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Ok I apologize in advance for reiterating anything already said but I'd prefer to get my thoughts out without being overriden by another page of opinions and beliefs (though so far these posts have been critical and precise)
Regarding PS Room:
The auth is a huge circle jerk in the room, and I for one am constantly bashed for actually doing my job by certain users I wouldn't name in a public thread, and its just frustrating seeing it as impossible to start a discussion without people just dismissing it as common knowledge or a bad mon.
People need to stop talking shit about the ladder, I'm tired of the fucking belief put into new players hat the ladder is not supposed to be used if you wanna get good. Players come from the ladder, theres nothing better fore a new player than to play countless matches as only they can learn from getting higher what to discredit as bad and what to consider good. I know to most of you I'm some random in the ubers community with room mod but when I first started out in LC the community (in gen 5 its going to shit now) taught me just play the ladder, and thats what I did, before one reset I managed to play 2000 matches (it was summer) and stay at the top of the ladder for a good month, and then I felt like I actually could face the ones who I could barely avoid 6-0s from, and I did. Also we need to make threads on how to build proper teams (with some diversity in the process ofc) so new players learn how to build and just don't get helped with 1 team. "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."
We need to be harder on salt, and therefore let every player new and old feel comfortable to chat, as I've gotten pms from new users about asking questions cause the chat scared them.
Regarding Stale Meta:
This community is turning into whiny little bitches about how theres no reason to run anything but the standard. People need to dig deep to find the hidden gems to function in this meta, like solrock as a check to pdon (bad example but as I said people don't look for them).
We need more tournaments to keep people invested, especially ones to introduce new players, because experience if everything and if some players are to elitist to ladder. In a tier like ubers the stagnant of the meta is partly based on the players willingness to adapt change.
I'd put more but I'm a pleb and lazy (ironic ikr). I'll probably write up a second post.
Smogon is honestly a very schizophrenic community and I think it's because of the weird mix of "welcoming" and "exclusivity" that makes it unhealthy. I'm not exactly a high-level player (although I definitely don't think I'm bad), so I can only state observations as a former moderator / de-facto community leader of a different community (KYM), but anyway:
On one hand, its entire metagame is literally based on the ladder through usage and it's the main method by which new players or players who don't have many friends (like me) can readily get battles. On the other hand, ladder is dismissed because it doesn't represent the highest level of play, and is somewhat tedious / causes ladder anxiety.
On one hand, the analyses and "viability rankings" encourage the idea of trying to get some sort of "standard" set out of a Pokemon or a "standard" image of what the metagame centralizes around. On the other hand, innovation is highly praised (praised for going... against the sets that the smogon itself has called "the best"?).
On one hand, the game is about cute/cool monsters for kids to play with. On the other hand, you get stuff like Tele/Whitequeen nonsense with people speaking with complete grammatical nonsense and acting hardcore with shit-talking or whatever.
Like, Pokemon and Smogon have so many nice things to offer to players, but when you start to look past the facade and look at these posts by many "good players" - laughing at ladder, acting fascist in what are acceptable options for Pokemon, grammatically awful shit talking / acting like what would be considered annoying 13-year-olds in any other community - what about this screams "Wow, I wanna be like them" ?
Who does fit in (along with genuinely nice people)? People who act like that ^. How many times have you seen someone get like 7 likes for simply saying something like "toxic on Manectric is retarded" or get voices on irc for just saying that and being on irc all the time because they have nothing better to do? So what do you expect, people to suddenly stop being condescending when it comes to tournament results? Of course this going to lead to "God, that X player only wins because Y."
Maybe the shit-talking threads should be reserved for people who aren't actually in the tournaments. It's why shit-talking threads in competitive games on reddit tend to be a lot more "woo! i want x to win; y is going down!" Allowing, even encouraging high-level players to be condescending towards each other publicly is a whole different beast; it's "I'm better than you. You're bad and don't deserve to win." It is imperative for any community that the most prominent members should generally set a higher example or else toxicity always trickles down.
Don't talk crap about less experienced players. I know we do this all the time in joking around and it gets perpetuated by certain things (ubers ladder sux lol, silly things on ladder thread, etc), but it is important to remember that everyone has to start somewhere and we all start from the same place: the bottom. You are not born good at Pokemon, everyone was "the ladder random who used Quick Claw Kyogre" at some point.
An ego is a character flaw, not a virtue. If you play Pokemon just to inflate it, go find a new hobby.
SPL naturally gets a lot of attention in Ubers because 1) its Ubers being represented in an official Smogon tournament and 2) usually only the best of the best get to play in it. The metagame has little to do with it, it's more about watching the best players go at it because it is entertaining to watch (ideally) high quality games. That, and SPL is normally a focal point of metagame development for Ubers since there is (usually) plenty of innovation by the top players in their neverending quest to counterteam each other.
Mostly just want to touch on these points, especially as someone who recently lost voice over a poorly made post while in a bad mood. The fact that I assumed a post like that was okay speaks by itself about our community. MM2 didn't deserve my salt, and I'll apologize for that, but we need to make that sort of thing NOT okay, and it starts with us, and with making things like PROBLEMS' parting words to his opponent not okay. He was understandably frustrated, but that's the kind of thing we laugh off on a normal basis and it shouldn't be happening on a regular basis.
The chatroom reflects the tier/ladder- it's a quiet obvious statement, but it must be reiterated. So with that thrown out there, I must say that the ladder cancer, and its lazy and uncreative vibe, are direct products of our poorly moderated and unfriendly chatroom. For example, say this new kid shows up on the block with a "help me with my team" post in chat. I'll tell you, help is the not the first thing that guy will get back from our chatroom. We'd tell him, "git gud"; "your team sucks"; etc etc. So what's this person's choices? To keep taking our shit; or, to use uncreative, stale, mainstream teams and sets because we refused to take some of our own time and help out with a possible original, innovative idea? I can relate to this because I've been that guy... I think we all have. When you begin thinking you "like" this community is when actually you start putting up with the ladder/chatroom's crap, or begin to just start causing toxicity yourself. That's what causes the bad, that's why we're aren't getting a new, innovative generation of players - and that obviously stops tier development.
It's unfathomable how amazing Ubers would be if we had a chatroom without the disgustingly violent judgment of possible creativity; telling new players to just use what's good to be good is destructive. One should become a good player by using mons they enjoy using, viable ones, of course. I don't want to drift this into any ban topics, but as an example, telling someone to not use Mega Blaziken because Mega Salamence is "better" just causes laziness, it takes away the challenge of teambuilding, the best part of competitive pokemon, the reason why many people even play pokemon. I can concede that Ubers isn't the best tier to teambuild for because how overcentralizing it is; but, we as a community should at least try to disprove that statement.
