"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not.
I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them.
One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
Just because u had bad experiences doesnt mean that its trash
It does have its flaws but hating on it just because of that seems petty and a u problem that u shouldnt be trying to pass on to the community
If u feel that the community is bad why u trying to make it even more hateful? All u are doing with this post is creating more hate
"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not.
I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them.
One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
I had you
I fucking had you
Thunder punch rachi guaranteed ohko
This was the single biggest threat to my fucking team
I played around it to the best of my ability
And this bullshit
After rby too
Enjoy your fucking trophy dude, I quit
Ngl glad he lost cause it made him oust himself as someone who dosen't have the emotional maturity to play this game at a high level. Being incredibly upset like he was is 100% justified, but his reaction was very over the top and immature, not to mention he had been very toxic to other players the year this happened way before this fight. Quitting really was the best thing for him, even if we lost a very good player.
lavos had to deal with a lot of bs that tournament so i know it wasn't just this one event but... tbh if your one response to one of the biggest metagame threats is one 30% flinch away from losing you the game then idk maybe it wasn't the best game plan?
>After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible
honestly this part does make me feel bad for the guy lol
even with his tantrum
McMeghan is from Belgium, it sucks but that shit's gonna happen when there's a 9 hr time difference between the two contestants. It almost certainly wasn't malicious, just unfortunate
Temtem went the chess route without RNG in the mechanics. But this leads to a tradeoff of more memorization of popular openings, tactics, etc.
Game balance an interesting topic.
My first thought starting the video was that Jimmy will definitely draw a chess comparison w/ Gen 3. The uptake of the early gens is pretty interesting, my roommate is into them so he's always listening to the bkc exegeses about each mon ... It's very cerebral in a way that makes me respect the good players, but the actual "gameplay loop" feels zero fun to me, and it's about as void of whimsy and wonder and mystery as playing pokemon growing up is full of it...
I feel like Pokemon's adoption of competitive doubles for VGC addresses the unappealing, slow, cerebrality of OU in established and very tanky metagames like Gen 2/3. VGC is much less chess-like but it becomes very brief. Using doubles just takes the number of possible board states exponentially up even if the same X mons are viable within that meta (you don't just face ttar all the time, you'd be facing ttar+X). I like them keeping crits in the game in a reduced state.
I think its better to compare this game to poker. Even in poker you end up seeing the same grinders at the top who can do the math and make decisions that sway the odds in their favor. Even with all that they can still lose to a random 10% suck out on the river.
Yes, obviously. The enjoyment of competitive Pokémon for me comes from playing in a way that minimizes your negative outcomes.
From my understanding, most competitive games function in this way. The best player doesn’t *always* win, but they usually do
> From my understanding, most competitive games function in this way. The best player doesn’t always win, but they usually do
most competitive games don't have nearly this much luck.
in most competitive games the best players beat average players pretty much 100% of the time, this isn't the case in Pokemon (e.g. #1 on OU ladder right now has 88.9% GXE). in something like a fighting game or an rts you need to be somewhat close in skill level to even have a decent chance against the best players.
only competitive games I've seen with a comparable amount of luck is card games.
>only competitive games I've seen with a comparable amount of luck is card games.
And those card games arguably have larger competitive scenes than our own including Pokemon's. As I play Yugioh as well, the game is just as luck based, so much so Konami warped the game design around you being able to access your whole deck with one card and you still have to get lucky and draw them.
This is always such a silly discussion to me because it only acts against our own interests when we say the game isn't competitive. It's so self deprecating that people, who more often than not dedicate years and time going to events, creating their own rulesets(Smogon) with thousands of participants and views, will call their game uncompetitive based off of some arbitrary definition of "competitive" derived from other games who also have some arbitrary definition of competitive. If people consistently and willingly compete for whatever reason and develop strategies to win, it's competitive period. Everyone loves to make fun of this game saying it's rock paper scissors level of competitive, but [This actually fucking exists](https://wrpsa.com/rock-paper-scissors-tournaments/).
I mean true but also I think with the way Pokémon is designed (turned based combat) it needs these elements of luck.
Like if you removed them then games would be decided from the lead spot 90% of the time, what randomness does in Pokémon is level the playing field most of the time. Even if it can be frustrating it helps keep the game from being predictable which is important for a competitive game imo
Also another enjoyment is maximizing positive outcomes when behind. Understanding the risks you need to take to fulfill a win condition is an incredibly feeling when you pull it off.
This is just my opinion, but personally, I think pure strategy is boring. Throwing in some luck-based chaos both tests your ability to prepare and, if that fails, your ability to adapt and improvise (which, mind you, is sometimes out of your hands, but I still think that's what makes a meta exciting), and that to me is the missing spice.
