If they decided to remove the ladders of specific metagames, they'd probably do it after OMGS or any other official Other Metagames tournaments so it doesn't interfere with them.
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A New Direction for Other Metagames
- Thread starter EV
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Both solutions have their flaws. Anyway, there is no confirmation that certain ladders will be removed anyway, the idea of a rotation was simply brought up. If the leaders decided they wanted to remove something, I'm sure they'd find a better solution.
I'd hold off on getting rid of the current OM Grand Slam tiers till the tour is over, because people will probably ladder to test teams they build. Ideally, any changes should happen after the first edition ends and at least a few months before the second big tour starts (OMPL/OMGS. The tierlist for those tours would also be changed ofc. Though I guess you could just do that now.). I think it's best to keep the OM C&C Metas as permaladders and try to revive those ladders. Why? The way I see it, most people on PS (lets face it, most activity on all the ladders is from random people) don't know what OMs are, how they work, how to play them or even how to get into them. OM Analyses help people who want to get into said metas in teambuilding by providing them with meta specific sets and how the mon/ set fares against the metagame's common threats. Reading them can even be a good way to learn about those metas. We already have a lot of resources ready for BH/AAA/STABmons so I feel that they should remain constant as permaladders because the resources are basically useless if there's no ladder to build teams for.
I don't really have much to say about rotating ladder formats, I have no problems with the ones TI mentioned (with the exception of AAA having a permanent ladder as mentioned above). I believe Mix and Mega got a lot of positive attention when it was omotm, a lot of official tier players were a fan of the meta and (I read somewhere) only stopped laddering when the bans were being handled badly (iirc), sticking to playing it with each other via challenges. I can also tell you that it was popular amongst the tournament room crowd, which is a p big number of people. Now that it's under new management, this should probably get a shot as a rotating ladder. Another advantage of Mix and Mega would be that its premise is not similar to any of the OMs we currently have as permaladders. In addition to that, Inheritance has a very dedicated playerbase that keep the ladder active everytime it gets omotm, so it could be worth a look. It is quite similar to BH, but the less extreme nature of the meta makes it more attractive to a lot of people. They don't exactly share playerbases for the most part so I don't think having both together for one month would drastically reduce BH ladder activity.
I'm not sure if the following are good solutions, but here goes. I think these forum projects could boost ladder activity: Hosting more minitours in the forums for the permaladders would give people incentive to ladder as the ladder is the only place they can test teams barring begging people for challenges in the room. I believe suspect tests requiring people to reach a certain elo to vote would be good for the ladders as far as activity is concerned. Also, I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but a OLT like official tour could also be good for ladder activity. As for room projects, err maybe making winning room tours have more of an effect? Like giving people incentive to join and win tours. Since we want to increase ladder activity, we could make tours spread much farther apart than the current rules allow and have them give points or something + giving daily tour wins extra points. All the points together would count towards winning Roomplayer. This is basically mimicing tour room's system with the exception of constand tours/blt and roomplayer over roomvoice nom. As for global recognition of OM permaladders, people need to be told what these are. A lot of smogonites don't even know how most OMs work. If you guys play a certain OM, try contributing some articles to article workshop. Try your hand in c&c and pick up an analysis if you've used a mon well enough to be able to guide new people into using said mon (luckily most of you are doing this already :]). Also, you can get badges for both! So, there's another incentive right there. I might contribute more myself when the holidays start.
I honestly don't know why people who follow the permaladders on the forum don't ladder (I'll tell you mine, I get really stressed out and it lessens the time I can spend in the chat. Since the chat is what I prefer to spend my time in on PS, I generally stick to that.). How do metas even progress without you going out and testing pokemon? The most common answer I've gotten is "there's no one on the ladder" "the ladder's inactive". The fact that people don't ladder just because they don't have a lot of people on them actually makes it worse. For example- let's say you search for a bit of time and get no battles, then stop searching. Someone else starting to search at the time wouldn't get battles either. If you don't even try to ladder, you contribute further to the ladder inactivity. So, if y'all are contributing to a specific meta in the forum and that meta has a permaladder, please actually get on the ladder to look for battles. Thread activity doesn't mean much if the actual formats aren't getting activity on the server.
tl;dr: Keep the ladders as it is till OM Grand Slam's first incarnation is over, keep the OM C&C metas as permaladders and the contributors to permaladder metas should be contributing more to spreading awareness/hosting more projects of said metas so that people can pick up the ladders more easily / have more of a reason to hit the ladders. Oh and stuff about considering mix and mega / inheritance for rotating ladder.
(this is my usual ranting so if any point is not clear, feel free to ask me questions.)
