Explain something to me.

[xTyrantx]

I hardly post on here, but I do lurk quite a bit, and I was wondering where does this almost omniscient knowledge of pokemon come from? I've played pokemon since the days of yellow, but it still seems to me that there's 1 level of knowledge that people have of pokemon and then there's the smogon understanding of pokemon which far exceeds the other level, and I'm somewhere in between, because I'm pretty comprehensible of how the game works, but not on the same understanding as the members here are. If that doesn't make any sense, let me give you an example, I'm for the most part what you'd call active over at marriland, I read the content of the topics over there and it's like ok, a lot of them still have a lot to learn about the game, then I come over here and I read topics, for example the tier list debate, and I'm amazed at how the members on this forum apprehend pokemon.


Let me go ahead and say, by me posting this, I'm not a n00b to this game, I'm only stating that, just in case someone sees a window to try and presume this as a n00b question. I'd just like to know in depth, is it experienced based or research based, or something else.

 

[Cactuar]

I'm in the same boat basically.

 

[Kumar]

When you've been doing this stuff for over several years, you tend to pickup some stuff!

 

[Blizzard1]

As a fellow n00b, I'd say that it's based on both experience and research/reading.

Personally, I hardly ever battle (and suck when I do, especially since I have hardly trained anything for competition), but in the few times I do, I can feel that battling much at all would give one a lot of experience for how the game tends to work, what kind of moves people tend to make, how annoying stuff like spikes and stealth rock can be, and so forth.

On the other side there's the technical/research side (which is where I fall if anything), where people spend far too much of their time (I know I do) pouring over stat calculations/developing theories/testing how weird move combinations work/programming simulators or stat calculators or whatever.

In conclusion, this has been a useless response, other than to say that I think I and other people here spend way too much time theorizing, reading, researching, or whatever else about how everything works.

Also, people are -usually- up for logical debate, and though having strict moderators sometimes irks me, and I (and probably others) feel there is a degree of elitism here, a lot of discussions that go on here have people who are debating theories and strategies clearly and intelligently, and are willing to concede when they're wrong instead of just saying "tough, umbreon sucks". ; P

One final thing that I like is that people here try not to spread rumors/false knowledge about stuff...and even if there's something that seems obvious but isn't certain, there are people who will test it carefully and report the results. The result: If you dig enough (which is hard sometimes) there's a lot of hard, accurate information here which supplies facts to go into the discussion.

...if that didn't make any sense or was unrelated, I'm sorry. :P It's late here.

 

[Blizzard1]

When you've been doing this stuff for over several years, you tend to pickup some stuff!

Judging from his 1600+ posts on Smogon, I'd say so.

One other thing that comes to mind regarding experience: Nethack. Most people here probably don't know what it is or haven't played it -- it's an ASCII graphics dungeon crawling game with elements of D&D (it's a Roguelike game).

My point about it is, Nethack is FILLED with tons of random and unpredictable things, and a multitude of ways to kill yourself by one stupid action. It's incredibly difficult to win the entire game. I'm not great at it, but I still find it difficult even after having played it for years off and on, and read tons of spoilers about all the items/monsters etc. The result: I have (though I forget things) a giant random mental archive of tidbits I've picked up about the game. Someone who just started the game, even someone who'd read a guide or two, would probably never have the sheer amount of knowledge you get from doing/studying it for so long.

 

[xTyrantx]

When you've been doing this stuff for over several years, you tend to pickup some stuff!

I could definitely see that. I had always played the games the way I imagine most average players do when starting out, get the strongest pokemon and beat the elite four then wait for the next game to come out, and in the meantime build a team and face all your friends via link cable, but ever since the addition of wifi battling it opened up new doors, and of course I researched everything I could about EVs, IVs, Natures; etc that had been around for I don't how long. Then I began developing strategies, learning how the metagame works, so on and so forth, but then I come here and I read some of the topics and it's like wow, I've only begun to scale the mountain of information that is the pokemon games.

 

[KiMeS]

I have the same trouble. To learn what works and not, and when. to know the right amount of EV's to use and how to know wat you need to keep in mind. It's still vague to me...

 

[xTyrantx]

I have the same trouble. To learn what works and not, and when. to know the right amount of EV's to use and how to know wat you need to keep in mind. It's still vague to me...

no no, I understand how to use good EV spreads and how to plan ahead, I've got that built into my brain, but I'm still not on the level of the members here. I want to know what exactly makes you progress even more so in pokemon understanding.

