Banning Philosophy

[Mazinger]

This topic always seems to find its way into other threads in some form, so I figured there should be a seperate thread that isn't ages old.

Anyway, reading the other PR threads, the Scald one in particular, I noticed that one of the main arguments for banning the move is that some things, ie Ferrothorn, are not able to switch into water types reliably even though they should be. This might seem natural at first, but where exactly does this idea come from? If Scald had existed since Red/Green or if Black/White were the first games in the series, would people still be saying that Ferrothorn "should" be able to counter water types? Should flying types not also counter ground types, if not for those annoying rock moves? This got me thinking about other recent discussions (why aren't sun/bp allowed to rely on good matchups?) and bans in general (why is keldeo ok but not thundurus?), because the line always seems to be drawn wherever people felt like drawing it.

A somewhat seperate issue is what people have to say about RNG, as there seems to be an agreement that too much RNG is bad, but everyone has a different idea of where the limit is and what to do with things that rely solely on it. Evasion and OHKO moves have usually been pretty one sided, but what about things like Attract and Confuse Ray? Scald/Lava Plume/etc also fit into this because the only thing that sets them apart from Surf etc is the RNG aspect. A common argument is "pkmn is a luck based game", but why doesn't the ruleset seek to minimize this when we're trying to play it competitively?

Of course there are always justifications like things being "broken", "uncompetitive" or "bad for the metagame" but asking 10 people what that actually means will get you 10 different answers. In the end it seems like whether something is banned simply depends on whether someone says "I don't like this" and gets enough people to agree with him; you just wouldn't know it by the way people argue.

This leads me to the main question(s):

Is "I don't like this" enough of a justification to consider banning something?

If not, what is?

Also, how do RNG-based elements have to affect the game to be considered for a ban?

Feel free to ask if something is unclear.

 

[IronBullet]

Is "I don't like this" enough of a justification to consider banning something?

If not, what is?

It would not be a justification by itself, but if the thing in question introduces game-changing luck, creates unhealthy situations, and is also a widespread metagame choice, then I do think it provides viable grounds for banning. These are the exact attributes that the arguments for banning Scald are based on.

I'd like to address the points you mentioned regarding where exactly the limit is when considering RNG.

• Evasion and OHKO moves are pretty straightforward here. They are completely hit or miss strategies, and if they were allowed then the game would not be competitive in the slightest. It's easy to see why they're banned.
• Attract and Confuse Ray are interesting in that they do introduce game-changing luck. What separates them from the argument against Scald, however, is that these are not top metagame choices. Most battlers would not even consider using these moves in a competitive match because using them would use up a move slot on what is at best an unreliable move. For any Pokemon that has access to either Attract or Confuse Ray, it will have moves that provide far more utility and can accomplish more in terms of actually helping the player win the game. Using Scald as an example again, it obviously is a very widespread move that every Water-type has access to. Water-type Pokemon obviously need a reliable STAB move to work with, and Scald provides just that while sitting at a decent base 80 power. So disregarding the burn chance, Scald is still not a bad move considering it sits at only 10 base power below Surf, which was previously the preferred STAB move for Water-types. So the move still provides utility and accomplishes what any STAB move should do: deal respectable damage to the opponent's Pokemon. Now you add the game-changing luck, and the potential to create unhealthy situations, and one can see why an argument against Scald is stronger than it would be for Attract or Confuse Ray.
• Surf, as mentioned in the previous point, is only 10 points stronger than Scald. Bulky waters, by using Scald, are sacrificing a little power for the possibility to achieve potentially game-changing luck. The 10 points is never going to be a significant difference in the long run if we weigh the benefits of Scald against the benefit of a little extra power. For example, a Water-type using Scald or Surf against a Ferrothorn is not going to make a great deal of difference in terms of power; it is likely going to cause a pittance of damage anyway. However, introduce the burn chance and you have a potentially burned Ferrothorn whose walling capability has now been vastly reduced. So, in this particular situation, you're trading off what is likely a few percentage points worth of damage for a significant chance of an essentially game-changing event.

Overall, I think the above points show why moves that rely solely on RNG-based aspects are not as big of a concern as a move such as Scald, and why the RNG aspect that sets Scald apart from Surf is a big enough deal that an argument for a ban is not an unreasonable one.

So if an "I don't like this" opinion is one that is within reason, if there is legitimate concern that the move in question is unhealthy for the metagame, and if the opinion is one that is shared by many, then I think the opinion ceases to be merely subjective, and does become a reasonable basis for considering a ban.

 

[MikeDawg]

IronBullet93

Talking about Evasion:

They are completely hit or miss strategies, and if they were allowed then the game would not be competitive in the slightest.

Talking about Confusion/Attract/etc.:

Most battlers would not even consider using these moves in a competitive match because using them would use up a move slot on what is at best an unreliable move.

These seem contradictory. Would a competitive battler consider using Double Team (a move that is "easy to see why it's banned")?

 

[IronBullet]

Well the sentences might be contradictory, and your last point valid, if Double Team and Minimize was accessible to competitive battlers in the first place. They're not, because they're far more uncompetitive than either Confusion or Attract. They're banned because they take game-changing luck to an extreme level. Confusion and Attract are allowed because they do not involve such extreme luck; they are just 50/50 chances that the opponent will be unable to retaliate. They are far too shaky options to rely on when there are moves available that are much more useful.

 

[MikeDawg]

Well the sentences might be contradictory, and your last point valid, if Double Team and Minimize was accessible to competitive battlers in the first place. They're not, because they're far more uncompetitive than either Confusion or Attract. They're banned because they take game-changing luck to an extreme level. Confusion and Attract are allowed because they do not involve such extreme luck; they are just 50/50 chances that the opponent will be unable to retaliate. They are far too shaky options to rely on when there are moves available that are much more useful.

I was speaking as if double team were available. Confusion is a 50/50 chance to both lose a turn and damsge yourself. Double team is a 25% chance to lose a turn. I don't understand how this is some next-level brokenness when the chances of activation (while stackable) are lower than currently legal moves, at least when looked at under the scope of pure luck (you could otherwise argue that you can switch out of confusion but not double team, but that was not your point).

