What's the future of this forum? I never understood why we stopped making tier lists upon the release of SWSH. I understand that clock mechanics can trivialize a large portion of the encounters but I don't think that justified the lack of any attempt to create one. It seems like BDSP has followed the same fate, but given the underground has limited availability based on national dex/badges, why haven't we tried making a list for those games?
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
In-game tier list policy discussion thread
- Thread starter Codraroll
- Start date
To be precise, noone bothered with SwSh tierlist because it just was not possible to make one.
With the fact as soon as you hit wild area you have access to a absolutely enormous variety on top of raids allowing you to acquire high tier moves right away, it basically ends up boiling to "just use whatever", without even considering the variance due to clock shenenigans.
Let's Go was in similar boat where candies just let you cheese anything if you want to even with just a caterpie.
For BDSP... I think just there was no real interest. At its core it's basically DP, with some minor QoL changes and some basic improvement to boss fights, but I assume people have no interest in... replaying again what's basically the same game that's already tierlisted.
And then there's the Great Underground which basically hits same "problem" of the wild area.
In general, making tier lists for modern games becomes kind of a chore... so much variety, so many ways to just cheese the game with little effort, combined with the lingering sentiment of many of the oldschoolers that actually cared for tier lists toward Dexit, I can definitely see why the interest in replaying the games over and over to evaluate pokemon is nonexistant.
Yeah, I think even in a best case scenario I won’t tier anything past Gen 5 with the exception of USUM (which is mostly done).
There is overkill variety and almost no one is asking for an XY or SWSH list because they are so easy it is borderline irrelevant.
If I could get my Wii up and going again and had the passion, the only thing I’d be semi-interested in making another tier list for besides BW2 is Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, but that would be EXCEPTIONALLY slow going because that game is glacial paced and I know I couldn’t run through it back to back repeatedly because of how battle heavy the back half is.
There was a tier list made for XY, and I thought good progress was being made on that before it was locked. I’d think it deserves at least to get the analyses for that one finished.
SWSH though I absolutely agree with, since there’s an absolute bonkers variety of Pokémon available early (hell it’d be easier to list the Pokémon you can’t get before Ballonlea (the fifth gym is my personal cut-off for in-game teams), even if we don’t include Max Raids) including pretty much all the good ones.
Also, what about base SM? There’s less Pokémon available than in USUM so the variety isn’t as overwhelming, plus while it’s not as hard as USUM it’s still more so than XY or SWSH. I believe there was a tier list for base SM in the works too.
EDIT: Plus for non-Gen 8 games it helps that the Exp. Share can be turned off.
Last edited:
I'd assume a problem with tiering SM is replayability, much like USUM. It's a big game even without factoring cutscenes (I am not sure how many SM has, seems to be less than USUM), so even if you weren't testing rigorously (as I have encouraged for my USUM list), it'd take a huge effort to get it done. Hell, the only reason I was able to replay it so much for my list was that I rigged up my emulator to run it at a good speed (although it fried up my laptop, which is why I stopped actively running USUM) and also did some rigging so that I can skip most of the early-game cutscenes (and, if needed, I could "start" from a "checkpoint" if not running anything before that).
As for other lists, FRLG is almost done since few months, all it really needs is final thoughts on a bunch of Pokemon and we could move to write-ups. GSC would also be close to finishing if we apply all consensuses and see what else needs more discussion. USUM, likewise, needs final thoughts on a few more Pokemon and I am happy to move it to write-ups as well
A while back, I did a pet project to see if it was even possible to tier SWSH. While I made headway on it, there was just an absurd amount of rules to enable a fair assessment, a bunch of time manipulation to ensure you get could get good TRs and other stuff. Dynamax also just kinda hurt tiering as you could easily just click the button and sweep entire MUs. I ended up scrapping it completely.
GSC has to have a bunch of retests to make sure everything is in the right tier they need to be. While it's a bunch of work, I want to make sure that it is accurate as it can possibly be.
Can somebody explain to me why Pokemon A needing a TM for 1 MU means Pokemon A should be tiered lower if every other Pokemon who could want the TM also win the MU? Given that you can only face a MU once I don't understand the opportunity cost. If Pokemon B wins the MU and also uses the TM in other MU's then I don't see why it lowers the viability of Pokemon A as every team with Pokemon A will win the MU.
