Metagame Issues with NU

[Realistic Waters]

I appreciate the responses here in regards to my previous posts, I'm happy to see all the recent discussion. However, I want to be a little more serious now. To be frank, the NU community has been struggling with some issues lately and I want to talk about them. There’s no other thread to post this in so it's going here.

What problems are there with the NU community right now?

• the tier leading situation

I appreciated the effort and contributions shiloh has made to this tier but we desperately need a co leader. Since Eternally quit, this tier has been going downhill. I'm really sorry but the activity and involvement is my biggest issue and before I stepped down from council back in January you guys were never really on the same page for TL decisions. I understand we all have lives and situations outside of Smogon but I've heard next to nothing over the year and it's sad I've hardly seen your face across discord and ps. We have projects too and you're still almost nowhere to be seen.

Can you please respond to this here and NOT on discord? This way, it clears it up for everyone, not just myself.

• NU council / VR / Community Responses

I've already said my problems with contributions and no actions but I'm gonna say it again. We never hear any official responses, when I ask people questions all I get in return is probably, maybe or not sure. When problems occur in this tier it just feels like some members of the council just ignore this or sit in their little den. I just hope things become more active, we need council minutes and on the topic of retests I hope we can get an Indeedee retest but I would like to know how the majority of the council feels and not just one person, everything else I’m quite happy with staying in NUBL. Ren-chon thank you for your posts this week. Finchinator You're an NU moderator and are on council but I'm generally sorry if you find me annoying because I feel like I have to ask you a million questions about what's happening next.

As for the VR, it’s also a mess, no one actually ever knows when the next update is, it takes 6 years for the last person to submit their votes, the VR insists on ranking memes out of the blue going against their own rules and I don’t see an equal amount of contribution.

Back to the whole debate here, I liked what you guys did before with community feedback but we haven't heard anything from you guys within months so I thought I would take it into my own hands and to acquire feedback from the NU community. Thank you everyone for answering the polls in the NU room, It was nice to see all the responses. Our voices matter. I hope the NU council takes that into consideration when thinking about what needs to happen next in our tier. Sooner than later. I recently said in my previous posts that most of the community wants to see some actions on blastoise but now I have the numbers for proof.

I don't have the influence to create polls like before so I did this instead. We had a majority thinking Blastoise's presence becomes problematic in this tier. 54% for a suspect or ban and 14% undecided.

As for Sirfetch'd, the results were similar. It needs a suspect too regardless of leek being broken alongside. Wasn't fast enough to make this poll (sorry guys I would have added a leek option to the poll.) There was a slightly larger percentage thinking Sirfetch'd was manageable but the council have already said themselves this is something they want to happen anyway so what's the holdup? Just constant stalling. It’s just “we’re looking into this” response and nothing actually happens.

Lastly, I made one more poll. This one averages at about 6 which isn't necessarily bad but definitely needs improving but no one actually wants to do anything.

• NU room (PS)

This issue actually makes me sad. You can spark up a debate and after 3 minutes the room falls flat regardless of the time of day. I like contributing / hanging around / having casual conservations / fun games here but it's dead 90% of the time with a significantly reduced number of people in the room.

We’d have so many more new NU players if we actually got ourselves more stuck in. I've seen some of these people speak about how they don’t feel included. Gonna mention a few names here Oathkeepre Aawin xerovis roxiee Corthius from room auth.
These are just a few names from the top of my head (there are others) but I really appreciate what you guys do in the NU room. You actively make an effort, it's so great talking to guys and how you interact with ALL users in the room alongside the projects you do. You are a shining example of what our community should be about. Good for you and everyone else who is like this.

• sportsmanship behavior / alienating

If you're gonna flame me or meme on me for bringing this issue up just get off my damn post like idc anymore. This is in reference to NUPL and while it's not all that serious it kind of disappointed me to see some peoples reactions and jabs both on eternally / abejas. What's so hard about responding honestly to simple questions anyway? Why can't our tournament hosts act responsible? We never actually got a response from these biased one sided logic between having games after the deadline but allowing illegal games to go through. I don’t even play NUPL. Eternally might not agree with me bringing this up but I think he’s just pretty fed up and has dropped NU to any competitive level permanently. Another contributor bites the dust.

• tl;dr

I've been in this community for quite a while now, I've seen all the ups and downs but I have to say that now I sometimes don't feel like I belong here. I’ve built friendships in this place and some have just broken away. Anything I say or do gets swept under the rug, you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently. Why do you think it's ok to push people out who don’t fit your cookie cutter standard? Please respond to this.

 

[The Goomy]

I feel this post a lot. NU definitely just doesn’t have the charm or fun it used to.

There seems to be no real incentive to ladder in NU (most dead ladder of all time?), which I think feeds in to a lot of the other issues.

Also, people need to just play their damn games in NUPL, lol.

 

[Pokeslice]

Preach RW, all of these are legit issues I’ve seen too with the metagame

I’m someone who’s joined the community, and hopefully made a mark in some way, specifically through the chat room, and because of it, I can safely say that these frustrations don’t end with RW. It seems like the player base as a whole is drying out or getting angry at the lack of true direction or transparency between council/tour players and the average community ps player.

I want to make it very clear that I am not trying to disrespect council nor attack anyone, but the current issues stem from the top. Right now, specifically more than any time this gen for some reason, it seems like the meta is being dictated entirely on the opinion of the whim of council while blatantly ignoring or downplaying the concerns of the player base. Council should serve the community, not make tiering decisions or policy based entirely on only whether they believe a Pokemon is broken or not. Look at Cress for example. Many on council believed that it was fine or a healthy presence when 85% of the player base was asking for months for a suspect or ban, and by the time outrage finally overflowed towards straight up negative posts begging for any action, it was overwhelming banned today BL. Here, we’re in an eerily similar situation where the community are at the point that we feel like threads or posts like RW’s here are necessary.

