[Tier Policy Discussion] Usage's actual role in tiering

[OrangeManiac]

Hello there everybody. Due to the recent bans from UU to BL as well as Senile's response to my comment while back made me think about the policies of tiering: As according to Senile tiers are based on usage now and the movement from one tier to another could be justified due to high usage in lower tier or no usage in higher tier, should Pokemon that are seemingly broken but not used at all allowed to be banned? The biggest example of this happening is Alakazam getting banned from UU to BL with the usage of 4.84%. Meanwhile Snorlax is enjoying 66% usage in OU but no banhammer. I do not want to get in the details of Alakazam's role in UU metagame (in short, I'm aware existance of Espeon might have cut the usage down) but this thread is not about Alakazam but just the overall understanding how tiers should be done.
 

I am not personally against banning based on by theoretical power but doesn't this make the usage based fixing of the tiers very complicated to say the least? Let's say some OUs got moved down to UUs due to not being used anymore and then we would find reasons why Alakazam could be moved to UU again (just an example). Wouldn't it be basing tiering for usage and theoretical power at once? So I'm just wondering is the usage the base for initial tiers or the tiering in the future but decisions can be made based on theoretical power? Because I honestly can't see the clear line here.

Meanwhile in the OU tier everyone and their mother is using Snorlax and it just can't get a banhammer. I personally find the reason being "We don't want a metagame of special sweepers + Blissey + Dugtrio". I find it as an acceptable thing to be worried about but when is it to decide when a high usage is acceptable in a tier. (I know Snorlax has counters and it can be beat and etc etc etc etc, I'm just talking about usage based tiering). So why can't be, let's say, existance of Forretress allowed in UU if it's not found to be OP (no one ever made a UU Discussion thread about Forretress while back) while the tier's hyper offense could be limited by a Defensive Wall spiker as it can abuse the Choice Band at least a little bit. If we are based the tiering on usage the movedown from OU to UU for Forretress isn't ever going to happen. Meanwhile Snorlax's existance seems to be about the metagame's healthiness to me since I don't think any Pokemon should ever exist in a tier with such usage, if we base the tiering on usage.

Back to the theoretical power. All of this also made me think about the upcoming NU tier. Let's say Whiscash which I personally praise to be as the Swampert with Dragon Dance seems to be not used at all in UU, at least yet. I find one reason for being that DD Whiscash is a pain to breed. If by usage cutoff point it goes in the NU tier do we really need to wait everyone to breed themselves one just so we can claim that it's overpowered or can it just be banned if every NU player finds it ridiculously overpowered. Whiscash is just one example I could think of, you can spare me from the others. This is why I honestly am not against banning due to theoretical power, so I am not complaining about the ban of Alakazam even one bit.

 

Here's just basically some things that came into my mind, none of this is a rant - just my thoughts. To me it's really hard to have a clear line for tiering when it's very unclear what the actual real role of usage is in the tiering.

Edited March 24, 2015 by OrangeManiac

[OrangeManiac]

Changed the title to be more appropriate about what I just wrote about.

[Senile]

The role in usage is pretty clear IMO, not sure what the confusion is.

 

UU is for pokemon that aren't used very much in OU. The purpose of UU, the reason it was created to begin with, is to give a chance for pokemon who cannot succeed in OU, due to being outclassed entirely or simply not good enough to be playable. So, by taking usage statistics, we can see how much pokemon are used, and create UU based on the pokemon which are not being used. But you ask, why not move down pokemon that aren't broken to UU, even if they have high OU usage? Because that's not the purpose of UU. UU is to provide a break from all the common OU pokemon; Not to have 2 seperate tiers with Forretress running around everywhere. This is all usage is used for.

 

A pokemon with very high usage isn't inherently banworthy, and has nothing to do with the role usage stats play in tiering. You can use high usage of a pokemon as a supplement to your arguments regarding a pokemon's tiering, but in terms of the actual process, it doesn't have any specific role.

 

Pokemon are banned from a tier based entirely on if they are too strong for it or not, that's how it has always been. Usage is just a way to figure out what pokemon belong in what tier to begin with, because the purpose of lower tiers is for the unused to be used. Just like how UU is for pokemon who can't make it in OU, NU is for pokemon who can't make it in OU or UU. The tiers are there simply for the purpose of diversity; Letting people play with more than just the bread and butter OU god pokemon.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Senile

[OrangeManiac]

The role in usage is pretty clear IMO, not sure what the confusion is.

 

UU is for pokemon that aren't used very much in OU. The purpose of UU, the reason it was created to begin with, is to give a chance for pokemon who cannot succeed in OU, due to being outclassed entirely or simply not good enough to be playable. So, by taking usage statistics, we can see how much pokemon are used, and create UU based on the pokemon which are not being used. But you ask, why not move down pokemon that aren't broken to UU, even if they have high OU usage? Because that's not the purpose of UU. UU is to provide a break from all the common OU pokemon; Not to have 2 seperate tiers with Forretress running around everywhere. This is all usage is used for.

 

A pokemon with very high usage isn't inherently banworthy, and has nothing to do with the role usage stats play in tiering. You can use high usage of a pokemon as a supplement to your arguments regarding a pokemon's tiering, but in terms of the actual process, it doesn't have any specific role.

