Policy Review Policy Review: CAP Mission Discussion (VOTE Closed)

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Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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*approved in conjunction with Birkal

Policy Review: CAP Mission Discussion

Recently a lot of changes have been proposed for the CAP Forum. The most central of these is in regards to the mission of the CAP Forum, especially in how it relates to an all CAP metagame.

I support and endorse a fully functional, tiered, and analyzed CAP metagame. The new forums facilitate this need and will be critical in expanding the CAP base to active users who may not be familiar with the mainline CAP creation process. Ultimately we want CAP to be a vibrant, active, creative project that rewards members for participation, good ideas, and hard work.

Recent proposals have made drastic pronouncements about the future of CAP which deviate from that mission. These changes deserve a full hearing among both the mods and the policy committee, and changes to our mission should be done in the CAP tradition: openly, transparently, and as democratically as possible while maintaining the highest quality standards.

This Policy Review will be to discuss the original mission of CAP, the proposed changes to it, and to weigh the pros and cons of any such changes.

Here is the current mission statement featured on Smogon: http://www.smogon.com/cap/mission_statement

The bullet points are listed below for convenience:
  • The CAP project is community-based, and very democratic.
  • The CAP project involves people with various talents and interests—metagame battlers, in-gamers, artists, spriters, writers, etc.
  • The CAP project inspires various interesting discussions about Pokémon, the spirit and mechanics of the game, and most importantly, in-depth analysis of the current competitive metagame.
  • The CAP project is an ever-evolving project.
  • The CAP project is open to anyone interested in learning more about the underlying fundamentals of competitive Pokémon.

To bring each bullet point into a single thought, CAP is:

  • Democratic
  • Broad-Based
  • Competitive-Minded
  • Flexible
  • Inviting

I would add two more based on how CAP is operated at every level, from new user to how the mods interact:

  • Meritocratic
  • Cohesive

Meritocratic because we happily praise and elevate newcomers who bring substance and intelligence into each project.
Cohesive because the project can only function when there is a mutual, broad respect for peers, moderators, and new members.

What I want to focus on is how we apply the descriptor "Competitive-Minded."

The traditional definition we have used to define "competitive Pokemon" is the Smogon OU metagame. In other words, "competitive" is not Pokemon who have a combination of stats, ability, and typing that make them suitable for OU play, it is testing and analyzing concepts built into a Pokemon to test their effects on competitive tiers.

The new change being discussed relevant to this is the change to create CAP Pokemon specifically for the CAP metagame. While there have been threads suggesting full approval of all changes, this has not entirely been the case, and in order for us to move forward and keep true to CAP's mission, these changes must be discussed with the people who will be responsible for monitoring them.

A lesser change is the abolishing of the Topic Leader. While there have been many changes to the position and reforms are warranted, the Topic Leader has always been an exemplary form of meritocracy. People who have made solid contributions and show a capacity for leadership have been rewarded with a large role in shaping each new project.

I bring this up for discussion because CAP 3 will be the first CAP without such a leader chosen among CAP's peer users, at least as currently proposed. This has been discussed at length and I agree that the previous model for selecting a topic leader has outlived its usefulness. The position itself also needs changes, but I do not feel the complete abolition is the way to go. I will make my own proposal in a subsequent thread, I list it here because it directly ties in the meritocratic element of CAP's mission.

I realize this has dragged on quite a bit, so let me get to the heart of the issue. The questions this Policy Review should address are:

What is CAP's Competitive Mission?

How do we fulfill that mission in our process?


It is my assertion that CAP cannot detach itself from competitive Pokemon. I believe that a competitive BW tier must be chosen for playtest in every CAP project in order to gather data relevant to actual competitive Pokemon. BW CAP already has no less than 12 new threats that skew tier data away from any given BW metagame. The bias this puts on the metagame makes creation of CAP Pokemon solely for the CAP Metagame untenable to CAP's mission. (This occurred historically at the time of the first CAP 3, Pyroak, whose playtesting metagame was skewed by the existence of Syclant and Revenankh.)

It does not, however, preclude concepts that allow for the existence of CAP Pokemon in discussion of how one would compare the effects of a given CAP on a competitive BW metagame. What I would suggest, then, is that instead of a hard, fast rule about making CAP Pokemon with the CAP metagame in mind, we instead focus each CAP project on an existing competitive tier, and allow for concepts that keep the CAP Metagame in mind.

