Policy Review Policy Review-CAP Concepts and "The Moral of the Story"

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If I understand correctly,

"The Create-A-Pokémon project is a community dedicated to exploring and understanding the competitive Pokémon metagame by designing, creating, and playtesting new Pokémon concepts."

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means that the CAP project is supposed to be "educational" regarding the Standard metagame; for each CAP, there is supposed to be a "Moral of the Story". For some CAPs, the Moral is immediately recognizable and easily articulated; the most obvious being Arghonaut ("We sure depend a whole lot on using stat-up moves"). However, when looking all over the CAP subforum, I found that I could not even find easily the original concept around which each CAP was built! Since each concept should be something of a "hypothesis", one would think this would be easy to find. If the concept is a hypothesis, it should be thoroughly and systematically commented on once it has been tested by the community (that is what the playtesting is for after all, isn't it?); if it is not a hypothesis, what is it? If we are consistent with the CAP mission statement, I would think that each CAP is not so much "a new Pokemon for the metagame" as a thought experiment, and so I would think that the debriefing period would be the most valuable time of all; we should be articulating what we as a community have learned from this Pokemon about our hypothesis. There should be a clearly identifiable "Moral of the Story" for every CAP, especially since outsiders and newcomers (like me :P) could much more easily "get the point" of CAP (understanding more about the Standard metagame and its nuances) than they will if they are simply overwhelmed by the sheer newness of the particular Pokemon in question. In addition, it would help mitigate the perception that CAP is a metagame of its own, and that the playtesting is essentially "Suspect testing". As I have heard you admit, several CAPs are probably competitively broken. However, if each CAP is a thought experiment, that probably means that we were successful for at least some of them. Arghonaut in particular is a pain in competitive play (particularly for outsiders not used to CAP!), but as previously mentioned a magnificently succesful thought experiment. In summary, perhaps we should focus more on the "Moral of the Story"; what does this Pokemon teach us? I think it might also help with pinning down new concepts for CAPs, which seems to be a problem.

It was time someone addressed this, finally.

A thing I found odd and increasingly disappointing is that, despite the "justification" paragraph added to the concept submissions, most of them are lately TOO focused on "what we need in this (CAP?) metagame" than of "which idea we could explore". For example, a lot of people have accused the "Parasite" concept that popped up approximately into every CAP Concept thread of being a bad concept. IMO, it is much better of a concept than some of the past winning concepts. What a concept should promote in fact, if you ask me, is to explore a niche/mechanic/role which is pretty underused/unexplored in the standard metagame. Now, pretty much every concept from CAP4 on have been heading this way (somehow), but while in the past the focus was more on the exploring aspect, lately the "purely competitive" (I will explain this later in this post) aspect began to prevail.

Let me make some examples to prove my point. Examples taken from past polls. The first one is the concept which we transformed into Fidgit, by Magmortified and Aldaron

Concept: Utility-Support Pokemon.
Description: There is a serious lack of Gravity, Rapid Spin, Wish, non Dark weak Trick Room, OU viable Heal Bell / Aromatherapy, Encore, Memento, Non Dark weak Perish Song, Psycho Shift, Safeguard, Magic Coat, Me First, Snatch, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Tailwind and Haze Pokemon in our lovely Metagame. I don't know what type, what stat distribution or even what kind of Pokemon would effectively use all those, but I want to build a utility Pokemon for the useful yet less used utility moves. If I had to narrow the field a bit, I would emphasize Tailwind, Gravity, non Dark weak Trick Room, Rapid Spin, Wish and Encore. The normal utility moves like Reflect and Light Screen go without saying.

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This is actually a good concept (one of the best winners ever, IMO), since it focuses mainly on uncommon, but yet possibly viable stuff with the idea of tailoring a Pokémon towards this job. And actually Fidgit makes fantastic use of its utility arsenal. Most importantly, Fidgit helped us discovering (outside of useless theorymon) that Gravity, Tail Wind, Heal Block and , to a lesser extent, Trick Room, are less viable than standard weather effects despite the boost obtained by courtesy of Persistent.

However, some of the more recent concepts have lost this important focus. Since I can't quote, for the sake of simplicity, almost the entire CAP8 concept poll slate like probably I should, I will call out a pair of examples. The first one has been posted by Zarator - yes, it's me -, the other one by Plus and Magmortified.

Name: Kingdra in the Snow

General Description: A pokémon with good but not excellent sweeping potential which, under Hail conditions, can become definitely a threatening attacking force.