I don't really have much to say about rotating ladder formats, I have no problems with the ones TI mentioned (with the exception of AAA having a permanent ladder as mentioned above). I believe Mix and Mega got a lot of positive attention when it was omotm, a lot of official tier players were a fan of the meta and (I read somewhere) only stopped laddering when the bans were being handled badly (iirc), sticking to playing it with each other via challenges. I can also tell you that it was popular amongst the tournament room crowd, which is a p big number of people. Now that it's under new management, this should probably get a shot as a rotating ladder. Another advantage of Mix and Mega would be that its premise is not similar to any of the OMs we currently have as permaladders. In addition to that, Inheritance has a very dedicated playerbase that keep the ladder active everytime it gets omotm, so it could be worth a look. It is quite similar to BH, but the less extreme nature of the meta makes it more attractive to a lot of people. They don't exactly share playerbases for the most part so I don't think having both together for one month would drastically reduce BH ladder activity.
I'm not sure if the following are good solutions, but here goes. I think these forum projects could boost ladder activity: Hosting more minitours in the forums for the permaladders would give people incentive to ladder as the ladder is the only place they can test teams barring begging people for challenges in the room. I believe suspect tests requiring people to reach a certain elo to vote would be good for the ladders as far as activity is concerned. Also, I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but a OLT like official tour could also be good for ladder activity. As for room projects, err maybe making winning room tours have more of an effect? Like giving people incentive to join and win tours. Since we want to increase ladder activity, we could make tours spread much farther apart than the current rules allow and have them give points or something + giving daily tour wins extra points. All the points together would count towards winning Roomplayer. This is basically mimicing tour room's system with the exception of constand tours/blt and roomplayer over roomvoice nom. As for global recognition of OM permaladders, people need to be told what these are. A lot of smogonites don't even know how most OMs work. If you guys play a certain OM, try contributing some articles to article workshop. Try your hand in c&c and pick up an analysis if you've used a mon well enough to be able to guide new people into using said mon (luckily most of you are doing this already :]). Also, you can get badges for both! So, there's another incentive right there. I might contribute more myself when the holidays start.
I honestly don't know why people who follow the permaladders on the forum don't ladder (I'll tell you mine, I get really stressed out and it lessens the time I can spend in the chat. Since the chat is what I prefer to spend my time in on PS, I generally stick to that.). How do metas even progress without you going out and testing pokemon? The most common answer I've gotten is "there's no one on the ladder" "the ladder's inactive". The fact that people don't ladder just because they don't have a lot of people on them actually makes it worse. For example- let's say you search for a bit of time and get no battles, then stop searching. Someone else starting to search at the time wouldn't get battles either. If you don't even try to ladder, you contribute further to the ladder inactivity. So, if y'all are contributing to a specific meta in the forum and that meta has a permaladder, please actually get on the ladder to look for battles. Thread activity doesn't mean much if the actual formats aren't getting activity on the server.
tl;dr: Keep the ladders as it is till OM Grand Slam's first incarnation is over, keep the OM C&C metas as permaladders and the contributors to permaladder metas should be contributing more to spreading awareness/hosting more projects of said metas so that people can pick up the ladders more easily / have more of a reason to hit the ladders. Oh and stuff about considering mix and mega / inheritance for rotating ladder.
(this is my usual ranting so if any point is not clear, feel free to ask me questions.)
I should have stated in my post when these changes would occur but Eevee told me to leave it out and wait for responses >_>. These changes are not for today or tomorrow. Ideally, they would be for next gen but at this point God knows when that will happen. So, these changes would happen, at the earliest, when the next game is out.
So, the C&C issue isn't an issue because you'd have to put effort into re-doing analyses when a new game comes. Why not put that same effort into analyses for a metagame that isn't dead? unfixable you should consider having AG analyses alongside BH.
In any case, C&C should be based on permanent ladders, not the other way around. People have been saying unpopular formats should be removed, and several people, including yourself, supported the post with the rotation idea. STABmons is equally as inactive as Inverse Battle, worse on some months. If you agree with Inverse being removed then you should equally agree with STABmons being removed. (And before anyone says that its inactivity is to do with the recent Status/Attack change, you are wrong. The ladder stats are as bad prior to the change.)
So, the C&C issue isn't an issue because you'd have to put effort into re-doing analyses when a new game comes. Why not put that same effort into analyses for a metagame that isn't dead? unfixable you should consider having AG analyses alongside BH.
In any case, C&C should be based on permanent ladders, not the other way around. People have been saying unpopular formats should be removed, and several people, including yourself, supported the post with the rotation idea. STABmons is equally as inactive as Inverse Battle, worse on some months. If you agree with Inverse being removed then you should equally agree with STABmons being removed. (And before anyone says that its inactivity is to do with the recent Status/Attack change, you are wrong. The ladder stats are as bad prior to the change.)
That's not the point I'm making. In terms of analyses activity, it's actually STABmons -> BH -> AAA. Ladder activity has nothing to do with if the analyses are popular are not. But in saying that I guess removing STABmons might change the activity, but that's just a test I don't want to take.