In summary, I want the PRC to discuss ways we can keep the Competitive mission of CAP as outlined in our mission statement in line with the values of Flexibility and Meritocracy, while maintaining the Broad-Based appeal the CAP Metagame is going to bring to our forum.

- - - - -

After discussion, a Ballot has been created.

Ballot:

The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO

This ballot will be open for the next 48 hours (from 03/28/2012, 7:00 PM EST), at which time this thread will close.
 
I generally agree with the CAP metagame establishment (albeit not quite in the way that it is proposed to be established, but maybe that's a topic for another thread), and I don't fundamentally disagree with the idea of redefining what CAP sets out to do. However, I do think that there are some consequences in making this particular proposed change, which is the subject of this thread:

tennisace said:
The next change that will be taking place is CAP Pokemon will be made for the CAP Metagame, not the OU metagame. The reasoning for this is simple: we already know how to make a Pokemon. We know how to make one balanced in a static metagame. However, what is much more relevant is how to make a metagame. With new Pokemon and Dream World Pokemon being released in OU, we get to see the effects that our additions to the metagame have over a period of time. OU in the 5th generation is not truly a static metagame, and neither should CAP.
First of all, the mission statement as it stands is as follows:

CAP site said:
"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."
The focus is on understanding a metagame, not on making a metagame. By focusing on our own metagame, we are departing from the idea of understanding any existing metagame, and becoming "just another tier". I understand that tennisace happens to want to emulate "just another tier" (Dream World), so I will stress that the purpose of this post is not to say this is necessarily an objectively bad decision, just that it contradicts the mission statement as it is stated. This is not some hostile character attack on anyone, it's simply true; at least, that is the argument. If we are to continue to use the current mission statement, we could still "make a metagame" by adding CAPs, even if the CAPs weren't directly designed for the metagame. The CAP metagame will be dynamic no matter what we do to it, because we always will be doing something to it.

I do not believe that we "know" how to make a Pokémon, at least not in the extent that I'd like to say we "know". Yes, at this point we've created three Pokémon in a row that are quite balanced, mostly fulfill their concepts, and are generally not detrimental to the CAP metagame. Yes, we've done reversions on the other CAPs roughly to do the same. However, during any given CAP, we still make flawed qualitative arguments to further our cases all the time. This is not something that will likely be changed through the process, but it has encouraged the creation and adoption of things like X-Act's stat ratings. Doug has even acknowledged in the past that many of our CAPs look overpowered for some reason, but none of us have figured out why. Is it something legitimate and pressing, or is it an illusion?


The other major consequence I'd like to point out is the recently proposed possibility of making CAPs for different metagames, such as Ubers, Little Cup and VGC. This proposition essentially goes out the window by making CAPs for the CAP metagame. This ties in a lot with the first consequence because our mission as it stands is to "understand the metagame". I believe that making CAPs for other metagames is exactly in the spirit of that mission. I have believed for most of my time in CAP that CAP has real benefits for understanding OU and potentially other existing metagames. However, that is just my take on it, and the important thing to highlight is that making CAPs for the CAP metagame directly contradicts the idea of making CAPs for other metagames.
 

jas61292

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I would like to start off this post by agreeing with what Deck Knight said in that I fully support taking the CAP metagame and turning it into a functional tier. Having a place to use the CAP Pokémon outside of the playtests will serve to keep, and even increase interest in the project, and it will also ensure that these creatures that we spend so much time and effort making won't just fade away after their process is over.

That being said, I am very much hesitant about changing the process to make Pokémon specifically for this tier. I honestly feel that doing so would be against the current goals of the CAP project. Now, I would like to believe that the democracy and flexibility of the project will stay unchanged no matter how we choose to go about this issue. Additionally I feel that the no matter what tier we choose our participants, and thus the project, will be competitively-minded. However, I am not too sure that making CAPs for the CAP metagame would fulfill the other portions of the mission statement.

The two remaining points of the mission statement are those that Deck summarized as "broad-based" and "inviting." Now, if I remember correctly, before Necturna's process started, we had a PR thread about the potential for making CAPs for tiers other than OU. One of the biggest con arguments was simply that other tiers do not have the player base of OU. As we are a community driven project, trying to make a Pokémon for a tier that much of the community is unfamiliar with is not necessarily something we want to risk doing. While there are definitely possible benefits for trying out other tiers, it always would come at the risk of losing participation. If our goals are truly to be broad-based and inviting, we should try and stick to what outside competitive Pokémon players know. And, to be honest, while problems such as this could arise from choosing any tier outside of OU, using a undeveloped metagame that comparatively few people even know about would only serve to amplify such effects. And this doesn’t even touch on the problems intrinsic to a CAP metagame itself.

