The Evolution of the Metagame of a Shoddy Battle Server

[Smot Poker]

A Preface

I am unsure of the accuracy of this question's forum categorization, and I seek verification on the subject. I placed it here as there is no "General Metagame" forum, only forums which specify a certain metagame, none of which are the one I wish to address.

Development

As we all know, the pokemon metagame changes over time. We can be more specific about the type of change by calling it "evolution", because it is similar to an influx of new organisms (teams) which are closely dependent upon prior organisms (teams). The only situation in which these organisms (teams) aren't direct products of previous organisms (teams) which contain mostly similar traits (movesets, pokemon, EVs) is when there has been an act of God (such as tier changes or additions of pokemon from new generations).

Onto the point of this thread

Allow me to present a hypothetical: If a server's metagame, say the official server, was left undisturbed to evolve without interference for an infinite amount of time, would the resulting metagame be perfectly balanced, or cyclic in nature?

Edit

I have just now read the article in the 11th Smog "Evolution of the 4th Generation Metagame". It implies that the current metagame has reached balance perfection when it concludes "All in all, I take pride in the fact that we have finally come to what I feel is a completely balanced metagame." Is this accurate? I am highly skeptical, as I believe that usages are still changing.

 

[Omnipresent]

Quite simply I think that even if the metagame doesn't shift, if nothing gets banned, people will evolve with strategies because something else always starts getting a rise in play. It's been a while since salamence has been banned, yet the metagame keeps shifting. People will get bored with the repetitive nature of something and furthermore they start using pokemon never thought of, such as uu pokemon in ou to throw the opponent off and place a surprise factor in the game.

In short, the metagame always shifts IMO, just because someone somewhere is going to want to change styles.


For an example, check out Jonathan's profile to check out his amazing 6-0 sweep with a Lanturn against an ou team. The guy he played is good at pokemon, but the underestimation of lanturn and that surprise factor threw him off, he thought he can safely set his spikes, toxic spike and stealth rocks up. Now he will probably prepare himself for anything similar to that, thus, "evolving" his strategy.

 

[Smot Poker]

So, you believe the metagame's state will remain cyclic-never reaching a perfect balance, but following ultimately predictable trends-ad infinitum?

To clarify what I mean by cyclic: leftovers skarmory/forretress use rises-->magnezone use rises-->shed shell skarm/forretress use rises-->magnezone use drops-->leftovers skarmory/forretress use rises-->magnezone use rises...

Except that instead of a relatively simple relationship between two types of pokemon (a steel physical wall and a steel trapper), I'm attempting to put the metagame as a whole into perspective.

 

[Athenodoros]

I agree, it would be cyclic. It would be like that Rock-Paper-Scissors (or Scissors-Paper-Rock, if you are Australian like me) game, because there is, at the moment, no one team which can take everything. This means that even if only certain pokemon become viable with certain sets, which ones are used will rotate. Alternatively, there might be enough variety that many sets are viable, but I suspect that regardless no one team would be the ultimate one, which would I think be needed to stop the metagame moving forward.

 

[matty]

I don't. Since you never can cover every single threat in a metagame, there will always be new strategies and new sets that define each stage in a metagame

ex. DP releases in 2007. For the beginning month all the leads we saw were: Weaviles (lol), Gyarados, Bronzong, Gengar. It was sorta out of control. People started realizing fairly quickly how important SR was to winning.

Then we move to the phase of the suicide lead. I credit Husk with the Aero lead. Then someone goes through all the Pokemon that learn SR and decides that Azelf is a good lead. And of course it works! People catch on, it spreads like wildfire. Now what? Oh Heatran is good, it resists Explosion, sets up SR fairly consistently. On and On and On.

This perceptual cycling of progress throughout the metagame will never stop. Even today trends are changing. Who would have imagined at the beginning of DP that 46% of lead Pokemon would be Azelf and more than half of them carry Cople Berry because of Machamp. There is never going to be a "balance" since everything changes and everything is so diverse.

 

[Smot Poker]

The number of new combinations of pokemon/movesets/EVs is finite..that means that eventually there would be no new sets, ever..and on a long enough time scale no new teams, either

 

[Flashfires]

That timescale is obviously longer than the time between Pokemon generation releases so it's so large as to be irrelevant. Yes, there are a finite number of possible uses and teams etc, but unless you're looking at decades or more you wouldn't see the end of it.

