The definition of hax

Antar

Antar

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is a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Programmer Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Top Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Hax, the bane of the Pokemon metagames--a crit can easily mean the difference between victory and defeat, and a missed Hydro Pump can easily ruin one's entire strategy.

But what a Pokemon running Serene Grace and an attack with an already high chance of getting a secondary effect (Iron Head Jirachi is probably the most famous example)? Or a Super Luck or Focus Energy (rare, I know) user getting a crit? Are these hax? Even when your strategy is counting on them, and the odds of the secondary effect NOT HAPPENING are lower than the chances of the effect happening?

For my own purposes, I define hax as an event which cannot be reliably or realistically expected to occur. For example, Charge Beam's SpA boost has a 70% chance of occurring. Ergo, not hax. Jirachi's Iron Head has a 60% chance of flinch. Not hax. Sacred Fire inflicting a burn (50%)? Not hax.

Super Luck Night Slash? 25% chance of occurring, but that's why you CHOOSE the Super Luck-Night Slash combo, so I'd argue not hax. As long as the user's not getting three or four in a row.

What do people think?
 
I think anything greater than or equal 50% chance to happen is not hax. So yeah, one Flinch from Jirachi is NOT hax, while two in a row is (36% chance to happen). Likewise, Focus Blast missing once is hax, but if it hit once, and then misses, you should not blame the 2nd one missing to hax, because it statistically shouldn't be.
 
Yeah, things like Serene Grace + Air Slash/Iron Head, or, Super Luck + Razor Claw + High Critical Hit moves aren't really haxy in my mind.
I don't even trip when a Stone Edge misses.
It's when you lose a game due to some 5-10% chance to miss (like with Draco Meteor) that it starts getting annoying. But then again, that's the trade-off; use flamethrower or Rock Slide if you hate missing.
 
Also worth thinking about how much the hax does to the match. If you get a crit against something which would faint anyway, can you actually call that hax? What if you would have 2KOed it, and it would have dealt minimal damage back (it was a sacrifice)? Sometimes the whole game comes down to a speed tie, which even though it's 50/50 makes the whole match seem totally luck dependant whichever way it goes. You can't just take the raw odds of an event happening to get the haxyness.
 
eric the espeon said:
Also worth thinking about how much the hax does to the match. If you get a crit against something which would faint anyway, can you actually call that hax? What if you would have 2KOed it, and it would have dealt minimal damage back (it was a sacrifice)? Sometimes the whole game comes down to a speed tie, which even though it's 50/50 makes the whole match seem totally luck dependant whichever way it goes. You can't just take the raw odds of an event happening to get the haxyness.
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Well, I don't know. A crit against a Pokemon with 1HP is still a crit, it's just "wasted hax," as it were. The issue of how much effect hax have on the battle is a separate issue entirely--I wonder whether the advantages would outweigh the limitations for one to consider a "Murphy's Law" strategy--that is, in devising a move set, EV spread, what-have-you, imagine that your opponent gets nothing but crits, and any move that you might use WILL miss. I imagine it would result in a much more defensive and conservative strategy, but one that wouldn't really be competitive.
 
I don't define hax by what happens, but by when and, in the case of Serene Grace etc., how much it happens. For example, if my opponent gets a crit on something which would have died regardless, thats not really hax. Likewise, if Jirachi flinches my guy with Serene Grace Iron Head twice in a row, its cool. However, if Choice Scarf Jirachi just spams Iron Head and flinches me 4-5 times in a row, thats just plain hax.

Another thing worth noting about Jirachi's Iron Head is that some people stay in and Iron Head in the hopes of haxing their way through shit like Infernape (who usually gets 4HKO'd). That's unreliable and usually means the player is bad, but sometimes they get away with it and that shit pisses me off.
 
Speaking of hax, once my ScarfRachi killed a Magnezone with Iron Head (5 flinches in a row, then no flinch, then 5 more I think.) Now THAT's hax.
 
