Suggestions for OM Improvement

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
I think there are 2 issues as to why pet mods seem to die out and never really gain development for their metagames.

1. Pet mods don't end.
This one seems pretty self explanatory. Certain Pet Mods never stop adding more things or don't stop til it covers ALL pokemon. It's almost impossible to build for things like Fusion Evolution because there are TONS of new stuff, TOO MUCH to actively keep track of.

2. Pet mods are tucked away in their own forum.
People that have no intention of endlessly theorycrafting have no incentive to check out the Pet Mods forum. They don't even know that some Pet Mods are completed; I didn't. This makes Pet Mods deader than second page OMs.

To solve this I think we should implement a couple of things. First of all, Pet Mods need to be encouraged to actually end. Usually ending means death, which is why the users that make the mod keep pushing out new slates, even when there are already so many. After a Pet Mod does end, it should be moved to the main forum and given a special tag "Pet Mod" to indicate "Hey, the community that made this wants you guys to develop it!" The process could be very simple. When the creator/community of a pet mod determines, they want to end it, they resubmit it in OM Submissions. Then OM leaderships looks over it and judges it to see if they think the overall OM/Smogon community would understand it and its changes (is it simple), would the community want to play it (is it interesting), and could it be playable on PS! (is it implementable). If they say yes, the pet mod gets locked in that forum and is introduced in the OM forum. From then on there are no more slates, nothing new introduced, and nothing changed. Things are added and removed based on suspects and banned even if they were previously included in the pet mod (this isn't CAP, some pet mods probably won't be balanced). With some hard work from our coders, I have no doubt that certain Pet Mods can be implemented on a rotational basis/challenge-only format. Understandably, this would take a lot more time to code, but there is also no immediate time table to change out the Pet Mods.

(Also I support a 3rd official tour/ a more robust tour time table/ 1v1)
I have a big problem with pet mods being added to the main OM forum. They're not the same thing, and pet mods don't have the playability or quality as a metagame we expect from an OM (yes I know not all OMs are 'quality' but those are considered bad oms, while there are ~0 pet mods with actual metas.)

It's my impression that people go to pet mods for the chance to create something. Sort of like CAP but without as much competitive. I don't think it's possible to keep that while also making pet mods semi-equivalent to oms in stature, because user created content is rather uneven in quality and balance.

Something I think would help pet mods considerably would be a more obvious place to discuss them, like a sub-room on ps. But somehow I doubt I really have the authority to suggest that.

The problem with such an arrangement is that Pet Mods are usually harder to code and even harder to get into, especially one's like the Multi-Franchise Fusion Evolution (Three threads, a spin-off and art thread and even more under development)

But I think it's time to have that argument. I have held my silence on this topic for far too long.


The blatant ignorance of Pet Mods on a whole by the OM community.

It's a divide that has always existed, but the sheer significance has not been brought to my attention until recently. If you talk to the average member of the OM community, they will tell you Pet Mods are "those things that are in their own thread". It's also present to a different degree amongst the small Pet Mod community (the fact that Pet Mods have a completely different atmosphere and separate community speaks volumes). Several times anything close to an aspect of battling (Community Create a Team for example) I am greeted with expressions of: "That's not the point of Pet Mods", "Sorry, I don't know how to do that, I'm not into competitive stuff" and most importantly "If I wanted to do this, I'd play an OM". I think this thought process is harmful and is the reason that Pet Mods are regarded as "lesser OMs" and "things serious players don't get into". This needs to change, as it stalls growth and hinders the full potential of many Pet Mods.

While it is unreasonable to try and make the community into a competitive playerbase, I think it's reasonable to put in certain leeway so that competitive players become attracted to Pet Mods. It is true - some Pet Mods simply will never be viable for a player format due to a variety of reasons (too hard to code - Fusion Evolution. Too much things that are not in the games code to add - Z-Moves Everywhere. Too much stuff overall - Fusion Evolution AGAIN), other Pet Mods are not only codable, but much easier to get into. Type Optimization is a great example that TI mentioned, but other Pet Mods that have similar structures (things that don't introduce completely new mechanics) also exist, but lack attention, such as the recently reinvigorated OptiMons, the unfortunately dead but great premise Nerfmons and that Pet Mod that everyone forgets because the community can't make stuff but stills exits, Move Mastery. All of these Pet Mods can sustain actual playable and fun metagames, but they all get ignored because they are in the Pet Mods subforum. I will go a step furthur and mention some Gen Six Pet Mods that eventually got closed as they completed their goals - The Lost World and Undiscovered Types - these were Pet Modsthat after completing their goals, created their own fun metagame. The problem was that, since no players don't actually pay serious attention to Pet Mods, their metas did not develop they eventually died off. This is the predicament that I fear will happen to the current Pet Mods that spawn fun metas with a clear limit: they will just die out.

