Did you know? - Bulbapedia has a Tier List

[Mr. Black]

Please bear with me. The Bulbapedia Tier List is terribly in need of editing. I've already listed a multitude of changes and why on the Discussion Page so I'm not going to list them again, the reason I'm writing this is to get someone's attention. Because something needs to be done.

What's the point of having the article if no-one cares about it or updates it? I think it's great to have a Tier List but it's basically useless if it's so askew, and the fact that no-one even listened when I made an extensive post explaining the ins and outs...

The following is not an ego trip, just making my opinion valid: I have had a LOT of battling experience across all metagames except Uber. The Uber metagame has no bearing on Tier Lists, it is merely a result of there being an Uber tier. For example, saying 'Garchomp isn't Uber because other Ubers are way bettter than it' doesn't justify Garchomp staying in OU - the first and foremost function of Ubers is a banlist for standard, where OUs reside.

With a huge amount of experience breeding, training and ultimately battling, ranging from NU, UU and BL/UU to OU, I know well what works and what doesn't.

If Bulbapedia doesn't care about their Tier List or take pride in it, I have made a Tier List myself and take great pride in it. I would be happy to post it and, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but it is much more refined than the current one. Of course, if someone would take notice of the current one and take some interest in improving it, a separate, new Tier List would not be necessary.

Even if you refuse to believe I know what I'm doing on the matter of a Tier List, at least you know that I actually care and am interested in making sure Bulbdapedia's isn't way off the mark.

So basically, what I'm asking is

Can someone please take notice of the Tier List and take an interest in it, or if no-one will do that

I can submit mine for approval, if it looks OK, it can be posted as the Tier List and up for Discussion/edits. I understand perfectly well that in every Tier List there is always conflict, uncertainty and the like about a few Pokemon, and I'm happy to listen, Tier Lists will always be up for Discussion and changes... but with the current list, despite people pointing out major 'errors' (for lack of a better word) and even having other people support that, nothing is ever done about it.

A few quotes from the Discussion page... (Garchomp is just an example, this isn't a pledge to get Garchomp moved to Uber)

"Garchomp was moved to Ubers by Smogon. While they don't really dictate what is and what is not in which tier, would it be worth moving him here as well? Just a thought."

"Garchomp has gone up to Uber. So can someone edit the page and put him in Uber?"

"Well, Smogon put him there because he overcentralized OU. He's been there for at least a couple of months now." (regarding Garchomp)

"and- wait, why hasn't Garchomp been moved into Ubers on this list? Smogon's ubers list has Garchomp, and it's not like they just added it to ubers on a whim, they took an entire month to test how battling would change w/o Garchomp, then they took the most experienced battlers, and had them vote on the matter. The overwhelming majority of votes were for Uberizing Garchomp."

"It's like, rotting in the garbage can... Garchomp is now uber... Articuno's UU, etc. You get my point."

...but no-one who can do anything about it says or does anything.

Even if all a staff member takes from this (or whoever has authority to edit the Tier List page) is realising they have a Tier List on Bulbapedia, that would be enough.

Thank you.

Mr. Black

 

[Argy]

I don't really see why Bulbapedia is the place for this since it's subjective, and Smogon has its own list.

 

[Tina]

I've always wondered why everyone just treats Smogon as 'the tiers'. It's the most well known, yeah, but it's completely unofficial. Not to mention shitty. =P

Honestly.. if there's going to be a tier list, I wouldn't just go with 'whatever the hell Smogon says'. If you're going to put up a tier list, might as well make it somewhat smartermore original, right? Instead of just copy-pasting from another site.

Of course, that'd take a shitload of testing, coming up with new formats and all. I remember trying to come up with a competitive battling section when I was still here at Bulbapedia. Got torn down, why isn't this too?

Although I'm not exactly an active user of Bulbapedia, this happened to catch my eye due to one of the few things I feel like I know about is competitive battling. Not to mention a slight irritation with Smogon, but that's not part of the subject, now is it?

 

[Luna Tiger]

I say there's no point to a tier list. Does the 'pedia even do anything that involves competititve battling anyway? I know we discourage (to put it politely) anything even remotely tier-indicating on the individual species' page. But we're not Smogon, who has a whole site dedicated to competitive battling that is, overall, as unofficial as it can be in the world of actual information. FEAR is one thing; that's like HSOWA: somethat that's novelty to the inside franchise and still maintained on the mainspace.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

my "UU" Kingler decimating an "OU" Tyranitar.
theres your damn tiers.

