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Is the battle system much different than playing blackjack with your own deck? Imagine a world where someone can buy and trade towards a deck with 90% aces goi

Is the battle system much different than playing blackjack with your own deck? Imagine a world where someone can buy and trade towards a deck with 90% aces going up a person with 80% aces.

kd0amg 8y ago
A pokemon can be one (or two) of a bunch of different types like "bug" or "rock" or "ghost," each of which comes with a particular set of types it's vulnerable to (2x damage taken) and another set of types it's resistant to (0.5x or 0 damage taken). So no one pokemon has an advantage over all the others, and there's no 2-3-4-...-J-Q-K-A strength ordering for types. You can also freely substitute among your team of 6, though subbing replaces your attack for that turn. If you anticipate the opponent using an attack of a particular type, you can sub in something resistant to that attack. In single-player/story mode, you never encounter an opponent at the maximum level, and the NPCs tend not to build type-diversified teams, so the player gets a huge advantage in most battles by just grinding a couple pokemon of the right type.
- ziaddotcom 8y ago
  Right, but IRL blackjack the human is the pokemon, vulerable to various type of human tells etc to what is otherwise grindable. As far as the various pokemon vs another vs the simplicity of jkqa it seems to me something like a weighted adjacency matrix could handle the increased complexity even in a relatively simple ai (imagine two pokemon doing a graph traversal to opposite ends of a node graph, whichever gets there first wins).
  - jknightco 8y ago
    There are no "human tells" in Blackjack. Its you against the deck. Maybe you're confusing it with poker?
    - VLM 8y ago
      Any multi player game with hidden data lets you troll the other players. So if its the dealer and two or more players sharing a deck you can mess with them. Everyone counts cards so under extremely rare circumstances given card count X you can play as if the count is X+1 or X-1 thus mess with the minds of people who accurately believe the count to be X, possibly leading to an advantage, if, statistically, they're in a position where being one off in the count is worse for them than it is for you, or if you're in such a bad spot that it doesn't matter if you signal something false you're doomed anyway. Most of the people claiming to shuffle track, are not. Still, you got three guys watching the dealer shuffle by hand, then two can troll the third by pretending and the third's all like "what did I miss?" maybe panic and do something dumb. Its not as much fun as poker, no.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        But there are effectively no other players as far as you're concerned. You're playing against the dealer/house who makes purely rule-based plays.
        VLM 8y ago
        Three players off the same deck is not unheard of, I suppose it depends on state regulators and casino policy. I agree theres no direct me vs you money transfer but plenty of "we're all gonna start with $500 and whoever has more at the end of the night is the winner". Although I would agree with you in spirit, if you want to feel like you're playing poker, theres no point in simulating it poorly with blackjack unless theres extenuating circumstances (one of your buddies is nuts for the game, or thinks he's gods gift to the card counting art, etc)
        jknightco 8y ago
        It doesn't matter how many people are playing off the same deck, you're only playing against the dealer, and they're following protocol. When its your turn, its you vs. the state of the game. You can add rules on top of a game all you want (e.g. we're all gonna start...) but that doesn't change the actual game that's being played.
  - kd0amg 8y ago
    What graph do you propose to search, and what decision do you propose to make based on the resulting paths?
666lumberjack 8y ago
Most people who battle at a high level play on a simulator where any legal Pokemon is available to everyone, or alternatively use tools to 'hack' whatever Pokemon they want into the game. Some of the most popular strategies use Pokemon/Move combinations that were only available through events 10+ years ago, but since it's possible to transfer those Pokemon forward to the latest games those moves are available to use. The exception is official Nintendo events, but most serious competitors at those will have a network of breeder friends to produce flawless Pokemon for them to use. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the competitive Pokemon scene, I was very into battling on simulator for a number of years and have a pretty good knowledge of the scene.
- esrauch 8y ago
  They can't possibly verify that the Pokemon came from a network of breeders instead of one of them hacking it in right? Is it just that if you have a suspiciously perfect lineup you need at least a plausible sourcing explanation?
  - 666lumberjack 8y ago
    There are a surprising number of hidden values / details with which a naive hacker could be tripped up - especially for event Pokemon - but it is definitely possible to create undetectable hacked Pokemon with enough work. There are also cloning glitches in many of the games that allow one perfect Pokemon to be replicated and distributed to multiple people, although that's mostly used for casual play because it'd be suspicious for multiple competitors to show up at a tournament with exactly identical Pokemon.

