Opinion Research on Tiering, Looking Forward to XY

[Chou Toshio]

Approved by Iconic / Haunter.

Hi everyone. Thank you all for participating in the first survey I did. I have created another Survey, this time not just for interesting topics, but to collect data specifically geared towards tiering philosophy, and community sentiment about tiering in the initial phases of XY's OU.

I look forward to the results, and ask again for your time. This survey is longer than the last, so please set aside at least 20 minutes before starting.

Looking Forward to XY

After taking criticisms from respondents as well as my professional mentor in questionnaire design, I believe this second Survey should be more effective.

Thank you again for your participation.

--Chou

 

[Nysyr]

Just a thought, fewer things on one page would help, as many things on one page might scare some people away.

I'll slug thru it tho.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

That was a long survey to be honest!

I would've liked there to be an option for a neutral answer for everything though, because I only visit parts of this site. The ability to explain why you have given a certain answer would've been helpful, but it was a fairly broad and useful survey, though some answers were fairly obvious..

 

[Tassa]

For neutral answers, I guess you could just not check : I completed the survey without checking any answer on some lines. I hope it'll be considered as a "neutral" answer.

Also, "Genosect". :(

 

[Soul Fly]

For neutral answers, I guess you could just not check : I completed the survey without checking any answer on some lines. I hope it'll be considered as a "neutral" answer.

Also, "Genosect". :(

Way to waste a survey slot

 

[Drako]

welp. that was long. good survey though. nice job Chou!

 

[G-Von]

I wish there was a back button because I want to change one of my answers =[

 

[Tassa]

Way to waste a survey slot

"on some lines". I won't give my opinion about something I even don't knew about, when it's asking about some specific site for instance.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Uh i accidentaly typed female instead of male at the end then i tried to return to the previous page and i basically fucked up everything. Is it possible to start all over again?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

some of this was a bit awkward for me, specifically questions about official Nintendo formats as I really know nothing about them

also the questions on precisely the meta should reflect the cartridge mechanics were a bit odd, in the future I think you should just have a sliding scale from 1-10

outside of that, a solid survey IMO, I liked the part about the thoughts on the initial ban list

 

[MikeDawg]

I thought the cartridge ones were very interesting... I had never thought to consider such a thing until now.

 

[Gary]

Once again, great survey Chou. Like ScarfWynaut said, I too enjoyed the initial banlist question. It got me thinking if creating an initial banlist for things like the box legendaries and anything over a certain BST is really a fair trial. I for one, would be very interested to try out an OU metagame without an initial banlist (maybe except certain Arceus forms). It sure would be a fuck fest, but an interesting concept that I don't think we should be too afraid to try out. I think everything deserves a free suspect test, or at least a test run in the tier for a week or two before we insta-ban it, like UU did with Chansey.

 

[Houndoomsday]

a neutral option would have been nice but overall i thought it was a solid survey

really liked some of the questions based on real examples, it gave some meat to the survey

(The results are completely confidential to the surveyor. There are no consequences for reporting an age under forum regulation) made me laugh, this must be smogons attempt to weed out the young'uns.

 

[MikeDawg]

I think the issue with no banlist lies in it basically diminishing the ou tier altogether. Not too much will be "broken" per se just like how not too much is "broken" in ubers, it's simply another tier.

If you drop ou into uu, is anything overpowered? Maybe keldeo, but that's it.

The tier then just becomes essentially ou again, and uu ceases to exist.

And hell, if people complain about suspect tests now being a waste of time, how would they feel having to test a couple dozen mons?

 

[Spinda]

No option for kyurem-b being banned at the beginning of XY made me cry.

 

[Oddish is the best]

I think Instabanning the Box legendaries and testing pokemon with a 600 bst or higher that were OU or Uber this gen should be tested (Except Metagross and Hydre). I think the testing should be fast as well like just have something tested for a week or so or if it is OP just instaban it.

 

[Gary]

I think the issue with no banlist lies in it basically diminishing the ou tier altogether. Not too much will be "broken" per se just like how not too much is "broken" in ubers, it's simply another tier.

If you drop ou into uu, is anything overpowered? Maybe keldeo, but that's it.

The tier then just becomes essentially ou again, and uu ceases to exist.

And hell, if people complain about suspect tests now being a waste of time, how would they feel having to test a couple dozen mons?

I guess it all depends on your view of a balanced OU tier. If there wasn't a banlist at the very beginning, OU would feel like Ubers. Technically, with Ubers being a decently balanced metagame on its own, with all these broken threats running around in OU, it would be harder to judge exactly what is and isn't broken. For example, people argue that Kyurem-B is a bit too overwhelming for OU right now, but if we were to unban every Uber Pokemon right now, Cube would seem a lot less of a problem because of all of the other broken Pokemon to check/counter it, thus keeping it from being broken. Kyogre would be outrageously broken if it were to drop to OU right now, but if Palkia, Zekrom, and Groudon were also OU, then Kyogre wouldn't be nearly as broken either.