I believe its been said in some earlier posts (sorry, I really wanted to post asap), seeing the room's auth participate in toxicity is very dissapointing. I won't drop any names, but most of the Ubers mods have and are not fulfilling most of their responsibilties as room auth, such as not being a role model, no contributive posting, bad topic discussion, etc. I'll admit that I, myself, has been unfulfillant of room voice standards, but I say so with remorse. I don't exactly know what a mod's requirements are, and I have nearly no right to question it; but in my point of view, the Ubers room's mods that possess the aforemenioned characteristics are seemingly chatroom Trolls that hold authoritive positions. Summary
Be nice, enjoy eachother as a community and realize we are all just a bunch of man-boys that share the same hobby: Competitive Pokemon
Inspire a new generation of players by offering help, kindness, and innovation
Improvement of Room auth's duties as role models
Promote old gens to distract the concurrent sentiment of ORAS
By no means am I exempt from this, I was a part of a bunch of people who just sorta ignored newbies, followed the "git gud" attitude, and wasn't entirely helpful to people joining the chat. I've recently been more so out of sheer frustration after doing fairly well in both the xy (final 8) and oras (final 16, losing to a now SPL player) ubers forum tournaments and still catching shit all the time. I'm by no means flawless, but being told repeatedly to "git gud" is not a thing that should happen to people in top8 or even the finals of a tour, as people were still giving shit to ApplepieFTW who played very well was was still treated poorly in the thread despite his achievement. We need to both get better as a community about new players and even old players who are as "known" and we need to be a lot better about respect. Not saying everyone is SPL tier, but keep in mind there's only 10 measly spl slots for ubers and multiple hundreds of users, many of which are solid players and none of which deserve to be treated like trash.
Lastly all the people mentioning we need more tours and events and things are right. One of the ways metagames change and adapt is just by being played more. Even something like UPL still has an amount of exclusivity, and it should, as it represents high level play, but even something like weekly forum tours, small ladder challenges, or something to help newbies, like our own tutoring (cuz let's be honest the current tutoring system isn't the best) or newbie-only tours. We need to promote the metagame, and we need to be a lot more community like. We currently act a lot like a high school lunchroom and honestly that shit was terrible, we can do better than high school.
being candid as possible, this thread is manifesting the problems of the community in and of itself. there's just a huge disparity between the perceived 'elite' players and the less experienced.
for example, hack's post manifests a very supercilious attitude in his dissection of the metagame being stale or not, but hey let's shrug it off since he's good, right? but when, say, kingmidas posts something in a far more aristocratic tone than he has ~earned~, then holyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy shittttttttttttttttttt that is UNACCEPTABLE who the FUCK is he.
lol
i mean, i'm guilty of being far more smug than i should have and may have pioneered this sort of attitude despite my tongue-in-cheek intention, but damn. this shit's got to stop. i mean, i sure do dislike a lot of these ubers room players, and not to mention this supposed rift between these spl-caliber players, but the reason issue is just general tone. is it reallllllllllly hard to stop being a dick? can we have like a new clause or some shit
Stop Being A Dick Clause™
i'm pretty sure the whole social animosity and toxicity that leaks onto the forums is purely from PokeJealousy™ and PokeAnger™. this is a specator sport after all. i'm not cool with shutting down spectators, because if they weren't there... why else would you try? so you can boast about beating like 9 other dudes? naaaa, you wanna be the very best, like no one ever was! show the masses! the reason i didn't want to spl this year, or if i did not play ubers, was because of the metagame... but you see.. that's my own choice. i personally find the meta to be extremely more team matchup based than previous metas, including xy, and didn't want to fuq with it. it's slightly better than i thought, but you see... that was my choice. i'm not trying to start an argument over this point, but if you find the meta to be stale... play a new meta? is it that hard? from being a manager, i've delved into every xy meta and meddled with shit. other tiers are hella excitin too yakno. we gravitatin
i'd like to issue an apology to annoy who i've annoyed or pissed off, and i really hope that the community can move past this precarious situation. blood's been boiling and it has just exploded since spl has started due to frustrations of who got picked / who didn't etc.
to the spectators: please be courteous to the battlers. if you're going to say something, could you word it in such a way that you would like to be talked to? i've been there as a battler, and i do know how irritating reading comments can be. Jesus H Christ lawz u kno
e.g. "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL HE CHOKED NIGGA THAT HO_OH hAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" could totally be "i'm not really sure why he kept ho-oh in tbh"
you give the same effect without making yourself look like a dick.
to the battlers: i recommend closing the smogtours chat before battles, as convincing as it may be to keep it open
my basic point is: can we get off our high horses? the constant berating who got picked to play spl when there are 10 very good battlers out there is getting old.
The talk about how this being some sort of root of the attitude problem is fucking bullshit. What is wrong is that people think the meta is stale when they aren't trying enough- I still have 10-15 good archetype ideas that I have never seen in SPL so far... Call me cocky or whatever but I think people percieve it the wrong way. You think the meta is stale and go "oh people have discovered this is good and let's just not attempt to think outside the box". Since that leads to people spending almost no time on building, testing (laddering), thinking out new concepts etc. what do they do? Yeah they hang around the Ubers room, talking shit when they in reality probably plays maybe 10 games a week in a non serious manner with the most generic teams ever because they percieve the meta to be stale. At least it looks like it from my experiece.
Maybe it's me coming from a different time, there was no Ubers room (heck at the beginning there was no PS!), I didn't have any ubers role models until PTR took me under his wings and even then I did most shit by myself lol. Point is people aren't willing to put in the hours these days. Instead of finding out practically everything themselves by playing they rip off some Dice team or whatever and start hanging out in the Ubers room on a daily basis. The attitude that medium level players think they are above spending time, aka laddering and trying to innovate themselves, is what leads to a stale meta. Not the meta itself.
Conclusion: People complaining about a stale meta = lazy. Percieving meta as stale leads to less time spent on actually making your own way leads to more time spent trashtalking. Even if I am wrong about people being lazy and, the meta being stale is a fucking lazy ass excuse to outsource the blame on.
Regarding Ubers room:
We need heavier focus on decreasing the stigma of being a ladder player here. Often I get in and see the regulars- who are by no means bad players- talk about the meta. Usually conversation can shift into some fullblown attack on ladder, how it is irrelevant and whatnot. It is at these times I ask myself: when did these medium-level players get to play the "I am better than ladder"-card. I could have sworn they actually never peaked and honestly you might just flame me here for saying this but most good players has started this way (think Problems, Blim, Donkey etc. for Ubers examples). You are not getting better by sitting around in the room talking shit. You are getting better by playing shitloads of games everywhere you can find them. Even on ladder. This point intertwines with my fomer paragraph about people percieving the meta as stale. If you aren't spending the hours testing stuff you will end up thinking things are impossible, that you can't make anything outside the ordinary. Most people aren't trying enough, but again I might be underestimating you guys and go full retard here.
About the ladder talk:
I don't know about other players, but I can talk about myself and my opinion on the ladder. I have personally topped it just a few weeks ago. Does that give me the right to use the "I am better than ladder"-card? I still don't think so. While I have felt that I did gain some skill on my way to topping it, after some point --because we are full of players who bash it all day long (and bash us high-ladder players as well, indirectly)-- it was all battling the same people over and over again, waiting for as long as 6 (!) minutes to find a single match, ultimately finding matches with players around 200 Elo below me, because people just don't ladder. That made me, personally, lose a lot of interest in it. Which makes me wonder, why won't all the better Uber players start laddering consistently so we can increase the ladder's level all together, and have at least a competent top 50? Isn't that better than simply bashing the ladder all day long? Yes, I know the drill about you SPL players not wanting your teams revealed, etc., but SPL doesn't last for the entire year. I hope I didn't sound arrogant or anything like that, it wasn't my intention.