While, as I said earlier, I fully support the creation and tiering of an all-CAP metagame, no matter what we do for it, it is unlikely to ever become a balanced competitive game like other Smogon tiers. Why? Standard tiering systems work because people play to win. They use the best, so we learn what is best and develop strategies around it. However, many people don't play CAP to win. Many people play CAP to use the CAPs. CAP Pokémon are the attraction of the metagame and as such will always see a disproportionate amount of use. While I have full confidence that with tiering and analysis we can make something of the CAP metagame, I personally do not think that it makes for a good environment for this project.

It is my opinion that creating Pokémon for a metagame that is not one of Smogon's main tiers will not teach us nearly as much as we have learned in the past. Additionally, I would like to state my agreement with capefeather's aside. Yes, we have made Pokémon before. And yes, they have turned out well. But making a few Pokémon does not mean we know how it is done. There are all sorts of things to do that we have never tested, and I would be surprised if we could pull every singly one off flawlessly.

But, even if we could truly say that we know how to make a Pokémon, why should that change anything? To quote the mission statement:
Like they say, "Life is about the journey, not the destination." The same wisdom applies here. This is the key difference between the CAP project and every other Fakedex / Fakemon effort that has been done before.
So even if it were true that we could take any concept and make a good Pokémon out of it, that does not mean we should change our goals. It’s not about the end Pokémon, but what we learn along the way. And no matter how good we get, I don't think we will ever learn everything we can from making them. As such, I find it hard to agree with what tennisace said in the post capefeather quoted.

Now, to be clear, I do not think that creating a metagame is a bad idea. I definitely think that there is plenty we could learn by making CAP Pokémon for the CAP metagame. But one major difference is that while Pokémon are made, metagames are formed over time. To make a metagame, you throw a bunch of Pokémon together and let the players sort out what works. And, as capefeather said, Pokémon will be made to be used in the metagame no matter what tier they are originally planned for. Maybe creating Pokémon specifically for the tier would teach us different things, or maybe it wouldn’t. Who knows?

However, that is not what this project is here for. This project is for designing Pokémon and learning from it, not designing metagames. As such, I think there are two options. Either we change the mission of the CAP project, or we continue to create Pokémon for an existing metagame. Both are valid options, though I personally would support the latter.
 

tennisace

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Before I respond fully, I would like to say that I did/do intend on changing the CAP mission statement from "designing Pokemon" to "designing and learning from a metagame". I believe the latter has much more value to us at this point.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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I don't think many would argue that instigating and supporting the CAP metagame isn't beneficial. From what I understand, the CAP metagame used to be incredibly popular back in its earlier years. In our current situation, aesoft has been an excellent host for us on Pokemon Showdown! by providing us with a location to implement our CAPs. Furthermore, the PS! community is heavily interested in CAP; I often see conversations on CAP surfacing in the main chat. If we're going to support the CAP metagame as a community, now would be an ideal time to do so. I personally am all for it. It will provide further interest in CAP for newcomers while expanding our learning opportunities as a community.

The question then is how we are to focus on this metagame. Tennisace has suggested that we directly create CAPs for the CAP metagame because it is more beneficial than creating CAPs for OU. I personally don't agree with this, but I'll have to see his full list of why he considers it more beneficial before I make any other judgment calls.

In my opinion, there is still plenty to learn from creating a CAP for the OU metagame. Let me list some advantages for creating CAPs for OU rather than the CAP metagame:

  • Easier accessibility. As capefeather illustrated, we've discussed making CAPs for metagames other than OU before. The primary reason as to why we decided not to perform such an action is due to the lower player base within those tiers. The CAP metagame falls into the same pit: it's simply not as popular as OU. By creating CAPs for OU, we're catering to the most popular competitive Pokemon tier and opening ourselves up to the largest group of battlers. OU is an accessible metagame that transitively makes CAP accessible (at least more accessible than if we catered it to another metagame).

  • Greater knowledge. The OU metagame is already highly established and highly tested. The CAP metagame, on the other hand, is not. It is experiencing its rebirth within the past few weeks and is still highly unstable. Creating CAPs within a tier that is already established gives us the upper hand in terms of the amount we can learn. If we're creating a Pokemon while the CAP metagame is getting revised and shifted up the wazoo, then we'll end up with a similarly discombobulated end product. OU, on the other hand, is relatively stable and allows for learning opportunities within a steady environment.