If you say battlers wouldnt take that 50/50 shot to use confuse Ray, then why would they take the 25% shot to use double team (if it were legal).

 

[IronBullet]

The fact that Double Team is stackable is what makes it so broken in the first place. Battlers could take that initial chance to lose a turn because, assuming that the Pokemon in question is bulky enough, it can accumulate multiple boosts to reach a situation where the opponent will not be able to retaliate at all for the rest of the match. Doesn't it make the initial chance of losing a turn seem like a reasonable sacrifice if in the long run you can achieve a position where your opponent's Pokemon will barely be able to land a hit?

Confusion and Attract offer only a 50 percent chance of success, and this doesn't change with repeated usage. Also, these moves' effects eventually wear off and can be completely removed by switching out, while with a Pokemon using Double Team the effects are permanent unless the Pokemon itself is forced out, which is made increasingly improbable with multiple boosts. Not to mention that if Evasion were allowed then Minimize could be used as well, which is an even more extreme case where a single boost grants a 50% increase in evasion. These moves are far more broken than Confusion or Attract.

 

[fleurdyleurse]

aren't confusion and attract uncompetitive like evasion? if we want to make sure that worse players are not able to win against players of a higher calibre through luck, should we not actually limit the use of such moves? furthermore, if it is to be argued that you can switch out of confusion and attract (we also banned swagger which you can equally well switch out of), can you not equally phaze out the opponent with roar and whirlwind, which have perfect accuracy? i do not argue that evasion is not broken: i argue rather that confusion and attract are also uncompetitive. shaymin-s itself was banned due to its combination of hax and damage, especially with a good offensive type. attract and confusion can completely immobilize the foe: why, then, do we not ban it? a 50 percent chance of success is larger than scald's chance to burn, which is part of the reason we choose to ban it. so what's the point of not banning the two pseudo-statuses, when it can only make the game better?

 

[Lavos]

i talk a lot about this so i might as well take this opportunity to clarify my position.

simply put, i advocate for banning things that i deem uncompetitive. these are defined as elements present in the game that affect matches in such a way that they reduce the times/100 that the player who exhibits a higher level of skill will win. this means unnecessary elements of luck, as well as pokemon that are too strong to be reasonably checked. as in one has to go out of his or her way in teambuilding to not get demolished by this single pokemon, or in some instances a combination of elements e.g. swift swim plus drizzle in bw ou. this definition of uncompetitive can even be extended to entire team archetypes such as baton pass, as well as certain moves such as scald. it gives me a lot of flexibility on how i evaluate different cases but is still a rigid enough philosophy that you won't compare two of my posts from different suspect threads and wonder if it's the same person behind the keyboard.

yet i recognize that op is asking for a very cut-and-dry philosophy on banning, and i'm sorry to say that i can't provide one, because it isn't that sort of process. everything has to be evaluated individually, despite an initial impulse to lean one way or the other. i can go down a brief list of positions i have held/currently hold on contentious issues, though. and bear in mind these are all bw ou.

(past)
in favor of banning genesect
in favor of unbanning kyurem-b
in favor of unbanning rough skin garchomp
in favor of banning landorus-i
in favor of not banning keldeo

(present)
in favor of banning chlorophyll+drought
in favor of banning magic guard reuniclus
in favor of banning baton pass+speed boosting
in favor of banning scald

this last one was questioned in the op. why should ferrothorn be able to safely switch into scald? flying types can't safely switch into ground types for fear of a rock type move. the past is irrelevant; yes, grass types will traditionally wall water type moves, but a lot of type matchups changed in gen 6 and that's not inherently bad for the game. however, here's where i draw the distinction. a pidgeot user considers whether or not to switch into marowak. pidgeot could take zero from the incoming earthquake, or it could take a lot of damage from a potential rock slide. there's an external factor though, which is the remaining members on the pidgeot user's team. chances are, the pidgeot user also has something to take rock slide. taking this into account, it's a simple prediction. scald is different. a ferrothorn user considers whether or not to switch into politoed. ferrothorn could take zero from the incoming scald, or it could take zero from the incoming scald AND sustain a burn, greatly crippling it. however, the ferrothorn user doesn't have any other water type resistances. ferrothorn is objectively the best option, yet still because of the potential burn, it's not a good option. even if the ferrothorn user predicts correctly and politoed doesn't double switch and goes for the scald, 30% of the time even the correct play ends up being a bad play. that, to me, is a very clear signal of uncompetitiveness. alone it wouldn't be enough; combined with its wide distribution, high base power, nearly ubiquitous stab bonus, and perfect combination of typing and status (only fire types are immune to burn, fire is weak to water), it crosses well over the threshold.

edit: as far as the matchup issue with sun/bp goes, that one's a lot simpler. matchup is fine, it's a natural element of the game. even in gsc, which is a very limited metagame in terms of diversity, curselax's fourth move still matters a lot and can swing entire games based on whether it's earthquake or fire blast. that's perfectly acceptable. what isn't acceptable is when entire games are instantly decided off team matchup, barring incredible luck from one side or multiple misplays from the other. for example, if i bring a standard offensive rain build against a full bp team in bw ou, i'm going to lose almost 100/100 games. if my politoed has haze, it's usually a completely different story (shoutout to omfuga). for sun, tyranitar sand offense is over 90/100 in the sun team's favor. hippowdon sand offense is the reverse. you get the picture. when games are decided from the very start, before a single pokemon comes out and a single move is made, that's the definition of an uncompetitive match, and investigating the archetype(s) responsible is extremely important. i can be an extremely average bw ou player, bring a sun team against ojama, and sweep him 5-0 because he brought tyranitar sand. this issue was so prevalent back in the genesect era that high level ladder players started bringing shed shell ttar/heatran to counter the massive influx of sun spam with ninetales/dugtrio/xatu/genesect/2 sweepers. that sets off sirens in my head. this isn't a natural adaptation as some things become stronger and others lose power, it's more of a do or die scenario where games between some of the very best players are decided entirely on a single item choice. it's incredible, in a sense, that the metagame was corrupted to that degree - and that we allowed it to do so. i see no bright future for any tier where such drastic elements of sheer luck are involved.

