phoopes
I did it again
Hey it's me, an RBY main, get your haha reacts ready.
So unless you're an RBY main, you've probably missed the big discussion that we've had (and are continuing to have) on tiering, especially for tiers other than OU. Here's a link to the thread if you want to read up on it. There's lot of stuff being discussed, but one of the points that we've been going over that would need approval from people outside of RBY is this: I (and others) would like the people who contribute to updating the Viability Rankings to earn progress towards Tiering Contributor.
This is because RBY does viability-based tiering, rather than usage based tiering. I'm not sure if we're unique in this aspect, which I was I said "old gens" in the title instead of just "RBY." But basically the gist of it is that in the yearly OU Viability Rankings, anything in the B-ranks and up is OU, and anything in the C ranks and below is UU. From there, UU does the same thing, where everything in the B-ranks and up is UU, and anything in the C ranks and below is NU. This will continue with the first NU Viability Rankings, which are slated to happen shortly after NU Snake Draft is over, where the NU/PU cutoff will occur. So since these Viability Rankings directly affect tiering, I think we should be able to count participation in an official Viability Rankings towards Tiering Contributor.
A valid concern that you might have, however, is how the people that produce these Viability Rankings are determined. It's not just an "anyone can participate" kind of thing, so it's not like any rando can get tiering contributor through this system. For OU, the requirements are pretty steep: it's largely just SPL players and people who have participated the previous year (mostly SPL players). So I don't think anyone will balk at that. For the other tiers, however, we as a community have come up with some pretty good guidelines ourselves, consisting mostly of tournament results. This is especially true for UU, which has seen many high quality tournaments and a lot of growth over the past two years. We were also able to get a decent amount of tournament results for Ubers as well, so I don't see any concern there either. The only one that we kind of had to fudge requirements for was NU to get a decent amount of voters, but I think it's in the best interest of the tier and RBY as a whole going forward to get an official Viability Rankings done to replace the current, out-of-date one. As an added benefit, this gets us started on PU as well, which people have been looking forward to. You can read about the full proposed timeline in this post.
I also want to mention that this is not some "get rich quick" (or get a badge quick I guess) scheme from the RBY community. It is most likely going to take someone multiple years of continued activity to earn a badge in this way, which I think is a good thing. In my opinion anyway, multiple years of active tiering participation should result in a badge. In fact, May compiled a list of people who would have earned tiering contributor "points" (idk what to call them) from the 2019 OU Viability Rankings, 2020 OU Viability Rankings, and 2021 OU Viability Rankings, and I grabbed the list from the 2021 UU Viability Rankings. Here's who's earned points:
You'll see on this list many top players of their respective tiers, some of which don't have Tiering Contributor, and even fewer of which have Top Tiering Contributor. All of these players have proven their worth through tournament play and/or metagame knowledge, and I'd like to see them rewarded for it. As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a suspect test in RBY OU maybe ever, and the first one for RBY UU occurred last year, so it's not like these players have many opportunities to earn Tiering Contributor through the normal route of suspect testing. So I think that allowing those who vote in Viability Rankings to count is the perfect solution to keep these people contributing to RBY. In addition, the opportunity for VR votes to count towards Tiering Contributor in old gens with viability-based tiering could lead more players to actually check out these generations and their tiers! And I think the growth/interconnectedness of our communities is always a good thing.
Finally, I'd like to give a special shoutout to vapicuno for their work in really shaping the RBY tiering process by rewarding them with Tiering Contributor as well, since they have had "significant influence over the tiering process." (McMeghan too since they helped but they already have Top TC alum lol).
Thanks for reading!
So unless you're an RBY main, you've probably missed the big discussion that we've had (and are continuing to have) on tiering, especially for tiers other than OU. Here's a link to the thread if you want to read up on it. There's lot of stuff being discussed, but one of the points that we've been going over that would need approval from people outside of RBY is this: I (and others) would like the people who contribute to updating the Viability Rankings to earn progress towards Tiering Contributor.
This is because RBY does viability-based tiering, rather than usage based tiering. I'm not sure if we're unique in this aspect, which I was I said "old gens" in the title instead of just "RBY." But basically the gist of it is that in the yearly OU Viability Rankings, anything in the B-ranks and up is OU, and anything in the C ranks and below is UU. From there, UU does the same thing, where everything in the B-ranks and up is UU, and anything in the C ranks and below is NU. This will continue with the first NU Viability Rankings, which are slated to happen shortly after NU Snake Draft is over, where the NU/PU cutoff will occur. So since these Viability Rankings directly affect tiering, I think we should be able to count participation in an official Viability Rankings towards Tiering Contributor.
