Just thought I'd mention that you are correct, "overcentralization" is not really a word.
However, (as I believe PK Gaming said over in the suspect thread) "over-centralization" is perfectly acceptable in English.
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"Uncompetitive" and "Overcentralization": What do they really mean?
- Thread starter Woodchuck
- Start date
However, (as I believe PK Gaming said over in the suspect thread) "over-centralization" is perfectly acceptable in English.
Excadrill can still be owned with priority users like Hitmontop(has spin utility), Breloom and special Lucario. If your team gets lolraped by Exca, it's your problem for being terrible at team-building.
Also, Sand Rush only made Excadrill broken, nobody is going to ever use Stoutland, lol.
Thanks for making my day, Fawfulmk.
Also, Sand Rush only made Excadrill broken, nobody is going to ever use Stoutland, lol.
Scarf with Swords Dance.
Thanks for making my day, Fawfulmk.
Out of all the pokes who get Swift Swim, I find Kingdra Omastar and Carracosta to be the only ones threatening.
and kingdra loses to a defensive Cofagrigus, and other defensive walls, Prankster Torment, Will-o-Wisp, etc. Same for Carracosta, and Blissey tanks Omastar
and kingdra loses to a defensive Cofagrigus, and other defensive walls, Prankster Torment, Will-o-Wisp, etc. Same for Carracosta, and Blissey tanks Omastar
I see you offered support (which I don't really agree with all the same) but that's off-topic. If you want Excadrill banned (which isn't likely) take it to the Suspect thread as your arguments won't do anything here.
Aqua Jet makes Sand Poop Excadrill cry, so I don't want to hear it. I do think, however, that the use of examples is rather crucial to a question like this, so let's not flame everyone who tries to actually, you know, support their arguements?
I'm going to pull some real ninja stuff out here, so get ready. I played Yugioh back around when they first decided to include a Ban List.
Black Luster Soldier, Chaos Dragon, Raigeki. I played through all that. And with my Warrior deck, I weathered through all the cookie-cutter 'Chaos' decks that dominated the metagame and tourny scene. I was never too competative, but I held my own at local gatherings, when every other deck looked exactly the same. Skill was boiled down to how much money you spent buying the same cards off the same list you could find online. So I know exactly what 'uncompetative' and 'over-centralizing' mean.
..And of course, a brief asside, they're not in the dictionary. If you knew anything about language and what actually goes into a dictionary, you'd realize that they aren't words at all but a term and a phrase. They're much too colloquial, and I'm sure you can work out the meaning on your own without breaking into a non sequitur on why this arguement is invalid because semantics got your panties in a bunch and you've got no better arguement anyway. Can we move on?
More examples.
I've also played Magic the Gathering. A lot of Magic. For years. Since about Ice Age, if anyone here knows what I'm talking about or cares. It's probably one of the oldest casual games with a solid history of high-risk high-reward competative play. Extremely high, world-tours and that nonsence. Even if you don't like it, as a 'competative community', it's a relivent example.
And most "competative" decks run first-turn win stratagies that aim to beat the opponent through nothing BUT luck. Luck that you'll have exactly what you need in your first hand, because it's all you run to begin with. Luck that they won't have a counter-spell, when of course you have as many as you need and must assume they do too. Luck that there first-turn win combo is just a little less reliable than yours.
Each and every game is pretty much reduced to "shuffle your deck, show eachother your hands, and flip a coin to see who wins". And they get paid money for this. Play to win? Yeah, I've seen it, and all it does is make me sick. That's just my opinion though.
You see, MTG was smart enough to realize that people are like this. They even have psychological profiles for the people who play. Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, is what they're "named". If you're curious, ask, or look them up, I feel like this post will be long enough as it is; my point is, I feel like this particular gaming community values the opinons of "Spike", the overly-competative hotshot who only plays the stuff he know will win him the most games no matter what. And I hate to break it to you, but that's not all competative play is about. There are plenty of magic players who seriously go to tournaments just to show off how out-of-the-box they can be and stick a wrench in just a deck or two. Competatively, it's not the best stratagy, but they're happy as can be just to be a nusance to people who take themselves too seriously(while relying on a deck they didn't even build themselves). How skilled are you, really, to use someone else's stratagy? Really?
