Tier Naming Policy

[Acast]

I really do think changing the name of PU and maybe NU would be in our best interest, but I realize I'm probably in the minority so I'm willing to drop that argument.

However, at the very least we should include the T1, T2, T3 tags in every tier name. All the tiers get to keep the individuality of their current name, but including the tags would fix one of the primary issues we're arguing about. It's a surefire way to make sure veteran players and new players both understand which tier is which.

 

[atomicllamas]

I think the solution was found on Page 1

Acast said:

• T0 - Ubers
• T1 - OU
• T2 - UU
• T3 - RU
• T4 - SU
• T5 - NU

or

atomicllamas said:

• Ubers
• T1-OU
• T2-UU
• T3-RU
• T4-NU
• T5-PU

Tier order is easy to follow, cross generational community is maintained, and we can just name the next tier T6 without an added xU. The only opposition I saw to this particular proposition was that it "looks dumb", but its the only solution which caters to new players and old players, and lets be real T3-RU is far less dumb looking than "UU2", "Tier C", or whatever other crap was proposed. Is there any reason to not just do this?

Also can people stop with the "we put RU between UU and NU in gen 5!!!", its true, but Gen 4 NU was not an official meta game and was the equivalent gen 5 PU (that's why plusle and minun have UU analyses for gen 4 and not NU analyses). Changing the order / names of official tiers is not the same thing as adding 2 official tiers, and while it doesn't mean we can't change tier orders / names, that isn't precedent to do so.

to clarify @ below I was specifically referring to listing them like this under formats and in the teambuilder, and then calling the next tier (should it exist) T6 as its name cause its just easier that way. Obviously on dex and on smogon forums the listing can stay the same because the first place people are exposed to the tier is on PS! (in theory).

 

[Sam]

We aren't going to change the tier naming scheme. The tier names are too ingrained in Smogon culture to easily change. Even if we officially call UU 'tier 2', people are still going to refer to it as UU and that's going to cause a ton of confusion, in addition to all prior discussion referring to it as UU. On the PS teambuilder/ladder search and dex tier pages the tiers can be referred to as 'OU (Tier 1)', etc. and that would solve any confusion for new players. I think the order of the tiers is pretty obvious on site here, and it's an issue that's literally only going to be an issue once for new players on PS. Adding the tier order to the official name isn't necessary, and changing the tier name entirely would cause more confusion overall.

 

[Zarel]

Magnemite said:

That's literally the only example of this. Not at all worth switching everything over, especially when it's between two relatively dead oldgens. I also don't see why 5 of 5 vs 5 of 6 matters, that would be the case with any name system.

...and if we switched tier names, that'd be literally the only other example of this. I'm not sure what your point is?

FU has never been used in any official capacity and can be easily changed, so it is irrelevant to this discussion. PU being a horrible name is really subjective as most of us PU players have grown attached to the name and it has worked just fine as an official tier this generation (oh no! we have to have a single line in our room intro and put explanations in a few other places! the end is nigh!). The system I'm supporting works just fine for new tiers when they're created because you can either ditch the first part and keep them as "tier 6" etc, or just come up with something arbitrary, which is also fine as the number attached to the end removes any of the potential confusion.

It turns out I was talking to a PU co-leader. Awkward.

Still, though, "oh no! we have to have a single line in our room intro and put explanations in a few other places! the end is nigh!" is a horrible and selfish attitude to have. Sure, it may seem like a minor inconvenience to you, but these minor inconveniences add up.

This is a good introduction to design. Like, you can say about a badly-designed door, "oh no, we have to put up a sign that says 'PUSH', the end is nigh!" but the thing is, it really is symptomatic of a deeper problem. The reason people try to pull on your door is because it has a pull handle. Pull handles are for pulling, nearly everyone gets this right. A sign only does so much, people will pull before reading because we are surrounded by words; we'd never be able to finish reading if we read every single word around us, and doors should not need an instruction manual. Making a pull handle you can't pull on isn't clever, it just makes you an asshole wasting everyone's time.

I agree that they sound stupid, which is why I never suggested anything about them in the first place. Also, RU has existed for two whole gens without once having anyone bring its name up as a problem, the fact that people are bringing it up now is ridiculous and just supports my thought that this is a solution looking for a problem with regards to the current tier names.

And no one really complains about bad doors, either. They just silently grumble, deal with it, and eventually get used to it or avoid it or something.

Here's a PM convo I had recently:

anon: also it amuses me seeing all the fighting over the tier names in policy review
anon: just bc pokemon perfect is miles ahead on that already
anon: of note though that one of our main drives other than being separate from smogon was bc there's so much confusion caused with the differences in tier naming from gens 1-3 and 4-6 (esp since we have a large proportion of our playerbase very familiar with the old gen 1-3 model)
Zarel: I thought gen 4 was pretty normal
Zarel: OU, UU, NU?
Zarel: 5 added RU
anon: gen 4 has RU doesn't it?
anon: maybe I'm getting mixed up
anon: lol
anon: see even I'm confused
anon: and I've been round a few years and I'm very involved in old gens

So yes, people did complain about RU, they just don't tell you about it because you just ignore them and insult them like you're doing right now.

And people are complaining more about PU. This entire thread was started because of a problem mostly caused by your tier's name. But rather than apologizing for giving our Help staff more work, for all the confused users who are too polite to ask in Help and just stay confused, you're just doubling down on your own selfishness.

Then we would have to rename more tiers once new ones became official which would just make everything worse.

Congratulations, you've just brought up one of the biggest problems with changing the current tier names. Tons of people who either don't like the new names or aren't used to them will continue to call the tiers by their old names (this is a non-issue with my proposal, which isn't actually my proposal at all but I'll call it that because it makes things easier). This will also happen because especially with gen 5 and 6 and now 7, each tier has a pretty strong association with its past generation counterparts. Now people will have way more to remember and keep track of than they ever did before because the old names they keep hearing aren't actually officially used anywhere, and there will be much, much more confusion than exists now, especially among the people who you were trying to help in the first place. Also this proposal satisfies both the concerns in the OP as this post explains so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.

