Aurora
seven years here and i finally figure out how to d
- 859
- Posts
- 11
- Years
- Age 25
- Amsterdam
- Seen Oct 27, 2020
Introduction
Whenever you take a recreational activity and add a competitive element to it, there is the unfortunate, yet inevitable, side-effect of attracting people who will do anything to win - no matter how morally bankrupt their method is. In poker, people shove cards up their sleeve, hoping to win big. In professional sports, such as cycling, people will take performance-enhancing drugs to give themselves an unfair advantage and almost guarantee "victory". In competitive Pokemon, people will cheat in a myriad of ways in order to win recognition and the appending of a 16x16 pixel bitmap image on their Smogon postbit.
If one of those examples stands out to you for the wrong reasons, then that is mission accomplished. Despite the fact that competitive Pokemon is played almost entirely for fun, rather than for material gain (with one exception), an extremely small, but prominent, minority of people insists on conducting themselves in a manner designed to give them the "edge" over their opponent. By ghosting or manipulating brackets, players can make their opponent's life hell as they either assault them with plays dreamt up by a crack team of five people or make the brackets such that they can advance through a tournament more easily. At worst, their conduct acts as an indictment on their character and, at best, they just look pathetic.
Unfortunately, in the last 18 months or so, the reputation of major competitive Pokemon tournaments has taken a giant nosedive as a result of a disappointing and unexpected spike in these incidents. While cheating in competitive Pokemon has always been a thing, it has been catapulted to the spotlight of late by virtue of two of the biggest and most prestigious tournaments Smogon hosts, namely the Official Smogon Tournament and the Smogon Grand Slam, being ruined by cheaters and liars. In this article, I will explain the methods used by cheaters to game the system, cover the incidents of bracket manipulation and ghosting that have resulted in such massive community outcry, and detail the methods enacted by Smogon's Tournament Director team to combat this blight on the community.
It should be firmly established from this introduction that, while it has been made extremely prominent due to the nature of the affected, cheating in Pokemon games is an extremely uncommon occurrence that the vast majority of people would never and do not engage in. It is also something that Smogon is trying to stop, and, in my eyes, forging ground towards stopping.
How do people cheat in the first place?
One may wonder how, with so many safeguards in place against hackers and the like enacted by programmers, people cheat when playing on Pokemon simulators. Unfortunately, it is much easier to cheat than it sounds. The first and by far both the simplest and widespread method is what's called 'ghosting'. The second but much more uncommon (yet more dangerous) method is through bracket manipulation.
Ghosting
Normally, when playing competitive Pokemon, you make your own decisions without anybody else's assistance. If you are playing for a team tour, ideally the most help you will receive is damage calculations on the go from your teammates. Nobody will tell you what plays to make, suggest plays the opposition might make – nothing of the sort. You're on your own. This is optimal as it ensures that whatever plays are made are a reflection of your ability, not the ability of a puppetmaster.
Ghosting is where you act as the 'player', but your decisions are either influenced by or the product of other people. Here is a scenario:
Prince Brian commences a BW Ubers battle with Fomuga. Both are on their own: they are not talking to anybody on Skype, they haven't called their Brazilian Pokemon prodigy friends over to their place of residence to watch – nothing. On Turn 1, Prince Brian leads with Darkrai. Fomuga leads with Choice Scarf Genesect. Prince Brian becomes flustered as he realizes that his only option is to switch out, while Fomuga has an advantage because he can pivot out with Genesect's U-turn and gain lots of momentum. Knowing that becoming flustered will do nothing but hurt his playing ability, Prince Brian notices that Ord Loutrage, his friend that happens to be very good at BW Ubers, has just logged into Skype. Prince Brian starts a Skype call with Ord Loutrage, screenshares the battle that is taking place with him, and gets Ord Loutrage to help him think of plays he can make to defeat Fomuga. Ord Loutrage obliges, and suddenly Fomuga finds himself in a sticky situation as Prince Brian, who, unbeknownst to him, is getting ghosted by Ord Loutrage, suddenly makes plays that not even a fusion of Anti and Dark Azelf could produce. Prince Brian wins and takes the credit, while Fomuga is left to lick his wounds over losing a Pokemon game he would have won normally.
