Proposal: Increase Gym Mon Limit

There are some types that don't even have 15 fully-evolved Pokémon in it...

 

Only Dragon, actually. And Ghost, but that's not counting multiple Rotom forms, and even then they have 14 and plus a WC that makes 15.

But w/e, dropping this as no one seems in favour.

 

I am going to have to say stick as it is here. This is because it would be a bit weird to have that many Gym Pokemon. Most people use there favourite Gym Pokemon mostly anyways, and therefore does not need an increase. Also it would be hard to decipher the differences between Gym Leader Applications. Sure you could easily tell by who they are, but sometimes it is tricky to decide that you have to go by there Pokemon application. (Well in the Past I did as Kanto Organizer) It was my idea in the past to make the Gym Limit to 10 and then when I came here it became 12.

I agree with @LS the Door Mat about Dragonite in Water Gyms being silly.

BUT

OMG NO WILDCARD DEBATES I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE OVER THE FEW YEARS OF URPG.

 

I fail to see how 'tell the Gym leader to get better, that's their job' is a real solid argument, but opinion is an opinion.

I think it'd be interesting to implement additional mons on the lineup to allow for those times when they'd be useful. Usually, even if a leader uses the best few mons of their type, it doesn't mean that those mons can all defend against common threats. But, if those leaders don't have their mons on their lineup (like applying for), they're seen as idiots and sometimes not chosen. Since we're in the fifth generation of Pokemon, I don't think fifteen is too many mons, as that's only three per generation, and each generation has added a large pool of new mechanics, moves, and mons to it.

It might even make gym battles more fun and encourage people to do them, if they can try out some new things without having to take out their standard gym mons to do it. Since we have a lower battles count as of late (tho I think that battle activity is rising, cos I've reffed a lot this pay period and watched quite a few battles as well).

I'm not going to really argue about it, because I know WTP will just say no anyway, cos he's in charge, but that's my two cents. It would help leaders, but maybe not all. That's why it would just be an option.

 

Besides, isn't the process of choosing a Gym Leader based on their skills as well as the Pokemon they own(EM wise as well)? Even if someone had a full 15 Pokemon lineup, wouldn't it rather be better to have EMs on a 12 Pokemon lineup instead? I'm all in favor for the 15 Pokemon lineup and if you want only 12 then you can keep twelve. I'd rather have better Pokemon on my team in case of someone walking in and spamming Dragon Tail or Roar just to get everything out.

 

I'm against it pretty much completely.

Also, you have no idea which Gyms are hardest to defend, anyway. I don't think Ground, Fighting or Ghost are any worse than any other Types. Seriously, all Types have enough options to check pretty much any Pokemon that proves problematic. I hate the victim shit when it's without merit ._.

If you use your Pokemon properly, eight is more than enough. Twelve is even a stretch, imo. It should not be tailored to one person's needs when what we have is plenty.

 

I'm not extremely for this, or opposed to it. I think it would be cool to have the ability to add on those few extra niche options that lose out when compared to general practicality. At the same time, I don't think those niche pokemon should even matter, seeing as how gym leaders learn quickly what they need to defend against and how they should go about doing it.

Now I'm sure my case is different from most when it comes to niche gym pokemon. Virtually every pokemon I don't have on my lineup has a X4 weakness that really hampers their viability. If I could get three extra pokemon, I might actually find a use for Magnezone, Pawniard, and Klinklang. If not, I'll still just approach things how I used to.

So, as I can see how helpful it might be, I also think that it really isn't necessary. One thing it might take away is the individuality of each gym of the same type. Different gyms run different lineups under the same typing, so with more options we might lose those different factors. Also, certain gyms might start seeing duplicate pokemon showing up. Whether it be Jolteons, Dragonites, Blazikens, etc.

On the pro side, this allows for gym leaders to get more creative and embrace their typing on a greater level. It makes the gym system muh more challenging, while also giving it a greater sense of reward. This system rewards those who have invested in their gym and who have opened up the option to greater diversity.

Anyways, I had a thought about this. What if we made it so this was a tradeoff of sorts. Some gym leaders seem to feel robbed for not having a particularly useful Wildcard, while others wouldn't particularly need a wildcard if they had more options of their own typing. So what if we put in place a system that gave you the option to pick either having a wildcard, or getting 2 or 3 extra spots? That way you are rewarded for having more of your own type and not having a wildcard, but you also have the option to have a wildcard instead if you feel it is the best way for you to stay competitive. This would make people not feel slighted for others getting good wildcards, and it would stop any expansion of gym numbers from hurting types with fewer options (Dragon).

