Yeah qualified voters do (and should) count more. I would interested to see ratings by elo tier similar to how showdown releases usages at different elos.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Would like to point to this analysis of the metagame by CTC in PR that was just started, with some comments of my own.
It's clear based on the numbers that this is a more centralized offensive metagame than the previous SPL meta which had Volcarona. However, scores for enjoyment and competitiveness are up. This kinda tracks, as one of the louder sentiments from the SPL post-discussion was that the metagame had *too many threats* and team building felt challenging. So now we have a few less threats, but the threats are more threatening maybe?
Centralization and variety are opposites. Variety can feel good, when you have a lot of options, or bad, when your opponents have a lot of options. Centralization can feel good, when your opponents have options you can prepare for, or bad, when you are forced into using the same few options as everyone else.
How does this work with tiering? Survey metrics are up, so it appears the overall balance of the qualified base prefers it to be a little more centralized than it was previously, but does that mean something needs to be tested? Tiering policy assumes *centralization* is bad, but clearly its good in this case. We banned volcarona to make the meta more centralized, and it has done so. So what actually is the point of another test? If we ban one of the current centralizing forces, will we be more centralized after, or less? And is that going to mean better survey metrics, or worse?
I think if we are going by survey metrics the volc ban was the right choice surely. But that doesn't necessarily mean more bans will also be the right choice.
It's clear based on the numbers that this is a more centralized offensive metagame than the previous SPL meta which had Volcarona. However, scores for enjoyment and competitiveness are up. This kinda tracks, as one of the louder sentiments from the SPL post-discussion was that the metagame had *too many threats* and team building felt challenging. So now we have a few less threats, but the threats are more threatening maybe?
Centralization and variety are opposites. Variety can feel good, when you have a lot of options, or bad, when your opponents have a lot of options. Centralization can feel good, when your opponents have options you can prepare for, or bad, when you are forced into using the same few options as everyone else.
How does this work with tiering? Survey metrics are up, so it appears the overall balance of the qualified base prefers it to be a little more centralized than it was previously, but does that mean something needs to be tested? Tiering policy assumes *centralization* is bad, but clearly its good in this case. We banned volcarona to make the meta more centralized, and it has done so. So what actually is the point of another test? If we ban one of the current centralizing forces, will we be more centralized after, or less? And is that going to mean better survey metrics, or worse?
I think if we are going by survey metrics the volc ban was the right choice surely. But that doesn't necessarily mean more bans will also be the right choice.
I don’t quite get CTC’s conclusion here. I agree that offense/HO/set up is king in the meta and balance/fat styles are at an all time low. And yet his solution isn’t to ban the mons he says will make balance better if they are removed but to bring back a very offensive pokemon with some defensive utility back?
I am glad top players stopped kidding themselves that balance was good. There was a stretch a few weeks ago where no one would admit it was bad.
The idea is that the styles were balanced before the volcarona ban, with offense balance and fat all having some presence. Banning more things, in his eyes, would only lead to more centralization, just in the direction of fat with gliscor and friends.
Makes sense. I still think that brings the meta in the wrong direction as Rai still can tear through most teams with or without Volc’s presence
I don't think that's an incorrect or bad conclusion either. Like you mentioned earlier, centralization, which tends to lead to a more balanced metagame in the technical sense in the long run thanks to there being one optimal strategy, and tier diversity, which leads to a large variety of usable options but ensures that the metagame is always changing and is never solved, are always at odds with each other. Disregarding tiering policy for a second, as a community, we have to ask ourselves which way is leads to the most enjoyable outcome and how do we strike a good balance between them.
CTC's post highlights that tier diversity got shot down pretty greatly yet, the metagame is far more manageable for a majority of players thanks to the fact that you have to prep for a lot less threats now that diversity is down. But, this centralization isn't necessarily a bad thing given that if we want to make this generation as competitive as possible increasing centralization helps reduce prepping for a variety of styles and helps dodge cteams to x structure since y mon is viable.
