Policy Review Concept Submissions & Workshop

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Birkal

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Hiya! This is a continuation of the discussion held in this thread about the pros and cons of the process workshop. If you want to gain a full understanding of the issues at hand, I recommend reading through that thread. But since we are in the middle of a large discussion on another PR thread, I thought it could be a nice breather to discuss something we seem to be a bit more unanimous about.

The Concept Workshop has served us well; it was a concept that we tried and it initially received moderate success. But over the past project (probably past two, really), it started to show its flaws, namely the amount of work that went into the approval process and the lack of excitement over the entire subforum. I am happy we tried it, but I think most of us agree that we should lay the idea to rest.

So, I'm interested in your thoughts. If you think the Concept Workshop should stick around, why? What could be improved to make it a more lively conversation pit for the CAP Project? Alternatively, if you don't like the Concept Workshop, what should we do going forward? Should we use the same process we utilized for CAP 21 (revert to the old one), or try something new? I'm in favor of simply going back to what we previously had, but I'm all ears for other ideas and suggestions.

Thanks for commenting and reading!
 
I agree with you regarding the Concept Workshop there, Birkal. It was nice while it lasted, but you are right about the huge amount of moderation it takes. I'd like for us to attempt the old process, as we did with Crucibelle's process; it was easier for you mods to moderate the concept submission thread, rather than an entire subforum dedicated to Concepts. A CAP based around Rule of Cool would be nice, even if it were to be a one-time thing.

On a side note: Are we going to make another Mega if the community votes for one? Not sure what you guys thought about Crucibelle's process, but she was designed to have a Mega regardless of the community's input. Was that supposed to be a one-time thing, or would you fellow users like to try another Mega CAP with a poll?
 

Bughouse

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The concept workshop maybe could have worked in a different life, but it didn't really. Just going back to normal makes the most sense. I had my own thoughts the first time it was discussed, but they weren't taken too well.
 

nyttyn

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Deep six it, keep the idea of higher quality required in concepts for the future.

Rolling submissions just don't work in CAP's hype culture.

Reasoning for my argument is my heavy participation in the workshop subforum. Started off well enough, hype died down, never picked up with next CAP and we had to ultimatley resort to bringing back the submissions stage.
 
What we could consider doing is that we could go through with CAP concept submission and voting up to the first concept poll and then use the Concept workshop to do Concept Assessment 1 on all of the top 3-5 concepts that get voted on. Any concepts that turn out unusably awful get sacked and the rest move on to Concept voting 2 and possibly 3. Once we have one concept remaining, we then move on to Concept Assessment 2. That solves both the Plasmanta problem (where a popular concept that results in a hideously awful concept assessment get voted in) and the Naviathan problem (where the concept workshop get filled to the brim with awful concepts nobody cares about).
 

Imanalt

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I haven't put a huge amount of thought into where I think we need to go with concepts right now, and could be swayed by plenty of different arguments, but I've been saying for a while that concepts are very flawed. We have gotten to this state where every concept needs to inherently have a huge amount of learning for us, which ends up with just an amorphous blob offering no guidance. But people also dislike concepts for a lack of direction. I don't know what we even honestly want. And I think the problem we've been having with concept activity is that I'm not the only one.

We need to significantly overhaul our cultural expectations of "what is a good concept." With that in mind I'll give my first pass thoughts on what I like and why, and encourage others to do the same:

A concept should offer some guidance on a general direction to take the cap, but not too much. Too much guidance can come in several forms for me. It can be "X pokemon should be a Rock type Sweeper using Quiver dance with good coverage." or it can be "X pokemon should have 2 different boosting sets that are each equally viable."

Thats it. I think any concept that does that is fine. Unless we significantly alter the process to more seriously look back at the questions raised in the concept, a more "intellectual" concept doesn't actually mean we learn anything more. And I don't think we need to make that change to the process. Just trying to understand the underlying forces of a metagame to be able to say "how will this pokemon's interaction with the significant threats of the meta dictate its role and viability in the metagame?" is very hard. We can learn a lot from that.

What other guidelines for a good concept do y'all think are important?
 

snake

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I think a good concept gives the project direction and shouldn't necessarily dictate too much about the project. Tbh what I liked about Doug's proposal was the concept section, where we vote on an archetype. Also, I think concepts around underused moves or abilities would make great concepts. Even though they dictate one step to an extent, we can still learn from them. We have visited these in Cawmodore and Cyclohm respectively, but a concept could be just "a Pokemon that uses Parting Shot" (which is in the Concept Workshop!) or "a Pokemon that has Flare Boost as its primary ability."