 

Pokemon are banned from a tier based entirely on if they are too strong for it or not, that's how it has always been. Usage is just a way to figure out what pokemon belong in what tier to begin with, because the purpose of lower tiers is for the unused to be used. Just like how UU is for pokemon who can't make it in OU, NU is for pokemon who can't make it in OU or UU. The tiers are there simply for the purpose of diversity; Letting people play with more than just the bread and butter OU god pokemon.

I understand that the initial tiers are from usage and then overpowered Pokemon are banned to their respective BL tiers, yes. My main concern, however was how is the "fixing of the tiers" possible by what I understand will happen usage wise monthly or bi-monthly but at the same time we can ban Pokemon that are seemed to be banworthy, used or not. Or will these Pokemon that possibly will be moved down from OU to UU based on low usage in OU tier but at the same time they need to be sure to not break the metagame of the lower tier? So yeah, my main confusion is that will the fixing of the tiers in the future done by usage or theoretical power or both at once?

[Senile]

I understand that the initial tiers are from usage and then overpowered Pokemon are banned to their respective BL tiers, yes. My main concern, however was how is the "fixing of the tiers" possible by what I understand will happen usage wise monthly or bi-monthly but at the same time we can ban Pokemon that are seemed to be banworthy, used or not. Or will these Pokemon that possibly will be moved down from OU to UU based on low usage in OU tier but at the same time they need to be sure to not break the metagame of the lower tier? So yeah, my main confusion is that will the fixing of the tiers in the future done by usage or theoretical power or both at once?

Whenever we change the tiers based on usage, we'll just move down whatever is now below the cutoff point, and things that are now above it go to OU. If the things going down are too strong, then it's up to the UU council to decide how to deal with it; let it be, move it up to BL, etc.

 

This won't be an automatic thing, whenever it's time to update tiers based on usage, there'll probably be a meeting with the lower tier council and the overseeing council (maybe not even the overseeing council, I dunno, this hasn't happened yet), where the changes that will happen will be discussed. It's not like things will just get moved down, the UU council will know about what's being moved down and discuss them prior to anything happening; If they feel something ridiculously strong is coming in, they could just instantly ban it to BL, yeah.

[DrCraig]

I'd say that the usage data we take has two primary uses:

• The rough structure for setting up tiers since we are still developing our baby meta. It is a nice guide thus far, but is not too useful until large amounts are gathered.
• I like to see usage as a tool that can be used to strengthen an argument in a discussion. I do not think usage should be the primary factor in arguing for a ban/unban, but  should definitely have some significance.

I don't think usage should have too large of an impact on movements, but it is really just a case dependent scenario. Ja feel?

Edited March 24, 2015 by DrCraig

[DoubleJ]

I don't even know, but as of right now usage is only being used to determine a cut-off point for lower tiers to be established. Usage itself, to my knowledge, isn't taken into account when making a ban. What is taken into account for a ban is the relative ease by which a pokemon dominates a meta. There was a fancy description for ban criteria that has been floating around discussin threads via Smogon, but I can't seem to find it. With this in mind, maybe the tier council can develop their own criteria to make a ban in PokeMMO. 

 

I think we both agree to an extent that it doesn't seem fair to ban a pokemon with very little usage. It just doesn't make sense I guess. How can a pokemon that isn't even being used dominate a meta to the point of having to move it up? This leads us into theory-based bans which can be good for the meta, but are also somewhat complicated with an MMO. Smogon benefits from usage that spans a much greater pool of players and thus a much greater number of matches. We take usage from only a few events a month with 32 players at most. New threats come and go, but they have trouble making a dent in usage statistics that span a long period of time. So in a sense, usage statistics are slightly skewed. For example, for the past few events only a couple people used a Linoone and this was seen in usage. Although in both events Linoone dominated the meta. So despite a low usage, it is still banworthy. PokeMMO is just slow at identifying powerful and easily abused threats. This isn't the fault of players, it's just a problem with having so few chances to compete. If matchmaking were redesigned, we might see teams evolve away from the norm. I hope this happens. 

 

Now for the problem and question at hand, I do believe criteria for bans should be overhauled. Right now its basically based on how easily the respective tier council members can be influenced by a bunch of near-nonsensical arguing in a very messy discussion thread. I support community involvement, but reading through discussion threads only leaves players more confused than before they started reading it in the first place. I really like the threads themselves because they provide a solid foundation for identifying new movesets and basically crafting, but from the standpoint of trying to determine a ban, they are just too messy and too numerous. What differentiates Linoone, from Slowking, from Scizor, from Zangoose, or from Kingler?

 

I think a new forum option should be added to competitive alley. This thread should be called "Potential Bans" and allow for players to propose a ban to the tier council. Tier council members can decline the proposed ban at that time or open it up for discussion. A time period should also be implemented for a decision to be made. What should be made clear though is a set of criteria defining whether the proposed ban is truly plausible. Maybe this can utilize usage here, but I'm timid to approach that.

 

For example:

 

1. Is the pokemon's usage higher than 10% for its respective tier? (Yes or No)

2. Does the pokemon fit the criteria for S-Class offensively, defensively, or by support? (Yes or No)

3. Does it have a commonly used counter or multiple checks? (Yes or No)

 

 

tl;dr Something needs to be done about how bans are made and not made. The tier council should be held accountable for the discussion threads that appear. This could be made simpler by regulating a "potential bans" forum page that is both informative and to the point.