 

[Smot Poker]

It's extremely relevant to the subject at hand: the hypothetical

 

[NeoSeth]

It will cycle to an extent. Depending on the state of the metagame, one of two things will happen:

1. In a metagame with a Pokemon so powerful that everything basically revolved around it (See: Dragon-types in DPP), things will cycle but always revolve around that core Pokemon.

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For example, with Garchomp, people using him will pack Tyrannitar and Scizor. This allows you to start up a sandstorm and take the Ice-type attacks thrown at Garchomp well while punishing your opponent with your other powerful attackers.

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Against Garchomp, however, People will use Skarmory, Gyarados and Mamoswine. This way, they counter Garzortar (Best core name EVER!!!) by stopping Outrage dead with a Steel, revenging with an Ice-type that also takes out Tyrannitar, and having a sweeper to set-up on Scizor.

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Because of the Skarmory running around, Garchomp users use Scarf Magnezone over Scizor to trap Steels and still resist Ice, while being able to OHKO Mamoswine with Flash Cannon while OHKOing Gyarados as well with Thunderbolt. In response to Magnezone, Heatran usage rises, as he resists Outrage and can KO a lot of the metagame with Fire Blast, along with Dragon Pulse for Garchomp. With the rise of Heatran, Bulky Gyarados becomes the best thing ever for setting up on it while maintaining offensive pressure Garchomp. Then Offensive Suicune is number one, with Ice Beam for Garchomp and HP Electric for Gyarados. With so many water-types around, Mangezone becomes number one again for killing them and trapping Steels that bother Garchomp. Then back to Heatran, then to Gyara, then to Cune, etc.

Things like that will fluctuate endlessly. But the dominant force will remain the same, and everyone builds around them endlessly.

2. In a game with no truly dominant force (I.e the one we have now), everything sort of shifts. FGW cores came up, after all, because Infernape was suddenly Stallbreaker Uno without Mence. Then Bulky waters checked Ape, then Shaymin checked Bulky Waters, then Heatran checked Shaymin, and the FWG core was born. But nothing truly major will change until some new set comes up to shake things around. After that, the metagame shifts to compensate and life moves on.

 

[Blatreutka]

I don't think you can say that the metagame is perfectly balanced yet. I think that after a big ban (i.e. Garchomp, Latias, Salamence) the metagame becomes more balanced, then centralizes around something else. I don't think that it has been given enough time to grow around the lack of Salamence, and therefore hasn't been given the opportunity of centralizing around something else. While I do agree that the metagame is much more balanced now, I don't think that it is perfect.
To answer the original question, i'd say that if left alone the metagame would cycle through counters to common teams.

 

[Costafire]

"Completely balanced metagame" does not mean "usages will remain static". It means that no one strategy dominates an extraordinarily large number of other strategies. You can have cyclical elements in the metagame (Skarmory/Leftovers -> Magnezone -> Skarmory/Shed Shell - > Fewer Magnezone -> Skarmory/Leftovers), but that's pretty irrelevant to the question of balance.

EDIT: When talking about balance, you have to distinguish between "centralization", which is just an inevitable property of a game that has imperfect balance, and "overcentralization", which is the terrible evil no-good event you use to justify banning stuff. Imperfect balance is totally fine btw, perfect balance is an asymmetric game is either impossible or close to impossible (but Chess is still a famous game anyway!)

 

[Philip7086]

Hi, I'm the one that wrote the article in The Smog. I stand by my statement that I think we have finally reached a balanced metagame. By that, I mean new strategies and teams will continue to be created, but in terms of having broken Pokemon which the metagame tends to revolve completely around, I think we're finally in the clear. I don't feel there are any threats that require unreasonable measures to check, and with that I would say we have reached a balanced metagame. Since the ban of Salamence, I have seen all different team archetypes succeed, so it really boils down to player skill now IMO.

 

[Pallas Athena]

By definition, an evolving competitive metagame can not be balanced. If there was balance, it would mean that no one was trying to unbalance it. The entire point of competition is to find a single unstoppable, flawless method to win. If one is discovered the metagame becomes unbalanced. Therefore, if the metagame is ever truly balanced, it means the competitive innovation has been lost, and thus failure achieved.