CAP 14 CAP 3 - Final Product

[capefeather]

I appreciate Pwnemon's sentiment and I agree with it, but let's not exaggerate the criticisms that I've made or downplay concerns that are real and should at least be considered. I've already said everything I've needed to on the matter, and the responses don't change this. I am optimistic about the future, but empty optimism is utterly worthless and we should have the courage to realize where things might go wrong, as well as what we should do to make things go right. This is a time of great change, which has a bad side and a good side, and if nothing else, the takeaway from this is that we should move forward boldly but intelligently.

 

[tea_and_blues]

I do think the process with Mollux opened some questions about flavour versus competitive considerations, but then I suspect I'm alone in feeling that way. I did notice one or two members (who I won't name) stating outright that it was "idiotic" (or something to that effect) to give flavour any consideration at all during the competitive discussions and polls. I think at the very least we need to establish that such an attitude is ludicrous and cannot take root here. There is room for a great deal of deviation from real world logic when we assign traits to a Pokemon, but there's also still a loose threshold that the official Pokemon canon sets us. Flavour needs to be a consideration at every step, informing but never suffocating our CAP's competitive aspects. We're aiming for synergy between the flavourful and competitive aspects of our design, not merely a highly competitive Pokemon with flavour tacked on tenuously around its edges. Thankfully Mollux avoided that fate, but such a fate was repeatedly slated for the thing.

Another question is how we deal with interpreting attack/ability flavours when they are ambiguous, like Dry Skin allegedly was. I suspect it comes down to treating it how we treated it - democratically - or at least I feel that should be the solution. But then I also feel a very large number of participants were busy trying to make Dry Skin about literally dry skin, an endeavor I thought fairly intellectually dishonest. That whole thing made me uncomfortable. I felt like we might as well argue Truant should give Pokemon an extra attacking turn, instead of one fewer, because you *could* interpret it that way based on its name alone. Hyperbole, yes, but hopefully the gist is there. We could radically reverse the meaning of an ability as it appears in the Pokemon games for a CAP, but I think that leaves us with a flimsier product and a flimsier process - unless someone makes a really compelling argument in favour of the deviation from canon. Drought, of course, brought a whole other wagon to the camp.

Anyway, I'm flogging a dead horse. Sorry. I just feel there are some lingering tensions between flavour and competitive aspects of the CAP process, and it might pay to set some clearer ground rules. I certainly don't want to go into the next CAP with some members believing, as they stated during discussions, that flavour has no role at all when making decisions about competitive aspects.

 

[iDunno]

I know I really have no place to say this due to the fact that I hadn't really taken a part in this process, but I have to disagree that flavor is necessary in CAP. The reason why CAP garnered even a fraction of respect from the rest of the community and earned a place in the forum in the first place is that it took an relatively advanced scientific approach to observing the effects of certain factors in the metagame. The moment that a search for flavor overshadows CAP's initial mission is the moment where it becomes just another pointless fanboy project. And when it might become "just another fanboy project" I wouldn't be surprised if the subforum is ultimately taken down. This is a site for competitive battling, after all. If you want to make a cute pokemon for the sake of it, go to Serebii and I'm sure you'll find plenty of people to do it with you. Sure, flavor does have a place in CAP - it just shouldn't shape the project. It should just be "tacked on" arbitrarily at the closings of the process. There's a sprite for everything. For isntance, I might bring up a pokemon concept for a pure Electric type that has both cross chop and Ice Punch and people would think I'm crazy, but then I would draw up Electibuzz and people would wonder why they ever doubted me in the first place. Or maybe I might say my concept for a Rock/Water type has Toxic Spikes and people would wonder how that would ever be possible, but then I would draw up Omastar and all of a sudden it would be ok because he's a Mollusks and Mollusks are all icky in some form or another. Flavor isn't supposed to build a Pokemon - it's supposed to hold it's concept together, thus complementing it.

And so here ends my rant and I bid thee farewell.

 

[nyttyn]

I know I really have no place to say this due to the fact that I hadn't really taken a part in this process, but I have to disagree that flavor is necessary in CAP. The reason why CAP garnered even a fraction of respect from the rest of the community and earned a place in the forum in the first place is that it took an relatively advanced scientific approach to observing the effects of certain factors in the metagame. The moment that a search for flavor overshadows CAP's initial mission is the moment where it becomes just another pointless fanboy project. And when it might become "just another fanboy project" I wouldn't be surprised if the subforum is ultimately taken down. This is a site for competitive battling, after all. If you want to make a cute pokemon for the sake of it, go to Serebii and I'm sure you'll find plenty of people to do it with you. Sure, flavor does have a place in CAP - it just shouldn't shape the project. It should just be "tacked on" arbitrarily at the closings of the process. There's a sprite for everything. For isntance, I might bring up a pokemon concept for a pure Electric type that has both cross chop and Ice Punch and people would think I'm crazy, but then I would draw up Electibuzz and people would wonder why they ever doubted me in the first place. Or maybe I might say my concept for a Rock/Water type has Toxic Spikes and people would wonder how that would ever be possible, but then I would draw up Omastar and all of a sudden it would be ok because he's a Mollusks and Mollusks are all icky in some form or another. Flavor isn't supposed to build a Pokemon - it's supposed to hold it's concept together, thus complementing it.

