Suggestions for OM Improvement

[E4 Flint]

I agree to the extent that different OM's can have different rules about complex banlists, but again this doesn't include mechanics changes. Once again, we're not going to change the meaning of an OM to gain popularity. An OM's popularity and problems in its banlist are two different, unrelated things. The popularity alone is the reason we wanted to keep it in a new form. Check out the explanations from Chloe, Ti and myself here, again if there are any other questions left about the issues.

 

[The Immortal]

I know this is random but lately ive been questioning the philosphy of oms especially since the closing of shared power

Wont oms become more popular if we gave it some breathing space?
I noticed that many fun oms get rejected like multibility and the recent very popular om like shared power. but the (no offense to the om leaders really) unpopular and sometimes bland ones such as averagemons, inverse and fallen friends are the ones that get accepted and get to stay

Is finding an om "unique, creative yet simple and competitive" more important than actual popularity and fun involved with these oms? Whats the point of a meta being creative + simple + competitive when the meta is not fun enough to be played even?

When shared power is shut down for "complexity and untrue to mechanics" even though its literally THE most played om this site has seen in a while tells me theres a problem, like if anything SP shows people dont mind "complex" banlists and will play it if its fun regardless. I mean with that limiting philosphy i think this community will lose alot of potential, and eventually hinder its growth in the future

Im not suggesting anything major or anything, i just think the rules should be loosened up a bit and just wanted to share some thoughts, maybe even get an explanation about why oms have their weird gray area of requirements they have now

TL;DR
Oms "rules" are limiting community growth. Bit of whining. Feel like other aspects is being wayy more valued over fun of the om at this point. Loosen up a bit, so what if a meta is similar slightly to an existing one? or it has a slightly complex banlist?, if it doesnt hurt anyone and attracts more players then whats the problem?

The existence of OM is in itself the exploration of fun. Don’t forget that this is still a competitive Pokémon community.

In regards to SP, as I mentioned several times to different people, I was fine with complex bans. Due to the nature of the concept, it was going to end up with a lot of Pokemon or abilities unusable, so complex bans would at least curb some of that. What SP did, however, was not a complex ban. SP modified the game.

 

[drampa's grandpa]

my suggestion for om improvement is om mashup megathread (AAA+Stab etc.)

this line exists to make post not one-liner

EDIT: [22:50:06] #Chloe: thats still a one liner in my eyes

Chloe insulted my post :(

think this would be a good idea because it's something that repeatedly gets discussion in the room but not something that really fits in any thread, similar to the UU OM metas. It would also provide a home for any more LCoTM om mashups that might happen ;) ;)

 

[Champion Leon]

my suggestion for om improvement is om mashup megathread (AAA+Stab etc.)

this line exists to make post not one-liner

EDIT: [22:50:06] #Chloe: thats still a one liner in my eyes

Chloe insulted my post :(

think this would be a good idea because it's something that repeatedly gets discussion in the room but not something that really fits in any thread, similar to the UU OM metas. It would also provide a home for any more LCoTM om mashups that might happen ;) ;)

I agree. For example it would be fun to see a combination of Godly Gift and Balanced Hackmons, (donor would be in the first or HP slot).

Fur Coat Eviolite Chansey getting Shuckle Defense...

Or maybe at least slight modifications like Z-Crystal Free versions of STABmons, or Balanced Hackmons.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Have Pokemon be available in their suspect test. People should be voting based on whether or not something is broken, and the metagame without it has no bearing on that. You also ideally want good players to be weighing in, which putting an entirely new metagame on ladder doesn't do, you want voters to be familiar with the mon in question, which having a new metagame also doesnt do., and you want high quality games on suspect ladder, which making a new metagame does the opposite of because it takes away all the previous metagame development and forces people to build entirely new teams.

 

[antsdownmypants]

Hey i just uploaded a submission for other meta game, someone from the community was kind enough to reply with the guidelines to follow when posting. Having a link to this near the submission would of been more helpful as i was not aware of specific tips and rules.

