Metagame Analysis Workshops

[Tangerine]

For something so rapidly changing, the state of the metagame is by all means underdocumented. We see fragments of comments everywhere, but there isn't anything that simply pieces them together with theories behind each changes, until of course, recently.

Now, we are at the point where we as a community is taking an active hold of the metagame. Of course, if we are unable to fully grasp the state of the metagame, then who are we to make changes to it? Making changes to something we do not fully understand is dangerous.

Hence, this project. I posted my analysis that I have done in the beginning of July documenting the metagame as of June/July - and we see the obvious flaws in it. One person can only do so much, so to speak, considering the metagame is made up of the many people playing with. Simply put, we need more people analyzing it and commenting on the metagame before we get a more objective and complete view of the metagame.

The purpose of the analysis is simply to have a complete viewpoint of the metagame for any given month, so that we can note how it is changing. Especially now, with the split of OU into standard and the suspect test ladder, these analysis are absolutely essential in order to give something that we can directly contrast to, over the voting mechanism that we currently have.

Hence, this thread.

Something I believe we need to do is to ask, "What is needed in an analysis" such as this? And of course, how we will coordinate this project (if enough people even want to give it a shot anyway)

Here are some properties that I feel are essential in the analysis.

1) Objectivity. They should not be meant to persuade, but simply a statement. This means, cut the "Garchomp may be uber" tone, Deoxys E might be uber tone, but just state their effects on the metagame, definitely something that many people were not able to do coherently.

2) The Metagame "Pulse" - A description on the "pacing" of the metagame - particularly how the games are played. Are things likely to explode after setting up SR? How fast is the pace? How offensive is the game? Or is stall taking over?

3) Trends/Countertrends - Description of the new ideas taking place, and what it being done to stop the dominating trends before.

4) Usage Stats - We definitely need more of them there - being able to connect the usage stats and the analysis themselves.

5) Future Prediction - Based on the trends, what kind of Pokemon do you think will be useful in the future?

etc.

So in this topic, I'd like to discuss the...

1) The merits of a metagame analysis
2) How to carry out the project
3) Any more ideas on what an analysis should have.

 

[Aldaron]

I'll be helping Tangerine write these, and I figured we might as well do them every time the stats are released.

Right now I'm only interested in the Suspect ladder and the UU ladder, so I'll be working on those two specifically.

I'd like to emphasize that this is an attempted scholarly effort, meaning we aren't looking for any politics or agendas here. We simply want to take the experiences of some of the top notch battlers and see if we can map some general trends.

The statistics provide us an objective viewing of the metagame, but they unfortunately provide little information on the team game, which is what competitive Pokemon is all about.

Here we're looking to note such things as "Substitute Focus Blast Gengar + DD Dragonite" or "Stealth Rock Anti Leads + DD LO Gyarados" are in combination dominating the metagame. Or that "now Suicune seems to be running the RestTalk set only with X Pokemon, and usually the Life Orb set with Y Pokemon."

But aside from interesting Pokemon strategies, we also want what Tangerine emphasized in his first Metagame Analysis: general opinions on the state of the metagame.

This is especially important for the suspect ladder. We want you all to make detailed posts in the Suspect Ladder topic in Stark regarding your experiences so we can record what is necessary and see where we need to go with that. Is another suspect rising? Is this metagame stable?

You can help us answer those questions.

 

[TAY]

I would be happy to help with this if you're looking for people to contribute.

Regarding objectivity, I think that we should try to back up what we write with statistics as much as we possibly can. Now that Doug has made the more in-depth statistics, this shouldn't be too hard to do, and it will ensure that the article isn't heavily biased towards what the writer(s) has experienced. Even if we were able to completely eliminate our biases, each person will have a unique interpretation of the metagame which will likely come across as flat-out wrong to some others. Statistics will justify the analysis more than the opinions of a few well reputed members of the community could alone.

I know that Aldaron already mentioned this, but for importance's sake: these should all be released as posts in Stark, in order to gauge the opinion of Smogon users.

 

[IggyBot]

I would still love to do this. When I first thought of doing this I wanted many seperate analysis's from many different players. Every player is unique in how they think and play, and views on the metagame will be different from every player. I think this could give all of us a deeper insight into the metagame, looking at it from multiple points of view.

Aldaron said basically everything I had in mind with this, and hopefully we can get it going.

 

[Great Sage]

As I have said before, I would be pleased to participate in this.

 

[X-Act]

The only way I can help is to provide you with further stats from the awesome stats that Doug provides. Hope it'll be useful to you.

