Standardizing the VGC metagame

[DaNukes]

Alright, so throughout my many lurkings on various forums the topic always comes up: "VGC isn't standardized."

When I say this i mean it isn't as well developed and analyzed as the singles OU metagame of smogon, where a very well done simulator (no offense to the makers of NBS, its just that shoddy has less glitches) and a good ladder system has allowed for extensive battling which allowed for people to then see all the different pokemon. This then led to analysis on the pokemon which covered a variety of possible move sets (to be honest I think the skarmbliss analysis should show more move sets than they already do, as many pokemon can perform many different roles on different teams). After that, there were a variety of statistics and pokemon movesets that became extremely common (CB scizor) and counters to them (heatran).

You could say that in VGC there is standardization to some extent, as scarf and TR kyogre are seen on like 50% of all teams...as well as ludicolo being prevalent for its ability to counter kyogre so well. However, as many others have stated before, due to the lack of a large community dedicated to VGC, there is a great deal of less standardization, and much more experimentation, and the metagame has yet to settle down. In contrast, in Japan, there are many VGC tournaments and it is basically the smogon OU over there.

Here is my question for you: is this a good or bad thing? I have heard many people saying that our lack of standardization is what makes us weaker and puts us at a disadvantage, because the Japanese have had their metagame stabilize, but is that really a good thing? I have looked at smogon and all I see are the same movesets and pokemon being used over and over agian, and IMO VGC has less viable pokemon than OU, so there would be even less variety in the battles. And after a metagame has settled down there is much less creativity because everyone has seen everything already.

In both cases of VGC and smogon OU, the head honcho's have always tried to change the metagame from settling down, in smogon's case it was the variety of suspect tests, which every time change the metagame and its direction, and for VGC it was the addition of ubers, which pretty much made it a completely different metagame. This shows that the leaders themselves realize that it is a bad thing for the metagame to settle down too much, so does that mean we as US SHOULDN'T try to create more tournies which create more battles, and thus more experience in the metagame, and thus lower the uncertainty, lower the experimentation, and create less variety? OR is this actually a good thing, because with the greater knowledge of the metagame our teams will be better, just less varied.

I guess in a sense it is a question of how uncertain do we want to be, as uncertainty promotes experimentation, while doing more tournies will remove this and only leave a few good teams. And the the main direction this question is going in is: "SHOULD we standardize the VGC metagame? and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this."


My personal opinion is that its more fun with the uncertainty factor, which is why i liked the rule change, but I was wondering everyone else's opinion. Sorry if i sounded biased in my explanation of the situation, its just that I wanted everyone to understand what seems to be the underdog consensus.

 

[cantab]

The reason we are not doing much on VGC is because Shoddy does not support doubles.

Shoddy 2 is expected to support doubles. When it does, whether to attempt to do our own doubles metagame (bearing in mind doubles tiers and testing need to be separate from singles) or just use VGC will be an important decision. I think we will probably do our own, but IMHO it would be idiocy to not have a VGC ladder on the official server.

Oh, and you probably don't have Javascript enabled. Thus, to get a new line, you'll have to input the <br /> HTML tags yourself.

 

[Airfoil]

I don't think VGC should be standardized for several reasons.

1) As he mentioned, if people become too experienced in the VGC meta, than it will completely lose every ounce of joy in it's tactics. Letting Ubers in has led to people abusing them, and now people think Ubers are the only options. While ubers have made battling more interesting, but it's completely predictable and everyone will begin going to use the same team of Palkia/Kyogre/Ludicolo/Toxicroak(or in some cases, Kingdra/Zapdos) in every battle. Ubers also make it impossible to "think outside of the box" and be unique with your teams. The slightest imperfections (such as running physical Mewtwo when it's got higher special attack) will leave an opening for another legendary (Groudon) to come in and destroy it. While it's nice for NU Pokemon to see the light of day, nothing becomes usable.

2) This reason is short and simple. What would happen if they change the next VGC to allow unlimited # of Ubers or none at all? Then the entire ladder would have to be remade.

I don't think a ladder should be made for VGC all year round, but maybe for a few months surrounding when the VGC will be held. That way people don't go obsessed with the VGC and focus on other ideas than Kyogre and Palkia.