I really disagree with your point that C&C should revolve around the ladders. If that happened, literally nothing would get done. And your point of AG, there is already a thought of that but it's not as easy as you're implying to just add a metagame to the forums. There's more on that, so PM me, TI, if you need clarification on something. I prefer PMs because I can't leak, and seeing as you are OM Leader you have a right to know. The public does not, yet.
It's hard to put into words really, but having analyses for metagames that are stable are a primary goal for us versus ladder activity. Removing the ladders puts a lot more work on the teams than you realize. Without ladders, looking for battles boils down to waiting for a tournament to pop up, or simply asking. That is really inefficient, and when QC just needs to test a set or a Pokemon it's so much easier to just hop on the ladder. What is the harm of keeping STABmons/AAA as permaladders? It just keeps everything easier in my opinion, and you still have every other rotating ladder working fine. If that really doesn't work, I'd like to request that at least they are kept as challenge formats, but I sort of assumed they would be with how it was worded. Is that an okay compromise for you?
unfixable current analyses are practically useless when the next game/gen comes. Please re-read this thread, including posts that you liked (such as hollywood's), as to why people want dead ladders removed. I'm pretty sure dropping STABmons analyses is easier than writing up analyses for everything again once a new game/gen comes, for a highly inactive format I might add.
Inverse should probably be kept as a challenge format because it's an in-game thing. STABmons should not. There are a lot more formats that are more deserving of the spot, such as Mix & Mega for example.
EDIT: The rotation formats AAA/Sketch/TS will be challengeable when it's not they're month
Inverse should probably be kept as a challenge format because it's an in-game thing. STABmons should not. There are a lot more formats that are more deserving of the spot, such as Mix & Mega for example.
EDIT: The rotation formats AAA/Sketch/TS will be challengeable when it's not they're month
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STABmons analyses aren't being dropped right now, there's no need for it. STABmons analyses are the most active, why would we drop them? If anything, I'd be more inclined to drop AAA analyses. I'd prefer not to drop any. That is what I'm saying.
But what TI is saying is that none of these changes would occur until next gen (or next game) - none of this would affect current OM C&C
Who knows what OMs will be like when the next generation starts? There could be another meta, or five, surging in popularity like Inheritance did and worthy of consideration for permanent ladders. Making advance plans for Generation 7, especially with Pokemon Z, a part of Generation 6, likely to be released and still not announced, is ridiculous. That being said...
We are having enough trouble handling C&C as is — look at, for instance, how BH analyses are moving slower than ever in spite of the QC team doubling in size. (No offense to NK, KS, and Chuun; it's just as much my fault.) It's difficult to imagine that adding analyses for more and more metagames (with the potential exception of AG, which I think has some very committed users, and unfixable's classified information might relate to this) would be particularly successful, unless we see a drastic increase in the engagement and work ethic of the OM community.
The notion of "C&C should be based on the ladders" would be untenable if it meant having to expand to BH, AAA, TS, and Sketchmons, keeping the latter three departments alive even though they would each lie dormant for two thirds of a year. OM C&C is an effort to make OMs more accessible for standard-tier players, and one of the biggest complaints of standard-tier players is a lack of consistency in OMs. Therefore, rotating OM C&C is counter-productive.
To address a more specific point that TI has brought up, I find it very difficult to believe that Sketchmons would be any more successful than STABmons as a permanent ladder. Of course there's no way to know without trying, but the already extensive network of STABmons resources makes me less inclined to submit to a complete removal of what has long been one of the most celebrated OMs in favor of a one-time mildly successful OMotM with an inactive thread (of which I am personally not a fan).
edit: here i am talking to TI about this post: http://pastebin.com/PEvXQvnm
We are having enough trouble handling C&C as is — look at, for instance, how BH analyses are moving slower than ever in spite of the QC team doubling in size. (No offense to NK, KS, and Chuun; it's just as much my fault.) It's difficult to imagine that adding analyses for more and more metagames (with the potential exception of AG, which I think has some very committed users, and unfixable's classified information might relate to this) would be particularly successful, unless we see a drastic increase in the engagement and work ethic of the OM community.
The notion of "C&C should be based on the ladders" would be untenable if it meant having to expand to BH, AAA, TS, and Sketchmons, keeping the latter three departments alive even though they would each lie dormant for two thirds of a year. OM C&C is an effort to make OMs more accessible for standard-tier players, and one of the biggest complaints of standard-tier players is a lack of consistency in OMs. Therefore, rotating OM C&C is counter-productive.
To address a more specific point that TI has brought up, I find it very difficult to believe that Sketchmons would be any more successful than STABmons as a permanent ladder. Of course there's no way to know without trying, but the already extensive network of STABmons resources makes me less inclined to submit to a complete removal of what has long been one of the most celebrated OMs in favor of a one-time mildly successful OMotM with an inactive thread (of which I am personally not a fan).
edit: here i am talking to TI about this post: http://pastebin.com/PEvXQvnm
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Rumplestiltskin
I will rain lels all over you and you will drown in them
Something I've noticed from this discussion is that the popularity of OM's is measured by ladder activity on PS and thread activity on Smogon forums, with ladder activity weighing heavier.
