Let's catalogue the ways in which PS does not replicate cart mechanics

[Ortheore]

Hi all, following the Counter discoveries by Enigami I decided I wanted to make note of all the ways in which the sim deviates from cart mechanics. Note that I will not be considering features that are theoretically replicable if playing on carts with things like pen and paper or a separate timer. I'll also be ignoring the cancel button, since it doesn't really do anything that couldn't be accomplished by spending an extra 30 seconds thinking. Anyway, let me know if there's anything I get wrong or miss!

Sleep Clause (affects all gens except for gen 5 ou)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already asleep (not including Rest), any attempt to put another pokemon to sleep will always fail
Cart- There are no restrictions on putting multiple pokemon to sleep

Freeze Clause (also affects gen 2)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already frozen, no other pokemon on the opponent's team can be frozen
Cart- There are no restrictions on freezing multiple pokemon

Wrap
Sim- The player using Wrap is informed when Wrap ends, as they are able to select a new move. The person being Wrapped is not informed when it ends, as they are able to select any move they like regardless, so there is no change
Cart- Players must select Fight before selecting a move. If Wrap is still in effect, this will lock them in to attempting to attack that turn, without giving them the opportunity to select a move. If Wrap has finished, they will get the move selection menu, at which point they can exit out of that and choose to switch to another pokemon if they prefer

Desyncs
Sim- all desyncs are ignored. Counter will always trigger based on the last move used. I honestly don't recall how Mirror Move + Wrap works on sim.
Cart-

• Psywave has a small chance of causing a desync
• If you thaw a pokemon before it takes an action (e.g. if it's slower), a desync may be triggered. Worth noting that I don't think FSpin triggers this, as the pokemon being thawed wouldn't get to take an action
• If you copy a partial trapping move with Mirror Move, and then the opponent getting trapped switches to something that dies as a result of the move, a desync will trigger, as Mirror Move will fail on one game, and successfully KO on the other
• If the opponent uses Counter and the last move you had highlighted was different to the last move used, a desync will occur if one can be Countered and the other cannot. This can occur if you fully paralyse, or if you enter the move selection menu, then change your mind and switch instead

Max DV Restrictions (Link)
Sim- All pokemon can obtain a 15/15/15/15 DV spread
Cart- Pokemon that can only be obtained by walking in caves or tall grass are restricted to certain DV spreads based on their encounter rate

Other RNG limitations (mentioned offhandedly here, not sure on the details)
Sim- There are practically no RNG limitations
Cart- Certain combinations of luck-based events are impossible. Not sure on the details beyond that.
Edit: Sevi 7 pointed out that RNG limitations exist in other generations, which can potentially also have an effect in teambuilder

HP % mod (thanks Merritt for pointing out that I forgot this)
Sim- You know the opponent's exact HP%
Cart- You can only know the opponent's HP accurate to the fraction of pixels used in the HP bar. Afaik the number of possible pixels in the HP bar is 48, though I'm not aware of any reason this couldn't vary between generations

Minimum Stats? This one's irrelevant tbh
Sim- I'll be honest, I don't know how it works on sim, but I'm guessing there's an issue here.
Cart- Any pokemon that has more stat experience than can be gained by vitamins alone must've gained stat experience in all other stats, meaning they cannot minimise those other stats perfectly
I only mention this because in theory, pokemon like Zam and Chansey would want to minimise their Attack stat to minimise confusion damage. In practice, I don't think anyone does this, since the benefit is so minimal that it's not worth bothering with

My comments
I believe sleep clause should be modified to be cart-accurate, however any solution must be valid for all gens. My preferred solution is that when the clause is active, players are prevented from selecting moves whose primary effect is to induce Sleep, unless they have no other option. This notably does not affect sleep induced via moves like Relic Song or Effect Spore since they're outside player control and/or inducing sleep is not their primary effect. The biggest drawback is that it prevents certain plays that are currently considered valid (e.g. using sleep moves to preempt and opponent waking)

An alternative to sleep clause that is cart-accurate would be to warn players that they risk activating sleep clause, and DQ them if they do it anyway. I assume that appropriate exceptions would exist for the aforementioned edge cases. I don't like this option because I think it's a bullshit way to decide the outcome of a match, and it's also very inconsistent with how we play our games at present (Mid-game DQs don't exist)

I believe freeze clause should be abolished as it's so rarely activated as to be unnecessary, while even if you tried to abuse it, that's a strategy that is unreliable and carries significant drawbacks. I'm honestly unsure what there is to add from the last time the topic was raised though, so I think I'll leave it at that.

Wrap is obviously something I think should be implemented, but I can see that it might take a bit of work, requiring mods to both client and server, especially since I imagine you'd need new code to handle this kind of request, as opposed to simply processing it as a regular move or whatever.

