OrangeManiac

How can you even suggest this in a game that is so match-up reliant as Pokemon? "Oh, I have a bad matchup - I'll just do nothing and lose no ELO points."

How can you even suggest this in a game that is so match-up reliant as Pokemon? "Oh, I have a bad matchup - I'll just do nothing and lose no ELO points."

A small QoL-feature that I think would be nice is having a toggle on the Pokemon's move window to prevent learning any new level up moves. Honestly, even more time consuming than leveling up a baby Pokemon all the time is to press cancel on like a million level up moves which just feels so annoying and pointless. Also useful when you already have your moveset ready and you wanna save a bit of time. It's not that clicking cancel a million times is even MMO-related grind, it's really just a major inconvenience and rather major annoyance when doing any breeds with species that have a baby Pokemon form.
 
I don't know if this has ever been suggested, did a few search words and found nothing related.
 

We acknowledge we may have made a mistake in our original placement of Scolipede with its HA within the NU tier, and will be moving it to UU, effective immediately.

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

So first of all: Hail Xatu! Welcome to the PokéManiacs gym! PokéManiacs is a team of which purpose is not to 1) take the game too seriously 2) take ourselves too seriously. Yes, we still fail at both of these miserably at times. Whatever. So, we got this this Eggplant's PokeMMO Pilgrimage gym thing and now we're one of the Gyms and your purpose is to beat us. 
 
Right, so.. You think you can defeat our nerdy team? Here's your chance! First you must prove your worth to my fellow Maniacs which if you manage to do so you will be able to take on me for the battle to get the Prophecy Badge - which is a prophecy for great things to happen in your path to become the very best! (like no one ever was)
 
Badge: 
 
Gym location: Somewhere in the depths of Fortree City and its surroundings.
 
Gym roster:
 
Leader: OrangeManiac (OU, UU, NU)
 
Trainers:
Parke (UU, NU)
DynamicPyro (UU, NU)
Manegg (OU)
REEVS (OU)
SamuraiHunter* (Doubles)
CaptainKek* (OU)
Spaintakula (OU, UU w/ my comps lol)
Raptori (OU, NU)
FuzzyRegirock (OU)
RyoOhsora (OU, Ubers)
Coolialt (DJ)
 
*a bit more inactive people currently
 
 
Rules and stuff:
 
- You take up a challenge by posting the tiers you want to take this gym on. OU is accepted as the only "lone" tier. If you want to be able to challenge our trainers fast it's recommend to at least include OU as one of the plausible tiers you can play.
- After you have posted your tiers, I will name two players that will take your challenge. The reason why I name the players is because we have a lot of players but some of them are quite inactive at times and I kinda know how active/inactive they are. I'd say a lot of our players are pretty equally skilled but I do my best to have the most equal level of challenge for everyone. My trainers can by their own initiative take on challengers without me naming trainers as well when they have time.
- You fail the gym by losing to either of the named Trainers or to Gym Leader. If you have beaten a trainer in our gym, in a rematch of our gym you need to beat only 1 trainer before allowing to battle the gym leader.
- Gym challenges will be fairly "first come, first serve", however if you fail there may be some kind of a short cooldown to let new challengers to take on the gym first
 
Good luck!

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

Pokemon dropping out of nowhere sort of "break" the standard policies we have for tiering. For one, they cannot be evaluated for usage the same way because rarely they were eligible for entire month/3-month cycle to know their true usage. That's why TC just has to based on estimation start that Pokemon from somewhere. Obviously, BL/BL2 banning is always a possibility but I think it's a reasonable point that Scolipede necessarily shouldn't be put to BL2 but rather just started in UU instead. I think this should be addressed asap, thanks for bringing it up.

michele you HAVE to change this title 

I know you might be surprised I’m making such a claim but I really think it’s true. The Doubles metagame has stagnated heavily for last couple of years and now I feel like it’s come to a complete halt. I’d hate to ever call a metagame “solved”, especially with a sample size of players this small but it almost really feels that way at this point.
 
So what exactly is the problem? The biggest problem to me is that deviating from some of the staples of the Doubles metagame almost immediately puts you in a disadvantage, so people don’t. There is very limited amount of (good) anti-meta Pokemon and even those can be teched against with a few creative item choices. Instead of innovating with new Pokemon ideas, the main innovation in Doubles currently happens with item selections and movesets at this point. Matches often come down to unexpected item choices at the highest level.
 
In general, it is very difficult to “counter-team” in Doubles in comparison to Singles. No matter how good of a counter-team you would build, it is very difficult to build a team where let’s say opponent’s Metagross/Zapdos/Hitmontop/Garchomp or Hydreigon are completely useless. Because of their notable bulk, it is very difficult to one shot them but also the second Pokemon can provide necessary means to keep those aforementioned Pokemon alive. These Pokemon are being used so much because they are never useless.
 
So, are these Pokemon the problem then? Just get rid of them? Well, if it was that simple. The reason these Pokemon are good is the nature of Double battles and our 6v6 format. In 6v6 format, you always want to bring Pokemon that bring something to the table in every game because you have to use that Pokemon. The key in all competitive play is consistency. If that Pokemon only brought utility in a small number of games, you will replace that with something that will bring value in every game. You might see where I’m going with this.
 
