Isn't it high time that we decide on our Policy Review issues once and for all?

X-Act

X-Act

np: Biffy Clyro - Shock Shock
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Policy Review is a great forum idea, but all we seem to do there is discuss, discuss, discuss... and nothing is ever decided. I think this transmits a bad message to the normal users of Smogon... that we don't take a stance, or that we take far too long to do so.

There are some issues there that have been discussed for months now, without taking a clear decision on them. Among these (in order of most important first, in my humble opinion):
  • Is Wobbuffet uber or not?
  • Is Garchomp uber or not?
  • Are Latios and Latias uber or not? And if they aren't, should Soul Dew be banned or not?
  • A clear stance on the BL list. Obi suggested playtesting everything that's not OU to define what is BL. Is this going to be upheld?
A decision needs to be taken. Whatever is decided will always have its supporters and those that will not agree, but that shouldn't stop us from deciding. Wobbuffet and Garchomp have been discussed endlessly, and are still being discussed, also in Stark Mountain. We've all seen basically everything that needs discussing about them. We can't continue just discussing. We need to decide.

Wobbuffet, for one, has been unbanned since February. We are now in mid-June. 4 months should be enough playtesting to see whether Wobbuffet is worth unbanning... right?

I repeat, we won't all agree on the final decision, but we must still decide. And then the decision should be clearly posted in the Policy Review subforum as well.
 
If we're not gonna reach a concencus or an agreement through discussion, then I think we should just vote about it all in some way or another.

Both Lati's and Garchomp have not been given playtesting though (well, Garchomp's playtesting is reversed, but you get the idea).

Also, we should set our definitions straight before doing anything.

EDIT: Also, OHKO and evasion?
 
I'm also pretty tired of seeing argument after argument turn up no results.

I would support a vote among badgeholders concerning wobbuffet and garchomp. It's direct and easy to do.
 
I don't think I could vote on whether Garchomp is uber or not. I would vote for its testing, though, as well as Lati@s' testing.

However, I do agree with Mekkah that we need to settle on our definitions, first.
 
A clear stance on the BL list. Obi suggested playtesting everything that's not OU to define what is BL. Is this going to be upheld?
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Personally I'm hoping for a decision on this one.

Whilst I'm hoping that Obi's idea is approved, I would be satisfied if it wasn't, as it would at least mean that there is a definite direction for the lower tiers to head in.
 
The question is: do our decisions matter as long as Colin is just doing whatever he wants? Making these decisions would require more autonomy on our part.
 
p.s. we already did testing on lati with that tourney maniacl ran..the results just happen to run right into the ground...

although at the very least i think we'd agree soul dew is indefinitely banned regardless
 
Unfortunately, now that I think about it I don't see any of the issues X-Act mentioned making a positive difference in actual play, other than the last one, since it's extremely unlikely that Colin will follow our lead with anything he has already implemented.

We might want to wait until Smogon has its own server, because as much as I really want to put an end to the pointless arguing, banning/unbanning Garchomp, Wobb, or the Latis would probably just confuse our users and start a chain of people yelling at Colin on shoddybattle, which I assume is not what we want. Being a Team Rater, I imagine that even something simple like the RMT forum would be struck with confusion and likely a bunch of idiot posts whenever Chomp/Wobb/Latis is used.

Regarding the last thing on the list, I believe Colin plans to implement that plan sometime in the future (I remember him talking about a "not-OU Ladder"), so that that will probably get done regardless of what we do.
 
I agree wholeheartedly that action needs to be taken. Even if it causes a clear difference with Shoddy. Right now, Shoddy has a concrete policy; Smogon has an ambiguos policy that has been under perpetual review. If Smogon can make a definitive policy change, at least we can discuss reconciling any differences with Shoddy.

Run some polls of badgeholders. Perhaps just run the polls in Policy Review itself. Anyone with access to Policy Review can vote. Also, the rest of the community could monitor the voting results and progress.

Please no more vague requests for "more testing". Any previous testing has been non-existent or failed to produce any meaningful results. Let's not do more of the same, and expect different results.
 
if you make them vote, make it a rule no voting unless you post a reason as to why you're voting it otherwise we'll have a few lazy community members just randomly clicking stuff
 
Screw polls, just use good ol' bold voting so you're 100% sure everyone posts.

Misty said:
The question is: do our decisions matter as long as Colin is just doing whatever he wants?
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Colin strikes me as reasonable and has promised to listen. As long as he doesn't selectively avoid arguments ("those are unreasonable, so I won't listen" bullshit), I think we'll get along fine.
 