I want to change that. As to how that can be changed? I think this is where the discussion should lie, but I already have a great suggestion. Pet Mods such as the ones mentioned above, should get threads in the main OM thread dedicated to the development of the metagame that have spawned from them. This would not only lead to fun and interesting metagames, but would preserve the Pet Mods so they just die out after completing their goals. While I don't think any of the current Pet Mods (barring Move Mastery, which in itself is a different type of Pet Mod altogether.), can support a metagame now, after more participation they surely can. In the meantime, I think these established Pet Mods (with a little repurposing for Gen 7 as the original creators Cretacerus and Jajoken respectively) can suffice.

I'd like to hear the community's thoughts on this matter and other, better ways of approaching this.
The thing is the OM community and the Pet Mod community really are seperate. Attempts to smush them together are probably doomed to fail, and I think Pet Mods would function better if they tried to have a little more independence. I'm not sure what this would entail besides what I mentioned above, but it makes a lot more sense than trying to get the very competitively focused om community interested in primarily creatively focused pet mods. It might also cut down on the number of randos who come to the room asking what we think about their 200/200/200/200/200/200/200 sunkern with huge power and then get confused when we tell them thats too many stats.
 

lost heros

Meme Master
I have a big problem with pet mods being added to the main OM forum. They're not the same thing, and pet mods don't have the playability or quality as a metagame we expect from an OM (yes I know not all OMs are 'quality' but those are considered bad oms, while there are ~0 pet mods with actual metas.)

It's my impression that people go to pet mods for the chance to create something. Sort of like CAP but without as much competitive. I don't think it's possible to keep that while also making pet mods semi-equivalent to oms in stature, because user created content is rather uneven in quality and balance.

Something I think would help pet mods considerably would be a more obvious place to discuss them, like a sub-room on ps. But somehow I doubt I really have the authority to suggest that.



The thing is the OM community and the Pet Mod community really are seperate. Attempts to smush them together are probably doomed to fail, and I think Pet Mods would function better if they tried to have a little more independence. I'm not sure what this would entail besides what I mentioned above, but it makes a lot more sense than trying to get the very competitively focused om community interested in primarily creatively focused pet mods. It might also cut down on the number of randos who come to the room asking what we think about their 200/200/200/200/200/200/200 sunkern with huge power and then get confused when we tell them thats too many stats.
I think we've entered a bit of a circular argument. You say Pet mods shouldn't be added to the OM forum because they don't have a metagame, while I say they don't have a metagame because they're not apart of the OM forum. Plus the reason, I suggested the second stage approval process to move a pet mod to the OM forum to ensure that the pet mods that become a part of the OM forum have playability and quality.

Also, I think it's really dumb to say that pet mods don't have a competitive viewpoint when there are several pet mods dedicated to balance tweaks. See: Nerfmons, Ability Balance 2.0, Optimons, Sylvemons. And even the ones that don't have a directly balance changing concept, there are a couple that could definitely support a healthy metagame. See: All Type Terrain, Z-moves Everywhere. Yes there are those that are dedicated to creation like Costume Combat and Eevee'd, but those can be rejected in the secondary approval process.

Also I'd first test out live discussion with a discord rather than a sub-room or PS! group chat for pet mods (not sure if one already exists).
 

G-Luke

Sugar, Spice and One For All
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I have a big problem with pet mods being added to the main OM forum. They're not the same thing, and pet mods don't have the playability or quality as a metagame we expect from an OM (yes I know not all OMs are 'quality' but those are considered bad oms, while there are ~0 pet mods with actual metas.)
I can tell you haven't even clicked the Pet Mods forum before typing this counter argument, or else you would have been aware of the many competitively driven Pet Mods.
Also, these Pet Mods actually support fun and innovative metagames. Codable (therefore playable) metas that hobestly are abit more balanced than plenty OMs on the market now.

