Project Suggestions for OM Improvement

[Isaiah]

OP stolen from the previous gen thread.

This thread is meant to mimic some of the "New Direction" thread's functionality from the ORAS forum. Essentially, we want a place where people can post with suggestions on how to improve Other Metagames. This community is full of people with creative ideas, so it is silly for us not to solicit your input. That said, just because you provide a suggestion does not mean we'll implement it.

Here's the rules/expectations for posting in this thread:

1) We (the moderation team) will read everything that is posted here, but we will not respond to every suggestion posted. We'll implement suggestions we agree with or things we think will help OM as a whole.

2) Sarcastic posts will not be tolerated. This thread is for serious suggestions that you think can improve the community.

3) Do not make suggestions that go above your level of authority.
e.g. don't post about "promote x to mod" or "make <insert meta> a ladder". These are things we put a great deal of thought into and have well-formed opinions/ideas on. If you have a suggestion and you're unsure about whether it violates this rule pm me about it on PS before posting.

4) It is fine to comment on another suggestion to offer feedback, but your post must be substantive! No one-liners. Like a post if you agree with it and don't have anything to add.

Remember, your posts should be suggestions, not demands; and the content of your post should highlight why your suggestion would improve OM in general, not just a specific sub-community.

 

[Nihilslave]

First. And I suggest upgrading the client teambuilder and battle tooltips to support some OMs better. And maybe a minor refactor to some parts of the client code to make it look better instead of just writing a lot of `if (isXXX) {}`.

Details

• Show the "correct" base stats and types in teambuilder (and also in battle for speed range) for OMs like Cross Evolution and Re-Evolution so that people don't have to look up a table or input a command each time.
• Show base stats and types in teambuilder (and also in battle for speed range) which are after Mega-Evolved in MnM and after Godly-Gifted in GG.
• Show correctly written "items" in teambuilder and in battle for OMs like Fortemons and Trademarked, instead of something shown currently like "strengthsap" or EVEN "mail".
• Hide Ability guess in battle for AAA and BH since that makes no sense.

 

[PociekMociek]

Hide Ability guess in battle for AAA and BH since that makes no sense.

I'll piggyback off it, maybe allow ourselves to set the shown ability, you should be able to sus out abilities like fluffy or regen and set it to help yourself during the game.

Also minor thing (only effects ph i believe): decide how "This Pokemon might be trapped" text shows up, in metas with freed trapping it literally reveals the ability (maybe it should show up and force no switch cancelling on every mon?).

 

[Hiusi guy]

I suggest adding some of the sample sets onto the teambuilder for all of the om ladders that are permanent (BH has some but only for paldea origin mons that I know of). It'd help newer players to some oms and me to know what an optimal set / Evs are for a mon that they're going to use that has a sample set. (In addition, if there is ever sample sets for some mons in Godly Gift they could have specifications on what slot they're using similiar to how the monotype sample sets work)

 

[UT]

I suggest adding some of the sample sets onto the teambuilder for all of the om ladders that are permanent (BH has some but only for paldea origin mons that I know of). It'd help newer players to some oms and me to know what an optimal set / Evs are for a mon that they're going to use that has a sample set.

Teambuilder suggested sets is something that a package pulls from the analyses page automatically. While most OMs do have sample sets and analyses already, we have asked for OMs to be added to the teambuilder package (which is the same on that runs the calc set), but so far they have not been; that one is sadly out of our control.

(In addition, if there is ever sample sets for some mons in Godly Gift they could have specifications on what slot they're using similiar to how the monotype sample sets work)

This is how we did sample sets / analyses for SS Godly Gift, and is the plan as well for SV when we open C&C for that section.

Edit: I am going to make a more general disclaimer: this thread is for suggestions and improvements within the OM forum / section (new or improved projects, feedback on how OMs are approved, communication from the mod team, etc). We do not have control over the technical aspects of the sim and cannot implement those types of suggestions, even when we agree with them.

 

[Euphonos]

Good day!

My general activity in the OM department (especially as the leader of the Camomons metagame) was literally zero since end of February because one, I felt too numb to conceptualize ways of keeping the Camomons metagame afloat even after the hype it got from being Leader's Choice OMtM, and two, there's another metagame I've been devoting more energy with especially it being part of another upstart unofficial team tournament after being axed in the official subforum tournament scene (DPP 1v1). Despite all this, I'm still in the loop for anything the Camomons council members want to bring up, which made me stumble in one of the conversations between Siamato and in the hills in the Camomons council channel in the hopes that the OM staff still gets as much attention to all remaining OMs as the official ones; and given I've read almost every conversation in that channel, I feel like I'd want to chime in.

So, in their conversation in the Camomons council channel, Siamato lamented on the situation on some of the non-official OM's like Camomons that were given initial hype and then eventually died down; while this is understandable, there are still lots of opportunities for development in those metagames even when the hype died down, and I believe the metagame can still remain sustainable. in the hills made a fair point as well that with all the OMs up, the staff gets overwhelmed with so many responsibilities. I definitely appreciate the work the OM staff has done over these years; let's get that right; however, with the OM department being way too vast for the staff to handle, I think I'd like to chime in with a proposal that would distribute the weight of responsibilities every OM staff has while at the same time having a streamlined way of communicating with fellow OM staff and community.


