Suggestions for OM Improvement

This might be going against rule three, so if so I apologize, but I think it deserves to be brought up here and will try and make it reasonably thorough. Namely: Can stabmons return over sketchmons, and if not what would be required for it or another (move based?) metagame to do so?

While STABmons was removed due to low activity on ladder, sketchmons isn't any better; in fact, its worse. Not only did STABmons have actually popular months, even its ending "low ladder play" times that got it the boot as a permaladder, it still had twice the current sketchmons plays. Despite The Ruins of Alpha 's new addition to with his stunning upsets, sketchmons has at most 4-5 serious players. Despite having been a permaladder all gen, it has a mere 9 pages, while every other permaladder has passed twenty. It has less than half as many posts as STABmons, who has had 1 1/2 months as an OMotM ladder, and that's with Racool tirelessly attempting to keep it active. Cross evolution, despite having never had a ps ladder (although it has admittedly been lcotm) has had more posts than it.There is not a single sketchmons player high ladder enough to be effected by decay, While STABmons has two people past 1600 and isnt even finished with its omotm tenure. STABmons is a long-beloved format, and its a shame to have it replaced by something so unpopular and dead.

I know that changing permaladers is an important decision and can't happen untill then end of the OMPL at the very least otherwise kois might actually win some games, but I just want to suggest you take it under consideration.
 
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MZ

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Obviously I like sketches but even though this is a topic where literally everyone is biased I'm not gonna bother with that specific argument and instead extrapolate this to a broader case. Stabmons was removed for inactivity while Sketchmons never had amazing activity or what could exactly live up to the other permaladders. Its activity was pretty good, but nothing insane (had comparable activity to other popular non-permaladder OMs like cross evos). I believe part of the assumption was to be that, when Sketchmons was added, many Stabmons players would swap cover to Sketchmons, at least to some degree, because it's another move based metagame and let's give that a try. I think that wasn't an unreasonable assumption, but it's turned out to be incorrect. Whatever the reasoning, many Stabmons players haven't bothered to try it. The incentives have been pretty good, inclusion in OMPL and OMGS is about the best you can offer here, but people have been far more willing to sit around and cry about it until they've succeeded in blackmailing the leadership into adding back Stabmons. Yes that language sounds pretty negative for a reason, I think there's a fair argument for adding back Stabmons and it's the will of the community and at this point it maybe ought to be done to prevent further complaining even if it does set an awkward precedent, but this could've been handled with a lot less drama and complaining about how this is some kind of awful decision forced down by administration upon us lowly peasants. Ultimately I think the lesson to learn is that replacing a permaladder can't just come with community input. Replacing Sketches made sense and clearly more than just TI thought so, but ultimately it turned out that the more dedicated OM players weren't willing to give it a shot. Changing any permaladders ought to come with a revision/trial period, maybe 3 months or something idk that's just off the top of my head, to see if people are willing to give them a shot. At some point some kind of change is probably going to happen again, and at that point we need to be certain that the incoming metagame can handle the load. Theoretically something like this would've made it easy to see the difference between Mix and Mega and Sketchmons and then do something about the problems with Sketch, whether that be going back to Stabmons or getting some serious community push to make it more accepted. At this point it's too tarnished by the politics around it, but Sketchmons can at least be a lesson of what to do with OM ladders in the future.

tldr: maybe a revision system for changing any permaladders to avoid cases like "we thought stabs players other than OF would give sketch a shot but we were wrong"

e: im now being told by kris that something like this was supposed to happen but didn't. Oops!
 
