Why do people want to ban more and more things?

[UltimoVenusaur]

I'm arguing that you still need an answer for Blissey. Everyone uses her. Therefore, she is overcentralizing. Overcentralization doesn't = needing to be banned. It has to be something else.

That Garchomp can't be easily checked is the reason why it's banned.

 

[gorm]

I'm arguing that you still need an answer for Blissey. Everyone uses her. Therefore, she is overcentralizing.

everyone doesn't use her and "answers" to blissey are relatively commonplace. she has an effect on the metagame, so she's centralizing. just like sr centralized against ice types. just like every metagame factor influences the metagame in some way.


when a pokemon is centralizing enough that we need to name it as a suspect, it's because we are worried it's overcentralizing, bringing us further from our desired solution (maximum strategic diversity)

 

[Potential]

Personally, as a mathematician (not professionally), I'd really love a mathematically based tiering system. The problem is, since we are all humans (I'm assuming), we have faults. Selfishness is one of them. Stupidity is another. Ego is yet another. Because of all of this, we'll never get a perfect or very close to perfect formula for tiering. Oh, so sad...

I say, as in my previous post, that we should just do it inductively. Really. I know that sounds stupid, but as we're going to have error anyway, we may as well limit the current metagame to perfect and get it close, rather than try to derive a formula to get it exactly (NOOO! I still really want deductive reasoning over inductive!) and miss terribly.

That said, since X-Act is overseeing/executing it, I haven't lost all faith in a mathematical formula. I think it would be EXTREMELY complex, though, since there are/will be so many variables to deal with.

 

[IcyMan28]

I'm arguing that you still need an answer for Blissey. Everyone uses her. Therefore, she is overcentralizing. Overcentralization doesn't = needing to be banned. It has to be something else.

That Garchomp can't be easily checked is the reason why it's banned.

I don't understand where you are getting that definition of overcentralizing from. Overcentralization is when a pokemon is used so much that there is no need to use any other to win, and thus its usage increases at the cost of other pokemon. Another aspect of this is that the pokemon typically necessitates certain specific pokemon for the purpose of checking it.

This is no where near the case for Blissey. An answer for Gyarados = Celebi, Tangrowth, Vaporeon, Porygon2. An answer for Blissey = any physical attacker. Blissey is checked by so many different pokemon (all physical pokemon and a handful of special ones) that it does not force the metagame to revolve around itself.

In fact, Blissey actually had to change its own methods to deal with the new special threats of Diamond and Pearl, thus the Calm EV spread. Calm Blissey in advance? It only existed in Ubers. If Blissey were truly overcentralizing, it would have no need to change its EV spread and moveset to do something significant.

 

[gorm]

actually he has an underlying formula (as a function of usage of course) that is veautifully simple. i suggest you check the thread out.

 

[Potential]

Oh no, I've seen that. I am in awe and I respect it. Seriously. And it seems to function quite well. However, we still have controversy. I really think we will need to account for more variables. If not in this generation, in future ones (I'm hoping there'll be more).

 

[gorm]

well, overall as i see it, the metagame smoothes out as t-->∞ since it's essentially a converging alternating series.

if only we had that kind of time xD

 

[Potential]

Yeah, if only...
Like I said, the best we can do is get closer and closer, right?

P.S. It's not fully alternating. It hasn't always jumped between Overcentralized and Undercentralized. Sometimes, if I remember correctly, it took 2 Suspects to bring it closer.

P.P.S. We can only hope it converges!

 

[gorm]

it's going to bounce around it, just not regularily. it's always alternating to some degree unless we somehow are hovering perfectly above/below a "perfect metagame" with our bans heh. i guess it's a situation worth considering. overshooting up or down isnt a bad thing


.. this is getting too conceptual lol
ps:

Selfishness is one of them. Stupidity is another. Ego is yet another. Because of all of this, we'll never get a perfect or very close to perfect formula for tiering. Oh, so sad...

heh it's just pokemath no one should be taking it to heart xD

 

[Potential]

Haha. Touché.

Look at my signature, if you would.

overshooting up or down isnt a bad thing

That's a really good point, and what I was trying to get at. The Garchomp ban overshot, but it was close enough that (I think) the majority of real (you know what I mean by that, right?) players were happy and are happy about the decision.

 

[gorm]

the real problem is the upper bound on strategic diversity. how diverse is too diverse? do we ban ttar so that armaldo can make it? our current ou cutoff point is kind of arbitrary, that seems like the next place to do for a good definition (with an upper bound on diversity we know when we overshoot and when we don't with a ban, provided decent data)

i guess we are trying to thin out the error band around the "perfect metagame" "line"

 

[Tangerine]

And not thinking of causes but effects? Are you kidding me? The reason that there are the effects is because of the causes. Hell, I have Webster and every other dictionary backing up the statement of Effects:

lol

The point is this - people only think in terms of causes. "Garchomp has 102 base speed!" "It has no counters!" but how does that affect the metagame at all? The argument should be based on effects, not these "causes", something not many of you are apparently able to grasp =)

Strawman argument? I posted that as an example of what others have thought and why it pisses me off. Overcentralizing, as I've stated IN THAT EXACT POST, was the reason it was banned. I'm point the examples of the "shitty" arguments from OTHERS why it was banned. In fact, the last sentence of mine before the "---" stated so. Care to state why you removed it? Because the very first sentence that came from there was this:

Your rehash of "No counters" is a definite strawman. In fact, same with most of those arguments in general - what you did was rehash them in a really pathetic way and tell us "why they are stupid". If the arguments were actually that stupid!

