A "How to become Competitive" article

[Ascalon]

Naturally, I speak only from my own experiences here, and cannot neccessarily conclude that this is relevant to all new comers, but upon arriving at Smogon with no prior knowledge of Pokemon besides what I had picked up simply playing the games, I was intially overwhelmed by the massive amount of additional complexity.

Changing from a playstyle where level and move base power are the only considerations in building a pokemon to one where nature, IVs, EVs, STAB, type coverage, stat boosters and additional move effects must be considered can be very disheartening and demoralising. While I acknowledge that my intuition allowed me to select my moves better (in terms of coverage, accuracy and non-hyperbeam class attacks) and notice the STAB, I found the changeover too much initially and only proceeded in small steps.

I think that new players would become competitve a lot more quickly, and be a lot more willing to adapt their playstyles if a guide with all the essentials, yet none of the details irrelevant to newly-competitlve players, was written. This is of clear benefit to Smogon - less forum space would be taken up with posts which appear stupid to the experienced, but may not be so to new players. Furthermore, it may result in more people embracing the competitive Pokemon world and adding richness to the metagame and to Smogon in their own ways.

As I have recently experience this transition, I would be prepared to write this article if it would be considered useful. Any thoughts?

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I'm trying to decipher what makes your suggestion different from what exists in the Introduction to Competitive Pokemon article--and I'm drawing a blank. (It doesn't help that I'm half-asleep right now.) Do you think something needs to be added to that article?

 

[Ascalon]

Not at all, it is a great article. However, what I feel is missing is some sort of guide about how to put it to use while playing the game without compromising the fun factor too much.

I knew about EVs and IVs and bred moves a long time before I could work up the energy to care. For most of my Sapphire play-time, I worried only about move coverage and the nature of the Pokemon - discarding your starter halfway through because you didn't IV breed it, and EVing your pokemon before you fight your first gym leader is a highly unappealing prospect.

On the other hand, I hated my first playthough of Pearl, because I tried to get everything right from the outset. This really ruins the enjoyment of the game, and there is a lot to enjoy in in besides the competitive aspect.

The guide I propose would be similar to a walkthough to the cartridge games, but with the end goal of being competitive and enjoying the game, rather than of plot advancement like conventional walkthoughs. While the article you linked is perfect for someone who wishes merely to use Shoddy, it doesn't give a prospective comptitive player as much help in actually playing the game.

I'm sorry if this seems a bit pedantic, but the playing of the cartridge games is the greatest attraction for me, and I have developed a number of ways of making the playthrough as fun and productive as possible, as well as identified methods which don't work (such as saving before each trainer and soft resetting if it would give you the wrong EVs. It grows painful very quickly).

 

[Tangerine]

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Here you go, a "how to become competitive" book!

 

[Ascalon]

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw

Here you go, a "how to become competitive" book!

Apparently I have no EQ, so I'm not sure if I'm simply not being sufficiently clear or if my proposition is not considered a good idea.

The article I would write would not be a description of the game mechanics, or an essay on game playing theory or competitive games. It would be an article on how to play the Pokemon cartridge games, specifically DPP, compitively without ruining the playthrough.

One quote from the book which caught my attention:

"There are also those who play games for something known as “fun.” That subject will not be covered here. I believe there is a great deal more of this “fun” to be had while playing to win than while only playing casually, but there is no use in entering that debate now."

To an extent, I agree with this, but it is difficult to play the cartidge games competitively from the outset and have fun. It is possible, but methodologies must be worked out and trade offs must be made. For instance, getting a starter with perfect IVs is probably not going to happen, but is is possible to make a competitve pokemon out of it.

Perhaps no-one here can relate to it any more, but I am a fairly new competative player, and being confronted with "your Pokemon will be worthless unless you work of everything from the start" tends to sound like "stop having fun guys". I think this an intergrated competative walkthough would be a great encouragement for new players to try and be competitive.

Thank you for you consideration, and please let me know if I've just misunderstood.

Ascalon

 

[YoshiX]

There is no need to EV train and IV breed for ingame purposes if that's what you mean.

 

[twash]

The article I would write would not be a description of the game mechanics, or an essay on game playing theory or competitive games. It would be an article on how to play the Pokemon cartridge games, specifically DPP, compitively without ruining the playthrough.

We are a competitive Pokémon battling site. If you talk about in-game things that really isn't battling, and if you start talking about WiFi battles you start to talk about game mechanics and so on, which we have already catered for.

"How to become competitive"? If you are not looking for "competitive" battling, the Pokémon side of Smogon is not for you.

/edit: that last line was probably confusing. What I mean, is if you aren't competitive why would you be at Smogon?

I might have missed the point but your original post is really vague anyway and it really isn't clear; so PM me explaining what you fully mean instead of "can I write this guide" when "this guide" is really, really vague if you have a problem.