Suggestions for OM Improvement

For standard tiers, /ds TierName gives you all the pokemon that are currently that tier by usage.

Well, we get the same usage data they do and maintain a UU banlist for ladder OMs, so I'm wondering if it is possible to make, for instance /ds all, aaa give all the mons that are currently aaa ou via usage.

Haven't really talked to anyone about it, but I feel like this could be a neat little feature. How would it be useful? Well, off the top of my head :

  • makes it easy to see what pokemon are mostly being used currently, which makes it a very useful teambuilding tool
  • allows for /ds commands for om specific mons. like /ds aaa, rocks/spikes shows me the most used mons that can be setting up spikes and what not (yes, this information is available in the resources but I'm usually more interested in mons that are currently being used a lot than just possible users)
  • easily accessible om uu banlist

If this should go to PS suggestions lmk. (Disclaimer: I have no clue how hard this would be to implement)
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
The daily tours are at the time PS, and the OM room, is most active. Unfortunately the opposite times of the day isn't up to the standard you'd expect for an "official" tournament like the dailies. Since there's a prize on the line it wouldn't be fair to those that participate at the current time because the alternative time tournament would be much smaller. As you know we do have regular tournaments throughout the day that Australians and people from other parts of the world that can't make the daily can compete in.
I personally think that the best option for daily tours is having two tours but a maximum of one win per person per day. This would solve the problem of people being in a 'sweet-spot' for making both for the most part while also breaking the American monopoly that seems to exist.

The daily tours having a prize contribute to the increase in activity of the room right around the daily. I think the size would be larger than you might think as people do schedule themselves around the daily to some degree.

And finally yes; one might be smaller on a regular basis. But to my mind it's fairer to have dailies for everyone, even if those dailies aren't exactly equal, then to say no convenient daily for people in one group of time zones.

Also the times don't have to be 12 hours apart. I wouldn't recommend it personally, but I'm not going to suggest too much for the timing cuz I don't know what I'm talking about so I'll leave it there.
 

The Official Glyx

Banned deucer.
Overall, we just need more tournaments, Smogon and otherwise. We have a growing number of formats that are playable exclusively through tournaments and challenges that aren't getting the chance to be made useful. Not to mention that, aside from dailies, tournaments can be very few and far apart, even going from one daily to the next at times. At this rate, the Other Metas community will essentially be split between the OM Room where discussion sometimes happens, and the Tournaments Room where there are more OM tournaments in a day than we have in a week.

Also, in regards to the challenge-only metagames, I understand that it's hard to make tours for them when not many people have teams due to how typically unpopular the metas are, but if that's how we wanna look at things, then why even let them exist if we don't provide them a reason to exist? Possible snarky undertones aside, I ask this question legitimately-
 
Personally I would like to see Pet Mods get the same treatment as OMs - i.e. we have a Pet Mod of the Month. There are some really interesting ideas for Pet Mods, but by and large they're ignored by the mainstream community as you have to go to a special server to play them, and even then you'll more than likely be playing against a bot. I think this could be a great way to drum up awareness for pet mods. I understand they have a more flexible banlist than standard metas, but I think it could work with some effort.
 

Ludicrousity

You humour me greatly with your arrogance and c...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Personally I would like to see Pet Mods get the same treatment as OMs - i.e. we have a Pet Mod of the Month. There are some really interesting ideas for Pet Mods, but by and large they're ignored by the mainstream community as you have to go to a special server to play them, and even then you'll more than likely be playing against a bot. I think this could be a great way to drum up awareness for pet mods. I understand they have a more flexible banlist than standard metas, but I think it could work with some effort.
See, the problem with this is the fact that Pet Mods would require extensive, and usually complex, coding. Another issue would be sprites for the many custom mons made in pet mods. Imagine trying to code some of the abilities in Eevee'd, or make all of the Z-Moves for Z-Moves everywhere. On top of that there are very few pet mods in comparison to OMs, meaning there wouldn't be much choice in them...

tl;dr - There are many things that would make it too complicated.

This doesn't take away from the fact that I would love to see this though, and if this ever became an option, I would be glad to help out with the code.
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
See, the problem with this is the fact that Pet Mods would require extensive, and usually complex, coding. Another issue would be sprites for the many custom mons made in pet mods. Imagine trying to code some of the abilities in Eevee'd, or make all of the Z-Moves for Z-Moves everywhere. On top of that there are very few pet mods in comparison to OMs, meaning there wouldn't be much choice in them...

tl;dr - There are many things that would make it too complicated.

This doesn't take away from the fact that I would love to see this though, and if this ever became an option, I would be glad to help out with the code.
There are a ton of pet mods that don't require any sort of extra sprites. Megas for all for instance could work similarly to mnm with just an indicator.

I don't think there's enough interest/ pet mods to sustain a new pet mod every month, but a 'seasonal' would be interesting.

All around though it's much harder to just pick up and play a pet mod than an om thanks to many more changes and a general lack of resources.
 
In light of our fellow Monotype brethren achieving official status, I guess now is as good a chance as ever to share this thought I've had for a long while, concerning tournaments. Some people like Laxpras and Megazard have already discussed this on the first page but it never really went anywhere since though.

We have two major tournaments a year (OMPL and OMGS) and a bunch of random forum tournaments in between. Realistically speaking our top players don't often ladder or join random room tournaments, that's what our regulars, the type that don't often join these or get far in these big tournaments, do. A low amount of high-level activity means that our metas develop extremely slowly, though this is more apparent in the more unpopular ones like Sketchmons. Also, tournaments tend to garner attention not only from those that play OMs but those who don't which is great exposure that we could be missing out on. I'm sure I don't really need to explain further why having tours more often is a good thing. They're fun, they're hype, they bring people together, et cetera.

