01-26-2015, 09:44 AM | #3851 | |
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You can have too much diversity, and its exactly the issue with Gen VI OU right now.
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01-26-2015, 05:06 PM | #3852 |
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01-26-2015, 05:41 PM | #3853 |
Fallen from the Stars
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I can see where too much diversity is an issue. It takes away part of the skill if you can be dicked for the very beginning just because your team couldn't cover every single hole and your opponent has the perfect way to exploit it.
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01-26-2015, 06:20 PM | #3854 |
Naga's Voice
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Yes but at the same time if one team beats all threats ever, it becomes essentially the "one true team" and the top becomes whoever can win mirror matches the best, and you can have people with no actual skill make it up much father than they actually should just by copy pasting that "one true team." That's not healthy, either.You act like not being able to hard counter everything with one team is so bad, but being able to do so is worse, really.
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01-26-2015, 06:22 PM | #3855 |
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That's not how it works. Even if there was one true team, the people at the top would be the most skillful people.
Good Gen IV teams only had a weakness to one or two Pokemon. Just because a team can _answer_ (not counter) all the big threats doesn't mean it will be the top team either.
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01-26-2015, 06:32 PM | #3856 |
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Let's review what I said for a moment, and how your response measures up, Blaze.
First, the whole unskilled players part. You interpreted my post to say that said unskilled players would be at the top. This is not what I said. I merely stated they would rise to places on the ladder much higher than their skill merits. This could be anywhere from 2000 to 1500, depending on how well their common sense measures up. And the other thing I need to discuss, your second sentence. Because this clears the clouds over your position like going from Rain Dance to Sunny Day. The way you were talking, it sounded like if you had so much as one thing that you couldn't hard counter no matter how good your team was (Now I mean in number, not one specific threat, like between the two best teams you would have to choose a weakness to A or B), the meta was too diverse. Now that you've cleared up your position a bit more, I realize that you and I both think that utter nonsense, if I'm reading correctly (do tell me if I'm not, my eyes are still bad, if you know what I mean), so yes, teams should have a s few weaknesses as possible, but there should still be a sizable amount, just not a legion, of things that you'll be weak to no matter what (again, in number). This places enough emphasis on skill while removing enough weight from luck to create an enviornment in which there can never be one true team, but you still need to teambuilding competently to climb the ladder.
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01-26-2015, 06:36 PM | #3857 |
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Well the only reason why unskilled people would be higher is because of people not running the true team. But they still won't be as good as the better skilled players, so there isn't a real issue. The issue comes in when this true team denies skills place, like with SwagPlay teams.
That is not what I meant at all (on teams needing no weaknesses that is), but at the moment, it isn't just one or two things. It's multiple things, because there are simply too many threats, and many of these threats have specific answers to them. Good teams now often have many holes, but only because there is no way to fill these holes.
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01-26-2015, 06:40 PM | #3858 |
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In my opinion, one or two is still a little on the dry side. The or four is more agreeable to me. Five begins to push it, however. With three or four gaps in total on even the best teams, there's a narrow range to slip into when teambuilding for the top of the ladder that's it's not Geico-easy, but it's not narrow to the point of choking out all but three or so teams from the top.
What I believe is making the numbers such a huge issue is that power creep forces older stuff into obscurity, but at the same time the older things are what have more versatility. Starting in Gen 5, almost everything started having a specific niche or role to play, and had shallower movepools restricted to playing that role. This carried into Gen 6 with some notable exceptions (Greninja for one, though Protean is so easy to Exploit it's not even funny), and so all of these very specific role players have their shutdown capabilities reduced to only a select few things. The older things with their wider variety cannot alleviate this because power creep. TL;DR: With the movesets of Pokemon shrinking into specific roles while also running alongside power creep, the number of threats one thing can take out has been shrunken down significantly, and OU keeps getting bigger with new additions, thus compounding the issue of what's largely relevant being able to cover less in a meta where more exists. It's a vicious cycle.