 

[TSPhoenix]

I really have do disagree, standardisation didn't ruin OU. Why would it do that to VGC? If anything playing a VGC ladder would give people a chance to work around the Kyogre-dominated metagame and see what works and what doesn't. Kyogre is still huge in the Ubers-tier, but he isn't the be all and end all like he used to be. People came up with strategies to deal with him.

That said VGC's banlist is rather sad, it gets rid of a lot of things that would have been great for stopping Kyogre and co. Without Shaymin, Celebi and Darkrai around Kyogre has a lot less to worry about.

 

[lati0s]

The reason we are not doing much on VGC is because Shoddy does not support doubles.

netbattle supports doubles and works just fine

 

[drcossack]

Without Shaymin, Celebi and Darkrai around Kyogre has a lot less to worry about.

Hi, I'm Shedinja, and I walk all over rain teams that don't have Toxicroak or Leech Seed/Toxic/HP Rock/Ghost/Dark.

As far as actually playing VGC/Doubles - NBS and WiFi. There's VGC tournaments on IRC every week.

 

[mattj]

Great topic Nukes!

Here is my question for you: is this a good or bad thing?

I think it's a GREAT thing, mostly because more pokemon are "viable", than if the metagame had "settled". You wanna try a TR-Ho-oh team? You could seriously win with that. Who knows?! That's fun in my opinion, thinking up ridiculous ideas and winning with them (TR Dunsparce will SHUT YOU DOWN!!).

For a concrete example, the 09 metagame has become entirely stale and bland in my opinion. Zap, Chomp, GG. I used a Zap/Chomp/Top/Flygon team in my very first Live tourney a couple weeks back and went 6/0. *yawn* Since we've put so much time and effort into the 09 metagame, we've pretty much figured out what works and what doesn't. However, this new 2010 metagame with autoweather/antiweather/incredibly powerful trickroomers/new goodstuffs is like the wild west again (why I fell in love with 2009 VGC last year).

 

[lordkira]

I actually want this.
I for one believe increasing our chance of winning vgcs from the non eastern countries may be pretty cool :)

 

[Airfoil]

I'm still afraid it will grow real old real fast, considering your options are really limited outside of most Normal sets. TR Ho-Oh would work, and a few other sets nobody has thought of, but after a while....

 

[DaNukes]

netbattle supports doubles and works just fine

Yes, but very few people play it due to the many glitches, and it doesn't have the matchmaking system like shoddy does.

MY point is, there isn't anywhere near as many VGC battles as there are smogon OU battles, and that makes it harder for the VGC metagame to stabilize and become "standard" because there have been less battles and thus less things tried out, whereas in singles we have seen almost everything.

 

[mtr]

A new metagame is an exciting thing. It gives everyone a lot of fun to find new things and see them work. I imagine that DP players were psyched when Suicide Lead Aerodactyl was discovered, bringing the fossil out of BL. And when Dragontamer's Stallrein came onto the scene, just for a few examples.

But from a competitive standpoint, it's better to play in a metagame where all the tricks and optimal strategies have been figured out, since only then can we play at the highest levels possible. I mean, sure Kyogre / Palkia / Ludicolo / Toxicroak is THE team to beat, but then wouldn't the team have to hinder itself significantly to beat stuff like Shedinja? If Shedinja rose, wouldn't Sun teams, who don't care about it, also rise in usage? Then there's Trick Room, Goodstuffs, and things like Smeargle, which creates a massive Rock/Paper/Scissors metagame cycle that keeps changing, so that even when the metagame has settled, there's always fun stuff going on.

I mean, in Ubers Singles, almost everything there is to discover has been found, but the metagame remains fun simply because of the massive, long-term stall/aggro cycles, with support-oriented, quickstall, and hyperoffense teams running around throwing a further wrench in things.

 

[lati0s]

Yes, but very few people play it due to the many glitches, and it doesn't have the matchmaking system like shoddy does.

MY point is, there isn't anywhere near as many VGC battles as there are smogon OU battles, and that makes it harder for the VGC metagame to stabilize and become "standard" because there have been less battles and thus less things tried out, whereas in singles we have seen almost everything.

It doesn't actually have many (if at all) more glitches than shoddy anymore.

 

[Haku16]

i say yes, VGC is amazing game to play with any teams becoming victor at 09 VGC no one expected a team of Hippowdon/Shedinja/Moltres/Zapdos/Yanmega/Rhyperior to get any where it was random as hell but it made second and it was a close game for first. i also think it will become more popular ounce people start to play it on either NBS or Shoddy2. but then again i really just want to see the japanese get there butt's kicked.lol

Edit: this is an Evil post.