About the ladder talk:
I don't know about other players, but I can talk about myself and my opinion on the ladder. I have personally topped it just a few weeks ago. Does that give me the right to use the "I am better than ladder"-card? I still don't think so. While I have felt that I did gain some skill on my way to topping it, after some point --because we are full of players who bash it all day long (and bash us high-ladder players as well, indirectly)-- it was all battling the same people over and over again, waiting for as long as 6 (!) minutes to find a single match, ultimately finding matches with players around 200 Elo below me, because people just don't ladder. That made me, personally, lose a lot of interest in it. Which makes me wonder, why won't all the better Uber players start laddering consistently so we can increase the ladder's level all together, and have at least a competent top 50? Isn't that better than simply bashing the ladder all day long? Yes, I know the drill about you SPL players not wanting your teams revealed, etc., but SPL doesn't last for the entire year. I hope I didn't sound arrogant or anything like that, it wasn't my intention.
All of this, so much. I wish that the SPL players laddered, and that the best players that are near SPL level laddered, because the ladder right now is me playing the same two or three players and waiting ages for games, and because the best of players dont ladder, topping the ladder isn't seen as an achievement. It got to the point where I just decided to ladder for fun only, and started using terrible teams (Shedinja, for example), just as a fun way to pass the time. While I enjoyed it, as a competitive ladder goes, it is just the same people again and again. Not the most fun.
As far as tournaments go, I can personally never make the weekend tours, due to my timezone (gmt+10), and I would appreciate more variety in the time of tournaments, barring the tours that are held on here as 1v1 when you have a full week to prepare, if you want it.
Just quickly gonna say something about this. the 'toxicity' in the community might be present more in Ubers than other tiers, I don't really know, but it definitely exists in all tiers, and people might dismiss this or whatever but it's all because of the 'elitism' of people here. Let's take for example some unnamed users who are solid contributors, good battlers, and known as well. They would post with stuff like "that pokemon fucking sucks ass" or "the ladder is full of aids sacks"... like, how is that acceptable? That's basically the reasoning behind all the toxicity, the players are waaaaay ahead of themselves and really tuning it into a dick flexing contest, and it makes them look extremely obnoxious in arguments because when you try to argue in a civil manner they would retaliate with "lol your set/thoughts/team is aids and full of cancer". This is also extremely more common in the tournament scene as everyone can see. people have been waiting for SPL not for the games but for the posts with shit like "lol you're an aids sack cancerous player" drama bullshit which is ridiculous.
When that problem is solved then other problems will be probably also be resolved.
I'm not trying to be a pussy here by saying cancer/aids jokes are off-limits (they aren't, it can be funny sometimes) but the way people use them make them sound extremely obnoxious, come out as arrogant/rude, and basically just use them as an uncivil way of arguing, and add them to their posts to make them look more right/confident? i dunno, probably.
edit: also stop bashing the ladder jesus fuck. I know the lower ladder can have a lot of bad/inexperienced players and that most of the ladder is kinda bad especially in RU where they spam 3 shitmons for no reason, but it's still what shapes up the metagame and it's pretty much the only thing available besides tournament which don't suit all people that's for sure.
The real problem with the ubers community of smogon is the biased behavior of players. They treat no-names or non spl players like aliens and assume they've no idea about the game at all. If someone criticizes a good player, everyone shits on him/her, but if the same attitude is exercised by a good player, no one objects it. "pros" treat newbies and mediocre players like shit, never respecting any of their opinions and just calling them out on every occasion. That leads to build hatred inside the said mediocre players for the high
level players, promoting high toxicity in the community.
A good player shittalks, everyone resonates with him/her, an unknown player does the
same, he gets treated like a criminal.
Since all the SPL players(the only exception would be Blimlax, Fire burn and Steeljackl) have egos bigger than that of MOBA actual pros(except Doublelift, lel), and treat other, especially bad players, like shit, it really makes the community toxic as hell as well as PS! ubers room a really unpleasant place at times.
Now that I think about it, PTR, although as insane as he was, may have been right about the unbiased community that smogon ubers is...
I can't write long and eloquent paragraphs like the others guys here, so I just expressed my views casually. I'm not really being salty about not being in SPL, because I have no motivation to play in that whatsoever, since I'm nowhere near as good nor dedicated, but I am pissed off at all the good players acting like gods even though it's a game that involves 50% luck. I might get a lot of shit for this as well, but I don't really give much of a damn about my "reputation" anymore, not that I had a good one to begin with.
Here's another I-don't-play-Ubers-but-listen-to-me-anyways disclaimer.
Here's another this-isn't-just-the-Ubers-community disclaimer.
Players need to start taking responsibility for their actions. Sure, a large portion of the Smogon community acts terribly around tournament battles and in PS and IRC chatrooms, but where do you think that attitude originated? People look up to the top players in the metagames they play. They aspire to be the best, so they emulate the best. When the best players constantly criticize and take personal jabs at each other, others follow suit. Subgroups of friends who hold little relevance on Smogon and in tournaments do the same shit to each other. And once this kind of attitude fosters itself in the community, it spreads quickly. It's not just the top players doing this stuff; the entire community joins in, and suddenly, new users accept this as the norm. When everyone has an ego, everyone clashes.
People obviously need to show more respect for one another, but it goes much further than that. Whether you like it or not, when you're a good player, people look up to you, so show some responsibility instead of just bitching about how awful the community is (because again, if you bitch, other people will bitch too). Sweep took an excellent step in this direction by opening up this conversation instead of accepting the state of the community as it is. This also falls on the moderation team. Blim mentioned in his excellent post that the things that are accepted on these forums is often absurd. Moderators need to act on this stuff, even if it's coming from their friends. But this is a conversation that isn't best suited for this thread.
None of this means that people shouldn't shape the fuck up though. Stop being sheep and act for yourself because there's nothing worse than a caricature of a huge personality. When you see people acting like assholes to each other, you don't have to step in and break it up because that's not your responsibility, but don't join in or emulate that behavior. Think and act for yourself, and if that doesn't work, tone it down. Some people suck even when they are acting like themselves, but that doesn't mean they can't improve themselves.
My personal involvement with the tier amounts to virtually no teambuilding or battling (and what little battling I do is rarely even half-serious), and I contribute negatively to the ubers room. I provide occasional match based commentary to a few ubers matches via my youtube channel, occasionally featuring friends over skype (Joryn, K Legacy, SparksBlade). That's the context from which my opinion resides; I am not even a casual player really, more a casual observer (with enough experience and understanding to have commentary that's not totally meaningless even though I'll be the first to admit it's second-rate). I think the first thing I shall adress is Metagame Staleness, and some analysis of the tier before assessing the state of the community.
One thing I've often heard is if you're claiming a metagame is stale it's up to you to innovate in it. My background also includes high levels of experience in RBY OU, which draws some parralells with this tier. It's not an impossible tier to be creative; variations upon teams and sets - in spite of their being a fairly solid formula to produce a top team exists - are still used and still worth using. You can even use non-OU pokemon without being at a disadvantage if you're creative enough. I'm fairly sure that in ubers, whilst you have formulaic builds, I'm yet to see 1 true formula being agreed upon and reached (at least, as specifically as RBY's), and I'm sure that there's capacity for a lot of niche variations and teams to use (I've seen creative uses of pokemon such as Landorus-I and Kyurem-W even, from respectable players), whilst I don't really feel anyone's truly mastered creating all of the good teams using all the standard tools in all the commonly seen as viable archetypes (from HO to stall), and I feel there's still room for metagame development, and for continual improvement and such for these sets for quite a while. As it is, I don't find the metagame fun and thus I don't play it, I have other metagames and projects and things outside of pokemon to focus my attention on too, but nevertheless I feel we'll find some players of decent calibre who enjoy the metagame, and thus my point still should stand.