I've been waiting for this topic. As mentioned, Colin is an issue. While he is in charge of what actually takes place on shoddy, even making a decision amongst ourselves may not actually solve anything. If I recall correctly (I may be wrong, as I didn't have PR or IS access at the time), Wobbuffet and Deoxys-E's unbanning didn't originate on smogon, it started with Colin on Shoddy, and that was what caused all of these disucussions to take place. The elimination of event moves didn't start here, it started with Colin. Same with the implementation of the IV restrictions. So what's to say that if we decide something, that it will actually happen? Nevertheless, we DO need to finally take a definitive stance on these issues soon.

I do think a vote in Policy Review would be the best way of doing this, considering many of us don't trust the "general majority" to make decisions about these things.
 
Misty said:
The question is: do our decisions matter as long as Colin is just doing whatever he wants? Making these decisions would require more autonomy on our part.
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This is the big question right now.

I suppose this is one of the reasons I'm frustrated - while Colin is a pretty intelligent person, I can't help but think that his standards of what arguments he wants in order to change his mind is simply ludicrous.

I propose that we make one official stance on something (whether it be Wobby or Garchomp or Deoxys or Event Moves or whatever), and then send it to Colin, and see his reaction, and then decide from there depending on it. The proposal like I said, can be these "pseudo polls" that badgeholders can respond to.
 
We need to have a tournament or something to test whether a metagame without Garchomp is "better", more diverse, less centralized (I'd be willing to host it). While Lati@s and Wobbuffet have been/are being tested and I can probably formulate an opinion on those, all everyone has been doing for Garchomp is regurgitate theorymon. The fact is, we simply have no solid proof of what an OU metagame without Garchomp is like, so we're stuck arguing around in circles.
 
Please no more vague requests for "more testing". Any previous testing has been non-existent or failed to produce any meaningful results. Let's not do more of the same, and expect different results
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Agreed.

I'm all for the independency with the unconclusive issues such as Garchomp, Wobbuffet, and Lati@s. We are a competitive battling community afterall, so it's only fitting that we encourage our ownselves to comprehend and go forward with our own decisive decisions on debatable topics. But this matter isn't what this topic's about.

I certainly agree that we need to conclude these topics one way or another. Tournaments have been made (Eon, for example), and nothing was decided. So, we've acknowledged that they don't always guarantee a final answer; thus we need a new method. For instance, we all are to vote in Policy Review (as voiced before me) to finalize each and every aspect that undoubtably needs an end product.

I'm for the vote.
 
Hasn't it been put forth before that Colin has no problem setting us up with our own server? And if we do need to change things, we could because the coding was made public?

Things to keep in mind. I like the sentiment of this topic, though, the longer these issues go unresolved the further we can potentially fall behind other communities.
 
DM said:
Hasn't it been put forth before that Colin has no problem setting us up with our own server? And if we do need to change things, we could because the coding was made public?
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I was just about to post something to this effect, but I guess DM beat me to the punch.

I think that setting up a Smogon server would be good, as it would help immensely with keeping out 'independence' from Colin. I know that people have said earlier that this would make us dependent on Shoddy instead of Competitor, but even so, creating a new server on Shoddy isn't terribly difficult - DJD has experience - and it would temporarily appease those waiting patiently for Competitor.

I'm all for bold text voting on the issues at hand, but I still think we need to test the effects of banning Garchomp from standard. As Great Sage mentioned, we don't know how the game is like without Garchomp. We can at least try it out and see if the game is more centralized or less centralized.
 
We considered having our own server a while back but chaos was concerned that people would be too busy moderating that to contribute to the site. I'm not sure if the equation has changed enough at this point.
 
Like i said in the wobbuffet thread in Policy Review, we might as well go ahead with a vote amongst our Policy Review members if thats what needs to be done for us to start getting results as its obvious our discussions are getting us nowhere.

However i do think we should focus on getting our own server setup before any polls/voting are started.
 
I'd say that if our decisions differ from those of ShoddyBattle's official server and Colin doesn't budge on his stance, then, and only then, we create our own server.

And in that case, I'd like the server owner to keep track of pokemon statistics so that we keep the OU list up to date.

About Garchomp, I'd agree to first playtest a metagame without it (maybe on a different server?) before deciding. We could still decide on Wobbuffet and on Latios/Latias though... and maybe also on the BL list.
 
