A Tier Without Weather

[TorchicBlaziken]

Humorously, while making this thread I saw a Sawgrass Marriott ad that said "Experience a Perfect Blend of Sun, Sand" and then the words "and Golf!" appeared.

I suggest implementing the "Weatherless" tier from PO's beta server on the Smogon server. That way, people who don't want a metagame ravaged by weather can play here.

I know there are those who think that weather is too overcentralizing, so they can play here and only play in the standard when they want to abuse weather themselves.

 

[Benlisted]

I don't think you actually gave a single reason to justify doing what you suggest, and merely offered some observations on what you think would happen if Drizzle and all the weathers were banned.

I'll say it again however - we do not ban things not broken in the current meta. If SS is found broken if Drizzle is banned, then we will ban it. If Drought is found broken after that, we will ban it too. We simply do not ban things based on pure theorymon of a future metagame, so this suggestion is somewhat absurd, especially given your lack of justification for it.

EDIT: Since the OP was altered, it essentially proposed a blanket ban on the three primary weather abilities, as well as what is currently there.

In any case, what you propose in the edit - the weatherless meta - is a reasonable compromise but leads to the problem of splitting attention and analyses etc, as well as which will become standard.

 

[SilverOrSomething]

Bans are flying around, why not have a weather tier and a clear skies tier? Because politoed and the kind will just end up not used and a part of the game experience will stagnate.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Bans are flying around, why not have a weather tier and a clear skies tier? Because politoed and the kind will just end up not used and a part of the game experience will stagnate.

Because it would separate people too much.
We already have Standard and DW,having 2 Standards and 2 DWs is just ridiculous.

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

Well, if it's good enough for the Beta Server, it's good enough for Smogon's server.

 

[Demoness]

Well, if it's good enough for the Beta Server, it's good enough for Smogon's server.

No it isn't. Just because one server has some different rules and tiers than us doesn't mean we need to implant it. I really don't get why we would ever need a weatherless tier when were already voting on weather itself to make it balanced.

 

[Cshadow]

Weather is going to be a big part of this generation's metagame. People need to get over it.

The question is /how/ big a part it's going to play.

 

[Forte.EXE]

Personally, I think this is pointless. This is banning what's wrong with the meta-game, but being extremely soft with it.

Oh, Salamence is too powerful in Gen IV? Well, fuck Salamence, let's make a meta-game without it. That meta-game is now Standard OU. But then what the fuck is the point of keeping Salamence in a tier by itself, that no one wants to play in because of broken things?

We have something for that already. It's Ubers, and it's there for a reason.

Well, if it's good enough for the Beta Server, it's good enough for Smogon's server.

Are we gonna get some hot UU Latios action then? Cause I'm really looking forward to that.

 

[Homeslice]

Lol I mentioned this on the round 2 thread
But yeah, I actually think it's a really good idea. The players who want auto-weather banned are usually the higher ranked ones, and there's no opinion from the lower ranked people. Most of the people I know that play 5th gen and aren't laddering a lot say they have no problem with weather, and that this is the generation of weather. These people are probably smarter than those people "abusing" weather to get to 1400, in my opinion. If you can't beat it, you go ban it, that's how you all think it works here. No. Lower ranked people say its fine, upper ranked people go ban it because they say its broken. Weatherless tier and a normal tier. Works perfectly well as far as I see.

 

[Forte.EXE]

The players who want auto-weather banned are usually the higher ranked ones, and there's no opinion from the lower ranked people.

That's because, no offense intended, the higher ranked players usually know what's going on in the meta-game a bit better than the people at the bottom. Did you know there are a lot of Electivires near the bottom of the ladder? That alone should tell you why it's the higher ranked ones that are allowed to vote.

These people are probably smarter than those people "abusing" weather to get to 1400, in my opinion.

Then why are they at the bottom if of the ladder if they're smarter... And they're "abusing" weather to show how broken it is. That's kind of how a test usually works.

If you can't beat it, you go ban it, that's how you all think it works here. No. Lower ranked people say its fine, upper ranked people go ban it because they say its broken.

No. I've seen this argument from the Salamence Suspect threads in Gen IV. No, that is not a legitimate argument for your cause, you are a bad person for using it, and you should feel bad about yourself.