 

[drampa's grandpa]

In a similar vein to the above post, having specific guidelines for tour submissions would be nice, rather than just making an off-brand OM submission with some stuff that isn't really relevant (if this exists and I'm just blind please tell me so I can use them).

Also agree with

Having a link to this near the submission would of been more helpful

 

[Rumplestiltskin]

Can we have 2v2 Doubles back as a daily tournament in the OM chat?
Currently we have 2 slots filled by OM of the month and Leaders choice OM of the month, which were removed as daily tour formats last gen with the reasoning being that they already get a lot of tours during the month, which is a fair reasoning in my opinion. To add to that, on occasions, the OM of the month metas are new and/or undiscovered/undeveloped, which puts them in a different position competitively compared to the established metas.
However, there's only 1 OM, 2v2 Doubles, available on PS as replacement. Maybe replace lcotm? As I see it, an argument to keep omotm is that it was chosen by the community.

edit: I see that 1v1 doesn't have a daily tour anymore, maybe we have our other replacement there.

 

[Noctoleon]

Hi,
I thought about a new OM called "Hidden Gift". In this one, Hidden Power depends of the moves of the other pokemons of the team.
Let's take an example:

We have a Landorus-T with HP Flying. Now there are 2 possibilities:
- if no other pokemon in the team has a Flying type move then HP Flying works normally
- if there are other pokemons in the team with flying type moves then HP Flying will become one of these moves randomly. If there is only one other flying type move, HP Flying will become this one obviously.

Smeargle is banned.
OU Closes
Some moves cannot be copied : Belly Drum, Chatter, Geomancy, Lovely Kiss, Shell Smash, Shift Gear, Spore, Sticky Web, Tail Glow, Transform, Extreme Speed, Z-moves, Quiver Dance, Moves that have the Z-move effect "Attack +1, Defense +1, Sp. Atk +1, Sp. Def +1, Speed +1

 

[willdbeast]

Hi,
I thought about a new OM called "Hidden Gift". In this one, Hidden Power depends of the moves of the other pokemons of the team.
Let's take an example:

We have a Landorus-T with HP Flying. Now there are 2 possibilities:
- if no other pokemon in the team has a Flying type move then HP Flying works normally
- if there are other pokemons in the team with flying type moves then HP Flying will become one of these moves randomly. If there is only one other flying type move, HP Flying will become this one obviously.

Smeargle is banned.
OU Closes
Some moves cannot be copied : Belly Drum, Chatter, Geomancy, Lovely Kiss, Shell Smash, Shift Gear, Spore, Sticky Web, Tail Glow, Transform, Extreme Speed, Z-moves, Quiver Dance, Moves that have the Z-move effect "Attack +1, Defense +1, Sp. Atk +1, Sp. Def +1, Speed +1

this isn't the place to submit om ideas or discuss ones you're thinking of
try here

 

[Noctoleon]

this isn't the place to submit om ideas or discuss ones you're thinking of
try here

Ok thanks

 

[Chloe]

Before I start, may I mention I have no ill-will here, nor am I faulting anyone for this. People may accuse me of bias due to the example that I'm going to bring up; however, I feel as if something must be done to avoid situations like this arising in future as well as clarification as to what is acceptable advertising for OMotM and what is not.

What inspired this post

There's a very arbitrary line drawn at the moment as to what is acceptable and unacceptable advertising. If this is done in a server designated to the meta it's advertising, is this then okay? I'm partly to blame due to this, due to not enforcing rules perfectly when I was running OMotM Voting, but it was always unclear as to what exactly we're looking out for when advertising OMotM. The rule was put in place prior to Discord being used frequently, so at the time the only place really worth advertising in was the OM chatroom on PS, where telling people to vote for a said meta was much more obvious than it is now.

My main issue here isn't that it's being advertised like this. It's that our distinction of what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable advertising is detrimental to the voting process. If we leave it as is, people could theoretically get away with posting "Camomons could win OMotM if you vote! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/" in the Camomons Discord, but can't get away with "Vote for Camomons! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/". Is it okay in a private server? What if this server has over 100 people?