 

Oh, @ChainReaction01 you could probably post that potential wild card list somewhere for all of the types as well, just so others can see.

 

To be fair, there's a double-edged sword right there. Who are you to say which Gyms are easy to defend without actually having attempted to defend them yourself? Take my gym, for example - until I added Slowbro, I had a really tough time against Blaziken, Scizor and Metagross to name a few, pretty much because Speed Boost bolstered Blaziken up past anything I could throw at it, and Bullet Punch is a nightmare. The only way you'd really get a feel for my Gym, for example, is for a few mock battles to be staged where you use any mons from my lineup. (I'm assuming you've not had an Ice Gym, but if you have, the point still stands for other types).

---

We already have the problem of people mass-adding mons to their applications so it "looks better", so that's a null point. However, I can only see this suggestion benefiting people who run D/P or B/W. For a Revolution or B/W Revolution user, such as myself, situational mons are risky to use. At least with D/P, you can adapt your lineup to current situations (which was one of the points for the 'private-but-not-decided-beforehand' battle style suggested), so situational mons become less risky.

So, yeah. I can't see it breaking anything, and no-one's saying 12 mons isn't enough to cover most counters. It's just making some room for mons who could be the difference between a win or a lose in certain circumstances. If people wanna risk them being Roared out, then that's their own decision, and shouldn't be used as an argument against this.

Lastly, on Wildcards: No, don't remove them. However, don't add more WCs. I still stand by the viewpoint I've always had of a standardised list of WCs, which gets rid of any 'WTFs' like LS was saying. Seriously, Lapras in a Dragon gym is pretty stupid.

 

With the issue on wildcards, could Monbrey and WTP please elaborate on why Salamence is not a Fire Wild Card?

 

Why should it be a WC?

 

its a fire breathing dragon...

 

So are Garchomp, Altaria, Dragonite, Druddigon, Hydreigon, and Flygon. Why not them too?

 

As much as I would love having a few more mons to fill those tricky roles in my gym, I'm gonna have to say no on this one. It sounds great since I have a type with so many options, but I think this would be bad not only for the challenger, but the leader as well.

First off, most gym leaders (bar a few who have made the best of their already handicapped types) only use about 6-8 of their mons usually. The rest come in when the situation calls for it. As for me, I only circulate 5 or 6 mons regularly- only half my lineup. Point being, after you've had time to figure out what works, you stick to it. You stop using "niche mons" because you find out that other things do the same thing, but better. For instance, I don't send Swampert out every time someone throws a Jolteon at me. I can use Ludicolo and get the same result, then have a more versatile mon on the field after I get the KO. But that brings me to my next point.

I assume most people are wanting to do this for the addition of more mons to fill specific roles. I think Chainy mentioned a few things like Rapid Spin Hitmontop, etc. This raises a problem for gym leaders, and eventually turns into a handicap. If you stuff your lineup with mons who are only capable of performing one task, you're probably not going to have the best lineup. You'll end up sending out your niche mons to do something, but then the opponent is free to send in something that you can't really fight back against without switching. My point is, it's better to learn how to use what you have to get the job done instead of just piling in more mons to do things you think your current Pokemon aren't capable of.

This also has potential to be really terrible for challengers too though. Some types like Dragon and Fire would probably be pretty easy if they didn't have a couple of key mons to anchor them. Dragonite and Salamence for Dragon and Blaziken with Fire (though gen V did help Fire a bit) are really some of the biggest threats in these gyms. By increasing the mon limit, most leaders would just add a second overpowered Nite or Blaziken to their lineup since it would be more useful than adding say, a Torkoal or Druddigon. You can sometimes spend a lot of time and Pokemon taking down one Dragonite or Blaziken, so it would be really annoying to finally kill one and have a second one come in to take its place at full health.

Also, I think that while Leaders are automatically at a handicap by being restricted to one type, they also get a lot of perks that arguably fix that problem completely. We get to control every aspect of the rules and battle conditions, tailoring it to fit whatever strategy we want. I'm not shy about admitting that my gym would be a hell of a lot easier to beat if I didn't throw up rain at the beginning of each battle. Having complete control over this AND having a lineup of 15 or more seems like pure overkill to me. Poor newbies would never get the courage to challenge a gym when faced against a lineup that has more Pokemon than their stats >_<.

