A Courteous Discussion of the new FFA Rules

There has been some heated discourse regarding the new FFA rules that Pidge rolled out yesterday. The URPG leaders are interested in hearing your thoughts on the manner (we do support free speech).

I'd like everyone to know that we rolled these rules out with the best of intentions to support the URPG community, as has always been our goal. No one hates the URPG. We are all friends and rivals, participating in this grand community to have fun. It is the intention of all URPG leaders to ensure that the URPG is fun.

It is also the goal to ensure that the URPG remains fair and balanced for everyone involved. Just like a good Pokemon battle begins fair, so too do we desire that the URPG remains fair, and thus fun for everyone.

We'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas on how to remain both fun and fair to everyone. I'd like to ask everyone to remain considerate towards each other.

And at the end of the day, the decision does rest in that of the leadership.

Thank you.

 

As an opening statement, I'd like to say that URPG is a game. A good game is not only fair, but not too easy or hard. Now URPG isn't a win or lose game, you make your own goals. A common goal for most people is probably to have all of their dream Pokemon in their stats with all the cool moves. The URPG allows you to do this, but it makes it a challenge so that achieving that goal actually means something. That means acquiring money shouldn't be too easy or hard as well. What does that have to do with FFAs? Well FFAs are an easy source of money. It is generally agreed upon that if you want to make a good amount of money in the URPG, that one should take up a position like that of a ref, grader, or ranger. However, with a large amount of FFAs, the importance of becoming one of these positions is lowered. Not to mention that making a good sum of money in an FFA does not necessarily require a large amount of strategy or skill. By having 2 FFAs a week per ref, battlers are able to rely way too much on them to get their TMs and other things we like in the URPG. This violates the belief about people needing to get positions to be rewarded better.

That comments on why FFAs should be reduced to once a week, but what about those restrictions on the rules? The restrictions are not a measure to prevent battlers from making undeserved money, but for the ref. Yes, positions like ref should be able to make more money, but there should be some kind of limits that prevents them from doing so too easily. Without any FFA rule restrictions, what is there out there saying you can't ref an FFA where all Pokemon are KO'd in one hit or all Pokemon must only use attacking moves? By doing this, the ref is able to ref FFAs much more easily, and this is uncharacteristic of a battle that is supposed to be hard to ref, but rewardful. Implementing special FFA rules are a privilege, not a right. Lastly, none of the restrictions are completely off limit. If you want to ref an FFA that involves using Pokemon that trainers don't own or using more than one Pokemon at once, you are free to run it by staff. I'll go into why I feel each restriction is needed.

[using Pokemon you do not own] The URPG is all about using the hard earned Pokemon you acquired through stories, National Park, etc. Using this kind of rule too many times does not sit well with me. I asked Ataro about it once and he agreed that these kind of rules should only appear once in a while. That's why there is still the option of running rules by staff to do this, and you probably can get approved, just not once every week.

[battlers using more than one Pokemon at once] This type of rule creates complications in payments. Does the ref get paid double if every trainer uses two Pokemon? Does double the Pokemon necessarily mean that double the effort was required? This is another rule that shouldn't be too hard to get passed by staff, the payments for it would just need to be clarified.

[greatly limiting the use of Substitute, Protect, and/or Detect]

[limiting the use of many moves in general; ex. all Pokemon are permanently affected by Taunt]

[increasing the damage of moves too greatly under common conditions] These lasts three restrictions are there to prevent a ref from abusing FFAs by making them too easy to ref, which I discussed earlier in this post. Not to mention Substitute, Protect, and Detect are sort of 'standard' moves to have in an FFA.

[giving a player too great of an advantage or disadvantage in relation to fulfilling a certain condition or due to random chance] This restriction's goal is a mix of keeping an FFA balanced, while also not making it too easy. You could give a Pokemon +6 in all stats for KO-ing a single Pokemon, and it ultimately just becomes a Taunt FFA because there is little reason to stat up by normal means. Similarly, this rule addresses things like the infamous 'Wheel of 69' FFA where rolling certain numbers could cost you half of your health, or give you stat boosts. Notice it says 'too great'. As head ref, I expect all other refs to have good judgment on what this means, especially now that I have explained the purpose of this restriction.

[hidden stat boosts] The sole purpose of this rule is to make sure people are reffing things correctly. In an FFA chat, mistakes will often be caught in seconds. However, with hidden stat boosts, you can't be sure. I have no problems with more experienced refs doing this, all it requires is staff approval.

[capping stat boosts] This falls in the same category of rules that make things easier for the ref.

