| Smogon University Forums | Smogon Metagames | Pet Mods Megas for All v8 - Start of Paldean Season! | Please read the first post! Manager of this thread: BlueRay W E L C O M E T O M E G A S--F O R--A L L Miscellaneous Information: - Megas for All v7, previously run by Hematite - Megas for All v6, previously run by ImperialGamer517 - concept by acestriker19 - current thread, approved by Pet Mod staff - Discord / Spreadsheet - more resources towards the end of this post! |
| Table of Contents (created by BlueRay) 1. Introduction 2. Submission Process 3. Voting Process 4. Resources 5. FAQ |
| 1. Introduction (written by BlueRay) "Make your wonderful dream a reality, it will become your truth. If anyone can, it's you". This quote comes from N, a character from the Black and White series, and perfectly summarizes how Megas for All v7 and v8 came to be and what it means to the creators and players of this community. Ever felt like being a witch and turn a Pokémon into Ariados, Butterfree or Seismitoad? What about blackmailing a Pokémon to keep you alive? Or are you rather someone who wants to make people despair with gifts from Santa Clause? If you had the chance to make a Pokémon viable, unique or just fun to use, what would you do? Enter Megas for All, a project that aims to create unique Mega Evolutions for every fully evolved Pokémon. At the moment, this Pet Mod mainly focuses on a Paldean dex-based metagame but does feature other formats: [Gen 8] Megas for All: Kalos, [Gen 8] M4A Kalos VGC, [Gen 8] M4A OU NatDex, and [Gen 8] M4A VGC. From time to time, there will be a special format with special rules and unique features, depending on the theme of a tournament. For more information on the aforementioned formats, consult our server Megas for All v8 on Discord. As the title of this thread already implies, the Paldean season features Pokémon found in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, the maingame so to say, and will only add all exclusive / new Pokémon from the DLC, such as Archaludon or Ogerpon, among others. Moreover, during the DLC slate, you can decide which Pokémon from the DLC should get a Mega Evolution, and that is not dependent on the list of "exclusive / new Pokémon from the DLC". For instance, Milotic is not in the mainland, and it's also not a new Pokémon as it comes from generation 3. However, it can be obtained in the DLC. If you wish to see a Mega form on Milotic, you can try to vote for its inclusion in the metagame. |
| 2. Submission Process (written by Hematite, edited by BlueRay) Usually, every second or third week, we’ll be running a new slate of anywhere from two to four Pokémon. You can submit Mega Evolutions for any of those Pokémon. When submitting a Mega Evolution, you can decide its type, Ability, stats and any movepool additions. (You can also optionally suggest a name for its Mega Stone if you want! There is no official guarantee the name you suggest will be used even if your submission wins, but people have put forward some clever names in the past and it's always neat to see what ideas people have.) Here are the basic rules and guidelines in these areas: - Your submissions should have at least one type in common with their base forms! This one is admittedly more of a guideline? I can't really think of anything that would warrant an exception to this, but if for some reason you want to replace its type completely, you're welcome to explain why and ask if it's okay!
