I've been thinking about "metagame". What is a metagame really is? It appears that it's derived from a consensus between people based on the performance of pokemon in games. Since we can observe the performance in games quantitatively, therefore it is possible to model the metagame.
Current method
In viability thread, people debate the niches of pokemon and how they interact with eachothers however the amount of data being used is laughable. Sure, there's odd damage calcs, but does it really take account of everything? Did people realize the connection between Bugceus and Zygarde while ranking Bugceus at D and Zygarde at A-? Probably not.
Proposed method
You might have noticed how I bolded the word "niche". The reason will become apparent shortly. I propose that metagame is an ecosystem. Each pokemon has its own set (set = genotype) which interacts with environment (game mechanics = environment (which is just really complex interactions of mechanics)) to survive (win game = fitness). As people play the game, the metagame evolves as we can observe by viability thread changes. Some sets are realized to be bad or whatever which means that set has lower fitness than some other set. Therefore, it is possible to model the metagame via a fitness landscape and maintain it as metagame evolves to observe the evolutionary effect of ubers players' mind in progress.
If that went over your head. I'll make a simple example-
Magearena vs Primal Groudon. What happens here? Primal Groudon beats Magearena. Now consider a parallel of this situation - a Wolf and rabbit. Wolf eats rabbit.
Primal Groudon is able to check xern, check kyogre, and etc. Magearena is able to check xern, check yveltal and etc.
Wolf eats squirrel, birds, and etc. Rabbits eat berries, insects, carrot, and etc.
So now, you can see how a "metagame" for wolf and rabbit will emerge. Just like in pokemon! This metagame is usually called food web. Now, how do you measure the most successful species? It's not just by population size, since a rabbit breeds a lot but it can get owned by wolves anyways. Maybe rabbit will mutate some way to beat wolves. Who knows? This is evolution that acts on the food web. Again, the same as how pokemon would change the sets through time. What I posted earlier is the way to look at this objectively.
I intend to post more thoughts/ideas and create the actual tools to make quant ubers a reality. Please feel free to post ideas, critiques, and whatever.
Current method
In viability thread, people debate the niches of pokemon and how they interact with eachothers however the amount of data being used is laughable. Sure, there's odd damage calcs, but does it really take account of everything? Did people realize the connection between Bugceus and Zygarde while ranking Bugceus at D and Zygarde at A-? Probably not.
Proposed method
You might have noticed how I bolded the word "niche". The reason will become apparent shortly. I propose that metagame is an ecosystem. Each pokemon has its own set (set = genotype) which interacts with environment (game mechanics = environment (which is just really complex interactions of mechanics)) to survive (win game = fitness). As people play the game, the metagame evolves as we can observe by viability thread changes. Some sets are realized to be bad or whatever which means that set has lower fitness than some other set. Therefore, it is possible to model the metagame via a fitness landscape and maintain it as metagame evolves to observe the evolutionary effect of ubers players' mind in progress.
If that went over your head. I'll make a simple example-
Magearena vs Primal Groudon. What happens here? Primal Groudon beats Magearena. Now consider a parallel of this situation - a Wolf and rabbit. Wolf eats rabbit.
Primal Groudon is able to check xern, check kyogre, and etc. Magearena is able to check xern, check yveltal and etc.
Wolf eats squirrel, birds, and etc. Rabbits eat berries, insects, carrot, and etc.
So now, you can see how a "metagame" for wolf and rabbit will emerge. Just like in pokemon! This metagame is usually called food web. Now, how do you measure the most successful species? It's not just by population size, since a rabbit breeds a lot but it can get owned by wolves anyways. Maybe rabbit will mutate some way to beat wolves. Who knows? This is evolution that acts on the food web. Again, the same as how pokemon would change the sets through time. What I posted earlier is the way to look at this objectively.
I intend to post more thoughts/ideas and create the actual tools to make quant ubers a reality. Please feel free to post ideas, critiques, and whatever.