I'd like to hear thoughts from other people, as clearly a level of ignorance exists amongst OM players surrounding Pet Mods.

Tagging The Immortal Chloe E4 Flint
as the head OM heads

Ludicrousity Exploudit Solarblade wishes Reviloja753 as various notable members of the Pet Mod community

Spandan charizard8888 and urkerab as coders who have experience in coding both Pet Mods and OMs

And tagging notable OM members and players InfernapeTropius11 Scarf Wynaut Ransei EV Funbot28 morogrim

I want to see everyone's thoughts on this as I think its an issue that has more or less been sidelined until now.
 
I can tell you haven't even clicked the Pet Mods forum before typing this counter argument, or else you would have been aware of the many competitively driven Pet Mods.
Also, these Pet Mods actually support fun and innovative metagames. Codable (therefore playable) metas that hobestly are abit more balanced than plenty OMs on the market now.

I'd like to hear thoughts from other people, as clearly a level of ignorance exists amongst OM players surrounding Pet Mods.

Tagging The Immortal Chloe E4 Flint
as the head OM heads

Ludicrousity Exploudit Solarblade wishes Reviloja753 as various notable members of the Pet Mod community

Spandan charizard8888 and urkerab as coders who have experience in coding both Pet Mods and OMs

And tagging notable OM members and players InfernapeTropius11 Scarf Wynaut Ransei EV Funbot28 morogrim

I want to see everyone's thoughts on this as I think its an issue that has more or less been sidelined until now.
If you want MY opinion at the very least tag my account properly.

....

:[
 
Pet Mods focus more on fun rather than competitiveness, which is fine. I'll be honest with you, G-Luke, deleting Pet Mods was something discussed between OM mods at the start of this generation. But we decided to keep it as a place for users to have fun. That is the point of the Pet Mods subforum, for users create and enjoy their own modded version of Pokemon.

To clarify confusion, Pet Mods is its own section. There will not be Pet Mods in the OM forum or anything of the like. Furthermore, I request that suggestions regarding Pet Mods not be posted here. This thread is for OM improvements. If you have a suggestion for Pet Mods, feel free to PM G-Luke and Ludicrousity.
 
tbh I appreciate being called notable but anyway

Pet Mods allow for you to express a lot of creativity that you just don't get to use when making OMs. For example, Fusion Evolution (my personal favorite) allows you to combine different Pokemon to make fusions that are greater than the sum of their parts. It lets you make so many abilities with the same two abilities. All in all, it's moreso for fun. Also, Fusion Evolution is actually playable, though in a beta stage right now. There are 95 fusions coded on DragonHeaven, and that's only one pet mod. There are so many other ones to look at. My suggestion is to lurk around the forum and see what happens around here. You won't regret it, I can guarantee that much. :)
 
I'll respond to some of the older suggestions so you guys know what's going on.

1) Rotational ladder

A question that I've often been asked is "how many ladders can OM have?". The answer is: as many as there is demand for. But how do you determine demand? OM of the Month has proven unreliable in that regard. We have a success story in Mix and Mega, but an equal yet opposite outcome with Sketchmons. We're looking to implement a rotational ladder to determine whether an OM should become permanent. Based on how active a rotational OM ladder is (over several months), it will either be promoted to a permanent ladder or be replaced with another OM, and the cycle will continue. Expect an announcement following the Sketchmons vs STABmons decision.

2) Leader's Choice

We've listened to the feedback about LC and come to the conclusion that there is demand for a ladder, demand which is different from that of permanent ladders. The Leader's Choice ladder will be returning in the near future!

3) Tournaments

We'll be posting a guide on how to host a tournament (soon™) which will hopefully encourage more users to host tournaments in the OM forum. We can't do anything more than that. Off course, if there ever comes a time where there are no new tournaments, I would certainly be up for hosting one and I'm sure Chloe and E4 Flint would do the same. In regards to a 3rd major tournament, it's too late for this year but we will discuss it for next year. So, we have large tournaments in the form of OMPL/OMGS and medium size tournaments in the form of forum tournaments, but what about smaller, quicker, and more frequent tournaments? Stay tuned.
 