How does it solve the problem of "what do we name future tiers"? I've asked you twice and you've done nothing but dodge the question.

 

[Deck Knight]

A tiny note, there's no reason why a "T6" or an "L6" or whatever 6th usage tier onward can't have a longer official name that isn't a bland 2 digit shorthand later (or even incorporates the word "Used/Usage"). If you want to name the tier below PU "Leprosy Mons - L6" or "Thimble Usage - T6" or "Abyss Mons - T6" there's nothing stopping you from doing that. Just let the community decide. If they think PU is too stinky, they can jump down to AbyssMons.

I also think there is a load maximum of viable engaging tiers, and I don't think that load is going to be higher than 7 at the absolute maximum, even when Gen 20 and Mon #3,000 comes out. You can still only use 6 per team unless that mechanic changes.

What we're trying to do is establish function and clarity, not determine if PU reeks as a tier name.

 

[Zarel]

I don't personally like "OU (T1)", "UU (T2)", etc because the next question is "what does 'T' stand for?"

"OU (tier 1)", "UU (tier 2)" are better, but people are still going to say "OU", etc... which I guess is mostly fine.

But honestly, it still looks like putting an instruction manual directly in the tier name. You wouldn't have this problem if you just had tier names that made sense. :|

Meanwhile, the PU tier leader is throwing FU under the bus in a clear display of "I got what I wanted, but fuck everyone else". Honestly, I hate when these decisions have to descend into politics where it becomes a problem of satisfying the preferences of an entrenched minority with power instead of just working together to figure out what solution would overall benefit the most people.

Magnemite, as a tier leader, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes any decision would harm some group, and the only thing you can do is decide which trade-off is worth it. I get that. But you shouldn't be unsympathetic and dismissive to the people your decisions harm. That's the kind of behavior that people complain about when they complain about out-of-touch leadership.

I'm not dead set on my "OU, UU, UU2, etc" idea. But I don't really see a better proposal so far.

Maybe something like:

OU, UU, RU, NU, 5U, 6U, 7U...

Keeps the trend of "[something]U" without giving people too many tier names to memorize.

 

[Deck Knight]

Zarel said:

I don't personally like "OU (T1)", "UU (T2)", etc because the next question is "what does 'T' stand for?"

"OU (tier 1)", "UU (tier 2)" are better, but people are still going to say "OU", etc... which I guess is mostly fine.

But honestly, it still looks like putting an instruction manual directly in the tier name. You wouldn't have this problem if you just had tier names that made sense. :|

Meanwhile, the PU tier leader is throwing FU under the bus in a clear display of "I got what I wanted, but fuck everyone else". Honestly, I hate when these decisions have to descend into politics where it becomes a problem of satisfying the preferences of an entrenched minority with power instead of just working together to figure out what solution would overall benefit the most people.

Magnemite, as a tier leader, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes any decision would harm some group, and the only thing you can do is decide which trade-off is worth it. I get that. But you shouldn't be unsympathetic and dismissive to the people your decisions harm. That's the kind of behavior that people complain about when they complain about out-of-touch leadership.

I'm not dead set on my "OU, UU, UU2, etc" idea. But I don't really see a better proposal so far.

Maybe something like:

OU, UU, RU, NU, 5U, 6U, 7U...

Keeps the trend of "[something]U" without giving people too many tier names to memorize.

With respect, our tier names stop making innate sense after 3 iterations of English adjectives. "Over," "Under," "Never." Once you start getting more vague with "Rarely" and "Poor (PU)" you inherently introduce subjective judgments of whether "Under" is higher than "Rarely" or lower than "Poor" (I am dead serious. The only thing objectively lower than Under, nomenclature-wise, is Never.)

We currently support more than 3 tiers. Therefore as distasteful as "making an instruction manual" might be, it more than makes up for it in clarity. As to remembering names, it's up to the community to make their tier name marketable. If you like playing a tier you will remember it. If you don't, then you won't.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Zarel said:

Meanwhile, the PU tier leader is throwing FU under the bus in a clear display of "I got what I wanted, but fuck everyone else". Honestly, I hate when these decisions have to descend into politics where it becomes a problem of satisfying the preferences of an entrenched minority with power instead of just working together to figure out what solution would overall benefit the most people.

Magnemite, as a tier leader, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes any decision would harm some group, and the only thing you can do is decide which trade-off is worth it. I get that. But you shouldn't be unsympathetic and dismissive to the people your decisions harm. That's the kind of behavior that people complain about when they complain about out-of-touch leadership.

With respect, you're hardly an unbiased observer when it comes to determining "what benefits the most people".

Your proposals and positions makes sense - from a certain point of view - but do not account for things that people very clearly value and consider important and beneficial to the function of tier names.

Your stance is that tier names should serve the function of clarity of hierarchy for new users. This is a valid interpretation, and one that your proposals seek to meet - at the expense of everything else.

Tradition. Marketing. Playerbase identification with a tier.

All of these are functions of tiers names raised as points in this thread. All of these are functions that your proposals ignore.

(To elaborate simply on the third, people tend to identify as a drinker of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or one of the smaller brands. Imagine a situation where all the smaller brands become generic and a distributor releases Pepsi 2. Who in the world is drinking Pepsi 2?)

There's a reason the compromise suggestions and the "do nothing" suggestions have in this thread shown themselves to be more popular, because clarity is not the singular function of the tier names.

Speaking of biased observers, the individual in the conversation you posted is as biased as it gets in their proclamation of Pokemon Perfect being better than Smogon considering they identify themselves as a member of that community and not smogons (re: "one of our drives")


It is patently unfair to decry the people in this thread as being entirely self-serving when the vast majority either believe that this is a non-issue or are looking for collaborative solutions, and you yourself are espousing a position where there can be no collaboration and which ignores all alternative positions.

