Smogon Shoddy Server Statistics - April 2010

[Aura Guardian]

EDIT: @ capefeather

Pointless? No, it isn't. If the UU players determine to do it, they could manage to keep Roserade out, or something. That would be manipulating the metagame.

not entirely relevant

And I already have one possible idea for a new system. (If I can think of one that fast, then I'm sure the majority of us can come up with a possibility.) It would rank them based on how much of the metagame they defeat, giving preference to those that beat the more powerful/anti-metagame pokemon. 18% more walled than Bronzong? It gets rated about 18% better.

EDIT: @Quaily
Yeah. I was going by a previous example. substitute "Heracross" for "Roserade" then.

 

[Quaily]

roserade is still a long ways from going back to uu. look at how long heracross has been hoovering at 3.5%

lead azelf will do 76.56% - 90.63% to machamp with psychic how the hell does that thing live through a stab SE attack off 125 attack..

 

[capefeather]

Even that idea is flawed because it ignores the fact that different Pokémon have different roles.

My point stands: There is no other example of this happening in such a scale in recent memory. This was a coordinated, intentional, dedicated effort, and it was used in Ubers, a relatively underpopulated ladder. In the end, I don't think it matters that much if a Pokémon was "spammed" just enough to stay above the cutoff. It's the UU players' call to determine if this is good for the UU metagame, but ultimately that's irrelevant because the OU metagame has barely been touched. I wholeheartedly agree that using a discrete method of classifying a continuous measure of usage is not exactly the perfect ideal that we want. But that's hardly a reason to scrap the system altogether. "Oh man, the electronegativity of this compound is exactly 1.7!!!!! Is it ionic or covalent!?!? Oh man OUR CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM IS FLAWED!!!! *cuts wrists*"

Actually, I just thought of another, more universally friendly example: sports. People cheat and make mistakes in professional sports all the time, but the results are retained, and the solution is to punish the perpetrators. Is it "fair" that Young Tae Young lost his gold medal in Athens because of a judge's clumsy fingers? Hell no. Was the decision reversed? No, because people in sports have learned that real life sometimes just isn't "fair", and to arbitrate the situation artificially will only make matters worse. And that sure isn't the system's fault.

 

[Theorymon]

What the hell... did someone cheat a lot on the Uber ladder, or was it the victem of april fools?

 

[Proboscidea]

They just made a team of weak fishes, got into a game, quit, and repeat.

 

[Boondocker]

They just made a team of weak fishes, got into a game, quit, and repeat.

They didnt all quit, i watched some pretty long battles with them in...

 

[DougJustDoug]

Apparently the Magikarp prank was above board. People didn't "cheat" in terms we normally associate with ladder play. They just used some really crappy pokemon, on a ladder that is able to be manipulated with a little effort. Since Ubers is a completely unbalanced tier anyway, I have no problem with it. And I think it's a decent April Fool's prank, all things considered. It certainly made me say "WTF!" when I saw it. And since no harm was done to the tiers, I'm smiling that I got pranked too.

As for OU, I'm not terribly worried about anyone affecting the standard tier significantly any time soon. Yes, someone could push something borderline in or out of UU with a bit of effort. But the standard metagame, which is the main focus of the community, has an enormous statistics base. It's certainly POSSIBLE to be altered, but highly unlikely.

 

[Theorymon]

Indeed DougJustDoug, I find the Magikarp situation to be extremly humerous myself, however I was very shocked!

 

[MegaKick]

there were no 5th generation fakemons, and april was ending, so i assured myself there woul be no april fools day jokes. Once here, i immediently went to the ubers section, since I had expected a large change from what i had been seeing (i did not play april 1st). I saw a big change.

Thanks DJD, and as I said before, sublatias is awesome, not only does it protect it from scarftar's pursuit, it scouts scizors move, so you know it will bullet punch before magnezone will come in.

 

[Mattman324]

APR 2010 UBER USAGE 
|   27 | Qwilfish   |   1713 |    5.27 |
|   28 | Magikarp   |   1702 |    5.24 |
|   29 | Seaking    |   1676 |    5.16 |
|   30 | Sharpedo   |   1656 |    5.10 |
|   31 | Feebas     |   1652 |    5.08 |
|   32 | Remoraid   |   1648 |    5.07 |

Sigged for the epicness.

 

[capefeather]

Well, since weighted stats have been brought up in PR, I'll just bring up what I brought up a couple of stat threads ago and suggest that it's worth looking at the stats from winners only. That is, for every battle played, the stats are collected only from the winner.

 

[Agammemnon]

Apparently the Magikarp prank was above board. People didn't "cheat" in terms we normally associate with ladder play. They just used some really crappy pokemon, on a ladder that is able to be manipulated with a little effort. Since Ubers is a completely unbalanced tier anyway, I have no problem with it. And I think it's a decent April Fool's prank, all things considered. It certainly made me say "WTF!" when I saw it. And since no harm was done to the tiers, I'm smiling that I got pranked too.

