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.

[KaynineXL]

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).

Hmmm, from the looks of things, you really didn't say the situation correctly.

 

Also, the name is Kaynine, not Kayne. lol

[BurntZebra]

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).

Ah I see you're one of the 8 year olds here. Welcome!

 

I don't really know how the chansey discussion thread relates to this at all. My response to cody probably merged with kaynine's a bit as cody was wanting hidden brackets+no replays during tournaments (and past tournaments too?). I don't get how you're even trying to suggest that people haven't and won't figure out that the in game bracket tells you who you're going to play. 

 

Actually, most people are not in favor of hidden brackets as they do have some negative downsides, including user friendliness and spectator convenience in general. It doesn't really create an interesting tournament experience, at least not any more interesting than the average tournament. Disabling replays during tournaments also limits spectators some, albeit to a lesser extent. 

 

How exactly does scouting directly hurt the community? I mean it might hurt the people who only have 6 competitive pokemon to use, but those people are the minority, and they are at an inherent disadvantage to begin with as they have no options in what they run. 

 

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.

I would say focus less on the 31's, as they aren't as crucial as nature+egg moves+31 speed iv. I've bred up to 8 pokemon in one day just focusing on getting 31 speed, required egg moves, ideal nature, and 25+ in the other ivs that are being used. I do agree that the entry barrier is kind of shitty, but MMO's typically have some sort of entry barrier. The entry barrier is just a bit too large with all the grinds people have to do now. It doesn't really take hundreds of comps to scout and counter team. First, scouting can reveal your opponent's general playstyle and lets you prepare for it in your mindset, or makes you more careful (i.e. not letting your metagross drop below 65% so the opponent's linoone can't sweep late game). You also don't even need to scout to just change up your team. Players should be aware that their opponent could be counter teaming them and all it takes is a different team, or even just switching out a few pokemon. 

 

It sounds like your main complaint here is the grinding required to get into competitive play, rather than scouting itself. Sure scouting might seem like a barrier to you, but a bigger barrier is having only 6 comps for a team, as you can't cover new weaknesses you've found, you can't change your team between rounds to avoid potential counter teaming, you can't change your team to counter team someone else, and you can't change your playstyle/strategy (offense/stall/balance etc). 

 

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. 

 

I mean it's part of the meta, but it's also a part of the tournament system itself. In addition to scouting, the tournament system does not allow you to lose if you want to win a prize, unlike the showdown ladder or our matchmaking system now. Why would someone risk running some offensive team and potentially win on matchup, when you can run a defensive team and have a better overall matchup vs most teams? If you have to win 5 or 6 times in a row to win a tournament, without any losses, your odds are much greater to win with a defensive team, rather than an offensive team that has a 50% to just lose on matchup. 

What do you mean people don't have time? Everyone has 10 minutes to do whatever they please. Some get slightly more time if they finish their match quickly, but it's not a significant amount of time still.

 

"because you knew what threats to expect and built accordingly." 

That sounds pretty skillful to me at least and pretty competitive too, especially when both players are capable of changing their teams based on what threats they expect. 

 

I'm not really sure what the rest of your argument is really trying to say. It sounds like you think people should change their teams throughout the tournament, but apparently not to avoid counter teaming. You also basically say you should scout the hell out of people in tournaments so that you have an advantage on them in future tournaments. 

[Phryme]

I would say focus less on the 31's, as they aren't as crucial as nature+egg moves+31 speed iv. I've bred up to 8 pokemon in one day just focusing on getting 31 speed, required egg moves, ideal nature, and 25+ in the other ivs that are being used. I do agree that the entry barrier is kind of shitty, but MMO's typically have some sort of entry barrier. The entry barrier is just a bit too large with all the grinds people have to do now. It doesn't really take hundreds of comps to scout and counter team. First, scouting can reveal your opponent's general playstyle and lets you prepare for it in your mindset, or makes you more careful (i.e. not letting your metagross drop below 65% so the opponent's linoone can't sweep late game). You also don't even need to scout to just change up your team. Players should be aware that their opponent could be counter teaming them and all it takes is a different team, or even just switching out a few pokemon. 

 

It sounds like your main complaint here is the grinding required to get into competitive play, rather than scouting itself. Sure scouting might seem like a barrier to you, but a bigger barrier is having only 6 comps for a team, as you can't cover new weaknesses you've found, you can't change your team between rounds to avoid potential counter teaming, you can't change your team to counter team someone else, and you can't change your playstyle/strategy (offense/stall/balance etc). 