A valid concern that you might have, however, is how the people that produce these Viability Rankings are determined. It's not just an "anyone can participate" kind of thing, so it's not like any rando can get tiering contributor through this system. For OU, the requirements are pretty steep: it's largely just SPL players and people who have participated the previous year (mostly SPL players). So I don't think anyone will balk at that. For the other tiers, however, we as a community have come up with some pretty good guidelines ourselves, consisting mostly of tournament results. This is especially true for UU, which has seen many high quality tournaments and a lot of growth over the past two years. We were also able to get a decent amount of tournament results for Ubers as well, so I don't see any concern there either. The only one that we kind of had to fudge requirements for was NU to get a decent amount of voters, but I think it's in the best interest of the tier and RBY as a whole going forward to get an official Viability Rankings done to replace the current, out-of-date one. As an added benefit, this gets us started on PU as well, which people have been looking forward to. You can read about the full proposed timeline in this post.
I also want to mention that this is not some "get rich quick" (or get a badge quick I guess) scheme from the RBY community. It is most likely going to take someone multiple years of continued activity to earn a badge in this way, which I think is a good thing. In my opinion anyway, multiple years of active tiering participation should result in a badge. In fact, May compiled a list of people who would have earned tiering contributor "points" (idk what to call them) from the 2019 OU Viability Rankings, 2020 OU Viability Rankings, and 2021 OU Viability Rankings, and I grabbed the list from the 2021 UU Viability Rankings. Here's who's earned points:
- Sceptross (2019 OU)
- HML am (2019 OU, 2020 OU)
- Aliss (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Amaranth (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Prinz (2019 OU)
- Heroic Troller (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Hipmonlee (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Enigami (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Kaz (2019 OU)
- Maya Chansey (2019 OU)
- ErPeris (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Lusch (2019 OU, 2020 OU, 2021 UU)
- FriendOfMrGolem120 (2019 OU, 2020 OU)
- teal6 (2020 OU)
- Ortheore (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Nails (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Caetano93 (2020 OU)
- shiloh (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- SaDiSTiCNarwhal (2020 OU)
- Mister Tim (2020 OU)
- McMeghan (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- marcoasd (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Kingler (2020 OU)
- Genesis7 (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- MetalGro$$ (2020 OU)
- SMB (2020 OU, 2021 OU)
- Alpha Male Psyduck (2020 OU)
- Hayburner (2021 OU)
- ziloXX (2021 OU)
- TC (2021 OU)
- Louna (2021 OU)
- Vileman (2021 OU)
- Serpi (2021 OU)
- spies (2021 OU)
- Excal (2021 OU)
- Holly (2021 UU)
- iKiQ (2021 UU)
- LTG (2021 UU)
- AM (2021 UU)
- kjdaas (2021 UU)
- Sevi 7 (2021 UU)
- phoopes (2021 UU)
- BT89 (2021 UU)
- meloyy (2021 UU)
- Volk (2021 UU)
- May (2021 UU)
- pac (2021 UU)
You'll see on this list many top players of their respective tiers, some of which don't have Tiering Contributor, and even fewer of which have Top Tiering Contributor. All of these players have proven their worth through tournament play and/or metagame knowledge, and I'd like to see them rewarded for it. As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a suspect test in RBY OU maybe ever, and the first one for RBY UU occurred last year, so it's not like these players have many opportunities to earn Tiering Contributor through the normal route of suspect testing. So I think that allowing those who vote in Viability Rankings to count is the perfect solution to keep these people contributing to RBY. In addition, the opportunity for VR votes to count towards Tiering Contributor in old gens with viability-based tiering could lead more players to actually check out these generations and their tiers! And I think the growth/interconnectedness of our communities is always a good thing.
Finally, I'd like to give a special shoutout to vapicuno for their work in really shaping the RBY tiering process by rewarding them with Tiering Contributor as well, since they have had "significant influence over the tiering process." (McMeghan too since they helped but they already have Top TC alum lol).
Thanks for reading!