Implemented Add proper teambuilder support for DPP NU / PU / ZU and BW ZU

[Django]

Making this in PR even though there's a PS suggestion for this open as I've been told it won't happen for policy reasons.

Currently when you try to build in any of these three tiers it's really quite difficult.

When you open the NU teambuilder these are the mons you see (NU mons highlighted in red):

NU

When you open the PU teambuilder these are the mons you see (PU viable mons highlighted in red):
Note: NU mons are removed from the PU builder, which is good!

PU

And when you open the ZU builder you just...can't tell what mons are actually allowed in the tier (ZU legal mons highlighted in red):

ZU

My proposal is to fix these so when you open the builders you see legal and viable mons for those tiers aka:

This issue comes up over and over in our various discord channels, particularly when new players try to pick up / learn the tier. It's confusing which mons are legal and / or viable, and even for those who play these tiers regularly it's easy to misplace which mons are in which tier. All three tiers feature in multiple team tournaments and circuit tournaments each year, and have active playerbases. Leaving them without proper teambuilder support feels unfair and needlessly restrictive.

In order to implement we need to accept these tiers (and others) were created using alternative methods (see thread here). If tiering policy is happy with those methods, we can go ahead.

Relevant history

DPP is a usage based generation, and PU / ZU were not created via usage based tiers. You can see the method for their creation here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/retro-tiers-the-what-how-and-why.3652871/ which is a combination of RoA ladder usage, tournament usage, and some sense check VR voting. This was done as the tiers creation was so far past the latest ladder usage (> 5 year gap) that the latest DPP NU usage stats bore no relevance to the metagame at the time. Hence the best efforts to get as close to a sensible usage based approach as possible. These tiers are definitely outliers, and given how many tiers we create these days it's hard to see it ever happening again.

 

[TTK]

I second this proposal and I've always wanted to have PU and ZU separated in the builder from as early as 2018 when I started playing DPP PU and eventually when I played DPP ZU and I was on council for that format. In recent years, we've had a side server https://staraptorshowdown.com that has managed to do the proposed implementation Django has stated and it has helped everyone in the DPP lower tier community that play ZU to SU actually build teams 100x easier.

 

[eeriespell]

i'd like to add support for this as a mod for the pu showdown room and discord. to accentuate django's point about this making it exceedingly difficult for new players to pick up the tier, the dpp channel in the pu discord has resorted to having a pinned list of every pokemon that is legal/viable in the format. additionally, due to dpp pu's nature as an oldgen lowtier, it doesn't get resource updates often. the last time that the vr was updated was october of last year, and a decent portion of the players django and i reached out to chose to abstain or simply did not respond. it had not been updated for years before this, and the update only happened because django and i took initiative and took that process into our own hands. while there are obviously other issues surrounding this lack of activity on resources, i can definitely assure you that a lack of a proper builder isn't encouraging people to be any more engaged with the tier.

 

[Django]

I've been informed that it's helpful to formalise a "policy" around how we handle these outliers.

In order to implement we need to accept these tiers (and others) were created using alternative methods (see thread here). If tiering policy is happy with those methods, we can go ahead. shiloh

I believe the only other tier this affects is BW ZU, so tagging diegoyuhhi and sleid.

Tagging Akir for visibility as well

 

[Bughouse]

There's no argument to not support this for tiers like DPP PU and ZU when support has already been provided in other similar cases. It really just makes no sense for ADV PU and BW PU to be supported, but DPP PU not because of arbitrary conditions placed on the tier at a generation level.

Although DPP was a ladder usage based generation, DPP NU itself was not official during the generation and no particularly valid usage stats exist for the metagame. It was only played on a side server (the CAP server) and was not supported on the main Smogon server on Shoddy Battle. I am not aware of final stats for DPP NU even existing, only interim stats that existed in versions of DPP NU that were not final (i.e. Primeape rising to UU late in the generation, so it's still in the final current gen DPP NU stats that I'm aware of).

For all intents and purposes there is no difference between something like DPP PU/ZU and ADV NU/PU (or even ADV RU now). The generation might have been ladder usage based, but these tiers never have been, nor could they ever have been.

 

[Pokeslice]

I can’t stress enough how good of a quality of life change this would be, +1 from me and please please implement this.

It’s nearly impossible to properly get into DPP NU without having someone guide you through what the tier is like when the builder is intermingled with PU and ZU mons. Even for players like myself who know the tier, building and exploring can be a frustrating experience because the current builder mess makes it difficult to visualize or comprehend what needs to be accounted for. I love that tier deeply and I always try to play some of it in our team tours throughout the year and this would make that experience even better for myself and many others.

I’m not sure if it’s possible, but NUPL is starting up in the next 2-3 weeks and if this could be timed with that it would make my month

 

[plznostep]

+1 from me as well

As someone who got recently into DPP ZU, building could really be a massive pain; A lot of the time instead of referring to the builder, I had to refer to other resources to know what was actually available to use in the tier. It would be wonderful to have builder support like other generations such as ADV have since at the moment, our builder feels a bit shafted.

 

[DD Joe]

plz do this it would make DPP so much more accessible for ppl trying to get into the tier.

 

[Tack]

hi these show up in pupls and such every year and it'd be an amazing qol change for the builder process for pretty much everyone who plays those during seasons or outside of them, +1

I believe the only other tier this affects is BW ZU

the current implementation labels every legal mon as pu but removes all of the pu exclusive mons, its already tracked completely correctly in builder and has a simple solution of putting a different tag next to the mons, it would be awesome if that could be done when if this goes through because it would clean up the BW PU builder as well

 

[UberSkitty]

Not much to add, just wanna say as a long time DPP PU teambuilder I support this.

 

[HSOWA]

This is long overdue and would make it a LOT easier for people, pls implement this :)

 

[goldmason]

Shiloh said I get to be tiering council for the day so making a post as tiering council.

Fully in support of this change. One of the limitations being presented is that per current policy, DPP PU must reflect exactly what it looked like circa 2010 (when it was on usage based tiering) in order to receive builder support, and must be agnostic of the current state of DPP PU, which is VR based (and was created as an amalgam; see Django's linked post).

I think this does not serve the community or the users who play DPP PU or DPP ZU well, and obfuscates all three formats (NU being included), as more eloquently presented by Slice and Django above. It is even more telling that this void should be filled with the revelation that some DPP PU and DPP ZU players use an entirely separate branch of Showdown just to see the Pokemon in the correct spots.

Given these circumstances, Tiering should and will make a one time exception to the usual policy, and allow DPP PU and DPP/BW ZU teambuilder support, based on their current state, as outlined by Django in the OP. This will make the tiers more readily accessible to the community, and the historic nature of the forming of these tiers warrants this response. Tagging dhelmise to implement (pretty sure he has it ready after the talk yesterday), thank you everyone for your time.

 

[dhelmise]

implemented 6 7