gbwead

Venomoth to NU plz. No reason for it to remain BL, especially with Gigalith in NU to counter it.

That's great, but I'll open the thread for captain sign ups in July.

In that case, I would like to add on my previous suggestion: 1st month Move Down Cutoff Point: 3.00% Move Up Cutoff Point: 5.50%% 2nd month Move Down Cutoff Point: 2.50% Move Up Cutoff Point: 6.00% 3rd month Move Down Cutoff Point: 3.75% Move Up Cutoff Point: 4.75% With these cutoff points, the second month would be the month where movements are the least likely which mean tiers would unlikely be destabilized going into seasonal tournaments. The first month is the month where we see the metagames react to the new season changes, so movements should still be possible in order to deal promptly with strong usage reactions to the new metagame.

Nothing yoyos up and down during the first and second months of each cycle. Yoyoing only happens on the third month, so limiting rises during the first and second month has absolutely no impact on yoyoing. If a pokemon is under 1.7% usage after the first month, it is very likely that it will also be below the 4.36% cutoff point on the third month. If a pokemon is over 6.7% usage after the first month, it is very likely that it will also be over the 4.36% cutoff point on the third month. If a pokemon is very likely to change tier, it is best for that pokemon to move as soon as possible so tiers can start adapting right away. When everything moves at the end of each season, we end up with complete chaos which results in very problematic unstability. One of the problem with our current system is that almost nothing moves during the first and second month. We should facilitate movements during the first and second months, not limit them more. Take Gigalith in UU for instance: in April, it was at 2.74% usage; in May, it was at 2.53% usage; in June, it is now at 1.65% usage. With usage this low, Gigalith should have dropped to NU a long time ago, but the cutoff point for moving down is simply too low (1.7%) for that to ever happen. Even 2.5% would be too low. I don't see why rises would have more impact than drops. They go hand in hand.

I did not ask you anything.

@Munya What's the logic behind the no rises for the 1st month and 2nd month?

Iirc, the leaderboard (top 100) of each tier represents constantly 20% of all usage data gathered. That's what I calculated a few months ago, but I'm not sure if that remains the case.

I want to clarify some mechanics regarding cutoff points. Right now, at the end of each season, all mons over 4.36% move up and all mons under 4.36% move down. What happens if we choose another number for our end of season cutoff point? If the new cutoff point is lower than 4.36%, this will mean two things: The tiers will be larger. There will be more pokemon in OU and there will be more pokemon in UU. There will be more movements (more volatility). With larger tiers, more pokemon will be subjected to potential movements each month because more poemon will be in reach of the cutoff point. If the new cutoff point is higher than 4.36%, this will mean two things: The tiers will be smaller. There will be less pokemon in OU and there will be less pokemon in UU. There will be less movements (less volatility). With smaller tiers, less pokemon will be subjected to potential movements each month because fewer pokemon will be in reach of the cutoff point. There are pros and cons to increasing/reducing the cutoff point: Reducing the cutoff point means larger tiers which imply more pokemon will be played throughout all tiers (+ versatility / + fun), but this comes at the cost of an increased volatility in movements (unstability). Increasing the cutoff point means smaller tiers which imply less pokemon will be played throughout all tiers (- vesatility / - fun) to be creative, but this comes with the benefit of a reduced volatility in movements (stability). Whether we increase or lower the cutoff point, nothing will change regarding yoyoing. If we increase the cutoff point, all mons hovering around the new number will yoyo at the end of each season between two tiers and the same logic would apply to a lower cutoff point. There are mons that will hover the cutoff point whether the number is 2%, 5% or even 10%. Changing the cutoff point has no real impact on yoyoing. The solution for yoyoing is spliting the cutoff point into two cutoff points: one cutoff point for mons moving up and another cutoff point for mons moving down. By creating an cutoff point interval, yoyoing will get reduced automatically. Mons hovering around a certain number would no longer yoyo up and down. If the move down cutoff point is 3% and the move up cutoff point is 5%, mons that are hovering around 4% would not move up and down at the end of each season. Mons would need to seriously spike up or spike down in usage in order to move from a tier to another. It means that when a mon is able to reach the rise up cutoff point, in order for that pokemon to drop down it would need to reach the drop down cutoff point. By making the move up and down cutoff point different, it will be significantly harder for mons to yoyo up and down. With that being said, my recommendation is this: Change the current cutoff point of 4.36% to a move down cutoff point of 3.75% and a move up cutoff point of 4.75%. This change would accomplish 3 things: Slightly larger tiers (more options for lower tiers) Significantly reduced amount of yoyoing Slightly increased volatility in movements (but considering a big chunk of our movements are yoyoing related, overall the amount of movements would still decrease) Important note: I am only talking here about the end of season cutoff point in order to make this post as simple to understand as possible, but I strongly believe we should still have movements within each season and that OU/UU movements should not be synchronized with UU/NU movements.

no minimum

What is then? I could give a break down of every single thing you could do, but I have done that more than 10 times already in the past 5 years and I just wasted my time everytime.

