drampa's grandpa
cannonball
I have a big problem with pet mods being added to the main OM forum. They're not the same thing, and pet mods don't have the playability or quality as a metagame we expect from an OM (yes I know not all OMs are 'quality' but those are considered bad oms, while there are ~0 pet mods with actual metas.)I think there are 2 issues as to why pet mods seem to die out and never really gain development for their metagames.
1. Pet mods don't end.
This one seems pretty self explanatory. Certain Pet Mods never stop adding more things or don't stop til it covers ALL pokemon. It's almost impossible to build for things like Fusion Evolution because there are TONS of new stuff, TOO MUCH to actively keep track of.
2. Pet mods are tucked away in their own forum.
People that have no intention of endlessly theorycrafting have no incentive to check out the Pet Mods forum. They don't even know that some Pet Mods are completed; I didn't. This makes Pet Mods deader than second page OMs.
To solve this I think we should implement a couple of things. First of all, Pet Mods need to be encouraged to actually end. Usually ending means death, which is why the users that make the mod keep pushing out new slates, even when there are already so many. After a Pet Mod does end, it should be moved to the main forum and given a special tag "Pet Mod" to indicate "Hey, the community that made this wants you guys to develop it!" The process could be very simple. When the creator/community of a pet mod determines, they want to end it, they resubmit it in OM Submissions. Then OM leaderships looks over it and judges it to see if they think the overall OM/Smogon community would understand it and its changes (is it simple), would the community want to play it (is it interesting), and could it be playable on PS! (is it implementable). If they say yes, the pet mod gets locked in that forum and is introduced in the OM forum. From then on there are no more slates, nothing new introduced, and nothing changed. Things are added and removed based on suspects and banned even if they were previously included in the pet mod (this isn't CAP, some pet mods probably won't be balanced). With some hard work from our coders, I have no doubt that certain Pet Mods can be implemented on a rotational basis/challenge-only format. Understandably, this would take a lot more time to code, but there is also no immediate time table to change out the Pet Mods.
(Also I support a 3rd official tour/ a more robust tour time table/ 1v1)
It's my impression that people go to pet mods for the chance to create something. Sort of like CAP but without as much competitive. I don't think it's possible to keep that while also making pet mods semi-equivalent to oms in stature, because user created content is rather uneven in quality and balance.
Something I think would help pet mods considerably would be a more obvious place to discuss them, like a sub-room on ps. But somehow I doubt I really have the authority to suggest that.
The thing is the OM community and the Pet Mod community really are seperate. Attempts to smush them together are probably doomed to fail, and I think Pet Mods would function better if they tried to have a little more independence. I'm not sure what this would entail besides what I mentioned above, but it makes a lot more sense than trying to get the very competitively focused om community interested in primarily creatively focused pet mods. It might also cut down on the number of randos who come to the room asking what we think about their 200/200/200/200/200/200/200 sunkern with huge power and then get confused when we tell them thats too many stats.The problem with such an arrangement is that Pet Mods are usually harder to code and even harder to get into, especially one's like the Multi-Franchise Fusion Evolution (Three threads, a spin-off and art thread and even more under development)
But I think it's time to have that argument. I have held my silence on this topic for far too long.
The blatant ignorance of Pet Mods on a whole by the OM community.
It's a divide that has always existed, but the sheer significance has not been brought to my attention until recently. If you talk to the average member of the OM community, they will tell you Pet Mods are "those things that are in their own thread". It's also present to a different degree amongst the small Pet Mod community (the fact that Pet Mods have a completely different atmosphere and separate community speaks volumes). Several times anything close to an aspect of battling (Community Create a Team for example) I am greeted with expressions of: "That's not the point of Pet Mods", "Sorry, I don't know how to do that, I'm not into competitive stuff" and most importantly "If I wanted to do this, I'd play an OM". I think this thought process is harmful and is the reason that Pet Mods are regarded as "lesser OMs" and "things serious players don't get into". This needs to change, as it stalls growth and hinders the full potential of many Pet Mods.
While it is unreasonable to try and make the community into a competitive playerbase, I think it's reasonable to put in certain leeway so that competitive players become attracted to Pet Mods. It is true - some Pet Mods simply will never be viable for a player format due to a variety of reasons (too hard to code - Fusion Evolution. Too much things that are not in the games code to add - Z-Moves Everywhere. Too much stuff overall - Fusion Evolution AGAIN), other Pet Mods are not only codable, but much easier to get into. Type Optimization is a great example that TI mentioned, but other Pet Mods that have similar structures (things that don't introduce completely new mechanics) also exist, but lack attention, such as the recently reinvigorated OptiMons, the unfortunately dead but great premise Nerfmons and that Pet Mod that everyone forgets because the community can't make stuff but stills exits, Move Mastery. All of these Pet Mods can sustain actual playable and fun metagames, but they all get ignored because they are in the Pet Mods subforum. I will go a step furthur and mention some Gen Six Pet Mods that eventually got closed as they completed their goals - The Lost World and Undiscovered Types - these were Pet Modsthat after completing their goals, created their own fun metagame. The problem was that, since no players don't actually pay serious attention to Pet Mods, their metas did not develop they eventually died off. This is the predicament that I fear will happen to the current Pet Mods that spawn fun metas with a clear limit: they will just die out.
I want to change that. As to how that can be changed? I think this is where the discussion should lie, but I already have a great suggestion. Pet Mods such as the ones mentioned above, should get threads in the main OM thread dedicated to the development of the metagame that have spawned from them. This would not only lead to fun and interesting metagames, but would preserve the Pet Mods so they just die out after completing their goals. While I don't think any of the current Pet Mods (barring Move Mastery, which in itself is a different type of Pet Mod altogether.), can support a metagame now, after more participation they surely can. In the meantime, I think these established Pet Mods (with a little repurposing for Gen 7 as the original creators Cretacerus and Jajoken respectively) can suffice.
I'd like to hear the community's thoughts on this matter and other, better ways of approaching this.