My suggestion for UU

[obi]

I recommend we get rid of the 50 member BL list or whatever it is and start with them all as UU. UU will likely be much larger at the end of finding balance and then NU could get larger to compensate. Then NU just might be actually interesting, instead of just being useless, uninspiring Pokemon like Unown and Delibird.

/edit:

This has caused a lot of confusion, and so although I have explained my position very clearly in several other threads and on the Shoddy chat (and even other forums), I guess I should do so here as well. In fact, I'm just going to copy something I said on Serebii:

I want to move all BL Pokemon into UU. From there, Pokemon that prove to be worthy of banning would be banned to BL. It's entirely possible that we end up with the same tiers we have now, just highly unlikely, because I suspect there is a decent balance point in there somewhere. I am not for removing BL as a tier, and in fact, it is necessary. Under my plan, BL would just likely be a lot smaller. The quality of Pokemon in UU would shift up, thus allowing more Pokemon at the bottom of UU to drop off into NU (and its BL / uber tier, which is as yet unnamed). This raises the quality of the NU tier as well (which is one of my main problems with ADV UU, it's horrible for competitive play if strategy in team building is a desirable trait).

In other words, I'd empty out BL, but then slowly add Pokemon back to it, but this would be based primarily on actual playtesting, not "I think Pokemon X is too strong!".

When I said ADV UU, I meant ADV NU. ADV NU is the tier filled with the uninspiring Pokemon. That was just a typo.

 

[Dragontamer]

If others are willing to agree, I too am also ready to agree with this. Unlike OU, I think people are ready and willing for major changes to the current UU metagame. This decision IMO deserves a poll, but not a vote. Just to see who out there thinks it a good idea. Just going with my philosophy that "fun" and "community" deserve a picture in this process.

As to more concrete issues, this will merge the UU and BL metagames together which can be good or bad. I think it would be a good thing, mostly because there are too few people playing UU as it is.

EDIT: there is one exception. I'd like to request that there is no Auto-weather at all in UU. That means Abomasnow, Hippowdon, and their previous evolutions Snover and Hippopatas, are banned forever from UU. Weather is fun and all, but I think we all agree that we want a metagame without auto-weather.

 

[Cathy]

People have often requested a UU ladder on Shoddy Battle, but of course UU is not really developed at this point, and having a ladder undergo frequent tier changes would be a bit annoying. (We are talking much more frequently than one pokemon being unbanned "suddenly" in the whole history of the standard ladder, dragontamer. I know you're just dying to comment on Wobbuffet.)

However, perhaps we can just frame the UU ladder specifically as a ladder to construct the BL tier system. The ladder would start with just the uber, OU, and pre-evolved pokemon banned (and the OU list updating monthly based on X-act's definition). Every week or so, we'd look at the usage in the UU ladder and make what amounts to an educated and verifiable guess about what is causing the most centralisation. Perhaps we'd use a poll at this point between some top contenders. (It's not necessarily the most used pokemon causing the centralisation.) Then we'd repeat each week, crafting a BL tier iteratively. Since people aren't really attached to the current UU metagame (most of them having not ever played it), this could probably be greatly popular.

Anyway, I'm posting this for one reason: it will effectively serve the purpose described by Obi and to some degree dragontamer, so it is worth mentioning.

One note is that the uber list could have an effect on this project. For example, Deoxys-e is nearly not OU this last month. It will most likely not be OU any day now. So it would be included in this UU test. Would it be broken? Maybe. Still, a modified uber list might result in a wildly different UU metagame.

 

[Yagami Light]

I really like this idea, to be honest. However, some things:

The top used of the BLs should probably be transferred to OU, since they are OU in all but name. This is just stuff that barely makes the cut every time in the Shoddy statistics, like Alazakam and Kingdra, simply because the only thing stopping these from being OU is some slight usage.

Secondly, as Dragontamer said, no auto-weather of any sort please. If you allow pre-evos (Which is alright), just don't allow Snover and Hippopotas. UU is a nice place to see rain or sun teams, the environmental charm would be lost with the introduction of autoweather.

I think UU could use some shifting up, and this seems like a great idea to do this.

 

[Mekkah]

Then NU just might be actually interesting, instead of just being useless, uninspiring Pokemon like Unown and Delibird.

I liked "useless NU" in Advance much better than when stuff like Flareon, Hitmonchan and a whole lot of other random relative powerhouses came over. There were enough Pokemon to be considered before then, without having to resort to Unown or Ditto.

