Policy Review Policy Review - Movepool

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This thread is intended to contain intelligent discussion and commentary by experienced members of the CAP project regarding CAP policy, process, and rules. As such, the content of this thread will be moderated more strictly than other threads on the forum. The posting rules for Policy Review threads are contained here.

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The movepool process has improved greatly over the past two CAP projects, but it still isn't as organized as it should be. It is still unclear as to how the move discussion threads should progress, and no one is really certain what has been agreed after it is done. Nothing seems to clear up until the Complete Movepool Submission thread. The earlier movepool threads are where the big decision-making should occur, but I don't think the process is encouraging that.

I propose the following changes to the Movepool discussion and voting process:

Moves will be discussed and voted in three distinct sections -- Attacking Moves, Non-Attacking Moves, and Complete Movepool

An "Attacking Move" is a move that deals significant damage to an opponent. All other moves are considered "Non-Attacking Moves". As a general rule, any move that can be used under Taunt, is considered to be an Attacking Move. However, there are a few exceptional moves that deal a small amount of damage, but their primary battle purpose is based on a secondary move effect, and Are therefore considered Non-Attacking moves. For example, Rapid Spin and Knock Off are considered to be Non-Attacking Moves, even though they can be used under Taunt. The Topic Leader has sole discretion for interpreting which moves are considered Attacking or Non-Attacking Moves for a given pokemon.

All moves will be categorized as Competitive, Non-Competitive, or Required.

Competitive moves are moves that are viable for use in battle on a given pokemon. This categorization is applicable depending on the pokemon. Sometimes a move will be competitive on one pokemon and non-competitive for another.

Required moves are moves that must be included in the final movepool, and are generally not up for discussion. A list of commonly Required moves can be found in X-Act's movepool guide.

The Topic Leader has sole discretion for determining whether a move is Competitive, Non-Competitive, or Required for the pokemon being created.


Move Discussions(Attacking and Non-Attacking)
The Topic Leader will post a list of moves in the OP of the thread. This list will serve as a single point-of-reference for the current state of the discussion.

The first list of moves should be compiled by the Topic Leader prior to opening the thread, and will serve as the initial list of moves to begin discussion.

The list of moves will be separated into three sections indicating the "status" of the move in the current discussion -- Allowed, Disallowed, Controversial, or Pending.

• Allowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to be allowed in the pokemon's final movepool
  
  
• Disallowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to not be allowed in the pokemon's final movepool
  
  
• Controversial - Moves that did not reach general community consensus, and will require a specific vote.
  
  
• Pending - Moves that have not received enough support or opposition to determine whether they are Allowed, Disallowed, or Controversial

The community should make posts arguing for moves to be Allowed or Disallowed. All posts should be presented with reasoning.

Posting lists of moves is strictly prohibited. Do not copy the TL's list, and then add "Yes/No" or a similarly worthless comment, beside each one. Posts that contain lists of moves will be deleted, even if the post contains additional reasoning and content.

The Topic Leader will update the list continuously throughout the discussion, using recent posts to determine changes to the move list. Moves may have a fluctuating status as the community debates for or against the move in response to changes in the OP.

Posts should be based on the current state of the list in the OP. It is the responsibility of each member to check the OP before making any post in the thread. Posts that demonstrate lack of familiarity with the current OP will be deleted.

The Topic Leader is the sole arbiter for determining "general community consensus". The TL may ignore arguments for or against certain moves, if they feel the argument is not presented with sufficient evidence or reasoning. Do not assume that the existence of a few dissenting posts will ensure that a move will be categorized as Controversial.

At the conclusion of the Movepool Discussion, the Topic Leader will make a final update to the OP move list and the thread will be locked.

Any Controversial Moves will proceed to be voted on in a Move Poll. Any Controversial moves that receive a sufficient majority of votes, will be added to the Allowed moves list.


Complete Movepool
Based on participation in the previous movepool threads, the TL should select several members to present a complete movepool submission.