Main Proposal: The Division of the Other Metagames Department in Three Subforums

So I have seen Anything Goes and ZeroUsed being part of the OM department right now, and I don't think it would be harmful if we divide the OM department into three subforums, which include: Official OMs, Spotlight OMs, and Experimental OMs. I'd like to give some observations and explanations to all these three subforums:

• Official OMs: These OMs have already been a staple in the official OM tournaments scene; they have a permanent ladder.
• Spotlight OMs: These OMs don't have as much exposure as official OMs are, but these metagames show a competitive playerbase enough to warrant a spot. These OMs should be part of a minor tournament circuit not counted in the official ones even without having a ladder (or a potential rotational ladder? It may not look feasible given the past transgressions, but Spotlight OMs are now a reason to put up a rotational ladder for sustainable metagame development). [before I forget, Spotlight OMs should be 6 in number, since I suggested maximum of 10 but it's kinda too much]
• Experimental OMs: These OMs have promising modifications, but lack the playerbase to back them. These OMs should be the ones as the candidates for the OM of the Month ladder.

(anyway, feel free to change the nomenclature of any of those OM subgroups should these get implemented)

To make all these streamlined, I would like to ask the OM staff one question: what are the rubrics/criteria in order for an OM to be part of an official OM or a spotlight OM?

Now, with the three subgroups implemented, the main OM staff are responsible for the entire OM subforum (and are also in charge with the Official OM subgroup). Eventually, there should be people in charge of the Spotlight OM and Experimental OM subgroups as well, and then the entire OM staff will be part of what I would propose as the OM Review Committee. Remember the rubrics/criteria I wanted to ask to the OM staff? That has to be reviewed in a timely manner (I don't know if you want it every 6 months, 12 months, or 18 months) and then if you find some of the OMs (not) fulfilling such criteria/requirements will then deserve either a promotion / demotion, depending on the situation, like how the OM staff handled the Camomons debacle in Generation 8 - this time in a more streamlined manner and with less drama.

Feel free to fire away other thoughts, supplementary suggestions, or violent reactions. I am hopeful with the future of the Other Metagames looking forward: the staff welfare, community welfare, and the sustainable development of each OM!

 

[UT]

Main Proposal: The Division of the Other Metagames Department in Three Subforums

I have a hard time understanding what issues you are looking to address that splitting into three subforums would accomplish. They wouldn't increase the number of ladders we are allowed to run, the number of tours we can run, or projects we can host. All of those can be done in the main forum as-is, and more importantly, segmenting off OMs from each other reduces cross talk, which is one of the most significant ways for OMs to grow; OMs like Fortemons, Cross Evolution, and Convergence have benefited massively from people finding their forums or joining into ongoing conversations in the room, and splitting that up further I think would be devastating for smaller OMs.

in the hills made a fair point as well that with all the OMs up, the staff gets overwhelmed with so many responsibilities.

I think you misunderstood in the hills's point here; it's not that we are overworked, but there is only so much we can do to promote metagames. We are limited on the number of ladders we can run, and while it's annoying for smaller metagames to only be eligible for a ladder once every 6 months, I would still argue that OMotM ladders have been a very successful allocation of a scarce resource.

We have just in the past few months hosted multiple tournaments to feature smaller metas, Spotlight Trios and OMotM tournaments, which had lackluster turnouts; certainly if you have any suggestions to improve those, we are extremely receptive. (I do plan on hosting Trios again over the summer, hopefully with better turnout, so any ideas to improve it are welcome). And the OM Submissions subforum is always open for new tour proposals if you want to host one.

One suggestion we have heard previously that we are still interested in adding is a second slate of daily tours featuring more metagames, but we have run into difficulties implementing it as we do not own the bot. This is still in progress, and we hope to see it added soon (tm), but I cannot offer a firm ETA on that. We are still very open to running tournaments for any and every OM ad-hoc in the room, especially when there is ongoing discussion around them!

If you have suggestions for projects other than ladders, tours, and the metagame threads, we are more than happy to hear them in OM submissions; we are always excited to see new project ideas. We are also happy to hear more concrete suggestions here, but splitting the subforum is a dramatic change that I don't think I understand what it would accomplish.

To make all these streamlined, I would like to ask the OM staff one question: what are the rubrics/criteria in order for an OM to be part of an official OM or a spotlight OM?

The main factors we look for when considering circuit tours are ladder and tour performance, engagement with the metagame, and competitiveness, and we do already re-evaluate circuit metagames yearly; Camo is far from the first to be demoted, other metagames like STABmons, Tier Shift, and Sketchmons have been demoted before (or from the equivalent before we had a circuit). Since we can't add or drop tours mid-circuit, we are by definition limited to re-evaluating them yearly, but we very much do and will again at the end of the year.

Ultimately, as long as we approve more than 10 OMs, we are going to run into issues of where some OMs are more popular and active than others, and that's okay. Some will gain popularity and potentially even be added to circuit, some will maintain a small-but-dedicated following, some will see cyclical popularity, and some are fun once in a blue moon as a change of pace. Hosting all those together in one place allows for players to organically discover new metagames, especially in the OM room, and I am very hesitant of any proposal that undermines that.

We are extremely open to suggestions to improve the forum, but unless there is something dramatic I am just not seeing, I don't think splitting it is the answer.

Edit: the second set of daily tour referenced above are live now!

 

[The Faz]

I have a hot and controversial take; I propose

Slowing down the amount of OMs that are just another cut from Balanced Hackmons.

What I mean by "OMs that are a cut of Balanced Hackmons" is any OM that is just "X pokemon gains Y moves or abilities that [specific condition]" For exampke, Sketchmons, AAA, Inheritance, Convergence, STABmons, etc. All of these tiers could reasonably be played in Pure Hackmons with a gentleman's agreement.