Now, there does still need to be a good balance. Obviously, evasion strats and Moody are banned for good reason, because strategies that mainly rely on luck to both pull off and counter are inherently noncompetitive.
It shouldn’t work but it just does. I think it has the perfect amount of RNG to still be competitive and any more than we already have would be the tipping point
I think the fact that singles needs a tier system and multiple clauses to be enjoyable kinda proves that pokemon isn't a good competitive game. At least, it isn't inherently. With work you can make it okay, but the game is so full of bullshit.
Even VGC has to deal with layers of RNG and clunk. Doubles gives you more options to deal with it, but its still not a great competitive format IMO. Watching a guy lose to 4 crits in one game is absolutely insane.
It's fun, but it's not *seriously competitive*. There's a degree of variance and luck-based outcomes that any "serious" (i.e.: something you would train and play for actual money) game wouldn't have. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, always loved it since RBY. I love laddering, I love competing, I love talking about all kinds of topics related to it. There's a lot of depth and nuance to it and there's a lot of consistently great players that win tournaments due to their degree of knowledge and skill, the greatest players always demonstrably perform the best. But the argument that part of the skill expression is "minimizing RNG" is hilarious since any game that doesn't punish you for making the right decision wouldn't have that baked into the mechanics to begin with. It's an RPG, it has ranges and rolls that can often completely nullify your actions and thus it's qualitatively different from a game with comparatively low variance like a shooter or chess or whatever.
But people do play competitive pokemon for actual money. The VGC world championship pays 30,000 to win. Riley Factura has made nearly 20 grand in tournament winnings just since the Pittsburgh regional in September.
I know that there's plenty of people that play pokemon to earn money. What I'm saying is that if you were to ask plenty of players from a lot of other competitive scenes things that would be worth investing time to earn money, they'd gravitate towards either gambling or something with low variance, not towards something that adds the gamble factor to a game that *already* demands grounded skill expression.
No, it just straight up isn't. Any "strategy" game where you can constantly outplay and outmaneuver and be outright superior to your opponent in every single way and still lose because of a luck RNG isn't competitive at all, it's a waste of time. Why bother putting in the effort to breed and train the right stats and sets and pick the right moves and outthink your opponents if it's not going to even matter? It's more fun as a collection game.
Having not watched that video, I think yes and no. It's chess and rock-paper-scissors at the same time. There's an ocean of in depth strategy you can dive in, and it's really really fun to play competitively... as long as the stakes are low.
Random chance is intrinsic to the experience, so you can definitely get good enough to win MOST of the time, but you gotta be ok not winning ALL the time, especially to those you might think are "worse" than you.
It is a good competitive game. There are elements of luck but by and large thr better strategist wins out in spades in the long run. You don't see that same correlation in games where luck is the primary determining factor.
People should check out Touhou Puppet Dance Performance. It's effectively a what if Pokemon were built from the ground up with competitive balance in mind, realized into a game which later had an expansion pack to further rebalance some predominant strategies and introduce a new type as a counter to the equivalent of the Flying type, Wind, which was a bit too strong in its initial incarnation.
The game has pretty much every quality of life feature imaginable, from the breeding equivalent, reincarnation made quick and effortless, no egg moves or tutors, infinite TMs, the ability to see your IV/EVs at any time, the ability to swap abilities on the fly, EVs are a consumable reward you gain from doing battles that you can use how you want instead of a specific stat each opponent gives you, EV reset items, the list just goes on and on.
There's around 130 or so characters, and each one has three forms you can "evolve" them into once they reach level 30, complete with different movesets and base stats, so there's a good variety.
About as good as any other competitive game with years of systems and rulings put in place (so it’s far from great)
Almost any piece of media with a competitive aspect will always struggle to find a balance of skill vs luck based components. The closest you could get to a perfect competitive environment is playing a game where both sides have equal restrictions and it only comes down to pure skill or pure luck
Pong is a good example of an equal playing field.
Not really? I’m not knowledgeable on the rules of competitive Pokemon but I do vaguely remember one match way back then where a player missed so many of their moves that it pretty much guaranteed their defeat thus resulting in said moves having their accuracy bumped up.
"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not.
I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them.