The way we obtain usage does indeed require some time and that's fine. However, you can actually wave your finger in the air and change the cut-off points. It doesn't require any programming. It just requires you to change it from an arbitrary number (4.36% right now) to another arbitrary number. You can prevent yo-yo'ing whenever you want, you are just choosing not to. You also forgot to mention volatility as a problem with our usage system which is not the same thing as yoyoing.

In the meantime, can you at the very least figure out a way to present your ideas in a clear manner? There is still no clear picture of what is going on. The tier lists and BL lists that were outdated for years have been deleted since May without any explanation. The 1st and 2nd months freeze announcement is now extended without notice or reasoning. The seasonal freeze announcement was a 2 sentences post made in a usage movement thread that was closed 3 months ago. The tiering policy is getting modified without officially letting us know and yet remains outdated in regards to the freeze announcements that have been made recently. You want to make excuses for delays. Fine. Whatever I can't do anything about that. However, could you at the very least tell us what's up? What is actually going? What is the freeze suggestions/announcements about? What is the reasoning behind these suggestions? It would really help if we could have a clear picture of what is being suggested.

Asking to freeze tiers is not asking for patience, it's asking to destroy our terrible tiering system without replacing it with anything. If people complain that the water taste bad, you can't just take away their bad water with no replacement while asking them to be patient. They will all die. I rather drink bad water than getting no water at all. I rather have a shitty tiering system than having nothing. Seriously, it doesn't take an eternity to figure out a way to fix our tiering system. Everything has already been figured out, just pick a solution out of the hundreds that have been suggested by the community.

This is a problem we had for the past 5+ years. We don't need more time to figure out a plan to work this out. How can you not have a plan yet? This is not new, you should have a plan already. Enough with the delays and excuses. We all know freezing the tiers is not a solution, it's a cop out. When people ask you to do something, they actually want you to do something. We don't need you to take your time to figure out a plan, our time has been wasted enough already.

I posted countless solutions for yoyoing and unstability. Freezing anything is never a solution, it's a cop out that creates more issues down the line. If I go to the doctor because I have foot pain, I don't want the doctor to chop off my foot and say: "but you said you were in pain!, i just removed the pain source". It's absurd just like freezing is absurd.

I just think the projects need to be more clear. When people have to do bug reports, they have to use the following format: Would it be possible to present everything with a format like that? I'm one of the players that follows the forum the most and I am genuinely confused with what is actually being suggested here. I can't imagine anyone understanding that they have to give their input in the recently reopened April thread about a matter that will affect July movements, but with some reference to what happened in the May thread. It's imo a mess.

Fine. Let's assume they were silent. The announcement still says freezing would only last 1 season. You can't suddenly use that same announcement as a reference point to make this change permanent because if people or TC wanted to object to this becoming permanent, they would not be able to because they were never asked to give their input. They were asked to give their input about testing freezing for 1 season, they were not asked about making freezing a permanent thing. Also, if the point of testing freezing for the first two months is to check how a season will go, you need to actually go through with the season. By trying to cancel now season changes, you are destroying any basis on which your test was being founded.

They never expressed an interest in that idea to begin with. I asked multiple TC members about this and they had no idea where that announcement came from. Also, the announcement clearly states that it would apply to 1 season. So according to that announcement, TC would not even need to express their will for it to go back. It would go automatically back unless TC asked for the test to be extended and they would never ask such a thing because the idea of freezing is outrageously stupid to begin with.

"Upon request by the Tier Council we will be trying a season where we do not have usage based movements during the first 2 months of a season and the last month will currently have the old cutoff of 4.36% but we are open for discussion on changing the cutoffs for that." That was an announcement about testing the very stupid idea of freezing. The idea is now tested. It sucked as expected. How exactly did that stupid idea become a permanent change? The announcement clearly states that this would only apply to "a" season, to a singular season. It's over now.

Can you link the exact post because I don't see the announcement?

when did that ever get announced?

1.7% and 6.7% are mentionned in the tiering policy. I have no clue what you are talking about.

"Freezing the seasonal usage movements until the next month" there hasn't been a single usage movement in the last 5 years that didn't occur on the third month of each cycle. Freezing usage movements is the most stupid and useless idea ever. Why would you freeze usage movements when there is no movement to begin with? 1.7% and 6.7% cutoff points are so outrageously low and high that nothing ever moves. Then on the third month, everything goes to shit because everything moves up and down freely. You need to bring the 1.7% cutoff point closer to 4.36% and the 6.7% cutoff point closer to 4.36% as well, so we can finally have movements that respond to meta changes and adaptation. Our usage system is garbage and the idea of freezing movements is one of the worst thing that could ever happen. Please stop entertaining such an horrible idea.

I will most likely handle these situations case by case. If a country has never participated in WC before, I still want the captain and the 3 mandatory donators to at the very least be from that country. If someone has participated in WC 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for Brazil and suddenly they want to be considered one of the 3 mandatory donators for Mongolia, well that will take a lot of convincing because I would be inclined to not believe them. No limit. If a country wants to split, they must organize themselves ahead of time to make sure they will have the necessary funds to get selected. I'm not sure about this. I would like more input from the community on this matter. I might rework some aspects of the selection process based on donations, so I'll keep all of this in the back on my mind when I will make changes. However, I'm not super confortable imposing a maximum amount of players per team.

Poll is up. Let me know if I missed any suggestion.