ZEJ Pokemon League

ZEJ
Pokemon League​

Welcome, challenger, to the first ZEJ Pokemon League. Here in ZEJ, we use a certain Pokemon Battle Simulator called Pokemon Showdown, the mechanics of which will be explained a little bit later, if you do not already know them. This league was devised as a way to perhaps garner some activity into ZEJ, and promote its community to better interact with each other. I hope you enjoy participating.

First, I should tell you. We have * Gym Leaders, followed by an elite group of * people who have proved themselves to be the best battlers that ZEJ has to offer. You may challenge both groups in any order that you please, and may do so with a varied team. The Gym Leaders have all built their teams around a specific type, and thus you may expect certain strategies from them. Arrange your team well, and it will pay off.

Be careful though. The Gym Leaders and Elite * have earned their spots for a reason, and thus are prepared for many outcomes.

So do you still want to join? Good! Then I will guide you through how to use pokemon Showdown. If you went there earlier, then that is fantastic. If not, then click on this to go there now. Once there, you'll notice two large buttons in the center: One that says "Install," and one that says "Play online." For the purposes of this small tutorial, click on "Play online." Further instructions for the use of Pokemon Showdown, expand the spoiler below.

Note: Much of this tutorial is quite overbearing. I simply wish to explain the simplest of things in the case that it may not be obvious to some people. If you feel offended by my tone... Well, don't be.

Spoiler

So now here comes the fun part. After having clicked the "Play online," you notice that the new screen has various functions you can do. For now, please turn your attention to the top right corner of the webpage. Here, you'll notice three buttons side by side: One that says "Choose name," one that has a speaker, and one that has a gear. The first thing you'll want to do is click the "Choose name" button, at which point a textbox comes up. Here, you can enter the name that you wish to be displayed for yourself on the various chats that Showdown has to offer.

Once you enter a name here, click on the icon with the gear. If you wish, this is where you can change carious aspects of how Pokemon Showdown looks and such. For now, if you do not want anyone using your username, click on the "Register" option near the bottom. Here you'll be askedd to make a password and identify a pokemon. Do so.

With that settled, you may want to play around with the options available. None of this is particularly important nor particularly dangerous, so go ahead and experiment. The middle option with the speaker allows you to adjust the volume of the music and sound effects in battle. Adjust this if you so please.

Now here's the best part: Building your team. To begin, look to the left banner on the screen and you'll see a button labelled "Team Maker." A new tab inside the webpage will appear automatically, with two options: "New Team" and "Backup/Restore All Teams." For now, click "New team." Once clicked, you'll notice several functions come up on screen. The top textbox is the name for your team, while the button to the right of it lets you either see the team you've made in text or make text for the team. The "Format" dropdown menu is somewhat important, and you can pretty much choose any option, but for now choose either "(None)" or "Pokebank OU."

Now, click on "Add Pokemon."

This is where Pokemon Showdown excels. Its Pokemon making system is incredibly easy. The only reasons you should ever even need to use the mouse are choosing EVs and IVs, along with miscellaneous things like choosing extras (Gender, shininess, etc.), and perhaps scrolling if you're unsure of what you want.

To begin, type in the name of the Pokemon you want. You'll notice that as you type, various Pokemon are eliminated from the list below based on what you type. You can also simply type information such as type or ability, and Pokemon matching that criteria show up. Now, either click on the Pokemon you want, or press enter if it's the one highlighted, and you'll be taken to the hold item screen.

Here, if you know what you want your Pokemon to hold, type it up and press enter. Otherwise, it may be wise to scroll through the list. Once chosen, either ny clicking or pressing enter, you'll be taken to the ability screen. Here, you can click or press enter on the ability you wish for your Pokemon to have, if several abilities are available. Once chosen, you'll be taken to the moves.

With the moves, you can type in any move you want, but with the ZEJ league, we will not permit any illegal moves, accuracy or evasion changing moves, nor any moves that KO in one hit. Once you have a set of moves chosen, once again, by either clicking or typing and pressing enter, you'll be taken to the stats screen.

Here, you'll be able to set stats as you see fit. The primary way of doing this is by EVs, followed by Nature, followed by IVs. You'll notice that at the top here is a button, and should you have a full set of moves, it will have a suggestion for stats. If you are new to competitive battling, it would be very wise to click this button, then be "finished" with this Pokemon.

If you wish to know the details of how these things work, basically, you can set up to 510 EVs, with a maximum of 255 per stat. At level 100, which is automatically set by Showdown, every 4 IVs is 1 stat point, so it is wise to only use multiples of 4. Most sets use a spread of 252 EVs on two "main" stats, with 4 EVs on a "minor" stat, though variations are possible and always unexpected. For example, a "Physical Sweeper" (A Pokemon meant to be a fast attacker who can one-shot many Pokemon) will typically have 252 Attack EVs, 252 Speed EVs, and 4 HP Evs. Experiment with how you want here. The Base Stats should be a basic guide to how to make your Pokemon, both in terms of what moves it has and how you spread its EVs. To put it simply: In competitive Pokemon battling, it is generally much better to fortify what a Pokemon is good with rather than to beef up what it is bad with.