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Obviously I like sketches but even though this is a topic where literally everyone is biased I'm not gonna bother with that specific argument and instead extrapolate this to a broader case. Stabmons was removed for inactivity while Sketchmons never had amazing activity or what could exactly live up to the other permaladders. Its activity was pretty good, but nothing insane (had comparable activity to other popular non-permaladder OMs like cross evos). I believe part of the assumption was to be that, when Sketchmons was added, many Stabmons players would swap cover to Sketchmons, at least to some degree, because it's another move based metagame and let's give that a try. I think that wasn't an unreasonable assumption, but it's turned out to be incorrect. Whatever the reasoning, many Stabmons players haven't bothered to try it. The incentives have been pretty good, inclusion in OMPL and OMGS is about the best you can offer here, but people have been far more willing to sit around and cry about it until they've succeeded in blackmailing the leadership into adding back Stabmons. Yes that language sounds pretty negative for a reason, I think there's a fair argument for adding back Stabmons and it's the will of the community and at this point it maybe ought to be done to prevent further complaining even if it does set an awkward precedent, but this could've been handled with a lot less drama and complaining about how this is some kind of awful decision forced down by administration upon us lowly peasants. Ultimately I think the lesson to learn is that replacing a permaladder can't just come with community input. Replacing Sketches made sense and clearly more than just TI thought so, but ultimately it turned out that the more dedicated OM players weren't willing to give it a shot. Changing any permaladders ought to come with a revision/trial period, maybe 3 months or something idk that's just off the top of my head, to see if people are willing to give them a shot. At some point some kind of change is probably going to happen again, and at that point we need to be certain that the incoming metagame can handle the load. Theoretically something like this would've made it easy to see the difference between Mix and Mega and Sketchmons and then do something about the problems with Sketch, whether that be going back to Stabmons or getting some serious community push to make it more accepted. At this point it's too tarnished by the politics around it, but Sketchmons can at least be a lesson of what to do with OM ladders in the future.

tldr: maybe a revision system for changing any permaladders to avoid cases like "we thought stabs players other than OF would give sketch a shot but we were wrong"
Can we please not have this strawman argument? I know you enjoy sketch more than stabmons, but its really not a case of stabmons players being unwilling to try sketchmons at all. wishes and ihhca are playing sketchmons in OMPL, while other stabmons players such as MAMP , Akashi , me, even stabmonstl Betathunder have played. The only stabmons council member that didnt try sketch is eevee general, whos mostly inactive on ladders anyway; It just isn't popular. It has lots of broken and uncounterable threats, inherently unpredictable luras, and is only at all manageable due to the low number of players restricting options to what they personally have tried. You dont have to look any farther than your OMPL games for this. Stabmons, meanwhile, bring back dead players, even if its potentially just for a bit.
 

MZ

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Can we please not have this strawman argument? I know you enjoy sketch more than stabmons, but its really not a case of stabmons players being unwilling to try sketchmons at all. wishes and ihhca are playing sketchmons in OMPL, while other stabmons players such as MAMP , Akashi , me, even stabmonstl Betathunder have played. The only stabmons council member that didnt try sketch is eevee general, whos mostly inactive on ladders anyway; It just isn't popular. It has lots of broken and uncounterable threats, inherently unpredictable luras, and is only at all manageable due to the low number of players restricting options to what they personally have tried. You dont have to look any farther than your OMPL games for this. Stabmons, meanwhile, bring back dead players, even if its potentially just for a bit.
First off, nothing against you I just genuinely love the irony of misusing the term strawman while strawmanning the least relevant part of my post. Anyway, please do not take my post as some kind of excuse as to why sketch failed (which is what it looks like you did?). That doesn't make any sense to me. I think sketch did not live up to the permaladder expectations because it could not attract a significant amount of the general OMs playerbase including many stabmons players, but that is in no way some kind of "ha my metagame retains integrity" moment. It's simply an analysis of the situation, a way to look at why sketchmons failed for the future. Your examples are missing the point too, they look at people thrown into the meta by OMGS or OMPL (the things that were supposed to incentivize people caring about the metagame) but who haven't shown any interest in supporting/discussing/keeping around sketchmons like they have for stabmons (yet, probably never). And finally, please don't use this thread for your own metagame opinions. While I think the way you've described the metagame is unrepresentative of how it actually works and applies to other permaladders to a much larger degree (and that what we've seen so far in OMPL backs me up on this), it's also completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and does nothing but work on cementing the unfounded concept of a bad metagame to to create pro-stabmons bias.
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
Let me bring my trusty can opener, we are going to do let these worms fly for a fifth time

I conceded to the idea of giving Sketchmons a try as I didn't want to lie to myself when arguing that STABmons ladder activity has started to die down by the end of ORAS. While my favorite OM was leaving in place of a new volatile one, I hoped for a couple of few swift bans and some nice forum discussion to really enjoy the new OM.

But let's face it, we are 7 months in the introduction of SuMo and we are still confronted with a meta plagued by unforgiving threats due to the nature of the multitude of lure sets potent mons can run to catch their "counters" off guard. Testing new threats ain't easy either when you need to wait like 5 minutes for a game to queue even at the peak hours of PS activity. While forum discussion has been somewhat better after Zard and I rekindled council activity by banning Dug, it didn't last that long and the resources thread hasn't really been utilized to its fullest extent.

