"What We Desire In A Metagame" Redux

[Colonel M]

"The Real Problem With Tiering"

I feel that this entire time I've been on the fence, and yet there is one thing that sticks out on "both sides of the argument". Neither side has a concrete way of looking at something that I feel is very important, in general, before we discuss anything that involves with tiering.

"What Do We, As Smogon University, Desire In A Metagame?"

When we look at this entire Generation 4 tiering process, and even the past generations themselves, the answer to the question is not very clear. DougJustDoug's Thread has a lot of guidelines that could be seen in a desireaable metagame. My thoughts? Well, it's not easy to really explain my thoughts since I am indifferent when it comes to competitive playing. What is given as a rule, I'll go by it so long as it isn't completely ridiculous (i.e. No Sleep Clause is ridiculous). Smogon's goal seems to be the verge of a "Competitive" metagame, which Doug defined as this:

Explanation:
This characteristic may seem incredibly obvious, but it isn't if you consider how many aspects of other games are intended solely for enjoyment or entertainment. Nowhere is this more prevalent than ingame Pokemon, where the vast majority of the game is focused on exploration, adventure, collecting stuff, and general amusement.

The metagame should place little value on anything that is not inherently competitive, where players are directly or indirectly competing against other players with clearly defined results that determine winners. The metagame environment should reward winning, and encourage players to do anything possible within the rules in order to win. While some players may "play just for fun", or carry personal opinions about "winning the right way" -- these ideals should not be a focal point of the metagame. The metagame should attract players that find pure competition to be enjoyable in itself, and are most entertained when they win.

Issues and Concerns:
This makes the metagame "too serious" or "cutthroat"
"C'mon, this is Pokemon..."
Other Comments:
This characteristic is really the fundamental underlying difference between the Pokemon GAME and the Pokemon METAGAME. Essentially, we are stripping out all the non-competitive elements of ingame pokemon, and playing metagames with the remaining competitive elements. Anyone serious about arguing this characteristic should read "Playing to Win" by Sirlin (www.sirlin.net) to get an understanding of the general concept of "competition" in this context.

As a whole, Smogon has officially stood by the goal of Pokemon to be simple: "Playing To Win". Indeed, it is a good way to look at it, but it is also a vague way to look at it as well, in my opinion. Let me use "Variety" for an example. No matter how many, or few, Pokemon are allowed in a metagame, isn't the main goal of the game "to win"? Of course it is, as we are Competitive Pokemon site. We play competitive Pokemon for the aspect of winning in general. Of course, the desire to "win" is magnified by different focals, for example being the "fun" factor and "skill level". Yet, as noted, too much variety allows too much chaos in some ways. Think of too much variety allowing more along the lines of team building being the main reason to win, with obviously the skill behind the team to deploy the strategy. While this might be the desired answer to the metagame, to others it may not be. "Balance" offers too many different logical theories behind it, and I feel that it is the wrong way to look at a metagame regardless, since IMO balance is more subjective to the person looking at it than it is objective. "Skill" is obviously another important aspect to a metagame. The person wants to win, but many want to win with a challenge of being able to overpower your opponent without it being easy. In other words, you want to think about what your next move is, what the opponent's next move may be, etc.

So to summarize what I am getting at: I feel that, as a whole, we are going about the tiering process the wrong way. I feel that, in order to continue, we must first solidfy what we desire in a metagame in order to help determine "What is Uber and Why it is Uber" and if we should start with banlists or not.

I'm sorry if this post is horrible I'm not really good at making threads like these...

 

[lati0s]

There are several qualities that I believe are important for a metagame to have.

Skillfulness- The outcome of a battle is most severely influenced by battling and team building skill and not by rock paper scissors esque team match ups or excessive luck factors

Variety- There are many usable strategies and pokemon with no one strategy or pokemon being dominant. There is no strategy or pokemon that is so good that there is not a good reason not to use it.

Simplicity- Bans are minimized as much as possible while maintaining the other qualities and bans are not done frivolously.

I might think of some more but these three seem like a good start.

 

[Colonel M]

A member asked me to go further on the point, as I talked it over with him in the chat. If he wishes me to disclose his name, I have no objection to it.

