Announcement Regarding the current state of old gen Pure Hackmons (The 2nd Round)

[Iguana]

Hi, all!

Sorry I'm late to this. I don't have a tremendous amount to share, but both as a PH Council member and as an ORAS PH enthusiast, I feel strongly that a shift back from USUM PH to ORAS PH ladder is warranted and desirable. The time USUM PH has had as a ladder has been welcome and full of metagame development, but the reality is that ORAS PH is a more popular Gen of PH and is consistently sought after in Pure Hackmons team tours (and individual tours as well). Ladder provides an opportunity for additional activity, metagame development, and expansion of the playerbase.

The arguments against ORAS PH are, frankly, either inaccurate or overblown. That Dark Void and Chatter exist and are used in the metagame doesn't mean the metagame isn't worth developing further or showcasing as a ladder. These elements aren't without defenses too. ORAS is the hallmark of balance and emphasis on teambuilding prowess. That's exactly what we should display on a Pure Hackmons ladder.

 

[ZeldaFan1]

ORAS PH is a more popular Gen of PH and is consistently sought after in Pure Hackmons team tours (and individual tours as well).

Nice argument, senator. Why don't you back it up with a source?

(My tone may be a joke, but there is some truth to the jests)

So, about popularity. First off, the only sample size you are getting are people who actually pay close attention to the PH room, which compared to the player base of PH, is not very much. While good players are nice, and do help the format evolve, what keeps PH alive? The average players, who don't do room tours or don't even know the room exists.

A question to ask all of you. Why did you decide to start playing PH? For me, and I would assume many others, it was to put Huge Power on random shit. That's what PH is all about, chaos. And, Gen 7 not only has enough chaos, it still has binds to keep the meta from exploding (Innards mainly) As well, Gen 7 is a format where you can get away with some dumb shit. You can use random debatably-useful mons and still get away with it. Put yourself in the average players shoes. You just found out about a format where you can do anything. You create a admittedly bad team, jump into ladder...and you don't have the coverage on any of your mons to deal with the combination of whatever 2 WGs the opponent chose to use. In Gen 7, there are three easy catch-all moves that make a situation like this far less likely to happen. The Moldy moves help reduce the matchup fishness of the format, because you don't have to sacrifice a ability on MB on a mon that would way rather have something else, or hope that the coverage moves you are running on however many MMX you chose to bring are enough.

ORAS is the hallmark of balance and emphasis on teambuilding prowess.

Teambuilding is indeed more important in Gen 6. But for a ladder format which draws in mainly people not trying to take it 100% seriously, a format with more emphasis on gameplay choices is likely better. People with teams that are "worse" then other people can still win. Sure, this can be true for Gen 6, but not anywhere close to the same extent. Say what you want about Gen 7, but at least there isn't a move that is commonly used that makes you play a coin toss on if you get a turn, while dealing damage, bypassing Sub, and being able to persist for more then just one turn.

Options are great. We love options. When the switch was made from Gen 6 to Gen 7, more options were given to players. The -ate abilities got a 0.10 damage nerf, and Gale Wings was shot to death, but overall far, far more options were given then taken away. But when you want to go back, you face a problem. Generally, people don't like it when options are taken away. This would hit newer players, and players that are just in PH for the fun, the hardest. You are having fun, and then suddenly Rayquaza breaks into your home, takes the moldy moves away from you, takes the Z moves away from you, takes a bunch of cool mons away from you, hands you a move that does passable damage while applying debatably the worst or second worst status effect ever created in the generation where said stupid fucking status is at its peak, and then leaves. You would feel like you were robbed, because a lot of options were just robbed from you. All for what, CoilPass Dark Void? WG matchup fishes that we see on Moongeist sweepers on every offensive mon? A fun move that takes the options from your hands and grants them to the dark god of RNG? I know that Gen 6 is a fine meta, I played it back when it was the official ladder. (I was using a different account, so this account creation being after Gen 6 was removed is not a plot hole)

TLDR: Realistically, more people are drawn to PH for the funny bullshit, not for a more rigid tier. If they wanted options taken away from them, they would play BH or OU or any of the tiers below OU. Keep the chaos alive. Keep the freedom alive. Keep Gen 7 alive.

Edit: Also I forgot to mention, but in terms of the community activity that I can track, that being the forums, Gen 7 has significantly more posts then any other format. You could say "That's because Gen 7 is current", but I would remind you that Gen 6 was also once current, and still is losing the post game. Does this matter? No. Does it give more evidence that Gen 6 is not, in fact, the more popular gen of PH? Yes.

 

[Rain]

Nice argument, senator. Why don't you back it up with a source?

(My tone may be a joke, but there is some truth to the jests)

So, about popularity. First off, the only sample size you are getting are people who actually pay close attention to the PH room, which compared to the player base of PH, is not very much. While good players are nice, and do help the format evolve, what keeps PH alive? The average players, who don't do room tours or don't even know the room exists.

