Approved by Birkal.
Consider this thread a place to take a step back and look with some perspective on our nearing seven year history of the Create-A-Pokemon Project. In my estimation, we have learned volumes of information in this time. We have developed a process that consistently drives great products, regardless of any faults in leadership. We have learned about competitive Pokemon by defining terms and sharing experiences. Most importantly, we have learned what it takes to bring a community of hundreds of contributors together to make something cohesive and desirable. We have had fun, and I can’t thank you all enough for this endless rollercoaster of joy. (happy 4k!)
That all being said, the Create-A-Pokemon Project has faults. For those of you reading this thread that are not Policy Review Committee members, let me iterate a few “popular” problems that we have been addressing lately. The sixth generation metagame has brought ORAS OU to a place where most Pokemon need to have much more “oomph” than any previous metagame, where our fifth generation-based process has struggled to adapt to this power shift. Our playtest (the final examination of how our creation fits in OU) has been plagued with lack of interest due to using an antiqued metagame that is often months removed from current OU. The playtest period also finds difficulty relating to the original concept’s questions due to its centralizing nature as a new Pokemon. Finally, CAP struggles to keep itself based in competitive battling, where users who have not fought in a battle can vote with equal strength as a five year contributor. Of course, this is the nature of how democratically CAP is set up, but it is a concern nonetheless.
In my estimation, we are ready for a change up. With twenty great projects under our wing, I believe it is time to evolve what the project is about and how we create Pokemon. First, let me provide a bit of history, some of which has gone by largely unnoticed. The Create-A-Pokemon Project established itself in 2008 by Cooper, a user with the ambition to start something new. He didn’t enjoy the spotlight and instead brought the mass production of Pokemon to Stark Mountain (the rough equivalent in DP to what we now call the Overused subforum), where users would participate in click-polls to vote. This successfully led to our first creations of Syclant, Revenankh, Pyroak, Fidgit, and Stratagem. By this point, all CAP Pokemon were involved in the same metagame; you could use all of them in battle. They were playable on Doug’s custom server, which gathered large numbers due to the quality of the simulator and the excitement of its projects. They had regular users (Blue Team) that moderator the chat, while (Red Team) members battled on the CAP ladder and worked on the forums.
Somewhere after Arghonaut (CAP6), the Create-A-Pokemon Project decided to create Pokemon without connectivity to other CAP creations. In my research, this move was largely natural, without much reasoning written down. The discussion for a CAP-inclusive metagame didn’t surface largely until Rising_Dusk hit the scene around Krillowatt (CAP10), when it was questioned whether or not we should put all CAP Pokemon together. His philosophy was that each Pokemon stood as a testament to their metagame; users could research the past OU metagame through reading about our creations. Furthermore, it was deemed that competitive players would not want to learn a new metagame with new Pokemon. His dogma took precedence until his departure after Necturna (CAP13), where leadership looked to then-moderator tennisace.
tennisace brought his idea of a revolutionized CAP project to senior staff, behind closed doors. In his mind, the Create-A-Pokemon Project would create Pokemon for the CAP metagame. He wrote a detailed summary on why this was a good idea and posted it in the main CAP forum. Here, I was brought into equation as a moderator, with the intention of leading the new CAP metagame (I was a moderator in OU at the time). The CAP moderators at the time were unaware of this decision, and fought vehemently with tennisace on this decision, to the point where Deck Knight publicly lambasted him and DougJustDoug was brought in to resolve the situation. Unfortunately, tennisace quit the CAP Project entirely as a result of the conflict of interest. The “scandal” of the situation is that he did not confer with the moderators or Policy Review Committee about this change, which went against the democratic roots of CAP. As a result, it left a sour taste in our mouths on the usage of past CAPs and the CAP metagame.