 

I'd just like to add something that seems to be overlooked. It was stated that, despite these restrictions, authority figures can approve use of some of these rules. This isn't necessarily a strict ban as much as it is a ration. In addition, one FFA per week, per ref I don't seem to find too unreasonable or restrictive. Most refs weren't using their two per week in the first place. In the past, FFAs, even normal ones, need permission from a Official just to take place. For a long while, FFA's with special rules were banned entirely. This is not as big of a deal as it is being made out to be.

I blame the media hdear:

 

just FFA related ^^;, but I was wondering if a rule could be stated about leaving in the middle of an FFA. D:

So there are two type of leaves I think in the middle of an FFA:

1. Send your moves for the next turns (usually random moves)
For this, I've allowed battlers to do this, but I kind of felt guilty when they started to like KO people and ended up doing better than they should have D:
and

2. Don't send for a turn/few turns/ever


I mean personally, I've reffed my ffas with either lose 50% and go down to 1 HP and in the ladder case, Pidge (just an example D came back and ended up coming in 5th or similar placing when he didn't send like the first turn. D: So um I think this is something that should be made concrete. Sorry D: Ah this isn't an attack on you Pidge I just kinda didn't realize that you'd be able to bounce back that easily and I kinda felt bad for all the battlers when you did :x

And sorry to bring this up, but since FFA's are being discussed I figured it was sort of relevant ^^; also sorry for posting in the URPG Chat first ;_;

 

Giving penalties for not sending your move are perfectly fine. Most refs just KO people for not sending. These new restrictions are more about gameplay rules.

 

Ah okay sorry ;_; But also I think that well the reason that I ref FFAs, or the two I've reffed is sort of because I never get asked to ref :3 And so It's really the only way for me to make money from reffing, which you said is like the dream of the URPG citizen D: So I think that the reason FFAs are so out of hand is completely dependent on the fact that there is kind of a surplus of refs. This means battles are spread more thinly, and FFAs are more likely to appear . So I don't really know what a solution could be but it's something I'd like to add to the discussion because I think it greatly affects me D:

 

People who just send 'mons without playing should get nothing. A fair game doesn't give out a grand to people who don't even participate. o_o

 

Although I wasnt around during the original discussion of these, I'm gunna chime in anyway.

I think what people have forgotten is that it was originally intended that all special rules had to be cleared with a Senior Ref first anyway, to prevent situations such as this occuring. So-called 'bad rules' never would have been put into play.

One FFA per ref per week really isn't a big deal given the number of refs currently active. At one point I was the only active ref who did FFAs, and so those two a week were all you got. That's no longer a problem, and in recent times I've found FFA's to be occuring with surprising frequency. As someone who was mostly inactive, I still amassed about 150k solely from odd FFA's in about a months worth of time. So yeah, I guess it isn't exactly an economical method to have too many. I'm gunna steal Pidge's format here...

[using Pokemon you do not own] - I'm surprised this had to be brought into question. I've always voiced my opinion that renting Pokemon outside of gyms is stupid. Rental tournaments totally ignore that fact that some people have worked hard to earn their Pokemon and get them to the level they are at. I've heard the 'even ground' argument before, but honestly, fuck the newbies. We've worked hard to get where we are and deserve that advantage. People have worked doubly hard to earn legendaries. The only time I allowed renting in an FFA was during type restrictions (eg Log post #666, the Fire/Dark FFA) and these were completely TMless.

[battlers using more than one Pokemon at once] - This ones probably my fault, the double-Pokemon Valentine's Day FFA I reffed earned me double the money ($500 x # of Pokemon) while the battlers all earned the same amount, based on position of elimation, defined as when BOTH Pokemon had been KO'd. Admittedly this was in my benefit, but if ref payments were revised to be the same as a normal FFA this isn't too much of a problem, if anything it's just more work for the ref.

[greatly limiting the use of Substitute, Protect, and/or Detect] - As everyone else has said, this really should just be called the lazy-ref rule. Sub has 10 PP. There's your limit.

[limiting the use of many moves in general; ex. all Pokemon are permanently affected by Taunt] - Auto-Taunt is the lazy-ref rule again. I've never seen it used to add strategy to an FFA, only to make them go quickly. Alternating taunt turns, or the no-two-status-in-a-row rules DO add strategy. It forces people to plan how they want to stat up and attack. If you Protect, you risk being wide open next turn. I also don't see how this refers to the Gameboy Clause. Every player still has the right to pick any four moves from their entire arsenal, and it's a strategy-enhancing limit, not a tactic for a faster FFA.