Although simply hosting tournaments more frequently is a viable solution, I figured there could be a better way we could rectify this. Here's a few things that comes to mind:
  1. Structure smaller, more frequent forum tournaments. By this I mean things like the Mix & Mega Unleashed tour or the 1v1 Ladder Tournament. The way it works currently, I think, is that someone submits their tour idea, it gets approved, then it gets hosted. Due to the way this whole process works, its dependant on the public to submit their ideas (inconsistent) and potentially host the event themselves, which itself could lead to a whole host of issues (Inexperienced hosts unable to deal with problems. I believe something like this happened in the MnM tour's finals, but I'm not too sure). Also the public doesn't know when these are being held in advance. This one isn't really that big of a problem but announcing these beforehand does wonders for discussion and building up hype. What we could do is have a publicized schedule for these smaller tours. This gives people events to look forward to and could potentially encourage more to submit their tour ideas (I, for one, wasn't aware that I could do this until recently). It could also bridge the gap between the OM Room regulars and the more experienced players, giving them more opportunities to compete against our best. If you're lacking in submitted ideas, generic BO3 tournaments would suffice. It could go something like this: Every two / three weeks (just an example), a forum tour begins, hosted by TI or one of the mods who will be able to stick to the schedule. In this hypothetical schedule it is announced what tour will be held when for the next two months, or so. Perhaps if we're lacking in ideas, generic BO3 tournaments could act as fillers. Does this sound good?
  2. Host more 'official' tournaments. By official I mean similar in size + importance to Grand Slam and OMPL. A generic, OST-like tournament (BO3, players use a striking system to choose which metas they'd play, in the later rounds it could change to BO5 something like that) would be great. It's inclusive (unlike OMPL) and represents all of our flagship metas excluding 1v1 (sorry). I don't really know why we don't have somehing like this already, to be honest. Having said that, I personally prefer the first option but this is also something to consider I suppose. Though the two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps both could happen at the same time?

Apologies for the terrible structure but you probably get the gist of it.
 

DEG

The night belongs to you
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
In light of our fellow Monotype brethren achieving official status, I guess now is as good a chance as ever to share this thought I've had for a long while, concerning tournaments. Some people like Laxpras and Megazard have already discussed this on the first page but it never really went anywhere since though.

We have two major tournaments a year (OMPL and OMGS) and a bunch of random forum tournaments in between. Realistically speaking our top players don't often ladder or join random room tournaments, that's what our regulars, the type that don't often join these or get far in these big tournaments, do. A low amount of high-level activity means that our metas develop extremely slowly, though this is more apparent in the more unpopular ones like Sketchmons. Also, tournaments tend to garner attention not only from those that play OMs but those who don't which is great exposure that we could be missing out on. I'm sure I don't really need to explain further why having tours more often is a good thing. They're fun, they're hype, they bring people together, et cetera.

Although simply hosting tournaments more frequently is a viable solution, I figured there could be a better way we could rectify this. Here's a few things that comes to mind:
  1. Structure smaller, more frequent forum tournaments. By this I mean things like the Mix & Mega Unleashed tour or the 1v1 Ladder Tournament. The way it works currently, I think, is that someone submits their tour idea, it gets approved, then it gets hosted. Due to the way this whole process works, its dependant on the public to submit their ideas (inconsistent) and potentially host the event themselves, which itself could lead to a whole host of issues (Inexperienced hosts unable to deal with problems. I believe something like this happened in the MnM tour's finals, but I'm not too sure). Also the public doesn't know when these are being held in advance. This one isn't really that big of a problem but announcing these beforehand does wonders for discussion and building up hype. What we could do is have a publicized schedule for these smaller tours. This gives people events to look forward to and could potentially encourage more to submit their tour ideas (I, for one, wasn't aware that I could do this until recently). It could also bridge the gap between the OM Room regulars and the more experienced players, giving them more opportunities to compete against our best. If you're lacking in submitted ideas, generic BO3 tournaments would suffice. It could go something like this: Every two / three weeks (just an example), a forum tour begins, hosted by TI or one of the mods who will be able to stick to the schedule. In this hypothetical schedule it is announced what tour will be held when for the next two months, or so. Perhaps if we're lacking in ideas, generic BO3 tournaments could act as fillers. Does this sound good?
  2. Host more 'official' tournaments. By official I mean similar in size + importance to Grand Slam and OMPL. A generic, OST-like tournament (BO3, players use a striking system to choose which metas they'd play, in the later rounds it could change to BO5 something like that) would be great. It's inclusive (unlike OMPL) and represents all of our flagship metas excluding 1v1 (sorry). I don't really know why we don't have somehing like this already, to be honest. Having said that, I personally prefer the first option but this is also something to consider I suppose. Though the two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps both could happen at the same time?

Apologies for the terrible structure but you probably get the gist of it.
I agree with the first part of the post, one of the main reasons OMs such as 1v1 and AG get more exposures than other OMs is because of the frequent tournaments that both of the metagames host whether in the room, Other Metagames forums or Tournaments forum. If you want more participation there could be a points system. The Daily tournaments in the OM room favorize Americans, this idea has already been discussed in the previous page, having a time that is good for all users isn't realistic so having a Smogon based Points tournament system sound like a good idea. This will allow OMs to get more exposure, solidify the competitive OMs tournament scene, allow all users to to join a sort of Championship tournament other than the room. This can be run similar than Omgs and can be ran over 3 months period. This might overlap with the aforementioned event so what I suggest is not only using permanent OMs in these tournaments but popular or even dead OMs to spark more discussions and allow them to develop and not rot in the last pages of the forum. Because sometimes it is not the OM that people do not like, but there's simply nothing to discuss since there's no hype or games to be played. Note that, if this is executed it shouldn't stop other tournaments hosted by users for example Ban Happy BH or anything else for fun.

