Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Kyurem banned]

[BolTingBlazie]

Oh, if that's the case, then it's probably Gouging Fire or Kyurem, and I personally lean towards it being Gouging Fire since more top players in the OLT thread talked about Gouging Fire being a problem.

I've seen just as much Kyurem talk, so it could literally be either. My guess is Kyurem because I know a ton of OLT participants hated dealing with Kyurem. Could be either but I hope it's Kyurem personally.

Edit: it's gouging unfortunately hope discussion is more civil but I don't see it actually getting the boot

 

[solrock the great]

IMO I think part of why theres less people playing SV OU compared to last gens is that :

1. SV was a very undercooked game that came under fire a lot for being unfinished (I am not getting into my thoughts on SV as a game as that could legit be its own post somewhere else)
2. People are playing other formats, be it mainstays like VGC or low tiers, or new ones popping up
3. Many older fans have reached a point where they are ok with skipping a gen of comp, and are fine going back to their old reliable favorite tier
4. People who just dont like the tier
5. People who would've played it but were told not to because their buddies say its just a powercrept HO filled wasteland

 

[ant4456]

doomposting about a suspect test that happened nearly 2 years ago when there are far more pressing matters at hand is the most unserious shit i've ever seen from this thread. good lord

I want you to explain how this relates to anything I said without just making up shit I didn't say, and attributing it to my mouth

 

[viivian]

I've seen just as much Kyurem talk, so it could literally be either. My guess is Kyurem because I know a ton of OLT participants hated dealing with Kyurem. Could be either but I hope it's Kyurem personally.

if finch's twitter is anything to go off of then it's absolutely gouging fire

I want you to explain how this relates to anything I said without just making up shit I didn't say, and attributing it to my mouth

it actually relates to a lot of what you said in this thread for the last day or so. you keep going on about how SV OU is declining in terms of activity, and you attributed this decrease in activity to the presence of terastallization, even though there isn't nearly enough support from the playerbase at large to take any action on it. ergo, tera is largely irrelevant to the issue of people losing interest in the tier. i'm not sure what you want me to say that hasn't already been said by several other people but i'm not gonna entertain any of your arguments beyond this point

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I want you to explain how this relates to anything I said without just making up shit I didn't say, and attributing it to my mouth

the shit in question that you didn't say:

My proposal is nothing. There isn't anything that can be done this far into the generation.

 

[Avira]

I've seen just as much Kyurem talk, so it could literally be either. My guess is Kyurem because I know a ton of OLT participants hated dealing with Kyurem. Could be either but I hope it's Kyurem personally.

Edit: it's gouging unfortunately hope discussion is more civil but I don't see it actually getting the boot

Among the players who actually qualified for OLT, Gouging Fire easily has more support for a suspect. bbeeaa, clean, and Storm Zone are all vocal supporters of getting Gouging Fire out of the tier whereas none of the other qualifiers posted in the thread about Kyurem's brokenness.

 

[ant4456]

Idk what to say beyond I disagree with this and the thesis of the first half of your post — and I don’t think it’s a bad thing people play different formats within the same game. In fact, I just hope people enjoy whatever they do, including posting here

Nowhere did I say it's a bad thing people play different formats, either, I just said they're not competing with each other. Smogon DOU is competition to VGC because it's using Doubles and trying to compete with VGC.

If Smogon Singles is competing with anything it's like. Battle Spot Singles. Singles isn't popular because gameplay or whatever, that's actually not even close to the truth. The reason most of us got into Smogon in the first place was because Singles was more familiar to us, as Pokemon players, and even in this era of VGC getting more popular, that's still true, be it the games, anime, etc. The reason we stayed was Singles actually IMO has far more casual-friendly gameplay, with turns usually mattering less play by play, with low ladder matches not even requiring a real gameplan.

VGC is a far more gameplay-focused format with even lower level matches requiring gameplans, every turn in most formats being potentially life or death, and a more arcade-y fast match style, low turns with more action per turn, and more consequence. People getting into VGC want that gameplay and are less focused on finding a competitive version of the game they know, with it looking more like the game they know, because it still plays nothing like the game they know, even superficially. They see Youtubers where the gameplay looks interesting and try that.