People can come at me with the me being bias towards Stabbies which is true, but I was and still am open to Sketchmons sustanability, however it would be extremely unfair to state that the meta has been struggling (just how I predicted back in August)

Tl;dr: Some action might need to be taken down the line, maybe when Ultra games come out. Sucks cause ik the meta has grown on a handful of players, but we got to do what pleases the masses here.

E: I want to make it clear that I am not explicitly proposing to be replaced, just highlighting the issue in hopes of any solution to come.
 
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Sketchmons earned the opportunity to become a ladder. But it didn't succeed. Sketchmons has as low activity as STABmons did. In a couple months time we will have a new pair of games and with that comes the possibility to change ladder formats. I have plan to settle this Sketchmons vs STABmons debate. The community will decide which one gets the ladder spot. You'll have to wait to find out how!

That means there's no need to continue debating the topic in this thread
 

EV

Banned deucer.
That means there's no need to continue debating the topic in this thread
Oh, no you don't. I was going to stay out of this until I saw some grievous misrepresentation of the facts happening above, so beg pardon while I set the record straight.

First of all, blackmail, Megazard . Blackmail!? That's a pretty serious accusation there, buddy. Care to back it up?

Secondly, the "STABmons players didn't give Sketch a try" is bogus. QT has pointed this out already, but 4 of the 5 STAB council members tried Sketch, 2 of which are on the Sketch council. So yes, the STABmons old guard gave it a shot, and some were quite successful at it (OF, my first assistant manager, stolen at auction, ring any bells?). But to think that players would transition over just because it's a move-based meta -> move-based meta (and then try to blame them for Sketch's failure for being sticks in the mud for not?) is fallacious. There's more to a format besides the concept. Did BH have huge numbers of overlap when CH was removed? Eh, some, but BH never managed to capture that same magic that CH had. And what about the opposite direction, Sketch to STAB? You, chopin, and racool haven't really expressed strong interest in it. Why's that?

But besides concept, there's leadership, stability, playerbase, activities ... all which Sketch has lacked for the majority of its tenure. (STAB was consistently producing TFP articles even up to its demise, for example, proving the fanbase was still rock solid.)

Now, I didn't want to have to say "I told you so," so I'll let Megazard do it for me. From the older version of this thread:
I'd just like to throw out there that there's also going to be one more crazy, run as many weird things and combos that people might not be able to predict as you want, fairly incomprehensible metagame getting added as well (at least that's what m&m looks to people not heavily familiar with it). I don't really think stabmons is harder to grasp than sketchmons either, both have fairly basic adding move concepts and if anything stabmons is easier to predict, if not get into. Ultimately both ladders are coming down to what the community wants, not what might be best for outside people to get into (I'm saying this because mix and mega is incomprehensible and I don't think something like rozes becoming AAA jesus overnight will happen with something way more complex like mix and mega but this is more of an opinion so could be flawed) and what the community wants is directly related to activity anyway so that's not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously I have to be a bit biased because my favorite metas are either dead or never leaving but still dead on forums but I don't think pushing out a meta with more history and time to grow is necessarily the best thing unless you're truly convinced there is no revival and sharing the ladders or even breaking this arbitrary limit (I assume there's a reason but any way to circumvent would be nice) and I thing people should really think about the long term presence the meta will have, rather than the short term hype that will lead absolutely everybody to pile on the new ladder.
Also Eevee you can come back to PU fsr
But now I want to say "I told you so," myself:
Here's a warning. A prediction of you will. Sketchmons will suffer the same fate. You have an ex leader of the metagame admitting it can't be balanced. Even recently Chopin began banning moves to try anyway (hmm, remind you of anything?). Your ladder will be popular as people race to find the most broken strategies possible. Give it 6 months and when the playerbase realizes the dust will never settle, they'll move on. The metagame will probably try some absurd complex bans to save it, like banning certain moves on certain mons, things will get confusing, more people will leave.
Full post - http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/a-new-direction-for-other-metagames.3549114/page-8#post-6961108

Damn!

Also, TI, pretty sure the community has already voiced which format it prefers now that both have had ladders.
 
