Why can't you use the new calc on the ref test?

From my experience, this is the most commonly used Calc. Most refs use one of the battle calcs, I don't think there are an who still put the equation into a normal calculator and use that. Most calcs are still allowed on the test, just this calc isn't. Thats what Sota is complaining about, the fact that this specific calc is banned from tests.

Still, your point does hold some merit, they shouldn't have to use these, even if a normal calc is your last resort.

 

Well then the complaint makes more sense. Still the math can't be so complex that you would need a calculator for the test. Calculators are nice in that they make it faster and easier to get to an answer, but they are horrible for the same reason. If you use a calculator too much then you lose to math skills to do it without one. A great example is college level math classes. The things they teach only how to do on a calculator aren't new concepts, but most teachers today are young enough that they have never had to do it on paper and as such the concept is still around but the process is all but lost.

With something as simple as math needed to ref a pokemon battle in an RP, at the very least you should be required to be able to do the math yourself without the aid of a program. After you pass it is up to you, but the skill needs to be learned and demonstrated. Otherwise if it comes to a point when a program is not available then the people that did not learn the skills and relied on the program won't be able to ref anymore because they will no longer know how.

Maybe I'm just a bit cynical, but people as whole are getting lazier and relying too much on technology. Ironically I am in college for both programming and computer technology and will end up perpetuating the laziness of people by "making life easier with computers" and making the programs that let people who don't know what they are doing still use a computer.

/longer than I intended post

 

And? That's the point, they don't have to. That's what the calc is for, they don't need to do that stuff but they know that that's what happens. God, it's not like you HAVE to do all that stupid math. And the new calculator won't get you through the ref test easily, there's tons of stuff the calc doesn't cover. Mainly everything that's not math, duh, that's the only thing a calculator can do. And if you think Pokemon battling is all about math then you're wrong, as there are tons of other things that are hard to ref.

Oh no you didn't, my status? My status is an experienced URPGer who is not an idiot, and that's all I need to know that refs should be able to use the new calc on the test. I said not all refs are amazing, do you disagree? If reffing was so easy with the new calc then why don't we have all amazing refs?

I don't get what your first sentence means, and no, not everyone will be able to become a ref if the new calc is used. Good ref testers like you should be able to make sure of it, since the only thing the calc covers is math and you said reffing is not based on math so...yeah.

And I never called you inexperienced, I just said you must no know what it means to deserve to be a ref or you can't make good enough ref tests for people using the new calc. And I'm qualified enough to know that refs should be able to use the new calc on the ref test, that's all that matters.

Quite a few people have, that wasn't stated directly at you but just in general. People think you don't deserve to be a ref if you can't ref with the old calc (which you should be able to really even if you do use the new calc, it's not that hard) but then nobody cares that there was a way of reffing before the old calc and the people that do use the old calc don't deserve to be refs since they don't do all the math out themselves but the refs like Jack do, but nobody complains about that.

It's the exact same situation when DU/Pikachi (I think) made the old calc it was an improvement, and made reffing easier and people could use it on the ref test (eventually, Hkim said at first they said no calcs but then they let people use them, so I think that should happen again) and now the new calc is the exact same thing. It worked out fine last time why the hell are you people denying it now? Because you're biased...

Just a statement, your status doesn't make you anymore right than I am. It might give you a bigger say which is unfortunate since I am definitely right but it doesn't make you right.

And just a note to everyone, I didn't even think about me taking the test being easier. So no I'm not biased and I don't care if you think I am, the point is that I am right about this and no matter if you call me biased or not. You know that this is the right thing that should happen.

 

That's exactly the type of response I was expecting, and exactly the type of response that should be avoided. It's not helping progress the debate at all, and is basically an under-handed shot at Sota.

