Competitive Integrity Changes

[Senile]

As of the next update, a large majority of RNG-related effects will be removed from Tournament Mode & Tournaments. This issue has been deliberated and voted on by the tier council, culminating in a resounding majority vote to strip these effects from the game for the sake of competitive integrity and enjoyment.

 

Previously, whenever playing competitively, a large amount of the game came to managing your odds, and hoping fortune doesn't turn against you. A large part of the game really is dealing with possible misses, crits, and devastating statuses like random freezes, or max sleep turns. Even minor things are built into the game, like damage rolls, that can constantly sway the way the match is going on a turn-by-turn basis.

 

Reasonably, some people may be wondering how it's even possible for RNG to be removed from pokemon completely, but some of the details of the more major changes required have already been ironed out by cooperation between the TC and the Dev team, and for the sake of transparency & discussion on if these solutions are adequate, they'll be listed out in this post.

 

Initially, we were concerned with the most obvious problem; Damage rolls, crits, and accuracy. However, we managed to find a good compromise. Crits are completely removed, and moves/abilities that influenced criticals instead have minor damage bonuses in order to compensate. This should bring them in line with non-crit based moves, and put them in a reasonably balanced spot.

 

Losing the damage roll mechanic was an easy thing to adjust for; All that's necessary is to go with what would have been the "average" roll previously, and have that be the outcome every time. However, that doesn't account for accuracy, as we can't just boost sub-100 accuracy moves up to 100 accuracy, as that creates some very obvious and unintended imbalances.

 

Fortunately, the removal of damage rolls provides a built-in solution for this; Instead of simply having an average outcome every time, depending on the original accuracy of the given move, the damage roll outcome of the move is adjusted. For example, 100% accuracy moves won't have an average "damage roll" outcome, they'll have a high one, and lower accuracy moves will deal damage equal to low to min rolls in the previous system. This also makes sure that accuracy/evasion affecting moves& abilities still have an effect, even if minor, in the new system. This also allows to remove bans such as Hax Items Clause and Evasion Clause.

 

Other niche problems have case-by-case solutions. For example, moves like Fire Blast and Flamethrower simply have their secondary effect removed completely, only counting for things such as Sheer Force, whereas moves like Thunder, with their significant 30% chance to para, are another matter entirely. In cases like Thunder, we have decided to split the move into 2 variations; A weaker version with a guaranteed status, and a stronger version with no status.

 

On the other hand, some things are too inherently problematic to fix. Confusion, Attract, and all similar effects have simply been removed, as well as any effect that interacts with things that can't be reasonably planned against such as gender interactions; IE Rivalry. Paralysis has had the "Full Para" effect removed, and freezes no longer exists. Sleep length depends on the move being used, ie, Hypnosis gives 1 turn of sleep, Sleep Powder gives 2, and Spore gives 3.

 

Losing important moves/abilities is certain to be a devastating blow to certain pokemon, as their options are now limited, but most things that are being lost are going to be replaced with another ability that has some kind of effect. The current problem we're facing is a lack of certainty on some of these issues; For example, how do we replace Effect Spore? It isn't a problem with a simple solution, but we think it's workable.

 

Sadly, we know that this will drive away some players who thoroughly enjoyed the RNG and luck competitive pokemon sometimes required. To compensate for this, after the update, breeding is going to require significantly more RNG, so that the game still has a fair amount of luck, in addition to skill, required. Discuss.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Senile
the grand bamboozle

[DoubleJ]

You've got to be fucking with me. 

[DoubleJ]

They fucking with me. Thank God. 

[gbwead]

2 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

You've got to be fucking with me. 

not ALL of us were in agreement...

[Zymogen]

what the fuck hahahahahahaha

[DoubleJ]

1 minute ago, gbwead said:

not ALL of us were in agreement...

Must be because there is an undeniable truth that Fire Blast > Flamethrower now. 

[FunkPk]

I was confused at first because it isn't April for me yet but considering it would take this dev team 8 months to implement something like this, I'll give this joke a solid 6/10. 

[Tyrone]

11 minutes ago, gbwead said:

not ALL of us were in agreement...

gb, you were the only one saying that freeze should not be removed.

Like, how is freeze supposed to improve the metagame?

[Kyu]

5 minutes ago, ImFunk said:

I was confused at first because it isn't April for me yet but considering it would take this dev team 8 months to implement something like this, I'll give this joke a solid 6/10. 