Also, TI, pretty sure the community has already voiced which format it prefers now that both have had ladders.
Dont really care about how this goes either way but if we use OMOTM ladders as a comparison to permas we'd be changing ladders monthly. Omotm ladder always (and should) have more plays than the quieter permaladders

All due respect Eevee you cannot feasibly stay unbiased on this topic. Plus it,cleaely isn't being touched until USUM

E: also waiting on this would be no different than when we waited to remove Stab and TS last gen
 
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EV

Banned deucer.
Dont really care about how this goes either way but if we use OMOTM ladders as a comparison to permas we'd be changing ladders monthly. Omotm ladder always (and should) have more plays than the quieter permaladders

All due respect Eevee you cannot feasibly stay unbiased on this topic. Plus it,cleaely isn't being touched until USUM
If we wanted only unbiased opinions, 90% of the world would never speak. So what's your point? Because I (and others) have a stake in this we should stay out?
 
Also, TI, pretty sure the community has already voiced which format it prefers now that both have had ladders.
I did not want to talk about STABmons activity vs Sketchmons activity but I'll have you know that Sketchmons OMotM from September 2015 had more battles than STABmons OMotM earlier this year. Keep in mind how much the PS! userbase has grown over the years as well. A lot of the information QT has in is his post is just plain wrong. STABmons ladder was NOT more active than the Sketchmons ladder is.

There's really no point arguing which OM is better. Neither OM is substantially better than the other, activity-wise. Which is why is we're better off letting the community pick one. And they will get the opportunity soon enough.

Edit @ below: You're literally picking months to make it look like STABmons did better. For almost the whole of 2015, it was around 1k. Yep, that sounds like 4k average!
 
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I did not want to talk about STABmons activity vs Sketchmons activity but I'll have you know that Sketchmons OMotM from September 2015 had more battles than STABmons OMotM earlier this year. Keep in mind how much the PS! userbase has grown over the years as well. A lot of the information QT has in is his post is just plain wrong. STABmons ladder was NOT more active than the Sketchmons ladder is.

There's really no point arguing which OM is better. Neither OM is substantially better than the other, activity-wise. Which is why is we're better off letting the community pick one. And they will get the opportunity soon enough.
Stabmons ladder was more active. I checked this to make sure, but even leaving out the abnormal last month where stabmons had over 14 times the plays as Sketchmons does now, it averaged at around double what sketch is currently hitting; 3.5-4 thousand, while sketchmons is currently* sitting at 1800 (half of a stabmons month, which is where I got my number from), and this isnt a fluke either: the previous month had 1600, and the month before that 1700. None of those months had sketchmons suspects either, so that wasn't the cause. It may have had worse OMotM performance, but as a permaladder STABmons was significantly more active.

*as of last usage stats update.
 

MZ

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Didn't I already answer these ridiculous arguments? But fine, since apparently people like that post and QT's post, I'll try to explain one more time. Sorry for getting the thread so off topic (xd) by not explaining a single point well enough.
First of all, blackmail, Megazard . Blackmail!? That's a pretty serious accusation there, buddy. Care to back it up?
Yeah, I feel like constantly bringing up replacing sketchmons in the manner that it has been done has been counterproductive. First off, this has consistently come across as a "I don't like the sketch meta" issue. Are there other points? Yes, but even in this post you couldn't fail to bring that up as if it really ought to be relevant to this at all. I think the Stabmons meta is far worse from my own experience but that's completely irrelevant here, biased opinions and all that. Secondly, the way that it's brought up is also consistently with the air that it's the community vs leadership and eventually you'll somehow break through and win an amazing victory. There have always been components of victimization and I told you so, symptomatic of a "let's force a reversal of the decision to remove stabmons because I didn't like it" which I'm simply not a fan of. You absolutely have a point and great reasoning for why stabs should come back and I think it probably should come back, but it is that specific part of the free stab movement that I have found so onerous. If the community and leadership are so far disconnected that this is what it takes, that's a whole other problem right there.