On SPL commentary, I personally feel that the focus is going to shift onto the way that players play and the way they handle eachother, preparing for their opponent and what they know of their teambuilding preferences. As I've seen mentioned by Blim (excusing my paraphrasing), it does make sense not to continue the SPL replay discussion thread, as it is simply not beneficial and clearly generating issues. Actually I feel Blim's post is pretty brilliant.
Pwnemon's points are great too.. we do have the Ubers Premier League (usually staged just after SPL), which last year saw good levels of activity. Nevertheless (not sure if this is some perfectionism) I don't see it last year as being a fairly valid tournament inasmuch as I went 3-2 and won in the final with a fairly crap team. And people bitch whenever I mention it (I don't mention it any more cos it was freakin ages ago). Maybe we need stuff to fill the void between UPL and the Open? Subforum tours were fairly few and far between in that era last year I think.
Steve Angello's points about the suspect tests were great. I don't have anything helpful to add apart from that it was a pretty great lesson in terms of learning about semantics and argumentative fallacies xD It also was where I gained a lot of interest in tiering philosophy from.
I think I want to spend a lot lot more of this post, drawing greater parrallels between the ubers and rby community. Whilst at the top level there's similar amounts of players, we suffer from lacking far fewer average and below average type players (a result maybe of the tier, and its place in history). Whilst as a community it's imperfect, I feel it's actually not all that far from perfect? Idk, it's pretty immoral to describe a community as perfect. But it seems to me that it's the polar opposite of the Ubers community.
Laddering: (Nearly) everyone does it. Marcoasd, Raish, GGFan, Golden Gyarados, etc. are all frequent sights on the ladder. Whilst some players don't ladder or ladder less frequently (myself, Isa?, and all of these oldies only playing in SPL but not taking a part in any of our subcommunities, like floppy, gene, the_chaser, etc.) there's a decent amount of laddering, and I had an interesting skype chat with Lutra/Isa/M Dragon and discussed the perceived value of laddering. Lutra was commenting on Bomber being more known in GSC than RBY, and we also discussed M Dragon's legendary topping of gens 1-4 OU ladders simultaneously.. my perception was that Lutra's stance was completely opposite to the opinion of top and medium players in the ubers community and from what I've gathered, other tiers too, that laddering is valuable - in terms of actual reputation, as well the great benefit of practice [My weakest point maybe as a player is probably the lack of practice I have at sheer battling].
Tournaments: We have an active tournament season that a decent portion of top players play in [marcoasd's record dominance is from here] at http://www.pokemonperfect.com/forums/forum.php and it also allows other players such as During Summer, The_Joker, Myself, and many other players who at least initially were less well known make a name for themselves. We have active seasons [typically 3 master tournaments, and this time also 'ultra league' which is another new interesting format of Lutra's]. In terms of commentary on these seasons, they're few and far between [Isa makes the occasional video, that's the most of it] and semifinals and finals are fairly low pressure environment to battle in. In terms of the 'trash-talking' and suchlike, the live reactions to battles, it's fairly limited and well contained, usually amounting to italian cursing, maybe some mentions of stuff like USSR Hax.. we sort of have our own memes that make humour out of the particularly luck-filled and frustrating parts of the game, that direct the anger in a way that drains the anger without hurting or offending anyone. Play is generally courteous. On our forums, although the combination of GGFan and Isa is trouble (and through looking at history, there's no blame on Isa for it), although each player interacts well with all other members of the community. There's a general feeling of mutual respect for eachother, the desire to try out ideas against eachother, and yeah it's just a cool positive environment where it doesn't take long to be recognised and gives you the opportunity over time to build a powerful reputation through a variety of means.
Tier Discussion: Not super relevant maybe, it's worth noting that Isa's forum rby2k10.com is still used as a way of passing information, sharing ideas, and discussing various things. No real relevant comparison to ubers here but Isa's site deserves mention either way when discussing the RBY community.
Think of how much of this about RBY is totally antithetical to the way that ubers is. I'm only drawing comparisons tbh rather than drawing conclusions. I personally find both environments have mixed benefits, although I don't really see any downside to the RBY-based environment other than it's a little less lively at times than the ubers one. Clearly, I enjoy being a terrible user posting inappropriately and angering people (although I enjoy helping people too if I have the capacity) as is evidenced on the forums too, but the reason for that usually comes as a reaction to player egos and the values of status - more opportunities to allow people to see eachother as equals and with a well-balanced respect would be fantastic to help with this. I'll recommend that you read this although it applies to a different scenario entirely, it has good commentary on ego and status.
I want to end this discussing one of my friend's SPL's experiences. I'm friends with a few of the RBY players in SPL, and I don't feel it'd be gracious to share his name, although the more astute among you might be able to deduce who it is; within one of the past weeks, they'd lost a crucial game which due to circumstantial reasons made several misplays at opportunities to outright win (which his opponent exploited successfully - although I wouldn't describe the action as desperately unsportsmanlike in spite of the terminology I used) which made a significant difference to the team's overall result over the week.
Here's a log of some of our conversation a day or two afterwards.
(16:05) ---: my team turned on me pretty hard after the game yesterday
(16:06) ---: because of the result
(16:06) Piexplode: yeah =/
(16:06) Piexplode: it was a close series
(16:06) ---: I honestly had a great time and didn't care if I lost
(16:06) ---: but they're just making me feel like shit
(16:06) Piexplode: yeah ur seeing how
(16:06) Piexplode: much they care
(16:06) Piexplode: about this
(16:06) ---: they changed the group chat title to [something that reflected upon the circumstances in a negative light upon me]
(16:06) Piexplode: stuff like this is why I wasn't sure you'd find this such a good environment xD
(16:06) ---: yeah honestly they're making me want to never play another teams tourney
(16:06) Piexplode: hey well there's other players in the same state tho
(16:07) ---: lol
(16:07) ---: nah they're mad at me
(16:07) ---: not them
Overall I think there's a couple of issues that are maybe ubers-specific, but those ones can be overcome. The issues are more related to what Blim's specifically discussed, as well as the recognised player attitudes to eachother, and towards the ladder.
That's my piece, I hope that you find my points informative.
Also maybe it's worth noting that I'm a moderator on Pokemon Perfect, but that I don't act the same on there and with the community members as I do with those from PS and Smogon communities that I attach myself to. I just think that's worthy of a note but I couldn't seem to fit it elsewhere.
Personally, I feel it's more to the attitude of the players who wish to vent out their frustrations. I mean, if they make a move (say, by overprediction) or lose due to some random hax and people keep on giving random one-liners like "LOL" or "Choked", then the player would wan to lash out at someone.
Also, there are some posts made by the better known players bashing other people and it was treated as fine so newcomers would probably feel that such behaviour is standard. Further, if a less known player comments on something it was mostly ignored or be met with strong criticism while a better known player gets a free pass on everything. This sort of double standard makes the less known player frustrated and wants to attract attention.
Also, there are some posts made by the better known players bashing other people and it was treated as fine so newcomers would probably feel that such behaviour is standard. Further, if a less known player comments on something it was mostly ignored or be met with strong criticism while a better known player gets a free pass on everything. This sort of double standard makes the less known player frustrated and wants to attract attention.
It's not surprising this is the case when you see that the first posts in the SPL thread set a precedent suggesting it's okay to trash talk for the sake of trash talking. I personally still don't think there's much to do about it except have harsher moderation or guidelines.
