Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

[fly casanova]

ok but lets use a different example... one that i love using... u just got revenge killed by roaring moon.... u can go into breloom to force it out... but that may not work cuz

1. it may be bulky enough to live... ive seen slight hp invested roaring moon esp the jaw lock variants surviving a CB mach punch... ok that is a acknowledgeable risk but you follow through with it because you are confident it can kill
2. It can tera into flying, a neutral type like fire, but ive seen fairy even being used a bit to setup on dragapult and other dragons, so you risk just losing breloom which may be valuable.... if its not valuable then its a risk you took... but on a game to game basis this may vary esp on offensive teams against other offense
3. You switch out predicting the tera.... that can work and if the opponent gets baited... good for you you did it! but what if the opponent either doesnt want to tera or predicts your switch and nuke you or dragon dances up again because they knew you would switch... and from there u basically lose the game...

even in this example though, it's not randomness, just unpredictability. we're still only a month into the meta so it makes perfect sense that we're all still getting a feel for when your opponent is going to tera. the point of putting tera flying or fairy on roaring moon is exactly the same reason to EV it that way - to survive a would-be revenge kill. if they played well enough to save their tera for that moment, that's not randomness, it's a successful gameplan.

I've played a bunch of games over the last few days where gholdengo clicks make it rain instead of shadow ball on a skeledirge, predicting it to tera fairy. players are learning how each mon tends to tera and factoring it into their decision-making. that's a sign of adaptation and a meta developing.

 

[Seth Vilo]

We have the results of the responses to our first SV OU tiering survey up here!

It seems increasingly likely that we are approaching the first suspect of generation, and the subject of it is set to be Terastallization. As alluded to previously, the plan is to make it a two-prompt suspect (it will likely be a single-time vote, but in order to complete that vote, you have to respond to two simple questions rather than just one). We feel this creative and novel solution best captures the unique situation we are attempting to tier, but also acknowledge that there is no outright perfect solution either.

If the playerbase votes on taking action, which will likely require over 60% support to begin with, then the current options the council are considering for tiering action are as follows:

• Outright banning Terastallization
• Limiting Terastallization to a single user per team
• Showing Tera type at Team Preview
• Limiting Terastallization to previously held STAB types only

We will likely adopt ranked-choice voting for the second prompt's results in order to generate the most specifically fair verdict that represents the sentiments of those who obtain suspect requirements.

Please note that this is NOT set-in-stone and we continue to discuss matters so we can serve our community in the best way we know possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Finchinator!! This is a great update on the direction that the suspect test will likely go. An additional HUGE thank you for assembling the results of the survey data.

I also believe that the idea of the two-question vote and the ranked-choice voting will give us the best outcome as a community. It's probably far too early to think about the potential structure of the question, but I'd like to ask specifically about the potential two-part question to come of this. Firstly, I'll admit that on the survey I was one of the individuals who answered "no tiering action" to the first question, but also left an answer for the "...which of the following restrictions do you find to be the most appropriate" question in the Other box to give voice to my thoughts on Team Preview. I read the note you left under that part of the survey, and I apologize for increasing your workload and frustration to scrub my survey since I didn't follow those directions. While it feels bad my survey opinions were likely removed, it's my own fault for not following instructions. Secondly, I am assuming that the suspect test two-prompt question may be similarly constructed to the survey, where Part 1 is "Action or No Action", and Part 2 is "If you answered Action, which do you want most".

My question, and why I prefaced it with my experience with the survey, is this: Will Part 2 of the two-part question give individuals who vote "No Action" an opportunity to choose what action they most prefer should Part 1 reach the 60% threshold to take action? Or by voting "No Action" do you forfeit your ability to vote at all - ranked-choice or not - on your preferred action?

You mentioned an inherent bias that "No Action" individuals have in your note on the survey results, which as one of them for now I totally understand. I want Tera to remain as intact as possible to whatever level the community decides. I fear that if voting "No Action" eliminates you from participating in the restriction option at all as it did in the survey, people who still feel "No Action" is best will abandon their truly preferred option and instead vote for a restriction simply so they can actually participate in the final outcome if some action is chosen. The risk of voting "No Action" and then having zero influence on the actual restriction is too great, and that mindset in turn will skew the results overly towards restriction.