And I'm not terribly invested in this decision nor was I a part of changing the ladders originally, I'm just calling them as I see them and if you don't like my analysis then sorry, but perhaps me explaining my position in PMs rather than here would be best.
Secondly, the "STABmons players didn't give Sketch a try" is bogus. QT has pointed this out already, but 4 of the 5 STAB council members tried Sketch, 2 of which are on the Sketch council. So yes, the STABmons old guard gave it a shot, and some were quite successful at it (OF, my first assistant manager, stolen at auction, ring any bells?).
This specifically is the point I think I already explained. Not only does stabs have a wider playerbase than 5 council members (I hope), but what sketches has failed to do is attract people to really contribute and discuss and work on forum projects and do anything to keep the metagame alive in a more meaningful manner.
But to think that players would transition over just because it's a move-based meta -> move-based meta (and then try to blame them for Sketch's failure for being sticks in the mud for not?) is fallacious. There's more to a format besides the concept.
Once again, I am not blaming stabmons players. I simply wanted to analyze why sketch failed. Clearly there's a difference between it and the other permaladders and in comparing it to Mix and Mega, the other new ladder, this is what I saw as Sketchmons's biggest downfall. From what I've seen most Tier Shift players moved on to other stuff, perhaps because fewer people solo-mained tier shift or perhaps because they accepted the fact that its creation had to wait on PU's anyway. Stabmons players never left the metagame behind and that is not their fault, I'm not blaming them or saying Sketch would be amazing if they'd just done their sacred duty or whatever. I don't know how much more plainly I can put this. Maybe call it a failure of the current incentives for people to play permaladdered metagames? Because one thing sketch also showed is that inclusion in OMGS and OMPL and having a ladder isn't necessarily incentives enough to get most people to want to stick around in the metagame. I wouldn't be surprised if whatever unofficial server stabmons was being run off of had more stabs activity than sketches did on main server, and to me that is something worth analyzing and improving on if you can just move past the "he might be painting stabmons players in a negative light if you don't read it that closely :O" misunderstanding.

And what about the opposite direction, Sketch to STAB? You, chopin, and racool haven't really expressed strong interest in it. Why's that?
Because I was attracted to the OMs with inclusion in tournaments. Regardless of not particularly enjoying my limited testing in stabmons and hating it last gen, I would've signed up for the open right next to BH if it was included. That's the whole point of making some metas permaladders, it's just that I seem to be one of the only people actually attracted by that. Not sure if this is a bait, but it's nonsensical either way.
But besides concept, there's leadership, stability, playerbase, activities ... all which Sketch has lacked for the majority of its tenure. (STAB was consistently producing TFP articles even up to its demise, for example, proving the fanbase was still rock solid.)
I don't disagree, but you're using it as an argument whereas I am using it for analysis in an attempt for OM improvement like the title says. My only goal was to look at that vs. what sketches had and ask why and what can we do and how can we improve. Because the part about it being on the metagame being too unbalanced or whatever sounds like bullshit to every sketchmons player, especially to me as someone who picked up many gen 7 non-mono OMs for the first time during OMGS and found that premise completely false when it came to sketch.
Now, I didn't want to have to say "I told you so," so I'll let Megazard do it for me. From the older version of this thread:
Uuuuh I'm pretty sure you misunderstood something here. I was saying that Mix and Mega is similar to BH in a hard for non dedicated OM people to get into and that Sketchmons and Stabmons are relatively equal. Yes, I wasn't sold on the initial change from stab to sketch, but I haven't claimed to be. In fact I've openly said that Stabmons should probably come back, but that hasn't stopped me from somehow being pro-sketch and anti-stab playerbase.
But now I want to say "I told you so," myself: Here's a warning. A prediction of you will. Sketchmons will suffer the same fate. You have an ex leader of the metagame admitting it can't be balanced. Even recently Chopin began banning moves to try anyway (hmm, remind you of anything?). Your ladder will be popular as people race to find the most broken strategies possible. Give it 6 months and when the playerbase realizes the dust will never settle, they'll move on. The metagame will probably try some absurd complex bans to save it, like banning certain moves on certain mons, things will get confusing, more people will leave.
They did not suffer the same fate. Sketch can be balanced and has improved a lot with the minimal effort we can drum up. Banning moves is not a bad thing. Reminding me of how stabmons sucked is counterproductive. There is no "race to broken strategies", but that sure as hell has happened in other OMs. The playerbase never moved on because sketchmons never managed to attract one. There was/is no need for complex bans. Sketch is not confusing. I really don't like the entire tone of the post, but to say "I told you so" while linking a post as incorrect as this one is absurd.
grievous misrepresentation of the facts
This is probably my chance to cement my presence as a condescending asshole, but all I want to do is use fair facts and analysis and I thought the posts made by you and QT were poor and I would've responded no matter who made them. Hopefully this isn't too egregious.
 
