Smogon has announced that they are re-implementing Freeze Clause in GSC OU. We won't copy it by default, but it would be good to have a vote. Only thing I'm not sure on is who we should allow to vote. What are your thoughts?
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GSC OU Freeze Clause
- Thread starter Disaster Area
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My first thought is all participants in the prior season, and if the vote runs after the first mt of this season starts, then everyone who had signed up as of that mt. Alternatively, rather than just the first mt it could be everyone signed up for the current season, but that lacks checks against ppl just signing up for the sake of voting (I don't imagine it'd be an issue for this, but you never know).
Also pls no freeze clause (not that I play atm)
Also pls no freeze clause (not that I play atm)
I feel like there is no need to have a freeze clause for any meta that isn't RBY.
The thing is, RBY needs freeze clause because you can't unthaw and therefore you instantly lose a mon if it happens, which is pretty bs so it makes sense.
In other gens you can unthaw, so it's not like you have 0 chance at saving your frozen mon. plus, you got shit like heal bell.
all things considered. it's not a total game breaker and is surely not worth enough to re-implement.
The thing is, RBY needs freeze clause because you can't unthaw and therefore you instantly lose a mon if it happens, which is pretty bs so it makes sense.
In other gens you can unthaw, so it's not like you have 0 chance at saving your frozen mon. plus, you got shit like heal bell.
all things considered. it's not a total game breaker and is surely not worth enough to re-implement.
Short of disabling freeze chances entirely (which I am all for, even though it will never be on the table - the effect has always been absolute bull-fucking-shit in a competitive environment), I think changing the competitive policy on freezes makes very little sense post-RBY. I guess it helps deal with very specific corner cases (we’re talking an extremely low rate of occurrence - even lower taking into account statused pokes and such), but actively dealing with rare corner cases sounds like a bit of a rabbit hole to me, not to mention the fact that we would be further modifying the base game, which is apparently relevant considering that we continue to put up with burn and freeze chances + crits whatsoever
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I think we shouldn't suddenly change our policy just because Smogon does it. I mean normally you do everything in your power just so people don't view PP as a Smogon copy.
That aside, freeze clause in anything except RBY is garbage, stay the fuck away from GSC with that. (I'd even go as far as disabling Freeze clause in RBY, but that's a whole different discussion.)
That aside, freeze clause in anything except RBY is garbage, stay the fuck away from GSC with that. (I'd even go as far as disabling Freeze clause in RBY, but that's a whole different discussion.)
Well, to some extent the "legacy" metagames should track pretty closely to Smogon's metagames by design, but we're free to not copy exactly. Seems noone here is in favour of freeze clause either.
Why would you mod the game to prevent something that occurs very rarely anyway. Modding the game should be thought of as a costly decision. Freeze clause barely comes up and is not close to worth it.
I strongly oppose implementing freeze clause.
I strongly oppose implementing freeze clause.
I don't have a clear opinion about freeze clause in GSC.
When I first heard that smogon is going to re-implement it I thought that it is probably a good decision, as it is preventing some game deciding hax, which admittedly happens really rarely.
Having one pokemon frozen is bad, getting a second one frozen at the same time is horrible.
However, unlike sleep clause, the freeze clause does barely influence the way someone plays. Sleep inducing moves are relatively accurate, hence one could easily use them multiple times. The chance to get a freeze is only 10% as a secondary effect - even though players can actively try to use many ice moves to increase the chance of getting one or more freezes, they don't have infinite opportunities to do that.
So despite seemingly useful, the freeze clause is somewhat arbitrary. One counter argument I have heard is that getting consecutive crits can be just as gamebreaking and there are also no ways to prevent them from happening. Theoretically a crit-clause could be implemented that prevents one player from getting 2 (or n number of) crits in a row.
We can't take all RNG out of pokemon, but we could ban moves that rely too much on RNG (like 1HKO moves) or adding clauses like the freeze clause.
It is a general question: do we want to play as close to the cartridge as possible or do we want to make changes from the original mechanics so that the game is "better" for us to play?
Species clause, 1HKO clause and complex bans (like Sleep-Perish-Trap-Ban) don't change the mechanics, they could also be used for playing on cart. Sleep clause does change the mechanics, but it is neccessary in my opnion, or at least clearly a good clause. The freeze clause does change the mechanics but is not really neccessary, but it functions similiar as the sleep clause which we already have and therefore would only be a mechanic change that we already deem as acceptable.
TL;DR I probably would vote against the implementation of the freeze clause, but it is nothing I am too concerned about.
However, since smogon is going to implement it, it might be okay for us to also follow their example because then players could also play the GSC-1L tier on the smogon main and the pp server.
When I first heard that smogon is going to re-implement it I thought that it is probably a good decision, as it is preventing some game deciding hax, which admittedly happens really rarely.
Having one pokemon frozen is bad, getting a second one frozen at the same time is horrible.
However, unlike sleep clause, the freeze clause does barely influence the way someone plays. Sleep inducing moves are relatively accurate, hence one could easily use them multiple times. The chance to get a freeze is only 10% as a secondary effect - even though players can actively try to use many ice moves to increase the chance of getting one or more freezes, they don't have infinite opportunities to do that.
So despite seemingly useful, the freeze clause is somewhat arbitrary. One counter argument I have heard is that getting consecutive crits can be just as gamebreaking and there are also no ways to prevent them from happening. Theoretically a crit-clause could be implemented that prevents one player from getting 2 (or n number of) crits in a row.
We can't take all RNG out of pokemon, but we could ban moves that rely too much on RNG (like 1HKO moves) or adding clauses like the freeze clause.
It is a general question: do we want to play as close to the cartridge as possible or do we want to make changes from the original mechanics so that the game is "better" for us to play?
Species clause, 1HKO clause and complex bans (like Sleep-Perish-Trap-Ban) don't change the mechanics, they could also be used for playing on cart. Sleep clause does change the mechanics, but it is neccessary in my opnion, or at least clearly a good clause. The freeze clause does change the mechanics but is not really neccessary, but it functions similiar as the sleep clause which we already have and therefore would only be a mechanic change that we already deem as acceptable.
The only difference is that there are no moves, that have sleep as a secondary effect, so to play with sleep clause on cart, it could simply be forbidden to use a sleep inducing move when it would break the clause, unless it it the only move available for the pokemon (or something like that [Edit: even that is not as easy since one player could want to use a sleep unducing move at a turn when the opponents faster pokemon would wake up or when he does not want to use pp for a different move, so that argument is not as good]). Players could not as easily agree on a freeze clause when playing on cartridge (in therory a player could lose when getting two freezes or be not allowed to use any moves that can freeze in case he already froze one pokemon).
TL;DR I probably would vote against the implementation of the freeze clause, but it is nothing I am too concerned about.
However, since smogon is going to implement it, it might be okay for us to also follow their example because then players could also play the GSC-1L tier on the smogon main and the pp server.
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A comrade!
Assuming anyone actually cares what I think, TTBOMK Crystal doesn't support Freeze Clause and as such Crystal-based metagames shouldn't use it as a matter of principle. If Pokemon Stadium 2 were chosen as the simulated game instead, Freeze Clause is a viable rule and probably worth implementing (though in GSC it's not going to matter very much). The only differences I know of are bugfixes, though at least two of these are competitively relevant in 1U-L (failed Belly Drum acting as Swords Dance, and Swords Dance Marowak attack rollover).
As an aside, any mention of GSC freezes invariably reminds me of a game I had where I was running Blissey, froze a Snorlax, and then missed Thunder seven times in a row (might even have been more; I'm sure it was at least 7 but it might have been 9 or 10) trying to convert the freeze into a KO.