R.I.P. Leads and Scouting

[Thorhammer]

This would drastically increase the power of gimmick sets/teams. When someone sees your team and prepares for the standard sets and you start breaking out crazy stuff and netting surprise kill after surprise kill, it has to be satisfying.

Gimmick sets, perhaps, but there's no guarantee of that. You can't assume that people will assume standard sets any more this way than when they see the Pokemon individually, and certainly not if you're facing an actually good opponent. Furthermore, if the gimmick set involves synergy of any sort, it could be hinted at by the other Pokemon on your team, and thus become even less useful.

Gimmick teams, however, are useless under this rule. Absolutely useless. If the Pokemon itself is the gimmick, it'll be horribly obvious what sets they're running and how to counter it.

Really, there's nothing gained in turns of team building options from this. Strategies in battle, perhaps, but that's debatable, and even then, the disadvantages are clear.

 

[Santa_Clauz]

Thing is, as much as I hate this new rule, the people in support of it have made some good points *hats off to seven deadly sins*

I feel that while it does remove and reduce some aspects of the game, it does add to others, such as the use of unusual sets, which are by no means necessarily gimmicks. For example, I once had a team with a zapdos who hated swampert, lacking HP grass. I also had a bandgross on the team. One little change into mixgross and said zapdos was sweeping teams like a beaut. I don't necessarily agree with this, but it just makes unconventional sets all the more deadly.

 

[Thorhammer]

Except... it doesn't. How are unconventional sets any more deadly this way than how they were in past generations? Your opponent sees your team at the start of the battle. Why would that make them any more likely to assume standard sets than if they just see those particular Pokemon when they enter the field?

 

[Jazon]

I think its great!

 

[UltraStorm]

Knowing the pokes on each team reduces the effect of luck since you have more information to base your predicitions on. There's really no way around this fact. I'm in favor of any changes that reduce the effect of luck and quite frankly, this game has more than enough luck even with teams shown. However, it's also true that playing without showing teams emphasizes different strategies.

This reminds me of similar arguments in other games. Such as, I've played a lot of Advance Wars online and while some people claim playing in Fog of War requires more skill, the competitive community plays most games without it, since luck has more influence in Fog of War. However, playing in Fog of War does require slightly different strategies, even if the proportional effect of strategy on the outcome is smaller.

In a similar comparison, chess wouldn't be more skill-based if you couldn't see all the squares on the board. On the contrary, there would be more luck involved.

 

[RaRaRabbit]

Yes... except... in chess, you don't have the choice out of 100 different types of pieces, and you have one that could win a game if it was unrevealed until the right moment...

I know I brought up Linoone already in a previous post, but again... Linoone with belly drum can win a game. BUT, Linoone with belly drum can be easily countered if it is discovered before the time is right.

This already hard to play pokemon who requires waiting till the time is right to surprise attack is now practically useless.

Thats MY real problem with it. I agree it adds more "mind games" to the "he knows that I know that he knows" thought process. But what I really hate is how this completely shuts down certain pokemon and their usefulness. Who the hell is ever gonna run belly drum linoone anymore (not that anyone did often, but it was still an option)? THINK OF THE LINOONES!

As said earlier, it would be harder to tell a gimmick strategy through a chain of pokemon (unless its obvious baton passers and a lucario), but certain pokemon who are just gimmicks themselves are useless now.

 

[UltraStorm]

Yes... except... in chess, you don't have the choice out of 100 different types of pieces, and you have one that could win a game if it was unrevealed until the right moment...

But in that case, there would be even more luck and the game would require different strategies overall, like it has been said for Pokemon. I was going to mention this just now but I thought it would be too far from the original game to be worth it.

But it's true that revealing teams hinders certain gimmicky strategies, as they become more obvious. That's why it's best to have both styles of games as options if you don't want to lose those strategies.

 

[umbarsc]

This doesn't have to be programmed into the simulator. If we really, really don't like it, all we have to do is make a rule: "No looking at the screen when it shows your opponent's Pokemon." Impossible in Wi-Fi, but we can enforce it on Shoddy just by not showing your opponent's Pokemon. It's not violating game mechanics because it's the equivalent of blocking the DS screen while it shows. Sorry if this has already been brought up, but I didn't read all 19 pages of discussion.

However, I think that's the wrong attitude to take. Personally, I really like the change. It really removes some strategic elements, like scouting or keeping a sweeper hidden until the end, but I never liked those anyways. It makes the early game pretty much entirely blind guesswork, and true strategy doesn't come into play until later in the game.

On another note, with this new rule, people will list both teams at the start of every warstory. It can get confusing when they don't show the opponent's team for the sake of "suspense".

 

[Sargatanas]

They should limit switching.

 

[Thorhammer]

This doesn't have to be programmed into the simulator. If we really, really don't like it, all we have to do is make a rule: "No looking at the screen when it shows your opponent's Pokemon." Impossible in Wi-Fi, but we can enforce it on Shoddy just by not showing your opponent's Pokemon. It's not violating game mechanics because it's the equivalent of blocking the DS screen while it shows. Sorry if this has already been brought up, but I didn't read all 19 pages of discussion.

However, I think that's the wrong attitude to take. Personally, I really like the change. It really removes some strategic elements, like scouting or keeping a sweeper hidden until the end, but I never liked those anyways. It makes the early game pretty much entirely blind guesswork, and true strategy doesn't come into play until later in the game.