This type of OM is getting to the point of oversaturation. The first time we saw a PU mon with great stats and terrible movepool become OU due to new movesets it's awesome but on the 6th metagame it happens it's par for the course and not really exciting anymore, y'know? Furthermore, these types of OM also aren't particularly distinctive: They change the pokemon's sets, sure, but in-game it's similar dynamics.

Compare playing any of these OMs with Partners in Crime, Trademarked or even The Loser's Game. These metagames are disctinct and unique, with their own dynamics and strategies that are different from traditional Smogon Singles. OMs cut from BH often play like non-OM (OU, RU, Ubers, etc) metagames just with different pokemon on the roles. The first time you see a pokemon that normally didn't have it use Swords Dance it's neat; the second or third time, not so much. After a point the novelty of seeing a pokemon use a move it didn't learn wears off and you're just left with a singles metagame that is a more offense-oriented OU.

I'd love to see a ban on submitting OMs that just changes the legality of moves and abilities.

If you scroll through the OM subforum you'll see that most metas only change the legality of stuff: Now you can use X move on Y pokemon because of Z! These changes only apply on the teambuilder. I'd love to see more metagames that apply changes on the game itself.

• OMs whose only change is on the teambuilder: AAA, STABmons, Balanced Hackmons, Inheritance, Convergence, etc.
• OMs whose change is on the game itself: The Card Game, Tier Shift, Godly Gift, Partners in Crime, etc.

Heck, both of this month's OM of the Month are metagames that change the game itself and not the teambuilder! I feel like metagames that change the game itself - and then let the meta adapt around that change - are much more interesting than yet another teambuilder-only meta, no? With OMs cut from BH you know what to expect - check what mons without STAB got it, what fast mons got Spore, check where the broken and bannable abilities like Wonder Guard or Huge Power ended up if they weren't banned, etc. Metas that change mechanics rather than legality don't fall into these common tropes that OMs cut from BH fall into.

Thoughts?

 

[Tanny89k]

Seeing the XY Tiers Preservation Thread and various old-gen threads got me thinking that it may be worth doing something similar for pre-Home/DLC metas. Would help with preserving and keeping track of a given tier's history; instead of having to sift through a resources thread for a VR update post that might not exist or hoping someone on the discord can help, one could simply refer to a thread. Once the pre-Home/DLC metas become old-gen, their respective hubs could be linked in the "resources" section of a corresponding meta hub in an old-gen hub (e.g. the pre-Home gen 9 AAA hub from the proposed thread could be attached to the gen 9 AAA hub in the gen 10 old-gen thread).

Information included in meta hubs would include typical stuff like banlists, VRs, and challenge codes, as well as stuff like role compendiums, general meta overviews, and sample sets if such resources either already exist or someone is willing to make them. OP might include the thread's mission statement and an index.

Example Hub

Pre-Home AAA Hub​

Council Members (names would be tagged)
Isaiah (tier leader)
UT
Atha
DeepFriedMagikarp
Quantum Tesseract
LordBox
Joe (ask who Joe is)

Challenge Code
(challenge code would go here)

Banlist

Abilities
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Moody
Orichalcum Pulse
Poison Heal
etc.

Pokemon
Annihilape
Baxcalibur
Dragapult
Flutter Mane
Gengar
Gholdengo:
Great Tusk
Hariyama
Houndstone
Iron Bundle
Iron Hands
Iron Valiant
Koraidon
Miraidon
Noivern
Slaking
Walking Wake
Zoroark-Hisui

As well as item bans, move bans, and clauses.

Viability Rankings

S Rank
Corviknight

A Rank
A+
Garchomp
Iron Moth
Scream Tail

A
Kingambit
Meowscarada
Slither Wing
Talonflame

A-
Chien-Pao
Cinderace
Garganacl
Iron Treads
Roaring Moon

And so on for B and C.

Resources (following would be hyperlinked)
- Sample Teams
- Metagame Thread
- Home and DLC changes
- whatever else

FAQs
Q: "Why can't I use abilities on Pokemon that get them naturally in standard play?"
A: "Native users" don't exactly exist in AAA

code for above

[center]:sv/corviknight:[b][size=22]Pre-Home AAA Hub[/b][/size]:sv/iron moth:[/center]

[b][u]Council Members[/b][/u] (names would be tagged)
:medicham-mega: Isaiah (tier leader)
:talonflame: UT
:wugtrio: Atha
:rotom-wash: DeepFriedMagikarp
:palafin: Quantum Tesseract
:honchkrow: LordBox

[b][u]Challenge Code[/b][/u]
(challenge code would go here)

[hide=Banlist][u]Abilities[/u]
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Moody
Orichalcum Pulse
Poison Heal
etc.

[u]Pokemon[/u]
:annihilape: Annihilape
:baxcalibur: Baxcalibur
:dragapult: Dragapult
:flutter mane: Flutter Mane
:gengar: Gengar
:gholdengo: Gholdengo:
:great tusk: Great Tusk
:hariyama: Hariyama
:houndstone: Houndstone
:iron bundle: Iron Bundle
:iron hands: Iron Hands
:iron valiant: Iron Valiant
:koraidon: Koraidon
:miraidon: Miraidon
:noivern: Noivern
:slaking: Slaking
:walking wake: Walking Wake
:zoroark-hisui: Zoroark-Hisui

As well as item bans, move bans, and clauses.[/hide]
[hide=Viability Rankings][b][u]S Rank[/b][/u]
:corviknight: Corviknight

[b][u]A Rank[/b][/u]
[b]A+[/b]
:garchomp: Garchomp
:iron moth: Iron Moth
:scream tail: Scream Tail

