A lot of competitive players and mods/admins have gathered recently on the IRC and in many places to discuss the changes they would like to see to the OU Suspect testing process, things such as speeding up the process, voting reqs, percentage of votes needed for a ban decision, etc.
These are some of the most agreed upon proposals:
1) The OU council should set clear guidelines on how to judge a pokemon for brokenness, a clear stance on what defines a pokemon, complex bans, and so on.
2) The percentage of votes needed to ban a pokemon should be 66% (two thirds) or above, a decisive majority instead of the current simple majority (50%) in place now.
3) Speeding up the testing process which we feel is too slow. We also believe discussions and subsequently suspect testing should have a fixed interval, every month or so, to decide on whether or not there is something that merits testing.
4) If the metagame has been found stable, retesting OU pokemon that have been voted uber based on metagame changes, new releases and new pokemon.
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcomed, hopefully this thread isn't stepping on any red lines or such.
With regards to 1), clear definitions need to be made that the community abides by when describing Pokemon using these specific terminologies. If any recent posts on these forums are evident, people are confusing strategies revolving around Evasion and OHKO clauses as "broken" rather than simply undesirable competitive attributes because the word broken is being thrown around a lot and is used interchangeably and improperly.
I agree with the 66% majority vote.
I honestly think the biggest issue that needs to be discussed for future gens is if we should take the game as given to us when considering banning or ban based on shaping the metagame to the desire of the players.
Should we take the game as raw as possible while still attaining balance, taking whatever power creep GF throws at us, or should we decide where we want the metagame to be balanced at (I don't literally mean "Balance to DPPt OU" I mean like "Balanced so how strong stall is compared to offense is somewhere around the same as DPPt's" AS AN EXAMPLE DON'T TREAT THESE STATEMENTS LITERALLY thanks) and go from there.
I feel that question is the single most important thing for what the suspect process needs to focus on. I feel that there is a tear in interests between players for what we're banning for, and we really need to figure out which it is. AFAIK some people follow something closer to the former idea and some to the latter, and people choose to ban or not to ban for reasons that conflict with each other on principle. Figuring this out will be crucial to the future of comp IMO.
This post right here defines what I feel has been an issue with the Gen V/V2 suspect process, and it identifies the root of the problem that should be tackled prior to Gen VI if the community is to have a simplified, easy, and quick(er) suspect testing process.
GameFreak is inevitably going to continue releasing more and more potent threats as the generations continue, and the power creep is only going to become more obnoxious and apparent. Smogon would like to have a balanced metagame, but this becomes increasingly difficult when we have an addition of 100-200+ Pokemon each generation, and just as many or more moves and abilities introduced, along with any changes to mechanics. Rather than come to accept this and realize that Pokemon is at its core horrendously balanced based on the cartridge gameplay, a portion of the community has sought to achieve a balanced metagame by removing dominating (not broken) strategies from OU to band-aide the problem. This philosophy is what is responsible for the suspect decisions revolving around Drizzle, the Drizzle + Swift Swim complex ban, and the entire tier it affected. A lot of players would say Gen V is a complete mess, and I would agree with them.
I believe there should be two criteria for what constitutes a ban:
1. Broken: A Pokemon, move, item, or ability that is overpowered to a degree in which its use in competitive play is mandatory in order to remain competitively successful. A Pokemon, move, item, or ability that provides an advantage that cannot reasonably be overcome through player skill or experience at the highest level without the reliance or use of the same Pokemon, move, item, or ability.
2. Uncompetitive: A Pokemon, move, item, or ability that removes strategic element, skill, or relevant choice from either player by emphasizing reliance on luck based outcomes.
What shouldn't constitute a ban or a suspect test are things that people don't like, things that are "easy to use" or are "spammable" (looking at you, U-Turn advocates), things "without counters", and things that "centralize the metagame." There should be no need to resort to complex bans under
any circumstances.
These have always been, and are now more than ever, poor arguments to propose for a suspect test. There will always be strategies that are frowned upon despite their relative balance or imbalance, and this notion alone should not be grounds to suspect test them by that merit alone. Something being spammable, or "easy", is a very childish competitive mentality, and it doesn't illustrate somethings relative power or whether or not a player has the tools available to handle said spammable strategy, Pokemon, move, tactic, et cetera. The whole counters argument has been dead since Gen IV. You cannot rock, paper, scissors counter Pokemon anymore. There's too many overpowered threats to consider for you to do that, and with the introduction of Team Preview, there needs to be an emphasis on outplaying your opponent if you want to beat those uncounterable Pogeys. Using a suspect test to remove these threats that are hard to deal whilst not being broken by definition constitutes anti-competitive incentive, and a philosophy that promotes banning things as opposed to trying to beat them. As for centralization, that's the side effect of Pokemon that are at the top of the food chain. There will
always be Pokemon at the top of the food chain, even if they aren't broken or even overpowered, relatively speaking.
In short, I believe it is within competitive spirit to treat each new generation as different from the last, both in player exprience and competitive balance, and only to test and ban in accordance to the most urgent and damaging of problems presented. I do not advocate a process that believes in shaping the metagame to suit our arbitrary preferences.