Announcement DOU Tiering Surveys

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MajorBowman

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Howdy everyone, at emma's suggestion we have decided to follow the example of other tiers and create a survey to gauge public opinion on the current state of Doubles OU!

Please fill out this form to have your voice heard! We will be publishing responses (anonymously, of course) next weekend, so try to fill it out before next Saturday, May 1, at 11:59 PM Eastern time (GMT -4). Please message me or any other DOU staff/council member for clarification on any of the questions!
 

MajorBowman

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In addition to the public survey, we will also be sending another copy of the survey to a group of highly qualified voters as a way to zero in on the thoughts of those most engaged in the current metagame. Of course, this is not to say that people outside of this group are not valued; we want everyone to participate in this project and every response will be considered! This just gives us another set of data for us to use to make sure we are taking DOU in the right direction.

If you meet one or more of the following criteria, you are considered a highly qualified voter:
  1. Current member of DOU Council
  2. Played at least 1 game of SS DOU in DPL VII
  3. Placed Top 16 or better in the most recent Winter Seasonals
Please be on the lookout for a forum PM with a link to this second survey soon!
 

MajorBowman

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The results are in!

Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey! We had 48 responses, including 32/34 responses from highly qualified voters. We appreciate all of your feedback and will be taking into consideration for some of our tiering decisions in the very near future. The results from both the public survey and the survey for highly qualified voters can be seen below.








These are some of my big takeaways:
  • It seems like we, for the most part, still enjoy SS DOU, with a pretty normal distribution centered around 4 in each survey
  • No one on either survey rated the stability of SS DOU below a 3, with 4 being the overwhelming mode in each survey
  • Over half of respondents in each survey would either support or not be opposed to a Shadow Tag suspect test
  • Roughly half of respondents in each survey directly oppose a Kyurem-B suspect test
  • Marshadow was the quickbanned metagame element with the most support for another look in both surveys, but those who said Marshadow deserves a second look were still pretty firmly in the minority (19/48 and 10/32)
We won't be publishing answers to the last 2 questions, but I shared them all with the council (with usernames redacted; I'm the only person who can see usernames tied to each answer) and we will be discussing them. Again, thank you all for your help during this experiment. We appreciate your willingness to participate in the tiering process. Be on the lookout for more info soon.
 

Yoda2798

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Now that Smogon Champions League is nearing completion, we've decided to conduct another survey to gauge people's current thoughts on the tier!

The form can be found here! We will publish responses (anonymously) in a week's time, so please complete it by Sunday 21st November at 11:59 PM Eastern time (GMT-5). Please message me or any other DOU staff/council member for clarification on any of the questions!

In addition to the public survey, we again have a second copy of the survey for a group of highly qualifed voters. To repeat what MajorBowman said before, this is not to say that people outside of this group are not valued; we want everyone to participate in this project and every response will be considered! This just gives us another set of data for us to use to make sure we are taking DOU in the right direction.

If you meet one or more of the following criteria, you are considered a highly qualified voter:
  1. Current member of DOU Council
  2. Placed Top 8 or better in Doubles Majors
  3. Placed Top 8 or better in the ongoing Fall Seasonals
  4. Won at least 3 games of DOU in SCL regular season
Please be on the lookout for a forum PM with a link to this second survey soon! (Remember to vote in the public survey too!)
 

Yoda2798

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Results Time!

The public survey this time had 69 responses compared to 48 last time which is a healthy growth! I'd posit the two main reasons as posting it in the Smogon Discord this time for more people to see, and it happening during DWCoP (and maybe to some extent SCL), a time when periphery members of the community are more active in the tier. This time we only had 22 highly qualified voters responses, as opposed to 32 last survey. This was an intentional result, aiming to widen the gap in size between the two surveys (32/44 was pretty close last time), giving more room for differences to appear (although the larger public survey response this time was unanticipated). What this actually showed, though, was that the two groups are actually very similar in opinion, with only a few noticeable differences which I've mentioned below.