Is the battle system much different than playing blackjack with your own deck? Imagine a world where someone can buy and trade towards a deck with 90% aces going up a person with 80% aces.

kd0amg 8y ago

A pokemon can be one (or two) of a bunch of different types like "bug" or "rock" or "ghost," each of which comes with a particular set of types it's vulnerable to (2x damage taken) and another set of types it's resistant to (0.5x or 0 damage taken). So no one pokemon has an advantage over all the others, and there's no 2-3-4-...-J-Q-K-A strength ordering for types. You can also freely substitute among your team of 6, though subbing replaces your attack for that turn. If you anticipate the opponent using an attack of a particular type, you can sub in something resistant to that attack. In single-player/story mode, you never encounter an opponent at the maximum level, and the NPCs tend not to build type-diversified teams, so the player gets a huge advantage in most battles by just grinding a couple pokemon of the right type.

ziaddotcom 8y ago
Right, but IRL blackjack the human is the pokemon, vulerable to various type of human tells etc to what is otherwise grindable. As far as the various pokemon vs another vs the simplicity of jkqa it seems to me something like a weighted adjacency matrix could handle the increased complexity even in a relatively simple ai (imagine two pokemon doing a graph traversal to opposite ends of a node graph, whichever gets there first wins).
- jknightco 8y ago
  There are no "human tells" in Blackjack. Its you against the deck. Maybe you're confusing it with poker?
  - VLM 8y ago
    Any multi player game with hidden data lets you troll the other players. So if its the dealer and two or more players sharing a deck you can mess with them. Everyone counts cards so under extremely rare circumstances given card count X you can play as if the count is X+1 or X-1 thus mess with the minds of people who accurately believe the count to be X, possibly leading to an advantage, if, statistically, they're in a position where being one off in the count is worse for them than it is for you, or if you're in such a bad spot that it doesn't matter if you signal something false you're doomed anyway. Most of the people claiming to shuffle track, are not. Still, you got three guys watching the dealer shuffle by hand, then two can troll the third by pretending and the third's all like "what did I miss?" maybe panic and do something dumb. Its not as much fun as poker, no.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      But there are effectively no other players as far as you're concerned. You're playing against the dealer/house who makes purely rule-based plays.
      - VLM 8y ago
        Three players off the same deck is not unheard of, I suppose it depends on state regulators and casino policy. I agree theres no direct me vs you money transfer but plenty of "we're all gonna start with $500 and whoever has more at the end of the night is the winner". Although I would agree with you in spirit, if you want to feel like you're playing poker, theres no point in simulating it poorly with blackjack unless theres extenuating circumstances (one of your buddies is nuts for the game, or thinks he's gods gift to the card counting art, etc)
        jknightco 8y ago
        It doesn't matter how many people are playing off the same deck, you're only playing against the dealer, and they're following protocol. When its your turn, its you vs. the state of the game. You can add rules on top of a game all you want (e.g. we're all gonna start...) but that doesn't change the actual game that's being played.
- kd0amg 8y ago
  What graph do you propose to search, and what decision do you propose to make based on the resulting paths?

666lumberjack 8y ago

Most people who battle at a high level play on a simulator where any legal Pokemon is available to everyone, or alternatively use tools to 'hack' whatever Pokemon they want into the game. Some of the most popular strategies use Pokemon/Move combinations that were only available through events 10+ years ago, but since it's possible to transfer those Pokemon forward to the latest games those moves are available to use. The exception is official Nintendo events, but most serious competitors at those will have a network of breeder friends to produce flawless Pokemon for them to use. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the competitive Pokemon scene, I was very into battling on simulator for a number of years and have a pretty good knowledge of the scene.

esrauch 8y ago
They can't possibly verify that the Pokemon came from a network of breeders instead of one of them hacking it in right? Is it just that if you have a suspiciously perfect lineup you need at least a plausible sourcing explanation?
- 666lumberjack 8y ago
  There are a surprising number of hidden values / details with which a naive hacker could be tripped up - especially for event Pokemon - but it is definitely possible to create undetectable hacked Pokemon with enough work. There are also cloning glitches in many of the games that allow one perfect Pokemon to be replicated and distributed to multiple people, although that's mostly used for casual play because it'd be suspicious for multiple competitors to show up at a tournament with exactly identical Pokemon.