I'm not sure if we should take action sooner rather than later just because nothing feels overtly overbearing and we still have time to let the metagame to develop given that gen 10 is currently nowhere to be seen so currently unexplored or underexplored pokemon could rise up if given time to tinker around since diversity, even if it is down, is still fairly strong.
the people that voted the metagame enjoyable are serious? i don't know what is intended, but:
if you voted the meta is enjoyable because even with oger fire and deoxys-attack OU, you would still sitting in your room playing OU, that isn't enjoyment but simply "sitting in your room". Because at is point OU is really, go away from the game 2 months, come back, see is still terrible, try again in 2 months.
Volcarona was banned MAYBE one month ago, he was supposed to be the last pokemon to remove and finally have a decent tier but everything is terrible like before. Volc had no offensive fire power without set up. A koff by rmoon, or simply specs kyurem with JUST a little bit of gameplay can get a kill everytime, no need to set up or have the right tera to demolish an entire team.
In the past i have read people mocking all the smogon users who thought a pokemon like darkrai was problematic for ou and it is problematic even after the sleep ban lmao. It does not have huge fire power but can hit everything with a huge coverage, run specs + trick, all things volc can't do.
few days ago "tier leader mocking everyone who thinks gholdengo is a problem for the tier, is balanced" --> first pokemon in the open survey are ghold and gliscor lmao. Why ghold was not in the option to vote? What is the point to have a staff role and constantly try to change opinion on players, mostly by mocking them who think a pokemon is problematic for OU? The suspect on tera and tera blast is out of question because is a generational mechanic (and this is a bullshit) but not even put A SINGLE POKEMON (gholdengo) in a tier survey is now something forbidden?
if you voted the meta is enjoyable because even with oger fire and deoxys-attack OU, you would still sitting in your room playing OU, that isn't enjoyment but simply "sitting in your room". Because at is point OU is really, go away from the game 2 months, come back, see is still terrible, try again in 2 months.
Volcarona was banned MAYBE one month ago, he was supposed to be the last pokemon to remove and finally have a decent tier but everything is terrible like before. Volc had no offensive fire power without set up. A koff by rmoon, or simply specs kyurem with JUST a little bit of gameplay can get a kill everytime, no need to set up or have the right tera to demolish an entire team.
In the past i have read people mocking all the smogon users who thought a pokemon like darkrai was problematic for ou and it is problematic even after the sleep ban lmao. It does not have huge fire power but can hit everything with a huge coverage, run specs + trick, all things volc can't do.
few days ago "tier leader mocking everyone who thinks gholdengo is a problem for the tier, is balanced" --> first pokemon in the open survey are ghold and gliscor lmao. Why ghold was not in the option to vote? What is the point to have a staff role and constantly try to change opinion on players, mostly by mocking them who think a pokemon is problematic for OU? The suspect on tera and tera blast is out of question because is a generational mechanic (and this is a bullshit) but not even put A SINGLE POKEMON (gholdengo) in a tier survey is now something forbidden?
Honorable mentions (among qualified only, which is 154 people):
Gholdengo (14)
If less than 10% of qualified people think gholdengo is worth mentioning, it's probably not worth mentioning for a vote that would need 60% to agree!
And there are even less mentions for tera, funny!
Don't prejudge other people intentions please. Maybe YOU think the metagame is a joke but it seems that the playerbase thinks differently and is serious about this.
I do not want to derail this into scrutinize Finch's Twitter which is mostly not relevant to things, but it has been tangentially brought up and I think there is merit to discussion. The idea in question was a few weeks ago, stating that removing Gholdengo would make Unaware and Regen cores run rampant. Putting aside whether Ghold is broken or not, (I think it isn't but teeters the edge and is certainly metagame warping. For the record, we have bigger fish to fry), does this not sound astonishingly like CTC's statements that doing X or Y will or has caused the metagame to develop a certain way, and that we should remedy this if things go off the rails?
As people have stated correctly to CTC before, I believe we are not supposed to tier on the hypothetical future metagame, but the current one. Whether the current suspect target, whatever it may be, is broken or uncompetitive as it stands. This idea was even mentioned in his new PR thread by Finch in response. This is not to flame, but more to think that we're all ultimately trying to make the tier a better place based on our own opinions, and that those will naturally clash. It just brings to mind to me, that it is hard to entirely divorce the effects of a ban on a metagame when voting on it. Why would you intentionally vote against your personal interest (thinking the game will be better based on the outcome you intend to vote for), yet we are supposed to divorce the ripple effects from the decision making process. Further, tiering action has, likely for the better, slowed down. You then have to assume that you would need to wait even longer for a potential retest, disincentivizing voting against your immediate interest even more. To me, this sounds, frankly, impossible to do entirely.
