What don't you like about RBY?

[Dre]

Ok firstly, I think it can be agreed that hax is the most universally hated aspect of RBY, so we don't need to discuss that.

What I don't like about RBY is that you can be rewarded for scrubby play, or punished for making the 'right' decision. Not necessarily just because of RNG, but through simply expecting the player to make a more advanced option.

For example, I once versed a player who considered themselved an authority on the game, and was considered a top player by a few other players. As such, I expected him to be really good and make more advanced plays. I ended up mispredicting him quite a lot because he would make a lot of scrubby decisions, and a lot of the time in RBY you can't cover both scrubby and advanced options with the one play.

It's one thing to deliberately make a scrubby play to throw off a player who you have conditioned into reacting to advanced plays. The example I'm referring to was a player who was just legitimately scrubby and didn't know any better.

So what I don't like about RBY is that you can overestimate a player and be punished for it, and that good options don't always cover both good and bad ones at the same time.

[GGFan]

Your complaint isn't unique to RBY; it happens in every mode.

I don't know what I hate the most about RBY; however, freeze is up there, especially when I get frozen by one Blizzard in three out of five games while I don't get anything.

[jorgen]

I think the whole "overestimating a player" thing is a pretty cocky thing to think. At the end of the day, a lot of predicts like, say, Rhydon into Chansey are pretty risky plays. "Scrub" or not, you have to assess the risk and how truly likely it is that your opponent will play as you expect. I've made my play pretty basic to minimize my losses for this reason (I've been burned for trying to predict too much early on in the match before), only really trying to make big predictions when it's most decisive or obvious.

It'd be one thing if you had lost like 5 games straight to lead Tauros or something, that'd be pretty annoying. But it sounds like your opponent just got in your head and made you pay for the risks you took (risks which seem pretty necessary for your good ol' Wrap team to work properly).

And for the record I think the "hax" is a very fun aspect of RBY. It really makes for a match that can ebb and flow pretty wildly, and it ensures that you can never relax because a comeback is always just a die roll away. Granted, because of the RBG, a notable minority of matches can be ridiculous and one-sided, which is a consequence that results from the RNG that I'm not fond of.

edit: Yeah what GGFan said about Freeze holds. The fact that it's permanent is just stupid.

[v1nce]

My unluck (but it's off topic), people who doesn't play consistently rby and insult you for ripping their teams apart, and the idiotic wake up turn/forever freezing.

[GGFan]

Yeah, sleep is really bad in RBY.

[Isa]

Freezes. And well, I really don't like Wrap.

RNG can be hilarious at times, no hating.

(And regarding your example: what the others said.)

[Dre]

Jorgen- He didn't really 'get into my head' though. Once I worked out I overestimated him I started doing better because he had a limited pallet of plays.

It's not me being cocky, because if I knew that he was a weaker player than I thought I would've predicted him much easier. The reality is some plays take a higher knowledge of the game to think of than others.

[Isa]

Regardless, that's not specific for RBY in the slightest, so.

[Dre]

That's true I guess. I was just thinking more along the lines that it's specific to pokemon in general.

If we're comparing RBY to other gens, I guess in general it'd just be the hax, freezes, simple mechanics and limited amount of pokemon (although I prefer the latter two).

[magic9mushroom]

Snorlax freezes.

[Agent Syrup]

What I hate most? I dislike that Chansey centralizes gameplay and that there isn't a proper balance between Physical and Special attacking.... If only there was a version of gen 1 that made every Pokémon and type viable (bringing also a balance between physical and special).... if only...

[magic9mushroom]

Jul 18, 2013 13:15:05 GMT -8 Dre said:

Jorgen- He didn't really 'get into my head' though. Once I worked out I overestimated him I started doing better because he had a limited pallet of plays.

It's not me being cocky, because if I knew that he was a weaker player than I thought I would've predicted him much easier. The reality is some plays take a higher knowledge of the game to think of than others.

You should start with easy, safe predicts rather than going for the hard ones right off the bat.

(Also, the thing for painting is a palette.)

[cheese]

I don't like the fact that Focus Energy doesn't work as it should.

I also hate when players go off on rants about being "haxxed" when you've only received moderately good luck. Ultimately the closer a game is, the more likely it is to be decided by luck. It's RBY after all and you have to ride the rough with the smooth.

[samthedigital]

RBY is too simple. I stopped playing years ago because of this.

[Dre]

Non-wrap is too simple for me too. Wrap is still pretty simple in terms of competitive gaming, but adds another layer of complexity. The battles I've had against good players who know how to deal with wrap, or against other good wrappers have probably been the most tactical battles I've seen or read.

GSC is what non-wrap would be like if it didn't have such high hax. Switch a counter in to take a hit, switch to your counter to take their hit, explode on something to open up the battle. It's the hax in non-wrap that allows a pokemon to threaten its softer counters, or 1v1 an iffy match up. The strategy is the same almost every game too, just paralyse everything and sweep with tauros.

Don't get me wrong, wrap isn't some amazingly complex game that has no hax, but it's definitely more skill-based than non-wrap.

