member: 77748
Banning individual abusers when Swagger is clearly the problem is skirting around the issue as a whole, or you ban every abuser. Ban Swagger, or ban Klefki/Thundurus/Liepard/Sableye/Purrloin/Murkrow/Mega Banette/Tornadus? Obviously the former.
Swagger alone is neither much of a problem nor do I believe it is the problem. If you playtest the following four scenarios, I think you'll see why. (I would encourage everyone reading this post to do so. You needn't take my word for it. You needn't take anyone else's word for it either, pro-ban or anti-ban. These are all things that you can easily test for yourself. And you owe it to yourself to do so.)
  1. SwagPlay team vs. a control
  2. SwagPlay team with only Swagger swapped out for Confuse Ray vs. the same control as before
  3. SwagPlay team with only Foul Play swapped out for some competent means by which to deal damage vs. the same control as before
  4. a non-SwagPlay team where three or more creatures run Swagger vs. the same control as before
Playtests with an ADV team* following the first scenario showed that SwagPlay is effective, easy to pilot, but does not guarantee victory against even weakly prepared teams. (In our case, "weakly prepared" was a single Gen 3 Blissey and nothing else. If the Blissey fell, the rest of the team was at the mercy of SwagPlay antics.)

Playtests with an ADV team following the second scenario showed that SwagPlay is crippled without Swagger.

Playtests with an ADV team following the third scenario showed that Parafusion Prankster tactics are severely handicapped without Foul Play.

Playtests with an XY team (the ADV team with upgraded moves) following the fourth scenario showed that Swagger remains ineffectual, even when paired with moves other than Foul Play, Substitute, and Thunder Wave, outside of niche roles as a phazing move and an incapacitating move that buys opportunities to set up and sweep. This is not unlike phazing a Pokémon out by putting it to sleep or putting a Pokémon to sleep for the intended purpose of setting up and sweeping.

In conclusion, playtests showed that Swagger is neither problematic all on its own nor is it the singular root of the problem with Parafusion Prankster & SwagPlay teams. The playtests indicate that if SwagPlay is deemed uncompetitive, it should then either be the combination of Swagger + Foul Play or else the combination of Swagger + Foul Play + Prankster that be banned from OU. Swagger should not be banned by itself. Not only is the move relatively harmless without Foul Play but it has real competitive applications that would be trampled by a blanket ban. Further, it is difficult to justify a blanket ban of confusion-inducing moves or of even Swagger alone without hitting sleep-inducing and paralysis-inducing moves in the crossfire. Banning Swagger on the grounds that it is partly based on elements of chance invites legitimate and concerning comparisons with Spore, Thunder Wave, and other staples of the metagame which are no less a gamble than Swagger is. If Swagger is to be banned, it must not be on the grounds that it is "unfair" or "luck-based". (See discussion below.)

*The ADV team consisted of Tyranitar, Swampert, Celebi, Dugtrio, Skarmory, and Blissey. Everyone was given ADV movesets that you can find on Smogon's ADV encyclopedia. No abilities, attacks, or hold items introduced in Generations 4, 5, or 6 were used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chou Toshio, post: 5269860, member: 13073
Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions.

Please remember this definition going forward, though it has been re-posted all too often in this thread...
If this is how we are going to define uncompetitive game aspects, then it is clear that we cannot ban anything on the grounds that it is uncompetitive and uncompetitive only. Because if we do ban things just for being uncompetitive, then we must either ban all uncompetitive game elements or else be labeled inconsistent hypocrites. By the definition provided ("those [actions] that take away [agency from the player]"), sleep, paralysis, flinching, attraction, and confusion are all legal uncompetitive elements in XY OU. All of these take away agency from the player. In order to justify banning Swagger solely on the grounds that it is uncompetitive, we would be forced to also ban Spore (a 100%-accurate sleep-inducing move that removes agency for 1 to 3 turns), Thunder Wave and Glare (100%-accurate paralysis-inducing moves that remove agency 25% of the time until the afflicted Pokémon is healed, faints, or the battle ends), King's Rock (an item which serves no purpose other than to increase the odds of flinch hax), and so much more.

