Do not allow the replay system until the tournament is finished!

[KaynineXL]

The fact you can literally watch a good bit of the game, and get a good understanding of your opponents team within the 10 minutes timer is a big flaw in my opinion.

I suggest the replay system of a tournament should be allowed once the tournament is finished.

That is all.


EDIT: My bad, I mean the replay system, not spectating lol.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Pereiraa
Please don't double post.

[gbwead]

When was the last time someone ran the same team the entire tournament? It's usually unlikely as in all tiers (OU and NU specifically) have a lot of potential match up issues. Ou, there is no way you can even try to prepare for every threat. If you run offense in order to not get screwed by ursaring, you might get swept by something like espeed linoone or belly drum charizard. Or you might prepare aerodactyl, but your opponent runs magneton+block toxic metagross which eliminates skarmory and slowbro respectively. Casual comp players are pretty much equal to amateur comp players as far as I'm concerned. Neither have really put forth the effort into the game to get enough comps to counterteam/avoid being counter teamed/have several teams in general. Both are at a huge disadvantage when playing in tournaments because they lack experience or teambuilding.

I have run the same team in the past during an entire tournament. In November, Magcargo had 8% usage in UU because I went to final twice with the exact same team. I have also seen people run the same team an entire tournament. It is therefore possible to play the same team. You can't argue that it is not possible since it already happened ...

It is completly unfair to assume all casual players are amateurs in teambuilding. You don't need to play PokeMMO 24/7 to have experience in teambuilding. 

 

It doesn't really take a huge team to spectate 2 matches of your future opponent. I agree that big teams have an advantage, especially if its a hidden bracket scenario, as you can basically guarantee a scout on your future opponent. I don't really get why you need to watch them live though. There's absolutely no environment to talk in. The replay system still gives the whole time it took to make a play. It's not like they're watching old replays the entire tournament either, it usually takes like 5 minutes to get 4-6 of your opponent's team, so it's not really that big of a deal. 

In this paragraph, you say that "it's not really that big of a deal". If that is the case, why do you care so much about keeping the replays? If you consider them useless and others consider them hurtful, why keep the replays? 

 

Ok so you get that big teams have an inherent advantage with scouting, but then you want to further increase their advantage by disallowing everyone else from scouting via replays. If you'd rather spend 8 minutes watching a replay to find out what your opponent is running, rather than building another team, then I don't really see it as an advantage at that point, since the opponent could just change their team and your pathetic 2 minute counter team is wrecked as soon as the opponent runs different pokemon. 

The 2 sentences of this paragraph are in complete contracdiction. You explain that replays don't really benefit the players directly. The players have 10 mins to teambuild, so they won't have time to watch replays and teambuild afterwards. Isn't that the very reason why replays during tournaments are abusable by large organised teams and casual players can't do anything about it? 

 

Die hard scouters will be on an equal playing field if EVERYONE can scout as well. If everyone chooses to watch replays is another question, but at least they have the ability to. It's also pretty easy to scout, especially if you're not even in the tournament, so it's not like the die hard scouters really need it to be easier.

KEK. The replays during tournaments is an abusable system that will only benefit the wealthy. There is nothing further from equality...

 

Ah right, this isn't showdown. How could I forget? An incomplete meta with balance issues and huge gaps between old and new players. This is still a simulator though, since we're not really playing on our gameboys with fire red/leaf green. Showdown scouting is far from inevitable. I mean if they really thought scouting was a problem, they could just remove the replay system or make the tournaments have hidden brackets. 

You are missing my point Zeb. There is no ressource gap between old and new players on Showdown. Scouting is therefore not as bad on Showdown.

 

If scouting is inevitable on Showdown, it is because the consequences of removing the replay system and of making the tournaments have hidden brackets are undesirable. This thread is not about following Showdown model, it is about PokeMMO. Let's keep it about that and not ignore the fact that these games are different. Something that works on Showdown doesn't necessarily work on PokeMMO.

Edited April 6, 2016 by lamerb

[Lilyfromanimove]

I have run the same team in the past during an entire tournament. In November, Magcargo had 8% usage in UU because I went to final twice with the exact same team. I have also seen people run the same team an entire tournament. It is therefore possible to play the same team. You can't argue that it is not possible since it already happened ...

It is completly unfair to assume all casual players are amateurs in teambuilding. You don't need to play PokeMMO 24/7 to have experience in teambuilding. 

