Metagame SV Ubers - Community Surveys

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Fc

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Similar to last generation, we're going to be running consistent playerbase surveys to check in on how people feel about different aspects of the metagame. This thread will be used to announce new surveys as well as the results once the response period ends.

Given the uncertanties with home / dlc additions, the outlook for the future is limited, but we still wanted to put out something for early thoughts to start.

 

Fc

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Sorry for the delay, but the results are up! Thanks to everyone who voted, we got 53 votes in for our first survey, with over half the responses at 28 users being qualified by our tournament / ladder metrics, so let's get into the results:

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Enjoyment is currently sitting at an average of 6.94/10, while stability is at a 6.26/10. These numbers aren't bad, especially for such an early stage of the metagame where things are typically the most chaotic. Fairly average and solid numbers for these two statistics. Comparing to the last survey of SS, enjoyment is higher which is always good, but stability took a bit of a hit. This can usually be expected to rise once the metagame is out of its earliest days, but there is room for improvement regardless.

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The main target of this survey was Moody, so it's no surprise that it got some high levels of support calling for a ban. Among the entire voterbase, ~53% of people would like to see an immediate Moody ban, while ~19% would prefer to leave it to a suspect test and then vote ban. This leaves ~28% of people who would prefer Moody to stay either through a suspect test or through no action, clearly a result far less than we'd want of something in the tier. The qualified voterbase was essentially the same, with just a bit higher percentage of people wanting no suspect test one way or the other but the percentages for ban and do not ban are roughly the same.

The reason for the multiple options in this question was to determine the best approach for the council. It's very clear that something needs to be done about Moody, but the quickban route is something rarely taken in Ubers after a metagame has actually started being playable. Some things retain their bans from the previous gen going into it or even get quickbanned as the gen launches, but generally Ubers doesn't quickban things anymore, for the sake of giving the playerbase a chance to share their opinion since Ubers is the tier with the least bans. We'll be discussing the right course of action in the coming days and have news to you soon.

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The overall average thoughts on terastallization are a 5.01/10, while the qualified average is a 4.29/10. These numbers are reassuring, as it shows that for the most part the community doesn't see terastallization as broken or uncompetitive. Of course, we'll still always keep a watchful eye due to the controversial nature of terastallization, but for now there will just be observation on it.

Some additional notes, Miraidon was brought up 7 times in the comments section, probably being the most controversial new Pokemon and one of the most controversial parts of Ubers as a whole. Especially with potential news on metagame release dates coming soon we're going to keep a very close eye on Miraidon, and if it proves to be too much in the upcoming SV Ubers metas then action can be taken.

Thanks again to all who responded, if you have any questions feel free to ask in the Ubers discord, the SQSA thread, or PM me / Aberforth.
 

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Aberforth

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Thanks to everyone who voted, we got 78 votes in for our latest survey, with over a third the responses at 29 users being qualified by our tournament / ladder metrics, so let's get into the results:

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Enjoyment is currently sitting at an average of 7.25/10, while stability is at a 6.43/10. These are both increases from the last survey, which is good to see. Comparing to the last survey, enjoyment is higher which is always good, but stability is still a little lower than we would generally like. Using only the qualified responses, these numbers change to 7.7 for enjoyment and 6.43 for stability, which is rather curious. Increasing enjoyment is always good, but the stability of the tier is considered the exact same. Hoping to see stability rise going into DLC 1.

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Miraidon has been a bit of a hot topic this generation already, and while it hasnt hit the heights of Pre-Home, it is still the most contentious pokemon in the tier. The general playerbase and qualified playerbase were basically in sync in response to this one, getting 5.8/10 from overall respondants, and 5.6/10 from the qualified playerbase. This is a little higher than we'd like, and this would normally trigger a vote within the Ubers Council about suspect testing Miraidon, but with DLC 1 4 weeks away we have decided against this approach.


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The overall average thoughts on terastallization are a 5.54/10, while the qualified average is a 5.04/10. These numbers are again a little high for what we are aiming for, but not higher than Miraidon so we are not treating Tera as a high priority right now. There is a large split in the answers to tera, with 38 of the responses finding Tera to be a 5 or lower, including 15 1 responses, and 40 responses finding tera to be a 6 or higher in terms of how problematic it is. We were hoping to see more consensus in this result, but the spread of results is pretty characteristic of opinion on Tera as a result.

