Hope you guys were not waiting too long for me to write something up for you guys! Those of us who are on team Nintendo have by now heard of Nintendo's woes with online services. As of Christmas Day, when thousands of people around the world have unboxed their new shiny Nintendo 3DS consoles and attempted to connect online were unable to do so. An error that is still ongoing, even as I type. The Christmas festivities also coincided with the release of Pokémon Bank and Pokémon Transport in Japan, which was bombarded with millions of users attempting to log into the game servers to transfer their old critters to the new game.
When further information was released about the apps, it also appears that the hacked Pokémon prevention was also rather poorly implemented, with rumors of level one Gengars and illegal Infernapes plaguing the titles, even spurring up a not-so-healthy discussion here. What this topic will attempt to go through is a debate presenting the sides of each respective argument and discussing the many facets of competitive Pokémon battle.
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First of all, we need to establish the definitions and terms to at least acquaint you with the argument. There are three categories that Pokémon can be classified into.
- Legitimate - To be a legitimate Pokémon means that this creature can be captured in the game or via breeding.
- Legal - To be a legal Pokémon means that the Pokémon can be created with outside resources such as Pokégen or Pokésav; however, their stats and move sets are within the allowable parameters of the game. This method is what a lot of simulator programs such as Pokémon Showdown! or Pokémon Online use, to create competitive teams in mere minutes rather than spending thousands of hours grinding for perfect stats.
- Not-so-legal - These players are classified as a sub-class of legal players that have tendencies of both legal illegal aspects. They like to do most of the things that legal players do, but they do not care about the overall aesthetic feel of the Pokémon. They tend to get the move sets and stats okay, but then they mess up or disregard the details such as location or PID, and make blunders such as Totodile being caught in a Master Ball. Or, a Chimchar caught at Mt. Coronet. To some, these things do not necessarily matter.
Common tools that players use to create Pokemon.
- Illegal - To be declared an illegal Pokémon is to have move sets, stats, or abilities that violate the parameters established within the game itself. A quick example is Wondertomb. For those curious, Wondertombing is a nickname penned for Spiritomb, a Pokémon that until Generation VI had no weaknesses. Giving Spiritomb the ability Wonder Guard (only affected with attacks that are Super Effective) essentially made it invincible. Illegals can also consist of Pokémon that have move sets or abilities that are impossible, or maxed out 999 stats.
Now that we have established the classifications of the Pokémon, we can begin to shape the argument a little bit. A popular debate that has struck the forums as of late is the issue of legitimacy vs. legality.Legitimate players argue that legitimacy is the only way to go because the Pokémon are "true," essentially. They are made perfect through hours of breeding and were caught and/or trained the way that they should have been trained. Such methods involve utilizing the complexities of breeding mechanisms and items to create Pokémon with perfect internal values (IVs) or isolating the perfect natures (which determine stat balances) and then proceed to train their Effort Values (EVs) to be set for a competitive outlook.
Players who focus on legality are more along the lines of members who have access to a Generation IV/V game, which, as this forum is well aware of, had access to flash kits and computer programs to artificially create Pokémon, something that would have made Dr. Fuji proud. Legal players argue that their Pokémon are essentially "legitimate," which can be very much the case as such programs such as Pokégen allow the creation of such competitively based "legitimate" Pokémon down to the stats, their move sets, their IV/EV values, and aesthetics such as shininess, something that was made more accessible in Generation VI, both with more mechanics and an increased rate (increased from 1/8192 to 1/41XX). These programs are even thorough enough to modify them to their last detail such as catch location and even their personal identification value (PID). A legal player is one that can justify playing as such due to limited constraints such as time or dedication. If executed carefully enough, a legal player can very much hide themselves amongst the legitimate crowd and nobody would bat an eyelash.
Players who focus on the illegality bunch are lowlifes who should never plague online. Okay, that was a bit harsh, but a lot of the time it's either for fun or to mess around, and sometimes they end up online to people's dismay. If you are an illegal player, please do yourself and everyone in the online community a favor and never come online.
Now, the main crux of the issue is the release of the Pokémon Bank/Transporter application on the Nintendo eShop. A lot of users are complaining that these hacked Pokémon, though legal, should have no place in the current meta game as they were not created legitimately. And now the lines begin to bend. What makes a legal Pokémon not good enough for somebody's eyes? Assuming that the Pokémon itself follows the conditions of legality (acceptable IV/EV values, qualified move sets, locations, PIDs, etc.) what makes it that much different than a legitimate Pokémon? When it comes down to the bottom line, the only thing that separates them is the time investment, which can be argued that some do not have and simply want to have fun while being capable of at least keeping their head out of the water when faced with these competitively based teams. I have also seen arguments that sometimes shiny Pokémon appear within the legitimate category, and jealousy that a team is perfectly made with full shininess and perfect values. There's a serious misconception here that shiny Pokémon for whatever reason are causing issues. Shiny Pokémon are nothing more than aesthetics. I see people here making a huge deal on that factor, but they are only aesthetically there, with no influence on stats. They are only different color palettes, they do not influence stat gains or losses, otherwise this meta game would be all sorts of screwed up. As my old chap Veho pointed out, this idea has similarities to the idea of micro transactions, where the player can play and win the loot themselves, or pay and get the same result outright.
If you have been following me thus far, that is awesome, and you should have more than enough information to make a suitable reply. It is time for you to do some thinking. If you're just tuning in, do you personally feel that legal Pokémon fit in the meta game, or that they should be completely abolished no matter what? Do you find that legal Pokémon are wrong to use in comparison to legitimately earned Pokémon? Do you find that programs such as Pokésav or Pokégen help or hinder the competitive structuring of the game? Sound off in the comments below, and seriously, keep the comments civil.