 

 

buit it will require raher much initial 24/7 to build the team. Knowing what to have and to get it are 2 different things.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Lilyfromanimove

[OldKeith]

Another way to go around it is to have the battle box system used in real events, where you have the same team locked for the competition. There will be scouting, but no counter-teaming.

[BurntZebra]

I have run the same team in the past during an entire tournament. In November, Magcargo had 8% usage in UU because I went to final twice with the exact same team. I have also seen people run the same team an entire tournament. It is therefore possible to play the same team. You can't argue that it is not possible since it already happened ...

It is completly unfair to assume all casual players are amateurs in teambuilding. You don't need to play PokeMMO 24/7 to have experience in teambuilding. 

 

In this paragraph, you say that "it's not really that big of a deal". If that is the case, why do you care so much about keeping the replays? If you consider them useless and others consider them hurtful, why keep the replays? 

 

The 2 sentences of this paragraph are in complete contracdiction. You explain that replays don't really benefit the players directly. The players have 10 mins to teambuild, so they won't have time to watch replays and teambuild afterwards. Isn't that the very reason why replays during tournaments are abusable by large organised teams and casual players can't do anything about it? 

 

KEK. The replays during tournaments is an abusable system that will only benefit the wealthy. There is nothing further from equality...

 

You are missing my point Zeb. There is no ressource gap between old and new players on Showdown. Scouting is therefore not as bad on Showdown.

 

If scouting is inevitable on Showdown, it is because the consequences of removing the replay system and of making the tournaments have hidden brackets are undesirable. This thread is not about following Showdown model, it is about PokeMMO. Let's keep it about that and not ignore the fact that these games are different. Something that works on Showdown doesn't necessarily work on PokeMMO.

I never said it was impossible and I wasn't doubting it hadn't been done before (I mean I've used the same team pretty much throughout a tournament). What do you consider a casual player? Who is this mysterious casual player that builds good teams and knows about competitive play but doesn't enter tournaments? 

 

I said it's not that big of a deal to spend 5 minutes to watch a replay when an official can be going on for 3 hours. Although that being said, I don't think it's that big of a deal for the replays either. Players just need to come with the mindset that people might watch their replays and make a team that will beat their team, so it's best to change the team you were planning to run. If anything, replays make it more obvious to the amateur/casual player that scouting does happen all the time. I mean honestly I wouldn't care that much about losing the replay system during tournaments since I can just scout the old fashioned way, but the replays are quite convenient. I don't think they're useless at all, as they make the scouting playing ground much more equal, whereas before only the "privileged" could reliably scout most of their matches. I also don't think anyone has really made that great of an argument about replays being truly hurtful, as their arguments hinge on the fact that scouting does not happen without replays (which is not true) and scouting is not competitive (which is debatable but imo not true). 

 

The replay system is less easily abused by larger teams than the current system of scouting where it usually takes a single dedicated person to scout a match, but replays aren't really a godsend to smaller teams either, as one must be careful about time management. It's definitely doable to get a quick survey of your opponents team in like 3-5 minutes and then switch out 1 or 2 pokemon on your team to get a favorable match up, but if you want to see all 6 of your opponent's pokemon and make a full counter team, it can be about a 10 minute process, if you're lucky on the replay. 

 

The replay system benefits everyone who has more than 6 comps. The replay system benefits the people who have creativity with their comps. The replay system encourages people to run a diverse set of pokemon, as players are more aware of scouting. 

 

I mean in theory there shouldn't be that much of a resource gap on pokemmo now, considering there has been a year and 4 months of new breeding. If you bred one competitive pokemon every 2 days on average, that would be about 225 pokemon. 225 pokemon is plenty to counter team/avoid being counter teamed in all the tiers. 

 

Well I agree pokemmo and showdown aren't the same thing, but smogon has done a lot of things right. We follow a lot of their tiering guidelines and their general usage system. If we really wanted to cater to the players that are so lazy that they only have 6 pokemon and don't want to worry about being counter teamed, then we should have a battle box where you only have 6 pokemon and you run them every round, but even that is pretty limiting and not really ideal/user friendly. I mean outside of pokemmo, I've never heard of a competitive system where the bracket is hidden to the players and the public. Even if we are "unique", that doesn't mean we should make up random shit to try and make things super fair, when in actuality, it just screws over 80% of the competitive players. 