Since then, the CAP metagame and CAP process have become entirely separated. I have personally gone on the record stating that the CAP metagame is a “spoof project” and has nothing to do with our process. This was to ensure that there wasn’t a discrepancy about which metagame we made our Pokemon for (OU). In that time, the CAP metagame has found a renaissance of sorts on Pokemon Showdown, with its own community of veterans and battlers. In a way, it reminds me of the old Blue Team, where people are discussing our creations and how to use them in battle. I am proud that this community has endured, even with the chastisement of the CAP process regulars.
Before I delve into my ultimate proposal, let’s discuss the other side of this coin: the current OU metagame. CAP often forgets that we are intimately tied to OU, and we must consider Smogon tiering philosophy in the scope of our project. If you know anything about the outside world’s opinion on Smogon tiering, it is that we are exhaustingly ban-happy. Since generation four overused, we’ve banned some of the most popular threats in the metagame (and less popular ones, like Wobbuffet). Pokemon Black and White brought some more convoluted bans, namely Aldaron’s Swift Swim + Drizzle ban. This opened the floodgates, which poured into our current generation of Pokemon with bans to some of the most popular Mega Evolutions and versatile Pokemon (Greninja, Mega Lucario, and Aegislash). At this point, tiers have even considered banning moves, entry hazards, and even specific team builds (Baton Pass). It has become messy to say the least. I don’t say this to downplay the contributions of our metagame leaders; they have done phenomenal work to create balanced and enjoyable metagames that are playable. If anything, GameFreak is to blame for giving us overpowered giants that must be compensated for in our metagames.
This brings us to the present. With several successful (yet competitive underwhelming) CAPs under our belt, we are looking out onto a new ORAS metagame that is relatively stable thanks to the World Cup of Pokemon tournament. Conversely, our metagames are looking for an answer to tiering philosophy that resists the ban hammer when necessary. I believe that we can combine both of these ideals together to create something entirely new and revolutionize our project. Enough time has passed since tennisace suggested the combination of our two tribes back in 2012. Therefore, this thread serves as a discussion platform for the Create-A-Pokemon Project to form its own, new metagame (and tier) that is based around the philosophy of finding metagame balance through creationrather than omission.
Let me elaborate. In my ideal world, we would take some form of the current generation of the Overused metagame and control form it into our own metagame. This metagame would eventually consist of past CAP projects and new CAP projects. The emphasis here is that not all past projects would be brought into our new metagame, at least not initially. Rather, we as a project would devote our attention to balancing our new metagame, whether it be through the introduction (or even retooling) of past CAPs or the creation of entirely new Pokemon. Our end goal would be to build a metagame that is consistently fun and balanced for all to enjoy by creating and editing our Pokemon. We would not alter any of GameFreak’s Pokemon, but would rather mold the metagame through our own creations.
Essentially, I am proposing that we convert to continually focus on all CAP Pokemon (ie. the metagame created by all of them), not just one CAP Pokemon at a time. There are several strong advantages to this idea that alleviate many of the ailments CAP has been plagued with in recent times. First and foremost, it grants us greater flexibility in the creation process, particularly with concept synthesis, to cope with the hyped-up OU metagame. With balance now listed as one of our objectives, we can build concepts that address specific threats that threaten balance. We can build Pokemon that have unusual abilities or don’t fit the CAP mold thanks to extra forgiveness embedded in the process. With the potential power to edit our creations post-process, we can explore new depths of the metagame through individual case students and their effect on the metagame. It is an excuse that allows us to have more elastic and diverse discussions.
Secondly, it alleviates the continual headache that is our playtest. Previously, all of our playtests struggle to give us accurate information about how the Pokemon performs in OU due to centralization. Everyone and their mother brings multiple counters to the new CAP, which causes awkward statistics. While centralization still exists in my proposal, it is subdued thanks to the continual nature of our new metagame. Our new “playtest” never really stops; it is simply our metagame and tier. After months of battling, we may discover that we did indeed answer our questions as players ladder and battle. It also gives us an excuse to discuss balance on a continual basis, bringing metagame discussion to an elevated position that it hasn’t had in our project since its introduction.