If a TM either wins you the battle on its own or is only learned by Pokemon that can win the battle then I agree that it generally shouldn't matter that a given Pokemon 'relies' on that TM to win, but can you give a specific example of a Pokemon that's tiered lower because of this? It'd be easier to come up with potential reasons if we were dealing with something more concrete.
Off the top of my head, there are a couple of (niche) possibilities. Maybe the TM in question is quite a valuable one for the rest of the game when taught to Pokemon B, but on Pokemon A it's only really useful for that one fight. In that case teaching it to A does represent a minor opportunity cost, although arguably not enough to drop it a tier. Conversely, teaching the TM could require you to overwrite a move on Pokemon A that has more general utility, perhaps in a game where relearning moves isn't super accessible for whatever reason. In that case, Pokemon A using the TM to win that fight compromises its usefulness later on.
Definitely agree that TM reliance in the scenario you've outlined shouldn't inherently make a Pokemon drop in viability, though.
I didn’t want to name the specific Pokémon because I don’t care where they’re tiered and just want to understand why they’re tiered where they are but they are GSC Cyndaquil and Pinsir both wanting Fury Cutter. Cyndaquil and Pinsir both want Fury Cutter to beat Whitney. They both perform comparably as well with and without it. Cyndaquil doesn’t really use it for anything else while Pinsir uses it for other major matchups.
What I don’t understand is why isn’t a team with Cyndaquil beating Whitney using Cyndaquil and a team with Cyndaquil+Pinsir beating Whitney with Pinsir treated the same for Cyndaquil’s tiering. I believe every Pokémon that wants to use Fury Cutter is available before Whitney and they beat Whitney but we got stuck in the other thread talking about Pinsir specifically.
What I don’t understand is why isn’t a team with Cyndaquil beating Whitney using Cyndaquil and a team with Cyndaquil+Pinsir beating Whitney with Pinsir treated the same for Cyndaquil’s tiering. I believe every Pokémon that wants to use Fury Cutter is available before Whitney and they beat Whitney but we got stuck in the other thread talking about Pinsir specifically.
My 2 cents on TMs in tier-lists pre-gen 5:
You can look at TMs in 1 of two ways. 1: as a part of the move pool like a level-up move or 2: as a resource required to make a Mon functional.
If you go with the former, the Mons with larger TM move pool will be rated higher because they have more moves to help in more fights making them more efficient (examples being Gen 1 Clefable and the Nidos which are S tier). You would have to assume that the reader will pick a team knowing TMs aren't all reuseable and would pick a team accordingly.
If you go with the latter, you punish the Mons that require TMs to work as using a TM on them is the use of a resource which you may have to go out of your way to get to pick up, spend money to purchase or be otherwise inefficient to have. This would mean Pokemon such as RBY Abra and RBY Diglett should be praised more for being more efficient only needing their level-up moves
Personally, I prefer the former. I like to rate and think about a Pokemon based on its unique way of being the most efficient Pokemon it can be (in the context of a team as opposed to just soloing). If that means a Pokemon needs an expensive or 1 off TM to be the best Pokemon it can be then so be it. If two Pokemon require the same TM it shouldn't effect either of them just as we shouldn't rate 1 Pokemon lower because another does the same job but better. It is up to the player to look at those Mons and make that choice themselves as to who gets the TM or makes the team at all
You can look at TMs in 1 of two ways. 1: as a part of the move pool like a level-up move or 2: as a resource required to make a Mon functional.
If you go with the former, the Mons with larger TM move pool will be rated higher because they have more moves to help in more fights making them more efficient (examples being Gen 1 Clefable and the Nidos which are S tier). You would have to assume that the reader will pick a team knowing TMs aren't all reuseable and would pick a team accordingly.
If you go with the latter, you punish the Mons that require TMs to work as using a TM on them is the use of a resource which you may have to go out of your way to get to pick up, spend money to purchase or be otherwise inefficient to have. This would mean Pokemon such as RBY Abra and RBY Diglett should be praised more for being more efficient only needing their level-up moves
Personally, I prefer the former. I like to rate and think about a Pokemon based on its unique way of being the most efficient Pokemon it can be (in the context of a team as opposed to just soloing). If that means a Pokemon needs an expensive or 1 off TM to be the best Pokemon it can be then so be it. If two Pokemon require the same TM it shouldn't effect either of them just as we shouldn't rate 1 Pokemon lower because another does the same job but better. It is up to the player to look at those Mons and make that choice themselves as to who gets the TM or makes the team at all
I personally believe a balance should be found between the two points that Millky95 suggests - obviously being able to win a battle is a good thing, but it's not as good if you used resources as if you didn't
What I personally started doing (this doesn't mean everyone should do it) is to work with some sort of score system. If a mon wins a major battle it gets one point, and no point if it doesn't or is unavailable, and it loses 0.2 points for each "rare" TM it has needed on each battle - "rare" being stuff you get only once or is very expensive to get - and then calculate the percentage of the score, and tier the mon according to that.