Allowed moves are the ONLY Competitive moves that are allowed in a final movepool. All other Competitive moves, even those not mentioned in the Move discussion thread -- are NOT ALLOWED in a final movepool.

Any Non-Competitive move can be included in a complete movepool.

If anyone attempts to include additional Competitive moves, not agreed in the previous polls, it will be the TL's responsibility to see that the submitter removes them from the full movepool submission.

X-Act wrote a guide that describes the characteristics of an appropriate movepool. That guide is located here, and should be used as a reference for all movepool submitters.

I totally agree. This isn't even -really- Policy Review, per se. This is pretty much how it is supposed to be according to the Process Guide. The Complete Movepool part is somewhat different, but that -is- how it was done back in the Hyra days.

I see no reason why this change shouldnt be implemented. Im in full support.

Unfortunatly I have nothing to add to this thread really, except that we should try to define competitive/non competitive more clearly. Something like Rock Slide on Syclant was claimed to be competitive, when it's not even another option on an SD/CB set.

Question, what happens to moves that were mention within the discussion thread but don't gain enough support/reasoning for and/or against? Is it up to the TL to see which one of those "pending" moves make it to the final movepool or not?

I propose that non-competitive moves are not decided on until after the Artwork and Pokedex, amongst other miscellaneous aspects, are completed. By doing this the best possible competitive movepool is allowed based off of what we want this pokemon's function to rather than be restricting the movepool based off of art. If the art allows for more competitive moves or limits the plausiblity of some others, than an adjustment thread should go on for movepool. Granted, the actually deciding of competitive moves would go on in the same process as stated in your post, as well as a complete competitive movepool, but a full movepool wouldn't be decided on until art was.

Personally, I have a problem with these two lines.

Based on participation in the previous movepool threads, the TL should select several members to present a complete movepool submission.

Allowed moves are the ONLY Competitive moves that are allowed in a final movepool. All other Competitive moves, even those not mentioned in the Move discussion thread -- are NOT ALLOWED in a final movepool.

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The problem with this way, I believe, is that once the main competitive moves are chosen, their is nothing else to do for people who are solely interested in the competitive aspects of this pokemon. Personally, I think the nice part about voting for the movepools is that there is difference in some of the competitive moves. I can tell you for a fact, that if you choose all the competitive moves before hand, less people will care about the final movepool vote, as it will mostly be based on flavour moves. If we had done it this way, moves like Weather Ball and Tri Attack would not have been options to influence people's votes in the poll.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is:

1) This would take away from the creativity of designing a movepool for the people who create it
2) It would create lots of down time, which, as Doug said "Two days is a very long time on a CAP project." If the voting goes like past movepool votes, then it will be 2-3 days of voting for non-competitive parts of this pokemon.
3)Allow anyone who has a movepool in mind to submit one like in the past. They might have some interesting ideas that might have been overlooked in preliminary move discussion.

Lawman said:

I propose that non-competitive moves are not decided on until after the Artwork and Pokedex, amongst other miscellaneous aspects, are completed. By doing this the best possible competitive movepool is allowed based off of what we want this pokemon's function to rather than be restricting the movepool based off of art. If the art allows for more competitive moves or limits the plausiblity of some others, than an adjustment thread should go on for movepool. Granted, the actually deciding of competitive moves would go on in the same process as stated in your post, as well as a complete competitive movepool, but a full movepool wouldn't be decided on until art was.

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This is an interesting proposal. But, I'd prefer to save this for the upcoming Order of Events PR thread. In this thread's OP, there is no indication of timing of the steps, this simply refers to the how each step would be conducted. However, I do think this proposal will deserve consideration.

Gothic Togekiss said:

Question, what happens to moves that were mention within the discussion thread but don't gain enough support/reasoning for and/or against? Is it up to the TL to see which one of those "pending" moves make it to the final movepool or not?