You had me there until you posted "excluding 1v1", I can use this excuse to now respond to all of you. For the past years 1v1 has been excluded from the competitive OMs tournaments scene for the same reason that's been repeating on most posts "1v1 is matchup based" by users that don't even play the metagame. I'm not going to judge that fact since from an outsider look it may seem like that just like Monotype, but when you get into the metagame this whole perspective changes. The 1v1 community has been growing for the past years and I do not like the fact that it's being excluded from ALL official tournaments. It has one of the most active communities. 1v1 is not totally a matchup based metagame, its teambuilding is even way harder than a lot of OMs, trying to beat the majority of the metagame and trends with only 3 Pokemon isn't as easy as you may think. Plus at team preview when picking the Pokemon it's not even a guaranteed win since there's lot of Lure sets and Pokemon. This misconception about 1v1 stops it from being recognized as a solid metagame. Furthermore 1v1 has taken a more competitive tournament approach, we have hosted competitive 1v1 tournaments see 1v1 Ladder Tour and WCo1v1, both were run smoothly and had/have a lot of hype surrounding it by the community. The 1v1 competitive scene is different than the ladder or any 1v1 room tours in OM/1v1 room. I think 1v1 finally deserve after all these years the recognition the community worked hard for, and with Monotype leaving the OM umbrella I don't see a reason to exclude 1v1 anymore.
 
You had me there until you posted "excluding 1v1", I can use this excuse to now respond to all of you. For the past years 1v1 has been excluded from the competitive OMs tournaments scene for the same reason that's been repeating on most posts "1v1 is matchup based" by users that don't even play the metagame. I'm not going to judge that fact since from an outsider look it may seem like that just like Monotype, but when you get into the metagame this whole perspective changes. The 1v1 community has been growing for the past years and I do not like the fact that it's being excluded from ALL official tournaments. It has one of the most active communities. 1v1 is not totally a matchup based metagame, its teambuilding is even way harder than a lot of OMs, trying to beat the majority of the metagame and trends with only 3 Pokemon isn't as easy as you may think. Plus at team preview when picking the Pokemon it's not even a guaranteed win since there's lot of Lure sets and Pokemon. This misconception about 1v1 stops it from being recognized as a solid metagame. Furthermore 1v1 has taken a more competitive tournament approach, we have hosted competitive 1v1 tournaments see 1v1 Ladder Tour and WCo1v1, both were run smoothly and had/have a lot of hype surrounding it by the community. The 1v1 competitive scene is different than the ladder or any 1v1 room tours in OM/1v1 room. I think 1v1 finally deserve after all these years the recognition the community worked hard for, and with Monotype leaving the OM umbrella I don't see a reason to exclude 1v1 anymore.
I'd just like to clarify to everyone (cough1v1roomcough) that I said "excluding 1v1" because it doesn't fit in a Best of X-type setting alongside other metas since 1v1 sets require an abnormal number of games. (For instance, a BO3 in Mix & Mega, Balanced Hackmons and then 1v1 wouldn't work as well as a BO3 set in Mix & Mega, Balanced Hackmons and Sketchmons)

(butotherthanthatnicepostdegkeepupthegoodwork)
 

The Official Glyx

Banned deucer.
I'd just like to clarify to everyone (cough1v1roomcough) that I said "excluding 1v1" because it doesn't fit in a Best of X-type setting alongside other metas since 1v1 sets require an abnormal number of games. (For instance, a BO3 in Mix & Mega, Balanced Hackmons and then 1v1 wouldn't work as well as a BO3 set in Mix & Mega, Balanced Hackmons and Sketchmons)

(butotherthanthatnicepostdegkeepupthegoodwork)
So just make 1v1 a BO5 or BO7, nobody would even care other than the unreasonable people who want all BO3's just because it makes them feel good. And the argument of too many replays doesn't apply since that would only really be a hassle for tournaments using a specific format where you have to trust your opponents, and where the people running the tour would have to thoroughly watch to make sure nobody is cheating.

Is there anything else restricting 1v1 from being allowed in the "bigger" tours?
 
So just make 1v1 a BO5 or BO7, nobody would even care other than the unreasonable people who want all BO3's just because it makes them feel good. And the argument of too many replays doesn't apply since that would only really be a hassle for tournaments using a specific format where you have to trust your opponents, and where the people running the tour would have to thoroughly watch to make sure nobody is cheating.

Is there anything else restricting 1v1 from being allowed in the "bigger" tours?
1v1 is, by definition, prone to being extremely susceptible to hax and also being extremely match-up based metagame by definition. This wouldn't be mitigated by simply increasing the number of games, according to Chloe: "...but I struggle to see how adding a certain amount of games eliminates hax. This misconception has been ubiquitous throughout every pro-1v1 in tour scene argument I've seen as of yet."

If you don't believe me then you can take it up with her or whoever else elsewhere, but please, with all due respect, let's not get side-tracked with this dead end. This tour idea of mine I believe could be very successful and I'd love to hear what everyone else has to say about it.
 