That's my only qualm, because this is really how we ought to do it. I guess we'd have to "test" Deoxys-S for UU then too but that seems like a formality mostly.

The top used of the BLs should probably be transferred to OU, since they are OU in all but name. This is just stuff that barely makes the cut every time in the Shoddy statistics, like Alazakam and Kingdra, simply because the only thing stopping these from being OU is some slight usage.

They'd be "the old BL" or "the new UU" whenever they don't make the cut. However, they're likely to get banned anyway due to their power.

 

[X-Act]

I have no qualms about this idea, except that the UU tier might change every 3 months. This will happen because the OU list is updated every 3 months as well (next update is 1st April). If this is fine with everybody, then it's fine by me. And to those people who think that changing the OU tier list every 3 months is not needed, it does require a change, since the current OU list and the current OU metagame are different.

EDIT: Actually I misread what Obi said. I see that he wants to start with everything UU to then ban stuff in BL. I suggest that, if this is upheld, we either start this next April 1st when the tiers are updated, or, if you don't want to wait till April, I run the algorithm hastily using December, January and February statistics and give you the 'current' OU list. The fact that the UU list might change every 3 months is then irrelevant, as it was going to do that anyway.

 

[Dragontamer]

People have often requested a UU ladder on Shoddy Battle, but of course UU is not really developed at this point, and having a ladder undergo frequent tier changes would be a bit annoying. (We are talking much more frequently than one pokemon being unbanned "suddenly" in the whole history of the standard ladder, dragontamer. I know you're just dying to comment on Wobbuffet.)

I don't think the Wobbuffet fiasco has any relevance to this topic actually. The UU metagame is different, the people who play it are different, and there are motivations that are non-competitive in nature (see "OU-lite" and similar arguments). Further, people have generally accepted that a tier based on popularity will be volatile in nature. When Tentacruel was banned from UU, there were a few complaints but it was quickly accepted that Tentacruel was lost to the UU metagame.

What I am worried about is a 6-month old thread and the discussion that has been put into it thus far. Which is why I'd like a poll on the issue before really carrying on. I'm personally willing to start over at a clean slate, but I'm not sure if everyone else is.

The only advantage I see in your method Colin, is that the BL list will most likely shrink. But this doesn't address the issues of whether or not UU will say... degenerate into OU-lite (Blazikin, Snover, Hippopatas). It doesn't address the issue of whether or not the game will be a fast paced game as the current UU metagame is (with a few uncounterable pokemon allowed in, and with walls significantly weaker than in OU), or whether it will degenerate into a slower paced game.

Useage Statistics do not care about these sorts of issues. But unless I'm mistaken, people want to think about issues like this and weigh them in while designing the UU metagame. That is why I'd like to see a poll on this issue, particularly to see if this is really how the community feels UU should be.

EDIT: I'm generally neutral on this issue, although I do feel that we need to make sure that UU is an entirely different metagame compared to OU. We cannot risk an OU-lite UU metagame.

 

[Cathy]

The UU metagame is different, the people who play it are different, and there are motivations that are non-competitive in nature (see "OU-lite" and similar arguments).

I don't really understand what you are trying to say, dragontamer. Of course UU is a competitive metagame, and naturally when constructing it we are only considering balance (i.e. making sure the number of viable pokemon is above a critical threshold, and minimising the number of pokemon banned).

The only advantage I see in your method Colin, is that the BL list will most likely shrink. But this doesn't address the issues of whether or not UU will say... degenerate into OU-lite (Blazikin, Snover, Hippopatas). It doesn't address the issue of whether or not the game will be a fast paced game as the current UU metagame is (with a few uncounterable pokemon allowed in, and with walls significantly weaker than in OU), or whether it will degenerate into a slower paced game.

As I said in my post, pre-evolved pokemon (except for a short list of exceptions) should be banned from the start. I am sure that this is implicit in Obi's initial post too. The whole point of UU is to use different pokemon from standard, so there is no need to ever allow in pre-evolved pokemon excepting the short list of exceptions. This particular issue has more to do with the ontology of UU then balance. The purpose of UU is not to play a faster-paced or more offensive game or whatever else you might be talking about. It might happen to end up this way, but UU should not be constructed to suit those goals because the purpose is just to use pokemon that are not seen very often in standard play, hence the name underused, while maintaining balance through a set of bans (BL).