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Any moves still "Pending" at the end of the process, would be considered Disallowed. Basically, that would mean that someone suggested a move and then little to no other members of the community found the proposal interesting enough to refute or support. So it's out. To use a parliamentary procedure analogy, "The motion fails due to lack of a second."

RB Golbat said:

The problem with this way, I believe, is that once the main competitive moves are chosen, there is nothing else to do for people who are solely interested in the competitive aspects of this pokemon. Personally, I think the nice part about voting for the movepools is that there is difference in some of the competitive moves. I can tell you for a fact, that if you choose all the competitive moves before hand, less people will care about the final movepool vote, as it will mostly be based on flavour moves. If we had done it this way, moves like Weather Ball and Tri Attack would not have been options to influence people's votes in the poll.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is:

1) This would take away from the creativity of designing a movepool for the people who create it
2) It would create lots of down time, which, as Doug said "Two days is a very long time on a CAP project." If the voting goes like past movepool votes, then it will be 2-3 days of voting for non-competitive parts of this pokemon.
3)Allow anyone who has a movepool in mind to submit one like in the past. They might have some interesting ideas that might have been overlooked in preliminary move discussion.

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I agree that creativity is limited somewhat, if the movepool creators are not allowed to add competitive moves of their choosing. However, when movepool creators add competitive moves, it re-introduces new competitive discussions about individual moves, at the same time that the movepools as a whole are being discussed. The reason we have specific Attacking and Non-Attacking move discussions, is to get all the discussion regarding specific competitive moves out on the table, and voted by the community, in a thread dedicated to that purpose.

If a movepool creator "surprises" the communtiy with an off-the-wall new competitive move, then we basically restart the competitive move discussion all over again. But, at that time we have an entire movepool to evaluate, AND all the flavor issues in play. That is a clusterfuck. That's what we are trying to avoid by adopting a "divide-and-conquer" approach to tackling the movepool behemoth.

Movepool creators do have some say in the competitive movepool, in the form of exclusion. Creators are not obligated to pack every single Allowed move into their movepool. This process simply limits the competitive choices available to the movepool submitters. But, based on past voting threads, the community has a tendency to rubber-stamp almost every suggestion into the movepool, so I am far more interested in seeing movepool creators exercise restraint, and limit their competitive movepools -- not increase them beyond their already-excessive size.

I am open to suggestions that would allow the movepool creators some more flexibility to add competitive moves. But, I can't think of anything feasible without opening the door for last-minute debates over competitive moves, and encouraging movepool bloat.

Where is the borderline of moves that count as "competitive" and not. There are many 40 Base Power Moves that qualify as competitive, but some with 80 that I would not call competitive (Slam, Razor Wind, Mega Punch)? I think that the list of moves that qualify as competitive should be made before we go any further.

RB Golbat said:

Where is the borderline of moves that count as "competitive" and not. There are many 40 Base Power Moves that qualify as competitive, but some with 80 that I would not call competitive (Slam, Razor Wind, Mega Punch)? I think that the list of moves that qualify as competitive should be made before we go any further.

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Stone Edge is competitive on any physical Pokemon, right? Its not on Stratagem. That's the problem: what's one Pokemon's trash is another's treasure. So we'd have a VERY large list composed of every semi decent physical move, special move, and every support move basically.

Then make 3 lists, Competitive Physical Moves, Competitive Special Moves, and Competitive status moves. I'd be more than willing to make one of the lists.

RB Golbat said:

Then make 3 lists, Competitive Physical Moves, Competitive Special Moves, and Competitive status moves. I'd be more than willing to make one of the lists.

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I'll take one of the ones you don't do then, however I'll have to do it tomorrow afternoon, if that's ok.

Sure, I'll make the list of Physical Moves right now and edit it in.
Any moves i might have missed/should be removed?

complied some prelims with added type subdivisions within the 3 established

classed by power then accuracy or something, with moves used for added effect at the end.
I think mine are more arbitrary than your rbg.. Should i add stuff like swift in case we make a persian evo? ;_;

Also what order is it in o_o;

I love you guys!