For example, in GSC Chikorita's case:
Now, this is obviously a bit arbitrary - as tiering in general -, but somehow the mons have been able to fit into their place, and I have been able to have a concrete idea on their placements.
What I personally started doing (this doesn't mean everyone should do it) is to work with some sort of score system. If a mon wins a major battle it gets one point, and no point if it doesn't or is unavailable, and it loses 0.2 points for each "rare" TM it has needed on each battle - "rare" being stuff you get only once or is very expensive to get - and then calculate the percentage of the score, and tier the mon according to that.
For example, in GSC Chikorita's case:
The metric I generally use is the following:
0 - 16.6% = E Tier
16.7 - 33.3% = D Tier
33.4 - 50% = C Tier
50.1 - 66.6% = B Tier
66.7 - 83.3% = A Tier
83.4 - 100% = S Tier
GSC has 17 major battles (8 Gym Leaders, 4 Rival battles, 5 League members)
The summary of Chikorita's results was:
Needs no rare TM to win: Chuck, Pryce, Will, Bruno
[4 points in total]
Needs one rare TM to win: Whitney (Fury Cutter TM), Jasmine (Mud-Slap TM), Silver (Goldenrod, Mud-Slap TM), Silver (Victory Road, Earthquake TM)
[3.2 points in total]
Couldn't win: Falkner, Bugsy, Silver (Azalea), Silver (Burned Tower), Morty, Clair, Koga, Karen, Lance
Therefore Chikorita has a score of 7.2 out of 17, which is 42.4% approximately. Hence it would land into C Tier.
In the GSC tier list I said however that I would agree dropping Chikorita to D if no consideration was given to Synthesis. Without Synthesis, Chikorita can't win against Will and Bruno, hence it would have 5.2 out of 17, which is a 30.6% approximately. Hence a D Tier.
0 - 16.6% = E Tier
16.7 - 33.3% = D Tier
33.4 - 50% = C Tier
50.1 - 66.6% = B Tier
66.7 - 83.3% = A Tier
83.4 - 100% = S Tier
GSC has 17 major battles (8 Gym Leaders, 4 Rival battles, 5 League members)
The summary of Chikorita's results was:
Needs no rare TM to win: Chuck, Pryce, Will, Bruno
[4 points in total]
Needs one rare TM to win: Whitney (Fury Cutter TM), Jasmine (Mud-Slap TM), Silver (Goldenrod, Mud-Slap TM), Silver (Victory Road, Earthquake TM)
[3.2 points in total]
Couldn't win: Falkner, Bugsy, Silver (Azalea), Silver (Burned Tower), Morty, Clair, Koga, Karen, Lance
Therefore Chikorita has a score of 7.2 out of 17, which is 42.4% approximately. Hence it would land into C Tier.
In the GSC tier list I said however that I would agree dropping Chikorita to D if no consideration was given to Synthesis. Without Synthesis, Chikorita can't win against Will and Bruno, hence it would have 5.2 out of 17, which is a 30.6% approximately. Hence a D Tier.
Now, this is obviously a bit arbitrary - as tiering in general -, but somehow the mons have been able to fit into their place, and I have been able to have a concrete idea on their placements.
Another perspective: if a TM isn't particularly contested (as in, not many Pokemon want it), then it'd be reasonable not to penalize a Pokemon for needing it. To take the Fury Cutter example, not a lot of Pokemon want Fury Cutter significantly (the ones I can think of are Pinsir, Scyther, Paras, and Beedrill), so I wouldn't say you "limit" your team options if you decide to use up the TM and don't think this should really penalize anything, be it Cyndaquil or Pinsir or anything. It might also be worth to look into if many Pokemon *depend* on the TM to function; stuff like Beedrill won't really become outright unviable if you decide not to teach it Fury Cutter.
