Survey Results!
Thanks to everyone that responded to the survey! This time around we were able to gather
47 individual responses. While this isn't meant to be a representative sampling of every single person who builds and plays AAA, it's a decent gauge of the thoughts of those who are invested in the tier's development :]
The first question:
On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy playing the current metagame?
The average response was around a
7.28 out of 10. For the first survey of the gen, this is a decent result, but while a majority of respondents did rate their enjoyment pretty high (7/8/9), the fact that ratings even went
as low as 2 is a surprising extreme. Hopefully, this rating increases by the time the next survey rolls around.
On a scale of 1-10, how competitive and balanced do you find the current metagame?
The average response was around a
6.15 out of 10. The responses this time were a lot more "middle of the road" (3/4/5/7/8), meaning respondents collectively aren't finding the metagame as competitive/balanced as it is enjoyable.
Next, everyone was asked to rate several Pokemon and abilities on a scale of 1 to 5 ( 1= Very healthy / 2 = Healthy / 3 = Unsure / 4 = Unhealthy / 5 = Very unhealthy).
Dragapult
Average response:
3.2 out of 5. 36 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Dragonite
Average response:
3.26 out of 5. 39 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Gholdengo
Average response:
3.26 out of 5. 38 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Great Tusk
Average response:
2.35 out of 5. 20 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Iron Bundle
Average response:
3.43 out of 5. 39 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Iron Valiant
Average response:
3.66 out of 5. 40 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Fur Coat
Average response:
3.43 out of 5. 29 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Good as Gold
Average response:
2.94 out of 5. 31 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Ice Scales
Average response:
3.32 out of 5. 30 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Hadron Engine
Average response:
2.64 out of 5. 25 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Orichalcum Pulse
Average response:
2.9 out of 5. 28 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Stakeout
Average response:
4.07 out of 5. 44 out of 47 responses were 3 or higher.
Respondents were also asked to share their opinion on FurScales:
Should they be tiered together or separately?
As you can see,
~75% are in favor of them being tiered together.
NOTE: Any action will be a suspect test, NOT a quick ban vote.
Unlike previous generations of AAA, in SV we decided to start with a Single Ability Clause or SAC, which limits the number of times you can use each ability to one instead of two. Because of this, we felt it was a good idea to see what the community thinks of this [fairly major] change so far:
66% are enjoying SAC so far, and
23.4% find it restricting. While the former is in fact a supermajority, no version of the metagame is absolutely locked in stone; if collective opinions continue to favor one or the other, then the council will act accordingly.
Is there anything (Pokemon, Ability, Move, etc.) that you would like to see unbanned or suspect tested back into the tier?
> Magic Bounce: This was quick banned relatively early in the metagame and was mentioned the most (8/47 or ~17%). While a Magic Bounce retest is certainly on the table as a possibility, it will likely have to take the backseat until the more pressing tiering issues are resolved.
> Annihilape: There were some responses asking us to revisit Annihilape now that Poison Heal is banned. Considering that it [already] viably makes use of existing abilities like Regenerator, Fur Coat, and Ice Scales even without Poison Heal's presence, Annihilape's level of balance isn't so clear-cut that it can just be unbanned. At the very least, it won't be unbanned without a suspect test or a soft reset like Home release/DLC.
> Terastallization: As of right now, there's no set-in-stone plan to keep Terastallization banned or not banned after Home release, but if the time does come to revisist it, that will of course be a suspect test and is unlikely to come up as a quick unban.
> We're not unbanning Magnet Pull.
> Unburden also came up a few times. At this time,
it's not being considered for an unban for the reasons already laid out in its ban post, but the general tl;dr is that the instant double Speed boost is too problematic to reliably answer.
Once again, thanks to everyone that took the time to respond to the survey. These results are extremely valuable, and reading through them absolutely helps and makes an impact on how the council chooses to tier. With that settled...
Moving Forward
1) VOTING SLATE: After analyzing the survey results, the council decided to vote on some of the elements perceived as leaning towards unhealthy in the metagame :P.
| Isaiah | UT | Atha | Jrdn | DeepFriedMagikarp | Quantum Tesseract | |
---|
Stakeout | BAN | BAN | BAN | BAN | BAN | BAN | 6-0 BAN |
Iron Valiant | DNB | BAN | BAN | DNB | DNB | BAN | 3-3 DNB |
Iron Bundle | DNB | BAN | BAN | DNB | DNB | DNB | 4-2 DNB |
Fur Coat + Ice Scales | SUS | SUS | SUS | SUS | DNS | DNS | 4-2 SUS[PECT] |
So with that,
Stakeout is banned from Almost Any Ability! Tagging
Kris and
Marty for implementation.
The Iron Valiant vote ended up in a tie, which under normal circumstances would mean it should probably get a suspect test. However, the council deemed (based on our voting process) that reaching a conclusion on how to handle Fur Coat + Ice Scales is currently a bigger priority, so any further action on Iron Valiant and Iron Bundle will have to wait until after the Fur Coat + Ice Scales suspect test. As usual though, the council will keep up with any metagame developments and everyone's thoughts as we work to balance the tier :]
2) Wait, Fur Coat + Ice Scales suspect test...?! YUP. Stay tuned hehe