Manipulating RNG in Battles - Predicting "Luck"

It's already well-known that you can manipulate the RNG (random-number generator) in the to produce legit flawless and\or shiny Pokemon. But that's not what this is about. The in-battle RNG in 4th gen, unlike 3rd gen's RNG, only changes as random numbers are needed. So you can know that a critical hit would appear on a certain number, and a skilled player could get that number to show up right when he needed it, all by in-battle actions.

We also have ways of figuring out the random number that the game has stored internally. We know that the RNG is seeded by a particular date\time\time spent lingering on the Continue menu, and we can confirm we got the right seed by examining in-game actions. We don't know how the in-battle RNG is seeded yet, but it's only a matter of time. This makes predicting luck in Pokemon a very real possibility, and could be interpreted as just another aspect of the game.

So, what new game would Pokemon be if both players could predict opportunities of "luck"? Knowing when they'd get a critical hit, knowing when their opponent would get criticals or freezes, etc.

- Your opponent sees you'll get a critical hit and uses Protect\Substitute to dodge. Hello, Bullet Punch\Feint Scizor. - Knowing he might use Protect, you use Swords Dance. Or he attacks, suspecting that's what you were going to do anyway.
- Send in a Pokemon with a Quick Claw. The Quick Claw uses up an extra RNG number, and that ruins your opponent's plans to use a critical hit that would've appeared for him on turn 12.
- Well, maybe we can legalize Double Team again.

I would love to see this on a Shoddy server someday. In the meantime, speculate away.

I think it would ruin the game. If in link battles the RNG is seeded by one player, that player gains a distinct unfair advantage if they manipulate it, especially as they don't even have to disclose it to their opponent.
If the seed is disclosed but not manipulated, things would at least be fair. But that's not going to happen unless a cheating device is used.

cantab said:

I think it would ruin the game. If in link battles the RNG is seeded by one player, that player gains a distinct unfair advantage if they manipulate it, especially as they don't even have to disclose it to their opponent.
If the seed is disclosed but not manipulated, things would at least be fair. But that's not going to happen unless a cheating device is used.

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We're assuming both players know the RNG number sequence.

This would be a real pandora box (RNGing for IDs would be child's play)
I wouldn't like it :/ I mean, it's cool when you're wishing for all your gods for a crit and you get a crit, but it would be lame to know when to crit...It would ruin the game, even if both players knew about it, you'll always have someone who doesn't and he would get the ass wooped and go crying hax hax hax...Then you would say 'It's no hax, I control my luck', and then you would be target as a cheater :/

If the RNG is seeded anything like for normal battles wouldn't it take absolutely ages to set up. It wouldn't be worth it, as any tiny mistake would completely mess it up!
If you could do it quickly and accurately then it would break the game

Please don't even think about researching about this kind of bullshit. It would realy suck and fuck up the fun in the battles.

Honestly, I'm quite interested in this. I once wondered if it was possible, but never got really into it

I'm not suggesting replacing Pokemon as we know it with this hax-free variant. And I'm absolutely against the idea of giving only one player knowledge of the RNG numbers. But I am suggesting a Shoddy variant where players do have knowledge of the RNG, based on the idea that it's possible to predict it in-game.

And this new game isn't as broken as people it first appears. Both players can fight over who gets the critical hit or freeze or whatever, depending on which actions they take. To give a better example, Fire Fang uses up five RNG numbers (one for damage, one for 95% accuracy, one for CH chance, one for burn and one for flinch), where as Seed Bomb only uses one (damage). Different moves change which numbers get used, so a player can effectively "steal" a CH away from their opponent. This Pokemon variant becomes an even bigger game of prediction, and more importantly luck-free.

Buba said:

Please don't even think about researching about this kind of bullshit. It would realy suck and fuck up the fun in the battles.

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This tbh, it'd add a mechanic to the game that isn't meant to be taken advantage of. I can understand breeding, but essentially changing the main part of the game is simply uneeded. Besides, the response to abusing this kind of thing will be overwhelmingly negative and generally frowned upon. Wifi'ers will certainly make rules against it, and the community would surely block it from the metagame.

You can't make a rule against it or block it from the game any more than you can make a rule against getting critical hits to begin with. How can you prove this is happening? You can't ban people from knowing things.

When i first read this post i was screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!" but as I have re read it a few times now, It appears that just like with any prediction based plan, human nature can mess it up anyway. its all about knowing what the opponent is going to do next, but its been proven time and time again that we cant predict it all. Look how popular the "New/Creative Movesets" post is as an example.

I say go for it. there are enough wildcards running around to rock the boat IMO. Actually i think it may encourage people to use unpredictable movesets, items and pokes... but I have been wrong before

obi said:

You can't make a rule against it or block it from the game any more than you can make a rule against getting critical hits to begin with. How can you prove this is happening? You can't ban people from knowing things.

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It can certainly be banned, the community makes the metagame. The fact is it's called Rng abuse because that's what it is, abuse. I'm simply saying this will probably never be accepted in this metagame. A seperate clause or option, however, I can see happening. I admit, banning it from wi-fi will be tricky, but the fact remains most people will try to keep this sort of thing off wifi.

This would be an absolutely horrible thing and it would effectively wreck the game. It would be nothing but the most hyperoffensive teams possible and two players flipping coins to see who wins and loses; who's using Protect or Feint, and who's using an attack.

