The purpose of this thread should be self-explanatory: post your suggestions how we can improve the RuinsOfAlph room and talk with other people about their ideas!
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All Gens Suggestions for the ROA room
- Thread starter FriendOfMrGolem120
- Start date
I personally only care about the room tournaments, it's a easy and fun way to play old gens without using the ladder.
The discussions in the room are generally people asking something about in-game or RBY which is meh for most people.
I think smogon has a good amount of resources for learning old gens and maybe some incentive like Pokemon of the Week or something and linking a thread so we can talk about why that pokémon is good idk something along those lines
Newer players love the random battles tournaments, while it's not necessarily good for competitive, it makes the room populated and that's great.
The discussions in the room are generally people asking something about in-game or RBY which is meh for most people.
I think smogon has a good amount of resources for learning old gens and maybe some incentive like Pokemon of the Week or something and linking a thread so we can talk about why that pokémon is good idk something along those lines
Newer players love the random battles tournaments, while it's not necessarily good for competitive, it makes the room populated and that's great.
Just wanna say that Smogon website article and Pokemon analysis in oldgens are pretty outdated, that's why I join pinktidal idea, if the current playerbase can substitute the outdated Smogon content / being free to help people then oldgen mid/high level playerbase will be larger and that can only be positive, and maybe that will help with people that say stupid things ( RBY Golem / Rhydon are premiere check to tauros )
( It's already the case for the second point ( being free to help people ) but people are often shy to ask something, the true point is to tell them they can ask questions in PM or whatever )
dom
Banned deucer.
i think the roomtours should be focused on ou more. there's a stupid amount of focus old gen lower tiers, which honestly nobody cares about. i don't wanna play gen 4 nu, i want to play some dpp ou; there's no bw lc trophy tours. not saying to completely get rid of them but they're a bit of an inconvenience.
Maybe have a tier of the week or smthn that gets maybe one showing a day in each generation through a room tour (ie nu being the tier of the week and one of its incarnations being used throughout each gens tour night). Alongside the OU ones i mean, sense those are seemingly the ROAs bread and butter lol. Diversity is nice but w/e is for the greater good
Totally DON'T agree with this. There are already enough OU Old Gens Tours on this forum. Futhermore, there are also the daily Night Tours, which guarantee that an OU Tier Tour is played at least once a day. Usually there are alredy 2 or 3 OU tours more of every gen a day, I consider that enough.
I personally enjoy playing Old Gen Low Tiers, which are fun most of them, especially when there are special restrictions to them ( for example, the Item Clause GSC thing or Adv Ubers in Monotype format).
In the end I consider there is a good proportion right now between OU and Low Tiers, so there is no need to change that. What I would actually like, is to see tours more often, maybe one each 20 minutes if there are enough active people in the room. That would benefit both OU players and Low Tier lovers.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
I sent this in a recent PM to the RoA room auth, so they already know my thoughts on the matter but I'll reiterate here that I have some major issues with the atmosphere of the RoA room and think it's not really serving its intended purpose of being the Showdown arm of Smogon's old gens hub. The frequent off-topic discussion, rampant chat misinformation regarding old gens themselves, and general childishness of the room makes it no wonder that most accomplished old gens players on Smogon don't spend much time there. I understand that the average regular Showdown user is younger than the average forum user, and that a lot of the auth don't agree with me that off-topic discussion and low-level analysis are a problem. However, this problem will only continue to grow if it isn't being actively dealt with in some way, so I'd propose stricter moderation and greater engagement from the auth who "know better" to step in when blatant old gen misconceptions are being parroted about.
Regarding the RoA room tour nights, I think the concept is fantastic, but frequently I find myself unable to participate because of the consistent start time of 4 PM EDT. During this time most of your average 9-5, Monday through Friday working people are still stuck at their desks staring at the clock, and facing a long commute home as well. I usually end up logging onto the RoA room right as the last tournament of the day is finishing up, and I'm in the Eastern timezone...pretty much every player in the Americas faces the same or greater barriers to entry. As a result the tour nights are almost completely inaccessible to employed North/South Americans. I'd like to propose either a later start time such as 6 PM EDT, or an alternating start time of 4 PM EDT during one week and 8 PM EDT during the next week. This would at least allow people living in the Americas to play these tournaments a few times every month.