If you're curious, but it's not a required read

[22:19:26] <@GeneralSpoon> so what was your mistake CM?
[22:19:37] <&Colonel_M> Meh, I dunno
[22:19:41] <&Colonel_M> Probably posting it in general
[22:20:07] <@GeneralSpoon> You mean the part where you open yourself up to possibly getting people angry with you
[22:20:19] <&Colonel_M> Nah
[22:20:20] <&Colonel_M> More like
[22:20:26] <&Colonel_M> "What did I really give as a point"
[22:20:32] <@GeneralSpoon> Making a doof of yourself?
[22:20:38] <&Colonel_M> yes
[22:21:04] <@GeneralSpoon> Well, if you want me to be honest about it
[22:21:21] <@GeneralSpoon> What I see in that post is too much effort going into raising your postcount
[22:21:31] <@GeneralSpoon> In other words, I'm not sure if there's a point
[22:21:57] <@GeneralSpoon> Hmm
[22:21:59] <&Colonel_M> Sure there's a point to it
[22:22:08] <&Colonel_M> If you don't have a metagame that is desireable
[22:22:12] <@GeneralSpoon> Can you try and offer a solution to the problem? That might help
[22:22:14] <&Colonel_M> Where are you really going with anything
[22:22:25] <&Colonel_M> I have no real options of a solution
[22:22:39] <@GeneralSpoon> Therein lies the problem :/
[22:23:24] <&Colonel_M> Well, I guess that isn't really true, I did at least attempt to convey a solution in which the goal of winning should take place around "Skill" and "Some Variety"
[22:23:31] <@GeneralSpoon> yeah
[22:23:34] <@GeneralSpoon> also
[22:23:35] <&Colonel_M> But it's a shallow solution at best
[22:23:55] <@GeneralSpoon> why has nobody said anything about ubers being the pokemon that overcentralize the metagame?
[22:24:03] <@GeneralSpoon> was that definition thrown out while I wasn't looking?
[22:24:14] <&Colonel_M> But, in this case
[22:24:18] <&Colonel_M> If the metagame is not defined
[22:24:26] <&Colonel_M> How does the Pokemon Overcentralize
[22:25:02] <@GeneralSpoon> It would appear on a relativly high percentage of teams
[22:25:14] <@GeneralSpoon> its counters and checks would appear in relatively large numbers
[22:25:45] <&Colonel_M> Sure, but now the question unfolds why Scizor isn't considered an Uber
[22:25:52] <&Colonel_M> Note: The Pokemon follows both of your conditions
[22:26:49] <@GeneralSpoon> Somebody mentioned something today about a pokemon still being managable with smart play even if you don't have any counters or checks for it
[22:27:11] <@GeneralSpoon> where not having a counter/check doesn't auto-lose the match for you
[22:27:48] <@GeneralSpoon> I'm assuming that this is the case with Scizor
[22:28:37] <&Colonel_M> That still seems too vague at best, since Scizor still complied with 2/3 components, and it is still rather difficult to handle Scizor with
[22:28:37] <&Colonel_M> That still seems too vague at best, since Scizor still complied with 2/3 components, and it is still rather difficult to handle Scizor with simply "smart play"
[22:29:02] <&Colonel_M> You'd also have to define what you mean by Smart Play. I'm assuming, for example, prediction.
[22:29:14] <@GeneralSpoon> I suppose
[22:29:26] <@GeneralSpoon> whereas an "uber" wouldn't be able to be handled with smart play
[22:29:30] <@GeneralSpoon> you just flat out lose
[22:29:42] <&Colonel_M> Not necessarily true under all circumstances.
[22:29:59] <&Colonel_M> Taunt is useful in more places than just Lugia
[22:30:47] <&Colonel_M> If I'm using Scarf Croc to check Tyranitar, in the same vein I can use it to check Dialga that fall a bit lower in health.
[22:31:08] <&Colonel_M> It's hard to really explain this
[22:31:18] <@GeneralSpoon> I think I understand what you mean
[22:31:42] <@GeneralSpoon> a Dialga that's switched in before but was forced out for some reason, adding up entry damage?
[22:31:54] <&Colonel_M> Probably, with Life Orb damage stacking as well.
[22:31:56] <@GeneralSpoon> you're saying its like a ttar now that
[22:31:59] <@GeneralSpoon> its health is lower
[22:32:08] <&Colonel_M> Sort of
[22:32:30] <@GeneralSpoon> except for niggling details like dialga not boosting its special defense on entry
[22:32:36] <@GeneralSpoon> wait, what does its orb do again?
[22:32:51] <&Colonel_M> Boosts Dragon and Steel-type moves by... 1.5x I think
[22:32:54] <&Colonel_M> Or 1.3
[22:32:57] <&Colonel_M> I can't remember anymore
[22:33:09] <@GeneralSpoon> oh, so crap
[22:33:16] <@GeneralSpoon> well
[22:33:20] <@GeneralSpoon> RELATIVE crap
[22:33:37] <@GeneralSpoon> hmm
[22:33:38] <&Colonel_M> Semi-relative at best
[22:33:43] <@GeneralSpoon> yeah
[22:33:48] <&Colonel_M> You sacrifice boosting your other moves
[22:33:54] <&Colonel_M> Granted, Dragon-typing alone is powerful
[22:34:09] <@GeneralSpoon> steel...not so much
[22:34:22] <&Colonel_M> Pretty much
[22:34:32] <@GeneralSpoon> resisted by some common types
[22:34:51] <&Colonel_M> To be frankly honest, I'm trying to play more of the middle man
[22:35:06] <&Colonel_M> In that I kind of have an answer, but I'm not sure if it's the best answer as well.
[22:35:20] <@GeneralSpoon> Yes, you kind of said something similar to "I'm trying to play more of the middle man" in the topic
[22:35:28] <@GeneralSpoon> so I'd assume you're doing that :P
[22:35:33] <&Colonel_M> Yes
[22:36:01] <&Colonel_M> I will admit; I'm not intelligent in this sort of business, and I feel that if I don't think I'm qualified enough to contribute to it, I won't do so.
[22:36:08] <@GeneralSpoon> ...this is reminding me of philsophy
[22:36:09] <&Colonel_M> By this I mean offering a solution to the problem
[22:36:27] <@GeneralSpoon> we largely agree that leaving pokemon like Kyogre and Mewtwo running around is bad for the metagame
[22:36:35] <@GeneralSpoon> but we're having trouble explaining why
[22:36:44] <&Colonel_M> Yes
[22:37:14] <&Colonel_M> But also, remember what I said
[22:37:41] <&Colonel_M> [22:22:08] <&Colonel_M> If you don't have a metagame that is desireable
[22:37:41] <&Colonel_M> [22:22:14] <&Colonel_M> Where are you really going with anything
[22:37:55] <&Colonel_M> (When we were talking about obvious Ubers)
[22:38:26] <&Colonel_M> If, say, we want the most variety in a metagame, then Kyogre and Groudon don't "solidly" fall under an Uber Pokemon
[22:38:40] <&Colonel_M> As, while they hinder your variety, it also adds more variety
[22:38:43] <@GeneralSpoon> A metagame that doesn't revolve around about a dozen and a half pokemon, I suppose
[22:39:09] <&Colonel_M> On the other hand, you "could" logically argue Mewtwo being Uber because it harms variety
[22:39:50] <@GeneralSpoon> Mewtwo not being uber would likely lead to something like teams being
[22:40:20] <@GeneralSpoon> Mewtwo-Mewtwo Killer-Backup Mewtwo Killer-Killer of Mewtwo Killer-Killer of Backup Mewtwo Killer-Filler
[22:40:24] <@GeneralSpoon> or something stupid
[22:40:29] <&Colonel_M> Something of the sort
[22:40:35] <@GeneralSpoon> Mewtwo is such an excellant wallbreaker
[22:40:41] <@GeneralSpoon> it would be stupid to not use him
[22:40:43] <&Colonel_M> Under "Variety", Deoxys-S could also be argued Uber
[22:40:49] <&Colonel_M> As Deoxys-S harms the variety of leads
[22:41:06] <@GeneralSpoon> and you would need to get something to killyour opponents mewtwo
[22:41:07] <@GeneralSpoon> etc
[22:41:09] <@GeneralSpoon> yeah
[22:41:19] <@GeneralSpoon> deoxys-s is an excellent lead
[22:41:34] <&Colonel_M> But you could also argue Scizor against it too, depending on how much you think Bullet Punch alone harms variety.
[22:41:36] <&Colonel_M> Etc, etc.
[22:41:36] <@GeneralSpoon> IIRC, it led to some pokemon being used just to kill lead deo-x
[22:41:40] <@GeneralSpoon> *deo-s
[22:42:24] <&Colonel_M> So as you can see, I'm trying to look at the middle road between all of the stuff DJD posted in his topic
[22:42:39] <@GeneralSpoon> I think that the reason people don't argue that with Scizor is that they tell themselves
[22:42:46] <@GeneralSpoon> that it would be stupid to argue that
[22:43:05] <&Colonel_M> It's a two-sided coin
[22:43:14] <@GeneralSpoon> and so they don't until somebody comes along and asks uncomfortable questions about it
[22:44:13] <@GeneralSpoon> IE: You
[22:44:54] <&Colonel_M> Exactly
[22:45:14] <&Colonel_M> We dodged these awkward questions too long, and we're going to face the penalty if we don't
[22:45:25] <&Colonel_M> It's time to ask those questions and conceive answers
[22:46:23] <@GeneralSpoon> Why not bring the Scizor example up in public then?
[22:46:46] <&Colonel_M> Honestly, I think it's a good idea.
[22:47:32] <@GeneralSpoon> would you pre-empt the "we don't do that because its stupid" argument while you're at it?
[22:47:49] <&Colonel_M> Yes.
[22:47:55] <@GeneralSpoon> I can't see it being any good bringing it up without stopping that argument from occuring
[22:48:28] <@GeneralSpoon> Now, I don't expect Scizor to be banned or anything
[22:48:30] <@GeneralSpoon> But
[22:48:39] <&Colonel_M> It is a question that needs to be answered all the same
[22:48:43] <@GeneralSpoon> Yes
[22:49:05] <@GeneralSpoon> To know the reasoning behind why things can centralize the metagame in a certain way
[22:49:13] <@GeneralSpoon> but not in other ways
[22:49:53] <@GeneralSpoon> Best case scenario would be we can explain why Scizor isn't banned
[22:50:11] <@GeneralSpoon> From there everything else *should* follow
[22:50:30] <@GeneralSpoon> Well, have fun with this

