Also, I've a question; after Shoddy Battle 2 comes out and we can set all of these plans into motion, does Smogon plan on becoming an authority figure on double battles? I mean like making tier lists and doing suspect tests and stuff. I ask this because with SB2 we'd be able to reliably gather usage data and what not--at least, I believe we would--but the fact of the matter is Smogon does not seem to have a large number of people interested in the metagame, and like others have said we've virtually no experience. If that's the case, would we really have the right to start deciding tiers and stuff or would we delegate that to a different community?
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More Emphasis on Doubles for Nintendo's Tournaments
- Thread starter Tangerine
- Start date
Those details would have to be worked out later. It's far too early to speculate about that. We'd have to see exactly how popular the double battle ladder would be before we would even considering going to measures such as tiering. All I can say right now is "wait and see", that's the best answer any of us can really give you.
However, I doubt we would ever delegate any tiering responsibilities to another community. I'm not demeaning other Pokemon communities, but I can't think of any that I'd trust to organize a tier that we would adopt without any of our own modifications.
As a double battler I feel I need to weigh in on this subject.
Despite Nintendo having their own brand of doubles I think it would be stupid for there to be only one doubles ladder based on this metagame. The metagame is restrictive with its (seemingly) arbitrary banlist and its inability to have more than four Pokemon on your team.
The banlist is not based on anything the singles tiers are. It doesn't allow usable Pokemon who aren't overpowered to be used.
Having only four Pokemon on a team severely limits what options you have and pushes teams to abuse explosion and status. If a successful explosion or dark void (because of the lack of sleep clause) is used, it will render half of the opponents team useless. There are ways around this such as status berrys, detect spam and ghost types but it does severly limit what choices you have when making your team since you always have to be aware of such threats.
While I do think it makes sense to support Nintendo's format 100% I think that a new format be made specifically for double battlers who aren't interested in VGC, but are more interested in a balanced, exciting metagame.
That being said I do not think that the format used for singles can apply here. Not speaking about VGC; every Pokemon usable in doubles can play so many different roles depending on what team it's in. With diversity like that it makes more sense to have analyses / articles based on TEAMS or STRATEGIES rather than individual Pokemon. I have a couple examples of what the articles should be like that I'm not going to post for various reasons (yet).
Even though some of you may not know much about doubles I do feel that if Smogon is going to go ahead and support some doubles metagame it would make sense for us to put together a team and get prepared for the release of Shoddy Battle 2, as sort of a head start.
I need to speak with some of my double battling collegues as we may abandon our current project and will possibly be able to help out with this, as we are experienced double battlers.
Despite Nintendo having their own brand of doubles I think it would be stupid for there to be only one doubles ladder based on this metagame. The metagame is restrictive with its (seemingly) arbitrary banlist and its inability to have more than four Pokemon on your team.
The banlist is not based on anything the singles tiers are. It doesn't allow usable Pokemon who aren't overpowered to be used.
Having only four Pokemon on a team severely limits what options you have and pushes teams to abuse explosion and status. If a successful explosion or dark void (because of the lack of sleep clause) is used, it will render half of the opponents team useless. There are ways around this such as status berrys, detect spam and ghost types but it does severly limit what choices you have when making your team since you always have to be aware of such threats.
While I do think it makes sense to support Nintendo's format 100% I think that a new format be made specifically for double battlers who aren't interested in VGC, but are more interested in a balanced, exciting metagame.
That being said I do not think that the format used for singles can apply here. Not speaking about VGC; every Pokemon usable in doubles can play so many different roles depending on what team it's in. With diversity like that it makes more sense to have analyses / articles based on TEAMS or STRATEGIES rather than individual Pokemon. I have a couple examples of what the articles should be like that I'm not going to post for various reasons (yet).
Even though some of you may not know much about doubles I do feel that if Smogon is going to go ahead and support some doubles metagame it would make sense for us to put together a team and get prepared for the release of Shoddy Battle 2, as sort of a head start.
I need to speak with some of my double battling collegues as we may abandon our current project and will possibly be able to help out with this, as we are experienced double battlers.
I hope I'm not reviving an old thread/lost cause. I would recommend a double's battle ladder fully; as double's is indeed a entirely different experience as opposed to single's. It would be interesting to see what Pokemon arrive in what tiers. However the basic's have to be initiated, that is the forming the double's half and using good marketing/advertisement strategies to convince people to come towards trying out double's. This way those people who are trying out this new "double's ladder" are essentially "beta testing" how double's will play out. Over the course of a couple months of these "beta testers" the tiers, ban list, universal rules/clauses, ect. shall be established because the community has developed them. This is how I believe the competitive "metagame" for Pokemon was first developed and how a double's metagame would be created.