And really this is nothing to be ashamed of, I'm not Smogon Singles doesn't have good gameplay, it's about what the appeal is for new players IMO- and that they're different.

it actually relates to a lot of what you said in this thread for the last day or so.

It's literally been like two hours, be less dramatic

you keep going on about how SV OU is declining in terms of activity, and you largely attributed this to the presence of terastallization, even though there isn't nearly enough support from the playerbase at large to take any action on it. ergo, tera is largely irrelevant to SV's decreased player activity.

This makes no sense because it's a game of percentages. You can make the first argument here "There isn't evidence it's Tera specifically", that is a valid argument I cannot entirely refute, but your argument to justify it from the realm of "We don't know" to "It can't be Tera" makes no sense. There being majority support for something in a vote does not mean people don't stop playing after the vote, or literally anything you said. If anything the fact it has been 60-40 or 70-30 for most of the gen is literally just evidence that Tera could be a dividing element causing people to stop playing.

Like, if you mean "the suspect from two years ago", there is no correlation of vote to fuckin'. per capita player in the playerbase LOL. And if there was, that'd still mean that like 59% of the playerbase by capita in this (not true) hypothetical would have wanted things to change, and didn't get it.

I don't even get how you make the jump from that argument, genuinely. It doesn't even make sense on the face of it. There was never a time when a substantial number of people didn't vote no Tera. If 70% of people who liked Tera kept playing but 30% of people who didn't like it quit, that would still be a big enough number to be the differentiator from doing better numbers than SWSH or not.

Using a majority rule opinion on one topic to dictate that it could not be a major effector of playerbase numbers is just a very silly argument, frankly.

i'm not sure what you want me to say that hasn't already been said by several other people but i'm not gonna entertain any of your arguments beyond this point

You didn't even answer what I asked. You said I was doomposting about the suspect test from two years ago when I did not even mention it, you didn't explain how I was doomposting about it, and then you never explained what the more serious discussions here that go on (because the OU metagame discussion thread is certainly not infamously a stream of consciousness of like 8 people usually), and you instead replied with a different argument that makes no sense. I also hope you don't entertain further arguing

 

[N ™]

 

[ant4456]

The actual use of this meme will be the Policy Review threads in 2029 - 2042 or some shit, because those will be fucking legendary

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

It's literally been like two hours, be less dramatic

"alas! there is no hope for the future of the generation; justice hath given way to apathy, and naught can be done. woe and calamity is me! and would you stop being such a drama queen for saying 'a day' instead of 'two hours'? grow up"

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Among the players who actually qualified for OLT, Gouging Fire easily has more support for a suspect. bbeeaa, clean, and Storm Zone are all vocal supporters of getting Gouging Fire out of the tier whereas none of the other qualifiers posted in the thread about Kyurem's brokenness.

I might go for DNB on Gouging Fire but I don't know if I want to to be honest. Depends on whether I feel like it honestly because ladder is always pain during suspects

 

[pika pal]

Y'all are really focusing hard on the Steve thing but I actually don't really care much about it. I don't even necessarily agree with banning it, because it is a character, the reason I brought it up was because most serious scenes actually will do things to respond to the wants of people. Very few people actually cared about if Steve was allowed, while a good chunk of people hated Steve, so it was easy for most locals and non-majors.

The point of bringing up Japan is that if Japanese Smash players hated Steve like the American players did, they would also start banning it, and then it would likely be banned in almost all serious play. Majors nowadays in Ultimate have to cater to several playerbases across the world which was not always true for Smash.

You brought the Steve analogy in and it's a bad analogy for supporting your argument. If the comparisons you bring in are bad logically, then it probably means the point you're comparing to also doesn't hold up with your argument.

Case and point: "if Japanese Smash players hated Steve"
This is an if, they don't so you're arguing using a hypothetical rather than a comparable situation. The actual situation, that serious play for Smash Majors does not support a ban on Steve, is essentially a self-injury to your argument about considering the minority opinion on handling Tera.