edit #2 fleurdyleurse: confusion and infatuation are uncompetitive in the bare bones sense that they cause a lot of 50/50s. however, the moves that inflict said statuses, such as confuse ray and attract, really suck. if you look at them on their own, they don't look terrible. it's a 50/50 chance that my opponent does nothing, right? however, there are several issues. first and foremost, it's only a 50/50. you are wasting an entire turn for the purpose of a coin flip. if you lose the coin flip, it's extremely problematic. and most of the time you won't be in a situation where taking this coin flip is absolutely necessary for you to win. in the case of moves like dynamicpunch where there is damage on top of the status effect, it loses something else to compensate, namely accuracy. so there's only a 25% chance you hit and the opponent takes confusion damage. but what about no guard machamp? that leads me to my second point: confusion and infatuation can be switched out of. this means that not only does the status not make itself very well felt, being a simple switch away from the cure, but additionally if the confusion/infatuation inflicter is slower than its target, often times the status will never even get a chance for the coin flip to occur. that's pretty bad if you're trying to force a coin flip and your opponent just smacks you in the dome instead. third, confusion and infatuation don't permeate. there's no lasting purpose to them other than to force switches. whereas burn and poison have an end of turn effect, and sleep and freeze and paralysis stick through switches, the pseudo statuses don't. and finally, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are simply better options. why would i waste a slot on confuse ray or attract when i can use a real move? 99% of the time it isn't optimal to use these moves on pokemon that are traditionally considered good, and that's why they only exist on traditionally bad pokemon that attempt to abuse niche sets for some greater purpose. look at it this way: even if double team were legal, do you think stuff like keldeo, latios, jirachi, etc. would use it?

 

[Bughouse]

A more controlled banning philosophy only really makes sense if you can actually control the way in which people are coming to their decisions. This effectively means reducing all decisions to a small, accountable (and replaceable) voting council as was often done in old generations.

That is at odds with how Smogon tiering has evolved into suspect testing and I think trying to enforce any uniform banning philosophy will be not only fruitless but divisive. If a majority of voters want to ban something, it should be able to be banned, whatever the reasons they have may be.

That said, tier leaders and councils have numerous ways to control this process, from selecting the suspects themselves to setting the reqs qualifications and the vote% threshold. I am hardly advocating for unchecked democracy, nor is that what we currently have anyway.

 

[ginganinja]

I noticed that one of the main arguments for banning the move is that some things, ie Ferrothorn, are not able to switch into water types reliably even though they should be. This might seem natural at first, but where exactly does this idea come from? If Scald had existed since Red/Green or if Black/White were the first games in the series, would people still be saying that Ferrothorn "should" be able to counter water types?

I think the issue with Scald is not so much "Oh no, a water type can beat a grass type!!!" but more "wow, what the fuck can actually switch into Scald". The moves high distribution and risk free nature combined with the limited nature of its counterplay options make this more of a specific case rather than a type chart problem.

 

[Minority]

There are two reasons why a ban should be brought up. In the first case, a particular tactic is simply “too good” to the extent where it invalidates most if not all other tactics and strategies. The reason why this is a problem is because it reduces a game to being about a single, overwhelmingly powerful tactic. When a game is reduced to a single obvious strategy, the game approaches being solved, and thus becomes boring. This is what can cause a tier to feel stale or not enjoyable. The goal of banning in this case is not to reduce the game to those tactics that are the second best, because that isn’t fundamentally different from a game that has been reduced to the best tactics. In cases such as this, a ban should seek to re-establish relative balance; a situation where there isn’t a dominant or solved path to victory. If relative balance cannot be achieved with a ban, then the ban is not warranted.

In the second case, a particular tactic is deemed ban-worthy because the nature of the tactic takes control out of the players’ hands. To use tactics that determine the outcome of a match based on RNG is against the spirit of competition, similar to forcing an endless battle. Such tactics eliminate the need for strategical thought because they succeed not based on how well they are executed, but rather by how lucky the player is; neither player decides the outcome of the match based on a demonstration of skill and knowledge.

Unfortunately both cases need to have a threshold established. In the first case it must be agreed upon when a tactic, usually a Pokemon, reaches a point to where it begins to make the game appear solved. Mega Rayquaza is the closest Pokemon ever released to fit this description, but it is still not on the level of completely reducing a game to a solved set of choices. Naturally people will have different opinions on when a game feels “too solved” to be enjoyable, but perhaps some threshold could still be agreed upon.

In the second case a threshold needs to be established because the core mechanics of Pokemon have RNG built into them. In regards to agreeing upon a threshold for an acceptable amount of RNG, most people agree that superfluous RNG that cannot see true strategical use (Moody, evasion, etc.) should be banned. Things become more gray when talking about moves that have consistent effects alongside RNG secondary effects (Sacred Fire, Iron Head, Thunder Wave). While these moves are frequently used for their consistent effects, they are also often resorted to or even game-changing in moments of desperation because of their effects. It would be silly to try and ban something along the lines of “fishing for burns / flinches / para” because doing so can never be completely defined, but repeated fishing for secondary effects can have similar effects to fishing for a hit with an OHKO move in certain situations. Just because a game does have some RNG in it does not mean that it isn’t still competitive. If the more skilled and knowledgeable player wins a majority of the time then there is an acceptable amount of RNG, it just needs to be decided how much that is in regards to Pokemon.


The whole “ban things I don’t like” and “ban to make a more enjoyable tier” mentalities are warped derivations that come from these two banning philosophies.