Justification: Let's face it. The only viable way to run hail in OU is through stall. Things like Glaceon, Syclant, Weavile and so on, can't give to said teams the sweeping edge. They are quite unviable in OU (Glaceon), better off sweeping in a non-Hail team which can support them better (Syclant), or do not benefit from hail at all for sweeping purposes aside from breaking Focus Sashes(Weavile).

While a single Pokémon can't all of a sudden completely change a strategy, we all know that Rain Offense would not be all that threatening without Kingdra in the equation (heck, whenever you see a Rain Dance setup you can almost bet that there's a Kingdra waiting in the wings!).

So, I'd say that it would have a positive effect on the metagame. It would give Hail a chance to stray a bit from stall by putting it on the offensive, and could give to a low-used weather effect a tool to shine a bit in the OU environment.

Explanation: Of course, Hail itself help little in the way of offense, aside from the damage itself and Blizzard accuracy boost. So, This Pokémon will need:
1) A proper typing. Ice/(Rock resistant type) is the most probable, but going for something non-Ice is a possibility.
2) A good ability. Probably a custom ability, since the current Hail-related abilities do not help sweeping directly. This ability would also nullify Hail damage in case CAP8 does not turn to be an Ice Pokémon (like Cacturne's case)

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Name: The Pivot Point

General Description:This Pokemon would help add a new element to making offensive teams. Instead of going full glass cannon or bulky offense, it would be possible to structure a team around this Pokemon and use it strategically to keep the momentum of the battle going in your favor.

Justification: This Pokemon wouldn't be a wall. Nor would it encourage walls. This would take some hits and allow your offensive team a base to build itself around. Essentially the glue that holds everything together while your other Pokemon do their jobs. Ideally, it would also be able to dish out some damage, so as to hold momentum. It would definitely give a positive effect on the metagame.

Explanation: It will make the other Pokemon's job easier through support, yet it will still be able to keep itself on the offense with decent enough attacks. But its primary function would be to - through typing, stats, or combination of both, be the glue of the team that holds everything together to your advantage.

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What's bad about those two concepts, Zarator? Probably this is the question you are gonna ask me. Let me answer. The first one, my own concept, is bad since it is completely "wrong". Why? Because Hail, like Sandstorm, is built to stall. Not because of the Pokémon which benefit of the ability, but because of the weather themselves. ok, Hail may have that 100% Blizzard, but that's all about it. While the "Kingdra in the sun" which have been always used as a paragon for a good concept in the OPs can work because sunshine is an offensive weather no matter how you look at it, "Kingdra in the Hail" is just as good as "Trick Room staller". To word it better, it sucks. Why I have posted it, I don't know. We all make mistakes, after all.

"Pivot Point", on the other side, is not very good of a concept because, well, pivot points already exist. Porygon2, for example, is a good pivot point. It isn't a wall (since it can counter only very specific, high level threats and not an entire side of the spectrum or almost both like true walls), and it does not encourage walls (How many times have you seen Porygon2 on a well built stall team? Yes, none). It is the glue (the analysis itself calls Pory this way) that hold together an offensive team allowing it not to be swept by some prominent threats like Salamence, Jolteon, Gyarados and Heatran. While it is certainly possible to build a better "Pivot Point" (P2 is not even OU, after all), you can see it is not as innovative as the "Pure Utility". Same thing goes also for Beej "Ultimate Scout" which produced Kitsunoh. Does OU really lacks viable scouts?



To sum this up, I think we should stop thinking CAPs like "This is what my team needs" but, rather, "This is what the metagame lacks". Otherwise, there's nothing we can learn from such a research.

zarator said:

It was time someone addressed this, finally.

For example, a lot of people have accused the "Parasite" concept that popped up approximately into every CAP Concept thread of being a bad concept. IMO, it is much better of a concept than some of the past winning concepts. What a concept should promote in fact, if you ask me, is to explore a niche/mechanic/role which is pretty underused/unexplored in the standard metagame.

However, some of the more recent concepts have lost this important focus. Since I can't quote, for the sake of simplicity, almost the entire CAP8 concept poll slate like probably I should, I will call out a pair of examples. The first one has been posted by Zarator - yes, it's me -, the other one by Plus and Magmortified.

"Pivot Point", on the other side, is not very good of a concept because, well, pivot points already exist. Porygon2, for example, is a good pivot point. It isn't a wall (since it can counter only very specific, high level threats and not an entire side of the spectrum or almost both like true walls), and it does not encourage walls (How many times have you seen Porygon2 on a well built stall team? Yes, none). It is the glue (the analysis itself calls Pory this way) that hold together an offensive team allowing it not to be swept by some prominent threats like Salamence, Jolteon, Gyarados and Heatran. While it is certainly possible to build a better "Pivot Point" (P2 is not even OU, after all), you can see it is not as innovative as the "Pure Utility". Same thing goes also for Beej "Ultimate Scout" which produced Kitsunoh. Does OU really lacks viable scouts?