But Slice, what if we truly believe banning this Pokémon is the wrong idea, let alone a suspect? Well council members, EXPLAIN WHY. There hasn’t been official statements or many NP posts over the past two months that actively explain any member on councils thought process. Yes, there are some, but many are short responses like “Stoise has a ton of soft checks” or “Fetchd is just leek/is a healthy presence”, but there’s so few that actually explain why or how to deal with the threats. Transparency and feeling the the heartbeat of the community are key to creating a healthy meta game and environment. What I don’t understand is why I barely see council members in chat or on ladder, whether for suspects or just in general. Sure, I’ll see 2-3 on semi consistently, but not many others, and with constant talks on threats happening all the time, it always feels weird that over the course of the week, we won’t get much input from anyone bar Rabia popping in just to call us all bad. Weirdly enough, I highly appreciate those interactions just because I get a glimpse of insight into why council hasn’t done anything, and at the same time, a positive and fun conversation. I understand that we all have lives outside of Smogon, but if you don’t have time to be an active part of the NU community at this moment, please don’t be on council. Find some way to get a replacement for your sabbatical or maybe let’s create some type of rotation council/a larger one to help cover inactive or barely active users on it. This obviously doesn’t apply to small summer or winter vacations like Meri’s rn iirc, but an inactive or silent council seriously hurts the player base as a whole and isn’t worth the higher up title.

tl;dr

Just to respond to RW’s valid complaints here, I personally don’t feel this way just because I’ve been an active user in the current gen and tried to get super involved with everyone in some facet, but I do 100% see where this is coming from. It really feels like there is a legitimate gap between higher ups or your players and the rest of the community. I don’t know how to solve it, but I do think that something needs to be done about the tour scene as a whole to make it more inclusive, enticing, and smoother to cut down on act games and dead teams.

You are a shining example of what our community should be about. Good for you and everyone else who is like this.

You guys are the reason I joined the reason I stayed, so seriously, thank you for all you do for the community. You all carry it constantly with just your room or forum presence.

 

[Aawin]

Decided to make a youtube video discussing this thread asw as my thoughts. Thought it would be easier than making a huge post w edits and all that shit

Timestamps:
0:00 - intro
0:30 - responding to the thread
10:00 - my thoughts on NU at the moment

 

[Rabia]

originally was gonna upload a video response but it ended up being nearly 50 minutes long, don't think anyone cares to watch that much

to clear things up from the get go from anyone that was in the Discord yesterday: rw and I are fine w/ each other and hashed out a couple of things in PMs

I don't disagree with the entirety of this thread, but there are a few takes in here that I either think are outright false or just have no better answer to other than "what do you mean?". I'll quote those.

I've already said my problems with contributions and no actions but I'm gonna say it again. We never hear any official responses, when I ask people questions all I get in return is probably, maybe or not sure.

Define "official responses," because you even state later on in your post that you frequently reach out to Finchinator for information about what's going on, and I know I personally have commented several times over on the specifics regarding council chat and what are immediate plans are. Obviously as a council member I can't actually start suspect tests/council votes myself, but I'm more than willing to share what we discuss and have done so plenty. Sure, not everyone is privy to these comments of mine because not everyone is present when I make them, but it's not like this information is locked up from the public.

As for the VR, it’s also a mess, no one actually ever knows when the next update is, it takes 6 years for the last person to submit their votes, the VR insists on ranking memes out of the blue going against their own rules and I don’t see an equal amount of contribution.

First comment is demonstrably false. Like, you can actually just go through the thread and see me stating that the thread is getting locked because we're updating it. I also am on record in other several places (room/Discord) confirming the status, be it us waiting on voters or the planning of a slate to start up. I really don't get why you'd say no one knows when the updates are. Complaints about the time these updates take to complete once the slate is put up? Sure, I'm tired of waiting for the same people to get votes in too, and what I'll probably end up doing is making the voting deadlines hard ones instead of soft ones, as in "hey get your votes in by x because I'm putting up the results that day whether you do or not;" that's a pretty easy fix to make. "Ranking memes out of the blue" confuses me too because every new ranking is always given justification. Obviously with lower rank nominations you'll always have a pretty great degree of subjectivity with regard to if these options are actually worth having on the VR, but we always have really contentious stuff ranked down there. You yourself have even been someone to nominate such Pokemon in the past.

the council have already said themselves this is something they want to happen anyway so what's the holdup? Just constant stalling. It’s just “we’re looking into this” response and nothing actually happens.

Council doesn't decide when votes start. You're former council; you know this.

Lastly, I made one more poll. This one averages at about 6 which isn't necessarily bad but definitely needs improving but no one actually wants to do anything.

Nearly 60% of people think the tier is good, whereas only a little over a quarter of people think it's some degree of bad. This indicates to me that the tier is in a quite nice place, and I'm unsure what the point of saying "no one actually wants to do anything" is.

This issue actually makes me sad. You can spark up a debate and after 3 minutes the room falls flat regardless of the time of day. I like contributing / hanging around / having casual conservations / fun games here but it's dead 90% of the time with a significantly reduced number of people in the room.

We’d have so many more new NU players if we actually got ourselves more stuck in. I've seen some of these people speak about how they don’t feel included. Gonna mention a few names here Oathkeepre Aawin xerovis roxiee Corthius from room auth.
These are just a few names from the top of my head (there are others) but I really appreciate what you guys do in the NU room. You actively make an effort, it's so great talking to guys and how you interact with ALL users in the room alongside the projects you do. You are a shining example of what our community should be about. Good for you and everyone else who is like this.

The room has had some longstanding activity issues since the end of Generation 7. It was to be expected then because lower tiers at the end of a generation typically struggle a bit more, but I do agree we could be much better off than where we are now and much like you appreciate the fuck out of all our new auth. I think each of you does a fucking excellent job keeping the room in a great place. Aawin you're a generally great presence whether you're talking about mons or something else. roxiee xerovis I'm so proud to see you two where you are now and have the utmost faith that you can help us carry the room into a great future. Oathkeepre Togkey I'm glad to see your developments as users and think you'll continue to impress for time to come.