This is tangentially about STABmons, but more so about the concept of OM ladders in general.

In Gen 6, I felt incredibly indifferent to STABmons. I started to care a bit at the end, when I could force EG to build me meme teams and lose to QT in gimmick tours, but I never played the ladder. And why would I? No one else did. But suddenly, in Gen 7, I felt really excited to hop onto the ladder, and so did many others. Why the difference? Was this because all of the exciting SM additions to the metagame? Have all the changes in the banlist and type inheritance improved the OM to such a degree that, suddenly, a new permaladder would see tons of activity?

No. Not even close.

Let me zoom out a bit. Why do people play Other Metagames? Not specific ladders, the entire umbrella of OM. There's no complete answer, but from my perspective, it all comes down to one word.

Novelty.

We play OMs because they represent novel, fun deviations from standard play. They're different, and they're new. Is it any wonder, then, that OMotM ladders see significantly more activity than constant standbys like AAA and Sketchmons? In short, new STABmons was successful not because it was better, but because it was new. The limited duration of the ladder brings novelty to a meta previously ignored, and simply replacing Sketch with STAB would lead to the same decline.

This is why I'm so confused that the concept of rotation ladders was discarded.

If I could only play STABmons once every couple months, I might actually want to play it. Same with AAA or Tier Shift, or maybe even stuff I've never had interest in, like Sketchmons. Yes, diehard fans would be upset they couldn't play their meta all the time, but I think it's a worthy trade-off for real activity on their favorite ladder. Yes, it throws a wrench in regular tournaments like OMPL, but if that's a huge concern, how hard is it to retain everything as a challenge format, even if for the duration for the tournaments and no longer?

TI, you've stressed the importance of each permaladder retaining a niche, like "moves-based OMs" and "ability-based OMs." This is a good metric to go by, so I think it makes sense to keep one ladder per "niche" at a time. Here's my arbitrary preliminary suggestion for Gen 7.5 ladders. Keep in mind that the meta suggestions are interchangeable. Also, some of these are probably successful enough to not need rotations (you can guess which ones) but in fairness I'm putting up everything but Monotype and AG.
  • Moves: STABmons <=> Sketchmons
  • Abilities: AAA <=> Inheritance (or whatever succeeds Enchanted Items as a double ability meta)
  • Stats: Tier Shift <=> 350 Cup (Averagemons?)
  • Types: Hidden Type <=> Camomons? Inverse?
  • Evolution: MnM <=> Cross Evolution
  • Hacks: BH <=> CH (Inheritance can also go here based on TIs categorization)
  • Small Teams: 1v1 <=> 2v2 Doubles
If each ladder had a 2 month duration before swapping to its counterpart, I think they would retain enough novelty to remain decently popular. Replacing one permaladder with another isn't the answer. Whether or not you agree with the above categorization, my overall thesis is this:

tl;dr: Permaladders are a failure because they don't represent what the community looks for in OMs. The metas aren't the problem: we need to rethink ladders as a whole.

Free Inheritance
 
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That's a good question, and as a bad player that doesn't touch most tours, one I'm not qualified to answer. I think either of your suggestions are fine, or, as there are two major OM tournaments a year (I think?), one could represented in each. Or, for OMPL specifically, a player could be recruited to play either metas in a niche (like how all the Sketch players are old STAB players) and the meta rotates within the niche. So Drampa's Grandpa could be recruited as a "moves meta" specialist, playing STAB or Sketch depending on the week. Or if Drampa is bad at STAB, a sub/other player would play that week. It would probably shift recruitment towards players with multiple OM specialties, though. There are a lot of options, none of them perfect, but they're worth considering for OM health outside of the two big tours a year.
 
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Laxpras

One small yeet for man, one giant yeet for mankind
I think the concept of rotational ladders is a doomed reach to spike OM activity and the idea that having less time to play a meta means more people will play it is a complete false equivalency to why OMotM gets more plays.

OMotM gets more plays because of:
1. Novelty. People play more to seek out the best new sets they can come up with.
2. Activity. People will play a ladder more when they can find matches easier, this is a sort of paradoxical loop where activity increases activity.