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01-26-2015, 06:42 PM | #3859 |
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You seem to be implying that there can only be one combination of Pokemon that covers themselves well enough to have few holes. That's just not true. Also, teambuilding skill is obviously the least important aspect of it: its how you battle that's important.
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01-26-2015, 06:50 PM | #3860 |
Naga's Voice
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Team Building is important though, because it's essentially the preliminary gate to success. You can have the greatest talent of anyone on the field itself, but if you can't make teams that can make plays like you're so apt to do when they need to, you won't go anywhere. If I suddenly got gud overnight, my current OU squad probably wouldn't take me places, it's admittedly subpar. So yes, skill on the field matters, but that's the building upon the foundation of teambuilding, if you'll pardon the pun.
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01-26-2015, 06:51 PM | #3861 |
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Not really considering RMTs exist.
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01-26-2015, 06:57 PM | #3862 |
Naga's Voice
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Point taken, but let's also consider that one team can only go so far in one portion of the ladder. That team I had back with my dedicated attempt pre-Aegislash ban, despite being from experienced folks like you, could only go so far, mostly because once one hit 1300 or so, what I began facing had more answers to what I was running.An RMT is no substitute for actual teambuilding skills. One has to learn eventually, after all, asking for help from others also carries the cost of them not wanting to give someone the ways to tear them six ways from Sunday.
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01-26-2015, 06:58 PM | #3863 |
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Or you know, it could be because you were bad.
:p
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01-26-2015, 07:03 PM | #3864 |
Naga's Voice
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That could be a factor, yes, but theoretically one that I could have overcome from using the team enough to learn how to play well with it, which didn't happen. Despite knowing all the ins and out of the team from sticking with it for so long, 1300 marked a place where just some outside expertise wasn't going to be enough anymore, as a conglomerate of good things that could school most bottom level teams wasn't going to cut it anymore, because that was no longer what I was facing, because 1300 marks the point where teams start being built with having lost of synergy and support rather than a mess of HO and stall breaking. However, I decided to try to keep at it because I didn't want to bug you guys for another team and didn't trust my own abilities to make a team for that level on my own.
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01-26-2015, 07:23 PM | #3865 | |
時の彼方へ
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Part I: Yu-Gi-Oh! side of things First of all, you've completely gotten 2013-era YGO wrong. Late 2014, early 2015 YGO may fit the bill of what you are describing, but when phoopes legendarily hosted his YGO tournament in 2013 during the Age of the Dragon Rulers, we lived in a world where YGO was characterized by a smorgasbord of "OU," "UU," and "RU" decks:
Fast forward to early 2015 and all I ever hear you guys talking about are:
The format that only you and Doppel can be arsed to play. The format that the YGO players I know IRL keep groaning over. Yeah, no, Blaze. YGO players liked their diversity in "OU." And from what I can tell, they appear to have lost it. Part II: Pokémon side of things In comparison with Generations III, V, and VI, Gen IV was characterized by its diversity. First and foremost. So when you write stuff like this: I feel like you're either 1) talking out of your ass about things that were way before your time or else 2) not remembering Gen IV OU correctly. HGSS OU was where Stlbk and I got back in touch with one another. Where I'd say we became friends. (We hadn't really talked much until then. ) And in that format, not only did my kinda crappy team work -- so there's +1 for OU diversity -- but Stlbk, who laddered very well on P-O, had on his team