Alright, so what I am going to do is summarize what I talked with him about. In general, if you have no pre-conceived metagame, then the question that lies is this - "how any Pokemon can be Uber?" In a sense, no Pokemon is Uber under no pre-conceieved metagame, at least one that we agree on. Yet, in the same vein, we have many Pokemon that others say are "Uber" under the qualities that they take a metagame and "overcentralize it". Of course, now we also have to define overcentralization further.

So I'm going to take the example that many people have argued back and forth, and just for a moment we're only going to look at this from Gen 4 perspective (so don't argue 5th Gen shit). Scizor is a perfect example for this. By many people, it is not considered "Uber", yet under some of its qualities it all the same can be an "Uber" Pokemon. Think about it: Scizor is a commonly used Pokemon. Note that it was #1 for the longest time, only to be (recently) debunked by Heatran, and only by one slot. In terms of usage, it was used more than Garchomp and Blissey have ever had. In terms of limiting the metagame, you had to commonly carry "checks and balances" for it (I don't want to use Counters as an example because Scizor's counters can be iffy counters with the right sets displayed). Scizor knowing Bullet Punch also limits the variety of the metagame in general, as it limits the number of viable Pokemon you can use on a team to not get utterly raped by priority or Pursuit.

So the general thing to answer is simple: how is Scizor "not Uber"? Before you throw around the answer "because it's stupid", think about it: the things I presented actually make Scizor sound Uber in a sense. Perhaps not entirely similar to Jumpman's Characteristics of an Uber Pokemon, but in the same vein it can be followed for many Pokemon. Why was Mewtwo considered an Uber? Aside from Bullet Punch, many of the reasons include limiting the variety of the metagame, downplaying the skill level of metagame, and is "difficult to counter" by definition. Then, we have Kyogre and Groudon: these Pokemon actually play a mixed role in variety as not only does it subtract variety, it also adds more variety under the context of the # of Pokemon having uses.

So as you can (hopefully) see, the general problem with defining an Uber is the lack of a definitive metagame that is presented, in my opinion. Do I have a solution for it? Well, maybe, but I don't know if it is entirely the best solution in the world. That's partially why I'm playing more of a middle man than I am on a side of things.

 

[capefeather]

If he wishes me to disclose his name, I have no objection to it.

There's little point in hiding a name only to leave it within the chat log :P

If anything good came out of all this, I'm glad that we're asking these questions. I think that people have been clinging onto vague beliefs, justifying them with "only stupid people would oppose this", but it's evident that such beliefs can be readily challenged given the right motivation. Of course, this causes people to devolve into attacking each other's character, classifying them so as to explain why they disagree (bulverism fallacy), etc. There was no reason not to expect such backlash as a result of Cathy's overturn, but it's kind of sad all the same. The most important thing to come out of this is the breaking of the anti-intellectual groupthink culture.

I don't speak for anyone else, because lately I think that some people are anti-banlist for similarly vague reasons. Nonetheless, I've aimed to know exactly what I want out of the standard metagame, and what we know and don't know about how to achieve it. Jabba's list (for example) is probably all fine and good, but so could other, more arbitrary lists like NFEs + a few others randomly selected, and so could less arbitrary lists like everything-except-Arceus/weathers. In fact, that is the whole point of the low-tier system as it stands! So at that point it comes down to personal conviction. I have my personal convictions, and others have personal convictions that are different from mine. Thus, the disagreement happens.

I don't think that we could ever directly solve this issue, simply because they're just opinions in the end. Attempts like this one to form a common consensus on a vague "what we want" will just devolve into different people interpreting the "consensus" in different ways to suit their personal desires. However, I do see the merit in asking these hard questions.

 

[eric the espeon]

I think that TheMasterNitpicker's post in the Evasion/OHKOs topic brought in an interesting point. The fact is that different people enjoy different metagames. If we aim to cater for all players who are potential competitive Pokemon players we need to go beyond the mentality that we can make one perfect metagame, and no one will ever want to play anything else. As an example of how an apparently absurd meatgame can suddenly rise in popularity, lets take 1v1. It started with a simple "gimmick" tournament, and a few threads in stark. Someone decided to request a ladder, and in under a month there have been no less than 53979 (11% the size of Smogon OU, or 80% the size of Smogon UU) battles on ladder. Why would anyone want to play a competitive game where such a large proportion of games are determined simply by team matchup? Because some people find that kind of competition interesting. There is no fundamentally better metagame. Philosophical purity in bans, simplicity of ruleset, variety, the impact of luck, balance, how often a better player will win (skill/competitiveness), even staying true to game mechanics, all of these things matter. But they matter only because for a large number of people each of those things makes the game more appealing, more interesting, and more enjoyable as a competitive game.

I see it as our duty as custodians of competitive Pokemon to make the game as good as it can be. As appealing and enjoyable for intelligent competitive players as possible. I do not think we can do this effectively without accepting more styles of play. OU will always be standard, but there is much more to explore. We are making steps in the right direction. Ubers is fairly widely played, VGC and LC are set to become a fully accepted metagames with it's own ladders on the Smogon server, and as soon as 5th gen OU stabilizes we will start developing as many tiers below it as there is interest for. We are moving towards a system of voting which allows the top players of each metagame to directly mold it to their preference without having to jump through to many hoops, or follow other people's philosophy. Additionally, the new voting system should require minimal control from the top making it much easier to run testing for multiple metagames at once without straining those running the process. All this should result in a diverse range of metagames which will mean that every player should find one which is exceptionally interesting to them. Pokemon is much more complex than it was in the first three generations, there is enough for more than one OU tier, one UU tier and a Magikarp tier. The game we play has changed and we need to respond by allowing diversity of metagames, rather than trying to force a single metagame to contain the diversity of all of competitive Pokemon or limiting ourselves by ignoring parts of the game we play.