I'm sure there are more points that I could list, but I am in a bit of a time crunch. But as you can see from my post so far, I am advocating two seemingly colliding points: I wish to establish the CAP metagame AND I would like to keep CAPs created solely with OU in mind. That being said, I'd like to propose something that is already in place: I'd like CAPs to enter the CAP metagame only once their use within the OU metagame is complete. This means that we would build CAPs for OU, playtest them in OU, and then release them into the CAP metagame. This serves the dual purpose of allowing us to continue to research the OU metagame (one of CAP's main goals) while simultaneously allowing us to explore a new and relatively untamed metagame. We would almost form an entirely new aspect of CAP if we followed this route: discussing the CAP metagame as a community. With this could potentially come revisions, bannings, and whatever the CAP council would see fit. It would also increase the overall interest in CAP by encouraging new users to come to PS! and play our metagame.

There is an allure to playing in OU + CAPs, there is no doubt in that. I suggest that we capitalize upon that fully by supplying additional information to our research and learning on the OU metagame rather than deriving all of our learning solely on the unstable CAP metagame. Thanks for reading! Keep the discussion flowing.
 

Bass

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I must say, I was originally neutral on this issue. After reading some interesting discussion in #cap as well as the excellent posts made in this thread by jas and capefeather though, I developed a more cohesive opinion. What particularly intrigued me was the implications of switching the project's original paradigm from making Pokemon for existing metagames to creating an entirely new CAP metagame. I sincerely regret not reading the list of project changes made my tennisace more carefully, as this change alone could impact the entire project in more ways than I thought it would on the surface. In that respect, I now believe that implementing such a drastic change would be irresponsible without a serious discussion first, and I am glad that this thread was made to address this.

First, let me make one thing clear. Like jas, I have always supported the original mission statement. The entire process is more important than the final product, from creating the concept to thoroughly playtesting. "What have we learned?" is the important question to take away from all of this. In terms of this then, I think studying how each Pokemon we create effects the standard metagame individually is more interesting than creating a new metagame. However, I would like to emphasize that we, as Deck alluded to at the end of his post, haven't really made this a prime consideration, as there are several instances where we have made certain design decisions based on other CAP Pokemon. For example, consider the concept we used for Arghonaut:

Name: Decentralizer
Description: A Pokemon can check a majority of the current top 5 Pokemon.
Here, the top 5 Pokemon actually accounted for what was used on the CAP server at the time. To put this into perspective, Arghonaut was given the ability "Unaware" to make it harder for players to sweep opposing teams with Pokemon like Revenankth. But this was not only true for CAP Pokemon. Arghonaut turned out to be very useful against other powerful threats in the standard metagame at the time! That is why I think Deck's last point about concepts is also important to keep in mind.

As far as my overall stance goes, I like the propositions made by Birkal and jas. To me, they seem much more flexible than just rigorously adhering to one paradigm or the other. We should be making the OU metagame our primary focus, as this makes it easier for us to actually learn something each time we cycle through the process. But I also value maintaining the existence of each CAP Pokemon in a separate CAP metagame. The actual process of learning is not something that literally ends, once we have sufficiently studied how each Pokemon affects the OU metagame, there is still the potential to learn much more as time goes on. No metagame is static after all. But to me, as interesting as it is to see what happens when all CAP Pokemon are accounted for, it also limits our understanding of what we can learn about standard metagames, because it adds a lot of noise. Knowing how much of an impact each Pokemon we create has individually is a more worthwhile thing to study.
 

bugmaniacbob

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Creating a fully functional, independent CAP metagame, and designing CAPs for the OU metagame cannot coexist, for the very simple reason that once we start "tweaking" our CAPs to better suit the CAP metagame, they lose what they were designed for. As far as I am aware this was the reasoning behind revoking the CAP revisions - the CAPs of the past were supposed to be an archive for what we had done, hence why we never used practical analysis, or changing the CAP based on its metagame performance, to better carve them into the niches planned for them.

Having said that, what happened in the past is not necessarily a justification for what should happen in the future. This is a difficult point to debate because both parties are, as they say, under the CAP umbrella, and both have until this point been variously supported by members of the community.

Disclaimer: having discussed this on IRC I have been forced to entirely reevaluate my opinions here and as such have rewritten this post. Opinions still liable to change.