 

My issue is not necessarily the barrier to entry. Its with the fact that newer players are immediately put at a disadvantage BECAUSE of scouting.

 

Picture yourself in the shoes of a newer player who has like 9-10 comp-worthy pokes, a small clan/team, and most of his/her friends are on the team. This player can't scout other people the way someone from (just as an example) someone from MDVN could. This player won't have as many comp pokemon as (just as another example) KingBowser would. This means he won't know as much about his opponents as his opponents know about him, and he won't be able to make as many adjustments as his opponents can make. Because of those two things, scouting puts him at an immediate disadvantage. Any time something in the game is immediately putting specific players at an immediate disadvantage, that takes away from its "competitiveness" in my personal opinion.

 

Barrier for entry is a whole different subject. I want it lowered, but thats because I care about the success of the game (and the most recent update lowered it slightly.) Scouting simply adds to that, although it isn't the largest factor overall. Prices of comp pokemon and the grind required to get them is far larger a factor for barrier to entry. Scouting simply makes it a bit more important to get an even larger base of comps.

 

Note that I am not super strongly against it... I see the value in it. But if we're talking about making a playing field for players that is as balanced/even as possible, it should be addressed somehow.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Phryme

[FNTCZ]

Hmmm, from the looks of things, you really didn't say the situation correctly.

 

Also, the name is Kaynine, not Kayne. lol

 

Lol, sorry.

 

 

Ah I see you're one of the 8 year olds here. Welcome!

 

I don't really know how the chansey discussion thread relates to this at all. My response to cody probably merged with kaynine's a bit as cody was wanting hidden brackets+no replays during tournaments (and past tournaments too?). I don't get how you're even trying to suggest that people haven't and won't figure out that the in game bracket tells you who you're going to play. 

 

Well, Kaynine* hadn't realised and i assure you, most hadn't either.

 

Also, the chansey threat relates as it was a thread that was open for ~7 months. and discussing wether scouting is a good thing or not for our situation could go on for another long time. on the other hand, blind brackets should be a way easier discussion that, as others have pointed out would solve most issues here. 

 

 

Actually, most people are not in favor of hidden brackets as they do have some negative downsides, including user friendliness and spectator convenience in general. It doesn't really create an interesting tournament experience, at least not any more interesting than the average tournament. Disabling replays during tournaments also limits spectators some, albeit to a lesser extent. 

 

 

First. i asked to focus on blind bracket and forget blocking replays for a moment, also, it makes rounds more fair, AND, sorry to break it down to you but, in games and sports. random and luck adds emotion and a interesting factor. 

 

and to adress spectator friendliness. the current UI we have gives the impression that it is a hidden bracket and imo, the spectators have been quite satisfied with the system because it is, afterall, user friendly.

 

 

How exactly does scouting directly hurt the community? I mean it might hurt the people who only have 6 competitive pokemon to use, but those people are the minority, and they are at an inherent disadvantage to begin with as they have no options in what they run. 

 

 

Again, the discussion here could go for a really long run and i'd rather focus on blind brackets...

 

TO BE NOTED: https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/51321-is-team-preview-healthy/Is a topic that is being discussed since feb 15 2015. and is mostly focused on, gues what... scouting and wether it is good or not for our environment.

 

So i was going to make a quick argument, but since there is that thread already discussing exactly that, im just gonna quote one, lol.

 

 

I'm not as against this as Senile but he brought up the two main reasons why Team Preview became necessary in later gens:

 

1. Power creep: pokemon in gen 5+ are incredibly powerful, enough so that you absolutely need to have a check for them or else they'll cut right through your team. If you didn't have team preview, players would sack something like Heatran/Tyranitar only to get bulldozed by the surprise late game Talonflame or Charizard. Since PokeMMO doesn't have loads of massively stronk pokemon there's not an express need to pre-scout opponents teams since it's unlikely they'll have a huge surprise waiting for you at the end of the battle (if they do it's probably named Heracross).

 

2. Lack of diversity. Even with preview, would it really give you any valuable information? "Oh, this guy's running Dragonite/Metagross/Slowbro/Snorlax/Gengar/Arcanine, damn that Arcanine is kinda a surprise."  We just don't have the options that later gens have. In 6th Gen, for instance, not knowing your opponent was running a rain team could totally rekt you from turn one. Similarly, knowing for a fact that your opponent has a full stall team is necessary to winning due to the fact that lots of walls/tanks can actually dish out reasonable damage in 6th gen. In pokemmo you find out these things naturally and slowly, since the metagame is less fast paced.