 

[MZ]

I have no issue with experimenting with changing the name order, the problem is that the tier names are clearly iconic and removing them would create another problem in having people have no basis to completely learn the new tier names with. If at all possible, the solution to the problem shouldn't be one which immediately creates another problem similar to the one we're trying to solve. Magnemite has already said that adding t1, t2, etc to the classic tier names would be completely fine and that makes sense because you get the ordered system which clearly tells you where everything goes which is good for the reasons everybody in the thread has gone over and keep the tier names which are important for the same reasons everybody in the thread has gone over. If there was any serious opposition to this outside of preferring another option more, I haven't seen it. If T1 not standing for tier 1 isn't really obvious then that would be an issue but I don't see how "it's the OU tier - tier 1" shouldn't be really obvious. If Mag already supported this system, I don't see how that throws FU under the bus. But, to be completely honest

Zarel said:

Honestly, I hate when these decisions have to descend into politics where it becomes a problem of satisfying the preferences of an entrenched minority with power instead of just working together to figure out what solution would overall benefit the most people.

I don't think your solution does this. It benefits completely new users, but screws with people who are already significantly involved in smogon and also people only tangentially involved if they have a rudimentary understanding because they watched the latest Pokeaim video and have to relearn all that stuff (e: in hindsight, the point might be that completely new users are going to be the majority of people but I still would rather avoid disappointing one section to appease another if there is a better solution). That doesn't even go over the odds that it'd be a PR disaster when everyone goes "lol smogon deleted its tier names for some dumb numbered system wtf". People consider it a non-issue because the thought that we might have to change our iconic tier names to make it mildly less confusing for new users comes off as ridiculous. I think there might be room for helping newer users, but this shouldn't come from having to identify as a UU4 main. Sorry if I'm just parroting old ideas but this has circled the same stuff long enough and I think both sides have made it pretty clear that we need change but removing the tier names would just create more problems.

 

[Magnemite]

Whoa there, not sure when this thread became about antagonizing me because my opinions are different from yours.

Zarel said:

...and if we switched tier names, that'd be literally the only other example of this. I'm not sure what your point is?

As has been mentioned before, gen 4 NU was an unofficial tier with practically no playerbase, which is why something like this was excusable. It also only worked because a new tier was added in the middle, which isn't something that makes sense for us to do at this point. Something that makes sense at one point does not always continue to make sense indefinitely.

It turns out I was talking to a PU co-leader. Awkward.

Still, though, "oh no! we have to have a single line in our room intro and put explanations in a few other places! the end is nigh!" is a horrible and selfish attitude to have. Sure, it may seem like a minor inconvenience to you, but these minor inconveniences add up.

I mean I personally am inconvenienced by this far more than anyone else aside from the other PU roomstaff (most of whom want to keep the name in spite of this) and I'm fine with the awful inconvenience of having to answer single sentence questions with single sentence answers, so I really don't see how this makes me selfish.

This is a good introduction to design. Like, you can say about a badly-designed door, "oh no, we have to put up a sign that says 'PUSH', the end is nigh!" but the thing is, it really is symptomatic of a deeper problem. The reason people try to pull on your door is because it has a pull handle. Pull handles are for pulling, nearly everyone gets this right. A sign only does so much, people will pull before reading because we are surrounded by words; we'd never be able to finish reading if we read every single word around us, and doors should not need an instruction manual. Making a pull handle you can't pull on isn't clever, it just makes you an asshole wasting everyone's time.

Is this why it took you until now to realize that I'm the PU co-leader despite the fact that this information has been next to every one of my posts? I'm sorry for being an asshole by not putting this information in giant bold red letters in my signature and using this horribly confusing banner.

This is part of something I explained in an earlier post. We are a competitive Pokemon site, not a restaurant, and our tier names are not door handles. If you want to get into something like a competitive game and expect every bit of information you need to know to be spoon-fed to you instead of having to figure a few things out for yourself and god forbid being slightly confused about something for a few minutes until you spend a small amount of time looking for the answer, then you're way more entitled than you claim I'm being, and you shouldn't expect to get very far on this or any other website.

Here's a PM convo I had recently:

anon: also it amuses me seeing all the fighting over the tier names in policy review
anon: just bc pokemon perfect is miles ahead on that already
anon: of note though that one of our main drives other than being separate from smogon was bc there's so much confusion caused with the differences in tier naming from gens 1-3 and 4-6 (esp since we have a large proportion of our playerbase very familiar with the old gen 1-3 model)
Zarel: I thought gen 4 was pretty normal
Zarel: OU, UU, NU?
Zarel: 5 added RU
anon: gen 4 has RU doesn't it?
anon: maybe I'm getting mixed up
anon: lol
anon: see even I'm confused
anon: and I've been round a few years and I'm very involved in old gens

So you want to create way more confusion by doing the same thing again, except by changing every tier instead of adding one? I'm really not sure why you included this in your post when it completely goes against what you're trying to argue for.

So yes, people did complain about RU, they just don't tell you about it because you just ignore them and insult them like you're doing right now.

Maybe they don't tell me about it because I have nothing to do with RU? I'm terribly sorry if anyone is personally insulted by the fact that I don't actively seek out people who have questions that don't even relate to me.

And people are complaining more about PU. This entire thread was started because of a problem mostly caused by your tier's name. But rather than apologizing for giving our Help staff more work, for all the confused users who are too polite to ask in Help and just stay confused, you're just doubling down on your own selfishness.

lol? For one thing I wasn't even the one who came up with the name PU, and even if I was, the idea that I should be expected to apologize to everyone for the heinous act of causing people to be slightly confused about something that can be easily answered in a few seconds is so ridiculous that I'm honestly not even sure if this is a serious post or not.

