Data ASB Feedback & Game Issues Thread - Mk III

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Right so mod oligarchy

Been a thing I've been talking about since two council votes ago and since when I was a mod

Basically there's been a dramatic downturn in the numbers of people applying for and voting on the ASB Council

I initially created the ASB Council because there was no active mod structure to make decisions

We now have an active mod structure with a proven succession plan

Therefore we should discuss returning to system of mod oligarchy in decision making

I'm too tired atm to make a good post so discuss pls

 

[Elevator Music]

this is 100% of equal importance to the above post but Chatter has 100% confusion rate in Gen 6 so lets make that a thing y/y

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

I prefer Council over Mod Oligarchy, with no disrespect to Mods, but the fact that there is a community involvement outside of mods helps bring different perspectives into picture, atleast that is my opinion.

Edit: But as Texas and Frosty have said, the Council is not working as it was supposed to for various reasons; assuming that Mod Oligarchy was working well before we moved to Council and Frosty shattered my assumption with the below post. I would like us to stay with Council and discuss ways to improve it (I like Deadfox's suggestion), before we decide to move back to Mod Oligarchy. That assumption was the main reason I wanted us to move back to Mod Oligarchy. If its not the case, then I don't see any problem in working to improve our current system.

My suggestion for improving the current council is similar to Deadfox's. Have 5 main council members, through votes ofc. Then have 2/3 mods who would chip-in on every voting, if, some council members are not active during that weeks/months discussion.

Even if all the council members are active, the mods who would be voting in case of council inactivity, would still voice their opinions on discussions. The mods would rotate among themselves, to fill the 2/3 spots, based on their availability, with each term of the council.

Personally I would love to see more flavor and roleplay actions in our battles. We could leave the competitive aspect for serious battles like Gyms and Tournaments. The essence of ASB according to me, is not in who wins or loses, but it is how one wins in style despite all odds.

Mod Oligarchy suggestions

Letting this stay here, in case we decide to move to Mod Oligarchy for some reason.​

Frosty, Elevator Music, Dogfish44, Its_A_Random, Zarator and Pwnemon all are awesome mods for us who could take care of policies to registration, to roleplays, to data and reffings between them really well.

Though, I would like us to have Waterwarrior, Maxim, Akela, ZhengTann, Avnomke, SubwayJ, Deadfox, Engineer Pikachu, Texas Cloverleaf, Rediamond, Flamestrike(when he is back), Geodude, Rickheg, and Leethoof to contribute to the discussions in some way, though shouldn't be mandatory for the Mods decision making, they could easily complement the Mod Oligarchy imo.

p.s: For folks whose names I missed to include, we are the ASBians who get to enjoy the benefits of ASB without any hassle about policies and stuff, we are more privileged than those whose names have been mentioned :P​

The only thing that we probably need to avoid is changing things for the sake of it. I would suggest changes to happen in a three month cycle, all discussions will be carried out by mods in separate posts and the results would be posted on a thread at the end of the three month cycle, when they can implement them in the following month. So basically 3 discussion cycles and 3 implementation cycles in a year on major changes.

All minor changes can be discussed over IRC over the weekend and implemented I guess.
​

 

[Frosty]

I would much rather keep the council than going to a mod oligarchy. If few people (one person most of the time due to how stuff are divided amongst the mods) decide on something, the odds of it being deemed arbitrary are quite big. Just see our previous history and you should see that clearly.

Having a council promotes discussion and ensures that the decision made is, at some degree, a reflect of the will of the community, not necessarily of me, iar, df or pwne. The votings we've had thus far are a proof that in a good number of times, the understanding of the council differs from the one of the mods.

The participation on the council has been declining? Surely. But we still have enough people wanting in, and many new people are joining the conversations and may be willing to join the council at some point. We still have enough for the system to keep working as is. If/When we don't have enough people, we can rediscuss the matter.

If you really want mod oligarchy, then I would suggest you create some mechanism so the community can choose/demote the mods, so we don't have a discrepancy of what the community wants and what the mods want. Again, if your argument is "it won't happen, we/they are nice", I recommend you check our past history. Ask if the older players like the previous dictators. And then you get back here.

 

[deadfox081]

I agree a tad on the activity and participation of the council dwindling, I think maybe shrinking it to a 5 person group might go a ways towards fixing this.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Ehhh if something is controversial in terms of what system to use like a change in UC Formula we can always try a public vote or a vote amongst those who are qualified or something.