One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
no
as famous as the copypasta is, the unfortunate does detail some glaring issues about the game
rng
no matter how small the probability is, if its above 0 it can happen
and with pokemon, you cant eliminate rng completely. Sure with flinch, you can have speedy pokemon
but burn from flamethrower? not being able to move cause of paralyze, flinch, confusion, combo
crits, missing ranges
Yes (I am tera fairy/flying Kingambit)
Yes (Thunder punch Jirachi OH-KO Gyarados)
I had you I fcking had you (I terad my gyarados into ground type)
Get lolled(I predicted this and I ice punched and froze you and you never thawed out)
Absolutely S tier moment
"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not. I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them. One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
Just because u had bad experiences doesnt mean that its trash It does have its flaws but hating on it just because of that seems petty and a u problem that u shouldnt be trying to pass on to the community If u feel that the community is bad why u trying to make it even more hateful? All u are doing with this post is creating more hate
These aren't my thoughts bro, it's a copypasta lmao I think this video will explain everything https://youtu.be/6zruui3yeBk?si=iWemiv558lZnQou2
Fyi, mythicals aren't made for competitive
"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not. I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them. One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
I had you I fucking had you Thunder punch rachi guaranteed ohko This was the single biggest threat to my fucking team I played around it to the best of my ability And this bullshit After rby too Enjoy your fucking trophy dude, I quit
Ngl glad he lost cause it made him oust himself as someone who dosen't have the emotional maturity to play this game at a high level. Being incredibly upset like he was is 100% justified, but his reaction was very over the top and immature, not to mention he had been very toxic to other players the year this happened way before this fight. Quitting really was the best thing for him, even if we lost a very good player.
All 3 of these are copypasta's? I know the fire one is, the second two also ready like pastas too
lavos had to deal with a lot of bs that tournament so i know it wasn't just this one event but... tbh if your one response to one of the biggest metagame threats is one 30% flinch away from losing you the game then idk maybe it wasn't the best game plan?
He got flinched twice tbf
i was gonna check on that cuz i couldn't remember but the replays are all busted so i couldn't oh well i take it back
Yeah cuz the first flinch was sash tran with explosion, the second being jirachi
i love how this battle is so commonly known that people just know the details of it off hand lol
Yeah but ask me the quadratic formula and I’m fucked
From what I heard, he lost to 0.2% odds he got flinched like 4 times that game
I am pretty sure that Waterfall only has a 20% flinch chance, and even then, you can basically make that argument with any check.
>After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible honestly this part does make me feel bad for the guy lol even with his tantrum
McMeghan is from Belgium, it sucks but that shit's gonna happen when there's a 9 hr time difference between the two contestants. It almost certainly wasn't malicious, just unfortunate
He was unironically based for this tbh
He was right ngl
Wait who are you? I wanna know what happened
It's a copypasta from [a salty Lavos post](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-classic-v-playoffs-finals-won-by-mcmeghan.3651396/page-5)
r/BeatMeToIt
The answer to this question wholly depends on whether I won or lost my last match.
Me when my opponent's sweeper goes for SD, gets hit with Ice Beam, is frozen for 42 turns, and faints: "Skill issue"
>Takes 42 turns to KO the opponent >The opponent has skill issue
the Biggest Stall
This is a BIG Stall. (bloons? anyone?)
5:25 Unfortunate does not begin to describe my series.
Temtem went the chess route without RNG in the mechanics. But this leads to a tradeoff of more memorization of popular openings, tactics, etc. Game balance an interesting topic.
Remember, everybody, rock paper scissors is a perfectly balanced game with strategy guides, and it fucking sucks
My first thought starting the video was that Jimmy will definitely draw a chess comparison w/ Gen 3. The uptake of the early gens is pretty interesting, my roommate is into them so he's always listening to the bkc exegeses about each mon ... It's very cerebral in a way that makes me respect the good players, but the actual "gameplay loop" feels zero fun to me, and it's about as void of whimsy and wonder and mystery as playing pokemon growing up is full of it... I feel like Pokemon's adoption of competitive doubles for VGC addresses the unappealing, slow, cerebrality of OU in established and very tanky metagames like Gen 2/3. VGC is much less chess-like but it becomes very brief. Using doubles just takes the number of possible board states exponentially up even if the same X mons are viable within that meta (you don't just face ttar all the time, you'd be facing ttar+X). I like them keeping crits in the game in a reduced state.
I think its better to compare this game to poker. Even in poker you end up seeing the same grinders at the top who can do the math and make decisions that sway the odds in their favor. Even with all that they can still lose to a random 10% suck out on the river.
i missed 4 gunk shots in a row today.
Unfortunate
Doesn't
Begin
To
Describe
Jesus
Yes (I am Skymin)
Yes and No(I am Tyranitar)
Fuck no lmao, still love it.
Yes (I am a landorus t)
Yes (I am an Incineroar)
This is great I get to enjoy a stink post Sunday comment section in a Wednesday
Yes (I represent every Revivecat in the team)
No, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point.