[increasing the damage of moves too greatly under common conditions] - I'm unsure what specifically this refers too, but I'm generally against changes to game mechanics. The moves have defined powers/effects to keep the metagame balanced. We are in no position to change anything.

[giving a player too great of an advantage or disadvantage in relation to fulfilling a certain condition or due to random chance] - I'm undecided here. It reminds me of an FFA I won reffed by Chainy, by which KOing a Pokemon meant you added their ability to your own, or all their accumulated abilities in the same way. Final two, my Empoleon vs Blastoise, who's only real possibility of damaging me was with Earthquake... if I hadn't managed to nab Levitate along the way. Now in this case, I had earned the advantage, not been given it. So I guess I am against the random chance aspect of FFA's. I feel it's unnecessary. FFA's are already crazy and random enough in a lot of situations, the last thing that a battler needs is a dice roll crippling his otherwise well deserved chances at a victory.

[hidden stat boosts] - Uhhh..... what? Again, I haven't been in any relevant FFA's, but this confuses me. Either any player could figure it out anyway by counting along themselves, or every status move would be reffed as 'Pokemon X changed a stat!'. Both are stupid and as has been mentioned, prone to mistakes.

[capping stat boosts] - Why? Where do you cap? If you're capping at all, why not just cap at 0? Oh wait, isn't that kinda like the auto-taunt? Lazy-ref rule again.

Also mentioned was people who leave the FFA. I sometimes allow people to send a couple of extra moves if they expect to only be gone for 10 minutes. I don't lock moves. I don't do random moves. And if people send moves without asking first or just expecting me to lock something, they're usually in for a shock. In the interest of a little Poke-autheticity, what sort of douchebag trainer leaves his Pokemon alone to fight in a battle royale of 20+ other Pokemon? TAKE IT WITH YOU, or we'll report you to the Pokemon Protection Authorities.

 

Are you in the [URPG] blast chat? Often there will be battlers looking for a ref there. Also, are you sure the reason you don't get asked a lot is not because there's too many refs, but because people are not aware you are a ref? If you chat in [URPG] once in a while and let people know you are a ref, I'm sure you will get more requests. Furthermore, you can still get that 1 FFA in a week to let people know you are a ref. Lastly, looking at the last few ref wages, Chris (Fossil Fusion) was able to make 105k in one period without FFAs. It's funny because I told him he had to make 50k in order to ref FFAs since he was an older member that just came back. Continuing a look at past wages, Ebail has consistently been able to make 50k, and he does not ref FFAs either. 1, 2, 3. So in conclusion, I don't think FFAs really are needed to create your earning power as a ref, they are more of a support system in that regard.

Just some clarification. About the Gameboy thing, it would fall into greatly limiting the use of many moves in general. Most likely people would be unable to fit all 2/3 boosting moves they use frequently into their moveset as well as the right coverage attacking moves and a recovery move, Substitute, and possibly even Protect. People are going to start attacking earlier than they probably would otherwise in comparison to a normal FFA. I think Gameboy FFAs would be the kind of rule where you could do them once in a while because of this.

About the damage increase, it's just a measure against things like all moves do x2 damage as usual, or even all super effective moves do x2 damage than usual.

The Blastoise VS. Empoleon situation you described in which a Pokemon is able to gain another's ability(ies) through KO is perfectly fine and not 'too great'.

About hidden stat boosts, there could be an FFA where not only are the stat boosts are hidden, but the way you acquire them is through hidden means. For example, if you KO a Pokemon, you gain +2 in a stat of your choice that you decide privately with the ref. In that rule, it's hard for players to verify if you're doing something right or not, but it wouldn't be a problem to me if an experienced ref did this kind of thing with the right approval.

Everything else you said is quite agreeable.

 

I can't ref FFAs yet, and don't exactly plan on reffing a large amount of them, but this is my take:

[using Pokemon you do not own] I've only been in two FFAs like this, and the only one I really remember was one done by Near. You can imagine how well that worked out. We all got randomly rolled Pokemon that were considered 'black' in color by the Pokedex and it ended up being something like three Darkrai and some Murkrow... I guess what I'm saying is this is stupid. If you're going to earn money from something, you should have to use the Pokemon that you worked to get/train. So I'm all for this rule.

[battlers using more than one Pokemon at once] The only FFA I remember like this was Monbrey's and it worked okay, but it was for a special occasion and iirc everyone told him to do something for Valentine's Day, then left him hanging and he had to come up with it on the spot. So it was kind of a one time deal. I don't think a lot of refs would be able to ref this accurately, and also, it would just take too damn long. The only way I could see this being any good is in forum FFAs, like how it was done before.