For an OM to get a ladder it needs to be selected by the OM of the month vote.
There is a problem here, which is that a huge amount of Pokemon Showdown visitors and players don't know about the OMotM vote. By "popularity" right now we're talking about how popular it is among the people who know about the vote, which might result in a skewed picture of how popular a metagame really is. It's a vote that directly affects Pokemon Showdown and doesn't affect much on Smogon at all. It's only fair that the PS users at least become aware of this vote, and a way to do that could be using the "Latest News" box in PS.
This is one of the reasons why I suggested involving the PS visitors and players in my previous post.
One of the reasons I'm bringing this up is that it's frustrating to see how many users on PS who would like to play 2v2 Doubles but just don't know about the Smogon forums or the OMotM vote, and I think it would be more fair to consider these people when doing the OMotM vote, and determining what's popular.
Like imas234 said, there are a lot of non Smogon users on PS who play on the OM ladders, but i think that when it comes to 1v1 and 2v2 Doubles, the player-base is vastly underrepresented in Smogon forums compared to the other OM's. And the reason I'm mentioning 1v1 is because I've been asking 1v1 players on the ladder and elsewhere if they like 2v2 Doubles, and letting them know what it is, and something like 80% of them liked it.
Of course if the PS user-base gets more awareness of the OMotM vote it doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to pick 2v2 Doubles, but at least it would be more fair that way.
For an OM to get a ladder it needs to be selected by the OM of the month vote.
There is a problem here, which is that a huge amount of Pokemon Showdown visitors and players don't know about the OMotM vote. By "popularity" right now we're talking about how popular it is among the people who know about the vote, which might result in a skewed picture of how popular a metagame really is. It's a vote that directly affects Pokemon Showdown and doesn't affect much on Smogon at all. It's only fair that the PS users at least become aware of this vote, and a way to do that could be using the "Latest News" box in PS.
This is one of the reasons why I suggested involving the PS visitors and players in my previous post.
One of the reasons I'm bringing this up is that it's frustrating to see how many users on PS who would like to play 2v2 Doubles but just don't know about the Smogon forums or the OMotM vote, and I think it would be more fair to consider these people when doing the OMotM vote, and determining what's popular.
Like imas234 said, there are a lot of non Smogon users on PS who play on the OM ladders, but i think that when it comes to 1v1 and 2v2 Doubles, the player-base is vastly underrepresented in Smogon forums compared to the other OM's. And the reason I'm mentioning 1v1 is because I've been asking 1v1 players on the ladder and elsewhere if they like 2v2 Doubles, and letting them know what it is, and something like 80% of them liked it.
Of course if the PS user-base gets more awareness of the OMotM vote it doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to pick 2v2 Doubles, but at least it would be more fair that way.
I like the idea of putting OMotM voting in the PS! latest news. Another idea that I like is closing up OMs that have failed after a reasonable period; there's no point in keeping a dead thread open. Shoutout to brightobject for having some good ideas.
More importantly, unfixable will never admit this:
+unfixable: well
+unfixable: now that i'm thinking about it more
+unfixable: i'm actually kind of going to your side lol
+unfixable: and mind you, i don't think you're ENTIRELY correct
+unfixable: but i do believe your points are valid ;)
>:)
More importantly, unfixable will never admit this:
+unfixable: well
+unfixable: now that i'm thinking about it more
+unfixable: i'm actually kind of going to your side lol
+unfixable: and mind you, i don't think you're ENTIRELY correct
+unfixable: but i do believe your points are valid ;)
>:)
Rumplestiltskin
I will rain lels all over you and you will drown in them
If the OMotM vote was advertised via the "Latest News" box, how would you tackle the "account must be over 1 week old" issue?
Here are some scenarios:
My point is that the OMotM vote is something that directly affects PS and its users, and this rule might become a relatively big obstacle depending on how the advertising to PS! is handled.
If there is something to talk about there will be posts, and if not, there won't be. It doesn't hurt anyone that there is a place to discuss or talk about the OM, I thought that was the point?
Furthermore, since there's a rule that locked OM threads can't be nominated for OMotM, it means it won't even get a chance to be played.
Just because there's nothing to say (assuming everyone it might affect even knows about this policy) doesn't mean that people don't want to play it. This is not a fair criteria for if an OM should be unplayable.
The argument I saw made was that this gives incentive for people to post in the thread for the OM they want to play. Assuming everyone who wants to play the OM in question somehow knew about this rule, in my opinion that might not give quality posts. Is the desire posts such as "I like to play this.", followed by "Yeah me too!", or maybe starting a pointless discussion that no one would care to join?
The OM's are listed in the archive with links to their respective threads, and there could be months before maybe some new Smogon users discover them and find them interesting to the point that they want to play them and might have something to say or ask about them.