There's nothing wrong with the inherent existence of the CAP metagame. On the one hand, it's something that we can all enjoy battling on and playing around with, and on the other hand it's a fascinating experiment to plunge a Pokemon designed for a specific role into a metagame which it was not specifically designed for, and see how it works. However, I will admit that I am uncertain of the merits of actually designing the Pokemon for this CAP metagame. I have a suspicion that, leaving aside the considerable power creep of most current-generation CAPs, there would have to be some sort of advantage to more recent CAPs over less recent CAPs in order to make them, well, competitively viable in our artificial metagame. Would this lead to excessive power creep such that more recent CAPs, while perfectly balanced in our CAP metagame, would be horribly broken if released in isolation in OU? I can't say for sure, and neither I suspect can anyone else, but I do think that if we reach this point, we have failed in our CAP mission statement - specifically, the competitive-minded bit, in that we are elevating the potential of our creations far beyond the usual cartridge abilities. I won't go on to talk about how much we can learn from the CAP metagame as opposed to the OU metagame as I think jas and Deck Knight covered it pretty thoroughly, and I can't add much at this point, so I'll just say I'll agree with them. Additionally, jas makes an important point when he talks about the CAP metagame becoming isolated from those who do not already know it, as has been the argument against making CAPs for tiers other than OU.


I'll just make a few short remarks on the proposed direction of CAP's mission statement, as regards the "designing of a metagame". The first point is that we ought to be able to decide exactly what we want to learn from any particular project. It was a very big rule in every single CAP project I have ever taken part that excessively or deliberately changing the metagame was a thing to be discouraged. Personally I feel that there's a lot to be learned from how the metagame changes or adapts, but the problem comes when the metagame in question is entirely of our own design.

As a traditionalist, I for my own reasons would prefer to stick to the old mission statement, but there is no real way to objectively argue for the old or the new - or, more accurately, it is a matter of preference whether or not you think that these changes are for better or for worse, as there are pros and cons for both sides. The only argument that really sticks out for me for the CAP metagame side of the mission statement is that the project should be continually evolving and thus we should be willing to attempt new things - but this strikes at the very heart of what CAP is and has always been.

Personally I feel that the ideal solution is to make a decision and stick to it - at least for a time. I dislike compromise in general as they have a tendency to leave both parties dissatisfied, but Birkal/jas's idea for having one's cake and eating it, as it were, would seem to be a good path forward, or a base to move on from. For my own part I dislike the idea of excessive CAP revisions post-playtest as I believe that CAPs should constitute an archive - whereby we can say "When faced with concept <x>, we created this", and then "So what did we learn from it?". I honestly think we have learned quite a lot over the course of the CAP Project - the last few CAPs have been reasonably powered and quite well-weighted, in that they are dynamic without being overpowering, not to mention more concrete examples, such as choosing to not use a competitive ability where once we were giving Magic Guard to Krilowatt, that oft-cited example.

On another note entirely can we please change Arghonaut's ability to Avast as per what was originally decided
 

Deck Knight

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Alright, it's been 48 hours, so now would be a good time to go over what I had in mind re: concepts.

I want to be even more specific than Bass. This is what I think of when I speak about competitive minded concepts that keep CAP in mind:

Concept:
Name: Dual Decentralizer
Tiers: BW OU, BW CAP
Description: A Pokemon that can check a majority of the current top 5 Pokemon in both BW OU and CAP.

Questions to answer:

Historically, some Pokemon in UU are notorious for their application in Ubers. Parasect's 4x resistance to Ground, resistance to Electric and Water immunity plus additional healing in Rain through Dry Skin made it fantastic in Ubers against Kyogre, a Pokemont hat defined it. Specially defensive Quagsire operated similarly by being able to chip away at Kyogre, weakening Water Spout.

  • What special qualities do Pokemon that can shake up two tiers possess, if any?
  • Will a Pokemon specifically designed for two competitive tiers be too powerful for either one by virtue of the different threats it must address?
  • Given how different strategies are in BW OU and BW CAP, with Arghonaut shutting down a lot of stat boosters that run rampant in BW OU, what strategy (or even strategies) would a Pokemon need to not only be viable, but reshape these tiers?
Concept:
Name: RUBL Causes Trouble.
Tiers: BL2, BW CAP

BL tiers have always been interesting designations, held out for Pokemon too powerful for the tier they would otherwise be in considering their usage. It would be fascinating to see what impact one new threat would have on these Pokemon.