Again, I don't give a fuck about the Smogon Tiering Official Whatever Response here, because the tiering angle is not the correct angle here. This is a game design problem, and Smogon Tiering is not designed to handle game design problems, it is designed for tiering elements and less so mechanics.

In competitive game design there is a hierarchy of elements in a game, starting at the top with the Goal, then the Mechanics, the Things (trademark; characters, guns in shooters, the things that you actually play with), the Maps (environment in which it takes place), and then extras below that, usually togglable.

In competitive Pokemon singles this is: Defeat all 6 Pokemon, the mechanics such as switching, using attacks, status moves, hazards, etc., the Things are the Pokemon, items, abilities, and the Stage is not as applicable because Pokemon is a turn based RPG.

The hierarchy follows in a manner of how important they are to get right and generally not fuck with in a way that makes people turned off, with it also depending for those with several things per category, how many things are fucked with. A big part of why Dynamax isn't appealing is that the "Goal" is shapeshifted through Dynamax as a mechanic; the Goal is now "Use Dynamax in the correct way in order to win, and do not lose via Dynamax". Terastilization is a new mechanic that, while not as bad in the sense that it changes the Goal of the game AS hard as Dynamax, people who hate it generally feel like it changes it a bit and what you are playing to. It's not a wincon, it is THE wincon.

You can get rid of Pokemon, individual Pokemon can be busted, items can not be that well-designed, abilities can be crazy, but if the base mechanics are good like Gen 6 then most people will still play. When you fuck with the mechanics and change what the game is really about, a considerable amount of people are turned off, and we get here.

Tera is fundamentally not something Smogon Tiering was ever really going to deal with, and nor should it really be expected to. The Tiering system is best when it's at the third tier, the Thing, and it's at its hardest or most controversial when it's at the Mechanics stage, especially when the Mechanics are changed in ways that change the Goal. Smogon Tiering isn't trying to game design.

And I mean, there is a reason that no serious big competitive game made by developers that want to make a competitive game follows the Smogon format. For better or worse, they make these decisions, and often that means changing when a minority of the playerbase is entirely turned off by something that the majority of the players kinda likes, but overall would still play if it wasn't a big thing.

It was already mentioned, but appealing to what the developers do or follow with Smogon is similarly pointless because Gamefreak, when they balance around competitive play at all, has never focused on Singles as Smogon primarily does. Doubles plays fundamentally different and is the format they elected for, so it's no surprise that their decisions aren't compatible with it nor would they ever elect to play something similar to it. To once again revisit Smash Bros, that game is made by a developer and publisher that if anything actively AVOIDS cultivating a competitive scene, so their decisions aren't based on what a competitive audience is discussing vs the obviously-larger "casual" base.

More to the point

Tera is fundamentally not something Smogon Tiering was ever really going to deal with, and nor should it really be expected to.

If this is to be believed, that Smogon's Tiering Policy isn't equipped to handle what you consider a problem at the level of game mechanics rather than individual pieces, are you proposing that the tiering policy at large needs to be re-evaluated?

My proposal is nothing. There isn't anything that can be done this far into the generation.

Or is it to just continue complaining and telling the playerbase that this generation is FUBAR because we kept Terastalization around despite repeatedly declining support for action against the mechanic? You've made arguments of varying effectiveness throughout the last several pages, but the only throughline I'm picking up is that SVOU is broken and losing players but there is no way to repair it feasibly, at which point you are doomposting in the capacity that you are posting about doom and negative outcomes with no solution nor any lesson to be learned to mitigate the issue.

You'd add more to the thread by discussing a solution or going to Policy Review if you think the issue is that deep into the system. Coming here and telling the thread "1/3 of us 6 months ago think Tera is a problem, and because it wasn't dealt with it's obviously a major factor in declining numbers" isn't adding anything. The conversation has primarily amounted to

"SVOU is dropping off and here's why."
"I don't think these numbers mean what you think. Alternatively, I don't think those falling numbers are an emergency that reflects on our tiering."
"How do you argue with proof that people fell off faster than in SwSh's unpopular meta?"
"Okay, how do we fix it?"
"Heck if I know, probably can't."