Spandan charizard8888 and urkerab as coders who have experience in coding both Pet Mods and OMs
Although some Pet Mods may take time to code, if you add new stuff with very new slate, it's quite easy and doesn't require much effort. Pet Mods are definitely fun, both to play and code, and it may also introduce new people to coding.
Personally I began coding for PS with a custom Super Staff Bros, which is also kind of a pet mod.
 
This might not be the right place to ask this, but would it be possible to make a new om team bazaar under new leadership with the release of usum? There might not be as many changes as there'd be from a new gen, but every meta is still getting affected at least slightly because of it, not to mention the current person in charge of it all is a little bit gone completely. Sorry if this was the wrong place to ask this.
 

RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
This might not be the right place to ask this, but would it be possible to make a new om team bazaar under new leadership with the release of usum? There might not be as many changes as there'd be from a new gen, but every meta is still getting affected at least slightly because of it, not to mention the current person in charge of it all is a little bit gone completely. Sorry if this was the wrong place to ask this.
I agree with this as a person who flooded that thread in very unorganized way, and I think there should also be a reserved post after OP that shows a vault of the best teams for each metagame. The thread will most likely be a place for new players who want to get a grasp of teambuilding in OM metagames and organizing them will help them find out what they are looking for in easier way. I know each metagame thread has their own sample team vault but I think teams submitted in OM bazaar thread should be organized too.
 

lost heros

Meme Master
This might not be the right place to ask this, but would it be possible to make a new om team bazaar under new leadership with the release of usum? There might not be as many changes as there'd be from a new gen, but every meta is still getting affected at least slightly because of it, not to mention the current person in charge of it all is a little bit gone completely. Sorry if this was the wrong place to ask this.
To expand on this, are there any plans to bring back the numerous resource threads from Gen 6, that just haven’t come back? OM teambuilding workshop, Good cores, any CCAT, OM Tutoring (or even VIP club, Battle of the week) all haven’t come back as of yet. Nor do we have/ever had a Guess your last, Lure that set, Victim of the Week etc.
 
To expand on this, are there any plans to bring back the numerous resource threads from Gen 6, that just haven’t come back? OM teambuilding workshop, Good cores, any CCAT, OM Tutoring (or even VIP club, Battle of the week) all haven’t come back as of yet. Nor do we have/ever had a Guess your last, Lure that set, Victim of the Week etc.
Team building and tutoring are both planned, but team building at least is stalled by lack of approval from the submissions team. The other resources are likely either in the same boat or lack a host request.
 
To expand on this, are there any plans to bring back the numerous resource threads from Gen 6, that just haven’t come back? OM teambuilding workshop, Good cores, any CCAT, OM Tutoring (or even VIP club, Battle of the week) all haven’t come back as of yet. Nor do we have/ever had a Guess your last, Lure that set, Victim of the Week etc.
Presenting: Uselesscrab's Random OM Projects Update, Episode 1!

Teambuilding Shop: I ceded control of this to QT. The last post in submissions was Chloe asking him to ensure he had enough and get it set up asap.
Good Cores:

CCAT: No one has submitted any threads for these, though RNG has been sort of running one in a Discord. I really enjoyed the BH ones last gen, but they were pretty slow and tended to be unable to keep up with metagame trends. All the others were unsuccessful.
Tutoring: Ransei is doing this and is in the process of finding tutors. Again, Chloe wanted it to get set up asap.
VIP Club: Barely anyone used the rewards from this, and the especially good rewards relied on EV's super mod powers, but EV is no longer as intimately involved with OMs. That said, I am willing to run this if there's enough interest, but this is the first time I've heard anyone mention it this generation.
OM Battle of the Week: This should definitely come back. I really enjoyed running it last generation.
All of the other things: RNG tried to submit Victim of the Week, but the general thought from leadership is that
The Immortal said:
this is better off done in respective meta threads. hosts should be proactive and do stuff like this, like laxpras did in aaa.
and I am pretty sure this applies to Lure That Threat as well. What's His Last would be cool, but I would not expect it to get a lot of avid participation given the relatively high level of effort required to make a submission.