As one final note, Zacian was brought up 5 times in the comments section, which is not high enough for us to consider including it on the next survey, however if you feel strongly about it and did not include it in your response, please do so for next time, as this is how we try to monitor community opinion on potentially controversial pokemon. The next survey will be some period into DLC 1, so keep your eyes open for it, and will likely just cover the same topics to track how opinion shifts on them over time to see if we need to take action (barring any new thing being released with DLC 1 that demands more of our attention).

Thanks again to all who responded, if you have any questions feel free to ask in the Ubers discord, the SQSA thread, or PM me / Fc.
 

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Aberforth

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Its been a few weeks since the DLC dropped, so we thought it would be a good time to have another survey on the state of the meta. This form will close in just over 1 week from now, with results coming soon after. Also included in this survey is the ongoing question of which team tour type should happen in January, which will help inform our decision on which tour to pick.


 

Aberforth

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Thanks to everyone who voted, we got 118 votes in for our latest survey, with over a third of the responses being qualified by our tournament / ladder metrics, so let's get into the results:

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Enjoyment is currently sitting at an average of 6.9/10, while stability is at a 6.06/10. These are both quite sharp decreases from the last survey. Both enjoyment and stability decreasing in perception is something we're keen to avoid, and would normally be a spark that would lead us to investigate if there should be any tiering changes. Using only the qualified responses, these numbers change to 7.05 for enjoyment and 6.625 for stability. Among the qualified playerbase responding to both surveys, the enjoyment decreased dramatically, although at least they do not believe the meta became a lot less stable.

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Koraidon was added to this survey as a result of gaining Scale Shot in DLC1, and these results are overall higher than we would like. The general playerbase rated it as a 6.2/10 in terms of how problematic it was, and while the qualified playerbase had it lower (5.49/10), one of the things we are aiming to improve based on last gen is the weight given to general opinion instead of only looking at the qualified results. This actually sparked an internal discussion in the council (which is why the results have been delayed as much as they have been), and had it not been for the announcement of DLC2 coming out on the 12th of December, this would have sparked a suspect test for Koraidon. However, only having a 2 week metagame by the conclusion of the suspect and the start of a brand new meta made us decide to hold off on this until DLC2 at the earliest, where Koraidon would be freed if it had been banned in the suspect test anyway.


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Miraidon scored lower than Koraidon on average among both the general responses (6.13/10) and the qualified responses (5.46/10), which is why we were leaning towards a Koraidon suspect, however the responses between the two are staggeringly similar, and if not for Koraidon being slightly ahead on the scale, Miraidon would likely have received a vote for it to be suspected too.


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The community is clearly very split on the topic of terastallisation. While there is a respectable number of people who are strongly against the belief that tera is a problem, this is an issue that drives people to one extreme or another. With all votes, Tera sits at a 5.87/10 from the general vote, significantly below the bikes, and among qualified voters it drops to a 5.46. Interestingly, removing the extreme opinions (ie: people who voted for 10 or 1), Tera's mean was a 6.06, suggesting that among the non-extreme positions, opinion is slightly anti-tera. In the overall responses, it is a 48/52 split on above or below a 5/10. Very split indeed, something would need to change dramatically for tera to receive enough support for us to consider suspecting it anytime soon at all. (note: numbers on the graph are slightly off as a troll vote was missed before screenshotting).

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I posted this a couple of days ago in the Ubers discord while the council were still discussing whether or not to suspect one of the bikes (and which to suspect), but the survey is resounding, Ubers World Cup will be the tournament that we run in January. We will have a thread to discuss things like format and teams before signups go up some time in December.

As one final note, Zacian was not brought up at all in the comments section, despite being the most commented pokemon last survey. We read each and every comment (including the ones regarding world cup the separate question that was intended to be a tiebreaker in the event of a close vote), and if you do have concerns, that is the best place to put them. The next survey will be some period into DLC 2, so keep your eyes open for it, and will likely just cover the same topics to track how opinion shifts on them over time to see if we need to take action (barring any new thing being released with DLC 2 that demands more of our attention). In the event that Koraidon or Miraidon receive identical votes to this survey, you can probably expect a suspect shortly after the next survey too.

Thanks again to all who responded, if you have any questions feel free to ask in the Ubers discord, the SQSA thread, or PM me / Fc.
 

Fc

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Results are up! We had 88 responses this time around with 38 meeting the qualified requirements, so let's get into it. All graphs are in the spoiler tags since there were a lot of them this time so I'm trying to save space.