[b]A[/b]
:kingambit: Kingambit
:meowscarada: Meowscarada
:slither wing: Slither Wing
:talonflame: Talonflame

[b]A-[/b]
:chien-pao: Chien-Pao
:cinderace: Cinderace
:garganacl: Garganacl
:iron treads: Iron Treads
:roaring moon: Roaring Moon

And so on for B and C.[/hide]
[b][u]Resources[/b][/u] (following would be hyperlinked)
- Sample Teams
- Metagame Thread
- Home and DLC changes
- whatever else

[b][u]FAQs[/b][/u]
Q: "Why can't I use abilities on Pokemon that get them naturally in standard play?"
A: "Native users" don't exactly exist in AAA

 

[UT]

Seeing the XY Tiers Preservation Thread and various old-gen threads got me thinking that it may be worth doing something similar for pre-Home/DLC metas. Would help with preserving and keeping track of a given tier's history; instead of having to sift through a resources thread for a VR update post that might not exist or hoping someone on the discord can help, one could simply refer to a thread. Once the pre-Home/DLC metas become old-gen, their respective hubs could be linked in the "resources" section of a corresponding meta hub in an old-gen hub (e.g. the pre-Home gen 9 AAA hub from the proposed thread could be attached to the gen 9 AAA hub in the gen 10 old-gen thread).

Information included in meta hubs would include typical stuff like banlists, VRs, and challenge codes, as well as stuff like role compendiums, general meta overviews, and sample sets if such resources either already exist or someone is willing to make them. OP might include the thread's mission statement and an index.

Example Hub

Pre-Home AAA Hub​

Council Members (names would be tagged)
Isaiah (tier leader)
UT
Atha
DeepFriedMagikarp
Quantum Tesseract
LordBox
Joe (ask who Joe is)

Challenge Code
(challenge code would go here)

Banlist

Abilities
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Moody
Orichalcum Pulse
Poison Heal
etc.

Pokemon
Annihilape
Baxcalibur
Dragapult
Flutter Mane
Gengar
Gholdengo:
Great Tusk
Hariyama
Houndstone
Iron Bundle
Iron Hands
Iron Valiant
Koraidon
Miraidon
Noivern
Slaking
Walking Wake
Zoroark-Hisui

As well as item bans, move bans, and clauses.

Viability Rankings

S Rank
Corviknight

A Rank
A+
Garchomp
Iron Moth
Scream Tail

A
Kingambit
Meowscarada
Slither Wing
Talonflame

A-
Chien-Pao
Cinderace
Garganacl
Iron Treads
Roaring Moon

And so on for B and C.

Resources (following would be hyperlinked)
- Sample Teams
- Metagame Thread
- Home and DLC changes
- whatever else

FAQs
Q: "Why can't I use abilities on Pokemon that get them naturally in standard play?"
A: "Native users" don't exactly exist in AAA

code for above

[center]:sv/corviknight:[b][size=22]Pre-Home AAA Hub[/b][/size]:sv/iron moth:[/center]

[b][u]Council Members[/b][/u] (names would be tagged)
:medicham-mega: Isaiah (tier leader)
:talonflame: UT
:wugtrio: Atha
:rotom-wash: DeepFriedMagikarp
:palafin: Quantum Tesseract
:honchkrow: LordBox

[b][u]Challenge Code[/b][/u]
(challenge code would go here)

[hide=Banlist][u]Abilities[/u]
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Moody
Orichalcum Pulse
Poison Heal
etc.

[u]Pokemon[/u]
:annihilape: Annihilape
:baxcalibur: Baxcalibur
:dragapult: Dragapult
:flutter mane: Flutter Mane
:gengar: Gengar
:gholdengo: Gholdengo:
:great tusk: Great Tusk
:hariyama: Hariyama
:houndstone: Houndstone
:iron bundle: Iron Bundle
:iron hands: Iron Hands
:iron valiant: Iron Valiant
:koraidon: Koraidon
:miraidon: Miraidon
:noivern: Noivern
:slaking: Slaking
:walking wake: Walking Wake
:zoroark-hisui: Zoroark-Hisui

As well as item bans, move bans, and clauses.[/hide]
[hide=Viability Rankings][b][u]S Rank[/b][/u]
:corviknight: Corviknight

[b][u]A Rank[/b][/u]
[b]A+[/b]
:garchomp: Garchomp
:iron moth: Iron Moth
:scream tail: Scream Tail

[b]A[/b]
:kingambit: Kingambit
:meowscarada: Meowscarada
:slither wing: Slither Wing
:talonflame: Talonflame

[b]A-[/b]
:chien-pao: Chien-Pao
:cinderace: Cinderace
:garganacl: Garganacl
:iron treads: Iron Treads
:roaring moon: Roaring Moon

And so on for B and C.[/hide]
[b][u]Resources[/b][/u] (following would be hyperlinked)
- Sample Teams
- Metagame Thread
- Home and DLC changes
- whatever else

[b][u]FAQs[/b][/u]
Q: "Why can't I use abilities on Pokemon that get them naturally in standard play?"
A: "Native users" don't exactly exist in AAA

Hey there, if this is a project you’re interested in hosting (or anyone else reading this is), we would approve a general SV OM preservation thread! If you want to host this, go ahead and submit a draft OP to submissions and we can go from there!

 

[Tea Guzzler]

Something that I think would be worth taking a look at, as it's currently relatively inconsistent, is luck items / strategies. Namely, these aren't incorporated into "Standard OMs" clauses, meaning that each tier bans/unbans them individually. The main issue here is that only some metagames participate in this, and the extent of these is usually King's Rock and Moody, which leaves many metas with glaring luck-based issues and that luck-based bans aren't consistent between metas.

