Why is pokemon so unbalanced?

BadPokemon said:

What broken rules and glitches are exploited?

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I refuse to answer this cause I am better than that.

BadPokemon said:

How is creating rules and classifying pokemon based on usage and power unbalanced?

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Cause it's not official.

BadPokemon said:

Don't forget VGC is pokemon run- not community (so it's official).

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Cause VGC does not apply Smogon's tier system.




The point is that Game freak does not apply a tier system, so the game is unbalanced. We have a tier system, but it's NOT official (thusfore the game remains unbalanced).

Juxapose said:

I refuse to answer this cause I am better than that.

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That's not very helpful to having a discussion. :|

Zekrom said:

That's not very helpful to having a discussion. :|

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Reason why I refuse to answer the question is because I can spend the whole day looking u the tons of gigabytes of evidence, posting the hundreds of youtube videos of trainers complaining of hacks and broken pokemon, moves, abilities, rules, and glitches, I can post interviews of trainers who live in my city refusing to play VGC because they believe the game is too hacked to be playable. All this I can do, but I already seen this forum's stubborn attitude trying to dismiss all my evidence because "I like my game to be broken, I can win that way. Fair play is no fun. The game allows it, so it's fair play."


So instead of wasting my time, I'll just leave it the way it is. When Smogon bans Pokémon/moves/abilities, and fans need to open their own servers to escape the OP. Game freak makes Patches to fix bugs. But people still ask this question:

What broken rules and glitches are exploited?

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This can only be looked at as an act of denial and acceptance.

Juxapose said:

Reason why I refuse to answer the question is because I can spend the whole day looking u the tons of gigabytes of evidence, posting the hundreds of youtube videos of trainers complaining of hacks and broken pokemon, moves, abilities, rules, and glitches, I can post interviews of trainers who live in my city refusing to play VGC because they believe the game is too hacked to be playable. All this I can do, but I already seen this forum's stubborn attitude trying to dismiss all my evidence because "I like my game to be broken, I can win that way. Fair play is no fun. The game allows it, so it's fair play."


So instead of wasting my time, I'll just leave it the way it is. When Smogon bans Pokémon/moves/abilities, and fans need to open their own servers to escape the OP. Game freak makes Patches to fix bugs. But people still ask this question:

Sorry if this came off as rude. I'm trying to get my point across.


This can only be looked at as an act of denial and acceptance.

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Okay, first off: You can't point at a hacked Pokemon and then say that the game is unbalanced. Hacked Pokemon are usually meant to be unbalanced. The game didn't just magically allow someone to catch this thing, so I don't think it should count in this argument.

As for broken Pokemon/Moves/Abilities, there is usually a reason for them. Like the Pokemon being a Legendary. Do you really think it would be called Legendary if none of its stats were over 100 and it had basic attacks?

If you're talking about non-legendary Pokemon then I don't really know what to say except sorry that some people like to have perfect Pokemon? You have to take that up. Or you could go through the steps and hatch/catch/whatever your own?

Not going to mention the rules/glitches because I don't do competitive Pokemon battling except on Showdown and every game has glitches. Maybe Gamefreak should adopt the tier system for their games?

I'm still not quite sure why you think the game is broken since not all Pokemon are meant to be on equal footing in the first place.

Juxapose said:

So instead of wasting my time, I'll just leave it the way it is. When Smogon bans Pokémon/moves/abilities, and fans need to open their own servers to escape the OP. Game freak makes Patches to fix bugs. But people still ask this question:

This can only be looked at as an act of denial and acceptance.

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I just want to point out that it's kind of ironic that you keep saying the game is broken but Smogon adds all these tiers and rules because they're trying to make competitive play fair. Try using a team of UU against Ubers see how far you go.

Juxapose said:

Reason why I refuse to answer the question is because I can spend the whole day looking u the tons of gigabytes of evidence, posting the hundreds of youtube videos of trainers complaining of hacks and broken pokemon, moves, abilities, rules, and glitches, I can post interviews of trainers who live in my city refusing to play VGC because they believe the game is too hacked to be playable. All this I can do, but I already seen this forum's stubborn attitude trying to dismiss all my evidence because "I like my game to be broken, I can win that way. Fair play is no fun. The game allows it, so it's fair play."