Useage Statistics do not care about these sorts of issues. But unless I'm mistaken, people want to think about issues like this and weigh them in while designing the UU metagame. That is why I'd like to see a poll on this issue, particularly to see if this is really how the community feels UU should be.

Lots of people to be sure want to incorporate things like "these issues" (which seems to be a masquerade for what you usually call "fun") into the conception of tiers. But "fun" is not well defined, and it should not be referenced unless you define it in a way that is actually relevant to the tiers. For example, maybe playing a game with many viable pokemon is "fun". Then creating a balanced metagame and making the game fun are one in the same.

As for public opinion, I am sure that a straw poll wold conclude that the most fun metagame would be similar to standard except with Blissey, Breloom, etc. banned, as well as every move with less than 100% accuracy being modified to hit every time, and the damage formula modified to always do max damage. And sleep would always last four turns, unless it's your pokemon that is asleep, in which case it would last just one turn. Public opinion has no role in constructing a balanced metagame. However, it might serve a useful function in identifying which pokemon is centralising the game most at a given time -- something that is so far nontrivial to do analytically. But perhaps only people with a rating above a certain threshold on the experimental UU ladder would be allowed to vote in these things, to ensure that they had actually played the game.

And it's not as if public opinion is a static source of insight. As rule changes are promogulated, public opinion will inevitably shift.

I suggest that, if this is upheld, we either start this next April 1st when the tiers are updated, or, if you don't want to wait till April, I run the algorithm hastily using December, January and February statistics and give you the 'current' OU list. The fact that the UU list might change every 3 months is then irrelevant, as it was going to do that anyway.

I don't see any advantage to updating every three months as opposed to every month. The only conceivable reason is to inject some conservatism into the process perhaps making tournaments easier to organise (seems dubious). But this is not really a concern for the ladder format and I would rather just update each month. Of course, what Smogon's tiers do may be different.

 

[X-Act]

I'll also suggest that when the UU metagame settles down a bit, we separate UU and NU in exactly the same way as we separated OU and UU.

I want to address the point of what happens when OU Pokemon are not OU anymore due to lack of usage. As I said, the OU list will be officially changed next 1st April. If we start the UU test now, we'd have to introduce new UU Pokemon to the test in the middle of it due to the change in the tier list. So I'd start the UU test in April because of this. Another advantage of starting the test in April would be that, by that time, we should have a clearer idea of whether to put Deoxys-S and Wobbuffet officially in OU in the Smogon tier list, given also that we'd have the March data to help us decide.

 

[Cathy]

I agree that there are advantages to delaying the test to perhaps finalise the ubers list to possibly take into account data collected over the last month. I think this process will probably be indecisive, but I agree that it's worth giving it some time.

(By the way, I apologise if you read an earlier version of my above post. I edited it a bit to make it clear what I was actually referring to, and it might not look familiar anymore!)

 

[X-Act]

My problem with updating the tiers every month is that the tiers would be updated much too often. UU changing every month is not very healthy for the metagame, in my opinion.

Which brings me to my next point. Where would the Pokemon that were in OU but they're not OU anymore due to lack of usage go after (or while) the UU metagame is being tested? In BL or in UU?

 

[Dragontamer]

I don't really understand what you are trying to say, dragontamer. Of course UU is a competitive metagame, and naturally when constructing it we are only considering balance (i.e. making sure the number of viable pokemon is above a critical threshold, and minimising the number of pokemon banned).

I never said that all of UU is non-competitive, however, it is very clear from the previous discussions that at least some of the current UU crowd have non-competitive motivations for playing UU. OU-lite is one of these non-competitive motivations, and there are most likely others.

As I said in my post, pre-evolved pokemon (except for a short list of exceptions) should be banned from the start. I am sure that this is implicit in Obi's initial post too. The whole point of UU is to use different pokemon from standard, so there is no need to ever allow in pre-evolved pokemon excepting the short list of exceptions. This particular issue has more to do with the ontology of UU then balance. The purpose of UU is not to play a faster-paced or more offensive game or whatever else you might be talking about. It might happen to end up this way, but UU should not be constructed to suit those goals because the purpose is just to use pokemon that are not seen very often in standard play, hence the name underused, while maintaining balance through a set of bans (BL).

Please Colin, don't preach to me on this subject. While I may have not been participating in the latest UU discussions, I still have a few months worth of posts lodged in the current UU/BL debate, as well as playtest experience in the developing UU metagame. This discussion should be beyond this point and implicit in every post by now.

Moving on...

