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| Smogon hate. How come? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 21 2014, 08:50 PM (5,808 Views) | |
| TM93 | Aug 22 2014, 05:57 AM Post #11 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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While I entirely agree with what you're saying, I think this was about the main games, not the tabletop. At least I'm assuming so, judging by where it was posted. That said a "Minmaxer's Corner" sounds hilarious to me. And a FEW strategies still hold true, the major issue I see is the translation for Frequencies from spammable PP Useage/Purely Static Abilities. Multiscale Dragonite is still a powerful ally in the tabletop, for example, and Mega Blastoise is still a powerful Offensive Hazard Remover. Excadrill is a wonderful ally to have if you have Sandstorm on your side. There are obviously still a lot of Pokemon that either do far better in Tabletop with/thanks to Trainer Class buffs, the fact that Movement and Range are a thing, and the like, and a lot of Smogon's sets would probably have to be edited/ignored for a lot of Pokemon in the dex. Basic concepts like Edgequake and Boltbeam still hold up in Tabletop from my experience (hitting the vast majority of the vanilla game at least neutrally is a very good thing) The other issue with translating Smogon/Metagame sets to the Tabletop is the fact that, in a game all about variety and customization, it tends to be RELATIVELY narrow-minded, for example, Megazard X is primarily to them a physical Sweeper/Wallbreaker (offense-oriented) with a bit of support, but the support is a bit subpar, it's WoW and Roost really. In PTA/U, you have far greater variety. If you wanted to you could make a Wallzard or a Tankzard, designed to stall out the opponent with incredible bulk. Megazard X may still be NATURALLY inclined to be a physical attacker, but in the tabletop, options are almost limitless. Edited by TM93, Aug 22 2014, 06:10 AM.
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| Trulhammaren | Aug 22 2014, 07:17 AM Post #12 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I just have to laugh at this, because Mega Mom is laughable, the only thing that is any way broken on her is only doable via smogon sims, M-Khan is so absolutely predictable it isn't even funny. Anywho. I don't necessarily hate Smogon itself, though I do think 100% of their bans are absolutely ridiculous but that has a lot to do with the mentality I have towards metas in the first place, what I hate is the inherent fanboy elitism culture that has spread like an uncontained mint plant (if you've ever grown mint you know exactly what I'm talking about) Granted I don't have to deal with it near as much as in previous generations because they finally did up VGC settings in their simulators. I can also agree that it can be useful to the new competitors to a degree, but frankly it also isn't good for the competitive scene at the same time, imo. At some point in a competitive scene you have to let go of the restrictions to what the true game is like or you will be forever boned, which unfortunately leads directly back to the elitism culture which Trul-o-so-hates, primarily because it is an unfounded elitism. Can you honestly call yourself an elite when you haven't actually dealt with all of the stratagem, because you oh so conveniently banned the ones you don't feel are 'fair' to you. You being the collective you, of course. t.l.d.r Trul doesn't some much hate Smogon as thinks it is a silly, what he hates is the 'elitist' culture that stems from smogon. |
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| Anonyman | Aug 22 2014, 07:42 AM Post #13 |
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Snagger
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Smogon just groups up what they think is an 'equivalent' tier of pokemon. Following their rules is completely by choice, so any disdain for it is baffling for me. In the end people just get mad at other people for playing pokemon how they want to play, even when they are completely unaffected by it. Also, playing with IV/EV bred teams has nothing at all to do with smogon. It's SUPER easy to do both (Like, a couple of hours tops the first time, and maybe 30 minutes the second). The only thing you can fault Smogon for is 'giving away' what the best pokemon are competitively and making them more popular, which lets be honest, people would figure out eventually. It's a fan-made tier list that nobody is obligated to follow, that's all it is. |
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| DNA | Aug 22 2014, 08:24 AM Post #14 |
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King of Thought
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@TM93: I would like to point out that Singles and Doubles are entirely different beasts and thus you can't really take a banlist for one and force it onto the other. Things that would do very well in Singles are utterly infeasible in Doubles - Heatran is an example. And just so I can get this out of my system: they banned Aegislash too? hahahahahaha git gud Okay, back to my point. Now, do I believe that the VGC banlist is absolutely perfect and fair? No, I don't - but it's one that makes you think. (Oh, and I have used Regigigas in VGC before; he's not banned. While not as good as I hoped it would be, I had so much fun with him that I didn't even care. And Trick Room Gigas was more common than Skill Swap Gigas in VGC, as a note.) Do I feel that event-exclusive legendaries needed to be forbidden? No, but the goal was to set a level playing field where you aren't excluded just for missing out on something. In essence, both Smogon and VGC do their very best to create a level playing field. They just do so in different ways.