Thirdly, it grounds us resolutely in the metagame. It will be difficult to have a strong voice in the project if you’re not playing our metagame and are unaware of current trends. Players can quote their battle experience in discussions to provide weight to their thoughts. Since our metagame would be constantly available, we would effectively solve the age-old problem that CAP does not have a metagame to attract competitive battlers. A metagame grows competitive battlers by having a metagame. Since we do not have a metagame for battlers to latch onto, of course we don’t have consistent competitive contributors (unlike when CAP originally started in the OU forum). Rising_Dusk’s concern of player disinterest is a thing of the past. Most of our official tournaments require competitive battlers to learn multiple metagame. In my estimation, players are now more excited to learn new metagames than ever before. And if we’re touting the banners of balance and creation, it will be a tempting proposition to join. We will have a set of dedicated battlers that are veterans to our tier.
Fourthly, consider the CAP brand name. Our past projects are popular, largely thanks to the flavor giants who so graciously lend their talents. I jokingly ask the Pokemon Showdown lobby, “what’s a cap?” almost every time I log on. There is always someone with an answer, and most people are eager to say which CAP is their favorite. We build competitively (and flavorly) enticing Pokemon that battlers are naturally drawn to use. Currently, we stuff them all into a spin-off metagame that is cast into the shadows. With this proposal, we would gradually bring these Pokemon back into the limelight to study and battle with on a daily basis. This is what separates my proposal from any sort of fakemon project or other metagame. We have a rock solid history and an excruciatingly exact process that accommodates for thousands of users to contribute.
Of course, there are many (many) kinks that will need to be resolved. How will we choose which CAPs to edit? How will we determine balance? Will there be a council? Will there be unbannings? How can we fit currently banned abilities into the process? Which parts of current CAP will we keep, and which parts will we need to revise? Will it be successful? I have my own answers to each of these questions, but I would like to explore them as a Policy Review Committee in future threads. Please don’t let tiny details formulate your entire basis of thinking in this thread. We are here to discuss general CAP philosophy. The details can be ironed out once we’ve decided on our direction. Think large scope for the moment.
In my mind, the advantages are overwhelming for us to redefine ourselves as a project. Our process is honed enough to accommodate for our first creations, while our past wisdom can help us redefine some of our previous projects. We’re looking down the barrel of a current metagame that would be a great starting point for us to build a metagame, complete with its own bans, unbans, and rulings. The exciting thing is that we can work to balance a metagame mostly through creation rather than deletion, a prospect that is currently unavailable anywhere else on Smogon. It gives us a new philosophy statement to drive our reasoning and creations. Finally, it gives us a metagame to constantly play and enjoy. The current playtests are too fleeting to learn anything, whereas a full-on metagame will teach new users how to battle and contribute to our discussion. We can finally get real results, every day of the year.
In terms of our short-term forecast, I am proposing this: let’s start CAP21 as if it were any other CAP. We will consider balance in its process, and how to assimilate it into the current OU metagame. While we create CAP21, we can iron out details on new processes, decide on which previous CAP to bring into our metagame, and how our concept workshop will evolve for future CAPs. The CAP21 “playtest” will mark the beginning of our new (currently unnamed) metagame that features current OU with CAP21 that will never be shut down. Afterwards, we will aim to create balance in this new metagame by introducing old CAPs or making new ones.
This is not a finite decision, yet. I have been considering this shift in philosophy for almost a year and would like to formally bring it to your attention now. I would like to hear your opinions on the current state of CAP and whether or not this new ideal is worth pursuing. While I am content with there the process is currently at, there is room for improvement, which I think this proposal will bring in spades. Yes, I am aware that what I am proposing is severe (we’d essentially be forming our own tier), but I think the shift is justified. It will provide CAP with more focus, discussions, and fun.
Thanks for reading and happy discussing!
