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PokeMMO isn't doing a good job at preparing players for comp


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I'm absolutely sorry for this wall of text.

I've always been a proponent on this forum when it comes to talking about how a player should be pushed onto and weaned into learning about competitive play, and eventually taking part in higher competitive based activities in PokeMMO like ladder and eventually dungeons when they are released. But at the moment it's my opinion that PokeMMO actually doesn't really do a good job at teaching newer players/more unfamiliar ones with core competitive attributes, competitive archetypes, an introduction to the IV/EV system without a level of frustration, etc. Before anyone tries to call me out with the "get good" drivel I see a lot on this forum, I have to clarify that I've been playing competitive Pokemon ever since early D/P meta on the maingames, and can also offer the viewpoint of people new to the game or unfamiliar with deeper Pokemon mechanics because I've personally known many of these kind of people, and have played alongside those same people in PokeMMO before they eventually gave it up. I'm aware that PokeMMO flaunts itself for having harder difficulty as well compared to basegame Pokemon, and this is great considering the difficulty is getting easier since Gen 6, but I subjectively feel that this can be handled a whole lot more eloquently that can cause much more player capture, and result in even more people who are participating in comp related activities. 
 

  • IV/EV attainability
    For an unfamiliar person starting out, there is no indication that IV's are detrimental to creating a build, and that the first Pidgey you catch in the game will do plenty fine for the rest of the game. This isn't an opinion specific to PokeMMO, but rather to as a whole of Pokemon that I think that IV's are honestly not a good mechanic in Pokemon, as they only serve as a barrier of entry to actually get into the real game. The difference is that I've seen that newer games are doing their best to equalize the players with better IV catchrates, and even give opportunities to boost IV's. Now while I think those type of fixes would be highly inappropriate for PokeMMO, PokeMMO isn't exactly doing its best to let players know that using a 10 IV speed Pidgey may not be the best idea. Nor is it making it the most affordable or obtainable for pre-Elite 4 players to even get. 

    EV's are such a mess when playing through the storyline of a Pokemon game. You are constantly being assigned such random EV gains from being forced into fighting certain battles, and even if someone wanted to correct their EV's before going in to fight the Elite 4, it's going to cost a decent amount of money on EV reducing berries to even "correct" a full team. I'll note that there have been plenty of times to where I haven't had to correct my EV's before fighting the Elite 4, and I understand that it can be beatable without doing much, but for new players this can be the push they need to beat the Elite 4, and I'm not even sure many of them are even aware of the EV system until they even realize what it's doing.

    The only time where the player is actually let known that their stats aren't the best are detrimental battles that they will eventually lose because they didn't have correct natures, IV's, EV's, notably the Elite 4. I am unsure what the builds are on Gym Leaders/ Elite 4 members, but from playing against them for their first time match (I do not care what happens to their build on rematch 2+, they can be as maxed out as possible), I can tell that they either have beneficial natures, IV's, and EV's, or some combination of all three. In my opinion, when the stats are way too high, and a player can't even put a dent in the Elite 4's team when they're even equal level, this doesn't serve as a learning opportunity for new players, but a wall of frustration that can cause many players to just stop because they learned they actually just spent all of the game raising the wrong Pokemon because they didn't have arbitrary stat numbers. I've heard many players and I think even devs on this form state that the Elite 4 is supposed to be a test of skill to eventually move onto the competitive content, but it pretty much serves more as a filter on who is allowed to play the rest of the content from that point out if they lost due to arbitrary skill points. I currently have no idea exactly what the builds are on the Pokemon, but it would be probably for the better if the first time match Elite 4 teams consisted of Pokemon that maxed out at about 20 IV's in all stats, 128 EV's in every single stat, and maybe a neutral nature. It should be noted that I don't care what happens for builds on trainers or rematches after the Elite 4. I think it's great that they're harder and have better stats, I just don't think a perfect build is suited for a place like the first time fighting the Elite 4.

    Just to add on, I get insanely irritated when I see someone's suggestion on this forum that someone needs to redo their build when they aren't beating the Elite 4 the first time, when said player doesn't even have the resources or money to do it.
     