One last thing: How many gyms have negative records right now? I haven't checked on this at all, but I'm pretty sure most of us aren't hurting too badly. Losses happen, but most of us have been in our positions for quite awhile and have the smarts, battling abilities, and Pokemon to not get taken down by just anyone. Let's not forget that you aren't entitled to an easy time defending your gym. Just as a challenger should have to think on their feet to overcome the rules of your gym, you should be able to rely on 12, usually well-TMd Pokemon to beat them. Instead of adding mons to give you an advantage by default, use your skills to give yourself an advantage by HARD WORK. You people are not bad battlers ._. give yourself some credit.

TL;DR: no.

 

I am too a bad battler D:

 

The former sentence shows why using the latter as an argument is completely invalid. If Leaders usually only circulate half their lineup, then what's already there to stop them adding in another Blaziken/Dragonite/whatever? Duplicate mons is a different issue entirely, and you can't say "Doing this'll create this problem" when the 'problem' already has the potential to exist in the first place.

Also, even if we did have an onslaught of people adding duplicate mons in, it's really not that hard to say "No Duplicate Mons Allowed". :/

And your whole 'Leaders stuffing lineups with niche mons' - again, that's NOT what this is saying. It's not like the leaders are going to go "herpderp, we have 3 extra mons, I'm now going to completely wipe my 7 regularly circulated mons and fill it all with niche mons instead", it's so that alongside those 7 circulated mons, you can have 8 mons as backup. Not every niche mon will have something that can do its job better - in fact, I challenge you to find an 7-mon lineup for every Gym that can cover every situation without resorting to 'niche mons'. Granted, there might be something more versatile that can do its job, but then, it might not be as reliable, or it might not do it as well, and that's where some people will choose the other. It's like Flamethrower vs Fire Blast, Thunderbolt vs Thunder, Ice Beam vs Blizzard, etc... All the options have their pros and cons that change in weighting depending on the situation. Very few people go "I won't bother getting Fire Blast because Flamethrower is more accurate" or "I won't bother getting Flamethrower because Fire Blast is more powerful" - usually, people will get both so they're covered whatever the situation, or get the one that can be used in more situations first, then have the other one there as backup when they can. It's exactly the same thing for mons.

 

>2012
>says he's at a handicap
>uses Dragonite as WC


Why are you guys still posting? Chain already said he dropped it since most people aren't in favour.

 

Well, I didn't mean that this is entirely for the purpose of stacking lineups with niche mons. I'm just saying that I'm pretty sure that's what most people will do. Also, as for the duplicate mons thing, I'm saying that right now with 12 spots, most people would pick a unique mon over something that they already have, but if you add 3 more spots, the types that don't have much to choose from will just add an easily obtainable powerhouse that they already have.

And the challenging me to find a 7 mon lineup thing. Why deal with hypotheticals here? Nobody is trying to find a 7 mon lineup. They're trying to find a 12 mon lineup. IMO, the current number lets you have everything you need + a few specialty mons as it is.

Also @LS the Door Mat I've said like a million times that I wouldn't be bothered if Nite wasn't a WC. I've used it I think 2 or 3 times out of my 14 wins, so yeah. Also you're pushing really hard for Mence WC aren't you? I think Mence belongs in a Fire gym as much as Nite does in a water gym. Both are fine with me.

EDIT: LS where did I say I was at a handicap? ._. I agree that Water is hella easy to defend.

 

I'd like to propose my idea again, since you guys seem to be bringing up more potential problems that could be solved by it.

Wildcard or extra 1 or 2 mons. If you choose to use a wild card, you don't get the extra spots. If you choose the extra spots, you can't ask for a wildcard. That seems reasonable to me. That way people won't complain if they can't get a wildcard they like. Also, it rewards people for finding strategies within their own typing.

 

Posting on behalf of TED

Teddy Bear 3:05 pm
I'm not going to give a long response because something like this doesn't deserve one. Simply put, allowing gyms to have more Pokemon in them will ONLY help the flying gyms and water gyms pretty much. And the leaders that own those gyms are already pretty talented, so increasing the limit on Pokemon allowed would only make it more impossible to defeat them.