 

I don't really think Preview would wreck anything about the MMO meta, but it's mostly unnecessary.

 

 

So yeah, that.. so.. can we focus on blind brackets instead of scouting? i don't want to have the decision being made by the time Jhoto arrives.

Edited April 9, 2016 by FNTCZ

[codylramey]

I mean it's part of the meta, but it's also a part of the tournament system itself.

It is NOT a part of the meta. Wtf dude. If it was a part of the meta then we could say things like "well dugtrio isnt uncompetitive because you could just scout for him" Arent you apart of the tier counsel? How could you be trying to make this argument? It is a part of the tournament system only because we havent developed it enough to completely get rid of it, which it is probably impossible to 100% get rid of it but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try to get rid of as much of it as we possibly can.

 

 Why would someone risk running some offensive team and potentially win on matchup, when you can run a defensive team and have a better overall matchup vs most teams? If you have to win 5 or 6 times in a row to win a tournament, without any losses, your odds are much greater to win with a defensive team, rather than an offensive team that has a 50% to just lose on matchup.

Again you are complaining about the meta, which scouting has NOTHING to do with. If you want to try and claim that it does then provide supporting arguments. But remember you are/were apart of the tier counsel so dont say anything stupid because it can and will be used against you in comp alley. Scouting should never be taken into consideration when talking about the meta so it is not apart of the meta. If we find the tier too defensive then we have an unhealthy tier, and the argument "well if you scout and the player is running the right team then you can run offense therefore the meta is not too defensive" would never fly in a meta discussion. Seriously dude stop with this argument, its ridiculous.

 

What do you mean people don't have time? Everyone has 10 minutes to do whatever they please. Some get slightly more time if they finish their match quickly, but it's not a significant amount of time still.

Are you kidding me? Ive seen matches last over an hour, which is a significant amount of time, and those people were heavily scouted by their opponents while they only get 10 min to scout and make a team. Ofc you can argue its their fault they made the match last that long but why would you want to make them have this disadvantage because they had to pull out all of the stops, including pp stall, in order to win. If we had randomized brackets then it wouldnt matter that they got heavily scouted because it would be too risky to try and build against them unless it was the semi finials.

 

 

"because you knew what threats to expect and built accordingly." 

That sounds pretty skillful to me at least and pretty competitive too, especially when both players are capable of changing their teams based on what threats they expect.

No thats called being opportunistic, there is a difference between that and skill. Real skill is having the ability to build a team, or multiple teams, that can handle a wide variety of threats and having the skill to play them properly.

 

 

I'm not really sure what the rest of your argument is really trying to say. It sounds like you think people should change their teams throughout the tournament, but apparently not to avoid counter teaming. You also basically say you should scout the hell out of people in tournaments so that you have an advantage on them in future tournaments. 

Ofc you should go into a tournament with the capability to change up your team. This is not only because of scouting but because you will face the same people who have already seen at least one of your teams in the past. You have no idea their capabilities when it comes to remembering you and how you play. This forces you to constantly evolve as a comp player. But that does not mean that we shouldnt try and get rid of scouting as much as possible when we are able to. I didnt not say you should scout the hell out of people in tournaments. I said if you want to do your homework, meaning watch tournaments from the past with the replay feature, then more power to you. That shows a real dedication to the comp scene. But scouting someone because you know you are going to play them next round is not the same as what i just mentioned. Its not skillful. It is opportunistic but opportunistic =/= good or competitive. It is something that should be nerfed as much as we possibly can because true competition is had when both players go into it with little knowledge of what to expect from the other person and the true test of skill comes when you are forced to build a team that can handle most anything your opponent throws at you and you make plays to do just that. Getting rid of replays during tournaments and randomizing the brackets is a great way of making that happen. It does not solve the issue 100% but i think it will be enough to make tournaments much more competitive than they are now.

[BurntZebra]

It is NOT a part of the meta. Wtf dude. If it was a part of the meta then we could say things like "well dugtrio isnt uncompetitive because you could just scout for him" Arent you apart of the tier counsel? How could you be trying to make this argument? It is a part of the tournament system only because we havent developed it enough to completely get rid of it, which it is probably impossible to 100% get rid of it but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try to get rid of as much of it as we possibly can.