Consider this thread a place to take a step back and look with some perspective on our nearing seven year history of the Create-A-Pokemon Project. In my estimation, we have learned volumes of information in this time. We have developed a process that consistently drives great products, regardless of any faults in leadership. We have learned about competitive Pokemon by defining terms and sharing experiences. Most importantly, we have learned what it takes to bring a community of hundreds of contributors together to make something cohesive and desirable. We have had fun, and I can’t thank you all enough for this endless rollercoaster of joy. (happy 4k!)
That all being said, the Create-A-Pokemon Project has faults. For those of you reading this thread that are not Policy Review Committee members, let me iterate a few “popular” problems that we have been addressing lately. The sixth generation metagame has brought ORAS OU to a place where most Pokemon need to have much more “oomph” than any previous metagame, where our fifth generation-based process has struggled to adapt to this power shift. Our playtest (the final examination of how our creation fits in OU) has been plagued with lack of interest due to using an antiqued metagame that is often months removed from current OU. The playtest period also finds difficulty relating to the original concept’s questions due to its centralizing nature as a new Pokemon. Finally, CAP struggles to keep itself based in competitive battling, where users who have not fought in a battle can vote with equal strength as a five year contributor. Of course, this is the nature of how democratically CAP is set up, but it is a concern nonetheless.
In my estimation, we are ready for a change up. With twenty great projects under our wing, I believe it is time to evolve what the project is about and how we create Pokemon. First, let me provide a bit of history, some of which has gone by largely unnoticed. The Create-A-Pokemon Project established itself in 2008 by Cooper, a user with the ambition to start something new. He didn’t enjoy the spotlight and instead brought the mass production of Pokemon to Stark Mountain (the rough equivalent in DP to what we now call the Overused subforum), where users would participate in click-polls to vote. This successfully led to our first creations of Syclant, Revenankh, Pyroak, Fidgit, and Stratagem. By this point, all CAP Pokemon were involved in the same metagame; you could use all of them in battle. They were playable on Doug’s custom server, which gathered large numbers due to the quality of the simulator and the excitement of its projects. They had regular users (Blue Team) that moderator the chat, while (Red Team) members battled on the CAP ladder and worked on the forums.
Somewhere after Arghonaut (CAP6), the Create-A-Pokemon Project decided to create Pokemon without connectivity to other CAP creations. In my research, this move was largely natural, without much reasoning written down. The discussion for a CAP-inclusive metagame didn’t surface largely until Rising_Dusk hit the scene around Krillowatt (CAP10), when it was questioned whether or not we should put all CAP Pokemon together. His philosophy was that each Pokemon stood as a testament to their metagame; users could research the past OU metagame through reading about our creations. Furthermore, it was deemed that competitive players would not want to learn a new metagame with new Pokemon. His dogma took precedence until his departure after Necturna (CAP13), where leadership looked to then-moderator tennisace.
tennisace brought his idea of a revolutionized CAP project to senior staff, behind closed doors. In his mind, the Create-A-Pokemon Project would create Pokemon for the CAP metagame. He wrote a detailed summary on why this was a good idea and posted it in the main CAP forum. Here, I was brought into equation as a moderator, with the intention of leading the new CAP metagame (I was a moderator in OU at the time). The CAP moderators at the time were unaware of this decision, and fought vehemently with tennisace on this decision, to the point where Deck Knight publicly lambasted him and DougJustDoug was brought in to resolve the situation. Unfortunately, tennisace quit the CAP Project entirely as a result of the conflict of interest. The “scandal” of the situation is that he did not confer with the moderators or Policy Review Committee about this change, which went against the democratic roots of CAP. As a result, it left a sour taste in our mouths on the usage of past CAPs and the CAP metagame.