I agree 100% with a previous post, that skill has nothing to do with removing luck, rather, it's about knowing how to deal with it. Sometimes, you know everything you do might miss or be in vain. Might. That's what sets people's buttons off, is the word might? A few maybe's and people cry ban and unfair. That's just... Silly.
I mean, sure, I'm glad that pokemon can't run around with a full team of double-teamers; but I'm sorry, this isn't Final Destination, and we're not playing No Items, Fox only. Luck happens, and sometimes is really messes you up when you should have rightfully won. Cry about it! Shit happens, I'm sorry.
Sometimes the way you measure skill isn't just by looking at how well you abuse what's clearly good, but by how you can take a crappy pokemon in a terrible situation and even a handful of bad luck, and turn it into a win in the long-run. Sometimes the only way to get people to be creative is to pull everything that is OU right out from under their feet. Move Scizor to ubers, I'm sure people will figure something out in his place. Is it necessary? Not at all. But it's a much better measure of skill, if that REALLY is what "competative play" is all about.
tr;dr- Hand someone a shotgun and tell them to kill people, that's easy. No skill at all. Give them $10 and tell them to kill people; now that takes thought and skill.
I'm going to pull some real ninja stuff out here, so get ready. I played Yugioh back around when they first decided to include a Ban List.
Black Luster Soldier, Chaos Dragon, Raigeki. I played through all that. And with my Warrior deck, I weathered through all the cookie-cutter 'Chaos' decks that dominated the metagame and tourny scene. I was never too competative, but I held my own at local gatherings, when every other deck looked exactly the same. Skill was boiled down to how much money you spent buying the same cards off the same list you could find online. So I know exactly what 'uncompetative' and 'over-centralizing' mean.
..And of course, a brief asside, they're not in the dictionary. If you knew anything about language and what actually goes into a dictionary, you'd realize that they aren't words at all but a term and a phrase. They're much too colloquial, and I'm sure you can work out the meaning on your own without breaking into a non sequitur on why this arguement is invalid because semantics got your panties in a bunch and you've got no better arguement anyway. Can we move on?
More examples.
I've also played Magic the Gathering. A lot of Magic. For years. Since about Ice Age, if anyone here knows what I'm talking about or cares. It's probably one of the oldest casual games with a solid history of high-risk high-reward competative play. Extremely high, world-tours and that nonsence. Even if you don't like it, as a 'competative community', it's a relivent example.
And most "competative" decks run first-turn win stratagies that aim to beat the opponent through nothing BUT luck. Luck that you'll have exactly what you need in your first hand, because it's all you run to begin with. Luck that they won't have a counter-spell, when of course you have as many as you need and must assume they do too. Luck that there first-turn win combo is just a little less reliable than yours.
Each and every game is pretty much reduced to "shuffle your deck, show eachother your hands, and flip a coin to see who wins". And they get paid money for this. Play to win? Yeah, I've seen it, and all it does is make me sick. That's just my opinion though.
You see, MTG was smart enough to realize that people are like this. They even have psychological profiles for the people who play. Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, is what they're "named". If you're curious, ask, or look them up, I feel like this post will be long enough as it is; my point is, I feel like this particular gaming community values the opinons of "Spike", the overly-competative hotshot who only plays the stuff he know will win him the most games no matter what. And I hate to break it to you, but that's not all competative play is about. There are plenty of magic players who seriously go to tournaments just to show off how out-of-the-box they can be and stick a wrench in just a deck or two. Competatively, it's not the best stratagy, but they're happy as can be just to be a nusance to people who take themselves too seriously(while relying on a deck they didn't even build themselves). How skilled are you, really, to use someone else's stratagy? Really?
I agree 100% with a previous post, that skill has nothing to do with removing luck, rather, it's about knowing how to deal with it. Sometimes, you know everything you do might miss or be in vain. Might. That's what sets people's buttons off, is the word might? A few maybe's and people cry ban and unfair. That's just... Silly.