As for RoA room tournaments in general (aside from the tour nights) I definitely agree that old gen OUs should be the priority. I think lack of teams is a real problem, as I've been around longer than most people in the room and I still have trouble finding teams for the various old gen lower tiers. You can say the samples are always there, but you're put at an immediate disadvantage by using one, and frankly most of them aren't too good. However, there are two more important issues than simply not having the teams to compete. First off, old gen lower tiers have barely been explored as metagames, and serve as a poor substitute for the competitiveness of OU old gens. Second, old gen lower tiers aren't played in any official tournaments, so the experience gained is irrelevant from a tournament perspective. These arguments can be applied to "fun" metagames as well, such as RBY No Tauros or whatever. These sort of metagames should never see the light of day - if you want to try them out with your friends for "fun" then that's your prerogative, but please don't foist them upon the greater room tournament scene, especially when there's a monthly tournament that takes into account results from one-off formats like these. Maybe there's a way to prevent these metagames' tournaments from accruing points on the leaderboard? If that's the case I'd still be opposing to featuring them in tournaments but it wouldn't be the end of the world either way.
I think bringing back something like Team of the Week for RoA would be really cool. We could take turns, cycling through all 6 old gens, with a powerful and proven team from an established player each week, along with a brief explanation on how to play the team and why it's successful in the metagame.
Regarding the RoA room tour nights, I think the concept is fantastic, but frequently I find myself unable to participate because of the consistent start time of 4 PM EDT. During this time most of your average 9-5, Monday through Friday working people are still stuck at their desks staring at the clock, and facing a long commute home as well. I usually end up logging onto the RoA room right as the last tournament of the day is finishing up, and I'm in the Eastern timezone...pretty much every player in the Americas faces the same or greater barriers to entry. As a result the tour nights are almost completely inaccessible to employed North/South Americans. I'd like to propose either a later start time such as 6 PM EDT, or an alternating start time of 4 PM EDT during one week and 8 PM EDT during the next week. This would at least allow people living in the Americas to play these tournaments a few times every month.
As for RoA room tournaments in general (aside from the tour nights) I definitely agree that old gen OUs should be the priority. I think lack of teams is a real problem, as I've been around longer than most people in the room and I still have trouble finding teams for the various old gen lower tiers. You can say the samples are always there, but you're put at an immediate disadvantage by using one, and frankly most of them aren't too good. However, there are two more important issues than simply not having the teams to compete. First off, old gen lower tiers have barely been explored as metagames, and serve as a poor substitute for the competitiveness of OU old gens. Second, old gen lower tiers aren't played in any official tournaments, so the experience gained is irrelevant from a tournament perspective. These arguments can be applied to "fun" metagames as well, such as RBY No Tauros or whatever. These sort of metagames should never see the light of day - if you want to try them out with your friends for "fun" then that's your prerogative, but please don't foist them upon the greater room tournament scene, especially when there's a monthly tournament that takes into account results from one-off formats like these. Maybe there's a way to prevent these metagames' tournaments from accruing points on the leaderboard? If that's the case I'd still be opposing to featuring them in tournaments but it wouldn't be the end of the world either way.
I think bringing back something like Team of the Week for RoA would be really cool. We could take turns, cycling through all 6 old gens, with a powerful and proven team from an established player each week, along with a brief explanation on how to play the team and why it's successful in the metagame.
There is two problems with this. First, the 'active' part of the roomauth is european (only ransei ggyara and akir are from the US, iirc) and it's unlikely an european dude can handle to host room tour nights at 8pm EDT (2am CEST).
The second point is that the room users are also mostly european, the online users peak is always around evening CEST. And sometimes around evening EDT you struggle to find 8 peons to join a OU tour. Note that this point could be the consequence of my first point. Inactivity lead to inactivity.
Anyway except this part of your message that don't seem possible to apply (imo), I must say I agree with pretty much everything else you said and I was really glad you pointed it out in first place.
The roa staff is currently working in order to improve things.
Before I go on and write down my opinion about the suggestions you all have made so far, I want to thank you for them. I appreciate your feedback very much.
I don't mind off-topic discussions as long as they do not disturb the attempt of having on-topic discussions. Regarding the fact that misinformation and overexaggerated stereotypes about generations are spread frequently in the room, I agree with you but we can only intervene them to some degree. We can not really punish people for having opinions that we do not share about a metagame. We will try to correct more misinformation and don't be quiet though.
We are hosting the tours for the people in our room and choose the tiers according to popularity. I also pay attention who is online when deciding for tiers. Lots of people who usually join RBY OU tours are online? Then why not choose that next! If you get some good players to regularly join ROA OU tours, then it will be more likely that we will host them when they are online.
