questioning the process itself

[Chou Toshio]

I'm sure we've all been thinking about it-- so I might as well start the discussion.

The question is an obvious one that's already been appearing in a scattering of tier-related threads, yet has yet to be brought to the focus of discussion (ie. "This isn't the right thread for that"). Basically, it is to question the process itself that we have picked for tiering pokemon, in relation to time.

To put it bluntly, it's been around two years (maybe closer to three?) since we first started talk about tiering-- questioning the placement on both top OU's and lower Ubers, and also serious question about a UU tier based on ADV's tiering-- and we're only now getting to the final stage of tiering for just 1 of the many tested pokemon, even though Gen 5 is scheduled to come out this year!

This is a rather serious issue-- considering that the change of generations will likely make alot of the effort up until now meaningless. Or at the very least, irrelevant to current "competitive pokemon." I think it's safe to say, looking at the transfer between Gen 2->3 and 3->4, that gen 5 will not only achieve complete dominance in popularity over gen 4 (just try getting ADV netbattle matches with anything like the frequency possible on shoddy), but will radically change the metagame, such that current tiering will be completely irrelevant by our current philosophy.

Fundamentally, this is what was at the base of our testing in the first place-- don't make assumptions. It was the stark difference as separate games between gen 3 and 4 that sparked questioning of tiering in the first place.

Even slight changes to the metagame can make for radical changes in a pokemon's popularity and placement (Scizor getting bullet punch, Garchomp users discovering the Yache Berry set). Many players have been questioning the pertinence of old tests just because of the changes Platinum and HG/SS brought (ie. "garchomp STILL OOber when half the pokeymanz now cn Outrage??"). When Gen 5 comes out, I don't think anyone will see all the work until now as having any relevance at all.

Rather, if there was relevance, questioning 4th gen tiering based on 3rd gen assumptions would have been meaningless in the first place.

In other words, it seems that the way we've gone about setting things up really does not make sense from a practical standpoint, which in my opinion trumps any excellence we have created on a logic/philosophical standpoint. After all, it's great to have done things properly based on real reason-- but it has little meaning if things don't work out logistically. I think while we all certainly enjoy thinking about pokemon, we have to recognize that actually playing the game is of greater importance, and giving players the chance to play with rules and tiering they can depend on should take precedence over our personal stigmatism over whether tiering is based on assumption or not.

Essentially, I don't think anyone would question how amazing the effort and thought put into the testing process has been. Everyone should applaud Jumpman and all parties who took on leading roles in working out the logistics and reason behind all the tests, voting, etc. etc. It was a big step forward to make tiering based on community opinion at all, even if we did put lots of controls into how those opinions were tallied. It has been a tremendous effort that I think we as a community should be proud of.

That being said, I seriously question as to whether we should take the same approach to generation 5.

On one hand, I think Obi and die-hard supporters of the "no-assumptions" tiering would love to see it all start as a completely open tier-- play from Ubers with no assumptions, and eventually form a real OU tier based on the data, and then subsequent UU tier and BL ban list in the same fashion as our current tiers.

On the other, I think the vast majority of players would be outraged. My guess is that there is a lot of frustration in the community about the tests being "a pain in the ass," and there will be a lot of anguish if we choose to try to go about testing (and re-testing all the old pokemon) based on the type of process we have enacted in Gen 4 . . .

. . . especially if such a process will eat away years and years without deciding upon tiering, and result in Gen 6 coming out without us having resolved anything!


I made this statement a few times here in PR and in other threads but I will repeat, "Sometimes Logic and Common Sense are not the same things."

We as a community have to figure out where the balance is and make it work, as we have been making it work-- but I personally question as to whether we are getting the desired result or not. In conclusion, I would like to open discussion on a need (or lack of need) to either speed the process drastically or bring old-gen assumptions back into tiering in order to make tiers faster for logistical purposes.

Said concretely, "Who CARES where Latias is tiered in Gen 4 if Gen 4 is gonna end in 4-5 months??"

Edit: Thanks Hip, I edited the post to make it more like a thread lead and less like a response post.

