All of these testing...will they do a thing?

Jibaku

Who let marco in here????
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
It has come to my attention that the Diamond and Pearl metagame has entered a state of controversy that we went as far as doing a suspect ladder. This is good and all, that you guys are devoting yourselves into taking a step further into discovering the desired metagame that many can agree on. However, this sparked a concern in me.

Pokemon Platinum

Pokemon Platinum, as you all know it, comes out in 28 days from now. What I'm getting at here is that it's a new game, and thus it might introduce factors that might make the testing pointless. I am not saying that we should stop testing entirely, but I think we should wait until Platinum is released for any further testing, because that will be where the new metagame is, and not right now.

I wasn't sure as to whether I should make a thread on this or just post somewhere. After a moment of thought and my constant bothering on Great Sage on this, I decided that this warrants its own topic since it covers a huge part of our current position.
 

Great Sage

Banned deucer.
While it certainly is a possibility that Platinum won't change much, there is already 1 confirmed Pokemon that will at least be considered for OU (Sky Shaymin), and then there's the 5 silhouettes. Additionally, it's been confirmed recently that people can use Battle Points to buy stuff in the new Battle Frontier, which indicates that Pokemon might get new moves. Therefore, I agree that we should seriously reconsider our testing. Note that some of these revelations occurred after the Suspect Ladder was put in place.
 

Hipmonlee

Have a nice day
is a Community Contributoris a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
Whatever is introduced, we need a starting point to work out our new ruleset from. We might as well continue our testing programme, and just adjust it accordingly when platinum comes out.

That plus the suspect test ladder is so much more fun than the standard ladder imo, so I'd be dissapointed to see it gone.

Have a nice day.
 

Aldaron

geriatric
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Good point Jibaku, but I am inclined to agree with Hip here. We aren't exactly running a stringently defined, mathematical model here; I think we can adapt and change our processes accordingly.
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I'd like to think whatever we're doing right now as "experiments" - to figure out what makes what "broken" so we can recognize symptoms without a full test in the future.

So yes, we should just go on with what we're doing, considering in the end the results of our tests will be subjective for the most part (voting). It's not like it's a full blown experiment where an extraneous variable is going to throw the entire thing off.
 
I would not get your hopes up as far as changes made by a third game are concerned. Everyone was hyped up about Metal Sound Zapdos making Regice his only true counter, and about elemental punching Typhlosions causing huge shake-ups, but in the end it hardly did a thing to Advance. I will admit FRLG _was_ a huge shake-up, but that had an impact on far more Pokemon with far more actually viable moves. Pretty much all Pokemon still have access to all moves they had in the previous versions, and those that don't weren't likely to be played or likely to have those moves to begin with - the biggest part of unavailable moves is those not possible due to breeding + event/XD/ish things, and for some reason I doubt this next installment will make such combinations legal.

For the new Pokemon, that is an entire new boat, but I still agree with the majority: just go on and on with what we're doing now, and adjust accordingly when we know whether these Platinum contenders are closer to Magikarp or Rayquaza in relative power.
 

DougJustDoug

Knows the great enthusiasms
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Artistis a Programmeris a Forum Moderatoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Even if Platinum yeilds significant changes, I think the Suspect testing should continue. The suspect ladder has been a massive shot in the arm to the D/P community here on Smogon. It has renewed many members' interest in the metagame, increased the quality of competitive discussion in Stark, and increased Smogon's reputation as a dynamic community. If Platinum further confuses the quality of the Suspect testing (the methodology is convoluted as is), it is still a minor price to pay for the huge benefits of continuing the testing process.

But, this issue SHOULD be put on the radar as an additional complication. When Platinum is released, we should be prepared to make adjustments, if necessary.
 
Really every tier will likely have to be re-evaluated when all the new data from Platinum is finalized. There are just so many moveset changes, a few new pokemon etc. We don't need to let Garchomp back in immediately, but a lot of other threats grew in power with Platinum while Garchomp stayed basically the same.
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I really think we should stop testing, and test everything again, considering Platinum is proving to add quite a number of things to the Metagame.