 

[fleurdyleurse]

edit #2 fleurdyleurse: confusion and infatuation are uncompetitive in the bare bones sense that they cause a lot of 50/50s. however, the moves that inflict said statuses, such as confuse ray and attract, really suck. if you look at them on their own, they don't look terrible. it's a 50/50 chance that my opponent does nothing, right? however, there are several issues. first and foremost, it's only a 50/50. you are wasting an entire turn for the purpose of a coin flip. if you lose the coin flip, it's extremely problematic. and most of the time you won't be in a situation where taking this coin flip is absolutely necessary for you to win. in the case of moves like dynamicpunch where there is damage on top of the status effect, it loses something else to compensate, namely accuracy. so there's only a 25% chance you hit and the opponent takes confusion damage. but what about no guard machamp? that leads me to my second point: confusion and infatuation can be switched out of. this means that not only does the status not make itself very well felt, being a simple switch away from the cure, but additionally if the confusion/infatuation inflicter is slower than its target, often times the status will never even get a chance for the coin flip to occur. that's pretty bad if you're trying to force a coin flip and your opponent just smacks you in the dome instead. third, confusion and infatuation don't permeate. there's no lasting purpose to them other than to force switches. whereas burn and poison have an end of turn effect, and sleep and freeze and paralysis stick through switches, the pseudo statuses don't. and finally, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are simply better options. why would i waste a slot on confuse ray or attract when i can use a real move? 99% of the time it isn't optimal to use these moves on pokemon that are traditionally considered good, and that's why they only exist on traditionally bad pokemon that attempt to abuse niche sets for some greater purpose. look at it this way: even if double team were legal, do you think stuff like keldeo, latios, jirachi, etc. would use it?

i'm going to address the issues that you brought up one by one:

1) "only a 50/50": i refer to this rmt by migetno1. swagger, though it was merely a 50/50, was eventually banned, due to its ability to cause the foe to ko itself, especially while boosting the foe's attack, even though you had to run the risk of the foe breaking out of confusion with +2 attack. as seen in the below table, you would be able to set up with ease with just confuse ray thanks to the high chance of your foe hitting itself. this is the same chance that attract has, except that infatuation doesn't wear off.

2) as with swagger, confusion could be switched out of but it still was banned with a 85.7% supermajority. why are we letting a similar move, just without the attack boost, that adds nothing competitive whatsoever to the game? if we're going to ban uncompetitive things like evasion and swagger, then go all the way. your third point is seemingly invalid: though you say that those moves would not be used, they still are and cause luck to be a massive factor in such cases, especially when used by pranksetr users.

so i conclude this: if we're going to ban swagger and evasion (and also shaymin-s for hax), we might as well go all the way and ban confusion and attract to minimize the factor of luck in games and uncompetitiveness.

 

[Cherub Agent]

Keep i mind that Swagger wasn't really broken on every Pokemon that got it; it was mainly aggravating on Prankster Pokemon, and mainly with access to Thunder Wave. Since Swagger is a TM learned by most Pokemon, they all got access to it automatically. The being able to fire it off before the opponent could move played a large role in the uncompetitiveness of the move. As it is, yes, at a bare bones level, the effects of Confuse Ray and Attract are probably uncompetitive, but the moves have such a high opportunity cost and are so... dreadful, that you cannot rely on winning games with them. If you truly manage to pull off a set up sweeper that would prefer one of them over an additional coverage move or utility move like Sub/Taunt, kudos, but 99.9% of the time you're just shooting yourself in the foot.

In my opinion there is a wide enough array of potentially broken aspects of Pokemon that adhering to a strict philosophy is difficult, perhaps impossible. Things should be evaluated on a case by case basis.

 

[Mazinger]

So if an "I don't like this" opinion is one that is within reason, if there is legitimate concern that the move in question is unhealthy for the metagame, and if the opinion is one that is shared by many, then I think the opinion ceases to be merely subjective, and does become a reasonable basis for considering a ban.

I agree with all of this except the part where you say it ceases to be subjective; an opinion doesn't become fact just because it's reasonable and a lot of people share it. This isn't necessarily a problem, I just think it's silly to pretend that we're doing anything other than playing favorites, especially when it constantly stands in the way of meaningful discussion and leads to things like users' opinions being entirely disregarded because their standards for banning something are different.

i talk a lot about this so i might as well take this opportunity to clarify my position.

simply put, i advocate for banning things that i deem uncompetitive. these are defined as elements present in the game that affect matches in such a way that they reduce the times/100 that the player who exhibits a higher level of skill will win. this means unnecessary elements of luck, as well as pokemon that are too strong to be reasonably checked. as in one has to go out of his or her way in teambuilding to not get demolished by this single pokemon, or in some instances a combination of elements e.g. swift swim plus drizzle in bw ou. this definition of uncompetitive can even be extended to entire team archetypes such as baton pass, as well as certain moves such as scald. it gives me a lot of flexibility on how i evaluate different cases but is still a rigid enough philosophy that you won't compare two of my posts from different suspect threads and wonder if it's the same person behind the keyboard.

I don't think aiming to make the metagame more competitive [by your definition] is a bad idea, but aside from RNG elements it seems very disconnected from most actual suspect discussions, since very few banned pkmn actually made the game less skill based. I'd argue that the vast majority of bans only achieve more variety in teambuilding. The chance of the better player winning is also practically impossible to calculate, making this metric even more questionable.

this last one was questioned in the op. why should ferrothorn be able to safely switch into scald? flying types can't safely switch into ground types for fear of a rock type move. the past is irrelevant; yes, grass types will traditionally wall water type moves, but a lot of type matchups changed in gen 6 and that's not inherently bad for the game. however, here's where i draw the distinction. a pidgeot user considers whether or not to switch into marowak. pidgeot could take zero from the incoming earthquake, or it could take a lot of damage from a potential rock slide. there's an external factor though, which is the remaining members on the pidgeot user's team. chances are, the pidgeot user also has something to take rock slide. taking this into account, it's a simple prediction. scald is different. a ferrothorn user considers whether or not to switch into politoed. ferrothorn could take zero from the incoming scald, or it could take zero from the incoming scald AND sustain a burn, greatly crippling it. however, the ferrothorn user doesn't have any other water type resistances. ferrothorn is objectively the best option, yet still because of the potential burn, it's not a good option. even if the ferrothorn user predicts correctly and politoed doesn't double switch and goes for the scald, 30% of the time even the correct play ends up being a bad play. that, to me, is a very clear signal of uncompetitiveness. alone it wouldn't be enough; combined with its wide distribution, high base power, nearly ubiquitous stab bonus, and perfect combination of typing and status (only fire types are immune to burn, fire is weak to water), it crosses well over the threshold.