  • Competitive archetypes aren't properly taught/even viable to use in the storyline
    This is moreso a problem that goes beyond even PokeMMO, but the storyline game and Elite 4 does an insanely poor job of teaching things like walls, weather teams, choice banders, tanks, and stallers are even a thing. Not to mention the fact that it is incredibly annoying and slow paced to play through the game with anything that isn't a sweeper just due to the nature of having to kill so many Pokemon to gain exp. Stuff like Blissey, Skamory, weather, and more is just straight up not rewarded or taught playing through the game because it's too slow to kill things, and even if you do kill some things in a battle, chances are that you have to make your way to the Pokemon Center after every battle or take advantage of some of the pretty expensive healing items to even get yourself ready for the next battle, compared to a sweeper that is pretty popular to run because it just one shots the enemy, the battle is done much faster, and chance is that you can do a few more battles with that same Pokemon due to really not losing HP, and it can just continue to oneshot. The only thing that even can be taught to a player is that Curselax or stacking dragon dance/calm mind is good, along with even Baton pass.

    Even the Elite 4 itself invites a sweeper friendly playstyle due to to the fact that they have access to Full Restores, a $7,300 item they each have access to four times. I would not have a problem with this if the dev team didn't turn healing items more into a luxury instead of a core component of main storyline Pokemon. Even so if the player is being discouraged from using healing items due to their price, it is poor competitive practice considering that your opponent will never even be able to use healing items.
     
  • Trainers are obtaining Pokemon and items before the player can
    There was a buff months ago that caused the Elite 4 to generally get buffed across the board for round one matches. I mainly have knowledge with this specific region, but for example in Kanto, Bruno had started getting Stelixes (instead of his Onixes), Agatha obtained her Misdrevious, and plenty of Pokemon had obtained held items such as a choice scarf that cannot be obtained in Kanto by that point naturally, ignoring the market. Maybe the devs don't share my philosophy on this, but I have a feeling for the sake of fairness that the trainers shouldn't have access to items and Pokemon before the player themselves can obtain it.


    I really love what PokeMMO has been doing with increased difficulty in the game to really ween competitiveness on players; stuff like the forced switch, way better AI, and more competitive content post game, including the upcoming dungeons, but I can't help but roll my eyes when people are stating that the game in its current state is doing a good job at making players more competitive. I would love to see more people participating in comp stuff, but it just seems like pregame is doing a bad job at doing this, and ends up serving as just a wall that only lets certain trainers who met a certain amount of criteria or already had a certain amount of knowledge to continue on. This post doesn't serve either to put forward solutions either, but to just notice some problems that I've seen stated by various people on this forum, and people I've known in real life. I don't mean to rile up anyone either, this is just simply to start a discussion of being able to invite players of all skill levels into the game, and churn out smarter, better, and more enthusiastic players.
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1 hour ago, soyhector said:

Hello. I suggest you to summarize this, because nobody is going to read it.

i read it

 

and everything you said is right but nothing is going to happen because the direction the game devs are making this game go is a hardcore jrp grinder and their isnt a way to fix these problems without becoming less of a hardcore jrp grinder. someone thinks grinding is a substitute for content/is content and thats all she wrote. you got to take it as it is problems and all or find a new game

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EVs, IVs and natures each give you a +10% bonus in a stat, tops.

They are not even needed for comp if you're fighting someone less skilled than you. It's just a matter of hyper-optimizing.

 

And they are most certainly not the reason people are losing to elite four.

It's not like it doubles or triples your strength.

It's 10% my dude.

 

If people are losing to e4, they are probably underleveled or running a very poor strategy.

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The thing is A.I. can never actually teach competitive Pokemon. Pokemon as a game it is just too complex for an A.I. to play it properly. There are so many factors what comes to not only when deciding what moves to use in battle but also when you're building your team. Even the best players can not definitively agree what is the best spread, the best moveset for every Pokemon because there are so many factors going on with it - like the current (and potentially future) metagame. Therefor even if you made "competitive Pokemon" to face you by A.I. they're not necessarily actually competitive in the right way. Furthermore, the A.I. simply does not know what to do with those Pokemon either. Should it switch, should it attack, should it set up, should it Haze? 

 

Then Eggplant's point about IVs is spot on that maximizing IVs is essentially just hyper-optimizing Pokemon. Sure, who wouldn't want to improve their chances by every smallest marigin there is - but telling to new players is that IVs and optimized EVs is what makes you a competitive player is simply wrong. There's way too much more behind it what comes to competitive Pokemon.

 

Now, I obviously wouldn't oppose if there was some in-game guide that is easy to find for newer players to get a grab on these aspects like IVs, EVs and nature. In fact I'd find it super useful. But as I said, it's a long way translating that knowledge into "competitive play".

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5 hours ago, Eggplant said:

EVs, IVs and natures each give you a +10% bonus in a stat, tops.