Although we should start with Deoxys E/Wobbuffet banned but that's just my opinion ^_^

Garchomp just refuses to stay banned IMO!
 
I quite agree with this. All the new moves, pokemon, everything in Platinum completely destroys everything we currently know about D/P.

I think we should start the Platinum Era with Wobb banned, while Deo-E and Garchomp OU.
 
Starting over testing is a must assuming all the Move Tutor Moves exists that appear to be in the game according to the Battle Frontier data. Honestly, with all the new moves, I see it taking about 2-3 months for us to see the full potential of these new moves.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I think we should start the Platinum Era with Wobb banned, while Deo-E and Garchomp OU.
I disagree. We should keep the tier lists as they are when Platinum comes out...with Chomp and Wobb uber and D-S OU (or uber if its voted on before platinum becomes relevant). On top of that, why would we ban Wobbuffet but not Garchomp when they were both decided by the community as being Uber in D/P? That would be completely hypocritical.

The method of testing that we're using (Jabba's suspect stage 1/2/3 method) made it so that the release of a new game and moves would not have an impact on the tier status of the suspects. If Garchomp for whatever reason isn't Uber in Platinum (there won't be one and I'm not sure why anyone would think there is) , we'll find out in stage 2 or 3. This was already thought about.

There is no reason to change the tier list from what we have now just because of Platinum. We adopted this testing system for a reason. It's working.
 
There are more factors that would contribute to Garchomp's downfall due to Platinum's release than would stop Wobbuffet. Wobb still traps and Encores evrything like it had been doing, Grachomp faces both the threat of far morePokemon learning Outrage and that it has far more competieiton in the sweeper department (Salamence,Flygon,even Kingdra.) Garchomp was also a far less overwheliming vote than Wobbuffet.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Garchomp isn't falling anywhere. It is still the only OU pokemon without any counters (except sky form shaymin XD). Even if Salamence gets Outrage, it won't be 2hkoing everything like Garchomp's SD Outrage would, Chomp is still faster and has much better defenses, Salamence still has significantly worse typing and Garchomp still has Sand Veil backing it up. There's also the fact that the Specs set is better. If other things get stronger, that doesn't make Garchomp worse.

We're using the 3-stage method for exactly this reason: in the case that something changes the game, whether it be a new game released or that a new suspect is added into OU, we will be revisiting all of the suspects at the end of the process. Garchomp will be staying uber because thats what its stage1 test concluded. When stage2 (edit- i meant the stage where the Ubers are re-examined) comes around, we will actually be able to make a judgement as to perhaps putting it back.

You guys put faith in this system in the other thread....and nothings changed. Why are people suddenly saying that this could change things even though it doesnt?
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
How can you say nothing's changed with two new Pokemon and a good number of pokemon getting new competitively useful moves?

The point is - we should just restart the process since we didnt get quite far anyway! You don't want to start testing over again simply because people will think that "well if Garchomp would be fine in this metagame"

Stage 2 was for whether or not the "non Uber" suspects make the "uber" pokemon no longer uber. It was not meant for external game changes. Let's not use theorymon to say "it doesnt matter" - but we should assume that "it does matter" and test it accordingly (or assume it doesnt matter and test it anyway!)
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
...or we could just make the new pokemon (im assuming youre talking about sky form shaymin, the only relevant pokemon since rotoms are rotoms and giratinas are giratinas) a suspect from the get-go and put it directly into the suspect line-up to completely eliminate any problems that Platinum could offer...

How would some slight movepool differences change anything? Oh, Salamence gets Outrage now and its still beatable....and Garchomp is still played in exactly the same way relative to any other threat in the game. Salamence didn't get faster. Lucario didn't get an Ice priority move. Garchomp in relation to OU is not going to be affected in anything other than usage, which according to precedent has no bearing on Uber vs OU tier status.