These are actually all pretty minor changes and are trivial to implement. We're hoping to include them in the next update after we've finished up skills/abilities.

[Senile]

Understandably, some people are upset with this change. I assure you, it's not a joke; Yes, the start of April is coming up soon, but this is when all tier changes/shifts are posted normally. These changes WILL be implemented, but not necessarily soon. As was stated, things are still being ironed out, and this thread is to discuss the changes and ideas regarding it. The more immediate monthly tier shifts have not been posted yet because Munya/Darkshade are not around to make the movements ingame or pin/lock the primary announcement thread, however, since this was intended to be a discussion thread, it was posted first.

 

14 minutes ago, gbwead said:

not ALL of us were in agreement...

I don't understand why you felt the need to post this in the thread. If you have serious issues with the changes fundamentally, take the talk internally; If you have specific criticisms of our implementation you'd like to discuss, go into more detail. I think you've been really uncooperative during this whole process IMO, and I don't think this is a good start to the thread.

[suigin]

Just now, Tyrone said:

gb, you were the only one saying that freeze should not be removed.

Like, how is freeze supposed to improve the metagame?

Freeze is an awful mechanic that adds nothing but a luck factor to the game, but even then this shit deviates far too much from the original game mechanics to be considered at all like the original Pokemon games, I've said that on the TC meeting already but removing RNG only makes things uninteresting to watch, it removes the risk factor that can make or break a match at the last second, pokemon is inherently not a competitive game.

[Kamimiii]

About this post I'm not quite sure what to think

Perhaps leaving a bit of RNG in the game like accuracy on moves could be beneficial

Rounded damage seems odd but why not, damage rolls are awful anyway

Imo the only bad change you wrote is that pokemons cannot fall in love anymore

Legit this is the saddest thing I've heard in months on the Internet

 

F*cking hell how could you possibly destroy such an aspect of the pokemon story, like when the Butterfrees fly together and live happy forever

On the sleep turns thing, I prolly would set 2 turns of sleep for every move, just like rest.

On the Effect spore thing, I think you could maybe turn the ability into a 33/33/33% chance to Tiny-Para/Tiny-Poison/Tiny-Sleep the foe, which would be an effect that

Lasts one turn and occurs the turn right after the target got statused

Seriously, this might not be the worst competitive changes we ever had, think about it guys.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Kamimiii

[FunkPk]

1 minute ago, Kyu said:

next update after we've finish up skills/abilities.

Finishing moves/abilities jajaja that's how you know it's a joke. 

[CHUCKunso]

3 minutes ago, Kyu said:

These are actually all pretty minor changes and are trivial to implement. We're hoping to include them in the next update after we've finished up skills/abilities.

"after we've finished up skills/abilities" -> the proof of it being an can't believe they did this joke, I mean, we all know that won't happen untill 2025

[Zymogen]

3 minutes ago, Kyu said:

These are actually all pretty minor changes and are trivial to implement. We're hoping to include them in the next update after we've finished up skills/abilities.

oooh ok so we'd have at least 6 months even if this wasn't a prank, panic over guys

[Zymogen]

oooooooooooo they're deleting posts calling out the can't believe they did this 

 

Edit: LMAO dat a.pril fools filter

Edited April 1, 2018 by Zymogen

[gbwead]

2 minutes ago, Tyrone said:

gb, you were the only one saying that freeze should not be removed.

Like, how is freeze supposed to improve the metagame?

Freeze is part of the game whether you like it or not. All these dumb changes only serve one purpose: make Senile and the rest of you pseudo-relevant. Freeze are also part of what makes the game balanced and complex; if every aspect of the game is set in stone, we would end up with the most deranged chess game. Getting salty about a loss to RNG is fairly pathetic because everyone should evaluate beforehand what are their odds of winning before using a specific strategy which is why Fire Blast shoul remain a terrible move with poor winning odds compared to the superior Flamethrower option.

[RysPicz]

How I see PokeMMO after those updates:

 

 

[soyhector]

11 minutes ago, Kyu said:

These are actually all pretty minor changes and are trivial to implement. We're hoping to include them in the next update after we've finished up skills/abilities.

please remember to fix the bug with leftovers and timer on next update! :)

[suigin]

10 minutes ago, Senile said:

Understandably, some people are upset with this change. I assure you, it's not a joke; Yes, the start of April is coming up soon, but this is when all tier changes/shifts are posted normally. These changes WILL be implemented, but not necessarily soon. As was stated, things are still being ironed out, and this thread is to discuss the changes and ideas regarding it. The more immediate monthly tier shifts have not been posted yet because Munya/Darkshade are not around to make the movements ingame or pin/lock the primary announcement thread, however, since this was intended to be a discussion thread, it was posted first.