Since then, the CAP metagame and CAP process have become entirely separated. I have personally gone on the record stating that the CAP metagame is a “spoof project” and has nothing to do with our process. This was to ensure that there wasn’t a discrepancy about which metagame we made our Pokemon for (OU). In that time, the CAP metagame has found a renaissance of sorts on Pokemon Showdown, with its own community of veterans and battlers. In a way, it reminds me of the old Blue Team, where people are discussing our creations and how to use them in battle. I am proud that this community has endured, even with the chastisement of the CAP process regulars.
Before I delve into my ultimate proposal, let’s discuss the other side of this coin: the current OU metagame. CAP often forgets that we are intimately tied to OU, and we must consider Smogon tiering philosophy in the scope of our project. If you know anything about the outside world’s opinion on Smogon tiering, it is that we are exhaustingly ban-happy. Since generation four overused, we’ve banned some of the most popular threats in the metagame (and less popular ones, like Wobbuffet). Pokemon Black and White brought some more convoluted bans, namely Aldaron’s Swift Swim + Drizzle ban. This opened the floodgates, which poured into our current generation of Pokemon with bans to some of the most popular Mega Evolutions and versatile Pokemon (Greninja, Mega Lucario, and Aegislash). At this point, tiers have even considered banning moves, entry hazards, and even specific team builds (Baton Pass). It has become messy to say the least. I don’t say this to downplay the contributions of our metagame leaders; they have done phenomenal work to create balanced and enjoyable metagames that are playable. If anything, GameFreak is to blame for giving us overpowered giants that must be compensated for in our metagames.
This brings us to the present. With several successful (yet competitive underwhelming) CAPs under our belt, we are looking out onto a new ORAS metagame that is relatively stable thanks to the World Cup of Pokemon tournament. Conversely, our metagames are looking for an answer to tiering philosophy that resists the ban hammer when necessary. I believe that we can combine both of these ideals together to create something entirely new and revolutionize our project. Enough time has passed since tennisace suggested the combination of our two tribes back in 2012. Therefore, this thread serves as a discussion platform for the Create-A-Pokemon Project to form its own, new metagame (and tier) that is based around the philosophy of finding metagame balance through creationrather than omission.
Let me elaborate. In my ideal world, we would take some form of the current generation of the Overused metagame and control form it into our own metagame. This metagame would eventually consist of past CAP projects and new CAP projects. The emphasis here is that not all past projects would be brought into our new metagame, at least not initially. Rather, we as a project would devote our attention to balancing our new metagame, whether it be through the introduction (or even retooling) of past CAPs or the creation of entirely new Pokemon. Our end goal would be to build a metagame that is consistently fun and balanced for all to enjoy by creating and editing our Pokemon. We would not alter any of GameFreak’s Pokemon, but would rather mold the metagame through our own creations.
Essentially, I am proposing that we convert to continually focus on all CAP Pokemon (ie. the metagame created by all of them), not just one CAP Pokemon at a time. There are several strong advantages to this idea that alleviate many of the ailments CAP has been plagued with in recent times. First and foremost, it grants us greater flexibility in the creation process, particularly with concept synthesis, to cope with the hyped-up OU metagame. With balance now listed as one of our objectives, we can build concepts that address specific threats that threaten balance. We can build Pokemon that have unusual abilities or don’t fit the CAP mold thanks to extra forgiveness embedded in the process. With the potential power to edit our creations post-process, we can explore new depths of the metagame through individual case students and their effect on the metagame. It is an excuse that allows us to have more elastic and diverse discussions.
Secondly, it alleviates the continual headache that is our playtest. Previously, all of our playtests struggle to give us accurate information about how the Pokemon performs in OU due to centralization. Everyone and their mother brings multiple counters to the new CAP, which causes awkward statistics. While centralization still exists in my proposal, it is subdued thanks to the continual nature of our new metagame. Our new “playtest” never really stops; it is simply our metagame and tier. After months of battling, we may discover that we did indeed answer our questions as players ladder and battle. It also gives us an excuse to discuss balance on a continual basis, bringing metagame discussion to an elevated position that it hasn’t had in our project since its introduction.