How does it solve the problem of "what do we name future tiers"? I've asked you twice and you've done nothing but dodge the question.

No, you've done nothing but dodge the answer that I've already given multiple times:

Magnemite said:

The system I'm supporting works just fine for new tiers when they're created because you can either ditch the first part and keep them as "tier 6" etc, or just come up with something arbitrary, which is also fine as the number attached to the end removes any of the potential confusion.

It's been made very painfully clear by now that changing the names of existing tiers is a bad idea. This thread should at this point be completely about the decision of what to name new tiers when they are created.

 

[Legitimate Username]

I'm just gonna throw it out there that I genuinely think that the most fair compromise is to add more tiers between OU and NU like with RU in gen 5 as opposed to continuing to add more below NU

Cons:
-It'll be somewhat unintuitive what the order is regarding tiers like "rarely used", "seldom used", "lesser used", or whatever hypothetical names end up being used.
-Tier names are shifted from their previous position which is annoying and can mess with a tier's identity.
-Maybe not a solution that'll work forever in the multi-generational long-term (but anything that isn't a numbered system has this issue)

Pros:
-Keeps the tier naming system of previous generations without a comparatively lifeless numbered system.
-Has NU as the lowest tier as opposed to joke names such as PU and FU is a lot more intuitive for new users and makes a lot more sense logically.
-RU already sets a precedent for adding new tiers between the top and the bottom and it really doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

I think that the first con listed is mostly offset by the fact that tiers are always ordered highest to lowest on the site or in Showdown's battle finder thing or whatever so people would be able to figure out the order quickly, and the advantages of such a system offset that disadvantage anyway. The second one may be more of a concern but I personally can't weigh in on that since I don't really play any lower tiers. Either way, it seems like a fair enough compromise that gets the best of both worlds.

 

[atomicllamas]

Zarel said:

Here's a PM convo I had recently:

anon: also it amuses me seeing all the fighting over the tier names in policy review
anon: just bc pokemon perfect is miles ahead on that already
anon: of note though that one of our main drives other than being separate from smogon was bc there's so much confusion caused with the differences in tier naming from gens 1-3 and 4-6 (esp since we have a large proportion of our playerbase very familiar with the old gen 1-3 model)
Zarel: I thought gen 4 was pretty normal
Zarel: OU, UU, NU?
Zarel: 5 added RU
anon: gen 4 has RU doesn't it?
anon: maybe I'm getting mixed up
anon: lol
anon: see even I'm confused
anon: and I've been round a few years and I'm very involved in old gens

So yes, people did complain about RU, they just don't tell you about it because you just ignore them and insult them like you're doing right now.

The input of piexplode, someone who is perma locked on PS! and perma banned on smogon is super valuable Zarel, so thanks for that.

Lets talk about pokemon perfect though, the reason they could name their tiers whatever they wanted is because they have no associated community. In fact right now PP could change the name of 3U to Tier C and have no backlash, because 3U has no community.

"anon: of note though that one of our main drives other than being separate from smogon was bc there's so much confusion caused with the differences in tier naming from gens 1-3 and 4-6 (esp since we have a large proportion of our playerbase very familiar with the old gen 1-3 model)"

Generation 3 and generation 4 have the exact same naming system for tiers, PP exists because they thought old gens system of "lets place things in arbitrary tiers subjectively" (gens 1-3) was a better way to tier. The only tiers with a following on PP of any kind are RBY, GSC, and their equivalent of ORAS Ubers. Smogon, on the other hand, has an extremely large following in lower tiers, and this includes past gen lower tiers, we have something to lose by renaming the tiers (in this case the people that actually play them).

For the record, RU was formed in gen 5, and gen 4 NU was not an official tier.

Also for the record, no ones ever complained to me about the name of RU, nor have I seen someone complain about its name, (I've edited my signature to reflect the fact I am RUTL, so its easier for you to see why me hearing about this would be relevant). Don't get me wrong I'm sure people do complain about the name of RU, but some people also complain about the names of OU, UU, and NU actually making no sense.

atomicllamas said:

Overused and Underused both have implications about the usage of the pokemon in those tiers in relation to their viability (overused mons aren't overused, they receive enough usage to be a part of OU, some may be used more than they should and some may be used less than they should, same w/ underused). Neverused mons aren't literally never used in any tier so it seems really pedantic to me to be upset at having a tier below NU but not being upset that the names don't actually mean anything in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't change the names of OU, UU, and NU in spite of them being completely nonsensical (as you argued they are heavily associated with smogon and are iconic). But in the same sense, for the majority of the RU and PU community (I guess I can really only speak for RU) we feel the same way about our tier name.

And people are complaining more about PU. This entire thread was started because of a problem mostly caused by your tier's name. But rather than apologizing for giving our Help staff more work, for all the confused users who are too polite to ask in Help and just stay confused, you're just doubling down on your own selfishness.

Magnemite wasn't even a smogon member when PU's tier name was chosen (by antar none-the-less). Why would he be the one to apologize?

Secondly, if help staff don't want to answer stupid questions then they shouldn't be help staff. Even if we had the most elegant naming system possible help staff would still be asked stupid questions because that's literally what the role of the help staff is, to help people.

Finally if you want to reduce work load on the help staff changing the name of the tiers is not going to do that.

an example of future help room encounters

randomuser37: What happened to the Rarelyused room?
inundatedhelpstaff: it was renamed to the UU2 room
randomuser37: why would they do that?
inundatedhelpstaff: in order to make it less confusing for our users!
randomuser37: ...