 

[mattj]

i say yes, VGC is amazing game to play with any teams becoming victor at 09 VGC no one expected a team of Hippowdon/Shedinja/Moltres/Zapdos/Yanmega/Rhyperior to get any where it was random as hell but it made second and it was a close game for first. i also think it will become more popular ounce people start to play it on either NBS or Shoddy2. but then again i really just want to see the japanese get there butt's kicked.lol

Edit: this is an Evil post.

You know, it may "seem" random at first, but in reality all it is, is a common Zap Chomp team with weather control. I was surprised by it when I played it at Worlds (I was thinking what is this guy's idea?!?!) but looking back, he had a great combo (Zap/Down) PLUS the ability to shut my Sun down, and other's Rain too. Just cuz we haven't seen it much, doesn't mean it's a crazy idea. That's what I loved about the 09 metagame then.

Of course this was almost a year ago, and since then the metagame has fizzled out significantly.

 

[goofball]

MY point is, there isn't anywhere near as many VGC battles as there are smogon OU battles, and that makes it harder for the VGC metagame to stabilize and become "standard" because there have been less battles and thus less things tried out, whereas in singles we have seen almost everything.

Of course there wouldn't be as many OU battles compared to VGC simply due to the lack of sim (even tho NBS has a working double despite what people may think). Stabilizing a metagame doesn't happen as quickly as most people would think and it certainly wouldn't happen in VGC yet. Every metagame takes time to evolves and grow, there are standards VGC just happens to lack a sim (or support for it) to adapt at a faster rate. I'm sure as the VGC progress last year, we saw teams changing and adapting to what has been used earlier in the tourney. BTW, people experimenting is what evolves the metagame, I don't quite understand why you would bring up more standards less experimenting. Lastly, stablizing a metagame isn't something that just happens within a few months, it takes years for it to reach a stable point.

 

[TSPhoenix]

I mean, in Ubers Singles, almost everything there is to discover has been found, but the metagame remains fun simply because of the massive, long-term stall/aggro cycles, with support-oriented, quickstall, and hyperoffense teams running around throwing a further wrench in things.

You think that, but look how long it took for Deoxys-S to become fully realised, then after that somebody came up with lead Ariados and I'm sure interesting changes will continue to happen.

 

[Glen ^^]

Yes it should. VCG metagame, while being a Kyogre/Giratina/Ludicolo fest, has much more prediction involved than the standard OU. With all new retarded move tutors and items OU has become a guessing game, prediction is only involved after several turns.

VCG however has absolutely no guessing involved, with right decision making being more valuable than "guessing right".

We should encourage people to play more VCG metagame at least on Wi-Fi. Sims aren't needed... just clone and add some EVs and movesets.

 

[CCM30]

I think it's a good thing to see standardization within a metagame because if there isn't, nothing changes. If nothing is a standard, no one has a problem with battling it (in terms of personal preference, not actual difficulty) and, thus, go with what they feel is right along the lines of their opinions and views.

However, with a standard environment, people have something to base new changes on. Without a base, no one knows exactly what they a changing.

For example, a big standard in VGC is, obviously, rain. While you could say that rain and abusing it and getting it into play (thus making Kyogre a big factor almost all of the time, as is Groudon with sun) is something on people's minds more so than anything else, I'm seeing a change in how people percieve it and now I'm seeing more players building their teams to counter weather teams and function if they are not involved. While that strategy is not new, I don't think it has been as significant as it is now.

And that's a good thing. A dynamic metagame. Once something pops up, people play differently to check/counter it. Then it becomes the standard or something close to it and some others find a new thing to check/counter it and the cycle continues until, who knows, Kyogre and his rain is big again.

Standardization leaves room for growth because it makes it easier and more visible for players to change how they play for the better. If they don't know what the opponent will use, how will they know what is right to play?

 

[Galactic Boss Cyrus]

I would have to say no. The VGC is all about creativity, especially this year's. There are so many different strategies, so many critical moves, pretty much everything is all about who can fake out the opponent and hit them with a strategy they won't be able to worm themselves out of.

You wouldn't want to take the fun out of this tournament, and nonstandardization (if it's not, it can be a word, now) means this year's Pokemon Master really is a Pokemon Master. It's much more pressing to the player when they don't quite know what's coming to them and is unable to have any counters they can just fall back on.