Edit: @below idk how you missed the whole point of this thread post was deleted
That user piexplode is a problem idk why he is still here and annoyes everybody in every single topic! this guy posts and feels like hes the best. Really nobody cares if you are a 'high Level' rby player. Sorry if i crush your dreams; you are not. You are really annoying, you did not get the hint in the SPL topic and you won't get it here anyways. Furthermore good players are not talking about how good they are ;-) think about it before you post.
Personally Ik what you guys mean. Exactly what I did! But this guy is just not taking the hints oml do not quote me anymore piexplode, ur welcome
This sums up every problem I have with the Ubers community - one person thinks they're objectively better than another. We're all equal, regardless of our skills in a game aimed at a pre-teen demographic. If you have a problem with your posts being quoted, don't make posts :o
I've been involved in my fair share of drama and have produced a measurable amount of NaCl in my time here on Smogon, and as such, don't feel I'm the most 'qualified' to be talking about how shit our community is, so i'll keep it short and sweet - if we want to change, it all needs to start with a little bit of empathy for our fellow players and frens :]
Being relatively new here (I first started playing Ubers in XY), I don't know if I can really speak about the community, but I might as well share my story and (hopefully) some insights.
In the beginning of my Ubers career, I came from a background of OU and plenty of suspect tests, with limited (i.e. I knew what a fairy type was and I liked Palkia) experience in Ubers. When I first got here, I only played the ladder, and it taught me the basics - always say glhf to your opponent, don't use Dream Eater Darkrai, etc. My first memory of the Ubers chatroom was that it was interesting. I watched people discuss things such as GeoXern, Ekiller, and Mega-Gengar, as well as spectating battles where good players used these 'mons to their full potential. I would watch these battles with the same attention and intensity that I later watched the Gengaritis suspect test, the first of its kind in XY Ubers (if not Ubers in general). Sadly, I did not participate in the test, not even offering my thoughts (which I still have somewhere on my PC in a text document) on M-Gar and how to get around it. The only time I actively did anything about it was a battle against Joryn where my Ghost-Arceus defeated his M-Gar. I was kind of apprehensive about posting the aforementioned thoughts as well as the replay of that battle, simply because I was new to the community. Not that I felt excluded, it just seemed like you had to prove yourself in order to have your opinions recognized and validated. Not that that stopped me from battling and trying to break the meta, it just held me back from posting anything.
After the Gengaritis and S-Tag tests were over, I kind of stopped battling for a bit (besides battling friends) until ORAS came out. Since ORAS came out, I've been more active in the chatroom and on the forums (i.e. making my first post lol). I can't really talk about mods and voices being salty, as I am fortunately (or unfortunately?) never there when it happens. Basically, I watch the SPL replays and occasionally spectate room tournaments, as school prevents me from logging on to PS! during the day (but for some strange reason not replays or the forums), and homework usually prevents me from logging on at night. Heck, I still don't get the common jokes made about players like Sweep, Donkey, etc. Something to do with meta-breaking or hax? I never know.
I've always liked this community, and as I read about these issues posted above me, I can't help but remember my old moderator position on a friend's Minecraft server. I remember handing out the 30-minute kickhammer, among other things (I wasn't authorized to ban) to a lot of people due to sly saltiness or outright (little-kid) vulgarity, not to mention the ALL CAPS spam. I know I was dealing with a different demographic there (younger crowd), but it seemed to work, at least for a while. I still occasionally pay a visit that server, and it's actually a great community, in part because of what the moderator group did back then, not going banhammer crazy and always keeping their cool, ensuring that people would want to come back even if they were kicked. Mean moderators were always dealt with in order to promote the community sense of inclusion and acceptance. This might have already been stated, but good behavior starts at the top. Lead by example, not by force.
I'm sorry if I said anything in here that's offensive or wrong, I tried to keep things clean and acceptable for my 6th forum post. I'm just trying to share my story in the hopes that there might be bits of enlightenment and wisdom in there, and I hope that we as a community can move forward from the incidents and issues that we are dealing with right now.
I seem to remember someone saying that Ubers was like a family. Well, every family has issues, and instead of escalating them, should try to work though those issues together and form stronger bonds because of it. Together we stand, divided we fall.
Thank you for reading... and sorry about all the parentheses.
Just wanted to chime in with a part of my thoughts on the state of the ubers community, mainly the ubers room. While most of what I would like to say has already been said, there are a few things I havent seen posted or maybe just worded differently.
I feel like some of the Ubers room users have too large of an ego. I get you think you're better than everyone just because you have a fancy symbol or have a position of authority, but shouldnt you really keep that to yourself and your friends? I have seen voiced users, even mods who I wont name, tell a new user to scrap their team because it's shit and because they are shit. You don't know this person so why belittle them like that? Shouldn't we as regular users be encouraging diversity and encouraging people to play the tier and not to abandon it? What is it achieving if you are telling a new player to give up because of a bad ladder ranking? Shouldn't you encourage them TO use the ladder so as to get better and learn the tier a little more? A side note on this is I myself am sadly responsible for doing similar things, for example I jokingly told someone not to get into Ubers as it was a shit tier and an awful metagame. Yet, what I failed to put across was that is was a joke. Sometimes people forget other people don't percieve what they really mean over text. And this can be said for a ton of regular users. I'm not saying we should all be uptight and "goody-two-shoes" but I feel like that sort of stuff should be cut down.
My next point i wish to address is the state of the voice list in the ubers room. While this may not be the place to complain about it, i feel it is an issue that needs to be addressed. I know some of you don't think much of voice rank and I can personally see where you're coming from. But, on the other hand, when a new user enters the ubers room looking for some help or wanting to get into the community, it's our voiced users they look to first. Alot of new users are either too frightened to post in the chat or ask a mod or driver for some advice and/or help, or they don't want to bother auth with maybe a simple question or two. They want someone nice and friendly to talk to and they look to the voices for that. Our voice list at the minute is far from being comprised of friendly, nice users. A large amount of the voices (I will not name and shame) are quite the opposite, especially to new users, maybe thinking that a (+) mean's they are better than the user. This of course leans back to the ego topic. I may be repeating myself here but I feel (and have expressed this to my friends and some say the same) alot of the voiced users are pretty bad chat presences compared to the standard quality of chat we would all like. And the mods allow this and so the users think it's okay and nothing will happen if they shitpost or are being twats to new users.
I may edit some more thoughts in later.
Sorry if I havent made myself clear enough or I've worded stuff terrible, there's only so much I can do at 3am.
I do get what you're saying, but I said most of what i wanted to say has already been said and i dont really feel like saying the same shit everyone has said.
And since this thread is about the ubers community i felt what i had to say needed to be said.