Forms response chart. Question title: How much do you enjoy playing SS DOU right now?. Number of responses: 69 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How stable or balanced do you think SS DOU is right now? i.e., how often does the better player win?. Number of responses: 69 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Diancie?. Number of responses: 69 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Landorus-I?. Number of responses: 69 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Kyurem-B?. Number of responses: 69 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Urshifu-R?. Number of responses: 69 responses.

Note the 4th and 5th options are "Urshifu-R was broken before (with Kartana), but is not anymore and should not be tested." and "Urshifu-R was and is not broken and should not be tested."

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you think any of the following banned elements deserve another look?. Number of responses: .
1637630528087.png


Forms response chart. Question title: How stable or balanced do you think SS DOU is right now? i.e., how often does the better player win?. Number of responses: 22 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Diancie?. Number of responses: 22 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Landorus-I?. Number of responses: 22 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Kyurem-B?. Number of responses: 22 responses.


Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Urshifu-R?. Number of responses: 22 responses.

Note the 4th and 5th options are "Urshifu-R was broken before (with Kartana), but is not anymore and should not be tested." and "Urshifu-R was and is not broken and should not be tested."

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you think any of the following banned elements deserve another look?. Number of responses: .

Some personal takeaways:
  • People still largely enjoy SS DOU, with a normal distribution centered around 4 in both surveys. Interestingly, 3 has a larger proportion of the vote (over double at a ~20% difference) in the public survey relative to the highly qualified voters one, indicating general enjoyment of the tier is slightly lower than those within the core community may believe.
  • Similarly, the stability of the tier was also centred around 4 in both cases, with no significant difference between the two distributions in this case.
  • An overwhelming majority of respondents (perhaps unsurprisingly) don't believe Diancie is broken, showing that despite the resurgence of Trick Room-oriented teams post-Kartana, it's not an unhealthy presence.
  • Respondents opinions on Landorus-I varied heavily across all the different options, yet remained fairly consistent across both surveys; with a clear majority wanting a test in either case, this highlights Landorus-I as a potential suspect target for the near future.
  • Kyurem-B also received a large number of "might be broken" responses, however, few dared to call it broken outright, with <10% of the public survey and none of the highly qualified voters going for "Kyurem-B is broken". From the last survey, the number of people wanting it tested has increased slightly, it's worth noting.
  • The number of people viewing Urshifu-R as "not broken" has surged after the Kartana ban, with a staggering ~40% of respondents saying their opinion has flipped as a result. Along with those who never thought it was broken, this means a strong majority are now against a suspect test.
  • The banned elements all received a majority for "Keep banned", with all but one by a large margin too. The exception was Dynamax in the highly qualified voters survey, which was relatively close instead, despite looking more like the other banned elements in the public survey. There were also a few "free dynamax" in the comments, showing an enthusiasm lacked by the other options.
Like last time, responses to the last two questions won't be shared publicly but will be with council, with usernames redacted (I can see them but only used it to check for fraud and to copy across the responses of 6 highly qualified voters who only voted in one survey SMH). Thank you to everyone who made their voice heard and participated in the tiering process!
 

Yoda2798

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As the generation approaches its end, it's time for another survey to gauge people's thoughts on the tier!

The form can be found here!

We will publish responses (anonymously) in just over a week's time, so please complete it by Saturday 10th September at 7:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4). Please message me or any other DOU staff/council member for clarification on any of the questions!

In addition to the public survey, we again have a second copy of the survey for a group of highly qualifed voters. To repeat what's been said before, this is not to say that people outside of this group are not valued; we want everyone to participate in this project and every response will be considered! This just gives us another set of data for us to use to make sure we are taking DOU in the right direction.

If you meet one or more of the following criteria, you are considered a highly qualified voter:
  1. Current member of DOU Council
  2. Placed Top 8 or better in Doubles Ladder Tournament
  3. Placed Top 16 or better in the ongoing Official Smogon Doubles Tournament
Please be on the lookout for a forum PM with a link to this second survey soon! (Remember to vote in the public survey too!)
 

Yoda2798

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Results Time!

