So what *are* we looking for in a metagame anyway?

[Ancien Régime]

We're talking about stuff like unbanning evasion and OHKOs, rebanning hitherto OU pokemon, unbanning hitherto Uber pokemon, but I don't think this topic has gotten quite enough attention - what kind of metagame would be the best possible? Do we have a "philosophy" behind the Standard Metagame?

I think to devise a "metagame philosophy" there are several questions that could be asked:

1: What maximizes/minimizes the competitive nature of the metagame? In my view, "competitive nature" means the extent to which the game rewards skill and creativity. What decisions will make the metagame more competitive according to that definition?

2: Should "better players" ALWAYS or almost always win over "worse players"? Should the metagame be tilted to NOT allow people with less skill to win? I'm not even talking about luck - should a well-thought out team designed for the "OU" metagame always lose to say, Choice Specs Jynx?

3:Is "centralization" a good thing or a bad thing? Is it better to have more "standard" pokemon than non-standard? This has been asked before, but I don't think it's been adequately addressed. Does having 100 (or more) viable pokemon in OU make skill more or less of a factor in winning?

For example, I can spend hours on a team, designed to cover the top 50 threats...but end up losing to a team with threat number #55 that I didn't have room in my team to cover.

But more to the point - what should a metagame be? Should it allow many viable strategies (leading to more variety, thus keeping people interested) or few (leading to more centralization, lending itself to a more "chess-like" atmosphere where people are working with the same resources, but potentially rewarding skill a bit more because people will likely not lose simply because they did not have the resources to stop a specific threat. Should it minimize the role of "luck", in terms of how it can affect the outcome of a match? Is "minimizing luck" the ideal circumstance? Should it always allow the best players to win, and mercilessly keep down inferior players, or should it on occasion allow "worse" players to win over better players?

Furthermore - is it a departure from the original intent of pokemon to make it so "competitive"? Considering how little Nintendo/GameFreak "manages" its metagame, compared with say, Wizards of the Coast and Yugioh TCG, maybe we're forcing a round peg into a square hole?

 

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

I think this is an exceptionally good framing of the debate. It's also much more concise than I would have been able to make it.

Not many seem to have much desire to discuss this subject, although it is at the heart of most of our policy discussions. Perhaps they're just sick of discussing it.

Anyway, here's my take on it.

1. I agree that a "competitive nature" is a desirable thing in a game. I'd obviously rather play a game where the more skilled player beats the less skilled player more often than not. Each person's definition of 'skill' is different though. Skill can be knowledge of Pokemon (their base stats, movepool, abilities, and common strategies). Skill can be the ability to predict the opponent well or to calculate risk and take appropriate action. Skill can be the ability to create a team that covers all threats, or to design a creative strategy that works well against most opponents. Some people favor certain kinds of skill over other kinds. I think all of these things are skill, but I lean more toward the creativity and knowledge end than the average player.

2. I prefer a game where the skilled player almost always wins over the less-skilled one. (I have a slight preference that the less-skilled player get a win in here and there, as an incentive to keep playing and become more skilled.) However, the creative aspects of Pokemon outweigh these preferences for me. I prefer a less-centralized game because I enjoy utilizing a large array of workable strategies. I feel it's a terrible waste for 75% of fully-evolved Pokemon to be nigh-unusable in the accepted stanard game. A side effect of this decentralization may be that the less-skilled player wins a bit more often, but I feel that this is an unavoidable result of a metagame that is, overall, more varied and enjoyable.

3. Since the creative aspect of Pokemon is of a high importance to me, I feel that a metagame with more 'standard', or 'viable', Pokemon is a more enjoyable one. If that means my team can't prepare for every conceivable threat, then so be it. If I have a good team and play well, I can win most of my matches regardless.

Because different players value different kinds of skill, they enjoy different kinds of metagames. I doubt we'll ever reach a consensus on what we all want the metagame to be. I think it would be nice to have a couple of very different rulesets (and corresponding banlists) that cater to these different play-styles. Several players would play multiple metagames because they enjoy each for a different reason.