Questions to Answer:

  • Is it possible for one Pokemon to check the multitude of threats that inhabit BL tiers enough to make them acceptable in the tier they're excluded from?
  • If this Pokemon exists, would the Pokemon itself be so powerful that it would be so overpowering that it would rightly end up in the BL tier?
  • When impact does the power of a single given Pokemon ultimately have in balancing tiers?
  • How does a Pokemon designed for a lower tier function in a much higher one, at least on theory? How would you calibrate that Pokemon?
These are just samples for what's going on in my head. I don't know if either concept is "ready for prime time." My point is that these concepts playtest in competitive metagames (BW OU in the first example, BL2 in the second.), specifically with the intent of keeping CAP Pokemon in mind, perhaps because even though the second Pokemon would be built for BL2, we could conceivable make it a check on BW CAP threats. Or perhaps not because of power creep. In any case we would learn a lot about tiers, power balance, etc. while keeping focused on what we do on Smogon, which is create balanced metas for players.
 
The tier would actually be RU, not the banlist. Secondly, it'd be nonsensical to have it apply to BW CAP. That is quite clearly a RU concept, and a very cool one at that to be perfectly frank.

I have played CAP as a metagame for longer than I have participated in the project, and I have always been among the best players in the tier insofar as ladder ranking is concerned. That gives me a valuable perspective here in that I thoroughly understand how the CAP metagame works while simultaneously being very knowledgeable in the fundamental operation parameters of CAP as a project. Let me bold this so that it is clear where I stand on the matter: I am fine with the establishment of the CAP metagame as a playable tier (it has always been such, really), but I am not fine with attempting to balance it by unbanning banned OU Pokemon, banning OU Pokemon, or revising the CAPs in any manner. There are many reasons why all of these things are a bad idea, and I will list only the most prominent ones here in order to keep this post readable.
Adding a new CAP to the CAP metagame changes everything and fundamentally inhibits our very attempts to balance the metagame.
Even if we design a CAP for only the CAP metagame and nowhere else ever again, which I disagree with, we run into the problem that mistakes in the CAP's creation or things we couldn't predict will invariably change the metagame such that our past bans/unbans/revisions will become invalid. It is unfeasible to constantly and totally revise the metagame between every CAP, both in workload and in principle. I am totally cool with 'establishing' the CAP metagame, and perhaps we can work in giving out the Tiering Contributor badge for different sorts of work in the CAP metagame, but what is being proposed is detrimental to CAP on the whole. For the record, I think a much better way to implement the tiering contributor badge into the CAP community is to tie it to the playtest metagames. By participating in the playtest metagame and say, scoring top 10, you could earn the tiering contributor badge until the next playtest begins. I consider this the most valid way to determine who should be on the "CAPinet" as well, for what it's worth. It proves competitive merit for the user and achieves the tiering contributor badge integration within CAP without serving as an unnecessary time-sink that will necessarily undo itself down the road.
CAPs should serve as temporal monuments of the CAP project and have historical significance being left as they are and never revised again.
As BMB said above, the CAPs are historical. They should not be edited to sate the CAP metagame. The CAP metagame is tolerably balanced right now, and while centralized, is adequate enough that it's very enjoyable to play and doesn't even need these revisions to take place. If we want to reuse their concepts in BW, that has always been acceptable and should continue to be acceptable.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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Just posting to say that while I think R_D's post has incredible value and lots of valid points, I believe that it is going a bit off topic. The main discussion point of Deck's original post (from what I understand) is as follows:

The new change being discussed relevant to this is the change to create CAP Pokemon specifically for the CAP metagame. While there have been threads suggesting full approval of all changes, this has not entirely been the case, and in order for us to move forward and keep true to CAP's mission, these changes must be discussed with the people who will be responsible for monitoring them.
We really should be trying to discuss which metagame we would like CAPs to be created in, not the future structure of the CAP metagame. In this topic, we need to evaluate which path(s) can we take that will give us the largest amount of beneficial information from creating a CAP within a specific metagame (in this case, the CAP metagame or the OU metagame). The actual formation of the CAP metagame and its policy on revisions, unbannings, and bannings, will be discussed at length in another topic.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
Most of what I wanted to say has already been said by Birkal, Jas and BmB tbh... But I'll put my own thoughts down anyway.