such creatures as Breloom, Screens Jirachi, and -- right on the cusp between HGSS meta and BW1 meta -- Sableye. (One of the first! Steely was way ahead of his time when it came to calling Prankster Sableye's utility.) It was a diverse time for diverse players. So long as your favorites weren't complete and utter dog shit, you could find a way to make them work. Just ask DaveTheFishGuy, who often mentions his tales of successfully using all sorts of different Toxicroaks in the format. Or just ask Morgoth, who made it through a round or two of Loki's OU tournament with a mono-Bug team. (And keep in mind, s'il te plaît, that this was Gen IV mono-Bug we're talking about here.) Lower OU had a lot of diversity; and even upper OU had a huge list of MVPs. One of the biggest complaints, in fact, about the BW1 meta once we were several months into it was that it was such a bland, repetitive list of Who's Whos compared with the HGSS meta we had known only a few months prior. BW1 OU was nothing but Copy+Paste sand and rain teams. Every sand team ran Tyranitar, Excadrill, and Gliscor. (Why wouldn't you!?) Every rain team ran Kingdra, Politoed, Ludicolo, and Ferrothorn. (Again: why wouldn't you?) Not only was it boring to see nothing but rain and sand, but it was especially boring to see them knowing that you already knew 50% to 100% of their constituents. BW2 became ever so slightly more diverse -- in part thanks to bans meant to rein in sand and rain -- but it was still nothing compared with Gen IV at its prime. BW2 OU, even in its final moments, was characterized by a crapton of Terrakion, Keldeo, and genies. But back to Gen IV for a second. Let's take a look at Infernape and Blaziken. In Gens 5 and 6, the mentality has always been, "Determine who is best and use him. Discard the inferior copy." But in Gen IV, you couldn't do that. Infernape was faster but weaker. Blaziken was slower but stronger. While Infernape ended up being the more popular choice, especially as he carved out a niche as a suicide lead, it was always a Pepsi and Coke thing with Infernape and Blaziken right to the very end of the format. People tend to forget that Blaziken didn't always have Speed Boost and wasn't always banned from OU either. He used to be slow(er than his competition), and he used to be seen in OU from time to time. Diversity. In Gen IV, your Water slot was generally tailored around the specific needs of your team. Whether you chose to run a Starmie, Gyarados, Empoleon, or Vaporeon depended on what you would be using that Water-type to do. This is still true for a lot of team building, but please contrast it with Gen V Water decisions (where you just copy+pasted the Rain Team list from Smogon and called it a day) or Gen VI Water decisions (where it was Greninja or bust). You could easily find someone today who would argue, "Anyone who doesn't choose to run Greninja on their team is a fool." But try finding that person in 2008 with Gyarados or Starmie. It's a lot harder. Everyone recognized the best Waters as great, but no one was supreme above all the rest. Diversity. Long story short: I like your choice of analogy but disagree entirely with where you chose to take it. First, YGO has long enjoyed a diverse meta; if it no longer does, it is only a very recent development in the game's long history. Second, Gen IV wasn't the least diverse meta -- it was one of the most diverse.
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01-26-2015, 07:49 PM | #3866 | |||||||||
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In contrast, I consider preBW2 meta to be the best because the unbalanced threats that were introduced in BW2 weren't around, and the hits had made rain and sand less ridiculous made for a diverse meta. It obviously wasn't diverse at first because of how powerful rain was. Greninja is an interesting case because it was only just unbalanced, and there were still options you could run. Azumarill, Keldeo, Mega Gyarados, Mega Slowbro etc were all still viable options. I'd imagine that there are more viable Waters now then in Gen IV. I'm not sure where you are getting some of your points, but meh. Judging from the beginning of your post, you aren't in a mood to have a conversation and just want to make me look stupid.
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01-26-2015, 08:23 PM | #3867 | ||||||||
時の彼方へ
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Too much to reply to in one post. Let's break this up into halves then.