 

[chaos]

practice a lot is all I can say, I've been doing this shit for like 6 years now

 

[Orwell]

In my opinion, competitive battling requires a different strategy and mindset from ingame battling. Ingame, your opponents choose moves haphazardly, without an inkling of strategy. The only thing you need to succeed in game is a willingness to train.

Even if you have friends that you battle with on a regular basis, it's still not going to improve your skills if all of you are used to the ingame mindset. People who have played ingame for years can still be bad because usually level training is the only thing they know.

So, yes, I would say that it is based on experience. I played Pokemon for years, but was horrible on Netbattle, as I was unused to human opponents, let alone people who actually thought more than one move ahead. While research is a huge part of what makes Smogon such an authority on the subject, I think the experience is what gives more experinced battlers the foresight to know what should be researched and what does'nt matter, if that makes any sense to you.

 

[Yoshi King]

In my opinion, knowledge comes firstly from reading movesets/strategies and "essays" written by the Smogon team. After absorbing the basic metagame and understanding the basics of upper-tier battling, you can read up on individual Pokemon movesets made by the S-team, and begin to make your own movesets from those based upon what you believe is effective and works for your team. Then, as you gain competitive battling experience, things just fall into place, really. You realize what is popular and what isn't, what will work and what won't, etc etc.

Currently, I'm on the cusp of becoming a dedicated researcher; I've only just started using damage calculations instead of estimates to see how effective a particular pokemon is against a particular OU threat.

...Wow, I made that all about me. Self-centred much thar, Yoshi King? Still, what I described about myself is basically how all of us become knowledgeable about this stuff.

Also, despite us giving off an air of elitism (and yes, some of us are outright elitist), I'd say it's pretty damn necessary. If we weren't uptight about our discussions actually being discussions, we'd regress into the hellhole that is GameFAQS and possibly Serebii as well.

 

[Toshi0220]

It all comes from practice battling. For example, say you have a lead Tyranitar vsing a lead Weavile. You bring sandstorm in, which removes the threat of a Focus Sash. But what, most Weaviles carry Brick Break, which will easily OKHO you :(. Swap to a counter or wall (Swampert off the top of my head), and then what? He may switch, he may stay in. You could either Stealth Rock or Earthquake/Stone Edge.

It is all from personal experiances. You can't just read something (though it is very helpful if you do) and be the best :O

 

[xTyrantx]

In my opinion, knowledge comes firstly from reading movesets/strategies and "essays" written by the Smogon team. After absorbing the basic metagame and understanding the basics of upper-tier battling, you can read up on individual Pokemon movesets made by the S-team, and begin to make your own movesets from those based upon what you believe is effective and works for your team. Then, as you gain competitive battling experience, things just fall into place, really. You realize what is popular and what isn't, what will work and what won't, etc etc.

Currently, I'm on the cusp of becoming a dedicated researcher; I've only just started using damage calculations instead of estimates to see how effective a particular pokemon is against a particular OU threat.

...Wow, I made that all about me. Self-centred much thar, Yoshi King? Still, what I described about myself is basically how all of us become knowledgeable about this stuff.

Also, despite us giving off an air of elitism (and yes, some of us are outright elitist), I'd say it's pretty damn necessary. If we weren't uptight about our discussions actually being discussions, we'd regress into the hellhole that is GameFAQS and possibly Serebii as well.

I think therein lies my problem. I don't like OU battling, it seems too, I guess you'd say repetitive(don't flame me), and by that I don't mean anything offensive to anyone who plays OU, I know good and well there are plenty of strategies that are just waiting to be discovered in OU, it's just that too often I see specmences, skarmbliss, scarfgons used over and over again by players who don't have an ounce of creativity, they just mimic the strategies that they see are efficent in the metagame and it really just sucks the entertainment out of wifi battling. I battle for the most part BL, even though as of recent I was informed that the BL & under tiers haven't been made official, so I use the basic framework one of the members from here gave me, but basically as you were saying that you're on the cusp of becoming a dedicated researcher of OU threats, I'm hoping to do the same in regards to BL & under battling, but with the majority of people playing OU it's hard for me to find a definite BL threat, because I feel like BL & under hasn't been brushed up upon as much as OU. Maybe that's the n00b in me, I have a lot yet to learn and I have no problem admitting that.

