DLC, Biweekly Stats, and Quick-Drops

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quziel

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I spoke about this with Marty.
Hello, hope everyone is having a good day.

DLC is scheduled to release next month, and with it, we'll be seeing probably 100 new mons added to the SwSh meta, the vast majority of which will probably not be OU, nor even UU viable. However, in our current system, a Pokemon such as Dedenne will not be able to reach its natural home somewhere in PU until October at the earliest (choosing Dedenne as an example, it could well find a niche in OU or UU this gen, though I doubt that), at which point we'll likely be on the eve of the next DLC releasing. As such, a system that can get these Pokemon closer to their "natural" home faster will help to explore their place in the metagame, give more time for balancing, and more time for exploration. We haven't really had this many Pokemon added in the middle of a gen before (barring FRLG), and as such I think a modification to the tiering process may be helpful. Hence my proposal is as such:

At the middle of every month (for some time period post DLC) usage stats would be gathered, and any Pokemon below the current quick-drop threshold would be placed into the tier below them.

I believe this proposal could help to get "obviously" lower tier Pokemon into their natural tiers faster than they currently can without unduly affecting the tiering process outside of that. There is a chance that the new Pokemon could shift existing Pokemon in the tier below the quick-drop threshold in the short term, as well new Mons always get higher usage, however I believe this is an acceptable risk. An additional potential disadvantage of this proposal is that two metagame impacting threats could drop in quick succession, something that already happens in the current system, which could place more stress upon the council, however I doubt the majority of quick-dropped Mons (that is, with very low usage in the tier above) will invert a metagame.

The advantages of time gained for metagame development could definitely help lower tiers, and well, more Mons, with more options, could definitely help some of the issues that lower tiers are currently facing. Additionally, not having the new Mons immediately prior to the next DLC will help with excitement to play those lower tiers, and with growth overall.

Notes:
  • Based on this thread (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/quick-rises-drops-for-doubles.3561423/), I think the current quick-drop threshold would be 2.284%, although I could be incorrect. Comparing to December's OU stats, this would theoretically have allowed Copperajah to drop early, but not Snorlax. I can not find the specific rationale for a choice of 2.284%, so there could well be a better number.
  • I have manually compared at least the NU mid-month stats here (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sword-shield-nu-speculation-thread.3656297/#post-8342297) to the list of mons we got in February, and none of the mons below 2.284% did not drop (that is, everything below 2.284% at mid-month was below 4.52% at the end of the month).
  • This is intended to be a temporary measure only that would be invoked when DLCs are released, rather than a full modification of the usage stats process.
  • From speaking with Marty this may or may not be feasible for DLC 1, however having a process in place for DLC 2, or even a DLC 3 could be helpful.
  • I do not expect the usefulness of this proposal to really end until DLCs are past us, so if it is not ready for June, and is for August I think it could still provide some marginal benefit which would continue after DLC 2.
  • Ideally this proposal would only really affect the truly out of place mons, again think of Dedenne in OU, and would not affect the majority of other mons that are not so out of place. I believe a low threshold is the best way to achieve this, hence the usage of the quick-drop threshold.
Thank you for hearing me out.
 
I strongly disagree with this idea. Talking as an RUer, monthly shifts makes the tier alredy chaotic and boring to play. Just in the last 2 months, we got 20 new mons, which at least 12 of them became top tier threats (2 of them got banned) and 5 of them ended up having a solid niche in the tier. This means we would have 4 completely different metagames in the span of 2 months, and this without talking about possible bans, which council wont prob have time to even discuss, since theres no time to explore and test the meta. And i believe this will hit every possible meta, not only the one i main. OU will get back at least 5 previously viable Pokèmon (Chansey, Kingdra, Volcarona, Azumarill, Magnezone) and the new legendary Pokemon Urshifu, which has 2 forms. We dont even have the complete list yet and the OU meta seems like its gonna be shaked up quite a bit, making it unstable for a bit of time (the time the players realizes what mon has a worthy niche and not, and the time the council realizes what steps to follow). While this migth be easier for OU, all lower tiers will get hit pretty hard by this. UU is gonna gain and (possibly) lose mons from OU, RU is gonna gain and lose mons from UU, ecc. ecc. And its not only about the new mons we are getting with the DLC, alredy previous present mons will lose / gain viability, shifting metagames completely. While with one month of time lower tiers can handle so much new stuff, i dont think rushing everything into 2 weeks will make things better. So imo, keep monthly shifts.
 

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What if you go in the reverse order? Drop everything into the lowest tier on release, on day 1 each of the tier leaders comes up with a preliminary list of quickbans, anything in a higher tier obviously banned from the lower ones; and just go with the kokoloko system for the first week or so until things settles
 

quziel

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This proposal would be for quickdrops only; of the 7 mons that dropped from UU to RU last month not a single one of them would have been affected by this proposal. Ideally this would just allow the chaff to drop faster and the second a mon is reaching any kind of relevance it would be above that 2.284% threshold. Perhaps this threshold could be tuned a bit to prevent volatility, but the main idea behind it is to really just get stuff that is obviously bad out of higher tiers as quickly as possible, and then slowing down once they get closer to where they are relevant.
 
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