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But even in March 2013, I would say that DR wasn't the only OU deck in the format. It was the only Ubers deck in the format. You're being a bit dumb, Blaze, if you're going to sit there and tell me that the most broken deck in the history of YGO was its seminal format's only "OU" deck. That doesn't even make sense. Quote:
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Spoiler: show Top 4 didn't even include Doppel. It was Tdos (Six Sams), phoopes (DR), myself (4-Axis), and Fallen (Madolche iirc; NOT looking it up too). As for you and your decks ... "BlazeVA: Battlin' Boxer/Warrior swarm, Dark World, Dragon Rulers" No Spellbooks. Because I'm pretty fucking sure that was a 2014 development. And that belief is why I left it off the list in the first place. No. Say what you will for the other two, Mermail was 100% OU. It was the most common deck at the time besides DR. I am not going to run along with your nonsensical idea of a one-deck OU tier, an absent Ubers tier, and 90% of the decks jam fucking packed into what you're hilariously insisting on calling "UNDERUSED". Quote:
Not in 2013. They were hit hard by bans that made them no longer the broken-as-shit deck they once were but they were still ridiculous first-turn-win decks that operated just fine thanks to ample ways to ensure that Hornet made it into the hand ASAP. It wasn't until the Fallen-hosted tournament that Inzektors had fallen off the map. I'm really starting to think that you've confused 2014 for 2013. Quote:
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No one enjoyed the mirror: because it was luck-based. Dragon Rulers had zero skill to it. It was an auto-pilot deck. In my very first time EVER piloting DR, ever, and not even doing things optimally, I smashed Doppel's Stardust Stun to smithereens. He was playing seriously and he lost to a "What does this button do? " player. That only lasted for one or two games. By game 3, I understood how to pilot the deck optimally. And that was where skill ended and luck began. Who gets the better opening hand. Who gets the better draws. Factors which no players that truly favors skill are going to want to see determining their duels' outcomes. Yet that's precisely what the DR vs. DR mirror was: pure luck, zero skill. And I never once said that you said it. I am angry now because you're fucking pissing me off with this selective reading nonsense. Be angry with me all you like but don't accuse me of saying things I never said. Quote:
Pokémon replies in Part 2. Or never, if we end up calling it off because you read this reply and realize "Sweet baby Moses, I misread things and mistook 2014 for 2013. "
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01-26-2015, 08:32 PM | #3868 | |
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http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_of_the_Tachyon_Galaxy
Take a look through this list. You might notice something! Spellbook of Judgment. Aka the card that completely broke Spellbooks. I'm sorry, you are the one that can't even get your facts straight. >tourney results ... ... ... ... ... I'm gonna walk out here. Or no actually: http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=1139077 I'm going to leave this here to show you what I mean. When I mean tourney results, I don't mean our little hokey tourney. Quote:
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01-26-2015, 08:42 PM | #3869 | |
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Anyways, I might make a full reply tonight since I'll probably stay up late when I get home, but just responding to something I can do quickly, Blaziken was almost never used in the upper reaches of Gen IV. And you can still use the inferior choice in today's meta too. Suicune may not have the defenses of Mega Slowbro or the offensive presence combined with bulk that Azumarill brings, but it has a niche as well. Yet it isn't common at all at high level play, much like Blaziken in Gen IV. Not much has changed except now there instead of one superior option and one inferior option with a niche, there's 3-4 superior options and the same amount of inferior options with niches.
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01-26-2015, 08:47 PM | #3870 | |
時の彼方へ
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That isn't what I did. Spelling it out for you:
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Putting it into Pokémon terms, it's like when you're each down to your final Pokémon, you happen to have the exact same final Pokémon -- same species, same mega state, same nature, same IVs and EVs, same exact everything -- you're both within one hit of winning the game, you both order the same attack, and it falls to a coin flip. That isn't skill. Anything that came before might have been, but (per our example) everything that came before equaled out in the end. The ultimate deciding factor for this match is luck. It was the same thing with a DR vs. DR mirror. It was purely a question of who could get out the game's win conditions faster. Which in turn becomes a set of secondary questions: who has the better opening hand, who gets the better draws, etc. Like I have said from the very beginning.
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01-26-2015, 08:53 PM | #3871 |
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Dude, you can't say that the mirror was luck-based when you never played it. You played against Stardust Stun, a deck that was weaker than Dragon Rulers. Dragon Rulers had no skill against weaker match-ups, because it so easily dominated them. I've played against Qliphorts, the "no-skill" deck of this format, and I still won easily every time. I'm well aware of the strength of the deck I used in the tail-end of the format, because my Match W/L ratio is primarily because of that. I've played the mirror, its not the same match. I was also bad, so I lost a good portion of the time.