I myself have mixed feelings on the matter. I would find it "disturbing" if a battler asked why his/her Geodude's second Rock Throw did less damage, and the ref couldn't answer why. The answer being due to burn (of course I wouldn't answer that mid-battle, trying to not help either battler as much as possible). Knowing the mechanics of how certain things work also help the ref confirm everything went right. For example, if a Geodude was just burned after using Rock Throw, then it should make sense that the following Rock Throw will do less. Someone that didn't know the attack halving effect of burn might perceive the second Rock Throw to be a glitch in the calculator, unlikely though.

Now that I think about it more, burn's attack halving is the only hidden mechanic that the new calculator covers that could "disturb" me for a ref not knowing. Abilities: any ref would know, by setting the ability, why something did more or less damage, since the effect of the ability is in its general description. The same goes with Light Screen and Reflect. I don't see why you can't use the new calculator, as long as you know burn halves attack. New ref quiz question, anyone?

Edit: Bias is only relevant when reporting facts.

 

Although I find myself liking the new calc more, I really don't see what the problem is. You only have to use the old calc for the test. That's it. Just learn it so you learn the "basics". (Such as burn, CH, LS, whatever else you need to know).

Afterwards, as a ref, you can use the new calc any time you want since you "earned" it, in a sense. :/

 

What Seq said. And I remember the main reason for the ban was because the new calc does critical hits automactically.

 

Ok. Make the ref quiz harder/more thorough and make the ref test focus on stuff like that.

So you can't use the new calc just because the mods say you can't and that's that? Even though they have no reason to not let you use it? That's stupid and unfair. DU's calc wasn't meant to be earned.

Let's not make up baseless stupid rules dude, that's not what the urpg is supposed to be about! :bounce:

 

I wouldn't call it baseless. I think Ataro just mentioned a basis for it. Also, you said yourself a few times that it doesn't really help on the test anyway. So if it doesn't help why push for it to be made okay to use it? It seems like if it doesn't help it would only hurt.

Also, if mods say you can't do something then yes, that is that. There is a reason they are mods and get to make decision. It's because they know what they are doing. This is a senseless debate and a holier-than-thou attitude isn't going to help you win it.

 

And now for the unwanted asshole's opinion...

Exceedingly weak argument. URPG's been around for 11 years, and assuming some of the "old guard" refs are still around they likely got their credentials during the GSC/RSE era when things were (relatively) simpler mechanically. If we're going to use the "that's how I had to do it back in the Old Days" argument, why not go whole hog? It cuts both ways.

Q: Beyond doubled damage, how do Critical Hits affect the damage calculation for an attack?

There, I resolved the "critical hit" controversy in one sentence. No need to thank me, just doing my job.

Well, okay then. If you are really that concerned that people "know" the formula, why allow calculators for the ref test at all? Make people pen and paper that shit.

Oh wait, because that's totally inane and no ref who wants to keep their sanity would do it.

The calc is doing 80% of the nitty gritty work. Want to calculate a critical hit in the old calculator? Ignore attack debuffs (except burn) and defense buffs by setting both to zero, hit "attack" and double the damage (triple if Sniper). Done.

In terms of "people are scared of math," suppose I task you to move a pile of 1000 coins from one place to the other, one coin at a time. You can either do this yourself or have a machine do it for you: by picking the machine are you saying that you're incapable of performing this task by yourself?

The reason people don't do the math on paper (and are "lazy" with getting a program to do it) is not because it's hard, but because it's tedious as fuck. Having to constantly calculate a formula that requires plugging in multiple variables and (in the video games, at least) requires a minimum of two RNG rolls quickly gets tedious. There's a reason most tabletop games like D&D embrace "is your die roll + some number > my number" mechanics, and it's not because everyone is a drooling, math-phobic mongoloid.

No, the reason why most people don't remember the theory beyond stuff like the derivative is because it's almost completely irrelevant to people who aren't mathematicians.

If there comes a time when there's no Pokemon damage calculator on the internet, we'll have all died in the nuclear apocalypse/zombie apocalypse/corporate dystopia. Demanding people "prove" they can do the math isn't so much a test of math skills as it is a test of whether or not they were sleeping in fifth grade.