[greatly limiting the use of Substitute, Protect, and/or Detect] Yeah this is lazy. The only time I like this is maybe if you get a Substitute when the FFA starts and then can't use it again. That way you still start out with a sub, but you have to come up with other ways to protect yourself, either through clever move use if you have a lot of EMs, or through making teams. Banning Protect/Detect or Sub altogether is kind of dumb. :/

[limiting the use of many moves in general; ex. all Pokemon are permanently affected by Taunt] Yeah, this one is fine to ban.

[increasing the damage of moves too greatly under common conditions] I remember being in one FFA where all super effective moves had their BP tripled or something crazy like that. It was over in about 45 minutes, and while fun, I can see how it could be abused, so maybe instead of banning this one altogether, put restrictions on it and make it have to be approved by an official/mod.

[giving a player too great of an advantage or disadvantage in relation to fulfilling a certain condition or due to random chance] I had never heard of the Wheel of Fortune FFA, but it sounds like a clusterfuck. So yeah, you're fine on this one.

[hidden stat boosts] Whatchu talkin' bout, Pidge? Hidden stat boosts are fine for older refs I think. I wouldn't do them, personally, because I'm forgetful enough as it is. So maybe just discourage this from being done by younger refs. It can add a lot of strategy to FFAs.

[capping stat boosts] Yeah this is lazy.


Overall, I think what you need to do, is clarify a couple of these. Like either exactly what rules are banned, or make a big ass list of okay rules, and make it so that anything not on the list has to be approved by a mod/official. Alternatively, you could make it so like, you have to wait two months to ref a normal FFA, but longer than that to do special ones. I dunno. That's up to you.

One more thing I'd like to addressed, that is somewhat of a tangent of this, is why is Pidge the only head of Battles? All the other sections have two heads. No offense to Pidge, I think he does a great job, but I feel uncomfortable having him be the only one in charge. Have the mods/officials/Harry get a second head of battling. I don't really care who, but battling is probably the biggest section of the URPG. We need more than one person managing it. And yeah, that's all I have to say.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EDIT: This isn't my opinion, it's TED's since this thread doesn't exist on PE2K

[using Pokemon you do not own] You realize this is exactly what the B/W tournament was… From what I recall, no one had a problem with that, and we had what, something like 64 people using 6 Pokemon each that they didn’t own? 384 Pokemon that aren’t owned? OH NO THEY CHILDREN ARE HAVING TOO MUCH FUN!!! TAKE THEM AWAY!

[battlers using more than one Pokemon at once] As a precedent to this, I remember Mikey allowing payment to the ref to be double for the two Pokemon. IMO, just let this be, but have someone watch it, and if the ref fucks it up too much, drop it to what the normal payment would have been.

[greatly limiting the use of Substitute, Protect, and/or Detect] Only if you can be rewarded with a Sub by completing an action of some sort.

[limiting the use of many moves in general; ex. all Pokemon are permanently affected by Taunt] Only if you get caught
[increasing the damage of moves too greatly under common conditions] What counts as too great? If its something like, a rare move/type of attack (like poison), then there’s nothing wrong there. If it’s like 1.5x for a certain type or two, then again, no problem :S

[giving a player too great of an advantage or disadvantage in relation to fulfilling a certain condition or due to random chance] Yeah, you wanna make that any more specific? It sounds like you either a) made that up, or b) you picked one person out who did that and tried to put the blame on everyone else like saying “HEY STOP IT YOU GUYS!”

[hidden stat boosts] Yeah okay. I’ve actually seen this done when a few refs who don’t particularly like me try to give their friend like +3 attack so they’re strong enough to kill me.

[capping stat boosts] Yeah I’ve seen this done too. Dumb bitches.

 

[using Pokemon you do not own] Fair enough, but IMO it would be ok to use say, a random (or even predetermined) pokemon if you cannot fit the criteria for a certain ffa. Eg. You use a Houndoom w/ no EMs in a Dark/Fire FFA if you dont have a Dark/Fire pokemon available

[battlers using more than one Pokemon at once] I think this should be allowed as long as the pay is the same as a normal ffa.

[greatly limiting the use of Substitute, Protect, and/or Detect] Agreed sorta, but read the one below, because it sorta links in

[limiting the use of many moves in general; ex. all Pokemon are permanently affected by Taunt] Again, I agree, but you tied GBA Clause into this. I think this is wrong. GBA Clause actually makes battlers think, and adds strategy to the ffa. Sure, you can cosmic power, sub and protect all you want, but then with one attack it wont help much if your against something that resists it.