(I personally think Fury Cutter Quilava is basically an unset, but that might be more suited for the GSC thread)
(I personally think Fury Cutter Quilava is basically an unset, but that might be more suited for the GSC thread)
TM philosophy should depend on how we want the tier lists to be used. In practice they're mostly just a fun exercise for OI users, but theoretically they're meant to act as a teambuilding resource for a player who wants to run through a game efficiently (but not necessarily as quickly as possible). Making a Pokemon's ranking reflect the best-case scenario is the simplest approach, but it assumes that the player either already knows enough about the game/Pokemon in question to understand any opportunity costs or that they're reading half the list to scout out issues with other potential teammates.
Incorporating these costs into the ranking is more complicated (and often arbitrary) but it means that a player can get a more complete picture from reading a single entry in isolation. The downside, of course, is that not every team composition faces the same competition for resources, so such an approach can end up underrating a Pokemon, on average.
Incorporating these costs into the ranking is more complicated (and often arbitrary) but it means that a player can get a more complete picture from reading a single entry in isolation. The downside, of course, is that not every team composition faces the same competition for resources, so such an approach can end up underrating a Pokemon, on average.
I also like doing the opposite. Finding which are the crapmons to give the game a challenge. Like playing where you can only use 1 C-tier and the rest have to be lower. Which is why I like the "this is the best way to use this Mon, it is X-tier" approach
Ah sorry I wasn't clear: I mean efficiently given the player's preferences. Like, the lists help you get the most out of a given mon and minimise the time wasted on unworkable strategies, without recommending speedrun-style tactics.
Tbh as much as I like these tier lists, I find that contributing to them makes it harder for me to enjoy unconventional playthroughs of a game. You become so knowledgeable about each specific fight that it removes the elements of surprise, innovation, and improvisation that make a challenge run truly satisfying for me.
This is only true if you completely ignore the Grand Underground. I slept on it too because I figured "it's just the Underground again with a new name, why should I care" but PonStefon made a case earlier in the thread for it being a game-changer—it gives you access to Pokemon which either are unavailable elsewhere in the game or are only available later/require a lot of babying as soon as you can access it and continues to give you more options as you progress through the game, but doesn't overwhelm you with options like the Wild Area.
To other testers: what is your testing style?
To be more specific:
I know we had discussions about the first issue in the GSC tier list; some early-game (around badge 1-2) Pokemon like Wooper and Magikarp are incredibly frustrating to use due to their slow start but can be caught fully evolved later in the game (around the 4th badge or just after) and are much better then. The second is also one that I have regularly debated with others; the level curve in GSC is truly obnoxious and unless you literally grind against NPCs or have very few Pokemon in your team, odds are you will be underleveled around the mid or lategame.
To be more specific:
- Do you grade Pokemon from the earliest moment you can obtain them or from the moment they are actually good?
- Do you fight every NPC you can or only as necessary to maintain levels with the next boss?
- Do any of your rules vary depending on the game or Pokemon?
- Should backtracks be penalized if the backtrack can and does yield a massive difference for a Pokemon?
I know we had discussions about the first issue in the GSC tier list; some early-game (around badge 1-2) Pokemon like Wooper and Magikarp are incredibly frustrating to use due to their slow start but can be caught fully evolved later in the game (around the 4th badge or just after) and are much better then. The second is also one that I have regularly debated with others; the level curve in GSC is truly obnoxious and unless you literally grind against NPCs or have very few Pokemon in your team, odds are you will be underleveled around the mid or lategame.
Last edited:
1. From the moment I obtain them, but availability is important too, and joining late is probably worse
2. Only as necessary to maintain levels with the next boss. For the endgame, obviously every NPC I can
3. From Gens 1-4, needing buyable TMs is not really a negative while those given to you kinda are since you have only one of them (or Game Corner TMs, as they are very expensive). From Gens 5 onwards (except cases like BDSP) I believe it's the opposite, since buyable TMs are very expensive, and those gifted to you are freebies. Also Rivals don't really matter from Gen 4 onwards as far as I'm concerned
4. Honestly I don't think I care about backtracks too much
Given that they're releasing soon, I think we should at least discuss tiering Scarlet/Violet. Obvious problems:
I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but it doesn't seem as bad as SWSH was. And it'll probably be a while before the games are really understood well enough to tier in earnest. But are people thinking a tier list will be a thing?