 

[mtr]

An interesting, thought-provoking post...

Even slight changes to the metagame can make for radical changes in a pokemon's popularity and placement (Scizor getting bullet punch, Garchomp users discovering the Yache Berry set). Many players have been questioning the pertinence of old tests just because of the changes Platinum and HG/SS brought (ie. "garchomp STILL OOber when half the pokeymanz now cn Outrage??"). When Gen 5 comes out, I don't think anyone will see all the work until now as having any relevance at all.

I disagree. When Gen 5 comes out and we test Pokemon in there, many players will look back to Gen 4 and probably use some of the arguments from Gen 4 as precedents for what to vote for in Gen 5.

On one hand, I think Obi and die-hard supporters of the "no-assumptions" tiering would love to see it all start as a completely open tier-- play from Ubers with no assumptions, and eventually form a real OU tier based on the data, and then subsequent UU tier and BL ban list in the same fashion as our current tiers.

On the other, I think the vast majority of players would be outraged. My guess is that there is a lot of frustration in the community about the tests being "a pain in the ass," and there will be a lot of anguish if we choose to try to go about testing (and re-testing all the old pokemon) based on the type of process we have enacted in Gen 4 . . .

No assumptions tiering...I abhor the idea, simply because of the possibility that the new OU becomes Ubers-lite rather than a true OU, and because as you said, tests can take a long time.

Let's take a hypothetical situation from Gen 4. I mean, sure it's obvious that Darkrai in OU is broken. But what if Darkrai isn't broken in a tier with Manaphy, Ho-oh, Latios, and all the rest of the crappy Ubers? The end result we get isn't OU, it's Ubers lite, and that's not the metagame we should be trying to create.

 

[Aeolus]

I agree with the OP 100%.

While I think the current process is theoretically sound and yields generally good results, it just takes too long. When the fifth generation comes out, I will push for an entirely overhauled system.

In the past, whoever set the rules for the Smogon Tour set the tier list. That system worked with great facility, but it completely excluded the players who were closest to the game since it was just an autocratic decision. I don't think we need to go back to that, but I am willing to say that this works a lot better than what we've been doing for the past 2 years.

We've now gone to the opposite end of the spectrum and have a completely democratic process that has become so bureaucratic and time intensive that it has started to crush people like Jumpman, me, and consistent tiering contributors under its weight.

I think we need a happy medium... something somewhere in between. I want a few players who are close to the game making the choices... but I don't mind if they are asked to make choices on a bit of "theorymon" or rational assumption that does not require months of testing.

I've brought up this idea in #stark in the past and I believe I referred to it as a "council" consisting of 9 well respected, highly regarded, and active players. I never went into the specifics of it... but there would be a mechanism for appointing (probably done by Jumpman and Myself) the 9 and letting them simply decide. I know there are plenty of people who will have their democratic sensibilities completely offended by this, but at some point, pragmatism is paramount.

I'd like to see if anyone else has workable proposals, because, while I think we have learned an awful lot going through the process over the past 2 years... I don't think it is feasible, responsible, or even desirable to ask people to keep it up for the next generation.

 

[RBG]

I would just like to say that it would be nice to properly tier Gen 4 since it will likely be played in simulators and tours and Official Smogon Events, so stopping in the middle would be pointless imo.

Edit @ Aeolus: Understood, I was just answering "Who CARES where Latias is tiered in Gen 4 if Gen 4 is gonna end in 4-5 months??"

 

[Aeolus]

Any changes to the process will relate to Gen 5

 

[matty]

I think we need a happy medium... something somewhere in between. I want a few players who are close to the game making the choices... but I don't mind if they are asked to make choices on a bit of "theorymon" or rational assumption that does not require months of testing.

I've brought up this idea in #stark in the past and I believe I referred to it as a "council" consisting of 9 well respected, highly regarded, and active players. I never went into the specifics of it... but there would be a mechanism for appointing (probably done by Jumpman and Myself) the 9 and letting them simply decide. I know there are plenty of people who will have their democratic sensibilities completely offended by this, but at some point, pragmatism is paramount.