 

I also really don't like discussion threads being the only real determinant of a ban since its pretty much, "If I write more frequently than everyone else, then the tier council will be swayed to my argument". Discussion threads right now are just too numerous too messy to read through. 

[Senile]

I don't even know, but as of right now usage is only being used to determine a cut-off point for lower tiers to be established. Usage itself, to my knowledge, isn't taken into account when making a ban. What is taken into account for a ban is the relative ease by which a pokemon dominates a meta. There was a fancy description for ban criteria that has been floating around discussin threads via Smogon, but I can't seem to find it. With this in mind, maybe the tier council can develop their own criteria to make a ban in PokeMMO. 

 

I think we both agree to an extent that it doesn't seem fair to ban a pokemon with very little usage. It just doesn't make sense I guess. How can a pokemon that isn't even being used dominate a meta to the point of having to move it up? This leads us into theory-based bans which can be good for the meta, but are also somewhat complicated with an MMO. Smogon benefits from usage that spans a much greater pool of players and thus a much greater number of matches. We take usage from only a few events a month with 32 players at most. New threats come and go, but they have trouble making a dent in usage statistics that span a long period of time. So in a sense, usage statistics are slightly skewed. For example, for the past few events only a couple people used a Linoone and this was seen in usage. Although in both events Linoone dominated the meta. So despite a low usage, it is still banworthy. PokeMMO is just slow at identifying powerful and easily abused threats. This isn't the fault of players, it's just a problem with having so few chances to compete. If matchmaking were redesigned, we might see teams evolve away from the norm. I hope this happens. 

 

Now for the problem and question at hand, I do believe criteria for bans should be overhauled. Right now its basically based on how easily the respective tier council members can be influenced by a bunch of near-nonsensical arguing in a very messy discussion thread. I support community involvement, but reading through discussion threads only leaves players more confused than before they started reading it in the first place. I really like the threads themselves because they provide a solid foundation for identifying new movesets and basically crafting, but from the standpoint of trying to determine a ban, they are just too messy and too numerous. What differentiates Linoone, from Slowking, from Scizor, from Zangoose, or from Kingler?

 

I think a new forum option should be added to competitive alley. This thread should be called "Potential Bans" and allow for players to propose a ban to the tier council. Tier council members can decline the proposed ban at that time or open it up for discussion. A time period should also be implemented for a decision to be made. What should be made clear though is a set of criteria defining whether the proposed ban is truly plausible. Maybe this can utilize usage here, but I'm timid to approach that.

 

For example:

 

1. Is the pokemon's usage higher than 10% for its respective tier? (Yes or No)

2. Does the pokemon fit the criteria for S-Class offensively, defensively, or by support? (Yes or No)

3. Does it have a commonly used counter or multiple checks? (Yes or No)

 

 

tl;dr Something needs to be done about how bans are made and not made. The tier council should be held accountable for the discussion threads that appear. This could be made simpler by regulating a "potential bans" forum page that is both informative and to the point.

 

I also really don't like discussion threads being the only real determinant of a ban since its pretty much, "If I write more frequently than everyone else, then the tier council will be swayed to my argument". Discussion threads right now are just too numerous too messy to read through. 

WE HAVE SO MUCH POLICY FOR WHEN THINGS ARE BANNED IT HURTS ME THAT NO ONE READS IT

 

As for the rest, it seems arbitrary to only allow discussion threads based on certain criteria. If anything, we could do the thing that happened loooong ago and make "suspect tests" for pokemon the council is looking at, which could work. IE, people make a discussion thread, if the council is looking into a pokemon, they can make an official "Suspect Test" thread which is pinned and is basically like "hey, we might ban this or whatever, so yeah talk about it".

 

Using criteria to allow/disallow discussion threads in a new subforum sounds like something which is both kind of a hassle, and something which the staff just won't do. I think having suspect test threads is the best compromise, if people really want that to even happen.

[OrangeManiac]

Yeah, what I was basically thinking of let's consider a future NU tier. How can you point out what is broken and what is not when everything is just flying around and seem to be broken. ThinkNice's UU Direction thread was a good example and made me think about the policies that walls are easily the most used UU Pokemon but the same time UU sweeper discussion thread kept popping up. (Possibly to help stall to be even somewhat usable playstyle?)

So basically technically isn't theoretical banning also a bit flawed when you can't really point out what is really the broken ingredients of the metagame, since it's all arbitrary?

Edited March 24, 2015 by OrangeManiac

[DoubleJ]

WE HAVE SO MUCH POLICY FOR WHEN THINGS ARE BANNED IT HURTS ME THAT NO ONE READS IT

 

As for the rest, it seems arbitrary to only allow discussion threads based on certain criteria. If anything, we could do the thing that happened loooong ago and make "suspect tests" for pokemon the council is looking at, which could work. IE, people make a discussion thread, if the council is looking into a pokemon, they can make an official "Suspect Test" thread which is pinned and is basically like "hey, we might ban this or whatever, so yeah talk about it".

 

Using criteria to allow/disallow discussion threads in a new subforum sounds like something which is both kind of a hassle, and something which the staff just won't do. I think having suspect test threads is the best compromise, if people really want that to even happen.