We have to ignore the second point as there is no magic way to allow people to play more matches - we have to figure out how to increase OM plays as a whole. So looking at the first point, rotational ladders do not cater to novelty, as much as it may seem otherwise. Sketchmons will not all of a sudden be a new meta the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th time it comes around. People will know what the meta is, have their teams, and know what to expect.

Rotational ladders also bring about the significant, and already mentioned, problem of tournaments. There is no ideal way to handle this that would do anything but make our OM tournaments lesser versions of what they already are; I think tournaments are the last thing we want to hurt in OMs (imo tournaments are the best way to get good activity for metas and OMs as a whole do an awful job with hosting tournaments. We should have tournaments all the time that will increase discussion about metas and draw more of the Smogon playerbase to OMs.. but that's for another day).

Another thing to consider is that the more competitive OM players will likely play less of a meta as the meta is around less. I know personally I rarely partake in OMotM because I know the meta will be gone in a month so it does not seem like a worthwhile investment to put time into a meta that I won't play again. Rotational ladders would extenuate this problem that I, and what I (maybe falsely?) assume others have with OMotM to all ladders. There is just no good way to run rotational ladders, either the rotation is too fast where strong investment into the meta is not worthwhile, or the rotation is too slow so that the interest in the exiled meta will disintegrate over time.

tl;dr: read it you clowns, but rotational ladders are inherently flawed and are a misguided shot in the dark to increase activity but will likely just hurt OMs as a whole.
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
We were discussing rotational ladders last time this discussion was brought up but the idea was (intentionally?) forgotten, can it be an actual possibility? With this we can at least please both sides and this also brings up hype and might encourage activity as people prepare for their ladder to arrive. Idk what would be the best way to split it, but I like the format Jaj brought up.

E: just got sniped lol, Idk I'm not up to debating it at this point.
 
I think the concept of rotational ladders is a doomed reach to spike OM activity and the idea that having less time to play a meta means more people will play it is a complete false equivalency to why OMotM gets more plays.

OMotM gets more plays because of:
1. Novelty. People play more to seek out the best new sets they can come up with.
2. Activity. People will play a ladder more when they can find matches easier, this is a sort of paradoxical loop where activity increases activity.

We have to ignore the second point as there is no magic way to allow people to play more matches - we have to figure out how to increase OM plays as a whole. So looking at the first point, rotational ladders do not cater to novelty, as much as it may seem otherwise. Sketchmons will not all of a sudden be a new meta the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th time it comes around. People will know what the meta is, have their teams, and know what to expect.

Rotational ladders also bring about the significant, and already mentioned, problem of tournaments. There is no ideal way to handle this that would do anything but make our OM tournaments lesser versions of what they already are; I think tournaments are the last thing we want to hurt in OMs (imo tournaments are the best way to get good activity for metas and OMs as a whole do an awful job with hosting tournaments. We should have tournaments all the time that will increase discussion about metas and draw more of the Smogon playerbase to OMs.. but that's for another day).

Another thing to consider is that the more competitive OM players will likely play less of a meta as the meta is around less. I know personally I rarely partake in OMotM because I know the meta will be gone in a month so it does not seem like a worthwhile investment to put time into a meta that I won't play again. Rotational ladders would extenuate this problem that I, and what I (maybe falsely?) assume others have with OMotM to all ladders. There is just no good way to run rotational ladders, either the rotation is too fast where strong investment into the meta is not worthwhile, or the rotation is too slow so that the interest in the exiled meta will disintegrate over time.

tl;dr: read it you clowns, but rotational ladders are inherently flawed and are a misguided shot in the dark to increase activity but will likely just hurt OMs as a whole.
If the options are keep an old broken system or change to a new one that might work or might be broken, why not at least try it? OMOTM should have more plays and does regardless of if we do this or not.

I don't see what we gain from sitting and doing nothing when we can at least give a new system a try. If it fails its not like we can't revert.
 

Laxpras

One small yeet for man, one giant yeet for mankind
If the options are keep an old broken system or change to a new one that might work or might be broken, why not at least try it? OMOTM should have more plays and does regardless of if we do this or not.

I don't see what we gain from sitting and doing nothing when we can at least give a new system a try. If it fails its not like we can't revert.
Not sure I agree with this system is broken; I think how we do ladders is not the reason why our OM's don't get plays (literally every hyper-active ladder is permanent: see mono).