They are not even needed for comp if you're fighting someone less skilled than you. It's just a matter of hyper-optimizing.

 

And they are most certainly not the reason people are losing to elite four.

It's not like it doubles or triples your strength.

It's 10% my dude.

 

If people are losing to e4, they are probably underleveled or running a very poor strategy.

when i was Tc i was the calc guy. every single round of calcs for a suspected poe would come back with at least one pokemon that is a check or counter with 31's that isnt with 25's. usually several. also in Lc literally one stat point is a huge difference. 

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5 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

I obviously wouldn't oppose if there was some in-game guide that is easy to find for newer players to get a grab on these aspects like IVs, EVs and nature. In fact I'd find it super useful.

The problem is, written text as a tutorial is like worst and most boring way to teach anything in game design. This is interactive medium. We have story which everyone is going through anyway. It could (and should) teach basics of comp play.

Right now it's medium difficulty pve experience. Quite easy for good players, and too hard for ppl who used to beat region with charizard. It's more like test rather than learning experience.

I know there is little space in story to insert tutorial bits but this is the main issue in my opinion.

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1 hour ago, HandsomeLooker1492 said:

It's Poke"MMO". What's the point of an MMO game if the objectives are too easy than being a challenge.

you didn't read anything, did you?


Regarding this, although you're not wrong, how could this be made better? The storyline is so small, that there's no space to implement a lot of stuff, sadly.

And Orange pretty much said it all.

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14 minutes ago, HandsomeLooker1492 said:

It's Poke"MMO". What's the point of an MMO game if the objectives are too easy than being a challenge.

i know you're just trying to be a uguu but im going to actually respond as if you read this and mean that.

 

the challenge you are speaking about in this context is player versus environment challenge. you versus the world the game devs put you in. competitive is player versus player. the challenge of player versus player is more or less difficult based on skill and is independent of the player environment. the focus of "mmo"s is usually the player versus player or coop not the environment, because why not just play a single player game then?  

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10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

PokeMMO isn't doing a good job at preparing players for comp

 

But at the moment it's my opinion that PokeMMO actually doesn't really do a good job at teaching newer players/more unfamiliar ones with core competitive attributes, competitive archetypes, an introduction to the IV/EV system without a level of frustration, etc.

PokeMMO is a game with multiple types of players in it's player base. From your post I get it's more focused on the competitive part of the player base but a very little portion of the new player base is interested in Competitive. Most of them are here for a casual or an online experience of Pokemon.

If you have ever played the vanilla games, you'll notice that most of the competitive mechanics aren't visible in it. Pokemon knows about their player base and has made the competitive mechanics for those who reach for it (while giving hints and tips about it to others) and try not to make it overwhelming for the casual part of the player base. PokeMMO is based on those games, while it makes those hidden mechanics more accessible to a bigger player base by making them visible, training them for competitive is not the main objective here.

PokeMMO , just like the vanilla games, is a game where the player can choose how they wish to play the game. Not everyone wishes to play competitive, those who do have most of the resources they need in game.

 

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

I'm aware that PokeMMO flaunts itself for having harder difficulty as well compared to base game Pokemon, and this is great considering the difficulty is getting easier since Gen 6, but I subjectively feel that this can be handled a whole lot more eloquently that can cause much more player capture, and result in even more people who are participating in comp related activities. 

The difficulty in PokeMMO wasn't just increased to introduce players to competitive. The AI and the NPC sets have some builds that can get them familiar with some techniquies used in competitive play but as OrangeManiac as mentioned in his post AI, NPC or any kind of increased difficulty cannot help players learn competitive play (even more if they don't wish to).

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

For an unfamiliar person starting out, there is no indication that IV's are detrimental to creating a build, and that the first Pidgey you catch in the game will do plenty fine for the rest of the game.

Now while I think those type of fixes would be highly inappropriate for PokeMMO, PokeMMO isn't exactly doing its best to let players know that using a 10 IV speed Pidgey may not be the best idea. Nor is it making it the most affordable or obtainable for pre-Elite 4 players to even get.

Firstly, IVs, EVs and nature ( as stated above by EggPlant) don't matter much when you're doing a story run

Secondly, Not only your suggestion limits players from trying out new sets but tell them to use a specific set that limits imagination and experimentation.

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

This isn't an opinion specific to PokeMMO, but rather to as a whole of Pokemon that I think that IV's are honestly not a good mechanic in Pokemon, as they only serve as a barrier of entry to actually get into the real game.