Not sure if "Pokemon of the Week" would actually generate much discussion. Picking a Pokemon each week seems quite random and the analysis of many of them might be outdated. Lavos idea of doing a "Team of the week" seems to be more helpful but similar to the lessons/workshops it would require more effort to do it. However, if enough good players want to submit their teams and provide a "brief explanation on how to play the team and why it's successful in the metagame", then it seems feasible. Of course the ROA staff also could do that for some weeks but I am not sure if we could do it for every week.
Workshops/lessons would be awesome if we get people to do them. It takes a lot more time and effort to teach people about metagames than just hosting tours for them. I don't know much about the tutoring program on smogon but quite recently the one from Pokemon Perfect was closed because there were not enough tutors.
Doing one tier does not always work across the generations. Also I don't know how many people would support that idea. We already have the Sunday Spotlight which is basically the same - just on one day. By doing that over the course of one week, we would either have to make the tour nights longer, host less popular tiers like OU or Random Battle or have no other tier besides the tier of the week, OU and Random Battle. I will still consider that idea though.
As you have implied there are many casual users who are not as experienced as most forum tour players and don't play pokemon on a high level. I am all for making the room more appealing to strong players since that would push people into performing better (the best way to improve is by playing with someone who is stronger than you). However, the ROA should still provide a nice and friendly environment for beginners and average players.
I don't mind off-topic discussions as long as they do not disturb the attempt of having on-topic discussions. Regarding the fact that misinformation and overexaggerated stereotypes about generations are spread frequently in the room, I agree with you but we can only intervene them to some degree. We can not really punish people for having opinions that we do not share about a metagame. We will try to correct more misinformation and don't be quiet though.
We will give OU at least a bit more priority than before. I don't think that we hosted that many fun/lower tiers though. Most of the time these tiers were hosted on request in quite dead hours in which we also would not have gotten many people to play OU/Random Battles or as part of tour nights (for which I at least usually hosted OU, something else, Random Battle). In the end I believe that we should host the tours that the majority of people like (OU and Random Battles have always been the most popular ones). I don't think that forcing lots of OU tours without still having a decent amount of Random Battles would be a good idea if the majority of users does not like that.
We are hosting the tours for the people in our room and choose the tiers according to popularity. I also pay attention who is online when deciding for tiers. Lots of people who usually join RBY OU tours are online? Then why not choose that next! If you get some good players to regularly join ROA OU tours, then it will be more likely that we will host them when they are online.
I think we should continue to support playing new and crazy metagames. I agree that we should give priority to OU, but not at the cost of banning the opportunity to explore new metas. Ruins of Alph is the right place to experiment many "what if" scenarios, I mean, it is fun to play side tiers like Little Cup and Ubers and crazy tiers like Gen 2 with No Snorlax, Middle Cup and Item clause.
No one gets harmed when we play side metas, the worst that happens is that no one joins a tournament.
No one gets harmed when we play side metas, the worst that happens is that no one joins a tournament.
Not sure at all of this suggestion but, at the moment, discussion are being held about some changes in DPP, I’ve read that their won’t be suspect cuz of ladd inactivity, which seems logical. But maybe in those kind of situation some room tours with said changes could be done to have a more concrete grasp on what said changes will imply. For instance : DPP + some BP clause or DPP + latias.
Moreover as a oldgen newbie, I agree that room tours should be a bit more focus on OU. I fully admit many people are on the room to have fun cuz that’s the place where you can find the most variety of metagames imo, but their are also many people who are, like me, here because it’s the easiest way to get to play oldgens and to learn them.
Hope some newbie point of vue will interest ^^
Moreover as a oldgen newbie, I agree that room tours should be a bit more focus on OU. I fully admit many people are on the room to have fun cuz that’s the place where you can find the most variety of metagames imo, but their are also many people who are, like me, here because it’s the easiest way to get to play oldgens and to learn them.
Hope some newbie point of vue will interest ^^
FOMG, Showdown says Kakuna can´t learn String shot, Poison Sting and Harden on Gen 1. If you attempt to use Kakuna with that set on a battle the system doesn´t allow you to use it, also, Dragonair is available at levels 15 to 20 and Showdown denies it. Do you know where can I report those mistakes?
You could try here. It's not necessarily a bug in a mechanics way, but legality would probably best fit there. Or you could try reaching out to Zarel (or Marty too perhaps?)