Open world means massive mon variety.
Depending on how they handle going out of your way early on, it's entirely possible the 'best' strategy will just be to catch something overleveled and sweep
Any bad matchup can be left until later, making "does really bad/really well against Gym 3" less important.
Points over SwSh:
No dynamax
Open world likely means less need to grind raids, just go where the mons are
Open world may make it essentially impossible(DP Heracross/SM Salamence level difficult) to actually get most of the open world mons
New TM system seems to be a lot less random than the raid rewards were
Depending on how they handle going out of your way early on, it's entirely possible the 'best' strategy will just be to catch something overleveled and sweep
Any bad matchup can be left until later, making "does really bad/really well against Gym 3" less important.
Points over SwSh:
No dynamax
Open world likely means less need to grind raids, just go where the mons are
Open world may make it essentially impossible(DP Heracross/SM Salamence level difficult) to actually get most of the open world mons
New TM system seems to be a lot less random than the raid rewards were
Depending on how much freedom is available in SV, these factors might come into play whether or not it is worth putting an in-game tier list for it.
Availability and favorable or unfavorable matchups will greatly be emphasized unless their stats or other factors are still miserable.
Wait was SWSH tiering really going to account for/encourage Raid grinding? Of all the things I figured would be left to the wayside in that discussion I figured that would be #1 with a bullet and Pokemon would just deal with the normal moves & TMs you get otherwise; swsh playthroughs didn't exactly require optimization and even with manipulations there's still just, a lot of them.
Regardless I expect SV will just not have tiering. There's still permanent exp share on, there's probably still going to be a ton of Pokemon, the open world has a lot of variance all at once even if it takes a while to truly open up, there is probably not going to be a notable step up in difficulty...I assume none of the issues that resulted in no real tiering of gen 8 will really go away.
Regardless I expect SV will just not have tiering. There's still permanent exp share on, there's probably still going to be a ton of Pokemon, the open world has a lot of variance all at once even if it takes a while to truly open up, there is probably not going to be a notable step up in difficulty...I assume none of the issues that resulted in no real tiering of gen 8 will really go away.
It was one of the points discussed at the time. The problem is...look at Coalossal. If you don't have any Raid/Watt Trader TMs, it just doesn't have noteworthy STABs for most of the game. But it can learn basically every rock and fire TR, so 1 raid of each type and it's golden. Whether you get Overheat/Fire Blast/Heat Wave/etc is irrelevant, just get something. Not allowing that feels like artificial difficulty. But if you do allow that, do you account for Heat Wave as coverage on Swoobat?
The discussion IIRC never reached a satisfying conclusion, but the decision was made not to tier those games so it was irrelevant. Hopefully, this gen TMs and TRs won't be quite as much a mess. Grinding is one thing, the tier lists accounted for Game Corner TMs for 4 generations, but grinding plus random rewards are not a good idea.
Maybe they fix the level curve this time around, that'd be nice. I'm worried that the only difficulty will be what we make of it(hello No-DMax runs of SWSH), but I wanted to start the discussion anyway, just in case.
Would anybody be curious on the possibility of a Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in-game tier list? It would likely be a whole lot looser than the other games by how many mons there are, but I genuinely really like the game and think an in-game tier list would help give it some positive publicity even if the nonlinear progression and varied options would make it difficult. While it would definitely take a lot longer than most lists due to these factors, I also think I or a friend of mine could feasibly lead or co-lead one due to our years worth of experience with the other lists, even if it would require a vastly different approach. If the game is too new, I don't mind waiting a couple months either.
Last edited:
I have a feel that sadly SV has the same issue of SwSh where having access to (almost) the entire Pokedex right from the start makes creating a tier list somewhat of a issue...
HOWEVER...
one thing that could reliably be used as base for a tier list would be trying to rank mons based on their ability to be used for the entirety of the game. Ultimately we're looking at 8 gyms, 5 team star boss fights, and the 5 titan fights, as well as e4 and the other battles before the final arc.
I definitely remind some pokemon being significantly nonimpressive back when I played to the point of regretting having even bothered to level them, so if a tierlist attempt had to be made, it would probably have to consider "all stories" as metric, rather than availability (as with very few exception, pretty much every pokemon in the game can be obtained as soon as you are out of the tutorial, or in worst case after having beaten enough gyms to have lvl 30 obedience, high level fixed tera encounters nonwhitstanding)