I totally agree with -Leon- on every single point he said.As a player who just spent 1 month on PS I noticed something very obvious while never even being active in chats.The Ubers community is divided into 3 major parts,the "Elite" circle jerk,the asses lickers(very numerous) and the people who get trash talked all the time by the other 2 parties. This is what is creating toxicity within the community.We should all try to listen and help each others,random or not,and argue and debate like Civilized people when there is a point worth arguing.Like if a player lets say posted in chats:"Support eleceus is good in oras".Instead of spamming "LOL","OMG ru serious","Support Eleceus in Oras lol","eleceus support new meta" We can convince him by telling him that with Don being that popular as SR user,it's a very bad supportceus and deffoger so this guy will be happy and would have assimilated something new and wont leave the channel and the tier after you embarrass him.This change can only be implemented by popular people so that they lead the example to a more healthy community.If the best players behave like shit and everytime they see a team they say "This is sub optimal lol" instead of actually helping improving it what do you expect people who see them as examples to do.Moreover The UU room having always more people in it then the ubers room like rn roughly 110 in UU and 60 in ubers supports even more this point and is self explanatory.
yea i absolutely agree with the above. obnoxiousness is bad enough wherever it may come from, but it's about twice as annoying when it comes from trash who didn't even get picked up for spl (and odds are, this isn't because you aren't as ~known~ as hack or mm2 or edgar or whoever, it's because you fucking suck and that's why you're stuck talking shit from the sidelines in ways that make you look like the world's biggest tool). i know firsthand how frustrating it is to watch people who you know you're better than get to soak up the spotlight but if you are actually good and win, you will get noticed. you will not believe how many established players will tell you the same. you know who no one knew less than a year ago and is now starting ubers in spl? evuelf, the guy who 6-0es me in 9 turns in every tier we play, because he's fucking good and someone noticed.
hopefully obviously i don't condone the idea of "you have to be an established player to give your opinion" because that's horseshit, i don't have to be a successful metal drummer to tell you that lars ulrich can't play to save his life. anyone can chime in like "i think he should've done x because there was no way y was gonna do z and that move would've given him a ton of momentum" and that's totally cool as long as you're respectful like "just my opinion though, i thought it was a pretty good game regardless" (you don't have to sound like such a kiss ass btw it's just polite). however when you go "x played terribly, y was so obvious" (slight hyperbole, you get the point) that's totally not cool. a rookie in the nba doesn't tell kobe bryant that he could've gotten a better angle on that fadeaway jumper because he's in no position to do so, when he's got 5 championships and is considered as an all-time great maybe he can pipe up but until then he'll be paying his dues.
tl;dr if you're trash and talking shit about people better than you, kill yourself
This kind of toxicity is exactly what the op is talking about.
You do not need to be a chef to criticize a chef's cooking, you need not be a video game dev to criticize one's work, and you need not be a legendary basketball player to be able to tell them what they did wrong and how they could've done better. Why then, are you saying that "trash who didn't even get picked for spl" shouldn't be able to criticize the spl players? You are putting these spl players on this huge pedestal that they don't really deserve, hell it's like they're gods or something with the way people are defending them!
Being newer doesn't mean that you're dumber than a bag of bricks and therefore not allowed to have opinions or comments on anything. Being new also doesn't mean that you should worship players like the ones picked for spl. Saying that everyone who wasn't picked for spl is trash really says something about you as a player and as a person.
You say that you don't condone the idea of "if you aren't an established player, you can't criticize one but what you said afterwards and before that sounds more like you do.
Btw: saying kill yourself doesn't make you sound edgy or cool, it just makes you sound like another elitist(smogon has enough of those as is!).
To any spl players that are whining about players who are beneath them, shit talking: Get used to it, and ignore it if it bothers you so much. You are already an established player anyways, the equvalent of a demigod if not a god(or at least people see you this way) why do you care? Is it because they're right, that you did "choke"? If you did I don't see what reason there is to be mad. If you were a world famous trombone player and a rookie tells you that you were too high on an a-flat would you be mad(if you actually were)? They're just telling you the honest truth!
On Ubers as a whole: People are too scared(or too lazy) to deviate from the standard, that is why everything feels so samey. Ubers doesn't change very much since no bans happen(unless m-ray happens) so whatever's good will usually remain good. Hopefully in time, people will be bolder and deviate from the norm a little more so that the meta can be more diverse.
Please Mods: I know you guys hate me(for whatever reason) but please leave this post here. I feel it needs to be seen and that I said things that just needed to be said.
This kind of toxicity is exactly what the op is talking about.
You do not need to be a chef to criticize a chef's cooking, you need not be a video game dev to criticize one's work, and you need not be a legendary basketball player to be able to tell them what they did wrong and how they could've done better. Why then, are you saying that "trash who didn't even get picked for spl" shouldn't be able to criticize the spl players?
I think you misunderstood, no one is above criticism. however there is a fine line between constructively criticizing someone's plays and being a condescending douchebag about how they messed up. there is no issue with anyone saying that a double switch to Xerneas on turn 23 was a sure game winner if it worked out and the benefits so far outweighed the risks that it seemed a tad silly to not go for it. there is, however, an issue with someone being a dickhead about how using SD instead of EQ was a top 10 all time choke or something - this is kind of a dick move no matter who you are but it's especially bad when it's coming from someone who wasn't picked and has no track record.
You are putting these spl players on this huge pedestal that they don't really deserve, hell it's like they're gods or something with the way people are defending them!
what pedestal? they were picked so those who weren't should be respectful of how they discuss the game. I love discussing pokemon, it's sometimes more fun than actually playing it (forgive the oldfag vibe of that sentence). I just think that the Don't be a Dick Clause should be strongly enforced, we don't need snarky one-liners or outright douchebaggery ruining shit.
Being newer doesn't mean that you're dumber than a bag of bricks and therefore not allowed to have opinions or comments on anything. Being new also doesn't mean that you should worship players like the ones picked for spl.
hey man I was new once too! I was also watching the spl players at the time all like "these guys ain't shit I bet I'd destroy them" like most people. however, I had no right to go around telling everyone about how some guy choked and that I couldn't believe he was in spl while I wasn't because 1), that'd be really fucking obnoxious of me, and 2), I, like most of the trash talkers this thread is railing against, had no track record or even much reputation as being a good player. saying asshole things like that would make sure no one'd ever want to pick me. as a former spl manager, one of the most important things I look for in a player is not just his ability but his attitude and behavior. so, I kept my mouth shut and when I did get picked I just let the play do the talking. no one's asking for non-spl guys to be total mutes or something; I'd listen to what someone like Nayrz or yohoe had to say about a match in a heartbeat, not only because I know they know the tier but because I know they aren't little slimeballs who want to paint everyone else as terrible to make themselves seem better.
Saying that everyone who wasn't picked for spl is trash really says something about you as a player and as a person.
my mistake, I don't mean everyone who isn't playing in spl is garbage - refer to the aforementioned slimeballs to see who I meant. should've made that more clear!
You say that you don't condone the idea of "if you aren't an established player, you can't criticize one but what you said afterwards and before that sounds more like you do.
you can criticize their plays all you want as long as you remember they're the ones playing on the big stage and you aren't, so show some respect. that's all anyone's really asking for here.
Btw: saying kill yourself doesn't make you sound edgy or cool, it just makes you sound like another elitist(smogon has enough of those as is!).