And then about 5 pages of which 10% were discussions instead of sniping at each other. If I wanted this experience again, I'd just hope CTC is in the Gouging Fire 2nd Suspect thread.

 

[Finchinator]

Nowhere did I say it's a bad thing people play different formats, either, I just said they're not competing with each other. Smogon DOU is competition to VGC because it's using Doubles and trying to compete with VGC.

If Smogon Singles is competing with anything it's like. Battle Spot Singles

It is not this deep. People see flashy format and click the battle button with whatever they can get their hands on. VGC has seen an a huge uptick in resources, media coverage, and marketing, so naturally with it now being competition-equivelant on PS, it is going to see a ton more traffic and play from newcomers. Freezai and others have done comparison charts showing as much, too. And I guarantee you 90% of people on PS do not have a substantial, strategic reason for this so much as just wanting to compete and have fun.

 

[ant4456]

The funny thing about "Ant stop soiling the convo by bringing this up" is that I literally didn't even start the convo, I was replying to someone else talking about it, and now everyone is gonna shit on me for it anyways

It's fine tho because this would be only like the 8th time this thread has shit on me for about, what? 2 pages straight? And usually I'm proven right by history, so I'm still p chill about it

Maybe someone will tell me Alolan Ninetales is a Nasty Plot threat so we gotta ban it actually again and ratio the fuck out of me

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

If I wanted this experience again, I'd just hope CTC is in the Gouging Fire 2nd Suspect thread.

i heard something about him flipping on gouging actually but i'm not sure how verifiable that is

 

[Avira]

I do expect Gouging Fire to be banned, and that should help curb some of the offensive overdrive of SV OU. Booster Attack Gouging Fire is a top-tier threat, and combined with all of its set variety, it's very constraining in the builder to deal with.

 

[ant4456]

Or is it to just continue complaining and telling the playerbase that this generation is FUBAR because we kept Terastalization around despite repeatedly declining support for action against the mechanic? You've made arguments of varying effectiveness throughout the last several pages, but the only throughline I'm picking up is that SVOU is broken and losing players but there is no way to repair it feasibly, at which point you are doomposting in the capacity that you are posting about doom and negative outcomes with no solution nor any lesson to be learned to mitigate the issue.

You'd add more to the thread by discussing a solution or going to Policy Review if you think the issue is that deep into the system. Coming here and telling the thread "1/3 of us 6 months ago think Tera is a problem, and because it wasn't dealt with it's obviously a major factor in declining numbers" isn't adding anything. The conversation has primarily amounted to

"SVOU is dropping off and here's why."
"I don't think these numbers mean what you think. Alternatively, I don't think those falling numbers are an emergency that reflects on our tiering."
"How do you argue with proof that people fell off faster than in SwSh's unpopular meta?"
"Okay, how do we fix it?"
"Heck if I know, probably can't."

And then about 5 pages of which 10% were discussions instead of sniping at each other. If I wanted this experience again, I'd just hope CTC is in the Gouging Fire 2nd Suspect thread.

The problem with you arguing this is that most of the people aren't replying to me in good faith, and god no, are most people not actually reading half the shit I write. A lot of the replies are people rolling their eyes and then hoping someone writes a counter for them, or doing it themselves by insulting me, in which usually comes in a "Stop bringing up shit", and while I think you are mostly replying in good faith I also already explained half this stuff in the scattered way-too-much-effort replies to people who clearly don't give a shit.

I mean again, even the framing that I just came here randomly and dropped this fact is wrong when I was replying to someone else talking about Tera, and I replied to them because I felt like it. Just saying I'm here to complain makes me want to roll my eyes and not really read all of your post myself, because it makes me think you don't really care either. The truth is there is a solution and I do know it, it's just something I felt would muddy the waters.

I assumed that not bringing up a solution would be best because I don't think actually giving a solution is the best way to present these types of things. People don't tend to react positively to radical ideas, so I didn't add one. Solutions in this case aren't actually that important to my point, which is to point out arguments of why people should care about minority opinions even under a Smogon Tiering System- the thing I was replying to. Any solution is just another possible way for people to ignore 90% of the content of the post, and instead just refute a solution presented rather than anything else.

