"What We Desire In A Metagame" Redux

[Colonel M]

From what I hear from other players, ubers doesn't reward good players as well as OU does and UU rewards you even more

This statement is purely biased since I yield 0 reward for UU since I loathed the metagame itself. The point is you are yielding a reward if you win or not, and you do so with Ubers. It is completely irrelevant what rewards you more / less when it comes to the tier structure. The payout is different for everyone.

 

[animenagai]

This statement is purely biased since I yield 0 reward for UU since I loathed the metagame itself. The point is you are yielding a reward if you win or not, and you do so with Ubers. It is completely irrelevant what rewards you more / less when it comes to the tier structure. The payout is different for everyone.

Simple misunderstanding my friend, I'm using 'rewarding' precisely in these terms: a rewarding metagame will have the superior battler win moreso than one that is not rewarding. I'm using 'rewarding' in a very precise way here, one that DOES very much play a part in tiering. So please, stop straw-man-ing me.

 

[eric the espeon]

I'm calling bull on this, I've played a lot of ubers and watched others play and the better players do consistently beat the weaker players, personally I feel that I am much more consistent in ubers but I will admit that this is possibly because I am better at it.. The people you talked to were probably just inexperienced in ubers and didn't like that they weren't as good at it as they are at OU.

aaand proof. Centralization or there being extremely powerful strategies does not, in itself, in any way remove the skill element of the game or cause weaker players to beat stronger ones more often. The better players by definition exploit the "broken" strategies more effectively than weaker players and so win more.

Centralization is something which many players dislike, and so we should offer metagames without it. Centralization is not bad in it's own right, some players enjoy it and it is not harmful to Pokemon as a competitive game. Diversity is not a fundamental characteristic of a desirable metagame, only an optional one.

 

[Colonel M]

Simple misunderstanding my friend, I'm using 'rewarding' precisely in these terms: a rewarding metagame will have the superior battler win moreso than one that is not rewarding. I'm using 'rewarding' in a very precise way here, one that DOES very much play a part in tiering. So please, stop straw-man-ing me.

Then please, next time, make that point clear. By using "what I've heard from other players" or what not, you make your post very susceptible to being taken out of context primarily because the player him / herself have different preferences. Not always is the player going to stop playing a metagame with a "broken" strategy: They will attempt to adapt to the situation if possible (under most cases). UU is definitely more rewarding, but taking a look at those statistics from ete, Uber had a higher "average" rating than OU did, so the primary question is if centralization always yield an inferior reward than a metagame with some centralization or none at all? With regards to no centralization, the likely outcome is "yes".

My point is not always is a metagame "less rewarding" with centralization.

 

[Hipmonlee]

There is a big advantage in decentralisation over the longer term..

While in the short term a centralised metagame might be fine, people get sick of seeing the same pokemon.. If we want to retain players, which I think we definitely do, we need to consider what is desirable in the short term, but also what is desirable after people have played thousands of battles over the course of a couple of years..

Have a nice day.

 

[eric the espeon]

The "first balanced metagame" that OU will become should avoid centralization, because many people do not like it for various good reasons. My point was simply that since it is not a fundamentally good thing in itself, only a secondary characteristic of a desirable metagame (relying on appeal/popularity), not all metagames should strive for decentralization, and that for some it is even positive.