I'm gonna try and hastily get this out there, as I definitely need to clarify somethings from the last entry, but I didn't want to write such a huge post. This one will be tackling the whole issue we have about revealing team information, players being hesitant to write articles, and stuff of that nature. Now before I started writing articles for NB, I talked with Unreality a bit about why I think they should set a requirement team reports need to meet before getting put on site, and he just said "we have nothing else." I got tired of seeing bad content, and I like to think of myself as a good player, but a bad performer, so I went ahead and began writing, and I began to take his perspective a bit. But at Nationals I was talking with Wolfe about these entries (when they were still an idea), and the big one we had a discrepancy on was this topic: why good players should write. He made a lot of good points, but I think there are easy answers to them. I'll highlight them below.
As is stands, I think the quality of articles on site can be improved. We had some solid ones from Regionals: MajorBowman's, Unreality's, Zach Drayyyykamp's, etc., but those still aren't the ones players gravitate towards, as I explained last time. But what we're missing is reports from Nationals. Nats was almost three weeks ago, yet the only report we've gotten from Nationals is Angel. Jeudy, and Jun's which they all used to good success. Yes they were posted on Pokemon.com, but I want to understand the thought process behind these moves, not an interpretation from someone. But why? Why don't we have any other reports? Why was it that we had so many last year, and the years prior but we can't get a single one this year? On the other hand, why should they write? Why should they feel obligated? These are things we'll have to overcome as a community. These are dangerous mentalities. Let's begin.
1. No One Gives A Damn About Your Team Going Into a Tournament
Scouting is overrated. There. I said it. I don't see the reason why'd you want to hide your team to people. No one is going to counterteam you at a serious event. This wasn't the case when we had legit pastebins of peoples teams due to Pokecheck, and it sure as hell isn't the case now. In 2012 at Nationals, an early iteration of my Nats team got leaked to some of fiercest competition in the Seniors division in Snake, Maski, and KingofMars. They had a pastebin of my team and they all thought out their matchup weeks in advance, and even considered running Cradily to counterteam me. It was a thing back then. It's not anymore. Get over yourself. Post your team online. People aren't going to remember what you're using or your speed tiers. And I'm not just saying this. Manoj in 2014 wrote a report on his Regionals team, and he used the same team at Nats and got T16, only not making T8 due to resistance. Manoj is a great player, and if you're good enough to T4 a Regionals, or T16 Nationals, any knowledge they have on your team doesn't matter! Just play better than them and you will win more times than not. Simon knew Ashton's team in T16 of Nationals in 2014 because it was posted online, yet he still almost lost! It doesn't matter. Post your team, help someone out, improve the game you love. We all owe something to this community. We all have met some of our best friends through this game. It's time to give back when the game needs it most. If you want the travel stipends and prizes for this game to keep growing, if you want Nationals to keep feeling more and more like a prestigious tournament then we need to grow the player base and keep them around. We have so many players who try their hand, don't get anywhere, and quit. We need to retain them. Post your team. It's one step in the right direction.
2. Writing Team Reports Doesn't Have to be Strenuous
Holy shit for the love of God no one wants to read 920153 words about your team. I want to know why you chose X move, the synergy between your team, and what your EV spread does. I know I can't speak for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who appreciate the longer team reports, but a lot of players aren't there for that jazz. The Imouto report from Nationals looks really long, but considering that three people wrote that, it isn't very much from each player, and it certainly isn't a lot of work for any of them. They get their team out there without much hassle. It's the same mentality I have with my articles I write. I just ask top players questions, they answer when they get a chance, and then I C/P it to a document. It's easy to make content, it's painless for the good players, and it gets quality information out to players. Don't feel the need to write so much. People skip that stuff. The team is the focus, not who you played. I'd rather see a section on bad matchups so players who draw inspiration from it can easily see problems they need to fix then you elaborate for an hour on how hard your match against someone at X-1 was. If you want to write that, go for it! Some people will read it and some people will enjoy it. But I want the people who are lazy to feel like they can write without having to write that extra stuff. (Because it's not super important.)
3. Various Points Wolfe Raised and Rebuttal
Wolfe raised a lot of good arguments when we discussed this at Nationals on the way to film some footage for the documentary, so I'll bring those up and answer them here.
A. Good Players Do Not Benefit from Writing
This is 100% true. In terms of what the player himself gets, it's nothing. It takes a person like Unreality to see the value of keeping the community strong and going to understand the importance of that. The writers don't get anything from writing, the editors don't get anything from editing, the mods don't get anything from managing, and neither do the admins. NB is 100% non-profit. All ad revenue goes into the Major and Invitational prize pool, which I really like. But in the sense of people getting something tangible out of it, it doesn't exist. Unless NB expands to new heights (which if we retained a lot more players for a longer period of time it could be a reality), then perhaps in the future we could reward players with some of the ad revenue their article receives, but for now players have to accept the reward of educating the player base and advancing the metagame.
B. Writing only Benefits the Competition
Again, this one is true. There's not a whole lot to combat this point. If a player is consistently at the top, as Wolfe is, and they want to continue to stay at the top of the CP standings year after year, it may very well be in their best interest to keep their information to themselves to keep the edge between them and the average player as wide as possible to maximize their chances of success. This may be a very selfish argument against writing articles, but we have to remember we're playing for money now, and the prizes are getting better. People will always do whatever they can do win (screen peaking, loading die, slight of handing cards). It's very fair to keep a players greatest advantage: knowledge. This is something that will always differentiate a good player from a bad one. However, to say that posting your team and some info about why you chose X or Y isn't going to cost you very much. If you limit your writing, then you won't be revealing a whole lot in terms of you're personal mentality behind the team and it'll just be a good team that people can experiment with. I personally don't see any harm in that.
C. Posting Teams Promotes Lazy Team Building
I think we're all guilty of this. When I need a spread to test a team, I usually browse NB forums and see if there's a good spread that does roughly what I want, and if I want it to be more fit to my specific needs then I make it myself. But what does this do for the player? It may let them win an addition game or two because their Sylveon is optimized or something, but overall the player doesn't quite learn very much and could become reliant on these given spreads when building. While there are plenty of articles on the site which teach players how to make EV spreads, these aren't aimed at the newer players. These are aimed at the more experienced players. A new player probably doesn't understand any of that stuff, and it's way over their head. But they can copy EV spreads no trouble.
To be honest, I don't think this is a super serious complaint, but I understand its validity. I think the people who rip EV spreads are the new players who don't get that aspect of the game. I don't think a new player have a good EV spread is going to make or break a tournament for a top player, and if it does then they do well and will stay in the community for a while and well, mission accomplished. Besides, there are ways to get around that. Angel, Jeudy, and Jun's team report didn't discuss the EVs one bit, so anyone who rips them is going in with no idea what they do and has to figure it all out themselves. While they still have a good spread, they have no knowledge what it does and have to learn from practice. Alternatively, you could also do what Zog does which is just not posting the EVs at all and perhaps explaining what they do. While the good players who can make EV spreads are able to recreate it, they can easily just calc the spread on their own regardless. They know what hits Pokemon should take, and which ones they should KO. So while I get the need to preserve intellectual property, as it is yours, I think it's less of an issue as it may appear when you think it through.
I may have missed something, but those were the major ones that I remember from Wolfe and I's discussion at Nationals.
Anyway, as always thank you guys for reading these and sharing them and whatnot. I really appreciate the feedback I'm getting and I'm glad we're evaluating our community a little. As always, please feel free to join the discussion on the forum thread, and I look forward to hearing your responses!
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