Other The mindsets of pokemon battlers questionnaire.

[jireh the provider]

Evening to all of you fellow smogon. Learning from various experiences playing different competitive video games, I am curious to learn about the nature of various pokemon battlers for an article and research that I'm doing as a video game designer student. I'm not exactly sure where else can I place this. But the Smog moderator suggested to me to place it here.

If the moderator of the OU tier is reading this, I just have one question: can I post this same thread in the UU, RU, and NU tier as well? I really need a lot of variety of audiences for this questionnaire.

This questionnaire is for ALL pokemon from all walks of battling life. Whether you are a professional battler in certain tiers, or just a casual player, or someone who wanted something to be banned, and many others with various desires and expectations, I want to hear your opinions and learn from you.

All pokemon battlers of smogon from all tiers, casual players, various smogon moderators, artists and programmers, writers, VGC participants, and other pokemon battlers are welcome to answer the questionnaire below.

Note: Click here to take the survey​

 

[Chou Toshio]

It's true that we have had survey threads in the past (specifically, I've done a few here and there), but these were done with the permission of the moderation staff and communicating with our tiering staff. The surveys had objectives outlined to our staff, with the promise of results/data being given to our staff afterwards.

This type of thread is welcome, but having a proposal message that outlines study objectives sent to our moderator staff (and tiering staff if the survey subject concerns tiering) would be a required prerequisite. I recommend sending such a proposal to Haunter, who heads this forum and is a tiering leader. Including some other OU mods in the discussion would not be bad either.

We always welcome optimistic and intelligent posts and projects-- I haven't had a time to try doing the whole survey; but my initial impression of the post and writing is pretty good. Please feel free to propose a study, which we will approve if the objective is good, and the results will be useful to the community.

Thanks

 

[Chou Toshio]

Kay we're good to go

 

[rachet67]

I honestly think that there are a few things that could be improved with the survey to get more precise results. For Example, on question #4, you have to chose a specific answer, even though its completely possible that none will apply to you. It's possible that someone is neither a researcher, always looking for a challenge, a fan of monotype or in-game teams, an original "visionary", no rules sort of person. I think a lot of people just play pokemon because its fun and they like winning, which is hard to express in the survey.

I see the same sort of problem with #10. Good players chose pokemon for competitive reasons. However, according to the survey, all "cute" mons are grouped together, even though most bear nothing in resemblance to each other, besides their "cuteness". A casual player may decide to use pikachu because it's cute, while a competitive player might decide to use the "cute" Azumarill for competitive reasons. Honestly, a separate category for competitive pokemon would be better, as to distinguish the two.

It's your survey though, so you don't have to listen to me.

 

[jireh the provider]

I see. In the last question, there can be multiple answers to choose from as a way to combine their answers too. With an essay box to write their own detailed reason

 

[WebBowser]

Quick bug report on the survey, for number 9, it is impossible to pick the same option for yourself and for the majority of battlers.

 

[jireh the provider]

Well, thanks for the information from the latest responder. Since that question is not needed that much, question 9 is removed from there. Unfortunately, I had to merge the pages since I'm getting incomplete responses.
A note to all the responders. Since I'm using the limited basic Survey Monkey account, I can only get 100 responders max. So it will be first come, first served.

 

[Tyrant laharl]

I answered the survey to the best of my ability, but I must say there was some extremely odd word choicing in the questions, especially referring to the last 2 questions I felt. Maybe my English is slightly shoddy, but I feel other contributors of the survey might be confused, as per myself.

 

[LightningLuxray]

Yeah the last question completely threw me off... I had no clue what it was asking. Was it asking what types Pokemon I expect to see in each tier?

 

[SoulRed12]

Yeah, the last question didn't make much sense. Also, the survey's English in general could use proofreading because even though I mostly understood the other questions, they weren't written that well and it took me a bit to understand some of them.

 

[Syberia]

I tried my best to answer, but I will echo the sentiment that I did not understand the last question.

 

[TheUltimateStorm]

Generally I don't comment often unless I feel I can provide something to the conversation at hand, otherwise I feel it's a waste of time if I'm not going to contribute something to the conversation, but with that in mind, while I feel I answered the Survey to the best of my ability, it was rather confusing at times about what the Survey wanted me to reply with, in particular, I had the most trouble with the last question, and it seems several other users did as well, define "Cute" Pokemon? Stuff like Pikachu which would only be used by a casual player could be considered cute, but stuff like Keldeo or Manaphy could be used by a Competitive Player with little problems while also being considered "Cute". Same Applies to "Badass" Pokemon, since the term itself is subjective it was a tad bit hard for me to give a solid answer to it.

But I digress, perhaps some changes could be made to the survey's English to make it easier to understand, as SoulRed has suggested.

 

[TaiCrunch]

I sort of understood the last question until it started talking about tiering. Is it asking which player demographic I think put that type of Pokemon into OU? Or is it asking which player demographic I think would most enjoy the type of Pokemon after it's been established in OU?

 

[totoTavros]

Just wondering, will the results be available to the community to view? I think it would be interesting so that everybody could apply their own filters and glean what they can from them.

 

[Flamebot]

I check off all boxes for the last question. Hope that's okay

 

[RotomPoison]

Last question is "who do you expect to use this the most"

Hoping to spark some good discussion so posting my answers.

Hide

 

[jireh the provider]

Well, I say that most of you are pretty right about the issue with the last question. Thanks for pointing it out. So I'm in a debate whether to:

a. Not include it anymore.
b. Edit and correct the question once again.

So for now, I'll fix the question and answers since I forgot the fact that there are pokemon that have a mix of the various answers. I tried using the multiple answers box on the survey monkey. But I now know that it doesn't work and it's still lacking.

 

[Aquaslash]

It seemed to be an interesting question, so I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try to fix it.

 

[jireh the provider]

Well, thanks for those that pointed out the errors, this time, before I ride the van and head back to the city now (I'm currently in a fishing province for a research and vacation), this is the hopefully finalized and correct questionnaire. It's 11 in the afternoon in my place. So I'll be able to get the final answers by tomorrow.

As a promotion to the responders that helped me in the question 9 problem, and others as well, you can share to me your final answers via Private message (Start a conversation) in case when the amount of answers in my survey monkey reached the maximum audience of 100: ONLY if you want to. It's still your choice in the end

 

[jireh the provider]

Well, it seems that my finalized questionnaire still has not enough answers after I just returned home right now tonight in my place. I apologize if this is double posting since I lack responses.

So I'll extend the time of my questionnaire. Here it is for those who are not yet notified. All kinds of battlers are welcome to answer.

 

[Scorpiopt]

gave my awnsers