 

[The Outrage]

I've always wondered why everyone just treats Smogon as 'the tiers'. It's the most well known, yeah, but it's completely unofficial. Not to mention shitty. =P

Not shitty if you actually know the tiers are based on usage and not usefulness, though sometimes you wonder why Dragonite would be called OU for them when it was not really overused. According to their description, it should be BL.

Now as for Bulbapedia's tier list, its almost a carbon copy of smogon's list. however, they list them in terms of "usefulness" rather than "usage" yet still use the usage terms. This causes a contradiction onto what those actual terms mean (for example, if you take a glance at 'pedia's description for Borderline, it makes no mention of it being a ban tier for those who are broken in UU), which is kind of ironic considering it is an encyclopedia.

my "UU" Kingler decimating an "OU" Tyranitar.
theres your damn tiers.

Shedinja killing standard Kyogres. Just because Pokemmon X beats Pokemon Y does not mean it is generally better, even in a tier system based on usefullness. In one based on Usage, Kingler would most certainly be underused, or borderline if it proves too broken to be UU.

Anyway, I agree with everyone else saying that Bulbapedia is not the place for tiers. Bulbagarden has only recently had an RMT sub-forum its not a major competitive battlign site. A couple of its articles on important aspects of competitive battling such as Weather Conditions is horribly mislead being c/ped from a certain other site made up of green veggie-fairies.

Tiers are always subject to change, and unfortunately we can't have the list freely edited on Bulbapedia since, if you actually read the discussion, half the people there barely know what they are talking about and apply the "Pokemon X beats Pokemon y therefore it is better" logic.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

on that basis, it is speculation, which isnt allowed, and must be deleted.

 

[evkl]

It isn't necessarily speculation--for instance, if you cross-reference UU allowed lists from various tournaments and sites, and find the common denominators, at least you'd have some empirical way of doing things. The "uber" designation isn't arbitrary (well, it shouldn't be, I know that it's slipped a little from where it once stood in the GSC/RuSa days...) If there's a method to the madness-even one that's subjective with respect to the number of appearances in competitive battling-I think it can get in.

 

[Luna Tiger]

Then can't we just have a "proper" definition of the tiers and not list what is considered what and simply redirect them to Smogon? It's /their/ speculation anyway; they should be responsible for telling people what's what, since it's their mess and we shouldn't be responsible for matching their data.

 

[PDL]

It's best to leave such classification to people who actually know the game inside and out. This supposed Tier-list will only end up as a carbon-copy of Smogon's. Since few people who edit the site are smart enough to actually understand how tier-lists actually work.

the senseless insults of Smogon that's in this thread alone is proof enough that Bulbapedia can't prepare it's own tier list.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

so, copy/paste the Smogon list, give them credit, and end of story??

 

[Argy]

Woah, we don't have the right to copy anything from their site without permission.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

it was only a figure of speech, he he.
granted, that also means our tiers would have to be completely different than theirs.
sort of the same vein as translations...

 

[PDL]

it was only a figure of speech, he he.
granted, that also means our tiers would have to be completely different than theirs.
sort of the same vein as translations...

The difference is that everybody who edits that page would have different ways of interperting the data. Not just people who actually play shoddy battle or whatever the battling engine is called.

And it's already been proven that Bulbapedia editors in general don't have the knowledge or experience to deal with a properly mantianed teir-list.

It's just going to cause arguements.

 

[White Len]

That's why I've been against the tier list from the beginning. If you really want it, leave a soft link to Smogon's tier list instead of copying them.

 

[MAGNEDETH]

while i am a competitive battler, i ignore tiers.

 

[Martonimos]

There's a reason we stuck the "list of tiers" in the appendix, where hopefully nobody would see it.

 

[Mr. Black]

Oh I see. So Bulbapedia don't care about the Competitive Battling side of Pokemon? Even though it happens to be one of the hugest selling points? As in, millions of people ONLY play the game for Competitive Battling. I know because I'm one of these people. Why would people keep playing if they weren't battling each other? Where do you think all the replay value comes from?

Do you wonder WHY there are massive sites devoted to Competitive Battling like Smogon and Marriland? And why they are more popular than Bulbapedia? You have to realise Competitive Battling, or even just Wi-Fi battling, is a MAJOR part of the game... MAJOR. Why would we need online pokedexes or exact mechanics of abilities and attacks if we weren't battling each other? You don't need most of that information to beat the game and the AI within it.