Of course, OU is meant to be (or tries to be) the ideal balanced metagame, so having a bunch of extremely powerful Uber Pokemon running around in OU would seem to ruin that goal. Still, with every Pokemon in the game being usable in OU to check and counter each other, some would consider that a balanced metagame on its own. It all depends on what your definition of a perfectly balanced OU metagame is; perfectly balanced with Ubers, or perfectly balanced without them?

 

[MikeDawg]

I guess it all depends on your view of a balanced OU tier. If there wasn't a banlist at the very beginning, OU would feel like Ubers. Technically, with Ubers being a decently balanced metagame on its own, with all these broken threats running around in OU, it would be harder to judge exactly what is and isn't broken. For example, people argue that Kyurem-B is a bit too overwhelming for OU, but with all these incredibly powerful Uber Pokemon in OU to check it, it would seem a lot less of a problem, thus keeping it from being broken. Kyogre would be outrageously broken if it were to drop to OU right now, but if Palkia, Zekrom, and Groudon were also OU, then Kyogre wouldn't be nearly as broken either.

Of course, OU is meant to be (or tries to be) the ideal balanced metagame, so having a bunch of extremely powerful Uber Pokemon running around in OU would seem to ruin that goal. Still, with every Pokemon in the game being usable in OU to check and counter each other, some would consider that a balanced metagame on its own. It all depends on what your definition of a perfectly balanced OU metagame is; perfectly balanced with Ubers, or perfectly balanced without them?

That's what I just said...and then refuted.

If you have no banlist at the beginning of OU, then it isn't OU, it's Ubers.

Nothing is really broken because it's Ubers, just not technically.

So then we basically lost what is considered the standard tier. Oops.

Testing manaphy/deoxys/etc. is reasonable. Throwing the whole uber tier into it? Stupidest idea I have ever heard concerning tiering.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Ok so i finished it despite that issue and i must say that i do agree with mikedawg. Testing every single uber would make no sense. You have all the best and most overpowered mons in the same tier checking each other, basically broken shit checking broken shit which is exactly what uber and not ou is supposed to be. What i think about a ideal metagame is one where no pokemon is overpowered or overcentralizing and where theres a high amoung of diversity. Having stuff like kyogre or arceus in the tier would obviously go against it. Tbh the only uber i feel are deserving having another suspect are the genies, blaziken, excadrill, deoxys, deoxys-s, deoxys-d and genesect. I truly dont see the point of suspecting base 670+, darkrai, manaphy, shaymin-s and deoxys-a.

 

[Chou Toshio]

The issue is how you perceive the concept of "OU". If you define OU as "the strongest balanced metagame", than you might think it necessary to test everything. Other-wise, you are believing yourself to be making an educated decision to av

If you define OU as "the metagame where I want balance with strong pokes that are not 650+ BST monsters" than you don't even think to consider an initial empty ban list.

In DPP, people initially conceived of UU as a metagame that was "based around Pokemon like Steelix, Vileplume, and Swellow. It's not a place I want to see Pokemon like Milotic, Arcanine, and Chansey"-- but this got challenged by players who thought that was arbitrary (basing UU around ADV's expectations of UU), and instead pushed UU to be defined as "the strongest balanced tier without OU or Uber Pokemon." BL shrank significantly, and an entirely new metagame based around threats that would have been BL+ in ADV was made. The rest is history-- I don't think the players with the ADV mindset who made the initial DPP UU would believe there would come a day where Raikou, Flygon, Swampert, and Mew were UU. lol

 

[superstar]

Ok so i finished it despite that issue and i must say that i do agree with mikedawg. Testing every single uber would make no sense. You have all the best and most overpowered mons in the same tier checking each other, basically broken shit checking broken shit which is exactly what uber and not ou is supposed to be. What i think about a ideal metagame is one where no pokemon is overpowered or overcentralizing and where theres a high amoung of diversity. Having stuff like kyogre or arceus in the tier would obviously go against it. Tbh the only uber i feel are deserving having another suspect are the genies, blaziken, excadrill, deoxys, deoxys-s, deoxys-d and genesect. I truly dont see the point of suspecting base 670+, darkrai, manaphy, shaymin-s and deoxys-a.

Manaphy? That thing almost certainly wouldn't be broken if it turns out Rain is nerfed in XY somehow. Or what if Flinch or Sleep mechanics or Dark Void's accuracy change, thus nerfing Darkrai and/or Shaymin-S. Or what if the power creep continues, and Lugia's defenses aren't up to snuff anymore? Early BW was shitty with Deoxys-A and Darkrai running around, but everyone was surprised that Mew and Wobbuffett were sub-par. Who knows what current Ubers won't be up to snuff in future generations?