[gbwead]

You are right Zebra. Thanks for making things clearer for me, I was misguided. Scouting and counter teambuilding is what makes any pokemon game so great. How dare I think for a split second that maybe PokeMMO could do things differently? We should embrace scouting and promote all the methods that facilitate this practice. The current replay system is a true blessing that makes PokeMMO as competitive as ever. The casual/amateur players are irrelevant because they don’t exist. The only players of this game are the ones that started playing 4 years ago and they all have an average of 225 comps. Therefore, all players are on equal grounds because, while the poor struggle to teambuild with their lack of ressources, the wealthy counter teambuild with the help of friends.

 

[spoiler]Bottom line, replays during tournaments promote and facilitate scouting. Is it something the community want? I know I don't because scouting in PokeMMO is unhealthy for competitive battling unlike Showdown where it is not that much of an issue. [/spoiler]

[codylramey]

Zebra youre really making my head hurt. Why can you not just accept that people dont like scouting? They think that it takes away from the competitiveness of the game and most of the people who do it only do it so that they dont fall behind the others who do it. Most comp players are on here arguing against scouting with an argument that basically is that it sets people on an uneven playing ground, which it does because just because "anybody can scout" those on teams can do it much more effectively than those with out and those who finishes a match early can scout much more of their opponents match than those who do not so there will ALWAYS be uneven ground with scouting, while you are pulling out fallacy after fallacy to make your argument. 

[KaynineXL]

 I also don't think anyone has really made that great of an argument about replays being truly hurtful, as their arguments hinge on the fact that scouting does not happen without replays (which is not true) and scouting is not competitive (which is debatable but imo not true). 

I didn't read it all, because that's a wall of text and I don't like wall of texts.

 

This part that I quoted you, you say our arguments hinge on the fact that scouting does not happen without replays(which is not true), that's actually false, nobody said scouting won't happen, we said it will be heavily reduced. When you say scouting is not competitive, I agree, that's debatable, and I'd say it depends on what people favour more, playing this game with scouting or playing the game with heavily reduced scouting. An educated guess would tell me people would rather without. 

[BurntZebra]

I didn't read it all, because that's a wall of text and I don't like wall of texts.

 

This part that I quoted you, you say our arguments hinge on the fact that scouting does not happen without replays(which is not true), that's actually false, nobody said scouting won't happen, we said it will be heavily reduced. When you say scouting is not competitive, I agree, that's debatable, and I'd say it depends on what people favour more, playing this game with scouting or playing the game with heavily reduced scouting. An educated guess would tell me people would rather without. 

I wouldn't even say it would be heavily reduced. Players who scouted before the update are obviously still going to scout after the update. Players who were too lazy to scout before the update are most likely still too lazy to scout even with the convenience of the replays. No one before the update was like man, if only they made scouting a tiny bit easier, then I would totally spend the time to make comps to be able to counter team opponents. Scouting wasn't difficult before the update, removing replay accessibility still makes scouting relatively easy. I mean people favor things that aren't always the best for the game. I mean if the community made all the decisions, we'd probably still be catchmmo'ing like it was 2012. 

 

 

You are right Zebra. Thanks for making things clearer for me, I was misguided. Scouting and counter teambuilding is what makes any pokemon game so great. How dare I think for a split second that maybe PokeMMO could do things differently? We should embrace scouting and promote all the methods that facilitate this practice. The current replay system is a true blessing that makes PokeMMO as competitive as ever. The casual/amateur players are irrelevant because they don’t exist. The only players of this game are the ones that started playing 4 years ago and they all have an average of 225 comps. Therefore, all players are on equal grounds because, while the poor struggle to teambuild with their lack of ressources, the wealthy counter teambuild with the help of friends.

 

[spoiler]Bottom line, replays during tournaments promote and facilitate scouting. Is it something the community want? I know I don't because scouting in PokeMMO is unhealthy for competitive battling unlike Showdown where it is not that much of an issue. [/spoiler]

Scouting leads to changing teams. Changing teams leads to changing pokemon. Changing pokemon leads to thinking of new creative pokemon. New creative pokemon leads to a more diverse meta. I mean if there was no scouting, everyone would just run the same 6 pokemon every time and the meta would evolve even slower than it is right now. 

 

I don't get why you're trying to remove the advantage casual/amateur players have right now. The replay system gives them the actual opportunity to scout if they so desire. I guess if you hate those amateur players so much, I guess we can remove the replays entirely, just in case people watch replays from past tournaments to scout in a current tournament.

 

The 225 number was from the beginning of hoenn, when the OU meta was established. I don't think the game should cater to the people who are too lazy to get a decent amount of comps in one tier (much less than 225, more in the 50-100 range). It's an MMO. The gap between old players and new players will always exist in all MMO's unless there is a wipe, but the gap can be minimized because there is basically a limit on the old players. 