I would agree that anything 50% or less is hax, however many a time ScarfRachi is all I have left and I only have 1 move to pick to take down 2-3 pokes, usually Iron head is the best move and I can only hope for multiple hax. In that case I wouldn't say that makes you a bad player, rather the opposite, hoping to take down as many pokes as possible. However if people have something like 3+ pokes left, and a relying on mulitple Flinches to win, I also wouldn't say they are bad, just very very dumb.
 
ScarfRachi is all I have left and I only have 1 move to pick to take down 2-3 pokes, usually Iron head is the best move and I can only hope for multiple hax. In that case I wouldn't say that makes you a bad player, rather the opposite, hoping to take down as many pokes as possible.
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Yeah, that is quite annoying when that happens but you can't really blame the Jirachi user, I mean, what else can you do??
 
Yoz - I meant they're bad players when they actually have have other, better, options. Obviously if you don't have a better choice, or even when you want your Jirachi to die in order to get a free switch, its not a bad pay.

Revolution - The problem with that is that Magnezone doesn't allow Jirachi to switch, and Choice Scarf doesn't allow him to change moves. Because of this, Jirachi has no other option but to stay in and Iron Head. At that point, its out of the players hands. So even though its extremely annoying hax, I wouldn't get mad over it, simply because there was no other choice.
 
"Hax" is something you think is unlikely. Much of the time you're probably wrong, because you like everyone have a poor intuitive grasp of probabilities, even if you can do the maths.

Over the course of a match, it would be highly unlikely for both sides to NOT get a number of critical hits (and a number of misses), and depending on move use some flamethrower burns, tbolt paralyses, ice beam freezes. If you're stalling then you are definitely misguided to complain about 'hax'.

(BTW this is the generic you, I'm not speaking to any particular person)
 
To me hax is anything that has a relatively low chance of happening, but happens anyway. For instance: Dialga getting Iron Head Flinched 11 times in a row an dying. (Happened to me :( ) Thats hax. I don't care if Jirachi has Serene Grace, there is a miniscule chance of that happening. Stuff like T-Bolt, Flamethrower, Ice Beam etc getting their respective side effects doesn't really bother me, becuase I expect it to happen.

Focus Blast hitting twice in a row I consider "hax" just because of how piss poor its accuracy.

Leech Seed missing four times in a row I consider "hax" because it shouldn't really even miss twice in a row.

All sorts of scenarios like that with moves that have "bad" accuracy but miss multiple times in a row I consider hax because you really expect them to hit more often than they do.
 
I think hax is debatable and depends on the move used.

Unless other effects boost the critical-hit ratio, crits are hax in my opinion.

The side-effects from any move that has a 10% chance of it happening (flamethrower, thunderbolt, ice beam, psychic) are all hax in my book. By contrast, I don't consider the side effects of Lava Plume, Discharge/Thunder, Rock Slide, and oher moves with a higher chance of causing them than higher-power/more reliable counterparts to be hax, because you chose these options (usually) with this in mind.

Skymin using Seed Flare and it NOT getting the side-effect is actually hax IMO since the odds of that actually happening are 20%, the same as a Jirachi's flamethrower burning. Iron Head's flinch from a Jirachi is not hax until it happens a certain number of times in a row. (I'd say 3 or more times)

Finally, any move with unreliable accuracy missing is NOT hax. I'm talking Thunder outside of rain, Dynamicpunch and Zap cannon, the OHKO moves, and Focus Blast. They are not hax when they miss because you (usually) chose to use that move over a more reliable alternative and thus accepted the chance of it missing. So when a move like that misses, it's your fault for choosing the move. This I feel applies to any move with an accuracy of 85% or less. (Fire Blast, Stone Edge, etc)

Consecutive misses are another issue altogether. I feel that anything with 75% or greater accuracy should not be expected to miss more than once in a row, so a second miss in a row from a Fire Blast is indeed hax IMHO. Focus Blast missing twice in a row, I feel, does not cross the line between the mixture of rotten luck and a bad decision, and hax. 3 misses in a row would be considered hax IMHO when the move in question has greater accuracy than the unreliable sleep moves. (hypnosis, grass whistle, and sing) Expect to miss a lot of times, however, if you use them. Four misses in a row is hax for anything not an OHKO move. Five misses in a row, or more, is just plain hax. If you actually miss with the same move 6 times in a row (and live to tell the tale) then I advise to ragequit immediately. That is just not right!