I wanted to highlight this for consideration and voice my potential concern when it comes to writing the final questions for the suspect test. I hope that all makes sense! As always, thank you and the rest of the Council for your time, effort, and transparency through all this. Y'all rock.

 

[Dubbidub]

I think it's a bit concerning, although expected, that among the different options polled for how to restrict tera, no option garnered more than 20% support. A third of respondents seem to have their own novel idea for how to proceed. Seems that there's a general consensus that tera is a problem but it's much less clear to how to solve it.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

even in this example though, it's not randomness, just unpredictability. we're still only a month into the meta so it makes perfect sense that we're all still getting a feel for when your opponent is going to tera. the point of putting tera flying or fairy on roaring moon is exactly the same reason to EV it that way - to survive a would-be revenge kill. if they played well enough to save their tera for that moment, that's not randomness, it's a successful gameplan.

I've played a bunch of games over the last few days where gholdengo clicks make it rain instead of shadow ball on a skeledirge, predicting it to tera fairy. players are learning how each mon tends to tera and factoring it into their decision-making. that's a sign of adaptation and a meta developing.

sure... and if ur opponent predicts it and u switch out u basically lost the game... or u predict wrong and mach punch because if it just doesnt tera ur prob fucked esp unless ur running dondozo. And its basically coming down to "who can use their tera first, and better" since it just snowballs from there esp after a tera just catches ur opponent off guard

 

[Finchinator]

Will Part 2 of the two-part question give individuals who vote "No Action" an opportunity to choose what action they most prefer should Part 1 reach the 60% threshold to take action? Or by voting "No Action" do you forfeit your ability to vote at all - ranked-choice or not - on your preferred action?

In the suspect — IF it happens this way, EVERYONE, including those who voted no action, will get a chance to fill both questions out if they get reqs. There is no half votes — they’re all full

 

[Rikter]

Question if OU decides to ban Tera does it immediately apply to all lower usage tiers like UU and NU and so on?

 

[Zentrius]

why are people using the new vgc ruleset as some sort of justification for us to show tera type in team preview? this ruleset also states that literally everything but pokemon raw stats is to be revealed. so it would be wrong to me to use that ruleset as a justification but then not doing 99% of what that rulese states lol

 

[jdcomix]

good god...i wonder how skewed the results are from pokeaim/freezai fans who couldnt be assed to create a smogon account

It doesn't matter if they're casual fans or hardcore competitive players. The point of the survey was to obtain a consensus from everyone, not just hardcore smogonheads like a lot of us. Regardless, even with experienced players, there appears to be significant opposition to a complete ban

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

It doesn't matter if they're casual fans or hardcore competitive players. The point of the survey was to obtain a consensus from everyone, not just hardcore smogonheads like a lot of us. Regardless, even with experienced players, there appears to be significant opposition to a complete ban

i mean yes but it was said that many couldnt follow instructions.... so yeah.... and yeah there is opposition to a complete ban.... understandable... its not dynamax and people want to test every possible route to keep it ... makes sense

 

[gabraltar]

i mean yes but it was said that many couldnt follow instructions.... so yeah.... and yeah there is opposition to a complete ban.... understandable... its not dynamax and people want to test every possible route to keep it ... makes sense

the results for the top 250 players on ladder were still accurate due to vetting. And it also showed that about 51% opposed a complete ban. Which, if that were the results of a suspect test, would not result in a complete ban.

 

[DeviousJinjo]

why are people using the new vgc ruleset as some sort of justification for us to show tera type in team preview? this ruleset also states that literally everything but pokemon raw stats is to be revealed. so it would be wrong to me to use that ruleset as a justification but then not doing 99% of what that rulese states lol

Because it sets a very different precedent to implement something that is already functionally the case on cartridge in the official format, rather than Smogon just inventing something that doesn't exist anywhere else, even if you don't implement EVERYTHING that is functionally the case in that format. It's a future tiering consideration is all.

That said, I've been lurking throughout the thread's life and discussing things in the Discord server I run little casual singles tourneys in (usually like 12-16 people) and I've landed on showing tera types in team preview as the ideal answer.