 

[lilyhollow]

I think there are too many possible "characteristics of a desirable metagame" for it to make any sense to try and list them all. You can have 'ideal' Diversity and 'ideal' Centralization and easily end up with a metagame that everyone hates for some other reason. Maybe that reason is something we can easily identify and use as a metric, and that's great-- if you're super confident you can come up with something comprehensive that truly encompasses all of what makes a metagame desirable to a competitive community, then go right ahead. But maybe it's some intangible thing that we can't really put our fingers on. "Then what?"

I do agree that we are in need of some "direction" as far as metagame-construction goes, but to that end I think it's more productive to look at the structure and makeup of the community itself. Eric the espeon already elaborated on that wonderfully, so just read his post twice or something because I think it's very important.

 

[DougJustDoug]

When I wrote the "Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame", I just wanted to assemble a relatively concise collection of principles that could be used for supporting arguments that a metagame is good or bad. Actually, more specifically, whether a metagame is "desirable" or "undesirable". I tried to base the principles on the content of all the different arguments and discussions that I have seen floating around Smogon regarding metagame policy. Basically, I was trying to say:

"If you aren't arguing one or more of these principles, then your argument probably won't get much traction here."

OR

"When we argue about the metagame, this is the stuff we usually argue about."

I was not trying to lay down concrete rules or metrics for the metagame. I'd just wanted to formalize some of the basic principles we seem to be arguing about most of the time anyway, and attach a few names to those principles -- with the hope that perhaps we could refer to those principles in future arguments, and we all would know what was being referred.

Too often, I feel like our arguments go around in circles because we really don't know what we are all saying to each other. When one guy mentions "centralization" or another person mentions "overpowered" -- it's very unclear as to what the hell is being argued there! So we just go back and forth, in what I think amounts to -- "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about".

So, I tried to lay it all out and say, "This is what we are all arguing about."

I do not want to place any value judgement on any individual argument. I will not presume to define how much Variety is good in a metagame. I will not pre-determine that Balance is more important than Adherence. I cannot draw the line between Skill and Luck. But, I think we can safely say that we commonly argue about all of the above. All of those are "valid arguments", even if I have no idea which arguments should "win" in any given debate. And by listing out those principles, I think we can provide a bit more structure to our arguments, and hopefully reduce all the time we waste on "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about".

I will pile on with what others have presented in this thread -- there is no perfect metagame that perfectly satisfies all the characteristics of a "Desirable Pokemon Metagame". Our metagames will trade-off on the principles in different ways. Different metagames will be desirable for different reasons, and we should embrace that. When arguing about any specific metagame, we should all accept that we are really arguing about the trade-offs between multiple "desirability principles", and the pros and cons of those trade-offs.

I plan to revisit the material I presented in my desirable metagame thread. The original concept of "Efficiency" needs to be replaced with "Simplicity", the wording needs to be modified in many places, etc. I'd like to present the whole thing in the form of an article on site, so that newcomers to Smogon can read it to get a grasp on the stuff we argue about here in Policy Review and elsewhere. Possibly even make it a sticky thread here or something. The point is to get some common terms in place, and allow us to use those terms to facilitate more focused debates on metagame policy -- without necessarily defining the winners and losers of those debates ahead of time.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I have to agree with everything Doug posted above. Especially this:

I do not want to place any value judgement on any individual argument. I will not presume to define how much Variety is good in a metagame. I will not pre-determine that Balance is more important than Adherence. I cannot draw the line between Skill and Luck. But, I think we can safely say that we commonly argue about all of the above. All of those are "valid arguments", even if I have no idea which arguments should "win" in any given debate. And by listing out those principles, I think we can provide a bit more structure to our arguments, and hopefully reduce all the time we waste on "arguing about what we are supposed to be arguing about".

I truly appreciate what Colonel M outlined above, and agree that it is impossible to ensure "the best outcome" without knowing exactly what "the best metagame" would be.

The short and long of it is that-- there is no best.

It cannot be defined, because best is only defined by subjective preferences, which vary between all the different players (even top ones) of the community. I feel live even if we worked towards a consensus about this, those conclusions would be perverted by the biases of the participating players, without getting a true sample of opinions from the larger player base.

I know I am bashing my head against the wall here--you're about to hear me say something I just keep annoyingly preaching-- but I do honestly believe that if you want to really know "what is a good metagame," you do need to incorporate the opinions of the wider player base, even somewhat weaker players.

In conclusion, I think "embrace" is a good word, and we should embrace the fact that a "perfect metagame" does not exist, or perhaps the "perfect" metagame is simply a good one, one that we can all enjoy and play competitively, and there are probably any number of potential metas that satisfy this.

 

[Firestorm]

I refrained from posting earlier as I was trying to figure out how to explain what I wanted in a coherent manner. I hope I've done so:

Simplicity and artificially restricting as few things as possible are what I value in the metagame. Unless something is so overpowering that the game becomes unplayable (re: Akuma in the SFII example in the OP), we shouldn't have to restrict it from use. At its core, Pokemon is still a fun, competitive game and I believe it will be able to stand on its own.

I believe a continuous tiering process where we check exactly how much effect it has and if it's "too much" is a sort of "scrub" mentality where we start banning things because we don't want to deal with them. The addition of Dream World abilities means the game will be continuously changing and we just cannot afford to keep re-testing Pokemon. If something is powerful, it's powerful. Salamence was banned in 2010. I don't remember people thinking Pokemon Generation IV was unplayable at a competitive level in the 3 years prior to its banning. In fact, Pokemon was as popular as ever. Improving a game for the sake of getting closer to some ideal is a waste of time - especially when probably an equal amount of the public is unhappy with the decision. I don't even know how to explain to someone entering the community why Salamence is banned.

I apply the same to the luck and skill equation. I do not like the idea of artificially imposing restrictions on what we believe increases luck in games. This is Pokemon. It's about odds. If someone wants to give up a moveslot for something that will maybe net them some wins, they should be allowed and the opponent should be willing to deal with it. I do strongly believe moving to a Best of 3 format for our tournaments would be helpful in increasing the accuracy of our results without restricting what is available to our users. With the possibility of Pokemon being shown before a battle, I think this would be taken with more enthusiasm than before.

I think the idea of staying away from an overcentralized metagame was thrown out the window at least. Stealth Rock was never banned after all. Playing in a metagame that revolves around floating rocks, rain, omnipresent dragons, etc. shouldn't be an issue for a metagame. That's just how it works and I'm happy we've come to accept that.

The other option - as far as tiering goes - if we want to follow Articuno64's proposition a month or so ago, is to use the in-game banlist and keep it like that as far as our rules on Pokemon game. That falls in line with my belief of simplicity as well as keeps it consistent for newer players coming into the community. The banlist is very similar to ours but has two or three additions we don't have while removing two or three restrictions that we do have.