I think desyncs aren't something that are worth implementing exactly, but we should have rules in place to make things cart-replicable. I think the simplest solution is to ban Counter, Mirror Move and Psywave, and implement some sort of rule preventing players from deliberately thawing frozen pokemon. This latter rule does run into some interesting edge cases though. It could obviously be used as a chain switching tool, however other edge cases do exist- an example would be that anything with only Fire/Normal coverage would be hard countered by a frozen ghost if the ghost were slower, which is a bit ridiculous, and even more so if the Fire user has no other pokemon that can enter play. That example is definitely obscure, and is extremely unlikely to ever occur though, especially since FSpin would also circumvent the issue.

The DV restrictions and other RNG limitations I believe should be implemented. Idk what else to say.

Edit: I forgot HP% mod. I support it's removal, though it would DEFINITELY take some getting used to

 

[Merritt]

You've forgotten the HP Percentage Mod, as the cart obviously does not provide information accurate enough to determine if the opponent has 51% or 53% of its HP remaining.

 

[Lutra]

This is how I've logged it in my spreadsheet:

Generation

Standard Initialism

Simulated Game

Simulated Mode

Reason for Games

Movepool Set

Convenience Modifications

Other Battle Modifications

Banned Moves

Banned Hold Items

Banned Abilities

Other Team Validation Restrictions

Effect Modifications

1

RBY

Pokémon Red | Blue | Yellow

Cable Club Colosseum (Single Battle by default)

Red | Blue is assumed to share the same battle mechanics with Yellow.

Pokémon Red & Blue & Yellow & Stadium & Gen 1 Events & No Gen 2 Tradebacks

HP Percentage Mod; Dual-type Effectiveness Text Mod; Endless Battle Clause (not coded); PS! Timer; User Pokémon Tooltip; Target Pokémon Tooltip; User Move Tooltip; Battle Log; Cancel Mod

Partial Trapping End Mod; Stat Down Modifier Overflow Mod; Desync Mod; PRNG Mod; Self-KO Clause Mod?; other PS! bugs

Dig & Fly (Invulnerability Clause); Double Team & Minimize (Evasion Clause); Fissure, Guillotine & Horn Drill (OHKO Clause)

N/A

N/A

Cleric Clause; Species Clause; PP Up Clause

Freeze Clause Mod; Sleep Clause Mod (no more than one of each effect can be induced concurrently)

Desync sounds really woo to me though and I'd be in favour of a better term. I don't see 'desync' and think the game is just not receiving vital information from the other game, or there's some missing logic that doesn't replicate things on both sides, which seem to be the actual problems.

Edit: Something like Biverse / dual-world / dual-universe clause makes more sense to me.
Or look at it another way: input mismatch clause

 

[Heika]

You've forgotten the HP Percentage Mod, as the cart obviously does not provide information accurate enough to determine if the opponent has 51% or 53% of its HP remaining.

This is fairly easy to reproduce while playing on cart, although it would indeed be tidius, with the following rule "each player has to inform his opponent of his mon's hp in %".

If you disagree, look at it as the same kind of agreement that oblige you to not bring a Mewtwo to an OU game, since it's not something that need code alteration to be applied.

 

[Deleted User 229847]

Sleep Clause: Simply ban all sleep moves like they did in gen 5 recently. I'm not the first one proposing such an approach, people like Ojama had a similar view. They are not competitive;

Freeze Clause: I'd add this clause in later gens if possible since I find this extremely unlucky coincidence (2+ frozen mons) stupid and pointless to preserve. However I know I am in the minority saying this, but at least leave freeze clause in gen 1;

Wrap: I have no idea what should be done, but if possible mod it to make it work as close as possible to the cart mechanics;

Desyncs: Patch them in a way they are as close as possible to the cart mechanics. The most important one is Counter, option 4 in the Policy Review topic seems the way to go. Psywave and Mirror Move are terrible moves that no one uses, I've only seen psywave in DPPT on bronzong or something like that. Counter has a wayyy higher incidence, thus it should be patched asap;

Max DVs Restrictions: From what I remember, golem and gengar where the mons interested in this. Just add that limitation on them (and whoever needs it);

 

[Enigami]

DVs wouldn't be a problem if the community just accepted Tradebacks ;)
I'm pretty sure I can get this implemented on Showdown though if enough of the RBY playerbase are adamant that no form of glitches or GSC Tradebacks even without Tradeback moves are acceptable.

Minimum stats are even more relevant for GSC due to the phazing mechanics making reduced Speed relevant. Growth+Roar Jolteon can get around a Roar Raikou by dropping speed to 327, and Tyranitar and Skarmory can successfully phaze -1 Roar Lugia by dropping to 208 Speed. But this is much less practical for Showdown to evaluate than legal DVs, and the amount of Speed GSC phazers need to drop for relevant benchmarks is small enough that they shouldn't be impossible to obtain.

