How should we handle Gen 7+ movesets for older Pokemon (and Alolan Forms)?

Question

Our original moveset questions are now 6 years old (!) and started in Gen 4, shortly before Black/White were released. We're 3 generations futher on now, so I'm wondering, is it time to start over with new moveset questions for all the old Pokemon?

Previously we have simply added movesets to the old questions but some like Dragonite or Lucario have so many answers it will be hard to add new movesets to those questions now. They will just get lost.

There is also the question of Alolan Forms. We did not separate Mega Evolution movesets from thre regular Pokemon questions so we probably don't need to with Alolan Forms either (most of them hardly change).

Anyway feel free to answer with suggestions for how to handle this.

Comments

There have been a lot of updated movepools, types, mechanics, and stats, especially in the last few years. A lot of the answers to moveset questions — especially for super-popular Pokémon — are several years old and obsolete compared to today's gameplay (and metagame, I assume — I don't do competive but I assume it has changed drastically). Another problem is that the most upvoted movesets are often the oldest. So, the way I see it, there are three options:

1) Keep the moveset questions the way they are.
2) Create new moveset questions. Give Movesetbot a raise and make him earn his pay.
3) Create a filter that allows you to sort by most upvoted answers, or newest. This would allow people to find relevant movesets, while still keeping the old ones.

Those are my two cents, but I am but a lowly Expert so I'm not sure how much weight my opinion has ;D

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We didn't make separate pages for the various forms of Deoxys, Wormadam, Rotom, Arceus, Kyurem, Genesect, or Gourgeist, so before we make new pages for Alola variations, we should also do those Pokemon to keep it consistent.

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I'd argue for efficiency over consistency in that scenario - for example, running 6 different threads or whatever for Genesect would be insanely inefficient due to the fact the movesets would be way too similar, and it would be playing the practically same role, with a different type of technoblast.

Regardless, on the topic of consistency we should probably just leave Alolan forms with their counterparts.

Answer 1

I wanted to quickly throw in a few of my immediate thoughts here, feel free to agree/disagree. I agree some action should be taken here, especially in regards to the many old and outdated answers that also don't follow the formatting and rules regarding detail we now enforce for these threads. However I also don't think it's the absolute end of the world if we do nothing.

I think it should be acknowledged right away that these moveset threads are infinitely important to our community as whole. These are continually among the most popular and most visited among all the different threads we have, and I'd imagine that this traffic is how considerable portions of our community would have come across PokeBase and the wider Pokemon Database in the first place. Hiding these threads would effectively "reset" this, taking them off the front page of Google among other things -- I don't think that's the solution to this at all. Additionally, these threads keep movesets around from past generations that people may still play, something that could not possibly be replicated by starting over. (These became of a pretty good quality around the late fifth generation, so they're worth having in that respect too.) I'd like to keep these around as memories if nothing else, but maybe I'm just sentimental. :'(

The issue in the first place is with the answers to these questions being outdated, stuck at the top due to votes and extremely high in quantity, not with the threads themselves. Without hiding the old answers (still a possibility I guess), I think these solutions could work if you're prepared to work on them a bit Pokemaster:

1. As Astronautical mentioned in the comments, a filter to sort answers by newest or by ones with the most votes would be great. In thinking about it, this is actually be a feature that would be nice to have in general -- for everything, not just moveset threads. This would be even nicer if it could default to newer posts on the moveset threads specifically, and remain on those with the most votes on everything else.
2. Make it so answers can be tagged as being for a specific generation on moveset threads. This could appear below the answer box and would default to the most recently released generation/game. I could imagine this involving a fair bit of work, especially if a sorting option were to be implemented for these answers, but I think this could work well.
3. My personal preference: re-implement or temporarily allow the "closing" questions feature to lock the existing moveset questions and post new ones. We could add in a notice on the old threads that they're no longer open for answers and include a link to the new thread -- mods could silent edit these in. (New threads could include links to the old ones too.) This keeps the old posts around and allows new movesets to gain attention, without sacrificing any content or exposure. This is only a temporary solution to the wider problem though as we'll encounter the same issue this again if/when Gen 8 (woah!) comes around, unless we do the same process for those eventual games too.

Regarding Alolan forms, I've always seen it that moveset threads should be sorted based on PokeDex number. Alolan forms retain their original PokeDex number, so I think they should stay on their original thread, and also for consistency with Mega Evolutions and formes as mentioned in the comments. Perhaps we should mention this in the body of the question, or even change titles to "What is a good moveset for Raticate and Alolan Raticate?" and even "What is a good moveset for Blaziken and Mega Blaziken?"

^{Whoops that went on for too long, going back to study now ;)}

Comments

> Hiding these threads would effectively "reset" this
I'm not planning to hide any old questions at all. If we made new threads, the old ones would most likely be updated with a note at the top saying "these answers are for gen 4-6; for gen7+ click here" with a link to the new question.

> a filter to sort answers by newest or by ones with the most votes would be great
That would take a little while to develop but it's doable. The problem with sorting by newest is that better answers are further down the page. For example if you post a good set, then 5 new users come along and post mediocre ones, yours gets lost a bit.

> Make it so answers can be tagged as being for a specific generation on moveset threads
LOL I just wrote this would be a good idea then saw you suggested it. So yeah, I suppose if I need to do some custom coding anyway, this is another option.

> lock the existing moveset questions and post new ones
Possible, but then people can't post movesets for older gens. Maybe that's not a big issue?

> we'll encounter the same issue this again if/when Gen 8 (woah!) comes around
Well the old questions lasted for 3 gens, these ones could too. There isn't a huge amount of change between each gen, but across 3 gens there is.

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Hey thanks for the response! On second thought I think that sorting the answers based on the generation would likely be the best way to deal with this, if it's not too taxing on your end. My personal "problem" with the threads is that they have unorganised posts from multiple generations with the outdated stuff stuck at the top. The third idea really doesn't organise anything on its on its own, we'll eventually end up with the same mixed-gens problem again and the issue just perpetuates. But based on what you've said I assume you're more concerned with the new posts getting lost?
I think categories would only work if there was a way to sort the answers based on their generation, since there is still the issue of the old posts being stuck up the top. We'd also have a bunch of old, uncategorised posts from 3 different generations to manage -- would we make new threads to address that? I guess it's easier to assign them to an "unknown" category or even automatically assign them based on when they were posted, if we're to be really exact.
If we do go through with this, should the moveset posts simply default to the latest generation instead of sorting by votes like the rest? I think it would be good since we could sort by votes within each generation so there's the same organisation, but the outdated stuff isn't right there when you load the page.

Answer 2

I think something we very much need to consider is focus on Double Battle movesets. Game Freak has heavily been pushing this as their preferred form of battling with recent releases, and plenty of the additions to Sun/Moon only solidifies this. Perhaps Double Battle movesets should be the default movesets for this generation.

Comments

GF has always pushed double battles, but isn't singles the most popular format online? (wifi and Showdown)
But we should definitely encourage both formats on the moveset questions.

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I agree singles should remain in front in terms of popularity so I think they should be the focus. But double battles are definitely rising in prominence -- perhaps we should verbally encourage these sets in each thread?