 

Ah you found it! And that's exactly what I'm trying to get at. There needs/should be a better method of proposing a ban rather than just shooting straight from the messy garbage discussion thread. An intermediate step like a "suspect test" thread would make sense. It offers the required Tier Council with the time to focus on one problem at a time rather than everything. It would also make sense to have the Tier Council make these pinned suspect threads after they have decided what discussion is the most threatening to the meta. 

 

For example, at this time Linoone is probably the biggest threat and thus a suspect thread should be made for Linoone. The UU Council can then look at this pokemon and determine the necessity of a ban from discussion in that thread. 

 

Kind of like a ladder system for a ban. 

 

 

EDIT: And to Orangemaniac's post above, there is definitely an arbitrary and subjective aspect to bans. The criteria itself is pretty broad, so maybe this should be refined for PokeMMO. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by DoubleJ

[Senile]

Yeah, what I was basically thinking of let's consider a future NU tier. How can you point out what is broken and what is not when everything is just flying around and seem to be broken. ThinkNice's UU Direction thread was a good example and made me think about the policies that walls are easily the most used UU Pokemon but the same time UU sweeper discussion thread kept popping up. (Possibly to help stall to be even somewhat usable playstyle?)

So basically technically isn't theoretical usage also a bit flawed when you can't really point out what is really the broken ingredients of the metagame, since it's all arbitrary?

Well, for determining what is/isn't broken, you just wait for things to settle down a bit, then go one by one through the top threats.

 

Yes, it is very difficult to determine what should stay/go in a tier. Yes, it is arguably "arbitrary". However, we have policies for what is grounds for something being "banworthy", and we have tournament battles to look at for what's running amok.

 

I'm not going to go into much detail, mostly because I'm still not 100% sure I understand what you're getting at, but yeah. We could discuss this more in depth on TS or something if you want m8.

[DoubleJ]

Well, for determining what is/isn't broken, you just wait for things to settle down a bit, then go one by one through the top threats.

 

Yes, it is very difficult to determine what should stay/go in a tier. Yes, it is arguably "arbitrary". However, we have policies for what is grounds for something being "banworthy", and we have tournament battles to look at for what's running amok.

 

I'm not going to go into much detail, mostly because I'm still not 100% sure I understand what you're getting at, but yeah. We could discuss this more in depth on TS or something if you want m8.

 

 

I think the problem here is the "when things settle down, go through the top threats" part. There isn't much systematic involvement by the tier councils to say this is what happens. In my opinion, and possibly my opinion alone, it seems like a council suddenly becomes pressured into meeting and making a decision. It would be pretty cool if there was a weekly meeting or something by the councils individually to discuss possible bans or even just these "threats". This may help to clear the confusion and hostility in most discussion threads. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by DoubleJ

[OrangeManiac]

What I'm saying that all those policies for bans are obviously very vague. For example, Offensive Characteristic is a pokemon that "sweeps a significant portion of the metagame". When can you exactly confirm that? First: What is a significant portion? Second: What does "sweeping" mean? Is it when it OHKOs enough stuff or just causes overall way too much damage? It's pretty impossible to determine a objective way to find when a Pokemon should be banned with saying just something like that. What this leads to is people considering low used Pokemon to be too powerful for the metagame. They find that a Pokemon is annoying but they're not using it because the possibly "broken" Pokemon will make them lose than win more. Basically the 3 point list what DoubleJJ (I refuse to take the other J away) would be something that would help out the consider when a Pokemon could be discussed to be banworthy.

What I'm getting at here is that these policy things are never openly discussed and I think that's wrong. We have all these kinds of discussion threads with people just commenting there about their pure gut feeling if they think something is too overpowered while some provide calcs and we wonder what to do with those. I know some 1HKOs and 2HKOs are important calcs to determinate checks/counters etc but at the end of the day it's all gut feeling if something is 2stronk or not. That's why I think usage should also play a part.

Edited March 24, 2015 by OrangeManiac

[DoubleJ]

What I'm saying that all those policies for bans are obviously very vague. For example, Offensive Characteristic is a pokemon that "sweeps a significant portion of the metagame". When can you exactly confirm that? First: What is a significant portion? Second: What does "sweeping" mean? Is it when it OHKOs enough stuff or just causes overall way too much damage? It's pretty impossible to determine a objective way to find when a Pokemon should be banned with saying just something like that. What this leads to is people considering low used Pokemon to be too powerful for the metagame. They find that a Pokemon is annoying but they're not using it because the possibly "broken" Pokemon will make them lose than win more. Basically the 3 point list what DoubleJJ (I refuse to take the other J away) would be something that would help out the consider when a Pokemon could be discussed to be banworthy.

What I'm getting at here is that these policy things are never openly discussed and I think that's wrong. We have all these kinds of discussion threads with people just commenting there about their pure gut feeling if they think something is too overpowered while some provide calcs and we wonder what to do with those. I know some 1HKOs and 2HKOs are important calcs to determinate checks/counters etc but at the end of the day it's all gut feeling if something is 2stronk or not. That's why I think usage should also play a part.

 

Great summary. Basically put into words what I wanted to convey as well. 