Hello, i'm here to suggest that you implement RBY Little Cup in the tournament playable tiers. I do understand and agree that room tournaments should be more focused on OU since the past gen tours are mainly (if not only) OU tier but from times to times it could be nice to have something a little bit different. Furthermore, it could be added to played tiers of the RBY Monday since there are not many. Even though pokemons' movepools are pretty shallows and you get body slam or thunder wave on many sets, this tier has interesting things that RBY OU don't :
- There is no Chansey, Snorlax nor Tauros.
- The only pokémon getting access to Hyper Beam is Dratini if i'm not mistaken.
- Unlike Alakazam, Abra doesn't have access to recover.
I don't ask it to be played everyday, i am just suggesting that you make it playable in room tournaments, so we can play it sometimes, just like other lower tiers.
To conclude, here is a replay of me playing versus Beelzemon 2003 in our attempt to create RBY LC :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-831336584
I'm not saying this is a top level match, but by watching it you can get a rough idea of how the tier could be.
- There is no Chansey, Snorlax nor Tauros.
- The only pokémon getting access to Hyper Beam is Dratini if i'm not mistaken.
- Unlike Alakazam, Abra doesn't have access to recover.
I don't ask it to be played everyday, i am just suggesting that you make it playable in room tournaments, so we can play it sometimes, just like other lower tiers.
To conclude, here is a replay of me playing versus Beelzemon 2003 in our attempt to create RBY LC :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-831336584
I'm not saying this is a top level match, but by watching it you can get a rough idea of how the tier could be.
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It is already in the rotation for RBY Monday (it has been hosted 6 times already) and was last hosted just over a month ago. We can and may up the frequency of it, but the playerbase for it isn't that large and building will also take more time than usual because we don't have sample teams for it. So that is why we originally didn't choose it that much.
It isn't that easy as making Gen 1 OU or SM LC tour, because PS has no RBY LC format so you need use PS commands to add the rules yourself (which all RoA Tour Night Host do if they host unofficial formats). In the RoA tour night doc, one can find the banlist, so it shouldn't be that hard (although he needs to convert it to One Botty Boi format but again that shouldn't be hard).
Hi all, thanks for the support Vay. TjDaas, when I created the Little Cup tournament last night I took like half an hour to create the Banlist, but to my dismay, when I tried to use the command to enforce it the server said that my message was too long and that it wouldn´t work. I have to clarify that I am not a voice, nor a driver and also lack experience organizing tournaments of side tiers like Little Cup, that's why I had many problems to create the tournament. Anyway, I still have the banlist for Gen 1 Little Cup if you want to add it to the bot, I also have the banlist for Gen 2 Middle Cup (courtesy of Ransei).
I want to take this chance to ask the Showdown programmers to create a command that allows Tournament Organizers to enforce a level clause, that way it would be easy to do tournaments like Little Cup that only allows level 5 pokémon.
PD: Vay, if you liked the last tournament, you can play against me or Alpha Male Psyduck anytime, we love Gen 1 Little Cup with level 100 mons and no tradeback moves :)
I want to take this chance to ask the Showdown programmers to create a command that allows Tournament Organizers to enforce a level clause, that way it would be easy to do tournaments like Little Cup that only allows level 5 pokémon.
PD: Vay, if you liked the last tournament, you can play against me or Alpha Male Psyduck anytime, we love Gen 1 Little Cup with level 100 mons and no tradeback moves :)
A couple things to note:
There is a clause called “little cup” that can be added to tournaments. I do not know if it would work accurately for oldgens in general, let alone RBY specifically, but if it works it means you don’t need to individually ban every evolved mon.
Second thing to note is that Level 5 RBY LC has two main legality issues. First is that without heavy glitch abuse, you cannot get max stat exp on a Level 5 Pokémon. There hasn’t been any attempt to figure out exactly how much stat exp can be obtained, but long story short it would be painful to figure out exactly.
The second thing is that, if you allow tradebacks for the purpose of getting Level 5 hatched Pokémon, that clears up all legality issues except one. Clefairy is not possible to obtain at Level 5 without glitches.
If you want to make RBY LC cart accurate then these are the two main issues standing in the way. Of course you can just say “screw it” and do whatever, but do keep these issues in mind.
Thanks for the advices Merritt. I prefer to play Gen 1 Little Cup with level 100 pokémon and no tradeback moves because as you said, it is impossible to get some level 5 pokémon like Clefairy and Jigglyouff, which can only be gotten at level 6 in Gen 2; still, I think a level command would be a blessing for tournament organizers that wanted to host Little Cup for gens like 2 or 3. We once did a Gen 2 Little Cup tournament and had to disqualify some players that used banned pokémon (the most notorious case was a player that used a level 100 Blissey, only God knows why), still it was a fun event.