---months pass---

randomuser444: hey I was wondering if there was a UU3 in gen 5? I can't find any smogon resources on it.
inundatedhelpstaff: oh yeah it was called NU in gen 5
randomuser444: no I want to play gen 5 UU3, not NU
inundatedhelpstaff: I know, in gen 5 UU3 was called NU, and NU was called PU
randomuser444: why?
inundatedhelpstaff: we renamed them because some people were concerned you were too stupid to memorize the order of 5 tiers which you see, in order, everytime you select the format or use the teambuilder
randomuser444: well that's mildly insulting
randomuser444: what did PU stand for anyways?

How does it solve the problem of "what do we name future tiers"? I've asked you twice and you've done nothing but dodge the question.

Renaming PU and what do we name future tiers are 2 completely different topics. Personally I like my own suggestion (obviously) (we label the tiers in the team builder and in formats section OU (T1), and then name the next one T6).

Zarel said:

Meanwhile, the PU tier leader is throwing FU under the bus in a clear display of "I got what I wanted, but fuck everyone else". Honestly, I hate when these decisions have to descend into politics where it becomes a problem of satisfying the preferences of an entrenched minority with power instead of just working together to figure out what solution would overall benefit the most people.

FU literally doesn't exist at this point, the last post in any FU related thread was November 27th, 2015. It isn't being thrown under the bus cause there is no community to throw under the bus. As Texas pointed out (and you did the paragraph before this???) magnemite is willing to compromise, magnemite is simply trying to advocate for the PU community on smogon that as far as I understand wants to retain the name.

Magnemite, as a tier leader, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes any decision would harm some group, and the only thing you can do is decide which trade-off is worth it. I get that. But you shouldn't be unsympathetic and dismissive to the people your decisions harm. That's the kind of behavior that people complain about when they complain about out-of-touch leadership.

Considering you were complaining about magnemite insulting other people (which I missed), the fact that you are heavily implying, if not outright saying, he is out-of-touch is wildly hypocritical.

 

[Omfuga]

how about we label them by letters and numbers to make it as easy as possible to differentiate what anyone's talking about at any moment

a1= RBY OU

C1.5= ADV BL

F5= ORAS PU

G2= SUMO UU

I think this system would aid everyone

 

[Josh]

But that system doesn't account for gen 27 and beyond... where is your foresight?

 

[Bughouse]

This has gone on for 4 pages... dot.

Can we even just talk about wtf Over Used even means? Overused according to whom? By what standard? If Arceus were legal in OU and was therefore obviously used on 100% of teams would you say it's overused or would you say it deserves its usage? Meanwhile, when we say something with 40% usage and something with 4% usage are both overused, are we saying they have the same usage? The term is pretty meaningless.

And Never Used? Well clearly they are... in Never Used. Is it that they're never used in UU (or RU, depending on gen) cuz that's definitely not true, just like UU mons can get used in OU. And if the point is that they're never used in OU, well that's false too. Quagsire is a case in point. Or Gastrodon. Or Ditto. Even as early as ADV you would occasionally see an NU Pokemon appear in OU, namely Cacturne.

Anyone who reads too deeply into these tier names is frankly an idiot.

They're called what they're called because they are and they always have been. If Smogon had wanted to use impersonal boring names like Tier 1 and Tier 2, they would have from day one. It's not like it's hard to think of. They picked something else and we've used the system at this point for over a decade. These names are effectively part of Smogon's brand and trying to change them is just not a good idea.

 

[Acast]

It seems the quality of this thread has gone downhill very quickly, which is unfortunate because I think there's a chance for smogon to improve here, even if it's a small improvement. If we can all stop bashing each other and posting about why everyone else is wrong, maybe we can look at possible compromises.

I'm pretty sure almost everyone agrees that completely ditching the 2 letter "XU" system is a bad idea. I was one of the main proponents for a number system on the first page of this thread and even I have to admit completely overhauling the current system is a really bad idea. We're not going to get rid of OU or UU.

Besides the three shitposts above Bughouse's post, no one seems to be entirely against adding "T1" or "Tier 1" as a suffix to the tier names. Smogon can maintain its tradition. No old threads would have to be updated with new terminology. Veteran users will still understand which tier is which, but with this change, new users will also be able to understand the tier hierarchy at a glance.

I think most of us can agree that making the tiers OU-Tier 1, UU-Tier 2, etc. is an improvement on the current system. Am I wrong?

 

[Zarel]

Magnemite said:

Whoa there, not sure when this thread became about antagonizing me because my opinions are different from yours.

I may have gotten too emotionally invested. Sorry :(

I mean I personally am inconvenienced by this far more than anyone else aside from the other PU roomstaff (most of whom want to keep the name in spite of this) and I'm fine with the awful inconvenience of having to answer single sentence questions with single sentence answers, so I really don't see how this makes me selfish.

You are also personally inconvenienced by a rename, which makes you not a particularly neutral source.

The point I was trying to get at here is that a lot of other staff are also inconvenienced by these questions, and that's part of why this thread was posted in the first place.

Is this why it took you until now to realize that I'm the PU co-leader despite the fact that this information has been next to every one of my posts? I'm sorry for being an asshole by not putting this information in giant bold red letters in my signature and using this horribly confusing banner.

That wasn't an accusation? That was me making fun of myself for not realizing you were PU co-leader...

This is part of something I explained in an earlier post. We are a competitive Pokemon site, not a restaurant, and our tier names are not door handles. If you want to get into something like a competitive game and expect every bit of information you need to know to be spoon-fed to you instead of having to figure a few things out for yourself and god forbid being slightly confused about something for a few minutes until you spend a small amount of time looking for the answer, then you're way more entitled than you claim I'm being, and you shouldn't expect to get very far on this or any other website.

The problem is, no one expects to be spoon-fed. If they did, at least the balance of exactly how much of a problem it was would be clearer.

I bet a lot of people leave because they can't figure it out. Leaving because you can't figure something out is not being entitled, but it is a problem for me.

A lot of other people stay confused, a lot of other people ask simple questions... none of that behavior is being entitled, but it's all non-ideal and should be fixed if it can be fixed.