Thanks for stepping up and making some lists. I will incorporate those into the Process Guide. While you are at it, can you list which competitive moves are Attacks and Support? It's obvious for most, but like it says in the OP -- things like Rapid Spin and Knock Off are somewhat tricky.

EDIT: I just noticed that you called for a third list -- Competitive Support Moves. Just ignore this request then....

sorry i'm not sure what you mean, i thought we were doing yet another list for support? or are you talking about "ambiguous moves" like rapid spin/knock off/counter/bide? maybe we should compile a separate list of these and consider them case by case, but we might as well go by the subdivisions established by gamefreak (physical, special, other (yin/yang))


edit: i also strayed from exclusive moves like spacial rend.. should i not have?

DougJustDoug said:

Any moves still "Pending" at the end of the process, would be considered Disallowed. Basically, that would mean that someone suggested a move and then little to no other members of the community found the proposal interesting enough to refute or support. So it's out. To use a parliamentary procedure analogy, "The motion fails due to lack of a second."

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Hmm....I have mixed feelings about that. Part of me say that doesn't seem right because they're might be people that didn't see the proposal before closing and would like to support it. There also been cases of moves that were not suggested, but still making it to the final movepool. Not every competitive viable move can be suggested within the given timetable of the discussion thread and such, certain useful moves get unnoticed.

On the other hand, if a suggestion was made but didn't get any support nor refutation then it's obvious that the majority of voters don't care if it make it to the final movepool or not. If we go by this way of thinking, your statement seems valid enough.

Well, i named every move that would be useable in some way, so it wouldn't hurt. They Probouby wouldn't be chosen anyways

Also gorm, i choice moves that have any usability. Some moves had higher base power then some i choice, (a few normal moves) but they had no purpose because they were outclassed

Tennis said he'll make the support moves tommorow.

My additions in Bold:

Physical Move Edits:

RB Golbat said:

Sure, I'll make the list of Physical Moves right now and edit it in.

Code:

[b]Competitive Physical moves[/b]

 [U]Bug[/U]
-Megahorn
-Attack Order
-X-Scissor
-U-Turn
[B]-Bug Bite[/B]

[U]Dark[/U]
-Punishment
-Pursuit
-Crunch
-Sucker Punch
-Night Slash
-Payback

[U]Dragon[/U]
-Outrage
-Dragon Rush
-Dragon Claw

[U]Electric[/U]
-Volt Tackle
-Thunder Fang
-ThunderPunch
[B]-Spark[/B]

[U]Fighting[/U]
-Reversal
-Focus Punch
-SuperPower
-Low Kick
-Mach Punch
-Drain Punch
-Hi Jump Kick
-DynamicPunch
-Cross Chop
-Hammer Arm
-Close Combat
-Brick Break
-Sky Uppercut
[B]-Seismic Toss[/B]
[B]-Force Palm[/B]
[B]-Double Kick[/B]

[U]Fire[/U]
-Sacred Fire
-Flare Blitz
-Fire Punch
-Fire Fang
-Flame Wheel
-Blaze Kick

[U]Flying[/U]
-Sky Attack
-Fly
-Brave Bird
-Bounce
-Drill Peck
-Aerial Ace
[B]-Pluck[/B]

[U]Ghost[/U]
-Shadow Sneak
-Shadow Claw
-Shadow Force
[B]-Shadow Punch[/B]

[U]Grass[/U]
-Seed Bomb
-Power Whip
-Wood Hammer
-Leaf Blade

[U]Ground[/U]
-Dig
-Earthquake

[U]Ice[/U]
-Ice Shard
-Ice Punch
-Ice Fang

[U]Normal[/U]
-Explosion
-SelfDestruct
-Flail
-Last Resort
-Double-Edge
-Return/[B]Frustration[/B]
-Mega Kick
-Giga Impact
-Fake Out
-Quick Attack
-ExtremeSpeed
-Facade
-Slash
-Body Slam
[B]-Double Hit[/B]