Yeah, I am suggesting that we would really – seriously – consider whether we should give VGC format a chance in our game. "But why exactly VGC-format would be a solution", you may ask? Having to bring all 6 Pokemon is largely the reason the metagame is what it is now. Having able to bring only 4 from 6 (with best of 3 battles), it allows far more nuance and experimentation from your team and being able to try out creative choices without being punished in majority of the games where that Pokemon just got outclassed. The options for usable Pokemon would increase heavily. Yes, there still would be the staples people will fall back on and some of the old reliables will be used just so teams have a standard mode to fall back to, if their “gimmick” didn’t work. But in general, it would open up teambuilding by so much because you are not immediately putting yourself in a disadvantage by trying matchup specific techs rather than falling back on your “old reliable 6”.
 
More proof that our current Doubles metagame is seriously flawed is the lack of many viable archetypes in our metagame. We have one viable weather archetype, which is rain. No other weather really is viable at all. Even Tyranitar, supposedly a “sand setter” is really only used to take away the weather of rain teams. This also applies to the random Vanilluxe/Abomasnow techs you might see running around but it is the same reason. The only viable weather is rain, the others are just trying to do their best to slow it down. In addition, we have a complete lack of archetypes in speed control modes too. Trick Room is barely even a viable team composition anymore, while it used to be a serious contender just years back. Now the only viable speed control mode is a Tailwinder (often Zapdos) in your own team and your occasional Icy Wind, which are mostly just to be pseudo-counters to Garchomp anyways.
 
Before I get shown multiple examples of how someone won an official finals with a sun team or hard Trick Room team, that is not my point. My point isn’t that off-meta choices cannot win. My point is that they just aren't consistent, and the highest level players know that. The problem is that people have discovered the most consistent to win in Doubles and there’s nowhere to be seen that anyone is breaking the status quo. The top 5 most used Pokemon have been exactly the same for half a year now. And it’s not even close – the top 5 most used Doubles Pokemon have at least DOUBLE the usage as anything after them. That is absolutely absurd and insane and screams from stagnation and consistency optimization.
 
Doubles is still fun to play, don’t get me wrong, just not to teambuild in. Teambuilding wise, the metagame is just going nowhere. Not even new legendary additions will change this. There are no upcoming legendaries that would completely punish that core of 5 without being Uberworthy itself. Furthermore, at best some new legendaries might be thrown themselves in the pool of consistent reliable Pokemon. Then we might have 6 Pokemon everyone uses in the high level instead of 5. “Yippee.”
 
I seriously don’t have an answer how to fix Doubles. I really don’t. As I said, even if we would hypothetically ban the “Top 5” (which makes no sense to begin with), it would take people time to find the new Top 5 but they will and the cycle repeats. That’s why I’m suggesting that we would really give VGC a shot because the nature of the format encourages experimentation. Heck, implement it just as a mode you can challenge in-game and able to host automated tournaments with and just try a few ones. It might be a complete fail, who knows. Maybe people will love and it becomes the new standard, maybe they will hate it and we will fall back to what we had. But the Doubles metagame is just not fun really to anyone anymore and I really haven't seen many disagreeing who I've discussed this with.
 
Teambuilding is the spice of Pokemon. In Pokemon, you can use your creativity to design your own team to try to get the upper hand over your opponent with your team selection choices. That’s the fun part, that’s why we play it. Now Doubles is just trying to outplay your opponent with the same 5. It’s just not as fun and it's not why we play competitive Mons over other alternatives. We need to try something. I really hope this game would give a chance to something new when the old one clearly isn't working anymore. And with Doubles, it just isn't anymore. Thanks for reading.
 
 
P.S. Everything I wrote I’m only voicing my own opinions
 

This is such a bad faith approach, the aims and goals sometimes change and those can sometimes change based on what is expected/allowed from TC to begin with. Lumiere specifically stated when opening the Sharpness + Gallade discussion that now TC was given a permission to open that discussion, and now TC immediately did so when given that permission.
 
If we think about it from logical perspective, I don't think Sharpness would have been ever designed on Gallade even from GameFreak's POV if it didn't have good moves to make use of that Ability. So from conceptual perspective it makes absolutely no sense to introduce Sharpness Gallade, to boost some of its moves, but then removing those moves because Gallade now is suddenly too strong in our environment. It would make the whole process look silly and it makes far more sense to allow the old PokeMMO Gallade exist instead of some genetically modded boosted-but-crippled version of Gallade (until Sharpness Gallade looks ok enough to be introduced again).

This is such a bad faith approach, the aims and goals sometimes change and those can sometimes change based on what is expected/allowed from TC to begin with. Lumiere specifically stated when opening the Sharpness + Gallade discussion that now TC was given a permission to open that discussion, and now TC immediately did so when given that permission.
 