To any spl players that are whining about players who are beneath them, shit talking: Get used to it, and ignore it if it bothers you so much. You are already an established player anyways, the equvalent of a demigod if not a god(or at least people see you this way) why do you care? Is it because they're right, that you did "choke"? If you did I don't see what reason there is to be mad. If you were a world famous trombone player and a rookie tells you that you were too high on an a-flat would you be mad(if you actually were)? They're just telling you the honest truth!
again, difference between "MM2 had a clear path to victory and didn't take it" (which I assure you no one would be mad about) and "MM2 choked on fat cock by not making the unbelievably obvious game-winning move"
I think that the main problem that Ubers has is that it is stagnant, not so much because of the tier itself but rather because players, whether they are new, intermediate or experienced, have no consistent opportunities to play aside from the ladder. Yohoe does a fair amount of work for the weekend tours and the subforum tour, but there is still a distinct lack of solid competitive activity for this tier. When you look at OU, they have tons of official tournaments that reward players with trophies, which is why they are played in so much:
World Cup of Pokemon (WCoP)
Smogon Grand Slam
Smogon Frontier
Smogon Tour
Smogon Ladder Tournament (OLT)
Smogon Premier League VI
Official Smogon Tournament (OST)
They even manage to incorporate past generations into these tours, with DPP / BW being featured in Smogon Tour (I'm not sure about ADV though). It's understandable that the majority of official tournaments on Smogon are for OU as it is the flagship tier, but when you think of chances for Ubers players to prove themselves the only one that comes to mind is Ubers Open, and the only tournaments that are rewarded with trophies are SPL and Grand Slam, with Ubers only playing a small part in both. There isn't really a reason to innovate and think of new ideas in Ubers because there aren't enough opportunities to play and not enough people to play against, coupled with the fact that the tier itself is rather restrictive and centralizing, which in itself is not such a bad thing.
This leads to players that are bored and frustrated because there is nothing for them to do, as they are locked out of SPL due to there only being 10 Ubers players needed, and there is no real way to break into it.
Shrang has a very solid idea for a Tournament Circuit, something that continues throughout the whole year and therefore will give Ubers players something to play in constantly:
#shrang: what do you think of the idea
#shrang: of a grand slam tennis like tourney ladder @shrang:you know how professional tennis tour works @shrang:well it's basically @shrang:a number of tournaments throughout the year @shrang:with different levels @shrang:and the players get points for how far they progress in the tourneys @shrang:and then they're ranked PISTOLERO:oh so you mean like beginner (say someone random who just started Ubers), intermediate (me / you), experienced (hack / problems) PISTOLERO:in terms of levels? @shrang:sort of @shrang:but you can go into the different levels if you want @shrang:we can make the tourneys open @shrang:shit players can go into top tourneys if they want @shrang:if they get raped that's their own fault @shrang:but we'd make sure @shrang:that we have plenty of tourneys PISTOLERO:i think it sounds like a good idea @shrang:that it would be unwise for players to join every tourney @shrang:in terms of the levels @shrang:we can easily fix that @shrang:by allocating more points @shrang:to certain tourneys @shrang:and making them bigger and smaller @shrang:in accordance to their level @shrang:so we'd have like @shrang:a big tourney worth a crapload of points @shrang:and that would be like @shrang:your top level tourney PISTOLERO:the problem with this is that, although it's a great idea, it will be nigh-impossible to get off the ground @shrang:yea I know PISTOLERO:nothing seems to ever actually happen in ubers @shrang:I'm content to spend weeks to months @shrang:to actually get the implementation down PISTOLERO:well you'll need a concrete 100% promise that PISTOLERO:it will be implemented @shrang:yea I know PISTOLERO:not a "oh maybe, we'll think about it maybe" PISTOLERO:there needs to be PISTOLERO:a reward PISTOLERO:a significant reward @shrang:eeeh PISTOLERO:not like some stupid custom title PISTOLERO:i mean a trophy PISTOLERO:not a $ reward PISTOLERO:$ rewards are dumb @shrang:people play for e-peen these days anyways PISTOLERO:lol @shrang:we'd make the tourneys relatively quick @shrang:I hope @shrang:so people don't john them @shrang:like @shrang:it would be great @shrang:if we can just make them roomtours PISTOLERO:or you could @shrang:like the weekend tours PISTOLERO:impose penalties for johning @shrang:yea that would be good too PISTOLERO:like if you john you are locked out of joining for a month PISTOLERO:if you do it again you are locked out again, and if you are a repeat john PISTOLERO:well then you get completely locked out of the entire circuit @shrang:well @shrang:you could just start off by penalising with point reduction PISTOLERO:works too
This seems like a fantastic idea, and Smogon Tour could be used as a template for this so that DPP and BW, the older generations of Ubers, are included - there is no reason to not include ADV either, actually (although I don't know if ADV gets any official tournament representation besides SPL). An end reward would be needed - not something small like a custom title, which is rather worthless, or a financial reward, which is hard to fund / work out the details for, but I think that a badge trophy, or even a custom banner, would work nicely. An official "Ubers Tournament Circuit" trophy would have to be approved by the leaders of Smogon, of course, which would be something to discuss with them, but with such an incentive, we would hopefully get relatively frequent high-level games, play-offs, finals etc.
I also asked what the Doubles Tournament circuit was, and was told:
@Memoric:oh the circuit @Memoric:it's just a bunch of tournaments where you have to play to accumulate points @Memoric:and when you get to a certain number, you get to play in the invitational against everyone who qualified for it as well
Which seems to be reasonably similar to what Shrang is proposing.
People tend to start being rude to each other when they are bored and / or frustrated, and the fact that SPL Ubers matches come under such intense scrutiny is because those are the few matches of a very high level that can be spectated - Ubers sometimes seems to be more of a spectator's tier than a player's tier, if that makes sense, which leads to the sometimes rather nasty "discussion" and match "analysis" that the SPL players themselves don't like. The reason that UU / RU / NU are not like this is probably because they are less linear, centralized tiers, with much more breathing room for innovation and different, interesting sets.
If you look at how the XY Ubers tier progressed throughout the year it was in existence, it is not hard to see that it followed the patterns of high-level play fairly closely -> We had the rise of Defog Arceus, through to what I guess you could call the Klefki era, with Shadow Tag peaking in late XY, with other miscellaneous effects such as Dice's compendium arguably causing the rise of Giratina-Origin. Obviously this is a rough analysis of XY Ubers, but it still shows that the small amount of high-level play has a huge effect on the rest of the playerbase. In comparison, XY OU progressed due to things moving up / down and things being banned, creating a flowing metagame, for lack of a less stupid way of saying it. Ubers is very static, and metagame trends are therefore much less prominent and more gradual. This is not 100% relevant but it might partially explain why people find that Ubers is boring or stale.
We already have all that in the works. Myself and some others just need to work things out to get it up and running. Regarding the tournaments, that is.
I think that the main problem that Ubers has is that it is stagnant, not so much because of the tier itself but rather because players, whether they are new, intermediate or experienced, have no consistent opportunities to play aside from the ladder. Yohoe does a fair amount of work for the weekend tours and the subforum tour, but there is still a distinct lack of solid competitive activity for this tier. When you look at OU, they have tons of official tournaments that reward players with trophies, which is why they are played in so much:
World Cup of Pokemon (WCoP)
Smogon Grand Slam
Smogon Frontier
Smogon Tour
Smogon Ladder Tournament (OLT)
Smogon Premier League VI
Official Smogon Tournament (OST)
They even manage to incorporate past generations into these tours, with DPP / BW being featured in Smogon Tour (I'm not sure about ADV though). It's understandable that the majority of official tournaments on Smogon are for OU as it is the flagship tier, but when you think of chances for Ubers players to prove themselves the only one that comes to mind is Ubers Open, and the only tournaments that are rewarded with trophies are SPL and Grand Slam, with Ubers only playing a small part in both. There isn't really a reason to innovate and think of new ideas in Ubers because there aren't enough opportunities to play and not enough people to play against, coupled with the fact that the tier itself is rather restrictive and centralizing, which in itself is not such a bad thing.
This leads to players that are bored and frustrated because there is nothing for them to do, as they are locked out of SPL due to there only being 10 Ubers players needed, and there is no real way to break into it.