Now that you have EVs set up, you should pick a nature. Natures will increase one stat and decrease another, with the exception being HP, which no nature can change. To pick a nature without touching the dropdown menu, put a + after the EVs of one stat (Preferably one stat that you have put many EVs in already) to increase that stat, and a - in another (Preferably an unnecesary stat), which will decrease the chosen stat.

With that down, you can click on the box below the "details" to the right of the Pokemon sprite. Here you can change the gender of the Pokemon, its Happiness, and whether or not it is shiny. The only things you should touch are Gender and shiny, however.

You can also nickname your Pokemon with the textbox above the sprite.

Congratulations, you made your first Pokemon! Now do so with 5 other Pokemon, and you'll have a team!



Now that you have a team, you can feel free to challenge people. Many people will be available in the lobby, but Gym Leaders and Elite 4 will reside in the chatroom marked "Monotype." You can have multiple chats at once, by pressing the plus sign at the top of the section with the chats.

The easiest way to challenge someone is to click their name, the click on the "challenge" button that shows up next to it. You'll see a new small window pop up. Here, you can choose the tier in which you wish to challenge them (For the ZEJ league, choose either Pokebank OU or Custom Game). You can also choose which team to challenge with. Once ready, press the "challenge" button near the bottom of the small window. Your chosen opponent will be able to choose whether or not to accept the challenge. The rest should be fairly self-explanatory.

Alright, so I've gotten this far. We still need to choose how many members we have in the league, as well as types. Current claims and discussion I know of are:

The Kakuzato: Ghost
Starrie: Flying
Flimzy: Psychic
Frost1076: Normal
CerberusLycan: Ground or Poison
Muddy: Fairy
Elegante: Bug
Cid: Water or Fire

So yeah. More discussion is needed. I'd also like a nice logo to use sometime.

 

When I get some time on the computer, I'll write up a Showdown Tutorial and probably edit the first post, as it seems that it is the one we're using.

Any ideas on the number of leaders we have? I gave some ideas in the OP, but some others would be like 6 Gym Leaders and an Elite Four, 4 Gym Leaders and an "Elite 2," or some other stuff.

 

Sorry for Double Post, but I am putting the original OP here for various reasons.

So some discussion has been brought up on the chat about making a Pokemon League here on ZEJ. This could potentially be a very good community buffer for ZEJ, and I myself am all up for participating in it, and hopefully enough people will want to participate so that it could be A Thing.

Anyway, the current hurdle we have to jump over is the decision on what format we should use. There are a couple of options here. First is, of course, doing it in X and Y through wi-fi. Second is using the Pokemon Battle Simulator Pokemon Showdown. Each of these options has its own pros and cons, which I have made a list of what I can think of:

Spoiler

Showdown Pros:
More accessible and faster
More focused on how well you can use the Pokemon (ie no need to worry about Natures, EVs, and IVs in-game)
Access to more than is available in-game in XY so far.
Allows Spectators

Showdown Cons:
Glitches
Less room to advertise
May require showing newbies around the interface if they've never used a battle simulator before

Wi-Fi Pros:
Easier to advertise
More "real" (As in. Using the actual game makes it feel more like a Pokemon League)

Wi-Fi cons:
Things like IVs and Natures hinder strategy immensely unless you're willing to go through that trouble, which puts othersthat are NOT willing to at a disadvantage
--Those designated as Gym Leaders may not be willing to have to put together what may end up being a whole new team

Of course, this list is simply everything I could think of. Any more contributions to this list would in fact be welcome.

I for one, support the Pokemon Showdown option, and would be more than willing to write up a tutorial for it if it is chosen as the format, for anyone not familiar with Showdown/Battle simulators in general.


Next up would be Gym Leaders and/or Elite 4. Not only who among use would do which jobs, but which ones we have in general. We could have the "official" standard of 8 Gym Leaders and the Elite 4, just the Gym Leaders, just the Elite 4, or perhaps some weird minimization of both/either. Discussion on this is more than welcome.

With that being said, I for one am willing to be a Ghost Gym Leader/Elite Four/whatever. There is also discussion of Starr being a Flying Gym Leader and Flimzy being a Psychic type Gym Leader. This is all that I know about myself as of now. If I missed any claims, feel free to inform me.

So anyway, yeah. Discuss, I guess.

 

I'd still be up too. Might end up changing my type, idk.