If you're gonna flame me or meme on me for bringing this issue up just get off my damn post like idc anymore. This is in reference to NUPL and while it's not all that serious it kind of disappointed me to see some peoples reactions and jabs both on eternally / abejas. What's so hard about responding honestly to simple questions anyway? Why can't our tournament hosts act responsible? We never actually got a response from these biased one sided logic between having games after the deadline but allowing illegal games to go through. I don’t even play NUPL. Eternally might not agree with me bringing this up but I think he’s just pretty fed up and has dropped NU to any competitive level permanently. Another contributor bites the dust.

Yeah I'm really upset with this NUPL too and feel several people dropped the ball, the host especially. Can't really speak to whether or not this was what broke the camel's back for eternally because I don't think he wants me talking about our PMs in this thread, so he's free to post if he cares to.

Anything I say or do gets swept under the rug, you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently. Why do you think it's ok to push people out who don’t fit your cookie cutter standard?

This is probably where I take the most exception to your post, though. NU is easily one of the most welcoming communities I have seen here and in no way pushes away users simply for going against the grain. No one's ever tried to make you quit and we certainly don't deny people access to the "in-group" just because they're different or whatever. Hell, I'll list specifics on my end. I've had plenty of issues with Togkey and still pushed for his voicing. Meri Berry and I had some issues but can interact with each other just fine now. I did not like lax at all before or after he got TL but still made the effort to keep things cordial enough between us just so there weren't needless problems all because of personal issues. Anyone is literally free to be themselves here---unless you're actually just toxic and nothing else---we don't care who you are so long as you positively contribute.

Right now, specifically more than any time this gen for some reason, it seems like the meta is being dictated entirely on the opinion of the whim of council while blatantly ignoring or downplaying the concerns of the player base. Council should serve the community, not make tiering decisions or policy based entirely on only whether they believe a Pokemon is broken or not.

Council always takes the playerbase's opinion into mind. It's why we've even discussed amongst ourselves whether Blastoise should be looked into (Sirfetch'd is a more contentious issue overall that'll certainly be looked into sometime after tier shifts, at least I'd imagine so). But what you need to keep in mind too is that the job of council is still to look at the general opinion and go "is this worth acting on?" Consider Pokemon like Landorus-T and Toxapex in USUM OU that historically did get some significant outcry for action but never did. Yes, we care about what you guys think of the tier, but just because the masses want some sort of action taken, we're not obligated to act on that desire. We try to strike as best a balance as we can using overall sentiments and metrics like tour/ladder success.

What I don’t understand is why I barely see council members in chat or on ladder, whether for suspects or just in general. Sure, I’ll see 2-3 on semi consistently, but not many others, and with constant talks on threats happening all the time, it always feels weird that over the course of the week, we won’t get much input from anyone bar Rabia popping in just to call us all bad. Weirdly enough, I highly appreciate those interactions just because I get a glimpse of insight into why council hasn’t done anything, and at the same time, a positive and fun conversation.

But... council players are all actively building and playing the tier? We don't have to be frequently laddering to qualify as active players. I know several of us commonly alt on the ladder and I can pick out multiple council people with high ELO accounts really easily. I know many of us also are right now still focused on NUPL and thus are mostly playing and building privately. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and I think making these super high-conviction posts when you actually just don't know is unfair to us.

also let's be fucking real I've had several long discussions about Blastoise with YOU in specific!!!! so it's not like my contributions are limited to "l2p loser" cmon bro

if you don’t have time to be an active part of the NU community at this moment, please don’t be on council. Find some way to get a replacement for your sabbatical or maybe let’s create some type of rotation council

I'm not entirely unsure how implementing rotating councils work, but it's a fine enough idea for instances where the council is actually just in need of a voter or multiple voters to make up for some council people being absent for IRL reasons. Not gonna entertain the bold bit here but still am quoting it because it's another example of this heavy vitriol being levied at us that does no good.

Decided to make a youtube video discussing this thread asw as my thoughts. Thought it would be easier than making a huge post w edits and all that shit

Can't quote the video obv, but still wanted to HL Aawin in this post because I think some of his comments get addressed earlier in this post. Again I'm gonna comment on the idea that I'm the only active battler on council because it's just outright false, and the notion that I only ladder with aim is not true either.

I do want to reiterate here that I have no personal issues with the OP or anyone else that has addressed perceived problems here, but I do believe there are some really definitive statements being made by people that just don't have access to certain mediums necessary to get a full picture of the situation. I don't blame you for making certain assumptions but do request you not immediately jump to the worst of conclusions. It makes me feel insanely unappreciated when I try to go out of my way to keep things as transparent as possible, and I guarantee that other council members feel discouraged by this sort of outright flame too.

 

[Expulso]

long time caller first time poster;

from a (largely) outsider perspective the most offputting thing about NU has been the lack of enthusiasm around tournaments. To me, the underused discord's #tournament-discussion channel is genuinely one of the most fun things on smogon; a bunch of ppl gather to commentate the games of circuit tournaments like the currently ongoing UnderUsed ladder tournament, not to mention the far greater level of hype around team tournaments like UUPL. people clearly care a lot about these tours, and that enthusiasm is infectious, creating a super active, enthusiastic, and, for lack of a better word, "hype" atmosphere. it got me to want to participate even when i knew nothing about UU and didnt have many friends that play it, and now it's a place in which i spend a large fraction of my time on mons-related stuff.

NeverUsed tours, however, have next to no hype. nobody seems to really care about discussing the tier's tournaments, as evidenced by the relative deadness of this NUPL (and other NUPLs, last SSD, etc. -- basically, for any team tour with NU in it i dont see any hype for NU) and the absolute silence in the discord for matches of things like NULT. it isnt the sole metric for whether or not a community is worth participating in, but i think cultivating a more active, enthusiastic, and invested tours culture in NeverUsed (primarily discord, but forums/ps? too i guess) would make NU a lot more exciting and fun to participate in.

