A Possible Philosophy Shift from Generation IV

[Firestorm]

This is proposing an alternate direction that we can take from the one we used in Generation IV.

As the fourth generation wore on, I felt as if Smogon became a site less for competitive players and more for pseudo designers. I'm not saying we can't have game design aspects in our site - after all it's only natural to want to make things ourselves - but I do feel that should stay within the Create a Pokemon project.

What Smogon has done over the last generation is the equivalent of a developer patching a game. The reason I don't think is positive is explained decently by sirlin in his playing to win series:

The “constant patching” approach by developers also often leads to laziness on the part of the players; there’s less reward for trying as hard as you can within the given rules, because if you are successful, your tactic will just be patched [in our case, banned] into obsolescence anyway.

Another reason I'm wary of us patching the game we play is that I think there's a conflict of interest there. Smogon should be home to the best players. Bungie and Capcom fly competitive Halo and Street Figher players to headquarters to hear their thoughts, but they do not take everything they say and act on it. Why? As competitive players, we are usually very inclined to serve our own interests and in most cases, that's keeping the status quo or getting rid of things that bother us. Let’s let the designers (Game Freak) design and let’s have the players (us) play.

Now, if we establish that Smogon should take the university metaphor and be a place of research, analysis, and education rather than that of a game developer, we can spend less time arguing about what game we want to play and more time on how to play it best.

So really what it comes down to is, are we willing to give up control and instead work with what we have like the players of every other competitive game ever made? This ability to be the best we can under the conditions given is what defines competitive play. I believe by tinkering with that, we are no longer playing competitively.

By giving up control, I mean taking Nintendo's rules, which we did used to do, and running with it. Our main metagame will likely be Singles for as long as Nintendo's single-player campaign emphasizes it. Our ruleset is an evolution of that used by the Poke Cup in Pokemon Stadium that mutated somewhere along the way.

Our clauses have been fairly consistent from Generation I through IV:

Sleep Clause -> First implemented by Nintendo in Stadium
Freeze Clause -> First implemented by Nintendo in Stadium (removed in Gen IV by us for being unnecessary)
Species Clause -> First implemented by Nintendo in Stadium
Self-KO Clause -> Not really a clause, tie-breaker method
Evasion Clause -> Unique to Smogon
OHKO Clause -> Unique to Smogon

Our banlist used to be fairly consistent with Nintendo’s, and then changed.

Generation I
- Mewtwo
- Mew

Our banlist mirrored theirs.

Generation II
- Mewtwo
- Mew
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Celebi

Our banlist mirrored theirs.

Generation III
- Mewtwo
- Mew
- Wobbuffet
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Celebi (later unbanned)
- Wynaut
- Latias
- Latios
- Rayquaza
- Deoxys
- Deoxys-A
- Deoxys-D
- Deoxys-S
- Kyogre
- Groudon
- Jirachi (later unbanned)

The only differences we have is that our banlist had Wobbuffet and Wynaut on it and Nintendo's had Jirachi and Celebi while we eventually removed them.

Generation IV
Mew
Mewtwo
Wobbuffet
Lugia
Ho-Oh
Wynaut
Salamence
Latias
Latios
Rayquaza
Deoxys
Deoxys-A
Deoxys-D
Deoxys-S
Groudon
Kyogre
Garchomp
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina
Giratina-O
Arceus
Manaphy
Darkrai
Shaymin-S

What we have that they don't: Wobbuffet, Wynaut, Salamence, Garchomp
What they have that we don't: Celebi, Jirachi, Phione, Shaymin

---

Really my only point of listing all that out was that people seem to automatically assume that our banlist is that much different from their's when in fact we had the same exact list as theirs until around 2005 or so. Even Generation IV was pretty close to their list.

We would be giving up the use of Celebi, Jirachi, Shaymin, and lol Phione.
We would be re-introducing Wobbuffet, Wynaut, Salamence, and Garchomp.

We would be removing Evasion and OHKO clause.
We would be keeping Species and potentially Sleep clause.