Also, this is why I thought your post was rather silly, particularly because it is the combination of all those factors that make it overcentralizing (overcentralizing is the EFFECT, all the others are causes!) but of course the point being you failed to see how these causes lead to those effects.

And if I had to guess what the vast majority of the 8.1% consisted of, it would've been Choice Band, Life Orb, or Salac Berry.

I rest my case. No reason to drag this on, it's banned and will be re-tested.

"Good players", not the general masses. What is your statistics going to show me? Is it supposed to counter my assertions at all? Cause it's completely irrelevant

 

[TAY]

Of course, there is a good chance that our point of perfect centralization is be impossible to obtain since, unlike in mathematics, we cannot have fractions of a pokemon.

I know it was just an analogy, but I think it would be better described as an acceptable range of centralization (which has actually been Colin's position for months now).

That way as n-->∞ we don't have to approach a certain "point"; if the series alternates within a certain range we will have an acceptable level of centralization. This also implies that even if we are within our ideal range we can still test and make changes without worrying about screwing up the metagame.

 

[Potential]

Oh yes, well, naturally, we can't have fractions of Pokémon. I was just saying that we'd have so many options in the future that it'd be close enough. I did actually mean by "perfect point" a range, or, more exactly, a specific deviation/"close enough" to perfect. Back in the present, though, as you said, we need (maybe not me) to define "close enough" and "perfect" and get a good percentage of the battling population to agree. Then we have to define "good percentage". Good luck with all of that... eugh...

I guess that's what it boils down to. The deciding bodies need time and adequate experimentation to find all of these definitions. So, until then, many people will be unsatisfied. They'll have to deal with it.

 

[gorm]

a "point" would be ideal but i guess given the level of inputs (among them: new user input, impressive rmts, new strategy threads, all rather "erratic functions") its really impossible to hope for... For now!!

 

[Tangerine]

the real problem is the upper bound on strategic diversity. how diverse is too diverse? do we ban ttar so that armaldo can make it? our current ou cutoff point is kind of arbitrary, that seems like the next place to do for a good definition (with an upper bound on diversity we know when we overshoot and when we don't with a ban, provided decent data)

i guess we are trying to thin out the error band around the "perfect metagame" "line"

My (original) impression of the voting scheme was that because we don't know "how much centralization is too much" etc and have no real way of measuring it yet, we are letting people vote on the matter to even it out

apparently this is futile to some people but w/e

 

[gorm]

what are you arguing =\ our best measure of anything is "usage statistics", essentially "what people think is good." voting on bans only becomes "objective" when

1. a certain level of education is given to all users (smogon philosophy should be "enough", as well as ingame explerience with using the pokemon)
2. a large number of votes (probably 50~+ but that's up for debate)

bold voting is all very well and good but you are essentially predicting the effect on the metagame your vote wil have. will it be "better" or "worse"? (more or less strategically diverse? too strategically diverse? not enough? )no bold vote can predict that (it's arbitrary as of now anyways) so we have to give voters the benefit of the doubt until we have an actual statistical definition, but it's 'the best we have' and it's also what x-act is going to base his actual formula off of =)


ps nothing is futile it's just difficult =)

i hope im not putting words in your mouth!

 

[Kittymew]

There are two camps towards banning or allowing more stuff for a good reason right now: because our standard is a hellhole; that's why when I had to redo formats for a series of tournaments, I ended up splitting OU down the middle and making the lower tier+BL one format, and the upper tier, plus Lati@s, Garchomp, and Manaphy the other. I also found this group much slower to analyse and adapt to the changes in Platinum. Matchup analysis is your friend, people. I'm sorry it's hard and takes time, but it's a necessary development tool.

 

[Tangerine]

what are you arguing =\ our best measure of anything is "usage statistics", essentially "what people think is good." voting on bans only becomes "objective" when

1. a certain level of education is given to all users (smogon philosophy should be "enough", as well as ingame explerience with using the pokemon)
2. a large number of votes (probably 50~+ but that's up for debate)

bold voting is all very well and good but you are essentially predicting the effect on the metagame your vote wil have. will it be "better" or "worse"? (more or less strategically diverse? too strategically diverse? not enough? )no bold vote can predict that (it's arbitrary as of now anyways) so we have to give voters the benefit of the doubt until we have an actual statistical definition

My idea behind the voting scheme was this.