I believe that GameFreak intended this game to be played competitively. It seems to me that if they didn't have competitive players in mind, they wouldn't fine-tune the game mechanics as much as they have. For example, a very large number of existing moves received boosts to power or accuracy with the transition from the third to fourth Pokemon generation, and I don't think these were arbitrary decisions. It is unfortunate that GameFreak cannot seem to provide us with a consistent tier/rule system, and I admit that I do not know why they haven't done this. Overall, I think the evidence points toward Pokemon being intended for competitive play, but maybe that's just me seeing a pattern that isn't really there.

EDIT: I think I may have commited a faux pas by rating this thread, since none of the other Policy Review threads are rated. My apologies if this is the case! I just felt that Ancien Regime framed the questions so well.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I believe that we should limit the degree to which we seek to influence the metagame's development through rules to centralization. We should seek to prevent the metagame from becoming overcentralized. By this I mean we should seek to prevent a radical decline in the number of Pokemon being used, and I would contend that the current metagame is not overcentralized (therefore I am opposed to the banning of any Pokemon currently legal anywhere, including Garchomp and Wobbuffet). This means that I don't think we should seek to maximize Pokemon viability; we only need to prevent it from dropping below a certain critical threshold.

I think our secondary goal is to keep the rules as short as possible. That means that, if a Pokemon can be unbanned without causing overcentralization, it should be unbanned.

As per some other policies that are not related, I would have this to say.

We should not be seeking to make rules based on the amount of luck present in the metagame. No rational ruleset (that is, ignoring obvious jokes like "Metronome only") is going to remove the skill element, and I feel that the degree of skill required should be decided by the game how it is, not by the rules we devise. I feel that, if we want to reduce the degree of luck in the game, that we should just change the game's mechanics and stop professing to play Gamefreak's version of Pokemon. I am actually not opposed to changing game mechanics to make a better game, but I feel that most of the community wants to continue playing Gamefreak's game. At this time, I would support unbanning Double Team and OHKO moves and analyzing the impact those rules have on the centralization of the game (in terms of both Pokemon usage and the diversity of moves that are plausible choices, though I feel that move diversity is only somewhat important relative to Pokemon diversity).

As per faithfulness, I feel that we should strive to 100% emulate the ingame (a link battle between Diamond and Pearl US versions with trading access to Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Colosseum, XD, Pokemon Box, the American and Japanese Colosseum Bonus Discs, all E-Reader cards, the European Pokemon Channel, Pokemon Ranger, and Pokemon Battle Revolution, with any other infinitely available officially produced commercial products being added to this list). I think we are reasonable to make an exception for the obtainment of event items in the case of events that have already happened, but I am opposed to the inclusion of events in which Pokemon are directly obtained (as opposed to generated by the cartridges themselves).

Of course, the goal of the rules is a matter of opinion. This is my view on it, and this is what I have been consistently arguing for in the various questions of the past.

 

[skarm]

As per faithfulness, I feel that we should strive to 100% emulate the ingame (a link battle between Diamond and Pearl US versions with trading access to Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Colosseum, XD, Pokemon Box, the American and Japanese Colosseum Bonus Discs, all E-Reader cards, the European Pokemon Channel, Pokemon Ranger, and Pokemon Battle Revolution, with any other infinitely available officially produced commercial products being added to this list). I think we are reasonable to make an exception for the obtainment of event items in the case of events that have already happened, but I am opposed to the inclusion of events in which Pokemon are directly obtained (as opposed to generated by the cartridges themselves).

Admittedly I haven't been here for most of this discussion which has lead to the banning of event moves (ie: Wish Blissey, etc.) on the Official Server, but based on your statement I am not sure under what premise you can justify your seemingly hypocritical statement.