My issue with tera is and has always been its huge potential for unpredictability. There has been much talk in this thread about 50/50s, but I do not consider that to be an accurate description of tera in its current state at all. A 50/50 implies two possibilities: either they will tera, or they won't. This is not the full scope of the question tera poses. While the tera meta may be shallow and predictable right now, with Water Annihilapes and Normal Dragonites at every turn, I feel that thinking only about the meta that exists in front of us right now, less than a month after launch, is a bit short-sighted. I can certainly understand the argument that the game we are observing right now is the only one we can truly know, but I HIGHLY doubt that this community really wants to relitigate its stance on tera, potentially multiple times in the future due to a lack of foresight in the here and now, and I fully believe that in the future the diversity possible with tera will render the game a nightmare unless some action is taken. Normal Dragonite is a terror, yes, but people have learned that. Soon there will be other flavors of Dragonite taking advantage of the assumption and ambush tactics with off-meta tera types will lead to free Dragon Dances, and thus huge advantages. In this kind of hyper offense meta, it often only takes one turn to swing the whole game halfway into your pocket, and as soon as enough people catch on to Normal Dragonite then Flying Dragonite shows up, or Dragon Dragonite, or Ghost Dragonite, and then once uncertainty has been restored we can start sneaking Normal Dragonite back in. There are already so many Pokemon that can benefit in highly threatening ways from so many different tera types and a potential surprise is SO costly, that I feel action on tera is inevitable. Mega Charizard only had the potential to be two highly threatening things.

Knowing all tera types in play from the start of the match preserves the possibility spaces of WHO you should use your tera on (unlike restricting it to one mon) and HOW you should use tera on them (unlike restricting it to previous STABs). All of the intended gameplay potential of the mechanic remains intact, but we become grounded once again in the realm of clearly visible threats that we can reasonably play around without any cheap ambush tricks swinging the whole battle. From there it's just a matter of banning certain Pokemon if Tera and Tera Blast make them too much to handle re: their potential counters, and that can be done on a case-by-case basis over time, after weird tera counters have had a chance to surface against them.

 

[gabraltar]

personally, it's a bit of a shame that UU and lower tiers probably won't be able to decide for themselves if tera is broken in their tiers but overall, I'm fine either way with tera in UU, especially since UU doesn't have nearly as much broken tera abusers as OU (and the ones that are like esparatha are 100% getting banned either way).

overall, I think revealing tera types on team preview is the best way to go.

 

[Biannual Run]

Are we going to have the opportunity to play in all different Tera-restricted formats during the suspect period? I know that it makes the most sense to stick to one format for the duration of the suspect ladder but I honestly don’t know how some of the more complex restrictions (single user Tera especially) will actually impact the meta so I would have a tough time making a judgement on that. If it’s possible, even if there are no ladders, would there be showdown-hosted tournaments (in like the OU lobby or a new room or something) of the different formats? I think this would go a long way.

If the playerbase votes on taking action, which will likely require over 60% support to begin with, then the current options the council are considering for tiering action are as follows:

• Outright banning Terastallization
• Limiting Terastallization to a single user per team
• Showing Tera type at Team Preview
• Limiting Terastallization to previously held STAB types only

We will likely adopt ranked-choice voting for the second prompt's results in order to generate the most specifically fair verdict that represents the sentiments of those who obtain suspect requirements.

One of the dangers of this method is how one should answer the first question (Should we take action on Tera?) if you prefer some action items to No Restriction but you prefer No Restriction to other action items. For example, if your “ranking” is Team Preview -> No Restriction -> Outright Ban, you would in theory want to choose “Yes Action” on Q1. However, if you think Team Preview would lose to Outright Ban in Q2, you would probably vote “No Action” to preserve Tera. This might sound like an edge case, but you see a lot of sentiment of “I would rather have Tera banned or not banned as opposed to a complex solution” so I don’t think that this is an uncommon dilemma.

Why not have it be one ranked choice question with five choices, one being “No Action”? You go through the ranked choice, and if No Action makes the top two choices then it should have a 60/40 (or other) requirement, otherwise if there are two choices that people both prefer to No Action then the simple majority wins.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Honestly I am getting rather tired of the back and forth between tera, since no one has been able to come up with a consensus on what to do with it, which will keep proper action from being taken. None of the solutions here have definitive support as seen from the survey, so I would like to offer up a temporary solution to give us more time and more insight into how to take action on terastal that I came up with. We can temporarily take tera out of every metagame while we discuss how to deal with it, and taking tera out temporarily would give people insight into how the meta without tera would be like, and then bring it back once we start the tera suspect to give people a clearer picture on whether tera is broken or not and what solution is best suited to deal with tera. This temporary solution seems effective in giving people more time to make up their minds about what to do with tera, while not keeping action from being taken.