I'm stunned that this is coming out of a fellow comp engy. It's even funnier when you consider that as a programmer, 99.9% of the code you've written is utterly incomprehensible to the machine without a compiler to turn it into something the computer understands. Sure, it produces results that are comparable to a human coding in assembly with significantly less time invested, but goddamn what a pathetic, lazy fuck you are for letting a computer do all the real coding work. I won't even touch software libraries you probably not only use in your language of choice, but utterly take for granted.

Math is a means to an end. Doing the Pokemon damage formula by hand doesn't make you a genius so much as it demonstrates an emerging obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Is reducing the busywork of calculating a critical hit that important to determine your POKEMON INTERNET REF bonafides? It seems contradictory to say "this is so important that you must know it by heart" in one instance and then turn around and say "eh, the computer algorithm can handle it" in another.

Critical hits have enough funky interactions that I can just sort of see it, but there are much worse things not covered by the calculator: is it really that big of a deal?

 

Nope. It is not a big deal. Sota has said the calculator is of no help on the test. Which seems like it makes this whole thing irrelevant.

 

Maybe you should read my posts more carfully cutie, the new calc helps by making you not have to do the stupid math. It does help, I don't know where you got that it didn't from. Stop trying to twist my words, it's not gonna help. If you don't even understand the new calc then you should stop trying to argue about what it does.

Mods are always questionable but whatever, my point is if a mod told you to stop breathing would you do it? I wouldn't but you probably would (jk!). Mods are not always right and don't always make the right decisions, if they were then why do we even have a Trainer's Court section? Was it made just for fun? Come on...the mods are no smarter than us (well not me at least I don't know your life). Nobody is perfect and that includes the mods, if they were URPG would be perfect and it's not.

 

Ok, I'm not a ref *yet*, but from what i've been looking at, I prefer the old calc more then this new one. I really could care less about this drama of who called who on this thread, but from my own personal opinion, the old calc seems to rely more on human ingenuity, which equates to more control and understanding of the situation.

Think of it this way: You take a teen from the country and a teen from the city. Tell them that a car won't start and that when you turn the keys, it just clicks a lot. The kid from the country will tell you that you'll probably want to check the battery too see if the wires to it are corroded. Easy fix. The kid from the city will give you a number to the nearest mechanic and see what he says. 30$.

What I'm saying is that having things that are convenient are nice *saying this as I type on my new laptop with wireless internet, watching HDTV*, but if you take away all the work in the name of inconvenience, then you lose the ability to under what you are actually using and will pay for it in the end.

 

There's no drama, just some people who think they know better and won't even consider anybody's opinions.

That's a terrible analogy or comparison or whatever you're trying to do, as in URPG there's nothing wrong with the city kid. There never will be, and there's no point for people to get pissed at him and he's never gonna pay for it either.

Just think of it like this: It's a calculator. People use calculators when they don't want to waste time doing the little annoying math.

That doesn't mean they suck at math in general, as tests using calculators can still be hard. And you can still do good on tests without calculators.

Pretty simple.

 

aka, drama.

My point wasn't to say anything about people who live in the city: it was to point out how conveniency can lead to people who can't do simple thing. AND THIS IS AN EXTREME CASE, I UNDERSTAND. *all caps were just to make sure i'm using an extrema*

But all it takes in an extra, what, three minutes? Look, I'm bias in the sense I'm an Engineer student, thus love math, but still, all you're doing to looking up a few numbers, crunching them together and that's it. And it isn't hard math either: this move doubles speed. Click, done. This move doubles if so-and-so is water. 2X, done. Not. That. Hard.

That doesn't mean they suck at math in general, as tests using calculators can still be hard. And you can still do good on tests without calculators.

Completely agree: I have to take Calculus tests all the time that, if I didn't have a calc, I would never get it done. But the thing is, Newton invented Calculus and he didn't have a calc. He had to do VERY long equations to prove his theorems. Even my present Calculus teach taught us the pain staking, long, mind numbing method of solving without a calc b/c, as he put it, if you don't know the basics, you'll never understand what the hell you're doing later.