So you want to create way more confusion by doing the same thing again, except by changing every tier instead of adding one? I'm really not sure why you included this in your post when it completely goes against what you're trying to argue for.

Maybe they don't tell me about it because I have nothing to do with RU? I'm terribly sorry if anyone is personally insulted by the fact that I don't actively seek out people who have questions that don't even relate to me.

PU and RU are bad tier names!

>no one's ever complained about RU

yes they have

>I have nothing to do with RU

I told you because you brought up RU. I quoted your post where you brought up RU.

People have complained in this thread about PU. Most people in this thread dislike PU as a tier name, as far as I can tell.

lol? For one thing I wasn't even the one who came up with the name PU, and even if I was, the idea that I should be expected to apologize to everyone for the heinous act of causing people to be slightly confused about something that can be easily answered in a few seconds is so ridiculous that I'm honestly not even sure if this is a serious post or not.

I got more heated about that than I needed to, but the intended idea is that you are the main beneficiary of a decision not to rename PU, and while it does also inconvenience you, it benefits you more than it inconveniences you (which is why you support that decision), but meanwhile other people are also inconvenienced about it.

But I guess in hindsight, that was a really minor point and I'm not sure why I got so emotional about it.

No, you've done nothing but dodge the answer that I've already given multiple times

Okay, that one's my bad.

It's been made very painfully clear by now that changing the names of existing tiers is a bad idea. This thread should at this point be completely about the decision of what to name new tiers when they are created.

I don't think that's been made clear at all.

 

[Zarel]

Acast said:

Besides the three shitposts above Bughouse's post, no one seems to be entirely against adding "T1" or "Tier 1" as a suffix to the tier names. Smogon can maintain its tradition. No old threads would have to be updated with new terminology. Veteran users will still understand which tier is which, but with this change, new users will also be able to understand the tier hierarchy at a glance.

I think most of us can agree that making the tiers OU-Tier 1, UU-Tier 2, etc. is an improvement on the current system. Am I wrong?

I've mentioned before I mostly dislike the idea of renaming OU to "OU (Tier 1)". "OU (T1)" is even worse. OU should have one name, giving it two names will probably cause more problems than it solves.

At this point I think it's probably hopeless to change any tier name this gen. I still don't see a reason why we need to keep "RU" or "PU" next gen. Most people in this thread seem to dislike "PU" as a tier name; attitudes towards "RU" are more mixed.

My new proposal is:

OU - Overused
UU - Underused
NU - Neverused
4U - Fourth-used
5U - Fifth-used
6U - Sixth-used

Possibly also inserting "RU" into the list depending on what political compromises need to be made to get key players on board. I really don't want "PU" but I guess I could be convinced otherwise, but I'm very very unconvinced right now.

I should point out that I am also still unconvinced by the argument that RU became an official tier before NU. NU still has much better name recognition and branding, and as pointed out, branding is the main reason why we're not changing upper tier names. As pointed out by others in this thread, NU as a name is also very clearly below UU, which RU is more ambiguous.

 

[Magnemite]

Zarel said:

I may have gotten too emotionally invested. Sorry :(

it's ok

You are also personally inconvenienced by a rename, which makes you not a particularly neutral source.

The point I was trying to get at here is that a lot of other staff are also inconvenienced by these questions, and that's part of why this thread was posted in the first place.

Why does my inconvenience matter less? Especially when I and the rest of the PU playerbase are inconvenienced far more by a change than anyone is by a lack of change. atomicllamas 's post earlier on this page also completely refutes this point.

The problem is, no one expects to be spoon-fed. If they did, at least the balance of exactly how much of a problem it was would be clearer.

I bet a lot of people leave because they can't figure it out. Leaving because you can't figure something out is not being entitled, but it is a problem for me.

A lot of other people stay confused, a lot of other people ask simple questions... none of that behavior is being entitled, but it's all non-ideal and should be fixed if it can be fixed.

Do you have any examples of this actually happening? It really seems like you're just making this scenario up, and if someone would really join the site and then just turn around and leave when they found out it would take a slight bit of effort to figure a specific thing out, I don't think they would have contributed anything of value to the site anyways.

PU and RU are bad tier names!

>no one's ever complained about RU

yes they have

>I have nothing to do with RU

People have complained in this thread about PU. Most people in this thread dislike PU as a tier name, as far as I can tell.

If we jumped through hoops to appease people any time anyone complained about something, then we would get nowhere on the site. As pretty much everyone else agrees by this point and multiple people have pointed out in this thread, this "issue" of people being horribly confused has been VASTLY blown out of the water. Also if most people dislike PU then why is the overwhelming (and more and more overwhelming as this thread goes on) majority opinion that the current names shouldn't be changed? You're the only senior staff member that has posted here to think this, and the posts supporting this side have far more likes than any of the others, which says a lot about the want of the general community, which just happens to be very important for a decision like this.

I got more heated about that than I needed to, but the intended idea is that you are the main beneficiary of a decision not to rename PU, and while it does also inconvenience you, it benefits you more than it inconveniences you (which is why you support that decision), but meanwhile other people are also inconvenienced about it.

But I guess in hindsight, that was a really minor point and I'm not sure why I got so emotional about it.

Not sure why it's at all a problem that I want what's best for my tier and its community? Especially when we have the potential to lose much more than the supposed benefits for everyone else. I don't get where you're getting this idea that I only want the names to stay the same because it's better for me specifically.

I don't think that's been made clear at all.

Most people here would disagree with that.

This is just going completely in circles at this point, my points have been established and driven into the ground, and it would appear that most people agree with them. I don't really have much of a reason to keep responding to this thread when nothing new is going to come of it.

 

[Zarel]

Magnemite said:

Why does my inconvenience matter less? Especially when I and the rest of the PU playerbase are inconvenienced far more by a change than anyone is by a lack of change. atomicllamas 's post earlier on this page also completely refutes this point.