===

the NU PS room seems pretty good honestly, ive seen a lot of new faces join over the past few months. it's unclear what exactly they are joining, though; since the NU discord doesn't have much ongoing discussion of the tier in general (which has improved some in recent months) but especially the tier's tournaments, it kinda feels like there's no "there" there. (i'd recommend ppl lurk in other discords, particularly UU's, if you want to get a sense of what i am referring to. nu could have this too if yall tried!!). it would be great for them to find a lively community so that they get hyped for the tours, aspire to join them themselves, and benefit from all the excitement of spectators/discussion/commentary/etc once they do

 

[Yoshi]

I'd like to start off this post by stating that I largely disagree with most of the sentiments proposed in the OP, particularly the criticisms regarding the internal operations of the tier. Rabia puts this best:

there are some really definitive statements being made by people that just don't have access to certain mediums necessary to get a full picture of the situation.

As an ex-mod, ex-QC member, and someone who was arguably overly involved in the inside "drama" between council members and leaders, the issues being brought up (especially regarding transparency and projects and the like) are being discussed on a daily basis. I know for a fact that Rabia and poh in particular work with every last modicum of energy they may still have to keep an active and civil forum, PS! room, and Discord server. Realistic Waters you of all people should agree and understand this as someone who was involved even more than I was. I don't disagree that there is a lot of room for improvement, but the framing of the OP makes it appear like the council and other important leader figures are abandoning responsibilities, and this is simply, for the most part, not the case.

I also don't entirely agree that council members are just sitting "in their little den." I literally don't even play this game and I check the NU Discord maybe a handful of times a week and I am consistently seeing contributions and messages from several council members. These people deserve all the praise in the world and they are:

• Rabia
• poh
• Finchinator
• Ren-chon
• Luck O' the Irish
• Meri Berry

This is an extremely good chunk of the council. To criticize the council as a whole for not being transparent and not being involved in the issues going on in the tier is simply lunacy.

Regarding the PS! room staff: I don't care what anyone says, this is the best staff team the NU room has had ever. I was lucky enough to be able to assimilate some of you as voices. I can explicitly remember off the top of my head when we were voting on Aawin so long ago. I don't know who is trying to discredit you, but they are absolutely wrong. No one should take that away from you. I would like to shout out (including some voices):

• poh
• Rabia
• roxiee (a million times over holy shit)
• xerovis
• Cortihus
• Ho3n
• Oathkeepre
• quziel
• RW
• Aawin
• pokeslice
• Katy
• Mariannabelle
• Togkey
• turtledoggo1

This is a much larger list than I would've been able to give two years previous. I am having a hard time understanding why this is being brought up in the thread. To state that no support is being provided to the staff team is rather laughable, considering all four of the current non-TL room owners are incredibly involved.

Regarding inclusion: Welcome to Smogon. Unfortunately you aren't going to feel included for at least a couple of years, and some of you may not ever feel entirely assimilated. That is just how this website has worked. I've been participating here for just over six years now, and there are still people who refuse to accept that I am a legitimate person with legitimate non-meme opinions (some of those people are in this very community).

What I ask is this: What are your proposed solutions to this problem? This has been a problem in the NU community in particular for what feels like centuries. It is incredibly hard to get into the community here. How can we become more open to assimilation? I don't ask these rhetorically or sarcastically; I am genuinely curious. I hear this issue brought up every couple of months with absolutely no solutions in mind.

Similar questions should be asked about room and Discord activity. How do we fix it?

Anything I say or do gets swept under the rug, you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently. Why do you think it's ok to push people out who don’t fit your cookie cutter standard?

This reads as an insult to the work that we (yes WE--people like you, me, eternally, abejas, poh, banks, etc.) did to make this an accepting community where we weren't "pushing people out." In particular, I remember a certain long-winded situation where a user was being treated extremely unfairly due to their life choices (sexuality and identity). Eternally was the first and only person to come to their defense while this was happening and absolutely firebombed the people who were causing the issues as best he could. I hope you reflect on the statement you've made here and understand a lot of work has been done over time. This is not the first community thread. We have removed problematic people from the community who were creating a toxic environment. I assume the current staff team will continue to do so.

I would also like more elaboration on the "cookie cutter" statement and what exactly that is referring to.

Now I do agree with the concern that certain people are not treating these issues with care and respect. I don't buy that there are as many of these people as the OP essentially states, but unfortunately it is happening where it counts.

The tier leader is not as publicly active as he should be. Not even close. Point blank period. And I believe that this idea is what is causing the majority of the issues in this thread. The other leaders can be as active and transparent as they want, but they only have so much control over the internal operations of the tier. When the big man is absent, especially in the public eye, everything stalls. That is the biggest complaint here. I don't care who the leader is; it can be rozes, it can be two other people, it can be rozes and another person. But I cannot stress the idea enough that we need a more publicly active tier leader. Someone who is actually involved in the community.

shiloh you need to make a public response to this thread.

Thank you.

[SPOILER="P.S."

Anyone who has posted and will post in this thread, or talk about these issues on Discord or elsewhere, deserves a million brownie points. I hope my post does not seem dismissive; I just wished to provide my opinion on these matters and how I--and some other users, may seem them. Keep discussing, this is how shit gets done boys.
[/SPOILER]

 

[Pokeslice]

Not gonna entertain the bold bit here but still am quoting it because it's another example of this heavy vitriol being levied at us that does no good.

Thank you for calling me out here because this quickly became a rant post rather than an informative and constructive one as I started to write. I seriously appreciate everything you do Rabia and I don’t want you to feel like we’re sweeping that under the rug on this thread. The issues I talk about are real, but my language could definitely have been nicer and cleaner as a whole, so I apologize.

Similar questions should be asked about room and Discord activity. How do we fix it?

To go back to the general discussion here, I think the main problem in the room currently is the lack of activity on the ladder. I think the main way to get games going again is to actually give people an incentive to play.