To sum this up, I think we should stop thinking CAPs like "This is what my team needs" but, rather, "This is what the metagame lacks". Otherwise, there's nothing we can learn from such a research.

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I don't think your example is really good. Hell, you even stated it was UU, and for good reason. I really just have to point out to you that Porygon2 is terrible. Sure, it deals with Gyara, Tran, and Mence. That's about it. It has below average typing, and does not excel in anything other than that. A better example of this would be Celebi or Jirachi, both pokemon that are quite diverse. Parasite, however, is something that I do not believe is something we should even be exploring, mainly because it is so terrible to begin with. The reason as to why certain concepts in the metagame excel while others don't is because they simply do not work out. There's just too much kinks and shit to work out in a terrible concept that it makes for little to none direction in the long run. Tell me this: How is a pokemon's niche "To use absorbing moves?"

While I would promote underused niches in the metagame, I think they seriously should work first in OU. Notably, the "utility pokemon" Fidgit is by far my favorite CaP, and hell, it doesn't even use half of those moves mentioned in the concept. Even so, the concept of having a utility pokemon is fulfilled by Forretress in OU already. The most viable Fidgits in the game are currently running Wish, Encore, and Entry Hazards. Apart from Encore, we have all of those in OU. You will never see a Tailwind Fidgit, because it simply does not work as well. Despite there being underused niches filled in Fidgit, the normal niches it fills are ultimately much better. You could say that it helped us learn that some of these moves were simply bad, but I don't think we learned anything at all, because of this one fact -- it was not used because it did not excel in the current metagame. It's common sense. If it was neglected like Encore, however, due to a piss poor user base of the move, by all means, go for it.

The metagame lacks many things, because it will leave those things in the dust, simply put. However, I would promote something that is both not seen that well in the meta, yet would actually work.

I agree with you to a certain extent, but there is a lot of moves/niches disused due to the "piss poor user base of the move", or the niche, or whatever. Hell, it does not even need to be a specific niche. It is perfectly possible to focus or research upon an underused mechanic and still find out something potentially interesting. For example, you look down the "Parasite" concept calling it terrible. Well, I ask you, where is the evidence? I mean, stuff like Gravity or Tailwind can boldly be deemed not very viable when a fantastic user of them like Fidgit still carries them very seldom and with not-so-spectacular results. On the other side, I can't recall a even remotely good user of draining moves (mainly Giga Drain and Drain Punch). Heck, I remember clearly people thinking Technician Giga Drain would have been worthless on Stratagem, despite it having proved quite the contrary, beating even Blissey (at least non-Toxic variants) with it.

You can argue with me as much as you want, but even if your concept (or DK's Para-busing tank, for that matter) would have surely came out with something better at its job than everything else in OU, you cannot say there's anything which already can fulfill those niches in standard. The fact that last CAPs have nothing really original to them apart from the typing is a direct consequence of this fall in originality of concept polls. But of course, this is my opinion, so you are free to disagree. That's simply how I read last events.

zarator said:

I agree with you to a certain extent, but there is a lot of moves/niches disused due to the "piss poor user base of the move", or the niche, or whatever. Hell, it does not even need to be a specific niche. It is perfectly possible to focus or research upon an underused mechanic and still find out something potentially interesting. For example, you look down the "Parasite" concept calling it terrible. Well, I ask you, where is the evidence? I mean, stuff like Gravity or Tailwind can boldly be deemed not very viable when a fantastic user of them like Fidgit still carries them very seldom and with not-so-spectacular results. On the other side, I can't recall a even remotely good user of draining moves (mainly Giga Drain and Drain Punch). Heck, I remember clearly people thinking Technician Giga Drain would have been worthless on Stratagem, despite it having proved quite the contrary, beating even Blissey (at least non-Toxic variants) with it.

You can argue with me as much as you want, but even if your concept (or DK's Para-busing tank, for that matter) would have surely came out with something better at its job than everything else in OU, you cannot say there's anything which already can fulfill those niches in standard. The fact that last CAPs have nothing really original to them apart from the typing is a direct consequence of this fall in originality of concept polls. But of course, this is my opinion, so you are free to disagree. That's simply how I read last events.

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Well first off, Stratagem can never beat Blissey unless you run something like Explosion or Sub CM versus non ST variants. Sub CM doesn't even run Giga Drain to my knowledge.