If the point is to remove OM's then they should be removed if they don't live up to the standards of what a desirable OM is anymore, in my opinion.
I see your point that you want to clean up "dead" OM's, but in my opinion they aren't hurting anyone by existing. One example is Scalemons, an OM with a locked thread and no active postings for a while. Now I don't know why the thread was locked, but let's assume for this example's sake that it was because the thread was inactive. I found it through the OM archive recently and thought it was very interesting, but now I can't vote for it for OMotM. Is it fair that I won't be able to vote for it because it had an inactive thread before I found out about it?
Here are some scenarios:
- The vote is advertised a week before the nomination thread actually opens so that people get a chance to make a Smogon account. Result: no link to the actual thread, and it might get forgotten.
- The vote is advertised when the thread is created, with a link to the thread. Result: People can't vote because their accounts have just been created.
- The vote is advertised a week before the nomination thread opens, encouraging people to make accounts if they want to vote, and then advertising again when the nomination thread actually opens. Result: Might clutter up the "latest News" box?
- The "account must be over 1 week old" rule is removed.
My point is that the OMotM vote is something that directly affects PS and its users, and this rule might become a relatively big obstacle depending on how the advertising to PS! is handled.
I feel like an OM's thread is a place to discuss the meta itself and talk about whatever relevant thing or issue you might have about it. Why should the fact that there is no active discussion at the moment and in the past mean that there will not be any talk allowed in the future, no matter what it might regard?
If there is something to talk about there will be posts, and if not, there won't be. It doesn't hurt anyone that there is a place to discuss or talk about the OM, I thought that was the point?
Furthermore, since there's a rule that locked OM threads can't be nominated for OMotM, it means it won't even get a chance to be played.
Just because there's nothing to say (assuming everyone it might affect even knows about this policy) doesn't mean that people don't want to play it. This is not a fair criteria for if an OM should be unplayable.
The argument I saw made was that this gives incentive for people to post in the thread for the OM they want to play. Assuming everyone who wants to play the OM in question somehow knew about this rule, in my opinion that might not give quality posts. Is the desire posts such as "I like to play this.", followed by "Yeah me too!", or maybe starting a pointless discussion that no one would care to join?
The OM's are listed in the archive with links to their respective threads, and there could be months before maybe some new Smogon users discover them and find them interesting to the point that they want to play them and might have something to say or ask about them.
If the point is to remove OM's then they should be removed if they don't live up to the standards of what a desirable OM is anymore, in my opinion.
I see your point that you want to clean up "dead" OM's, but in my opinion they aren't hurting anyone by existing. One example is Scalemons, an OM with a locked thread and no active postings for a while. Now I don't know why the thread was locked, but let's assume for this example's sake that it was because the thread was inactive. I found it through the OM archive recently and thought it was very interesting, but now I can't vote for it for OMotM. Is it fair that I won't be able to vote for it because it had an inactive thread before I found out about it?
Would changing the requirements for voting in the be able to be changed? I personally think changing the requirement to "you can only vote the month after you join" (e.g. somebody joins today, they can only vote during the December stage for the January OMoTM). The week-old thing can be bypassed by joining 8 days early (though I'm not sure if those accounts are counted in votes; I'm assuming so), and I think the requirement above is clearer. Especially with the possibility of a notification, woudln't the current one-week policy be contradictory depending on when the notification is announced? Rumplestiltskin made some good scenarios and all of them have consequences both good and bad.
Also relating to the policy, many PS! users don't have Smogon account, and even if they do have on it's barely used. There are also many people invoved with the OM room that don't have a Smogon account (that I know of). I remember Snaq made a group chat for HSM and that was part of the reason why it won, beating out popular metas like Inheritance. If people can only vote after they month they join, that is clearer is some ways. Just a suggestion.
Re: dead ladders. Could all the current ones stay as challenge-only options if they cannot be permaladders anymore? I can't imagine a future where I have to ask people on Aqua for STABmons matches. Is there data on the how many of the challenge-only battles each of those metas had (I'm talking 2v2 Doubles, Hidden Type, etc.) If the "dead" ladders have at least 2* as much activity as them I'd like to see them stay as challenge-only. So basically, my ladders list would look like this, based off TI's model:
Permanent ladders:
Final thing: is the "Anything Goes" format ever going to go under Other Metas? I'm pretty sure it's considered an OM by now but it's still in the "ORAS Singles" section. What's the stance on that?
Also relating to the policy, many PS! users don't have Smogon account, and even if they do have on it's barely used. There are also many people invoved with the OM room that don't have a Smogon account (that I know of). I remember Snaq made a group chat for HSM and that was part of the reason why it won, beating out popular metas like Inheritance. If people can only vote after they month they join, that is clearer is some ways. Just a suggestion.