[U]Poison[/U]
-Poison Jab
-Gunk Shot
-Cross Poison
[B]-Poison Fang[/B]

[U]Psychic[/U]
-Zen Headbut
-Psycho Cut

[U]Rock[/U]
-Rock Wrecker
-Head Smash
-Stone Edge
-Rock Slide
[B]-Rock Blast[/B]

[U]Steel[/U]
-Gyro Ball
-Bullet Punch
-Meteor Mash
-Iron Tail
-Iron Head
-Steel Wing

[U]Water[/U]
-Aqua Jet
-Aqua Tail
-Waterfall
-Dive

Any moves i might have missed/should be removed?

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Added Bug Bite to Bug. It's a TM and has use against opponents using boosting berries. Can be Tech boosted.

Added Spark to Electric. Same base power as Thunder Fang, but with 30% para instead of 10% para 10% flinch.

Added Seismic Toss, Force Palm, and Double Kick to Fighting. Seismic Toss deals set damage, useful for tanks and walls, Force Palm has 30% para chance and can be Tech boosted. Double Kick has enough power in each hit to theoretically break Subs, 100 accuracy, and can be Tech Boosted.

Added Pluck to Flying. See reasoning for Bug Bite.

Added Shadow Punch to Ghost. It's the best Physical option for ghosts without Claws, has perfect accuracy, and can be Tech boosted.

Added /Frustration and Double Hit to Normal. Frustration is a Return clone, Double Hit has similar reasoning to Double Kick.

Added Poison Fang to Poison. It has a weak base power, but is the only attack that inflicts Toxic Poisoning, and does so at a 30% rate. Serene Grace or tech could work with it.

Added Rock Blast to Rock. While unreliable, it also has enough Base Power cumulatively to break Subs. Technician could bring it to realms of the ridiculous whereas Skill Link could make it quite powerful.

Special Move Edits:

Gormenghast said:

complied some prelims with added type subdivisions within the 3 established

classed by power then accuracy or something, with moves used for added effect at the end.

Code:

[b]Competitive special moves[/b]

[u]Bug[/u]
-Bug Buzz
[B]-Signal Beam
-Silver Wind[/B]

[u]Dark[/u]
-Dark Pulse

[u]Dragon[/u]
-Draco Meteor
-Dragon Pulse
-[B]Dragonbreath[/B]

[u]Electric[/u]
-Zap Cannon
-Thunder
-Thunderbolt
-Discharge
-Charge Beam

[u]Fighting[/u]
-Focus Blast
-Aura Sphere
-Vacuum Wave

[u]Fire[/u]
-Eruption
-Overheat
-Blast Burn
-Fire Blast
-Flamethrower
-Heat Wave
-Lava Plume

[u]Flying[/u]
[B]-Aeroblast[/B]
-Air Slash
[B]-Air Cutter
-Chatter[/B]

[u]Ghost[/u]
-Shadow Ball
-Ominous Wind
[B]-Night Shade[/B]

[u]Grass[/u]
-Solarbeam
-Leaf Storm
-Grass Knot
-Energy Ball
-Giga Drain

[u]Ground[/u]
-Earth Power

[u]Ice[/u]
-Blizzard
-Ice Beam
-Icy Wind

[u]Normal[/u]
-Hyper beam
-Tri attack
[B]-Hyper Voice
- Swift[/B]

[u]Poison[/u]
-Sludge bomb

[u]Psychic[/u]
-Psychic
-Extrasensory
[B]-Psycho Boost[/B]

[u]Rock[/u]
-Ancientpower
[B]-Power Gem[/B]

[u]Steel[/u]
-Flash cannon

[u]Water[/u]
-Hydro Cannon
-Hydro Pump
-Surf
-Muddy Water
-Water Pulse

I think mine are more arbitrary than your rbg.. Should i add stuff like swift in case we make a persian evo? ;_;

Also what order is it in o_o;

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Added Silver Wind and Signal Beam to Bug. Their TMs/Tutors and do leave some BP to be desired, but they are the only other viable Bug special options.