Pretty much. ...and I think people found that out for XY not just because of Smogon; a bunch of places were trying to crack the code. And given how ludicrously easy it is now to get essentially perfect Pokemon stat-wise, now even Joe Schmoe can get a team together and go off and have fun. (I personally think this is extremely irritating, but that is neither here nor there.) Heck, the ease of getting great IVs on things has made RNG-manipulation completely obsolete. ...this post was not supposed to be very long. I'll just stop now since that was all I had to say. |
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| castfromhp | Aug 22 2014, 02:06 PM Post #15 |
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Mawile Ace
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I find when people say they "dislike Smogon", what they usually means it that they dislike a particular type of competitive Pokémon player (already described in other posts, so I won't repeat what others have said already) which is often conflated with Smogon's community. Now, it's definitely true both that you get this type of player off of Smogon as well and that not everyone on Smogon exemplifies that behavior. HOWEVER, it is also true that this vocal minority is a very deeply ingrained presence in the Pokémon community and that this presence ruins the fun of Pokémon for many players. Furthermore, even people who are more "mild" about their competitive Pokémon opinions have a tendency to bring the competitive battling mindset into conversations where people just don't care and want to treat Pokémon casually. Before I say this next bit, I want to clarify that I'm absolutely not meaning to villify or embarrass you, and I think you're simply unaware of how you come off. But taking a look at a conversation from the shoutbox earlier this month (read from bottom up; extraneous posts removed by me), can you see how it might be annoying to someone to have the competitive battling perspective shoved upon them as if it was the only valid one? You say that "logically" a Pokémon should be judged by its competitive worth alone, and even that can piss people off because it feels like you're talking down to them. I don't think anyone really cares if there are people out there who are really into competitive Pokémon battling, but they care once those people start interjecting their way into other places and conversations as if it were the only valid way of evaluating Pokémon. Now, I don't personally care if someone frequents Smogon or is heavily into competitive Pokémon battling (unless they're being jerks about it). However, I think I've seen enough in the community personally to understand why tabletoppers in particular might express a disdain for "Smogon" (ie a certain obnoxious type of competitive battler). A majority of the people who've come to the IRC channel(s) for PTx over the years with a bad attitude have been competitive battlers and often video game purists too. These are people who strut in thinking they're the shit for coming up with ways to bring their OU teams into PTU and think GMs will let them start with Pokémon like Gible to make those teams, or they brag to everyone who will listen about their "OP" strategy based on something they've done in the video games. There have even been people who came into the channel back when we were on suptg and not Rizon just to get friend codes/safaris and for trading IV bred Pokémon while calling the tabletop RPGs shit and saying people should just play the video games and competitive battling sims. If you do like Smogon, frequent it, enjoy competitive battling, whatever, then what you should take from it when people express this sentiment is that they're frustrated with a minority group of competitive battlers that is nonetheless deeply ingrained in the Pokémon community and tends to be the most visible "face" of competitive battling. Don't take it personally, but realize that their sentiments aren't without merit. It's like how people might complain that 4chan is terrible or tumblr is terrible or anywhere else that you find an extremely toxic vocal minority that is far more visible to outsiders than the majority. |
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| TM93 | Aug 22 2014, 02:13 PM Post #16 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Predictable doesn't mean it isn't broken, and TBH, with all the variable sets, Mega Mom can be anything but. The standard PuP+Sucker Punch set is most common, but it has a far larger movepool than just Return, PuP, Sucker Punch, and EQ. Special variants, and Support variants were constantly popping up. It gets so bad that, pre-ban, people had to start running MULTIPLE Mega Mom counters. And all in all, only one Pokemon on Showdown's OU tier forced it to swap, and that was Sableye. Which is a generally subpar Pokemon. And that wasn't even a surefire thing. Mega Kangaskhan's non-standard sets were the scariest IMO, like Seismic Toss, a flat 200 Damage 2HKO's the VAST majority of the Pokedex, in fact you need 99+ Base HP and FULL investment to be able to survive a 2HKO, and I believe it's 123+ Base HP to be able to survive with ZERO investment. With Protect, Roar, and Wish, it could Wall like a pro with ZERO Attack investment. It also got Work Up, making Special Mega Kang a thing, even if it wasn't as common as Physical. That Rocky