If we think about it from logical perspective, I don't think Sharpness would have been ever designed on Gallade even from GameFreak's POV if it didn't have good moves to make use of that Ability. So from conceptual perspective it makes absolutely no sense to introduce Sharpness Gallade, to boost some of its moves, but then removing those moves because Gallade now is suddenly too strong in our environment. It would make the whole process look silly and it makes far more sense to allow the old PokeMMO Gallade exist instead of some genetically modded boosted-but-crippled version of Gallade (until Sharpness Gallade looks ok enough to be introduced again).

This is such a bad faith approach, the aims and goals sometimes change and those can sometimes change based on what is expected/allowed from TC to begin with. Lumiere specifically stated when opening the Sharpness + Gallade discussion that now TC was given a permission to open that discussion, and now TC immediately did so when given that permission.
 
If we think about it from logical perspective, I don't think Sharpness would have been ever designed on Gallade even from GameFreak's POV if it didn't have good moves to make use of that Ability. So from conceptual perspective it makes absolutely no sense to introduce Sharpness Gallade, to boost some of its moves, but then removing those moves because Gallade now is suddenly too strong in our environment. It would make the whole process look silly and it makes far more sense to allow the old PokeMMO Gallade exist instead of some genetically modded boosted-but-crippled version of Gallade (until Sharpness Gallade looks ok enough to be introduced again).

This is such a bad faith approach, the aims and goals sometimes change and those can sometimes change based on what is expected/allowed from TC to begin with. Lumiere specifically stated when opening the Sharpness + Gallade discussion that now TC was given a permission to open that discussion, and now TC immediately did so when given that permission.
 
If we think about it from logical perspective, I don't think Sharpness would have been ever designed on Gallade even from GameFreak's POV if it didn't have good moves to make use of that Ability. So from conceptual perspective it makes absolutely no sense to introduce Sharpness Gallade, to boost some of its moves, but then removing those moves because Gallade now is suddenly too strong in our environment. It would make the whole process look silly and it makes far more sense to allow the old PokeMMO Gallade exist instead of some genetically modded boosted-but-crippled version of Gallade (until Sharpness Gallade looks ok enough to be introduced again).

FINALLY

I don't get why would someone prefer doing a complex ban like Sacred Sword+Gallade which makes everything messy instead of banning the ability that makes its only user broken.

Quick announcement:
Dear PokeMMO community, we are pleased to inform you that after a long discussion regarding the Gallade (Sharpness) issue in OU, and after several months of waiting, we have finally been granted permission to open a voting process regarding a possible ban on Gallade+Sharpness (subject to individual votes which will not be published until all individuals vote).

Alright guys, Staraptor is rightfully removed from the UU now under Uber Offensive, thanks for pointing out that it should have been the priority. We've acknowledged your very legitimate concerns that Staraptor tearing down defenses also paved way for Lucario to shine. What we want to know with Staraptor removed that does Lucario feel less oppressive now and does it feel like it can be more reasonably counterplayed against now, or does it feel like a problem still. We're waiting to hear your input as you guys explore the metagame without Staraptor.

Alright guys, Staraptor is rightfully removed from the UU now under Uber Offensive, thanks for pointing out that it should have been the priority. We've acknowledged your very legitimate concerns that Staraptor tearing down defenses also paved way for Lucario to shine. What we want to know with Staraptor removed that does Lucario feel less oppressive now and does it feel like it can be more reasonably counterplayed against now, or does it feel like a problem still. We're waiting to hear your input as you guys explore the metagame without Staraptor.

I completly agree with this. If we look at the last few months, there has been ban requests for Entei, Shaymin, Salamence, Blissey, Kabutops, Togekiss, Lucario, Haxorus, P2 and Staraptor.

Entei is quite nice vs Shaymin, Blissey and a decent RK to Lucario.
Shaymin is quite nice vs Kabutops.
Salamence is quite nice vs Entei, Shaymin and Lucario. 
Togekiss is nice vs Blissey, Shaymin, P2 and sometimes even Salamence.
Blissey is nice vs Salamence et sometimes Shaymin.
Kabutops is nice vs Entei, Togekiss, Blissey, Salamence and even sometimes Lucario.
P2 is nice vs Entei, Salamence, Kabutops and sometimes Haxorus.
 
If we test Togekiss without Lucario and Kabutops, it would be a shame for it to get banned when it could have been useful against mons like Blissey, Shaymin, P2 and Mence that were all also suspected to be banworthy. I'm not saying Togekiss should not get banned (even though that's what I believe), just that it does have some positive traits that would have been completly overlooked because of the potential lack in answers.

When so many things need to be tested, it's optimal time wise to test everything at the same time. Our metagames are not static. They change every update, sometimes multiple times per year. We don't have the luxury to wait and go through multiple tests to make sure everything is good and balanced. The bandaid needs to be ripped off so we can move on as swiftly as possible.
 
 

With staraptor gone I believe they want to observe it some more.

We had proposed voting now, but the majority of the team would like to watch at least the next couple tournaments to see how Lucario stands without Staraptor pressuring defenses and paving the way for a Lucario sweep.