My proposition here would be to include a ban on luck-based strategies in Standard OMs. This would include King's Rock, Bright Powder, Quick Claw, and Focus Band. The justification for this is that these items reperesent no legitemate strategy and only exist to potentially bypass skill to luck the opponent, and implementation as a sort of "Luck Clause" under Standard OMs helps formalize the adoption and iron out inconsistencies between tiers. Abilities that fit the criteria (existing solely to add luck), like Moody and Quick Draw, could also be rolled into this.

 

[UT]

Luck based items frankly are not significant enough to warrant an OM-wide ban. Every single turn of mons has luck, from secondary effects to damage rolls to accuracy to crits. We don’t tier to remove luck unless it’s viable enough to be a consistent strategy.

We historically only ban luck-based elements when they’re also effective enough to be worth running; on a wallbreaker that is hard walled, a 30% chance to delete its wall is worth a moveslot, so we ban OHKO moves. Evasion move strategies are consistent enough to be worth a moveslot in most metagames, so we do include Evasion Moves Clause in Standard OMs.

In most OMs, giving up your item or ability for a 10% chance is not worth it. In the OMs where it is, they are free to take action on them, but each OM is different and they are free to tier luck-based items as such.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

On metagame councils and bad actors

Council tiering in other metagames has always been rather different from standard tiers. This is for understandable reasons; after all, many of these metagames have less active ladders, and with the size of playerbases a council can make up a surprisingly large portion of the tournament playerbase in question. I have been on many OM councils before, and have made use of quickbans in such a role with some regularity. I say all this to make clear that I am not opposed to the system in full generality, just some of the specific ways it has been recently abused.

The worst recent example of this - and the one that prompted this post - is this announcement in the balanced hackmons thread. There are a couple of other ones, many of them also involving terastalization (such as AAAs) that are not ideal, but this one is extremely more blatant than usual, so I'd like to make it my centerpoint.

4 months ago, BH suspected Terastalization in this thread. The result of this suspect was DNB, and not by a close margin - the votes ended up at almost 60-40 against a ban. This was not a small suspect either, as we had over 40 qualified voters. Now, BH council has decided to override this suspect test and unanimously voted to quickban the mechanic from the tier.

The problems with this approach
In general, overriding suspect tests is an approach of absolute last resort. Suspect votes, in a real sense, outrank the councils; they're allowed to make their case and even vote in them, but if not enough of the community agrees then they do not get their way. On occasion, a second suspect test may be Of course, there are often mitigating factors here, so let's see if they apply.

1. Lack of ladder activity. Sometimes, ladder activity is too low to have a suspect test, such as the current situation in NFE wrt suspect tests. This does not apply to BH, one of the most active ladders on the site.

2. Major metagame changes. BH is unnaffected by home, so this doesn't matter either; while BH is potentially due to have a major change with regards to so called invisible pokemon, such details have not been finalized and are not part of the logic for a quickban here.

3. Close voting. While still not ideal, a suspect test that falls very close to the threshold for banning something offers some legitimacy to council actions later. However, BH's suspect was not remotely close.

Alright, so there's no good reason for this, but that doesn't mean it's neccesarily a disaster. Councils can make bad calls. However, there is reason to believe that this is worse than that.

The Ugly
There are 3 factors that make this situation worse than just overturning a suspect test. The first is lies. I think when a council decides to excercise it's tiering powers, they have a duty to be as honest and transparent about it as possible. This is a standard that the BH council has not lived up to. For instance, in justifying their actions on discord, one line used was "there has been no arguments against it," for instance in this message:

Hide

Not only is this not accurate - there have indeed been many arguments against the subject on discord, which I know because I follow the channel and was part of some of them - but it's specifically known by council to be false since they were very often the ones involved in many of these arguments.

Secondly, despite what they claim, there is good reason to beleive that the logic for this quickban was not to fulfill the will of the community. Council has in the past expressed the knowledge that they do not have the community's support on this topic, and "jokingly" brought up the idea of doing an end run around it before, such as current council member chessking when talking about another terastalization suspect:

Hide

This would also be a logical conclusion due to how badly the last terastalization suspect went, of course.

Finally, and most concerningly, is the racism.

Hide

Though since thankfully deleted, I think this is a particularly damning sign that at least some elements of the BH council not only did not listen to the community, but actively chose to silence certain elements of it. Attitudes like this have no place on smogon, much less in positions of authority where their opinions impact the communities in question.

What should be done?
I think that at minimum, this decision ought to be rolled back and TTTech step down from their position in BH council. This kind of behavior is something we need to actively clamp down on for the quality of our spaces. Secondly, some consideration ought to be given towards the rest of BH's council; I hope none of the others echoed similar sentiments behind closed doors, but I don't know and can't check. Thirdly, we ought to hash out some more specific policies on what circumstances suspect tests vs council votes are called for in the future. I'm interested in hearing any ideas for how best to accomplish this without needlessly crippling our ability to respond promptly to metagame changes or uncompetative strategies.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

this is a fair post and all, and the whole situation isn't great in general (especially since the tier could just be upended within the next few weeks), but it seems a bit provocative.