Another thing I think should be catalogued is exactly how much is possible with ACE patching RBY. Since it seems doubtful that the community will embrace cartridge mechanic purity, I'd like to see if it is actually possible to bring the desired changes to cartridges instead. There are a number of competitive games that use community agreed upon fan made patches, one of the most successful being the Project M mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Pokemon however is quite unique, due to a variety of reasons, in that it theoretically can permanently save changes to legitmate copies that persist after reset, and even spread virally to other copies to make distribution simple and very practical. Disregarding ACE for 'cartridge purity' is a farce to begin with, considering that the rules we use already ignore the cartridge's rules. With a bit of setup, it is fully possible without the use of glitches to bring 6 full HP/PP poisoned Double Team Mewtwos to a battle. The game doesn't stop that, we the playerbase agree to artificially alter the metagame by adding fan made rules to the ruleset. Banning Mew/Mewtwo and using Species, Freeze and Sleep Clauses may have been part of the official Nintendo ruleset, but so was using Stadium as the base game, restricting levels to 50-55 (155 total) and playing a 3v3 selected from a pool of 6 Pokemon each. And they didn't have any rules about not being allowed to enter battle with status.

Playing 6v6 Red/Blue/Yellow at level 100 with Mew, Mewtwo, Evasion and OHKO moves banned and Freeze, Sleep, "Pokemon Center" (Pokemon required to be at full health, full PP and unstatused) and "Max PP Ups" (otherwise Wrap could be 20, 24, 28 and 32 instead of always 32) Clauses implemented is a completely made up ruleset by the RBY community. All that should matter is that A) the ruleset is agreed upon by the playerbase and B) the ruleset is possible on cartridge, and ACE patching might be able to extend those possibilities.

I'd already wanted to develop an ACE patch for the purpose of integrating Freeze Clause and Sleep Clause to RBY cartridge/virtual console, and with the recent Counter desync discovery I feel there's a lot more incentive now for me to get this figured out. If I can get ACE code to execute after player moves are decided but before they are executed, I should be able to have my viral code monitor and detect when it needs to intervene and alter RAM to change the result to do things like ensuring both sides see the same result and never desync, stopping FRZ when another Pokemon on that team is already frozen, or stopping a divide by 0 error before it happens, making many of these "mods" possible on legimate copies of RBY that are unaltered in any way beyond the benign ACE virus tucked away in unused save file data.

 

[Sevi 7]

The DV restrictions and other RNG limitations I believe should be implemented. Idk what else to say.

I'm not defending Showdown at all, but I think it needs to be pointed out that Pokemon Showdown doesn't impliment any DV/IV restrictions in any gen, not just Gen 1. IIRC, Pokemon Online implemented them well and nobody thought anything of it. This does have an effect on gameplay, because Jirachi cannot have a careful nature, Body Slam and perfect IV's, same with Defog Lati. When people moved to Showdown, the people who complained about the change were in the minority and we devolved into what we have now.
I say this because it would be wrong to go into the DV arguement thinking that this is something affect the unpopular gen 1. This is a showdown wide problem, and the issue needs to be tackled as such, if we hope to change it, imo.

Another thing I think should be catalogued is exactly how much is possible with ACE patching RBY. Since it seems doubtful that the community will embrace cartridge mechanic purity, I'd like to see if it is actually possible to bring the desired changes to cartridges instead. There are a number of competitive games that use community agreed upon fan made patches, one of the most successful being the Project M mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Pokemon however is quite unique, due to a variety of reasons, in that it theoretically can permanently save changes to legitmate copies that persist after reset, and even spread virally to other copies to make distribution simple and very practical. Disregarding ACE for 'cartridge purity' is a farce to begin with, considering that the rules we use already ignore the cartridge's rules. With a bit of setup, it is fully possible without the use of glitches to bring 6 full HP/PP poisoned Double Team Mewtwos to a battle. The game doesn't stop that, we the playerbase agree to artificially alter the metagame by adding fan made rules to the ruleset. Banning Mew/Mewtwo and using Species, Freeze and Sleep Clauses may have been part of the official Nintendo ruleset, but so was using Stadium as the base game, restricting levels to 50-55 (155 total) and playing a 3v3 selected from a pool of 6 Pokemon each. And they didn't have any rules about not being allowed to enter battle with status.

I'm actually curious what people have to say about this. I know console players/games are a bit phobic of competitve mods (although ironically you gave an example of my favorite comepttive console mods); however, on PC they arent't uncommon if there is a competitve community after the devs stop updating the game. Especially for games like Pokemon. I'm 100% ok with saying that we are playing Gen 1.1 or Gen 1+ or something and making small changes to the game, like freeze clause mod in gen 1 and the acid rain glitch mod in gen 4. Personally, I would be against going something like Violet, where the game isn't even recognizable anymore, but I also think allowing tradebacks is going too far, so maybe I'm completely in the minority here.

 

[Dre89]

The problem is that Smogon calls it "RBY OU" as if it's THE Gen 1 meta. In reality RBY OU a RBY mod that implements arbitrary rules, and people don't want to the make game more like real RBY because they don't want to change from what they got used to. I've said this before. A real, in-person cartridge meta would be very different to what we play here.