The public survey this time had 68 responses compared to 69 last time which is unnice, and 21 highly qualified voters responses out of 26 who met the criteria. This was discussed before on Discord though I haven't posted about it here yet, but there will not be a highly qualified voter portion in future surveys. That is a change which had already been decided after the last survey, but I forgot and added it again this time which is my bad. With the little difference in responses from the public survey anyways (as can be seen again this time), it's not worth the hassle. Who should count as a 'highly qualified voter' and what objective criteria should then be used is always going to be somewhat arbitrary and open for debate, so it can lead to arguments over who should and shouldn't count, as well as people worrying their responses to the public survey aren't being taken as seriously.

Forms response chart. Question title: How much do you enjoy playing SS DOU right now?. Number of responses: 68 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How stable or balanced do you think SS DOU is right now? i.e., how often does the better player win?. Number of responses: 68 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Ally Switch?. Number of responses: 68 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Kyurem-B?. Number of responses: 68 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Landorus-I?. Number of responses: 68 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you think any of the following banned elements should be suspect tested?. Number of responses: .

Percentages:
Dynamax - 16%, 81%, 3%
Swagger - 19%, 57%, 24%
Zamazenta - 25%, 60%, 15%
Forms response chart. Question title: How much do you enjoy playing SS DOU right now?. Number of responses: 21 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How stable or balanced do you think SS DOU is right now? i.e., how often does the better player win?. Number of responses: 21 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Ally Switch?. Number of responses: 21 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Kyurem-B?. Number of responses: 21 responses.
Forms response chart. Question title: How do you feel about Landorus-I?. Number of responses: 21 responses.

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you think any of the following banned elements should be suspect tested?. Number of responses: .

Percentages:
Dynamax - 19%, 76%, 5%
Swagger - 19%, 57%, 24%
Zamazenta - 5%, 81%, 14%

Some personal takeaways:
  • People still largely enjoy SS DOU, with a normal distribution centered around 4 in the public survey. Notably, the portion of votes for 5 was higher than for 3 this time, the opposite of last survey's results, which is a positive sign. The highly qualified voters survey was actually fairly different in this case, with votes being practically split 50/50 between 4 and 5; likely due to people either enjoying the meta because they're doing well in it, or enjoying the meta so they are putting in more effort to do well.
  • The stability of the tier was also centred around 4 in both cases, with less of a difference between the two sets of responses in this case. Again, the share of votes for 5 was higher than 3 this time around, changing from last survey; with 3 being especially low in the highly qualified voters' responses.
  • Ally Switch was by far the most divisive part of the survey, receiving ~50% suspect support in both surveys, which was then evenly split between saying it "might be a problem" and "is a problem". Amazingly in the case of the public survey, those two options received exactly 25% of the vote each.
  • Kyurem-B received an overwhelming majority of "not broken" votes, with <25% of people voting it as "might be broken" but not a single person voting for "is broken". This is a big drop from last survey, in which it had a handful of "is broken" votes, and ~50% suspect approval overall.
  • Landorus-I had a similar story, receiving <20% suspect support this time around, however with a few "is broken" votes in the public survey. In the last survey it received ~60% suspect support (and a significant fraction of "is broken" votes), after which it was suspect tested and had an overwhelming 92% "Do not ban" vote.
  • The banned elements on offer all received a low <25% suspect support, with Zamazenta receiving the most support in the public survey but least support in the highly qualified voters survey. Amazingly, both surveys had the same ratio of votes on Swagger.
  • When asked if there is anything else they feel is potentially banworthy, a large portion of responses answered "No". As much as I'd like to ban people from saying no, I've been told that "would make me a dictator" and "isn't the jedi way". In terms of actual responses there were a few things which got a couple comments in support, the most common of which was Mew, but that still only had a handful, and half were only saying "maybe" for it.
  • The additional comments section was mostly positive affirmations (thank you!), with some individual comments on various subjects.
As before, complete responses to the last two questions won't be shared publicly but will be with council, with usernames redacted (I have also looked at just the lists of usernames to check for fraud and to copy across the responses of 4 highly qualified voters who only voted in one survey). Thank you to everyone who made their voice heard and participated in the tiering process!
 
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