Aldaron's Proposal has not led to more illogical complex bans. Another ban that the majority of us find logical will
not lead to more illogical complex bans.
And honestly, I think some of you are being too idealistic about the tiering system. Ultimately, we are creating a metagame that we want to play. The purpose of this thread is to figure out what kind of metagame we
do want to play.
I'm actually surprised that
this thread hasn't been brought up yet (as far as I know). I agree with most of the 'characteristics' enumerated.
Competitive
The metagame should encourage players to play to win.
This one seems obvious, but it's NOT about eliminating luck -- it basically means we shouldn't care about things being 'cheap' or 'lame' in the metagame as long as the metagame is balanced.
Variety
The metagame should have the widest possible variety of playing options and strategies that are viable and competitive for knowledgeable players.
It seems to be a general consensus that the more options a player has, the more fun a game can be. Consequently, words like "overcentralization" quickly pop up in reasoning over whether a Pokemon should be banned for restricting variety. However, this is possibly the most difficult characteristic to work with -- banning Rain might help other weathers be more viable, but one of those weathers may end up being more dangerous than Rain ever was!
Balance
All viable playing options and strategies should be as competitively balanced as possible, in relation to each other.
This is another obvious one, and is significantly tied to "Variety". We simply don't want to play a metagame where Garchomp sweeps everything to the point where you're running Scarfed Machamp to kill that dodging motherfucker. It also relates to playstyles -- a metagame completely dominated by Stall, to the point where every team has to run crap like Taunt SD Gliscor or Mean Look Perish Song Misdreavus, is not a fun metagame to play in either.
Stability
The metagame should have stable content that is consistent over time.
We don't want to just be changing the metagame on a whim. Therefore, it should be relatively difficult to ban things (though easier, imo, to unban things) in order to prevent us from just impulse-banning things we don't like without giving the metagame a chance to stabilize. It's not possible to adequately analyze a metagame that hasn't stabilized.
Adherence
The metagame should adhere as closely as possible to the rules, mechanics, and spirit of the actual Pokemon game.
This one... is a sticking point. I'm in favor of bans of only one entity: banning
entire Pokemon, or
entire abilities on every Pokemon that get them. In fact, I want to remove Aldaron's Proposal and test all of the Swift Swimmers individually: Moody was banned because it was broken on pretty much any Pokemon possible. It was broken on
Bidoof. Swift Swim, on the other hand, is clearly not broken on every Pokemon possible. See: Magikarp, Luvdisc, Armaldo... Removing Aldaron's Proposal would give us more consistency in our tiering system and also possibly net us a cool Spiker in Qwilfish or fast spinner in Armaldo. :X
Skill
The metagame should require knowledge and practice to become an expert player and to achieve consistent success at the highest levels of play.
Yeah, we don't want an 'easy mode' game where you can win every game via Smashpass.
Luck
The metagame should allow a reasonable degree of chance to affect all facets of gameplay and game outcomes.
This was the one I was iffy on. In my opinion, the main place that luck has is in the tradeoff of Power vs. Consistency -- aka are you willing to run Fire Blast over Flamethrower and accept the misses in return for increased power. Also, strategies like parafusion is another tradeoff -- you are gambling a moveslot/Pokemon that the luck will go your way. At the same time, luck shouldn't allow a player to win a game against another player far more skilled than he/she is. Also, things like Paralysis and Confusion can be countered by Ground-types/Rest-Talkers and Own Tempo/switching respectively. On the other hand, Minimize can't be countered without Haze, Lock-On, or Unaware (or being lucky...).
Efficiency
The metagame should be as efficient as possible in execution of gameplay and resolving outcomes.
We should keep the rules as simple as possible. Nintendo isn't going to pull random crap like move restrictions on individual Pokemon, and neither should we. The game should be relatively simple to pick up with a banlist of Pokemon and maybe a few abilities.
...and that's my piece.