So instead of wasting my time, I'll just leave it the way it is. When Smogon bans Pokémon/moves/abilities, and fans need to open their own servers to escape the OP. Game freak makes Patches to fix bugs. But people still ask this question:




This can only be looked at as an act of denial and acceptance.

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Ah, I think I see what you're getting at. Yes, the raw Pokemon games are inherently unbalanced. There's no denying that. Making each Pokemon unique is bound to leave some less useful than others, among other issues (like Stealth Rock). And like wolf said, metagame balance is not one of Game Freak's priorities. Never has been, probably never will be.

But that's why sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands are attempt to make things balanced ourselves. Sure, we could all sit here and cry and complain about how Game Freak's still not trying to balance the games, or we can try to do something about it ourselves so we can try to get the most out of Pokemon battling. Now, has any sort of system made to try and balance the games been perfect? Nope. But I at least have to give people credit for trying.

IDK why you keep bringing up hacks and glitches though. Hacks aren't supposed to be part of the game to begin with; they're made entirely by outside sources, and like Thursday said, obviously not meant to be balanced either. Hacked mons aren't a problem with the games themselves, they're a problem with people. And as far as I know, there's currently no battle-related glitches in Pokemon.

Juxapose said:

I refuse to answer this cause I am better than that.

Cause it's not official.

Cause VGC does not apply Smogon's tier system.

The point is that Game freak does not apply a tier system, so the game is unbalanced. We have a tier system, but it's NOT official (thusfore the game remains unbalanced).

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Well I'm doing my best to follow your argument here mate, but I'm left a little confused- you won't answer questions about what specifically you're talking about - but you say people are ignoring your evidence. You said creating rules and classifying pokemon based on usage is unbalanced because it's not official - but then you say the official pokemon tournaments aren't balanced, because they don't follow Smogon's rules and classifications? Quite frankly my friend, there's a juxtaposition (yuk yuk yuk) of reasonings within your statements here, and I'm curious what you're really getting at. Because I personally am significantly more fond of VGC elements than community ones, but can't seem to pick out what I agree with you on and what we disagree on.

Juxapose said:

Reason why I refuse to answer the question is because I can spend the whole day looking u the tons of gigabytes of evidence, posting the hundreds of youtube videos of trainers complaining of hacks and broken pokemon, moves, abilities, rules, and glitches, I can post interviews of trainers who live in my city refusing to play VGC because they believe the game is too hacked to be playable. All this I can do, but I already seen this forum's stubborn attitude trying to dismiss all my evidence because "I like my game to be broken, I can win that way. Fair play is no fun. The game allows it, so it's fair play."

So instead of wasting my time, I'll just leave it the way it is. When Smogon bans Pokémon/moves/abilities, and fans need to open their own servers to escape the OP. Game freak makes Patches to fix bugs. But people still ask this question:

This can only be looked at as an act of denial and acceptance.

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Mate, just because someone, or even a large group of people complain about something in a game, doesn't mean it's broken. Because that would make everything and anything in pokemon broken, since doubtlessly it's been complained about at some point. (Except stunfisk, I don't think I've ever heard Stunfisk complaints. VGC 2015: Stunfisk only) But the point of my responding to this quote of yours is more to question what you believe the phrases "Hack" and "Hackable" mean. Because VGC is entirely puritan in what they allow to be in tournaments, so much so that a pokemon that had a purely superficial aspect changed illegitimately is grounds for instant disqualification. It doesn't get much more non-hack-friendly than that. And I'm not sure if you've seen the last years VGC matches, but all the finalists, especially the winner - used very measured and non exploitive strategies. I won't go hammer that one name I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing by now, but they didn't even have a pokemon in common between the two of them I believe. And that would mean my friend; that there is nothing so broken it is mandatory to use to win at this point. ie; not broken. (note that VGC is doubles format Kalos Born only however. So there's that aiding the balance.)

By hacks do you mean when a Level 1 Probopas takes out a Level 100 Blaziken? And by Glitch do you mean when a Pokemon with Sturdy is K.O'd in 1 hit? I assure you it's all strategy. Tiers don't matter much, since it's been proven that Pokemon in low tiers have the ability to defeat those in OU or Ubers. Didn't expect to see Pachirisu win VGC? Well I can see what you mean by Sceptile being utterly destroyed by Blaziken but Swampert can easily take out a Blaziken. Just because it's Ubers and seems to be unstoppable doesn't mean you can't win.