And so here ends my rant and I bid thee farewell.

I disagree upon this disagreement. CAP was created to create pokemon, along with everything that comes with that fact. Flavor has never overshadowed competitiveness, and while that is a genuine concern, the claim that flavor is unimportant is so dismissive as to be reckless.

While the goal of CAP is to create a pokemon for a specific niche, we cannot just tack on flavor arbitrarily at the end. To do so would be not only make the process take longer for no real reason, it also isn't a issue as the only stage in which flavor and competitiveness happen at the same time is during the movepool stage, and clearly they have enough wiggle room to handle both at once.

I believe you are ranting about a threat that, while still entirely possible, has a minimal at best chance of occuring. We do put competitiveness first. Its just that for it to remain a pokemon as opposed to a whole bunch of numbers, it has to have flavor, charm, and most of all, it has to feel like something you could genuinely encounter ingame, save for perhaps the obviously optimal as fuck stats.

Also, Electabuzz and Omastar get those moves because of the type of pokemon they are, not because of their typing, as you have said.

 

[CiteAndPrune]

I agree with nyttyn. I see it the same way. I've seen veterans argue pro-flavor in the past too, bringing up some really good arguments.

If CAP was solely focused on the competitive aspects of experimenting with the metagame, then giving names and sprites (and Dex entries) for CAPs wouldn't be a concern. But then how popular would CAP become?

At the same time, what iDunno said about the flavor aspects triumphing over competitive concerns would be bad for CAP if it happened, so I believe he's right about that. Just, we're not at that point yet. Far from it. So we can just continue seeking the balance between flavor and competitiveness like it's been done so far, can't we?

 

[zyrefredric]

Why can't all flavor processes (Art, Sprite, Name, etc) be done after all the competitive process (typing, ability, stats and movepool), instead of at times doing it at the same time. In the very least, the Pokemon Art Poll could be done after all competitive aspects of the Pokemon is done, that way flavor won't have much of a say on them.

 

[uwnim]

Art is so early to give the artists more time to get feedback on their designs , it is popular and because it gives direction to the flavor aspects of the movepools. The poll itself does happen after the purely competitive parts have been finished anyways.

 

[Stratos]

time to break out the mission statement!

seriously you people should read this thing more

As such, although it is not the main focus of the construction process, the CAP project strives to create holistic Pokémon concepts that make sense within the spirit and example of the actual Pokémon game.

in other words, flavor is important but takes a backseat – exactly what people have been saying. CAP has never been afraid to break all semblance of flavor in order to make CAP reach its competitive ends (Hi featherdance Kitsunoh! Hi ALL OF KRILL!) but that doesn't mean we ever INTEND to not make the most fitting, flavorful pokemon we can. And the second CAP decides to put flavor over competitive reasoning, I will whip out the mission statement again to try and fight it tooth and nail.

 

[tea_and_blues]

I am not suggesting for a second that flavour should have a greater role than competitive considerations, or even an equal role - we're making a competitive Pokemon first and foremost. Flavour should "inform, but never suffocate" our competitive reasoning, is what I said.

 

[Wyverii]

I have no idea what people are ranting about or why this is suddenly an issue, or why people are bandwagoning on it like it's going out of style. Competitive sections are already informed with as much flavour as possible without harming the competitive side. In addition a lot of your beef tea seems to be within the pure flavour sections of the decision making process such as Dry Skin, which was informing art at the time.

Your problem isn't with the process tea, its with people, I doubt we will never change the process to take away the TL's, and the people's right to freely choose what flavour decisions they decide upon. Same for restricting competitive decisions to make flavour easier. It's up to them to talk and decide what makes the most sense. There is no true right or wrong answer when it comes to that. Stop pretending there is.

(Note to everyone, tea's complaint is founded in how everything in art got slated. They complained about how mismatched some of the entries seemed to them with the (potential) abilities. In case someone feels out of the loop.)

As for me, this CAP was a bumpy road. Abilities was a bit of a disaster. There's plenty of silver lining though. Despite the odd complaints recently in the thread this was a flavour triumph. Mollux for the most part is a beautiful 'mon and is a rare cutemon too. We also got a lot of valuable data for the improvement of the process, and hopefully what we've learned will make the next CAP even bigger and better than before. We'll also try and make things easier for newbies and those who don't use IRC as usual.

 

[ShinyDreamer]

Me, I'm just glad that Mollux is done now: that basically means any day now another CAP project will start and I can actually participate! I mean, I tuned in way too late to help for this one.

 

[Eagle4]

I actually loved this CAP, apart from the me-getting-banned-for-half-of-it bit. But now for the flames...

Capefeather, I completely disagree with your first comment made to this thread. The fact that all three components apart from the art design were made by newcomers doesn't matter. Mollux's movepool is awesome, the description is awesome, the theory was awesome. I think you're too attached to those 'good old days where the powerful veterans ran the show'.

This CAP also showed a shift in the way of the CAP. It has now more debates, and the newcomers contribution means a new era.