While I personally disagree with say... forcing UU to be a "faster pace metagame", I realize that this feeling is in UU right now. This is the direction the community seems to want to go towards. Again, I can note that for several months people were willing to test pokemon without any counters in the UU metagame, like Hitmonlee, Pinsir, Scyther. We were willing to add sweepers like Swellow in, and there are people who are on the fence with other powerhouses like Torterra.

Further, when Pinsir is finally decided to be banned, what are the reasons that people are coming up with? Balance may have been part of the key, but with reasons like "Diet Heracross" or "Heracross-lite" coming up, it is clear that balance is not the only motivation in UU.

Again, a straw poll would be enough to jump start this trend. Something so that we can see what people want and how we should set the priorities in defining this metagame. We need to know what the community wants in UU, and then we need to create the UU environment to reflect what people want.

EDIT: And I should note: if people want a competitive balanced environment, then this is all good. I just have a feeling that OU already satisfies that requirement, and that UU should have a feel of its own.

Lots of people to be sure want to incorporate things like "these issues" (which seems to be a masquerade for what you usually call "fun") into the conception of tiers. But "fun" is not well defined, and it should not be referenced unless you define it in a way that is actually relevant to the tiers. For example, maybe playing a game with many viable pokemon is "fun". Then creating a balanced metagame and making the game fun are one in the same.

Just because it is undefined does not mean we cannot take them into account. Currently, there is a widespread consensus of no-autoweather in UU. Any reason why? I don't know, the only explanation I have is fun and anti-OU-lite. (Of course, I have my own reasons, but I'm trying to give a feel of the community on this)

As for public opinion, I am sure that a straw poll wold conclude that the most fun metagame would be similar to standard except with Blissey, Breloom, etc. banned, as well as every move with less than 100% accuracy being modified to hit every time, and the damage formula modified to always do max damage. And sleep would always last four turns, unless it's your pokemon that is asleep, in which case it would last just one turn. Public opinion has no role in constructing a balanced metagame. However, it might serve a useful function in identifying which pokemon is centralising the game most at a given time -- something that is so far nontrivial to do analytically. But perhaps only people with a rating above a certain threshold on the experimental UU ladder would be allowed to vote in these things, to ensure that they had actually played the game.

And it's not as if public opinion is a static source of insight. As rule changes are promogulated, public opinion will inevitably shift.

I'm trying to point out that balance may not be the only important issue here, especially in UU. Balance is indeed important, but solely focusing on balance will leave potential UU players out of the loop. Unlike OU, UU's community is small and fragmented. But we do have a few unifying ideals.

Second: the idea that you are willing to create a metagame that does not serve the Public's needs, but instead changes the public opinion, is somewhat scary to me. I am of the opinion that the metagame should serve what the community wants. UU needs to serve a purpose that OU does not fill.

Again, we need the public opinion on this one. Statistics are nice and all, but we need to set a target before we can start aiming for it. Lets start with figuring out the complete motivations of the UU crowd, and then use statistics to create the metagame that they want.

I have a feeling that some people may not even care how big the BL list is, and would prefer better reasons for unbanning pokemon. I can't speak for Forsety here, not should you rely on the opinion of someone to remain constant for 5 months. This is why I'd like to again figure out the motivations for playing UU before starting this process. And of course, there are people who do feel balance is the only issue. But lets see which one is more accepted before building this metagame.

I don't see any advantage to updating every three months as opposed to every month. The only conceivable reason is to inject some conservatism into the process perhaps making tournaments easier to organise (seems dubious). But this is not really a concern for the ladder format and I would rather just update each month. Of course, what Smogon's tiers do may be different.

An environment needs enough time to be analyzed so that it can be competitive. It currently takes 1 full month to determine the popular leads and popular pokemon (usage statistics). By the time statistics come out, the metagame would have changed, and the statistics obsolete.

Every 3 months will guarantee at least 2 months of statistics and analysis into the metagame before it is changed. It should promote a more healthy competition in UU.

 

[Cathy]

Please Colin, don't preach to me on this subject.

Fair enough. I would prefer if we could keep things unrelated to the balance of the game out of these tier discussions, but we might as well see what people think about other considerations.

 

[obi]

I edited my first post to include a better explanation for what I am propose because people have misunderstood my post. Rereading it, I can see why. I wrote it in terms where most of you [the people who can post here] understood me (or you are around me enough to read me explaining it better elsewhere), but many of the people just reading this forum were left with a poor description.