On another note, with this new rule, people will list both teams at the start of every warstory. It can get confusing when they don't show the opponent's team for the sake of "suspense".

The way I see it, there's no harm in testing it both ways before deciding what should be "standard". It seems like that's mostly consistent with the games, and if not, does it really matter?

 

[LightningLord2]

If we were to force all teams to be visible to be true to the handheld games - I take that to it's logical extreme - we'd also have to drop the sleep clause, for instance.

 

[Thorhammer]

If we were to force all teams to be visible to be true to the handheld games - I take that to it's logical extreme - we'd also have to drop the sleep clause, for instance.

I think Sleep Clause exists in the games. Self-KO Clause, as well.

Not all of our clauses do, though. I'm sure Evasion Clause and OHKO Clause don't exist in the games.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Sleep Clause, Selfdestruct Clause, and Item Clause have a basis in the Stadium / Battle Revolution games IIRC, where they are automatically enforced in certain modes. I think Selfdestruct Clause (where the user of self-KO moves automatically loses if it KOs the last member of each team) is automatically enforced in BW now that you mention it. It wasn't in DP.

Would you like it if I suddenly enforced a rule that made your team completely un-viable?

Personally, I'm willing to give this a shot even though it seems like it might hurt my monotype teams.

 

[UberElectabuzz]

This is complete bullshit.

Even worse than Thunder Wave hitting through Electric-immune abilities.

 

[Pit[y]Lord]

This is complete bullshit.

Even worse than Thunder Wave hitting through Electric-immune abilities.

Wich was proven to be fake anyway.

And I dont agree. Many people before me, have given plenty of good arguments for this change. And I dont think that there will be less viable mons with this, there will be just different ones.

 

[Thorhammer]

Wich was proven to be fake anyway.

And I dont agree. Many people before me, have given plenty of good arguments for this change. And I dont think that there will be less viable mons with this, there will be just different ones.

Was it? I thought it was proven that it didn't hit through Ground typing, but it still hit through Volt Absorb and the like.

 

[UberElectabuzz]

Wich was proven to be fake anyway.

Awesome, because that would defeat the purpose of immunities.

 

[Tobes]

Why don't we just have a poll about whether or not to show pokemon like we're doing with the possibility of no banlist?

 

[the_artic_one]

This doesn't have to be programmed into the simulator. If we really, really don't like it, all we have to do is make a rule: "No looking at the screen when it shows your opponent's Pokemon." Impossible in Wi-Fi, but we can enforce it on Shoddy just by not showing your opponent's Pokemon. It's not violating game mechanics because it's the equivalent of blocking the DS screen while it shows.

It doesn't matter if it's violating game mechanics because this rule is unenforceable on wifi. You can't make rules that are unenforceable.

 

[Thorhammer]

Why don't we just have a poll about whether or not to show pokemon like we're doing with the possibility of no banlist?

There's no sense in doing that before we can actually test and compare the metagames resulting from the two possibilities.

 

[GMLW]

Even if it can't be enforced on Wifi, if there turns out to be too much of a major uproar over this, we can still make a clause for Shoddy Battle (after testing it of course). Plenty of clauses we have made can't be enforced on Wifi, such as the Soul Dew clause when Latias was OU. Even the tiers themselves can't be strictly enforced on Wifi. However, if we make a Shoddy Battle clause, you still have the option to play with/without it due to custom matches. I honestly believe that making a clause would be the best course of action.

 

[Sixonesix]

I have little to add since I haven't read all the bloody pages, but...

... There goes any and all forms of Baton Pass. We are practically always going to lead with Ninjask, so if our team is revealed, the opponent can just pick a lead guaranteed to beat Ninjask. Not to mention my Lucario is now obviously the receiver, you don't have to be a genius to recognize that.

There better be a turn off button that doesn't limit you to lv.50 crap. Yeah there's more strategy, blah blah blah. But it also completely destroys some strategies. If I sound selfish just because this ruins my team, well, I don't think I'm selfish at all. Would you like it if I suddenly enforced a rule that made your team completely un-viable?

Use a different team then? If you thought every useable strategy from 4th gen would translate to 5th gen completely intact, you were mistaken. There are 83 new fully evolved pokemon and 92 new moves introduced with this generation, surely with that you can come up with something else to use?

And if not, well...you can still continue playing DP as easily as someone who doesn't like 4th gen could stick with ADV.

 

[Manaphy]

Wow. This is huge.


Goodbye Aerodactyl. Hope you work in UU.

 

[Santa_Clauz]

Except... it doesn't. How are unconventional sets any more deadly this way than how they were in past generations? Your opponent sees your team at the start of the battle. Why would that make them any more likely to assume standard sets than if they just see those particular Pokemon when they enter the field?

Because people expect combinations of sets, i.e. Gengar & Magnezone, so people won't BP, and you can HP fire, this is unusual because I still maintain HP fire on gengar is fucking retarded.

 

[DrLemure]

Gah, why Gamefreak didn't implement it as an option to turn off is beyond me... I love playing PBR, and I run mostly unconventional teams as is, but, as everyone has said, this removes a bit of the surprise factor within wifi matches.
Scouting will now pertain more towards movesets as opposed to the pokemon themselves.
Now, someone may have said this already, but the result could be that Leads will come in pairs. Upon seeing the opponent's team, you may want to send out something like Ambipom as opposed to the Azelf you're packing.
Anti-Leads probably won't be nearly as effective now, however.

But hey, the Gen V metagame is in its early stages of life, so we'll see what happens.