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The tiering system needs to be updated to fit the current state of the game


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The problem with the 3-months system is that it looks like an ultimate solution to creating all tiers, but it simply never worked for NU. The amount of chaos and unstability the system created for NU has always been overwhelming. That's the reason why TC always tries to artifically create "stability" there by quick banning everything that dares drop to that tier without any test whatsoever. Over the years, I have suggested so many ways to try to improve the tiering system, but all of my suggestions were either shut down or ignored. I came to realise that staff/devs like the 3 months system for two reasons:

1. 3 months = 1 season
Having the main usage movements right when a season ends looks like great game design since it means in theory that throughout a season, a tier shouldn't change. The problem is that tiers are very different and a single solution to everything is pure fantasy. UU is created based on more that 550k duels per months. NU is created based on 8k duels per months. It just doesn't make sense for NU to be created the same way UU is created when the data available for creating these tiers is so high for UU and so low for NU. Considering that Munya announces usage movements 1 week before the end of the third month, it also means that it's only the first 20 days of the third month that determines usage movements. We don't even get 8k UU duels that create NU, only 6k. This means we are seeing mons with 35% win rate rise up to a tier where clearly they are not even viable. Something with so low win rate should not be able to move up and yet that's the case. This is the equivalent of having Flygon (35% win rate) rise up to OU out of nowhere because the data available for creating tiers is so low. 
 

2. Chaos is good

I used to complain a lot about how bad the tiering system was for NU and how much chaos NU had to deal with every season. The answer to my complaints was always the same: "stability = staleness". Staff/Devs don't want lower tiers to stabilize, they embrace the chaos because they associate chaos with keeping the game "interesting". It doesn't surprise me that they intent to add Hidden Abilities progressively. It implies disrupting tiers with chaos and that to the them means keeping the game "interesting". I tried to argue mutliple times that providing stability to tiers means tiers can evolve naturally. That leads to having better tiers and having more informed tiering decisions. When a tier is stable and naturally evolving, it's easier to analyse to impact of adding or removing threats. 

 

We need usage movements to reflect what is happening in each tier and determining usage movements based on 20 days of usage (6k duels) is absolute non sense. That's not enough.

 

I believe the best way to handle usage movements would be with a 2 repetitive months cycle. For a pokemon to drop to a lower tier, that pokemon needs to be below 4% usage two months in a row. For a pokemon to rise to a higher tier, that pokemon needs to be over 5% usage two months in a row. No more first, second or third month. A pokemon that has proven to be worth something in a higher tier, can rise up to that tier every month. We wouldn't have to wait 3 months for every single time. This system also requires no extra work or effort from staff. The data is available in game and no calculations are required. I remember analyzing what the tiers would look like based on that system in 2020/2021; the usage movements would have made more sense and were more dynamic too.

 



Another issue I see coming is the addition of new Regenerator Pokemons. I implore devs to not let that happen. This will kill the competitive scene. I like stall and would love to have more regenerator mons, but in PokeMMO it would be complete madness if we have a 1 hour time limit rule + multiple regenerator mons. Games where players have to make plays to win will result instead in huge stall fest based on that 1 hour time limit rule win condition. I don't know if there are any plans to add more regenerator mons, but if that is the case please reconsider before it's too late. 

 

 

Also, TC needs to do something about UU. Since the addition of P-Z in UU, UU usage dropped from 40-50k duels per months to 8k duels per months. UU used to be played more than NU. Now, NU is played 3 times more than UU. I don't think any tiering decision in the history of the game has ever been this bad. Please just ban P-Z before UU matchmaking dies. The death of UU would also mean the death of NU. There is so much at stake here and TC needs to act. (Plz don't ban me again for disagreeing with TC)

Edited by gbwead
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I've said this before but UU and NU dont even have the bumbers anymore for usage to determine anything. OU should be based on usage, everything else needs to be discussed tested based on overall power and impact on the tiers. But that would require TC to be pretty transparent and for them to have a lot of say over the lower tiers. Both are kind of hard to achieve it seems.

