Agendered Attract

[Matezoide]

Heres the thread for Agendered Attract, as requested by Zt.

There was some talk on irc about it. Currently Attract is useless on Cryogonal, Staryu, Starmie, and Mew.

I understand if it's just adhering to cartridge, but can we let attract from a genderless pokemon effect other genderless pokemon for the sake of it being a functional move for them

Personally, i dont really care about this one either way, but the idea seems sensible enough. As it stands, all Attract does is make these pokemon waste MC, although the same could be said for stuff like Double-Team on Machamp.

Anyone else got any thoughts to share on this?

 

[ZhengTann]

Only affecting genderless opponents? I was hoping for Attract to affect every opponent if the user is genderless :p

But eh, extra option in the slate, at best.

 

[Agender Nerd]

The current description of attract (as well as all other moves/abilities that care about gender) uses the phrase "opposite gender", so to start I will say that opposite can refer to either a logical inverse or contrary, and what is most appropriate varies on a case by case basis. With gender it gets complicated. When defining opposite as "logical inverse" the opposite of male is not male, the opposite of female is not female, and the opposite of genderless is not genderless. Meanwhile the contrary of any given gender is a matter of personal belief (I personally believe that no gender has a contrary counterpart, though many others would argue that male and female are contrary to each other).

For the sake of discussion here I will accept that, within the context of ASB mechanics, male and female are opposites so the conversation can revolve around what ASB mechanics treat as the opposite of genderless, or if other choices are more appropriate. I'm also completely in favor of rewording all move/abilities that care about gender to no longer include the phrase "opposite gender" altogether or defining "opposite gender" somewhere in the Player's Handbook.

As a means to avoid that mess my favorite option is changing attract's description to something like this:

The user flirts with an opponent, beguiling them with their allure. It induces infatuation in target, giving their actions a 50% chance to fail for a moderate duration. Attract fails if the target is the same gender as the user or if the target is genderless.

This gives the boost ZT described to genderless attract users, has Agender Nerd™ approved language regarding gender, and does not alter the move in any way for male or female users. As for changing other moves/abilities, no genderless pokemon naturally have the relevant abilities and Mew is the only genderless pokemon with captivate, so those are lower priority but I can make similar descriptions for those if there's interest

 

[Ooraloo]

Why are we deviating from in-game to buff a hax-based move?

If the wording of Attract is an issue we can change it to:

The user flirts with an opponent, beguiling them with their allure. It induces infatuation in target, giving their actions a 50% chance to fail for a moderate duration. Attract fails if the target is the same gender as the user or if either the user or target is gender-less.

Some Pokemon have useless moves by virtue of typing or ability or gender or whatnot. Blame Gamefreak. But should we buff Synchronoise so Umbreon can use it? Or change Double Team so that No Guard Pokemon can make use of it? Abilities are one thing, but scouring ASB for every redundant or situationally function-less move seems silly to me.

I think immunity to gender-based moves/abilities is a pretty nice boon for gender-less Pokemon. No reason to change Attract or the nature of gender-less Pokemon just because we can.

 

[FortColors]

A nice solution, that has flavor-based legitimacy, would be to have attract from genderless mons affect both genders but not genderless mons.
This appears to bypass the issues raised by both ooraloo and agender.

In fact, Agender Nerd's new attract desc appears to support this method. (Not same gender + not genderless = leaves male + female)

The flavor basis: pokemon (who are straight) are attracted by flirty behavior, especially from the other gender. Similarly, (straight) pokemon are repulsed by flirting from the same gender. However, genderless mons are not the same gender, and thus do not generate that repulsion. Mew and Cryogonal don't give off a feeling of a certain gender, so the uncertainly can allow attraction. On to why genderless mons don't get affected, they're genderless. They don't have the genetic drive to be attracted towards flirty things. They can be taught to flirt, but it's not instinctual for them to be infatuated with attractive stuff.

edit: if i sound stupid, ignore me.

 

[ZhengTann]

I cannot believe we haven't voted on this yet. Let's do the slate:

How do we want to alter Attract with regards to genderless Pokemons?

a) Implement AGN's proposal
b) Implement ooraloo's proposal
c) No changes

To Council, remember to quote-tag their proposals in the voting OP. Also please do the voting OP before next Monday.