Resource 1v1 Old Gens Discussion Thread

[Ginger Princess]

Discuss any changes or small edits you'd like to see in uploaded analyses.

 

[Mubs]

Hey. I think it's about time someone brings up that changes need to be made with the ORAS analyses project.

ORAS analyses have been extremely inactive since its inception earlier this year. Of course, some of this lack of activity is to be expected - old generation analyses projects generally tend to be less active than their current-generation counterparts - but it's certainly concerning to see that since the middle of June, we've only had one analysis uploaded, three that have been achieved due to waning interest, and six that have been in WIP for over two months. To add on to this already concerning metric, no one has reserved a single analysis since late July.

Besides the point I mentioned before, I also feel that we should have started out with mini analyses, and then progressed to fulls when every notable pokemon had an analysis on-site. Sure, mini analyses have been mainly used this generation because of the DLC drops, but it has become quite evident that minis are preferred by a large amount of the community due to the lesser workload for all parties, allowing for content to be uploaded quickly instead of sitting for months on end. I understand that people like Alakazam predominantly prefer analyses be done in full, but its become obvious that it's not allowing content to be uploaded in any reasonable timeframe. When the whole entire point of analyses is to provide content on the dex to help people understand a metagame and what we're doing right now is inefficient at best, something needs to change.

As always, thanks for reading, and have a nice day. Mubs out.

 

[Ginger Princess]

Hey. I think it's about time someone brings up that changes need to be made with the ORAS analyses project.

ORAS analyses have been extremely inactive since its inception earlier this year. Of course, some of this lack of activity is to be expected - old generation analyses projects generally tend to be less active than their current-generation counterparts - but it's certainly concerning to see that since the middle of June, we've only had one analysis uploaded, three that have been achieved due to waning interest, and six that have been in WIP for over two months. To add on to this already concerning metric, no one has reserved a single analysis since late July.

Besides the point I mentioned before, I also feel that we should have started out with mini analyses, and then progressed to fulls when every notable pokemon had an analysis on-site. Sure, mini analyses have been mainly used this generation because of the DLC drops, but it has become quite evident that minis are preferred by a large amount of the community due to the lesser workload for all parties, allowing for content to be uploaded quickly instead of sitting for months on end. I understand that people like Alakazam predominantly prefer analyses be done in full, but its become obvious that it's not allowing content to be uploaded in any reasonable timeframe. When the whole entire point of analyses is to provide content on the dex to help people understand a metagame and what we're doing right now is inefficient at best, something needs to change.

As always, thanks for reading, and have a nice day. Mubs out.

I agree with your overarching point that motivation for ORAS analyses aren't as high as they could be. Compared to the current Gen and even SM, the pool of qualified, motivated players who want to actually write for ORAS is low. However, I wouldn't say that the solution to this would be to dumb down analyses in order to attract less interested writers.

Fulls are used when a metagame has moved into a place of development where it is clear that no new metagame-altering decisions are going to be made, and where there has been sufficient time passed for the most viable techs to have been developed and optimized. Minis, as they are without alteration, are designed specifically to be killed off later and replaced by only discussing one set at a time and being as safe as possible with the information provided, only really talking about moves and weaknesses/teammates to beat general weaknesses. The first wave of mini analyses had huge gaps in relevant information per set, and actually describing when and where a Pokemon could be used was not really possible - even just saying 'use x mon against these types of Pokemon' would usually have exceptions and would usually have matchups that required more explanation.

We had to fix this issue by literally getting permission to just completely recreate what a mini actually was in 1v1 specifically, because we quickly found out as a writing scene and as QC scene that trying to make minis work as they normally exist and provide good information was basically impossible, and you would essentially be lying through omission about the Pokemon's actual abilities by not informing people on relevant matchups. However, the new 1v1-style minis are basically just as much work as a 1 set full (without the Overview and Checks and Counters section, but those are always free, anyway), just missing the formatting that organizes and separates everything into easy to read bites.

There also was the issue of minis creating an environment where writers would flock to easy-to-write 252/252 4 attack sets of a Pokemon while avoiding the top tier sets that required more work. SubDisable Dragapult is an example, with that set existing basically since the beginning of SS and never getting a mini analysis completed. This basically makes mini formats the way to ignore what's actually good at first and just grind out mindless attacking sets for badges.

However, the idea of minis does bring up the interesting possibility of opening up 1v1 style minis for the lower-ranked Pokemon in a given Old Gen, that don't necessarily require the same level of thought, and won't have nearly as strong of a place in the metagame to require the work needed for a full analysis. Taking SM as an example, we have a shitton of C/C-/D ranked Pokemon that are hardly ever used anymore in tournament, but still are technically viable as niche options or w/ever. I think its pretty safe to say that no one is really going to care enough to write a full analysis on a mon like Chesnaught, nor will they care if the analysis on Chesnaught is missing information on how it handles top-level threats (because lower ranked Pokemon couldn't handle most top level threats, period), so maybe doing a 1v1-style mini would be the way to go.

Another solution would be instead to focus on uploading sample sets onto the dex first so that *something* is there. I believe this was attempted with ORAS, but the set compendium available was too outdated/unoptimized/had inexplicable EVs/missing viable sets, that we decided to simply start with fulls and optimize sets as they came along. Maybe it would have been best to instead bite the bullet and create sample sets before this process began, though there's no reason we can't start them now.

Anyway, minis should be avoided like the plague. They actively withhold information and encourage the best sets in a metagame to be ignored. Changing them to fix these problems just creates Full analyses again, workload wise. At least with the Fulls they're properly organized, instead of forcing a reader to comb through everything to find the one specific part they care about. They could only be used, imo, in cases where the potential information missed out would be mitigated by the lack of actual use for a Pokemon. But if you want to fix either the timeframe of how quickly writers write, or actually getting community interest in writing ORAS, there are other ways that this can be pursued.