Pokemon Stadium with tradebacks is the closest thing you can get on Showdown to what a real meta would be like. It's mechanics are the closest to its real-life equivalent, and with tradebacks allowed you're removing arbitrary rules like "no-tradebacks" that people decided on long ago and decided to call "RBY OU" as if it's the official meta.

People here aren't the "RBY community", they're an RBY mod community lol. The people who still battle on cartridge or virtual console would be the real RBY community.

 

[Hipmonlee]

One thing I would love is if we agreed that if anyone is gonna discuss changes to RBY they dont lead off with "its only this way because people hate change". RBY has changed constantly the whole time I have played it. Disliking change is not at all why things are the way they are.

The reason we dont use tradebacks or stadium is because nobody has ever made a compelling argument that those things actually make RBY better. Try doing that.

Freeze clause and Sleep clause are two things I would totally agree should be fixed, but lets not get hysterical, strategically they are pretty trivial. RBY with or without freeze clause is played pretty much exactly the same.

 

[Heika]

The problem is that Smogon calls it "RBY OU" as if it's THE Gen 1 meta. In reality RBY OU a RBY mod that implements arbitrary rules, and people don't want to the make game more like real RBY because they don't want to change from what they got used to. I've said this before. A real, in-person cartridge meta would be very different to what we play here.

Pokemon Stadium with tradebacks is the closest thing you can get on Showdown to what a real meta would be like. It's mechanics are the closest to its real-life equivalent, and with tradebacks allowed you're removing arbitrary rules like "no-tradebacks" that people decided on long ago and decided to call "RBY OU" as if it's the official meta.

People here aren't the "RBY community", they're an RBY mod community lol. The people who still battle on cartridge or virtual console would be the real RBY community.

If we listen to you **Every** thing on PS not anything goes is a mod.
You always come with « no-tradeback » but it’s just a ban, just as « no Mewtwo », and it’s REALLY easily replicable on cart: just don’t bring thing that are only obtainable via tradeback.

If you consider banning Mewtwo as a mod and that it shouldn’t be a thing, I don’t even know why you are getting involved in this discussion in the first place.

 

[Deleted User 229847]

One thing I would love is if we agreed that if anyone is gonna discuss changes to RBY they dont lead off with "its only this way because people hate change". RBY has changed constantly the whole time I have played it. Disliking change is not at all why things are the way they are.

The reason we dont use tradebacks or stadium is because nobody has ever made a compelling argument that those things actually make RBY better. Try doing that.

Freeze clause and Sleep clause are two things I would totally agree should be fixed, but lets not get hysterical, strategically they are pretty trivial. RBY with or without freeze clause is played pretty much exactly the same.

Exscuse me since when do arbitrarily decide to not stay as close to the cartridge as possible? How is "tradebacks don't make a better meta" a compelling argument, in the slightest? I'd also counter it with saying that more divesity in an insanely stagnant meta ia a really good thing. Fo LK lax 100% of the playerbase would be fine with a ban, so whatever.
I also disagree with your statement about freeze clause since in an hypotetical freezeclaseless meta, ice beam spamming becomes even more broken and para gets abused less in order to ensure more permanent freezes. Since the mechanic is so disgustingly broken the game would warp on it and degenerate in freeze fishing even more.

 

[Dre89]

One thing I would love is if we agreed that if anyone is gonna discuss changes to RBY they dont lead off with "its only this way because people hate change". RBY has changed constantly the whole time I have played it. Disliking change is not at all why things are the way they are.

The reason we dont use tradebacks or stadium is because nobody has ever made a compelling argument that those things actually make RBY better. Try doing that.

Freeze clause and Sleep clause are two things I would totally agree should be fixed, but lets not get hysterical, strategically they are pretty trivial. RBY with or without freeze clause is played pretty much exactly the same.

Why would I need to prove that tradebacks make the game better? Including something that is part of the game should always be the default position, and the burden of proof should be on those who want to get rid of it by showing how it somehow makes the game un-competitive.The fact that the mod meta we play here doesn't have tradebacks was just an arbitrary decision made years ago. Had tradebacks always been played, and someone now tried to argue to remove them, you could say the same thing- "no one has made a compelling argument as to why no tradebacks make the game better". Do psychic types make the game better? Does sleep? The only reason why these don't get scrutinised the same way is because people decided they were ok years ago instead of today.

It's the same thing with the clauses. People justify sleep and freeze clause by saying that they were in stadium and were meant to be part of the game. Ok seeing as we're modding the game, why not fix focus energy too? That was fixed in stadium as well. It's the same logic but no one is ok with fixing focus energy, but the only difference between focus energy and the clauses is that the clauses were done years ago and focus energy wasn't. If it had been the other way the people who are pro clause today would be pro-focus energy and not the clauses.

