Would you enjoy a ELO/Ranking system for Wifi/Online battles.

[Blixy213]

As somebody who really enjoys playing pokemon, as well as a ton of other games, at a more competitive level, I've noticed a general trend with a bunch of newer games, which is a system of visible ELO. For people who aren't familiar with an ELO system, it gives you a number which is relative to your skill level, based off you winning or losing battles against other players of similar skill, and you lose and gain points depending on if they were ranked higher or lower than you. It's pretty simple.

I think it would be great to put this in Pokemon, and have an online ranking system where you can check where you stand in terms of skill. It would dramatically boost Pokemon's online community, I really hate having to use online emulated systems to use a ladder system, and I don't think it's too much trouble to implement a ladder system in game, instead of consistently having to face people that have no clue what they're doing when I spend countless hours legitimately EV training and breeding for a perfect Pokemon. After a few games on a ranking system of some sort, people who put more time into the game would get out of this "Low tier" and eventually start being matched against better who are of similar skill, and would encourage newer players to learn the game further, possibly push Pokemon into the growing Esport scene? That could be a stretch, but I've always dreamed about it

Thoughts?

[Whistler]

I'd be cool with this. Wi-Fi Pokemon is boring at the moment in my opinion. ;D

[Keiran777]

Pokemon already has VGC and TCG tournies, but I don't think it will ever become part of the Esports scene. The skillcap is way too low, and random hax like crits would make any serious competition frustrating and unappealing.

Plus, Pokemon aren't designed with the metagame in mind, and balances come too slowly. This is why arena matches in WoW were decided to no longer be an esport a few years ago.

An ELO on random matchup would be nice, though.

[Blixy213]

Originally Posted by Keiran777

Pokemon already has VGC and TCG tournies, but I don't think it will ever become part of the Esports scene. The skillcap is way too low, and random hax like crits would make any serious competition frustrating and unappealing.

Plus, Pokemon aren't designed with the metagame in mind, and balances come too slowly. This is why arena matches in WoW were decided to no longer be an esport a few years ago.

An ELO on random matchup would be nice, though.

I don't think many games are designed with a metagame in mind, I think the players are always the ones to figure it out. Those that eventually see metagames form, are ever changing and usually are never 100% concrete, take LoL for example, the changes you see season to season usually differ quite nicely at a nice pace.

And I think the skill cap is set super high, infact, I think it's quite intimidating for newer players to jump right into learning viable comps, EVs, IVs, Natures, Breeding, Ubers, and tier lists etc, with a ladder system it can really show players where they are, and how to improve based off the abilities of others. Sure, in the end you're just pushing which attack to use, but the strategic aspect behind it is huge, but I do see your argument against it being an Esport, I agree with you there. It's just a dream of mine

As for balance, it's something that has also been done in the community, using tier lists and different clauses that all the major tournaments universally follow. I think if the company actually stepped in with a ladder system, it would defiantly call for balance patches. Wifi in general right now is much too dull.

[Ptzery]

I would enjoy one, but I would be at +- 100000000000000000th place

[tente2]

Originally Posted by Blixy213

And I think the skill cap is set super high, infact, I think it's quite intimidating for newer players to jump right into learning viable comps, EVs, IVs, Natures, Breeding, Ubers, and tier lists etc, with a ladder system it can really show players where they are, and how to improve based off the abilities of others. Sure, in the end you're just pushing which attack to use, but the strategic aspect behind it is huge, but I do see your argument against it being an Esport, I agree with you there. It's just a dream of mine :(

Eh, I see it the other way. First off, if people don't get something about the metagame, they aren't going to learn anything new by being pulverized into last place. Second, I don't know if anybody else disagrees, but I find it slightly demoralizing to give everybody a number that is supposed to represent their battling skills as a person. I wouldn't find having 1000000000th place to be exceptionally encouraging. If anything, it's a reminder to people of how bad at something they are, and especially if they don't fully understand what they're bad at, I imagine most people would just rather quit competitive battling and say, "Ah, I'm bad at this and I don't even understand it" as opposed to "Oooh, I'm in last place but I'll investigate competitive battling more and fight my way to the top!".

And then there's the case of people who just cheat for the sake of cheating, who would most likely be all the "top" players. If anything, I imagine a ranking system would only encourage more people to illegally hack the game to obtain EV-trained Pokemon, or 31 IV Pokemon, or whatever, as opposed to raising EV Pokemon (and related things) honestly.

I think a "Top 100" list might be better, but eh, I don't know. I still see so much room for corruption.

For all intents and purposes, I don't even care about competitive battling, nor do I participate in it anymore (I tried once, but after a month I really just got bored of it). So, if a ranking system of any kind was to be implemented, it would be all right by me! It wouldn't affect me.

[SooperTrooper]

I don't usually play on Wi-Fi because of it's bland features. Sure, a challenging battle every now and then is fun, but it'd be cool to have more. A ranking system would fit really well, and it'd show who really knows what they're doing.

The only problem is hacked / modified Pokemon. Hopefully it'd be possible to filter out the fake Pokemon and only allow fairly trained Pokemon. Not sure if this is possible, but it'd have to be for a ranked system. Wouldn't be fair to go up against a Dragonite with a Wonder Guard ability and 999 health.

[Ultimate PKMN Trainer Red]

I don't care that much since I don't play Wi-fi that much. But I'm OK with your idea.

