A New Philosophy on banning

mode.9800 · Jan 10th, 2013, 9:29:03 PM

Hello Smogon, through this post I will lay out my personal belief on the way we as a community look at banning and changing the meta-game. I have one request as you read this and that is to fully read the contents of this post before you pass judgment and to not post a response based solely on the title.

Now with that out of the way let’s get started. How should we as a community approach banning Pokémon and more specifically why is the conventional method flawed? To answer that question we must first comprehend a basic mechanic of the current meta-game. “Why do we ban?” Well, we ban because we have to; sadly we are not Game-Freak and have no power to alter the existing game to fix existant problems, mainly balance issues. Smogon bans certain Pokémon, abilities etc. in order to make the game more fun and competitive (i.e. we cannot change thundurus’s speed or the effect of Moody so we have to “outlaw things”).Taking a look at other competitive games that are designed to be played competitively like Starcraft or League of Legends; when a balance problem is clear within the metagame the developers fix it by nerfing or buffing certain aspects of play. Sadly though, we don’t have that power and have to stick to bans to fix problems. However that doesn’t mean we can’t take the same approach of nerfing overpowered aspects of the meta-game.

And this brings me to my point: We should see a ban as a Nerf to a type play-style or team, and if we were to introduce something back into OU it is to buff a type of team. As of now we classify a pokemon individually as Uber or not and then decide whether it should be banned with the following mindset: “Is this Pokémon broken and therefore should be banned?” The reason I think this is wrong is because no Pokémon operates fully independently and could be successful alone. While that may sound weird as there are plenty of Pokémon that require little support and can sweep a team by themselves, no one plays with just one broken Pokémon and expects to win consistently. As a result no pokemon is, in of itself broken, teams or play styles become broken because of multiple factors with the broken Pokémon as the biggest reason. As a result we should be looking to fix the broken teams or play styles as opposed to the Pokémon

The real reason this matters is because certain situations don’t have a defined singular “broken” thing, the best example being the current rain meta. Seeing the latest suspects as well as the December stats, I honestly think there communal sentiment that rain is somewhat overpowered and people would like to see it brought down. Tornadus T and Keldeo are 2 big weapons that rain has and in theory banning one or both of them would be a way to bring rain down a little. The problem is I doubt either of these Pokémon is broken in their own right, so powerful that they must be banned. As a result we are unable to address the actual problem at hand, the broken rain meta, because there isn’t one single factor. This is where my solution comes in.

How would my approach work? Let’s continue using the current rain meta as an example and say that the play style of rain needs to be nerfed slightly but without totally being destroyed by banning drizzle. By this logic, we should test out a meta-game without either Tornadus T or Keldeo and assess whether or not removing them achieves the desired change without taking out too much from the game. The power of the approach is that it opens up many new possibilities without having to deal with whether a Pokémon is Uber material.

Some of you may ask though, some Pokémon are so powerful in their own right that it doesn’t matter what team they are on they will be still be broken like Deoxys A or Blaziken, how does your method work then? In the end all Pokémon require “some support” even Mewtwo and Arceus wouldn’t be that good if they had to be on a team by themselves so all Pokémon have to exist on a team of some kind. If a specific threat is so powerful it can fit on any team then the nerf may be to offensive teams in general just as an example. The important thing to take away is that I am not advocating the end for banning in Pokémon. All I want is to open a dialog about how we plan to handle complicated imbalances and I see this as one way to change the current mentality.

I'd love to hear some opinions on this and see how people feel about it

Ignismare · Jan 11th, 2013, 8:58:49 AM

I'm a bit new here, so I don't think my opinion is of much value, but... isn't all that you described already a part of the process? It's impossible to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a specific Pokemon without looking for possible synergies and team combinations. That's one of the reasons why Smogon is testing Keldeo and Tornadus right now. It's pretty obvious that without the rain support from Politoed they're not really that menacing. Same with the recent ban of Sand Veil, a pretty old ban of Swift Swim+Drizzle, and many other factors that already have been covered.
Of course, that's not the only thing that happens in the process. There are a couple of Pokemon that really do work well with zero to no support, or working really well with no synergy at all. I am not completely convinced of it, but if you took Arceus, and then drew out five random Pokemon from UU, you would still get a big advantage over any other UU team, no matter how solid it would be. In situations like these, trying to nerf for a team comp instead of an individual Pokemon is making a complex problem from a very simple one. The solution will probably be the same (ban Arceus), but the amount of steps needed to resolve it will be a lot bigger.
You were talking about how LoL and SC are balancing in ways of finding specific team combinations and nerfing/buffing to make them stronger as a whole. I'm not a part of the SC community, so I can't talk much about it, but LoL... RIOT never takes team comps into account when searching for balance issues. They balance champions in comparison to other characters performing similar roles. For example, we had a buff for Miss Fortune a while back, because she didn't stand that much chance against other carries, not because a MF/Sona/Galio/Nocturne/Darius team comp needed a buff, or nor even because a MF/Sona lane was lackluster. Diana was nerfed not because of a specific team comp in which she shined, but because she had a high damage output compared to other AP carries while building same or lower AP values.