The reason I deem Parasite so terrible is because I am questioning it as a concept to begin with. Answer my question I said before: "How is using absorbing moves a concept?" I might as well make a concept called "User of Moves that Lower Stats." Is that even a concept? According to the rules, it is. However, what does this help us learn? Underused concepts sure are interesting and all, but I really don't want another Pyroak in the metagame. I'd say that our past CaPs have something going for them.

For example, Kitsunoh makes a good spin blocker and can switch out much easier against things like Tyranitar or Scizor, who can pursuit many of the spin blockers. Arghonaut made CaP Stall the most annoying stall there is. It could do what no other bulky water could do, as its ability actually allowed it to not get set up on. Cyclohm made a great anti hax pokemon in the metagame, effectively screwing over Hax Jirachi.

Our past CaPs have had impacts on the metagame that only they were capable of accomplishing. At least acknowledge that you don't need an "OMG UNDERUSED" parasite to change the view on a metagame.

Plus said:

Well first off, Stratagem can never beat Blissey unless you run something like Explosion or Sub CM versus non ST variants. Sub CM doesn't even run Giga Drain to my knowledge.

The reason I deem Parasite so terrible is because I am questioning it as a concept to begin with. Answer my question I said before: "How is using absorbing moves a concept?" I might as well make a concept called "Foresight User." Is that even a concept? According to the rules, it is. However, what does this help us learn? Underused concepts sure are interesting and all, but I really don't want another Pyroak in the metagame. I'd say that our past CaPs have something going for them.

For example, Kitsunoh makes a good spin blocker and can switch out much easier against things like Tyranitar or Scizor, who can pursuit many of the spin blockers. Arghonaut made CaP Stall the most annoying stall there is. It could do what no other bulky water could do, as its ability actually allowed it to not get set up on. Cyclohm made a great anti hax pokemon in the metagame, effectively screwing over Hax Jirachi.

Our past CaPs have had impacts on the metagame that only they were capable of accomplishing. At least acknowledge that you don't need an "OMG UNDERUSED" parasite to change the view on a metagame.

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This is the attitude I am against. We are not looking to change the metagame. It is only a consequence. The reason why CAP even exists as a project is to explore the metagame, not to make it change. Pyroak for example - I will use it since you named it before - is still a unique Subseeder (which, if you discount the suspect Skymin, are pretty rare in OU - only Celebi and Breloom can boast it, and neither of them is very good at it) thanks to Fire STAB, Will-o-wisp to threaten common physical sweepers and so on. You could put it on par with Kitsunoh in terms of "originality", but I ask you: how many viable scouts are there in OU compared to subseeders? And you can't say subseeding is an inferior strategy, since it is one of the factors that made Skymin a suspect in the first place (the Choice set may be more threatening, but this is off topic material and better left to suspect testers)

So, to answer your question: I think Parasite would be a good concept since it would let us explore an almost never used mechanic in the game. But now, please, could we end talk about Parasite? I brought it up as an example to prove my point, not to let the topic focus around it. I certainly would like a very better concept to show it's face rather than this, that's for sure.

The real focus of the topic is: are we more interested in changing the metagame or in exploring it? Sorry, but Cyclohm does not tell us that much in the term of exploring. Ok, it stops Haxrachi, but who could not see by itself - without even testing - that an Electric/Dragon Pokémon with Hippowdon-esque defenses, recovery, 112 Sp.Atk to back Thunderbolts and Shield Dust to negate flinch, Body Slam paralysis and hax status in general is a counter to standard Haxrachi? Was it really such a difficult question to be worth over a month of process and testing? I'd say previous CAPs like Fidgit, Stratagem and Arghonaut (to a certain extent) gave us more interesting and unsuspected results than - say - Kitsunoh and Cyclohm.

zarator said:

This is the attitude I am against. We are not looking to change the metagame. It is only a consequence. The reason why CAP even exists as a project is to explore the metagame, not to make it change. Pyroak for example - I will use it since you named it before - is still a unique Subseeder (which, if you discount the suspect Skymin, are pretty rare in OU - only Celebi and Breloom can boast it, and neither of them is very good at it) thanks to Fire STAB, Will-o-wisp to threaten common physical sweepers and so on. You could put it on par with Kitsunoh in terms of "originality", but I ask you: how many viable scouts are there in OU compared to subseeders? And you can't say subseeding is an inferior strategy, since it is one of the factors that made Skymin a suspect in the first place (the Choice set may be more threatening, but this is off topic material and better left to suspect testers)

So, to answer your question: I think Parasite would be a good concept since it would let us explore an almost never used mechanic in the game. But now, please, could we end talk about Parasite? I brought it up as an example to prove my point, not to let the topic focus around it. I certainly would like a very better concept to show it's face rather than this, that's for sure.