[ This is where the proposed Generation V banlist would go if I could find the Battle Subway list ]

Personally, I think this is a price worth the stability and ability to pass the blame when it comes to decisions being made. In the unlikely event this becomes an unworkable game which players refuse to play, we can go back to the Generation IV method, but it worked well for a good 7 years so I don't see why we couldn't try it again.

I remember Aeolus saying this:

This is incorrect. The previous method DID work... it was a shift of attitude that caused the change... not a non-functional metagame.

At some point it became generally accepted that if something isn't absolutely broken it must be allowed and the only way to know if something is broken is to test it. Prior to the implementation of the new system, nobody really made any assertions about the intrinsic "uberness" of Latias/Latios or the brokenness of OHKO/Evasion. People just accepted that the call had been made on those items and played the game they were given... which functioned perfectly well. It may not have included every possible option available in the cartridges... but it was good enough and stable. By changing the system, we've completely traded stability for an uneasy assurance that our game is "better". A balance between those goals (stability and "assurance through testing") is what needs to be sought for Gen 5.

I believe the shift in thinking came with the shift of power from Nintendo to us. Much of my line of thinking also falls in line of some of what Articuno64 said in his OP of that same topic which I wish was in Policy Review but isn't, so I will quote here:

This is a post about the tiering process, but at the same time, it is not. It is really much simpler and more fundamental. It has nothing to do with Salamence, Garchomp, ladders, councils, or any of that.

I've felt this way for a long time, but I've hesitated to speak up because it goes right to the heart of a project that is the brainchild of people who are very good friends of mine. The reasons that I'm bringing it up now are that a) I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm not alone in this opinion and b) with Black and White coming up, we all agree that it's important to start on the right path.

I'm calling into question the assumption that having the freedom to control the rules of the game makes the game more enjoyable. In fact, the thesis of this post is the opposite: The very act of opening up the rules of the game for discussion makes the game less enjoyable.

This is an idea that is counter-intuitive but, given some thought, makes a lot of sense. To better explain it, I'm linking to a TED talk called "The paradox of choice" by Barry Schwartz. It's 20 minutes long, and it's a worthwhile listen even if you don't care about this thread. (not all of the talk applies to what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we are not qualified to decide what the rules should be; what I'm saying is that doing so makes us enjoy it less)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

One of the problems that Barry talks about is decision paralysis. We seem to have passed that by moving onto the faster council system. That's fine, I'm willing to accept that we've solved decision paralysis for this.

I would like to focus more on the point made in the story about jeans. The fact is that even if, after all of our hard work, we end up with a metagame that is 'better' or 'more balanced' than we started with, we will actually feel worse about it than if we had just picked a "reasonable default" set of rules and left them untouched.

Before, when you had a problem with a pokemon, your only choice was to figure out how to counter it. Now, you have two choices. You could figure out how to counter it, or you could question whether the pokemon should be banned. Simply having the option to ban things fucks with the way that metagame processes work. You can not play properly because there is always an undercurrent of thoughts about whether something should be banned, will be banned, etc. The foundation is unstable, and although it would be worth having an unstable foundation if it resulted in a better metagame, as I've said, we would not actually feel better about a better metagame anyway. It is a sacrifice which feels noble but is for a perceived benefit which does not actually exist.

It sounds weird, but we need to absolve ourselves of the responsibility for coming up with rule decisions. We need to be desperate to pass the buck as far as we possibly can. How to pass the buck? There are a few ways to do it. Following the rules in official Nintendo tournaments or the stadium game modes is one way. Going with a traditional competitive community ban list (banning the Mewtwos and equivalent stat totals along with the pokemon that have 100 in each base stat) is another way. Really, ANYTHING at all that provides a simple, reasonable, default set of rules that does not need to be constantly up for debate is a preferable system. Then we can finally just play the damn game.

---

With regards to using the university metaphor, I think our simulators should not be seen as products to sell but tools for learning instead. With that in mind, they should emulate the games as closely as possible so we can beat use them to analyze the game. That gives them a clear purpose which we can use to base decisions on.