It's unnecessary baggage on a point that isn't even that related, essentially. I'd rather people disagree with the means of my argument rather than disagree with an idealistic scenario that I could express, but do not think is worth adding.

You brought the Steve analogy in and it's a bad analogy for supporting your argument. If the comparisons you bring in are bad logically, then it probably means the point you're comparing to also doesn't hold up with your argument.

Fair enough, that's pretty clear at this point.

If this is to be believed, that Smogon's Tiering Policy isn't equipped to handle what you consider a problem at the level of game mechanics rather than individual pieces, are you proposing that the tiering policy at large needs to be re-evaluated?

I think Tiering Policy is exactly as it needs to be for its role, because it is good at its role. Qualified players voting on smaller elements generally works well, and I think it's a good way to give the community things to do.

If you actually want an in-depth solution by me, feel free to DM me and I will explain it, but I still think it would just add baggage to any argument I make.

 

[arnimacarni]

VGC is growing more popular, there's the answer to why SV OU has dropped games played faster than SS OU did.

ugh i dont want to be too snobby but VGC is NOT a real format

urshifu RS is not a real mon

i watched 3mins of a verlisify vid and lost braincells

i catch wolfey's tiktok from time to time and its all like "in this game amoonguss runs safety goggles and wants to use spore and is facing terapagos ultratera turbocolorcrown who is going to use hyper beam and an articuno who runs four offensive ice moves but this player won by disconnecting his switch from the dock" and i dont want to go near the pokemon company's intellectual property ever again

 

[pika pal]

The funny thing about "Ant stop soiling the convo by bringing this up" is that I literally didn't even start the convo, I was replying to someone else talking about it, and now everyone is gonna shit on me for it anyways

It's fine tho because this would be only like the 8th time this thread has shit on me for about, what? 2 pages straight? And usually I'm proven right by history, so I'm still p chill about it

Maybe someone will tell me Alolan Ninetales is a Nasty Plot threat so we gotta ban it actually again and ratio the fuck out of me

The problem with you arguing this is that most of the people aren't replying to me in good faith, and god no, are most people not actually reading half the shit I write. A lot of the replies are people rolling their eyes and then hoping someone writes a counter for them, or doing it themselves by insulting me, in which usually comes in a "Stop bringing up shit", and while I think you are mostly replying in good faith I also already explained half this stuff in the scattered way-too-much-effort replies to people who clearly don't give a shit.

I mean again, even the framing that I just came here randomly and dropped this fact is wrong when I was replying to someone else talking about Tera, and I replied to them because I felt like it. Just saying I'm here to complain makes me want to roll my eyes and not really read all of your post myself, because it makes me think you don't really care either. The truth is there is a solution and I do know it, it's just something I felt would muddy the waters.

I assumed that not bringing up a solution would be best because I don't think actually giving a solution is the best way to present these types of things. People don't tend to react positively to radical ideas, so I didn't add one. Solutions in this case aren't actually that important to my point, which is to point out arguments of why people should care about minority opinions even under a Smogon Tiering System- the thing I was replying to. Any solution is just another possible way for people to ignore 90% of the content of the post, and instead just refute a solution presented rather than anything else.

It's unnecessary baggage on a point that isn't even that related, essentially. I'd rather people disagree with the means of my argument rather than disagree with an idealistic scenario that I could express, but do not think is worth adding.


Fair enough, that's pretty clear at this point.


I think Tiering Policy is exactly as it needs to be for its role, because it is good at its role. Qualified players voting on smaller elements generally works well, and I think it's a good way to give the community things to do.

If you actually want an in-depth solution by me, feel free to DM me and I will explain it, but I still think it would just add baggage to any argument I make.

Okay you do not get to play Martyr role for being piled on in replies just because you weren't literally the first message. Your reply was still the one that brought in the points that have been of the most contention, such as "you don't realize how big a number 28.2% of the playerbase is" when the argument is "okay so what about the much bigger 71.8% that said the opposite?" for example.

The post you replied to and the one they replied to in turn were discussing how players who didn't like Tera sticking around dropped out. Your reply was the one that brought in the point that people quitting is the fault of the tiering decision rather than the process being followed and players opting out because they didn't enjoy the outcome.