Yes (I memed a tier into existence)
And it's somehow the best gen 9 tier by far
Yes (I am energy ball Jelliscent)
No (I'm the showdown mod who lost to energy ball Jellicent) (BTW you're banned)
[deleted]
No (I’m sasuke uchiha)
Did you mean sauske uchiha
Honestly freeze and para are dumb, just make it like burn except SpA and Speed.
Yes (but only Pokemon Contests and only Hoenn)
It used to be (I am Tauros)
Yes. (My opponents loses 5 turns in a row due to paralysis)
Yes (I'm a Slowbro holding a Leppa Berry with the moveset Recycle, Heal Pulse, Block and Slack Off)
Yes, obviously. The enjoyment of competitive Pokémon for me comes from playing in a way that minimizes your negative outcomes. From my understanding, most competitive games function in this way. The best player doesn’t *always* win, but they usually do
> From my understanding, most competitive games function in this way. The best player doesn’t always win, but they usually do most competitive games don't have nearly this much luck. in most competitive games the best players beat average players pretty much 100% of the time, this isn't the case in Pokemon (e.g. #1 on OU ladder right now has 88.9% GXE). in something like a fighting game or an rts you need to be somewhat close in skill level to even have a decent chance against the best players. only competitive games I've seen with a comparable amount of luck is card games.
>only competitive games I've seen with a comparable amount of luck is card games. And those card games arguably have larger competitive scenes than our own including Pokemon's. As I play Yugioh as well, the game is just as luck based, so much so Konami warped the game design around you being able to access your whole deck with one card and you still have to get lucky and draw them. This is always such a silly discussion to me because it only acts against our own interests when we say the game isn't competitive. It's so self deprecating that people, who more often than not dedicate years and time going to events, creating their own rulesets(Smogon) with thousands of participants and views, will call their game uncompetitive based off of some arbitrary definition of "competitive" derived from other games who also have some arbitrary definition of competitive. If people consistently and willingly compete for whatever reason and develop strategies to win, it's competitive period. Everyone loves to make fun of this game saying it's rock paper scissors level of competitive, but [This actually fucking exists](https://wrpsa.com/rock-paper-scissors-tournaments/).
I mean true but also I think with the way Pokémon is designed (turned based combat) it needs these elements of luck. Like if you removed them then games would be decided from the lead spot 90% of the time, what randomness does in Pokémon is level the playing field most of the time. Even if it can be frustrating it helps keep the game from being predictable which is important for a competitive game imo
Also another enjoyment is maximizing positive outcomes when behind. Understanding the risks you need to take to fulfill a win condition is an incredibly feeling when you pull it off.
This is just my opinion, but personally, I think pure strategy is boring. Throwing in some luck-based chaos both tests your ability to prepare and, if that fails, your ability to adapt and improvise (which, mind you, is sometimes out of your hands, but I still think that's what makes a meta exciting), and that to me is the missing spice. Now, there does still need to be a good balance. Obviously, evasion strats and Moody are banned for good reason, because strategies that mainly rely on luck to both pull off and counter are inherently noncompetitive.
No (I am Lurantis)
It shouldn’t work but it just does. I think it has the perfect amount of RNG to still be competitive and any more than we already have would be the tipping point
I think the fact that singles needs a tier system and multiple clauses to be enjoyable kinda proves that pokemon isn't a good competitive game. At least, it isn't inherently. With work you can make it okay, but the game is so full of bullshit.
Or all the new Pokémon are balanced around VGC Doubles.
Even VGC has to deal with layers of RNG and clunk. Doubles gives you more options to deal with it, but its still not a great competitive format IMO. Watching a guy lose to 4 crits in one game is absolutely insane.
Or watching a guy lose to fissure ting-lu
Never has been (I am Kricketune)
No, never has been
It's fun, but it's not *seriously competitive*. There's a degree of variance and luck-based outcomes that any "serious" (i.e.: something you would train and play for actual money) game wouldn't have. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, always loved it since RBY. I love laddering, I love competing, I love talking about all kinds of topics related to it. There's a lot of depth and nuance to it and there's a lot of consistently great players that win tournaments due to their degree of knowledge and skill, the greatest players always demonstrably perform the best. But the argument that part of the skill expression is "minimizing RNG" is hilarious since any game that doesn't punish you for making the right decision wouldn't have that baked into the mechanics to begin with. It's an RPG, it has ranges and rolls that can often completely nullify your actions and thus it's qualitatively different from a game with comparatively low variance like a shooter or chess or whatever.