I have nothing against a council or oligarchy either way. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Neither system is perfect and we cannot trust that the right decision will be made every time.

 

[ZhengTann]

Texas' post twinged at my historian itch, so I had it scratched by retrieving this thread (maybe we should move it to Policy as a historical reference).
Conception and Birth of ASB Council and Constitution

If we were to go for mod oligarchy, I'd be fine as long as the said mods (or maybe everyone, not just mods) understand it to be part of their job description, and are perfectly fine with it, since we already have a decent feedback mechanism, right here. If Texas you could could show us your "proven succession plan" then it would be a plus (sorry that I wasn't aware of anything about it)

If we want to retain the Council, and "a dramatic downturn in the numbers of people applying for and voting on the ASB Council" is part of the problem (hint: Texas is right, it is), then it needs to be tackled as well. If you read through Gale's hidetags, you can see that he listed 20 people, all of whom were, at minimum, an ASB player for more than 9 months (Avnomke), and averaging what, more than two, three years in ASB. Not to mention that there are at least half a dozen more who are perfectly eligible to vote for Council. Where are they when the Council is open for applications and voting? IMHO we need to promote that ASB welcomes new blood into Policy more. That is problem raised ever since the Council's conception, and one that we will need to address now more than ever.

That's all I can think of right now, maybe we can move this to Discussion to serve as another historical reference? idk

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

If Texas you could could show us your "proven succession plan" then it would be a plus (sorry that I wasn't aware of anything about it)

Was referring to the self succession plans that were enacted when I was for seeing that I would step down, grooming successors etc. If a mod suddenly disappears a new person can be appointed by the other three mods.

 

[Avnomke]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...llenger-dogfish44.3511598/page-2#post-5840301

Can we please have it somewhere in the NDA/Handbook how Skill Swap and Role Play interact? I made a ruling there, but I'm not sure if it's a good ruling or what.

 

[Its_A_Random]

From handbook:

So I use something like Discharge and my opponent uses Sleep Talk to calls moves like Thunder Shock, Thunder, Discharge and Shock Wave. Who goes first? Then my opponent makes a substitution to say if you are awake then use Thunder Shock/Thunder and Discharge wakes them up before they use Sleep Talk. Who the hell is supposed to go first in this scenario? ?_?

IMO we should fix this for cases like Sleep Talk where the base en cost without the en cost of the called move is used for the Speed Tie resolution for clarification reasons and to avoid scenarios like the above. Who agrees?

Is happening.

 

[ZhengTann]

EM's Chatter proposal: No hard objections, so implemented following in-catridge precedence, Chatot users may rejoice, until proven to be broken, et cetera.

Avnomke's Role Play/Skill Swap: If we could make it so that Role Play resets all Abilities to the user's original ones 6a after it is used, overriding any and all Skill Swap, would that solve the problem?

Texas' Policy Hierarchy: Moved to Discussion. While it kinda stalled with everyone saying their piece and no major consensus reached, the latter is needed particularly since the current Council term will end very soon.

 

[Mowtom]

Why does Struggle have a consecutive EN cost? It is very possible to force your opponent to Struggle multiple times in a row. If Encore has no such penalty for the Encored mon, neither should struggle imo.

 

[Geodude6]

Mowtom: It's possible to order Struggle as a normal action; I think that's what the consecutive energy penalty is for; it's for cases where people just order Struggle~Struggle~Struggle, although if this is the case it should probably be made explicit in Struggle's description.

 

[Mowtom]

Mowtom: It's possible to order Struggle as a normal action; I think that's what the consecutive energy penalty is for; it's for cases where people just order Struggle~Struggle~Struggle, although if this is the case it should probably be made explicit in Struggle's description.

In that case, can we make this official?

 

[Geodude6]

Also, STAB commands. They were used quite a lot until it was "ruled" (in quotes because I can't find where this actually happened) by Deck that STAB commands were not useable a la toggle or trigger abilities like Trace or Drought. This then caused usage of STAB commands to virtually cease. At times, I've forgotten they even exist, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I therefore propose that we do one of the following:
A) Make STAB commands useable for free on sendout.
B) Buff STAB commands so that people will actually use them.
C) Explode them.