Removing aspects of scouting would only be justified if it was actually uncompetitive, but definitions and zebra agree that it really isn't uncompetitive (in fact it is quite competitive). 

 

Zebra youre really making my head hurt. Why can you not just accept that people dont like scouting? They think that it takes away from the competitiveness of the game and most of the people who do it only do it so that they dont fall behind the others who do it. Most comp players are on here arguing against scouting with an argument that basically is that it sets people on an uneven playing ground, which it does because just because "anybody can scout" those on teams can do it much more effectively than those with out and those who finishes a match early can scout much more of their opponents match than those who do not so there will ALWAYS be uneven ground with scouting, while you are pulling out fallacy after fallacy to make your argument. 

I mean there's a difference between not liking it and just screwing themselves over. If you really want to make scouting slightly more difficult, just so the more zealous competitive players have a bigger advantage in scouting, that is fine by me. The uneven playing ground is always going to exist. You're never going to beat frags without rng or a counter team. It's just the way the game is designed. I'm not entirely sure if you're a comp player since I feel like you haven't entered a tournament since 2014, but besides the point, scouting is a two way road. Sure you can scout your opponent, but if you're not able to scout them, and you're fairly sure they have scouted you, then just change your team and avoid the whole counter team process. It's not a difficult process and every competitive player should do it if they want to avoid being potentially counter teamed. What fallacies are you really referring to? 

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by BurntZebra

[codylramey]

 

I mean there's a difference between not liking it and just screwing themselves over. If you really want to make scouting slightly more difficult, just so the more zealous competitive players have a bigger advantage in scouting, that is fine by me. The uneven playing ground is always going to exist. You're never going to beat frags without rng or a counter team. It's just the way the game is designed. I'm not entirely sure if you're a comp player since I feel like you haven't entered a tournament since 2014, but besides the point, scouting is a two way road. Sure you can scout your opponent, but if you're not able to scout them, and you're fairly sure they have scouted you, then just change your team and avoid the whole counter team process. It's not a difficult process and every competitive player should do it if they want to avoid being potentially counter teamed. What fallacies are you really referring to? 

 

 

I want to make scouting incredibly more difficult to impossible. If you noticed i, and others, not only mentioned taking out replays during tournaments but changing the way the bracket is displayed so it becomes impossible to know who you are going to go against in the earlier matches. This doesnt help against late match scouting (semi finals and finals) but for most of the tournament you wont know who to scout and you wont know who you are against until you are playing them.

[Matoka]

How about instead of spectators being prohitibited from watching games and replays, the participants were until they were no longer partaking? This would mean that they would require another person to scout for them, which fewer people would be able to do.

 

This could be achomplished simply by having people either not able to view the replay system while still in an active bracket or, alternatively

Players participating cannot see the identity of who they are playing against, so players will vs. each other anonymously, however spectators can see who they are.

 

Both have some odd downsides, but they would decrease scouting i feel.

[Lilyfromanimove]

How about instead of spectators being prohitibited from watching games and replays, the participants were until they were no longer partaking? This would mean that they would require another person to scout for them, which fewer people would be able to do.

 

This could be achomplished simply by having people either not able to view the replay system while still in an active bracket or, alternatively

Players participating cannot see the identity of who they are playing against, so players will vs. each other anonymously, however spectators can see who they are.

 

Both have some odd downsides, but they would decrease scouting i feel.

 

so every participant will have a spectator account to get the info he needs. all the hardcore gamers will do this, the only dowside is those casuals won't be able to do so. So basically this idea unfortuntaley does not solve anything. would only punush honest gamers.

[KaynineXL]

 

I wouldn't even say it would be heavily reduced. Players who scouted before the update are obviously still going to scout after the update. Players who were too lazy to scout before the update are most likely still too lazy to scout even with the convenience of the replays. No one before the update was like man, if only they made scouting a tiny bit easier, then I would totally spend the time to make comps to be able to counter team opponents. Scouting wasn't difficult before the update, removing replay accessibility still makes scouting relatively easy. I mean people favor things that aren't always the best for the game. I mean if the community made all the decisions, we'd probably still be catchmmo'ing like it was 2012.

 

How would it not be heavily reduced? If each round is randomized and the replay system wasn't there until after the tournament, how could you possibly scout? You'd need an army of people scouting every match, which isn't going to happen.

 

Instead of telling me scouting will still be easy, explain how.

