Policy Review Policy Review - Learning from a CAP

Magmortified · Mar 21, 2009

DougJustDoug: I approve.

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CAP is essentially a project intended to further our understanding about the game of Pokemon. However, for some reason, once the Pokemon is finished, we only seem to look at it as a Pokemon. We don't really "learn" more from the end product other than how it plays on Shoddy. In reality, this would seem like the best time to learn how the game ticks from our creation - when it's put into practice.

I'll admit, people do talk about the Pokemon from a project standpoint, but it's usually very shallow. "Arghonaut failed its concept." "Kitsunoh puts sweeping over scouting a lot." That's about it. What I don't see is, "Arghonaut may have failed its concept, but we at least gained insight as to how the top Pokemon are in relation to each other." And on the rare occasion I see that in the chat, it's only heard by whoever's on at the moment. Some people are never on the chat anyways. Period.

There should be, similar to the playtesting thread, a thread where people can discuss what the Pokemon has accomplished, what we may have learned from it. Deeper things than, "Arghonaut ended up being a recentralizer." We simply don't look at what the CAP taught us in the end. But shouldn't that be one of our big focuses?

Essentially, there will be "Assessment in Hindsight" thread. We'll look at the CAP, what it did when it was put in there, we'll see what we learned from it. We've got plenty of time to run it too, considering Playtesting lasts for two weeks. At the very least, we can give it a shot.

Though some of the things brought up in the thread may be subjective, at least we can begin to grasp the Pokemon as a product of the project.

billymills · Mar 21, 2009

I do not think that Arghonaut failed its concept. Countering 5/5 of the top pokemon is incredibly difficult, as they are incredibly diverse. We did a pretty good job.

On topic, I think that a final evaluation would be a decent idea. As of now, we go through playtesting... and come to no conclusions. We're immediately on to the next one since that part is usually more interesting.
I suggest we add it alongside the start of the new project, extending playtesting as long as possible, but keeping the new project coming along at a decent pace.
I'm not exactly sure 'what we learned about it' is going to be the best topic for the evaluation. Anything general about trends, differences, etc. would probably be best.

cyberzero · Mar 21, 2009

I feel that this may be a waste of a thread, but it certainly could be an interesting addition to the process as another distraction while the Playtesting thread runs (during which time CAP is pretty bare).

It has been stated numerous times that the end result of a CAP rarely matches what it was sent out to be and a re-evaluation of the actual product we end up with can lead to very good discussion, but it might just become a bitch-fest over whether or not the Pokemon is "broken" or "useless" or whatever complaints people will inevitably end up having.

This is pretty similar to an idea I had before, a Revision Thread, meant to be a short discussion after major events such as the Typing polls or Move polls in order to keep track of the CAP and see if it's going in the proper direction.

In conclusion, Learning from a CAP is definitely a sound topic that will probably come with some baggage, but I'm sure we can handle it as well as create some activity in the forums to lead up to the next CAP project.

darkie · Mar 21, 2009

Can you explain how this is different from the playtesting thread (aside from the title)?

Captain · Mar 21, 2009

In playtesting threads you barely get anything other than what's effective on the sets. One of the most interesting things I saw in Kitsunoh's playtesting was along the lines of "go sweeping" and "Scouting? no, it's a revenge killer," and honestly I feel generous about the latest playtesting threads saying that.

Whereas on the server the discussion is extended as to which pokemon were promoted and demoted as a result of bringing said CaP into the server or general opinions how it changed the metagame. It's quite a bit better discussion or at least gets information the playtesting thread doesn't even if it's shallow. This thread is supposed to put that kind of discussion on the forums as well as possibly deepen the discussion from comments that often plague the server ones:

Our beloved OP said:
I'll admit, people do talk about the Pokemon from a project standpoint, but it's usually very shallow. "Arghonaut failed its concept." "Kitsunoh puts sweeping over scouting a lot." That's about it. What I don't see is, "Arghonaut may have failed its concept, but we at least gained insight as to how the top Pokemon are in relation to each other." And on the rare occasion I see that in the chat, it's only heard by whoever's on at the moment. Some people are never on the chat anyways. Period.

Imo, while this can move the discussion onto the forums I highly doubt that it guarantees said discussion gets any deeper or better. How does putting it onto the forums make the discussion any better? As far as I know (for this topic), it doesn't, it simply changes how the discussion is accessed.