I feel as if a change is needed here, and I see three potential solutions, with varying degrees of success. One, we could outlaw advertising in general, which doesn't seem enforceable at all. Secondly, we could limit advertising regulations solely to public places such as PS chatrooms and public discord servers, which is similar to the initial intent of the rule. What is then classified as a public discord server? What constitutes advertisement for a sole metagame? A lot of other factors prevent this from being a sustainable option without stronger regulations. The third option I had was initially to allow metagame advertisement in full, but this doesn't sound at all like a good idea when considering how easy this would be to abuse. I feel as if stronger clarification as to what is acceptable and unacceptable would be optimal here.

This is simply a suggestion so perhaps my opinion doesn't align with the majority, but I do strongly feel as if we need to adjust these regulations in order to accommodate the inclusion of Discord and other OM chatrooms. I appreciate any sort of change that comes of this, as I feel as if our intent was right initially, but with the inclusion of additional mediums of communication for the OM community, the four year old sentence "do not try to influence other voters and do not bash any metagame." isn't really sufficient anymore.

Thanks for reading.

 

[in the hills]

Before I start, may I mention I have no ill-will here, nor am I faulting anyone for this. People may accuse me of bias due to the example that I'm going to bring up; however, I feel as if something must be done to avoid situations like this arising in future as well as clarification as to what is acceptable advertising for OMotM and what is not.

What inspired this post

There's a very arbitrary line drawn at the moment as to what is acceptable and unacceptable advertising. If this is done in a server designated to the meta it's advertising, is this then okay? I'm partly to blame due to this, due to not enforcing rules perfectly when I was running OMotM Voting, but it was always unclear as to what exactly we're looking out for when advertising OMotM. The rule was put in place prior to Discord being used frequently, so at the time the only place really worth advertising in was the OM chatroom on PS, where telling people to vote for a said meta was much more obvious than it is now.

My main issue here isn't that it's being advertised like this. It's that our distinction of what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable advertising is detrimental to the voting process. If we leave it as is, people could theoretically get away with posting "Camomons could win OMotM if you vote! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/" in the Camomons Discord, but can't get away with "Vote for Camomons! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/". Is it okay in a private server? What if this server has over 100 people?

I feel as if a change is needed here, and I see three potential solutions, with varying degrees of success. One, we could outlaw advertising in general, which doesn't seem enforceable at all. Secondly, we could limit advertising regulations solely to public places such as PS chatrooms and public discord servers, which is similar to the initial intent of the rule. What is then classified as a public discord server? What constitutes advertisement for a sole metagame? A lot of other factors prevent this from being a sustainable option without stronger regulations. The third option I had was initially to allow metagame advertisement in full, but this doesn't sound at all like a good idea when considering how easy this would be to abuse. I feel as if stronger clarification as to what is acceptable and unacceptable would be optimal here.

This is simply a suggestion so perhaps my opinion doesn't align with the majority, but I do strongly feel as if we need to adjust these regulations in order to accommodate the inclusion of Discord and other OM chatrooms. I appreciate any sort of change that comes of this, as I feel as if our intent was right initially, but with the inclusion of additional mediums of communication for the OM community, the four year old sentence "do not try to influence other voters and do not bash any metagame." isn't really sufficient anymore.

Thanks for reading.

I agree that advertising should be outlawed and should be punishable which I’ve already made my opinion very clear in the OM room (shoutout for the hour mute lol) One thing that I wanted to note is that 2v2 isnt the only culprit here; just recently while Chloe still ran omotm the entire week of voting the room poll in the OM room regarding omotm had an option “I love Benjamin Butterfree”. This is just as blatant as an advertisement as what Rumple did and nothing was done then either. (idk who made the poll but whoever it was shouldnt have and they shouldve had consequences with the poll being removed, which didnt happen)
Any form of pointing voters towards specific oms should be punishable and it requires us as a community to be diligent and report instances of this before voting is over, whether it’s in a public discord, the om room or even populated private discords

 

[The Immortal]

As has been pointed out, that rule was made a really long time ago. My understanding of the rule originally was that it was to apply to the thread. Before we started a stringent OMotM process, these threads were very casual. Some sort of comment with the vote was a common sight. Thus, the rule was meant to prevent bashing metagames and influencing other voters in the voting thread itself. Somehow over the years, with the growth of the Other Metas room and the OMotM process changing and going through different hosts, the rule was interpreted in various ways and applied to other places such as the OM room. This was never the intention. The rule was right for its time, but yes, it needs to change to take into account today’s standards. We will consider the suggestions made; expect a change in the rule come the next OMotM process.