Jan 10th, 2013, 9:29:03 PM	#1
mode.9800 Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 35 New York/Washington D.C	A New Philosophy on banning Hello Smogon, through this post I will lay out my personal belief on the way we as a community look at banning and changing the meta-game. I have one request as you read this and that is to fully read the contents of this post before you pass judgment and to not post a response based solely on the title. Now with that out of the way let’s get started. How should we as a community approach banning Pokémon and more specifically why is the conventional method flawed? To answer that question we must first comprehend a basic mechanic of the current meta-game. “Why do we ban?” Well, we ban because we have to; sadly we are not Game-Freak and have no power to alter the existing game to fix existant problems, mainly balance issues. Smogon bans certain Pokémon, abilities etc. in order to make the game more fun and competitive (i.e. we cannot change thundurus’s speed or the effect of Moody so we have to “outlaw things”).Taking a look at other competitive games that are designed to be played competitively like Starcraft or League of Legends; when a balance problem is clear within the metagame the developers fix it by nerfing or buffing certain aspects of play. Sadly though, we don’t have that power and have to stick to bans to fix problems. However that doesn’t mean we can’t take the same approach of nerfing overpowered aspects of the meta-game. And this brings me to my point: We should see a ban as a Nerf to a type play-style or team, and if we were to introduce something back into OU it is to buff a type of team. As of now we classify a pokemon individually as Uber or not and then decide whether it should be banned with the following mindset: “Is this Pokémon broken and therefore should be banned?” The reason I think this is wrong is because no Pokémon operates fully independently and could be successful alone. While that may sound weird as there are plenty of Pokémon that require little support and can sweep a team by themselves, no one plays with just one broken Pokémon and expects to win consistently. As a result no pokemon is, in of itself broken, teams or play styles become broken because of multiple factors with the broken Pokémon as the biggest reason. As a result we should be looking to fix the broken teams or play styles as opposed to the Pokémon The real reason this matters is because certain situations don’t have a defined singular “broken” thing, the best example being the current rain meta. Seeing the latest suspects as well as the December stats, I honestly think there communal sentiment that rain is somewhat overpowered and people would like to see it brought down. Tornadus T and Keldeo are 2 big weapons that rain has and in theory banning one or both of them would be a way to bring rain down a little. The problem is I doubt either of these Pokémon is broken in their own right, so powerful that they must be banned. As a result we are unable to address the actual problem at hand, the broken rain meta, because there isn’t one single factor. This is where my solution comes in. How would my approach work? Let’s continue using the current rain meta as an example and say that the play style of rain needs to be nerfed slightly but without totally being destroyed by banning drizzle. By this logic, we should test out a meta-game without either Tornadus T or Keldeo and assess whether or not removing them achieves the desired change without taking out too much from the game. The power of the approach is that it opens up many new possibilities without having to deal with whether a Pokémon is Uber material. Some of you may ask though, some Pokémon are so powerful in their own right that it doesn’t matter what team they are on they will be still be broken like Deoxys A or Blaziken, how does your method work then? In the end all Pokémon require “some support” even Mewtwo and Arceus wouldn’t be that good if they had to be on a team by themselves so all Pokémon have to exist on a team of some kind. If a specific threat is so powerful it can fit on any team then the nerf may be to offensive teams in general just as an example. The important thing to take away is that I am not advocating the end for banning in Pokémon. All I want is to open a dialog about how we plan to handle complicated imbalances and I see this as one way to change the current mentality. I'd love to hear some opinions on this and see how people feel about it __________________ Prismatic Core Online

Jan 11th, 2013, 8:58:49 AM	#2
Ignismare Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 8	I'm a bit new here, so I don't think my opinion is of much value, but... isn't all that you described already a part of the process? It's impossible to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a specific Pokemon without looking for possible synergies and team combinations. That's one of the reasons why Smogon is testing Keldeo and Tornadus right now. It's pretty obvious that without the rain support from Politoed they're not really that menacing. Same with the recent ban of Sand Veil, a pretty old ban of Swift Swim+Drizzle, and many other factors that already have been covered. Of course, that's not the only thing that happens in the process. There are a couple of Pokemon that really do work well with zero to no support, or working really well with no synergy at all. I am not completely convinced of it, but if you took Arceus, and then drew out five random Pokemon from UU, you would still get a big advantage over any other UU team, no matter how solid it would be. In situations like these, trying to nerf for a team comp instead of an individual Pokemon is making a complex problem from a very simple one. The solution will probably be the same (ban Arceus), but the amount of steps needed to resolve it will be a lot bigger. You were talking about how LoL and SC are balancing in ways of finding specific team combinations and nerfing/buffing to make them stronger as a whole. I'm not a part of the SC community, so I can't talk much about it, but LoL... RIOT never takes team comps into account when searching for balance issues. They balance champions in comparison to other characters performing similar roles. For example, we had a buff for Miss Fortune a while back, because she didn't stand that much chance against other carries, not because a MF/Sona/Galio/Nocturne/Darius team comp needed a buff, or nor even because a MF/Sona lane was lackluster. Diana was nerfed not because of a specific team comp in which she shined, but because she had a high damage output compared to other AP carries while building same or lower AP values.