 

"Scouting leads to changing teams. Changing teams leads to changing pokemon. Changing pokemon leads to thinking of new creative pokemon. New creative pokemon leads to a more diverse meta. I mean if there was no scouting, everyone would just run the same 6 pokemon every time and the meta would evolve even slower than it is right now."

This is somewhat true, but not exactly the only reason why people change teams and create new creative Pokemon. The main reason people try be creative is when they notice a pattern in most teams - you don't need to scout during a tournament to do that. People will change teams during a tournament even if scouting was reduced anyway, but at least if you want to stick with the same team you don't have to be too worried about being counter teamed. If, as you say, people didn't switch teams as often, that would make room for people to see patterns in other people teams easier and then make stuff that would work well against them. It works both ways.

[axx]

The replays don't even need to be hidden, the main anti-scout measure is to randomize the bracket, or simply put it: after the round ends, display the match ups in random order (heck, even alphabetically or timely sorted would do).

 

The only benefit to blocking replays is so scouting won't be as easy, but if the bracket is "hidden" or "randomized" the participant won't be able to know who to scout until late rounds. If this holds true until late rounds, even if you block the replays, the player just needs a single scouter to figure out all the teams from quarters and semis.

 

More so, if replays are hidden, players with a broad number of connections will have an advantage over casuals, as in this case, seasoned players will use friends to scout a broad number of matches.

 

TL;DR

A - Randomized bracket would dramatically reduce scouting.

B - Hidden replays is kind of redundant if you implement A.

[BurntZebra]

How would it not be heavily reduced? If each round is randomized and the replay system wasn't there until after the tournament, how could you possibly scout? You'd need an army of people scouting every match, which isn't going to happen.

 

Instead of telling me scouting will still be easy, explain how.

 

"Scouting leads to changing teams. Changing teams leads to changing pokemon. Changing pokemon leads to thinking of new creative pokemon. New creative pokemon leads to a more diverse meta. I mean if there was no scouting, everyone would just run the same 6 pokemon every time and the meta would evolve even slower than it is right now."

This is somewhat true, but not exactly the only reason why people change teams and create new creative Pokemon. The main reason people try be creative is when they notice a pattern in most teams - you don't need to scout during a tournament to do that. People will change teams during a tournament even if scouting was reduced anyway, but at least if you want to stick with the same team you don't have to be too worried about being counter teamed. If, as you say, people didn't switch teams as often, that would make room for people to see patterns in other people teams easier and then make stuff that would work well against them. It works both ways.

I mean those creative pokemon are sometimes risky to run if you're not sure if your opponent will run it. E.G. trapinch in OU. It can make for an easy win paired with growth jolteon if the opponent runs chansey, but if they run porygon2 instead, it can be much more difficult to win and trapinch won't have that much use. The reason why trapinch doesn't see more usage is that chansey is not really consistent enough to make running trapinch a safe choice on a team. If you know your opponent will be running chansey, then you can run haunter/misdreavus/trapinch etc, to take advantage of that, but haunter can easily be dead weight on a team vs umbreon/metagross/porygon too. Other examples include belly drum charizard. Can be quite difficult to set up, need to make sure either your opponent doesn't run arcanine or something faster than 167, depending on what drum zard set you run. 

 

It's hard to see patterns in the meta if you're not watching your potential opponents/players in general play in a lot of matches, and some patterns don't really carry over from tournament to tournament either. I find myself running somewhat different teams from tournament to tournament, but I'll usually keep the same 4-5 pokemon on my team throughout a single tournament, unless I suspect a counter team. This pattern noticing is sounding a lot like scouting, but that's just me. 

[KaynineXL]

I mean those creative pokemon are sometimes risky to run if you're not sure if your opponent will run it. E.G. trapinch in OU. It can make for an easy win paired with growth jolteon if the opponent runs chansey, but if they run porygon2 instead, it can be much more difficult to win and trapinch won't have that much use. The reason why trapinch doesn't see more usage is that chansey is not really consistent enough to make running trapinch a safe choice on a team. If you know your opponent will be running chansey, then you can run haunter/misdreavus/trapinch etc, to take advantage of that, but haunter can easily be dead weight on a team vs umbreon/metagross/porygon too. Other examples include belly drum charizard. Can be quite difficult to set up, need to make sure either your opponent doesn't run arcanine or something faster than 167, depending on what drum zard set you run. 