The rest i agree.

 

I'm fine with the once a week rule. In fact I think it was implemented once at some point but don't really remember. I barely do FFA's anymore, so I don't particularly care about this. Anyways....

Thats all we needed, some clarification. The way it was just put in the original post, as per my understanding read: "NEVER USE THIS RULE ANYMORE"
Now, I'm happy to know there is some leeway

Ok cool. More explanation. Also this doesn't occur too often. Like was stated, there are occasions where this is an acceptable rule. Like Valentines Day [strike]or Chris/Pidge's birthday[/strike]

Protect and Detect are already limtited with their 50% chance to fail so w/e. Substitute like was mentioned could be earned. And we don't always ban it. Why that would be completely stupid if we did....

That's already been talked about and I'm pretty sure EVERYONE knows that Auto-Taunt is a cheap way to make money. No complains here.

Like I said, I've only seen this with the Juggernaut FFA's, but I think you said those were OK. Of course there'd have to be a good deal of time inbetween such reffings.

Thanks for allowing us to use our own judgement. Obviously when an FFA takes place there has to be at least one other ref present (there may be a rare occasion where there aren't ) And surely two brains are better than one. Its not rocket science figuring out whats cheap and what isn't.

Never had a problem with this to begin with.

It's not that it's made easier to ref. Its just made faster. Obviously there are matches that are long, but easy to ref. Then there are short hard ones to ref. (For example the junk they throw at you in the ref tests) But those rarely ever happen in real battles. Anyways, everyone seems to agree that capping is wrong. I'm not on the same boat....to a certain extent. If you we do cap stats, we should be required to add some sort of reward that allows the players to go beyond the cap given. Also, if you do set a cap, let it be at the +4 mark. That seems fairly reasonable to me WITH the requirement to boost for completing some objective. Otherwise, capping by itself and stupid and cheap. Thats really all I have to say regarding this.

 

The problem itself is the refs making money quicker or easier than they should, not one or the other. Its a problem if its longer and easier, or shorter and harder. All your argument has proven is that its pointless using it as a rule in the first place.

On a fresh note here, I'm surprised the "No Redirects" rule hasn't been brought up. I always found it somewhat annoying and a cheap way for a ref not to have to ref the entire turn.

 

Again, no problem shortening it to one a week. And again to the basics battles where it's been shown that they're faster to ref and give more money in that time than do most FFA's.


I always redirect in my FFA's cuz it does seem kinda cheap.

 

Lol, I turn off redirects cos whenever I play in an FFA with them on they always hit me at a crucial moment, and so I turn them off in a petty confusing form of revenge. I'm not sure what "should" be done here, seeing as I'm not super familiar with many of the game mechanics or w/e, but since the root of the issue here is that refs are apparently having an easy time of it I'd say allow Redirects to be left off, because while the some of the moves aren't used, the FFA goes longer on the whole.

Also, I think Gameboy Clause should be allowed, because it does encourage strategy, and it is the games. Perhaps in a compromise it could be 6 moves, or 4 moves + sub + Protect or something.

 

The problem with that, is that people are often upset when they use a move and it ends up becoming useless.

The Gameboy Clause I think is an acceptable exception to the move-limiting rule.

 

Spoiler

tl;dr: I agree with all of this for the most part, just wish it didn't have to be quite so regulated. A warning seems like it'd be more suitable, since most of these refs haven't even been told that they're doing things improperly and would probably stop with any outrageous rules after just being given a list of guidelines rather than a list of restrictions.
But I guess it gets the job done.


Another rule that shouldn't be allowed is something that makes any one Pokémon too much of a target over the others, but I guess this falls under the chance rule.
Rules that give stat gains for KOing a certain Pokémon for example.
This is unfair for certain players that get stuck with this effect.

 

Having 4 moves and Sub and Protect defeats the whole strategic purpose of GBA FFAs.

 

So I haven't voiced an opinion about this yet so I'll say something quick. I don't really have a problem with any if these bans, except for the multiple 'mons one. Chris did this awesome FFA once in which you had a team of 3 'mons, one out at a time, you weren't allowed to switch out yourself, and entry hazards were allowed. It was only a small one, but it was fun. IDK, I think FFAs like this could be a little more common.

 

People don't seem to realise that this in a way is a warning. No-one is being punished for having reffed FFA's like this in the past. But it clearly tells everyone that under most circumstances they wont be acceptable in the future.