 

I don't understand why you felt the need to post this in the thread. If you have serious issues with the changes fundamentally, take the talk internally; If you have specific criticisms of our implementation you'd like to discuss, go into more detail. I think you've been really uncooperative during this whole process IMO, and I don't think this is a good start to the thread.

He has provided a huge amount of reasons as to why this is a terrible idea. We're going to have a metagame where shit like Metronome and Acupressure will be in a ban list, this isn't Pokemon anymore, just a soul less copy that thrives on a concept that the original didn't propose. All risk and reward will have to be rebalanced and all of that will have to be done in the middle of this chaotic tiering that changes abruptly whenever a new patch gets added, it will take a lot of time and trial and error to get it right and it will very likely end up with a lot of bans that would have been needless had things remained the same.

 I could understand implementing stupid shit like this when things are more calm and monotone but right now the tiers are hectic. This is fucking stupid.

[Senile]

15 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Freeze is part of the game whether you like it or not. All these dumb changes only serve one purpose: make Senile and the rest of you pseudo-relevant. Freeze are also part of what makes the game balanced and complex; if every aspect of the game is set in stone, we would end up with the most deranged chess game. Getting salty about a loss to RNG is fairly pathetic because everyone should evaluate beforehand what are their odds of winning before using a specific strategy which is why Fire Blast shoul remain a terrible move with poor winning odds compared to the superior Flamethrower option.

 

1 minute ago, suigin said:

He has provided a huge amount of reasons as to why this is a terrible idea. We're going to have a metagame where shit like Metronome and Acupressure will be in a ban list, this isn't Pokemon anymore, just a soul less copy that thrives on a concept that the original didn't propose. All risk and reward will have to be rebalanced and all of that will have to be done in the middle of this chaotic tiering that changes abruptly whenever a new patch gets added, it will take a lot of time and trial and error to get it right and it will very likely end up with a lot of bans that would have been needless had things remained the same.

 I could understand implementing stupid shit like this when things are more calm and monotone but right now the tiers are hectic. This is fucking stupid.

All I have to say is: We'll see. It's definitely a different type of game, but if we want PokeMMO to expand competitively, it's a different type of game we'll have to make. The current system just discourages seriously competitive players, while the high barrier to entry already precludes casual players; I think this will legitimately expand the competitive community. Believe what you want.

 

Beyond that, I think that implementing this when things are hectic is the best time IMO, as opposed to completely changing things once matters have settled, but that's neither here nor there.

[gbwead]

3 minutes ago, Senile said:

 

All I have to say is: We'll see.

No, we won't because no one wants or will ever play SenileMMO.

[AQA]

i dont understand gardevoir OU now or not D:

[Gilan]

So, quite a few people have asked me why I quit the staff team. This is why. I had to keep telling people that I was “taking a break” or that “I got fired”, cause I couldn’t say anything until the TC took it public.

This change by the tier council is turning the game that I love into some twisted, bland trashpile that I don’t even recognize anymore.

Thus, in retaliation I resigned from the team. (glad I could finally get that off my chest).

 

Also, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that @TheChampionMike quit the team so that he could participate in PvP before it all goes to shit with this coming change.

 

@TierCouncil you’re going to ruin this game for everyone.

[ThePrettyPetard]

i have two thing to say about this

1. if it's an can't believe they did this your taking it way to seriously for how shitty it is

2 hours ago, Senile said:

Sadly, we know that this will drive away some players who thoroughly enjoyed the RNG and luck competitive pokemon sometimes required. To compensate for this, after the update, breeding is going to require significantly more RNG, so that the game still has a fair amount of luck, in addition to skill, required. Discuss.

2. in the event that this isn't an april fool, i would like to say thank you for not forgetting to fuck over non comp player with this shit of adding more rng into breeding (obviously meaning a raise in cost* or just making it anoying). so what will you do to fuck over shiny hunters has well? they are clearly left behind without the pleasure of being directly fucked over

 

*wasn't the last update here to reduce the cost of genderless breeding to make it more afordable for newer player? (guess it was lowered to much gotta raise it for everything now)