 

It's hard to see patterns in the meta if you're not watching your potential opponents/players in general play in a lot of matches, and some patterns don't really carry over from tournament to tournament either. I find myself running somewhat different teams from tournament to tournament, but I'll usually keep the same 4-5 pokemon on my team throughout a single tournament, unless I suspect a counter team. This pattern noticing is sounding a lot like scouting, but that's just me. 

So they should be risky to run. Stuff like Trapinch is game changing if it meets the right circumstances, it's generally either going to go very good or very bad. For the most part, some of the better players, you'll generally know what they like to use and you can use your own judgements on what gimmicks you want to use from that, you don't need to scout in the middle of a tournament to use them, although of course it would help.

 

I for one wouldn't care if I saw less Trapinch, I find it a cheap way to win a duel just because it's somewhat risky to use. It's like going for that 50/50 aero lead speed tie, if you believe you're better than that guy and you'll win anyway, why would you risk the speed tie? Same sort of concept.

 

"This pattern noticing is sounding a lot like scouting, but that's just me."

Obviously lol, what else would you call it? The difference is, you don't scout in the middle of a tournament. Generally, you'll watch a lot of the higher ranked people in matchmaking or tournaments, so you get an idea of their team.

 

Look I'v already said, I don't dislike scouting, I just disagree that replay should be allowed during a tournament because not only does it halt the tournament slightly while people start watching another matches and plan to counter team, but coupled with that 'hidden' advantage in the bracket where you can figure out the opponent is a bad idea.

Edited April 8, 2016 by KaynineXL

[codylramey]

I have a problem with scouting and anything that makes it easier w/o a huge upside to it. And replays during tounaments fits that description.

[BurntZebra]

So they should be risky to run. Stuff like Trapinch is game changing if it meets the right circumstances, it's generally either going to go very good or very bad. For the most part, some of the better players, you'll generally know what they like to use and you can use your own judgements on what gimmicks you want to use from that, you don't need to scout in the middle of a tournament to use them, although of course it would help.

 

I for one wouldn't care if I saw less Trapinch, I find it a cheap way to win a duel just because it's somewhat risky to use. It's like going for that 50/50 aero lead speed tie, if you believe you're better than that guy and you'll win anyway, why would you risk the speed tie? Same sort of concept.

 

"This pattern noticing is sounding a lot like scouting, but that's just me."

Obviously lol, what else would you call it? The difference is, you don't scout in the middle of a tournament. Generally, you'll watch a lot of the higher ranked people in matchmaking or tournaments, so you get an idea of their team.

 

Look I'v already said, I don't dislike scouting, I just disagree that replay should be allowed during a tournament because not only does it halt the tournament slightly while people start watching another matches and plan to counter team, but coupled with that 'hidden' advantage in the bracket where you can figure out the opponent is a bad idea.

I mean there's no reason to run trapinch if you're not completely sure your opponent will run chansey. You could just run one of the many chansey counters, which also counter porygon2 for the most part, but obviously don't have the advantage of immediately taking out chansey. I'm not a huge fan of trapping pokemon myself, but I think they do help balance out the meta and make it a little risky to run skarmory+chansey on every team. 

 

I don't really see how watching someone in one tournament is not right, but you're allowed to watch them in past tournaments. For all I know, they could be running the same team as the previous tournament. If you say it's their fault for not changing their team between tournaments, the same argument could be made for the current tournament too. 

 

I mean it hardly halts the tournament at all. If people aren't watching the replays, then they're just going to wonder for 10 minutes on what the opponent will run. There isn't really a "hidden" advantage with the bracket either, it's pretty self explanatory, would be like saying there's a hidden advantage to running good iv'ed pokemon because some people don't know ivs exist. 

[KaynineXL]

I mean there's no reason to run trapinch if you're not completely sure your opponent will run chansey. You could just run one of the many chansey counters, which also counter porygon2 for the most part, but obviously don't have the advantage of immediately taking out chansey. I'm not a huge fan of trapping pokemon myself, but I think they do help balance out the meta and make it a little risky to run skarmory+chansey on every team. 

 

I don't really see how watching someone in one tournament is not right, but you're allowed to watch them in past tournaments. For all I know, they could be running the same team as the previous tournament. If you say it's their fault for not changing their team between tournaments, the same argument could be made for the current tournament too. 

 

I mean it hardly halts the tournament at all. If people aren't watching the replays, then they're just going to wonder for 10 minutes on what the opponent will run. There isn't really a "hidden" advantage with the bracket either, it's pretty self explanatory, would be like saying there's a hidden advantage to running good iv'ed pokemon because some people don't know ivs exist. 