This is all to say: if you want one of these threads to exist, just make a submission. We may be infamously slow at approving projects (whether or not this perception is true is up for debate). But with the right level of responsibility and diligence, anyone can run any of these things (with permission from the previous thread owners, if applicable).
 
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lost heros

Meme Master
Presenting: Uselesscrab's Random OM Projects Update, Episode 1!

Teambuilding Shop: I ceded control of this to QT. The last post in submissions was Chloe asking him to ensure he had enough and get it set up asap.
Good Cores:

CCAT: No one has submitted any threads for these, though RNG has been sort of running one in a Discord. I really enjoyed the BH ones last gen, but they were pretty slow and tended to be unable to keep up with metagame trends. All the others were unsuccessful.
Tutoring: Ransei is doing this and is in the process of finding tutors. Again, Chloe wanted it to get set up asap.
VIP Club: Barely anyone used the rewards from this, and most of the rewards relied on EV's super mod powers, but EV is no longer as intimately involved with OMs. That said, I am willing to run this if there's enough interest, but this is the first time I've heard anyone mention it this generation.
OM Battle of the Week: This should definitely come back. I really enjoyed running it last generation.
All of the other things: RNG tried to submit Victim of the Week, but the general thought from leadership is that

and I am pretty sure this applies to Lure That Threat as well. What's His Last would be cool, but I would not expect it to get a lot of avid participation given the relatively high level of effort required to make a submission.

This is all to say: if you want one of these threads to exist, just make a submission. We may be infamously slow at approving projects (whether or not this perception is true is up for debate). But with the right level of responsibility and diligence, anyone can run any of these things (with permission from the previous thread owners, if applicable).
For Teambuilding Workshop/Tutoring, it’s a shame they’re taking so long to get set up. They’re honestly the best way to get new players in to OMs competitively, and the fact that they’ve been absent from the forums for the entirety of SM is appalling.

Good cores: While I understand TI’s and Scp’s reasoning, I don’t exactly care for it. Even if it’s expected of Tier Leaders to develop their own good cores lists (the lack of such in a by resource implies at the very least TLs did not realize this), a general area for them all to be accumulated is just in general helpful for people to create good teams for unfamiliar metagames. It’s just a useful resource.

VIP Club: Maybe it’s just me, but I really enjoyed VIP club even without considering its rewards. It was simply the acknowledgment of high quality posts that users can use as references as to what a great post looks like. And this next claim isn’t really substantiated, but it seems that since the removal of the the VIP club, post quality has declined especially in new metagames.

OM Battle of the week: While it wasn’t exactly the most active, it was a cool community event that should definitely return.

All of the other things + CCAT: While it does require a certain level of activity and interest to maintain and develop, I don’t think that OMs should be considered too inactive to disqualify them from having them. Especially considering we’ve never had a lot of these before. I think particularly, the 1v1 community would be especially appreciative of a “break this team” thread.

I would be more than happy to try and submit this thread as you suggest, but what makes me different from RNG? Whose responsibility is it to create these threads? Tier leaders or the community?

Edit: Affer making this post, OM Teambuilding workshop was fast tracked it seems.
 
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RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
Regarding this discussion:

* Yes, as UC said, I have been running CCAT in discord. While I initially expected some volatile and possibly toxic discussions due to me being a leader of unofficial project leader, the members have been very active and they were always dedicated. In the process of nominating a new team member, lots of discussions about metagame features happened and that helped everyone gain much knowledge in the process. However, I decided not to submit it at least until we complete one team, and after my OM Submission for "Victim of the Week" was rejected, I came to a thought that I must come up with something that will persuade higher mods with whatever it takes. TI, UC, and G-Luke said these projects can be done in individual threads, and I agree. But my counterargument against this is that "but they aren't doing it!" Well, Goatpras is running something similar in his thread but it is p dead, and even if my CCAT gets somehow accepted, I expect similar degree of activity, unless BH playerbase who accepts me as a project leader turns out to be larger than I expect.
* With other projects from UC, I agree with most of them. With that said, why don't we make subforums for metagames like AG and BH? They have multiple threads and we can individually run project threads without flooding the OM forums with like 100+ threads or whatever
* Tutoring, tutoring, tutoring. I am a gigantic supporter of this. Most of the people who come to OM's, I have seen, have like no self-confidence after they fail to make their sets successful or take some criticisms in the Discord chat or whatever. People who genuine want their teams rated and post them in metagame thread or RMT forums receive next to no feedbacks (due to Megazard being the only official RMT rater and he is more onto PU and AG afaik). Honestly I know like 7 different people from BH who consider themselves as pitiful players and who are contempted by some arrogant and experienced players who doesn't have much motivation to dedicate themselves to the metagame. I am keeping them under my wings under the server called Halanced Backmons or whatever (a server that is meant to be refuge of people who have hard time in Smogon / others) but it is never enough. We do need tutoring, and I am p sure more than couple people for each perma metagames are willing to help, and that includes me, if I am considered worthy.

