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+--- Thread: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. (/Thread-The-Current-VGC-Format-Actually-Rewards-Cheating)
The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - evilsabre - Jul 17, 2015
Apologies for the huge wall of text (about 2k words in all) but i just had to talk about something that i feel does poison the top of the competitive VGC and i just want to make i very clear i'm talking about national and worlds here not casual JFlynn tourneys
Ok so before I begin I’m just going to make a quick statement so hopefully no one takes this as an attack on how they choose to play the game. I personally have no issue with the use of genning or powersaves to create legal pokemon for use in Justins tournaments or for casual battles. My entire issue with them is in regards to the top level of competitive play so nationals and worlds, where they create an uneven playing field leading up to these tournaments.
Ok now that’s said on to the main reason behind why I’m posting this, well the primary reason is hopefully to change the way some people might currently be thinking in regards to competitive play and powersaves. And in doing so hopefully improve the format as a whole, additionally if anyone from the organising bodies of VGC happen to see this then hopefully it will help them understand what they can do to help minimise the effect of cheating in future championships.
Ok so firstly what cheating am I mainly referring to being advantageous? For the most part I’m going to focus on Powersaving and genning of pokemon for competitive use particularly Powersaving. So some people might be wondering what is powersaving. Powersaving is the use of a tool to edit the save data of your pokemon game and it allows you to give yourself items, complete your pokedex and even customise your pokemon specifically its IV’s, EV’s nature etc, you can even make it shiny if you so wish. While it is possible to make illegal pokemon doing this they are easily detected and are barred from competitive play including the online ranked ladder. However legal pokemon created using this method are very difficult to detect if not impossible with current technology being used.
So what’s the problem with these legal pokemon I mean they are not anything that can’t be obtained in game so are they even illegal at VGC events? Well they are illegal as the break the team restrictions I’ve pasted the relevant part of the rules below.
2.1. Illegally Manipulated Pokémon The use of external devices, such as a mobile app, to modify or create items or Pokémon in a player’s Battle Box is expressly forbidden. Players found to have Pokémon or items that have been tampered with will be disqualified from competition, regardless of whether the Pokémon or items belong to that player or were traded for. POP recommends players only use Pokémon that they have raised themselves and items that they have received through normal gameplay. It is always the player’s responsibility to have legal Pokémon and items during the competition.
Source: Play! Pokémon VG Tournament Rules & Formats, Revised: December 4, 2014.
The key part in all this is “The use of external devices, such as a mobile app, to modify or create items or Pokémon”. This line is pretty clear in full it means that no item or pokemon in the battle box you submit to the tournament can contain a pokemon that was not obtained legitimately in the game. But do they have a notable effect on the outcome on potential trainers well in the vast majority of cases the impact is minor when compared to an established breeder who can breed a competitive pokemon in under a day (approx 2-4 hours for me from 0 iv and wrong nature given I want a 5 iv pokemon at the end). Even when compared to a novice breeder it might take them say a week at most playing 5 hours a day (so 25-30 hours more than likely a lot less than this). However this starts to change when event and legendary pokemon (other no egg pokemon as well although I think the only pokemon not covered by legends is unkown and ditto all others have parents or baby forms that can breed) start to get involved. These pokemon can only obtained once and have at least some element of random stats and nature. This means the only way to obtain them legitimately is to soft reset until you get the perfect one and as many people will know this is often a very timely process especially when compared to powersaving to edit the pokemons stats.
ok getting too long inserting amusing picture to lighten the mood
![[Image: FIfEfgD.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/FIfEfgD.jpg)
So this still doesn’t create an unfair advantage does it I mean they are still legal in terms of stats right?
Technically yes but let me explain why these power saved mons can create an unfair advantage for cheaters over legitimate trainers. Mostly the cost is not in the tournament itself but in the time leading up to the tournament. So why is this time creating an unfair advantage, well it really stems down to practice time a professional trainer could lose months of practice time across a year simply due to soft resetting for their legendary especially for certain hidden power sets. Since I’m soft resetting for one currently let’s take Zapdos as an example. When soft resetting for my Zapdos I use a synchroniser to get the correct nature 50% of the time I also want hp ice so I need 30 in defence and less than 31 in attack(about 50% of the attack values are fine it just cannot be selected to be 31 in the 3 guaranteed 31’s) therefore:
WARNING MATHS
(1/2)*(4/6)*(3/5)*(2/4)*(2/32)*(1/32)*(1/2) = 1/10240
In English this is:
(chance of correct nature)*(1st guaranteed iv is not att or def)* (2nd guaranteed stat)*( 3rd guaranteed stat)*(chance that remaining stat is 30/31)*(chance for 30 def)* (approx. chance for hp ice from the attack stat).