Helmet Ferrothorn of yours? Nope, either a Fire Punch variant, or Standard's EQ means Kangaskhan doesn't have to worry about that. I get where you're coming from, DNA, but in the end I feel that Nintendo's Banlist had next to no research done. And I still disagree with the Item Clause. I hate entire teams of "LOL LEFTIES ON EVERYTHING", but on the other hand, what if I want to run both Greninja and Nidoking on the same team? Both of said Pokemon really want a Life Orb, but that just can't happen on the PSS, despite neither being inherently broken even with said item. And like I said, Aegislash wasn't banned by some big bad man in the sky, it was a very controversial Suspect Test, only 3% lower of a vote and it would still be roaming the OU tier. I personally never had issues, but on the other hand I regularly ran Pokemon like Megazard X/Y, Umbreon, Tyranitar, etc, so I almost always had at least one or two Aegislash Checks on a team. But on the other hand, I can see how such a monster can be very stressful to a metagame, especially newcomers. I still disagree with the ban, but I see the logic in it. I'm trying to be civil here, Trul, but really, you're making it hard. Most of Smogon's community is actually very welcome and helpful if you give them the same courtesy. And keep in mind, they have thought their bans through. Many of their members are even former VGC Champions, keep this in mind, these guys know the metagame better than the vast majority of Pokemon fans. I WILL go into why Evasion and Sleep are horrible if I must. Letting everything run free just isn't a good idea in a metagame with so many options, and so many very BROKEN options, as Pokemon. People complain about the metagame being the same 4-6 teams over and over, trust me, if it was a constant free-for-all, it'd be far worse. Smogon, despite the intimidating feeling of all their rules and clauses, actually makes a far easier metagame to get into than the PSS system if you ask me. Everyone would always run Megagar, Kyogre, Xerneas, a Spinner/Defogger of Choice, and two fillers (probably Xerneas/Kyogre counters), I guarantee it. And actually, Tiers are determined primarily by usage on Smogon. If a Pokemon is used more, it'll get boosted a Tier, and between Generations, if it's deemed too broken for it's previous tier and gets a Suspect Test/Quickban, it'll get boosted as well. The only exception is the Uber tier, which requires being banned from OU to achieve. Am I fanboying a bit? Maybe. But on the other hand, I've said that I don't agree with everything Smogon does, I just feel it's far more balanced than the VGC/PSS format (which, for the most part, use the exact same rules I believe for what is and isn't banned), where at lower ends of the Ranking spectrum, you're pretty much forced to (not in any order, sometimes multiples at once): Run at least one Magic Guard/Bounce users. Spore and Dark Void are horrendous at a certain point on the PSS ladder. Run Hyper Offense, Full Pass teams got stupidly common for a while. Run something to hard counter Evasion (which is darn hard, let me tell you. Nothing hard counters every Evasion user, there are just too many). Double Team/Minimize gets disgusting. Especially Eviolite Minimize Chansey. Run something to put a stop to all the Mega Moms and Garchomp running about. Okay, I think I'm ranting, I'll slow down here. Edit: BTW, I wasn't trying to talk down to anyone there Cast, I swear. I admit I got a bit opinionated, however, and I should have thought things through a bit more. Edited by TM93, Aug 22 2014, 02:18 PM.
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| Lockdown | Aug 22 2014, 02:15 PM Post #17 |
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I SEEE YOUUUU
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@Cast:
Edited by Lockdown, Aug 22 2014, 02:15 PM.
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| DNA | Aug 22 2014, 02:37 PM Post #18 |
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King of Thought
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@TM93: 'tis fine, I don't take offense. My argument wasn't exactly that "Nintendo's banlist is the perfect banlist" because I don't believe that in the slightest (mostly because of Sleep than anything else) - it was that the VGC banlist is one that makes you think. It's in the name - it's supposed to be a Challenge. (I don't even believe there is such a thing as a perfect banlist, actually.) I don't believe it's inherently better than anything else, because it's not trying to be the best - it's trying to be tricky (is item clause necessary, no; does it make you ponder, yes; do I think that Unova/Kalos only is a good idea for a meta, absolutely not). I'd say more, but I probably run the risk of repeating myself at this point. |
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| TM93 | Aug 22 2014, 02:41 PM Post #19 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Entirely understood, and agreed. No banlist is perfect in any way shape or form, plain and simple |
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| CosmicOccurene | Aug 22 2014, 03:09 PM Post #20 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I like smogon because, for a person who can't afford a 3ds, I can still get familiar with the new generation of pokemon. For free. |
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