All I'm really trying to say is, trying to achieve the perfect metagame - by whatever measure we use - is beginning to shake my belief that we even are a competitive community. We're just trying to make a game that the best players find fun.

 

[Colonel M]

Obviously "A Perfect Metagame" is impossible, and that is not something I am trying to yield with my proposition. "Perfect", much like "balanced" is still subjective to the player, and it is a goal that is practically impossible to reach. Yet, this does not mean that you can draw a conclusion of what our "metagame" should be, in this case, OU. Obviously like Doug outlined, you want a compromise between the other "types" of metagames that float around; however, in most cases (if not all), there will always be one or a couple of "metagames" that will have larger emphasis over another. For a random example, Luck vs. Skill, you obviously want the game to revolve more around Skill than Luck, yet a small amount of luck does not necessarily harm the metagame either (since outlined in Doug's OP, it can bring an enjoying aspect of the game). The point of the topic is pretty much run down like this:

1) What are the important aspects of an acceptable metagame? In this scenario, we want a fair amount of balance with a little chaos (Stealth Rock, onomnom Dragons, etc). We want variety that is in a large quantity and of quality. Obviously, aspects such as Skill and "Playing To Win" is all part of the game.

2) How to define an "Uber" Pokemon under the presented metagame. Think further than the factions of OU for a second. In particular, how do we pre-determine a Pokemon is Uber and not Uber? Using "over centralizing" is not exactly the greatest answer, since it can also make situations awkward. When you look at the current OU metagame (Gen 4), we have much of the metagame revolving around Heatran and Scizor, and just as I predicted: once Salamence went goodbye, Scizor usage went down a little bit (and now Heatran has cuddled spot number 1). While these Pokemon place centralizing in the metagame, they also aren't "Uber" in regards to many of our other Ubers. Scizor was my drastic example of this scenario. You could also apply it to Generation 2's Snorlax, etc. etc. Whichever was a top tier Pokemon but still considered OU.

3) The goal is to not partake what "everyone" wants, but what makes the game make sense competitively, per se. In an obvious scenario, we don't partake into the advice that Player X wants Infernape banned because "he's too good against his team of Rhyperior + 5 other Infernape-weaks" or "we should unban Rayquaza, it's like Salamence with -5 Spe and no Roost right!?!" We want bans to be moderate, but based on solid reasoning as to why they harm the metagame they are presented in more than they help it.

 

[Yllnath]

After following this thread carefully, a few posts, most notably Doug's, Eric the Espeons, and ChouToshios stood out, and a video that I've once seen popped into my head that relates to this subject very much.

You can view this video here.
It's a 20 minutes video, but I urge everyone to view it anyway. Malcolm makes a lot of good points in the video, but there is one thing that I want to emphasis.
Somewhere halfway the video, he talks about Howards (the entire video is about a certain Howard Moskov(w)itz) sudden conclusion "!! There is no perfect Pepsi! There are only perfect PepsiS." Note the plural. What he is saying here, that when he was asked by the Pepsi company to do some marketing research in to finding the perfect sweetness level of the Pepsi drink, he concluded that there could never be 1! perfect batch of Pepsi that could make everyone happy. Instead, if he would want to cater to an as large an audience as possible, you should have to make different standards of Pepsi, and with having more choice, you were more likely to find more happy consumers of Pepsi. (This is very freely summarized. Malcolm, in the video, makes a far better explanation, so if you have 20 minutes or so, please watch that video.)

Translating this back to Pokémon. We can try to achieve making as many people happy with the 1 perfect metagame we call Standard (OU). However, we would come to realize that with varying interests and points of views from all the players, also comes varying ideas about how the Standard metagame should be shaped and it will be impossible to please everyone with this 1 Standard metagame.
Instead, would it be worth it to consider the "perfect Standard metagameS"? I'm not talking about an OU/UU kind of setup here. Eric the Espeon already makes mention of a 1vs1 metagame, for example. I'm talking about more than one Standard (OU) metagame, co-existing next to each other, possibly overlapping each other in characteristics, or pokemon available to them. The whole of said metagameS will then be forming the basis of Smogons entire Standard (OU) competetive scene.

I don't want to go in-depth too much either on anything tiering related or metagame specifics. However, I do feel, going off from Doug's "Characteristics of a desirable metagame" thread, that "multple Standard metagameS (OUs)" could be created. For example, there could be the VGC OU, but this could be also taken a step further. For example, there is the skill vs luck discussion always going on. Just recently, there was a discussion in this here forum on Evasion moves and OHKO moves.
There could also be a "Luck OU" and a "Skill OU".
I'm not saying we should just make a crapload of metagames here to cater to every possible user, though, this is not what Howard did either in the video. It would've been a bad marketing decisions if he would've gone back to Pepsi or the Pastasauce company and he would've said to them "Hey listen, just make everything thinkable and sell each of those ideas as a seperate product". Instead, he was open to any and all possible ideas from the tester base (In our case, the pokemon playing user base), then made dishes around almost any and all ideas (Dishes=metagames), and then made a hugescale test and picked the best dishes that, when put together, covered as much satisfaction from the general public as possible.

Now, making a few dozen different metagames is impractical and also not the aim of smogon, since not every conceivable metagame is centered about bringing out the competetive aspect of the game.
However, and I like to leave it with this, I feel that the experienced people here in the PR community and the Smogon community as a whole are more than wise enough to consider what is a competitive metagame and what isn't.
Any and all metagames that can please a large playerbase (No sense making a Xth version of OU which will probably only have an userbase of 20 people anyway, imo), that can also bring out the main characteristic of any metegame (At least, in my opinion):

Competitive
The metagame should encourage players to play to win.

could be considered a good standard metagame. And when all is said and done and most options have been gone through, I feel that polling and some good sane discussions can decide what "Standard (OU) metagames" should and could be offered.


I'd like to conclude with a disclaimer that this again is just one way to look at "metagaming". Just like there isn't 1 perfect metagame, the ideas of MetagameS is also not perfect. It does, however, provide a different look on the matter, and since this here thread seems to be just about broadening our scopes, I feel that giving an alternative that does just that, is productive to the discussion.

 

[TAY]

This problem has been brought up again and again and a lot of people are overthinking it. There are only two possible "desirable" metagames to choose between:

1. We use as few bans as possible to make a playable competitive metagame.
2. We make the best possible competitive metagame, irrelevant of what must be banned to do so.

Option one is what we have traditionally considered OU, though our DPP testing process brought us towards option 2 (which is a bit funny because that was never its intent). Option 1 is also significantly better than option two in that it has a very well defined end point: a "playable competitive metagame", which honestly I think we have had with every OU list since DP was released (excepting maybe when latios was around...).

Option one also has the advantage of having many "correct" metagames, so we could go through the testing process very quickly with Cathy's process outlined here.