Whenever you take a recreational activity and add a competitive element to it, there is the unfortunate, yet inevitable, side-effect of attracting people who will do anything to win - no matter how morally bankrupt their method is. In poker, people shove cards up their sleeve, hoping to win big. In professional sports, such as cycling, people will take performance-enhancing drugs to give themselves an unfair advantage and almost guarantee "victory". In competitive Pokemon, people will cheat in a myriad of ways in order to win recognition and the appending of a 16x16 pixel bitmap image on their Smogon postbit.
If one of those examples stands out to you for the wrong reasons, then that is mission accomplished. Despite the fact that competitive Pokemon is played almost entirely for fun, rather than for material gain (with one exception), an extremely small, but prominent, minority of people insists on conducting themselves in a manner designed to give them the "edge" over their opponent. By ghosting or manipulating brackets, players can make their opponent's life hell as they either assault them with plays dreamt up by a crack team of five people or make the brackets such that they can advance through a tournament more easily. At worst, their conduct acts as an indictment on their character and, at best, they just look pathetic.
Unfortunately, in the last 18 months or so, the reputation of major competitive Pokemon tournaments has taken a giant nosedive as a result of a disappointing and unexpected spike in these incidents. While cheating in competitive Pokemon has always been a thing, it has been catapulted to the spotlight of late by virtue of two of the biggest and most prestigious tournaments Smogon hosts, namely the Official Smogon Tournament and the Smogon Grand Slam, being ruined by cheaters and liars. In this article, I will explain the methods used by cheaters to game the system, cover the incidents of bracket manipulation and ghosting that have resulted in such massive community outcry, and detail the methods enacted by Smogon's Tournament Director team to combat this blight on the community.
It should be firmly established from this introduction that, while it has been made extremely prominent due to the nature of the affected, cheating in Pokemon games is an extremely uncommon occurrence that the vast majority of people would never and do not engage in. It is also something that Smogon is trying to stop, and, in my eyes, forging ground towards stopping.
How do people cheat in the first place?
One may wonder how, with so many safeguards in place against hackers and the like enacted by programmers, people cheat when playing on Pokemon simulators. Unfortunately, it is much easier to cheat than it sounds. The first and by far both the simplest and widespread method is what's called 'ghosting'. The second but much more uncommon (yet more dangerous) method is through bracket manipulation.
Ghosting
Normally, when playing competitive Pokemon, you make your own decisions without anybody else's assistance. If you are playing for a team tour, ideally the most help you will receive is damage calculations on the go from your teammates. Nobody will tell you what plays to make, suggest plays the opposition might make – nothing of the sort. You're on your own. This is optimal as it ensures that whatever plays are made are a reflection of your ability, not the ability of a puppetmaster.
Ghosting is where you act as the 'player', but your decisions are either influenced by or the product of other people. Here is a scenario:
Prince Brian commences a BW Ubers battle with Fomuga. Both are on their own: they are not talking to anybody on Skype, they haven't called their Brazilian Pokemon prodigy friends over to their place of residence to watch – nothing. On Turn 1, Prince Brian leads with Darkrai. Fomuga leads with Choice Scarf Genesect. Prince Brian becomes flustered as he realizes that his only option is to switch out, while Fomuga has an advantage because he can pivot out with Genesect's U-turn and gain lots of momentum. Knowing that becoming flustered will do nothing but hurt his playing ability, Prince Brian notices that Ord Loutrage, his friend that happens to be very good at BW Ubers, has just logged into Skype. Prince Brian starts a Skype call with Ord Loutrage, screenshares the battle that is taking place with him, and gets Ord Loutrage to help him think of plays he can make to defeat Fomuga. Ord Loutrage obliges, and suddenly Fomuga finds himself in a sticky situation as Prince Brian, who, unbeknownst to him, is getting ghosted by Ord Loutrage, suddenly makes plays that not even a fusion of Anti and Dark Azelf could produce. Prince Brian wins and takes the credit, while Fomuga is left to lick his wounds over losing a Pokemon game he would have won normally.
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