The real focus of the topic is: are we more interested in changing the metagame or in exploring it? Sorry, but Cyclohm does not tell us that much in the term of exploring. Ok, it stops Haxrachi, but who could not see by itself - without even testing - that an Electric/Dragon Pokémon with Hippowdon-esque defenses, recovery, 112 Sp.Atk to back Thunderbolts and Shield Dust to negate flinch, Body Slam paralysis and hax status in general is a counter to standard Haxrachi? Was it really such a difficult question to be worth over a month of process and testing? I'd say previous CAPs like Fidgit, Stratagem and Arghonaut (to a certain extent) gave us more interesting and unsuspected results than - say - Kitsunoh and Cyclohm.

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I wasn't really trying to emphasize that those changes the pokemon made in the metagame, but rather what we saw from those changes. If you change the metagame, you are also exploring it. The answer you provided for Parasite wasn't really what I was looking for either, but I'll end it at that. Celebi is infact a pretty good Subseeder, arguably the best in OU. However, I'll also end this metagame talk, as I seem to be disagreeing with your statements and there's no point in this nonsense anymore.

I'll put it at this -- I do not detest already used concepts or neglected ideas in the current metagame. A concept does not determine what kind of pokemon that is made entirely, but only gives out a direction. Perhaps learning about the metagame requires more than a simple neglected concept. It requires some analyzing skills.

zarator, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about when you say we aren't out to change the metagame. Some of the best concepts submitted are for the purpose of pushing the limits of the metagame and certain key forces with in it, such as "the Ultimate Wall" and "Anti-Ghost Spinner" (I really can't say that my Ultimate Scout fits the bill here, lol). This is precisely why a concept like "Parasite" is poor. The very best we can do with it is see how viable health-absorbing strategies are at their very best. We'd be testing the limits of one tiny little underutilized strategy, and it isn't even that profound.

I don't want to set this discussion further off-topic, however, so I'd like to focus more on what reach is talking about. With our current system, I feel as though we really don't get to analyze and discuss the results of our CAP after it's been used in battle, which is really important. We currenty have a conclusion thread that's posted at the end of the polling segment of a CAP project. However, considering the new emphasis that's been placed upon the playtesting segment and the fact that our current conclusion thread often features little more than congratulations and speculation, I'd like to suggest that we either make a "Moral of the Story" thread at the end of playtesting for discussing the CAP's affect on the metagame/whether or not it fulfilled its concept/etc., or hold off on posting the conclusion thread until then.

In addition to giving us a more proper conclusion to a CAP project and adding a place to discuss/ask questions regarding a CAP after it's been fully playtested (and we all know there are a lot of these), I think that having a Moral of the Story thread will also set a standard for good concepts, because I think the best way to define a good concept is whether you can discuss the results of the CAP or the "Moral of the Story" in such a thread, beyond "is it good or does it suck?" or "did it fit its concept?". This is the exact thing that separates a concept like Parasite or Bad Typing/Stats/Etc. from Physical Blissey or Stall Breaker. A really good concept should be profound enough to force us into advanced discussion about our metagame and how certain things can cause it to shift drastically in a particular direction.

I suggested something similar to Beej's proposal after Kitsunoh, so yeah, I'm in support of the idea that, after the CAP is created, a thread is made to expand upon the CAP in more of an "intellectual" respect. How the CAP did in relation to its concept, distilling what exactly we've learned from the CAP in process and playtesting (how the concept and the CAP impacted the metagame, as in, "The metagame's become drastically more offensive." than, "I'm seeing a lot of x Pokemon."

So... yeah.

Just to be clear, you want to add a hypothesis to the concept like we've talked about on IRC. Basically, it would work like this:

Hypothesis: I think that if we do x, y will happen.
Concept: X

Then, after playtesting, the Moral of the Story would act as a debrief to see if y actually happened, and if not, what did happen.

Example:

So yeah that's what I took from this proposal, and really I think it can help weed out bad concepts.

Mag, to clarify, my suggestion is to have a thread after playtesting, because really that's supposed to be the ultimate test and most discussion we could have before that stage of the CAP would be pure speculation. And we can't deny that playtesting has been a real eye-opener in the past. In that way, I'm pretty sure our suggestions are quite different!

I agree that a "Moral of the Story" thread could work wonders for our knowledge of the metagame. It obviously has to be at the end of playtesting, which means that I think it needs to be separate from the Conclusion thread, which is intended to mark our progress and be the final word on what the CAP came to.