 

[Rumplestiltskin]

Before I start, may I mention I have no ill-will here, nor am I faulting anyone for this. People may accuse me of bias due to the example that I'm going to bring up; however, I feel as if something must be done to avoid situations like this arising in future as well as clarification as to what is acceptable advertising for OMotM and what is not.

What inspired this post

There's a very arbitrary line drawn at the moment as to what is acceptable and unacceptable advertising. If this is done in a server designated to the meta it's advertising, is this then okay? I'm partly to blame due to this, due to not enforcing rules perfectly when I was running OMotM Voting, but it was always unclear as to what exactly we're looking out for when advertising OMotM. The rule was put in place prior to Discord being used frequently, so at the time the only place really worth advertising in was the OM chatroom on PS, where telling people to vote for a said meta was much more obvious than it is now.

My main issue here isn't that it's being advertised like this. It's that our distinction of what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable advertising is detrimental to the voting process. If we leave it as is, people could theoretically get away with posting "Camomons could win OMotM if you vote! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/" in the Camomons Discord, but can't get away with "Vote for Camomons! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/". Is it okay in a private server? What if this server has over 100 people?

I feel as if a change is needed here, and I see three potential solutions, with varying degrees of success. One, we could outlaw advertising in general, which doesn't seem enforceable at all. Secondly, we could limit advertising regulations solely to public places such as PS chatrooms and public discord servers, which is similar to the initial intent of the rule. What is then classified as a public discord server? What constitutes advertisement for a sole metagame? A lot of other factors prevent this from being a sustainable option without stronger regulations. The third option I had was initially to allow metagame advertisement in full, but this doesn't sound at all like a good idea when considering how easy this would be to abuse. I feel as if stronger clarification as to what is acceptable and unacceptable would be optimal here.

This is simply a suggestion so perhaps my opinion doesn't align with the majority, but I do strongly feel as if we need to adjust these regulations in order to accommodate the inclusion of Discord and other OM chatrooms. I appreciate any sort of change that comes of this, as I feel as if our intent was right initially, but with the inclusion of additional mediums of communication for the OM community, the four year old sentence "do not try to influence other voters and do not bash any metagame." isn't really sufficient anymore.

Interesting timing.

As The Immortal said, the rule was created to prevent influence in the voting thread itself, aka when you're looking through the thread and maybe haven't fully decided yet, or when you were going to vote for something and read some message that might change your mind . The spirit of the rule is to prevent influence for/against certain metagames among all metagames. The extension from only the thread would be to places where people from all metagames gather, such as the OM chat on PS and Discord, or more general chats on PS / Discord.

Which brings me to metagame specific Discords, that's where the spirit of the rule doesn't apply. A metagame specific Discord is a place for everything about the metagame it's for. Which includes info about the metagame being nominateable / votable for OMotM. The status of ladder / playability for a metagame is very much relevant information that should be posted in the place designated for the metagame's community. Almost everyone in a metagame specific server are already there for the metagame in question. The notion that posting a link to such a relevant event for the metagame in the metagame's own Discord is unfairly influencing the vote doesn't make sense. It's just info about a relevant event, and even in the case where people infer a message, it's in said metagames own space, not in a public / general place for OM's / PS etc. And as you can see in the screenshots you posted, it's just the link to the event, the info about the event, and the reason why the event is relevant, aka the minimum possible information about a very relevant event.

Since your inspiration is from the 2v2 Doubles server, let's address that. 2v2 Doubles has one of the most, if not the most underrepresented playerbase on Smogon forums and much more so in the OM subforum. Being against info about OMotM getting to some of its players is being for shutting it out and not giving it a chance.