 

[Mekkah]

To test this properly, I think something like a long-term league over the course of the summer would be interesting. Some sort of manually managed ladder play. Every 1-2 weeks or so, people could discuss their findings, and at the end we might have a proper idea of what to shift to BL and whatnot.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Question, if we put all of BL back into UU to test, um..don't you think everyone would want to use said BLs, therefore we would never know what is actually overpowering or isn't, as they're facing other BLs. And if we unban a certain amount at a time, it'll take quite a while before we can establish it....

 

[obi]

There would be no such thing as 'other BLs'. The current list of BL Pokemon vs. UU Pokemon is fairly arbitrary and mostly based on OU performance / ADV UU performance. I am not trying to save the 'current' metagame here.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Nonononono. We put all of those BLs into UU, empoleon, smeargle, medicham, everything. with all those bls now as uu, there's probably not many actuall original uus that are going to be used, so we wont actually know what is too powerful, when all the medichams and empoleon are battling each other, instead of seeing how sableye would fare instead etc etc do you get where i'm going here

 

[obi]

Yes, but why should UU be defined by Sableye and not Medicham (assuming Medicham isn't then moved up to BL)?

 

[Bologo]

How would you know if Medicham needs to move up to BL anyway if it'll just be fighting a bunch of current BLs in this UU test?

 

[obi]

Because there's nothing inherently "UU" about any given Pokemon. I don't consider a test a failure because it doesn't give the current results.

In other words, I start with no assumptions. To make a distinction between old BL and old UU would be to say that you value speculation and theorycrafting more than actual play-testing.

 

[Mekkah]

I think what Bologo is afraid of is that the line of BL/UU simply becomes "too high" and that UU becomes unrecognizable, kind of counterintuitive. However, Obi's point is perfectly valid: UU would be just like what we're trying to do with OU. A highest point of balance between "you're allowed to use x amount of Pokemon" and "you can get away with using x amount of Pokemon".

 

[Train Man]

I really like this idea. This would basically allow players to choose between four different metagames (Ubers, OU, UU and NU) giving more variety for any newcomers and let alot of those people who like to play with their favourites actually use them competitively.

NU would be like a compilation of "weaker", a pretty subjective term at the moment, UU pokemon.
UU would be a lot "stronger" on the whole as it'd probably incoporate several BL pokemon.

I am still advocating a BL Tier to ban those who overpower "New UU", otherwise (pure Theorymon here) sweepers such as Raikou and Alakazam would just ravage the Blissey-less Metagame.

This idea would see us practically deconstructing and constructing two entirely new metagames from nearly nothing. Like a bunch of people have mentioned before, it's likely this process will take at the very least a few months to complete with the everyman participating. Obviously, we'd have to first start constructing the "New UU" Tier before even stepping into NU.

A "New UU" Ladder, where all BL Pokemon are banned and played alongside the current UU (Obi's suggestion) could be implemented into Shoddy Battle (with Colin's backing, of course). From here, we could analyze the usage statistics in similiar way to how we have done for OU. We could either use X-Act's Algoroithm or simply create cut-off marks for the Underused in "New UU". For example, an arbitrary cut-off of anything below the Top 50 would be the basis for the NU Tier.

Then, after a few months of testing and building a stable "New UU" Tier, we could track and find any recurring trends for pokemon that belong in "New NU" where the proccess of play-testing and analyzing would repeat itself.

However this will definitely be a pretty big and controversial move, especially for those dedicated to the current UU. Almost every analysis for UU pokemon would likely, be rewritten to accomodate and facilitate for the changed in the tier. Though, I must say there is already a need for work to be done to the Counters section in most UU analysis' as the majority are written with a bias towards OU.

 

[X-Act]

What do you mean by UU becoming unrecognisable, exactly? There's nothing to recognise. A Pokemon that was OU in ADV and not OU in DP is not necessarily BL in DP. With this 'recognition' thing, you're assuming that an OU in ADV _must_ be at least BL in DP.

 

[Mekkah]

However this will definitely be a pretty big and controversial move, especially for those dedicated to the current UU. Almost every analysis for UU pokemon would likely, be rewritten to accomodate and facilitate for the changed in the tier. Though, I must say there is already a need for work to be done to the Counters section in most UU analysis' as the majority are written with a bias towards OU.

We may as well go the whole nine yards then. If we don't have an UU tier and metagame that we can justify to our current tier system, then the analyses do not really help either.

It's been 8 days since the last response and it wasn't very heated to begin with. Are we going to do this or not?