 

[Kumar]

I think therein lies my problem. I don't like OU battling, it seems too, I guess you'd say repetitive(don't flame me), and by that I don't mean anything offensive to anyone who plays OU, I know good and well there are plenty of strategies that are just waiting to be discovered in OU, it's just that too often I see specmences, skarmbliss, scarfgons used over and over again by players who don't have an ounce of creativity, they just mimic the strategies that they see are efficent in the metagame and it really just sucks the entertainment out of wifi battling. I battle for the most part BL, even though as of recent I was informed that the BL & under tiers haven't been made official, so I use the basic framework one of the members from here gave me, but basically as you were saying that you're on the cusp of becoming a dedicated researcher of OU threats, I'm hoping to do the same in regards to BL & under battling, but with the majority of people playing OU it's hard for me to find a definite BL threat, because I feel like BL & under hasn't been brushed up upon as much as OU. Maybe that's the n00b in me, I have a lot yet to learn and I have no problem admitting that.

I would like to state that when you achieve a certain level of skill in it, you'll enjoy OU more than anything else when battling someone with a similar skill level. OU generally has a state of balance that no other metagame offers (DONT DISCUSS DP OU NOTHING ABOUT IT HAS BEEN SET IN STONE). Matches WILL be close, good team building WILL be important. You'll see a lot more creativity that you'd never imagine existed. Matches will have climactic ends. You'll learn to enjoy and appreciate battling and team building skills when playing/viewing matches and enjoy it on the whole.
This all is assuming you have the drive to get better and work towards it to achieve that aforementioned skill level.

 

[TVboyCanti]

If your talking about becoming a decent battler, I will tell you that part of it comes from doing your research and knowing your sh..stuff, but most of it comes from experience. There are many subtle nuances to battling that you just can't get from reading smogon's analysis', excellent though they are. You definitely have to get in there and get your feet wet, and remember that every loss, every mistake should be stored away for later use. When you make a mistake, don't think Dammit that was so effing gay, I hate this!, think lol, I definitely won't do that again when this situation happens again. Adopt that mindset, and your play will improve dramatically.

To your last post; One of the things I learned from batttling in ADV, is how to balance my team with standards and BL and gimmick sets so that it can still be interesting to play in OU, without having to lose a lot. You just have to experiment a lot and play a lot. It was a lot easier to do this in Netbattle than it is in wifi, I'll admit, but you guys have Shoddybattle now right?

 

[xTyrantx]

I would like to state that when you achieve a certain level of skill in it, you'll enjoy OU more than anything else when battling someone with a similar skill level. OU generally has a state of balance that no other metagame offers (DONT DISCUSS DP OU NOTHING ABOUT IT HAS BEEN SET IN STONE). Matches WILL be close, good team building WILL be important. You'll see a lot more creativity that you'd never imagine existed. Matches will have climactic ends. You'll learn to enjoy and appreciate battling and team building skills when playing/viewing matches and enjoy it on the whole.
This all is assuming you have the drive to get better and work towards it to achieve that aforementioned skill level.

I did play OU for a while, but what I found is that it isn't so much my lack of creativity, as it is my opponents. I strive to put creativity into every team I build but the vast majority of players I've encountered in the OU tier(or what is considered OU) are just out to win, which in turn pits me against the same strategy over and over again, it gets boring, but in BL i've actually faced a wide variety of strategies.

 

[TSPhoenix]

Lots or reading and battle experience is important. But I find that random battles are one of the best ways to get better at the game, you learn to adapt to deal with what you have and what you don't, you can also chance upon interesting combos that you may later work into movesets.

 

[Lee]

I would like to state that when you achieve a certain level of skill in it, you'll enjoy OU more than anything else when battling someone with a similar skill level.

I spat my juice out when I read that. Then I started laughing, but only because it's true. I originally played OU, but then I started trying to be all uinque and ended up with a OU team that could easily compete in UU with a few adjustments. So I played UU for a few months, but the lure of the big challenges in OU was just too much for me. UU is just a distraction to me now. A fun one though to be fair!

A lot of the knowledge is extracted directly from the game such as Egg hatching steps and all that jazz. Battling knowledge is the application of experience. For example, a LOT of people called Manaphy to be standard. So Smogoners were involed in hundreds of battles involving Manaphy and that is how they decided whether he would be uber or not. It wasn't his stats, moves or type. It was his actual perfomance. Actual experience is the best thing for you in this game.

 

[Jibaku]

I may have only played competitive battling for 3 years, but if you put your mind into it, you'll soon understand it. The first metagame I focused on is OU, and then ubers, and that's it (I have to admit I have pretty much no knowledge about UU battling).