That paragraph above is what I would make the floor plan is to initiate the doubles ladder. This paragraph deals with why Smogon would want to include an entire doubles ladder in the first place. The concept is quite simple, with a double's metagame there is potential to Double Site Traffic; that is the number of people who use Smogon and Shoddy. the reason behind this is that there are a unsaid number of people who enjoy double battling, however do not enjoy single battling. These people would be using the double's ladder primarily, then eventually wean into singles. They will use Smogon strategies on double's as well as single's for battling, thus now we have single competitive battlers and double competitive battlers visiting the site on a daily basis. This all however is based on good advertisement or "spreading the word" to all single battler's and potential double battlers.
This will especially benefit Smogon if all work done is volunteer work and if Smogon is the first to pioneer this kind of battling.
This brings us to another reason why Smogon would want a double battling ladder, that reason is to be a pioneer in a whole new Pokemon meta, being a pioneer in something means that you potentially have total control over it, an example being how Apple has total control over their Iphone. That and you have the glory of "being first" and being the best.
Having double battles in Smogon will provide one final aspect to the entire Smogon site, this aspect is even further enhancing and diversifying the culture and community that Smogon has created. There will most certainly be many more things to talk about with a double battle's ladder, and it will most definitely help with the singles overused mentality that everyone has. Face it, double battling real people is fun, there are far more factors within the battle, and leaves the battler with an overall better feeling in the end compared to a single's battle (unless your opponent is a jerk).
Now that we have gone over how the double battles ladder will be initiated and why it would benefit Smogon we should go over the core rules that will found double battling.
The game mechanics should be standard double battling in Pokemon correct?
As for Pokemon slots we should not go with only 4 Pokemon as this is apparently unfavorable, not only is it unfavorable but it shall not appeal to potential single battlers who are thinking about trying out double battling.
These are all the rules that I can think of at the moment, we should make sure we got a game plan properly lay'd out before trying anything when it comes to double battling.
That paragraph above is what I would make the floor plan is to initiate the doubles ladder. This paragraph deals with why Smogon would want to include an entire doubles ladder in the first place. The concept is quite simple, with a double's metagame there is potential to Double Site Traffic; that is the number of people who use Smogon and Shoddy. the reason behind this is that there are a unsaid number of people who enjoy double battling, however do not enjoy single battling. These people would be using the double's ladder primarily, then eventually wean into singles. They will use Smogon strategies on double's as well as single's for battling, thus now we have single competitive battlers and double competitive battlers visiting the site on a daily basis. This all however is based on good advertisement or "spreading the word" to all single battler's and potential double battlers.
This will especially benefit Smogon if all work done is volunteer work and if Smogon is the first to pioneer this kind of battling.
This brings us to another reason why Smogon would want a double battling ladder, that reason is to be a pioneer in a whole new Pokemon meta, being a pioneer in something means that you potentially have total control over it, an example being how Apple has total control over their Iphone. That and you have the glory of "being first" and being the best.
Having double battles in Smogon will provide one final aspect to the entire Smogon site, this aspect is even further enhancing and diversifying the culture and community that Smogon has created. There will most certainly be many more things to talk about with a double battle's ladder, and it will most definitely help with the singles overused mentality that everyone has. Face it, double battling real people is fun, there are far more factors within the battle, and leaves the battler with an overall better feeling in the end compared to a single's battle (unless your opponent is a jerk).
Now that we have gone over how the double battles ladder will be initiated and why it would benefit Smogon we should go over the core rules that will found double battling.
The game mechanics should be standard double battling in Pokemon correct?
As for Pokemon slots we should not go with only 4 Pokemon as this is apparently unfavorable, not only is it unfavorable but it shall not appeal to potential single battlers who are thinking about trying out double battling.
These are all the rules that I can think of at the moment, we should make sure we got a game plan properly lay'd out before trying anything when it comes to double battling.
well it's theoretical possibility of doubling site traffic, I'm very optimistic about a double's ladder, as it also grant the ability for 2 on 2 player battles. The other points mentioned still do take into play. An increase in site and server quality is the main point that would result in having the double's ladder; people flock to higher quality websites / games.