This sounds like a quality idea. I have a few questions:
1) How will the council be chosen specifically? Or through what process? (If you don't want to elaborate feel free to avoid this question)
2) Any reason it would be "9" for the council and not say, 11, 13, 15, 17?
3) We would still use the majority rules we've voted on and used before correct?

 

[alex]

I agree with the OP 100%.

While I think the current process is theoretically sound and yields generally good results, it just takes too long. When the fifth generation comes out, I will push for an entirely overhauled system.

In the past, whoever set the rules for the Smogon Tour set the tier list. That system worked with great facility, but it completely excluded the players who were closest to the game since it was just an autocratic decision. I don't think we need to go back to that, but I am willing to say that this works a lot better than what we've been doing for the past 2 years.

We've now gone to the opposite end of the spectrum and have a completely democratic process that has become so bureaucratic and time intensive that it has started to crush people like Jumpman, me, and consistent tiering contributors under its weight.

I think we need a happy medium... something somewhere in between. I want a few players who are close to the game making the choices... but I don't mind if they are asked to make choices on a bit of "theorymon" or rational assumption that does not require months of testing.

I've brought up this idea in #stark in the past and I believe I referred to it as a "council" consisting of 9 well respected, highly regarded, and active players. I never went into the specifics of it... but there would be a mechanism for appointing (probably done by Jumpman and Myself) the 9 and letting them simply decide. I know there are plenty of people who will have their democratic sensibilities completely offended by this, but at some point, pragmatism is paramount.

I'd like to see if anyone else has workable proposals, because, while I think we have learned an awful lot going through the process over the past 2 years... I don't think it is feasible, responsible, or even desirable to ask people to keep it up for the next generation.

this. times like, a billion. please.

 

[Colonel M]

To be honest, I always thought a council was the best solution. After witnessing what unfolded in this thread, I felt that it was much better to have a council that I would know would follow the policy of Smogon, through and through, and not make decisions based on for their greater goal. I am not bashing the other prestige players that have voted fairly. I guess, to me, I feel more comfortable with a council that will take heed of what the people say. So long as these people are level-headed and will listen, I have no objections to a council for Gen 5.

 

[mtr]

I think the problem with having 9 wizened smogonites decide tiering is that many experienced players from older tiers have rather cynical views about the current tier we play in. If you want proof of this, just go to #stark, I'm not going to give any names. This automatically gives them a bias going into the tiering process, seeing as many will likely seek to recreate the tier they used to play rather than going with the flow, so to speak.

But I guess you could argue that biases are unavoidable, given that many current players rarely approach the Suspect process tabula rasa, instead having agendas on how to vote certain Pokemon certain ways. Seeing as the current process isn't working, and that Gen 5 will likely expand the smogonite userbase further, Aeolus' idea may be our only chance.

 

[Aeolus]

1) How will the council be chosen specifically? Or through what process? (If you don't want to elaborate feel free to avoid this question)

Jumpman and I would pick them based on our judgment. We'd pick people who are active, talented, and highly regarded.

2) Any reason it would be "9" for the council and not say, 11, 13, 15, 17?

Why not 19 or 21? I think nine is sufficiently large to get a diversity of viewpoints if diversity exists but small enough that we could all probably agree on nine people. If it works for the supreme court, it can work for us.

3) We would still use the majority rules we've voted on and used before correct?

Majority rules would be my preference.

 

[matty]

Agreed, thank you, especially the second question. Good response lol

 

[Hipmonlee]

A vote is a very simple operation if your voter pool is already determined. I think the simplest method of finding a qualified voter pool is just to use the already existing tiering contributors group. Discussion between a group of this size on a forum is easy enough.

Though I would like there to be some method for people to become tiering contributors. I am not sure how this could be decided other than admin's decision.

Have a nice day.

 

[mtr]

A vote is a very simple operation if your voter pool is already determined. I think the simplest method of finding a qualified voter pool is just to use the already existing tiering contributors group. Discussion between a group of this size on a forum is easy enough.

Though I would like there to be some method for people to become tiering contributors. I am not sure how this could be decided other than admin's decision.

Have a nice day.