Or in shiny terms I’m going to see 2.5 shiny Zapdos before I get the one I want (without shiny charm).
Assuming 1 reset a minute, this will take on average 7.1 days straight, 14 days at 12 hours a day or 34 days at 5 hours a day.
Now this is an extreme case but you get the gist to get just a 5iv (30 or 31) its 1/1024 which is slightly more realistic but this will still take someone 17 hours on average (at 1 reset per min).
So say you want a thunderous and landerous for your team and you want hp ice on your thunderous. The result is that this will take you combined time of 187 hours on average or 7.8 days straight, about 16 days at 12 hours a day and an entire month at 6 hours a day. If you were planning on doing this after the rules came out you only have 1 month remaining before Winter regionals. So you would get half the practice of the other trainer or even less if you were planning to swap in another legend into your team. It’s pretty common knowledge that practice is very important to doing well at international events and loosing 50% of your practice time could have a significant impact on your performance.
However the most damming evidence for why Powersaves create an unfair advantage is with event pokemon such as the ice punch ttar from last year this pokemon had a random nature that could not be affected by synchronise and fully random stats. If you wanted to powersave yourself the perfect competitive one it would take less than a day. However to get a perfect nature pokemon with 5 iv’s at 30-31 would be:
(1/25)*(2/32)^5 = 1/26214400 yea that’s 1 in 26 million
Which would take using 1 reset a minute approximately 49-50 years straight or 100 years at 12 hours a day, In other words the average legit trainer would have died before getting this pokemon but the average powersaver would be free to use it at a tournament next week if they wanted to.
Sadly it’s only just been a year since the last case of confirmed hacking in competitive VGC with Ray Rizzo using a dream ball aegislash at US nationals last year, while it didn’t affect the result of the match (Ray lost and was eliminated from the tournament as a result) It does show a significant fault with Nintendo’s detection and enforcement of the rules at important events.
A reason for why powersaves on legendries can create an unhealthy meta is tied to the fact that landorous and thunderous are both huge powerhouses in the meta currently sitting at 2 and 4 on the most common picks. (Heatran is at 6 and terrakion and crescelia have both been on the list at some point as well)This alone doesn’t create an unfair advantage or particuly encourage cheating but the due to the fact that both these pokemon put a heavy load on teambuilding and if a new trainer doesn’t have the time to reset for legends they will struggle immensely to make a team that works as the beginner friendly teams are supposed to involve a lot of soft resetting. If power saving were impossible I suspect these pokemon wouldn’t be as predominant as a lot of people would use the next best rather than soft reset, which in turn opens up to more flexible teambuilding which creates a better environment for new players rather than creating a huge temptation to powersave.
This temptation to powersave exists for all players but is especially prevalent for players new to the scene.
So what can Nintendo do about it, well to borrow the words from Gabe Newell (pasted it below if you’re interested) on piracy powersaving is a service problem.
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem
What this means is that you can never get rid of it the only way to overcome it is to make the legitimate way more convienient that the illegal way or atleast comparable. In all honesty Nintendo and Gamefreak have started to do this gen 6 breeding changes, egg moves via dex nav, a better base shiny chance and legendries getting 3 31 iv’s guaranteed . But in my opinion the only change that will really make legitimate players able to evenly match Powersavers is to ban legendries and event pokemon from tournaments which then means all competitive pokemon can be bred excluding ditto and unknown.
Hopefully I’ve shown you that the current VGC format encourages powersaving due to the centralisation around legendaries and the time cost of soft resetting disadvantages legitimate players while the mechanic gives cheaters more time to practice. I also hope that I have hopefully swayed a few towards the idea that the best option to deal with this is not to try to stop powersaved mons existing but remove the biggest offenders of the advantage gained by banning legendries and event mons in vgc 2016 and beyond.
congratulations you finished here's another amusing picture :D
![[Image: pokemon_shaming__imalune_s_sylveon_redo_...7r0ydz.png]](http://img06.deviantart.net/ace8/i/2014/197/a/e/pokemon_shaming__imalune_s_sylveon_redo_by_imalune-d7r0ydz.png)
TLDR: You really should read the whole thing but here’s a very brief version: powersaving is not a huge edge until you get to legendries and event pokemon, time cost of soft resetting disadvantages legit players (I did the math, you can even die before getting the mon you want in some cases), since legendries are big offenders and dominate the meta they encourage players to powersave to get them, this advantage could be dramatically reduced by banning legendries and event pokemon from vgc in the future.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - Podfighterninja123 - Jul 17, 2015
This. Is. Huge.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - evilsabre - Jul 17, 2015
5-7 hours typing this out :P
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - N_Nonymous - Jul 17, 2015
You're right but people don't want to take the time to do it the legit way.