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1 hour ago, RysPicz said:

tl;dr

 

Up to OU/BL instantly:

Torkoal

Venusaur

Serperior

P-Z

Empoleon

Machamp

Espeon

 

 

Did I miss anything?

i think if you remove all these pokemon a yanmega suspect is maybe needed since gigalith lose viabilty and no empoleon 

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5 minutes ago, Quinn010 said:

i think if you remove all these pokemon a yanmega suspect is maybe needed since gigalith lose viabilty and no empoleon 

If something becomes a threat then we can suspect test it and ban xD

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I wanted to add one thing to the issues this unstability cause, it is that we aren't playing a PvP simulator but a MMO with players having sometimes limited resources. It may not strike to the old players, but getting into PvP - or just wanting to try a new tier - will be more costly than ever, to keep up with whatever is available or not, what you need to answer a threat that will probably be gone after a month and come back because of wanky usage. It is already the case but it will become bigger issue with HAs ; there is a world where overpowered mons can stay two months in a tier because players don't have money for whatever HA patch at 2M to get its usage up. 

 

Tl;Dr vicious circle where fewer players actually play and what they play are limited to their resources and not always meta. 

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12 hours ago, RysPicz said:

tl;dr

 

Up to OU/BL instantly:

Torkoal I don't think Torkoal is the problem at hand, I can't remember it gaining anything new so let it rise with usage if it proves itself to be OU.

Venusaur Personally iffy on this one, it is great in sun but we already had other sun sweepers that could perform in a similar fashion albeit Venu is definitely the best one.

Serperior Why has this not been quick banned to OU?

P-Z Debatable topic, doesn't look like TC want to move it up either way.

Empoleon Roost is good but doubt it makes Empoleon a defensive uber in UU, let it rise with usage.

Machamp Why has this not been quick banned to OU?

Espeon HA is great but again it doesn't exactly make Espeon an offensive/defensive uber. Just really good utility, I'm sure OU usage will rise but I see no harm in letting it find a place in OU naturally. 

 

 

Did I miss anything?

In general I do believe that drip feeding HA's serves the best interest of the games lifespan but some are obviously much more impactful. Given adequate time and community feedback, I don't think it is a stretch to say anything obviously OP for a current tier will be pushed up by the TC. 

 

18 hours ago, gbwead said:

I believe the best way to handle usage movements would be with a 2 repetitive months cycle. For a pokemon to drop to a lower tier, that pokemon needs to be below 4% usage two months in a row. For a pokemon to rise to a higher tier, that pokemon needs to be over 5% usage two months in a row. No more first, second or third month. A pokemon that has proven to be worth something in a higher tier, can rise up to that tier every month. We wouldn't have to wait 3 months for every single time. This system also requires no extra work or effort from staff. The data is available in game and no calculations are required. I remember analyzing what the tiers would look like based on that system in 2020/2021; the usage movements would have made more sense and were more dynamic too.

 

Adapting a new system like this would be ideal if tiers are going to constantly have new HA's introduced. The whole varying usage dynamic between different months was also a bit confusing, it should be made clear to the players that a mon is changing a tier, especially if it just got something new (e.g. HA). 

Another issue I see coming is the addition of new Regenerator Pokemons. I implore devs to not let that happen. This will kill the competitive scene. I like stall and would love to have more regenerator mons, but in PokeMMO it would be complete madness if we have a 1 hour time limit rule + multiple regenerator mons. Games where players have to make plays to win will result instead in huge stall fest based on that 1 hour time limit rule win condition. I don't know if there are any plans to add more regenerator mons, but if that is the case please reconsider before it's too late. 

 

Time limit is dumb in general, we all know it was implemented to make tournaments run smoother but winning on timer is just scummy and not in the competitive spirit. I can't remember how it works in the later rounds of a tournament but at the very least semis and finals should have the time restriction removed. They aren't waiting on many players so I see no need for a timer restriction.

 

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5 hours ago, Poufilou said:

one thing to the issues this unstability cause, it is that we aren't playing a PvP simulator but a MMO with players having sometimes limited resources

This is definitely one of the root causes of the dissatisfaction of some competitive players, I've talked with some and I've read here in the forums people mention showdown...showdown you setup your mons as you want with the items that you want in a flash, here you have to take the time and money to capture/buy the mons (and now the alpha mon for HA), breed it, ev train it, lvl it and buy the item. This is an MMORPG it's not a simulator, many players may want to actively PvP but don't have the resources to do so yet or maybe they are limited in their comp pool. 

