Reffing Discussion

[Crazy Linoone]

Also, rigged battles can be disappointing. :( I mean if you do end up beating someone generally regarded as experienced, then all you have is a "good job! You managed not to screw up something heavily weighed in your favor because people think you aren't good yet". If you lose, well...

This. There should be a cap on the pokemon the referee can use based on the pokemon the newbie has (so no Garchomps sweeping the newbie's team of pidgeys and caterpies). This serves to make the battle more fair in general.

 

[Superbird]

How about 'only first stage pokemon'? That already exists as a [rather common] restriction anyway.

 

[1. Luftballon]

it would be better to require some number of rounds or actions of reffings than to increase length by damage caps, though lower caps would be helpful.

(and have I mentioned all the ways to win a 0% damage cap battle in five rounds or less?)

 

[allitersonance]

The challenger is going to be subject to the damage caps too. The point is to not be cruel to them.

Lower damage caps would encourage a bit more in the way of strategy, setting up things rather than going for the "I will beat in your face" route, gets the challenger and prospective ref both comfortable with the concept and keeping an eye on it, and feels less artificially imposed (at least, no more artificial than any other battle). Uh, probably. I don't play with them because, well, beating in Coloursfall's face is about all I do nowadays.

 

[1. Luftballon]

really, low damage caps still allows you to beat them in the face, it just requires you not to target health directly. does require more strategic thinking, though.

 

[allitersonance]

Encouraging strategic thinking is beneficial for both people who matter. The challenger gets a taste of doing things other than recognising STAB and type match-ups, while the referee has to deal with more varied situations than flamethrower x3.

But a little bit of beating of faces should be permitted; skewing things purely in the way of strategy would be a slightly more stressful introduction if the challenger is really new to the whole concept and skews things in the referee's favour all over again.

 

[Hiikaru]

it would be better to require some number of rounds or actions of reffings than to increase length by damage caps, though lower caps would be helpful.

(and have I mentioned all the ways to win a 0% damage cap battle in five rounds or less?)

Like maybe "after x rounds, whoever did the best wins"? That way the battle would never get too long, and it wouldn't be able to end early, either (usually). I guess that makes it less like a real battle, but that seems fine, anyway!

If you were to go the handicap route, the tutor might give commands first more often than the new battler (though not necessarily every time), which also means that the referee will more likely get a chance to look at the reffing before the new battler has to make something of it.

The new trainer would also get more of a chance to see how first sets of commands are supposed to be! I think new people have a really hard time looking through battles even if they try, because it just doesn't make sense at first! So you kind of just have to jump into it and then the pieces start falling into place. At the least the experienced trainer could go first on the first round so that the new person has a chance to see before ey makes a big mistake like not knowing conditionals are a thing!

 

[The Omskivar]

res res res

stop putting strategy into the most non-strategy-based things

this is about teaching not winning

 

[Mai]

Like maybe "after x rounds, whoever did the best wins"? That way the battle would never get too long, and it wouldn't be able to end early, either (usually). I guess that makes it less like a real battle, but that seems fine, anyway!

There are the Outside The Battle Arena areas, which have a similar gimmick.

What are you talking about Omskivar winning is always what things are about.

 

[1. Luftballon]

res res res

stop putting strategy into the most non-strategy-based things

this is about teaching not winning

the alternative is me attempting to break the system afterward!

 

[The Omskivar]

Break the system where we aren't trying to train more people to aid you in breaking the system.

 

[allitersonance]

If there is a prize involved, the tutor should be encouraged to try to win, because winning the prize should not be easy. If it's an easy battle, then the usual exp and money from winning would be enough. (Otherwise, it also runs into the problem of but what if they really suck and sometimes people feel bad for not letting them get what's otherwise expected to be a free bonus because someone keeps spamming moves the tutor's pokémon resists or something. Well, everything Mai said.)

Also, how would a new player accepting one of these tutorial battles interact with the reffing bonus for people who take on someone's first battle?

 

[M&F]

Personally, I'd like to help out with approving referees, but I'm this huge prideful asshole, so, I wouldn't hold back on anyone.

I'm thinking that, instead of thinking so hard on the whole making it a newbie fight thing, we should just have two referees battle. That way, we could even have second opinion, and we could even have the referees secretly conspire among themselves to set up command strings that they think the mock taker should be put through.

 

[bulbasaur]

I'm thinking that, instead of thinking so hard on the whole making it a newbie fight thing, we should just have two referees battle. That way, we could even have second opinion, and we could even have the referees secretly conspire among themselves to set up command strings that they think the mock taker should be put through.