A question to ask all of you. Why did you decide to start playing PH? For me, and I would assume many others, it was to put Huge Power on random shit. That's what PH is all about, chaos. And, Gen 7 not only has enough chaos, it still has binds to keep the meta from exploding (Innards mainly) As well, Gen 7 is a format where you can get away with some dumb shit. You can use random debatably-useful mons and still get away with it. Put yourself in the average players shoes. You just found out about a format where you can do anything. You create a admittedly bad team, jump into ladder...and you don't have the coverage on any of your mons to deal with the combination of whatever 2 WGs the opponent chose to use. In Gen 7, there are three easy catch-all moves that make a situation like this far less likely to happen. The Moldy moves help reduce the matchup fishness of the format, because you don't have to sacrifice a ability on MB on a mon that would way rather have something else, or hope that the coverage moves you are running on however many MMX you chose to bring are enough.

Teambuilding is indeed more important in Gen 6. But for a ladder format which draws in mainly people not trying to take it 100% seriously, a format with more emphasis on gameplay choices is likely better. People with teams that are "worse" then other people can still win. Sure, this can be true for Gen 6, but not anywhere close to the same extent. Say what you want about Gen 7, but at least there isn't a move that is commonly used that makes you play a coin toss on if you get a turn, while dealing damage, bypassing Sub, and being able to persist for more then just one turn.

Options are great. We love options. When the switch was made from Gen 6 to Gen 7, more options were given to players. The -ate abilities got a 0.10 damage nerf, and Gale Wings was shot to death, but overall far, far more options were given then taken away. But when you want to go back, you face a problem. Generally, people don't like it when options are taken away. This would hit newer players, and players that are just in PH for the fun, the hardest. You are having fun, and then suddenly Rayquaza breaks into your home, takes the moldy moves away from you, takes the Z moves away from you, takes a bunch of cool mons away from you, hands you a move that does passable damage while applying debatably the worst or second worst status effect ever created in the generation where said stupid fucking status is at its peak, and then leaves. You would feel like you were robbed, because a lot of options were just robbed from you. All for what, CoilPass Dark Void? WG matchup fishes that we see on Moongeist sweepers on every offensive mon? A fun move that takes the options from your hands and grants them to the dark god of RNG? I know that Gen 6 is a fine meta, I played it back when it was the official ladder. (I was using a different account, so this account creation being after Gen 6 was removed is not a plot hole)

TLDR: Realistically, more people are drawn to PH for the funny bullshit, not for a more rigid tier. If they wanted options taken away from them, they would play BH or OU or any of the tiers below OU. Keep the chaos alive. Keep the freedom alive. Keep Gen 7 alive.

Edit: Also I forgot to mention, but in terms of the community activity that I can track, that being the forums, Gen 7 has significantly more posts then any other format. You could say "That's because Gen 7 is current", but I would remind you that Gen 6 was also once current, and still is losing the post game. Does this matter? No. Does it give more evidence that Gen 6 is not, in fact, the more popular gen of PH? Yes.

Apparently what we want as a permanant ladder, if there would be one, is a ladder not purely based on @ chaos or some funny things like you said, this is a competitive pokemon forum, and we are here to play competitive hackmons. Those who you refer to that play this game to bring random funny sht and watch it work ususally don't remain their passion. Just look at our current player base, realistically most of the people don't really threat this meta competitively either due to their lack of ability to do so or their lack of motivation to do so. On the other hand although I don't know as much on the gen 6 player base this seems to be an overall more competitive and stable metagame.

My Personal experience that is not really related but I already typed it out so i'm not gonna delete it

I, personally, is actually playing this metagame becuase I watched a funny replay of a gen 6 pure hackmons ladder game and come here to find gen 7 being the current metagame, and the biggest reason for me not to abandon this game is becuase I got a team from cscl's post in another forum which made me have a pretty decent(to me back then 1500 is cool enough) success. And after that I took a break as I get consistently ran over by random top players (especially bullsht) and its not until my discovery of the pure hackmons room and the sample teams that I continued on this meta game, but from this point on I don't treat it incompetitively anymore.

 

[Giagantic]

This is an alert, a decision will be made soon regarding whether we switch things up or not.

I want serious posts not meme shitposty stuff, or "there is funnier shit in USUM," these type of comments don't help us judge whether we keep USUM or switch to ORAS (if anything such comments hurt the chances of remaining USUM). Ultimately, the most important thing we value is competitiveness beyond all else as this is a competitive Pokemon site; we will likely go with the one that is best in this regard as it is the least biased way of judging them.

Please say why you prefer one or the other clearly, and outline the merits. We will make a decision in a few days time.