[Senile]

What I'm saying that all those policies for bans are obviously very vague. For example, Offensive Characteristic is a pokemon that "sweeps a significant portion of the metagame". When can you exactly confirm that? First: What is a significant portion? Second: What does "sweeping" mean? Is it when it OHKOs enough stuff or just causes overall way too much damage? It's pretty impossible to determine a objective way to find when a Pokemon should be banned with saying just something like that. What this leads to is people considering low used Pokemon to be too powerful for the metagame. They find that a Pokemon is annoying but they're not using it because the possibly "broken" Pokemon will make them lose than win more. Basically the 3 point list what DoubleJJ (I refuse to take the other J away) would be something that would help out the consider when a Pokemon could be discussed to be banworthy.

What I'm getting at here is that these policy things are never openly discussed and I think that's wrong. We have all these kinds of discussion threads with people just commenting there about their pure gut feeling if they think something is too overpowered while some provide calcs and we wonder what to do with those. I know some 1HKOs and 2HKOs are important calcs to determinate checks/counters etc but at the end of the day it's all gut feeling if something is 2stronk or not. That's why I think usage should also play a part.

Yes, yes they are vague. Because when you get right down to it, nothing is really "objectively" banworthy. That's the inherent nature of the game, really, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, pokemon get banned even if they have really low usage, and I do agree that it's silly. Your Alakazam example in particular, I did feel it was a really preemptive ban, but of course, that wasn't my decision. Ultimately though, I don't think putting greater emphasis on usage stats for banning will change anything. Saying "oh, if a pokemon has more than x% usage it's banworthy" isn't correct, and putting a minimum probably won't actually change that much other than preventing shit like Alakazam or Linoone from being banned early. While that's not a bad thing, it's also not really addressing an issue.

 

If anything, having a discussion on the direction of tiering similar to Thinknice's thread is the best solution, because trying to set regulations based on usage is a woefully inadequate solution which will either change almost nothing or be negative. However, yeah, you're right about pokemon getting banned too early when they aren't even being used, it's a silly approach. It's kind of like how we don't ban uncompetitive aspects unless they're an issue, we shouldn't ban supposedly "broken" pokemon before they become an actual problem.

 

With that being said, usage doesn't tell the whole story. It never did and it never will, it doesn't account for why pokemon are being used so much. For example, is a pokemon in #1 usage because it's Gen 2 Snorlax godtier, or is it because it's a very good pokemon which helps balance the metagame around it ala early Gen 4 Platinum Scizor? Yes, you could say "oh, this is where the council comes in!", but when you get down to it, is it really any LESS arbitrary?

You're right that a change in perspective/approach is probably a good thing, but having a usage centric system is bad. Even if we weren't limited in our usage gathering, (which we are), I'd still think it's bad. Tiering will always be arbitrary, but we should strive to improve it, so even if it's ultimately arbitrary the way we arrive there is as reasonable as it can be.

[DoubleJ]

Yes, yes they are vague. Because when you get right down to it, nothing is really "objectively" banworthy. That's the inherent nature of the game, really, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, pokemon get banned even if they have really low usage, and I do agree that it's silly. Your Alakazam example in particular, I did feel it was a really preemptive ban, but of course, that wasn't my decision. Ultimately though, I don't think putting greater emphasis on usage stats for banning will change anything. Saying "oh, if a pokemon has more than x% usage it's banworthy" isn't correct, and putting a minimum probably won't actually change that much other than preventing shit like Alakazam or Linoone from being banned early. While that's not a bad thing, it's also not really addressing an issue.

 

If anything, having a discussion on the direction of tiering similar to Thinknice's thread is the best solution, because trying to set regulations based on usage is a woefully inadequate solution which will either change almost nothing or be negative. However, yeah, you're right about pokemon getting banned too early when they aren't even being used, it's a silly approach. It's kind of like how we don't ban uncompetitive aspects unless they're an issue, we shouldn't ban supposedly "broken" pokemon before they become an actual problem.

 

With that being said, usage doesn't tell the whole story. It never did and it never will, it doesn't account for why pokemon are being used so much. For example, is a pokemon in #1 usage because it's Gen 2 Snorlax godtier, or is it because it's a very good pokemon which helps balance the metagame around it ala early Gen 4 Platinum Scizor? Yes, you could say "oh, this is where the council comes in!", but when you get down to it, is it really any LESS arbitrary?

You're right that a change in perspective/approach is probably a good thing, but having a usage centric system is bad. Even if we weren't limited in our usage gathering, (which we are), I'd still think it's bad. Tiering will always be arbitrary, but we should strive to improve it, so even if it's ultimately arbitrary the way we arrive there is as reasonable as it can be.

 

You agreed and disagreed here, but I like where you are headed. We as community members can't do anything more than point out things we disagree with so it is up to the tier councils themselves to implement change. 

 

So as an overseeing tier council member what would you like to do? I personally don't see a minimum usage requirement for a ban as a bad thing, but it will become difficult to implement the longer usage is taken as new threats will have a harder time breaking into say the top 50% just because of the sheer number of pokes seen. 

[Senile]

You agreed and disagreed here, but I like where you are headed. We as community members can't do anything more than point out things we disagree with so it is up to the tier councils themselves to implement change. 

 

So as an overseeing tier council member what would you like to do? I personally don't see a minimum usage requirement for a ban as a bad thing, but it will become difficult to implement the longer usage is taken as new threats will have a harder time breaking into say the top 50% just because of the sheer number of pokes seen. 

lol idk.