As for OU, I'm not terribly worried about anyone affecting the standard tier significantly any time soon. Yes, someone could push something borderline in or out of UU with a bit of effort. But the standard metagame, which is the main focus of the community, has an enormous statistics base. It's certainly POSSIBLE to be altered, but highly unlikely.

That's exactly the point of it, plus it was the easiest tier to play with, since there are less battles on it. :)

 

[Squidd]

That's exactly the point of it, plus it was the easiest tier to play with, since there are less battles on it. :)

Its funnier too ^^ because ....its ubers.....and its magikarp.....where Magikarp is just not viable, unlike in OU!

Congrats Machamp on getting yours.

 

[Agammemnon]

Also, getting some Rayquazas paralysed by Magikarp bounce + OHKOed by Feebas Blizzard was a real pleasure.

 

[ultimifier]

the stats of collecting only data from the winners is USELESS. there are far more shitty battlers then good battlers, and since shitty battlers battle shitty battlers more often due to how the ladder works, that wont solve anything.

I end up saying this every other stats thread but you either have to do weighted (rating*usage) or only count useage above a cutoff threshold say 1300 or some other random number

 

[vonFiedler]

If one person wanted Magikarp to be #1 in OU during the month of April, he would have had to fight 7 battles a minute every hour every day for the whole month.

 

[Squidd]

done a little rounding here and there..... but if 20 people wanted it OU during April. It would take simply 3 hours a day, at 83 battles an hour to make it #1. (around 4 battles every 3 minutes).

This should be done definetely.

 

[kokoloko]

done a little rounding here and then..... but if 20 people wanted it OU during April. It would take simply 3 hours a day, at 83 battles an hour to make it #1. (around 4 battles every 3 minutes).

This should be done definetely.

I figured it would be something like that. Like I said, its possible and not that hard to accomplish. The tiers CAN be manipulated. Although it is impossible (within the parameters of actual possibility) to remove stuff from OU, just add to it to keep it out of UU.

 

[capefeather]

Yeah, but what's the point of that much effort? Do people really have such bland lives that they can throw away three hours a day on a stupid prank?

And yeah, I guess I'll abandon the idea now unless I forget that I abandoned it the next time this comes up.

 

[kokoloko]

Do people really have such bland lives that they can throw away three hours a day on a stupid prank?

Pretty much. I go to school full time, have a part time job and have a girlfriend whom I have to see at least three times a week (pain in the ass, I know), and I still have enough free time to play this game. So it's not inconceivable.

Also, keeping a mon out of UU is not something I would call a prank.

 

[capefeather]

But it's three hours getting into intentionally bad battles. You could use that time to, y'know, play a video game or something.

 

[WECAMEASROMANS]

Holy shit Aerodactyl is getting some INSANE usage as a lead.... and metagross dropped a lot lol. However, for the OU leads, the stand out star is, without a doubt, Machamp. #13 to #7 in one month? Wow. I have to admit its really effective too!

For Ubers, nothing too surprising except for Magicarp getting to the top seven leads in one month. Holy shit that fish is popular lol. I might need to add Magicarp on my uber RMT if i decide to make one this month.

Finally, Scizor usage is increasing again. From last month, it went up by almost two more percentage points. Probably to combat all these scarf ttars lol.

 

[Aircraft Cemetery]

Thank you very much, Doug. Reliable as ever. That Magikarp thing really made me laugh. There we see how easy it is to manipulate the imbalanced Uber ladder. As for UU and OU I don't worry much. That Magikarp usage was a joke, no attempt to change the tiers. So I think we don't have to worry too much about it. But still some kind of manipulation is possible. Say for example you absolutely hate Umbreon in UU, you could possibly be able to get it banned to OU soon by excessively using it in OU yourself...

 

[VKCA]

Have the uber stats always been
ou of ubers
other ubers
random swift swimmers?
thanks doug.

 

[kokoloko]

But it's three hours getting into intentionally bad battles. You could use that time to, y'know, play a video game or something.

I agree with you about that, it is kind of retarded. However my point stands.

Holy shit Aerodactyl is getting some INSANE usage as a lead.... and metagross dropped a lot lol. However, for the OU leads, the stand out star is, without a doubt, Machamp. #13 to #7 in one month? Wow. I have to admit its really effective too!

Aero surprised me too, I really didn't think that many people were willing to sac a mon just to guarantee SR. It doesn't even prevent opposing SR; Swampert and Metagross can easily come in later and set it up.

Finally, Scizor usage is increasing again. From last month, it went up by almost two more percentage points. Probably to combat all these scarf ttars lol.

Its weird that Scizor went back up - I see Magnezone everywhere these days.

Say for example you absolutely hate Umbreon in UU, you could possibly be able to get it banned to OU soon by excessively using it in OU yourself...

Yup, thats what we have been saying for the past two days, lol.