 

[TheFourthChaser]

I would have to say no. The VGC is all about creativity, especially this year's. There are so many different strategies, so many critical moves, pretty much everything is all about who can fake out the opponent and hit them with a strategy they won't be able to worm themselves out of.

You wouldn't want to take the fun out of this tournament, and nonstandardization (if it's not, it can be a word, now) means this year's Pokemon Master really is a Pokemon Master. It's much more pressing to the player when they don't quite know what's coming to them and is unable to have any counters they can just fall back on.

You can still be creative in a standardized metagame, especially in one as large as the VGC's. It wouldn't be taking the fun out of it for a few reasons,

1. This would make a standard VGC metagame for Smogon, you can't make the assumption most of the people at the tournament will be Smogon members. Most people will have not have been in our standard VGC metagame so the more prepared and knowledge filled player will win(assuming no hax), which seems entirely fair to me.

2. I think having an intense match full of prediction is much better than having one without prediction. Sure some players are already able to predict but they would do so much better in a standardized metagame.

3. The method of countering is different from the OU, UU, or Uber metagames, instead of trying to counter a single mon you'd try to counter a strategy. I'd rather have countered Rain Dance than just Kyogre only to be swept by say Kingdra or Ludicolo.

Standardized metagames also have more players, you wouldn't be taking fun away from the tournament in fact you'd probably add to it. More people will be playing a different metagame, fresh metagames are always more fun because it offers a different way to play for a Battler. Having a VGC metagame alongside our Singles(and if we ever get to it, our Doubles) metagame will add on to the fun experiences of the players and doesn't take away from the fun of a tournament. It adds to it because there is the possibility of having smarter players, smarter players makes for more fun filled games. I'm in full support for a standardized VGC metagame.

 

[Galactic Boss Cyrus]

Okay, semi-standardized. The poll didn't give many options.

 

[TAY]

OK first of all I want to set the record straight regarding NBS: Netball Supremacy is a working, accurate simulator. It is not glitchy; it is not missing any relevant items; it is missing very few relevant moves. If you haven't checked it out in a couple months I strongly suggest you do so, because although it lacks a ladder it has a generally accurate doubles system (I haven't run into any glitches yet, besides maybe Perish Song going through Protect; I'm not sure if that is supposed to happen) and is far superior to playing on the DS in terms of ease of testing and team building.

To address the OP, I'm not sure what you mean by "should we standardize the VGC metagame?", because standardization isn't something that a group actively does. It is something that just happens based on the rules of the game. The VGC metagame is standardized right now, around weather (most notably rain) and Trick Room strategy-wise, and around Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga, Giratina, Ludicolo, etc Pokemon-wise.

If you mean "should we regulate the VGC metagame", (i.e. have our own 4v4 doubles ruleset) then yes, we should. Honestly I like 4v4 doubles a lot more than 6v6 singles; the only problem is that VGC is missing several notable bans (most of the ubers, Explosion, and Selfdestruct). Obviously we could fix this fairly easily and have an exciting and fun metagame.

 

[DaNukes]

OK first of all I want to set the record straight regarding NBS: Netball Supremacy is a working, accurate simulator. It is not glitchy; it is not missing any relevant items; it is missing very few relevant moves. If you haven't checked it out in a couple months I strongly suggest you do so, because although it lacks a ladder it has a generally accurate doubles system (I haven't run into any glitches yet, besides maybe Perish Song going through Protect; I'm not sure if that is supposed to happen) and is far superior to playing on the DS in terms of ease of testing and team building.

To address the OP, I'm not sure what you mean by "should we standardize the VGC metagame?", because standardization isn't something that a group actively does. It is something that just happens based on the rules of the game. The VGC metagame is standardized right now, around weather (most notably rain) and Trick Room strategy-wise, and around Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga, Giratina, Ludicolo, etc Pokemon-wise.

If you mean "should we regulate the VGC metagame", (i.e. have our own 4v4 doubles ruleset) then yes, we should. Honestly I like 4v4 doubles a lot more than 6v6 singles; the only problem is that VGC is missing several notable bans (most of the ubers, Explosion, and Selfdestruct). Obviously we could fix this fairly easily and have an exciting and fun metagame.

