[FEEDBACK] Competitive Feedback

[Black117]

Hello everyone from the Pokemon Forever community! Its almost going to about two months since the initial launch of Pokemon Sun and Moon with players still progressing through the games as they please, while others getting into more gear toward the competitive scene. Some of you maybe acquainted with me or the others moderators in the forum, but I'm one of the Competitive Mods who "unofficially" leads the VGC sections and discussion.

Will admit I don't have much "IRL Events" or tournament experience compared to some other VGC players, though I do study/play the format on the online ladder both on Battle Spot and Pokemon Showdown extensive from time to time as well as make contributions here mostly concerning VGC. Before continuing any further, I want to ask some "feedback" regarding the competitive sections. (Note: Same can be applied to Singles Format such as Smogon or Battle Spot )

Let me get this one out of the way: What do you think about the current competitive sections regarding the content done for both Singles and Double formats (Smogon & VGC). All of us here from the Pokemon Forever team me, Elly, Naitre, Rogue, Chase, Squeab, Eckley, Unit, etc and alongside all the other contributors here in the forums have taken their time and effort to work on Pokemon content and individual writeups here.

Hopefully this is a simple question, though do want to ask this in spirit of taking any constructive criticism from anyone here and elsewhere in regards to the content we put up. Is there any issues concerning how each Pokemon analysis is done, or is there a way to improve them? Any response is appreciated.

Now focusing on the content I write, is there anything in particular anyone wants to critique or focus on entirely? This might sound like a vague series of questions, though say this again, how would you rate my content and is there any way I can improve upon this, or even criticism. Will admit, I've been quiet about asking this question to others, but I like to help others improve via improving my own content as well in any fashion.

Will say the obvious as I'll continue to do my best in making Pokemon Writeups, Builds, Team Reports, Rates, Discussions, and other subjects at least concerning VGC and other elements of Competitive Pokemon in the future, though again can only work on a certain limit.

If there's any suggestions any of you all like to ask or say, feel free to mention it here in the comments below. Like is there any ideas or potential projects anyone want to see from me or us from the Forum Team in general? Will advise to keep some of the suggestions to a "reasonable" level, though given as much details in your suggestions as possible.

Hopefully anyone reading this post takes the time to respond with any feedback, ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticisms on how we can grow the competitive forums. Will be responding to anyone comments below so as always have a great day!

[Siqueirapowered]

Regarding the first question, one thing I note that can (and should in my opinion) be done is revising the text better, sometimes I'm reading an analysis on a pokémon or a team report and see errors in writing and phrasing that makes me lose the train of thought because it doesn't make much sense; another thing is that I wish that (mostly in individual pokémon analysis) the author would go more in-depth, this generally isn't the case in team reports - though it happens here and there - since the writer usually knows more about that set since he'd played with it a lot beforehand.
And I don't have much to say about the second question without repeating myself.
Keep up the good work

[Slec]

I think @"Elly" should stop being so french

[Black117]

(Jan 17, 2017, 10:47 AM)Siqueirapowered Wrote: Regarding the first question, one thing I note that can (and should in my opinion) be done is revising the text better, sometimes I'm reading an analysis on a pokémon or a team report and see errors in writing and phrasing that makes me lose the train of thought because it doesn't make much sense; another thing is that I wish that (mostly in individual pokémon analysis) the author would go more in-depth, this generally isn't the case in team reports - though it happens here and there - since the writer usually knows more about that set since he'd played with it a lot beforehand.
And I don't have much to say about the second question without repeating myself.
Keep up the good work

Will speak for myself and the work I've done since my time here. Do try my best to keep the my writing as concise and clear as possible especially during the explanations so readers understand of how a certain sets, core, or individual Pokemon/strategy functions. Usually with set explanations, I try to find a balance between clear explanations, which I believe works best, than rather lengthy posts that'll lose the reader. However it doesn't do any justice to have an analysis of a certain Pokemon which doesn't provide much elaboration. Honestly, could explore every possibility about a set in a Pokemon from the moves, EV/IVs, items choice, etc to make it "viable", without boring the reader. Regarding any grammatical errors and phrasing, will ask people to "speak up" about any content I post that's "confusing" to read, or any form of clarification.

[RebornFX]

Personally I feel like the VGC moveset write ups, particularly those posted by you or other staff members, are of pretty incredible quality. I may go through some of the posts individually and suggest some additions due to the metagame evolving and just generally things I think should be included. In terms of resources, I think the speed tier list on here is pretty much useless. As far as I know there isn't a speed tier list which only includes relevant information. You either have something like Smogon's tier list which bombards you with useless information or the one on here which tells you nothing more than the base speeds. Being able to see what speed stat numbers certain Pokemon hit with an amount of investment that you can imagine that Pokemon would actually run would be nice. Forms of speed control would also need to be included like Tailwind and Trick Room of course. This would be pretty tedious to make though. You could take Smogon's list with every single Pokemon in the tier and just remove all of the useless information I suppose.

As for the Tier list, some of the choices just seem completely random. For example why are Crobat and Comfee that have never been used on a successful team and there just isn't a good reason to ever use them lumped together with a Pokemon like Golduck which has been seen on numerous teams that have top cut events and appears as 35th in usage in the most recent showdown usage statistics. Honestly I disagree with about half of the placements of Pokemon on that list but much of that will have personal bias and it will take a long time to explain my reasoning for each case so I'll save that for the future.

Other than that I can't really think of anything more to say. As I said in the thread, I think your write ups for common VGC cores have been tremendous. Short enough to get the point across, long enough to include all of the necessary details. I tend to ramble in any of my write ups, you include the perfect amount (in my opinion).

[Black117]

Thank for the feedback @RebornFX. To go by list, we could try to make a list of Pokemon with a potential speed control options and speed tiers, though it would be rather tedious. Not saying it would happen anytime soon, though for speed control we can at least list all Pokemon via visuals so there's that. I know someone in this forum made a thread with all the speed control options, so might "gracious" use that as reference. A potential speed tier listings would be rather laborious and almost kinda identical to the ones Trainer Tower has made. We could have it for show, but the images might not be there given how "clunky" it be.

For the VGC tier listing, haven't had the time to update them or figure out at the very least whether to keep certain Pokemon on there. Will admit, the "current" Tier List needs to be update and will have certain Pokemon removed from it since honestly few people are going to use Primarina or Wishiwashi than say Mimikyu, Snorlax, or Tapu Fini. Might only focus on Pokemon who 1) have high usage, 2) how viable they are, and 3) how impact they are toward the overall meta. Guess this concept is similar to the one based from Smogon's regular viability rankings, though will attempt to "fix" these issues soon.

Overall, I honestly do feel like the contributors and staff here have done an amazing job in keeping up with Pokemon builds and write-ups and will continue to do so on their own times. Regarding myself, will try my best to keep up with the VGC meta and do things I'd normally do as usual: work on builds at a steady pace. There are obvious Pokemon we haven't yet covered like Celesteela, Snorlax, Mimikyu, Alolan Muk, etc but feel we'll get to them soon without any worries. Will admit some stuff here will require "maintenance", such as updating some sets here, and the tier listing of course. Anyways we'll see if at least some of these points get address before the end of this month.