Personal opinion but I think it's better to keep IVs of Pokemon hidden (in vanilla games). While PokeMMO needs visible IVs for easier access to competitive play, it's just a distraction to those players who don't bother with it and aren't completionist or breeder part of the player base. As stated above, you don't need competitive Pokemon or sets to beat the Story NPCs.I don't know what you mean by "real game" but if it refers to competitive as end game they you're simply wrong.

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

EV's are such a mess when playing through the storyline of a Pokemon game. You are constantly being assigned such random EV gains from being forced into fighting certain battles, and even if someone wanted to correct their EV's before going in to fight the Elite 4, it's going to cost a decent amount of money on EV reducing berries to even "correct" a full team. I'll note that there have been plenty of times to where I haven't had to correct my EV's before fighting the Elite 4, and I understand that it can be beatable without doing much, but for new players this can be the push they need to beat the Elite 4, and I'm not even sure many of them are even aware of the EV system until they even realize what it's doing.

EV training more of an end game activity but if you really wish you can spend hours grinding a Sandile on route 1 beating Lillipup and Pidove.

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

Competitive archetypes aren't properly taught/even viable to use in the storyline
This is moreso a problem that goes beyond even PokeMMO, but the storyline game and Elite 4 does an insanely poor job of teaching things like walls, weather teams, choice banders, tanks, and stallers are even a thing. Not to mention the fact that it is incredibly annoying and slow paced to play through the game with anything that isn't a sweeper just due to the nature of having to kill so many Pokemon to gain exp. Stuff like Blissey, Skamory, weather, and more is just straight up not rewarded or taught playing through the game because it's too slow to kill things, and even if you do kill some things in a battle, chances are that you have to make your way to the Pokemon Center after every battle or take advantage of some of the pretty expensive healing items to even get yourself ready for the next battle, compared to a sweeper that is pretty popular to run because it just one shots the enemy, the battle is done much faster, and chance is that you can do a few more battles with that same Pokemon due to really not losing HP, and it can just continue to oneshot. The only thing that even can be taught to a player is that Curselax or stacking dragon dance/calm mind is good, along with even Baton pass.


Trying to teach a specific play style to varied player base isn't a good idea, not everyone likes being forced play competitively because the game wants. Also, In a MMO environment like PokeMMO, this isn't even economical for players.

10 hours ago, Raichu4u said:

Trainers are obtaining Pokemon and items before the player can

Maybe the devs don't share my philosophy on this, but I have a feeling for the sake of fairness that the trainers shouldn't have access to items and Pokemon before the player themselves can obtain it.

I don't see how this is related to the title but none of the "unobtainable" Pokemon/Item make NPCs unbeatable. They are well balanced.

 

Small conclusion,

What I make out of your post is you are looking at this game narrow mindedly, from one(competitive) side only and forgetting that about the other types of players types who play this game. While PokeMMO provides a competitive platform for many players, that's not the only thing it does. There are a lot of players who come here for a casual or online experience and they won't like being forced into a specific type of game play just because the game designer wants that.

 

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24 minutes ago, Lightningvolt said:

PokeMMO is a game with multiple types of players in it's player base.

Not saying you're wrong, but the only real end game there is in this game, is pvp. 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Lightningvolt said:

but a very little portion of the new player base is interested in Competitive.

Well, since the new players are 99% chinese, I have no doubts about that, let them stop advertising pokemmo on chinese streaming websites, and we will see otherwise, as it happened in the past. (game already died a lot on the chinese community, past weeks, went from full/busy to normal 24/7)

 

26 minutes ago, Lightningvolt said:

Trying to teach a specific play style to varied player base isn't a good idea, not everyone likes being forced play competitively because the game wants. Also, In a MMO environment like PokeMMO, this isn't even economical for players.

That's the beauty of competitive, there's so many different styles, you're not forced to play, but a tutorial or something, would help those who are interested in this activities, not economical, well, unless you play farming simulator, nothing is, so that's not an excuse imo, prices are absurdly high for those who want to join competitive I agree, but it's achievable long term.


Other than that, I agree.

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1 minute ago, razimove said:

Not saying you're wrong, but the only real end game there is in this game, is pvp. 

The other activities might bore you to not be your endgame activity (like I have tried shiny hunting a couple of times but I give up after a day or two) but there are others who like who chose those other activities as their endgame activity. Many times , when I am looking at chat, I see people saying or complaining how they hate competitive. PokeMMO or Pokemon is a game where you decide how you want to play and what you want to do, even the end game. The option, even though not much in early games, were always there for the players to decide their own path and that's what PokeMMO is based on.