This is what we should shoot for - a "playable competitive metagame" with as few bans as possible. No unbanning. No banning after the initial process. No worrying about whether our metagame is "correct", because there are numerous correct metagames! As soon as we start going down the path of option 2, we have opened ourselves up to a never-ending process. This should be avoided at all costs.

Option 1 obviously necessitates that we have no initial ban list. What I anticipate to be far more controversial is that it also necessitates that we start with every pokemon, move, and item in the game data available. Otherwise we risk having to go through another tiering process each time nintendo makes a significant release.

 

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

Option 1 is also significantly better than option two in that it has a very well defined end point: a "playable competitive metagame"

TAY, I disagree with pretty much all of your post, but when I read this part I actually laughed. I don't think "playable competitive metagame" could be less well defined.

First of all, I think the 'competitive' qualifier we're using is a bit vague. Let's take a look at Yllnath's definition: "The metagame should encourage players to play to win." How does one go about creating such a metagame? Making sure luck doesn't run completely rampant over skill is important, but that's about it. Whether a game is 'competitive' or not is more a function of its player base than the rules; if players play to win, it's a competitive game.

It's 'playable' that I really take issue with, though. It's a completely subjective, totally undefined term. By the strictest definition, any banlist (including the empty one) creates a playable game. The game still functions. Battles still work. It's playable. When you ask if a metagame is 'playable', what you're really asking is, "Is it interesting/enjoyable/whatever-other-adjective-I-care-about?" That question is going to be answered different ways by different people.

Now, all that being said, most of Smogon's hardcore players are going to answer that question in mostly the same way. That's because the other potentially competitive players, the ones that find Smogon's standard game boring, don't stick around at Smogon, because there's not much for them here. If you're OK with that, and you want to only cater to the crowd that's already here, then one standard OU metagame should be sufficient. We can continue to basically ignore double battles, triple battles, rotation battles, and rulesets/banlists that would bring more variety and new strategies to the game.

 

[eric the espeon]

Doug: I would absolutely love to have a set of principles from which to argue on specific tiering issues, and will participate in the discussion. Just because there is not a "perfect" metagame does not prevent us from being able to significantly improve a metagame, and we'll need something very carefully thought out if it's going to apply to OU, 1v1, and Rotation Battles at the same time. I wanted to lay out the idea of no perfect metagame before we get started again so that the people discussing the characteristics understand that there are no absolutes, one player may hate any luck in the game, some may be indifferent, and some feel that luck can actually improve the game in the right situation.

Yllnath: Interesting talk. For the most part I agree with your post, other than the idea of making multiple similar metagames ("Luck OU" for example). There is little point in making several near-clones of the same game, they appeal to almost the same players and either split the userbase or only one version is played by more than a dozen people. If we're serious about making the game as good as it can be for as many people we need to allow and maybe even encourage other metagames to develop, both in the lower tiers and with separate rulesets. We can't force it upon players, but adopting a model along the lines of PO's beta server (add a ladder if there is notable support, give it a chance and if nothing ever happens remove it) would allow diverse metagames to develop where there is interest from players.

TAY: If we're working from game data, would you support banning all event moves? If not, every Pokemon can potentially get any move in the game, but require hacking to do so. Most Dream World Pokemon are also potentially available, but require hacking. They are effectively on a par with each other at this point. Also, there is a lot of middle ground between your two proposed metagames.

As for "competitive".. it always seemed like one of the most nonsensical things for us to aim for directly. Of course we are a competitive community, but beyond the idea of playing to win it's very hard to get a good fix on what a competitively played game is. For example, there are competitive RPS tournaments with large cash prizes. It's almost entirely down to the players (and the situation, people are always going to try harder to win in the Smogon tournament or on a suspect ladder than a in normal ladder match. But that's not something with can change with ruleset policy.) to decide how much they are playing to win and how much they are playing for whatever other reason. We can't change how competitive a game is directly. Even a game where there was one Pokemon so powerful it was on 100% of teams, with the entire metagame was focused on trying to beat it, could be highly competitive. Even a game where luck has a significant impact can be highly competitive, again it's down to the players. Maybe a game where there is almost no element of skill, where every match was little more than a simple coinflip, could be defined as uncompetitive.. but only because it would be uninteresting in the extreme to those people who play to win. Personally I see it like this: If you make the game as competitively interesting as possible, the competitive players will most likely follow. You cannot directly make a game more or less competitive, it is down to whoever is playing the game at the time not the game itself.

So any characteristic about competitiveness would be a simple derivative of another characteristic, the aim to make the game competitively interesting. This takes several forms, for example the commonly cited balance and variety objectives.

 

[TAY]

TAY, I disagree with pretty much all of your post, but when I read this part I actually laughed. I don't think "playable competitive metagame" could be less well defined.

"Well-defined" was not the right phrase to use. I apologize. What I mean is that a "playable competitive metagame" is both easily and quickly attainable and that it is easily verified (e.g. with a poll, see Cathy's process). This is not the case with option 2, since any applicable process would require a high number of iterations, as our previous suspect test did.

First of all, I think the 'competitive' qualifier we're using is a bit vague. Let's take a look at Yllnath's definition: "The metagame should encourage players to play to win." How does one go about creating such a metagame? Making sure luck doesn't run completely rampant over skill is important, but that's about it. Whether a game is 'competitive' or not is more a function of its player base than the rules; if players play to win, it's a competitive game.

I never said I was using that definition. Competitive is obviously a vague term, and if learn anything from the previous suspect test it is that forcing definitions of vague terms on our voter base is a terrible idea. For example, we tried desperately to define what an "uber" is, and to try to get voters to make decisions based on this definition, and ultimately everyone just voted with their gut anyway. It is not only unnecessary but also ill-advised to try to define what "competitive" means, since players will vote based on a personal definition no matter how we define it.

And you're absolutely right about the player base being more important than the ruleset. This is why I suggest that "what we desire in a metagame" should be the bare minimum in terms of competitive quality (i.e. nothing blatantly overpowered); people will play competitively anyway, and this way we do not waste time and effort with an unnecessarily long process.

It's 'playable' that I really take issue with, though. It's a completely subjective, totally undefined term. By the strictest definition, any banlist (including the empty one) creates a playable game. The game still functions. Battles still work. It's playable. When you ask if a metagame is 'playable', what you're really asking is, "Is it interesting/enjoyable/whatever-other-adjective-I-care-about?" That question is going to be answered different ways by different people.

I actually was using "playable" as an adverb modifying "competitive", not as an adjective modifying "game". I should have used the proper spelling "playably". So a "playably competitive game" is basically just what you are referring to as a "competitive metagame" (and really they are the same thing; I probably should have dropped the extra term). I am sorry my poor grammar was confusing.