[PokémonShinySilver]

It would be interesting to see some sort of ladder-like ranking system in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. I know there is something like that in other games like Mario Kart 7. So I think it could be quite a possibility for it to be implemented into Pokémon X and Pokémon Y.

It would be so cool to continue battling trainers to gain more points in a way and even lose them every time you win or lose.

[Forever]

Originally Posted by tente2

Eh, I see it the other way. First off, if people don't get something about the metagame, they aren't going to learn anything new by being pulverized into last place. Second, I don't know if anybody else disagrees, but I find it slightly demoralizing to give everybody a number that is supposed to represent their battling skills as a person. I wouldn't find having 1000000000th place to be exceptionally encouraging. If anything, it's a reminder to people of how bad at something they are, and especially if they don't fully understand what they're bad at, I imagine most people would just rather quit competitive battling and say, "Ah, I'm bad at this and I don't even understand it" as opposed to "Oooh, I'm in last place but I'll investigate competitive battling more and fight my way to the top!".

And then there's the case of people who just cheat for the sake of cheating, who would most likely be all the "top" players. If anything, I imagine a ranking system would only encourage more people to illegally hack the game to obtain EV-trained Pokemon, or 31 IV Pokemon, or whatever, as opposed to raising EV Pokemon (and related things) honestly.

I think a "Top 100" list might be better, but eh, I don't know. I still see so much room for corruption.

For all intents and purposes, I don't even care about competitive battling, nor do I participate in it anymore (I tried once, but after a month I really just got bored of it). So, if a ranking system of any kind was to be implemented, it would be all right by me! It wouldn't affect me.

Yeah I'm agreeing with a top 100 more than anything because it would allow the best to get their acknowledgement and everyone else doesn't need to feel bad about their score.

Also people can still use RNG to obtain those mons, and some people do work hard on EV training and getting 31 IV Pokemon (I has many with 31 IV in at least one stat just from ~luck~), and generally the offline community don't really use hacks that often because if anyone it'd likely be someone from the online sphere due to the knowledge about it all on here.

Originally Posted by Ptzery

I would enjoy one, but I would be at +- 100000000000000000th place :t300:

Nah if you tried really hard I'm sure you'd be much higher up. Anyone can do well with lots of practice!

Originally Posted by SooperTrooper

The only problem is hacked / modified Pokemon. Hopefully it'd be possible to filter out the fake Pokemon and only allow fairly trained Pokemon. Not sure if this is possible, but it'd have to be for a ranked system. Wouldn't be fair to go up against a Dragonite with a Wonder Guard ability and 999 health.

Honestly I don't even think they'd allow that now (the mega hacked mons!), and I guess obviously hacked Pokemon shouldn't count when calculating stats.

[HaloSonic]

I don't play online meta-game, though I would consider breeding pokemon for other people to use in it. the best I can manage in the Nimbasa training hall is about 500 points, (then again, I don't prepare my pokemon well for them,so maybe I'm actually better than that) so I wouldn't last very long on metagame. although, from my years of playing pokemon, I find there is a rather limited pool of about 50 pokemon that are always used in serious fighting out of 650. so to change things up from the regular teirs, maybe they should have single type metagame tournaments (all fighting, all grass, etc) and have rankings based on that as well as the standard ones?

[Blixy213]

Originally Posted by tente2

Eh, I see it the other way. First off, if people don't get something about the metagame, they aren't going to learn anything new by being pulverized into last place. Second, I don't know if anybody else disagrees, but I find it slightly demoralizing to give everybody a number that is supposed to represent their battling skills as a person. I wouldn't find having 1000000000th place to be exceptionally encouraging. If anything, it's a reminder to people of how bad at something they are, and especially if they don't fully understand what they're bad at, I imagine most people would just rather quit competitive battling and say, "Ah, I'm bad at this and I don't even understand it" as opposed to "Oooh, I'm in last place but I'll investigate competitive battling more and fight my way to the top!".

I think the easiest way around that is to just have an "Unranked" battle option.

But reading what other people wrote, I really have to agree that there has to be a system in place to catch any hacked pokemon caught or bred unfairly. Hopefully if they do commit to a ladder system, they can force you to patch up your game when you go into Wifi to fix the latest bugs and such.

I don't know how I feel about a ban system in pokemon, but I think it wouldn't be out of question when there is competitive play on the line.

[Forever]

Originally Posted by Blixy213

I think the easiest way around that is to just have an "Unranked" battle option.

But reading what other people wrote, I really have to agree that there has to be a system in place to catch any hacked pokemon caught or bred unfairly. Hopefully if they do commit to a ladder system, they can force you to patch up your game when you go into Wifi to fix the latest bugs and such.

I don't know how I feel about a ban system in pokemon, but I think it wouldn't be out of question when there is competitive play on the line.

Banning is also a point, if it were to appear in these games (which I'm starting to think is more likely, given their tournaments during B/W and random matchup ranks on Global Link etc) chances are it'll only ban legendaries, which will make it different to Smogon's tiers, and thus a lot easier to abuse imo. Like just make a sand team (with Excadrill!) or a drizzle team (with swift swimmersss) and you're set basically. ;(

[vaporeon7]

I think this feature would be very useful, especially for countries that don't have VGC like Australia. Though I agree with Nica, there would need to be a customise rules feature or something.