I don't see how your example is relevant beyond the topics of RNG and teambuilding. For some reason you assume that the pidgeot user has 5 other pkmn and the ferrothorn user doesn't, completely ignoring the possibility that maybe you shouldn't rely on ferro to fend off water types (in the long term), which goes back to my original issue with the arbitrary idea that ferrothorn "should" be able to reliably switch into scald when, in fact, it isn't. Good players make use of either fact better than bad players; that's what sets them apart.

edit: as far as the matchup issue with sun/bp goes, that one's a lot simpler. matchup is fine, it's a natural element of the game. even in gsc, which is a very limited metagame in terms of diversity, curselax's fourth move still matters a lot and can swing entire games based on whether it's earthquake or fire blast. that's perfectly acceptable. what isn't acceptable is when entire games are instantly decided off team matchup, barring incredible luck from one side or multiple misplays from the other. for example, if i bring a standard offensive rain build against a full bp team in bw ou, i'm going to lose almost 100/100 games. if my politoed has haze, it's usually a completely different story (shoutout to omfuga). for sun, tyranitar sand offense is over 90/100 in the sun team's favor. hippowdon sand offense is the reverse. you get the picture. when games are decided from the very start, before a single pokemon comes out and a single move is made, that's the definition of an uncompetitive match, and investigating the archetype(s) responsible is extremely important. i can be an extremely average bw ou player, bring a sun team against ojama, and sweep him 5-0 because he brought tyranitar sand. this issue was so prevalent back in the genesect era that high level ladder players started bringing shed shell ttar/heatran to counter the massive influx of sun spam with ninetales/dugtrio/xatu/genesect/2 sweepers. that sets off sirens in my head. this isn't a natural adaptation as some things become stronger and others lose power, it's more of a do or die scenario where games between some of the very best players are decided entirely on a single item choice. it's incredible, in a sense, that the metagame was corrupted to that degree - and that we allowed it to do so. i see no bright future for any tier where such drastic elements of sheer luck are involved.

I think you're greatly exaggerating here, although in general I agree that games shouldn't be decided on team matchup alone, to the point where you're playing glorified RPS. However, the degree to which matchup should influence the game is, again, highly subjective. I don't think there's anything wrong with having high risk/reward strategies in the metagame.

A more controlled banning philosophy only really makes sense if you can actually control the way in which people are coming to their decisions. This effectively means reducing all decisions to a small, accountable (and replaceable) voting council as was often done in old generations.

That is at odds with how Smogon tiering has evolved into suspect testing and I think trying to enforce any uniform banning philosophy will be not only fruitless but divisive. If a majority of voters want to ban something, it should be able to be banned, whatever the reasons they have may be.

That said, tier leaders and councils have numerous ways to control this process, from selecting the suspects themselves to setting the reqs qualifications and the vote% threshold. I am hardly advocating for unchecked democracy, nor is that what we currently have anyway.

I'm inclined to agree with the first two paragraphs, but if we come to the conclusion that all of this is just a matter of personal opinion anyway, why should the individuals in charge of the process have so much control over it?

I think the issue with Scald is not so much "Oh no, a water type can beat a grass type!!!" but more "wow, what the fuck can actually switch into Scald". The moves high distribution and risk free nature combined with the limited nature of its counterplay options make this more of a specific case rather than a type chart problem.

Sure, but again, unless your argument is that the problem lies with the 30% chance and not the actual effect, I don't see how the jump from "scald can do this" to "we should ban scald" is anything more than a personal whim.

___

re: random elements, what always annoys me about the pro-confuse ray arguments is the idea that a move can't be detrimental just because it's bad. If it's useless 90% of the time and game changing 10% of the time, with neither player being able to control it, why keep it around? Assuming our goal is indeed to make sure the better player wins, what's the point in allowing moves/items/abilities with an entirely negative impact on the game?

 

[ginganinja]

Sure, but again, unless your argument is that the problem lies with the 30% chance and not the actual effect, I don't see how the jump from "scald can do this" to "we should ban scald" is anything more than a personal whim.

I really don't follow this. I outlined the reasons why it could be argued that Scald is uncompetitive and you ignored them all. so I don't see why you can call my position "unexplained (ie whim)", its right there in the post you quoted.

with that said, I digress

Is "I don't like this" enough of a justification to consider banning something?

The more accurate term is "banning for a more desirable metagame". Obviously, "desirable" is a subjective term, but there isn't a process that you can run a suspect test off and avoid being subjective at the same time, people are biased, and they will take that with them when they vote. Suspect voters are encouraged to reflect on what metagame is enjoyable to them, and make a decision based off this. Sure, some people have been known to ban something, or keep something unbanned for their own self interest but by and large, this is the system we have now. I'm sure that if you disliked this way of doing things, and had a better idea, everyone would be only too happy to hear it.

 

[Mazinger]

I really don't follow this. I outlined the reasons why it could be argued that Scald is uncompetitive and you ignored them all. so I don't see why you can call my position "unexplained (ie whim)", its right there in the post you quoted.

?

Aside from the fact that you never did mention the word "uncompetitive", let alone explain what you mean by that (unless you mean what lavos explained earlier), here's what you did explain:

-scald is common
-scald is relatively risk free
-scald has limited counterplays

What exactly is uncompetitive about this? If you do mean what lavos explained, how does this have any effect on the likelyhood of the better player winning? The RNG aspect would answer this, but you never mentioned that either, so I'm back at the post before this one.

The more accurate term is "banning for a more desirable metagame". Obviously, "desirable" is a subjective term, but there isn't a process that you can run a suspect test off and avoid being subjective at the same time, people are biased, and they will take that with them when they vote. Suspect voters are encouraged to reflect on what metagame is enjoyable to them, and make a decision based off this. Sure, some people have been known to ban something, or keep something unbanned for their own self interest but by and large, this is the system we have now. I'm sure that if you disliked this way of doing things, and had a better idea, everyone would be only too happy to hear it.

How is that in any way more accurate? If you vote for a more desirable metagame, and desirable means what's enjoyable to you, you're obviously voting in your own interest/against what you don't like.

My problem isn't that that's how we do things, it's that a) (correct me if I'm wrong) this isn't documented anywhere, and b) people love to pretend that it isn't the case and throw around non-words like broken and uncompetitive in an attempt to make themselves appear correct and discredit other opinions.