The only issue I can acknowledge is established metagames vs new metagames in OMotM. Established metagames might have an edge over new ones considering the playerbase, but the novelty of new ones is a strong balancing factor. However, regardless of the result of the vote, a decent amount of people will be dissatisfied because they wanted a new metagame for OMotM instead of "this again?" or vice versa, where people are dissatisfied because they can't play the metagame they've played before and want to play again. I brought this up in a post in gen 6, where I suggested a new project which would be a different OMotM for new metagames. The sentiment was that LCotM already does that job sometimes. But that doesn't really solve the problem, established metagames are still pitted against new ones. The issue with this suggestion is that the pool of metagames for the regular OMotM would always be increasing, while the pool for the OMotM for new ones would always be decreasing unless new OM's come out every month. But maybe that's not an issue? Why approve a metagame if it's not going to ever see the light of day? And if adding more ladders to PS is an issue, maybe replace LCotM?

 

[dhelmise]

Interesting timing.

As The Immortal said, the rule was created to prevent influence in the voting thread itself, aka when you're looking through the thread and maybe haven't fully decided yet, or when you were going to vote for something and read some message that might change your mind .

can you calm down?

i dont even know what your first paragraph is trying to address because it's literally just you misinterpreting what was said by TI and Chloe. They quite clearly said that the rule was made when the old method of voting for OMotM was still a thing, ie when people could post their vote and then say "everyone who votes for [x tier] should kill themselves" (which is why the rule was mostly made).

I have no idea what this sentence is trying to say either because well.... it does not make sense for how voting works. How would someone be influenced via advertisement of all things to vote/not vote for a metagame in a locked thread that only has posts thay quite literally say the metagame's name and then a description of said metagame. If someone doesn't like the description made for a meta, they can simply click on the link and read into it more or just not vote for it.

The spirit of the rule is to prevent influence for/against certain metagames among all metagames. The extension from only the thread would be to places where people from all metagames gather, such as the OM chat on PS and Discord, or more general chats on PS / Discord.

I'm using bold to make this seem more important.

And yeah. The spirit of the rule is to prevent influencing users to vote or not vote for a certain metagame so that another one wins....... which you quite literally are doing by constantly announcing in your server that OMotM voting is open and giving multiple heavy implications for the users who read your announcements to vote for 2v2 Doubles. It does not matter that you do not exactly say "Vote for 2v2 Doubles" or "Don't vote for Godly Gift", the fact of the matter is that you are still advertising a voting stage of something and in the same message saying only one of the options to vote for. This would be quite different if you had said "OMotM voting is open! The available options are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10! Don't forget to vote!" because you are not giving more of a name to one meta while completely ignoring the others.

And are you really trying to say that the rule only applies to places where all metagames gather while immediately saying beforehand that the rule only applied to the old voting method? It sounds like you don't even know what the rule is.

Which brings me to metagame specific Discords, that's where the spirit of the rule doesn't apply. A metagame specific Discord is a place for everything about the metagame it's for. Which includes info about the metagame being nominateable / votable for OMotM. The status of ladder / playability for a metagame is very much relevant information that should be posted in the place designated for the metagame's community. Almost everyone in a metagame specific server are already there for the metagame in question. The notion that posting a link to such a relevant event for the metagame in the metagame's own Discord is unfairly influencing the vote doesn't make sense. It's just info about a relevant event, and even in the case where people infer a message, it's in said metagames own space, not in a public / general place for OM's / PS etc. And as you can see in the screenshots you posted, it's just the link to the event, the info about the event, and the reason why the event is relevant, aka the minimum possible information about a very relevant event.

Name one metagame that isn't already implemented on PS as either a ladder or a rotational that doesn't already have a discord server and/or a room. STABmons doesn't really count because even though it has neither of the two things, it is ineligible anyways, and Camomons both doesn't have its own discord to advertise in and is already on OMotM/LCotM cooldown.

I also don't really like your argument that meta-specific discords include all info about a metagame, including whether or not it can be nominated or voted for in the OMotM polls. Yeah, while the playable status of a metagame should be important, I don't see what argument you're trying to prove here. Who cares if 2v2 can be voted for? It is against the rules to advertise, yet I've constantly seen you break that rule. I also don't see why the play status of 2v2 is so important either? It already had a challenge mode on PS, which most meta owners would kill to give.