 

The councils should probably have a meeting about it though. Here's a secret; The overseeing council is supposed to "approve" bans, but we haven't done that in ages, kek.

 

We could do that again, and be like "hey guys it's too early for this, chill out for a while" if a ban is coming in too preemptively, but of course the problem with that is that it's still kind of arbitrary. Beyond that, we don't want to end up like Congress with some filibuster nonsense, kek. "Oh nonono the ban is fine, just wait for a month and it'll happen, we promise  :rolleyes: "; Being able to do that obviously isn't okay.

 

But yeah, not really sure what to do. But we have a thread to discuss it, so you know, discuss stuff.

[DoubleJ]

lol idk.

 

The councils should probably have a meeting about it though. Here's a secret; The overseeing council is supposed to "approve" bans, but we haven't done that in ages, kek.

 

We could do that again, and be like "hey guys it's too early for this, chill out for a while" if a ban is coming in too preemptively, but of course the problem with that is that it's still kind of arbitrary. Beyond that, we don't want to end up like Congress with some filibuster nonsense, kek. "Oh nonono the ban is fine, just wait for a month and it'll happen, we promise  :rolleyes: "; Being able to do that obviously isn't okay.

 

But yeah, not really sure what to do. But we have a thread to discuss it, so you know, discuss stuff.

 

Representative JJ from the House of the Community will provide his insight via this provided outlet in due time. Together we will see a much more fluid and beneficial banning process. 

 

#PokeMMO#UnitedWeStand#DividedWeFall

 

Elect Representative JJ to represent you today!

[Kiliminati]

lol idk.

 

The councils should probably have a meeting about it though. Here's a secret; The overseeing council is supposed to "approve" bans, but we haven't done that in ages, kek.

 

We could do that again, and be like "hey guys it's too early for this, chill out for a while" if a ban is coming in too preemptively, but of course the problem with that is that it's still kind of arbitrary. Beyond that, we don't want to end up like Congress with some filibuster nonsense, kek. "Oh nonono the ban is fine, just wait for a month and it'll happen, we promise  :rolleyes: "; Being able to do that obviously isn't okay.

 

But yeah, not really sure what to do. But we have a thread to discuss it, so you know, discuss stuff.

I had no idea that smiley even existed on these forums

Edited March 25, 2015 by Kiliminati

[Shaniqualela]

Personally, I don't think we have enough data being taken to effectively use usage stats for tiering.
I would prefer if it was taken from matchmaking and automated tournaments when they become a thing.
This idea is from showdown where they have thousands of matches played, and we don't even have 1000 Pokemon total used.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Shaniqualela

[Robofiend]

My thoughts:

 

We're not going to move anything down unless it meets the criteria for being UU: usage stat of less than X% where X is the output of our screwy formula.

 

Why? Even if something would "work" in UU, it opens the door to arguments like we had last year where people were suggesting that all sorts of pokemon be moved down into UU. We had threads requesting that Kangaskhan, Espeon, Arcanine, Scizor and Claydol be moved down at the same time. While Claydol was moved down, the others were not- but there wasn't a reason for this other than "we didn't think it was a good idea." It's an awkward policy to support because it allows for even more subjectivity and speculation in the tiering process, and when combined with usage based tiering it would probably lead to endless amounts of arguments that look like:

 

"Well [Pokemon] used to be UU, why can't we move it back even though it sees enough usage to be OU? It wasn't broken when it used to be UU!"

 

As for banning based on too much usage: that's another argument. In fact, I'd be willing to entertain it. Generally, when you have a pokemon that is centralizing or just plain Uber (e.g. Dragonite, Snorlax, Gengar, Dugtrio, 6th Gen Aegislash, 3rd Gen Tyranitar, etc.) its also typical to see that pokemon be used wayyyy too much.

 

A proposition: what if we adopted a more definite suspect test policy that required the tier council for a certain to make decisions on a monthly/bi-monthly basis? It'd look something like this:

 

1. Discussion thread starts

2. 15 days pass

3. Tier Council (or player community) either votes to shut the thread down or allow it to go to Suspect testing

4. Suspect testing thread is opened by TC member or Tier Overlord (e.g. Tranz, Tyrone, Noad)

5. Discussion continues, players contribute posts with the words ban or don't ban (yes, bold so we can see it) in the last line

6. Community is polled and their positions are weighed by strength of argument (like we have it now)

7. No more than 30 days after the start of a Suspect Test, the Tiering Council makes a decision and locks the thread.

 

For lower tiers, these bans would be effective at least until the time of the next tier refactoring. So if Alakazam got the banhammer, the UU TC could either decide to keep it OU (because nothing really changed in the tier) or allow it back in for testing. After new tiers are released, players could start a new discussion thread if they really felt something else needed to be banned.

 

For OU, we'd probably rely more on "test bans" where we temporarily ban something for a month and then observe the metagame and players reactions to it (like we did with Baton Pass). That way, we'd lessen the chance of banning things in and out of the tier willy nilly, like when we banned Heracross/Salamence/Snorlax all at once last year and it made the game completely awful and then we awkwardly unbanned them because we realized it was a bad decision. 

 

It could work? I agree that something needs to change in tiering policy to make for faster and more predictable decision making, but I don't think increasing dependence on usage stats will get us where we want to go.