The best way to do this in my opinion is to do what ZU or other small rooms do (S1nn0hC0nfirm3d maybe you want to comment on how you guys do it to keep things active?) and start up a consistent room tour schedule followed by a real leaderboard and the ^ rank for the best player of the month. We can even start up some sort of BLTesque team or individual tour every few months based off the leaderboard to help primarily ladder/room tour players make a real name for themselves in the community outside of the PS! bubble. These tours will also help keep the room itself active, garner high level gameplay for newer and veteran players alike to learn from, and create an exciting experience for everyone, especially those looking for better opponents. If we make this a reality, I have no doubt that higher ladder will be active for once with alts and mains of good players trying to test their teams before taking on the room. Expulso maybe this will help solve some of your issues with the current tour community by adding a way for the average player to get hype for their favorite PS! mainstay and also add some fresh meat to the general tour scene. All in all, seems like a win win that definitely can’t hurt to try.

For another way to get tours more active and hype, two things should probably be done. I’m someone who really likes watching tour games live and staying up to date with them, and yet I have literally no clue when the games happen or who even plays in them. The publicity around these games is next to nothing, and because of it, there’s no hype or interest.

1) Like Expulso talked about, add a tour section to the server. Just being able to see and communicate about posts are games in a public setting would be HUGE for activity and our tour scene as a whole. People always seem to forget something like Grand Slam or NU Open are happening because you never hear about it again. Let’s get the discussion started.

2) Make times widely known for big games! Stuff like Semis or tour games between good players will often go entirely unnoticed because no one tells anyone what the plan is. We have a banner in the room intro and we have a matches role on the Discord server, so let’s use them. Creating a more inclusive and open tour setting like that would work wonders for everyone who wants to get better or just watch. Even a simple “Ho3n v TC at 6:30” or whatever would be so easy to set up and we would see a huge rise in people tuning in.

Also, something needs to be done about NUPL and other similar tours where teams give up after week 3 and half the games are act wins. I know we can simply tell people to man up and play for fun, but we all know they won’t. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to incentivize or change the current team tour formats so this doesn’t happen?

 

[Finchinator]

I am posting on behalf of myself as an individual, but I am also drawing off of some bits of discussion I have had with other contributors in council and PMs.

I'm not going to be responding to every single last detail here; I agree with some things and I disagree with others. What has happened in the past in terms of suspects, inactivity, etc. is already over with, but what matters most is that we proceed in the best way possible for the community.

I believe the root of the issue has been inactivity and lack of transparency. I think it is important that the council establishes a clear line of communication with the playerbase. While I find the current state of the NU Room to be sufficient (the OP feels differently, but I am confident in how the room is being handled), it is true that we could do better on the forum with more posts and things like council minutes. It is also very true that we would be better off with a more active discord presence and more excitement surrounding tournaments. I think some of the feedback provided in this thread and in recent discussions makes it very clear where we are lacking and how we can improve, which is ultimately the goal of discussions like these.

I do want to say that we have a lot of positives that we should be proud of as a community. A number of our projects are ran by hard workers doing a great job; these projects have kept the forum active and given us more reason to experiment with our metagame. In addition, we have a plethora of dedicated players and contributors helping progress the metagame with their own teambuilding, playing, and strategy sharing, which includes some members of the council and quality control teams. I have the utmost faith in our personnel to help us reach the best place possible for NU.

With this said, we also have fallen upon harder times when it comes to finding the best ways to progress the metagame, which is made even more challenging due to timing obstacles. We have experienced unprecedented turnover among leadership and councilmen. Shiloh has had to deal with a revolving door of co-tier leaders and even councilmen, which has made his job harder as a solo leader of a demanding metagame. Because of this, we have to be a little more understanding and work together to find the best metagame. I trust in our ability to take the feedback we have received and make the best decisions possible.

Moving forward, the council has already began discussion of how to better serve the community. I do not see any opposition to reintegrating council minutes into our operations and I personally am happy to take charge with this in order to assure transparency. I also know that we pay close attention to what is posted in the metagame discussion threads, but sometimes we do not always respond or act promptly on this. While I can promise you this is not us being disinterested or unmotivated, I will say that we should do a better job expressing our understanding to the playerbase.

 

[Kiyo]

council minutes don't work. there's a reason the last one was posted in february. it takes work to gather the info, type the post, etc. that work falls upon a council member. a good chunk of the time that burden is placed on someone who is already doing too much.

one of the chief complaints in this thread is inactivity and lack of contribution from council members. i fail to see how adding more to their plate is an effective solution to the problem.

publicize the council discussion. it does not need to happen on a separate discord. transparency isn't difficult if you don't hide.

make a read only channel in the neverused discord for the council. if someones inactive it will be readily apparent. you won't need to speculate as to what the council is discussing, you'll know.

make a public channel for community members to discuss whats going on in the council chat. if a council member has a shit take (its been known to happen from time to time) they can, and should get called out on it, by someone before that opinion becomes a tiering decision. if someone has been quiet on an issue, someone can raise that point.

 

[shiloh]

hey gonna make my reply now.

finch & rabia have covered a large majority of waters / others posts already so ill really just focus on the part that only i can answer, and thats the part on me.

ill start by saying i agree with a lot of the criticism on how i am as a tier leader / figure in the community, and i think its something that i should have realized earlier would be a problem, and something i should have taken steps myself to deal with. most of it can stem from the fact that i am just not someone that really talks in public / big groups much, if at all. this can be seen historically in me having super low ps room activity even from the day i first joined the site, and low discord numbers in public channels. for me im much more comfortable talking in smaller groups or one on one. it probably stems from a variety of reasons, me not being the most outgoing guy in general, wanting to get to know people better as i talk to them in a more private setting, and the feeling that the conversations/work i do is a lot more meaningful/impactful when its done in a more focused environment. i make up for this the best i can by being as active as possible when people pm me, when convos happen in staff channels, etc (though i did get a bit busier this past month due to some irl stuff). this means that to the public eye there is little to nothing from me, which is very unideal as i am the solo leader of the tier atm.

when i originally started running the tier on my own, i thought that i would be able to handle it but as time has gone on its just shown me that i really cant. there is a lot that goes on for leading, and while i feel i can handle a lot of the issues that come up w/r/t policy, tiering, and moderating the community; i also fall flat when it comes to the other part of leading, namely being more transparent with the public, and interacting the the community on a more broad scale. this is why, as of this post, Finchinator will be returning as NU Tier Leader alongside me! at this point i do realize that i cannot really change how i lead and how i interact with the community, Finch can more than make up for that with how open and transparent he can be when it comes to dealing with the community.

im sorry it took me this long to realize that how i was running the tier was not what was fully expected, and hope that from here on out we can keep improving!