Before someone else put in my mouth words I never said, I never stated "Parasite" is a good concept. IMO, it is a quite bad one, but it was still better than some of the winning concepts like mine, EM's and so on. It was just an example to prove how bad our last concepts have been to my eyes.

Anyway, I strongly support Tennis idea. If we define the objective of our research, we will be more able to analyze the results. And it would help us identify bad concepts from the start. Probably, a "Moral of the Story" thread after playtesting would fit, too.

I like the idea of a "Moral of the Story" thread to be made after playtesting. I think it would signal the real end of a CAP, not the "Final Product" thread that is commonly considered the end of a CAP today. I liked this general idea when Magmortified proposed it a while back. I didn't implement it then, because there was not much community interest in it then. It sound like there is a bit more interest now.

We need to come up with a decent name for the thread, and define some discussion parameters. Perhaps someone can propose a bit of standard language for the OP? I do not want the OP to be "Ok. We're done now. So what did we learn? Discuss." We need some guidance as to how to give some clear direction for the topic.

And on a side note -- throughout this PR thread there is an undertone that we only "learn stuff" after a CAP is playtested. Maybe some people didn't intend to imply that. But I want to clarify something for any CAP lurkers that might be reading this thread and getting the wrong impression:

The goal is for us to learn about competitive pokemon throughout the ENTIRE CAP project, not just at the end.

We gear all our discussions to be very in-depth and detailed, and to give a forum for exploring many aspects of pokemon that simply cannot be discussed intelligently outside of the context of making a new pokemon. I sometimes learn more from what we DON'T DO on a given pokemon, instead of what we actually DO with a given pokemon and then playtest it. I often find myself reading an argument in a CAP thread and I say to myself, "Wow, I never knew that. I agree this is a really bad idea. I'm voting against it." That's one of the things that makes CAP so compelling. When the project is running smoothly and firing on all cylinders -- our discussion threads are some of the best competitive pokemon discussions in all of Smogon.

Even when we produce a not-so-great pokemon -- we can still learn a lot along the way. I remember learning quite a bit during the creation of Pyroak. As we debated back and forth about the merits of the typing, offensive and defensive advantages/disadvantages, attributes of a good subseeder, etc -- we explored many interesting things. That CAP wandered around a bit, and our end product (Pyroak) is not generally considered to be a "cohesive" pokemon. But, we still had some really great discussions along the way to making it.

So, despite what we decide in this PR thread -- please don't assume that the success or failure of a CAP project is determined during playtesting. CAP projects unfold over several weeks, and we should be learning about the metagame the entire time.

DougJustDoug said:

The goal is for us to learn about competitive pokemon throughout the ENTIRE CAP project, not just at the end.

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I really think the building process should be a large factor in determining a "good" concept from a "bad" one. While it's true that "pivot points" like Celebi, Porygon2, Vaporeon, and even Arghonaut already exist, has anyone actually got any clue how the CAP project would go about creating one?

I supported Pivot Point at the time because it was totally different from anything we've ever done. A sweeper - anyone could make that. High Speed and a high offensive stat and it's good to go. The same deal goes for a solid tank. A pure supporter is a bit trickier, but CAP pulled it off with great success. Why don't we consider moving on to something really difficult like pivot point?

DougJustDoug said:

I like the idea of a "Moral of the Story" thread to be made after playtesting. I think it would signal the real end of a CAP, not the "Final Product" thread that is commonly considered the end of a CAP today. I liked this general idea when Magmortified proposed it a while back. I didn't implement it then, because there was not much community interest in it then. It sound like there is a bit more interest now.

We need to come up with a decent name for the thread, and define some discussion parameters. Perhaps someone can propose a bit of standard language for the OP? I do not want the OP to be "Ok. We're done now. So what did we learn? Discuss." We need some guidance as to how to give some clear direction for the topic.

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Considering that this thread would be primarily to discuss the "moral of the story", why not call the thread something along the lines of "CAPX - Moral of the Story"? In addition to briefly summing up how the creation process went, the TL could also provide some key questions in bullets to be discussed. For example, if the CAP had been Arghonaut, the questions could be:

• Arghonaut was designed to be a counter or check for many of the Pokemon in the top 10 most used list. How affective has it been at this goal? Have you found yourself not using these Pokemon as much because of Arghonaut?
• Has Arghonaut turned the game to stall as many had feared it might? Is offense still as viable a strategy?
• Thanks to its ability, Unaware, Arghonaut completely ignores all stat boosts other than Speed. How have boosting sweepers been affected by the addition of Arghonaut into OU? Have things like Dragon Dance Salamence become obsolete in favor of all-out attacking Salamence sets?