Even when I play non-wrap, I don't like using the standard egg star chansey zam/rock (zam is better) lax tauros team, because I feel that team takes no skill to use. I feel like anyone who understands the basics can just run that team, and make the standard defensive switches, and wait for unforced errors or hax to win. If you play that team, you'll lose to good players with more advanced teams and strats if they don't get haxed.

[samthedigital]

Is Starmie really the standard pick for a bog standard team without wrap? I would have said that both Alakazam and Golem together were more popular or perhaps having one of those two and Gengar or a set up Pokemon like Slowbro or something. Personally I liked Starmie a lot as a surprise starter assuming I could reliably get it to go to sleep, but I didn't use it often for much else.

If you play that team, you'll lose to good players with more advanced teams and strats if they don't get haxed.

Who would you say the good players are? In any case, I sort of disagree with this statement. The team might be standard (though not what I would use personally), but it's not like it would lose just because it's a 'simple' team.

[Dre]

Well starmie zam and golem generally compete for spots between the three of them, but I was under the impression that starmie was the most popular.

Gengar and slowbro aren't a common as the big 7 (8 if you count golem and rhydon as different pokemon).

If a good opponent doesn't get haxed, you will lose if they play well and you just make generic switches. They go rhydon, you go eggy. They go starmie you go chansey. You go rhydon on turn 3 and EQ instead of body slam. If you do that all battle, you'll just get predicted and lose assuming no hax.

Of course, you can mix it up and not be so predictable with your play, but that team isn't really designed for that as the only genuine offence it has is lax and tauros. One of which is benched until late game, and both of which are luck-dependent to do anything significant unless you're revenging with tauros. It's a essentially just a stall team that relies on hax to break through, then clean up with tauros. I played that team for over a year until I ignored the anti-wrap attitude this place has and tried wrap out for myself and built a proper team. I noticed my I'd get wins more baed on if I played better and I haven't looked back since.

[jorgen]

Standards are standards for a reason. It's because they're good. It's expected, yes, but surprise is hardly the only thing that wins Pokemon games.

[samthedigital]

If a good opponent doesn't get haxed, you will lose if they play well and you just make generic switches

Your example has a 'good' player who uses Starmie and Rhydon and a 'typical' player who has Exeggutor, Chansey, and Rhydon. Hypothetically speaking Tauros and Exeggutor would likely fill two of the spots on each team, but then what separates the good player from the average player other than how they play?

I played that team for over a year until I ignored the anti-wrap attitude this place has and tried wrap out for myself and built a proper team. I noticed my I'd get wins more baed on if I played better and I haven't looked back since.

What is your proper team that doesn't have trapping moves? I won't bother talking about whether they should be legal because it's not topical and I don't care about the subject, but I am assuming that Wrap is banned in these examples since you outlined it in your original post.

[Dre]

Jorgen- They're 'good' because you don't need a high level of skill to have a decent chance of winning. You just need hax or unforced errors.



Sam- I was just using an example, I wasn't really saying that X pokemon are used by good players and Y pokemon are used by bad ones. I don't play non-wrap anymore but I did build a team for a tourney here, but it was rushed and not tweaked properly. I basically just ran jynx zam eggy lapras GSClax tauros.

That was just a rush-job team. Thing was it had a strategy other than just hoping for hax. It's still non-wrap though, so you can't really do anything outside 'KO or paralyse stuff and sweep with tauros', it was just that I had a more calculated strategy other than hax and unforced errors.

I'm not saying that my team was amazing, I'm not even saying to use different pokemon just for the sake of being different. I don't rate surprise as tool because surprise is contextual. That's something you do in tourney sets in battle 2 or 3. I ladder, so I'd rather have a consistent team that can handle virtually any threat and doesn't rely on surprise to consistently grab wins. What I'm saying is that non-wrap is simple because it forces you towards one-dimensional strategies and has a high dependence on factors outside of your own play to win.

At the end of the day though, one meta isn't better the other because it's more complex. No one plays RBY because of its complexity and skill ceiling, we just play it to enjoy our childhood game through a competitive scope.

[magic9mushroom]

I'll say this; there are certainly teams that are more focused than the "standard". My Slowbro team is probably a good example, because it has an extremely well-defined gameplan. You get Withdraw Slowbro's counters out of the way with the rest of your 'mons, then you bring it in and go for the clean sweep. When you pull it off, it's incredibly lethal, but it's a lot less flexible than the standard team because you'll only generally get one shot at the sweep.

[Dre]

Generally teams with more focused strategies have greater potential for control and winning if played well but lower margin for error than the standard team because the standard team is a stall team at heart. It's just the hax that opens things up. If you removed crits and secondary effects, battles with standards teams would be incredibly stally. It'd be like a simpler version of GSC, where tauros is kind of like GSClax. Then again, tauros might not even be picked in a meta where he couldn't rely on hax.

[lilith]

freezes.

for most of the hax, i like how even when i'm ahead with 9:1 odds, i still have to estimate probabilities in my head to figure out how best to actually win, and likewise when i'm losing to figure out my best chance to come back. some other competitive games i've played have a pretty boring phase at the end where unless your opponent really screws up there's not much interesting that can happen, and i much prefer hax to that.

then there's the turn 3 freezes that halfway end the game by themselves...

[posthuman]

Like everyone else, I dislike the RNG issues. And wrap.

I enjoy the simplicity.