- Mega Evolutions can only have one Ability! There are no hard limits or "Ability rankings" in this version of the mod - you can pick any Ability you want, or even make a custom one - but please try to have balance in mind with your submissions. Our reviewers will try to help people judge them on a case-by-case basis and will respond with feedback if something seems overly strong! - Custom Abilities are absolutely okay! Our reviewers will let you know if our coders don’t think they can do something (you might need to change it unless you can provide code yourself), but never be afraid to ask, even if you can't provide code yourself! That said, I recommend that you make your submissions requiring custom Abilities well in advance of the submission deadline! You might need to find potential alternatives if our coders can't fulfill what you want, so make sure to leave yourself time to do that before submissions close. - That said, as a rule, we strongly prefer to avoid Abilities that straightforwardly combine two other Abilities in one, as well as Abilities that take an existing canon Ability and are strictly better than it (that is, there is no realistic situation in which you would rather have the canon equivalent than this). - We also avoid making new Abilities that are just the same as an existing one with a new name. If you're not changing anything about the Ability's function and the existing one would work the same, please consider using the one that already exists unless you have a very convincing argument! - Both of these can be enforced and exceptions to either of them are very rare. - Your Mega Evolution’s base stat total must always be exactly 100 points higher than its base form. There are also some other specific requirements on stat spreads: - HP cannot be changed. - Attack and Special Attack cannot be lowered. You may switch your Mega Evolution's Attack with its Special Attack if you are changing the Pokémon from a physical attacker to a special attacker, but you must still follow the other rules if you do (its new Special Attack cannot be lower than its original Attack, and its new Attack cannot be lower than its Special Attack). - Defense, Special Defense and Speed may be lowered, but not to free up extra points to "spend" elsewhere. If you do lower one of these stats, please devote those points to the attacking stat that is lower on the base form (or the other attacking stat if you switched the two). Exceptions can be made for up to 10 points, but no more. - Some slates may come with exceptions to these rules, primarily for Pokémon like Beedrill with abnormally low base stat totals. This will be clearly stated when the slate is announced. - You should generally put serious consideration into what new moves are called for, although you're welcome to do more if you have changed your Mega Evolution's type and it needs basic STAB options for its new type. We've previously had a soft limit of two competitively viable moves, and though this has never been enforced, it's still a good rule of thumb - avoid adding excessive numbers of moves without good cause. You should always remember to consider the effect a move has on a Pokémon's base form, too, both in flavor and competitive use! If the base form shouldn't - or just realistically wouldn't - be able to use the move, it's not worth adding to the Mega. That said, there are times when a Mega Evolution really seems like it should have a move for flavor reasons but wouldn’t run it viably. It’s totally okay if you want to include a small number of non-competitive moves for the fun of it! Just be sure to clarify why you don't think they're viable if it's not obvious. C: - Since they were almost universally distributed prior to Generation VIII, the cut moves Hidden Power, Return and Frustration may be added to submissions for Generation VIII Pokémon for free, without counting towards the viable move limit. Please make sure to include them in your submission, however - they will still only be added when requested! (Edit: Note this only applies to our formats from gen 8! I'll leave this information for future reference.) Note that unlike Abilities, there are no plans to allow custom moves - not even if they’re clones or if you can provide code yourself. This is because custom moves can still be used without Mega Evolving; we would prefer to limit custom elements to the Mega Evolutions themselves, as it makes the mod more accessible if people only need to worry about one Pokémon per team having anything new and unfamiliar to learn. - Moves that have no existing users in the format are also not allowed. That means  Light of Ruin (as AZ's Floette was never released) and the moves exclusive to the Partner Pokémon in  Let's Go! Pikachu and  Let's Go! Eevee (as partner Pikachu and partner Eevee can't be traded out of LGPE and don't exist in National Dex) cannot be added to submissions.- On account of their unique characteristics, certain moves may no longer be added to Pokémon that don't have them in canon. These moves are as follows:  Dark Void,  Hyperspace Fury and  Aura Wheel, which cannot be used by any Pokémon but their rightful owners even if they are learned by other means; Chatter, which is impossible to copy even by way of Smeargle's Sketch; Behemoth Blade and  Behemoth Bash, which replace Iron Head at the beginning of battle for their rightful users and cannot be known outside of battle by any Pokémon; Thousand Arrows, Thousand Waves and Core Enforcer, which are learned only through the Zygarde Cube, an item that can only be used on Zygarde;and  Volt Tackle,  Secret Sword,  Relic Song and  Dragon Ascent, which are learned exclusively through special means, such as tutors dedicated to specific Pokémon, and cannot reasonably be distributed to other Pokémon in the same manner.As a general point of advice:
Personally, I always find it useful to run damage calcs to compare them with similar Pokémon, especially with Abilities that boost damage. For example, Huge Power is a much stronger Ability than Sheer Force in a vacuum, but Mega Mawile and Mega Camerupt actually hit for almost exactly the same amount of damage with their strongest moves, Play Rough and Fire Blast - Mega Camerupt actually hits very slightly harder! Meanwhile, Mega Mewtwo Y has an incredibly high base 194 Special Attack, the highest of all Pokémon, but it relies on the move Psystrike, which has 100 base power. Would you believe that Mega Lopunny - with its base 136 Attack - hits about 99% as hard with its High Jump Kick, just because of the move's higher power alone? The combination of stats, moves and Abilities means much more than any one of them alone. Very few stat spreads or Abilities are broken on their own, and you can almost certainly make a balanced submission out of anything you want if you’re careful - just remember to take this into account, and when in doubt, damage calcs are your friends! That said, we can always nerf or buff submissions later if they turn out to be unhealthy or not strong enough, so don't be too afraid to take risks with Abilities! The reviewers are still likely to veto a submission if it seems to have too much going for it in terms of raw stats (especially in terms of attack power), but if you have a new custom Ability or an unexplored combination of effects and aren’t sure how strong it will be in practice, don’t beat yourself up over not getting the balance right on the first try! It’s not like it’s going to ruin the mod if your sub turns out to be stronger than we thought at first - we can fix it easily after testing. You should still exercise caution, of course, but we are okay with people taking risks in the name of creativity! Apologies that it's smack in the middle of an announcement post and all - it's too long to fit in a single post because of the character limit, but we'll look into neater ways to host it in the future! - One request: when you edit your submission, if someone on the council had already responded to it before the edit or if submissions are closing within 24 hours, please post in the Discord if possible (or the thread otherwise) to notify us of the change! We may, intentionally or not, use the outdated version of the submission if you don’t make this clear - sorry for the inconvenience, but please do make sure to keep us posted if you make changes like that! The submission phase will generally last a week (168 hours) from the end of the previous voting phase, although this may vary occasionally depending on personal circumstances. In case it helps, here's a form that you can copy and paste when making a submission:
Code:
 Mega JolteonNew Ability: Volt Absorb/Quick Feet -> Tempestuous (When Mega Jolteon enters battle to replace a defeated ally, it immediately uses Charge. This has no effect when it enters battle any other way.) Type: Electric New Stats: HP: 65 Attack: 65 -> 95 (+30) Defense: 60 Special Attack: 110 -> 139 (+29) Special Defense: 95 -> 125 (+30) Speed: 130 -> 141 (+11) (625 BST) New moves: Calm Mind Description: This was mainly inspired by Jolteon's Pokédex entries, which all talk about how prone it is to mood swings and the interesting detail that changes in its mood also cause it to build up more electricity. I thought about what in-battle conditions might make it sad or angry the way its entries describe but also be good times to charge its power, and I settled for boosting its power for a single turn when it's aiming to revenge a Pokémon that defeated its ally. Calm Mind was added as a way to capitalize on the free turns that an Ability like this is bound to generate - if it only has five chances to hit at full power, and it telegraphs an Electric-type move every single time, it would be way too easy to play around it just by switching out on those turns! I didn't want to go as far as Nasty Plot on something this fast, but Calm Mind seemed like a good middle ground - making it thrive in the long term but giving it somewhat less immediate damage than the Charge boost itself - while also pairing neatly with the +1 Special Defense that Charge already grants it. It's also some very fun flavor - on that first turn in battle, Jolteon has the choice between attacking out of anger for some instant-gratification breaking power or calming itself and becoming stronger in the long term. Tempestuous makes Jolteon into a fantastic revenger and turns every knocked-out member of its team into a chance to grab back momentum, swing the battle in its favor and potentially sweep. |
| 3. Voting Process (written by Hematite, edited by BlueRay) Once submissions close, we’ll have a voting period to choose the winners that will make it into the mod! Currently, Megas for All uses a variation on instant runoff voting, meaning that it uses a systematic process of elimination to find the submission that's supported by the most people. This system takes into account both the total number of people who voted for the submission at all and how those people ranked it in relation to the other submissions. Your votes should consist of however many submissions you like! Including a submission in your post at all is "voting for it," but you can vote for as many (or as few) as you want - it doesn't have to be exactly three. Your votes should also be ranked from most preferred to least preferred. Everyone is welcome to vote! You don't need to make a submission yourself to participate in choosing the winner. The voting phase will generally last four to five days from the end of the submission phase, although this may vary occasionally depending on personal circumstances. |