Goodbar · Mar 21, 2009

Magmortified said:
We don't really "learn" more from the end product other than how it plays on Shoddy.

This is the truth, and I don't think there's any way to change that. Maybe I'm not looking into CAP deep enough but I don't see how introducing these new pokemon to the metagame really helps us learn any practical information about it that we can use to improve the actual metagame. Sure we can learn about how prone to change a metagame is, how prone to change certain pokemon are, and how theorymon translates into competitive battling (aka watching our expected scout turn into a revenge killer, etc.), but is anything you could get out of playing CAP helping you master the real OU metagame? I can't really say that much for myself. But maybe the idea is worth a shot to see what people come up with.

hydrolphin · Mar 21, 2009

This sounds like a good idea, but I think it could be expanded upon.

We could use this thread to learn about the metagame AND the process. I think a summary of what happened in the actual process, highlighting the problems would be helpful in reviewing the process, and fixing whats wrong. Then it could tell how the CAP worked, popular sets, and stuff, comparing it to what we set out to do. This section could also find possible issues with the CAP, to see if we need to make revisions. That would be in the OP, then, the comunity could begin to discuss possible solutions to the problems in the process, along with what the CAP actually did. Here's an example:

CAP7 began with the selection of the concept "Ultamite Scout" which looked to create a pokemon the could reveal opponent's teams and movesets. Magmortified was selected as the Topic Leader for CAP7. The first major problem CAP saw was in the secondary typing poll. Ghost was first thought to be the winner in the first bold poll, but after later counting, it did not have over 50% of the votes. These miscounts were caused by people voting multiple times, attempting to change their votes. However, the second poll did begin, with Ghost winning decisivly over Ground. The CAP process went smoothly, for a while. After an exciting Stat Spread poll, Gothic Togekiss narrowly defeated Deck Knight. The next major issue occured during the Art Poll, in which illegal voting occured. False accounts voted for both Elegy of Emptiness and DougJustDoug. But with voter evalutations from respected community members, EoE's victory was upheld. Then, when the community was voting on a new move, there was much discussion whether one move, Rift Hop, could be implemented on the server. However, as ShadowStrike, the other move, won, there was no major problem. There were no more major issues afterwards and CAP7 who was named Kitsunoh, was finally finished. For the fisrt time in CAP history, a Playtesting Server was implemented, which banned all the previous CAPs for 2 weeks, to see Kitsunoh's effect on the OU metagame.

On the CAP server, many people quickly decided that Kitsunoh was a good revenge killer and Choice User. Other people used a more scout-like moveset which generaly included Yawn and U-Turn. Kitsunoh was not found to be overpowering, and was easily countered by Bulky Waters. Swampert, who is argueably the best counter, had his usage soar, in order to defeat all the Kitsunohs. Kitsunoh also lead to a large rise in attention, with the normal server population increasing, and the forum viewers nearly doubling.

Onii · Mar 22, 2009

darkie said:
Can you explain how this is different from the playtesting thread (aside from the title)?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the playtesting thread solely to do with actual experiences on server (sort of like the Suspect threads in Stark)?

I believe that a thread like the one proposed could supplement the existing playtesting thread by comparing the results with the initial concept, and trying to explain any discrepancies.

Of course, we'll need some specific criteria to avoid arguments and whingefests about whether it's "broken" or not. Something like Yllnath's list of goals (from the Concept Assessment thread) would be a very helpful tool for analysis and learning more about the game.

billymills · Mar 22, 2009

darkie said:
Can you explain how this is different from the playtesting thread (aside from the title)?

The playtesting thread has no real purpose. People post whatever they want related to kitsunoh without any general direction. There's a difference between discussing a pokemon and evaluating it. With this evaluation we could even probably discuss new process changes, and decide whether or not they should or should not be kept.

DougJustDoug · Apr 3, 2009

Conclusion

There is insufficient interest and discussion from the community to discern a consensus on this. Therefore, the proposal will not be implemented.

Policy Review Policy Review - Learning from a CAP

Magmortified

<b>CAP 8 Playtesting Expert</b>

billymills

cyberzero

darkie

.

Captain

Goodbar

hydrolphin

Onii

billymills

DougJustDoug

Knows the great enthusiasms

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