I mean, sure, I'm glad that pokemon can't run around with a full team of double-teamers; but I'm sorry, this isn't Final Destination, and we're not playing No Items, Fox only. Luck happens, and sometimes is really messes you up when you should have rightfully won. Cry about it! Shit happens, I'm sorry.
Sometimes the way you measure skill isn't just by looking at how well you abuse what's clearly good, but by how you can take a crappy pokemon in a terrible situation and even a handful of bad luck, and turn it into a win in the long-run. Sometimes the only way to get people to be creative is to pull everything that is OU right out from under their feet. Move Scizor to ubers, I'm sure people will figure something out in his place. Is it necessary? Not at all. But it's a much better measure of skill, if that REALLY is what "competative play" is all about.
tr;dr- Hand someone a shotgun and tell them to kill people, that's easy. No skill at all. Give them $10 and tell them to kill people; now that takes thought and skill.
But that's not a better measure of skill. Skill is what you can do to win. You can go "yay I beat someone with my NU/NFE team" and claim that's skill, but ultimately what matters is who won that tournament, who is at the top of the ladder, who is in the end the guy who won. The idea behind trying to make the game more "competitive" is to make the people who "deserve" to win do so more consistently. Of course, how far do we go?
Also,
Smogon's Philosophy said:
Thing is, "deserve" is just as, if not more, of a subjective term as all the others being thrown around. As far as I am concerned, the ones who win consistently deserve to win. Its as simple as that. In the short run, the most skilled players won't win all the time. The very fact that there is an RNG makes sure of it. But in the long run, no matter what rules we implement, those who are most skilled will always rise to the top. If we removed the Evasion clause, and then someone who seemed skilled can't manage the luck portion, then in the new game they are no longer skilled. Implementing luck does not decrease skill, it just changes how you have to operate. In the end, those who "deserve" to win, always will.
What I'm saying though, is that often times winning has nothing to do with either skill or luck. Sure, after a few hundered matches, you can kinda see where skill levels rise. A good player can beat a bad player if they're both running the same team. That's clear. In a flat race from point A to point B, the faster man wins. But that's not really skill, is it? Ability and Practice maybe, but not skill. But once you get two people of about equal skill level, then what? The game really does come down to luck, evasion or not; luck of which player just so happens to make the first play mistake. Sorry guys, but that's chess, and has nothing to do with who deserves to win or not. You were just able to postpone your error longer, make one better guess than they did. Get one guy ahead, and stop caring until they threaten you. It has nothing to do with whether luck or skill got you that far, really.
Just my thoughts though, I guess. I've just seen way too many instances of "if you stop this one thing, you win, if not, you lose". Ragequit because drizzletoed is dead and they set up a sandsteam. Where is your skill now? The whole match lost because you got a bad die roll. But yeah, I've made my point.
Just my thoughts though, I guess. I've just seen way too many instances of "if you stop this one thing, you win, if not, you lose". Ragequit because drizzletoed is dead and they set up a sandsteam. Where is your skill now? The whole match lost because you got a bad die roll. But yeah, I've made my point.
Hence the quotation marks. I agree with you here.
In that case, what is the justification for the Evasion clause? (This is playing devil's advocate -- I am completely against getting rid of the Evasion clause.) It seems to me that the point of the Evasion clause was to avoid making the outcome of the game overly reliant on luck. The question is, where do we draw the line at "overly reliant"?
Apologies for the delayed reply.
"Specific pokemon centralize the playing field because they're strong, but not overly strong enough to over-centralize the environment. "Centralization" is okay because that's what the OU environment is all about."Over-centralization" is used to describe the phenomenon where an element of a competitive environment causes most, if not all, discussion of the environment itself boil down to discussion of said element.
Allow me to elaborate:
Centralization is a necessity, and the natural progression, of a competitive environment. Without centralization, the environment would be unpredictable and not very fun in my opinion. Especially since the entire idea behind Pokemon competitive battling is prediction. Now, if an element becomes so powerful that the environment conforms to it, that's called "over-centralization"; centralization in excess.