Re: dead ladders. Could all the current ones stay as challenge-only options if they cannot be permaladders anymore? I can't imagine a future where I have to ask people on Aqua for STABmons matches. Is there data on the how many of the challenge-only battles each of those metas had (I'm talking 2v2 Doubles, Hidden Type, etc.) If the "dead" ladders have at least 2* as much activity as them I'd like to see them stay as challenge-only. So basically, my ladders list would look like this, based off TI's model:
Permanent ladders:
- Balanced Hackmons
- 1v1
- Anything Goes
- Monotype
- AAA
- Tier Shift
- Inverse Battle
- STABmons (?)
- Inheritance/Sketchmons/Mix-and-Mega (?)
- Inheritance/Sketchmons/Mix-and-Mega (?)
- Hidden Type
- 2v2 Doubles
- OU Theorymon
- Averagemons
- (can GEN-NEXT OU be removed? I don't know if anyone still plays this)
- Inheritance/Sketchmons/Mix-and-Mega (?)
Final thing: is the "Anything Goes" format ever going to go under Other Metas? I'm pretty sure it's considered an OM by now but it's still in the "ORAS Singles" section. What's the stance on that?
I'm unclear what the goal with having rotating ladders is intended to be. Earlier posts had given me the impression rotating ladders would function as a way to give popularity-in-plays a weighting that currently goes unrepresented in voting (Which can result in metas that get tons of votes by people that haven't played the meta and proceed to not play the meta) in the form of saying "okay, the top two most popular metas (by matchcount) on Aqua are in rotation, and will be replaced if other things overtake them on Aqua" (or something to this effect) which sounds like an excellent way to naturalistically take into account the popularity of OMs without needing Showdown users to be aware of and make Smogon accounts, without having to rely on informal polling of the community (eg "everyone on Showdown thinks X meta is awesome, and then when it's OMotM/Leader's Choice none of the people claiming to be so excited plays it") or any other indirect measurement of presumed popularity: in other words, I'd been under the impression this would be something like "STABmons loses peoples interest while Typemons gets tons of play, so STABmons loses its place on main as a 'rotation' ladder and Typemons takes its place" rather than "STABmons/Inverse/whatever is available 1/3rd of the time on a fixed rotation".
If we're talking using rotating ladders as a third approach to "deciding what's on main for the month", alongside the existing voting for OMotM and the recently added Leader's Choice ladder slot, that sounds awesome. Among other points, if one meta proves to be consistently popular, it will stay in this slot [one of these slots?] and potentially provide a clear metric for "let's make this a permanent ladder", such as if it holds the slot for some number of months in a row, addressing some of the complaints of instability in OMs: if a meta is popular enough that a large number of people want to play it on an ongoing basis and it only stops getting play because it gets removed from main, then such metas will stay on main on the basis of this popularity, and fall away when they lose such popularity or are overtaken by something else. (Which can in turn open the way to a rotation ladder slot ending up voted to OMotM status because people actually realize it exists, freeing up the rotation slot for a popular-but-less-popular thing to get a moment in the spotlight, in turn further improving awareness of the existence of metas)
If we're talking rotating ladders as "some of the existing permaladders vanish and appear in a fixed cycle, slightly reducing how much is visible on main at any given moment" I'm not really clear what the point of this is.
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I also think it would be helpful if OMs had something like hovertext informing the user of the basic premise of the meta. I get the impression a lot of people don't try out OMs because they don't pay attention to Smogon and so without observing a match in the meta and/or asking people directly, they have no idea what the meta is about. Even if they would like to play the meta, they might be put off on trying because they have no idea what the meta even is. They might not even realize OMs are worth paying any attention to at all!
I actually noticed the OM of the Month section two or three months before I looked into OMs, but "OM of the Month" didn't mean anything to me. Frankly, I assumed it was something like a monthly tournament ladder or something. The idea that OMs are exotic, interesting variant rulesets was completely invisible. The only reason I got into OMs was that Alphabetmons had such a baffling name I had to ask someone "what the hell" in chat, and fortunately got an explanation of the premise of the meta, which lead me to understand that OMs were a thing, an awesome thing, rather than assuming OM of the Month was irrelevant to my interests.
OM could stand for anything, and main already does stuff like mirror official Nintendo wifi tournaments. I honestly assumed it was some Smogon thing, with either dumb rulesets ("Use only Halloween-themed Pokemon") or with totally irrelevant names that meant nothing/meant esoteric Smogon stuff. If someone had told me OM of the Month was how Smogon suspect tested things (Or stress-tested specific concepts, such as trying out an Aegislash ban before actually banning it), I'd have believed them.
