XY Why Clone?

[Gentlefish]

I've somewhat briefly looked through the Wi-Fi Trading Center, and it seems like every thread practices cloning in one way or another, and this bothers me. I like my Pokemon to be legitimate. I can see why one would want to copy Pokemon (heck, my friends and I used the Battle Tower glitch in Emerald all the time, though I look down on it now), but why would you actually do it - with external software instead of game glitches, no less? Doesn't it seem wrong to you? Sure, you're not hacking level 100 shiny Dragonite with perfect IVs and Wonder Guard, but the fact remains that what you're doing... is cheating. It's not supposed to be done. EVs and soft-resetting could be placed in the same category, I suppose, but those are mechanics in the game, not heavily exploitable glitches. The guidebooks are even beginning to give very roundabout information on how to train your Pokemon to excel in specific areas.
What I want to know is, why does everyone seem to condone it? Sure, maybe you're just going to use it for this unofficial Wi-Fi competition where no one cares anyway, but I would think that at some point cloned Pokemon are going to or already have made it into official tournaments, and that should not happen.

 

[King Arceus]

The only things I'd really consider fair to do if one was to use an external device is just to speed up things that are already possible such as EVs. I would never use it to alter something that can't be altered like an IV. While I do like PokeCheck's legality checker, the fact the site lets you clone Pokemon is not something I think should be allowed.

 

[DNA]

What I want to know is, why does everyone seem to condone it? Sure, maybe you're just going to use it for this unofficial Wi-Fi competition where no one cares anyway, but I would think that at some point cloned Pokemon are going to or already have made it into official tournaments, and that should not happen.

Because I have a backup copy in case I mess up on my EV training,
I can trade multiple event Pokemon to people who missed out (a lot of my friends know me well for this),
and I can trade copies of my own EV-trained Pokemon to people who don't have time to do it themselves, or want to go to tournaments.

Whether or not you are "supposed" to do something or not is immaterial. It's personal preference.

 

[Gentlefish]

What I want to know is, why does everyone seem to condone it? Sure, maybe you're just going to use it for this unofficial Wi-Fi competition where no one cares anyway, but I would think that at some point cloned Pokemon are going to or already have made it into official tournaments, and that should not happen.

Because I have a backup copy in case I mess up on my EV training,
I can trade multiple event Pokemon to people who missed out (a lot of my friends know me well for this),
and I can trade copies of my own EV-trained Pokemon to people who don't have time to do it themselves, or want to go to tournaments.

Whether or not you are "supposed" to do something or not is immaterial. It's personal preference.

On EV training: eh, fair enough. I still don't really like it, but it makes sense.

On trading event Pokemon: While that's nice of you, this is a large part of the issue. Those were limited-time distributions. As harsh as this sounds, if someone missed it, he missed it. I remember taking a break from Pokemon and coming back to find I missed the first-ever Arceus event. And what did they do a year or two later? A DW Arceus event. Now that slot in my Pokedex is filled, because I wanted to do things the right way.

On trading pre-trained Pokemon: Again, cloned Pokemon going to tournaments. That doesn't seem right. It's not the end of the world for friendly Wi-Fi matches, and maybe not for tournaments either if you haven't put lots of time into getting perfect IVs and all, but it still doesn't sit well with me.

As for your last comment, surely that means we shouldn't punish people for hacking Wonder Guard Spiritomb? I think that if the developers intended something to be impossible, we should honor those intentions. That kind of makes my acceptance of EV training look hypocritical, and maybe that's true, but at least that's a game mechanic, if a heavily abused one.

King Arceus: I agree with the speed boost for the most part, but that's kinda lazy. PokeCheck use to figure out if something's legit is probably the only third-party software use I'd condone. xD

 

[King Arceus]

Well I have a full-time real job and the past couple weeks I've had to work overtime and this week as well. Couple that with how much work I do for the forum and I hardly get 5 hours a sleep a day. Its not a matter of me not knowing how to do things, but not having the time to do them. That was why I didn't participate in the last competition even though I'm an expert at Ubers.

 

[DNA]

On trading event Pokemon: While that's nice of you, this is a large part of the issue. Those were limited-time distributions. As harsh as this sounds, if someone missed it, he missed it.

Even by only 1 week, or even a day? A girl who used to go to my league missed out on one of the Crown Beasts, and I cloned her a copy for her game. I've had many other stories like that...a lot of them involved people in Europe, who don't get most events. I might be a jerk at times, but I'm not mean. And I'm not sure exactly what that has to do with being a bad way to fill up the Pokedex "the right way". If you want an event for a past game way back when to unlock something like Spiky-Eared Pichu (I have gotten a lot of requests for Shiny Pichu), then why not? And as long as my friends want them, I will continue to provide. (This can even be extended to a lot of legendary Pokemon.)