Laxpras

One small yeet for man, one giant yeet for mankind
Unfortunately this got sidetracked to a discussion on 1v1 rather than the point that is important to all OMs rather than someone's personal favorite, the 1v1 discussion can/has/will continue to happen elsewhere... idk why we need it here so let's get to SW's overarching point.

We should absolutely have more forum tours, and at least one more large tour that equals in status OMGS/OMPL - there is way too much off time. I really don't see any reason why there shouldn't always be smaller tours happening, and really there isn't a need for long wait times between our large tours. Another thing we can think about is rewards for Smogon Tour success - maybe a rank that is above voice but below Driver - similar to the Star rank but more prestigious? Theoretically there could be more than one but if/how that happens is more up to the ROs.

The obvious problem comes in: we need people to host tours.
For smaller tours, like a metagame specific tour, the answer is easy - anyone, literally you reading this right now idc if you are barely capable of higher order thinking, should host. Literally all you have to do is copy the OP of another tour, change the name, and use a randomizer website to get brackets.

For bigger tours, we'd likely have to hope our esteemed Mods/ROs are up to the task :~)

why dont u eat a ____. do as i say not as i do
 

MAMP

MAMP!
I 100% agree that OMs needs more tournaments, of all shapes and sizes. I think part of the issue is that the way we run forum tournaments atm is very disorganised and uncodified. Currently we don't really have a system for organising and scheduling tournaments, which just makes things kinda confusing. I think we should consider setting up a schedule similar to the one that the tours forum has, except I don't think we need to do it on a month-by-month basis like they do. http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/unofficial-tournament-applications-schedule-read-me.3569352/. This way we can have tournaments regularly and consistently, players will know what tournaments they have to look forward to and hosts will know how long they have to wait to start their tour. I submitted a tournament last month, and once it was approved it took 3 weeks for me to know when I could start it; this sort of thing wouldn't happen if we had a tour schedule.

To encourage participation in tours maybe we could have a system similar to the Smogon Championship, where players earn points based on their performance in OM tours (maybe including Daily Tours) and whoever has the most points at the end of the year is crowned the OM champion (or we could do playoffs with the top 8 or smth).

I also agree that OMs could do with a third big, official tour. Currently we have OMGS from January-April/May, and OMPL from June-August. This leaves us with a big 4 month gap from the end of OMPL to the start of OMGS, which I think is a great time for another big tournament! As for the format of this tournament, I like Scarfnaut's idea of a big multi-meta bracket tour like OST, a Bo3 tour where players choose which metas to strike similar to Grand Slam playoffs.
 
I know that the person that used to be in charge of seasonals (the randomized meta version of omotms apparently) is apparently gone now but I was wondering if it would be possible to bring those back with a ladder with the new game releases since I remember that they were fun and it was more than likely that they brought a bit interest to oms.
Of course, I don't really know how feasible it'd be to code and implement a new randomized format each month, unless one way it was done was to have battle factory versions for different metas such as bh with premade sets that had already been worked out as well as other randomized formats that have already been made such as super staff bros.
While this might not be the most realistic idea (not to mention it's pretty unrelated to the current discussion on tours that has been going on here), it would certainly be a fun addition to the current om ladders and I'm sure that most people would appreciate it if this option could at least be considered.
 
Random formats are not OMs, they're... random metas. I know it used to be under OM on the ladder, by default. But it has since gotten their own section. You should ask in the PS suggestions thread instead.

Edit: I suppose you can get my opinion because PS admin. This is fine if there's someone willing to code it every month.
 
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Personally I would like to see Pet Mods get the same treatment as OMs - i.e. we have a Pet Mod of the Month. There are some really interesting ideas for Pet Mods, but by and large they're ignored by the mainstream community as you have to go to a special server to play them, and even then you'll more than likely be playing against a bot. I think this could be a great way to drum up awareness for pet mods. I understand they have a more flexible banlist than standard metas, but I think it could work with some effort.
See, the problem with this is the fact that Pet Mods would require extensive, and usually complex, coding. Another issue would be sprites for the many custom mons made in pet mods. Imagine trying to code some of the abilities in Eevee'd, or make all of the Z-Moves for Z-Moves everywhere. On top of that there are very few pet mods in comparison to OMs, meaning there wouldn't be much choice in them...

tl;dr - There are many things that would make it too complicated.

This doesn't take away from the fact that I would love to see this though, and if this ever became an option, I would be glad to help out with the code.
Basically what Ludicrousity said. Pet Mod of the Year would have been cool but it just doesn't work. Majority of Pet Mods create new elements, like Pokemon or moves/abilities/etc. which won't appear in the Teambuilder and will not display properly in battles. So like Type Optimisation would win by default.
 

G-Luke

Sugar, Spice and One For All
is a Community Contributoris a CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Personally I would like to see Pet Mods get the same treatment as OMs - i.e. we have a Pet Mod of the Month. There are some really interesting ideas for Pet Mods, but by and large they're ignored by the mainstream community as you have to go to a special server to play them, and even then you'll more than likely be playing against a bot. I think this could be a great way to drum up awareness for pet mods. I understand they have a more flexible banlist than standard metas, but I think it could work with some effort.
The problem with such an arrangement is that Pet Mods are usually harder to code and even harder to get into, especially one's like the Multi-Franchise Fusion Evolution (Three threads, a spin-off and art thread and even more under development)

But I think it's time to have that argument. I have held my silence on this topic for far too long.
But then again, what do I know? Im just the Pet Mod guy. Topic for another rant
The blatant ignorance of Pet Mods on a whole by the OM community.

