>>18806617>If player A plays better than player B then player A should win essentially 100% of the time.This is a common mistake competitive players of any game tend to make. Skill should NEVER be the end-all of your game. An inexperienced player should be able to beat an experienced player at least some of the time, otherwise new players will be very hard to come by, and the game will eventually die.
To put it another way, humans crave new experiences and unpredictability. The random elements of games like Pokemon are what keep people coming back, because they ensure that no two battles are the same. You can have two players using the exact same cookie cutter Smogon team but the match will play out differently every time it's fought.
Lastly, randomness CAN encourage skillful play. Games like Pokemon emphasize knowing how to take advantage of random occurrences and turn the odds in your favor.
>All of these things add up to a situation where someone can outpredict, and outplay an opponent for an entire match, and still loseGood. Pokemon is a game geared toward children; having safety valves that enable them to beat experienced players is important. There is a point at which randomness becomes too disruptive to the skill of a game, but I certainly don't think Pokemon has crossed that threshold.