Yes netbattle is the best that we have at the moment, but things like giratina-O's stats, and blizzard/thunder breaking through protect happen often and they really detract from the game seeing how many of the major team types involve the moves blizzard and thunder

what i mean by "should we standardize" is that should we do a large amount of battles in the same way that has happened with OU, and then proceed to analyze the metagame and continue to analyze the metagame to post analysis and such in the same way that smogon has?


And I am sorry that i didn't put an in between option, its just that when i asked the question i wanted a yes or no answer

 

[goofball]

Uh... Giratina and Giratina-O has the correct stats, so I see nothing wrong and blizzard/thunder hitting that's a glitch but restart the battle so it would missed, you're testing for VGC so who cares who wins.

By your mean of "standardizing", if I understand this correctly, we would need a supported sim before we were to do analysis, strategies, and usage stats. Obviously, Smogon plans to have analysis and articles concerning VGC metagame but without a simulator its not likely that they'll be doing anything soon.

 

[DaNukes]

Uh... Giratina and Giratina-O has the correct stats, so I see nothing wrong and blizzard/thunder hitting that's a glitch but restart the battle so it would missed, you're testing for VGC so who cares who wins.

By your mean of "standardizing", if I understand this correctly, we would need a supported sim before we were to do analysis, strategies, and usage stats. Obviously, Smogon plans to have analysis and articles concerning VGC metagame but without a simulator its not likely that they'll be doing anything soon.

if you max out a Giratina's attack stat it will end up maxing out the defense stat when you use it as giratina-O since it switches the acutal stats, not the base stats, this can be remedied, but the point is that there are many glitches, another being that whoever is 2p gets the weather up.

Also, like i said, blizzard and thunder are probably the most commonly used offensive moves in VGC '10, so you cant really restart the game every time they break protect because it could happen at any time during the battle to change the course of it entirely. Yes its just for testing, but its annoying when an entire battle's worth of testing goes to waste because of a silly glitch when we barely get any good battles anyways.


Yes i know, but what I'm asking is if we SHOULD do that in the event that shoddy battle 2 comes out and we have access to it

You can still be creative in a standardized metagame, especially in one as large as the VGC's. It wouldn't be taking the fun out of it for a few reasons,

1. This would make a standard VGC metagame for Smogon, you can't make the assumption most of the people at the tournament will be Smogon members. Most people will have not have been in our standard VGC metagame so the more prepared and knowledge filled player will win(assuming no hax), which seems entirely fair to me.

2. I think having an intense match full of prediction is much better than having one without prediction. Sure some players are already able to predict but they would do so much better in a standardized metagame.

3. The method of countering is different from the OU, UU, or Uber metagames, instead of trying to counter a single mon you'd try to counter a strategy. I'd rather have countered Rain Dance than just Kyogre only to be swept by say Kingdra or Ludicolo.

Standardized metagames also have more players, you wouldn't be taking fun away from the tournament in fact you'd probably add to it. More people will be playing a different metagame, fresh metagames are always more fun because it offers a different way to play for a Battler. Having a VGC metagame alongside our Singles(and if we ever get to it, our Doubles) metagame will add on to the fun experiences of the players and doesn't take away from the fun of a tournament. It adds to it because there is the possibility of having smarter players, smarter players makes for more fun filled games. I'm in full support for a standardized VGC metagame.

1. there are so many many people that lurk on smogon or were just surfing the net and saw their analysis, the point is that there will be almost 100x as many people that are greatly informed about the VGC

2. This is a different topic that has its own thread, but basically if the battle comes down to the point where its about prediction, that's not really a good thing. In official tournaments like this it shouldn't be about your ability to guess your opponents moves but rather about your team building, and like you said, if we do standardize the metagame it will be reduced to prediction more often than not. Just like many singles battles are.

3. Yes you would counter entire team types, but you do that in singles as well, just like you counter specific pokemon in doubles. Everyone right now makes sure they can counter scarf smeargle, scarf kyogre, and dialga. Just like in singles everyone makes sure they can counter stall in general. I don't see what this point is trying to make.


You are saying that it will be better if there is a stanadradized metagame because there are more players and thus more smart players which would make it fun. I think that the players that were smart enough to think of move sets deserve the glory instead of the people that just copy their strategy because those people used it and someone on smogon noted it and posted it an analysis. In VGC '10, small things like crits which are completely dependent on luck make an even bigger impact due to the faster pace of the metagame, and its with things like this and the increased amount of guesswork when both players are using such good teams that will allow noobs that just copy analysis to beat the actual creators.