^Seconding.

 

[The Omskivar]

Third'd. I have a winning streak I'd like to keep up.

 

[Negrek]

Would these battles be fully-fledged, though (i.e. count toward battle cap, give experience and money, tagged with win/lose)?

Could we have certain (special) Pokémon selected to give the newbie a natural movepool advantage, then give out Rare Candies to /replace/ how much experience would be earned or something?

The way I had envisioned it, these battles would not count towards the battle cap, but would still give normal EXP/monetary rewards

This was actually what I was thinking... allow the newbie to use any (nonlegendary) pokémon they pleased rather than their usual team for this battle, and then, to counteract this:

Dunno about Rare Candies... Maybe the newbie could indicate which Pokemon they want the EXP to go to? After all Rare Candies can be sold for over $60 here...

...do as blazheirio was suggesting and let them simply designate their borrowed pokémon's experience to one of their own pokémon. I think this approach would remove the need for restrictions on the referee's team, since the newbie would get to pick whatever they wanted to take into battle and you probably wouldn't end up with salamence vs pidgey or something that way. On the one hand, banning sig moves/attributes would make things less confusing for everyone, but on the other, I would want to know that a referee could handle sig moves and attributes all right.

Or they could instead have their usual team, but be able to choose to have their pokémon at any level of evolution for the battle, and then EXP would just be distributed as normal.

it would be better to require some number of rounds or actions of reffings than to increase length by damage caps, though lower caps would be helpful.

I'm leery about holding battles to a set number of rounds, just because I would prefer for the battle to play out in as natural a manner possible; even if the battle ended up being a six-round curbstomp, six rounds is still a decent number, and it would be hard to finish a 2vs2 off in less time with that, even with a fairly permissive damage cap. With one experienced trainer in on the fight, I don't think that excessively long battles are a real area of worry.

Finally, the consolation prize would probably be upped a bit for this battle, so the newbie would get something decent even if they lost. Perhaps a little bonus along the lines of, say, their choice of any item, or perhaps just a broadly good item, such as an eviolite or lucky egg, if they won?

I guess I didn't manage to actually multiquote that thing about having two referees battle, but the primary issue I see with that is that referees already get loads of perks, and they rarely have trouble getting their battles reffed. They don't really need more EXP/money. So, we could go the route of having the battles not give any prizes--but then who would want to do them? If the "ref for a newbie" thing doesn't work out, then I'd as soon just have it be the referee + "some other person in the league," rather than another referee, specifically.

Also, someone asked about how the newbie bonus would work if this went into play? Perhaps the referee who agreed to help out with the battle, and the person trying out for referee, would get something extra if they saw the thing through to the end.

It would be nice if we had some actual newbies in here to share their opinions on things rather than simply speculating on what would appeal to them. Perhaps I should try bribing some in here or something.

 

[Hiikaru]

Personally, I'd like to help out with approving referees, but I'm this huge prideful asshole, so, I wouldn't hold back on anyone.

I'm thinking that, instead of thinking so hard on the whole making it a newbie fight thing, we should just have two referees battle. That way, we could even have second opinion, and we could even have the referees secretly conspire among themselves to set up command strings that they think the mock taker should be put through.

In addition to what Negrek said, then you'd also have to find two refs who want to do it! I suppose it would be easier to find people to participate in battles than it is to find people who want to referee a battle, but they do have to check all the numbers and the writing and tell the trying ref what's wrong!

This was actually what I was thinking... allow the newbie to use any (nonlegendary) pokémon they pleased rather than their usual team for this battle, and then, to counteract this:

I think this seems interesting! They could pick an exciting or good Pokemon instead of the couple they've managed to save up for so far - fighting with the same Pokemon or cheap unevolved ones forever can be discouraging and maybe it would be another thing to help show them what ASB is supposed to be like! I guess it's easier to start off with a Pokemon with a smaller movepool so that there aren't quite as many options, but if a newbie really wants to do that ey still could.

 

[M&F]

It's also worth mentioning that sometimes the newbies have previous ASBing experience and/or read a lot of battles and understood what was going on. Meaning they'd be on well equal grounds with most referees aside from the difference in team options.

Also, since referees already get plenty of money if they're active, I'd suppose it doesn't need a monetary reward; just the exp is enough to reel people in.

 

[Lord of the Fireflies]

I agree, exp. is rare, and the only thing referees can't buy...

unless res comes around, that is.

 

[1. Luftballon]

hey, I only have rareexpensive candies some of the time and I actually do have to do put in some effort to get them.