It seems that the issue I'm reading in this thread is that many people don't understand the word "over-centralization" and use it improperly, one way or another. It's a hyphenated word, adding the prefix "over-" to the word "centralize." The context used here would be "the act of the competitive environment becoming excessively focused on a single particular element."
The answer to your question was in my post. What I'll do is take out some of the lines and rearrange them for you:
"Specific pokemon centralize the playing field because they're strong, but not overly strong enough to over-centralize the environment. "Centralization" is okay because that's what the OU environment is all about."Over-centralization" is used to describe the phenomenon where an element of a competitive environment causes most, if not all, discussion of the environment itself boil down to discussion of said element.
Allow me to elaborate:
Centralization is a necessity, and the natural progression, of a competitive environment. Without centralization, the environment would be unpredictable and not very fun in my opinion. Especially since the entire idea behind Pokemon competitive battling is prediction. Now, if an element becomes so powerful that the environment conforms to it, that's called "over-centralization"; centralization in excess.
It seems that the issue I'm reading in this thread is that many people don't understand the word "over-centralization" and use it improperly, one way or another. It's a hyphenated word, adding the prefix "over-" to the word "centralize." The context used here would be "the act of the competitive environment becoming excessively focused on a single particular element."
I talked about this in the suspect thread, but I do not think that Evasion should be banned for luck based reasons, however, I do not oppose the current ban, because i believe without it evasion moves would be over-centralizing. If people keep using double team, other people will start using Aura Sphere, Sacred Sword, Magical Leaf etc. It would be a over-centralized metagame, and not fun. But I think the ban should come from that centralization, not from that reliance on luck.
Evasion was because people did not like it. There were a few votes where the people voting actually said that it wasn't broken and would likely not be a factor but voted against it anyway because they didn't like it.
Smogon OU is about as competitive as any other game where the "best" players get together every month and go "I didn't like that because I lost this one time and didn't like the feeling" and change the rules.
Smogon OU is about as competitive as any other game where the "best" players get together every month and go "I didn't like that because I lost this one time and didn't like the feeling" and change the rules.
Well, practically everyone was running garchomp and those who werent might not want to run him for personal reasons.
For example, i will equate to Company of Heroes. The British faction are overpowered. They have units/abilities that make the game very easy to win just by choosing to be them. However, people have a sense of pride, or personal achievement and therefore want to win, WITHOUT using the Brit faction.
The same applies to pokemon, how boring would it be to just use garchomp every time? I dont even like garchomp. I have one but have never used/abused him online because i just dont like how broken he is.
Im the kind of person that wants to win, but doesnt want to use the same old pokemon every time, because that defeats the object of having fun, whilst playing to win.
I prefer to use like Charizard, or Blastoise, which are unconventional/unfavourable but they mean more to me, and winning with them makes that win more pleasurable for me. Just because something is or even isnt over centrilised doesnt mean that it isnt OverPowered.
I'm going to respond to many different people here, both directly and indirectly. This post will be a long one.
And that is why OHKO moves are banned. Not for being too good, but for being too random. For most of the OHKO move users, playing to win isn't even a consideration, because they're around 10, and are using them because they think they're cool. That's good for them, but it doesn't have any competitive merits.
Inconsistent has a very wide degree of variance. It can result in a team full of Ubers being swept by a freakin' Bidoof, or it can result in the user being KOed on round 2 without accomplishing anything at all - and it only took that long because they used Protect on round 1. Player feedback has nothing to do with this process.
What's wrong with relying on luck is that it goes against every single aspect of the competitive mindset. It's not a coincidence that competitive players are anti luck, and not just here either. Someone later in the thread brought up "No items, Fox only, Final Destination!" That meme accurately summarizes the mindset at work within the Super Smash Brothers series. It's in a more extreme form than I, and most here are advocating, but the principal is the same. No items = remove luck, same character = remove matchup advantages/disadvantages, non dynamic stage = focus on fighting each other, not the terrain. And that character is Fox because he is generally regarded to be the best character. But moving on.
Luck is the enemy to any competitive player because they don't need, or want to rely upon it to win, and so it can only cheat them out of victories that they would otherwise be entitled to. Even if the luck works in their favor, it still makes the victory hollow.
