Pokemon X/Y Thread

[Psyche]

Skitty gives off the fairy vibe only as much as zigzagoon does so I don't see why anyone is surprised.

[Psyche]

The problem is with the facial expression, I think; a pokemon sprite should be simple, without too many elements or colours, and they should have some sort of face

Why?

[Psyche]

I don't think I would love Blaziken if he were cute.

[Psyche]

It's not really cute, no. But at least it has only one spectrum of colorus, namely yellow to red. Its design is nice and simple.

So what is wrong with the panda now?

[Psyche]

Where have you been?
Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y evolve during battle with a "mega stone"

lol

[Psyche]

Hoenn. Hoenn. I've waited soo long for a redux of Hoenn.

We all know Gen 3 was the best.

[Psyche]

I liked Ever Grande City.
And Team Aqua keyboard solo.
And that moment when it is simultaneously raining and the sunlight is strong.

[Psyche]

Garbodor was inevitable.

[Psyche]

With less resources demanded for raising a pokemon, people can focus more on the fun part of pokemon: battling, and figuring out how to battle well (team planning, battle strategy/tactics, etc). I don't think the game should become nothing more than a battle emulator, but I do think making IVs easier to discover is a huge improvement.

[Psyche]

Gardevoir and Blaziken were my two favorites ever.

[Psyche]

While I don't actually have the game, I've been stalking developments on it on Smogon/Showdown for a while now. I can't claim to actually be good at competitive battling, but I want to ask if anyone here is interested in that part of the game.

yes

[Psyche]

if it were someone bad doing this thread badly i would make fun of them
but this isn't someone bad doing this thread badly

[Psyche]

Vullaby sux
Unless it doesn't anymore. :(

[Psyche]

I really wonder how honest you are when you don't say so, honestly.

[Psyche]

</3

[Psyche]

I KNEW bugs used to be weak to ice.

[Psyche]

I KNEW bugs used to be weak to ice.

Err...no...but flying and grass are. You were probably playing with a grass/bug or a flying/bug pokemon.

shuddup

[Psyche]

Greninja..?

[Psyche]

godddd

[Psyche]

ferroseeddd

[Psyche]

what do you think you get for being really stylish?

[Psyche]

i blame nintendo

[Psyche]

Think there's probably a way to definitively determine which is the most effective team against a given probability distribution of teams.

[Psyche]

Not mathematically, if that's what you were thinking. Pokemon as a game is way too complex for that, as there are so many factors to consider. Even two teams with the same six pokemon can be completely different if you give the pokmemon different movesets, ev/natures and items.

What does the complexity of the problem have to do with the resolvability of the problem? Combinatorial explosions aren't really that big of a deal, because most factors can be ignored or examined heuristically. For example, the thousands of possible configurations of teams involving a totodile can all probably be ignored given a probability distribution modeling the OU tier.

Since there are no strong time limits on the answer (teams don't have be produced instantaneously), you could expect a program dealing with a minor combinatorial explosion to still finish in a matter of days.

[Psyche]

Though I feel like a combinatorial explosion in general could be avoided completely if one just formalizes the heuristics you guys are currently using to judge and build teams.

- Metagame. Not every move that a pokemon learns is used, often a pokemon is only used with a small amount of movesets. In addition, most pokemon have fixed movesets rather than just a random combination of 4 of its most-used moves. Now, statistics about which move is run on which pokemon are known, but moveset-statistics (e.g. whether Wish is run on Blissey more often in combination with IceBeam or ThunderBolt) are, to my knowledge, not available. This metagame changes continuously. Likewise, not every nature/ev spread/item is used with just any moveset. Though statistics on what natures and what items are used on what pokemon are known, this does not say anything about moveset-item combinations or moveset-ev spread combinations.

The input to the program is, in fact, the state of the metagame. A probability distribution modeling what sorts of teams the team is likely to compete against is put in, and a team most suited to dealing with that metagame is output. The fact that there is a metagame actually makes the problem simpler: it reduces the number of possibilities that have to be considered.

For example, in a simple case, the probability distribution could feature two teams, each 50% likely to occur: a team with a single magikarp (with no EVs and a neutral nature and no items) that knows splash, and a team with a single smeargle that knows splash. There's no reason to think it's impossible to determine what the best single-pokemon response to this distribution is: probably the pokemon that can deal the most damage to either of these pokemon in a single turn, on command.