---

Unfortunately it looks like I spent most of my post focusing on tiering. The reason I didn't post this in the banlist thread was because it is completely off-topic there. This is not proposing an initial banlist that we refine over time. It's proposing a banlist period. If we start modifying it willy-nilly, it defeats the purpose.

I hope I'm not misrepresenting the past as I am basing all this on secondary research having joined the community in 07 myself. Please feel free to correct me or explain why this should not go into effect. Whatever you do, just do it here and not in secret IRC channels where nobody but the people who agree with you can hear you. It's time to start addressing each other directly.

Edit: Oh god this is long.
tl;dr even though that shouldn't be happening in PR:
We let Game Freak handle the game.
We handle playing it, writing about it, and teaching others the intricacies of it.

 

[Erazor]

I would be fine with going with Nintendo's rules, as long as we unban shit like Phione that they ban. Before you say "slippery slope", I 'm stating that if they ban the all-100 BSTs, then so do we. We stop as soon as the pokemon start getting more debatable.

 

[mien]

I strongly agree using Nintendo's banlist instead of our own. The rules of a game are decided by it's developer not by the players.

The fact that every single person in this forum has it's own idea of a good banlist proves that a perfect banlist does not exist. As such i do not see what makes any tier list, made here at smogon, better then the one made by nintendo.

This banlist issue is going too far, it's dividing people into camps and each side is starting to feel hostile towards each other, there are even some who are speaking of conspiracies. I doubt the poll will solve this issue, it won't make the 'losing' camp change their mind. Eventually someone will bring up this issue again, creating an endless cycle of debates that last the entire generation.

The only way to solve this is by using a neutral banlist, like Gamefreaks. Sure it's not perfect and i know that Phione is not broken. However to me that sounds like a small sacrifice if we can prevent months of debate, testing and most importantly end the hostility to some extend.

 

[Sapientia]

I don't know why we should play with Wobbuffet, Garchomp and Salamence, when players dont like them.
You also cannot compare banlists in RBY and GSC with gen V, as they do not have much Ubers, so it was clear what should be banned and what shouldn't be. You also may not forget, that we tried Snorlax as uber in GSC and Gamefreak never thought about this, so that we have the same banlist isn't because we wanted to, but because we made the same decisions independently. We also did not allow Legends with Hidden Power and we dissallowed the GoldSilver Cartridge Present, because it was too good. On the official RBY tournaments Nintendo allowed evasion - we did not.
We never really followed Nintendo when making the rules, so I dont know why we should do this know.

Nintendo creates the Pokemon and the mechanics and this are things we cannot change (on the cartriges), but we can say what Pokemon we want to play with.
This may be the easiest way to solve this problem - but not the best.
I don't think we need to test clauses such as Sleep Clause etc, some are obviously outdated (evasion clause, ohko clause, maybe freeze clause), because things like evasion or ohko are not viable (anymore) and the others are needed and should not be abolished, you may discuss wich sleep clause is better, but to be honest - who cares?
Still, we should use our own banlist because there are some significiant differences that make the game less enjoyable (garchomp for example) and such differences will also exist in gen V. Even though the Gamefreak banlist could be a starting banlist, but we should still change minor things we do not like.

 

[undisputed]

The op is a good post. A lot of hostility has arisen over the Gen 4 tiering (especially the later two stages) and the "ban list / no ban list" issue. I actually really like the idea of having a neutral 3rd party because most users at this site are pretty bad losers when their ideas are given the 'no'.

Also, I think this idea also goes towards "playing Pokemon as it is given to us, not as we want it to be." There has been endless debates about stupid mechanics of the game, and the clauses we use. In my opinion, we either really start moving towards playing what Game Freak gives us, or we have the ability to deviate slightly with Ban Lists, Mechanics, and Clauses. One or the other, and I think the first option is probably the most agreeable. It cuts down on all the animosity at this site.

So all in all, I would be a proponent of using this new ban list Game Freak uses, and if a huge unforeseen issue arises, we can always adapt later in Generation 5.