--

i also do want to address a couple of other things. one being the nupl situation. while i agree that qq's hosting was a bit inactive at times, insulting him and calling him biased is completely unfair. disagreeing with the conclusion and outcomes he came to w/r/t certain decisions is more than fair and i encourage people to do it, going after him and completely invalidating any logic he used to make his argument under the guide of it being "biased" is completely uncalled for. there are already a few changes that are going to go through in the future for nu team tours, and i made a post about them in a different place so i'll just quote those changes here.

however there are a few changes that will be adopted for the next nu team tournaments. the first one is that a team no longer can get to 4 wins and use dead games to push themselves to the two point barrier. instead it will be necessary to get 5 wins in order to get the "win" aka 2 points from that week. even if the week finishes at 4-3, the "winning" team will only get 1 point, making it always better for them to play the game rather than go for the dead game fish. hopefully this means there will be less ppl trying to fish for dead games earlier on in the tournaments.

the other change will be making sure that every tournament has at least two hosts going forward, as people can get busy and hosting is not going to be the first priority for anybody, nor should it be, with 2+ hosts that should alleviate the pressure on just 1 host to make all the calls, post as soon as needed, and allow for more transparency hopefully between more timezones.

--

also this just came up as i was writing all of this so ill just address it real quick.

council minutes don't work. there's a reason the last one was posted in february. it takes work to gather the info, type the post, etc. that work falls upon a council member. a good chunk of the time that burden is placed on someone who is already doing too much.

one of the chief complaints in this thread is inactivity and lack of contribution from council members. i fail to see how adding more to their plate is an effective solution to the problem.

publicize the council discussion. it does not need to happen on a separate discord. transparency isn't difficult if you don't hide.

make a read only channel in the neverused discord for the council. if someones inactive it will be readily apparent. you won't need to speculate as to what the council is discussing, you'll know.

make a public channel for community members to discuss whats going on in the council chat. if a council member has a shit take (its been known to happen from time to time) they can, and should get called out on it, by someone before that opinion becomes a tiering decision. if someone has been quiet on an issue, someone can raise that point.

this is just not going to happen. council minutes dont work rn bc theres been nobody really "in charge" of them on council and theres been no real guideline on when/why to post in that thread. what we are going to implement going forward is having a council member actually in charge of posting, as well as having a day of the month that we are going to post the updates. hopefully this will make it so that council updates happen more frequently, and there is more transparency from the council. similar structure has worked in uu, so hopefully taking the steps to do it here will fix the issue.

making council public just opens up members to harassments even moreso than what is now possible. one council member having a shit take will never actually make that opinion a tiering decision, it still has to go through the rest of council before being implemented and the idea that having the public check it over is completely unnecessary. if anything it just opens up those members to be called out for not agreeing with the viewpoints of the public, and while that is fine, opening it up to being called a "shit take" is stupid. so no, im not going to make council discussions public and allow them to be open to even more harrasment / abuse from the community just because they do not fulfill whatever image the community will expect. hopefully more regularly scheduled council minutes + the addition of finch as tl will fix any transparency issues that currently exist, and if they dont there can be more discussion on less drastic measures.

 

[Spacial]

Hey. I felt compelled to respond here, if only to offer my own perspective on some of the ideas that were brought up. Might be too little too late, but if that's the case, so be it.

Anything I say or do gets swept under the rug, you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently. Why do you think it's ok to push people out who don’t fit your cookie cutter standard?

When I first started playing NU in April of last year, I was a greenhorn in every sense of the word. My very first team was some janky Sticky Web team with Jolteon. It was daunting trying to take on an entirely new tier, but I felt encouraged to keep going, especially since a friend of mine, Ho3n, was also playing it at the time.

Now I've managed to become a familiar face in NU, being on good terms with a majority of the roomstaff and room regulars. I even earned my voice status back after returning from a hiatus. To get to the point, the NU community is probably one of the most welcoming communities on this site. I had to learn the ropes and take some criticism when I said something uninformed or something people disagreed with, but I was never held down or restrained because I wasn't "in" with a clique or a nebulous group passed judgement on me: I worked hard, and saw results.

Through my time observing the NU room and its users, this hasn't changed. We've seen this with users like Young Lilo and Togkey. They've put in their fair share of hard work, and have been acknowledged for their efforts. I refer to Rabia's post as an example of this.

To anyone who feels/has felt like they aren't welcome in the community, I sincerely apologize. As roomstaff, it's my job to make sure the PS room is as friendly and pleasant as it can be for you. I have limited influence on how things operate admittedly, but I want to use that influence for good.

On the subject of alienation, I'd like to follow up on the good point that Yoshi made in their post, and add what I believe is a greater scope problem with Smogon as a whole: a majority of users' interactions are impersonal at best. From my personal experience (please take this with a grain of salt) a lot of the friends and acquaintances I've made here are only friends in that we share a common interest. Any attempt at striking up legitimate conversations that aren't related to the game are met with either indifference or one-word answers that feel like you're getting them from an automated reply system.

This isn't to dunk on anybody or criticize the people I talk to: I've made a lot of friends that I'll cherish (Waves , Tack , Links and Oathkeepre just to name a few) here. It's just how things work. People will inevitably feel left out, and we should all do our best to help them, but at the end of the day, we can't save the world and do everything at once. We're humans behind screens, and I can't blame people for not caring about what some dude with a Persona 3 profile pic is feeling.

In short, so long as Smogon as a whole exists, these issues will also exist in the tiers it creates. We should work to fix them, of course, but at the end of the day, flaws show through in our behavior. I don't think this is an NU exclusive problem.