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01-26-2015, 08:53 PM | #3872 |
I make cryin' babies weep
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Alright, so we've established Pokemon is a heavily luck based game (Surprise, surprise), and that Yugioh still makes absolutely no sense unless you dedicate an unhealthy amount of time and willpower towards it. Back to actually discussing Pokemon instead of what decides a mirror match between two overpowered Dragon Master Blaster decks, what level of diversity do you think is healthy for Pokemon, why, and what steps should be taken to achieve this diversity while still retaining a healthy amount of skill necessary?
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01-26-2015, 08:54 PM | #3873 | |
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01-26-2015, 09:06 PM | #3874 | |
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Yeah just chiming in with an objectively wrong opinion...yup.
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01-26-2015, 09:27 PM | #3875 |
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I was going to toss this Blaze's way before he ever got a reply in. Then I was really going to toss it his way once he started to reply.
But even if you want to end the bickering, Sparkbeat, what I'm about to share next is still relevant to the discussion you've settled on. So buckle up and prepare for ... JIRACHI! Jirachi, and Why Smogon Has Lost Their Way In modern (Gen 6) discussions about suspect tests and bans, a visible majority of Smogon staff members and their vocal supporters have argued that creatures who can run 2+ radically different sets effectively are an unhealthy thing for the meta and that they should be banned. We've seen these arguments used to justify the bans of Mega Lucario (two main sets), Aegislash (three main sets), and Greninja (two main sets with myriad permutations). But in Generation 4, things were quite different. In Generation 4, a Pokémon's ability to run more than one set effectively wasn't seen as a bad thing. Rather, it was celebrated. Nowhere does that shine more brilliantly true than with the Gen 4 Smogon Pokédex entry for Jirachi. Now, you'll have to forgive me: Smogon's Gen 6 redesign of the website has fucked everything up and made it difficult for me to prove my point by simply providing you a link. This is because we have the Ubers, OU, and other formats' sets all mixed together on one page. But I can still copy and paste the OU ones for you. Or, since you have eyes and know how the Internet works, I can just give you the link, list off the set names, and let you read through them at your leisure: 1. Choice Scarf
And this was one of the things that was so celebrated about Jirachi during Gen 4. It would be lunacy to parade around an OU Pokémon's ability to do multiple tasks in the current climate -- it's a swift trip to the gallows for your favorite team member if you do that! =\ -- but back in Gen 4 it was something that showed up in near about every issue of The Smog. OU kings were championed either for doing one job supremely well or else for doing numerous jobs very well. And it wasn't just Jirachi who had tons of OU sets. Heatran? Ten sets. Tyranitar? Seven sets. Gengar? Seven sets. Seeing a pattern here? Great Pokémon often have a great number of viable sets. Or at least, they were advertised this way back in Gen 4. Then Today, we have a site that argued that Mega Lucario was "too good" simply because it could run either a potent physical set or a potent special set and that "this reduces battles to a coin flip." What would this ban council have made of the Gen 4 kings and queens of OU!? "Oh man, we simply must ban Jirachi! It walls all of my favorite Dragons AND it can run seven different sets effectively! Will it be scarfed? Will it be specs'd? Will it Calm Mind? Sub? Set up screens? YOU WON'T KNOW UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE!" So to answer your questions, Sparkbeat ... In an ideal world I'd like it if the creature diversity of Gen 4 OU and Gen 4 UU could be merged into one tier where everyone was viable at the top end of the tier. Not going to happen with Pokémon as we currently know it, unfortunately, but it's what I'd like to see. 55 main creatures in OU, while it may sound big, is not nearly enough diversity for people who play frequently. We need at least 100, and it'd be a nice dream to have 200+. Keep things fresh. At the top, top, top top end of the tier, I want to see at least 50 creatures. Personal preference. The game becomes boring when it's the same few creatures again and again and again. It's made even worse when they all run the same moves, items, natures, etc. Before I can even answer this question, are we coming at this from Smogon's end ("prune the bush to save it!") or from Game Freak's end ("overhaul the entire system if we have to! just DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!")?
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