Again you are complaining about the meta, which scouting has NOTHING to do with. If you want to try and claim that it does then provide supporting arguments. But remember you are/were apart of the tier counsel so dont say anything stupid because it can and will be used against you in comp alley. Scouting should never be taken into consideration when talking about the meta so it is not apart of the meta. If we find the tier too defensive then we have an unhealthy tier, and the argument "well if you scout and the player is running the right team then you can run offense therefore the meta is not too defensive" would never fly in a meta discussion. Seriously dude stop with this argument, its ridiculous.

Are you kidding me? Ive seen matches last over an hour, which is a significant amount of time, and those people were heavily scouted by their opponents while they only get 10 min to scout and make a team. Ofc you can argue its their fault they made the match last that long but why would you want to make them have this disadvantage because they had to pull out all of the stops, including pp stall, in order to win. If we had randomized brackets then it wouldnt matter that they got heavily scouted because it would be too risky to try and build against them unless it was the semi finials.


No thats called being opportunistic, there is a difference between that and skill. Real skill is having the ability to build a team, or multiple teams, that can handle a wide variety of threats and having the skill to play them properly.


Ofc you should go into a tournament with the capability to change up your team. This is not only because of scouting but because you will face the same people who have already seen at least one of your teams in the past. You have no idea their capabilities when it comes to remembering you and how you play. This forces you to constantly evolve as a comp player. But that does not mean that we shouldnt try and get rid of scouting as much as possible when we are able to. I didnt not say you should scout the hell out of people in tournaments. I said if you want to do your homework, meaning watch tournaments from the past with the replay feature, then more power to you. That shows a real dedication to the comp scene. But scouting someone because you know you are going to play them next round is not the same as what i just mentioned. Its not skillful. It is opportunistic but opportunistic =/= good or competitive. It is something that should be nerfed as much as we possibly can because true competition is had when both players go into it with little knowledge of what to expect from the other person and the true test of skill comes when you are forced to build a team that can handle most anything your opponent throws at you and you make plays to do just that. Getting rid of replays during tournaments and randomizing the brackets is a great way of making that happen. It does not solve the issue 100% but i think it will be enough to make tournaments much more competitive than they are now.

You said it yourself, you run a hyper offense team and only win 50% of your matches. It's not really a fault of the meta that it is much more difficult to win 5-6 matches in a row with an offensive team. I've gone into ORAS RU/UU with a stall team and have a w/l ratio of about 30-2. While I basically had a 15 w/l ratio, I was playing other people on the ladder who had a 2 w/l ratio. I wouldn't even say I played that well in the 30 or some games I won, it was just based on matchup. The same goes for our meta too, as winning 6 times in a row is much more likely with a defensive team than running hyper offense hoping to win in matchup 6 times in a row. I'm also not sure if you realized, but the tournament system is pretty different from the matchmaking system because you can't lose at all if you want to win a tournament. It's hardly the fault of the meta because even in other metas, offense is hardly capable of consistently winning 6 games in a row without relying on rng.

No particular Pokemon can really be blamed for this either. Just that there are so many different threats that require fairly specific counters and revenge killing is very limited with no choice scarf. With that being said, I don't really support team preview still because we have less insta sweep Pokemon and those Pokemon are more linear in what sets they run, unlike in gen 6 if you see something like hoopa u it could be choice scarf, band, specs, or life orb, and it makes hoopa much more difficult to immediately handle when you don't know what set it's even running.

I'm not really worried about people using my own arguments against me in competition alley or whatever you are suggesting with your argument.

I won't really reply to the rest of your stuff just because I'm on my phone and you're just trying to argue pointless semantics.

[codylramey]

Im not argueing pointless semantics. You are using problems with our meta as an excuse for keeping scouting. You straight out said that scouting is a part of the meta which is 100% wrong. Its a poor even destructive argument.

I said that i use offensive in unranked, idt i said i win 50% of the time, if i did i lied bc i win much more than that. But that is irrelevant because scouting has nothing to do with the meta.

You didnt really offer up any other arguments in ur wall so i am going to repeat this SCOUTING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE META. That means that the viability of any given pokemon or playstyle has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

[Frag]

I don't know any game where players can't scout his opponents, just look at Dota 2 where million of dollars are on the table, players can scout their opponent and ban the best enemy heroes based on their strat (the pick phase starts baning 2 heroes each side). btw they have days to do it, we only have a few minutes.

ofc we can't ban pokemons, but instead we can pick counters for our opponent which is almost the same.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Frag

[BurntZebra]

Im not argueing pointless semantics. You are using problems with our meta as an excuse for keeping scouting. You straight out said that scouting is a part of the meta which is 100% wrong. Its a poor even destructive argument.