It's definitely a hard problem once you introduce larger teams, factor in the strategies for these teams that are and are not being used, and so forth, but not unresolvable.

- Randomness and prediction. Person A using team 1 will battle differently than person B using the exact same team. Person A will also play differently, depending on what opponent he faces (does he know him or not? is he perceived to be good or not? what team does he run?). Because randomness is a key factor in Pokemon, the outcome of battles can't easily be predicted, even if the variable 'different teams' is ruled out.

None of this has to do with randomness; it's all deterministic. And making decisions under uncertainty is what mathematical models are all about. If you can somehow design teams despite the "randomness" and unpredictability of the people you're playing, why couldn't a mathematical model?

Besides, the model doesn't have to predict anything. It just has to construct a best response, given the information at hand.

In short, Pokemon is way too dynamic, random and ever-changing to calculate mathematically.

Pokemon is not

that

dynamic, random or ever-changing. If it were, you guys wouldn't be able to develop strategies or tactics for building and using teams. Nothing about your reasoning process is particularly sophisticated: you have evidence-driven theories about how well specific teams deal with the metagame as a result of these teams ability to 1) deal damage to other teams and 2) avoid or endure damage from other teams, given the sort of teams that your team is likely to face.

Your calculations are intuitive, but nothing about them can't be formalized. And by formalizing them, in fact, we can more easily explore how to improve them. The damage dealt by given moves by given pokemon with given stats and given items is publicly available knowledge. The sorts of teams and strategies that dominate the OU metagame are relatively invariant (compared to the sorts of teams that are available for use). While data collection issues might prevent a perfect picture of a metagame from being derived at a given moment, approximations can be made easily with either a reasonably sized sample or consultation with people deeply involved in that metagame.

In general, Pokemon is way less impenetrable a problem than mafia.

[Psyche]

If you want to read the ins and outs of the game, and the strategies behind such, a good place to start is: http://www.smogon.com/bw/articles/

You think I'm an idiot.

[Psyche]

Know the ins and outs of the game.
Be able to outguess your opponent more than they can outguess you.

Outguessing occurs during the battle; team-building is what is clearly a solvable problem. We can still assume either the best, the average or the worst case in terms of skill at outguessing, and move from there.

And any choice that is considered the best will soon no longer be considered such because it will be labled as "too predictable"

Only if a lot of people start using it. But if the metagame changes, that's a change in the the input, in the probability distribution of teams; a different team will thereby become optimal and the program, once shown the new probability distribution, will be able to output the most effective possible team for that distribution of opponents.

The best team will not win all the time (not just because of random mechanics in battles), and will not be the best response to any given team, as it is constrained by a need to be able to do well in a majority of variegated cases.

Barring that- if there was a single team that could outright become unbeatable- it would be banned.

The question is if there is a best team. If that best team got banned, there would simply be some other best team. Until a lot of teams are banned.

There are, it's called tiers. The statistically best pokemon are at the top and the statistically worse pokemon are at the bottom. But instead of just one straight up team of 6, there is a slightly larger pool.

There's still probably a best response to that pool, assuming that some teams within the pool are more popular than others (and some are).

If you're offended that I linked to smogon, well I don't know of a more well put together site with information on the metagame.

You don't think I already know about smogon?

[Psyche]

Unless the sort of team that a person faces within a tier is mostly or nearly random. If the chance of facing one team is the same as that of facing some other team, then the program probably won't be able to meet the constraints imposed by the problem...

[Psyche]

the taunter will die to Destiny Bond, and the taunter can't switch out because of shadow tag

Taunt can't stop Destiny Bond?

[Psyche]

I have a friend's code.

Would like to know whick poke's she's packing, etc.

2852 8234 1392

[Psyche]

darn it
okay, she will be duly informed

[Psyche]

got to 1500 on random battle fifth gen
so now im gonna build my first team

[Psyche]

no im gonna do schoolwork

[Psyche]

SD

[Psyche]

still not sure what jynx is

[Psyche]

eew

[Psyche]

Blaziken and Gardevoir and Manectric and Absol and Milotic

[Psyche]

you should link to it

[Psyche]

ooh impressivo

[Psyche]

That's why you do randoms!

[Psyche]

I think instead of banning pokes from a tier, they should merely be given level limits.

[Psyche]

lulz

[Psyche]

OMEGA RUBY
ALPHA SAPPHIRE

[Psyche]

i lovee random battle