You say that these moves do matter, but you don't give any clues as to why it would matter. Could you please elaborate as to how Seed Bomb Donphan and Knock Off Gengar are going to magically make Garchomp worse? I'm listening. The move tutors aren't going to change how the basic fundamentals of the game work, they just make it so that we have to keep editing our analyses =\.

I think some of you guys missed the whole point of the test. It was to keep a stable metagame at all times, then to have the new ideas stick around on the side. If anything, instead of rearraging everything that this community just spent months on, we should put what is coming at us in the queue. We have a reasonably stable metagame and a system to keep it that way. Let's not take two steps in the wrong direction just after we did something great via a whole community effort. What was the point of laboring through that entire order of operations thread if we are going to abandon it a month later? Why get rid of something that is obviously working and has obvious ways of dealing with the upcoming changes?
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
They don't need to make Garchomp worse. The point is everything else got better. And I don't feel as if I need to give "objective" reasoning to back this up since the Garchomp camp has failed to give solid, objective, reasoning on why Garchomp should be banned for god knows how long people have been complaining about it and the only reason it was banned was because we decided to go with a subjective scheme (aka, voting. Don't even try to tell me it is objective because we voted on it)

I'm actually quite shocked on how you can say "it doesnt matter" before the metagame even began - I'm not sure anyone is qualified to say that considering our current metagame and the metagame predicted before DP is completely different. Sure, Salamence gets Outrage - now people are going find ways to deal with Salamence's Outrage meaning they will also deal with Garchomp's outrage too. You do realize how many of the garchomp argument the presence of this Salamence has the potential to destroy (I say Potential since we haven't seen it in play yet and how people will react to it)

I'm not sure what you're even trying to get at with phrases like a "stable metagame" since no such thing exists in the first place. If you think the Suspect metagame right now will stay the way it is - then you're mistaken.

To be honest you're not really quelling my suspicions that the only reason you are so adamantly against this is because Garchomp will be (temporarily) unbanned. You are saying "new moves wont change a thing" and asking us to prove why it will change it, which is pretty ludicrous since it is more logical to assume that it will change than it will not- and even then, the only "proof" we are going to have is theorymon which is bullshit anyway and we both know that.
 
It also seems to be easier to counter some Garchomp varieties in Platinum. For example. Yache SD Chomp(the best variety IMO) isn't as dominant because one can attempt to counter Garchomp by using Outrage, and thus bypass the Yache.

Now in theory I suppose one could support retesting all the uber Pokemon due to Platinum changes, but I think we can theorymon that many changes won't be significant enough to drop the tier status of some well established ubers. But I feel Garchomp isn't so overpowering that these changes won't make a difference.
 

Hipmonlee

Have a nice day
is a Community Contributoris a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
Theorymon isnt bullshit, I wish people would stop saying that. Everything that happens in pokemon extends from theorymon. There just is a difference between good and bad theorymon.

The fact is now Platinum is out we have to start from somewhere, and where we are now is as good a place as any. We cant just unban everything everytime there is a change in learnsets of a few pokemon.

Also using Outrage as a counter to a Pokemon is a poor idea in my opinion. Not that it has any relevance anyway. To be guaranteed the OHKO against Chomp with Outrage you need 469 attack. Which means you can either use Choice Band (or Life Orb, Expert belt or Draco plate) another Dragon (all of which are slower and ohkoed, and all could already have used Dracometeor- there is a less than 1 in 12 chance Dracometeors accuracy will matter against Chomp in SS), Marowak (who is slower and OHKOed) or Scarf Rampardos.

If you use Choice Band, then you need 312 Attack. The pokemon that can outspeed Chomp and ohko it (every time they hit) with Outrage are: Deoxys-S, Aerodactyl, Weavile, Azelf, Scyther and Scarf Rampardos. No pokemon manages it with Life Orb.

If there is going to be a reason Chomp is no longer uber after Platinum, it isnt going to be the outrage tutor.

Have a nice day.
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Theorymon isnt bullshit, I wish people would stop saying that. Everything that happens in pokemon extends from theorymon. There just is a difference between good and bad theorymon.
Of course Theorymon isn't bullshit.. I mean, it's not like we're unbanning Kyogre or Darkrai here.