It's a divide that has always existed, but the sheer significance has not been brought to my attention until recently. If you talk to the average member of the OM community, they will tell you Pet Mods are "those things that are in their own thread". It's also present to a different degree amongst the small Pet Mod community (the fact that Pet Mods have a completely different atmosphere and separate community speaks volumes). Several times anything close to an aspect of battling (Community Create a Team for example) I am greeted with expressions of: "That's not the point of Pet Mods", "Sorry, I don't know how to do that, I'm not into competitive stuff" and most importantly "If I wanted to do this, I'd play an OM". I think this thought process is harmful and is the reason that Pet Mods are regarded as "lesser OMs" and "things serious players don't get into". This needs to change, as it stalls growth and hinders the full potential of many Pet Mods.

While it is unreasonable to try and make the community into a competitive playerbase, I think it's reasonable to put in certain leeway so that competitive players become attracted to Pet Mods. It is true - some Pet Mods simply will never be viable for a player format due to a variety of reasons (too hard to code - Fusion Evolution. Too much things that are not in the games code to add - Z-Moves Everywhere. Too much stuff overall - Fusion Evolution AGAIN), other Pet Mods are not only codable, but much easier to get into. Type Optimization is a great example that TI mentioned, but other Pet Mods that have similar structures (things that don't introduce completely new mechanics) also exist, but lack attention, such as the recently reinvigorated OptiMons, the unfortunately dead but great premise Nerfmons and that Pet Mod that everyone forgets because the community can't make stuff but stills exits, Move Mastery. All of these Pet Mods can sustain actual playable and fun metagames, but they all get ignored because they are in the Pet Mods subforum. I will go a step furthur and mention some Gen Six Pet Mods that eventually got closed as they completed their goals - The Lost World and Undiscovered Types - these were Pet Modsthat after completing their goals, created their own fun metagame. The problem was that, since no players don't actually pay serious attention to Pet Mods, their metas did not develop they eventually died off. This is the predicament that I fear will happen to the current Pet Mods that spawn fun metas with a clear limit: they will just die out.

I want to change that. As to how that can be changed? I think this is where the discussion should lie, but I already have a great suggestion. Pet Mods such as the ones mentioned above, should get threads in the main OM thread dedicated to the development of the metagame that have spawned from them. This would not only lead to fun and interesting metagames, but would preserve the Pet Mods so they just die out after completing their goals. While I don't think any of the current Pet Mods (barring Move Mastery, which in itself is a different type of Pet Mod altogether.), can support a metagame now, after more participation they surely can. In the meantime, I think these established Pet Mods (with a little repurposing for Gen 7 as the original creators Cretacerus and Jajoken respectively) can suffice.

I'd like to hear the community's thoughts on this matter and other, better ways of approaching this.
 

Dunfan

formerly Dunsparce Fanboy
To be honest, i once wanted to make a Pet Mod, but i gave up on it because the problem with it is that you need coding skills or someone with coding skills that has time to spare for it... and it's not always likely that the Pet Mod gets a playerbase, so all that time coding the Pet Mod would be kind of wasted.

Most OMs have a twist that make them different from OU, but i feel like most Pet Mods doesn't try to have a twist, just to have nice mons and balance stuff.
A way to make Pet Mods get a larger playerbase would indeed to make them playable on the main server, but actually i feel like it wouldn't be really useful since most Pet Mods are too similar to OU, and as fun or competitive as Pet Mods can be, i think most people would prefer the "official" tiers.

This makes me think about Gen-NEXT OU which got a decent playerbase, is playable in the main server (only the Gen 6 version, though) and has interesting twists... but was quickly forgotten.

So, in order to make Pet Mods more popular, could it work to make them more like OMs, with an unique concept twisting the game and every Pokemon? (for example, Mix and Mega uses the concept of mega stones that raises stats and change typing and ability)
In this way, it wouldn't be needed to work on every Pokemon separately, and Pet Mods would be more easily eligible to be playable on the main server, if something like a "Pet Mod of the Month" happens. (it would take time to have enough Pet Mods for one per month, though)

Indeed, there's Pet Mods that are ambitious to do something like that... but they are sadly quite rare.
I mean, Pet Mods that try to look like OMs probably suffer from being so few. OMs gives diversity, something that most players can be able to enjoy... and that's exactly what i feel like is lacking.
Also there's Pet Mod-related problems, like the one PokeEmblem had ; by trying to do too much stuff with the little Pet Mod community, it ended up being in reworking... for quite a while.

EDIT : I think i forgot something important, my own margin of error.
Creating brand new concepts may not be as easy at it looks, and so Pet Mods would probably become even more rare... and that reduces even further the possibility of a "Pet Mod of the Month" thing occuring.
There's also the fact that people actually enjoy creating original mons in Pet Mods close to OU, even if the Pet Mods may never be coded or played.
 
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G-Luke

Sugar, Spice and One For All
is a Community Contributoris a CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
To be honest, i once wanted to make a Pet Mod, but i gave up on it because the problem with it is that you need coding skills or someone with coding skills that has time to spare for it... and it's not always likely that the Pet Mod gets a playerbase, so all that time coding the Pet Mod would be kind of wasted.

Most OMs have a twist that make them different from OU, but i feel like most Pet Mods doesn't try to have a twist, just to have nice mons and balance stuff.
A way to make Pet Mods get a larger playerbase would indeed to make them playable on the main server, but actually i feel like it wouldn't be really useful since most Pet Mods are too similar to OU, and as fun or competitive as Pet Mods can be, i think most people would prefer the "official" tiers.