If we're talking using rotating ladders as a third approach to "deciding what's on main for the month", alongside the existing voting for OMotM and the recently added Leader's Choice ladder slot, that sounds awesome. Among other points, if one meta proves to be consistently popular, it will stay in this slot [one of these slots?] and potentially provide a clear metric for "let's make this a permanent ladder", such as if it holds the slot for some number of months in a row, addressing some of the complaints of instability in OMs: if a meta is popular enough that a large number of people want to play it on an ongoing basis and it only stops getting play because it gets removed from main, then such metas will stay on main on the basis of this popularity, and fall away when they lose such popularity or are overtaken by something else. (Which can in turn open the way to a rotation ladder slot ending up voted to OMotM status because people actually realize it exists, freeing up the rotation slot for a popular-but-less-popular thing to get a moment in the spotlight, in turn further improving awareness of the existence of metas)
If we're talking rotating ladders as "some of the existing permaladders vanish and appear in a fixed cycle, slightly reducing how much is visible on main at any given moment" I'm not really clear what the point of this is.
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I also think it would be helpful if OMs had something like hovertext informing the user of the basic premise of the meta. I get the impression a lot of people don't try out OMs because they don't pay attention to Smogon and so without observing a match in the meta and/or asking people directly, they have no idea what the meta is about. Even if they would like to play the meta, they might be put off on trying because they have no idea what the meta even is. They might not even realize OMs are worth paying any attention to at all!
I actually noticed the OM of the Month section two or three months before I looked into OMs, but "OM of the Month" didn't mean anything to me. Frankly, I assumed it was something like a monthly tournament ladder or something. The idea that OMs are exotic, interesting variant rulesets was completely invisible. The only reason I got into OMs was that Alphabetmons had such a baffling name I had to ask someone "what the hell" in chat, and fortunately got an explanation of the premise of the meta, which lead me to understand that OMs were a thing, an awesome thing, rather than assuming OM of the Month was irrelevant to my interests.
OM could stand for anything, and main already does stuff like mirror official Nintendo wifi tournaments. I honestly assumed it was some Smogon thing, with either dumb rulesets ("Use only Halloween-themed Pokemon") or with totally irrelevant names that meant nothing/meant esoteric Smogon stuff. If someone had told me OM of the Month was how Smogon suspect tested things (Or stress-tested specific concepts, such as trying out an Aegislash ban before actually banning it), I'd have believed them.
Analyses would be great for every meta, but I don't think this metagame has existed enough, or been nearly active enough during its existence, to justify the creation of these analyses. Perhaps something in the vein of Monotype and 1v1 (a viability ranking with mini-analyses within)?
I'm not quite following the point of the "faking newness" thing. The metas that have generated tons of excitement when they had a second shot at OMotM were the ones that had staying power the first time around (ie were still played a decent amount even toward the end of their time as OMotM), at least as far as I've seen. I don't think removing a thing from main and then bringing it back later is liable to generate all that much excitement. Maybe people who ignored it to the point they've stopped noticing it exists might notice the change? Even then, main doesn't do anything to indicate whether a given ladder is different from the last time you looked. I didn't even notice PU going up on main for weeks, back when it was under OMs, because the list of standard OMs is long enough and filled with enough stuff I have zero interest in that it didn't stand out as "wait, that wasn't there before". Rotating ladders placed under OM of the Month might suffer less from that, but they might not -before I got into OMs myself I paid literally zero attention to what was in that part of the interface.
I dunno, this just sounds like a gimmick to me. I personally only care about "newness" inasmuch as I don't know the shape of a meta yet. Taking STABmons (Or any other OM currently having a permanent ladder) off of main for this rotation thing and then bringing it back later wouldn't have me going "oh, oh, I can play it again, Imma do that!" More likely, either I'd be wanting to play it the whole time and annoyed anytime it was out of rotation, or having it in rotation over something else would annoy me because I wanted the other thing to stay in rotation and am still not going to play STABmons just because it's in rotation.
I dunno, this just sounds like a gimmick to me. I personally only care about "newness" inasmuch as I don't know the shape of a meta yet. Taking STABmons (Or any other OM currently having a permanent ladder) off of main for this rotation thing and then bringing it back later wouldn't have me going "oh, oh, I can play it again, Imma do that!" More likely, either I'd be wanting to play it the whole time and annoyed anytime it was out of rotation, or having it in rotation over something else would annoy me because I wanted the other thing to stay in rotation and am still not going to play STABmons just because it's in rotation.
I agree that Mix and Mega analysis is probably not appropriate yet. Honestly, Inheritance probably makes more sense to do, out of non-standard OMs, having been OMotM twice now and being incredibly popular both times, with a deep, diverse meta.
I was going through metagames from X and Y, and I noticed PLENTY creative and great metas that would do fine or better in ORAS. A LOT of things have changed since X and Y just came out, and these metas deserve to taste ORAS. Maybe for next month's LCotM and OMotM, only metas from X and Y should be voted? Especially dead ones?