 

11 minutes ago, razimove said:

Well, since the new players are 99% chinese, I have no doubts about that, let them stop advertising pokemmo on chinese streaming websites, and we will see otherwise, as it happened in the past. (game already died a lot on the chinese community, past weeks, went from full/busy to normal 24/7)

Offtopic

11 minutes ago, razimove said:

That's the beauty of competitive, there's so many different styles, you're not forced to play, but a tutorial or something, would help those who are interested in this activities, not economical, well, unless you play farming simulator, nothing is, so that's not an excuse imo, prices are absurdly high for those who want to join competitive I agree, but it's achievable long term.

I was talking about it (as the OP suggested) for players playing through the story. In my opinion, competitive sets are not required for them and those who wish to use it should have full freedom for their choices.

(In this statement you quoted) What I meant was that we shouldn't be forcing competitive play style on casual players and "teaching" it when they are trying to beat the story is not economical.

 

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14 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

The thing is A.I. can never actually teach competitive Pokemon. Pokemon as a game it is just too complex for an A.I. to play it properly. There are so many factors what comes to not only when deciding what moves to use in battle but also when you're building your team. Even the best players can not definitively agree what is the best spread, the best moveset for every Pokemon because there are so many factors going on with it - like the current (and potentially future) metagame. Therefor even if you made "competitive Pokemon" to face you by A.I. they're not necessarily actually competitive in the right way. Furthermore, the A.I. simply does not know what to do with those Pokemon either. Should it switch, should it attack, should it set up, should it Haze?

And I completely agree that AI could never correctly teach comp, it's just multiple devs and moderators on this forum have stated that increased difficulty of the Elite 4 for example was supposed to be preparation for competitive content, and then eventually dungeons. I feel like this personally should stop being said, because I feel as the increased difficulty of the Elite 4 is only serving as a litmus test to filter out players, instead of actively serving as a challenge for new players to eventually better themselves and be more familiar with the mechanics of the game. I've just known way too many people who have quit before the Elite 4 because it served as a roadblock.

 

15 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

Then Eggplant's point about IVs is spot on that maximizing IVs is essentially just hyper-optimizing Pokemon. Sure, who wouldn't want to improve their chances by every smallest marigin there is - but telling to new players is that IVs and optimized EVs is what makes you a competitive player is simply wrong. There's way too much more behind it what comes to competitive Pokemon.

.
Like I said, I am unaware of what the actual builds are being ran on the Elite 4, but I've done enough runs of Firered to know that they aren't vanilla, and are totally boosted to be about 25+ IV's, favorable natures, and favorable EV build. For a player that shouldn't even have the tools to grind for good natured/IV'd/EV'd team before doing the Elite 4, a 10% advantage that the Elite 4 Pokemon have over a random trainer (that is also having anywhere from a 5%-7% disadvantage due to optimized stats) is huge, and is just bloated artificial difficulty. Even your starter that everyone knows is a staple that many people put on their team in every Pokemon game, is already set to have 15IV's across the board with a neutral nature, along with whatever random EV's you encounter during the game. Even the game itself is giving you a core tool Pokemon that will most certainly be outmatched by the Elite 4.
 

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I agree 100%. Harder storyline was a pain in the ass at first, but I'm okay with it now that I beat Unova (I wont touch e4 anyway). However, its not right saying its teaching players anything, because all  they have to do is get every mon to the level cap and they'll still be fine,  as long as they didn't bring 6 fire-types or something. The added difficulty is just a money and time sink. Some may enjoy the challenge, but for others (me included) its just an annoyance that they have to deal with before they get to play the real game. IMO something that would be really helpful (I'll write a suggestion about it if no1 else did) is to add NPCs in-game that tells the player what IVs and EVs are, that physical attacks use the atk stat, and special ones the sp. atk stat, etc.

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Lol who think the storyline is harder ? 

Some uguu or children who have 8years 

For the e4 all your team is heal After each battle ( so use graveler sturdy stealrock uguu ) 

 

About the compétitive aspect , if you want play PvP with a perfect poke After the endgame you're wrong , breed 2x31 3x25+ natured comp it's viable 

After the endgame new players can have like 2m pokeyen , with this money it's easy to breed some comp 

 

Ev is easy with sweet scence some guide on this forum help the newbie 

Informations about ivs ans ev Can be obtain if you check the resume of one poke or check this forum

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I just did a replay of Firered to do some own personal research in this, and I have to add that the game woefully unprepares you level-wise to walk into the Elite 4 as well. I've battled every single trainer while doing some wild grinding as well, and my entire team has made level 47, while I'm greeted right off the bat with a Level 56 Lapras. This is another area that can cause frustration, considering that it just creates GrindMMO with your only option being trainer re battles

. It just seems to be creating artificial difficulty.