I don't mind using this definition, but it places an onus on pro-ban advocates to do more than identify that Element X is uncompetitive lest we be forced to ban far, far more than was originally intended.

And the sequel!

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chou Toshio, post: 5270094, member: 13073
You're wrong. The issue is not just ANY "removal of autonomy" but THE DEGREE of removal of autonomy-- because degree is subjective, we have the need for discussion threads like this.
First, you keep saying "autonomy" but I believe you mean to say "agency." Autonomy refers to, among other things, the capacity for an individual to make informed, un-coerced decisions or for a political entity to govern itself. Agency refers to one's capacity to act. Agency is what we're discussing here.

Second, it's not exactly persuasive to me nor conducive to the discussion to just write me off with a terse "You're wrong."

And third, the degree of agency removed from the player by confusion is not significantly different than that removed from the player by sleep.
  • Confusion: Each turn, an RNG determines whether you break free or not. Until you break free, the status remains.
  • Sleep: Each turn, an RNG determines whether you break free or not. Until you break free, the status remains.
  • Confusion: Each turn, a separate RNG determines whether you get your action for this turn or whether you smack yourself in the face. The odds are 50/50.
  • Sleep: There is no additional RNG. If you haven't woken up yet, you get no action this turn. Guaranteed odds.
The thing is, the first confusion RNG is a wash given the second. You really don't care whether you break out of the confusion or not other than for the fact that it means that the second RNG is no longer being rolled. But all you really care about is that second RNG. That's the one that's determining your loss of agency. The first RNG has no direct bearing on your agency whatsoever.

So in both the cases of sleep and confusion, we have a Pokémon which is denied its action for that turn depending on the outcome of an RNG. One turn goes by ... two turns go by ... three turns may go by and you're still asleep. Or? You may wake up immediately, who's to say. The same goes for confusion. One turn goes by ... two turns go by ... three turns go by and you're still confused. Or? You may snap out of confusion immediately. Further? You may, whilst confused, still get your action for that turn.

That's the funny thing with sleep and confusion: in many scenarios, sleep is actually the more severe status affliction to be saddled with. It doesn't go away when you switch out. You're guaranteed not to get a turn whilst you remain asleep. At least with confusion, it is entirely possible that you attack once, twice, three times in a row despite being confused and then you snap out of confusion, having never once smacked yourself in the face. That can happen. That does happen. Just look at the battle replays provided earlier for ample proof. You'll never get that with sleep: sleep guarantees inaction until the status affliction goes away.

Earlier in this thread, pro-ban members have mockingly implied that Swagger is such a crappy move that we should ban it because nobody even uses it. What does that tell you about the relative differences in strength between a move like Confuse Ray and a move like Sleep Powder to rob the player of his agency? What does it say for our metagame that people openly mock the idea of trying to phaze someone out with confusion so they can set up a Dragon Dance sweep but we all completely respect and agree with the concept of putting someone to sleep and then DDing up?

Yes, I'm being a bit of a pedant in the second post, but fuck 'im: he asked for it. If he's just going to keep writing off my points with childish "YOU'RE WRONG! "s, I've no expectation of being heard fairly in this debate any longer. It's a hung jury. The verdict's already been decided.
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Old 02-26-2014, 04:13 AM   #1322
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Wherein Hawlucha unburdens it all. (Random Battle; 32 turns)

A fun battle to watch, I hope, despite the moderate length. Speed Boost Ninjask, enemy Choice Scarf Ditto, and much more made this an interesting match from start to finish. But the pivotal turn was definitely Turn 25. I think we were both surprised!

Spoiler: show
I didn't realize that Unburden had activated, even though I'd noted it much earlier in the match when looking at my team. And even if I had, I hadn't remembered that Unburden doubles your speed, not 1.5x's it. So I was doubly surprised to see that when I desperately hurtled a Stone Edge at my doppelganger, mine connected first! My opponent was equally shocked, as I could tell from the slight delay before Turn 26 began.

