Creobis said:
Although you mentioned in the first post why you believe this is an inopportune time to accommodate for switching, you did not really elaborate on why it is less ideal for such changes to be made as opposed to the current problems players see with the metagame (eg: a cycle of stat-raising moves until one concedes). I am still curious to ask why you believe this alternative scheme would be be worse than the current problems mentioned with the battle system trends?
Regarding the potential imbalance: as long as people regard the handheld game battle system as the conventional standard for a balanced battle system, those standards will not be sated until the battle system is developed on a full-scale, as many have already mentioned. There are differing opinions on the best route to take, depending on which is more feasible to implement than other details of the battle system, but regardless, any change that comes short of a flawlessly intricate battle system will most likely cause imbalance/dissatisfaction somewhere, especially without other features developed to complement them—which, unfortunately, is not workable to implement them all at once.
Moreover, even if changes are inherently flawed while the system is incomplete, it is still crucial to put thought into which one would promote the most balance compared to other changes that could be added before it.
More so than me being more opposed to switching implemented without proper preparations than having stat moves as a problem I'd rather not have both problems on hand instead one one preventable problem. With switching implemented and no other action taken there will be two sides, or a lose/lose situation. On the one hand you'll have the switching fanatics who use the lack of defensive maneuvers to their advantage (which people will surely complain about), and on the other you'll have people battling without switching being a pre established condition where these long back and forth battles continue. Though I will say this, it's very very simple to avoid those situations in the following two manners:
A- Do not use pokemon susceptible to these situations, think carefully about your team and adapt. If you're unwilling to get into those battles of time find a way around them.
B- Don't battle people who have a history of subjecting themselves to those battles as the aggressor.
To be fair it's pretty simple to say "B99 no switching" however there will still be those trolls who purposefully disobey your requests, tournaments that cater exclusively to switching, and those who have not planned well and when in a bind will break the agreement if it's no longer generally taboo. Those people would now be avoided as well, further complicating what should be an easy process of sending and accepting battle requests.
Another point I'd like to bring up is the issue of time, as everyone that was nagging about these battles of will was for the most part annoyed about the length of those redundant battles. If the solution is switching then without some of these defensive maneuvers the battles will certainly go on for a much longer amount of time just as frequently, if not more frequently than the current situation of back and forth status move spamming regardless of the ability to hit the pokemon that is switched in on that turn, as I've pointed out certain pokemon are rendered almost completely useless against others.
In regard to the handheld game battle system as the conventional standard for a balanced battle system- while I know it's impossible for us to be fully functioning within any reasonably close amount of time we still can achieve relative balance. I suppose the most popular way of testing this has been do first and get feedback later (usually involving whining or other methods that the staff apparently find distasteful) however I'd like to see a change in that, though I suppose that's what the thread is entirely about. This is the reasoning behind implementing the defensive methods of switching BEFORE it becomes the norm in battle, as those moves will cause virtually no imbalance without a reason to equip them. There are a myriad of options available to deal with the current problem, and only one is apparently almost completely nonviable (PP).
If balance is to be the most desired aspect of any solutions I will say this, the pre-stat boost battle system seemed at a better equilibrium and it was offset even more when dual stage increase/decreases made it into the game. This is largely in part to 2-3 pokemon taking advantage of the ability to boost both attack and speed. Though I would not want to go back to pre-stat boosts as I feel it's a necessary part of progress even if it was implemented without proper preparation, if these 2-3 pokemon cannot be temporarily nerfed for some reason despite PWO's history of easily nerfing multiple pokemon (ie: tauros, slaking, dragonite)
only until more moves can be added at a convenient time for the staff... then the thought process is simply incomprehensible to me and I would apologize for my long winded stupidity.