Another big point is what @gbweadsaid about the amount of games available for TC to analyse. Again we go back to showdown, lots of data...we come back to pokemmo not so much and like GB said..it varies from tier to tier quite a bit.

Our TC has to find ways the best they can to address this issue. We can't have one solution/one method for all the tiers.

Munya recently said that they are going to increase the response time to tier changes let's hope that is enough but it worries me that again they are trying 1 method fits all.

Wouldn't it be best to assign TC member tiers? This way they would be more focused on a specific tier, better informed (hopefully) and able to react faster?

PS: TC transparency is crucial! 

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Having people for each tier only works if we have interest in people joining TC to focus on each tier, a fair amount of the time we struggle to maintain the 6 members we have, and i think to focus each tier we'd be looking at a minimum of 3 per tier like it used to be, so 9 total(No doubles representation?).

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6 Members..

1 OU TC
1 UU TC
1 NU TC
3 general ones for advising/debating with the main Tier TC members.

Tier TC member has final say unless 3 general ones agree and overule the main Tier TC


Just a thought... @Munya

Or you can always try to recruit more TC members ? 
/global chat LF TC Members ? 

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3 minutes ago, Unnefable said:

6 Members..

1 OU TC
1 UU TC
1 NU TC
3 general ones for advising/debating with the main Tier TC members

Pls no lmao

 

As much as I respect TC members volunteering work, I don't think that one player being "in charge" of a tier is a reasonable thing especially in light of the past choices TC has made and that are still controversial. I hope I can trust TC members to follow whoever comrade decisions they judge more pertinent or knowledgeable on a tier if they aren't familiar enough with it. 

 

If a revamp of the system is in the thoughts, obviously there's gonna need more/new TC members. 

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Quote

tl;dr

 

Up to OU/BL instantly:

Torkoal

Venusaur

Serperior

P-Z

Empoleon

Machamp

Espeon

Torkoal and Venusaur - Ban drought UU or the combination of Venusaur + Chrolphyll on UU. Without Sun, Venusaur is healthy even for NU.

Serperior - Quick-ban, however he will go to OU by himself.

P-Z - Tier Council decide to not ban before, probablly TC will not ban.

Empoleon - Defensive-Uber for UU, Quick-Ban

Machamp - Idk why aren't banned.

Espeon - Not unhealty, but will not survive on NU and UU, will go to OU by himself.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/5/2022 at 10:06 AM, gbwead said:

2. Chaos is good

I used to complain a lot about how bad the tiering system was for NU and how much chaos NU had to deal with every season. The answer to my complaints was always the same: "stability = staleness". Staff/Devs don't want lower tiers to stabilize, they embrace the chaos because they associate chaos with keeping the game "interesting". It doesn't surprise me that they intent to add Hidden Abilities progressively. It implies disrupting tiers with chaos and that to the them means keeping the game "interesting". I tried to argue mutliple times that providing stability to tiers means tiers can evolve naturally. That leads to having better tiers and having more informed tiering decisions. When a tier is stable and naturally evolving, it's easier to analyse to impact of adding or removing threats. 

 

We need usage movements to reflect what is happening in each tier and determining usage movements based on 20 days of usage (6k duels) is absolute non sense. That's not enough.

But lower tiers, even from Showdown, never get stabilized. On showdown, for example, the lower tiers are only stable now because Smogon determine that no rise will happen until Gen 9, except quick bans. However, if this doesn't happen, the lower tiers probablly will be keep on chaos. Every month changing the top mons due to something falling to lower tier or Rising to upper tier.

So, the thing that i suggest is send all mons that received HA, to Over Used, and gradually reintroducing him on Lower tiers. Because somethings broke the low tiers metagaming, while others not. however, every change must be avaliable case by case.

All of us know that we don't have conditions to say: X thing are broken or Y thing are broken. Because the lower tiers AND OVER USED are a chaos. Or we can forgot the torkoal that usually are a 3%-4% usage on OU, because of Venusaur's HA, instantly become OU? Or Contrary Serperior that on Doubles, can Avoid the evasion clasule(Defog aiming on him raise evasion, i tested.) , Or Espeon Magic Bounce, that can set up Screens with no fear of Defog(Defog clean only opposing mon's Screens, not your owns. So, if they are bounced back, will clean your Screens , if have, not opposing screens.) and just Baton Pass to avoid Pursuit? Even with a few days , those examples have potential to break OU/Doubles/UU(Espeon only). But we cannot say that things are broken because all metagaming are a chaos now.