No AI predicts your attacks, you can blitz the battle tower by Mind Reader + Sheer Cold with Articuno or Smeargle, just because the AI isn't smart enough to switch after Mind Reader... and then you face 50 million Double Teamers, get frustrated, rage quit and stop battling them because it's a pointless luck fest. AI doesn't have Standard Rules or anything to make the game more fun and fair, instead of just being able to Spore and Double Team your way to victory. And there's only so many AI opponents - even though the people you battle in the Battle Tower have random Pokemon, each Pokemon only has one or two set movesets so you only ever see the same strategies over and over (which all end up being Double Team in the higher levels. Or that Dewgong with Fissure, Sheer Cold AND Horn Drill.) and you're restricted to 3v3.

With Competitive Battling, however, and this is why it is so huge... EVERY BATTLE and EVERY TEAM (almost) is different. Because of the huge range of Pokemon, then the huge range of possible attacks/abilities/hold items/EV spreads/Natures within each Pokemon, you never get bored (or it takes a VERY long time.) Two majoer factors of game's replay value are basically
1. How much freedom and variation the player gets. Pokemon has more freedom and variation than any game I can think of now.
2. Online compatibility. Surely people realise the huge push for games to have online compatability. Playing against REAL people is so much more fun and interesting compared to AI, and that is another major reason why so many people play this game for Competitive Battling.

Say this is all just my opinion if you want, but I can tell you millinos of Pokemon players think this way. Probably mainly older players, teenagers and up, but don't be naive and think they're not just as big an audience as (if not bigger than) younger children, and their sole purpose in the game is Competitive Battling.

In media, one of the main points someone has to think about is their TARGET AUDIENCE. In Bulbapedia's case, that is Pokemon players. Then one must think about what people in the target audience want - OK so 'Pokemon players with easy access to the internet' is a huge target audience and there's bound to be all different kinds of players within it, but if you categorise them - I'm not going to, but one of the categories would obviously be 'Competitive Battlers'. If you were to somehow find the percentage of players that are Competitive Battlers, you would find it is probably the largest percentage. Most certainly, in fact.

if Bulbapedia wants any hope of becoming a popular resource, it's going to have to cater for the huge audience that are Competitive Battlers. The tier list is but one article, but a good example. If Bulbapedia's tier list is, for lack of a better term, a joke, no one is going to take Bulbapedia seriously and they're all going to turn to other resources.

Please, I'm not trying to bag Bulbapedia or anything. I think it's a great idea and has huge potential to be a wonderful site and resource for Pokemon. But it needs to cover EVERY aspect, especially the main ones such as Competitive Battling. I'm trying to help, because I know Bulbapedia's popularity would HUGELY increase if it just realised such a massive audience and did something about it.

I have to go now, I will likely continue this later.

 

[matsy]

Bulbapedia is supposed to be a Pokemon Encyclopedia. People should be able to come here and get accurate information regarding battling, since the entire game is based on battling.
When it comes to battling, there are clear distinctions between what people have come to call 'tiers'. Obviously there are Ubers, which are too powerful and ruin the metagame, whether it be competitive or Wifi.
Then there are those Pokemon which are used considerably more than others, for whatever reason. These have been labelled OU. Obviously some Pokemon are too weak to compete in an environment filled with these "OUs": these pokemon are UUs. But there are still non-OU Pokemon that dominate the UU environment: these are placed in BL.
It is folly to deny or ignore the existence of such tiers, as they are readily apparent.
In an Encyclopedia, people would expect to be able to find accurate information regarding which Pokemon are in which tiers, for the purpose of Standard, BL/UU, or UU battling on Wifi or competitively.
If the Bulba staff are not experienced or knowledgable enough to present an accurate or at least passable tier list, they should let MrBlack or any of the other people like him help out, since this IS a Wiki we are talking about.
I honestly don't understand why people are opposing the tier list.

 

[firepokemon]

Do you wonder WHY there are massive sites devoted to Competitive Battling like Smogon and Marriland? And why they are more popular than Bulbapedia?

Don't state facts if they're no factual. Bulbagarden is already bigger than those two sites. Deal with it.

Where did you two idiots come from anyway? Because its clear you don't know a thing about Bulbagarden or anything like that. Sure competitive battling is huge and sure Bulbapedia could cover it. But they don't need to make their own tier system if they choose not to. And honestly you two above sound like real dickheads to me.

Its no wonder that the state of the pokemon community online is mostly made up of idiots. All pathetic in their ultimate fanatical way, that they're blinded by anything and everything. Really to sign on and reply to this thread is ultimately pathetic. Particularly with the shit that you two actually typed.

---

Now on to my bit towards such a subject. The bulbapedia should have some aspect of competitive battling that much is true. That does not mean however, that you need a Tier list. What you could do is have an article about it, what popular tier lists are used, ie. Smogons. Perhaps some mention about criticisms of such tier list. Perhaps have some stuff about the pokemon competitions in the US etc. I dunno really, but you could do something decent.