 

[lag=bad]

I'm pretty late to the conversation, but I've been reading through the thread and I'd like to put in my thoughts as well. Despite the fact that many of them have kind of been stated already lol.
I am firmly in the camp that ORAS is a far more consistently competitive format than USUM (insofar as a PH generation can be.) given the deep oversaturation of threats and reality that fishing with specific teamcomps in USUM is an incredibly viable strategy. Despite how creative gen7 allows you to be in the builder, it is incredibly restrictive in games, with much of the tier being decided off matchup (assuming a basic level of opponent competence) in my experience.
Having spent a lot of time with both tiers, I find that while USUM allows for much more expression and creativity in builder, that translates far less in game, and I regularly find actually playing the tier linear or not enjoyable. ORAS on the other hand, despite not having as much breadth in what can be used, is still a very fluid format that isn't as restrictive as I've seen some of the people in this thread make it out to be. I have my gripes with chatter and dark void, but while their impact is undeniable, it isn't as severe as people have said it is. I have lost quite a few games to teams that I think are inane skill-less matchup fishes praying your opponent has a composition that just so happens to be weak enough to spamming chatter + sleep or other status to break them with enough luck, but like, it's a matchup fish that thuds into a large majority of strong teams, so I get over it. Chatter is annoying, but it's mons. Deal with it.
Anyway the other big thing I would like about having ORAS back is that you could pretty consistently play any matchup you loaded into. It is far more reminiscent of a more standard format in terms of being able to actually make a difference in game rather than an annoyingly high percentage of matches being decided in builder unless someone plays absolutely horribly.
Finally, I understand the sentiment that many of the newer players joined for USUM, and that switching back to ORAS, a (still very cool tier in builder if you understand how to tech) builder than certainly feels more restrictive and "less creative", while also being perhaps not as flashy in what you're able to do with teams at large (albeit, more off-meta structures have not been explored as deeply, so perhaps there could be an offense structure meta upending in store should the ladder change, although I doubt it.). USUM is definitely a showy tier, I love seeing the incredible teams my friends come up with and the lengths they go to to improof and cover for a spread of possible threats, and yet, I go to actually play with these teams, and often find my experience far less positive than when I borrow teams to play other tiers. I do think that gen7 deserves plenty of love still though, and I'd be interested to see how a rotating ladder would be received were it to be implemented like the above suggestions. But I am still in the boat that ORAS should be the primary competitive format, ladder and teamtour, for Pure Hackmons. (I'd love to see individuals for USUM, ORAS, and perhaps a few other gens as well though!)

 

[mayonnaise. mayo.]

Heyo, Mayo again.
After careful consideration, I have decided that we should migrate back to ORAS ladder for many reasons:
1. ORAS has less bullshit. In my previous, argument, I stated that since a tier with no bans is constantly developing, it'll eventually metamorph into a matchup fish meta and will become unfun. However, ORAS has way less potential for this to happen, mostly due to the fact that there are no moldy moves, Innards, or CFZs. Sure, Dark Void and Chatter exist, but they aren't as bad as people think.
2. ORAS is already favored as the PH of choice in teamtours. Last HPL, ORAS had 2 slots instead of 1, while USUM only had the 1. Most recently, in OMCL, ORAS was featured as a non-permaladder tier. You'll never guess whether they included USUM or not. (spoiler: they didn't)
3. USUM has, for the lack of better words, gone to shit. Whenever you open up the metagame thread, you can see people begging, no, DEMANDING for the thread to be nuked. Whenever you open up PHcord, you'll most definitely see someone joking about just how miserably bad ladder has become, often citing this quote from Ransei himself: "Ladder is a great way of playing the meta. You get a great stream of games going on a good day, alongside some epic games." To simply put it, the PH community have grown an immense resentment for USUM, and considering how things are going in this thread, everyone wants ORAS back.
In conclusion, I believe the switch back to ORAS is inevitable, and I shall be awaiting it ever so patiently.

 

[PenultimateToast]

i'm definitely in support of a rotating ladder, i feel like there's a good amount of people both in support of either oras ladder or usum ladder and simply choosing one or the other will likely leave the other group dissatisfied. we could even show some of the old gens a bit of love, generally they're pretty unexplored so having a ladder for them could be interesting.

generally i think the complaints about usum ladder that don't apply to the meta as a whole (think bad queue times, bad players on ladder, stuff like that) aren't going to be fixed by switching to oras ladder. i feel like those are just inevitable with hackmons ladders and there's not much you can do about it. if i had to pick one permaladder i'm 100% choosing usum, i simply just do not enjoy playing oras at all. don't take my opinion too seriously though, this is very subjective.

 

[Giagantic]

As rotating ladder is out of the question at the moment we will move forward with transitioning back to ORAS PH as Old Gen PH Permaladder.

Now as for the primary reasons why this move back to ORAS as featured Old Gen PH is simply due to a combination of two factors.

1. ORAS is simply more competitive then USUM, with less MU fish and more emphasis on competent playing.
2. Has a popularity that basically rivals USUM despite being unladderable (thus in theory favours the latter).

Point one has been repeated ad nauseam by many different parties and the only defenses that the USUM supporters could muster generally ended up being along the lines of more creativity in USUM and/or being "funnier". Since this is a competitive site for Pokemon and there are a limited number of permaladder slots, we will obviously favour the more competitive format. Point 2 further cements this decision due to how popular ORAS is in spite of being unladderable and hopefully will lead to higher quality conversations in general and less bellyaching in the discord and Smogon thread.

I know supporters of USUM will dislike this change but if in time a similar situation is to occur for ORAS we will be willing to discuss what PH gen should be featured (won't be anytime soon though).

This change will take place in the coming days.

Pinging dhelmise Ransei for the change! Thanks :)