The fact of the matter is, 2v2 is the only non-ladder/rotational OM that I know of that has its own discord, which further helps you support your point when there is no other context being given. This entire paragraph is literally just you trying to give an excuse as to why you advertised your OM and why it should be fine. There is literally not a single other OM in these guidelines that has its own community like this.

Since your inspiration is from the 2v2 Doubles server, let's address that. 2v2 Doubles has one of the most, if not the most underrepresented playerbase on Smogon forums and much more so in the OM subforum.

Are you kidding? 2v2 Doubles literally has its own challenge format on PS every other month besides this one, it has a big enough playerbase that some people (you) might even consider it eligible for its own discord, and it's a format that consistently appears in the 1v1 Team Tours. Don't even say that my last point is a bad example either. We both know 1v1 almost has an equally as large playerbase independent from OMs in its entirety. The reason for 2v2 being underrepresented and whatever garbage your spewing isn't the fault of Smogon's and more specifically the OM community, it's because you aren't doing enough as a leader to get it discussed in places like the OM room (even though it is a topic in the 1v1 room a lot????).

Being against info about OMotM getting to some of its players is being for shutting it out and not giving it a chance.

You could just simply post the link to the voting thread in your announcements channel in the 2v2 Doubles discord and say "OMotM voting is up!" It's already heavily implied that since you're linking the OMotM voting in the 2v2 discord that 2v2 is almost inevitably going to be an option.

The only issue I can acknowledge is established metagames vs new metagames in OMotM. Established metagames might have an edge over new ones considering the playerbase, but the novelty of new ones is a strong balancing factor. However, regardless of the result of the vote, a decent amount of people will be dissatisfied because they wanted a new metagame for OMotM instead of "this again?" or vice versa, where people are dissatisfied because they can't play the metagame they've played before and want to play again. I brought this up in a post in gen 6, where I suggested a new project which would be a different OMotM for new metagames.

Dude....2v2 is more established than pretty much every single non-ladder/rotational meta in this generation (except like Sketchmons or Camomons maybe). 2v2 would most likely have the edge over a lot of metas if you would give it a chance and tried to make it popular in other ways than just advertising that people vote for it even if they don't play it.

The sentiment was that LCotM already does that job sometimes. But that doesn't really solve the problem, established metagames are still pitted against new ones. The issue with this suggestion is that the pool of metagames for the regular OMotM would always be increasing, while the pool for the OMotM for new ones would always be decreasing unless new OM's come out every month. But maybe that's not an issue? Why approve a metagame if it's not going to ever see the light of day? And if adding more ladders to PS is an issue, maybe replace LCotM?

This is literally such a stupid idea that I'm not even going to comment on it. If anything, there should be two LCotM ladders so that nobody but the leaders has a choice, which would lead to less crybaby posts like this.

E: Yeah I know I came off as rude in this post as well as similarly crybabyish. I guess it's just something that happens to everyone when they make posts in an overzealous rage.

 

[Deleted User 464209]

Hey as a neutral observer to all this it looks like:

• There's an old rule about campaigning for metagames that no longer applies to existing voting implementation
• In a private discord, people were urged (to some extent) to vote for 2v2 doubles
• These people were already interested in 2v2 (by nature of being on the discord) and would probably vote for it, given the opportunity
• Giving people the ability to vote is not vote manipulation
• Disenfranchising people not on Smogon, but who would be playing omotm on PS is (manipulation)
• I don't think Smogon has any ability to police what happens in private discords. Can I not tell my irl friends to vote for meta X?

I don't think you get around back channel campaigning. Best is to restrict it on ps and in forums. In any case, as rumple said, there is an advantage to established metas, but the people want what the people want.

Also, Kris, starting with "can you calm down" is kind of ironic, given I didn't get any agitated tone in the thread until I got to your post lol.