 

[ginganinja]

My problem isn't that that's how we do things, it's that a) (correct me if I'm wrong) this isn't documented anywhere

DougJustDoug made a post five years ago in PR. Its called called "The Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame" and its been a massive part of suspect policy for like, five years. Sure, its characteristics might be slightly outdated since like, DPP, but it still set the initial standard. You can read all about it http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/characteristics-of-a-desirable-pokemon-metagame.66515/.

I'm p sure you already know of that thread, so I must be missing something in regards to it not being documented. Were you referring to something else?

 

[Mazinger]

I think I read that around 4 years ago, and I'm willing to bet that the average voter hasn't done so. Even then, it's not even clear if a conclusion was reached in that thread, and I'm pretty sure that the UU sand stream ban was very controversial back in 2012 because it wasn't banned for being "broken" (but mostly for reasons of variety), so unless my memory is completely failing me, it wasn't really the standard until more recently. Even if it was, why would it be hidden on page 3 of this forum, where nobody even bothered to read the new threads until like 2 weeks ago? Not to menton that there's also this, which ended with even less of a conclusion, and that nobody ever mentions the whole thing in an actual suspect discussion.

If the main principle of our tiering system is a discussion from january 2010, I'm pretty sure my concern is valid.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I posted on the purpose and usefulness of The Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame in another policy review thread that came out later in 2010. I'm quoting that explanation here, because I think this kind of discussion is somewhat timeless, so to speak. In that Smogon has always wasted a lot of energy "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about", when it comes to creating a desirable metagame (ie. banning).

When I wrote the "Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame", I just wanted to assemble a relatively concise collection of principles that could be used for supporting arguments that a metagame is good or bad. Actually, more specifically, whether a metagame is "desirable" or "undesirable". I tried to base the principles on the content of all the different arguments and discussions that I have seen floating around Smogon regarding metagame policy. Basically, I was trying to say:

"If you aren't arguing one or more of these principles, then your argument probably won't get much traction here."​

OR

"When we argue about the metagame, this is the stuff we usually argue about."​

I was not trying to lay down concrete rules or metrics for the metagame. I'd just wanted to formalize some of the basic principles we seem to be arguing about most of the time anyway, and attach a few names to those principles -- with the hope that perhaps we could refer to those principles in future arguments, and we all would know what was being referred.

Too often, I feel like our arguments go around in circles because we really don't know what we are all saying to each other. When one guy mentions "centralization" or another person mentions "overpowered" -- it's very unclear as to what the hell is being argued there! So we just go back and forth, in what I think amounts to -- "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about".

So, I tried to lay it all out and say, "This is what we are all arguing about."

I do not want to place any value judgement on any individual argument. I will not presume to define how much Variety is good in a metagame. I will not pre-determine that Balance is more important than Adherence. I cannot draw the line between Skill and Luck. But, I think we can safely say that we commonly argue about all of the above. All of those are "valid arguments", even if I have no idea which arguments should "win" in any given debate. And by listing out those principles, I think we can provide a bit more structure to our arguments, and hopefully reduce all the time we waste on "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about".

I will pile on with what others have presented in this thread -- there is no perfect metagame that perfectly satisfies all the characteristics of a "Desirable Pokemon Metagame". Our metagames will trade-off on the principles in different ways. Different metagames will be desirable for different reasons, and we should embrace that. When arguing about any specific metagame, we should all accept that we are really arguing about the trade-offs between multiple "desirability principles", and the pros and cons of those trade-offs.

I plan to revisit the material I presented in my desirable metagame thread. The original concept of "Efficiency" needs to be replaced with "Simplicity", the wording needs to be modified in many places, etc. I'd like to present the whole thing in the form of an article on site, so that newcomers to Smogon can read it to get a grasp on the stuff we argue about here in Policy Review and elsewhere. Possibly even make it a sticky thread here or something. The point is to get some common terms in place, and allow us to use those terms to facilitate more focused debates on metagame policy -- without necessarily defining the winners and losers of those debates ahead of time.

And while on the topic of timeless policy threads about banning philosophy, if anyone has not seen Jumpman16 's Portrait of an Uber thread, I highly suggest you read it. That thread was the first attempt in Smogon to formalize definitions of what makes something ban-worthy or not, and the concepts defined there are not unique to the DP metagame. No doubt the metagame has evolved a lot over the past 4-5 years, but when it comes to arguing about what is "too good" or what is "bad for the metagame" or whatever -- we're just recycling the same old arguments.

"The players may have changed, but the game remains the same."

 

[Finchinator]

This leads me to the main question(s):

Is "I don't like this" enough of a justification to consider banning something?

If not, what is?

No, there should be some justification for why you don't "like" something which ties into the negative and 'broken' effect it has on a metagame to make it banworthy - simply saying you don't like something does not suffice and never should unless we want the tiering system to become a mess. For example, saying "let's ban scald because I don't like being burned 30% of the time" isn't a good argument. However, saying "let's ban scald because the fact that it limits counterplay due to the quantity of scald users in the tier being substantial and their normal switch-ins being vulnerable to the burn it may get (etc...obviously an argument has to be more than one sentence, but you get the gist of it) with valid justification would suffice as a valid pro-ban argument for scald. Overall, my point is that not "liking" something can form the basis of your argument, but there has to be some substance alongside it for there to be an actual reason to ban or act on something.

Also, how do RNG-based elements have to affect the game to be considered for a ban?

I think that each RNG-based element that is controversial should be taken in a case-by-case basis given their effect on the current metagame. For example, Sand Veil in BW was deemed banworthy because there was a relevant irksome user of it, in Gliscor, while the banning of Sand Veil would allow the tier to gain a noteworthy pokemon, in Rough Skin Garchomp; in ORAS, Sand Veil hasn't been touched because of the weakening of weather abilities making abuse of Sand Veil a challenge (although there is still that one RMT with Sand Veil). An example that is solely within our current generation that is currently being discussed is Scald - from the general consensus of the discussion and from personal experience, it can be said that Scald is a lot "worse" (or at least more controversial, not necessarily broken or not although it really depends on who you ask) in OU and UU than it is in RU and NU (which also leads to the transitivity of bans) bottom line is that handling it on a case-by-case or tier-by-tier basis would probably offer the best solution to each individual metagame. Obviously, every RNG element is different (just look at some of the recent ones encountered: Sand Veil (late bw2), Swagger (xy), and Scald (oras)) and I think that coming up with a general philosophy for banning them or drawing some sort of arbitrary line for what we could consider too much to let reside in tiers wouldn't be right when we can simply address what is problematic upon it being labeled as problematic, like we are with Scald in the current PR discussion.