As for your last comment, surely that means we shouldn't punish people for hacking Wonder Guard Spiritomb? I think that if the developers intended something to be impossible, we should honor those intentions.

I thought that was implied.

And, as KA said, time is a big constraint. Training Pokemon is a chore, and unless you're willing to put the time into it, there are better things you can be doing. I get requests all the time from a friend to raise some VGC Pokemon for him - some of those requests involve cloning (i.e. legendaries) but not all of them.

After all, why soft-reset for some big legendary if someone else has done it already? Outside of RNG (which I don't use), it takes a lot of time to do that - for me, it takes on average 30 minutes per event to soft-reset for one with good IVs, but for others, like the Mewtwo event from several years back...well, I'm still trying to soft-reset for a good one there. It gets even worse for roaming Pokemon.

 

[Frost Mage]

I agree, Gentlefish. Even if the Pokemon in question was obtained legitimately, I still don't like cloning all too much. When I catch a shiny I don't want that Pokemon to be indefinitely distributed to people so that they can have the exact same Pokemon as I do. It takes away the specialness of having a shiny, legendary, or event Pokemon. Even though you're technically not using an external device to clone, I do still consider cloning cheating. Not as bad as hacking of course, but still cheating.

 

[PMJ]

Pokemon are data and they are not unique unless you are playing a nuzlocke in which case they are your dearest and most trusted friends and totally irreplaceable.

Cloning saves time. when you boil things down that is the only reason.

 

[xxashxx]

You guys realize if no one cloned here none of us would have the events I have now. You guys will be shocked by this but I know someone on another board with over 20,000 yes not kidding 20,000+ events. He uses trading through email better known as file trading to trade his events and he can have full sets in a matter of minutes after he gets the wonder card. It is better known as farming. The events are all legit and he has most events with every nature. When you clone an event it makes an exact duplicate so this way you can still have your events and you can offer your clones to add to your collection. If you buy TCG cards for example you get a bunch of cards and then you can use your doubles to make a deck or you can use your doubles to get cards you don't have. the VG games is almost the same thing. Instead of trading cards you are trading game data instead. Cheating devices are there to speed things up. Cloning VIA GTS takes about 45 minutes to do one copy. With a cheat device you can have many copies done in a few seconds and do many many trades in the same time it takes to clone one Pokemon on the GTS in D/P I have my own rule for trading. That is I don't trade unless my Pokemon are cloned. That rule is standard because I can't clone myself. I tried it a few years ago and did not know how to upload codes to my friends AR so I gave it back to him and then found out it can erase data so I never did try it again plus it can fry the Wi-Fi on the DS so I clone with people who can clone.

This is standard trading method nowadays. Hope you get used to it because almost everyone clones now. Oh and yes every event I own is a clone from someone. The only time you have hacked clones is if you clone a hack or make a clone than edit the file. Those are the only 2 ways to have cloned hacks XD.

 

[Metalizard]

Like, one thing is cloning the pokémon you own to have back-ups, or to give to someone. Another thing is creating hacked pokémon like Wondertomb... I haven't cloned in a while but I used to clone my pokémon (I clone using online gts, not external hardware) when for example I transfered my teams from my gen 4 games to BW and I cloned to keep a copy of them in the gen 4 games... The originals are in my Gen 5 games but the copies are in their respective gen 4 games just so I can use them if I ever pick the game again to do something (it's easier when you still have your high-leveled trained team)...
I admit (I already told this story in another thread but), I once altered my Emerald Rayquaza... When I tried to catch it, I tried before beating the elite 4, so I even had to catch Registeel first to help me against it since it always ripped my entire underleveled (compared to it) team. Then, it took a huge time to catch it because it was always coming out of the pokéballs, it really took a while. When I finally managed to catch it, I go to check its details and learn that it has a calm nature... When I transferred it to gen 4, I send it online to check its IVs... 31 IVs in attack, 1 in Sp. Def... With a stupid Calm nature! I though it was so unfair (you couldn't even use Synchronize on it in gen 3 and honestly, playing Emerald was a pain to me because of how slow it was), I hard such a hard time catching it and that was the result? I decided I wouldn't let the game RNG screw me, so I altered the Rayquaza. The only thing I altered was the nature: change Calm to its opposite, Naughty... That was the only thing... Or course, to keep it legitimate the PID had to match the IVs, but I managed to do it while keeping the other IVs as much similar as possible to the original numbers, no 31 IVs in everything. I was happy. I thought I did what was fair... I still have the Rayquaza, now in my White game... But now, I feel guilty for doing that because I too, am obsessed with having only legitimate pokémon... I won't get rid of the Rayquaza but now I always feel like it shouldn't be in my game and always look at it with a certain annoyance... It sucks...