I agree with most of the things that have already been posted. My personal view is that the CaP Metagame could be established, but it would have to be monitored very closely. I side with Dusk on an air of caution about unbanning BW Ubers (Such as Excadrill) even though they are comprehensively checked/countered by a number of CaP Pokémon. Although that is likely a discussion for another thread.

In my opinion, CaP Pokémon should be made for the BW OU metagame at large. We already have plenty of sample data and an active community in this area. The main reason for this is because it gives us the most different things to look at. Many different concepts and ideas are available in this tier to test out. It gives us the most freedom to try new things. Making Pokémon for an “AllCap” Metagame would be detrimental as we simply don’t have the stability that OU does . I’m pretty much with Jas on such:
Jas6192 said:
Why? Standard tiering systems work because people play to win. They use the best, so we learn what is best and develop strategies around it. However, many people don't play CAP to win. Many people play CAP to use the CAPs. CAP Pokémon are the attraction of the metagame and as such will always see a disproportionate amount of use.
Ergo: “Ohhh look they made a new Pokémon! Let’s use it!” Obviously this will give a bloated view if we start to use usage statistics for tiering. I mean, yes there will be statistical merit to some of the usage statistics but all of those would have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The main reason I have is that CaP as a tier has existed for a long time already. Not in the same way that I think people want to make it though. The tier we used to play in was simply OU + CaPs. It followed the same ban lists and rules as OU (unless we were testing something, such as the Groudon/Kyogre test), much the same as the tier we are using now on PS!. If we go on to create a brand new “balanced” CaP Metagame we would be changing those rules and ban lists to something the majority of people are not aware of. At the moment, any OU player can simply use their team against CaPs and find a reasonably balanced game.

I also agree with Birkal in saying that the new CaP (BWOU + CaPs) is currently still in flux. We have no idea what is good or bad (apart from Rain being godly). We all know what is good in OU and what works and what doesn’t. It gives us a much more stable view on things. I also massively agree on his point that we test the CaP on its own (within the tier it was created for) and then put it into the CaP metagame. Obviously, in terms of Deck Knights ideas, a Pokémon that was created for a lower tier may not have much use in a CaP tier (much as an Ubers CaP might for example). I would love to explore the ideas people have for other metagames (such as doubles or even triples), but as of the time of writing this isn't really possible.

Those points would allow us to really research what makes the CaP good or bad (at its function in its tier) and evaluate it against its goals. We could then possibly follow it up with a secondary evaluation against the CaPOU Metagame.

Gah, re-read this through about 10 times and I'm still not happy but oh well :P
 
Fair enough, Birkal. I assumed from the direction of both the OP and the topic that the two topics were relevant enough to one another to be discussed in unison. I apologize for making any assumptions of the sort.

--

There are many reasons why the OU metagame is the metagame-of-choice for designing a CAP. I do not, however, feel that we should limit CAP creation to the OU metagame, and this has even been discussed in the past. Other metagames are relevant to our interests because there are things to learn about them and niches to fill that simply do not exist quite the same in OU. Uber, RU, UU, LC, VGC, and so forth are all relevant to our interests in their own ways. Furthermore, and most importantly, is the fact that they are established metagames with very large player bases both within and without Smogon. These tiers are used in many locations on the internet, and in many cases simply saying the abbreviation for one of them will induce a feeling of familiarity in a competitive Pokemon player. That is not so for the CAP metagame. This brings me to my first and most important point.
The CAP metagame is inaccessible to competitive Pokemon players, and as it is developed becomes even more inaccessible to players.
The CAP metagame is based fundamentally on OU and a bunch of top-tier Pokemon all of which do not exist. An OU player can join in the playtest metagames because it is OU + 1 Pokemon, whereas that is simply untrue in the case of CAP. The CAP metagame is rife with threats that change OU too much to be considered accessible to OU players. This makes the metagame inaccessible to players, and with the addition of every new threat, less and less accessible. The CAP project would be fighting a losing battle at every turn to develop CAPs for the CAP metagame.
CAPs are less relevant when developed for a theoretical metagame without a controlled metagame by which we can compare the CAP's performance to.
All good experiments in all walks of science have a commonality in this: they have a control. The control is a case study in something unchanged. We lose a lot of relevance for our CAPs by designing them for an ever-changing metagame that itself is the basis for the experiment. We have no control for the CAP metagame, and thus CAPs created for it have no baseline that we can use to compare the CAPs and truly evaluate if they worked or not. CAP reports are based fundamentally on being able to compare a standardized metagame "without the CAP" to the adjusted playtest metagame with the CAP. Having a metagame we understand very well to compare to the playtest metagame is critical for the success of every individual CAP.