Maybe we should look at other things to increase interest, like.... Consistent tournaments other than OMGS and OMPL
 
If the options are keep an old broken system or change to a new one that might work or might be broken, why not at least try it? OMOTM should have more plays and does regardless of if we do this or not.

I don't see what we gain from sitting and doing nothing when we can at least give a new system a try. If it fails its not like we can't revert.
I do not see how this system is broken if one ladder is a failure (two if you want to be harsh and count AAA). It's just metagames that don't have a high interest amongst the community. Changing the whole system, which will drastically affect our major tournaments, on the off chance that it will improve the activity of one metagame doesn't seems like a good idea.
 
I do not see how this system is broken if one ladder is a failure (two if you want to be harsh and count AAA). It's just metagames that don't have a high interest amongst the community. Changing the whole system, which will drastically affect our major tournaments, on the off chance that it will improve the activity of one metagame doesn't seems like a good idea.
Broken might be a bit of an exaggeration but if we keep coming back to this argument, somethings gotta give. The community was having this exact same argument when I left over a year ago, clearly there's at least interest in it

With regards to tournaments, we have two major official tournaments, we can do as Jajoken said and do one of each for them. Tier Shift for Open, 350 for OMPL. Sketch for OMPL, Stab for Open. So on.
 
Is the system "broken" if neither Sketchmons nor STABmons has a ladder? Perhaps that's the solution if we keep having problems with dead ladders.
 
Is the system "broken" if neither Sketchmons nor STABmons has a ladder? Perhaps that's the solution if we keep having problems with dead ladders.
If both are dead I'm fine with this solution. I have no particular feelings about the situation with those metas. I just want to see a commonly brought up and generally well liked solution at least humored beyond theory
 
Laxpras you bring up some good points. As a less competitive player, I have the opposite reaction, where I don't care about AAA because it is around all the time, whereas OMotMs excite because, if I don't play them now, when will I? But I can see how people would feel the other way, especially if they're more competitive in nature. However, ladders don't exist for hardcore players. They exist for new players to get into the metagame, or for casual players to get into the scene, before getting into room tours, official tours, and individual challenges for top players. This isn't an OM thing: OU elites largely consider the ladder a joke despite its massive player base, with ladder success meaning little else than a sign of perseverance. But the OU ladder succeeds at teaching players the general flow of the metagame for future competive play and providing top tour players some quick practice for testing teams. Ideally, the AAA ladder should do the same thing: it trains the next generation of AAA elites. But it can't, because nobody plays on the ladder.

True, swapping out ladders doesn't provide the same amount of novelty provided by OMotM, and it may very well fail to ignite interest. But a metagame is a flexible thing. With 2 months of silence, people come up with new ideas, spurred on by room tour sets, and then the initial meta is very different when the OM comes back. This was the case between multiple versions of MnM and Inheritance within the same generation, and I don't see why it wouldn't happen with Sketch and STAB.

I do agree that a higher volume of tours would be another viable path to increased interest. However, I don't think this would translate back into ladder interest. Another suggestion, rather than the "niche" based system above, would to retain all current OMs as challenge formats, keeping them in room tours and the increased volume of official tours, but nix the permaladders. Then, promote 1 or 2 of the challenge formats into ladders each month before swapping them out. As in, "oh this is a STABmons month, this is an AAA month." That way, the individual metas will see representation in the OM room and on the forum as tour features, but then once every couple of months the ladder will give a fresh spark to the OM.

Of course, a success story may emerge where high-level tour play thrusts Sketchmons into a state of permanent interest, and in that case, it should obviously be given a permanent ladder. But right now, there are only a few active ladders in the OM tab, and the others are doing more harm than good by sticking around. If I was interested in a meta only for my first experience to be a 20 minute queue followed by a match versus a three mon team composed of starters where the opponent forfeits after missing Frenzy Plant turn 1, why would I want to learn more about it?

Ladders aren't the be-all end-all of an OM. They're an introduction, and right now they're doing a poor job of that.
 
Jajoken You're generalizing the failure of one ladder as all of them. The problem with your idea is that you're screwing 3 successful ladders in the hopes of fixing an unsuccessful one.

If I was interested in a meta only for my first experience to be a 20 minute queue followed by a match versus a three mon team composed of starters where the opponent forfeits after missing Frenzy Plant turn 1, why would I want to learn more about it?
This particular question is important though because it poses whether we should even keep one of STABmons/Sketchmons.
 

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