 

[Ice-eyes]

What is the advantage of using the list designed by GameFreak as the arbitrary list, and not one designed by a random hobo, voted for by Smogon members or picked randomly out of a hat? Are we going to abolish UU, in order to avoid 'opening up the rules of the game for discussion'.

Not to mention that it's hypocritical to say that we should follow the games, and then pull clauses (Sleep) from a different game to the banlist itself.

 

[Delta 2777]

While normally I would be inclined to agree with a third party (Nintendo) to save us the trouble of debating and testing a banlist, in this case I am strongly opposed to the idea.

First of all, let us remember that the VGCs, the only official Pokemon tournament endorsed by Nintendo (as far as I am aware of), supports double battles with four Pokemon per team. This is a completely different metagame from singles, where effective singles Pokemon and strategies may not work at all (take the move Stealth Rock as a perfect example - it does not break the Doubles metagame at all, but in singles it is nearly a staple on every team). This just clearly shows the huge distinction between Ninetendo's official "standard" tournaments and what Smogon considers its "standard" of battling (singles). We should also remember that official Nintendo tournaments abide by very odd rules (you may use up to two "restricted" Pokemon on your team), and unless we turn our standard metagame into the same metagame as the VGCs, I don't see why we would adopt a banlist that was intended for a different form of battling.

Secondly, the fact that event Pokemon are not even on the restricted list shows that Nintendo's list can not be realisticly used by a community that wishes to simulate a competative environment, where anything that is obtainable, and doesn't break the game should be usable. This is where Pokemon like Phione give a perfect example - Gamefreak/Nintendo doesn't recognize these Pokemon even of Uber (restricted) status, but rather forbids its use altogether due to being event based. I use Phione in this example because it is quite obvious that it does not overpower what we consider the standard metagame, but the same applies for Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy, Mew, Shaymin/Shaymin-S, along with Darkrai, Deoxys (all formes), Arceus, etc. While some of these Pokemon have been established as broken by us (Arceus and friends), it is generaly agreed upon by Smogon (at least thus far) that these Pokemon (Celebi, Phione, Jirachi, Shaymin) do not overpower what we consider the standard metagame, and forbidding the use of certain Pokemon because they are event Pokemon (assuming that they are obtainable, which they all are since Arceus's Toys-R-Us event) would be uncompetative, and Smogon is a competative Pokemon website.

What one must remember is that while no banlist is perfect, some banlists are better than others. In earlier Gen IV testing, it was pretty obvious that Wobbuffet was broken. Shadow Tag + CounterCoat nearly guarentees a kill, especially with the abundance of Choice items in singles play (and Encore could be used for the free setup of a teammate). However, Wobbuffet isn't a cover legendary, and it isn't an event Pokemon, so it is allowed in Nintendo's tournaments (even if hypatheticaly Nintendo did support Singles tournaments). Why would we allow this sort of Pokemon when we know it is broken? It makes far more sense to me that a community, one which is capable of gathering individuals, all with the common interest on deciding what deserves to be eligible in standard play, and thoroughly testing individual suspect Pokemon knows better than Nintendo, who bans Pokemon not based by power/effectiveness but by other characteristics. Let't face it, official Nintendo rules follow a list that "restricts" only cover legendaries, aka 670+ BST Pokemon not named Slaking or Regigigas (Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, Giratina-O, Kyogre, Groudon, Mewtwo, Ho-Oh, Lugia, Rayquaza) and altogether bans event Pokemon (see above Pokemon as listed). These are not accurate scales of the power or usefulness of a Pokemon; only testing can decide what is broken and what isn't, and Smogon has the ability to do that.

 

[lilyhollow]

Your Sirlin excerpt only explains why continuous patching is a bad idea. It is pretty clear that the community has a lot to gain by crafting its own balanced metagames, so long as those metagames quickly become set in stone. If you have any reason to suddenly believe that that's impossible, or that the very act of taking a few months to create a metagame, static or not, will inherently effect some vast transformation in this community's identity from "play-oriented" to "design-oriented," I'd love to hear them. As it stands, though, I don't see how your suggestion is in any way desirable from a competitive standpoint, besides those first few months months of testing.