Just an interesting idea that I wanted to throw out there, since action needs to be taken, but we seem unsure on how to take said action and need more time to decide from what the survey tells me.

 

[topshotta]

Using 95% confidence interval, 89 out of 143 qualified survey respondents does indicate that there is a desire for action on terrastalization. This is assuming that a true 50-50 split indicates that there should be no changes made.

 

[MukenTuken]

Are we going to have the opportunity to play in all different Tera-restricted formats during the suspect period? I know that it makes the most sense to stick to one format for the duration of the suspect ladder but I honestly don’t know how some of the more complex restrictions (single user Tera especially) will actually impact the meta so I would have a tough time making a judgement on that. If it’s possible, even if there are no ladders, would there be showdown-hosted tournaments (in like the OU lobby or a new room or something) of the different formats? I think this would go a long way.



One of the dangers of this method is how one should answer the first question (Should we take action on Tera?) if you prefer some action items to No Restriction but you prefer No Restriction to other action items. For example, if your “ranking” is Team Preview -> No Restriction -> Outright Ban, you would in theory want to choose “Yes Action” on Q1. However, if you think Team Preview would lose to Outright Ban in Q2, you would probably vote “No Action” to preserve Tera. This might sound like an edge case, but you see a lot of sentiment of “I would rather have Tera banned or not banned as opposed to a complex solution” so I don’t think that this is an uncommon dilemma.

Why not have it be one ranked choice question with five choices, one being “No Action”? You go through the ranked choice, and if No Action makes the top two choices then it should have a 60/40 (or other) requirement, otherwise if there are two choices that people both prefer to No Action then the simple majority wins.

Yeah with the current proposed voting procedure you cannot submit a vote that reflects choice rankings where no ban is anything in the middle. E.g:

1. Ban
2. Restriction A
3. No ban
4. Restriction B
5. Restriction C

Is that intended or was it overlooked? Especially since there has been a bunch of people being outright against restriction/complex.

 

[Finchinator]

Are we going to have the opportunity to play in all different Tera-restricted formats during the suspect period?

No, but we are likely to have another suspect in the future if it’s needed, so I implore people to vote for their first options and the second vote will be ranked choice as well. The metagame we vote into from this suspect can always end up with further restriction (or even less) depending on how it ages and community sentiment and what happens here.

 

[Violet Raichu]

I was saying that the mechanic is far more uncompetitive in singles then doubles. In doubles you have common things like protect and ya know..2 pokemon. Sometimes you can beat a threat by ganging up on it and due to multi hit moves having their power lowered calcs are also different.

Terastallization is a lot "worse" in doubles. Battles are shorter, so getting a turn wrong hurts more. Battles are more unpredictable because there are an order of magnitude more possible game states per turn in doubles, either pokemon can tera into any of the 18 types, and you don't even know how worth it your tera is because you're not even sure which 4 out of the six your opponent brought. It also touches more mechanics that are relevant in doubles (tera ghost to suddenly be immune to fake out, tera grass to suddenly be immune to spore, tera dark to suddenly be immune to prankster moves, etc). If you think tera isn't making VGC a swingy format too you'd definitely be mistaken.

Anyway my point in bringing it up was not to claim that singles is the same as doubles. This was more for the people who worried that tera with restrictions was not what TPC had in mind when they made the mechanic. To the contrary, they're moving in the direction of restrictions through handshake agreements. IF we do the same thing, which seems somewhat likely given the survey results, that wouldn't be out of pocket

 

[LoseToRU?]

Finchinator,
Do you know why the survey results weren't posted on the questions:
"How balanced do you find the current metagame" and "How enjoyable is the current metagame"?

I know it's not very important; just wondering if we could get the results for these questions, if you and the council don't mind sharing.