EDIT: It is also possible that this is falsely attributing a narrative to Finch's tweet, likely to not touch Gholdengo due to repurcussions, but even on the potential angle that it is purely a personal musing and not indicative of an opinion of the metagame, it still ties to my point of looking at the possible future to inform why the status quo is good/bad.
As people have stated correctly to CTC before, I believe we are not supposed to tier on the hypothetical future metagame, but the current one. Whether the current suspect target, whatever it may be, is broken or uncompetitive as it stands. This idea was even mentioned in his new PR thread by Finch in response. This is not to flame, but more to think that we're all ultimately trying to make the tier a better place based on our own opinions, and that those will naturally clash. It just brings to mind to me, that it is hard to entirely divorce the effects of a ban on a metagame when voting on it. Why would you intentionally vote against your personal interest (thinking the game will be better based on the outcome you intend to vote for), yet we are supposed to divorce the ripple effects from the decision making process. Further, tiering action has, likely for the better, slowed down. You then have to assume that you would need to wait even longer for a potential retest, disincentivizing voting against your immediate interest even more. To me, this sounds, frankly, impossible to do entirely.
EDIT: It is also possible that this is falsely attributing a narrative to Finch's tweet, likely to not touch Gholdengo due to repurcussions, but even on the potential angle that it is purely a personal musing and not indicative of an opinion of the metagame, it still ties to my point of looking at the possible future to inform why the status quo is good/bad.
I just want to point out that this is wrong. The goal of tiering is to have a competitive metagame, not a varied or versatile one. There is often correlation, but sometimes there is not. Some of the best metagames ever are incredibly centralized — take a look at historical OUs. You have to play the hand you are dealt, but I think the community misunderstands the role of centralization in a lot of ways.
Never mocked anyone, just disagreed.
Gholdengo and Gliscor both got under 10% write-in, which is not close to enough to warrant inclusion. Gholdengo was on the past few surveys and got low scores.
You trying to frame numbers without context is your problem, not mine.
This is also very true. Gens 1-3 are like, relic age metagames, but are all centralized to varying degrees, and ADVOU is, to my knowledge, one of the most respected and viewed as skillful metagames in Mon history. Even in newer gens, is there not an addage that in SS OU, you could include any two shitmons if you had Lando, Dragapult, Weavile, and Clefable? People will naturally disagree about whether this is the desirable end goal, but I only hear that SS was boring, not particularly broken or unbalanced.
I think this goes cyclically. Earlier this year, balance was actually quite good. Nowadays, people have found our better combos on HO, they’re making use of item displacement more than ever to disrupt boots, and more threatening sets on Darkrai or Valiant are seeing usage. Even things like Tera Dark Zama threaten balance checks — the tier is pointed against it and it’s worse.
It’s very feasible the tier shifts again in some weeks or months in response though. That’s just the life of an active metagame for you.
Filling that open answer i don't think is mandatory, and i don't even think the council ever got the results of the open answer as a real info.
Gholdengo wasn't put in the survey even if there are people to ask for actions since january 2023 and there was people talking about how they feel gholdengo has a huge role in making this metagame shit since forever. The opinion of the community was ignored. It can't be problematic even put a pokemon in a survey because people like u get offended.
Asking for the presence of a pokemon in a survey does not mean take actions or jump the line on what was still probably first in the survey (darkrai, kyurem). Gholdengo was present in this survey https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-9947296 because at the time, was dominat in the tier. I think it is now even more stronger, why it is suddently ignored and everytime someone try to adress how much ghold is a problem in this thread, a staff or a council member jump in the discussion saying is ok?
i presume what i want lmao, do i need to ask for your permission to vote in the next survey? There are entire pages and pages of this thread based on how the community feel terribly about OU for entire months. I simply asked if people would play OU, no matter what or there are people like me who think is better invest the free time in something else since i lost every hope. OFC is not 100% fault of the council or the community.