Okay, so what I'm getting from you is you like scouting and counter teaming and you feel if it's taken away people won't be creative? We can argue all day about scouting and counter teaming, if it was down to me I'd rather not have too much scouting, not gifted on a silver platter anyway. People will always be creative, scouting or not.

 

I don't mean checking replays from other tournaments during tournament time, although that could be disabled also, but I wouldn't go that far. I just mean in general, you'll know what others like to run. You even said it yourself you know like 80% of players teams they like, which is the same for other players, you don't need to scout their previous game to know what they like.

 

I feel like the brackets are far from self explanatory, and completely different to what you said about IVs.

 

IVs - You are literally told what IVs are, it couldn't be any more simple than that.

 

The bracket however tells you nothing about the pattern to show who you'll have in the next round. Now if there was some way the bracket clearly showed who you'll get next round then I wouldn't have as much of a problem as I do with it, but it says nothing about it.

 

That's the big difference between the two.

Edited April 8, 2016 by KaynineXL

[codylramey]

Zebra the point of team building is to try and build a team that can face all kinds of teams and playstyle. It is not to know what your opponent is most likely going to run and act accordingly. Nitch pokes like trapinch are suppose to come with the risk of being useless. You should not be able to run it only when you know someone is running chansey, unless you have played this person enough to know he/she likes chansey, in which case thats called experience and there is nothing wrong with that.

[BurntZebra]

Okay, so what I'm getting from you is you like scouting and counter teaming and you feel if it's taken away people won't be creative? We can argue all day about scouting and counter teaming, if it was down to me I'd rather not have too much scouting, not gifted on a silver platter anyway. People will always be creative, scouting or not.

 

I don't mean checking replays from other tournaments during tournament time, although that could be disabled also, but I wouldn't go that far. I just mean in general, you'll know what others like to run. You even said it yourself you know like 80% of players teams they like, which is the same for other players, you don't need to scout their previous game to know what they like.

 

I feel like the brackets are far from self explanatory, and completely different to what you said about IVs.

 

IVs - You are literally told what IVs are, it couldn't be any more simple than that.

 

The bracket however tells you nothing about the pattern to show who you'll have in the next round. Now if there was some way the bracket clearly showed who you'll get next round then I wouldn't have as much of a problem as I do with it, but it says nothing about it.

 

That's the big difference between the two.

I mean I'm indifferent for the most part. I don't think hidden brackets should be implemented, but removing replays doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I think the bracket should be fairly obvious, even if people didn't realize it on the first tournament, it should be more apparent after several more tournaments. I think it's a pretty bad argument to assume that the bracket is biased toward veteran players because the noobs are too stupid/unobservant to see a fairly obvious pattern. If the staff want to update the bracket system to make it more user friendly toward the 8 year olds who can't figure out simple patterns, then I guess that is an option. 

 

 

Zebra the point of team building is to try and build a team that can face all kinds of teams and playstyle. It is not to know what your opponent is most likely going to run and act accordingly. Nitch pokes like trapinch are suppose to come with the risk of being useless. You should not be able to run it only when you know someone is running chansey, unless you have played this person enough to know he/she likes chansey, in which case thats called experience and there is nothing wrong with that.

I mean that's the reason why there are 2 pokemon on nearly 50% of teams and another 8 that are on 25% of people's teams. There's a reason why the most used pokemon are almost always defensive in nature. It's hardly ever worth the risk of running offense when you have no idea what your opponent is running and they could easily just run something that shuts down your offensive team. I'm surprised you're in favor of experience though, considering you believe that everyone being able to view replays is somehow unfair to newer players. 

[KaynineXL]

I mean I'm indifferent for the most part. I don't think hidden brackets should be implemented, but removing replays doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I think the bracket should be fairly obvious, even if people didn't realize it on the first tournament, it should be more apparent after several more tournaments. I think it's a pretty bad argument to assume that the bracket is biased toward veteran players because the noobs are too stupid/unobservant to see a fairly obvious pattern. If the staff want to update the bracket system to make it more user friendly toward the 8 year olds who can't figure out simple patterns, then I guess that is an option. 

It doesn't need to be hidden brackets, as long as the rounds show your next opponents clearly, whether it's a 'simple pattern' or not is irrelevant, it's not user friendly. I didn't notice the pattern until you pointed it out, although I didn't pay too much attention to the bracket, but I wasn't the only one and I'm sure most people that didn't see it were a little older than 8 years old.