That's just the way things are these days.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - evilsabre - Jul 17, 2015
(Jul 17, 2015, 02:56 PM)N_Nonymous Wrote: You're right but people don't want to take the time to do it the legit way.
That's just the way things are these days.
exactly,
its why my recommendation is to ban legends and event pokes for next years vgc it removes the biggest offenders. After all can't stop people powersaving but we can stop people getting huge practice time advantages from it, i also think it would lead to a healthier meta but that's another topic entirely.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - ChaseInfinity - Jul 17, 2015
Amazing job Evil, you meet all the points of how i feel about, yes i have got people to gen pokemon for me but i love to breed pokemon and i makes me fell better when a team was put together and built by my own hands.
On the topic of Breeding, whats your opinion on Ditto, i mean i use a 6iv Ditto to breed my teams, i know it isnt as "bad" as genning but some of the points kind of pretain to Ditto also, i mean if a trainer wasnt able to obtain a 6iv ditto (since most are genned) then it would take him even longer (but still not as long), im just saying this because its usaually the counter arguement when topics like these come up, called people like you and me hypocrites for not using genning but using a genned Ditto. Just wanted to hear your opinion on it
.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - evilsabre - Jul 17, 2015
(Jul 17, 2015, 03:11 PM)Animekid7 Wrote: Amazing job Evil, you meet all the points of how i feel about, yes i have got people to gen pokemon for me but i love to breed pokemon and i makes me fell better when a team was put together and built by my own hands.
On the topic of Breeding, whats your opinion on Ditto, i mean i use a 6iv Ditto to breed my teams, i know it isnt as "bad" as genning but some of the points kind of pretain to Ditto also, i mean if a trainer wasnt able to obtain a 6iv ditto (since most are genned) then it would take him even longer (but still not as long), im just saying this because its usaually the counter arguement when topics like these come up, called people like you and me hypocrites for not using genning but using a genned Ditto. Just wanted to hear your opinion on it
i'm probably one of the few people who has bred competitive pokemon both with and without genned dittos. Genned dittos are insanely useful but they actually become increasingly less important as you spend more time breeding as 5/6iv offspring you get in the same egg groups will often have the nature you want making them better fathers than ditto since they can also possibly have egg moves (Smeargles arguably the best breeding pokemon in the game). Its not a big advantage like the legends or event pokemon which require soft resetting to obtain you save maybe 20-40 hours breeding time total across every single egg group once each egg group is established ditto becomes kinda useless. The only advantage at that point is it saves you learning all the egg groups or consulting a table every time you want to breed.
Overall i think genned dittos are fine for breeding purposes only they save on set up time and with dex nav and friend safari's you can typically breed withing 2-5 days your 1st competitive pokemon of an egg group and from then on it gets much easier to breed a second in that egg group.
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - tygaa2 - Jul 17, 2015
Game freak made a small effort to level the playing field in x and y more so than in any previous game when the blue pentagon was first released. The first few winter regionals of 2014 (pre us poke bank) forced you to compete with legit mons. This didn't last long obviously, but it proves that no matter what game freak does hackers will always find a way to edit Pokemon.. Nice post btw
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - GiMYz - Jul 17, 2015
I'm one of those who firmly thinks that Powersaved legends do not affect the competitive scene. Let's talk about Landorus-T and Thundurus for example, since it seems like you have something against these mons.
Landorus-T usually holds a Choice Scarf or a Choice Band. Great. What kind of perfect IVs does Lando-T need to perform with this item? 31 Atk and Speed IVs. Nothing else in my opinion. You may have a lower roll for any HP Ice or Ice Beam because you don't have 31 IVs in SpD or in HP, but Lando-T is not supposed to take any Ice type attack in the first place. Furthermore when you EV train your pokemon to get an OHKO on Landorus-T with an Ice Beam or HP Ice, you test the damage on a 31 HP / 31 SpD IVs Lando-T.. that means you can have a flawless Lando-T or not, but you won't be able to take that particular Ice type attack.
Oh and i forgot that legends in ORAS always have at least 3 perfect IVs. But Lando-T just needs 2.
Thundurus has two strong viable sets: bulky Sitrus Berry and offensive Life Orb. For the first set, all you need is 31 HP, Def and SpD IVs. Which is 3 perfect IVs. Hidden Power Ice? Raphael Bagara (2nd place) and Wolfe Glick (8th place) used a HP Ice-less Thundurus in their teams. HP Ice is a great move on Thundurus, but it doesn't affect it's role of supporter too much. The Life Orb set only needs SpAtk and Speed IVs. It needs HP Ice, yes, and this might be hard to obtain, yes, but we eliminated so many variables thanks to the fact that we just need SpAtk and Speed IVs that you can also close an eye if you really want an HP Ice Thundurus.