I said that i use offensive in unranked, idt i said i win 50% of the time, if i did i lied bc i win much more than that. But that is irrelevant because scouting has nothing to do with the meta.

You didnt really offer up any other arguments in ur wall so i am going to repeat this SCOUTING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE META. That means that the viability of any given pokemon or playstyle has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

Honestly our meta is pretty decent, some threats kind of centralize the meta a lot (everyone runs arcanine/weezing/gyara to avoid getting demolished by heracross). Some of the issues could be fixed by choice scarf and gen 4 items/moves, but currently nothing is completely unbalanced.

I think it's foolish to think that scouting isn't a part of the meta because it definitely is. Even if you choose not to scout, a ton of other competitive players do scout and are quite successful because of that.

Scouting definitely does affect viability of Pokemon. If you see your opponent run pursuit metagross+pursuit rhydon+quagsire, then aerodactyl would be as good as a D rank viable Pokemon. If you see your opponent run chansey, trapinch would be an A/S rank Pokemon, but if they run porygon instead, trapinch would probably be C/D rank. I feel like you're assuming that it's possible to build some team that beats every threat with the right plays and it can't be counter teamed, but that is far from possible.

[dedegendut]

Also, the name is Kaynine, not Kayne. lol

Kayne West for president

[codylramey]

Honestly our meta is pretty decent, some threats kind of centralize the meta a lot (everyone runs arcanine/weezing/gyara to avoid getting demolished by heracross). Some of the issues could be fixed by choice scarf and gen 4 items/moves, but currently nothing is completely unbalanced.
I think it's foolish to think that scouting isn't a part of the meta because it definitely is. Even if you choose not to scout, a ton of other competitive players do scout and are quite successful because of that.
Scouting definitely does affect viability of Pokemon. If you see your opponent run pursuit metagross+pursuit rhydon+quagsire, then aerodactyl would be as good as a D rank viable Pokemon. If you see your opponent run chansey, trapinch would be an A/S rank Pokemon, but if they run porygon instead, trapinch would probably be C/D rank. I feel like you're assuming that it's possible to build some team that beats every threat with the right plays and it can't be counter teamed, but that is far from possible.

yea for that round those pokemon are good choices, but not overall. You wouldnt go into a viability thread and argue for a change based off from what you just scouted. Any team can be counter teamed but only if you get scouted. The odds that you just so happen to be counter teamed by a guy who was just trying to build an overall good team are very high. Edited April 9, 2016 by codylramey

[BurntZebra]

yea for that round those pokemon are good choices, but not overall. You wouldnt go into a viability thread and argue for a change based off from what you just scouted. Any team can be counter teamed but only if you get scouted. The odds that you just so happen to be counter teamed by a guy who was just trying to build an overall good team are very high.

Viability rankings are very subjective and not static by any means. I wouldn't really try to formulate any argument based off viability rankings just because they don't really have any true weight and aren't exactly official. I don't really think your statement about a solid team in general is actually accurate. Counter teams are rarely just formed by accident when building a solid team.

[codylramey]

Viability rankings are very subjective and not static by any means. I wouldn't really try to formulate any argument based off viability rankings just because they don't really have any true weight and aren't exactly official. I don't really think your statement about a solid team in general is actually accurate. Counter teams are rarely just formed by accident when building a solid team.

Okay... you wouldnt go into a suspect test thread and use the argument "well you can scout to see if your opponent has one then run the counter if it does" better?

 

 

I don't really think your statement about a solid team in general is actually accurate. Counter teams are rarely just formed by accident when building a solid team.

You are actually right about this, i misrepresented my point in the last post because i was on a 15 min break from work and was on my phone while typing it. I was also grocery shopping too. Anyway you are 100% right about this, counter teams are rarely formed by accident. Which means that if we can limit scouting then we wont have to worry about being counter teamed and everyone can show their skill in the game by simply building a solid team and play it well.

 

[BurntZebra]

Okay... you wouldnt go into a suspect test thread and use the argument "well you can scout to see if your opponent has one then run the counter if it does" better?