Look, I understand your point: the old calc requires you to open five different pages to find everything you might need. That could get annoying. Why, I believe, the admins haven't switched to the new one is simply b/c to takes away the need to go to those pages. Without learning where you came from, you'll never know where you're heading.

Also, if I sound a little sarcastic or rude, I'm sorry: It's 1:00 am and I haven't had a lot a sleep thanks to a little thing called insomnia.

 

There's an "anal" in analogy because a lot of them are butt. Yours was one of them.

I'm in the "principle of the thing" group, in that if you don't care if people do crits/burns with a calc in live fire exercises, why the Hell is there suddenly a problem in a ref test?

Newton didn't have a flush toilet either. You gonna tear out your commode?

And as far as the underlying theorems in calc...I've had professors that did that too. Ask some veteran engineers and see how many of them actually remember much of it.

Also, I like how we're talking about THE THEORIES OF CALCULUS when we're discussing a formula that uses nothing more mathematically complex than multiplication and division. Clearly in the same league of difficulty.

 

This is becoming a stupid argument. Please, if you're going to rebuttal, please think of a point instead of trying to say that I am trying to use unnecessary analogies in an argument.

I think that the admins have made their minds up. There is no need to continue this fight.

Also, I would rather have a person present hard facts and logic to this argument rather than poor insults and vulgar humor to further their point.

 

Let me ask you this then. Is using the old calc for just once in someone's life (if you pass on the first try) so hard to ask of a referee? If you really have strong objections against the older calc and prefer to use the newer one for reasons based on that it's quick and easier, I honestly don't care. What we're asking of you is to simply use the old calc for the ref test, so that we know you know what you're doing.

Now, if anyone still can't reason with my simple point made, I really think you're just nit-picking on this issue.

 

Sota, seriously - if doing the math would take ages on end, then I could see your point, but if you actually know the stuff, it's fine. In the Critical Hit situation, I actually find it quicker to press 'Attack' twice instead of clicking on the drop down menu, selecting 'Critical Hit', and then clicking attack. If you actually know what you're doing (which you should if you want to take the ref test), it doesn't take as long as you seem to be making it out to be.

Let's say Mon A has Choice Specs and Mon B has Light Screen. On the new calc, you'll put Choice Specs as the item on Mon A, and Light Screen in the effects on Mon B. In the old calc, you work out 1.5x the Base Power of the move Mon A uses and then halve it. If the move was something like Shadow Ball, it's 80*1.5, which is really simple, 120. Halve that and you have 60, so you just put in 60 BP. Worst case scenario is you don't know what Choice Specs or Light Screen do, nor SB's BP and you have to open up threads - minimum URPG threads you have to open up are two - Reffing Encyclopedia to check LS' effect and SB's BP, and All About Battles to check CS' effect. Add them to your favourites/bookmark them, and it only requires a click; already have them open and it's even quicker. CTRL+F the things to find them. I can't imagine it taking more than 2 minutes, if that. Sure, there could be more awkward caclulations than can take a little longer and that you might have to use a real-life maths calculator for, but still, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

I'd imagine that the reason they allowed the old calc to be used over the actual reffing formula is that the actual reffing formula DOES take long. It IS tedious to do. Working out the maths is only tedious if you don't know what you're doing and have to keep switching to new tabs to find the information.

 

I don't see why this is being argued in the first place. If you're too lazy to use the old calc and figure things out for yourself just once in a ref test, then you shouldn't be a ref at all. Plain and simple.

 

Okay why don't we all start using the orignial damage formula on the ref test? How about just 'cause I say so? Oh wait no we shouldn't because there's no point.

You have to know what you're doing even with the new calc, it just does more math for you. So it should be added just because it makes things easier for newer refs and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that it can only help us.

There's a reason to let people taking the ref test use it, while there is no reason to not let them except for 'just cause I said so' which isn't fair and isn't what I thought URPG was about.

:bounce: