Suggestions for OM Improvement

[scpinion]

Hey Guys,

This thread is meant to mimic some of the "New Direction" thread's functionality from the ORAS forums. Essentially, we want a place where people can post with suggestions on how to improve OMs. This community is full of people with creative ideas, so it is silly for us not to solicit your input. That said, just because you provide a suggestion does not mean we'll implement it.

Here's the rules/expectations for posting in this thread:

1) We (the moderation team) will read everything that is posted here, but we will not respond to every suggestion posted. We'll implement things we like or think will help.

2) Sarcastic posts will not be tolerated. This thread is for serious suggestions that you think can improve the community.

3) Do not make suggestions that go above your level of authority.
e.g. don't post about "promote x to mod" or "make <insert meta> a ladder". These are things we put a great deal of thought into and have well-formed opinions/ideas on. If you have a suggestion and you're unsure about whether it violates this rule pm me about it on PS before posting.

4) It is fine to comment on another suggestion to offer feedback, but your post must be substantive! No one-liners. Like a post if you agree with it and don't have anything to add.

Remember, your posts should be suggestions, not demands; and the content of your post should highlight why your suggestion would improve OMs in general, not just a specific sub-community.

 

[QT]

Hey Guys,

This thread is meant to mimic some of the "New Direction" thread's functionality from the ORAS forums. Essentially, we want a place where people can post with suggestions on how to improve OMs. This community is full of people with creative ideas, so it is silly for us not to solicit your input. That said, just because you provide a suggestion does not mean we'll implement it.

Here's the rules/expectations for posting in this thread:

1) We (the moderation team) will read everything that is posted here, but we will not respond to every suggestion posted. We'll implement things we like or think will help.

2) Sarcastic posts will not be tolerated. This thread is for serious suggestions that you think can improve the community.

3) Do not make suggestions that go above your level of authority.
e.g. don't post about "promote x to mod" or "make <insert meta> a ladder". These are things we put a great deal of thought into and have well-formed opinions/ideas on. If you have a suggestion and you're unsure about whether it violates this rule pm me about it on PS before posting.

4) It is fine to comment on another suggestion to offer feedback, but your post must be substantive! No one-liners. Like a post if you agree with it and don't have anything to add.

Remember, your posts should be suggestions, not demands; and the content of your post should highlight why your suggestion would improve OMs in general, not just a specific sub-community.

I'm unsure as to what is required for this, and thus am unsure about how realistic it is, but one thing that would be very nice is to make our permaladder suspects official, such as making them count for the TC badge or the announcements for <Tier> is suspecting <Pokemon> that pop up. I understand that as OM's we aren't "Real" tiers, but I feel as though it would bring in a lot of new faces to the OM community, and would help us explore the metagames a lot more. Getting a bunch of skilled new players to play is rarely a bad thing, and there doesn't seem to be much of a negative side.

One other thing I would hope is that we can get started on analyses earlier. I'm not recommending we begin immediately, but last gen we didn't get anywhere near completed with them, and I think at least part of that was that we didn't get started until ~June 2015.

 

[Laxpras]

Glad to see this come back up. A few things I have thought of (and brought up to those above me) -

1. OM Room Tournaments.
In my opinion, we are kind of bare on tournaments. If I'm recalling correctly we most commonly have ~3 hour intervals between tournaments, and that stretch can often turn into ~5-7 hour intervals. Other rooms that I occasionally participate in, such as UU and Mono, have tournaments essentially one after the other, seemingly like half hour breaks. I'm not suggesting we go to that rate, as we simply do not have the userbase in the OM Room for that amount of tournaments. That said, I believe tournaments are beneficial as they do promote playing a meta, and promote discussion of a meta. If we have an AAA tournament, for example, and somebody wins it by just spamming Pheromosa, the chat can start talking about Pheromosa's right to be allowed in AAA. Alternatively, if someone checks Pheromosa with Regen Doublade, discussion can start about how Doublade is even more viable this gen. I play AAA so that's why I talked about it, but this is even more important for OMs like Sketchmons, which seem to have never even got off the ground in this generation.

2. OM Teambuilding Guides
Something I have previously brought up to TI (less enthused) and Scpinion (more enthused) is teambuilding guides for each OM. This would take the "Team options" idea of a mon's analysis, and make it significantly more comprehensive. Each guide would give an overview of what the meta is, and how it generally plays out. It would provide details of the most common threats in the meta, what they do, how they do it, why its effective, and then give the typical analysis of how it can be checked and what teammates work well with it. The guide would provide a "checklist" of sorts of building a team. For example, if I made an AAA guide for Gen 6 I would include things like: GW Check, Hazard Support, -Ate Check, Latios check, stallbreaker, Manaphy Check, CuneLax check etc etc. For each check, examples would be given of options players can use. Ideally, people who play different playstyles in the given meta would all contribute so people could learn balance, ho, stall, and whatever else the meta offers. In my opinion this should all be held in a mega-thread similar to the sample teams thread, but TI suggested that each meta just have a post on their own thread. If it was a mega thread I'd be willing to manage it, or someone with more authority than I could do it (I think Lcass was interested). I really think a guide such as this could help players get involved with a meta to help it grow. Again, this isn't as important for AAA, as it's a straightforward meta. For more complicated metas like BH and MnM, however, I think this would be really beneficial. Ideally the leader of each OM could get this going.

3. More Smogon Tournaments.
I know OMGS will be fairly soon so this isn't super relevant, but since OMPL ended we didn't really have any legitimate tournaments which is dissapointing because they're a lot of fun and commonly bring in players that generally do not play OMs. In the off-season of OMGS/OMPL I would like to see more tournaments, either for specific metas like Flint is doing or more creative multi-meta tournaments.

 

[Funbot28]

Yeh going off on the analyses part, we should really implement all OM analyses on the official dex site instead of having a separate page for them as it can create less confusion on finding the analyses when they should all be placed in the same section. I also agree with the notion that OM suspects (ie: with suspect ladders) should become more mandatory instead as seen as just of a formality, as it is the best method to gather both community and council input (it will also give players more incentive to participate if TC was involved). I also feel that we should advertise OM"s more frequently, like maybe by holding a smogcast and posting on Smogon Youtube or something, to help garner more OM players for gen 7. I wouldn't mind organizing it if necessary.

Also OM Discord when....

 

[Jajoken]

Good to see a thread like this.

I'd like to bring up the VIP thread from the old thread. I'd love to see a new iteration of it, maybe with some changes. Honestly, I think it was a great idea that encouraged better contributions to the forum, but it had some serious shortfalls. Namely, badged users like myself really had no reason to participate in the system for anything but the good of the forum, because all of the rewards were either rather low key (impatient users could bump up their OM submission in priority) or something that comes with a badge (no avitar size limits). That's a relatively limited issue considering not everyone has a badge, but even from a normal user perspective, the rewards capped early and were kind of misleading (I'm not the only user that thought "custom avatar" meant for PS!).

I think it would be cool if the thread was rebooted with higher incentive tiers (idk 10-20 VIP posts?) that would have the long term goal of cultivating future pre-contributors and community contributors in the OM forum (afaik the only community contributor that frequents the forum is nv, who was badged for UU contributions?), as well as the short term goal of promoting small bursts of activity in threads which often suffer from extended dry spells of low activity. As long as you can find someone to run it, having a thread like this would be a net positive for the forum.

 

[The Immortal]

Good start to this thread! We're reading all your suggestions and taking them under consideration.

1. OM Room Tournaments.
In my opinion, we are kind of bare on tournaments. If I'm recalling correctly we most commonly have ~3 hour intervals between tournaments, and that stretch can often turn into ~5-7 hour intervals. Other rooms that I occasionally participate in, such as UU and Mono, have tournaments essentially one after the other, seemingly like half hour breaks. I'm not suggesting we go to that rate, as we simply do not have the userbase in the OM Room for that amount of tournaments. That said, I believe tournaments are beneficial as they do promote playing a meta, and promote discussion of a meta. If we have an AAA tournament, for example, and somebody wins it by just spamming Pheromosa, the chat can start talking about Pheromosa's right to be allowed in AAA. Alternatively, if someone checks Pheromosa with Regen Doublade, discussion can start about how Doublade is even more viable this gen. I play AAA so that's why I talked about it, but this is even more important for OMs like Sketchmons, which seem to have never even got off the ground in this generation.

I will pass the message on to the OM room mods.

I'm unsure as to what is required for this, and thus am unsure about how realistic it is, but one thing that would be very nice is to make our permaladder suspects official, such as making them count for the TC badge or the announcements for <Tier> is suspecting <Pokemon> that pop up. I understand that as OM's we aren't "Real" tiers, but I feel as though it would bring in a lot of new faces to the OM community, and would help us explore the metagames a lot more. Getting a bunch of skilled new players to play is rarely a bad thing, and there doesn't seem to be much of a negative side.

This is out of our hands. The best we can do is making an effort to follow the way standard tiers conduct themselves (including tiering policies!), and the new suspect ladders is certainly a step in that direction. We just have to hope that Smogon senior staff take notice and maybe one day OMs can count as even half a vote.

As for the announcement, I assume you're referring to the Pokemon Showdown news box. If so, I can possibly arrange that!

 

[MZ]

Qualifying for TC is a generally poor idea, ik many people in this thread won't have been able to see it but there's been a lot of discussion about the downsides of this.
Discord even if dead is never a bad idea for more live discussion
On tours, I think the way to go is generally making it easier for random metas to host forum tours at regular intervals. AG just doesn't see a ton of forum activity but it's very easy to see how interest and discussion can pick up when a tour comes around. There's never been a more notable increase in interest/activity/non AG players checking it out when tours were hosted, and making this easier for lots of metas to do, while logistically annoying if you don't want multiple subforum tours going on at the same time, would be great.
Actually was about to post but just had the idea that a worlds longest tour format (u can see this in the circuit tournaments subforum, one for ou and other tiers) would work really well for the om format. I might edit a little more thought into this post once I'm off mobile but basically the same format as te other tiers one but for OMs sounds kinda fun

 

[QT]

3. More Smogon Tournaments.
I know OMGS will be fairly soon so this isn't super relevant, but since OMPL ended we didn't really have any legitimate tournaments which is dissapointing because they're a lot of fun and commonly bring in players that generally do not play OMs. In the off-season of OMGS/OMPL I would like to see more tournaments, either for specific metas like Flint is doing or more creative multi-meta tournaments.

Echoing this: the Crossevo tour has created a ton of hype and interest on rom and main. It's not up to what, say, Mix and Mega has all the time, but considering what it was like before the tour the difference is obvious. Bad Stabmons was very similar, as was the AAA banhappy tour (Altho to a lesser extent). I mean, we can obviously only have so many OM tours at once before they start to lose the effect, but this is still somethign I think we should be looking into.

This is out of our hands. The best we can do is making an effort to follow the way standard tiers conduct themselves (including tiering policies!), and the new suspect ladders is certainly a step in that direction. We just have to hope that Smogon senior staff take notice and maybe one day OMs can count as even half a vote.

As for the announcement, I assume you're referring to the Pokemon Showdown news box. If so, I can possibly arrange that!

Ah, alright.

Yep. That would be really cool to have, just because of how many people see it. I know that for me, seeing that kind of a thing is a good way to get me back into a tier because I'm interested in how it'll change, and while that isn't true for everyone I think it's probably not unique to me.

 

[Swaggy-G]

When looking at the description of an OM on the main site, there should be a list of Pokemon that have analyses written for this tier.

 

[scpinion]

When looking at the description of an OM on the main site, there should be a list of Pokemon that have analyses written for this tier.

Will you link me to exactly what page you're referring to please?

I'll see if there's a way to get it fixed.

 

[Swaggy-G]

Will you link me to exactly what page you're referring to please?

I'll see if there's a way to get it fixed.

I mean pages like this:
http://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/formats/bh/
http://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/formats/almost_any_ability/

And although this isn't really the best place to say this, I think this should go for official tiers too. Is there any general suggestions thread?

 

[baconbagon]

One other thing I would hope is that we can get started on analyses earlier. I'm not recommending we begin immediately, but last gen we didn't get anywhere near completed with them, and I think at least part of that was that we didn't get started until ~June 2015.

Can't say much on phone but dropping in to note that we're ready to start analyses as soon as our subforum goes up. The threads have been written up and we're happy to get analyses written asap - we're just waiting on the forum.

 

[Josh]

OMs qualifying for half a vote would be cool in the future. That said, it isn't feasible right now for the reason that the level of play on ladder simply isn't high enough. Anyone can grab a team from their friend and get reqs on the second try at WORST (90% of competent people can do it on their first try no problem with no prior tier experience). I understand standard ladders aren't pinnacles of skill either, but there's a huge competence difference. If OMs ever wanna count towards TC the overall ladder qualities need to increase substantially. However, if that happens throughout this gen a half vote is definitely reasonable because you are contributing to OM tiering.

ANYWAYS: came here to suggest OM discord. Back during OMGS and OMPL I still actively participated in OMs and my old discord server at the time was an OM hub, moderately active with a lot of the higher level OM community. If you make an OM discord it'll be active. I understand it conflicts with TI as a PS admin because it takes a little bit of activity off showdown and onto discord, but discord is much more accessible and it's another active live setting people can discuss and learn about OMs, and most likely at considerably higher quality than the ps room similar to how IRC worked for official rooms. Every official tier uses discord now and I was a large part of that overall transition because discord is excellent for communities. Ti and Scp, if you want help setting up the server and bots and organizing/advertising the OM discord feel free to contact me, happy to help as well as invite all the OM people I know that use discord. An added bonus is that Eevee General uses discord actively ;)

 

[EV]

Ye I'm happy to help run a discord server. It's a great casual setting to hang out in if you're looking for an alternative to the room.

 

[Imperator Romanum]

Hey,

To teach new players how an OM functions there should be a message broadcasted upon entering an OM battle. The message should briefly explain how the OM functions and link the most relevant threads. To make this less of a nuisance to experienced players it should only broadcasts in battles where either player has less than 1300 ELO. The message might look like this, or more detailed.

Posts detailing how a metagame functions will help inexperienced players who might not even know where to look. Giving them a brief explanation of the metagame will help them take their first step into OMs, and hopefully they be enticed to learn more.

Thank you,
Grains of Salt

 

[Zephyr Dragon Lord]

To spring off of that wonderful idea, we'll need some sort of lobby to help all of those beginners that will come to these fourms. Yes, there is a chatroom for OMs on Showdown, but I feel like part of the player base could be intimidated by that/doesn't even know it exists.

And yes, we also have a Q&A for Other Metagames, too. But that place cannot suit some more complicated needs that beginners can have, nor the sheer traffic that is potentially liable to happen as a result. So I feel that a unifying thread where people can come to talk about getting better in any of the OMs around, without the stigma of looking foolish in one of the more specific threads. Basically, a combination of a RMT thread, a help thread, and just a general thread to clear up confusion all rolled into one.

 

[motherlove]

To spring off of that wonderful idea, we'll need some sort of lobby to help all of those beginners that will come to these fourms. Yes, there is a chatroom for OMs on Showdown, but I feel like part of the player base could be intimidated by that/doesn't even know it exists.

And yes, we also have a Q&A for Other Metagames, too. But that place cannot suit some more complicated needs that beginners can have, nor the sheer traffic that is potentially liable to happen as a result. So I feel that a unifying thread where people can come to talk about getting better in any of the OMs around, without the stigma of looking foolish in one of the more specific threads. Basically, a combination of a RMT thread, a help thread, and just a general thread to clear up confusion all rolled into one.

Eh, idk dude. I don't really see what that achieves that the individual OM threads don't and there's an index thread that helps people find the thread they want / need.
General advice about how to get good at OMs are pretty much general advice on how to get good at pokemon in general.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

 

[Zephyr Dragon Lord]

Eh, idk dude. I don't really see what that achieves that the individual OM threads don't and there's an index thread that helps people find the thread they want / need.
General advice about how to get good at OMs are pretty much general advice on how to get good at pokemon in general.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

I was simply thinking it would be a nice way to lighten some unnecessary clutter in the main threads, and would serve to fill a void that we might have missed. I'm open to any expansion or change to that idea, and I don't really want to be the person running all of that thread, but regardless of the form, I just feel like we need to accommodate beginners a little better on the fourms, that's all.

 

[Funbot28]

Yeh an OM discord would be a great idea. IK TLs don't want to like split up the IRC between two different "sites" but if u think about it, the beauty with a discord server is that we can have separate channels for different meta games which can help organize discussion and be more welcoming to new players seeking for advice or just wanting to discuss these meta games with other players.

 

[Uselesscrab]

2) due to a new rule, we can only have one OM suspect at a time. this new rule was placed so people can actually participate in the suspects. so yes. if speed boost cant be quickbanned, you are estimating around a month waiting time before we can suspect something.

I really think this needs to be reconsidered. I feel like it's addressing an issue, supposed low participation in OM suspects, that didn't really even exist last generation (with the exception of the Hackmons 1v1 suspect, and that required almost unattainable GXE reqs), and in my mind, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We're at the beginning of a generation and are still trying to find our way. Maybe once things have stabilized, then it'll be worth it to do one suspect at a time, but especially with seven ladders at once, this new policy is currently just detrimental to the process of finding a balance in many metagames. How do we determine which suspects get priority? We already have at least three that I'm aware of in line right now (AAA Speed Boost/other stuff?, BH CFZs, 1v1 Z-moves); which gets to go first? Is it really worth it to subject people to another month of a screwed-up metagame just to get several more people to participate.

And this policy is also concerning in other ways. In my mind, it encourages two problematic practices. First of all, it encourages tier leaders to sandwich multiple potentially broken and unrelated suspects into a single test, because who knows when they'll get another chance to suspect things? If the suspects operate in different spheres within the metagame, then this could make it difficult to ascertain their brokenness, especially if one is a potential unban and one is a potential ban. In addition, because of the considerable delay on suspects, leaders are more likely to turn to quickbans. Just look at the STABmons thread to see how that can be a problematic and controversial decision. Quickbans are also a problem if a relatively new leader is in charge of a metagame.

If suspects have sufficiently long windows for getting reqs, and the reqs are reasonably attainable, participation shouldn't be a problem. Right now all this is doing is ensuring that all of the metagames stay screwed up for a longer period of time.

 

[The Immortal]

I really think this needs to be reconsidered. I feel like it's addressing an issue, supposed low participation in OM suspects, that didn't really even exist last generation (with the exception of the Hackmons 1v1 suspect, and that required almost unattainable GXE reqs), and in my mind, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We're at the beginning of a generation and are still trying to find our way. Maybe once things have stabilized, then it'll be worth it to do one suspect at a time, but especially with seven ladders at once, this new policy is currently just detrimental to the process of finding a balance in many metagames. How do we determine which suspects get priority? We already have at least three that I'm aware of in line right now (AAA Speed Boost/other stuff?, BH CFZs, 1v1 Z-moves); which gets to go first? Is it really worth it to subject people to another month of a screwed-up metagame just to get several more people to participate.

And this policy is also problematic in other ways. In my mind, it encourages two problematic practices. First of all, it encourages tier leaders to sandwich multiple potentially broken and unrelated suspects into a single test, because who knows when they'll get another chance to suspect things? If the suspects operate in different spheres within the metagame, then this could make it difficult to ascertain their brokenness, especially if one is a potential unban and one is a potential ban. In addition, because of the considerable delay on suspects, leaders are more likely to turn to quickbans. Just look at the STABmons thread to see how that can be a problematic and controversial decision. Quickbans are also a problem if a relatively new leader is in charge of a metagame.

If suspects have sufficiently long windows for getting reqs, and the reqs are reasonably attainable, participation shouldn't be a problem. Right now all this is doing is ensuring that all of the metagames stay screwed up for a longer period of time.

It's not a "rule". I suggested they don't run suspects simultaneously. I'll quote myself from the convo with all metagame leaders:

You should wait, yes. I mean I'm not forcing you to guys to wait but it is, in my opinion, best to not have multiple OM suspect tests for the reason I mentioned above. For example, someone may only have time to do one so they do BH and AAA gets one less voter. Every potential voter matters because so few people vote compared to standard.

 

[Uselesscrab]

It's not a "rule". I suggested they don't run suspects simultaneously. I'll quote myself from the convo with all metagame leaders:

I'm happy to hear this, but that is a pretty strongly worded suggestion, and as a metagame leader, I certainly wouldn't be inclined to defy a "You should wait, yes" in response to asking if it was okay to start a suspect. And it's clear from what I've seen of Lcass in the AAA thread and Flint on PS that the intention to leave it up to them wasn't apparent. Nonetheless, I appreciate you clarifying.

 

[Xiammes]

I've asked someone before, but maybe a suggestions thread for new OM game modes. I'm not that active on these forums, so I could never really foster a community here, but I would love to pitch a idea and have someone else run with it if they themselves liked it.

I'd keep the posting requirements in the thread itself strict, so you can't just post any idea that comes into your head, it would have to be something you would be proud of submitting. You could also allow for free form discussion so people can help mold idea's, but I fear some idea's would easily get overlooked.

 

[Scarf]

I've asked someone before, but maybe a suggestions thread for new OM game modes. I'm not that active on these forums, so I could never really foster a community here, but I would love to pitch a idea and have someone else run with it if they themselves liked it.

I'd keep the posting requirements in the thread itself strict, so you can't just post any idea that comes into your head, it would have to be something you would be proud of submitting. You could also allow for free form discussion so people can help mold idea's, but I fear some idea's would easily get overlooked.

In the Rules + General Info thread, it says a good place to share OM ideas is in the PS Other Metas chat, as its pretty active and you'll get feedback and suggestions almost instantly. IDK if an entire thread dedicated to this is rly a good idea

 

[Laxpras]

Going back to OM Room tours...
Something that I would personally enjoy a lot is UU OM Tours. Taking this idea off of Monotype, we could look at the usage list for the most popular metas (AG, BH, probably MnM, maybe AAA) and also use subjective knowledge (pokemon x may not have high usage, but it surely is too strong for a UU meta) to craft banlists that remove the best pokemon from a given meta. I think these would be a lot of fun, and are somewhat similar to banhappy tours in that it lets people find out about new threats for a given meta, which is particularly good since there are so many new options with the beginning of a new generation.
I'm not sure how coding would go about, but I know TI Bot recently was fitted with a way for custom banlists for room tours. Ideally, there could be a script that a mod could just type .tour uu bh and a tour would start with a predetermined banlist. I'm not sure how to go about that, but I'm sure Scpinion knows as the monotype room runs uu mono tours consistently.