Now, all that being said, most of Smogon's hardcore players are going to answer that question in mostly the same way. That's because the other potentially competitive players, the ones that find Smogon's standard game boring, don't stick around at Smogon, because there's not much for them here. If you're OK with that, and you want to only cater to the crowd that's already here, then one standard OU metagame should be sufficient. We can continue to basically ignore double battles, triple battles, rotation battles, and rulesets/banlists that would bring more variety and new strategies to the game.

When did I say anything about ignoring metagames besides OU? I was outlining what we should be looking for in a metagame, and while I specifically mentioned OU since it is our standard metagame, the idea of trying to attain a "playably competitive metagame" with as few bans as possible is obviously applicable to any metagame over which we have control.

 

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

TAY, sorry if it seemed like I was putting words in your mouth with the definitions of words that I used. I was just giving examples of possible definitions in an attempt to show that what you consider to be an acceptable metagame is starkly different than what I consider to be an acceptable metagame.

When did I say anything about ignoring metagames besides OU? I was outlining what we should be looking for in a metagame, and while I specifically mentioned OU since it is our standard metagame, the idea of trying to attain a "playably competitive metagame" with as few bans as possible is obviously applicable to any metagame over which we have control.

See, this is what I'm trying to avoid. For some reason, a lot of people are always trumpeting this 'Simplicity' aspect of a ruleset as the most important metric. Now don't get me wrong, a relatively simple ruleset it important. If you have a ruleset that's so complex that nobody can remember it, that's a big turnoff. But I take big issue with the claim that a desirable ruleset is one where we ban as few Pokemon as possible while maintaining some arbitrary paltry amount of variety in the game.

There are plenty of players out there (like me) that would be willing to increase the number of bans from 12 to 50 if it multiplied the number of viable strategies by tenfold. In singles, it wouldn't. There are a very limited number of roles for a Pokemon to occupy and weaker versions of banned Pokemon would likely rise to the top. Doubles (and almost certainly triples) doesn't work that way. Once you skim off the most powerful Pokemon at the top, you get a much greater variety of viable Pokemon and strategies directly below that.

It would be nice if, for doubles and triples, we had two standard metagames: one that caters to the simplicity camp and one that caters to the variety camp. The beauty of it is if you set them up correctly, you probably won't need a 'UU' tier under either one. (Although Little Cup is a different story.) I'm not suggesting a never-ending testing process. I'm just suggesting we start with a larger banlist for the 'variety OU'.

 

[Firestorm]

I agree with TAY's post. I interepret a "playable metagame" as "a metagame that has players". If it's so terrible that everyone refuses to play it, it's not playable. eric the espeon is correct in that no matter what metagame, we're playing to win on Smogon. It's a competitive community. However, I'd like it to be a competitive Pokemon community. Not competitive Pokemon minus elements we deem uncompetitive based on a subjective scale community.

I especially agree with his line of not screwing with the ban list once it's set. I'm less sold on allowing everything in the game data (ie. dream world abilities) for use.

Personally, I think I'm more convinced now of starting with an initial ban list than no ban list if we take Nintendo's list and never touch it again. This is for the reasons outlined in Articuno64's thread here. Hopefully someone moves it to PR soon so it's publically readable.

 

[Chou Toshio]

All I'm really trying to say is, trying to achieve the perfect metagame - by whatever measure we use - is beginning to shake my belief that we even are a competitive community. We're just trying to make a game that the best players find fun.

Not going to comment on Firestorm's suggestions, but this quote is just too damn on-the-mark to ignore.

 

[TAY]

See, this is what I'm trying to avoid. For some reason, a lot of people are always trumpeting this 'Simplicity' aspect of a ruleset as the most important metric. Now don't get me wrong, a relatively simple ruleset it important. If you have a ruleset that's so complex that nobody can remember it, that's a big turnoff. But I take big issue with the claim that a desirable ruleset is one where we ban as few Pokemon as possible while maintaining some arbitrary paltry amount of variety in the game.

Note that I do not think that a simple ruleset is best; in fact, I think that a more complex ruleset would make for a better game. The only reason I support a simple ruleset is that the more complex we make it, the more time and effort we have to put into creating that ruleset. Since this website has always made decisions at least somewhat democratically, creating a very good ruleset takes a large amount of time. Basically I am saying that we should refine our ruleset (i.e. the banned pokemon list) only until it meets the bare minimum of "good enough" (take that to mean whatever you want). Cathy's process is very good for this, since its votes are basically an assessment of whether players are happy with the current metagame. If they are not happy, a change is made, and changes become more difficult to make as time passes.

There are plenty of players out there (like me) that would be willing to increase the number of bans from 12 to 50 if it multiplied the number of viable strategies by tenfold. In singles, it wouldn't. There are a very limited number of roles for a Pokemon to occupy and weaker versions of banned Pokemon would likely rise to the top. Doubles (and almost certainly triples) doesn't work that way. Once you skim off the most powerful Pokemon at the top, you get a much greater variety of viable Pokemon and strategies directly below that.

I would support doing that as well, but it is difficult to find a good combination 38 pokemon we need to ban to make that great metagame. Once again, the constraining factors here are time and manpower.

Also, it isn't like I'm saying that we should make it difficult to ban powerful pokemon. If a pokemon is powerful enough that a lot of people think it should be banned, then it probably will be banned. I am focusing solely on the idea that once those extremely powerful pokemon are banned, if the metagame is acceptable then we should stop the re-tiering process and not start it up again unless a new pokemon is released (basically when pokemon "grey" comes out).

I really just want us to have a speedy process so we can get to playing Pokemon instead of worrying about how we're going to change the game itself!

 

[Ulevo]

Not going to comment on Firestorm's suggestions, but this quote is just too damn on-the-mark to ignore.

I feel that this is a relevant kick start to open some of the thoughts I've had relating to these discussions pertaining to Smogon's direction in what we "want in a metagame".

People often usher words along the lines of "better" or "ideal" when discussing their own (subjective) opinions on which direction this game should take, competitively speaking. But what does this really entail?

We call ourselves a "competitive" community, but there is a large underlying difference between Smogon, and other competitive community examples that I could cite; smashboards.com for Super Smash Bros., dustloop.com for Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, pojo.com for Yu-Gi-Oh and other related TCG's.

There is arguably no reward for playing competitive Pokemon other than personal satisfaction.

I myself being involved in other competitive communities, I can tell you that just by committing oneself to a particular competitive niche, money, socialization, travel and other experiences are all worthwhile payouts a player can expect from competing (please note, this does not apply to fellow VGC competitors). But with Pokemon, this is not the case. There is no prize allotted to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, or to the Shoddy fanatic who scored highest on the ladder last month; there is no meeting and socializing with new faces while you sit on your computer laddering all day; there is no detours and long vacations to distant towns, cities, or even countries.

So why compete? Well, as I stated, it's for personal satisfaction. Some may call it Fun. Either during, or after playing.