Other solution that i see is a complety reset on Metagaming when Gen 9 reachs. Until then, lock all rises from tiers and let only drops happen. The only exception to rises is Bans/Quickbans. When Gen 9 reachs, reset the metagaming putting all mons on Over Used, from most used to more ridiculous, and little by little form a shape to UU. When UU is stable enough(3 months i believe that are enough if changes happen monthly), use the usage of him and create a RU. After this, repeat the process to create NU and PU. With this, we remake the shape from the old tiers and add two new tiers. While on this process of formation, devs cannot change movepools or nothing else. Only add after all tiers are stable enough, and if have any moveset changes, and the mons that receive new moves aren't all on Untiered, devs cannot change him again for at least 5 months, in order to evaluate the impact of change on metagaming. (To not happen things like this that happen on NU and UU. With machamp getting two new moves and with them, getting banned from NU and dominating UU. While this, they add a lot of HA and break a little more the tiers. Even OU shakes with the impact, with the HA bringing sun to the Metagaming, making espeon being viable, etc. And with all of this chaos, Tier Council can't even do a propertly suspect test with machamp. Reason? OrangeManiac already descripted. ) 

Edited by caioxlive13
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  • 3 months later...

Dredging this thread up but can we also talk about crazy the difference is between tiers as well? Looking at just one day so far into the month and 7000 matches played in OU alone. NU? 4. UU? 24. Implementing some new changes to tiering or even better rewards for lower tiers would be great. 

 

P.S. sorry for reviving the dead

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5 hours ago, epicdavenport said:

Dredging this thread up but can we also talk about crazy the difference is between tiers as well? Looking at just one day so far into the month and 7000 matches played in OU alone. NU? 4. UU? 24. Implementing some new changes to tiering or even better rewards for lower tiers would be great. 

 

P.S. sorry for reviving the dead

Randoms killed it. 

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4 hours ago, Munya said:

Thats more of a subject for suggestions box, TC has no influence on prizes for matchmaking.

But shouldn't they have that, as our current tiering system is usage based it seems reasonable that we either give some freedom to TC in order to (try to) get a more stable usage or just drop the usage based tiering.

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Well, with these new additions we're seeing how ROTTEN the system is being used under current conditions. Why don't we just abandon the tiering system by usage, at least in parts, and think of a new system to assemble the tiers?

In my opinion, the usage system could keep, but: 450- Elo Players(Low Ladder) should not have usage counted at all. 450-650 Elo Players(MidL adder) could even have usage counted, but with a weight of 0.5. 650+ Elo Players(High Ladder) would have usage counted normally. Why? Because of a phenomenon called "New Toy Syndrome". Basically when something is released players tend to use it more. On the high ladder people quickly notice when the poke is Gimmick and stop using it very soon. The opposite happens in the Low ladder. Also, the usage of very gimmick mons that only Low Ladder will use, will simply vanish. But if applicate, devs need to do one of the two following things: 

  1. Classify a people on a rank based on previous season. Example:
    450- elo players starts on 450 next season
    450-550 elo players starts on 500 next season
    550-650 elo players starts on 550 next season
    650+ elo players starts on 650 next season
  2. Disconsider "First season month" usage to do movements.

 

For now with the new additions, what we can consider is just using the Tournament usage in the last 4 rounds and basing any changes by tiering on them. Something with 6.7+% usage might go up, 1.7-% usage might go down, and between the two usages and 4.36%, vote to decide whether to go down or not. If something is released, the % usage of mon will count from the moment it is released until end of month(if something being launched on 11th november, then it's usage will be based on matches that he will being used/matches played from 11th Novemmber until 30 november.). After releasing all HA, or at least 5/6 of them, we can use the system that i suggested.

Edited by caioxlive13
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9 minutes ago, CaptnBaklava said:

Not even close to how dead they are after the release of randoms 

 

I remember having to wait 30mins-1h and facing the same person multiple times in  a row in UU even before randoms, can't speak for NU and Doubles though.

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