Added Dragonbreath to Dragon. Again it's a weak 60 BP, but has 30% para, nothing is immune to it. Can be tech boosted.

Added Aeroblast, Air Cutter and Chatter to Flying. Aeroblast is self-explanatory [and ulikely to ever get on anything, like Sacred Fire above]. Air Cutter is weak and desperately needs a tech boost (the high CH rate is there, but...), but it's also a Tutor and decimates Heracross/Breloom. Chatter has 31% confuse rate unless we're going by "only Chatot can confuse with it" rules in the cartridge.

Added Night Shade to Ghost. It's listed as Special so I'm putting it here. It is useful on sturdy tanks and walls with limited offense.

Added Hyper Voice and Swift to Normal. Hyper Voice has 90 base power and 100 accuracy. Swift can be boosted by Technician and is a Tutor.

Added Psycho Boost to Psychic. Self-explanatory.

Added Power Gem added to Rock. It is still weak compared to other attacks, but does have the highest BP and PP.

These moves should come up in any discussion depending upon abilities, type, etc.

Sorry for tl;dr post.

thanks dk, I'd also add mirror coat/counter to each list

Has anyone noticed that Blast Burn, Hydro Cannon, Hyper Beam, and Giga Impact are on a list of competitive viable move list? Don't most people considered Hyper Beam like moves unusable therefor deem uncompetitive?

blast burn/hydro cannon/frenzy plant paired with stab+blaze/torrent/overgrow can be used as "pseudo explosion" moves if your mon is close to death. giga impact would require stab/adaptablity or something to be worthwhile, like hyper beam on pz.

regardless we shouldnt seek to classify some negative effects of moves govern whether a move is competitive or not (the aforementioned moves and overheat are both strong moves with undesirable effects associated with them, granted there are more cases where the effects of overheat can be negated/ignored compared to blast burn etc, but that shouldnt determine whether bb is competitive or not).

i'm not really planning on defending this issue too strongly though so if more people agree that moves with cool down are never competitive ill remove them, but if we're allowing moves for potential technician mons i dont see why we shouldn't allow cool down moves for mons with abilities that could raise their effectiveness.

maybe a "maybe"/"ability dependant" list should be made for each cat?

Gothic Togekiss said:

Has anyone noticed that Blast Burn, Hydro Cannon, Hyper Beam, and Giga Impact are on a list of competitive viable move list? Don't most people considered Hyper Beam like moves unusable therefor deem uncompetitive?

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I think the idea is that they're last-ditch suicide moves. Blast Burn admittedly is generally outclassed by Overheat, but a Torrented Hydro Cannon from Specs Empoleon is going to leave quite a dent in whatever's trying to kill it. And who can forget +2 LO Adaptibility Hyper Beam and its ability to OHKO Blissey. They're situational, but they're not complete failures like Aurora Beam or something.

blast burn almost always loses to overheat I'll agree. the others are greyer.

went ahead and made the other section. broke this one down by effect and not typing

jeeze if you guys were worried about grey areas you ain't seen nothing yet. maybes include, among others:
any stat reducing move that reduces stats by one stage only. Almost never worth it.
Attract
Defense Curl
Detect
Double Team/Minimize
Follow Me
Me First
Grudge
Gaurd Swap
Hail/Sandstorm
Power Swap/Power Trick
Refresh

we need to remember that alot of moves are learned by all final evo pokemon bar random shit like wobba. are these worth including?

Why include some swifts but not others? The lists are missing:
Special:
Magical Leaf
Shock Wave

Physical
Faint Attack
Magnet Bomb

If we're considering Technician users, these can all be viable. If not, Magical Leaf and Shock Wave can still be viable if say, we want a pokemon to be able to kill swampert/gyarados without wasting their HP but still be walled by stuff like milotic.