I'm not taking in consideration Natures, because of the Synchronizer trick which gives you 50% chance to have the correct Nature.
These are just two examples of popular legendaries that in my opinion don't really need to be powersaved to perform at their best in the competitive scene.
Now let's suppose that Powersaves do not exist. Wouldn't it be unfair for those who want to play in the competitive scene but don't have much time (because of work, school and so on) to soft reset for days, searching for a Timid HP Ice Thundurus for example? Wouldn't a system like this be even more unbalanced?
I'm sure Game Freak is aware of this situation and will deal with this problem in the future. The competitive scene of this game is getting more and more popular and i hope to see the introduction of a new breeding system (or a new "machine" to fix IVs if you give it particular in-game items, maybe?).
RE: The Current VGC Format Actually Rewards Cheating. - evilsabre - Jul 17, 2015
(Jul 17, 2015, 04:16 PM)GMX Wrote: I'm one of those who firmly thinks that Powersaved legends do not affect the competitive scene. Let's talk about Landorus-T and Thundurus for example, since it seems like you have something against these mons.
Landorus-T usually holds a Choice Scarf or a Choice Band. Great. What kind of perfect IVs does Lando-T need to perform with this item? 31 Atk and Speed IVs. Nothing else in my opinion. You may have a lower roll for any HP Ice or Ice Beam because you don't have 31 IVs in SpD or in HP, but Lando-T is not supposed to take any Ice type attack in the first place. Furthermore when you EV train your pokemon to get an OHKO on Landorus-T with an Ice Beam or HP Ice, you test the damage on a 31 HP / 31 SpD IVs Lando-T.. that means you can have a flawless Lando-T or not, but you won't be able to take that particular Ice type attack.
Oh and i forgot that legends in ORAS always have at least 3 perfect IVs. But Lando-T just needs 2.
Thundurus has two strong viable sets: bulky Sitrus Berry and offensive Life Orb. For the first set, all you need is 31 HP, Def and SpD IVs. Which is 3 perfect IVs. Hidden Power Ice? Raphael Bagara (2nd place) and Wolfe Glick (8th place) used a HP Ice-less Thundurus in their teams. HP Ice is a great move on Thundurus, but it doesn't affect it's role of supporter too much. The Life Orb set only needs SpAtk and Speed IVs. It needs HP Ice, yes, and this might be hard to obtain, yes, but we eliminated so many variables thanks to the fact that we just need SpAtk and Speed IVs that you can also close an eye if you really want an HP Ice Thundurus.
I'm not taking in consideration Natures, because of the Synchronizer trick which gives you 50% chance to have the correct Nature.
These are just two examples of popular legendaries that in my opinion don't really need to be powersaved to perform at their best in the competitive scene.
Now let's suppose that Powersaves do not exist. Wouldn't it be unfair for those who want to play in the competitive scene but don't have much time (because of work, school and so on) to soft reset for days, searching for a Timid HP Ice Thundurus for example? Wouldn't a system like this be even more unbalanced?
I'm sure Game Freak is aware of this situation and will deal with this problem in the future. The competitive scene of this game is getting more and more popular and i hope to see the introduction of a new breeding system (or a new "machine" to fix IVs if you give it particular in-game items, maybe?).
settling for less means knowingly giving yourself a disadvantage (not often but its there) while a powersaver never has this dilemma also the time component is huge on practice at least for me.
The 50% from syncroniser actually plays a huge factor in the time if it was 100% it would half all the odds therefore halving the time needed.
Not to mention event pokemon like the ttar from last year 1 was used in the masters i believe and i doubt it had less than 20 iv's in the 5 ivs the trainer wanted which would still make the odds about 1 in 10k.
if powersaves didn't exist every has an equal opportunity with the mechanics allowed by the game not perfect but 100% fair to all who own the game there no edge by paying more.
while Powersaves by no means decide outcomes of games often (i mean how often do poke hang on in the red and if you lack some dmg or bulk that could happen that little bit easier) they not only provide small advantages to certain players but also harm the competitive integrity of pokemon.
Another point is that while a powersaver can edit his pokemon say you want a lanto-I instead of T well that's easy to solve but a legit player has to go get another 1.
I'm not going blame players for powersaving not everyone has the patience to SR but until Nintendo and gamefreak solve the issue i feel people should atleast be sportsmanlike enough to not take powersaved pokemon into competitive events as it just reflects badly on the community as a whole.