I prefer Aeolus' idea of a group of 9 people to this, simply because of the possibility of older tiering contributors, voters out of touch with the metagame, participating in the vote and skewing the results. Maybe require evidence of activity from the players.

 

[Aeolus]

A vote is a very simple operation if your voter pool is already determined. I think the simplest method of finding a qualified voter pool is just to use the already existing tiering contributors group. Discussion between a group of this size on a forum is easy enough.

Though I would like there to be some method for people to become tiering contributors. I am not sure how this could be decided other than admin's decision.

Have a nice day.

I actually think this would be, right now, a very good idea. The problem is that going forward we can't be sure that all the wing badgers will continue to be active players. However, if someone has a Wing Badge, I would think that would make them "extra eligible" for selection because they have demonstrated the willingness and ability to think critically about suspects in the context of the uber guidelines that have been defined.

 

[haunter]

Well, some tiering contributors earned their badge by just voting in the UU suspect process, so they may not know the OU metagame well enough. I like Hip's idea about the tiering contributor's group, though.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I also want to bring up another basic point-- that we have to question, as a community, what exactly it is that we want from our tiering process.

While I have mentioned the unrest amongst many players, there have also been many others who have enjoyed the testing process and felt that the activity and involvement it brought to the community and seeing new faces in the meta was actually quite fun!

While I think many players would be happiest if we had a set, dependable list without grand plans of continually questioning that list, still other players want to be able to have some change in pace and also have more involvement in the tiering process.

We kind of have to figure out what it is we want ultimately. Are we doing the tests for the purpose of coming to some ultimate list? Or do the tests in and of themselves, some value (in terms of fun/stimulation) to the players?

Though keeping in mind that we also have to consider the amount of administrative effort we are willing to take up-- if members like Aeolus and Jump say they are too tired to do something, they are more than entitled to say so!



A separate point I wanted to bring up is that no matter what we do, it is impossible to eliminate assumptions/prejudice/tradition from the tiering process anyway!

After all, the very existence of the OU metagame stems from tradition. While Nintendo has taken their tournaments in a totally different direction with doubles (which I actually abore, and as the bread&butter of the in-game story, singles should be treated as the central meta), and other metas like little cup and CAP gain their own fast-holds and followers, OU continues to be the central meta, the face of smogon itself.

Why is it that a singles metagame focused mostly on 600 BST pseudo legendaries and below continues to be perpetuated as the standard metagame? Looking at mtr's post above:

Let's take a hypothetical situation from Gen 4. I mean, sure it's obvious that Darkrai in OU is broken. But what if Darkrai isn't broken in a tier with Manaphy, Ho-oh, Latios, and all the rest of the crappy Ubers? The end result we get isn't OU, it's Ubers lite, and that's not the metagame we should be trying to create.

I'm sure Obi would ask you-- "Well why shouldn't it be? Why does OU have to be the way it is? Maybe we are not playing what should be the standard tier!"

The only answer to that, is that the reason why OU should be OU lies in tradition-- that from tradition, born mostly out of RBY's lack of truly uber pokemon except for Mewtwo who was in a league all his own, we have come to appreciate/expect a certain flavor to our Standard tier.

That my friends, is in no way, a bad thing. Tradition is in many ways, something of value in my opinion.

 

[Havak]

I think I like Hipmonlee's idea, but it creates a larger pool than what Aeolus intended. I'm sure there'd be a way to determine which Tiering Contributors to pick, though. Currently we have:

Ashley, Atticus, Bloo, Bologo, Caelum, DougJustDoug, Elevator Music, Erazor, Flashstorm1, Giffca89, Great Sage, Haunter, Havak, HuntoftheLion, Itsuki, JabbaTheGriffin, Kevin Garrett, Loki, LonelyNess, LoveDestiny, M_Dragon, Malfunction, MythTrainerInfinity, Nachos, panamaxis, Philip7086, RBG, reachzero, Scofield, SilentEcho, Tangerine, Twist of Fate, walcnevar, Whistle, X-Act.