I'm not personally opposed to your proposition in any way, and it does have some benefits. However, I think a well-run testing process can retain almost all of those benefits ("being consistent with official Nintendo events" is the only one it wouldn't) with none of the downsides. As long as we're focused on making sure that it is a well-run testing process, these types of solutions won't be necessary.

 

[Syberia]

The OP, to me, sounds like someone who's just tired of all the arguments and debates that come with the territory of trying to establish a ruleset for a completely new generation. We, as Smogon, have always tried to make the most competitive game possible, and in doing so, Nintendo's arbitrary bans don't make sense. How does a pokemon being hard to obtain have any bearing in a situation where anyone who wants to can pull one out of thin air and immediately use it?


That being said, if we were truly to stop being "game designers" (and I wholeheartedly object to the use of this term to describe what we have been doing; even random FPS servers and tournaments frequently ban weapons that they feel are overpowered and no one has ever tried to argue that they're "making a new game," on the contrary they're happy that they don't have to deal with rocket launchers that take no skill to use because they have a massive kill radius), we must follow in its entirety an official Nintendo ruleset which has been endorsed by them.

For Gen V, this leaves us with two possibilities:
- Random Wi-Fi rules, which include item clause, species clause, and a banlist of sorts, but limit us to only using 3 pokemon per battle (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) and do not include sleep clause
- Friend Code Wi-Fi, which has no rules and allows the use of the Miracle Shooter (it defaults to being turned on, and if we're allowed the freedom to turn it off, then we're also allowed the freedom to stop doing other things, like using Mewtwo in OU, or else the whole idea is moot)

No other Nintendo ruleset has been made for 5th-gen play

If we wish to play singles with sleep clause, we would have to ban all Gen V pokemon as well as Platinum's alternate forms, as the last time Nintendo gave us a situation in which this was possible was in PBR, which had these restrictions. We would be "game designers" under the OP's reasoning if we took a ruleset in which certain pokemon did not yet exist and applied it to a new situation where they did.

Also, keep in mind that if we were to give Nintendo the last word on what is "competitive," then all of our Gen IV testing will have been in vain as we were supposed to be playing doubles anyways, and any Gen V testing we do before the first official Nintendo tournament will also be pointless once they define the official rules. Additionally, "convenience" features like the undo move button and the play clock would have to be removed, since Nintendo has never supported them in any fashion and "simulators with judges" is no longer even a theoretically possible way to justify them. The only time-based rule I believe Nintendo has ever implemented was that a match going longer than 15 minutes goes to the player with the most pokemon remaining (and there is no Nintendo-approved precedent for handing out wins based on time in any form for Gen V). This would give stall a distinct advantage over all other forms of play, and do we really want to see strategies based around stalling for time?

I am willing to bet that none of the scenarios I have just outlined, which are the only possible ones we can have without being "game designers," are what the majority of posters in this forum actually want.

Please also keep in mind that if we decide suddenly that changing the rules constitutes "game design," many members of PR have already logically committed themselves to arguing for the undesirable outcomes I have just mentioned, by virtue of arguing so heavily against the grandfathering of old "game design" (weather mechanics, sleep clause) into a new generation/game where Nintendo has not yet set the precedent.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

While I don't have the energy to post a big essay on the subject, I'd like to say that I echo the sentiments of many of the above posters insofar as it doesn't really make sense using Nintendo's rules when it's pretty clear that VGC is the only competitive metagame that they've really tried to develop (and we're using VGC rules for doubles so that's more of a moot point anyway).

 

[Slipperjeans]

I think banning the all-100 fairies is not necessary.
From what I know, Nintendo bans them because they are event Pokémon, not because they are overpowered (though some of they may be).
This way they make it fair for players who don't/didn't have access to the events that distribute the Pokémon.
This is no longer a valid reason because Wifi exists, and you can have access to those event via Wifi or obtain it via trade.