Nah, if Gholdengo was broken in my eyes, I would always advocate for a ban. That is regardless of me liking it or not. Anytbing that is broken should go rather than let us go to a broken checks broken situation.
My point on Twitter was more that the fact that Gholdengo isn’t broken is a help to the metagame, not a disservice like many imply by claiming it’s unhealthy. This is due to its ability to at least demand specific attention from bulkier structures, but not entirely invalidate them.
This sound like a stretch that borders just flat out being wrong. Every single write in is listed individually, as well as the number of write ins if there were duplicates. Were Gholdengo to have 80% of a write in margin, there is absolutely zero question the Council would look at it as a serious consideration.
Ty for the response. Relevant bit quoted though. Won't these types of things (this ideal niche of demanding attention but not invalidating) inform people's opinions of whether a Pokemon is unhealthy or overpowered? This talk of centralization vs diversity and the end goal of competitiveness above all brought it to my mind. Ultimately, the "Power Level" of OU is a very subjective, Vibe based judgment call that will vary from person to person. We live in a world where Gholdengo is almost certainly not broken in current gen, that a box legendary like Zama is ultimately healthy (popular opinion seems reasonably split here if high 2 to low 3 survey score indicates a watchful eye), and yet there are probably equally as many who think like, Zapdos is emblematic of Over Used. Their own personal idea of the tier's power level based on current and future metagame conditions will inform whether the element in a test is broken or uncompetitive.
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I read through every single qualified response across multiple hours of my time and listed everything with careful attention to detail. I also read through specific unqualified responses that people asked me to look at or seemed interesting from my initial glance (fun fact: if you include those, Gliscor and Tera end up with far more mentions than Ghold, which is almost strictly mentioned by Big Stall discord members).
there’s nothing to hide, there’s no agenda, and there’s certainly not support to act on Ghold today. Maybe another day? If that’s where the community is, then I am not standing in the way. My job is to give the community what it wants while looking out for the tier’s best interests.
there’s nothing to hide, there’s no agenda, and there’s certainly not support to act on Ghold today. Maybe another day? If that’s where the community is, then I am not standing in the way. My job is to give the community what it wants while looking out for the tier’s best interests.
I have two gripes with the original post.
First, CTC is framing a correlation as a causation. It’s a high effort post and argument but I want to point this out. In between these two timepoints, we see retrospectively that Volc was banned and “X, Y, and Z” also happened. There is no way to measure to what extent these meta changes would have still occurred if Volc stayed in the tier. There is always meta changes going on in the background that can lead to confounding. Again, you cannot easily make a causal claim from observational data.
Second, the whole basis of tiering policy is that one problematic mon is addressed at a time without regard to what checks what. Volc got a 76% ban vote and survey scores improved post-ban. Banning Volc was the right move.
if i remember right, the first time volcarona was banned it was because a shit ton of people had written it in on the most recent survey. so the council does factor in the results of the write-in section, and the one time they acted on it, people (including you, i recall) proceeded to bitch so hard about the correct result that it damaged the council's ability to deal with things efficiently
I read everything I can from every qualified response in every survey. Written, numerical, yes/no, etc. — it’s all fair game. Has been this way since early in the generation and will continue to be this way even as surveys are much less frequent. When in doubt, assume I care because that’s just my nature.
Council as a whole mainly sees the raw data I post publicly, but I discuss tidbits from responses when I find it relevant within our private council chat.
Council as a whole mainly sees the raw data I post publicly, but I discuss tidbits from responses when I find it relevant within our private council chat.
Finchinator agrees with you, Magcargo. Alomomola thrives against slower-paced balance structures that don't have the power to easily overwhelm it.
I'm being honest but at least in my eyes, there's very little point in writing in those Honorable Mentions spots on tiering surveys because they have never actually resulted in anything meaningful. What point is there in writing down Tera Blast, which should be banned, if it won't get any attention because everybody knows the Honorable Mentions spot isn't going to result in further attention. That's why those get such low percentage.
It is not oppressive in any matchup, but it’s better when it can pivot around a bunch and find openings for teammates or heal teammates.
The Volcarona quickban would beg to differ.