People need to get this idea out of their head that these suggestions are changing "RBY". This isn't RBY, this is a mod meta with arbitrary restrictions within in. What we actually want to turn the mod to real RBY and remove the changes that make it a mod.

 

[Hipmonlee]

I also disagree with your statement about freeze clause since in an hypotetical freezeclaseless meta, ice beam spamming becomes even more broken and para gets abused less in order to ensure more permanent freezes. Since the mechanic is so disgustingly broken the game would warp on it and degenerate in freeze fishing even more.

Ive played a freeze clause less metagame a lot, and honestly, you basically dont do anything different.

Think about how rarely you ever think "I need to keep my frozen pokemon alive in order to block a second freeze from my opponent". It does happen every now and then, but on the whole its pretty rare... You might think "I will save this frozen pokemon in order to protect me from a dangerous switch later", but that has nothing to do with freeze clause. Mostly freeze clause just protects you from those ridiculous games where Jynx freezes you twice before you've even had a chance to attack it.

Here's a hint for RBY in future: lines where you seek out a freeze in RBY are not actually that great. A paralysed pokemon has to try to ice beam 9 times to have a better than 50% chance of getting a freeze. What damage can your opponent do to your team while you ice beam for 9 turns? Cause if they are sitting there with their own Chansey trying to ice beam you back they are either not very good, or you were already in an absolutely dominant position. And once you've gotten your freeze you are almost always way better off trying to exploit your numerical advantage in some more proactive way than just trying to keep ice beaming things. And remember that even if you do manage to find 9 turns to ice beam against un statused opponents, freezing something isnt an insta-win. It's just not that great.

Why would I need to prove that tradebacks make the game better? Including something that is part of the game should always be the default position, and the burden of proof should be on those who want to get rid of it by showing how it somehow makes the game un-competitive.

Sounds arbitrary to me. I could make up some malarkey about how moves learnt in GSC are part of GSC not RBY and make it sound great. But the real reason is that whenever there is a status quo, no matter how arbitrary it may be, it will win out until you convince people that theyd be better off changing. That isnt fear of change, that is just how every decision you are ever going to face in your entire life is going to work.

You can throw scare quotes around all you like, but what Smogon plays is RBY OU. We can change the rules, you just need to engage in terms the people who play RBY OU are actually going to recognise.

 

[Lutra]

In RBY Ubers though, not that you need to necessarily plan for it, freeze clause is actually more relevant. If a player has Chansey frozen, their Mewtwo can't also be frozen. In OU, that second opportunity of an ice beam ditto is rare.

I think for the switching on counter situation, you could think of a fix where the dual inputs (latest move and switch) get forced into 1 input. You could interpret either the latest move as nothing (non counterable) or the counterable move; or the switch as a non counterable move.

 

[Ortheore]

Dre89 I disagree strongly with characterising community rules as "mods". Mods are, by definition, changes to game code and thus are different to community rules. If you ignore that definition, then I'm not sure how you'd argue that VGC isn't a mod, despite being Nintendo's official format and being played primarily on unmodified cartridges, since it makes all the same changes that our communities do- arguably the VGC rules are even more contrived lol.

Furthermore, that kind of mentality is basically incompatible with the design of games that simultaneously appeal to both casual and competitive players, as such games usually require some additional rules for competitive play, since gameplay elements that are good for casual play are often terrible for competitive play and vice versa. Smash Bros is a great example of this- it's simultaneously one of the best party games in existence, and also one of the greatest competitive games available, but that wouldn't be possible without the community implementing their own rules. These rules are probably even more restrictive than ours, given that they ban all items and almost all stages, but without those rules it would make for a terrible competitive experience. Similarly, if it removed all the stuff that's banned in competitive play, it wouldn't be nearly as fun casually. Games shouldn't be expected to be enjoyable to people only in a specific way- one of the greatest things about gaming in general is that it can be enjoyed in multiple ways, and pokemon is a shining example of this tbh

===================

I don't think there's a convincing reason not to allow tradebacks tbh. The whole "GSC is not part of RBY" reasoning is wildly inconsistent with our policy in general- it would be like trying to ban Defog Lati@s in ORAS because they learn Defog via G4 HM, and "DPP isn't part of XY/ORAS". That's not to say that the latter position isn't technically valid- you could very well argue that we should exclude pokemon transferred from previous gens and although I'd disagree, it's still a respectable stance to have. However, the reason that I'd disagree with it is that it's an arbitrary restriction, when as a competitive community, we should aim to only impose restrictions on things that are detrimental to competitive play (e.g. being broken or making the game unplayable).

As for the whole "LK Lax OP" thing, that's theorymon, but if proven true, would be an argument to ban Lax, not to scrap tradebacks entirely. So I guess rationally I should be advocating for tradebacks being made official. The thing is it's just not something I feel that passionately about. Maybe I will if I think about it more, because by my own principles it's something I should be strongly in favour of, but right now I just don't care enough. That said, I would in no way oppose tradebacks being a thing either.