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Hey there man, nice post, always thought this same idea. Even more because I get into the competitive thanks to this game, always played Pokemon but alone in the console, so i had to learn a lot of things here by myself searching and even talking too, and it was a serious headache at that time hahaha (even at this point still learning because once you know the theory, you need to practice and fail and practice etc etc hahaha).

 

I think they did an excelent job doing this game more difficult than the normal games, I replayed all the regions and I really noticed the difference (i'm the type of player that always level up all his pokes to more level than the rivals so the big limitation for levels per medal forced me to try to be creative and better at the pvp with the NPC's, thing that at the beggining was awful, but it makes me enjoyed the fights a lot more after a couple ones).

But i think would be cool if they introduce some official guide or tutorial for the competitive (IN GAME), like the FAQ's, but something more... visible (maybe) or didactic. I suffered the breeding a freakin lot, the EV's too, and the concept of a true fight with a real human a lot more.

 

Even ignoring that this would be pretty helpful for the people interested on the competitive that dont have any idea of it, would be REALLY HELPFUL for the game's life, because a lot of people just do the story and left the game (I have several friends that started to play to this with me and they left because they couldnt get into the competitive and after you do the storyline there is nothing more to do). 

And with this i mean that they need to make the competitive a truly second phase of the game, not an adittion, like, 'you finish the npc's?, okay, get ready for the real challenge boy'.

 

 

Edited by Ferzh
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The one thing about "competitive Pokemon", and what we understand it to be, is that it's something created between people and the community.

While you could create trainers that introduce competitive concepts, whether that's simple strategies like Trick Room or weather, or team composition 101, that is only a basic emulation. You can't readily replicate competitive play with AI and preconstructed teams, because you run into the matter of human intelligence, prediction, variability in teams and attempts to topple competitive trends, and so on and so forth. It just won't work.

 

Now, that's not to say that the game wouldn't benefit to have some sort of basic introduction to competitive concepts, like with the examples I used.

It could be really useful to create some in-game "crash courses" for significant things such as EVs + IVs + natures and their influence on stats, the ins and outs of breeding a good Pokemon, and the principles of putting a Pokemon together (e.g. coordinating moveset, stats and item). That could help introduce curious people to the hellscape that is competitive, without them having to go look up how EVs and IVs work, how breeding works on here, and so on and so forth.

 

It was already said that PVP is the PokeMMO endgame, and ultimately that's how every (mainstream) Pokemon game tends to go: you clear the story mode, finish your Pokedex, and... then what? If you want to keep getting a fulfilling experience, you start deviating towards breeding, RNG manipulation, PVP, shiny hunting, all of those little things that play to our perfectionist and competitive impulses.

 

There's going to have to be content that supports that endgame here, because that's where it'll end up for everyone eventually.

Besides, it seems incredibly unfair for there to be no in-game "crash courses" for this content, when that content has already been implemented by means of the Elite 4 existing in PVE. A well-constructed competitive team will always be able to crush a casual team: so why set players up for frustration if they don't know the fine details?

 

There was a buff months ago that caused the Elite 4 to generally get buffed across the board for round one matches. I mainly have knowledge with this specific region, but for example in Kanto, Bruno had started getting Stelixes (instead of his Onixes), Agatha obtained her Misdrevious, and plenty of Pokemon had obtained held items such as a choice scarf that cannot be obtained in Kanto by that point naturally, ignoring the market. Maybe the devs don't share my philosophy on this, but I have a feeling for the sake of fairness that the trainers shouldn't have access to items and Pokemon before the player themselves can obtain it.

 

Actually, this is a fair point too. As much as I love difficulty that requires creative play-arounds, there's a line to be drawn between "creative solutions are needed" and "just plain unfair". The occasional hold item and obscure, weird or rare Pokemon make the player have to think outside the box, which is perfectly healthy. But you want to keep in mind the resources that the player is given vs. the resources used by, and applied to enemy trainers.. and find a fine balance between them.

 


tl;dr Competitive as we know it is a social construct, so it's hard to emulate in the solo experience; however, having ways to introduce competitive concepts and how to build good Pokemon + teams wouldn't hurt whatsoever, because "competitive" is almost always going to be the endgame for players on here.

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