This makes me think about Gen-NEXT OU which got a decent playerbase, is playable in the main server (only the Gen 6 version, though) and has interesting twists... but was quickly forgotten.

So, in order to make Pet Mods more popular, could it work to make them more like OMs, with an unique concept twisting the game and every Pokemon? (for example, Mix and Mega uses the concept of mega stones that raises stats and change typing and ability)
In this way, it wouldn't be needed to work on every Pokemon separately, and Pet Mods would be more easily eligible to be playable on the main server, if something like a "Pet Mod of the Month" happens. (it would take time to have enough Pet Mods for one per month, though)

Indeed, there's Pet Mods that are ambitious to do something like that... but they are sadly quite rare.
I mean, Pet Mods that try to look like OMs probably suffer from being so few. OMs gives diversity, something that most players can be able to enjoy... and that's exactly what i feel like is lacking.
Also there's Pet Mod-related problems, like the one PokeEmblem had ; by trying to do too much stuff with the little Pet Mod community, it ended up being in reworking... for quite a while.

EDIT : I think i forgot something important, my own margin of error.
Creating brand new concepts may not be as easy at it looks, and so Pet Mods would probably become even more rare... and that reduces even further the possibility of a "Pet Mod of the Month" thing occuring.
There's also the fact that people actually enjoy creating original mons in Pet Mods close to OU, even if the Pet Mods may never be coded or played.
I wouldnt agree with you there.
Pet Mods, if a meta spins foward from their creation, depending on what and how much is done, is going to be very different to OU. Right now consider Type Optimization as a current one for example. Right off the bat we have Fur Coat Arcanine, Electric/Ice Luxray w/ 120/120/120 offensive stats, a Emboar w/ Shift Gear and 95 base speed and physical Swords Dance Grass/Electric Dedenne. That alone screams different from OU, and there are effectively 26 other mons with optimzed typings as well. Pet Mods thanks to each mon usually getting a different buff, makes their metas even more diverse than OMs, so I don't even get that argument.

The argument for changing Pet Mods wont fly as well. Simply because thats erasing the fundamental difference of Pet Mods, and at that point, why not just play OMs?
 

Dunfan

formerly Dunsparce Fanboy
I wouldnt agree with you there.
Pet Mods, if a meta spins foward from their creation, depending on what and how much is done, is going to be very different to OU. Right now consider Type Optimization as a current one for example. Right off the bat we have Fur Coat Arcanine, Electric/Ice Luxray w/ 120/120/120 offensive stats, a Emboar w/ Shift Gear and 95 base speed and physical Swords Dance Grass/Electric Dedenne. That alone screams different from OU, and there are effectively 26 other mons with optimzed typings as well. Pet Mods thanks to each mon usually getting a different buff, makes their metas even more diverse than OMs, so I don't even get that argument.

The argument for changing Pet Mods wont fly as well. Simply because thats erasing the fundamental difference of Pet Mods, and at that point, why not just play OMs?
Sorry if i explained it the wrong way. By being different, i meant being played in a different way.
As unique and creative as the mons can be, they're just new threats... and it won't be possible to just make everything both balanced and unique, because that would take an insane amount of time.

But you made a good point : All those creative mons that are "different" from OU are here because of the players who created them. The thing with OMs is that they're created by only one to a few persons, and once a concept is posted, we can hardly change it. In Pet Mods it's the opposite, players create the meta, not only the guy who submits the idea.
I would not break that, and as i said, there's already (a few) Pet Mods that revolves about an unique concept or mechanic, so that's not a brand new crazy idea.

Anyway, i only submitted that idea because that would be a possible way to solve the "Pet Mods not treated like OMs" subject debated above, i don't especially like that idea otherwise.
 

lost heros

Meme Master
The problem with such an arrangement is that Pet Mods are usually harder to code and even harder to get into, especially one's like the Multi-Franchise Fusion Evolution (Three threads, a spin-off and art thread and even more under development)

But I think it's time to have that argument. I have held my silence on this topic for far too long.


The blatant ignorance of Pet Mods on a whole by the OM community.

It's a divide that has always existed, but the sheer significance has not been brought to my attention until recently. If you talk to the average member of the OM community, they will tell you Pet Mods are "those things that are in their own thread". It's also present to a different degree amongst the small Pet Mod community (the fact that Pet Mods have a completely different atmosphere and separate community speaks volumes). Several times anything close to an aspect of battling (Community Create a Team for example) I am greeted with expressions of: "That's not the point of Pet Mods", "Sorry, I don't know how to do that, I'm not into competitive stuff" and most importantly "If I wanted to do this, I'd play an OM". I think this thought process is harmful and is the reason that Pet Mods are regarded as "lesser OMs" and "things serious players don't get into". This needs to change, as it stalls growth and hinders the full potential of many Pet Mods.

While it is unreasonable to try and make the community into a competitive playerbase, I think it's reasonable to put in certain leeway so that competitive players become attracted to Pet Mods. It is true - some Pet Mods simply will never be viable for a player format due to a variety of reasons (too hard to code - Fusion Evolution. Too much things that are not in the games code to add - Z-Moves Everywhere. Too much stuff overall - Fusion Evolution AGAIN), other Pet Mods are not only codable, but much easier to get into. Type Optimization is a great example that TI mentioned, but other Pet Mods that have similar structures (things that don't introduce completely new mechanics) also exist, but lack attention, such as the recently reinvigorated OptiMons, the unfortunately dead but great premise Nerfmons and that Pet Mod that everyone forgets because the community can't make stuff but stills exits, Move Mastery. All of these Pet Mods can sustain actual playable and fun metagames, but they all get ignored because they are in the Pet Mods subforum. I will go a step furthur and mention some Gen Six Pet Mods that eventually got closed as they completed their goals - The Lost World and Undiscovered Types - these were Pet Modsthat after completing their goals, created their own fun metagame. The problem was that, since no players don't actually pay serious attention to Pet Mods, their metas did not develop they eventually died off. This is the predicament that I fear will happen to the current Pet Mods that spawn fun metas with a clear limit: they will just die out.