Hide

Not only is this not accurate - there have indeed been many arguments against the subject on discord, which I know because I follow the channel and was part of some of them - but it's specifically known by council to be false since they were very often the ones involved in many of these arguments.

the thing i'm referring to mostly here is the forums, as these are places where you're able to actually see people's opinions irrespective of timezone and being buried under mounds and mounds of discord logs. conveniently, you've also chosen to crop out what i said directly below this:

notice the last text entry here. conveniently, you don't seem to respond to that one.

what seems to be the case here is the issue with overturning the suspect; this is fair enough. however, i stand by the decision to do this for a few reasons:

• although nothing has technically been added to the game since the last suspect, the metagame has shifted drastically into a direction where tera breakers and responding to them almost entirely centralize the meta. this sentiment is echoed by the overwhelming majority of people that make their voice heard.
• i've seen virtually no attempts to defend tera since we announced long ago we'd be redoing action on it. i'm not a robot, and i will probably miss stuff, especially given i live in unviable timezone that misses a large amount of american chat; me saying that "i've seen nobody defend it" is specifically my point of view, but that is the case that i see. i'm not trying to read hundreds of #balancedhackmons lines when i wake up in the morning. akira is the only person who's actually said they've seen people that don't hate tera, but i have not seen the people in question make their concerns public.
• we were told by om staff (can provide logs) that we were allowed to QB it. this is probably where policy might be due, as this was shortly after the NDOU verdict fell and all hell broke loose, meaning it may have been more reactionary than would be ideal; this is beyond us so take it up with OM staff.

the other issues are largely out of my jurisdiction, but i'll provide what i can about them:

the sentiment of "we want to QB this so it can't be suspected and fail" has been floated about, but as far as i can tell, it is almost always ironic. i don't personally share this sentiment because it defeats the purpose of tiering as a whole; if something doesn't have enough support for a QB then a suspect should be the default (in my eyes tera didn't fit this criteria because of the above reasons - i simply haven't seen anyone defending its presence). this is not something that i believe is held by anyone on the council in a serious manner.

the racism accusations are beyond me. just know that these sentiments aren't shared or condoned.

 

[UT]

Finally, and most concerningly, is the racism.

Hide

Though since thankfully deleted, I think this is a particularly damning sign that at least some elements of the BH council not only did not listen to the community, but actively chose to silence certain elements of it. Attitudes like this have no place on smogon, much less in positions of authority where their opinions impact the communities in question.

This comment was reported to staff, TTTech was warned, and the comment was deleted. Especially in light of the recent NatDex vote it was in very poor taste and deserved a reprimand, but I don’t think it can seriously be interpreted as evidence of them quick banning Tera to intentionally exclude French people from participating in OMs.

 

[The Number Man]

Hi, it's been a while since I engaged with policy stuff, but I have some comments on the post-OM/UM split policy. With AG, NFE and 2v2 going from OM to UM, OMPL is losing 3 slots. Now, as far as I'm aware, the plan is to determine a 6th permaladder OM and include it into both the circuit and OMPL, with the latter moving back to 6 slots for the foreseeable future. I think that's a mistake. Here's why:

The change from 6 to 8 slot OMPL facilitated by the inclusion of AG and 2v2 has led to significant growth in the OM tournament scene, culminating with the most recent OMPL being won by an all-AG player team. This is excellent, because it shows a) players from non-strictly-OM communities are willing to pick up OMs and b) they are also capable of competing at the highest level.

A bigger tournament scene means more players willing to participate, means easier time filling an 8-slot tournament. If OMPL (and WC) is downgraded to 6 slots, this means we're throwing this playerbase growth away - less people will get to play, less people will get in touch OMs and it's very likely that the playerbase will decline, meaning future 8-slot OMPLs will be even less feasible than they are right now.

I understand that finding 3 OMs to pad out OMPL slots is not the easiest thing to do, especially not if you're trying to give them all permaladders, but I don't think the latter is necessarily the only way to go about it. I mentioned this yesterday in the discord, but I'm very much in favor of the alternative posed by pannu of an 8 slot OMPL: 5 permaladder slots, 3 slots for OMs to be voted on sometime prior to the tournament. This is not the way OMPL operated historically, but I think there's good arguments to switch to this system now.

1) As already stated, Playerbase growth.
2) Removal of Snake/Spotlight. Previously, non permaladder OMs had their chance at tournament-level exposure in the second OM team-tour, which was cut in 2021 because of low turnout and low engagement. With the removal of UMs from OMPL, this is a perfect opportunity to give these OMs another chance at a higher level of competitive play by making them eligible for inclusion into OMPL. This would mean that not all OMPL metas have a permaladder, but I don't see why that would be a problem. Not like most permaladders are active enough to reliably test on the ladder during OMPL, nor is that the best way to go about testing teams. Most OMs are permachallengable on the main server as well, so it wouldn't amount to more work for the coders.
3) Lets you go back to a 5-meta circuit. Instead of adding a new 6th meta into the individual circuit, which makes playoffs somewhat awkward, you can revert to a 5-meta circuit and streamline the opens/seasonals.

I encourage OM leadership to consider this proposal, I don't think there's any reason not to try maintaining the current size of OMPL. Alternatively, you can officially select a new permaladder OM as you are trying to do right now and let the last 2 OMPL slots be decided in this manner. In that case, you can even salvage a situation where the non-perma OMs have too-low signups by simply axing them a few days before the draft and proceeding with a 6-slot OMPL.

 

[in the hills]

was gonna post this in the survey thread but tnm beat me to the discussion, good post

There's been a lot of good feedback regarding the possibility of moving OMPL back to 6 slots and most people seem to be against it. While OM Leadership originally felt filling 8 slots was unrealistic, we are open to this feedback and are still considering 8 slots. There's a number of issues/decisions regarding 8 slots to be ironed out that I want to lay out for everyone to get more feedback on.