If you don't believe me, try writing a warstory in which the outcome of the battle comes down to randomness. Actually don't do that, that will just make Haunter use Outrage.
This is the reason why if you talk to the competitively minded, or optimizers, or whatever the equivalent is within a given field, and analyze why they are doing as they do, you will find that there is one thing they all have in common - optimal tactics seek to minimize luck as much as is possible.
Someone else later in the thread brought up Magic: The Gathering... it's not a coincidence that there are redundant cards and cards that let you draw cards and cards that let you search for cards... even within that Marvel vs Capcom style metagame, there are plenty of tools to maximize your chance of being able to pull off your gamebreaking combo of choice, thereby minimizing luck.
I could keep going, but my point should be clear by now.
Several people in this thread brought up that there are those who will simply hide behind the words "uncompetitive" and "overcentralization" to hide the fact that they don't have an argument to support their claims. That's a fair point, but at the same time some people will abuse any system. That does not make a system good or bad. It's better to have clearly defined terms so that people can quickly convey what they mean without having to launch into a pedantic explanation each and every time and then move on to the rest of what they have to say and just call the people out who use those words as the alpha and omega of their argument than it is to have people constantly talking past each other or being overly bogged down by minutia due to not having clear and objective definitions for the terms.
Someone also mentioned the whole Timmy/Johnny/Spike thing, and Scizor replacements.
First I'd like to say know your target audience. There's a lot of competitively minded Spikes, and some Johnnys, but Timmy just isn't that interested in that, since he's only playing for "fun".
And if you banned Scizor, all that'd happen is people would move to whatever is second to Scizor and performs a similar role, and just use that. You've lowered the bar, but you haven't done anything for or against skill.
OHKO moves have a 30% chance to hit. That means that they have a 70% chance to miss. The chance to miss 4 times in a row is 70% * .7 * .7 * .7 = 24.01%, meaning that it has a 75.99% chance to hit at least once. I floored it to 75% for simplicity. The point is that you will kill things quicker and more reliably using more conventional tactics unless you are very lucky, and this has only became more true over time, as Pokemon have developed more new and inventive ways to beat the fuck out of each other.
And that is why OHKO moves are banned. Not for being too good, but for being too random. For most of the OHKO move users, playing to win isn't even a consideration, because they're around 10, and are using them because they think they're cool. That's good for them, but it doesn't have any competitive merits.
Theorycraft discussions always assume either the best case scenario or the worst case scenario, whichever better supports the person's argument. While it is nice to see a tactic at its finest, or to prepare for the first, the outcomes are not always this extreme.
Inconsistent has a very wide degree of variance. It can result in a team full of Ubers being swept by a freakin' Bidoof, or it can result in the user being KOed on round 2 without accomplishing anything at all - and it only took that long because they used Protect on round 1. Player feedback has nothing to do with this process.
What's wrong with relying on luck is that it goes against every single aspect of the competitive mindset. It's not a coincidence that competitive players are anti luck, and not just here either. Someone later in the thread brought up "No items, Fox only, Final Destination!" That meme accurately summarizes the mindset at work within the Super Smash Brothers series. It's in a more extreme form than I, and most here are advocating, but the principal is the same. No items = remove luck, same character = remove matchup advantages/disadvantages, non dynamic stage = focus on fighting each other, not the terrain. And that character is Fox because he is generally regarded to be the best character. But moving on.
Luck is the enemy to any competitive player because they don't need, or want to rely upon it to win, and so it can only cheat them out of victories that they would otherwise be entitled to. Even if the luck works in their favor, it still makes the victory hollow.
If you don't believe me, try writing a warstory in which the outcome of the battle comes down to randomness. Actually don't do that, that will just make Haunter use Outrage.
This is the reason why if you talk to the competitively minded, or optimizers, or whatever the equivalent is within a given field, and analyze why they are doing as they do, you will find that there is one thing they all have in common - optimal tactics seek to minimize luck as much as is possible.
Someone else later in the thread brought up Magic: The Gathering... it's not a coincidence that there are redundant cards and cards that let you draw cards and cards that let you search for cards... even within that Marvel vs Capcom style metagame, there are plenty of tools to maximize your chance of being able to pull off your gamebreaking combo of choice, thereby minimizing luck.