 

[Homeslice]

That's because, no offense intended, the higher ranked players usually know what's going on in the meta-game a bit better than the people at the bottom. Did you know there are a lot of Electivires near the bottom of the ladder? That alone should tell you why it's the higher ranked ones that are allowed to vote.



Then why are they at the bottom if of the ladder if they're smarter... And they're "abusing" weather to show how broken it is. That's kind of how a test usually works.



No. I've seen this argument from the Salamence Suspect threads in Gen IV. No, that is not a legitimate argument for your cause, you are a bad person for using it, and you should feel bad about yourself.

Okay, you've brought back stuff from 4th gen. Congratulations, you're centralizing again. Just because someone is lower in the ladder does not mean they have no clue what they are doing. Let me give you a scenerio here. A well known player makes a team under a new alt. This team is similar to his other teams and it appears very well if you were looking at it from an RMT. He loses battles to hax and just pure unluckyness. If a player who is not well known has the same thing done to him, and is still an excellent battler, you would still pick the more well-known battler, because he's known for his excellent teams. If they both have the same exact idea of what's going on, and you choose the more well-known battler because you all agree he's better than the other battler because you know him for good teams, and the other battler isn't known. This way, you have centralized opinions.
That didn't make as much sense as I hoped it would, but it still is a valid argument, because other people exist other than the high ranked people.

 

[Forte.EXE]

Okay, you've brought back stuff from 4th gen. Congratulations, you're centralizing again.

How in the fuck is that centralizing? Do you even know what that word means?

Just because someone is lower in the ladder does not mean they have no clue what they are doing.

If they knew what was going on, why would they be at the bottom of the ladder?

Let me give you a scenerio here. A well known player makes a team under a new alt. This team is similar to his other teams and it appears very well if you were looking at it from an RMT. He loses battles to hax and just pure unluckyness. If a player who is not well known has the same thing done to him, and is still an excellent battler, you would still pick the more well-known battler, because he's known for his excellent teams.

For one, how would you know that the well known player made an alt? People just don't broadcast "HEY, I MADE AN ALT, THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM LOL". Two, even with "unluckyness", a "top" player would not fall so low that they would be near the bottom of the ladder, for a two reasons. One, people abandon alts quickly. I know more than a few people that flat-out left alt accounts to die after losing a few times. Two, once again, how do you know that the well known player is the using an alt?

If they both have the same exact idea of what's going on, and you choose the more well-known battler because you all agree he's better than the other battler because you know him for good teams, and the other battler isn't known. This way, you have centralized opinions.

So basically, if someone gets lucky once, strikes gold and makes a good team, let them vote on everything, even if they should drop all the way back down? Doesn't make sense either.

I'd pick the well known player every time, because they have an actual track-record of

a.) Knowing what they're talking about
b.) Making good teams and doing well with them

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

I hate arguments between two people in a thread that derail the conversation and make it hard to pick out the actual conversation.

Especially when it's my thread.

 

[Lady Shinki]

There's no reason not to allow this to exist. A lot of people don't like weather, and a lot of people don't care, but the same reasoning for all the dumb stuff on the PO server (1v1? wtf?) is that some people enjoy doing it. If enough people support the idea, we don't need to think of the metagame of this tier, this is just something that people should be able to do for fun much like noobs play Challenge Cup.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Well then allow me to be the middleman. I actually agree with this. When you think about it, it seems like a good way to test just how centralizing weather is compared to the rest of the metagame. Not only that but people who are getting tired of playing 3 weather teams in a row can smile happily. (I know I would be)

I don't think it's really banning weather because there's no testing and Weather is still in the ou ladder.

 

[Abacus]

Let's pretend that weather is demonstrably not broken. I'm not saying it is or isn't, but let's just say that everyone magically agrees that weather does not break the game.

Let's further say that a significant portion of the playerbase finds a weather-based metagame to not be fun. They want a diversity of strategies, and are sick of either needing to play with a weather, or use a small number of viable counter-strategies to survive.