According to the list, though I'm sure some are missing (Aeolus, Jumpman, maybe more..) I think we can disregard people from selection based on not playing competitive Pokémon as often right away - such as DougJustDoug, Jumpman, X-Act, and Aeolus, especially considering they do a whole lot else for the process anyway. Then it would be down to Tiering Contributors to be mature enough to put themselves up for selection for a particular vote, or abstain from selection depending on how in touch with the current metagame they are, then have Aeolus / Jumpman have the final say in which Tiering Contributors that 'submitted' themselves are chosen. Obviously, this could result in the same 9* (or more if a different number is chosen) getting chosen the majority of the time, but if they're doing a good job, then it doesn't matter.

As Haunter said, some players will have earned said Badge through the UU Process and wouldn't be looking to vote on the current OU process. So, maybe separating players into OU, UU, and potentially NU would be best, with three different Badges?

We'd still need a way to allow other members to become a Tiering Contributor, but I think this would be a good start.

 

[lilyhollow]

I kind of like the council idea for removing "regular players" from the process. Under the current system, everyone is encouraged to become a "tester" of sorts, so the only people who are actually focused on "just playing the game" are people who tend to be less invested in it to begin with. Maybe restricting all tiering decisions to a relatively small number of members will allow the rest of the community to concentrate more on the competitive side of Pokemon.

We kind of have to figure out what it is we want ultimately. Are we doing the tests for the purpose of coming to some ultimate list? Or do the tests in and of themselves, some value (in terms of fun/stimulation) to the players?

Again, I think it's actually a good thing to keep people from having their little sandbox to play in. And while testing itself does has some intrinsic value to be considered, we've done just fine without it in past generations. If tournaments become seen as more "legitimate" and competitive in the future, people who like to fool around with non-standard rules won't have anything to complain about. I think that's a way to appeal to the creativity-oriented portion of our userbase while reinforcing our direction as a primarily competitive community.

 

[cantab]

It seems to me that what makes usage-based tiering unique and good in the first place is to have a system that is based on something measurable and objective, rather than based on opinions and theorymon. The main tiering system we have is open and democratic - all battles are considered equally, regardless of the rating or experience of the players. To have the Uber and BL lists determined by a small group of people seems to me to totally contradict that. I feel the current testing process is sufficiently democratic, and we ought to retain that democracy.

It strikes me that the current approach to tiering has been "do it once and do it right". (Correct me if this has not been the goal). That's an honourable motive, but it has brought the consequence of a very slow pace, that arguably has problems keeping up with players developing innovative sets and also GameFreak releasing new moves and Formes.

Thus, perhaps we should adopt an alternative approach. By analogy to Open Source software development, "tier early and tier often". Streamline the process, accepting that that means being less thorough and potentially making choices that with hindsight seem wrong, but gaining the ability to readily reassess tiering choices and respond to changes in the metagame. Currently it takes I believe around 6 weeks to test one subject. I believe that needs to come down. Would 3 weeks playtesting and then one week to get votes in be reasonable? And while one test is going on, we can be looking ahead and considering who to test next.
A faster process also affords us a certain luxury - an "if in doubt, test" approach. What I see as the main advantage of this is heading of a repeat of the notorious Salamence row in Stark. With an "if in doubt, test" approach, that would have been swiftly shut down with a "Yes, we'll test it".

To put some detail on it, I suggest the following stages:

* Nomination.
There are various ways to do this. Perhaps a petition-style method, where if enough people believe it should be tested then it is tested? We'd need some rules about retests, to avoid testing the same thing month after month. No doubt a small group of well-regarded members would be allowed to nominate a Suspect also.
* Vote for what is tested.
This is only needed if there are multiple nominations, and we don't decide to just do the most-nominated. This vote could be open to all forum members or to a restricted group. Possibly in this case the latter is better, to make sure there is some direction to the testing, ensure the most pressing things are tested first, and perhaps balance the bias I would expect in favour of banning OUs (as opposed to letting Ubers into OU).
* Suspect test.
Note that once the test starts, we can simultaneously open the nominations for the next test.
* Suspect vote.
For voting eligibility, I think it should be similar to what we have at present. I don't know how much time and effort it takes to figure out who is eligible. However, the vote doesn't have to be right after the test, nor hold up the process. I see nothing wrong with the vote for one test taking place at the same time as the next test is happening.