On another note, what's your feeling about multihit moves like Rock Blast? Where do they fall in the hax category?
 
Critical hits, moves missing with poor accuracy, flinching or double effects I consider hax. But the thing that strikes me most is the sand veil hax and the like. I mean Garchomp and Gliscor living when they shouldnt can you call this hax? Im not really sure but hax for me is when the system turns on you and like Iron Heads your Heatran to death, thats hax. What about weather guards?
 
Antar said:
Well, I don't know. A crit against a Pokemon with 1HP is still a crit, it's just "wasted hax," as it were.
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Going by this, it's pretty easy to measure the haxyness of a battle. Just look at all of the times the RNG is called (crits, damage rolls, misses, etc.), compare how many went against you and how many went against you. You can't just take turns on a one by one basis, sure 4-5 Jirachi Iron Head flinches in a row is unlikely but if you give it long enough it will get them. for an accurate picture you've gotta look at the battle as a whole. But, this picture is horribly flawed. You may get 10 useless crits through a battle, while your opponent just wins one key speed tie (or you miss with a high acc move). This kind of formula would show that you utterly haxed your opponent, but they have absolutely nothing to complain about. Luck turned the battle in their favor.

The issue of how much effect hax have on the battle is a separate issue entirely--I wonder whether the advantages would outweigh the limitations for one to consider a "Murphy's Law" strategy--that is, in devising a move set, EV spread, what-have-you, imagine that your opponent gets nothing but crits, and any move that you might use WILL miss. I imagine it would result in a much more defensive and conservative strategy, but one that wouldn't really be competitive.
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Interesting idea, but I doubt it's possible to win a battle against a decent player in that situation without a huge team advantage or mind reader level prediction. I guess things like Battle/Shell Armor would help significantly, and very fast hard hitters to avoid getting hurt at all.
 
Well I don't know about "hax," but all of those things are luck based.

Even if you get a 99% go in your favor, you are on the good side of luck. Now I understand people would be reluctant to call this hax, since it isn't BAD luck, or unlikely.

However it's very difficult to draw the line between Jirachi's Iron Head flinchhax on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3 and so on. When does it stop being normal to start being hax? It's 60% each turn, regardless of previous turns, so if your definition is above 50% then even 10 flinches in a row aren't hax individually.

So I just have a question. Is "hax" something that can be always identified in a few key moments, or is it a cumulation of luck throughout the match, or both?
 
My view of hax is very similar to shrang's in that you take the raw probability of a chain of events happening, and anything that has a chance less than 50% happening is "hax". However, I think this way is also majorly flawed because with that in mind you would need to keep a running calculation of the probabilities for every single move made in the game that has side effects or less than 100% accuracy.

What's commonly done is a specific chain of moves is isolated. For example, a chain of 4 Iron Head flinches (around 13% chance of happening) should be considered hax. The thing is, this fails to account for any other instance of possible hax made earlier in the game which perhaps may have made this chain of flinches not actually "hax."

Of course, weighing the hax simply in turns of numbers obviously doesn't help either, as someone who got 4 useless crits got more hax than someone who won a game-breaking speed tie, but obviously the speed-tie was more important in terms of the result of the game.

But theoretically I think a running calculation would need to be kept in order to provide a true result of "who got more hax". Of course, most of us are probably way to busy/lazy to waste our time doing this for every single match, but perhaps saving logs of major tournament battles for later "hax analysis" would be something to try.
 
Is it 'hax', if my opponent's Focus Blast hits twice in a row? - yeah, it is only 49% chance!
Is it 'hax', if my own Focus Blast hits twice in a row? - no, obviously not! It has 70% accuracy and 70 > 50!

You have to decide, weather you look turn by turn or long term. Same with Jirachi, 60% > 40%, so why should it be hax, if it flinches twice?