Even worse, this would elevate the player base to nothing but the extremely elite players who figure these things out. Anyone who wouldn't be able to RNG or detect seeds or whatever would basically lose every match automatically.

obi said:

How can you prove this is happening?

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Evidence from emulator save states. The same events occur with similar actions, in a sequence, even after reloading states. The same critical hits are used, wild Pokemon use the same moves, and a series of Pokeballs lobbed at a Mewtwo always shake the same amount, same sequence.

Whether this still happens in link or WiFi battles remains to be seen.

I personally wouldn't like it because it's too freaking much to calculate. The only reliable way to abuse it on wifi would be a method similar to current RNG abuse, which would take forever to do. Even if you can clearly see the outcomes, the game suddenly enters information overload, where you have to think about too many things and can't make the right decision. It would be like checkers, where there actually is an unbeatable strategy, but it is so complex that no human can memorize it (it was discovered by a computer program). That's not fun. I don't care about the lack of randomness in a RNG-read game, in fact I would LIKE it if crits just up and died, but I don't want to play a game like that.

OmegaDonut said:

Evidence from emulator save states.

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I meant "How can you prove your opponent is doing this in a battle?". If you cannot detect it, you can't ban it.

Arch said:

It can certainly be banned, the community makes the metagame. The fact is it's called Rng abuse because that's what it is, abuse. I'm simply saying this will probably never be accepted in this metagame. A seperate clause or option, however, I can see happening. I admit, banning it from wi-fi will be tricky, but the fact remains most people will try to keep this sort of thing off wifi.

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Saying "the community makes the metagame" is meaningless here. The community makes the metagame, but not the game mechanics. Good luck banning critical hits from Wi-Fi, or banning Fire Blast missing. If you cannot determine whether the opponent is doing it, how can you ban it?

And the "it's called RNG abuse proves we shouldn't do it" is a silly argument. "Quit hitting me with Megahorn, that's bug move abuse!". Looks like you can't use Megahorn anymore, that's just abusing it.

obi said:

I meant "How can you prove your opponent is doing this in a battle?". If you cannot detect it, you can't ban it.



Saying "the community makes the metagame" is meaningless here. The community makes the metagame, but not the game mechanics. Good luck banning critical hits from Wi-Fi, or banning Fire Blast missing. If you cannot determine whether the opponent is doing it, how can you ban it?

And the "it's called RNG abuse proves we shouldn't do it" is a silly argument. "Quit hitting me with Megahorn, that's bug move abuse!". Looks like you can't use Megahorn anymore, that's just abusing it.

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Again, as I've said, regardless I it's a mechanic or not people will still try to stop this sort of thin from becoming popular. Sleep clause, item clause, species clause, etc. According to omega donut, it may have the potential to be tracked, so more power to banning it on wifi.

While this is interesting, I do think that this is a dangerous thing were toying with. On one hand the elimination of luck can quell quite a bit of the whining that happens when battles are lost, but at the same time what happens to strategies like parafuse/paraflinch? I mean, yes at times hax can get under your skin, but what's wrong with sucking it up? It's part of the game.

On a related note: Even if the seed is known to both players, there are so many seeds that you'd need access to a computer to predict the RNG behaviour from it.

Shoddy is meant to faifthfully recreate the cartridge game, but I think recreating the RNG might be going too far.

I'm not going to say "don't research this" because that would go against my views. But I will say that if this does become possible given knowledge of the seed, it will on WiFi probably only be practical by using AR to discover the seed, and as such will be banned as cheating.

A tangential note - how does Shoddy's current RNG work? Are the algorithms at all similar to the cartridges, or are they very different?

Arch said:

Again, as I've said, regardless I it's a mechanic or not people will still try to stop this sort of thin from becoming popular. Sleep clause, item clause, species clause, etc. According to omega donut, it may have the potential to be tracked, so more power to banning it on wifi.

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That's like making it illegal to think about committing crimes.

It isn't detectable in most instances, and if it isn't detectable, you can't know if the opponent's doing it, so that makes me safe to do it anyway because you can't prove it.

Galactic Boss Cyrus said:

That's like making it illegal to think about committing crimes.

It isn't detectable in most instances, and if it isn't detectable, you can't know if the opponent's doing it, so that makes me safe to do it anyway because you can't prove it.

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Well seeing a Scizor use Protect via Wi-Fi means the person is extremely noob, or excellent at RNG abuse. Taking measures to abuse it should be punished (and will again, try to be by WI-Fi'ers). Knowledge of how to abuse RNG is fine, but it will be obvious that you are abusing it if you're running a logical Scizor set that aims to make use of protect at a random time.

Interesting, but no mention of the attack that eliminates the chance of CH's(or maybe manipulates the seed for the opponent?)...

This is interesting. Not only are we battling on the Pokemon level, but the players are duking it out to control when the luck happens, potentially playing keep away with the RNG to prevent CH's or forcing misses. It's an interesting concept, but it's something that most players wouldn't embrace either due to complexity or people who immediately dismiss it.

Everyone else, do not assume that this means we are going to luckfuck the game and proceed to dominate other forums and utterly destroy competitive play. This is speculation about adding another dimension of play: luck control.

Give people more excuses to hate "hax"

Why would people hate hax if it is now part of the game? I want to help research this because I am sick and tired of hax picking sides with my opponent time after time. Well hax gods, who's laughing now?