[Senile]

My thoughts:

 

We're not going to move anything down unless it meets the criteria for being UU: usage stat of less than X% where X is the output of our screwy formula.

 

Why? Even if something would "work" in UU, it opens the door to arguments like we had last year where people were suggesting that all sorts of pokemon be moved down into UU. We had threads requesting that Kangaskhan, Espeon, Arcanine, Scizor and Claydol be moved down at the same time. While Claydol was moved down, the others were not- but there wasn't a reason for this other than "we didn't think it was a good idea." It's an awkward policy to support because it allows for even more subjectivity and speculation in the tiering process, and when combined with usage based tiering it would probably lead to endless amounts of arguments that look like:

 

"Well [Pokemon] used to be UU, why can't we move it back even though it sees enough usage to be OU? It wasn't broken when it used to be UU!"

 

As for banning based on too much usage: that's another argument. In fact, I'd be willing to entertain it. Generally, when you have a pokemon that is centralizing or just plain Uber (e.g. Dragonite, Snorlax, Gengar, Dugtrio, 6th Gen Aegislash, 3rd Gen Tyranitar, etc.) its also typical to see that pokemon be used wayyyy too much.

 

A proposition: what if we adopted a more definite suspect test policy that required the tier council for a certain to make decisions on a monthly/bi-monthly basis? It'd look something like this:

 

1. Discussion thread starts

2. 15 days pass

3. Tier Council (or player community) either votes to shut the thread down or allow it to go to Suspect testing

4. Suspect testing thread is opened by TC member or Tier Overlord (e.g. Tranz, Tyrone, Noad)

5. Discussion continues, players contribute posts with the words ban or don't ban (yes, bold so we can see it) in the last line

6. Community is polled and their positions are weighed by strength of argument (like we have it now)

7. No more than 30 days after the start of a Suspect Test, the Tiering Council makes a decision and locks the thread.

 

For lower tiers, these bans would be effective at least until the time of the next tier refactoring. So if Alakazam got the banhammer, the UU TC could either decide to keep it OU (because nothing really changed in the tier) or allow it back in for testing. After new tiers are released, players could start a new discussion thread if they really felt something else needed to be banned.

 

For OU, we'd probably rely more on "test bans" where we temporarily ban something for a month and then observe the metagame and players reactions to it (like we did with Baton Pass). That way, we'd lessen the chance of banning things in and out of the tier willy nilly, like when we banned Heracross/Salamence/Snorlax all at once last year and it made the game completely awful and then we awkwardly unbanned them because we realized it was a bad decision. 

 

It could work? I agree that something needs to change in tiering policy to make for faster and more predictable decision making, but I don't think increasing dependence on usage stats will get us where we want to go.

I don't like a system like this because it's far too rigid. It gives basically no flexibility for waiting and seeing how things shake out, for example, which seems contrary to one of the big issues (ie banning shit super early). Pressuring councils into making decisions too early seems like one of the bigger issues, and if anything, I see this making it worse.

 

Also, we did the whole "community polling" thing before, and it doesn't really do anything. Tbh, the poll is kinda useless; They're usually gonna be fairly close, and if they are, the council members will just vote whatever they feel is right. If it ISN'T close, like 80/20 split or something, it's pretty likely the council was gonna vote in the same direction as the 80% regardless. Polling is a nice idea that makes people feel like their opinions matter, but they really aren't very useful for anything imo. (also god help us if people vote 51% against and 49% for a ban and the ban happens rofl)

 

As for the "test ban" thing, meh. That's something to be done in special situations, and Baton Pass just happened to be a special situation. Why? Well, banning a move in every tier in the game is kind of a big deal, and the possibility of just limiting it to 1 per team was a valid one. Naturally, we tried it out and it was pretty unanimous that getting rid of that shit entirely was the preferred solution, but it was still a special circumstance. Of course, the option to do it again in circumstances that it seems necessary is always an option, but relying on that slow, inefficient system sounds so painful to me that it makes my insides sad. Hell, even with the Baton Pass thing, like a week after putting in the 1 BPer rule, people were already begging me to change it back to a flat ban. (Ofc, we toughed it out for a whole month, as not doing so would undermine the entire purpose of even testing the alternative rule, which is a limitation of the whole "testing" system; Yes, we could cut it short if the results "seem obvious", but that completely undermines the point).

[Robofiend]

I don't like a system like this because it's far too rigid. It gives basically no flexibility for waiting and seeing how things shake out, for example, which seems contrary to one of the big issues (ie banning shit super early). Pressuring councils into making decisions too early seems like one of the bigger issues, and if anything, I see this making it worse.