I don't think AG analysis should be added to OM C&C for 2 major reasons. While the AG ladder may be very popular, most of its players play purely for casual fun. Hence why the bottom of the ladder is full of pokemon and teams unviable even in OU, much less Ubers or AG. These players likely don't know or care about smogon analysis. They have no interest in making a team to win. And this section of the ladder makes up a huge part of the AG playerbase. The competitive, high ladder, section of the AG ladder has little need for analysis, they would be the ones writing it after all. The only people who would make use of the analysis would be the mid ladder players. Secondly, how many AG sets are different enough from Ubers sets to warrant their own analysis? Most of the time an Ubers set is the best, and Uber analysis already exists. Plus the AG resource thread already has some analysis written. So i don't really see a need for AG analysis. If any OM should have analysis added, it should be Monotype. They already have their own website dedicated to Monotype analysis, there should be analysis on Smogon as well.
As for the rotational ladder idea, I think AAA gets enough activity to not be included in the rotation. As was mentioned before it gets 3 times a much activity as the other ladders. If we remove STABmons and Inverse, we could have TS/Stabmons rotating as one ladder, and 2 new metas rotating as another. Perhaps Sketchmons/Mix and Mega? It wouldn't be a problem to have 2 move metas if we have Sketchmons up while STABmons is on break. This means OM C&C doesn't have to remove STABmons, and we make room for more ladders on main. In my opinion its a good compromise.
As for the rotational ladder idea, I think AAA gets enough activity to not be included in the rotation. As was mentioned before it gets 3 times a much activity as the other ladders. If we remove STABmons and Inverse, we could have TS/Stabmons rotating as one ladder, and 2 new metas rotating as another. Perhaps Sketchmons/Mix and Mega? It wouldn't be a problem to have 2 move metas if we have Sketchmons up while STABmons is on break. This means OM C&C doesn't have to remove STABmons, and we make room for more ladders on main. In my opinion its a good compromise.
As for this idea, i don't mean to be rude, but its a terrible idea. Metas that are dead are for a reason. Nobody is interested in discussing them, much less playing them. They would probably make unpopular OMOTM ladders.
EV
Banned deucer.
Kingslayer2779 The "X meta uses standard sets" argument applies more so to Monotype than it does to AG because AG lacks clauses such as Swagger, Evasion, and most importantly Species whereas Monotype is for all intents and purposes just a restricted OU. I would much rather do AG analyses than Monotype for that reason. Also, arguing that AG doesn't need analyses because most of the ladder is shit is pretty shaky. The best OU players are at the top of that ladder too and probably don't need analyses either. What's your point exactly?
K I'll take this one.
Every meta is different than OU, or in AG's case Ubers. I still think there should be mono analyses, because even for the mons that have the same sets (not as many as you'd think) as OU, the team options, overview and cnc would be different. As would OO. However, I also agree it's not that needed.
As for AG, the sets aren't even close most of the time. Klefkis run screens, spikes, magnet rise, etc in ubers. Arceus and Ho-Ohs don't run Lum Berry. Darkrais don't run Nasty sub mono attacking. Etc. Nearly every mon high on the vr is much different than in Ubers. Why? Because without a species clause, swagger clause, moody clause, or baton bass clause you have to be able to deal with a plethora of new threats and archetypes.
Let's look at the ladder argument next. Can you name a single active (not dead like AAA and STABmons) that doesn't have shitty low ladder players that won't care about analyses? Can you name one where the good players will have to look at analyses? It doesn't exist. AG may have a prticilarly big low ladder, but that doesn't change anything. There are still plenty of mid level players who need to learn. I get asked for help with sets all the time on ladder. As the only RMT Staff who deals with OMs it's basically up to me to rate all of them that I'm able to. It would be so much more beneficial to do !analysis Arceus rather than explaining why it needs to have perish song, why it should have EQ, etc by hand.
The AG resource thread DOES get analyses, youre right. Mini ones. You think it's fun for me to spend 2 hours explaining to Drayden8437 (as an example, not to call him out I appreciate his help) that's analyses are supposed to be formal and Yveltal isn't YGod with random holding? Ive spent so long in pms helping people, alone. I don't mind but having an actual cnc with OTHER QC'rs would be so much better. We do have the people ready to help. Just yesterday Aimless Renegade pmd me to write an analysis. I get 2-3 pms a week on average. That's as if not more active as STABMONS and AAA analyses are. And I can't stress this enough. They are mini analyses. Getting full ones would be so great.
*I'd add better formatting but on mobile.
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I wasn't aware there was this much demand for AG help. Disregard what i said then.
I still think AAA gets enough activity to stay on main. I mean how much activity do we realistically expect to get from these new metas? Sure for the first couple months, i bet they will be more active then AAA is now. But after the hype dies down do we realistically expect them to be more active then AAA? And as i said before, including STABmons in the rotation is a good compromise to taking it off entirely.
I still think AAA gets enough activity to stay on main. I mean how much activity do we realistically expect to get from these new metas? Sure for the first couple months, i bet they will be more active then AAA is now. But after the hype dies down do we realistically expect them to be more active then AAA? And as i said before, including STABmons in the rotation is a good compromise to taking it off entirely.