-----------------
important shit starts here (it's not a direct answer to any of the questions posed in the OP, but it directly pertains to tiering philosophy).

Something I'd like to add on top of all of this is the fact that the general sentiment towards banning and tiering itself should be more lenient towards suspecting in the present than it ever was in the past. I know this sounds like an extremist approach to things, but this is already starting to happen, believe it or not, and there are only going to be more problems when more pokemon are introduced if we don't shift our general tiering philosophy in this direction - a balanced metagame isn't going to be attained any easier than it was in the past and we have to act in order to do our best to reach some sort of balance.

As far as I'm concerned, the definition of "broken" has changed (or at least is in the process of doing so) from something that legitimately makes normal gameplay in the tier borderline ridiculous (like Genesect in BW OU - something obviously misplaced in the tier that had to get the hell out to make things more playable) to something that makes counterplay a struggle at times, but has a couple noteworthy answers in the tier. There are a plethora of top pokemon in ORAS OU right now that play a quintessential role in the metagame (Clefable, Mega Altaria, Manaphy, Mega Metagross, etc.) that altogether make teambuilding / covering all the threats sufficiently more of a challenge than it ever was. I've spoken with various people who frequent ORAS OU (not to mention that it's also my own personal belief after playing a fair amount of ORAS OU recently) that say the tier (especially teambuilding) is nowhere near as enjoyable as past OUs (XY, BW, DPP, etc.) due to the surplus of pokemon they have to account for in teambuilding and even in gameplay.

I know it's hard to do much when nothing stands out as truly "broken" right now, but we can't keep on beating around the bush and not doing anything because of our traditional beliefs on how to suspect/ban while the metagame doesn't not improve over time. In my opinion, an accelerated approach to tiering should be taken and more things should be suspected even if they are just seen as "top threats" that require a certain level of countering from a limited pool of pokemon despite them not being broken in a conventional sense. I'm not even suggesting that we ban things that fall into this category, but a suspect so that we can see how the metagame is without a certain threat or two and if it is any less congested has no downside whatsoever while it has potential to drastically improve the state of the OU metagame.

The overall point of what I'm saying is that with more threats in the tier, we have to take a more aggressive approach to suspecting in order to reach some sort of balance in the metagame.

 

[Mazinger]

No, there should be some justification for why you don't "like" something which ties into the negative and 'broken' effect it has on a metagame to make it banworthy - simply saying you don't like something does not suffice and never should unless we want the tiering system to become a mess. For example, saying "let's ban scald because I don't like being burned 30% of the time" isn't a good argument. However, saying "let's ban scald because the fact that it limits counterplay due to the quantity of scald users in the tier being substantial and their normal switch-ins being vulnerable to the burn it may get (etc...obviously an argument has to be more than one sentence, but you get the gist of it) with valid justification would suffice as a valid pro-ban argument for scald. Overall, my point is that not "liking" something can form the basis of your argument, but there has to be some substance alongside it for there to be an actual reason to ban or act on something.

Well, there's obviously always going to be a reason to dislike something, and that reason tends to replace "I don't like this" in the discussions, but that doesn't mean the end result is any more objective. In the case of your example, "let's ban scald because I don't like being burned 30% of the time" is just a less elaborate version of "let's ban scald because the fact that it limits counterplay due to the quantity of scald users in the tier being substantial and their normal switch-ins being vulnerable to the burn it may get", since you wouldn't be getting burned 30% of the time if there were more convenient counterplays to prevent it. The burn is what actually differentiates it from surf, and it's what people think shouldn't be in the game for their entirely subjective reasons. Then again, you do say that dislike can form the basis of an argument, so I may have misunderstood your point.

rng things

I still wonder why we don't just rule out any instances of superfluous RNG, but I guess there's more pressing issues to worry about so I can see where you're coming from.

...
The overall point of what I'm saying is that with more threats in the tier, we have to take a more aggressive approach to suspecting in order to reach some sort of balance in the metagame.

I don't disagree that more bans could be the correct course of action, but I see a few issues with this, mainly that it doesn't seem to be a question of balance (since you point out that nothing sticks out) but rather too much variety, and that it's very hard to determine which of the factors you remove. If you end up banning 5 pkmn before you reach a desired metagame, the question of whether these were the right 5 inevitably pops up, and it's not really possible to answer that without an unfeasible amount of testing, so I think this philosophy does not match with our current suspect system.


I might give you a more detailed response when I have more time, but for now I leave you with these words from a user who unfortunately lacks PR access:

Sun was banned because of molemen. That is a fact

Also this isn't the scald thread so I hope nobody comes here trying to convince me that it should be banned, I don't even disagree with that. It was just an example.

 

[MikeDawg]

No, there should be some justification for why you don't "like" something which ties into the negative and 'broken' effect it has on a metagame to make it banworthy - simply saying you don't like something does not suffice and never should unless we want the tiering system to become a mess. For example, saying "let's ban scald because I don't like being burned 30% of the time" isn't a good argument. However, saying "let's ban scald because the fact that it limits counterplay due to the quantity of scald users in the tier being substantial and their normal switch-ins being vulnerable to the burn it may get (etc...obviously an argument has to be more than one sentence, but you get the gist of it) with valid justification would suffice as a valid pro-ban argument for scald. Overall, my point is that not "liking" something can form the basis of your argument, but there has to be some substance alongside it for there to be an actual reason to ban or act on something.