Lost Heros I'm actually thinking about submitting CCAT so don't take any actions in OM Submissions thanks in advance
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
People who genuine want their teams rated and post them in metagame thread or RMT forums receive next to no feedbacks (due to Megazard being the only official RMT rater and he is more onto PU and AG afaik)
If people posted sketchmons rmts, id try to rate ig, and also AG is an om zzz. but if anybody wanted help learning rating more on the OM side of things (cuz there's rmt tutoring but for official metas rly) then contact me and I'd be happy to help
 

drampa's grandpa

cannonball
is a Community Contributoris a Community Leader Alumnus
So after a brisk discussion in the Other Metas room in which we discussed many things most of which veered wildly off topic I decided to post in here with some feedback.

The problem I think exists:
At the current moment the competitive level of oms is pretty low, in my personal opinion. While we never really match the main tiers in terms of competitive level due to our small playerbase and multifaceted focus (e.g. we've got like 5 million oms for people to play) at the current moment we have a remarkably small number of high level players in several of our main tiers (see: STABmons where a certain player is fairly clearly head and shoulders better than everyone else, or Mix and Mega, which has a very small number of top tier players). This problem exists independent of ladder play, which really shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone who's played low ladder AG, BH, or MnM (seriously, Charizard-Mega-X at 7%?).

My suggested solution:
Not a new suggestion admittedly, but more tours! I'm not talking about in-room tours, but forum tours. If there was some sort of regular forum-tour format in our major laddered metas (maybe four round tours, each lasting a week, for ~one a month) it would provide a regular competitive format in which we could find higher level play more easily. Because let's face it, fun as they are tours like Kris' RNG-based one and QT's blast to the past aren't really intended to nurture the growth of our competitive community. Not that they don't have their place, but I think we need more tours that are just an opportunity for people to get some high level plays in.

So yeh tell me what you think.
EDIT:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/suggestions-for-om-improvement.3590275/post-7511135 looks like ScarfWynaut beat me to this but yeh I reiterate what he said
 
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This might not belong here, but I wanted to suggest having more OM mash up LCotM metas, like AAAS, since it was fun to have it to try it out, and it'd be fun to try other meta combinations in the future as well, especially on a ladder, but since om mashups aren't eligible for OMotM (and likely wouldnt be able to win even if they were eligible), LCotM is the only way left to have them.
 
Hello! Going to make a suggestion I accidentally posted in the main section (Sorry about that)

If there was a way to get OMs to institute Blind Voting like the other tiers, it could serve as a way to make the banter concerning the tests more... "mild" on the voting pages and reduce bias from "group voting," which seems to be a common occurrence at this point. I mean not to project this as a complaint, it just seems to be something that a few people I've spoken to agree with. I also appreciate E4 Flint for commenting upon this as well ^-^

I guess most of us don't know how we could go about making that happen, but perhaps someone does have knowledge of how to get on/create a blind voting thread so that tests more resemble the main tiers.

(Group voting: actively keeping score of a vote, then alerting those whom agree with you what the vote is, which ultimately biases the score and encourages people to actively engage in voting pressure, which further biases the result)
 

E4 Flint

-inactive in BH due corrupt leader-
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I'm not sure if this is allowed, but suspect test voting without having to make an alt would be great.
I think that is limited for BH suspects as the other om's dont use them. As for why I want them specifically, I used to use this method before we had suspect ladders and as some side effects, it helps me gauge activity and tweak future suspect requirements since our suspect userbase is larger than the rest and also serves as a decent community activity, so I just kept using it. It's also for the suspect ladder so your using your main alt or a new one shouldn't really make a difference either way.
 