| 4. Resources (written by Hematite, edited by BlueRay) - full list of Mega Evolutions - Megas for All wiki, created and maintained by inkbug, which features more detailed information including sample sets and some replays! (Edit: The wiki is very outdated and unlikely to be updated but does come with the advantage of showcasing old replays, among others. More replays and better competitive representation can be found on discord.) - Megas for All Sprite & Concept Art Gallery, which also comes with a reference sheet of general design process. - play on petmodsdh.com; it features this mod ([Gen 9] Megas for All: Paldea) and all of its formats ([Gen 9] Megas for All: Paldea VGC, [Gen 8] Megas for All: Kalos, [Gen 8] M4A Kalos VGC, [Gen 8] M4A OU NatDex, and [Gen 8] M4A VGC), includes all of our graphics and (sometimes) comes with client and teambuilder support! - Edit: teambuilding, viability ranking, ban list, and metagame discussions, among other related aspects of competitive, can be found on discord. We'll update them here, in this thread, in the near future. Keep an eye on it! - Edit: Here's a link to the previous thread, Megas for All v7, in case you want to look up any information, such as submissions. If you are even more curious, here's a link to Megas for All v6. Though, do bear in mind that this mod's main community and design philosophy originate from v7! - Discord server link for Megas for All version 8! This link isn't supposed to expire, but it has a few times before, so just inform one of the council members (BlueRay, inkbug, or Paulluxx), and they'll fix it! This is a convenient and instantaneous way to discuss the current slate and get feedback, so it’s definitely worth joining! Whenever possible, please use that for short posts other than submissions and voting, or if you expect to have a back-and-forth exchange with one person that doesn’t concern everyone in the thread - it helps to keep the thread tidier. Above all, be creative and have fun!! |
| 5. FAQ (update: 13.05.2024) 1. Is Terastallization allowed in M4A OU Paldea? - It is excluded.
Reason: To my knowledge, Terastallization is allowed in every format on Smogon. But that doesn't mean we need to follow this gimmick; after all, we are our own community, with its own interests and philosophy. Besides, this PetMod is centred around Mega Pokémon, not around any other features, such as generational gimmicks. Adding Terastallization might "massively frustrate the creation process because when designing the Mega, you have to take into consideration how it fares against all of its matchups with the potential of tera without having its own and also being more useful than the base form of the mon which is able to tera in the game which can completely change matchups in a way the mega may be unable to", as competitive council member IsoCon explains. So, in short, Terastallization could heavily interfere with the design process of Mega Pokémon, putting a lot of pressure on creators to ensure its competitive viability. Moreover, these Mega Pokémon also need to be able to compete with other (Mega) Pokémon, further putting strain on them. In the worst case scenario, there might not even be enough incentive to run a Mega Pokémon on a team if Terastallization were to remain as it dictates teambuilding and strongly turns a favorable situation into a disadvantageous one, and vice versa. Since Terastallization is excluded from M4A Paldea Singles, this decision also affects M4A Paldea VGC. Meaning, there is no Terastallization in the Doubles format for the purpose of consistency and to avoid setting an unusual precedent. For instance, both M4A NatDex and M4A VGC have no Dynamax even though, technically, it is only balanced in the 4 vs 4 format. -
        - in written form: Koraidon, Miraidon, Flutter Mane, Iron Bundle, Palafin, Annihilape, Espathra, Chi-Yu - They won't be allowed.
- Sleep moves won't be removed; since we're a PetMod, we do not necessarily have to follow what other "official" communities do.
- They're not part of the Paldean dex. Therefore, they won't be allowed.
- Yes, you can! The council will take your suggestion into consideration as long as it fits our current season: M4A OU Paldea. For transparency's sake: M4A Paldea features Pokémon found in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, the maingame so to say, and will only add all exclusive / new Pokémon from the DLC, such as Archaludon or Ogerpon, among others. Moreover, during the DLC slate, you can decide which Pokémon from the DLC should get a Mega Evolution, and that is not dependent on the list of "exclusive / new Pokémon from the DLC". For instance, Milotic is not in the mainland, and it's also not a new Pokémon as it comes from generation 3. However, it can be obtained in the DLC. If you wish to see a Mega form on Milotic, you can try to vote for its inclusion in the metagame. I hope that's clear enough.
- Just share your ideas with the community on the server Megas for All v8 on Discord. - You can run multiple Pokémon with a Mega Stone on a team if you so desire; in fact, this is a valid strategy in VGC to adapt to your opponent. However, as in the official games, you can only use one Mega Evolution on one of your Pokémon on the team.
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