Jumpman16
np: Michael Jackson - "Mon in the Mirror" (DW mix)
I started this as a reply to my Skymin Suspect thread, but Maniaclyrasist talked to me on Friday about reading my post there about my concerns over possible bias in the Suspect Test process and sharing them, and I told him I'd post a thread about it, so here were are.
First, my original post—AJC had said: "to be honest i still think the voting is full of bias since those who want the last two banned and were able to vote were filled with people who already wanted them gone":
This time issue is a concern because it has proven to work both ways. We needed like 6-7 months for Garchomp to actually become the overcentralizing figure it showed itself to be before it officially became a Suspect, and over three months to see that it was indeed going to stay overcentralizing. It was similar with Deoxys-S, who was merely a good/great pokemon for about 4 months before the Dual Screen set proved that DX-S could both overcentralize and stay overcentralizing for more than just a few weeks. Even Wobbuffet was likely just a "probably uber" before I posted that Tickle Wobbuffet Thread and people like ipl started whoring that to get to #1 on the ladder "easy" (his word, not mine). A longer testing period would make sure that a Suspect actually is overcentralizing and not just the flavor of the literal month, but even though I don't play I really "don't want" to test any Suspect for more than a month because the "lol gen six is out already and we're just on manaphy now" concern is actually valid.
I am going to quote a post from the latest Suspect Test process that underlines what AJC and I are concerned about to a T:
This all says nothing about how flawed "not all people have access to it solely through ingame means" is when you consider both the advent of Wi-fi and the fact that, if we take Wi-fi out of the equation, there are a ton of pokemon that become less accessible. Even Alakazam and Golem would deserve this reasoning's consideration if you want to go as far as the link/wireless issue, since "why should I have to have friends locally who play pokemon to have access to these pokemon? That's not very accessible." (I am aware of the GTS glitch that allows "link evos" to evolve but my point stands.) I would actually rather him have just posted "I have cast my vote for Uber because I met the requirements" and stopped there...and, further, this is why I and others have cause for concern for the people who essentially have done this in the two votes thus far.
Therefore, I ask you all if we should be striving for some happy medium where both Shoddy Battle Ladder performance and a demonstration of "competitive intelligence" are considered when deciding on Suspects. Would it be better if we required a "bold vote" at the end of a Suspect's Suspet Test, and attributed the "correct" weight to "1650+ rating/60- deviation" if 50/50 isn't fair? I ask because at its base, yes, well-thought out reasoning on one side or another of a Suspect proves mainly that you know how to be convincing with the written word (even though referencing valid and pertinent statistics to prove one's point in writing is pretty much impossible to actually oppose or argue with). But at its own base, the rating and deviation requirements on Shoddy prove that one was willing and able to climb their way up the ladder and little more, 5KR being seriously a perfect example of this. By only using rating/deviation as requirements to vote on Suspects, we may be doing ourselves the same disservice we did by relying on bold votes alone to determine the tiering of Suspect pokemon in the future.
First, my original post—AJC had said: "to be honest i still think the voting is full of bias since those who want the last two banned and were able to vote were filled with people who already wanted them gone":
And here is the reply I started in the thread but decided to bring over here (first the quote):i think ajc raises an interesting and valid point. the undeniable fact is that if you have the standard metagame without any suspects, you are going to have the metagame that people most feel comfortable with because there is, by definition, not one pokemon there that everyone largely agrees may be better suited for ubers. so when you throw a suspect in there, there is the expected unbalance, and those of us who don't like our metagame altered will be more up in arms about ths change than those who are more willing and able to adapt, regardless of how uber the suspect is.
the thing is that you would think this is supposed to work both ways, in that if something were really not affecting OU that much, like DX-S before dual screen, and our "test" were removing it from standard so there are no suspects people would play a DX-S (and suspectless) metagame and largely be like "ok, whatever, maybe this meagame is a little easier but DX-S wasn't really gamebreaking so whatever? comparing it to the DX-S metagame (again, no dual screen), this isnt really uber..." and that would be that.
but one, we don't test things that way because we need the actual reagant present in order to see if there is a reaction, and two, DX-S was rare in that there is currently not one suspect that is OU. everything we're testing is uber, and will fall into the same pitfall as wobbuffet in that "hey what the hell did you do to my metagame, this is different, i dont like different, so i'm voting this uber". there just isn't that much passion to whore the ladder to keep things the way they are compared to banning something, as stated. this could all be avoided if we had a great definition of uber in the first place, since we have always tried to separate "different" in the "metagame shift" sense from "uber", but whatever.