You are actually right about this, i misrepresented my point in the last post because i was on a 15 min break from work and was on my phone while typing it. I was also grocery shopping too. Anyway you are 100% right about this, counter teams are rarely formed by accident. Which means that if we can limit scouting then we wont have to worry about being counter teamed and everyone can show their skill in the game by simply building a solid team and play it well.

I mean most Pokemon that are banned are either offensive uber meaning they don't really have any reliable counters, or they're centralizing/unhealthy and they can have some counters, potentially even common counters, but their effect on the meta is still negative

[codylramey]

I mean most Pokemon that are banned are either offensive uber meaning they don't really have any reliable counters, or they're centralizing/unhealthy and they can have some counters, potentially even common counters, but their effect on the meta is still negative

Zebra you are completely missing the point. You would never go into a suspect test thread and say "I can just scout my opponent to see if he is running this threat so he is not OP". You discuss stats, EV spreads, nature, items, and move sets because it is all apart of the meta. Scouting is not ever brought up because it is not apart of the meta, it is a part of our tournament system and our tournaments would be much more competitive if we nerfed it which is a point i have brought up multiple times and you still have yet to refute it.

[BurntZebra]

Zebra you are completely missing the point. You would never go into a suspect test thread and say "I can just scout my opponent to see if he is running this threat so he is not OP". You discuss stats, EV spreads, nature, items, and move sets because it is all apart of the meta. Scouting is not ever brought up because it is not apart of the meta, it is a part of our tournament system and our tournaments would be much more competitive if we nerfed it which is a point i have brought up multiple times and you still have yet to refute it.

I have never done that and it's not really relevant either. I never said tyranitar shouldn't have banned because you can scout for it then run hitmontop+machamp on your team. I said that if notice your opponent running 4 rock resists, then aerodactyl is shit and it shouldn't be run that match. 

[codylramey]

Yes you never used scouting as an argument because scouting is not apart of our meta.

Edited April 10, 2016 by codylramey

[BurntZebra]

Yes you never used scouting as an argument because scouting is not apart of our meta.

It most certainly is a part of the meta, it's just more subjective and doesn't really prove anything. I think scouting could be used as an argument in tiering discussion though in very specific cases where a pokemon is very powerful in a super niche spot that requires a lot of scouting to be effective, or if there's an OP pokemon and there's one decent answer to it that's actually viable in the tier, then you can scout for it and then run the viable pokemon to stop it. Examples: Heracross and weezing. Less likely example is skarmory+magneton, not saying skarmory is banworthy at all, but let's say in theory it was very op and it could stall out a lot of the meta. Then magneton is there, which is fairly viable in OU as a very strong special attacker and chansey check, which traps skarmory without fail.

 

And I mean I could use your own argument against you too. Would you ever use hidden brackets as a reason to ban something in competition alley?  

[codylramey]

No i wouldnt use hidden bracket as an excuse to ban something because i understand the difference in tournament mechanics and what a meta is. You know what pokemon walled most of the tier, had a trapper that killed it nearly 100% of the time and we still banned it despite the fact that we could scout? Blissey. Replace skarmory with blissey in ur example and you have exactly what happened with tha ban except no one ever brought up scouting because if they did they would make themselves look extremely stupid.

I mean listen at what you are saying. Actually read it out loud and listen to it. "Or if there is a op pokemon and there is one decent answer to it that is actually vailable, you can scout for it and then run the viable pokemon". Youre essentually advocating for leaving op pokemon in the tier bc you can scout for it. If there is another way to look at that statement plz enlighten me.

[Matoka]

Oh, would this be a good solution possibly?

 

Players participating in the tournament have their names replaced with a number, e.g. Player 1 or Player 32 etc which is given to them when they enter the matches, this would be shuffled between rounds.

 

People when playing against each other see "Player (your number) vs. Player (their number)"
Actual player names would be shown upon a tournament concluding

 

This way people would not know who they were playing against / are playing against. also people who want others to know it was them need to simply tell them what number they were that round, that way friends and people you trust can be given info in order to spectate but people you don't know that would only look you up to scout you are unable to easily as you were anonymous in the rounds before.
Also people would not able able to tell who between two people won the match and proceeded because they would be assigned a new number upon the next round, so scouters would have to watch an entire match to find out who won, and who's team they are currently playing against unless they watched the whole match, which they simply do not have the time to do realistically

 

Pros:

- Scouting is made much more difficult, almost neigh impossible when attempting to look at the first round     of matches
- Telling your friends what number you were is quite easy to do meaning its not user unfriendly

 

Cons:
- People could forget what their number was for a round, but assuming people were watching live and not     2-3 matches back this isn't an issue.