I want to change that. As to how that can be changed? I think this is where the discussion should lie, but I already have a great suggestion. Pet Mods such as the ones mentioned above, should get threads in the main OM thread dedicated to the development of the metagame that have spawned from them. This would not only lead to fun and interesting metagames, but would preserve the Pet Mods so they just die out after completing their goals. While I don't think any of the current Pet Mods (barring Move Mastery, which in itself is a different type of Pet Mod altogether.), can support a metagame now, after more participation they surely can. In the meantime, I think these established Pet Mods (with a little repurposing for Gen 7 as the original creators Cretacerus and Jajoken respectively) can suffice.

I'd like to hear the community's thoughts on this matter and other, better ways of approaching this.
I think there are 2 issues as to why pet mods seem to die out and never really gain development for their metagames.

1. Pet mods don't end.
This one seems pretty self explanatory. Certain Pet Mods never stop adding more things or don't stop til it covers ALL pokemon. It's almost impossible to build for things like Fusion Evolution because there are TONS of new stuff, TOO MUCH to actively keep track of.

2. Pet mods are tucked away in their own forum.
People that have no intention of endlessly theorycrafting have no incentive to check out the Pet Mods forum. They don't even know that some Pet Mods are completed; I didn't. This makes Pet Mods deader than second page OMs.

To solve this I think we should implement a couple of things. First of all, Pet Mods need to be encouraged to actually end. Usually ending means death, which is why the users that make the mod keep pushing out new slates, even when there are already so many. After a Pet Mod does end, it should be moved to the main forum and given a special tag "Pet Mod" to indicate "Hey, the community that made this wants you guys to develop it!" The process could be very simple. When the creator/community of a pet mod determines, they want to end it, they resubmit it in OM Submissions. Then OM leaderships looks over it and judges it to see if they think the overall OM/Smogon community would understand it and its changes (is it simple), would the community want to play it (is it interesting), and could it be playable on PS! (is it implementable). If they say yes, the pet mod gets locked in that forum and is introduced in the OM forum. From then on there are no more slates, nothing new introduced, and nothing changed. Things are added and removed based on suspects and banned even if they were previously included in the pet mod (this isn't CAP, some pet mods probably won't be balanced). With some hard work from our coders, I have no doubt that certain Pet Mods can be implemented on a rotational basis/challenge-only format. Understandably, this would take a lot more time to code, but there is also no immediate time table to change out the Pet Mods.

(Also I support a 3rd official tour/ a more robust tour time table/ 1v1)
 
I think there are 2 issues as to why pet mods seem to die out and never really gain development for their metagames.

1. Pet mods don't end.
This one seems pretty self explanatory. Certain Pet Mods never stop adding more things or don't stop til it covers ALL pokemon. It's almost impossible to build for things like Fusion Evolution because there are TONS of new stuff, TOO MUCH to actively keep track of.

2. Pet mods are tucked away in their own forum.
People that have no intention of endlessly theorycrafting have no incentive to check out the Pet Mods forum. They don't even know that some Pet Mods are completed; I didn't. This makes Pet Mods deader than second page OMs.

To solve this I think we should implement a couple of things. First of all, Pet Mods need to be encouraged to actually end. Usually ending means death, which is why the users that make the mod keep pushing out new slates, even when there are already so many. After a Pet Mod does end, it should be moved to the main forum and given a special tag "Pet Mod" to indicate "Hey, the community that made this wants you guys to develop it!" The process could be very simple. When the creator/community of a pet mod determines, they want to end it, they resubmit it in OM Submissions. Then OM leaderships looks over it and judges it to see if they think the overall OM/Smogon community would understand it and its changes (is it simple), would the community want to play it (is it interesting), and could it be playable on PS! (is it implementable). If they say yes, the pet mod gets locked in that forum and is introduced in the OM forum. From then on there are no more slates, nothing new introduced, and nothing changed. Things are added and removed based on suspects and banned even if they were previously included in the pet mod (this isn't CAP, some pet mods probably won't be balanced). With some hard work from our coders, I have no doubt that certain Pet Mods can be implemented on a rotational basis/challenge-only format. Understandably, this would take a lot more time to code, but there is also no immediate time table to change out the Pet Mods.

(Also I support a 3rd official tour/ a more robust tour time table/ 1v1)
tbh I thought that the fusion evolution people said that the first 252 or so fusions would be coded as like a generation, and you could play with those, but I can't tell if they've forgotten that or not
 

RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
Sorry if I am bumping the wrong thread by any chances, but I have something to say about suspect tests:

I understand suspect tests are events that involve changes to metagames and therefore are very important due to the requirements in COIL filtering out uninformed players who would otherwise flock in the suspect thread and share their "opinions" that is not based from the experience they have acquired by laddering themselves but is based on watching high ladder games, OMPL games, Tournament replays, etc. I understand how COIL system lets participants experience the metagame with certain things removed / added, but I find them to be tedious, boring, or even stressful as hell to those who have participated in past suspected more than couple times.