we will probably be talking about this very soon in pr or something
This is one of the more acceptable characteristics of being an uber. However herein lies the main issue with the Suspect Test process—literally every Suspect will overcentralize the metagame at least for the first six weeks or so, maybe longer. This is what has the potential to skew perception towards uber from those who are more sensitive to the "what did you do to my metagame??" phenomenon. The Suspect Test process, being one month, is therefore not unlike a tournament where everyone specializes for whatever is special in the tourney, if anything—the Eon Tourney being a good example of this. If the test period were longer, like three months, then "false overcentralization" would revert back to normal, and real overcentralization would all the better indicate that a pokemon is uber, but obviously a test period of three months is "too long" for a few reasons.A pokemon who does one or more of the following to an adequate degree:
- overcentralises the OU metagame single-handlingly (not because of other pokemon - so this discludes pokemon that are only used to counter other pokemon e.g. Magneton in ADV for Skarm, who didn't even overcentralise the metagame (I can't think of an example)).
This time issue is a concern because it has proven to work both ways. We needed like 6-7 months for Garchomp to actually become the overcentralizing figure it showed itself to be before it officially became a Suspect, and over three months to see that it was indeed going to stay overcentralizing. It was similar with Deoxys-S, who was merely a good/great pokemon for about 4 months before the Dual Screen set proved that DX-S could both overcentralize and stay overcentralizing for more than just a few weeks. Even Wobbuffet was likely just a "probably uber" before I posted that Tickle Wobbuffet Thread and people like ipl started whoring that to get to #1 on the ladder "easy" (his word, not mine). A longer testing period would make sure that a Suspect actually is overcentralizing and not just the flavor of the literal month, but even though I don't play I really "don't want" to test any Suspect for more than a month because the "lol gen six is out already and we're just on manaphy now" concern is actually valid.
I am going to quote a post from the latest Suspect Test process that underlines what AJC and I are concerned about to a T:
This post made me "mad" enough to discuss it amongst insidescoopers on IRC. Sure, it's just one vote, but this is honestly some of the worst reasoning imaginable. Same as all the other forms? He would therefore vote Shaymin-L as an uber if SKymin gets voted uber, without any regard to how Shay-L fares in actual competitive battle. The last point is even worse because he conveniently stops at Mew and Darkrai and ignores the fact that Celebi similarly had just a few events for it but we allow it, and likewise for the uber birds, needing a Mystic Ticket from some obscure Nintendo event or XD/Colosseum for Lugia/Ho-oh, respectively.I have cast my vote for Uber. I don't know why this thing was ever allowed in OU and why it has remained for so long.
While Deoxys is very versatile with stats that are strong in almost all areas, the main reason I'm casting my vote for Uber is because it is, in my opinion, the same Pokemon as all of the other Deoxys formes (much like Rotom and Shaymin, none of them have a unique Pokedex for a form). Wherever the highest tiered forme falls is where they all fall. Plus it belongs in the same category as Pokemon such as Mew, Darkrai, etc. as an event legendary not meant to be played in anything but absolute open play since not all people have access to it solely through ingame means.
This all says nothing about how flawed "not all people have access to it solely through ingame means" is when you consider both the advent of Wi-fi and the fact that, if we take Wi-fi out of the equation, there are a ton of pokemon that become less accessible. Even Alakazam and Golem would deserve this reasoning's consideration if you want to go as far as the link/wireless issue, since "why should I have to have friends locally who play pokemon to have access to these pokemon? That's not very accessible." (I am aware of the GTS glitch that allows "link evos" to evolve but my point stands.) I would actually rather him have just posted "I have cast my vote for Uber because I met the requirements" and stopped there...and, further, this is why I and others have cause for concern for the people who essentially have done this in the two votes thus far.
Therefore, I ask you all if we should be striving for some happy medium where both Shoddy Battle Ladder performance and a demonstration of "competitive intelligence" are considered when deciding on Suspects. Would it be better if we required a "bold vote" at the end of a Suspect's Suspet Test, and attributed the "correct" weight to "1650+ rating/60- deviation" if 50/50 isn't fair? I ask because at its base, yes, well-thought out reasoning on one side or another of a Suspect proves mainly that you know how to be convincing with the written word (even though referencing valid and pertinent statistics to prove one's point in writing is pretty much impossible to actually oppose or argue with). But at its own base, the rating and deviation requirements on Shoddy prove that one was willing and able to climb their way up the ladder and little more, 5KR being seriously a perfect example of this. By only using rating/deviation as requirements to vote on Suspects, we may be doing ourselves the same disservice we did by relying on bold votes alone to determine the tiering of Suspect pokemon in the future.