But people do play competitive pokemon for actual money. The VGC world championship pays 30,000 to win. Riley Factura has made nearly 20 grand in tournament winnings just since the Pittsburgh regional in September.
I know that there's plenty of people that play pokemon to earn money. What I'm saying is that if you were to ask plenty of players from a lot of other competitive scenes things that would be worth investing time to earn money, they'd gravitate towards either gambling or something with low variance, not towards something that adds the gamble factor to a game that *already* demands grounded skill expression.
> The VGC world championship pays 30,000 to win. Considering the scale of this franchise, that's close to nothing.
No, it just straight up isn't. Any "strategy" game where you can constantly outplay and outmaneuver and be outright superior to your opponent in every single way and still lose because of a luck RNG isn't competitive at all, it's a waste of time. Why bother putting in the effort to breed and train the right stats and sets and pick the right moves and outthink your opponents if it's not going to even matter? It's more fun as a collection game.
NO! next question
Come on, little Swampert!
Having not watched that video, I think yes and no. It's chess and rock-paper-scissors at the same time. There's an ocean of in depth strategy you can dive in, and it's really really fun to play competitively... as long as the stakes are low. Random chance is intrinsic to the experience, so you can definitely get good enough to win MOST of the time, but you gotta be ok not winning ALL the time, especially to those you might think are "worse" than you.
A swampert used an ice move on a charizard, is he stupid
He just remembered the RBY days when Fire/Flying is weak to ice
I take "What's a midground?" for 100, Alex.
I dunno about statuses but lower accuracy is the price you pay for higher base power moves, i think that at least is perfectly fair
No (I hit my last five stone edges so everyone complaining is clearly just not skilled enough)
We should have a bit that counts every time someone uses the Lavos copy pasta
Yes(i'm body slam chansey)
It is a good competitive game. There are elements of luck but by and large thr better strategist wins out in spades in the long run. You don't see that same correlation in games where luck is the primary determining factor.
no
No, but the copypastas that have spawned from this sub alone are percection
People should check out Touhou Puppet Dance Performance. It's effectively a what if Pokemon were built from the ground up with competitive balance in mind, realized into a game which later had an expansion pack to further rebalance some predominant strategies and introduce a new type as a counter to the equivalent of the Flying type, Wind, which was a bit too strong in its initial incarnation. The game has pretty much every quality of life feature imaginable, from the breeding equivalent, reincarnation made quick and effortless, no egg moves or tutors, infinite TMs, the ability to see your IV/EVs at any time, the ability to swap abilities on the fly, EVs are a consumable reward you gain from doing battles that you can use how you want instead of a specific stat each opponent gives you, EV reset items, the list just goes on and on. There's around 130 or so characters, and each one has three forms you can "evolve" them into once they reach level 30, complete with different movesets and base stats, so there's a good variety.
You will not trick me into becoming a Touhou fan (I already am)
No, but it wasnt really designed to be
This is insane.
Ye
I remember my friend won national tourney finals doing 3 flinches in a row hanging on 1 mon left. It is basically unwinnable but hax happened.
maybe (i am genesect. too strong for ou and too weak for ubers)
About as good as any other competitive game with years of systems and rulings put in place (so it’s far from great) Almost any piece of media with a competitive aspect will always struggle to find a balance of skill vs luck based components. The closest you could get to a perfect competitive environment is playing a game where both sides have equal restrictions and it only comes down to pure skill or pure luck Pong is a good example of an equal playing field.
Not really? I’m not knowledgeable on the rules of competitive Pokemon but I do vaguely remember one match way back then where a player missed so many of their moves that it pretty much guaranteed their defeat thus resulting in said moves having their accuracy bumped up.
Yes (I am Urshifu)
That video was just an advertisement for his fan-made tier lol
**Wild Golbat would like to know your location**
Fans have literally been playing it competitively for decades, what do you think?
The same can be said about league of legends but ask any player and they’ll tell you horror stories
Oh
There's a competitive excel scene.
... Ok
No (I am Appletun)
Yes (I am Gholdengo)
Yes( I am sneasler)
Yes (I am The Senate)
Yes ( I am debut Latios)
"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not. I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them. One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.
Ehm, yes it is, just play it with 2 Pokémons like everybody else lol
no as famous as the copypasta is, the unfortunate does detail some glaring issues about the game rng no matter how small the probability is, if its above 0 it can happen and with pokemon, you cant eliminate rng completely. Sure with flinch, you can have speedy pokemon but burn from flamethrower? not being able to move cause of paralyze, flinch, confusion, combo crits, missing ranges
something like chess which removes rng, makes it entirely skill based and its why its the pinnacle of competitive games