 

[Jumpman16]

i give this my "blessing" as long as the thoughts and ideas posted are steeped in the myriad statistics that are now available to us

i just hope those involved have the energy to give this undertaking the careful and enduring it will need

 

[DougJustDoug]

I am definitely interested in participating as an "enabler" for the Metagame Analysts. While I spend a ton of time and energy observing the underlying data of the metagame (battle logs and statistics), the amount of time I spend in battle is woefully small. There is a huge difference between observing the game, and playing the game. So I won't attempt to contribute to the analyses themselves. But, I can provide some help for those of you with the proper battle activity level to make sound analyses.

I think the statistics now available can make this project a legitimate schlolarly effort. The heart of every analysis should begin with an editorial hunch, but should be proven through the presentation of relevant metagame statistics. If the proofs are subject to peer review, I think the process could have sufficient rigor to yield meaningful conclusions.

My current statistics-gathering programs are a little rough around the edges and need further refinement. In particular, I had to do a lot of manual work to produce decently-formatted output. If these statistics are going to be used for a variety of purposes, I need to add further automation to the actual reporting. I built some open-ended hooks to allow this sort of improvement, but as yet, have not worked on it. In general, I need to roll up my sleeves and "finish" the programs. The code that produced the statistics for July was a "beta version" at best.

This sounds like an interesting pursuit. I will do my part to support those of you that will be doing the "heavy lifting" on this project.

 

[Brawley]

I'm game for this, and I play all metagames if that helps.

 

[Train Man]

Copied and Pasted from my PM to Aldaron;

While I'd love to contribute to this operation, especially regarding Ubers, i'm going to have to warn you that my activity on ShoddyBattle and Smogon has been greatly reduced. I rarely post anymore and it's even rarer to see me in a battle.

Though, if it's not asking too much, i'd like to still have access to possibly post comments, edits or suggestions for Metagame Analysises. However, i'd completely understand if you don't accept.

And thank you for giving me an invitation.

 

[Bologo]

This is a great idea in my opinion. It's especially useful for my fellow tutors and I, because it can be a great aid in getting a beginner used to the current metagame, instead of having only the statistics to cite when teaching them. If these are planning to be archived, it's even more useful for tutoring, because then we can teach our students the history of the metagame much easier, so that they can take part in some of the debates with a good solid foundation of knowledge about the metagame in the past and present.

In 5), which is Future Predictions, those who are writing these should probably include which Pokemon are predicted to drop in usage as well, instead of only saying what will rise.

I could probably never write these, since I'm not good at remembering trends and stuff throughout an entire month and putting it in writing, so I'm counting on you guys who are writing them! If anyone wants a grammar check or something on their analysis before they post it in the C&C subforum, drop me a PM, and I can check it over for you (after August is done). :]

Good luck guys and gals.

 

[Stallion]

I'm up for helping with this :). Sounds like a great idea and having input from different people will make it even more interesting, as no one view is necessarily 100 % true.

 

[Taylor]

I constantly play both the regular OU ladder as well as the Suspect ladder, so I am more than happy to participate in this project. A marvellous idea that will be able to offer us so much in the future.

I have replied to the private message that was sent to me earlier:

I am interested in participating in this project.

Perhaps I won't be as involved as others, considering how time consuming both tutoring and moderating both are. However, with such a project that I do not want to miss out on, I would certainly offer as much time as I can with edits and suggestions with my experience, and anything else required in this project.

Thank you for this opportunity and I ensure you will not be dissapointed.

 

[Cynthia]

I'd be willing to help, especially with the UU section. My life's been kinda crazy the past few days, but I'll be regularly on soon enough.

 

[Tangerine]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=73

We have a board for this project! While the statistics aren't out yet - it'd be nice if someone started threads for the general discussion for Suspect OU, Uber, and UU.

 

[Train Man]

A few questions;

Just out of curiousity, after these Metagame Analysises have been written and the kinks fully worked out in the workshop?

Upon being released in Stark, will we create a new SubBoard of Stark, "Analysis Archives" similiar to the Warstory Archives? Will they go on the main site or remain only in the forums?

If so, will their be an SMCS format for these sorts of analysises as well. And will we all be following a similiar template or is are these analysises up to the interpretation of the author?

Thanks and i'm glad to see this idea is finally coming into fruition.

 

[Tangerine]

That's a good question actually.

I was actually hoping that we can get this on the site itself with its own section as articles, but that's something I apparently forgot to ask