It's clear to me that we can't change the name of the tier this generation, so at this point I am mostly advocating changing the name between generations.

In which there's no "SuMo PU playerbase" to be inconvenienced.

If we jumped through hoops to appease people any time anyone complained about something, then we would get nowhere on the site. As pretty much everyone else agrees by this point and multiple people have pointed out in this thread, this "issue" of people being horribly confused has been VASTLY blown out of the water. Also if most people dislike PU then why is the overwhelming (and more and more overwhelming as this thread goes on) majority opinion that the current names shouldn't be changed? You're the only senior staff member that has posted here to think this, and the posts supporting this side have far more likes than any of the others, which says a lot about the want of the general community, which just happens to be very important for a decision like this.

Yes, and a shitpost got more Likes than either of our posts.

People will Like well-thought out posts that they agree with, but they're much more likely to Like posts in which someone gets "rekt".

Your post got more Likes than mine because I made some bad posts at 4am when I should have been sleeping, and you posted an "epic takedown" and changed your signature into a meme. If you look at the Likes before I crashed and burned (as well as the number of people posting on either side), it seems like there are mostly on the side of PU being a bad tier name.

 

[Tokyo Tom]

Didn't an admin representing the SS literally state that there are no intentions of changing any tier names? Now it just sounds like you guys are arguing for the sake of getting the last word. I'll join in!

Zarel said:

Yes, and a shitpost got more Likes than either of our posts.

People will Like well-thought out posts that they agree with, but they're much more likely to Like posts in which someone gets "rekt".

Your post got more Likes than mine because I made some bad posts at 4am when I should have been sleeping, and you posted an "epic takedown" and changed your signature into a meme. If you look at the Likes before I crashed and burned (as well as the number of people posting on either side), it seems like there are mostly on the side of PU being a bad tier name.

As someone who sees this brought up over and over, I just want to say that I cannot stand these kinds of arguments.

People do not brainlessly like content because they see "epic takedowns". It's not like your "epic takedown" was particularly well-received. Rather, if the "epic takedown" is justified, then by all means, people will like content that they agree with. That's the point of the like function, no? Your posts got less likes because people disagreed with you. And his posts were well received because people agreed when he replied to and refuted erroneous points that had been brought up.

Yes, it is frustrating when people toss a like at a brainless shitpost and not your fancy argument. But just because you believe your argument is right or took more time to make doesn't make it a better post, or a post other people agree with, especially if you are an admin using input from someone I can only assume to be a banned user to support your points (and redacting his name in an attempt to legitimize it. no disrespect to Piex tho).

For the second part, I shall entertain you. Let's nitpick your posts and likes as you said. Your most well-received post had more to do with replying to Aberforth and FAQs than PU being a bad name. If people had concurred with your minor point about PU, you'd think you would get more support on your other posts that were more related to that topic.

Now let's look at the thread as a whole, where the post that received the most likes (support) has actually been Magnemite's page 1 post defending PU. So "if we look at the likes before you crashed and burned", the verdict remains the same.

Here's some input that is hopefully less petty and nitpick-y, and hopefully somewhat relevant. It seems, given that the tier names will not be changed, the tags (instruction booklet) being added is the solution that will please the most people. Here's an attempt at an analogy (I hope I do not get epically taken down for this) - It's like the game we play. Aren't Smogon rules and clauses just "instruction manuals"? Would we not have to make these things if we played a game that was just 100% competitive? Of course, it's something that we could change (for Sun and Moon, we can eliminate added effects and crits just like we can change PU's name). However the tiers have been around for years and we stick to them because they are part of the Smogon identity, like the game mechanics are part of the game's identity. Going through the last few pages, adding the instruction booklet seems beneficial to everyone (old and new parties) except for the inconvenience of the dude adding it in, so shouldn't he take one for the team? Otherwise he'd just be, y'know, "doubling down in his own selfishness". Ohh my godfuga I am gonna regret this when I wake up

 

[g]

ManOfMany doesn't have permission to post but asked me to post this

manofmany said:

Okay let’s face it. This is an issue, stemming from two problems. The first problem is that PU is a bad name. This is undeniable, even coming from an avid PU player like me. PU doesn’t fit among the other names because it is not part of the “-used” names. PU not standing for anything at all, and merely being based off of a bad pun, is actually fairly problematic to newer players. There have been endless times where we in the PU room have to say “PU doesn’t stand for anything!” after a newcomer asks what PU stands for. We’re thinking they’re annoying for asking, but when you think about it, it should be questioned! Why should a tier’s name stand for literally nothing?- that’s just dumb. The second problem is that with Sun&Moon coming out, there is the possibility of there being a new tier below PU, FU (or something similar) to accommodate for more pokemon coming out. Being somewhat a part of the FU community, I know right now that FU is very far from being an official tier. With no offense to my FU friends, it is nowhere close to what PU was at the start of XY, with tons of problems related to the solidity of the metagame, leadership, as well as activity. That being said, there is still a possibility of it becoming official in the future. And after that, there may be even more pokemon released, and we may need to have more tiers, etc. Now if FU is necessated to become an official tier we should not want its actual name to be FU. That’s an idiotic name made from a joke, and it does not look good for such a prestigious sites like Smogon and Showdown. So we would have to change our naming system in some respect to accommodate possible newer tiers (remember though, this is all hypotheticals and FU is miles away from being official). I propose a possible solution below. It is not without their flaws of course, and far from perfect solutions. However it would solve some of the problems I listed: 1. Change the name of PU to ZU (Zero-Used). ZU is not a particularly good name but it’s way better than PU- at least it actually stands for something. Now, PU as a name is recognizable and we in the PU community would probably be pretty against giving up such a name. But if we want to achieve a more logical solution than it’s not a tough sacrifice to make. PU is the newest tier, and its existence has been relatively short- we are the ones who should make the sacrifice. I don’t like changing NU to SU (Seldom-Used), and then PU to NU, because NU has been there forever and has been iconic for so long. To make such a big change would be both annoying and confusing. In the case of “FU” being a tier (which is not particularily likely), I propose that we call it either a) SubZU (as in Sub-ZeroUsed cause of SubZero actually being a term. Okay, it’s weird but not terrible.) b) ZU2 Flawed solutions to be sure, because ZU and SubZU/ZU2 are not particularily good names. But it’s better to create some slight flaws than changing the whole entire system I think. I also like the Tier 1(OU), Tier 2(UU), etc system to be listed in the teambuilder. That’s another good solution that does not change all too much, and we would still be able to call the tiers by their familiar names. The problem is though that it does not address the fact that PU has a terrible name, and it does remove a little bit of flair from it/makes it more robotic. There’s obviously no perfect solution here and even just accepting the status quo as it is would be a fine option. Still I think this is an issue worth looking at from all angles. :)