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I know this is random but lately ive been questioning the philosphy of oms especially since the closing of shared power

Wont oms become more popular if we gave it some breathing space?
I noticed that many fun oms get rejected like multibility and the recent very popular om like shared power. but the (no offense to the om leaders really) unpopular and sometimes bland ones such as averagemons, inverse and fallen friends are the ones that get accepted and get to stay

Is finding an om "unique, creative yet simple and competitive" more important than actual popularity and fun involved with these oms? Whats the point of a meta being creative + simple + competitive when the meta is not fun enough to be played even?

When shared power is shut down for "complexity and untrue to mechanics" even though its literally THE most played om this site has seen in a while tells me theres a problem, like if anything SP shows people dont mind "complex" banlists and will play it if its fun regardless. I mean with that limiting philosphy i think this community will lose alot of potential, and eventually hinder its growth in the future

Im not suggesting anything major or anything, i just think the rules should be loosened up a bit and just wanted to share some thoughts, maybe even get an explanation about why oms have their weird gray area of requirements they have now

TL;DR
Oms "rules" are limiting community growth. Bit of whining. Feel like other aspects is being wayy more valued over fun of the om at this point. Loosen up a bit, so what if a meta is similar slightly to an existing one? or it has a slightly complex banlist?, if it doesnt hurt anyone and attracts more players then whats the problem?
 

Chloe

is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
NUPL Champion
I know this is random but lately ive been questioning the philosphy of oms especially since the closing of shared power

Wont oms become more popular if we gave it some breathing space?
I noticed that many fun oms get rejected like multibility and the recent very popular om like shared power. but the (no offense to the om leaders really) unpopular and sometimes bland ones such as averagemons, inverse and fallen friends are the ones that get accepted and get to stay

Is finding an om "unique, creative yet simple and competitive" more important than actual popularity and fun involved with these oms? Whats the point of a meta being creative + simple + competitive when the meta is not fun enough to be played even?

When shared power is shut down for "complexity and untrue to mechanics" even though its literally THE most played om this site has seen in a while tells me theres a problem, like if anything SP shows people dont mind "complex" banlists and will play it if its fun regardless. I mean with that limiting philosphy i think this community will lose alot of potential, and eventually hinder its growth in the future

Im not suggesting anything major or anything, i just think the rules should be loosened up a bit and just wanted to share some thoughts, maybe even get an explanation about why oms have their weird gray area of requirements they have now

TL;DR
Oms "rules" are limiting community growth. Bit of whining. Feel like other aspects is being wayy more valued over fun of the om at this point. Loosen up a bit, so what if a meta is similar slightly to an existing one? or it has a slightly complex banlist?, if it doesnt hurt anyone and attracts more players then whats the problem?
I actually agree with this to a certain extent. I would have preferred if we gave the old Shared Power a chance without complex bans and with full ability bans instead. Haaku didn't want that. I strongly disagree with forgoing the requirement for a balanced metagame however. We attempt to make these metagames playable for anyone, not just the dedicated OM player, not just the Shared Power junkie. Ladder popularity is one thing, playability is another. As for Multibility, I would've been for allowing that too but I do see where others are coming from in the sense of similarity. I personally am not against it existing for what it's worth.

As for your arguments about Averagemons, Inverse and Fallen Friends; I have a few qualms. You state that we keep these around when we've literally closed one of your examples recently. The other two were accepted due to their popularity last gen. If a metagame is incredibly unpopular, we close it. This seems like a good place to explain that we do care about popularity, but I'm not for throwing all of the other requirements out the window just because a metagame is popular. That would be foolish.

Additionally, before you claim that I missed your point, may I add that there's no real reason for Shared Power to have these complex bans. I've explained why having them is detrimental previously, but I've also discussed in a prior paragraph how Shared Power shouldn't need these complex bans to survive. Your metagame's leader is set on this King's Power idea, do not shift the blame onto us.

Also one last point, even though it's irrelevant and an unfair comparison, claiming that Shared Power is the most played metagame that OMs has seen in a while is incorrect. Anything Goes gets three times the amount of plays each month and it's a permaladder.
 

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