Anyway...let's not make a mountain out of a molehill!

classic hackmons 2019

 

[Chloe]

Hey as a neutral observer to all this it looks like:

• There's an old rule about campaigning for metagames that no longer applies to existing voting implementation
• In a private discord, people were urged (to some extent) to vote for 2v2 doubles
• These people were already interested in 2v2 (by nature of being on the discord) and would probably vote for it, given the opportunity
• Giving people the ability to vote is not vote manipulation
• Disenfranchising people not on Smogon, but who would be playing omotm on PS is (manipulation)
• I don't think Smogon has any ability to police what happens in private discords. Can I not tell my irl friends to vote for meta X?

I don't think you get around back channel campaigning. Best is to restrict it on ps and in forums. In any case, as rumple said, there is an advantage to established metas, but the people want what the people want.

Also, Kris, starting with "can you calm down" is kind of ironic, given I didn't get any agitated tone in the thread until I got to your post lol.

Anyway...let's not make a mountain out of a molehill!

classic hackmons 2019

I agree with this to a certain extent; however, it is important to mention that not only is the 2v2 Discord server public by Discord standards (it has over 100 people), it has been actively advertised throughout the 2v2 thread. This is why I'm pushing for harsher clarification. Additionally, if we follow the model you set, the public Other Metagames Discord server becomes a haven for campaigning, the 1v1 Discord server gets to push for Chimera 1v1 and 2v2 Doubles frequently, and even the 450 user ZU Discord server can push for ZU Doubles every month if they want to. I don't agree with a solution of letting this stuff slide on Discord, just because it's harder to police. Additionally, you state that Smogon (I assume you meant OM leadership) can't act off of happenings in Discord, when this is untrue. Especially when it's detrimentally affecting a voting process that should be kept fair. You wouldn't be stopped from advertising, they can't actively force you to stop doing these things in another Discord server, but there definitely can be consequences on Smogon or throughout the voting process because of your actions. Anyway, I'm content with the response TI gave, I just don't think your solution is the way to go about it.

 

[Deleted User 464209]

I agree with this to a certain extent; however, it is important to mention that not only is the 2v2 Discord server public by Discord standards (it has over 100 people), it has been actively advertised throughout the 2v2 thread. This is why I'm pushing for harsher clarification. Additionally, if we follow the model you set, the public Other Metagames Discord server becomes a haven for campaigning, the 1v1 Discord server gets to push for Chimera 1v1 and 2v2 Doubles frequently, and even the 450 user ZU Discord server can push for ZU Doubles every month if they want to. I don't agree with a solution of letting this stuff slide on Discord, just because it's harder to police. Additionally, you state that Smogon (I assume you meant OM leadership) can't act off of happenings in Discord, when this is untrue. Especially when it's detrimentally affecting a voting process that should be kept fair. You wouldn't be stopped from advertising, they can't actively force you to stop doing these things in another Discord server, but there definitely can be consequences on Smogon or throughout the voting process because of your actions. Anyway, I'm content with the response TI gave, I just don't think your solution is the way to go about it.

Hi Chloe thanks for the response. Im not familiar with discord's definitions. By "private" I presumed that the server isn't officially affiliated with Smogon and/or OM leadership. If that's not the case, then yes, behavior there should be regulated the same as in OM room chat on PS or here on forums.

I don't, however, believe that campaigning in any unofficial forum affects fairness -- there are certain metas that are just more popular. The current omotm voting set up is not blind to popularity (duh), and if that's what we as a community would desire, then something like a rotating selection by OM leadership would meet those goals. There's already leaders choice for that, and it's not my decision.

 

[CringeMeta]

A few thoughts:-

* A brief and impartial template could be provided by admin to OM leaders who want to link to OMotM voting from Discord or other public forums, e.g. "October 2018 OMotM voting is open for Pokemon Showdown! https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-of-the-month-october-voting-stage.3642132/". This would eliminate any room for ambiguity in whether the linking is considered partial advertising for or not.

