A Council to regulate PvP

[Sparklylemonade]

Firstly, I would like to say that I feel this shouldn't be a thing until PvP is more stable with fewer moves bugged etc, as it would be a major project.

I'm sure a lot of you think this is basically going to be Smogon, unfortunately there will be similarities between this idea and Smogon.

 

I believe there should be a council of several PvP-centric players who regulate and review the PvP metagame, and discuss what is "broken" or "massively unbalanced". This can be relayed to a possible designated staff member (a PvP Coordinator if you may) who has the final say as to whether a notion be put into place or not. these notions can then be forwarded to a coder/content scripter to implement the change into the ranked ladder only. I would also like to add that this would make the regulation of bugged moves easier, as they can just be implemented onto the ban list temporarily until they are fixed (more on that later).

 

 

Roles of the Council

 

1. The council should regularly review the PvP meta-game by both playing PvP and watching the PvP subforum. Therefore they should be active within the community and be competent in adjusting to new changes in the meta quickly.

 

2. They should meet regularly to discuss points about how the competitive game is faring whether there are issues to be raised or not; this will keep all the members in the loop to which they will all know what is going on. An emergency meeting can be called in the event of major updates (such as if Hoenn was released).

 

3. Should an issue arise with either a move being broken (example being rain dance giving 2x power until recently) or a specific tactic completely dominating the meta (still see rain teams now and how they're banned in the official tournament) they should discuss the issue(s) within a council meeting to determine whether the issue is just "strong" or "meta-defining". Upon agreement of issues, one member of the council should forward a report to the designated staff member with both the pro's and cons of the issue being banned from competitive/ranked play.

This could be (but is not limited to) the banning/unbanning/limiting of:

Specific pokemon (such as legendaries)

Specific moves

Specific combos (swift swim and rain dance on the same pokemon/team)

 

 

Limitations of the Council

 

Upon taking this role, some players may say the council can use this to benefit themselves in PvP etc. However, I believe this to be a small issue that can be resolved in several ways:

 

1. Of course, in order to be part of the council, a potential member must prove their PvP prowess either on the ladder prior, or have proven extensive knowledge of competitive battling in general. In addition to this, potential members should ideally be in positive standing within the community and of good character.

 

2. To make it fair upon the ladder is what I find a very touchy subject; to make it fair on both council members and regular competitive battlers, I feel it would be unjust to not allow the council members onto the ladder (for then they could not reap the rewards for being at the top) but at the same time, you could argue that allowing them onto the ladder could open them to bias upon their own failings against specific teams. This is why I feel it is important to acquire players of good moral standing for this task. In addition to this; the council members must competitively battle to review the meta-game, and not allowing them onto the ladder but still battle people on the ladder could tarnish the points of higher tier players (who have just lost points to someone who is technically unranked within the ladder). Another solution to this could be to give council members "unique" rewards in exchange for forfeiting the chance to battle on the ladder (for example the current PvP clothes recoloured or retextured to show their position). Furthermore, if they battle someone on the ladder, it could be a "null-point game":- The other player is informed they will acquire no points for this match if they win, but also drop no points if they lose.

This point is definitely my most flawed and any suggestions of how to make this fair between both PvPers and the council would be a great help. (I have pointed both pros and cons of each idea in turn, so hopefully it helps.)

 

3. The council may only present an issue to the PvP Staff Member if they are in majority vote; this would depend on the size of the council but should generally be >66% of the total members in favour of the planned action. Abstains count against the planned action.

 

 

Roles of the PvP Coordinator (staff member)

 

1. The PvP Coordinator need not be as knowledgeable nor as PvP-centric as the council (that's what the council is there for!) but should have at least good knowledge of PvP and also keep notice of the meta-game and what the general complaints are in the PvP forum.

 

2. The PvP Coordinator must be very firm but fair when evaluating issues presented to them; what their actions do affects the entire PvP community for better or for worse. They should be able to assess the situation well as to whether the points of the council are well intended.

 

3. The PvP Coordinator should also ensure to keep the current Ranked rules list up-to-date on the forums and importantly why said action has been implemented. This could be supplemented by an update-able rules list upon clicking to queue for ranked but is more a quality of life update.

 

 

What changes would need to be implemented?

 

Firstly, this is no small update; not only would there be new roles, but it would define a lot of the game's PvP. Safeguards would have to be put in place to prevent misuse.

 

In addition to this, it would increase the workload of the coders/content scripters permanently; since keeping a ranked ban list up-to-date could be a big job some weeks. Furthermore, players should know the reason why their team is banned, which would mean a heavy workload in framework to put this into action. For example, a player has a pokemon with Unaware, which is a banned ability:- upon trying to queue for ranked they get a popup saying "could not join queue; "Unaware" is banned!" or such like.

 

 

How would this affect the community?

 

Of course, the major community this would affect is the PvP community; with the rules and regulations. However, I believe this would also affect the PvE community by changing both prices and demand for certain pokemon but this fluctuates anyway and I feel it is not a downside, but an inevitability.

 

 

Conclusion

 

To conclude, I feel this would be a good idea and bring more players into the PvP side of the game, of which I believe is a big factor in end-game content for the vast majority of pokemon players as it adds a massive amount of replayability, and ensures everyone is entitled to their own teams instead of a small minority who are at the top thanks to abusing a specific combo, move etc (therefore making it nigh-impossible to progress unless you also use that tactic, thus stagnating the meta-game until it's fixed).

 

Important points I think that would be good to discuss are:

 

1. What size should the council be to ensure it's not only effective but also not overpopulated? Though I haven't discussed this point above, I believe 5 (4+ for majority vote) or 7 (5+ for majority vote) would be good numbers.

 

2. What would be a fair way to differentiate between council and other competitive players? Refer to point (2) under Limitations of the Council.

 

3. What general improvements do you think could be made to this suggestion? How would this affect the outcome of the planned action(s)?

 

Finally, I'd like to thank you if you managed to brave this wall of text and hope you believe this is a ideal way to help PvP become an even greater part of PRO. I know a lot of competitive battlers here will be screaming "Smogon! Boo!" but I'd like to remind you that this would be our own version, with our own players, you could communicate with the council/PvP Coordinator(s) over the forum, I can assure you they'd listen to your views!

 

~Sparkly

[Doctor6]

Brilliant idea. :y:

[Jinga]

101730 Brilliant idea. :y:

^

[Orihara]

This has been on my mind for quite some time now. Glad to see feedback on it.

[Deidara8]

Great minds think alike.

I'll post further feedback once I am done with an Indonesian Tournement I am involved in. :Grin:

[Somes]

I Support the Post! Awesome Idea Spark :Exclam:

[Orihara]

Moved to general game talk

[Crimson]

Yea, something like this was obviously needed sooner or later. Glad someone took initiative :)

[Micaiah]

Great post! This would also help new players to understand the aspect of PVP here in PRO, from the regular pokemon itself.

[Xhaj]

Great topic and I'll give you a little insight on future plans. Battle moderators will be implemented in the future and will do just about everything that you mentioned such as moderating pvp forums and etc. This won't happen until the pvp system is balanced and complete I'm sure Red will be happy to discuss this further.