- Possibly difficult to implement(?)

 

My two cence on the whole thing, seems like it could help.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Matoka

[FNTCZ]

I don't know any game where players can't scout his opponents, just look at Dota 2 where million of dollars are on the table, players can scout their opponent and ban the best enemy heroes based on their strat (the pick phase starts baning 2 heroes each side). btw they have days to do it, we only have a few minutes.

ofc we can't ban pokemons, but instead we can pick counters for our opponent which is almost the same.

 

No they can't. in character selection you can't see your enemie's names just because this very reason. lol.

 

and also banning is not the same as countering, going back to the dota example. you can ban one "heroe" or you can pick another one that counters it. that's it. countering and banning, two completely different things

Edited April 11, 2016 by FNTCZ

[BurntZebra]

No i wouldnt use hidden bracket as an excuse to ban something because i understand the difference in tournament mechanics and what a meta is. You know what pokemon walled most of the tier, had a trapper that killed it nearly 100% of the time and we still banned it despite the fact that we could scout? Blissey. Replace skarmory with blissey in ur example and you have exactly what happened with tha ban except no one ever brought up scouting because if they did they would make themselves look extremely stupid.

I mean listen at what you are saying. Actually read it out loud and listen to it. "Or if there is a op pokemon and there is one decent answer to it that is actually vailable, you can scout for it and then run the viable pokemon". Youre essentually advocating for leaving op pokemon in the tier bc you can scout for it. If there is another way to look at that statement plz enlighten me.

A trapper that killed it if it could come in cleanly and blissey wasn't running hail and if dugtrio ran screech. Doesn't sound super reliable. Scouting wasn't necessary because blissey and snorlax were combined on basically every OU team, as snorlax had up to 70% usage and blissey had around 50% usage. It's almost a sure thing that your opponent was running one of them. Now, chansey is much less of a sure thing than snorlax or blissey. 

 

As I just said before, blissey had methods of taking on dugtrio, unlike skarmory vs magneton, so they're not really equal. Again, scouting isn't necessary when blissey or snorlax was on every team out there and outclassed every other special wall. 

 

I'm trying to listen to what you're saying but your spelling and grammar leaves me a bit confused on what you're actually trying to say. Also if you use quotes, at least just quote what I said instead of paraphrasing what I said (incorrectly might I add) and then putting quotes on it. 

 

Well let's take linoone for example. Linoone is quite overpowered, being able to take down most of the meta after a belly drum, especially if it gets the opportunity to flail at 1 hp (ohko metagross cleanly and does about 80-95% to max def skarmory). Ghost types are a decent stop to linoones that don't run thief, as linoone has a pretty much monotype moveset. Haunter also outspeeds adamant linoone, which means thief is useless in that situation. Jolly thief linoone can easily handle haunter though. So why is linoone not completely banworthy from OU? Because it requires team support to pull off a clean flail sweep and it takes a pretty good matchup to use the team support to pull off the flail sweep. As you are able to scout ahead, you can potentially plan against linoone, by either running offense and preventing linoone from setting up (sometimes difficult as offensive teams might give linoone opportunities to set up still like pursuit aero, or they run one defensive pokemon as a backbone of the team and allows linoone to set up) or you can run defensive pokemon like arcanine or dusclops in an attempt to stop linoone from sweeping once it inevitably sets up vs a defensive team. Some of us might not want to be forced to run haunter/dusclops/arcanine to prevent linoone from sweeping through our teams, so we are given the opportunity to scout ahead for it. If your opponent is stupid enough to run a surprise pokemon like linoone two times in a row in a tournament, then you are at an advantage, but if your opponent doesn't run linoone before, then you can potentially be at a disadvantage again since not many people run dusclops/haunter on their standard teams. 

[XPLOZ]

I don't know any game where players can't scout his opponents, just look at Dota 2 where million of dollars are on the table, players can scout their opponent and ban the best enemy heroes based on their strat (the pick phase starts baning 2 heroes each side). btw they have days to do it, we only have a few minutes.

ofc we can't ban pokemons, but instead we can pick counters for our opponent which is almost the same.

 

The main issue is that we are on a game where ressources are very important. Making comps costs a lot, and new players will have to work relentlessly not to be exposed to scouting. You will tell me it is normal that new players have to work hard because old players did it before. We should not forget that old players were a lot advantaged because the breeding system was totally different before and they could easily make variants of comps. Thereby, new players have such difficulties to face old players when they are scouted.