* Although it's impossible to control what people post on their own Discord servers, etc, if it is considered desirable to curb this behaviour, there could be some sort of sanction system which could discourage it when done in a verifiable public space by OM leaders/council members. For example, if an official Discord is reported for posting partial advertising for a meta, the OM leaders could be warned; if no action is taken after 24 hours then voting could potentially be disabled for that meta until the advertising is changed or removed, etc. While such potential sanctions won't prevent all advertising, the purpose would be to create a trade-off to disincentivise this behaviour and make people think twice about it, whereas in the current situation there are only incentives to engage in it.

* There were two further issues that may have affected OMotM voting this month which seem like they should be addressed. Firstly, mass spamming of Showdown PMs encouraging users to vote for a specific meta (this occurred in the Mashups room); this seems like something that should be warned against. Secondly, I've heard reports that a Discord was actually incentivising votes for a specific meta by allocating roles partly based on voting. I don't know to what extent this has actually occurred, but incentivised voting seems a worse problem than advertising, so it may be worth clarifying rules on this also.

 

[Foxxeyy]

Hello, so I’ve had a couple of ideas for ways OMs could be improved, and the main one is allow Pokemon in their suspect test. The point of a suspect test is for the good players to see if something is banworthy, and vote accordingly. People like GL Volkner only play things like Mix And Mega when there’s a suspect and so do not have a very good measure of the metagame during the suspect, they can only see the consequences of it being banned. Allowing it for maybe half the time then banning it half the time of the suspect might be a good approach because for half they can see if it’s banworthy and for the other they can see the consequences. This may have been posted before but I just wanna put the point out there.

The next thing is to create a sunroom of the OM room dedicated to memes. It doesn’t even have to be a proper room, just a groupchat. There are so many OM players who really like laddering and having fun with memes. Can’t turn of bold atm sorry, don’t know what’s happening. Anyway, myself included, lots of people love using meme sets and really sometimes want a battle with certain restrictions to make it fun, or monopoles and the sorts. This may be a terrible idea but whatever I think it would be fun and good. Seriously. It’s saying not bold and yet.

 

[The Immortal]

Hello, so I’ve had a couple of ideas for ways OMs could be improved, and the main one is allow Pokemon in their suspect test. The point of a suspect test is for the good players to see if something is banworthy, and vote accordingly. People like GL Volkner only play things like Mix And Mega when there’s a suspect and so do not have a very good measure of the metagame during the suspect, they can only see the consequences of it being banned. Allowing it for maybe half the time then banning it half the time of the suspect might be a good approach because for half they can see if it’s banworthy and for the other they can see the consequences. This may have been posted before but I just wanna put the point out there.

I'm pretty sure every test in the past 6 months had the Pokemon allowed. 1v1 had Mimikyu, ZU had Stoutland, BH had Illusion, and non-permanent formats definitely didn't ban stuff during tests.

 

[Foxxeyy]

I'm pretty sure every test in the past 6 months had the Pokemon allowed. 1v1 had Mimikyu, ZU had Stoutland, BH had Illusion, and non-permanent formats definitely didn't ban stuff during tests.

Sorry did not realise this, will try to find out if it’s already been done with other suggestions (if I have any). But what do people think of the meme room? Probably bad.

 

[LordHelix]

Can we have more new oms, i know most good ideas have been taken up already but there are some really good potential ones like Multibility which are just rejected just cause of similarity to other metas. Im definitely not the only one who enjoys new oms either

Also what happened to the micro-oms?

 

[Foxxeyy]

Random thought made out of irritation:

create a groupchat dedicated to OM building help. This is probably just me but I've asked quite a few people for help building over the last few months, and the vast majority have said 'no im busy' or 'theres no benefit for me shut up go away'. If we created one of these it would help single out some of the best players of each tier that are willing to help build. I know I knkow that the OM room can still be used for this, but sometimes the help is done by some people who aren't that familiar with the tier, eg, I post an mnm team a while ago and someone said 'I'll help! wait luc zyg wtf'. People can just leave the room when they're busy, and new players can join when they feel they need help. I t would help me, and quite a few others, get more help when we think we need it. btw, I'm gonna leave ps! because of loads of mnm players ignoring me all the time, as well as other stuff, so this wouldn't effect me (unless I decide to make a secret alt bwa ha ha ha).