What would be wrong with setting up a ladder for this section of the playerbase? We already have 14 ladders, so arguments about "fracturing the playerbase" ring false to me. Besides, most users play multiple ladders (at least this is my sense of things). Look at that one post by doug in PR (I can't find it right now) about the needlessness of limiting ourselves to just a few metagames.

In short, why not?

 

[Cshadow]

Because it'd just be another split-off from OU instead of a completely new metagame like, oh, say, Little Cup.

Why do we have to divide the same tier again? Why can't we just try and work towards an enjoyable metagame?

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

So instead of:
-Standard OU
-Standard Ubers
-Standard LC
-DW OU
-DW Ubers
-DW LC
*Not counting gimmicky stuff like Challenge Cup*

We would have:
-Standard OU
-Standard OU - Weather
-Standard Ubers
-Standard LC
-Standard LC - Weather
-DW OU
-DW OU - Weather
-DW Ubers
-DW LC
-DW LC - Weather

How is that even remotely good?

 

[Cshadow]

DW tiers are temporary anyways, as when everything is made available (under the assumption that it will be*), the standard will have access to all DW abilities, moves, and Pokemon, making DW obsolete.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

DW tiers are temporary anyways, as when everything is made available (under the assumption that it will be*), the standard will have access to all DW abilities, moves, and Pokemon, making DW obsolete.

We still don't know when all the DW abilities will be released.(Most likely in the 3rd game)
Either way,splitting OU would just make everything more complex.

 

[Abacus]

How is that even remotely bad? You keep talking about "fracturing the playerbase" or "splitting" the OU tier. This is simply not true. Players can and will play multiple ladders. There is a large enough playerbase to support this number of ladders. Why shouldn't we support any ladder that has large enough support for it to be populated?

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

How is that even remotely bad? You keep talking about "fracturing the playerbase" or "splitting" the OU tier. This is simply not true. Players can and will play multiple ladders. There is a large enough playerbase to support this number of ladders. Why shouldn't we support any ladder that has large enough support for it to be populated?

Not really.
It will just make everything more complex.

 

[Cshadow]

How is that even remotely bad? You keep talking about "fracturing the playerbase" or "splitting" the OU tier. This is simply not true. Players can and will play multiple ladders. There is a large enough playerbase to support this number of ladders. Why shouldn't we support any ladder that has large enough support for it to be populated?

What I consider weather is a play-style. Are yous saying it would be a good idea to have a ladder with stall teams and without? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or anything - I'm just trying to approach this rationally (from my perspective when asking someone else for theirs). Weather teams are a play-style, having a ladder for weather teams and one without is having a ladder for a metagame with a specific play style and one without (in my eyes).

 

[Nanoswine]

There's no reason to make a dumb spinnoff of OU an official metagame. If you want to play without weather, go play on the official PO server.

But if you really want to play this metagame with half-decent players, ask if you can host a tournament or something. We have no reason to make a "Weatherless" ladder.

 

[Stylish Interval]

If anyone is interested, we're going to play Mortal Kombat without any finishing moves to see what it's like since some people would rather play without any finishing moves. Some people do it, so surely it's good enough for all you players out there! This way there won't be a clusterfuck of finishing moves at the end of matches and we can just play without those cheap things.

---

We have like, 9 tiers planned and some already implemented. Off the top of my head, LC, OU, Ubers, DW, DW Ubers are all in, and UU / NU are sure to come with probably their own DW versions (although eventually these DW will be gone, for now it's relevant). That's quite a few tiers already and splits the userbase enough I think by this i mean not that people won't play multiple ladders, but that they will instead try and balance each metagame to reflect each other. not comparable in the sense of lc to ou, but two standard metas with the only difference being weather, you're guaranteed to have someone try and balance one to reflect the other. If you want to play a weatherless tier and see what it's like yourself, then head on over to PO and play.

inb4 obligatory 'PO sucks way more than Smogon [because I obviously know everyone who plays PO and obviously everyone who plays Smogon is much better based on names a-fucking-lone'.

Really, why even try and throw more onto Phil's plate when he's getting the hang of this and we're going in the right direction (debatable but nonetheless better than the shitstorm it was at the beginning wouldn't you agree?) This really shouldn't even be a question. Why would we need this in addition to other tiers?