Pokemon is a horrible competitive game. Nintendo tries hard to balance it, but fails because they lack knowledge on how to balance ****, and about the metagame in general. Go play Chess instead.

Lol this guy ^

But with no discontent towards singles or anything else that could be considered passively insulted by my saying so; OP have you tried doubles? :/ it's a lot less.... What you might be specifically calling unbalanced

Polar Spectrum said:

Lol this guy ^

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Are you saying I'm wrong?

I'm saying you're entertaining amongst other things-

But yes, I disagree. They haven't left it very balanced in some areas; but if you took almost any team today and used it in the 4th gen meta, it would be a pretty 'broken' system, wouldn't it?

ofc it'd be broken the powercreep was insane??? What kind of argument is that?

Here goes something I just encountered that has been BROKEN since Gen 3, and was never fixed. A special attack that makes contact (petal dance). Not sure what doofus at game freak made that mistake, but can someone explain how throwing petals at my opponent causes me to make direct contact with my opponent?

Juxapose said:

Here goes something I just encountered that has been BROKEN since Gen 3, and was never fixed. A special attack that makes contact (petal dance). Not sure what doofus at game freak made that mistake, but can someone explain how throwing petals at my opponent causes me to make direct contact with my opponent?

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"Broken" means something different in the competitive scene, jsyk.

But I chalk that up to just being one of those nonsensical things Game Freak does on a routine basis. Fusion Bolt isn't a contact move, but it looks like the Pokemon makes contact in the animations, for example.

Zekrom said:

"Broken" means something different in the competitive scene, jsyk.

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I do know that "broken" and "overpowered ridiculously" are similar in the competitive world. But when I say "broken", I am referring to the poor programming that players exploit to help raise their chances to win. there are many examples of this problem in the game. I just refuse to list them all, and those are only the ones I know about. I keep finding new broken rules as I continue to play.

Juxapose said:

I do know that "broken" and "overpowered ridiculously" are similar in the competitive world. But when I say "broken", I am referring to the poor programming that players exploit to help raise their chances to win. there are many examples of this problem in the game. I just refuse to list them all, and those are only the ones I know about. I keep finding new broken rules as I continue to play.

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Wait, do you mean like status ailments or certain abilities like Super Luck?

M.I. - it's not an argument, just a statement of my opinion, I disagree with your opinion, but I recognize it could absolutely be more correct than my stance ultimately. What I said was also merely critical of the failure of the 'competitive scene' to develop along with the games since fourth gen. My statement was alluding to trying to conform what the meta is nowadays, to standards which people still try and hold to from almost a decade or more ago.


Petal Dance making contact isn't "broken", too :P By most people's definition anyways. If you'd like to know more special moves that make contact though, Grass Knot does- as well as Draining Kiss. There's a reason for all of those however; and frankly I'm glad there's some special moves that make contact. It adds a layer of knowledge to more experienced players repertoire to maintain advantages over novices. *puffs pipe and adjusts monocle*

I think Smogon does its best in making the game more balanced and fair by ranking Pokemon by their usage stats rather than raw power. I've been watching and playing the competitive scene for a while now, and while I'm not that good of a player, I can understand the importance of having to put your best foot forward in competitions. There's no point in using something if you know there's something else that does what you want better, so for the players that wanna win, they use the same Pokemon again and again. The tiers were created because some Pokemon just do their roles better than the rest, and they get used more often than others. Partitioning Pokemon in tiers like this at least puts everyone in a relatively equal playing field by removing those that do really really well.

People have been lauding Se Jun Park and his use of Pachirisu in the World Championships, saying that that's how you win using Pokemon you like. But you have to think, it's not that he centered his team around it, it's just the final obscure puzzle piece that fit so well with everything. What he proved there was that every Pokemon has its niche in competitive (except maybe Magikarp and Sunkern), and nothing's stopping you from finding it. The hard part is finding that certain niche though; it takes one heck of a mind to think of that in the context of high-stakes play.

It's competitive, you HAVE to work at your best. If you wanna play Pokemon for fun, go ahead. Pokemon's such a fun game, everyone should play it the way they want.