For these two reasons, I support making CAPs for all Smogon-supported metagames except the CAP metagame.
 
I also wanted to clarify something quickly. When the thread Rising_Dusk linked was discussed, I had the distinct impression that we did decide to concentrate on pursuing an OU CAP... for CAP 2. It was important for CAP 2 to revitalize CAP participation. As far as I was concerned, though, CAPs for other metagames were still to be available to put on the table.
 

Deck Knight

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After some discussion with most of the CAP moderating staff in #cap, this proposal was come up with to suit the needs of our mission while keeping the CAP metagame in mind.

We will pursue the CAP Process as normal through the playtest of whichever metagame that project has chosen. After the Playtest (usu. OU) is over, we will then archive that information and prepare a report for the impact on the Playtest metagame.

Shortly thereafter, we will open up a CAP Metagame revision process where we re-evaluate the CAP with CAP metagame threats specifically in mind. The primary thing we would look to change in this process would be the movepool in addressing the different CAP threats, and other *minor* changes at the margins. We will establish full procedures for this, should it be the will of the CAP community.
 

bugmaniacbob

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We will pursue the CAP Process as normal through the playtest of whichever metagame that project has chosen. After the Playtest (usu. OU) is over, we will then archive that information and prepare a report for the impact on the Playtest metagame.

Shortly thereafter, we will open up a CAP Metagame revision process where we re-evaluate the CAP with CAP metagame threats specifically in mind. The primary thing we would look to change in this process would be the movepool in addressing the different CAP threats, and other *minor* changes at the margins. We will establish full procedures for this, should it be the will of the CAP community.
I cannot agree with this arrangement largely for the reasons RD outlined above and a few of my own, but I'll keep those until the relevant thread for the CAP metagame is brought up. Until then, though, let's not readily assume that the community is willing to have the CAP metagame brought into the process at all, since this does not seem to be the case at present.

As far as the establishment of the CAP metagame goes, while not the focus of discussion in this topic it seems quite pertinent, as the levels of stability and fluctuations vis-a-vis the new metagame are relevant when deciding what exactly we are trying to achieve by creating a Pokemon, as it were.

In that sense I pretty much agree with RD's last post in its entirety, and would just like to add on the following: As regards CAP's mission statement, rather than learning how we ourselves can design a metagame - which I personally consider a rather silly endeavour - by keeping the CAPs constant we are learning something else, within "to what extent can our chosen CAP continue to perform its dedicated role in the face of large metagame changes?"

We have all seen how metagames change with the addition of even small things, like Bullet Punch/Superpower Scizor and Multiscale Dragonite, and in the CAP metagame we have the absolutely perfect environment to see how well our creations age - the more CAPs are added, we can see if we made them to stand the test of time, as it were. Currently the addition of ~10 CAPs into the mixture is roughly equivalent to a generational shift, if that's relevant at all. Essentially what we see developing is something which I feel is far more relevant and interesting that designing metagames - seeing how our CAPs, which are designed for what is more or less the same metagame (OU, we assume it's constant here for sake of argument) fare when dropped into a completely different one. This is another argument that I would use to argue against CAP metagame revisions, when the time comes. More to the point, I find this investigation far more pertinent to, and ideal as part of, CAP's mission statement than the alternative.
 

Deck Knight

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Fair points bmb.


Alright, I think it's time to draw this down to a close.

In regards to the CAP Mission statement:

The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

In regards to what CAP considers a competitive metagame suitable for creating a CAP:

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

With these being the two finished proposals, please provide a bolded Yes or No vote.

- - - - -

Ballot:

The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO

This ballot will be open for the next 48 hours, at which time this thread will close.
 

a fairy

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The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 
The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

jas61292

used substitute
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The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

bugmaniacbob

Was fun while it lasted
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The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

v

protected by a silver spoon
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The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

macle

sup geodudes
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The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 

DetroitLolcat

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Ballot:

The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 
The CAP Mission Statement will remain unchanged from its present form and current understanding of competitive Pokemon as the OU metagame of the most current generation of Pokemon.

YES
NO

The CAP Mission statement at present allows only for OU concepts to be submitted. It is the consensus of the Policy Review Committee that creating for other metagames will be discussed separately at a later date, following the completion of CAP 3.

YES
NO
 
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