In my case, I played at least 60 games for getting reqs for Balanced Hackmons suspects even when my position in suspect ladder was around 3-4 and GXE was close to 90's and played 70 games in AAA suspect for Terrakion. Especially for metagames like Almost Any Ability or Sketchmons that have relatively low ladder activity, suspect tests require participants to make near perfect run in order to get that COIL in reasonable amount of time. This means, for average players, laddering in suspect ladder for metagames with low ladder activity will end up as a repetitive and boring experience.

So what I would suggest to improve suspect test system is changing the requirement system to what E4 Flint did for Water Bubble suspect.
Here is a modified version of how things worked:
  • [OPTION 1] if you have an alt on PS! that matches your Smogon username perfectly and was registered before the date the suspect test has been announced, with rank in the corresponding metagame's Ladder that corresponds to the COIL value, you may substitute that alt instead of a new suspect one and vote
  • [OPTION 2] Alternatively, if you have used an alt that has been registered before today and used for a Smogon tournament or laddering challenge with a Smogon post showing that it belongs to you and edited at most before the date the suspect test has been announced, you may use that alt as well for achieving reqs.
  • [OPTION 3] If you cannot do either of the above, for this suspect you must ladder to achieve reqs
For those who are confused, you can simply use an alt with the name that is the same as Smogon username, take the alt's GLICKO and GXE, and use the equation to estimate the COIL for the alt that you regularly ladder with, paste the proof like like I did here, call it a day and wait for results. This way, experienced players can prove that they know what is going on in the meta and won't have to play needlessly many games in suspect ladder with boredom just to gain a permission to vote.

Tier leaders gain votes in suspect for default, and for meta's outsides OM's, I have even seen council members being legible of voting without getting COIL requirements due to their knowledge and experience. If players are skilled and experienced enough to do well on regular ladder and have voted for past suspects, I believe they deserve rights to be recognized as informed users and skip the boring process of laddering for COIL.

I understand laddering in suspect ladders is some sort of mini trial where users have to prove themselves and I don't expect everyone to agree with what I suggested here. But I am personally tired of playing 400+ 1v1 games every time there is a suspect test going on. I am tired of playing against the similar level of opponents for 50+ consecutive games for Balanced Hackmons suspects. I can confidently say majority of users can empathize this feeling.

Edit:

For instance, the problem i see with suspects are that in ladders like AAA or MnM, less than 20 people are voting often and that is never an enough number of people for the suspect test itself to arrive to the best decision in my opinion.
 
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cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
^ to add on to this i want to bring up the qualifying for tc thing again

i know this was called unreasonable in the past but there was like no reasoning given at all
Qualifying for TC is a generally poor idea, ik many people in this thread won't have been able to see it but there's been a lot of discussion about the downsides of this.
let me point out how ironic it is that you need a badge to view the discussion in the first place

and man what downsides are there

easy reqs? no way. 1v1 reqs are almost impossible period, bh reqs are something i struggled with while i was using decent but not spectacular teams (and there's been talk of raising them), and the other suspect ladders seem to be much the same. you need to be good if you want to vote.

less relevant contributions? idk but it's still the same amount of work so i think it should merit the same reward. the 1/2 vote can work too i think as a compromise, because if you contribute in 2 suspects for say mnm then i'd say that's at least equal to one for ru in terms of how valuable it is.

badge inflation? i don't see any problem with more (good) people having tc and sorry i play bh instead of ou lol

overall i really do want to know what kind of reasoning is preventing om players from getting tc. it seems like it kind of removes the point for getting reqs unless it's a meta you actually care about. idk just some food for thought
 
easy reqs? no way. 1v1 reqs are almost impossible period, bh reqs are something i struggled with while i was using decent but not spectacular teams (and there's been talk of raising them), and the other suspect ladders seem to be much the same. you need to be good if you want to vote.
Getting reqs in OMs are super easy. I don't mean to brag or anything but as a person who gets reqs in both official and unofficial metas from time to time, I find unofficial (AKA OMs) metas to be extremely easy. For instance, in the most recent BH suspect test, I didn't even need to think when I laddered. I put together a whatever team and went nearly undefeated (I disconnected a couple times and I played MAMP, who I can confidently say was the only decent player I fought, as my 3 losses). Whereas in official metas you get better players much more frequently, which makes it a lot more tough in comparison. This may seem like anecdotal evidence but I'm sure a lot of people who have experienced both types of ladders can confirm this. And also, 1v1 is only hard because of the way the meta works, which arguably cannot be considered skill.

less relevant contributions? idk but it's still the same amount of work so i think it should merit the same reward. the 1/2 vote can work too i think as a compromise, because if you contribute in 2 suspects for say mnm then i'd say that's at least equal to one for ru in terms of how valuable it is.
Ya, less relevant is one way to put it. RU is a core meta whilst MnM is unofficial. As far as the big shots are concerned no amount of MnM test contributions can compare. Whether we like it or not, as it stands they have no value and, if they don't end up changing their core metagame policy in the future, never will. The key thing here is that OMs by default are unofficial metas and a meta needs to be either official or core to have their tests count towards TC. The only way around this is if the senior staff gave us an exception or something. There's not much we can do except do what TI said on the first page:
The best we can do is making an effort to follow the way standard tiers conduct themselves (including tiering policies!), and the new suspect ladders is certainly a step in that direction. We just have to hope that Smogon senior staff take notice and maybe one day OMs can count as even half a vote.
 

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