===================
Hipmonlee although I strongly agree with you regarding freeze clause, I disagree that the status quo should remain in place unless something is found to be "better". Well, I suppose it depends on how you define "better", but to me that evokes a very specific set of criteria (improving competitive gameplay) that excludes certain valid reasoning, such as differences in values. Even if you set those semantics aside, it's often impossible to argue convincingly that a given change is "better" especially when it's of a large scale like allowing tradebacks. Usually a given change isn't good or bad, it's just... different. Just look at paraSlam mechanics- although we now regard the change as having a negative effect on the meta, it took ages for Reflect to become as pervasive as it currently is. And immediately after those changes were implemented, I'd argue things actually improved, as I recall there being a surge in diversity. If you'd evaluated the change 3 months in, it might've been positive, but as of right now the change has made the game less enjoyable

 

[Deleted User 229847]

I’d also point out that the chance of directly banning sleep-inducing moves and removing sleep clause is available and I find it extremely good. It would make RBY OU closer to the charter mechanics while banning the uncompetitive element.

 

[Earthworm]

I think disallowing influences from gen 2 is not an unreasonable rule for playing the main gen 1 tier in. I don't think any other gen has influences from a future gen in it (but I could be wrong). There are arguments either way and claiming one should be the main one seems like a matter of personal opinion at best.

As for the clauses, I think we should strive to emulate the game as faithfully as possible and avoid mods unless absolutely necessary. However sleep's high strength in RBY makes some kind of restriction pretty necessary.

 

[peng]

RE: arguments for tradebacks

I'm not particularly invested in RBY so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but the tradebacks ban seems like a rather arbitrary place to draw a line in the sand.

First and foremost, every other generation of competitive Pokemon have allowed use of Pokemon and movesets that are able to be obtained without glitches, no matter how round-about the means may be. Classic example is Wish Chansey, which was a very very limited event Pokemon and one that basically nobody actually has their hands on, let alone one with decent IVs. We can be fairly confident that this Pokemon, with good IVs and especially with any odd generation-specific tutor moves along the way, is effectively unobtainable. But we allow it.

So the only way I can wrap my head around not allowing tradebacks, which are legally and easily obtainable, from a logical point of view is to say competitive RBY was "locked" on 21 November 1999 when Gold/Silver were released. No more changes, that's it done. When we play RBY OU, we'll just pretend its still 1999.

But this clearly isn't the case. We've discovered numerous mechanics which completely change how RBY is played including the Body Slam paralysis stuff and more recently, the Counter mechanics. We implemented these even though, in one part of our heads, we consider competitive RBY "locked". When we look to other "locked" generations too, we see that DPP and BW have changed their tiering in the last 2 years with various Latias, Excadrill etc moves, clearly showing that old generations aren't a locked box at all. We're happy to drastically change these formats in 2020, but the idea that you could trade Snorlax with Lovely Kiss from GS to RBY over 20 years ago on 22nd November 1999, the day after RBY was "locked", is apparently crossing a line.

It becomes even more arbitrary when you consider how inconsistent the lines between generations can sometimes be. Pokemon RBY can connect directly to both Stadium and Stadium 2, which even further blurs the lines between Gens 1 and 2. Particularly in recent years, games of the same generation approach near incompatibility from a battling-sense due to the addition of things like game-specific forms (Rotom in DPP) and Mega evolutions (e.g. Salamence in ORAS-XY). In Gen 3, several Pokemon and move combinations are limited to Colloseum / XD, but these games technically feature Bonsly and Munchlax from Gen 4, with Bonsly even appearing in battle - I struggle to see how this is particularly different to RBY-GSC. When we give a free pass to these kind of things, I can't really see how preventing Gen 2-specific moves on RBY Pokemon can be logically justified.

So I think there's barely any logical or consistent reasoning to keep tradebacks banned. But the important thing is, there doesn't need to be. Old gens, particularly RBY, are constantly on the brink of becoming irrelevant as evidenced by RBY being considered for the axe in SPL over several years. The most important thing is that there's an active playerbase who actually enjoy playing. If allowing tradebacks would scare off the already limited playerbase, without really bringing anyone new in, then clearly lets not do that. But to say that its "logical" to keep these legally obtainable sets banned, whilst we simulate literally impossible and celebrated conditions such as Sleep and Freeze Clause, is untrue.

 

[Ortheore]

I think disallowing influences from gen 2 is not an unreasonable rule for playing the main gen 1 tier in. I don't think any other gen has influences from a future gen in it (but I could be wrong). There are arguments either way and claiming one should be the main one seems like a matter of personal opinion at best.

As for the clauses, I think we should strive to emulate the game as faithfully as possible and avoid mods unless absolutely necessary. However sleep's high strength in RBY makes some kind of restriction pretty necessary.