[Matoka]

A trapper that killed it if it could come in cleanly and blissey wasn't running hail and if dugtrio ran screech. Doesn't sound super reliable. Scouting wasn't necessary because blissey and snorlax were combined on basically every OU team, as snorlax had up to 70% usage and blissey had around 50% usage. It's almost a sure thing that your opponent was running one of them. Now, chansey is much less of a sure thing than snorlax or blissey. 

 

As I just said before, blissey had methods of taking on dugtrio, unlike skarmory vs magneton, so they're not really equal. Again, scouting isn't necessary when blissey or snorlax was on every team out there and outclassed every other special wall. 

 

I'm trying to listen to what you're saying but your spelling and grammar leaves me a bit confused on what you're actually trying to say. Also if you use quotes, at least just quote what I said instead of paraphrasing what I said (incorrectly might I add) and then putting quotes on it. 

 

Well let's take linoone for example. Linoone is quite overpowered, being able to take down most of the meta after a belly drum, especially if it gets the opportunity to flail at 1 hp (ohko metagross cleanly and does about 80-95% to max def skarmory). Ghost types are a decent stop to linoones that don't run thief, as linoone has a pretty much monotype moveset. Haunter also outspeeds adamant linoone, which means thief is useless in that situation. Jolly thief linoone can easily handle haunter though. So why is linoone not completely banworthy from OU? Because it requires team support to pull off a clean flail sweep and it takes a pretty good matchup to use the team support to pull off the flail sweep. As you are able to scout ahead, you can potentially plan against linoone, by either running offense and preventing linoone from setting up (sometimes difficult as offensive teams might give linoone opportunities to set up still like pursuit aero, or they run one defensive pokemon as a backbone of the team and allows linoone to set up) or you can run defensive pokemon like arcanine or dusclops in an attempt to stop linoone from sweeping once it inevitably sets up vs a defensive team. Some of us might not want to be forced to run haunter/dusclops/arcanine to prevent linoone from sweeping through our teams, so we are given the opportunity to scout ahead for it. If your opponent is stupid enough to run a surprise pokemon like linoone two times in a row in a tournament, then you are at an advantage, but if your opponent doesn't run linoone before, then you can potentially be at a disadvantage again since not many people run dusclops/haunter on their standard teams. 

 

I personally think seeing the 6 pokes you opponent has would be nice

But i think some of your examples are questionable, while yes obviously linoone is very threatening, There are usually signs it is going to appear.

Many people who run Linoone will run either Jumpluff or Gardevoir in order to momento, also people usually tend to have roughly 3 of their pokemon be defensive and 3 offensive, if they never bring out one pokemon when there were situations for it to come in, then alarm bells should go off it is something either very threatening or not appropriate right now.

 

This can be applied to card games like hearthstone, in hearthstone you cannot see or scout your opponents deck, but as they play cards you are able to see more of what their deck is. If i were to see skarmory lead I would feel like it wants to spikes and may have a Vaporeon with roar and a Dusclops / Haunter / Misdreavus spin blocker. Seeing one pokemon suggests others that support it. I think trying to piece that together is a nice aspect of the current system.

If i had to choose i would want a full preview of the 6 pokes on the enemy team, but I am fairly content with the current system. the only issues I have with scouting is if there is a blatant ability for one person to do it better than another person do to a mechanic, and that itself is difficult to balance, so the easiest way to balance it MAY be to disable tourney replays or some other solution.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Matoka

[DoubleJ]

You're entitled to your opinion, much like I'm entitled to point out how ridiculous it is. It's one that JJ has been promulgating for months YEARS now with absolutely no basis. No need to give "pokemon simulator" a negative connotation at all, especially when we should be striving to capture the magic of smogon's tournament series.

 

I'm not inherently bashing Smogon or simulators, what I've been preaching is that the unique atmosphere developed around our tournaments is something that was far more exciting to me than with other formats. I could literally walk into an environment filled with competitors, rivals, haters, and fans that could discuss, argue, and cheer all along the way. In a smogon tournament, this is far more limited and lacks the flare that our game used to offer. I can only hope that this design is reintroduced in some form in the future. Otherwise, as Zebra said, it's a very lonely place to play and compete, and one that isn't exciting for me anymore. 

 

Sorry for backtracking, but I just decided to dive into this thread and I noticed my name.