1) What would fill the 8 slots
One of the main feedbacks we've gotten regarding 8 slots is adding a 'Best of 3' slot, which in the past was somewhat an unpopular opinion. We are incredibly open to this option if people want it and in my personal opinion it's the only realistic path to filling 8 slots comfortably. If we go with a Bo3 slot, there'd only be two metagames left to fill and, without spoiling the results of the poll, I believe choosing two metagames from it would be a pretty simple task, we would just do a second runoff poll after choosing the 6th format.

The main question here is: Is there significant support for a Bo3 slot? And if so, what metagames would be included? AAA and STAB are shoe-ins, but some discussion seems somewhat divided between BH, GG, or MnM as the 3rd metagame. Personally, I think it makes the most sense to choose BH as it's the most popular and BH/AAA/STAB are the 3 core metagames that form OMs, but I'm open to the other options as well.

2) Would any chosen metas be a part of the circuit?
Originally, the polling post says that the chosen 6th metagame will be part of the OM Circuit. If we move to 8 OMPL slots and 7 chosen metagames, a 7 metagame circuit is 100% out of the question. 6 metagame circuit on the other hand has been pretty enjoyable since we moved to it last year, but has had its positives and negatives and if we continued with it would lead to the 7th choice being somewhat left out. While I do enjoy a 6 metagame circuit and would be happy to include the 6th choice in the circuit, reverting to 5 slots is still on the table.

Regarding positives and negatives of 6 slots, I feel that playoffs and such aren't a huge negative outside of having to prep one more metagame, since it has led to pretty good bo5 series in the past. The main negative for 6 slots is the tour schedule gets fairly tight throughout the year and there's less down time for smaller tours, so going back to 5 would open up more space.

3) Would metas get permaladders?
Tentatively, I do want to say this is near required for the metagames to be in team tours. While I'm not a fan of us having 7 permaladders, I and others are even less of a fan of team tour metas not being consistently ladderable and not having time to develop between tours. OMotM ladder is unreliable and has long cooldowns which makes it a bad fit for team tour metagames. Permaladders ensure added metagames can develop healthily, especially with DLC dropping in the next year. And before anyone brings up rotational ladders from gen 7 dear god no please never have those again please god no please.


also small personal note, strongly against polling metagames for each tour since polling is exhausting+usually leads to unnecessary metabashing/pinning metas against each other and ends with people unhappy, wouldnt do it at all if i didnt feel it necessary

 

[Isaiah]

Disclaimer: This is just my own brainstorming and is not a proposal being made by OM staff or anything like that

I've been trying to think of ways to better distinguish between the identities of OM Grand Slam (OMGS), which typically starts in the first quarter of any given year and usually has playoffs in mid to late Spring, and the OM Circuit Championships (OMCC), which includes all our official circuit tours (including Grand Slam tournaments) and culminates in a playoffs at the very end of every year.

Some of those ideas include:

1. Reducing the number of opens to three, but the number of seasonals is 5 or 7.

In theory, I would probably make this an AAA/BH/STAB split to mirror bo3, which is now officially a part of our major team tours (@OMPL and OMWC). This would change the tour from "who's the best at a bunch of tiers" to "Who's the best bo3 player right now?" which sounds interesting enough to work towards--it also gives people pretty raw practice for OMPL bo3, which usually starts within a month or so of OMGS ending anyway. An obvious downside of this is that it would naturally result in less chances to get circuit points from doing well in an Open of your "main" metagame. While there'd still be a chance to play the other permaladder metagames in tours like OM Majors and the OM Seasonals for points, the proposed bo3 metas would give extra chances in their respective opens as well as the Grand Slam playoffs itself. I don't think there's a way around this though, and if those tiers are already getting extra slots in team tours, I don't think it would be too farfetched to give them a highlight tour through Grand Slam. Also, people would still get a chance to work for "big" points in the seasonals during the middle/second half of the year, as those give significantly more points than Opens do. If the number of seasonals ends up being 7 instead of 5 though, it would raise the question of whether OMCC should still be bo5 or increased to bo7.

2. OMGS with 7 Opens + OMCC with 7 Seasonals

This is the most "inclusive" option, but it's also my least favorite. With the current framework of how we drop Open Signups, this would mean two player signups get dropped, then another two the next week, then another two the next week, and finally another one the week after. The sheer amount of tournaments ongoing at any given time would be the absolute maximum, and even with a best finish limit for OMGS, anyone that's somehow able to play in and perform decently in that many Opens would get a fairly massive early-in-the-year advantage in terms of circuit points. OMGS itself would probably be bo5 with 7 metas as well, which is...a lot to prep for.

The other half of this would of course be trying to run 7 concurrent double elimination seasonals in the Fall, which sounds like a nightmare in all kinds of ways. These seasonals would almost definitely overlap with OMPL and perhaps even OMWC in order to have them all start/finish in time for the circuit championship. The only escape would be running like 3-4 of them at a time so they all end on around the same date, which would certainly defeat the point of letting people enter as many as possible to get circuit points. If it wasn't obvious already, I'm pretty biased against this option.

3. OMGS with 5 Opens + OMCC with 5 Seasonals

Plain and simple. This has already been pointed out as the collective favorite option of OM staff right now (see: ith's post above this one), and for decent reason. The tl;dr of this is that Inheritance and Partners in Crime would get spotlights in the official team tours (OMPL, OMWC) but not have individual circuit representation. In this model, OMGS is a classic bo5 tour where at worst, you need to be able to play all five tiers proficiently to win, and in terms of scheduling 5 just happens to be a very convenient number for making sure tours don't have too much overlap. Now obviously, this led to dissent in the past, such as when Camomons was in team tours but not individually in the circuit, but after seeing how stretched things can really get when including every tier for the sake of inclusion, I wouldn't be against cutting things down (either to 5 as proposed here or even to 3 as explained in idea #1).