[FNTCZ]

Wait, wait. i want to adress something that i think we have been overlooking. soo... the discussion has been going like this:

[spoiler]

Kayne: brackets are hidden and that's good, also not replay bc fuck scouting

Zebra: no they're not. also scouting is part of the integrity of the game (or smth like that and more crap bout scouting being healty)

Kayne: oh, i hadn't realised!, anyways scouting is not good

Zebra: duh it was so obvious if you were a 9 yo you'd have noticed at first glance, do you even tourney bro, and yeah, scouting is cool and so important for competitive

Kayne: well, they should make the bracket thing more clear then. (Here. why did you back off from "hidden brackets are a good thing" and moved to clarifying that they are, in fact, not hidden.)  *Also keeps arguing about scouting*

Zebra: *well, keeps repitimg himself*

*discussion moves on to scouting and scoutig again while hidden brackets are left aside*

[/spoiler]

 

Ok, so while i agree with Kayne in the scouting part, lets please go step by step. and arguing about the environment scounting creates and blocking spectate can go for way too long (looking at you, Chansey OU discussion thread). HIDDEN BRACKETS. 

 

1. It's not clear they are, infact, not hidden. and no Zebra sorry, but most of us didn't notice (actually, it does have a ????? instead of a TBD), not we all are gifted kids.

2. While scouting may or not be good, hHidden brackets surely are, and create a interesting tournament experience without hurting the spectators.

 

as we all (but you Zebra, sorry) thought the brackets were, random we also found it like a completely positive feature (as can be seen in the very early feedback in the corresponding threads). So all what we need, and that is an easy FIRST STEP, is keeping the actual format. The ?????, but making the brackets actually random, like... it already looks like it and it is Spectator friendly, so let's just do that first. then you can spend the next months arguing about wether scouting is good or not (imo we're not smogon and in our case scouting only damages the comunity, but please just ignore this parenthesis and say something about hidden brackets).

Edited April 8, 2016 by FNTCZ

[Draekyn]

Zebra: *well, keeps repitimg himself*

I hate it when i repitimg myself

[Phryme]

I'll just throw a quick opinion in here.

 

On whether scouting is "competitive" or not: I would argue that defining what is competitive and what is not is based on what kinds of resources or strategies any given player can utilize or at least plan against effectively.

 

Scouting is not one of those things.

 

I've got like 200+ hours in the game and have 7 pokes I can rely on in matchmaking, but only two I would take into a tourney. I simply don't have the money and have screwed up when breeding while learning how all the game's mechanics work. Simply put: There's already an existing barrier to entry for the competitive scene. More notable players with hundreds of perfectly bred pokes will have no issue with scouting as they have teams for any given situation. In my case, while it would be a long shot for me to even win a round in a tournament, I'd much prefer it not exist.

 

If breeding competitive pokemon was cheap or comp teams didnt cost millions, this would be a different discussion. But I don't think any new-ish player like myself would say that scouting is a good thing for us. ESPECIALLY  for those of us without teams or a lot of friends who play a lot.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Phryme

[codylramey]

I mean that's the reason why there are 2 pokemon on nearly 50% of teams and another 8 that are on 25% of people's teams. There's a reason why the most used pokemon are almost always defensive in nature. It's hardly ever worth the risk of running offense when you have no idea what your opponent is running and they could easily just run something that shuts down your offensive team. I'm surprised you're in favor of experience though, considering you believe that everyone being able to view replays is somehow unfair to newer players. 

Youre issue with offense not being viable unless you scout is an issue with the meta and has nothing to do with scouting. Scouting does not make offense more viable, it only makes it usable when you know what your opponent is running. That is a terrible point to try and make.

 

Its not "unfair" to new players, scouting is "unfair" to anyone who doesnt have the time or people to do it. Idt i actually called it unfair, my main point is that it is not good for competition. Also viewing replays after a tourny is fine, if someone wants to do homework on someone after a tourny to get a edge on the competition then thats fine, THAT is where the creativity from the other person will come from. But having the ability to do it during a tourny makes scouting easier. And scouting is not competitive. You should have to beat your opponent because you built a strong team and out played him, not because you knew what threats to expect and built accordingly. Also experience and replay scouting are not the same thing. You can gain experience w/o replays just by playing in tournies over n over. Youll see the same people, their teams, and play styles which will better prepare you for what they can do. But gaining experience and not relying on scouting will force you to be much more conservative with your decisions on how to take him on because its much easier to change up the way you play in between tournies because you know people have seen your teams in the past and how they than it is to change up the way you play in the middle of a tourny because your next opponent scouted you.