EDIT: Okay nevermind I did say that! but I meant that "theorymon alone is never enough"

The biggest complaint that people had against Garchomp is that it can 2hko everything in OU, and such that with Yache Berry - you can almost always "guarantee a kill".

Now with Platinum getting highly offensive, I don't see why the more defensive players will try harder to stop certain Pokemon from sweeping - or be a little bit more offensive themselves. The point is that the new moves give Pokemon new offensive options - we need to give it time before saying "Garchomp is uber" considering everything will be smashing everything else pretty damn hard. The point with Garchomp was that he was always bordering the line between OU and Uber - and with Platinum out, Garchomp is definitely a Pokemon we need to test again.

And yes, I just used theorymon to back up my claims. And Hip - I think you missed my point - the point wasn't that "Outrage users will stop Garchomp" but "things aimed to kill Outrage users might be more used".
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I don't understand how "other pokemon get new moves" translates into "garchomp might not be uber anymore". If there was an Ice Shard tutor then I would buy that, but I think you're putting way too much thought into this. Other pokemon hit harder....so how does that make Garchomp weaker again? You're saying that theorymon is fine to use, but what makes your theorymon more convincing than mine?

And can things aim to kill Outrage users be used any more than they already were? I don't buy the "teams will be more prepared for Outrage" for a second. Every team already has a steel type and a bulky ice beamer. Any team that could beat Garchomp would be more than ready for Outrage Salamence or Venusaur, or even both. What could even be done to prepare more for Outragers than having to deal with the second best one in the game?

Also, doesn't this raise the question of: Why shouldn't we test Wobbuffet again? It went through almost the same process as Garchomp, getting overwhelmingly voted into Uber status in D/P even though it was OU at one point. Would we immediately have to retest Manaphy too? I'm just saying that we have a defined metagame that is having slight changes added to it, the whole point of using Jabba's method of testing. It's working, and it has fail-safes in place already just in case something like this should happen. We shouldn't go backwards here when we've actually been making progress.

Besides, Garchomp is going to be tested again anyways...didn't you guys pay attention in Order of Operations? Read about "Stage 3".
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Wobbuffet doesn't need to be tested because the reason it got banned in the first place has to do with game mechanics rather than "other Pokemon"

I'm pretty sure I already noted how it doesnt matter if Garchomp got weaker - the point is that every Pokemon became more useful. If Garchomp was banned because it was so overpowering, then if every other Pokemon got a little bit more useful, then technically Garchomp should be less overpowering.

Your theorymon isn't more convincing than mine either - other than your assurance that nothing will change - which means that it should be tested anyway considering this is just coming down to "your word" versus "my word" and thus a really stupid circle of arguments that is not going anywhere

Stage 3? you mean the stage where we retest all the Pokemon in the "balanced" metagame? Don't you realize the flaw in this? suppose that Garchomp really ISN'T uber. suppose that, with Garchomp around, Suspect X isn't uber, but with garchomp not around, suspect X uber. This means at Stage 3, something is going to screw up - particularly where suspect X and Garchomp are both declared uber although they wouldn't have broken the metagame if they were together.

yes, a hypothetical situation, but "hey it could happen so we might as well get it perfect so people can't whine about it later" - and we might as well do it since we only tested garchomp for a month anyway.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
We need to start with what we have now. Garchomp was clearly Uber in D/P (75% of a vote is not borderline by any definition), and I don't think that a couple of new moves and a pokemon that is almost certainly uber is going to change any of the basic fundamentals of the game. Garchomp still gets its free SD, it still gets its 2hko while you fail to ohko, nothing got faster, and nothing gained Dragon+Ground+Fire resistance.

I don't see the need to change a tier list we've been working on for a year just because of a few new pokemon when there is a system in place already. Why should we undo everything that weve just spent a really long time on just because a few insignificant moves (in relation to Garchomp, at least)were added to a couple of pokemon?