We know what is uber - but we can't quite draw the line. How centralizing is too centralizing? How powerful is too powerful? these are things that we don't have concrete data yet nor can we have concrete data on with the capabilities of this forum. I don't think we can get a statistical definition, a meaningful one, at this point or in the near future.

Take into consideration X-Act's numbers. Is 10% not diverse enough? 11%? 12%? etc. We have no idea what these numbers mean yet.

Hence, the voting scheme. The voting scheme averages the public sentiments regarding a certain threat. "Was Shaymin S too much for the metagame" is the question we are asking and the answer was "yes". It's not based on "what players want to be banned is uber", but "what players feel is too much for the metagame is uber".

In the end we can't have an objective result from voting, bold voting or not. The only objectivity we can retain are the suspects and what gets to be suspects.

I already pointed out bold voting does not work in the context of Smogon

The futile part was a reference to another poster here.

There are a few philosophies regarding this so you should really look up on it. You can find two of them in my old overcentralizing thread assuming I haven't deleted it =)

 

[gorm]

what are you even talking about kittymew lol..

and tangerine im glad we agree =) (votes/usage stats are the "best measurements of ideal diversity we have")

 

[Potential]

its really impossible to hope for... For now!!

Exactly! That's what I've been unsuccessfully trying to get out of my head.

And to Serene Grace, I don't think it's futile, just that it will take an absurd amount of time, as people have so many conflicting experiences and, therefore, views. Unless we/you all find a more efficacious way to find the definitions, we're in collectively for a whole lot of disappointment.
To sum up:

nothing is futile it's just difficult =)

P.S. gorm, it's really creepy, but you and I seem to reciprocate each other's ideas pretty exactly. Even and especially your signature. But about that, I believe numerals are helpful to allow our simple minds (maybe not relative to other animals, but hey) to comprehend mathematics. Obviously, the actual thing is more powerful and, in other cases than this one, true than the representation.

P.P.S. Do either of you get the feeling that I'm a newbie trying to barely keep up with a couple of veterans? 'Cause I do.

 

[Kankuro]

I think you should stop complaining. If they want to ban things, let them dream or whatever. You complain about this crap on shoddy all the time.

 

[Matthew]

Kankuro is upset at me. I hardly ever complain on Shoddy, I talk to people about Smash or Pokemon... Or MvC2 that's besides the point. This is a discussion Kankuro, please contribute to it.

*still has to read through the entire thread*

 

[reachzero]

Like any sane Smogonite, I love X-Act for the magic he does with stats, and I'm almost allergic to disagreeing with Chou Toshio. But I have to take a seriously hardline stance against them in defining what an Uber is. Smogon is not a catch-all forum for people who want to play pokemon; it is a competitive forum with a definite philosophy and goals. In the Smogon philsophy, there is a vague, limited definition of "Uber". It is not nearly detailed enough to give us a clear sense of what is and isn't Uber, but it does give us a sense for what can qualify to be Uber. And that definition looks nothing like:

Here's the best definition of an uber:

Something is uber (or BL for the underused metagame) if the general community does not want it to be in that metagame.

In fact, X-Acts definition is almost entirely opposed to the definition found in the Smogon philosophy. As a reminder, that definition is:

Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible—only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

That, of course, is a much different statement than saying that an Uber is "anything the general community does not want in that metagame". Smogon is not Shoddy Battle. We have no responsibility to provide the most fun metagame possible in the eyes of the most users. It's not in our philosophy. We ARE responsible to provide the most competitive metagame possible, while banning only the pokemon that are "far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame". I despair of ever finding a mathematical formula to determine whether something is "Uber", if only because of the example of Wobbuffet, which is clearly far too powerful, but against which just about any formula would fail. As a result, I think it likely that community consensus is the most logical way to judge whether a pokemon is "far too powerful". However, the consensus itself is not the sole basis for the ban, and it should not be so arbitrary as "whatever the community does not want".
In summary, I agree with the Smogon philosophy, against X-Act's definition, that a pokemon should be banned only if it is clearly and demonstrably too powerful for a balanced metagame. I understand a balanced metagame to be one in which you do not need to take unusual and extraordinary means to counter one or two specific threats (like using Skill Link Cloyster to guard against Garchomp). If, however, the community can ban whatever they feel is undesirable, then I move to put Jirachi on the Suspect list (even though it is by no means overpowered) because Body Slam and Iron Head with Serene Grace encourage luck over skill. And it's annoying.

 

[gorm]

I despair of ever finding a mathematical formula to determine whether something is "Uber"

how about the formula proposed by x-act:

too many people using it->overcentralizing

how can you demonstrate overcentralization without a definition lol. extraordinary measures, clearly broken and annoying are also undefined in your argument :p

x-acts definition is literally all we have to work with. it doesnt go against smogon's philosophy, it critiques the part of it that says "we ban ubers when it's obvious" when obvious is undefined lol

we need to use usages/opinions/people/votes, not stats/movepools/typings.
basically, as you said:
f(numbers assosiated with a pokemon)->metagame effect is an impossibly complex formula compared to
f(usage statistic)->metagame effect