While most competitive communities construct rules to ensure that only skill is a factor (or the dominant factor) in which the player can obtain their prize, we as a competitive community function differently. We do not always restrict ourselves with rules and bans to ensure that only the skilled will win (the fact that the skilled will win is an inevitable truth to begin with). Instead we focus on what we feel is ideal towards the "spirit of Smogon" or the "spirit of Pokemon" with our adhering to the cartridge, and so forth.

With this in mind, it is important to keep the interests of the player base at heart when designing principles because it helps to keep a high count of players involved, and to keep the community active and flourishing. Any arguments suggesting a "best" or "ideal" metagame claiming to have objective principles, while subjectively going against the grain as far as what the overall, skilled majority feels is desirable is in my feeling poorly misplaced.

This introduces my next thought, which is on the topic of centralization.

Centralization is detrimental to the health of the player base because it detracts from the personal satisfaction of playing the game. How so? Anyone aiming to compete and win does so under the premise that by winning, they will feel special, that they will have accomplished something of a satisfactory feat, that they will receive notable recognition. Otherwise, why bother attempting to win in the first place (under the assumption no material or external reward is given). While I do not want to derail the thread in to a discussion of what each individual seeks when they play competitive Pokemon, it isn't a far stretch to assume this when you look at the possible gains of playing competitive online Pokemon in the first place. It is of my feeling that we all strive to achieve this feeling of worth and accomplishment, be it one way or another.

Where centralization becomes a problem is when the object based around the centralization takes the skill and choice away from the player looking to compete. In short, if something is dominating the metagame to a point where it is foolish to avoid using said Pokemon, said combination of Pokemon, said item, said move, said strategy---it is no longer a game of choice; not where the competitive player is concerned. It comes down to using cookie cutter based strategies already outlined as the right thing to do, or the correct decision.

As an example, I will refer to Yache Berry Garchomp in Gen IV. While it is true that the player could very well choose not to run Yache Berry Garchomp on his/her standard team to compete, the fact is that by ignoring to do so, they are deliberately putting themselves at a disadvantage. The game is no longer rewarding the player for their individual choices of which Pokemon to use, and encouraging them to be creative in their pursuit for personal satisfaction. Instead, it is streamlining a cookie cutter process in which all players must run a particular strategy, Pokemon, item, move et cetera... or risk losing as a result. Even if the player choose to make the intelligent decision that would further their success, it is also highly likely that this would result in a metagame where speed ties and random counter-this-counter-that strategies occur, which also rob players of a skill oriented game.

Centralization is the product of an Uber Pokemon; it in of itself does not make the Pokemon Uber. However, it is of my feeling that it should be one of the important basis on which all Pokemon are considered Uber or OU, based on these reasons I have discussed. I believe that all Pokemon that either centralize the metagame around themselves, or create ideal conditions in which centralization can thrive for other Pokemon in response to the suspects presence in the standard metagame should be considered as suspects, and tested appropriately.

In case it wasn't obvious, my latter point in that bolded statement was in reference to examples such as Scizor, whom I feel was not the culprit to it's own centralization, but was the product of a Salamence prevalent metagame. I do not think this is an unreasonable point, as Scizors use dropped immediately after Salamence was banished from standard play.


I hope that some of you find these thoughts useful, and while I may not have spearheaded my points as articulately as some of the other users here could, I think my points were made clear, and I'm confident that they propose relevant discussion with regards to what should be considered when designing principles for our policy on Smogon.

 

[lilyhollow]

You bring up a lot of valid points, but I don't agree that centralization can be defined as an inherently negative trait for a metagame to have-- even if we accept the idea that Smogon's main form of "currency" is just personal satisfaction, which I totally agree with. Many players relish the idea of developing niche strategies in hypercentralized metagames like Ubers. Some prefer past generations which are not only more centralized than 4th gen OU, but have largely been explored too thoroughly to allow much room for innovation. Some are just generally (albeit vaguely) bothered by 4th gen's level of variety, and so on.

You're right, though, that the current majority tends to think that "centralization is bad; I like to play with more stuff." I also agree that our lack of concrete incentives for exceptional play probably has a lot to do with that. But given that we are a so-called "competitive" community, concrete incentives for exceptional play are something we should be actively pursuing anyway. So even if I agreed with your assessment that "centralization = bad in any community motivated sheerly by personal satisfaction," my answer would be that "well, this community has no business being motivated sheerly by personal satisfaction in the first place."

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I'd just like to bring up the point that maybe we don't have to define it. Look at how UU testing has progressed. It is now in the endgame, having reached a metagame that the majority of players feel is balanced, ideal, and suspect-free. They reached this goal not by formulating some philosophy or trying to figure out what they wanted, they did this by directly deciding what they considered to be suspect and then voting. I think we might just be overthinking this, when really, we don't need to. As one person said, "there is no one perfect Pepsi, but many perfect Pepsis." If we let the people drive the metagame's formulation on their own, eventually the majority of them will find what they're looking for. It obviously won't be perfect for everyone, but it'll work.

 

[Firestorm]

I'd just like to bring up the point that maybe we don't have to define it. Look at how UU testing has progressed. It is now in the endgame, having reached a metagame that the majority of players feel is balanced, ideal, and suspect-free. They reached this goal not by formulating some philosophy or trying to figure out what they wanted, they did this by directly deciding what they considered to be suspect and then voting. I think we might just be overthinking this, when really, we don't need to. As one person said, "there is no one perfect Pepsi, but many perfect Pepsis." If we let the people drive the metagame's formulation on their own, eventually the majority of them will find what they're looking for. It obviously won't be perfect for everyone, but it'll work.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with the first line of your post but not the rest.

What we desire in a metagame shouldn't matter because our desire shouldn't matter. It only matters once we start directly changing it through hard rules (like bans). The way a metagame is supposed to evolve is through the process of playing it.

 

[animenagai]

Uleco hit it right on the head, we want a competitive metagame first and foremost as this is the only reward we have for playing in the long term - the sense of satisfaction of winning as well as the hunger to get better - only possible to fulfill if the good players win. If you train your ass off for a big tourney but keep scrubbing against noobs because they hax you out or because there's a known broken strategy that's near impossible to stop (eg. DS D-E lead -> BP gliscor -> metagross), you lose that hunger for the game.

From what I hear from other players, ubers doesn't reward good players as well as OU does and UU rewards you even more. There's a good prima facie case that there's a strong link between diversity and competitiveness. This is based on hearsay though, I can't vouch for it too much myself since I don't play multiple tiers. Though I guess the next question is, should we just make UU the new OU if this is the case :/

 

[lati0s]

From what I hear from other players, ubers doesn't reward good players as well as OU does

I'm calling bull on this, I've played a lot of ubers and watched others play and the better players do consistently beat the weaker players, personally I feel that I am much more consistent in ubers but I will admit that this is possibly because I am better at it.. The people you talked to were probably just inexperienced in ubers and didn't like that they weren't as good at it as they are at OU.