Shrang has a very solid idea for a Tournament Circuit, something that continues throughout the whole year and therefore will give Ubers players something to play in constantly:
#shrang: what do you think of the idea
#shrang: of a grand slam tennis like tourney ladder @shrang:you know how professional tennis tour works @shrang:well it's basically @shrang:a number of tournaments throughout the year @shrang:with different levels @shrang:and the players get points for how far they progress in the tourneys @shrang:and then they're ranked PISTOLERO:oh so you mean like beginner (say someone random who just started Ubers), intermediate (me / you), experienced (hack / problems) PISTOLERO:in terms of levels? @shrang:sort of @shrang:but you can go into the different levels if you want @shrang:we can make the tourneys open @shrang:shit players can go into top tourneys if they want @shrang:if they get raped that's their own fault @shrang:but we'd make sure @shrang:that we have plenty of tourneys PISTOLERO:i think it sounds like a good idea @shrang:that it would be unwise for players to join every tourney @shrang:in terms of the levels @shrang:we can easily fix that @shrang:by allocating more points @shrang:to certain tourneys @shrang:and making them bigger and smaller @shrang:in accordance to their level @shrang:so we'd have like @shrang:a big tourney worth a crapload of points @shrang:and that would be like @shrang:your top level tourney PISTOLERO:the problem with this is that, although it's a great idea, it will be nigh-impossible to get off the ground @shrang:yea I know PISTOLERO:nothing seems to ever actually happen in ubers @shrang:I'm content to spend weeks to months @shrang:to actually get the implementation down PISTOLERO:well you'll need a concrete 100% promise that PISTOLERO:it will be implemented @shrang:yea I know PISTOLERO:not a "oh maybe, we'll think about it maybe" PISTOLERO:there needs to be PISTOLERO:a reward PISTOLERO:a significant reward @shrang:eeeh PISTOLERO:not like some stupid custom title PISTOLERO:i mean a trophy PISTOLERO:not a $ reward PISTOLERO:$ rewards are dumb @shrang:people play for e-peen these days anyways PISTOLERO:lol @shrang:we'd make the tourneys relatively quick @shrang:I hope @shrang:so people don't john them @shrang:like @shrang:it would be great @shrang:if we can just make them roomtours PISTOLERO:or you could @shrang:like the weekend tours PISTOLERO:impose penalties for johning @shrang:yea that would be good too PISTOLERO:like if you john you are locked out of joining for a month PISTOLERO:if you do it again you are locked out again, and if you are a repeat john PISTOLERO:well then you get completely locked out of the entire circuit @shrang:well @shrang:you could just start off by penalising with point reduction PISTOLERO:works too
This seems like a fantastic idea, and Smogon Tour could be used as a template for this so that DPP and BW, the older generations of Ubers, are included - there is no reason to not include ADV either, actually (although I don't know if ADV gets any official tournament representation besides SPL). An end reward would be needed - not something small like a custom title, which is rather worthless, or a financial reward, which is hard to fund / work out the details for, but I think that a badge trophy, or even a custom banner, would work nicely. An official "Ubers Tournament Circuit" trophy would have to be approved by the leaders of Smogon, of course, which would be something to discuss with them, but with such an incentive, we would hopefully get relatively frequent high-level games, play-offs, finals etc.
I also asked what the Doubles Tournament circuit was, and was told:
@Memoric:oh the circuit @Memoric:it's just a bunch of tournaments where you have to play to accumulate points @Memoric:and when you get to a certain number, you get to play in the invitational against everyone who qualified for it as well
Which seems to be reasonably similar to what Shrang is proposing.
People tend to start being rude to each other when they are bored and / or frustrated, and the fact that SPL Ubers matches come under such intense scrutiny is because those are the few matches of a very high level that can be spectated - Ubers sometimes seems to be more of a spectator's tier than a player's tier, if that makes sense, which leads to the sometimes rather nasty "discussion" and match "analysis" that the SPL players themselves don't like. The reason that UU / RU / NU are not like this is probably because they are less linear, centralized tiers, with much more breathing room for innovation and different, interesting sets.
If you look at how the Ubers tier progressed throughout the year it was in existence, it is not hard to see that it followed the patterns of high-level play fairly closely -> We had the rise of Defog Arceus, through to what I guess you could call the Klefki era, with Shadow Tag peaking in late XY, with other miscellaneous effects such as Dice's compendium arguably causing the rise of Giratina-Origin. Obviously this is a rough analysis of XY Ubers, but it still shows that the small amount of high-level play has a huge effect on the rest of the playerbase. In comparison, XY OU progressed due to things moving up / down and things being banned, creating a flowing metagame, for lack of a less stupid way of saying it. Ubers is very static, and metagame trends are therefore much less prominent and more gradual. This is not 100% relevant but it might partially explain why people find that Ubers is boring or stale.
I completely agree with you in the part that Ubers needs more big tournaments however, that still doesn't justify people's behavior by any means even if there were 5 Official Ubers tournaments there would still be assholes on this site. About SPL only needing 10 Ubers players, well yeah, it should be the goal for any Ubers player to be in SPL as it is the best tournament and obviously the best players are going to get drafted. I don't feel any compassion by people who aren't drafted in SPL, why? Because it's their own fault. It takes more than being good to get drafted in SPL, you need to have contacts and working your ass off to make friends who are somewhat relevant in that tournament so they can consider you, or have a big achievement.
I'll give you a few examples:
Last year when I was banned for the first 4 weeks of SPL I told someone who I barely knew from IDM (-Tsunami- who was in the Stark Sharks) that I can help his teammate LUST with teams as I saw he was having a hard time adapting to XY Ubers, I showed him a couple of teams that I had made in 10 mins and they were convinced that I knew what I was doing so I helped him with his teams for 2 more weeks for them to consider drafting me, I also was helping Wolfpack but I was more convinced by the Sharks' perfomance and I was pretty damn sure they would win SPL that year. I was rather lucky that their only weak spot was XY Ubers but I saw the opportunity and I took it. Thanks to me working my ass off I ended on the winning team, The Stark Sharks.
Now this year, a player who is considered to be good by many people, he even was drafted last season but not this year. Kebabe is the person I'm talking about, although Kebabe had a very impressive Ubers tournament run throughout the whole year (won Haruno's tour and got to Ubers Open semis iirc) he didn't get drafted. That even made many people upset, however, the way I see it is that Kebabe didn't show any interest in getting drafted (from what Hack told me at least) and was confident on his resumé only. That was a big mistake, as I stated before you should be focused on being afilliated with the people who run the tournament so they can say "Oh this guy is friendly and is pretty decent as his tier", not only managers but just anyone who can give them a good reference.
Many people were surprised about Evuelf being drafted, I know Problems said his intention of stopping steel from getting drafted, that was not mine though. I was pretty sure that Evuelf had what it takes to be on SPL, not only his skill but his attitude. So, when a certain manager asked me of a cheap, decent Ubers option I had to throw his name out there, he's not very known but he was afiliated with someone who is in touch with most of the managers (sorry if it sounds like I have a big ego but these are facts). So yeah, I don't want to say that him getting drafted is entirely my doing but I feel like I certainly helped him.
That's all I have. If you want to get drafted in tours like SPL making friends is just as important as being good, in my opinion.
We already have all that in the works. Myself and some others just need to work things out to get it up and running. Regarding the tournaments, that is.