===
There are other variations of this I can think of, but really it's just a matter of deciding how to frame OMGS--should it be "the big bo3 tour" or just stay the same format as the circuit championship at the end of the year? Personally, making OMGS a different format from the championships sounds more dynamic and interesting, but I'm hoping that at least some people respond here so myself and the other staff have some angles to work with while working out next year's circuit.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

I favor option 3 since it's the best for me because it's worked pretty well so far and I don't see a reason to change it, but I do see the arguments for 1 and am not totally opposed. If we do go with 3, though, we should make sure to have a healthy smattering of PIC and Inheritance tours throughout the year even if they're unofficial, rather than just whenever someone decides to host one.

 

[Greybaum]

"3. OMGS with 5 Opens + OMCC with 5 Seasonals"
I'm very much against this one, simply because it's unfair to PIC and Inheritance. We already voted to include them in our team tournaments, give them permaladders, and - at least as far as PIC is concerned - originally stated they'd be in circuit. Exempting them purely because they're younger than the other OMs makes it clear that they're seen as "lesser" than the other perma OMs - and even if that's true for some people, we shouldn't be promoting that. It's also especially unfair when meta development is restarting for every tier long before we start the next Circuit thanks to DLC.
"OMGS is a classic bo5 tour where at worst, you need to be able to play all five tiers proficiently to win" Yeah and nobody can. BO3 was a clown slot in OMWC and there's no point pretending more than a handful of people are even competent at all five tiers, let alone proficient. Upping this to 7 is realistically not changing anything here.

"2. OMGS with 7 Opens + OMCC with 7 Seasonals"
The main argument against this one is "there are too many tours and people can get circuit points too easily". My counter-argument is Osake, currently slated to participate in Circuit Playoffs as Seed 16, played one out of the available eight tours for Slam and is still likely to qualify. longhiep is guaranteed to qualify, and also only participated in one of the tours - winning GG open. There are already too many tours, and while this is certainly a problem with a 7 tier circuit I still disagree with the idea that it's any worse than the status quo. To reiterate: I think this format idea sucks, but so does the current format honestly and at least this one doesn't snub any communities.

"1. Reducing the number of opens to three, but the number of seasonals is 5 or 7."
In my opinion this is the only good option and I hope it's the one that gets picked. Slam finally gets an identity instead of being Baby Circuit Playoffs, it carries the precedent already set by the implementation of the BO3 slot in our team tours which should hopefully avoid the drama of "why wasn't our tier included", and it's a great way to showcase newer players in our most popular formats ahead of OMPL/OMWC. Make it 7 seasonals for reasons already stated above.

 

[pannu]

i think the current format is fine and shouldn't be changed, changing it is unessicery. if you do want to change it for some reason add inheritance to slam.

 

[Gimmicky]

I think that if Inheritance and PiC are going to be permaladders, they should be treated the same as the other permaladder metas. They shouldn't be exempted from any solution, regardless of how new they are in comparison. If they don't get similar tournament play/results as the other, more longlasting metas, then their place as permanent metagames as a whole should be questioned, instead of their place in tournaments.

1. Reducing the number of opens to three, but the number of seasonals is 5 or 7.

Three opens and 7 seasonals strikes a perfect balance, in my opinion. There's already precedent for an AAA/BH/STAB split, as Greybaum already said, and this lets each of the other permanent OMs have their own time in the spotlight. All metagames are going to be starting on a (mostly) blank slate as far as development goes, with DLC2, and this is the perfect chance to give each of these metagames and their players a spotlight, while also introducing them to people who haven't played them before-- which should be the express goal of any OM tournament. We want to give our metagames, from mainstays like AAA and BH to our (relative) newbies in PiC and Inheritance the love and spotlight they deserve to prosper.

You can argue that it becomes too easy to obtain circuit points if there's 7 seasonals, but to that I raise you this: Is that a bad thing? Non-mainers have always done well in OM tournaments based on fundamentals and help from outside support, and I hardly see this as a problem. Good play, good teambuilding, and good fundamentals should be rewarded.

I do think it's worth noting that whatever option is chosen does not have to be permanent. The tournament count, tournament inclusion, etc. can always be adjusted if needed, whether it's mid-year or at the beginning of the next year. There is always an opportunity to experiment, see what works, and see what doesn't.

 

[Clas]

I'd like to mirror what Greybaum and Gimmicky have said here with Option 1, why exclude Inh/PiC for the sake of excluding them? We effectively have Opens at the start of generations + DLC2 (ok not that but we still wish) with kick-off tours, and those do a fine enough job at introducing the metas to new players before the (much more competitive) seasonals kick off in the warmer months. The inclusion of just three opens in AAA/BH/STAB also highlights just how big the Bo3 slot is in PL/WC, and any more is kind of extreme.

 

[MAMP]

If we have only 3 opens in OMGS, can they be double elim?

Having all 7 metas in the finals is good, but a finals structure that requires people to prepare 7 teams per week for multiple weeks in a row is too much. The solution could be to have players decide which 5 metas they'll play in their series at the start of the week rather than during the series, or have it be decided randomly.

EDIT: Circuit Championship grand final should be bo7

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

I would like to bring up that Partners in Crimes is a doubles format, and as such requires a different skillset than the other 6 OMs. Maybe this isn't an issue and players can adapt, but it may also push away players.