Imo, Focus Blast hitting twice in a row isn't hax, even the chance, it happens is less than 50%.
I think, hax is excessive luck and 49% isn't excessive lol
 
The only thing I acknowledge as hax is Stone Edge actually hitting when absolutely needed. Randomness is what makes several games funner/Funnier and can make battles at times much more interesting and make you have to think much more to win
 
I think I can conclude from all of this that hax is, and never will be, a universal term because there is no one definition, no fine line between what is hax and what is not. The definition of hax changes from player to player and very few things are universally agreed to be hax. (one of which is Parahax, but given the above arguments, even that can be proven otherwise)

Here's a battle situation I like to call "The Ultimate Hax" and is something I'd like to bring up here because it is hax related.

Your opponent has a full health female Serene Grace Togekiss with a focus sash equipped and no status afflictions. You have a male Walrein, also wearing a focus sash. (this is to prevent KOs from being factored in) Your Walrein is currently confused, attracted to Togekiss, and paralyzed, but has lost no health yet. You select Blizzard to attack Togekiss with. Togekiss goes first and uses Air Slash on you, which hits.

Given that no weather effect is taking place and Walrein does not snap out of confusion this turn, what are the odds that Walrein successfully uses Blizzard, and it not only hits, but crits, AND freezes Togekiss? This'll be fun to figure out. lol
 
Spenstar said:
Your opponent has a full health female Serene Grace Togekiss with a focus sash equipped and no status afflictions. You have a male Walrein, also wearing a focus sash. (this is to prevent KOs from being factored in) Your Walrein is currently confused, attracted to Togekiss, and paralyzed, but has lost no health yet. You select Blizzard to attack Togekiss with. Togekiss goes first and uses Air Slash on you, which hits.

Given that no weather effect is taking place and Walrein does not snap out of confusion this turn, what are the odds that Walrein successfully uses Blizzard, and it not only hits, but crits, AND freezes Togekiss? This'll be fun to figure out. lol
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0.4*0.5*0.5*0.75*0.7*1/16*0.1=0.000328125 (Alternate representations: 0.0328125%, 1/3047.6190476, or roughly one in 3048). There are FAR more improbable scenarios than this, even for a single move (an example would be a multi hit move getting 5 hits and a max damage roll on each, while hitting each time against a foe with +6 Evasion and the user at -6 accuracy).
 
In the grand scheme of things HAX don't exist. If you have 20 attacks in a given match, and 2-3 crits that is fully non-hax. Sure you might lose a game to not gettign those everyone once in a while, but over time the odds will always even out. Luck doesn't truly exist.

That said, I need to play my friend Jeff several more times to even out the massive amount of crits he's gotten in me in our 4 matches.
 
eric the espeon said:
0.4*0.5*0.5*0.75*0.7*1/16*0.1=0.000328125 (Alternate representations: 0.0328125%, 1/3047.6190476, or roughly one in 3048). There are FAR more improbable scenarios than this, even for a single move.
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There are? That was the best scenario I could come up with, given that Blizzard is the lowest accuracy move I could think of that has a 10% chance side effect. What probability is lower than that which you just figured?

On another note, that actually happening would be extreme hax for sure.

Given the scenario you mentioned, I will notch it up a bit: same battle as before, same two pokemon with the same status afflictions and air slash, only this time you selected icicle spear. What are the odds that you are able to successfully execute 5 crits in a row with Icicle Spear? (able to move, move hits 5 times, all 5 times it crits)
 
I used to complain all the time, but I have tried to stop in the last month or so and just say "gl/gg" (although i admit to throwing in the occasional "argh" when something goes terribly wrong). I think you (general term) need to realize that everyone gets lucky, and that complaining about it only makes it worse, because then everytime it happens, it just appears worse than it really is. I mean, your new opponent has no idea of the hardships you just faced in your last match...

From a definitive term, hax is what players use as an excuse for losing to "worse" players (although it really is not a worse player, just a worse team matchup). This isn't a bad thing as it motivates us to do better and fight these players again ("I know I can beat him! He only won with hax last time...").
 
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