I could keep going, but my point should be clear by now.
Several people in this thread brought up that there are those who will simply hide behind the words "uncompetitive" and "overcentralization" to hide the fact that they don't have an argument to support their claims. That's a fair point, but at the same time some people will abuse any system. That does not make a system good or bad. It's better to have clearly defined terms so that people can quickly convey what they mean without having to launch into a pedantic explanation each and every time and then move on to the rest of what they have to say and just call the people out who use those words as the alpha and omega of their argument than it is to have people constantly talking past each other or being overly bogged down by minutia due to not having clear and objective definitions for the terms.
Someone also mentioned the whole Timmy/Johnny/Spike thing, and Scizor replacements.
First I'd like to say know your target audience. There's a lot of competitively minded Spikes, and some Johnnys, but Timmy just isn't that interested in that, since he's only playing for "fun".
And if you banned Scizor, all that'd happen is people would move to whatever is second to Scizor and performs a similar role, and just use that. You've lowered the bar, but you haven't done anything for or against skill.
Because of this, I think the only effective system would be one where non-players set the rules, or at least one where it is extremely difficult to alter (ban) anything. Players being able to change the rules based on their own personal desires/benefits is not "competitive" in any sense of the word.
Non-players? But if they do not play the meta itself, they wouldn't know what IS broken and what isn't.
Being a non-player does not imply that the rulemaker knows nothing about the game. It also does not prevent the person from getting input from the people who do play. An excellent example of this would be VGC, which thousands of pepole have enjoyed over the past 3-4 years.
There are many issues with the suspect testing system, but one big issue that this would solve is stability (which currently is pretty much nonexistent). The intentions of the current system are obviously good, but many people don't use the suspect test to actually "test." They come in with the attitude of "I want to meet the voting requirement so I can vote to ban [xxx]," which defeats the purpose of these tests and makes it so rules are set based on which percentage of views made the requirement this specific round. This eliminates any sort of stability or consistency with the current system and results in laughable situations where extremely sub-optimal things such as moody bidoof and lax incense are banned while powerhouses like jirachi and garchomp are allowed (I am not advocating a ban on any of these 4 things but it is worth noting that these pokemon have lots of traits involving "luck").
I'd also like to note that I strongly agree with the OP in this Policy review topic.
No, it doesn't. Read my previous posts. Luck has nothing to do with the competitive mindset. It is possible for people to be just as much if not more competitive in a completely luck based environment as a completely skill based environment. The reason luck is minimized in Pokemon isn't because it's uncompetitive as a general rule, but because it's what the majority/important people want.
For example, a rock, paper, scissors competition with a prize of $5,000 is most certainly going to be more competitive than a casual chess competition with the prize being a Kit Kat bar. It doesn't matter that chess revolves around skill while rock, paper, scissors revolves around luck. Competitiveness is determined by the desire to win, not the degree of luck/skill present.
"Uncompetitive" is not the appropriate term to use. You guys really need to stop using it in the manner that you are because it makes your arguments sound silly.
Competitive in pokemon: Things that lead to high performance in a battle. A bad example would be a magikarp.
Overcentralization: It means that we try to have competitors use to most diverse pokemon teams so we dont get bored. The problem is, when there is a very good pokemon, and every team or either carries the pokemon or especific counters for that pokemon.
Its a greater issue when the pokemon is in every team and has very little counters, and they are all especific.
Overcentralization: It means that we try to have competitors use to most diverse pokemon teams so we dont get bored. The problem is, when there is a very good pokemon, and every team or either carries the pokemon or especific counters for that pokemon.
Its a greater issue when the pokemon is in every team and has very little counters, and they are all especific.
Shroomisaur
Smogon's fantastical fun-guy.
This is a very good post. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking 'Contest of skill = competetive, Contest of luck = uncompetetive', but as Pokemontage showed, this isn't at all the case. If you want another good example, watch the World Poker Tour on TV sometime... largely luck-based, with people throwing around Millions on random 54% chances of winning, but it's still incredibly competetive.
