Having a weather and non-weather OU

[Matthew]

While this is a radical idea at first, having two separate metagames (weather and non-weather) could actually be a route for Smogon as a whole to take with 5th Gen. Basically what we have right now is this:
People who love weather wars, love the current metagame, it's just awesome.
and:
People who think the metagame is trash, think weather wars are dumb, weather needs to go.

Obviously, at this point, it's impossible to please both parties with one single OU metagame. However if we decided to split OU into two different categories we can see the long-term effects of a metagame without weather (yes this includes hail!) and people can pick whichever one appeals to them most. Obviously it would be best to not make this anything other than non-weather OU, meaning that non-weather UU wouldn't be brought into existence, however it could prove insight into the game which we wouldn't get to see for a long time, if not forever, with the current suspect process.

The way the non-weather OU meta would work is we would originally start with the current OU banlist -- there would be a voting process where people can balance the metagame if there is an over-powering threat. However I think it'd be good for people to vote to also bring down pokemon they see as no longer Uber. For example people could vote to bring down Blaziken if they feel that it is no longer broken without the sun shining.

EDIT:

I'd also feel better with complex bans in the non-weather metagame. For example Ninetales and Politoed aren't banned when they aren't carrying Drought and Drizzle respectively. Unfortunately that means we can't have Hippo, Tyranitar, or Abomansnow until their DW abilities are released. This means either we just unban them when they're released, or we just ban Ninetales and Politoed with them. I'm for either option.

DOUBLE EDIT:

I mean permanent weather abilities, not moves like rain dance and sunny day by the way

[Mr.E]

I advocate it so long as joke users advocate banning Garchomp without considering the fact that Sand Veil is completely useless without the enabler known as Sand Stream. ~_~

[Colonel M]

Just so it's clear: it's on banning permanent weather; not weather in general.

I'm actually curious about this. With Swift Swim kicked out of Drizzle's arsenal, it's been a little more comfortable to handle, and I don't think complex bans are that bad (in fact... I wish it was practiced a little more). Still, I think this can lead to something that has a solution for both sides. Each side can have their cake and eat it. Pity that one side will have Tyranitar banned for now though. :(

[undisputed]

The only issue is that one will probably become the "main" one based on where the best players spend the most time. It could also be seen as a move to bypass the voting system (if we chose weather as the main one) and there would be a lot of whining. For the record, I want a weatherless meta but I think there are a lot of issues that could arise.

[capefeather]

I think that having a non-weather ladder as a sort of "suspect ladder", like how the Salamence test was done, could be warranted. We could make this idea possible to bring up in the nomination thread, then (if there's enough support) have our *struggles to continue* informed, high-rated voting pool vote on whether to do it. Just a Politoed test might be "safer", though.

[Matthew]

Originally Posted by Fat undisputed

The only issue is that one will probably become the "main" one based on where the best players spend the most time. It could also be seen as a move to bypass the voting system (if we chose weather as the main one) and there would be a lot of whining. For the record, I want a weatherless meta but I think there are a lot of issues that could arise.

I thought about this for a bit actually, and, yeah, it could be seen as a way to bypass the suspect voting (if non-weather became the dominant game), but honestly I think that both metagames have their advantages and disadvantages. Tyranitar can't be used in the foreseeable future in the non-weather metagame, and Tyranitar is a very, very important pokemon who functions as a useful check against Lati@s and a fantastic lead.

It's like how some people switch to UU right as it comes into existences, they just don't like OU they want something different. And either way with the two different suspect process for weather and non-weather the people that like weather can stay and shape the metagame how they see fit while the non-weather do the exact same with their meta.

And there is a reason why I posted this! I wanted everyone's input because of course I think it's a brilliant idea, but I wanted too see how everyone else would react.

Originally Posted by Fat capefeather

I think that having a non-weather ladder as a sort of "suspect ladder", like how the Salamence test was done, could be warranted. We could make this idea possible to bring up in the nomination thread, then (if there's enough support) have our *struggles to continue* informed, high-rated voting pool vote on whether to do it. Just a Politoed test might be "safer", though.

I don't see the use of only removing one weather, it should be all or nothing, otherwise we know exactly what will happen! Another weather will take its place, sure, non-weather teams might see slightly more use, but I just don't see the point of one :c

[ENZ0]

Before I move I want to point out I stand in the middle of the two players in the OP. This is a cool idea, but I think banning every weather is a bit overboard (this why I'm in the middle). In my opinion, Drizzle is broken in the standard metagame, and unfortunately a simple ban would have made things easier over the complex ban. Nonetheless, the complex ban was a step in the right direction because it showed us that even with Swift Swim out of the picture it is still broken. On the other hand, Sand Stream leads to a more balanced metagame, and shouldn't be banned because its secondary effects aren't as destructive. We also have to note that it only has a few pokemon that abuse it to the extent of broken, which are the Sand Rush and Sand Force users and Excadrill is probably the only broken one. I would like to speak on behalf of Drought, but it's frowned upon to ban the obvious without testing in this current system. For now this is an unfinished tangent with sense towards the end, b/c my PS3 can't type more

EDIT: And, then there is Snow Warning, which isn't broken at all so leave it alone. Now that I went through all four abilities/weather, I hope you can understand that implementing a weatherless metagame to cater to another audience is unnecessary because the current standard metagame will eventually look nearly weatherless. After the current standard metagame balances out, there will be DW OU for the weather maniacs. I understand that it won't hurt to have this unofficial metagame, but it just seems unnecessary for a temporary conflict between two sides. I believe these two sides will eventually merge into one balanced one that will cater to both sides. I think the implementation of this weatherless metagame is just a temporary relief to the current division in audience. And to be honest, I don't see any huge division in audience. Most of the players I talk to prefer a balanced standard metagame, and as a result always look forward to suspect tests to improve it. These players that whine about not getting rid of weather or of getting rid of weather in its entirety are just trying to avoid suspect tests, and don't have a mature understanding of what suspects tests are. In my opinion, the point of suspect tests is to improve the metagame being tested through continuous trials to achieve a metagame that will be enjoyable for everyone, with enjoyable usually leading a balanced one. One metagame, not two. I'm not trying undermine the idea behind this, just want to point out that I find it extra work for an alternative that might not be worth it in the long run (DONE).

[Tobes]

So long as we aren't using this as criteria for which metagame we'll settle on in the end, I don't oppose this. I realize this isn't a "hey guys can we test a weatherless metagame and then subjectively choose which one we like better" thing, but I'm still leery of it since I didn't like how Salamence's suspect test was handled in 4th gen. Along this line of thought, if we do decide to go with this, keep in mind that we should not undo it and remerge the metagames, because that would result in preferential bias in later suspect rounds a la Salamence Test.

[Mario With Lasers]

What will the point of the non-weather metagame be? Testing? Another option? People getting tired of the main "strategy" in OU?

Does anyone here seriously believe Drought and Sand Stream are problematic? Tyranitar may be the #2 pokémon, but while it's awesome by itself since GSC, I feel its usage is so high because of Politoed, akin to Scizor vs Salamence/Latias in DPPt, at least in the top of the ladder. I am not saying that Drizzle per se is broken (I'd agree on banning Thundurus/Starmie before Drizzle...) but that it has a presence as relevant to the metagame as, say, Latios, which is a pokémon I see as an acceptable OU; this dislike for "weather wars" is more because of their sheer importance and because they're fucking everywhere, more similar to Sand Veil (not Garchomp) than to the aforementioned Latios, where people want to ban it to make things "fresh" or because they're "bored" or "pissed off" with a certain element of the metagame. We didn't set up a SR-less ladder in DPPt, so what makes us believe a weather-less one would be a nice idea now? Besides, one would be Standard and the other would have a shitload less players, so in the end the metagames wouldn't be on par with testing...

Originally Posted by Fat Gen. Empoleon

I don't see the use of only removing one weather, it should be all or nothing, otherwise we know exactly what will happen! Another weather will take its place, sure, non-weather teams might see slightly more use, but I just don't see the point of one :c

If we ban Drizzle, we fuck up Rain teams (well no shit MwL) and let Excadrill, Garchomp, Volcarona and lol Venusaur feast themselves on every other team, possibly "killing variety" (...or nothing happens and we have a "good" metagame). If we ban broken Rain abusers and let Toed free, we may come to a point where no weather is broken and each one has 1-3 different playstyles, meaning they'd be prevalent as shit, but nothing different of, say, hazards everywhere, all day, every day. If we set up a weather-less metagame, we would... still have a metagame to balance out, and another one also with borderline or clearly broken shit (Latios?) and rounds and rounds of Suspect testing to come which may end up with a lot less players because it may end up not being Standard and we wouldn't have the balls to merge them because, as Tobes has just said, we would have an even more biased voting base than we have today.

As thought-out as it may have been, I see this suggestion, or at least its consequences, more as a "why not" idea than a suggestion to improve the 5th Gen metagame. Having a dominant factor in a metagame isn't something bad, specially when this factor has "variety". The real problem with weather (if there's really a problem) is Drizzle's influence, which will be solved in the future with either a ban on it, or on other broken abusers.


Ehh why do I always write posts after 3 a.m....

[Haunter**]

I have the feeling that this weather-less metagame would end up with a "virtual" metagame played just by a bunch of people, pretty much what happened with the suspect ladder during Gen IV. I think people want to play what is considered the "official OU metagame", so in the end we should still declare what's "standard OU" and what's not. In my opinion this no-weather metagame is just like throwing a sop to all the users who bitch about weather wars\centralization\other random argument.

Honestly I'm really neutral about this proposal but I don't think it would achieve anything other than charging R_D with other work to do.

[Steven Snype]

I agree with ENZ0's points, but I also have another concern that I would like clarified. Since two OU metagames will exist, which one would be used for the Official Tournaments that rely on a single OU metagame, such as ST8, WCOP, and Tour?

[TheFourthChaser]

While I would love a weatherless OU(except Hail actually, that can stay) I don't think we should be splitting the two up. What happens with Official Tournies and Suspect Tests? Whichever one is chosen for these is the one people will play and then the point in having the other one is lost because the amount of players will be small. Even if people think that the current metagame is crap they just have to vote for what they want and hope it works out instead of getting a free ladder or whatever tossed to them.

[Lee]

This is a cool idea, but I think banning every weather is a bit overboard

Does anyone here seriously believe Drought and Sand Stream are problematic?

I think you misunderstand - the way I understand it, Genny isn't proposing a 'clear skies' metagame because he believes weather is broken. If that were the case, he'd be pushing to ban weather in the standard metagame...but he's not. He is proposing it because there are a lot of people who are sick of playing in a weather-dominated metagame and -perhaps- it is our duty to cater to the desires of those people.

I'm totally up for this but I have just a few questions:

- You imply we'll be treating this as an 'official metagame' and running suspect tests etc for it. Do you think we have the manpower / time / interest to do that?

- Will this require it's own forum in DT? As a moderator of that forum, I know all about the confusion and disjointedness that a 'twin-metagame' can pose (yeah, I'm looking at you stupid Dream World). And the subforum list in DT is already a little bloated...so I guess this is related to the first question and to Haunter's concerns, and ultimately is the only truly relevant question:

Will this generate enough interest to justify our support and efforts?

[Matthew]

Originally Posted by Fat Lee

I think you misunderstand - the way I understand it, Genny isn't proposing a 'clear skies' metagame because he believes weather is broken. If that were the case, he'd be pushing to ban weather in the standard metagame...but he's not. He is proposing it because there are a lot of people who are sick of playing in a weather-dominated metagame and -perhaps- it is our duty to cater to the desires of those people.

I'm totally up for this but I have just a few questions:

- You imply we'll be treating this as an 'official metagame' and running suspect tests etc for it. Do you think we have the manpower / time / interest to do that?

- Will this require it's own forum in DT? As a moderator of that forum, I know all about the confusion and disjointedness that a 'twin-metagame' can pose (yeah, I'm looking at you stupid Dream World). And the subforum list in DT is already a little bloated...so I guess this is related to the first question and to Haunter's concerns, and ultimately is the only truly relevant question:

Will this generate enough interest to justify our support and efforts?

I believe that the amount of people that are interested in a non-weather metagame is about equal to those who want a weather-based metagame. Time doesn't really matter, the are running along with the OU metagame, do you think we have enough time for that? I also believe there is interest in it, simply look at the suspect test thread!

And if this ends up as a fruitless endeavor where it's not an active ladder then we can simply just stop this effort. I mean, yes, this is probably a lot more work for those who would be running the suspect test and Rising_Dusk who would implement the ladder, though if this is a big deal I would feel bad.

Personally I think that weather wars are fun! But I feel at this way either one way or another the two different groups will never be happy. I guess I'm a people-pleaser

[franky]

I'm fine with this only if the weather metagame remains as the standard metagame.

[doomvendingmachine]

I dislike the entire idea of this. This is tuning from "what is broken" to "which ever meta people prefer". If weather is broken ban it. If it's not keep it OU. This feels more like avoiding a tough decision to appease both parties.

[FlareBlitz]

Originally Posted by Fat doomvendingmachine

I dislike the entire idea of this. This is tuning from "what is broken" to "which ever meta people prefer". If weather is broken ban it. If it's not keep it OU. This feels more like avoiding a tough decision to appease both parties.

I might be mistaken, but isn't the entire point of deciding "what is broken" to ultimately create a metagame "which people prefer"? We do not ban imbalanced elements because of an ecclesiastical obligation to Holy Arceus, we do so in order to create a metagame that is as diverse and strategic (and therefore, if you'll excuse the slight logical leap, as fun) as possible.

Note that the previous paragraph should not be taken as support for banning permanent weather on the grounds of the metagame being less fun. Rather, my argument is that given the seemingly large schism among users with respect to their preferred metagame, having two separate metagames to cater to both sides seems like a good idea.

As an added benefit, we would be able to test the metagames in parallel, which might result in more meaningful conclusions with respect to weather auto-weather is truly imbalanced enough to be banned in general - what better way to determine the impact of a suspect element than to play in a metagame with it and in a metagame without it?

As to the structure, I believe treating it like a Suspect ladder would be the best way to go (similar to the Salamence-free ladder from last time). To be consistent, we should ban all auto-weather, even if some forms are not deemed as broken (thinking of hail here). To encourage people to try the metagame, it might be a good idea to implement a system wherein ratings from both ladders are taken into account when dealing with suspect voting for any auto-weather vote.

I can see the merit behind arguments against this proposal; I can see how someone would view this as splitting the user base for what seems to be a somewhat frivolous reason. However, given both the prominence of auto-weather this generation and how controversial it is, I believe we should at least temporarily create a non-autoweather ladder.

[Chou Toshio]

Flareblitz is completely on the ball about tiering being based on selecting preference, but...

Originally Posted by Fat Haunter

I have the feeling that this weather-less metagame would end up with a "virtual" metagame played just by a bunch of people, pretty much what happened with the suspect ladder during Gen IV. I think people want to play what is considered the "official OU metagame", so in the end we should still declare what's "standard OU" and what's not. In my opinion this no-weather metagame is just like throwing a sop to all the users who bitch about weather wars\centralization\other random argument.

Honestly I'm really neutral about this proposal but I don't think it would achieve anything other than charging R_D with other work to do.

Pretty much my thoughts.

The only real reason why people are so passionate about the OU ruleset to begin with is because it is THE ruleset. I don't think a separate ladder will "satisfy" the players who hate weather, and again--more work on R_D :/

[capefeather]

I agree with FlareBlitz (hell, I suggested the same thing a few posts ago), but I don't agree that we need to ban all weather in the "suspect" metagame for the sake of consistency. To me, it would be like banning Dragonite along with Salamence in Salamence's suspect ladder. i.e. I really don't understand what "consistency" banning hail along with everything else is trying to maintain meaningfully.

[Matthew]

I don't agree that a metagame without weather should have an effect on a metagame with weather. It's preference at that point, and I'd rather that the game be shaped by what's healthy for it over what isn't healthy. When I look at the suspect thread I see people who just don't think rain is broken, capefeather, I see people who say sand and to a lesser case, sun too. Of course this isn't fair to hail, the black sheep of the whole permanent weather fiasco, but a removal of it all would be the best.

But back to the voting. In the fifth gen meta weather can be seen as a good or bad thing. Each side has good arguments, each side wants it to stay or go. In either case it will most likely shape a good and playable metagame. Personally I feel that how this gen has gone thus far and how pokemon has changed as a whole the notions of ou is somewhat dated. Ban lists and the under tier are fantastic things, but with the amount of pokemon, abilities (broken or not), and moves has increased to a point where there are different, equally good metagames that can exist outside that.

To another point that was brought up I'd agree that having weather ou remain whatever we call the standard -- it wouldn't really keep people from playing this new game, like uu, it's something that intrigues specific types of people.

[jrrrrrrr]

Originally Posted by Fat Gen. Empoleon

I don't agree that a metagame without weather should have an effect on a metagame with weather. It's preference at that point, and I'd rather that the game be shaped by what's healthy for it over what isn't healthy.

Ban lists and the under tier are fantastic things, but with the amount of pokemon, abilities (broken or not), and moves has increased to a point where there are different, equally good metagames that can exist outside that.

To another point that was brought up I'd agree that having weather ou remain whatever we call the standard -- it wouldn't really keep people from playing this new game, like uu, it's something that intrigues specific types of people.

I'm with you on this 100%. At first I was a bit skeptical but the more I hear people chat about this, the more I personally like the idea.

Two separate ladders, with our "Standard OU" being weather-inclusive sounds like a pretty good route to take. We've already sectioned off OU based on preference already with our Dream World ladder, I don't see why another unofficial ladder would hurt. Especially since we already know there is a significant player base that is interested in a weatherless metagame.

Of course, the banlist for a weatherless metagame would have to be different. Blaziken and Manaphy are the two obvious bans that would have to be reexamined, and even things like Latios that would be near impossible for many teams to beat if it weren't for Tyranitar in Sand would be cast in a different light.

[Mario With Lasers]

Eh, I was going to make another post refuting this idea, but as j7r said, we already have a ladder set up on preference, so I guess I'll only say "non-weather OU" should have Hail allowed; fuck consistency, it's common sense Hail is nearly harmless since ADV (and Sand without Rain and Excadrill is too, but that's another matter).

[PK Gaming]

Yeah I don't see why we can't make a separate ladder like PO does. A weather-less ladder sounds like a lot of fun actually I wouldn't mind trying that out. Like Jrrr and Genny said it wouldn't have any bearing on the main ladder right?

It couldn't hurt.

[Chou Toshio]

From a fundamental standpoint, it's not a bad idea-- I just think that you have to take a step back and look at the issue pragmatically. Going back to Lee's post: do we have the man power?

If you want this to be at all respectable (that is, achieve the goal you want it to), you will need to make it an official, independent metagame. Based on Gen's points:

Basically what we have right now is this:
People who love weather wars, love the current metagame, it's just awesome.
and:
People who think the metagame is trash, think weather wars are dumb, weather needs to go.

There is no point in seeing this as a "suspect" ladder, because the very reason for doing it is to appease two groups. There's no intention of using this second ladder to decide "which metagame should go." We have no intention of eventually getting rid of one. Therefore, it's not a suspect ladder, but a completely different metagame.

It'll need Smogon sanction-- and more importantly, it'll need its own suspect test, suspect process, and ultimately, will result in a completely different ban list. This will put a lot of strain for manpower on a staff that's already kind of spread thin, not to mention divide the community in a more sever way...

Considering the severity of this action (considering the above), I'd say there's no point in doing this if we don't go all the way-- if we do it, it should be a metagame truly free of permanent weather abilities. This means hail has to go too, or the whole point of doing it will be largely lost. We'd have a "hail ladder," which would just be dumb (if you don't think so, you haven't had enough chance to fight hail-- hail would be popular and dominant in a meta with no other permanent weather).

[FlareBlitz]

Originally Posted by Fat Chou Toshio

There is no point in seeing this as a "suspect" ladder, because the very reason for doing it is to appease two groups. There's no intention of using this second ladder to decide "which metagame should go." We have no intention of eventually getting rid of one. Therefore, it's not a suspect ladder, but a completely different metagame.

I don't know if this is entirely true. I am currently envisioning the initial implementation of this ladder as a test of sorts.

Due to the lack of precedent for a tier like this, I think we would need to have a lot of data before we can really commit to making it a new metagame. For example, how many people will be playing it? How many resources would it take to manage to new community? Would it significantly reduce the experience of both ladders due to the split playerbase? Would the existence of the non-weather ladder lead to the banning of auto-weather in Standard? These are all very important considerations; implementing a new metagame fully without an understanding of these factors would be prohibitively risky from a resource standpoint. I absolutely think that we should start off treating this like a suspect test of sorts and, if successful, we may then implement it as a full new metagame.

Originally Posted by Fat Chou Toshio

It'll need Smogon sanction-- and more importantly, it'll need its own suspect test, suspect process, and ultimately, will result in a completely different ban list. This will put a lot of strain for manpower on a staff that's already kind of spread thin, not to mention divide the community in a more sever way...

Agreed. This is one of the reasons why I feel a test-ladder would be the appropriate first step.

Originally Posted by Fat Chou Toshio

Considering the severity of this action (considering the above), I'd say there's no point in doing this if we don't go all the way-- if we do it, it should be a metagame truly free of permanent weather abilities. This means hail has to go too, or the whole point of doing it will be largely lost. We'd have a "hail ladder," which would just be dumb (if you don't think so, you haven't had enough chance to fight hail-- hail would be popular and dominant in a meta with no other permanent weather).

Completely agreed.