If any of this isn't pertinent to the thread or considered unnecessary, please feel free to delete this @ moderators. I just wanted to make my voice heard.

 

[Mariannabelle]

you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently. Why do you think it's ok to push people out who don’t fit your cookie cutter standard? Please respond to this.

I’ll pass on the rest but I’ll crawl out from under a rock to just sorta ramble for a bit.

I was just kinda on-and-off PS, occasionally floating into a metagame room to just mess around a bit when I coincidentally got scouted to play last year’s PSPL for Lobby, since they were short an NU player. Complete noob but ok. I’ll save you the blah blah, but practicing for that was my initial reason for my heightened activity, cuz if I start something I take it seriously.

And really, I don’t feel like I did anything special. Just was active on PS, was somewhat active on Smogon. Maybe helped sell Ninjask as viable, idk. I wasn’t even in the NU Discord when I first got a cute lil’ PM from Rabia telling me to keep up the nice activity. And boy, that tickled me pink. Everyone likes to feel acknowledged.

I remember Corthius and xerovis and quziel kinda being there a lot, and I don’t think I woulda had much to say in chat if they and others like Grimm and Aawin weren’t making it a comfortable place.

I actually do stuff besides mons with Togkey , Luck O' the Irish , daniYSB , Aawin, and others. Like Among Us. Sus, right?

I’m not much of a tour player since I get squirrelly about stress and time commitments and blah blah, but Oathkeepre ? It mattered to me, and I remember you going out of your way to encourage me to join, and I appreciate you inviting me to those, and I love how you had me on for the podcast, and yeah this paragraph’s getting long. Love doing that with you and GW and Davon and the others.

Somewhere along the way, I kinda felt some kind of happy vibes watching other users be acknowledged for their activity. I like to think that I was part of the welcoming community that saw Pokeslice and daniYSB develop themselves.

I recently wanted to get involved more myself; S1nn0hC0nfirm3d and Rabia have been so, so helpful with helping me develop in QC and GP (they’ve been doing, like, a LOT behind the scenes, by the way. That’s true for a lot of prominent users, bu the way) and uh, I appreciate you guys a lot.

If there’s a point to all this, it’s that I really haven’t ever felt shut out, or scrutinized by some shadow clique, or anything like that. Maybe it was just a coincidence that I’m here at all. I coulda just dipped after floating through like always, but that didn’t happen this time. And I think that the community in place was important for that, and I think that my own efforts were important for that.

Sorry for the mushy post, but I wanted to convey that I appreciate this place.

 

[Finchinator]

I do not have a ton to say, but wanted to chime in on one point in particular:

from a (largely) outsider perspective the most offputting thing about NU has been the lack of enthusiasm around tournaments. To me, the underused discord's #tournament-discussion channel is genuinely one of the most fun things on smogon; a bunch of ppl gather to commentate the games of circuit tournaments like the currently ongoing UnderUsed ladder tournament, not to mention the far greater level of hype around team tournaments like UUPL. people clearly care a lot about these tours, and that enthusiasm is infectious, creating a super active, enthusiastic, and, for lack of a better word, "hype" atmosphere. it got me to want to participate even when i knew nothing about UU and didnt have many friends that play it, and now it's a place in which i spend a large fraction of my time on mons-related stuff.

NeverUsed tours, however, have next to no hype. nobody seems to really care about discussing the tier's tournaments, as evidenced by the relative deadness of this NUPL (and other NUPLs, last SSD, etc. -- basically any tour with NUPL i dont see any hype going on for NU) and the absolute silence in the discord for matches of things like NULT. it isnt the sole metric for whether or not a community is worth participating in, but i think cultivating a more active, enthusiastic, and invested tours culture in NeverUsed (primarily discord, but forums/ps? too i guess) would make NU a lot more exciting and fun to participate in.

I am going to make it a priority to assure that our tournaments are more appealing, visible, and engaging to the community. The first step in this process happened today with the creation of #tournament-discussion in the Neverused discord thanks to the suggestion of this post and Sabella mentioning it on discord. I appreciate this constructive feedback very much.

We will continue to take steps towards assuring Neverused tournaments are exciting for players and followers alike when possible. If anyone has suggestions, never hesitate to message me and I will gladly bring them up if and when appropriate. Thank you!

 

[roxie]

you aren’t welcomed here or it’s generally just a dead and unappealing atmosphere and that’s probably why a bunch of people quit smogon or drop NU permanently

Piggy backing on this but honestly NU was the most welcoming community I've ever approached. I joined a 3v3 tournament with my Monotype friends, Decem and Maki but honestly, I felt like I had some nice builds. Sadly, near the playoffs, I was rushed to play and ended up bringing a really terrible manual rain team. Corthius and Pokeslice are two of the closest friends I've bonded with starting off as room regulars. Corthius and I started overtaking NU Projects and eventually, I wanted to add Pokeslice to the squad. We started calling ourselves the "RU mains" and "Goon Squad" (obstagoon) and we got to a point where we felt comfortable voice chatting and planning out our projects. (I have never voice chatted with anyone from this site before because I honestly used to think everyone, yes you Finchinator were bots on this website lmfao). I then expanded to a more public audience and started voice chatting with the entire NU discord. We eventually started racking up like 15-20 users in voice chat calls just chilling and discussing the tier as a whole.

Unfortunately, I feel like we lost a few of our bonds when NUPL started but people get over grudges and move on. Gen8 has lost a lot of interest for players overall and I think that reflects a lot of lower tiers. I also do notice a lot of passive aggression without reasoning but this isn't the thread you to solve 1 on 1 dispute with whomever. Nonetheless, our player base is friendly in my eyes and I don't think it has anything to do with being "unwelcomed" or "unappealing".

also, Thanks for voicing your thoughts everyone~

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

Regarding a NU Discord conversation: the community at large would also appreciate transparency regarding the VR, and to a lesser extent other resources like sample teams. Meri Berry ever so kindly let me know a bit more about the how the VR works here in NU, which is great for me but this info was missing at large + easily lost unless you have the time to read up everything in the #general chat. Part of the lacking transparency, in my opinion, includes unannounced VR council member additions / resignations, unexpected VR slate dates, unexplained votes by council members, and unknown reasonings as to why council members voted for what–this list descends in relevance.