"RS25802580" was positing that they found Tera an uncompetitive mechanic and thought it warranted further discussion, with explanations for why they felt this way such as in-battle scenarios to talk about. This while self-admitting that a lot of these were questions they didn't have THE answer for and thus wanted players "more skilled and knowledgable" to weigh in on, since the mechanic was controversial enough to warrant reconsideration. Your post meanwhile just gave up, saying SVOU "has been kinda (sic) a failure" based on those numbers and "There really isn't anything that can be done anymore." Okay, if you've given up, you're inviting less discussion than the posts that even started this sub-topic.

You didn't start it, but that doesn't mean you didn't "soil" it either. And to your last point, if you have a solution, say it here, because it's kind of important to your posting if you want people to engage with you instead of just dunking on you. Give them something to actually dig into that would be a deflection to not respond to. I will say upfront that if you DM it to me, I will simply repost it here, because at this point, a solution to be refuted is still more substance than a pessimistic outlook that simply says there is no solution at all.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Honestly on second thought I don’t really care enough about what happens to gouging fire, because if it gets banned so be it at this point. I got draft stuff to focus on anyway and I really don’t care what they do with it, because reqs don’t seem worth it at the moment with working two jobs and draft.

If kyurem gets suspected after though I am definitely gonna consider getting reqs though.

 

[ant4456]

Okay you do not get to play Martyr role for being piled on in replies just because you weren't literally the first message.

Oh I wasn't saying it was in replacement, the reply I was replying to was never going to get dogpiled. I just always get dogpiled and it's why I rarely actually post here

Your reply was the one that brought in the point that people quitting is the fault of the tiering decision rather than the process being followed and players opting out because they didn't enjoy the outcome.

I've said approximately like 10 times that the majority vote winning is literally just how the tiering system works, and that it did what it was expected to do, and that that isn't a problem. The process being that is arguably a problem.

You didn't start it, but that doesn't mean you didn't "soil" it either. And to your last point, if you have a solution, say it here, because it's kind of important to your posting if you want people to engage with you instead of just dunking on you.

Do you think people wouldn't just dunk on any proposed solution? Do you think you wouldn't just dunk on any proposed solution? I don't want people to engage with me, that's a misconception. If I just posted it and nobody replied, I would not actually care much, relieved even, and I'd go about my day happy, rather than glued to the Smogon Forums page while people reply to me and insult me. It's impulse that drives me to write several paragraphs, and no matter how right they are it doesn't matter, usually. There's actually a certain craziness to this thread where the fucking Politics thread is actually less anxiety-driving for me, than knowing that if I post anything here it will get like 10 quote messages if it is not very generic.

I will say upfront that if you DM it to me, I will simply repost it here, because at this point, a solution to be refuted is still more substance than a pessimistic outlook that simply says there is no solution at all.

So basically, what you're saying here I should never DM you or offer you anything in good faith, because you will just go against my wishes and instead attempt to humiliate me for it on public forum, and then add fuel to a fire? Like, you realize how this reads to me, right? Honestly, I'll never get this type of thing on any site. I've never posted anything from DMs with people publicly because I assume that when people post things privately, they want it to be private, and I respect that fact. But this isn't the first time this has happened to me on a forum, or at least potential happening in this case I suppose.

 

[Finchinator]

Gouging Fire is being suspect tested in SV OU: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...gh-the-fire-and-flames.3750097/#post-10246321

 

[ant4456]

Gouging Fire is being suspect tested in SV OU: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...gh-the-fire-and-flames.3750097/#post-10246321

"Gouging Fire has been one of the strongest Pokemon in SV OU since being released with DLC2! It was previously suspected in March here in what can only be described as a thread of all time,"

 

[MC Squared]

Gouging Fire is being suspect tested in SV OU: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...gh-the-fire-and-flames.3750097/#post-10246321

CTC in shambles

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i'm pretty sure i said verbatim at some point "if we don't ban gouging now we'll be suspecting it again before fall" and everyone said "pfft, like that's ever gonna happen"