No other generation has influences from future generations because tradebacks as a feature doesn't exist in other generations- it's impossible to transfer between g2 and g3, while transferring to any generation after gen 3 is a one way process that doesn't allow transferring to older games. Consequently, the reason no other generation has influences from future generations is because it's impossible, not because we decided against it. In that sense there is no exact "precedent", the closest is transferring pokemon from old generations to new ones, which we obviously allow.

Also peng there's a huge distinction to be made between pokemon that are glitch-only and pokemon that are merely difficult to obtain, and it's entirely unreasonable to assert that every generation allows glitch-only pokemon. It's fairly simple- you can only guess that a competitively viable Wish Chansey no longer exists, but it's impossible to prove, as it's still possible that it does still exist. That's not the case with say, Crabhammer Starmie, which we can conclusively say is only obtainable by abusing glitches

edit: sorry Peng, I think I misread your post

 

[Deleted User 229847]

There no real distinction between influences from a future or past generation either, if you can do it on cart it should be done on the simulator to, it's that simple and it has been (or should have been) our core pillar in building the metagame.

 

[peng]

I literally didn’t argue any of those points at all. Not once did I say Crabhammer Starmie or anything similar should be allowed.

My first point is that it seems absurd to me to feel fine with old gen tiering changes in the year 2020 whilst disallowing legitimately obtainable Pokemon from 1999 (e.g. lk lax). Its inconsistent to say that old gens are locked when it comes to new movesets becoming available, but not when it comes to discovering new mechanics or changing the tiers. People are disussing even modding Counter to something impossible in real RBY. Either its closed or its not, surely?

My second point is that generations are at times ill-defined already so who are we to say that transferring GSC to RBY is even really going “backwards”. If your definition of a new generation is that the old games cease being able to interact beyond one-way trading, then RBY has compatibility with Stadium 2 so where do we stand on that exactly. If your definition is the expansion of the Pokedex or addition of new mechanics / moves then how do we handle version-specific forms in late generations, or the fact that Bonsly rocks up in XD (admittedly all we learn about it is its base HP and that it learns Rock Slide, but its there).

Again, I’m not arguing either for or against tradebacks but I disagree strongly with most of the “it just makes sense” arguments. It doesn’t make much sense at all. RBY isn’t “locked” because we continue to change it anyway, and the Gen1-Gen2 boundary is already ill-defined.

So I guess my point is that the ruleset we decide on for old generations rarely makes much logical or consistent sense - it just boils down to “this is the arbitrary set of rules we use to make it fun and playable for the people who care”, which is absolutely fine. As long as we accept its arbitrary.

 

[Sevi 7]

Personally, I'm not invested in this debate, but for everyone arguing about arbitary decisions and whatnot, you need to remember that there is no constituion binding us to one set of rules or another. In fact, Smogon has constantly broken it's own "rules" whenever people think the outcome leads to a better metagame.
We don't want to modify the game code, oh but this acid rain glitch is too much, so get rid of that. We don't allow moves that can only be obtained through glitches, oh but this new Pomeg glitch makes little cup better, so we'll keep it. We don't do complex bans, oh but now we really want to keep these new weather abilities in the meta, so let's make some complex bans, Clauses need to be able to work both on the sim and the cart, oh but we can't decide on a way to make it work, without some weird combo where your stars allign to force a game loss, so let's just mod the sim. Ubers doesn't count as real tier, oh but now Mega-Ray is broken so we'll make it one now. We allow Pokemon that can be obtained through the walk through wall glitch, but now that this means that Arceus can be properly EV trained, we don't want that in the meta, so let's just forget it exists.

You can argue all day about arbitration and what you personally feel are the imaginary ubroken rules. But that doesn't mean Smogon, the rules we are playing by, agrees at all. Because these sacred rules may be broken tomorrow, when something cool comes along. If you don't want to use the very arbitrary and very incosistnet rules that cannot be replicated on cart and are technically a mod of the game, then you don't have to. However, it will not be following Smogon's rules. But that's ok, it's very easy to make tournaments for games that follow your rules. Tradebacks, no mod clauses, DV restrictions, whatever you want. But I think one is just fooling themselves and just yelling into the aether, if they think that these major changes are going to happen, because of this thread.

I think this thread started out with a very good premise, and I was looking forward to seeing where it would go. But it just seems like it has devoled into people shouting at each other about strong opinions that honestly probably won't go anywhere, because it ignores what actually happens on Smogon.

If this really does get seriously debated, hopefully everyone can find some kind of middle ground and compromise enough so that most people are mostly happy. I think that's the best one should hope for.

 

[cherryb0ng]

As far as I have read on DVs being restricted in pokemon found in the grass or in caves, I also would believe that it would make sense to implement it, especially in a generation like generation 2 where hidden power is accessible. Firstly, I am not sure if roaming pokemon fit under this category, but on the chance that it were that could easily affect one of the most prominent HP legends, ie. Raikou and it's access to a viable move to incoming ground types (or grass types). It does not mean that Raikou would never be able to run such a spread, but it might be one that comes at the cost of other DVs, thus influencing all of its stats. This on the other hand, would not effect zapdos or snorlax or the Uber mons and the eeveelutions (and lapras at the Union Cave or in Silph Co. maybe?).