Posters in the thread wouldn't be required to answer these specific questions, and there would definitely be other interesting issues to discuss related to Arghonaut. However, having the TL ask questions like these means that the responsibility to spark discussion doesn't rely entirely upon the public.

DougJustDoug said:

And on a side note -- throughout this PR thread there is an undertone that we only "learn stuff" after a CAP is playtested. Maybe some people didn't intend to imply that. But I want to clarify something for any CAP lurkers that might be reading this thread and getting the wrong impression:

The goal is for us to learn about competitive pokemon throughout the ENTIRE CAP project, not just at the end.

We gear all our discussions to be very in-depth and detailed, and to give a forum for exploring many aspects of pokemon that simply cannot be discussed intelligently outside of the context of making a new pokemon. I sometimes learn more from what we DON'T DO on a given pokemon, instead of what we actually DO with a given pokemon and then playtest it. I often find myself reading an argument in a CAP thread and I say to myself, "Wow, I never knew that. I agree this is a really bad idea. I'm voting against it." That's one of the things that makes CAP so compelling. When the project is running smoothly and firing on all cylinders -- our discussion threads are some of the best competitive pokemon discussions in all of Smogon.

Even when we produce a not-so-great pokemon -- we can still learn a lot along the way. I remember learning quite a bit during the creation of Pyroak. As we debated back and forth about the merits of the typing, offensive and defensive advantages/disadvantages, attributes of a good subseeder, etc -- we explored many interesting things. That CAP wandered around a bit, and our end product (Pyroak) is not generally considered to be a "cohesive" pokemon. But, we still had some really great discussions along the way to making it.

So, despite what we decide in this PR thread -- please don't assume that the success or failure of a CAP project is determined during playtesting. CAP projects unfold over several weeks, and we should be learning about the metagame the entire time.

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Absolutely. There's no denying that some of the greatest learning experiences come from the actual building of the CAP. One of my concerns, however, was that the end of the building process was generally labeled the end of that particular CAP project, and I don't think that's true at all. Our latest changes have really put a lot of emphasis on the importance of playtesting, and our process should reflect such.

I'd also like to make another suggestion here. Earlier I said that a Moral of the Story thread would be good specifically because it sets a standard for what makes a good concept and what doesn't. However, does our current concept submission process really reflect the idea that the CAP Pokemon are supposed to be primarily for educational purposes? We like to ramp on certain concepts like Parasite a lot for being crappy in regard to what we want to accomplish. But we often forget that these crappy concepts are completely legitimate submissions that can't be removed simply for breaking the rules.

This issue has been discussed before, and we had reached a possible solution with the idea of a justification paragraph. This was supposed to weed out crappy concepts that had no real educational value to them. But the idea of the justification paragraph is so vague that people have pretty much been able to BS their way through them anyway, often by just restating the explanation in other words. For example, in the last concept submission thread, Parasite was able to get through with only this written as it's justification:

Justification: Helps learn the benefits and downfalls of these moves, possibly putting them to play in with other pokemon.

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Now, obviously there are numerous problems with this justification. It's incredibly short, it's vague and the phrasing is terrible. However, even with these issues fixed, I think it's an incredibly flawed justification because all it would say is that absorbing moves are underutilized in the current metagame and that we would be testing them to their full potential. This can pretty much be said for every single mildly underutilized strategy, move, etc. in the metagame, which is pretty silly if you ask me.

We've been talking about exploring the "Moral of the Story" for each CAP in this thread. And as was said, a good concept is one that can be discussed deeply in such a thread, and it raises profound questions. Keeping this in mind, I would like to replace the Justification section in the concept submission form and replace it with a "What questions can we expect this concept to answer?" section. This would pretty much serve the exact same purpose that the Justification paragraph does now, but it would force the person posting the concept to be highly specific in explaining the educational value of their concept. It would also bring up key questions very early on and establish a better sense of direction when a concept is actually picked, which has been quite a bit of a problem lately.

One concern with this system, which is a problem with the other system that I highlighted before, is that one can still find a way to restate their concept in the form of an educational question. This is an issue that can be resolved in a variety of ways. A TL could use his or her own discretion in picking through concepts that have obviously been restated for this section. We could also set up a minimum number of questions that can be posed in this section (something reasonable, like two), because a lot of concepts are bad enough that you really can't come up with a real question that it would answer other than the purpose restated. Whichever way we pick, I think this is a really good way to increase the quality of concept submissions and put the focus on the important questions that we hope to answer throughout the course of a particular CAP project.

