I've been planning to write this post for a while, as I have a few concepts that may work in the section's favour, but due to them potentially being controversial ideas, I wanted to suggest them here instead of bringing them up in a private forum or with the moderation team directly. It would also be nice to gauge how popular these ideas are, as while I am a fan of all of them to varying extents, I can't rely on everyone having a similar take to me.
This post in full concerns the treatment of OMs come Generation 8, what this section could potentially do differently, and what we could do to ensure that we can improve popularity and activity across the community. I'll list metagames in Italics to aid non-OM players that are wondering what stuff is. Descriptions and links to OM threads can be found
here for those people.
Improving the monthly ladder system.
I'll start with the most ambitious idea, that perhaps is a little outlandish, but I'd prefer if you could "hear me out" before coming to a conclusion on whether you agree or disagree with this notion. Prior to this proposal, may I congratulate and thank the moderation team for their handling of the OMotM and Leaders' Choice formats up until this point. I am a fan of how four years ago we changed to a system with two monthly ladder formats, that the formats chosen and guidelines set have been for the most part optimal. I must say though that this has been one of the most debated issues within the last twelve months. A myriad of users are unhappy with the selections for the Leaders' Choice format, and on how semi-popular formats that they enjoy are never chosen. From an OM player's standpoint, formats such as
LGPE Hackmons and
LGPE 1v1 should never have been chosen. On another note, formats such as
Middle Cup/
NFE (which I'll consider the same metagame for the point that the appeal is generally the same premise) have been chosen thrice since the inception of Generation 7. There's also a dilemma that appears when less popular formats such as
Inverse are chosen multiple times despite having small showings the first time they're picked. As someone who has been involved in this process I know that it can be difficult to choose a format every month that the community is content with. I would like to build on a solution that has been suggested before but perhaps could be improved upon due to another complaint many users have with these monthly formats.
This other complaint stems from the fact that the OM community prefers two different types of metagames. Some enjoy the bustling overpacked formats like
Shared Power, while others prefer metagames with simpler little changes such as
Protean Palace. Why can't we appeal to both groups of people every month? For the sake of simplicity I'm going to refer to these two different groups of metagames as Big Metas and Small Metas (but of course this can be changed to whatever, I personally enjoy colour coding but this isn't important at this stage). Each month have people vote on their favourite Big Meta and their favourite Small Meta. For example, if the voting stage looked like:
Chimera 1v1 (big) | 241 Votes |
Inverse (small) | 121 Votes |
Partners in Crime (big) | 245 Votes |
STABmons (small) | 187 Votes |
Ultimate Z (big) | 220 Votes |
The results would show
Partners in Crime and
STABmons as winners. People would have a chance to play either a big "complex" format where everything is going on at once, and/or a smaller format in which it's a simple change that also offers an enjoyable experience. This would be preferable to the two highest voted metagames winning for a few reasons. Primarily, because each type of OM player gets to experience a metagame they'd play but also as the less popular (smaller) formats would still see the light of day. Issues I see to this are mainly the distinction of what consistutes either classification (of which I trust the moderation team to make apt decisions) and additionally that some formats (say
Dancerability) won't get a ladder format ever. The latter seems like a non-issue to me at least, as I don't believe formats that rake in such a low playcount are optimal for the section regardless. Even then, they're playable on side servers and are available in theory so it shouldn't be considered an issue of this plan.
As I said earlier this is my big proposal, as in a potentially controversial idea in which I don't expect everyone to love; however, consideration would be nice to some degree. My only other suggestion to help the monthly metagames out is, freeing
Cross Evolution from this nonsensical limbo. We shouldn't be approving metagames if we don't want them to receive OMotM ladders at some point. My solution isn't to not approve these metagames but instead not bar them from being OMotM formats. I will be the first to admit I disdain
Cross Evolution but it should be allowed to have a monthly ladder format if it has the necessary popularity. The format approval listed here indirectly ties into my next point.
The appeal of difference in OMs.
Metagames such as
Multibility and
Shared Power should be approved given they hit the standards held for other metagames. Yes, they do seem a tad complex to the average player (especially the latter) and yes, they definitely stand out as outlier formats. This shouldn't be treated as a negative though. Consider
Balanced Hackmons, by far the most popular OM at the moment. If you've ever played BH, you'll notice that it's very different to your standard tier or even OM. This is definitely part of the appeal.
Balanced Hackmons has multiple active threads, the most active forum community of all OMs and the highest playcount on Showdown for any OM. It's arguably the most unique 6v6 format on the website. Compare this to the activity of
Shared Power. This was by far the highest played OMotM ladder of all time, and brought a lot of non-OM players to the section. It was a very different metagame to your standard OM, this is part of the appeal! We shouldn't be ridding of metagames like this, we should be making them work. Changing
Shared Power bans to teambuilder bans would've been a simple yet effective solution. Another metagame that got an excessive playcount was
Enchanted Items. We have a way to work this into Generation 7 without the arbitrary item list, why are we not allowing it? This would also benefit from the aforementioned big-small metagame system, as OMotM players who hate Shared Power with a passion don't have to deal with either playing that or some metagame picked out of the air by someone who doesn't play the formats. Some of the rules put in place to prevent formats like
Multibility and
Shared Power existing seem so random and somewhat nonsensical, I'm sorry.
Essentially what I'm trying to get at is that people appreciate difference. OM players very much don't want to have to deal with the same cookie cutter 6v6 with a simple change every month. We need to strike a balance of enjoyment without going overboard, but I feel as if we're too conservative with the metagames we allow to exist at the moment, and that we should loosen our criteria slightly to allow more cool metagames to draw attention to the section.
Late/lacklustre releases & odd criteria that hold back OMs from existing.
My next suggestion for this post is what a lot of us want, but I'm unsure if a change would go against Smogon policy or would be fine as a simple change on behalf of the OM moderation team. Come Generation 8, there seems to be a lack of Pokemon being permitted in the cartridge game. There's also a strong possibility that items such as Mega Stones or even Z-Crystals may cease to exist. This would be the end of a decent amount of metagames that have thriving communities, solid playcounts and are based on formidable concepts. Can we please not allow this to be a determining factor in say the existence of the second most popular OM format
Mix and Mega. If there's no clashing mechanics, metagames like this should be allowed their continued existence into the new generation. There's no point to dismantling a community and prominent metagame if we have the resources and ability to continue it.
Rotational ladders under-performing in practice.
I was initially a rather big fan of the rotational ladder concept, and I'm sure a lot of other people were also; however, as we've seen, rotational ladder formats aren't getting the attention they exactly deserve. Personally, I'm a little put off learning a metagame like
STABmons just because I know it won't be there every second month and I won't be able to play it. This shows when considering forum activity and playcount. People would much rather play a well-established permanent ladder or a cool unique monthly ladder that they haven't seen before. The weird in the middle state of rotational ladders seems to be quite detrimental to the improvement of these formats. I don't have solid evidence that permanence would drastically improve the activity of a format, so this is nothing more than anecdotal. I would however like to hear alternative or similar viewpoints to this one.
TL;DR.
In summary, I love this community. I want it to continue to grow and thrive come the new generation but due to the departure of UM formats, the possibility of M&M not existing next generation, and the rejection of popular formats such as
Multibility, I am becoming increasingly worried about the future of the section. I have proposed multiple solutions to issues that we are starting to face and I'm hopeful that the moderation team considers what I have proposed here today. Thank you for reading my post.