 

[flamewizzy21]

Dude you're crazy. This website is specifically for balance over all other mechanics. A mechanic being Fun/New is specifically excluded when talking about balance here. Otherwise ya know, its not trying to be a balance discussion.

Like lmao why are you talking about the mechanic on this website then.

The point of smogon rules is to make a set of rules that are fun to play. Bans take place because it isn’t fun when the whole metagame is centered around Mewtwo/Mega Kangaskhan/Flutter Mane (whatever hot threat is currently running amok). Or when everyone needs to run spore and sleep-counters if sleep clause doesn’t exist.

The #1 goal is to achieve a diverse range of strategies that feel strategic and fun to play. Balance is a part of this, but is not everything.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

The point of smogon rules is to make a set of rules that are fun to play.

I think you're confusing 'fun' and 'competitive' based on the rest of your post.

Fun =/= competitive. Smogon tries to make the clusterfuck that is pokemon's game design more fair to play and take seriously. They lessen the bullshit to make it a skill based game rather than a luck based one (like winning in VGC with evasion mechanics).

It isn't competitive or healthy to just copy the same mewtwo team because its the best pokemon and simultaneously requires specific checks/counters else you auto lose to it. Whether its fun doesn't matter else lando-t and stall would've been abolished.

 

[flamewizzy21]

You just missed the point of smogon.

Sorry, I must have been really confused when I said Smogon has anything to do with fun. The only goal is to make a 100% balanced metagame. To achieve this, I move to: ban all pokemon except Pikachu, ban all held items (it’s not fair if I can’t know if you have a choice scarf), ban all non-attacking moves (because those can surprise your opponent), and ban EV/IV/non-neutral natures (because being surprised by a speed tier or damage calc is frankly uncompetitive). And I feel like banning tera and switching is just obvious.

As long as everyone’s team is all pikachu under these simple rules, we will never have any issues with balance. It’s perfectly competitive. I take it you would give my proposal your full support?

I think you're confusing 'fun' and 'competitive' based on the rest of your post.

Fun =/= competitive. Smogon tries to make the clusterfuck that is pokemon's game design more fair to play and take seriously…

To your newly editted post, I disagree that fun =/= competitive. Any game can be competitive when people just put effort into finding the best strats. However, balanced games like rock-paper-scissors and tic-tac-toe can be extremely boring to play because it just feels like you aren’t really playing the game. Rock-paper-scissors and monopoly just play themselves with minimal player agency. Tic-tac-toe is boring because you already know how the whole game will play out before starting. These are two key things: player agency (you feel like your actions actually matter), and diversity (game feel different, and therefore you feel like actually playing them out). Both agency and diversity are necessary for a strategy game to be fun. Both are jeopardized by dominant strategies, luck-based nonsense, and other bullshit that gamefreak can’t be bothered to get rid of. These factors are normally part of what people refer to by competitive, and is fundamentally linked to whether or not a game of pokemon is fun to play.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Sorry, I must have been really confused when I said Smogon has anything to do with fun. The only goal is to make a 100% balanced metagame. To achieve this, I move to: ban all pokemon except Pikachu, ban all held items (it’s not fair if I can’t know if you have a choice scarf), ban all non-attacking moves (because those can surprise your opponent), and ban EV/IV/non-neutral natures (because being surprised by a speed tier or damage calc is frankly uncompetitive). And I feel like banning tera and switching is just obvious.

As long as everyone’s team is all pikachu under these simple rules, we will never have any issues with balance. It’s perfectly competitive. I take it you would give my proposal your full support?

Pikachu only meta seems too overcentralizing around pikachu tbh.

I also edited the part you quoted because I did acknowledge you were on the right track with why we ban certain things, but fun is a subjective word to use, we don't ban them because mewtwo metas aren't fun, we banned it because its not competitive. There's tons of fun strats that don't stick because they're unhealthy, uninteractive, or result in over centralization.

Fun is the last concern when it comes to a competitive game. Competitive integrity is the primary goal.

 

[BobKingOfSeagulls]

This feels like an argument not worth having, at least not here.

 

[Athyestic]

fucking ass player L tera isnt broken you just seek ez.

Pack it up boys, tera's gonna stay till the end of time!

to make this not a one liner i really wish we could go in and modify the mechanics of tera (specifically retaining original stabs) because if that feature was gone i feel like tera would be much more balanced