The factor that makes something competetive is the players involved, and I'm sure everyone here at Smogon is very interested in winning and improving. When it comes to luck-based strategies like Evasion and OHKO moves, they aren't banned because they're too overpowered or too luck-based, I believe the community simply doesn't like playing with them... that's pretty much all there is to it.
Yeah.... I tried to apply a more complicated theorem, and I did that right. I just used 25 by accident instead of 30. Yeah, it is 75.99. My bad.
Anyways, Just one paragraph I really want to talk about:
In my opinion, this is as far from the truth as it can possibly be. As I and multiple other people have pointed out, competitiveness has nothing to do with lack of luck. There were specific example thrown out there of Rock Paper Scissors and Poker. If that doesn't prove that competitiveness has nothing to do with luck, nothing will. The point is a truly competitive person will embrace luck and try to use it to their advantage.
While there are people who do like to minimize luck, that group is no more or less competitive than any other group. In the example brought up about Smash Bros, I will say that that is the exact reason I never did much competitively with that series. I love the game, but the whole notion that any differences or randomness reduces the importance of skill is completely ridiculous. Luck is just a part of life. Skill is taking what happens, luck or no, and using it to help you. All removing luck does in an environment where luck is part of the natural flow is make it unrealistic.
You could remove luck from Pokemon, and say whoever wins has the most skill. But while it may be true, the thing they would have the most skill at would no longer be Pokemon.
I've read your previous posts. I am unconvinced. Prizes do not make something competitive. Prizes provide incentive to participate. Are game shows competitive now? Most aren't, even though you can win money from them due to the high degree of randomness. Some are though.
The competitively minded tend to hate luck yes, but it isn't a matter of removing things that they don't like, it's a matter of those things running counter to proper competition. The fact they also don't like them is incidental, not the main focus.
Prizes provide an incentive to participate. They do not indicate a competition. For something to be competitive, it has to be designed in such a way so that good players win more often and bad players win less often. Otherwise it's flip a coin to win a prize, which is great if you want a random chance at money but terrible if you're looking for an actual competition.
What term would you suggest? I can think of some, but most of them are derogatory. Regardless of which word or phrase is used to describe it, luck is the bastion of those who lack skill. It means they have nothing better to rely on than something that is inherently unreliable. In effect, they have already lost.
For what it's worth poker games are won or lost not by who has the best hand, but by who can make everyone else think they have the best hand. The mind games are a big part of it. An expressionless face is called a poker face for this reason - to prevent your opponent from properly reading what you are going to do. You might not be able to control your hand without cheating, but that doesn't matter if you can consistently fake out your opponents. I believe that is called "minimizing luck".
Edit: Got ninjaed, but everything I was going to say to that is already covered in this post.
i totally agree with the above poster!good players rely on skill and prediction while bad players rely on luck.and i also agree with his definition of competitive.for competition to exist skill and effort must be rewarded.the most skilled player will win.a game like this is competitive!rolling a dice with your friend and betting 10000 euros in each right guess doesn't make the game competitive at all!as said above the prize doesn't define the amount of competition...
jas i am glad that you finally realized that the strategies revolving around double team are not broken or not even good enough,(even though i have told you the exact same thing in the suspect discussion thread,but it seems you wanted to hear it from someone else).now tell me why these moves were banned?it is clear that they weren't banned because they were broken or overcentralizing so why?
sry that i come right in the middle of the conversation but i saw something interesting...
jas i am glad that you finally realized that the strategies revolving around double team are not broken or not even good enough,(even though i have told you the exact same thing in the suspect discussion thread,but it seems you wanted to hear it from someone else).now tell me why these moves were banned?it is clear that they weren't banned because they were broken or overcentralizing so why?
Not to sound arrogant, but what I'm saying is a fact, not an opinion. The prizes were just examples I used to show how luck vs. skill doesn't have to matter when it comes to desire to win. You haven't said anything to prove my example wrong. People are more likely going to want to and try to win that rock, paper, scissors competition over that chess competition, yes? Therefore, the rock, paper, scissors competition is more competitive, period. The luck factor was irrelevant.