For "initial testing", if we don't take the "no assumptions" approach, I advocate simply testing everything with 600 BST, while putting everything above initial Uber and everything below initial OU. Yes, BST is a mediocre measure of Pokemon strength. But I base this on the current situation. The 600 BSTs are about equally split between Uber and OU (and one BL). Only two things above are not Uber - both hindered by their ability. Only two things below are Uber - both because of their shared unique ability. By agreeing on this approach, we avoid arguing about testing, and instead get on with testing.
(Note that I'm not against "no assumption". Rather, if we DO decide to have an initial Ubers, Suspect, and OU, then I don't think we should spend ages arguing about them.)

It seems my ideas are rather different to those of most others in the thread, so I don't know how well they will be received. But hopefully this post isn't the disaster one of my previous PR posts was.

(As an addendum, I would argue that in a sense we can't test a Pokemon. We can only test a ruleset. For example we can't exactly "test Zoroark": we can test the game with Zoroark allowed, or test the game with Zoroark banned. Which is more useful I don't really know. Maybe the best approach is to do both - then instead of asking "Is Zoroark overpowered" you ask "Which game was better", which might be an easier question to answer. Of course that takes longer.)

 

[Aeolus]

I don't like cantab's idea because it is, effectively, just like what we have now except "do it faster". If what we were doing now could be done faster, we'd have done it faster.

 

[kd24]

This is an idea I had for reinventing the suspect process with a committee. If it has been suggested before, sorry.

Suspect Idea

1.) Aeolus and Jumpman16, the two leaders of the suspect test process look at the new Pokemon and place "obvious Pokemon" into Uber.

2.) Once Gen 5 and an appropiate Battle Simulator with a ladder are available, we announce that there will be a 1 month playing period, at the end of the 30 day period, the top 15 accounts on the OU leaderboard will be allowed acceptance into the committee for deciding Pokemon tiering.

3.) If one of the members declines to be accepted, then the next member of the leaderboard is accepted. Likewise, if one of the players is not available or does not respond, he is skipped upon selection. If one of the players begins to show inactivity, he will be dismissed. SEXP and ladder statistics will be taken from each of these 15 players as a safety precaution in the case that one decides to no longer play.

4.) These 15 members can nominate Pokemon in OU for suspect testing (either stay in OU or place in Ubers) and can vote on their tiering.

5.) When voting or nominating, the original top 5 accounts are given automatic voting rights, for Pokemon excellence. The other ten must submit paragraphs. If these paragraphs are deemed unacceptable by the pool of top 5 voters as well as Jumpman16 and Aeolus (the suspect test leaders), then that voter loses his access to the committee for deciding Pokemon tiering. Only extreme cases of faulty reasoning or ridiculous behavior will kick these players out.

5b.) If one of the ten players was a Tiering COntributor from Gen 4, then that person is given automatic voting rights, without paragraph submission.

6.) As an incentive to become part of this process, a new suspect tiering badge / icon will be given to the members who have voted successfully.

I'll list potential problems and my answers:

Q: What about old Tiering Contributors?
A: They deserve our respect for helping make Gen 4 a better place, but how well you did in a prior generation should have no influence on the current. You are rewarded for your good reasoning as evidenced by the Tiering Contributor Badge by not having to turn in Paragraphs if you are in the bottom 10.

Q: Why do the top 5 get the rights of not having to turn in paragraphs?
A: We need a pool large enough (in this case, 7) that can judge the other paragraphs. I believe that the five best OU battlers of Gen 5 should be given the benefit of the doubt in that they know exactly what they are talking about.

Q: What if I missed my chance to become a part of this process?
A: Keep laddering. I expect that people would drop out of the process every now and then, and that empty slot would go to the next highest on leaderboard. We want the freshest and most experienced data.