I think that each RNG-based element that is controversial should be taken in a case-by-case basis given their effect on the current metagame. For example, Sand Veil in BW was deemed banworthy because there was a relevant irksome user of it, in Gliscor, while the banning of Sand Veil would allow the tier to gain a noteworthy pokemon, in Rough Skin Garchomp; in ORAS, Sand Veil hasn't been touched because of the weakening of weather abilities making abuse of Sand Veil a challenge (although there is still that one RMT with Sand Veil). An example that is solely within our current generation that is currently being discussed is Scald - from the general consensus of the discussion and from personal experience, it can be said that Scald is a lot "worse" (or at least more controversial, not necessarily broken or not although it really depends on who you ask) in OU and UU than it is in RU and NU (which also leads to the transitivity of bans) bottom line is that handling it on a case-by-case or tier-by-tier basis would probably offer the best solution to each individual metagame. Obviously, every RNG element is different (just look at some of the recent ones encountered: Sand Veil (late bw2), Swagger (xy), and Scald (oras)) and I think that coming up with a general philosophy for banning them or drawing some sort of arbitrary line for what we could consider too much to let reside in tiers wouldn't be right when we can simply address what is problematic upon it being labeled as problematic, like we are with Scald in the current PR discussion.

-----------------
important shit starts here (it's not a direct answer to any of the questions posed in the OP, but it directly pertains to tiering philosophy).

Something I'd like to add on top of all of this is the fact that the general sentiment towards banning and tiering itself should be more lenient towards suspecting in the present than it ever was in the past. I know this sounds like an extremist approach to things, but this is already starting to happen, believe it or not, and there are only going to be more problems when more pokemon are introduced if we don't shift our general tiering philosophy in this direction - a balanced metagame isn't going to be attained any easier than it was in the past and we have to act in order to do our best to reach some sort of balance.

As far as I'm concerned, the definition of "broken" has changed (or at least is in the process of doing so) from something that legitimately makes normal gameplay in the tier borderline ridiculous (like Genesect in BW OU - something obviously misplaced in the tier that had to get the hell out to make things more playable) to something that makes counterplay a struggle at times, but has a couple noteworthy answers in the tier. There are a plethora of top pokemon in ORAS OU right now that play a quintessential role in the metagame (Clefable, Mega Altaria, Manaphy, Mega Metagross, etc.) that altogether make teambuilding / covering all the threats sufficiently more of a challenge than it ever was. I've spoken with various people who frequent ORAS OU (not to mention that it's also my own personal belief after playing a fair amount of ORAS OU recently) that say the tier (especially teambuilding) is nowhere near as enjoyable as past OUs (XY, BW, DPP, etc.) due to the surplus of pokemon they have to account for in teambuilding and even in gameplay.

I know it's hard to do much when nothing stands out as truly "broken" right now, but we can't keep on beating around the bush and not doing anything because of our traditional beliefs on how to suspect/ban while the metagame doesn't not improve over time. In my opinion, an accelerated approach to tiering should be taken and more things should be suspected even if they are just seen as "top threats" that require a certain level of countering from a limited pool of pokemon despite them not being broken in a conventional sense. I'm not even suggesting that we ban things that fall into this category, but a suspect so that we can see how the metagame is without a certain threat or two and if it is any less congested has no downside whatsoever while it has potential to drastically improve the state of the OU metagame.

The overall point of what I'm saying is that with more threats in the tier, we have to take a more aggressive approach to suspecting in order to reach some sort of balance in the metagame.

Isn't the whole point of pokemon to be fun, tho? You can't qualify what fun is (hence why it shouldn't be used in discussio), but you can definitely quantify it by appealing to the majority (which testing does). We don't know what fun is, but each individual person knows what they think to be fun and what they like. There is obviously reasoning behind this. To them, removing _______ element is more fun than having one more element of variety. I think that it's safe to assume that most people's idea of fun is winning. This works out well in our suspect system, because only relatively good players are allowed to vote. To assure that a good players beats a worse player most of the time (hence, allowing the good player to have more fun), skill must be a dominating factor. It follows that these skilled players will collectively vote for whatever element makes the metagame more skillful.

Other times (like when a Mon is not neccesarily reducing skill but is still over centralizing, making the meta less fun), we can sit and argue about whatever, but at the end of the day, people are going to vote for the metagame that they like better, and when the majority like a certain metagame better, that change is made.

So yes, whether we like it or not, whether or not you like the meta/think that it is fun has a large bearing on policy.

 

[Finchinator]

Well, there's obviously always going to be a reason to dislike something, and that reason tends to replace "I don't like this" in the discussions, but that doesn't mean the end result is any more objective. In the case of your example, "let's ban scald because I don't like being burned 30% of the time" is just a less elaborate version of "let's ban scald because the fact that it limits counterplay due to the quantity of scald users in the tier being substantial and their normal switch-ins being vulnerable to the burn it may get", since you wouldn't be getting burned 30% of the time if there were more convenient counterplays to prevent it. The burn is what actually differentiates it from surf, and it's what people think shouldn't be in the game for their entirely subjective reasons. Then again, you do say that dislike can form the basis of an argument, so I may have misunderstood your point.

Nah, I think you're construing what I'm saying correctly. Really my point is just the fact that you have to have actual justification to back an argument (not just "I don't like it") since a few of the Scald and Baton Pass arguments are, in my opinion, quite lackluster (i.e: someone posting one log/replay and saying "it's broken" among other things) - exploring different facets of the game like moves and RNG related matters bring out arguments that are a bit more complex and a lot of people fail to properly make arguments on these things. I probably didn't answer this question in the way it was intended to be answered, but hope this clears it up a bit more.

I don't disagree that more bans could be the correct course of action, but I see a few issues with this, mainly that it doesn't seem to be a question of balance (since you point out that nothing sticks out) but rather too much variety, and that it's very hard to determine which of the factors you remove. If you end up banning 5 pkmn before you reach a desired metagame, the question of whether these were the right 5 inevitably pops up, and it's not really possible to answer that without an unfeasible amount of testing, so I think this philosophy does not match with our current suspect system.

I understand what you're saying and all, but "too much variety" can easily lead to a metagame being unbalanced if that variety often infringes upon players's ability to consistently counter a significant portion of the metagame. Also, I would like to state that this philosophy entitles suspecting pokemon at an accelerated pace, not necessarily banning. For example, if OU were to suspect a top threat and the suspect ladder, which would be the metagame without the threat being suspected, were to be worse off than the current metagame, then the voters would simply vote do not ban while if the metagame seemed like it was a step in the right direction, then bans would take place. This arguably removes most of the downside of this philosophy although voters aren't always the most informed and logical, so there's always that as a potential pitfall of suspects in general.