So to start with the most relevant point, we would appreciate a formal announcement somewhere in the VR thread or even the NU Discord's #announcement chan to know who are the newest additions to the VR council. Obviously the VR is integral to the community and easily the most active resource here, so it follows that we would want to know who has the final say on the list / who is deemed qualified to be on the council. However, new additions and past resignations were largely unannounced. For example, I have no idea when EonX came on or left the VR council, as I and others just remember seeing them on the OP. You won't find anything explicitly stated on the VR thread that "EonX joined the VR Council," nor that when he left. How many slates did that user vote on? I couldn't tell ya, and I wouldn't have been even able to say that Ren-Chon nor Turtledog were added to the VR council too unless I noticed / Meri mentioned that casually. This shouldn't be how the community finds out managerial changes when it's a resource we spend so much time working on and are so invested in. Future announcements anywhere, and at the very latest and least by the next VR shift post, would be a major transparency improvement!

The public at large is also completely unaware when VR slates are planned, which causes issues as to planning out nom posts and expectations regarding the accuracy of the resource. Casual mentions of future updates by Rabia or Meri are really all we have to know when the next update is planned, and that's tough for us when we try to plan our time and energy into noms but are too late to make a post before the slate.

Like, you can actually just go through the [VR] thread and see me stating that the thread is getting locked because we're updating it. I also am on record in other several places (room/Discord) confirming the status, be it us waiting on voters or the planning of a slate to start up. I really don't get why you'd say no one knows when the updates are.

At the moment there's a VR update in the works yet there was no mention of it on the thread, neither was the update mentioned prior to the public, neither was the thread locked... I only know of the update because of a casual line or two in the general discord chat today. That's not enough transparency as that communication is easily lost + not broadcasted to enough of the NU audience. Moreover, the locks are out of the blue and don't solve the more pressing problem that the community still doesn't know their timeframe to get noms in before updates. If there's a lull in updates, which of course may be caused by a ton of valid reasons, all there needs to be is an announcement to give a few days of last second revisions and a heads up that the VR is about to be readdressed. This will also improve the use of the VR as a resource as there's recognition from council that it's outdated to some degree and thus won't be taken as seriously till the update. A simple heads up post in the thread or in the NU Discord's announcements chan is more than enough to keep the community engaged and aware.

The other issue, albeit contentious, is that VR council votes on every single mon on the VR, even if there wasn't a nom for it. To me the issue here is that it violates a rule in the thread: "When nominating a Pokemon to move from one rank to another... explain what has changed in the meta to cause such Pokemon to get better or worse." In practice, the VR council votes on every mon and new changes occur on the VR, all without reasoning. Would it be possible to avoid this practice / have at least one council member post what they plan to nom before the slate? This would encourage both positive discourse and transparency.

The point of contention rose when Meri mentioned the OP of the VR thread is potentially outdated + VR shift posts do in fact have a line or two of explanations at the time of shift rather than before. Poh agrees that their system of voting on every mon encourages that the VR is updated to the best degree. However, I disagree for the reasons above regarding the lack of discourse and transparency with this process. Regarding a change that no one nommed for in-thread, newest VR council member Turtledoggo21 once wrote "Its so disrespectful to unrank [Centiskorch]. Same as it always was, good breaker that can be really potent between knock+coverage and broken fire lash." It isn't hard to see that valid community members feel it's unfair to see changes without warning or potential discourse to at least offer a counter argument. So I would personally advocate to prevent noms without at least some post on the thread to show the explanation, as that would greatly improve transparency. Given that turtle is also now a VR council member, I assume he too would support this change!

Lastly, would a public slate to show votes be possible? We had them last year and it helps to see who votes for what to get an idea on how the council is represented. I wouldn't expect council members to always defend their votes, but again this would help transparency greatly.

Sample teams have a similar transparency issue. Sometimes they just randomly update and no one announces it anywhere. I initially submitted my HO sample to the NU Bazaar and not the sample teams but it ended up on the samples without anyone asking / telling me. I'm more than fine with it there, of course, but this again is just another underlining transparency issue with NU that pervades more than just tournament chats or room presence... This thread only skimmed over the resource issue, and to me this issue is just as if not more pressing.

It's inconsistent for me when I try to share resources and help others with the community because of this resource management. For example, when I'm in PS rooms with new players and do !tier NU, I sometimes see new resources and updates I wasn't aware of. Of course sometimes it's just my fault and I'm busy with everything I'm involved in, but that's why we need announcements and transparency; it really helps us be up to date. We'll feel more involved in the community and that our contributions are worth it.

TL; DR: NU's resources should have more announcements regarding updates and new additions, and they should be somewhere easily accessible like announcement channels or on the forums rather than casual convos in general chatrooms. This and more would be a great improvement to transparency and help the community feel more involved in + know more about the tier they contribute to.

 

[Lucario]

Sample teams have a similar transparency issue. Sometimes they just randomly update and no one announces it anywhere. I initially submitted my HO sample to the NU Bazaar and not the sample teams but it ended up on the samples without anyone asking / telling me.

I agree 100% with Ho3n and would like to add on to this and mention that the Bazaar is dead. It hasn't been updated in quite some time and the teams are outdated. Users have been submitting teams to it almost weekly, but not a single team has been added since March. The Bazaar is a place for players to find teams that are more fun to use than the sample teams, but they may be disappointed to find it not updated since the last shifts.

Another, smaller thing, is that the Role Compendium should be pinned. Newer or returning users often have to scroll half a page just to find it. The Role Compendium is an important resource that shouldn't be shoved to the bottom due it not actively being posted in.

 

[roxie]

Meri berry made a post about how the VR council works and Ren-chon has revived the council minutes thread. If any further concerns arise, please contact the respective council or group. I will be locking this thread now, please contact me or another moderator for concerns, thanks.