Thirdly, it grounds us resolutely in the metagame. It will be difficult to have a strong voice in the project if you’re not playing our metagame and are unaware of current trends. Players can quote their battle experience in discussions to provide weight to their thoughts. Since our metagame would be constantly available, we would effectively solve the age-old problem that CAP does not have a metagame to attract competitive battlers. A metagame grows competitive battlers by having a metagame. Since we do not have a metagame for battlers to latch onto, of course we don’t have consistent competitive contributors (unlike when CAP originally started in the OU forum). Rising_Dusk’s concern of player disinterest is a thing of the past. Most of our official tournaments require competitive battlers to learn multiple metagame. In my estimation, players are now more excited to learn new metagames than ever before. And if we’re touting the banners of balance and creation, it will be a tempting proposition to join. We will have a set of dedicated battlers that are veterans to our tier.
Fourthly, consider the CAP brand name. Our past projects are popular, largely thanks to the flavor giants who so graciously lend their talents. I jokingly ask the Pokemon Showdown lobby, “what’s a cap?” almost every time I log on. There is always someone with an answer, and most people are eager to say which CAP is their favorite. We build competitively (and flavorly) enticing Pokemon that battlers are naturally drawn to use. Currently, we stuff them all into a spin-off metagame that is cast into the shadows. With this proposal, we would gradually bring these Pokemon back into the limelight to study and battle with on a daily basis. This is what separates my proposal from any sort of fakemon project or other metagame. We have a rock solid history and an excruciatingly exact process that accommodates for thousands of users to contribute.
Of course, there are many (many) kinks that will need to be resolved. How will we choose which CAPs to edit? How will we determine balance? Will there be a council? Will there be unbannings? How can we fit currently banned abilities into the process? Which parts of current CAP will we keep, and which parts will we need to revise? Will it be successful? I have my own answers to each of these questions, but I would like to explore them as a Policy Review Committee in future threads. Please don’t let tiny details formulate your entire basis of thinking in this thread. We are here to discuss general CAP philosophy. The details can be ironed out once we’ve decided on our direction. Think large scope for the moment.
In my mind, the advantages are overwhelming for us to redefine ourselves as a project. Our process is honed enough to accommodate for our first creations, while our past wisdom can help us redefine some of our previous projects. We’re looking down the barrel of a current metagame that would be a great starting point for us to build a metagame, complete with its own bans, unbans, and rulings. The exciting thing is that we can work to balance a metagame mostly through creation rather than deletion, a prospect that is currently unavailable anywhere else on Smogon. It gives us a new philosophy statement to drive our reasoning and creations. Finally, it gives us a metagame to constantly play and enjoy. The current playtests are too fleeting to learn anything, whereas a full-on metagame will teach new users how to battle and contribute to our discussion. We can finally get real results, every day of the year.
In terms of our short-term forecast, I am proposing this: let’s start CAP21 as if it were any other CAP. We will consider balance in its process, and how to assimilate it into the current OU metagame. While we create CAP21, we can iron out details on new processes, decide on which previous CAP to bring into our metagame, and how our concept workshop will evolve for future CAPs. The CAP21 “playtest” will mark the beginning of our new (currently unnamed) metagame that features current OU with CAP21 that will never be shut down. Afterwards, we will aim to create balance in this new metagame by introducing old CAPs or making new ones.
This is not a finite decision, yet. I have been considering this shift in philosophy for almost a year and would like to formally bring it to your attention now. I would like to hear your opinions on the current state of CAP and whether or not this new ideal is worth pursuing. While I am content with there the process is currently at, there is room for improvement, which I think this proposal will bring in spades. Yes, I am aware that what I am proposing is severe (we’d essentially be forming our own tier), but I think the shift is justified. It will provide CAP with more focus, discussions, and fun.
Thanks for reading and happy discussing!