On the simulator I ran female Snorlax for a brief time, and saw that it's access to 1 or 0 ATK DVs would be the only drawback, which is more noticeable in those mons with lower defence whereas the damage output difference with its male counterpart against more common threats is of a few percentage points, a difference which can be made up for after 1 curse:
male>Snorlax Double-Edge vs. Zapdos: 153-180 (39.9 - 46.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
female>Snorlax Double-Edge vs. Zapdos: 140-165 (36.5 - 43%) -- 99.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
This should serve as an example of how DV-ing, which is rarely ever taken into account in these 2 gens, has its consequences, like a missed 3HKO, and sometimes doesn't have any remedy to it.

On the other hand DVing could change also the longevity and damage output of those mons such as Exeggutor, Golem or Marowak (the possibilities are endless). The choice of running HP Fire on Egg, Electric on Cloy, or Bug on Machamp and Marowak could mean choosing to find a specific Spread for these offensive mons that already have enough trouble staying alive against GSC's most common threats.

I am not saying that this has to happen (especially if too complicated to implement). The point I wanted to make was that we should consider whether we are even playing the game as it was meant to be played (with raikou being the most salient example).
I would be really happy to know more of the possibilities with data, but I know nothing about coding. I did see that examples were found already for Golem and it not being able to max-out all of its DVs. So if anyone else has data to confirm my speculations that would be much appreciated!

 

[cherryb0ng]

Sleep Clause: Simply ban all sleep moves like they did in gen 5 recently. I'm not the first one proposing such an approach, people like Ojama had a similar view. They are not competitive;

Freeze Clause: I'd add this clause in later gens if possible since I find this extremely unlucky coincidence (2+ frozen mons) stupid and pointless to preserve. However I know I am in the minority saying this, but at least leave freeze clause in gen 1;

Wrap: I have no idea what should be done, but if possible mod it to make it work as close as possible to the cart mechanics;

Desyncs: Patch them in a way they are as close as possible to the cart mechanics. The most important one is Counter, option 4 in the Policy Review topic seems the way to go. Psywave and Mirror Move are terrible moves that no one uses, I've only seen psywave in DPPT on bronzong or something like that. Counter has a wayyy higher incidence, thus it should be patched asap;

Max DVs Restrictions: From what I remember, golem and gengar where the mons interested in this. Just add that limitation on them (and whoever needs it);

If you say Sleep clause should be a strict by all gens, I don't see why not preserve the Freeze clause in all gens. Mechanics do apply and I would even be one to argue that Sleep makes sense in generation 2 as it adds to the nuance of Rest+Sleep talk in a viably competitive way. Switching in your rest+talker (not necessarily as crucial as a phaser in GSC but still next to obbligatory in the OU meta) isn't an option all the time either as it still could involve an extended period of sleep.

Having said that in other generations this doesn't seem to handled as well (Gen1 no wake up move, ADV Sleeptalk prolongs sleep) so I would think it's fair to ban Sleep if we made an agreement that it's competitive throughout generations. But I think consistency is important when it comes to moves and mechanics that are so common and make Pokemon what it is.

Thus if you want Freeze to hard banned, then it should be banned across generations. I don't think hard bans are the way to go because then the game stops resembling the Cartridges.

 

[DDX2]

I'd like to put in my case for Stadium or Patched Custom

As of now according to this thread, Dig/Fly, and Psywave (and Metronome I imagine) are banned due to cart glitches. While that doesn't affect OU really, I feel that in lower tiers such as 2U or lower Fly can benefit Articuno and Moltres where it doesn't have to deal with Chansey or Snorlax, and could definitely definitely benefit Pidgeot and Farfetch'd in their own viable tiers. Dig much the same as a potential option for say Arcanine.

And now if I understood everything we have to possibly ban Counter, Mirror Move, and in theory Ice Beam/Blizzard or Fire Attacks which is ridiculous as an option. Plus to throw in the mix we have the naturally not working as intended Focus Energy.

Now can do patched Custom. I believe the current argument is to do Cartridge Intended which is keeping everything but just making Desyncs fail, but another option is to do Game Intended. With Game Intended we can fix move problems such as Dig/Fly Invulnerability and allow Focus Energy to work, and it opens some new debates, especially Secondary Status effects such as Body Slam.

Now if we do Stadium on the other hand, nearly every problem gets fixed. We get the purity as if playing on a official console like you want and I'm fairly certain it doesn't have any of the Desync problems. Also in my own mind the 30% blizzard for Japanese Cart argument doesn't have to exist since it's 10% naturally for both Japan and International versions of Stadium

Of course then it comes with its own changes that have to be measured.
Sleep, Recoil Moves, Critical Chance, Team Preview (plus ability to select Lead)

So knowing all this why not choose Game Intended or Stadium?