Seriously, I don't know why you would even say something like "To be honest you're not really quelling my suspicions that the only reason you are so adamantly against this is because Garchomp will be (temporarily) unbanned" because that is childish, incorrect, unnecessary and it is completely missing the point of what I'm trying to say. This is more about the fact that we agreed to the process as a community, we have fail-safes for things like this, and now the second the process actually gets moving we start taking gigantic steps in the wrong direction and removing everything we did. It's just really discouraging.
 

Jumpman16

np: Michael Jackson - "Mon in the Mirror" (DW mix)
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Stage 3? you mean the stage where we retest all the Pokemon in the "balanced" metagame? Don't you realize the flaw in this? suppose that Garchomp really ISN'T uber. suppose that, with Garchomp around, Suspect X isn't uber, but with garchomp not around, suspect X uber. This means at Stage 3, something is going to screw up - particularly where suspect X and Garchomp are both declared uber although they wouldn't have broken the metagame if they were together.
The reason jrrrr is saying that it "doesn't matter" is that, besides the fact that there is almost no logical reason to believe that a suspect that doesn't break the metagame on its own (an "OU" assessment in Stage 2) will break the metagame in Stage 3, that is the entire purpose of Stage 3. "Suspect X" by your hypothesis would have been declared uber in Stage 2. Great. If, in Stage 3, for whatever reason, both Garchomp and Suspect X appear less uber than they did in their Stage 1-2 performances, we will be better able to determine the cause of the issues. Allow me to repaste from page 3 of my Order of Operations thread.

Every suspect that by itself does not prove to break a suspect-less metagame would be tested together in Stage 2, and we would be much more prepared to at least know the cause of the "explosion" jrrrrr is hypothesizing if we threw all suspects in together simply because, if we can assume anything at all, we can assume that at least one of the suspects will be deemed uber in a Stage 1 test.
To be clear, by Stage 2 here I meant Stage 3—the Stage 3 I had yet to invent, let alone define—so replace the two iterations of "Stage 2" with "Stage 3". That said, there is, as jrrrr is saying, no reason to abandon ship and say that we have to start testing things all over again as if Stage 3 wasn't created to exactly address the understandable lack of confidence in the notion that Stage 1 and 2 would be enough. I'll repaste one more thing
from that thread:

Finally, if I were to offer an addendum to Jabba's proposal, it would be a Stage 3 where we add the suspect(s) banned in Stage 1 to the successful, suspect-free metagame we arrive at following the completion of Stage 2. We'd do this just to confirm that this suspect does indeed break the true metagame, where "true" means one without suspects, which we will have determined through the successful completion of Stages 1 and 2. I actually think this is a necessary step, and it address the very valid possibility that, should Garchomp fail Stage 1 but Lati@s pass Stage 2, that Garchomp may indeed not overpower the true metagame which again is one where there are no suspects, which means Lati@s don't break it by themselves so it would stand to reason that they would probably not be more powerful with Garchomp back in the mix.
I'm not going to say the time to second-guess the validity of my Stage 3 and the validity of Jabba's Stage 1-2 has passed, but whatever disagreement you may have with the system we've adopted and agreed on should be confined to the Order of Operations thread. I am extremely aware of the notion that Suspects may perform differently when considered together as opposed to separately. Further, the addition of the new Platinum moves will allow us to see the effect of all the Suspects on the "true metagame" I keep referring to, one that will, of course, have all the actual moves of the game at every pokemon's disposal.

The hard part was, is and will be accurately being able to determine what is actually uber and what is actually OU in the true metagame. But the purpose of Stages 1 and 2 is to determine which Suspects break or do not break the (August 2008) Suspect-free metagame by themselves, so that we will be better able to determine what is actually too strong for the true metagame. This is an important point, and I urge you all to reread both it and the Order of Operations thread (especially page 2 onwards), since this is an understadably groundbreaking and complicated process for everyone so some level of confusion is to be expected.
 
Now that Platinum is in full swing, what are we going to be doing with regards to a Suspect Ladder and possible new suspects?
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top