Not saying i agree particularly with his suggestion since it is relatively short term and because it is probably not the right time to discussione anything seeing how this thread has turned in the past 1-2 pages but here it is

 

[Zarel]

Tokyo Tom said:

People do not brainlessly like content because they see "epic takedowns". It's not like your "epic takedown" was particularly well-received. Rather, if the "epic takedown" is justified, then by all means, people will like content that they agree with. That's the point of the like function, no? Your posts got less likes because people disagreed with you. And his posts were well received because people agreed when he replied to and refuted erroneous points that had been brought up.

I didn't post an "epic takedown"? I don't know what you're talking about?

Do you really think I thought my post was an epic takedown? I don't. It was a bad post and I'm embarrassed by it. I'm calling Magnemite's response to my post an "epic takedown", and I'm using those words because a bunch of shitposts considered it such.

Yes, it is frustrating when people toss a like at a brainless shitpost and not your fancy argument. But just because you believe your argument is right or took more time to make doesn't make it a better post, or a post other people agree with,

So what? It doesn't matter whether I believe my argument is right, or how long it takes to make. What's your point?

>But just because you believe your argument is right or took more time to make doesn't make it a better post

Yes, I know that; I never said it does; that has nothing to do with my point.

especially if you are an admin using input from someone I can only assume to be a banned user to support your points (and redacting his name in an attempt to legitimize it. no disrespect to Piex tho).

I mostly don't quote people by name unless they ask to be. I should probably have made it clearer that he was a banned user, but to be fair it's not too relevant when the question is "how does this change affect users?"

For the second part, I shall entertain you. Let's nitpick your posts and likes as you said. Your most well-received post had more to do with replying to Aberforth and FAQs than PU being a bad name. If people had concurred with your minor point about PU, you'd think you would get more support on your other posts that were more related to that topic.

Now let's look at the thread as a whole, where the post that received the most likes (support) has actually been Magnemite's page 1 post defending PU. So "if we look at the likes before you crashed and burned", the verdict remains the same.

Fair, but this does not seem conclusive to me. Especially since I am still seeing a lot of posts criticizing PU's name. Especially since there are multiple possible interpretations between "change PU's name now" and "do not use PU as a tier name next generation" and it's hard to gauge who supports what separately.

I started a survey on PS and so far Rename is winning.

Let me also point out that PU is still not listed in https://www.smogon.com/tiers/ and I am now being told that when PU was approved as an official tier, we agreed to figure out a better name later.

So I don't think we are at the "case closed not renaming PU shut up everyone" point.

Here's some input that is hopefully less petty and nitpick-y, and hopefully somewhat relevant. It seems, given that the tier names will not be changed, the tags (instruction booklet) being added is the solution that will please the most people. Here's an attempt at an analogy (I hope I do not get epically taken down for this) - It's like the game we play. Aren't Smogon rules and clauses just "instruction manuals"? Would we not have to make these things if we played a game that was just 100% competitive? Of course, it's something that we could change (for Sun and Moon, we can eliminate added effects and crits just like we can change PU's name). However the tiers have been around for years and we stick to them because they are part of the Smogon identity, like the game mechanics are part of the game's identity. Going through the last few pages, adding the instruction booklet seems beneficial to everyone (old and new parties) except for the inconvenience of the dude adding it in, so shouldn't he take one for the team? Otherwise he'd just be, y'know, "doubling down in his own selfishness". Ohh my godfuga I am gonna regret this when I wake up

um okay but I'm not sure you know what "less petty" actually means.

The reason I oppose renaming "OU" to "OU (T1)" is because that is a confusing change.

All the changes I advocate in PR have been for the good of the users; to my knowledge, I have never once advocated anything in PR that I personally benefited from. I frequently advocate changes that would be much more work than adding the equivalent of an instruction booklet.

Look, sometimes I argue for unpopular things, sometimes I get too emotionally invested and say something I regret, and you can criticize that and I will freely apologize for that. But you can't really accuse me of being selfish in this. I made your sim and I have probably done more for Smogon than... okay, that's probably going to start a lot of arguments, but we can probably agree that I do a ton of work on PS and still do. I keep up to date on the IS feedback thread and implement the easy stuff within hours and the moderately-easy stuff within days.

There are a lot of things you could accuse me of. Spending too much time working on improving PS and not enough time on Smogon trying to earn popularity points, maybe. But I think it should be clear to most people that I am very clearly willing to take on inconvenience to improve things for users considering that's literally all I've been doing. You can argue that I'm wrong about what I think is the best way to improve things for users, but you can't argue that I'm not willing to go through the inconvenience of doing it.

 

[Magnemite]

Are you really trying to use a poll with a whopping 9 votes as evidence to back up your point?

 

[aurora]

You're literally cherrypicking results that cater specifically to your viewpoints by posting a fucking poll asking an extremely specific demographic of people their stances on an issue that they honestly probably don't care about. Are you KIDDING?