If you despise OU battling (me too actually, well lately anyways), you can do ubers. This metagame is the speedy joyride people tend to overlook just because pokemon such as Palkia and Mewtwo are in it. A metagame full of hard decisions, extreme predictions, and unpredictability. This metagame is perfect for you, because due to some pokemon being extremely versatile (Mewtwo, Arceus), and the fact that not many people actually spend their time making "undiscovered" sets on that plane.

As for the Manaphy thing it isn't officially uber yet.

 

[DMFG]

I did play OU for a while, but what I found is that it isn't so much my lack of creativity, as it is my opponents. I strive to put creativity into every team I build but the vast majority of players I've encountered in the OU tier(or what is considered OU) are just out to win, which in turn pits me against the same strategy over and over again, it gets boring, but in BL i've actually faced a wide variety of strategies.

This is one of the most annoying attitudes I see regarding OU.

Why are you blaming your opps for being uncreative, and for being "just out to win"? Why are you not taking advantage of their lack of creativity to create anti-metagame teams?

It's because of this attitude of "my opps are all doing the same thing, but I can't be bothered to think of ways to beat them so I'll do something else instead" that actually stops the metagame from developing properly and stagnates it.

I mean.. can you imagine what Starcraft (say) would be like if everyone had your attitude while the game was developing?

People would start by rushing a lot, and then if instead of saying "lots of people are using rushes, I'd better think of a counter-strategy" people just gave up, then Starcraft wouldn't even be a game.

 

[Lee]

As for the Manaphy thing it isn't officially uber yet.

I didn't say it was. ;P

Good analysis of the uber metagame too. You've made it really tempting! If only I could get any good ubers. Soft-resetting doesn't like me.

 

[Neus]

I can't really blame him for getting frustrated with the OU metagame, since outside of ARing teams to test, you have to breed and EV Train each 'well is this going to work' team. However, I will say that once you get into it enough, it's not too bad and will eventually start working to your advantage once you build up decent prediction and moveset skills. There's nothing quite as satisfying as taking out something with Golduck; you just have to be willing to try harder to do so.

 

[xTyrantx]

This is one of the most annoying attitudes I see regarding OU.

Why are you blaming your opps for being uncreative, and for being "just out to win"? Why are you not taking advantage of their lack of creativity to create anti-metagame teams?

It's because of this attitude of "my opps are all doing the same thing, but I can't be bothered to think of ways to beat them so I'll do something else instead" that actually stops the metagame from developing properly and stagnates it.

I mean.. can you imagine what Starcraft (say) would be like if everyone had your attitude while the game was developing?

People would start by rushing a lot, and then if instead of saying "lots of people are using rushes, I'd better think of a counter-strategy" people just gave up, then Starcraft wouldn't even be a game.

For starters, like the person above me said, it'd be too time consuming. I already spend the only free time I have researching and playtesting as much as possible to further my understanding how the game works. I have a BL team that's efficient enough that I've faced quite a few OU teams and beat them, but the reason I don't build teams to counter my opponents is because that'd contradict the whole idea of incorporating creativity into my team, if all I'm doing is countering the repetitive OU teams then I'm not building teams to my liking, and in turn I'm doing the exact same thing the repetitive OU players are doing, just mimicking a counter team so I can win. Now I'm sure that I could build a creative team and still manage to counter a lot of my opponents, but I like my teams to be well rounded with a variety of movepools and underlying strategies to hit my opponents with when they least expect it.

 

[Forsety]

8 years experience of playing...

Hard not to pickup something in that time.

 

[DMFG]

For starters, like the person above me said, it'd be too time consuming. I already spend the only free time I have researching and playtesting as much as possible to further my understanding how the game works.

It would not take any more time at all to develop, breed and train an anti-metagame team than any other kind of competitive level team, so this is rubbish.

if all I'm doing is countering the repetitive OU teams then I'm not building teams to my liking

This on the other hand is fair enough. Still, you should not expect to be able to win at a competitive level using teams and strategies that you just like, as opposed to ones that are designed to win whether just by being solid in themselves, or by being tailored anti-metagame.

In the end, by trying to restrict yourself to strategies and pokes that you "like", battles end up being more boring and you actually restrict your own enjoyment of the game. That in turn makes you think (as you are doing right now) that OU is boring and stale, when in fact it isn't. It's your own personal version of OU, where you refuse to use a strategy or a poke just on principle, which is boring and stale.

tl;dr: If you think OU is boring, it's usually your own fault and not the metagame's