As far as I'm concerned:
  • Is Wobbuffet uber or not? Not uber
  • Is Garchomp uber or not? Not uber
  • Are Latios and Latias uber or not? And if they aren't, should Soul Dew be banned or not? Uber until we are able to test them on the ladder
  • A clear stance on the BL list. Obi suggested playtesting everything that's not OU to define what is BL. Is this going to be upheld? We haven't paid BL much attention with all the issues in uber/OU
Seriously, a lot of the seeming stagnation on the PR topics has to do with the fact that we are not able to actually test all these things at once. The sooner people start accepting this, the sooner we can concentrate on one or two issues at a time, instead of thinking we are capable of tackling numerous issues at once.
 
X-Act said:
I'd say that if our decisions differ from those of ShoddyBattle's official server and Colin doesn't budge on his stance, then, and only then, we create our own server.
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This. There's no reason to go out of our way if we don't have to.

I'm personally against play-testing Garchomp and instead just straight banning it because I feel the sheer fact that it's most common set is uncounterable makes it broken. This isn't an instance like Deoxys-e where many people claim that it molds the shape of the game and therefore to measure that change you would have to weigh the old metagame against the new one. The only thing I can see coming from a Garchomp test is the statistic maniacs attempting to prove Garchomp's OUness through whatever stats arise.

Just figured I'd get that out there now in case there isn't ever a definitive thread/voting thread on the issues.
 
Okay, this is my stance on the issues at hand:
  • Is Wobbuffet uber or not? Yes.
  • Is Garchomp uber or not? Seems Uber to me.
  • Are Latios and Latias uber or not? And if they aren't, should Soul Dew be banned or not? Uber. If they aren't, then Soul Dew should be banned definitely.
  • A clear stance on the BL list. Obi suggested playtesting everything that's not OU to define what is BL. Is this going to be upheld? We should fix OU before we can deal with UU/BL.
Deoxys-E is clearly not Uber.
 
Just because the community is generally lazy and for some reason "uncompetitive" doesn't mean that we should ignore the potential impact certain Pokemon has on the game itself :|

As far as I'm concerned, Garchomp is uber. It is overcentralizing. I think we can assume we are done theorymonning attempting to find ways to deal with it when the best way to deal with the "most dangerous set" is Skill Link Cloyster.

The fact that there are many countermeasures against Garchomp, even to the point where a huge majority of players stick in at least two Pokemon that can deal with it in someway, and that having no effect on the usage of Garchomp says something about it. In fact, even despite the countermeasures, the usage has been rising. This simply shows how ridiculous Garchomp is - how overpowered it is.

It is at the point where I believe that we can't find more ways to deal with it and the rest of the metagame - leaving the metagame too centralized and not enough room for it to change.

No other Pokemon has this effect. I just believe his Base Stats are just a bit too skewed for it's own good, unlike Mence, Nite, and TTar, combined with a fantastic typing.

Of course, Pokemon isn't a game about simply countering - but also playing around it. But how many games come down to the 50-50 Garchomp Speed Tie? Far too many as far as I'm concerned. You can play around it, but you won't avoid this situation most of the time.

We then consider Wobbuffet. I will consider him uber - simply because he changes everything about the game.

Once Wobbuffet is out on the field - everything stops. Offensively, Defensively. What happens next simply comes down to either 1) Sacrificing the Pokemon in play to weaken Wobbuffet, or 2) Allow Wobbuffet to give another Pokemon a chance for a free set up.

Tickle isn't the reason Wobbuffet is broken - we argue that Wobbuffet is broken is because it simplifies the entire game into a Blind Guessing Game, from a "game of measuring risk". There is absolutely nothing to manage here other than you attempting to realize "which option, 1 or 2, will screw over my team more?" and when this happens early on, when someone has no clue about the opponent's team, I just believe the game simply forces your opponent to take stab in the dark.

It changes how the game is played. It changes the very nature of the game. It is uber.

Deoxys E is definitely a Top Tier OU - I wouldn't consider banning it just yet, not until we see the impact when people discover the million things Deoxys E can do. Yet, unlike Mew, it cannot set up too fast (The lack of +2 Attack Boost) - thus at this point, I'm of the opinion that it is not uber. This opinion will easily change in the future.

About Dewless Lati@s and Manaphy, I do think that they need to be unbanned, or else the Eon Ticket Tournament and the MDWL tournament which simply showed that they were perfectly fine is just going to waste. This is the next step, and we need to take it.

EDIT: I also believe that people who currently play the game (active tutors/teamraters) should have a more weighted voice than the ones who dont.
 
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