Q: I don't think that one of the committee members are active enough to make desicions, how is it fair they get to continue?
A: This is up to the administrators to decide. They can check the statistics of the committee members and see how active they are. It is not fair to punish someone for hitting a bad streak on Ladder or being out of town for a week. Only long instances of inactivity should invoke a dismissal from the group.

Q:

Aeolus and Jumpman16, the two leaders of the suspect test process look at the new Pokemon and place "obvious Pokemon" into Uber.

<- How do we (or they) determine "obvious Pokemon"?
A: The same way it has been done in every generation. Pokemon like Kyogre or Lugia are not going to escape from Ubers. The two suspect test leaders are responsible enough to know to give leeway to Pokemon that could go either way (like Garchomp or Latias of this generation) and what Pokemon to outright ban. Adding Pokemon that will simply be banned straight away is just a waste of time that could just cause confusion to the process.

---

I hope this idea isn't too far out there or completely wrong. But I think it is a fair method of deciding the 15 most knowledgable OU battlers to make a poll from, instead of having anyone vote. I would feel much more comfortable knowing that the people who know how the metagame works are the ones making desicions, along with Jump and Aeolus, instead of just anyone signing on to play Suspect. I think that is the wrong method to do things.

 

[Chou Toshio]

If there's one thing I don't like in the discussion so far, it seems that those vying for a council and those vying for the current system both seem to be keeping the assumption that tiering is needed as an ongoing process.

In past generations, such a need has not been present. If a council is formed to decide things more concretely, I imagine there would not be a need for them to make decisions often.

Ideally, they would simply form to make an initial list, maybe reviewing it 2-3 times in the first year of 5th gen, but after completing that initial Uber list, leaving the game to its own means for the following years.

In fact, ideally I think the only reasons the council should be re-formed would be to respond to:

-Nintendo-based metagame changes (mostly movepool changes from events/platinum-esque games)

-Emergency response to newly over-powerful discoveries (Yache-Chomp)

Otherwise, the council should just leave the list be, giving it a sense of concreteness.

If the council is always in a constant state of review, than that's really no different from what we're currently doing except that it would take less effort. Taking less effort from the administration is of course, GOOD, but the real objective of speeding the process should be giving the tiers a sense of concreteness, being a sound foundation from which the meta can be allowed to evolve.

If the tiers are constantly being reviewed, we're missing the whole point of speeding the tiering process anyway.

UU is a slightly different matter, as it really does depend on OU's condition. While ideally BL decisions could be made more quickly and concretely by a council system, it's likely there's be more need for review due to the changes of OU's usage stats. Ideally though, once a decision has been made on a pokemon, it would be given a more permanent level of BL status, regardless of it's coming and going from OU status.

Again though, the ideal objective is to make more concrete, long-standing Uber and BL lists that people can depend on as being ultimately decided on. Keeping that in mind, the process of choosing council members and making tiering decisions will also be something we do only once or twice in the course of the whole generation-- meaning that the process really shouldn't have to be overly complicated IMO . . .

 

[kd24]

If there's one thing I don't like in the discussion so far, it seems that those vying for a council and those vying for the current system both seem to be keeping the assumption that tiering is needed as an ongoing process.

Otherwise, the council should just leave the list be, giving it a sense of concreteness.

If the council is always in a constant state of review, than that's really no different from what we're currently doing except that it would take less effort. Taking less effort from the administration is of course, GOOD, but the real objective of speeding the process should be giving the tiers a sense of concreteness, being a sound foundation from which the meta can be allowed to evolve.

I agree with the opinion that it certainly doesn't have to be an ongoing process where we are forced to nominate new Pokemon and I think it should attempt to stay concrete unless new threats receive such outcry that they (the council) meet and determine things, but I think having the council stay fresh is important. They don't need to be in a constant state of review and testing for the sake of testing but members of the council should be in a constant state of battling in the case that something does happen which needs nomination/voting.

 

[Chou Toshio]

^Ah that is true. The council will, most of the time have no decisions to make, but those who are acknowledged as council members should be players who are very active in playing the game itself.

 

[lilyhollow]

Yeah, I completely agree that a concrete ruleset is important. I'd like to hear the opinions of those who think otherwise, to be honest.