Option C I'm not really a fan of, because it leaves the Fire, Grass, and Ice-type Polemon without a STAB effect beyond what they have in-game. So that leaves us with the option of making them toggleable on sendout, or buffing the commands themselves. (alongside the obvious option of leaving them as their underpowered current selves) I'm personally a fan of option A, but buffing the commands themselves wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm thinking that a possible Frost buff would be to have it triple the freeze chance as opposed to the current iteration of doubling it, given that a 30% chance is a lot better than a 20% chance and that freezing is nowhere near as powerful in ASB as it is in-game, I'd say that that's pretty good but not overpowered. Brighten could maybe temporarily activate Blaze, Flash Fire, and whatever Fire-type boosting abilities there are. No clue as for what we could do to Bloom. Store we could maybe explode if we go the "buff" route, given that Poison-types already have -- Acc Toxic and Co.

I brought this up on the previous page, but it seems to have been overlooked in the discussion of legendary items and ASB leadership. It would be nice to get some sort of opinion on this.

 

[GemOftheDay]

I'm supporting G6's suggestion. I'm thinking we have it work like an activated ability, where you use it upon sendout / ordering first.

 

[Avnomke]

Alright I made a thread for STAB Commands.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Can we get a fuckin prize for Gold Pike already

 

[Frosty]

No RPs (other than the TLR) will get Legendaries as prizes. Unless you want to revisit the committee's decision and rediscuss the matter. And even then it won't be easy to overturn it.

I added a grand prize of sorts, but not as good as rayquaza (still, it is somewhat nice).

But while we are onto this, I would like to bring a matter to discussion: Master Balls. How wide should be their distribution? With tourneys being a bit more frequent, this is a question we may need to face sometime. A master ball pretty much allows you to get the mon you want as long as you survive the respective TLR, and while it is hard to survive on Uber TLRs (pre-revamp and while hidden...on heaven's ascent doesn't seem that hard to get to Regigigas...catch it in the other hand...), you can reach the end boss of a Legendary TLR even if you don't play at optimal level (although in that case you will reach with a very weak mon with no chances at getting a capture outside of Master Balls), so maybe having them as widespread isn't a good thing? Or not? I don't know.

just bringing up the subject because if we agree that Master Balls should be somewhat widespread, they can be given as grand prizes for other really hard RPs.

 

[waterwarrior]

Hey saying as we let Pokemon with Assault Vest use Chill, can we give that to Choice items as well? Really no reason not to, as really not being able to Chill is probably less sucky than being forced to Chill the entire round if you want to do it at all

 

[Pallas Athena]

I think the main issue with distributing legends for RPs that was brought up was that any difficulty level that would justify giving a legendary Pokemon would be extremely inaccessible for the average trainer, making it functionally useless.

This seems about in line with tournaments to me. I'd be fine with allowing Master Balls for "beating" RPs. ie, winning hall, gold pike, 12 win subway streak, etc. I oppose letting them be distributed for other RPs where difficulty/"winning" is less easy to compare or determine (Raid Zone, Adventure Battles, future non-facility RPs).

 

[Matezoide]

Regarding the new Focus Band...

''Damage taken by this Pokemon by any single attack is capped at 20% of this Pokemon's max HP (20 Damage for Pokemon with 100 Base HP, 18 Damage for Pokemon with 90 Base HP, and so on)''


Now, lets not jump into the ''OP'' bandwagon, but i believe something was overlooked when this change was made.


Namely, the capping to 20% max HP means any pokemon with Focus Band is, for all intents and purposes in most matches, immune to Combos.

I believe we should at least make it so Combos will ignore the cap, or at least raise it to, say, 40%.

Thoughts?

 

[akela]

Let's make protector worthwhile on Rhydon/Rhyperior.

*Council proceeds to buff protector, THEN buff Focus Sash and Focus Band to the point that buffing Protector was meaningless*

Great job, folks.

 

[Avnomke]

Yeah I definitely overlooked combos when I suggested Focus Band's new effect. Should be an easy fix.

Also akela, Protector is better than Sash at least??? But there's really no way to make Protector better than an item that is designed to help things with quad weaknesses (especially a heavy one that is quad weak to Grass Knot) without changing it significantly, at least as far as I can tell.

 

[Frosty]

anyone opposes to me hotfixing/fiating Focus Band to not affect combos?