You are for a game faithful in as many ways as possible to the actual cartridge, all allowable sub-products such as E-Reader, Pokemon Ranger, and so on, but then immediately back that statement up by saying that event Pokemon obtained directly should be banned. Now, I understand that are you are justifying this by saying such Pokemon like Wish Blissey are not generated by the actual cartridges themselves, but "why not"? Ironically the only event Pokemon I have is a Wish Blissey. It does not have the greatest of IVs ever, but should this mean I am not entitled to use it? As far as I know it is legitimate as it came from someone I trust as a clone. Of course as you can imagine I get a lot of flack for it when I play on Wi-Fi because people assume it is sharked, but I don't believe so.

I don't believe you can justify your statements saying you want an all inclusive and faithful game that is as true as possible and then disallow certain things. Is it because we have no idea what type of natures or IVs would be legal on certain Pokemon such as Wish Blissey?

That aside, I also believe that we should look to be as faithful to the game as possible with their in-game mechanics and allowable Pokemon. However, even saying that one has to step back for a second a realize simple things such as Sleep Clause are not in Cartridge-Cartridge battling. However, this was introduced first by members of the online community and later adopted by Game Freak when it came to competitions and in their later line of products such as Pokemon XD. Because of this I cannot fully say I support an entirely faithful game.

However, I would like to be as unrestrictive as possible. Arguments over Garchomp, Deoxys-E, and what have you do have to be closely examined, but I would be of the mind to allow more of these options into the Standard metagame than restrict them. My teams typically have no problem with Deoxys-E and I have very little problem with it. These discussions have happened in the past and usually on the favorable side to allowing more Pokemon: We did not always start out with Celebi and Jirachi, for those of you who were not part of the active community prior to Diamond and Pearl. Celebi was banned in G/S/C and only unbanned after a fierce discussion in R/S/E. Jirachi came around the same time, I believe.

We must also examine the fact that ours is not the only metagame in existence. So, let's look across the Pacific Ocean and put Japan under the magnifying glass. I will not claim to be an expert on the Japanese metagame and probably should YamiPoli into replying here as she plays the Japanese with some frequence, but I can say some things:

-They have a completely different ban list than we do. Our "ubers" are banned, of course, but they also do allow Latios and Latias, without Soul Dew I believe, and have banned Heracross (in R/S/E) at least. I believe they also frowned upon Dragonite and Tyranitar in R/S/E as well. Oh, and using Celebi or Jirachi is basically a sentence to commit Hara Kiri over there.

-They typically play Stadium Mode.

I'll focus on Japan's banning of Heracross. Before reading on: Ask yourself. Do you find this funny? Odd? Confused as to why? Now ask yourself, do you want Garchomp banned?

Obviously the Japanese playing style and the metagame they played with found Heracross unbareable and overpowered. So, they tossed it into Ubers (or banned it altogether). Let me remind you that our metagame and Japan's metagame are not the same thing. To our metagame, Garchomp seems overpowered. (Disclaimer being Heracross' banning was R/S/E as compared to our D/P with Garchomp). It comes down to playing style. Our styles have Garchomp ripping us a new one. Japanese R/S/E styles had Heracross tearing them apart, whereas we didn't have those issues on NetBattle's metagame.

So, I am not saying "If you lose to Garchomp your playing style fails". I am just saying before banning or what not we have to realize that it may just be a style issue in our own metagame rather than an issue of Game Freak not thinking when they made Garchomp.

 

[obi]

That aside, I also believe that we should look to be as faithful to the game as possible with their in-game mechanics and allowable Pokemon. However, even saying that one has to step back for a second a realize simple things such as Sleep Clause are not in Cartridge-Cartridge battling. However, this was introduced first by members of the online community and later adopted by Game Freak when it came to competitions and in their later line of products such as Pokemon XD. Because of this I cannot fully say I support an entirely faithful game.

Sleep clause, for example, can be seen as 100% faithful to any of the games, depending on the implementation. I'm under the impression that it's possible to auto-enforce it (nothing new can fall asleep). In older games like RBY, it was just "put more than one thing to sleep and you are considered to have forfeited". You haven't changed any game mechanics. It is still 100% faithful to the game.