Time Clause.

What about if your opponent just tricked a choice item onto you and you know they'll protect to see what you'll choose? If you give up that turn, they've got a chance Protect will fail the next turn. You stand to gain from not moving. Same goes for being encored into a move, which you anticipate they'll counter/mirror coat. I'm not saying its a common few situations where it would be beneficial, but either way, there are situations where you stand to gain from not moving.

 

Yeah, that's a good point too and pretty plausible. Maybe something can be arranged where if they obviously stand to gain from not sending, they can't send the following turn as well or something like that. Or just a forfeit then if it was deliberately done to take advantage.

Just forcing forfeits is kinda lame. The only other thing I can think of is if the ref stops reffing and posts it to forum the second people start taking over required time. Then they're forced to pick up another time or a new ref. This more makes it a hassle to keep doing it rather than be all end all.

 

Why not null turn and a health drop, like -25% for not sending as well as not moving that turn? That would probably tip most situations in which not-sending might be beneficial so that the health drop outweighs the knowledge gained or something.

The only situation that losing health would be good in (that I can think of) is if you have a Salac Berry and you're at, like, 50% but you know your opponent is going to set up next turn so they can kill you in one hit and they out speed without your Salac, and the failed turn knocks you into Salac range... But Sub would do the same thing better, and this example is hilariously stupid anyway.

 

This discussion is turning from a new clause into a new game mechanic, which is not where we want this headed.

@Elamite; I know they were probably just random example numbers, but I believe that 30 seconds is far too low in any battle format. Unless you're 100% focused on the battle, you could easily spend 10 of those seconds just switching windows, reading the turn etc.

@Synthesis; E4 and LD, in my opinion, is the very last place this clause should be auto-on. Those are the battles which not only require but also deserve to be well thought out. If this does get implemented, it will default to off in all circumstances.

I'm more interested in the conditions under which it is allowed to be turned on, since I believe top-tier battles like E4 should not be restricted. I'm definitely not looking at imposing restrictions on how it can be turned off.

 

I'm not necessarily trying to say it could be an interesting mechanic, I'm just concerned with how we can make it so it ISN'T a game mechanic, without too strict a penalty. We could just give refs complete oversight on the issue, should someone not send in time.

 

I personally think, and I may be wrong since I don't know much about those, but I think that for most complex / non-casual situations, 20 minutes is enough?
Except for obvious irl situations and people abusing it for their own gain - i.e.: repeatedly claiming they have something to do irl or something - for more time would be dealt appropriately. I mean, if you absolutely need more than 20 minutes to do each turn reffing would already be a nightmare.

Also, slightly off-topic, why doesn't LD have increased wages, since you put it on the same level of strategizing as E4?

Also, other situation where one would benefit from not moving is when they're using Protean Greninja or Keckleon, outspeed and want to PP Stall something or don't want to change types for whatever reason.

 

If you run out of time in-game, it automatically selects a move for you, either the last one used or the first on your list, I think. Not totally sure on it, but I've seen vids where the timer runs out and it picks a move for them. It's a little different since it's URPG, but if we did end up implementing this, we could do something like that.

That being said, I think 20 min would be reasonable, but I don't believe this clause has a place in Gym/E4/LD/other important battles. Battles between good players will always be long. Even if you only spend 5 minutes per turn, a 30 turn battle (which is usually due to many switches, not time taken), that's still over two hours. Defenders should set it, if it does come into effect.

 

Ya this is, I think, a good idea. A random, known move can give no conceivable strategy and will statistically not benefit the user.

 

I like this idea, mainly because I've grown accustomed to it in Showdown. I don't have a real preference in what the time limit would actually be, but it makes sense to make it something that can be chosen by the battlers (or if we allow it in competitive battles like Gym/E4, put it on a sliding scale like 10min for Gym and 20min for E4 or whatever you guys would want for that).

Default to off, sure. I'm not totally against it being in E4 or LD battles since I think there's something to be said for adding the time limit element to a competitive battle. I think Monbrey sees the rule as planning-for-convenience trade-off, but I think it adds an element to the thought process. But yeah, there's a better argument to make it a default to off rule, and even in Showdown, the turn timer is off from the start of the battle and it really is a planning-for-convenience thing there.

A forfeit for exceeding the time limit makes sense to me. Some HP% penalty loss makes little sense to me. As Monbrey said, that would be more of a new battle mechanic than it is a rule. I can respect Syn's argument that it might be frustrating to lose in a theoretical situation where you need 11min to make a decision and you have a time limit of 10min, but I mean, that's the point of a time limit. It's black-and-white with no grey area after you set it. I don't have any other way to put it than that.

Winter's suggestion of a random move is also cool if a forfeit seems like heavy punishment, but I think a forfeit fits fine from a competitive standpoint that rewards efficient decision-making. That seems to relate back to how you see the time clause, though: as a competitive element to a battle or as a planning-for-convenience swap. What it means to break the clause depends on how we view the clause and the punishment will match be that, so if we view it as something primarily for convenience, then defaulting to a random move is totally fine.

but yeah the idea is cool let's do it