 

Also, we did the whole "community polling" thing before, and it doesn't really do anything. Tbh, the poll is kinda useless; They're usually gonna be fairly close, and if they are, the council members will just vote whatever they feel is right. If it ISN'T close, like 80/20 split or something, it's pretty likely the council was gonna vote in the same direction as the 80% regardless. Polling is a nice idea that makes people feel like their opinions matter, but they really aren't very useful for anything imo. (also god help us if people vote 51% against and 49% for a ban and the ban happens rofl)

 

As for the "test ban" thing, meh. That's something to be done in special situations, and Baton Pass just happened to be a special situation. Why? Well, banning a move in every tier in the game is kind of a big deal, and the possibility of just limiting it to 1 per team was a valid one. Naturally, we tried it out and it was pretty unanimous that getting rid of that shit entirely was the preferred solution, but it was still a special circumstance. Of course, the option to do it again in circumstances that it seems necessary is always an option, but relying on that slow, inefficient system sounds so painful to me that it makes my insides sad. Hell, even with the Baton Pass thing, like a week after putting in the 1 BPer rule, people were already begging me to change it back to a flat ban. (Ofc, we toughed it out for a whole month, as not doing so would undermine the entire purpose of even testing the alternative rule, which is a limitation of the whole "testing" system; Yes, we could cut it short if the results "seem obvious", but that completely undermines the point).

 

Well, you definitely caught all of the downsides. A couple points:

 

Community polling is optional - i originally put it where the TC would vote whether to send something to suspect, but figured why not make one part of it democratic?

 

There's nothing in there that says things can't be re-banned or unbanned once a decision has been made, so long as a discussion thread warrants it. I think lack of action on things is worse than unwarranted fast action, and I don't really see a way that we could stop other councils from taking the "Zamban" approach, other than making it standard procedure to have the Tier Board review and pass every decision made by lower tier Councils. If you have another idea for stopping people from banning things too quickly I'd love to hear it - but don't forget that both of us have voted in favor of quickbanning things in the past (Tyranitar/Salamence) because of how obviously broken they were from only watching or playing a handful of battles.

 

As for the waiting/rigidity point, TC's could just say "no, we're not banning it right now, but you can resubmit the idea next week/month/whatever and we'll take another look at it," instead of just saying "sorry, no decision." For instance, we've had Snorlax and Heracross threads open for at least a month now with no indication of if/when we're going to ban them. With this method, we could have either veto'd the idea or sent them to test bans by now, which is marginally better than endlessly waiting for things to pan out. Vetos wouldn't need to be permanent: we could just say "No, it's not time to suspect this pokemon, resubmit this idea next month and we can start a new discussion about this."

 

One thing I didn't point out originally: having a method that requires a timeline for answers from the tiering council makes it less likely that we end up with 10+ pages of arguments in a discussion thread where people just end up bashing each other or being pedantic - by cutting it off after a couple of weeks we would require people to put their best ideas forward (quickly) and spend less time nitpicking/rehashing while we deliberated for the next month or two.

[DoubleJ]

I like the approach Robofiend is taking and with a bit of refinement his idea could be quite beneficial in the long run of things. One of the biggest things I see right now is simply correspondence by the councils. A more rigid system would be nice and if more time is needed, well then the council should just say such and continue with the suspect for another period of time. Simple as that. I hope you all can come to an agreement that benefits us all. 

[LionKIng]

Soo tiering by usage just doesnt work on such a small scale. a 32 man tourney per week if it even happens, becuase we've seen months without a tier in officials isnt an accurate way to gather info on tiers. Also its the same 40% that join the tournaments each time. 

 

We do not have the luxury to own a huge playerbase like showdown, thus making tiering by usage really difficult and not accurate for the following reasons.

 

When something is banned, i'll take blissey for exemple they resort to the next thing they currently have and that thing was porygon, because it was used by alot of people throughout the metas and it was banned due to usage in the next usage patch. But since then people got time to grind up, make chanseys and moveset them properly to replace blissey because it waas the next best thing. Porygon was just a short term answer the result of the dificulty to make a comp. Now a days nobody uses porygon, or hardly since there are better sp def walls in the OU meta and im pretty sure it drops under the % it needs to be in OU. 

 

So not only having a small player base to get results from, they are the same people over and over again. And we have a grinding issue making it hard to addapt to the meta fast enough. If only the problems stopped there.

 

Since the platerbase is so small, 2 flaws come from it. One being that a small group of people or a team can decide to get something banned from a lower tier into the next one just by using it in the tournaments they enter, as we all know the strenght of comp players in tournaments is not equal at all, you will have noobs that got a slot and they will get first rounded, you can easyly abuse the tiering system that way by bringing a pokemon you want banned in UU or NU. Not only that but theres the bandwaggoning effect, I call it this way because people are not creative and will steal ideas from other people for a short period of time untill they can steal an other idea from someone else and that also plays with the usage stat because on a larger scale this effect would have no effect on that pokemon, but since its such a small playerbase it does have a huge effect. Its not hard to reach the banning % on a pokemon since the player base is so small. I do not have the number of times you have to see a pokemon in X number of tourneys, thats not my thing but im pretty sure its not that much. 

 

And when they decide to move stuff from a tier to an other, like they did with the big 6 in UU, results were really poor to say the least. 5/6 of them got banned and 4/6 got banned almost instantly, so thats an other reason to why it does not work, we've tried it and all it does is give us bad tiers and no time to adapt to the upcomming one, giving older players with a bigger and widder comp pool to have a HUGE advantage on the competition, and thats why the same players win over and over on other people, because they have more comps to chose from and they adapt easyer than their fellow noobs. 

 

So yeah, this is my reasoning on why tiering by usage does not work, at all. And I ask a review on how things are done.

 

Also some of the tier council are complete incompetents and they have no idea on what they are doing or what they are saying. Their is better suited people out there then a few on my mind, will not name them but everyone probably knows who they are.