 

[Gary]

The issue is how you perceive the concept of "OU". If you define OU as "the strongest balanced metagame", than you might think it necessary to test everything. If you define OU as "the metagame where I want balance with strong pokes that are not 650+ BST monsters" than you don't even think to consider an initial empty ban list.

In DPP, people initially conceived of UU as a metagame that was "based around Pokemon like Steelix, Vileplume, and Swellow. It's not a place I want to see Pokemon like Milotic, Arcanine, and Chansey"-- but this got challenged by players who thought that was arbitrary (basing UU around ADV's expectations of UU), and instead pushed UU to be defined as "the strongest balanced tier without OU or Uber Pokemon." BL shrank significantly, and an entirely new metagame based around threats that would have been BL+ in ADV was made. The rest is history-- I don't think the players with the ADV mindset who made the initial DPP UU would believe there would come a day where Raikou, Flygon, Swampert, and Mew were UU. lol

It really makes you wonder if OU will progressively become more and more like the Ubers metagame itself in the next few generations. Who would have thought that OU would ever suspect and drop a Pokemon like Kyurem-B? Makes you wonder if any other current Uber Pokemon will find its home in OU in Gen 6.

 

[MikeDawg]

The issue is how you perceive the concept of "OU". Do you define OU as "the strongest balanced metagame", than you might think it necessary to test everything. If you define OU as "the metagame where I want balance with strong pokes that are not 650+ BST monsters" than you don't even think to consider an initial empty ban list.

In DPP, people initially conceived of UU as a metagame that was "based around Pokemon like Steelix, Vileplume, and Swellow. It's not a place I want to see Pokemon like Milotic, Arcanine, and Chansey"-- but this got challenged by players who thought that was arbitrary (basing UU around ADV's expectations of UU), and instead pushed UU to be defined as "the strongest balanced tier without OU or Uber Pokemon." BL shrank significantly, and an entirely new metagame based around threats that would have been BL+ in ADV was made. The rest is history-- I don't think the players with the ADV mindset who made the initial DPP UU would believe there would come a day where Raikou, Flygon, Swampert, and Mew were UU. lol

I don't think that perception is relevant in this case though, Chou. Otherwise it can be argued that tiers in general are redundant as they are trying to rectify different-looking metagames. My point wasn't that OU /should/ be based around threats like Terrakion and Ferrothorn rather than Arceus and Giratina, it is that dropping Uber mons in such a fashion diminishes the idea of tiers themselves by essentially doing away with the most popular.

If Ubers drop to OU, lest OUs drop to UU, UU to RU, etc., we are combinin the uber and ou tiers (which really means there will only be an uber tier as ou mons are already technically usable in ubers). If we do this, why not combine ou and uu? Or ru and nu? Or just combine them all into a single tier?

Well, the answer is obvious: the purpose of the tiers themselves which is to allow the viability of a variety of mons, not just those top OU ones (or Uber, if they are included in the mega-tier). Getting rid of a tier by fusing two of them is the definition of counterintuitive to this prospect and, thus, ridiculous unless Smogon really wants to deal with a large scale downward shift, as well as the establishment of PU out of neccesity due to the now incredibly bloated nu tier.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

''If''. ''If'' is the keyword. Im working on a realistic scenario. History shows that gamefreak is definitely not in the way of nerfing weather. At first we only had those 5 turns moves, then we had perma weather inducers, then we got extension-turns items for the moves and now we have even more weather inducers than before. Same with sleep and flinch both of which have been gotten worse with each gen. If they indeed nerf those then great, we can give these mons a chance, but in a realistic view where stuff stay the same or they get even worse than before they do not deverse another test.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Mike, I think you're missing the point. There is nothing that inherently makes any Pokemon Uber, OU, UU, etc. It's not like GF labels them-- we sort them. There's nothing inherently Uber about Mewtwo unless we define it as such. That's where the issue comes from-- where should the ban list start? Isn't it arbitrary to ban all these pokes that could potentially form a balanced meta?


To me though, the philosophical parallel between Ubers/OU and DPP BL/UU has its major problems. Unlike the initial ADV-based BL and UU mons, there is a HUGE sheer statistical divide in power between most Uber and OU Pokemon.

Between the BL/UU Pokes of DPP, there was only an organic, gradual range of BST and overall power. You could really draw the line anywhere-- there is no clear definable divide.

Between BW Uber and OU Pokemon though, Pokemon like Arceus, Kyogre, and other cover legendaries make a huge jump-- an obvious divide in raw stats that is not anywhere near as arbitrary or ignorable. Philosophically, it's much easier to justify an initial total unban-- but pragmatically, that doesn't make obvious sense.