Don't ask me what I was doing with Shiftry. It's 4am and I was feeling bold and reckless. ¬_¬ Banking on an incoming Encore, I thought maybe Low Sweep would be enough to 2HKO Wobbuffet from where he stood. No way, Jose. Should've just accepted the Encore and gone for Swords Dance instead. Oh well~.
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Old 02-26-2014, 09:02 AM   #1323
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The playback glitched out when Ditto was sent out for some reason and made a HUGE DITTO instead of the transformed Pokemon.
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Old 02-26-2014, 05:58 PM   #1324
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Welp, it happened. I don't know why it took this long, but it happened. And it was even more ridiculous an example of censorship than I could have imagined.

The deleted post:

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Quote:
This isn't the case of "you must use Chansey / Slowbro" to beat SwagPlay, this is a simple case of "Play a defensive pokemon -----> Win vs Swag Play". SwagPlay is a strategy that penalizes Heavy Offense teams, and tips the meta in favor of semi-stall teams. (You only need two or three pokemon to perpetually stall-out a SwagPlay)
Precisely! As an offense player myself who has loathed stall for generations, what I see in this archetype is the promise of a new niche in teambuilding which gives stall some fresh meat to shred and HO a healthy slice of humble pie. I feel like this discussion has been far too dominated by offense players and we could really use some more stall players like yourself weighing in.

At the end of the day, you get only twenty-four moveslots across six creatures. You get up to twelve types. You get up to six abilities. You can't possibly have an answer to everything. There is an unrealistic expectation demonstrated by many in this thread that if a threat cannot be answered by their current team without making some sacrifices (even sacrifices as minor as a single moveslot) then it is too powerful and has to be gotten rid of. People do not seem willing to accept that sometimes they will encounter a team for which their team of choice is simply not an ideal match-up and that they will lose. Constantly pruning the metagame to fit held-over expectations from earlier generations is not practical. We mustn't keep banning everything that makes our DPPt & BW teams and playstyles unable to secure us victories. When stall cried tears of blood last generation because of the sheer power of new OU heavyweights like Terrakion, did we budge? No. Did we ban stall's executioners? No. We said "c'est la vie" and we allowed nature to take its course. Why we're taking the opposite approach now is beyond me, but it isn't right. If new threats have emerged that make HO unviable, so be it. If new threats have emerged that encourage adoption of new approaches to team building, so be it.

I haven't had a problem with the bans so far this generation. They have mostly (if not entirely) been creatures which not only centralized standard play but tore through most teams in the meta save the most dedicated of anti-meta teams. But with SwagPlay, I just can't believe that a single stall team with an Elo as pitiful as even 1300 would fail to devour them, bones and all. It feels like we're banning Rock for the sake of Scissors so that it may continue on decimating Paper uninhibited.

The culprit? ginganinja.

The reason provided? Oh, you're going to love this:
Quote:
Reason: Are you actually endorsing a solution that forces us us to all to play stall, and then switch around.
A, a straw man so transparent even a fifth-grader could spot it.

And B, proving my very point that Smogon has been taken over by HO fanatics who see any threats to HO as anathema to the metagame.

Seriously, how insecure do you have to be to not only resort to a straw man accusation like this but to delete my post, hiding it from view, for fear that it might persuade others against your unrighteous cause?

But yeah ... sorry, phoopes. Respect for the Smogon forums officially dead. I received a warmer welcome on 4chan than I have in my less than one week here on Smogon. Not a single staff member has offered thanks for my input nor offered cordial greetings. In fact, no fewer than two different staff members have deleted posts of mine from view, one of them (today's) on entirely baseless grounds. Not only have I failed to receive a welcoming welcome ... I have received the most unwelcoming of welcomes! The only way they could possibly be any less welcoming would be to ban me! Honestly ... UPN ... Tecmo ... Apolyton ... TrekBBS ... BMG ... Neotaku ... HongFire ... and so many other communities where I have signed up for their forums? This has to be the single worst welcome I've ever gotten. Censorship left and right, open hostility and disrespect, and disparaging remarks left in private ... just insane.
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Old 02-26-2014, 06:02 PM   #1325
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*twitches at the sound of ginganinja*
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