 

[xxashxx]

LOLz I have been cheating since Diamond. Every version after that I just had my team cloned and transferred to my new version. I just got black about 4 months ago and had my White team cloned and transferred XD.

 

[Frost Mage]

I get that it saves a lot of time, but don't you stop and think how, if you received a cloned shiny, how you wouldn't have that Pokemon under normal circumstances, and only because of the original owner cloning the Pokemon it now becomes an indefinitely re-distributable waste? Now I know that not everyone who clones, clones shinies, but hear me out. By cloning, obviously, you're making Pokemon who are extremely difficult to catch something that anyone can get if they go to their nearest trade shop, where shinies mean little to nothing as they can be cloned hundreds of times if one wanted to. It just doesn't set well with me.

 

[Equinox]

So you say it's too bad if people miss events? What if were you lived didn't even get the event? I think cloning is great, it lets you keep your own Pokemon while you can still share your Pokemon with others. There's nothing wrong with it, it's not a hack, it's just a clone. Honestly, I can't (yes, can't) see how cloning is all big and bad. I'm fine with it if you don't like clones, but I'm going to trade you a clone if you trade with me.

 

[Game Over]

I clone myself because I always like having a copy of each Pokemon I get. I wouldn't want to get a 2002 Event Pokemon and trade it away, cloning is better. Imo.

 

[DNA]

So you say it's too bad if people miss events? What if were you lived didn't even get the event?

Hello, Europe in Generation 4!

(I cloned a bunch of events to trade to European friends during that time)

 

[Frost Mage]

I'm fine with people cloning events to trade to people from countries where they didn't receive it, but I haven't seen that very much, personally. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen a lot, though.

 

[Drohn]

I believe there are positive and negative aspects to cloning. Attaining Pokémon with the wanted nature and IV can be very time consuming, and then you still have to EV train them. I can imagine that for people who want to obtain and train all their Pokémon themselves, having other people cloning and sharing the effort seems unfair. And I agree that it is unfair, because the game developers did not mean for it to be this easy.

But even though I think it is not fair, I still don't disapprove, based on all the positive effects it has. Pokémon is a game, meant to be enjoyed. Not everyone has the time to train Pokémon or the ability to collect event Pokémon. For players to be able to clone, allowing them to help each other out and dividing the efforts of training and collecting, causes better gameplay and more fun.

What I do disapprove on is using downloaded versions of the game to play (I think it is unfair people enjoy the game without paying for it) and also on the Pokémon that have illegal moves, stats, or abilities.

 

[DNA]

...You.
I like you. You have a good outlook.

 

[Metalizard]

I believe there are positive and negative aspects to cloning. Attaining Pokémon with the wanted nature and IV can be very time consuming, and then you still have to EV train them. I can imagine that for people who want to obtain and train all their Pokémon themselves, having other people cloning and sharing the effort seems unfair. And I agree that it is unfair, because the game developers did not mean for it to be this easy.

But even though I think it is not fair, I still don't disapprove, based on all the positive effects it has. Pokémon is a game, meant to be enjoyed. Not everyone has the time to train Pokémon or the ability to collect event Pokémon. For players to be able to clone, allowing them to help each other out and dividing the efforts of training and collecting, causes better gameplay and more fun.

What I do disapprove on is using downloaded versions of the game to play (I think it is unfair people enjoy the game without paying for it) and also on the Pokémon that have illegal moves, stats, or abilities.

You were going so well with your speech...

I don't do that now, but I used to do it. Now, I play with real game copies because I got the money to buy them but when I was younger, I didn't. So, I don't comdemn people that download the games if they don't have money to buy them...
Not everyone is lucky enough to afford a handheld and a game (specially kids), plus pokémon is always coming out with new games, so if you want to be up to date, it's something you have to spend a lot of money on...

Not having money to play the franchise you love, that's what's unfair... that's how I felt as a kid, never had a gameboy and a copy of Red or Blue to play with...

 

[Drohn]

What I do disapprove on is using downloaded versions of the game to play (I think it is unfair people enjoy the game without paying for it)

You were going so well with your speech...

I don't do that now, but I used to do it. Now, I play with real game copies because I got the money to buy them but when I was younger, I didn't. So, I don't comdemn people that download the games if they don't have money to buy them...
Not everyone is lucky enough to afford a handheld and a game (specially kids), plus pokémon is always coming out with new games, so if you want to be up to date, it's something you have to spend a lot of money on...

Not having money to play the franchise you love, that's what's unfair... that's how I felt as a kid, never had a gameboy and a copy of Red or Blue to play with...

I also believe there are exceptions; when people are otherwise unable to play the game it won't hurt the developers if they download and still enjoy the game instead. But if people who do have the choice to buy it it, but don't just to save some money, then Pokémon might go bankrupt and we will never see generation 96 xD To be serious, I do really think that people who are able to buy the original games, should.