Beej has completely grasped the issues underlying my OP, and I love his suggestions. One additional point, however, is that in the Moral of the Story thread I think we should also analyze what effects the Moral could have on the Standard metagame; that is to say, whether there are underutilized aspects of the metagame that we could be exploring further using conventional Pokemon based on what we have learned using CAPs. The answer may of couse be "no", but if so, that is part of the lesson as well.

I like Beej's suggestion as well. I agree that the Justification in the Concepts submission should be changed. Perhaps we can call it the "Investigation"? Or maybe just "Questions To Be Answered"? Whatever we call it -- I think it will better serve the purpose that was intended by Justification.

As for the "Moral of the Story" thread -- I still don't think we have any real "goal" of the thread. It still sounds like we are just making a discussion thread at the end of a CAP, and hoping people will take the initiative to post something interesting and meaningful. When is the thread done? Do we just kind a let it go until people stop talking? That's not a great way to close a CAP project. I'd like there to be a more definitive finish to a project.

Here's a suggestion:

Let's call it the "Rating" thread. It could be a place for us to "rate" the CAP project. Since the purpose of a CAP is to learn, everyone that posts will rate the CAP by filling out a "ballot" of sorts. The ballot will have questions like the ones proposed by Beej, along with some numeric system for rating the degree of success or failure of each one. People can submit their "scoresheet" as a post in this final thread. The Topic Leader and/or Moderators can exclude scoresheets that they feel are not well-composed. At the end of the thread, we tally up the results and assign a "Score" for that CAP. Essentially, it would be a clear representation of how well the knowledgeable members of the community think a given CAP succeeded at its stated goals.

I haven't discussed this idea with anyone prior to posting here, so this may be a horrible idea. But, it indicates what I'm looking for -- a way to wrap up a CAP project and say, "We're finished now, and here's how well we did." While this isn't exactly what Reachzero proposed in the OP, I think it's very much in line with the spirit of his proposal.

(late response, but I was thinking about this for a while!)

Doug, I agree that the thread that effectively marks the end of a CAP should have a definitive end, instead of just fading out as discussion dies. However, I fear that the scoresheet idea will really dominate the thread and trivialize the discussions. When trying to sum up something like a "moral of the story" with some sort of numeric (or otherwise) scoring system, it's inevitable that at least some of the meaning is going to be lost in the process. However, I like the idea of having some kind of rating as long as that isn't a problem.

We could have a small poll in the OP, with a question like "did <CAPX> fulfill its concept?" or "was <CAPX> a success overall?". Then we could have a definite time at which the thread is closed and the OP reposts the results along with their own thoughts on the matter. Or whatever we deem appropriate, it would basically serve as a conclusion post of sorts. I think this could be the way to give us the solid end to a project we're looking for without taking away from the original purpose of the thread and "dumbing down" our conclusion. We have our discussion and one number that represents the general consensus on the success of the CAP project.

i just realized, that the moral of the story thread might not be able to be made till after the testing period has been over for a week or two, depending on concept.

this of Argh's case; he was specifically designed to deal with the lots in the metagame, but 3 of those were CaPs. this means that if any concepts are meant to function directly in our metagame, won't that mean that the CaP process will technically be longer than it has been in the past?

ferron said:

i just realized, that the moral of the story thread might not be able to be made till after the testing period has been over for a week or two, depending on concept.

this of Argh's case; he was specifically designed to deal with the lots in the metagame, but 3 of those were CaPs. this means that if any concepts are meant to function directly in our metagame, won't that mean that the CaP process will technically be longer than it has been in the past?

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Technically, any concept which specifically refers to the CaP metagame should not be acceptable. As Doug said many times, the CaP metagame as we know it (a metagame where ALL CaPs are allowed) is nothing more than a byproduct of the CaP process. Of course, it is a very necessary mean to keep the server active, but it does not represent the focus of the project. Our aim should always be researching the standard, OU metagame, exploring ideas and solutions that lack in said metagame. Otherwise, we are just creating a new metagame (and, needlessly to say, this does not follow really Smogon's phylosophy and certainly does not belong to the "Site & Project" section)
In Arghonaut's case, the concept would be acceptable if it aimed to counter the top 5 of the OU, not of CaP. And playtesting only emphasize this. So, no, the CaP process will not be any longer, since, if any concept aimed at the CaP metagame pops up in the Concept Submission thread, it will never make it to the polls.

zarator said:

And playtesting only emphasize this.

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except that argh was designed before the playtest phase was even implemented...

ferron said:

except that argh was designed before the playtest phase was even implemented...

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Yes I know, I only wanted to mean that the decision of putting up playtesting only emphasize the focus that CaP process wants to put over OU instead of CaP metagame.

Hope it is clearer now (and besides, we are gonna test Argho too, just for this kind of sake...)