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General enjoyment is currently sitting at 6.59/10, which is a drop from every previous survey. The number itself isn't too bad but a drop like this when all previous numbers were around 7/10 is something we've taken note of. Stability sits at 5.67/10, which is also very low compared to past surveys. Both of these numbers taking a relatively large drop is a concern and we're looking for the best solutions to solve this. Not pictured are the qualified responses to these questions, which were a 5.95 on enjoyment and a 5.05 on stability, even lower numbers which are alarming for the state of the metagame to say the least.

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Terastallization sits at a 4.98/10 for the overall responses and a 5.76/10 for the qualified responses. This is quite the large difference between the two, but looking at the other numbers terastallization isn't on a slate for tiering action currently. Due to the controversial nature of the mechanic it will probably be appearing on every further survey we do as a way to check in on the playerbase to see if opinions change, but for now nothing stands out as too concerning.


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Koraidon, compared to the other 2 topics of Miraidon and Basculegion, has the lowest ratings in both categories. The numbers are nothing low, however, with a 6.07/10 overall and a 6.65/10 in the qualified section. These numbers are high enough to be debating tiering action, as compared to the last survey the overall went down about 0.1 but the overall went up over 1 point and we were going to suspect Koraidon at that time if DLC 2 news wasn't dropped on us right before. This was at a time when it was the highest rated topic though, so we will still have to make a decision on how to proceed going forward with any tiering action.

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Miraidon averaged a 6.48/10 for the overall results and a 6.78/10 for the qualfied results. These numbers are higher than anything else up to this point across these surveys, to my knowledge including in SS. Both numbers are far higher than we'd like to be seeing, and so Miraidon is something I personally am very focused on right now. I'll discuss how exactly we're going to proceed at the end of this post, but with numbers like what's been shown up to this point we will be doing something in the near future tiering wise, with a yet undecided point of focus.

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Right after saying Miraidon had the highest numbers, the qualified section for Basculegion changes that. Overall it was ranked lower at 6.23/10, but in the qualified section it hit 7.22/10, the only topic of controversy to ever hit above 7/10 on one of these surveys. The topic of Basculegion vs Last Respects is something we've been discussing and the order of which we do anything to the tier is also something we've been discussing, so I cannot promise anything right away but these numbers are a clear call that currently Basculegion is something to be included in the conversation of tiering.

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This question was included more for the curiosity of the tiering council, as we wanted to see what people believed would be the correct way to proceed with tiering in terms of ordering. There are opinions that one of these pokemon are far more broken than the other, and opinions that banning one would be a mistake so the other should go first then everything else reassessed. In both the overall and qualified responses Miraidon barely surpassed Koraidon, as well as some people who see both as broken but had to make a choice for this question. These numbers aren't anything super significant because of how close they were but it is interesting to see where the slight majority of people lie in terms of where they wish to see tiering go first.

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With the results out of the way I want to explain a bit on where we're going to be taking the tiering from here on out. First off, something will be suspect tested in the near future. Looking at these numbers there's no doubt the playerbase is unhappy with how things are currently, and so something will at least be tested to change up the tier. The issue comes with how we go forward and what comes first, and this was a big discussion Aberforth and I had with our council, other tier leaders, and the tiering admin.

One topic was the optics of Basculegion vs Last Respects, because Basculegion is still entirely an NU mon due to how OU chose to ban the move rather than the Pokemon, so banning an NU pokemon to AG is suboptimal. The other issue is that this is ubers, and we shouldn't be too ban heavy especially when something isn't broken. This means if we ban the move, then completely irrelevant Pokemon like Basculegion-F and Houndstone get hit as well, which is also slightly suboptimal. We will have more internal discussion and possibly a thread before anything is done about this, but I want to keep everyone in the loop on what we're discussing.

The next topic was what do we tackle first in terms of tiering. Basculegion clearly is a big concern, having by far the highest results in the qualified playerbase section and the highest number we've ever seen as a response, which is concerning. This was, however, it's first survey and it is by all means a niche Pokemon in terms of usage. I want it to be very clear that this point doesn't disqualify it from tiering action, and we are still deciding on the situation going forward, but something like Miraidon and Koraidon both also had concerning numbers while being far more common in the metagame and have been on almost every survey we've done with constant monitoring. Miraidon did have higher numbers by every metric than Koraidon, but the differences were small enough to where we would still like to consider all options.

With all that said, we will be opening a PR thread within the week to discuss changes of the tier. The goal is to hopefully decide which to suspect first as well as maybe clear up the optics around the first point I made on Basculegion, but the exact topic of the thread will be in the OP when we get it posted.
 
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