I don't think type should be dictated in the concept though. It pigeon-holes the project too much imo.
 

Deck Knight

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There will be two sections to this post. The first is that I'll be cribbing Doug's Archetype proposal and my response post for easy reference:

Part 1:
DougJustDoug said:
Concept Changes

With those questions in mind, let me present how I think concepts could be handled to rein in the "Frankenstein Effect" of different factions.

I think there are a finite number of good general "archetypes" for all competitive pokemon. We could spend some time and just define all those "competitive archetypes", and I don't really care how many we choose to define. I'm thinking an archetype will be finer-grained than just "Sweeper" or "Wall". But more general than "Slow Hazard setter with one status move and the ability to setup physical". Anywhere in between there is fine with me. Just list 'em out. And if we miss some, we can add to the list as we go along in the future.

We will pick one of those archetypes as the "Concept" for a CAP.

With that archetype in place, factions can go nuts with lobbying or whatever. But we will try to stay in the bounds of the archetype. If we have limits on movepools or stats or whatever, based on the archetype, that's good too. It just helps set the boundaries. But don't get too obsessed with controlling the specifics of voting, because that never works anyway.

The advantage to this proposal is that the CAP process would almost not change at all. We will still have a "Concept". We will still have people that determine appropriate slates based on that concept (ie. archetype). And the slates will prevent or discourage "Frankenstein" from happening.

Our CAP mons may end up a little more diverse than current CAP mons -- but that's a GOOD THING. It makes playtesting an adventure in discovery -- not simply a chance to claim failure and point fingers and say, "I told you this would be shit!"

I'm not saying CAP discussions will be easy to manage, but hopefully it will take out some of the toxicity in CAP, as people call everyone else idiots. Because we will be significantly lowering the bar to be just "good general competitive pokemon", and at the same time RAISING the bar in terms of knowledge about specific metagames.

If I post:

"Hey I think A, B, and C would really work in 3v3."

I am opening the door for someone like Jibaku or Theorymon to come in and say:

"Nope, you seem to be forgetting about <whatever> in the Battle Spot meta, and your idea won't work, Doug."

Meaning, just because "general pokemon" is a lower bar, it doesn't mean we won't invite comments about top strategy in metagame play. We just don't restrict it to only OU metagame play. And, for the record, comments about quality OU strategy will STILL be welcome in CAP, and any top OU minds will be valued contributors to CAP. But they won't be the ONLY minds we value in CAP any longer.
My short commentary on Doug's proposal:

How do we determine valid legal archetypes? One of the things that has been valuable about the concept system is that it gives us a central focus. Take Stratagem, Mollux, and Crucibelle - the focus there was on the contours of typing and how to support that, in three differing ways. I still think there's a place to take concepts a little bit further than, say, "Ultimate Bulk Up User." At the same time, before we had concepts that's basically what Revenankh became for that metagame. I think there should be a way to capture the best of both of those worlds, I'm just not sure what it looks like. I'd call it a sub-concept, and I wouldn't necessarily mind doing two discussions/polls, the first on "Archetype" and the second on "Sub-Concept."

Edit: Might as well throw a few things against the wall and see if we can clarify our direction by working through something somewhat concrete.

Archetype Descriptor Pool:

Purpose:

Revenge Killer
Stall-Breaker
Sweeper
Tank
Utility
Wall
Wall-Breaker

Style:
Hyper-Offensive
Offensive
Defensive
Balanced
Stall

Physical
Special
Mixed

Cleric
Support
Stat Boosting
Pivot
Win-Con

The broad idea of this pool is that we choose One element from Purpose and One to Three from Style. A few examples being:

Wall Mixed Pivot Support (ex: Mandibuzz)
Stall-Breaker Pivot Support (ex: Gliscor)
Sweeper Physical Win-Con (ex: Mega-Charizard X)
Sweeper Stat-Boosting Physical Support (ex: Excadrill)
Tank Physical Stat-Boosting (ex: Quagsire)
Tank Mixed Stat-Boosting (ex: Mega-Slowbro)
Utility Pivot Support (ex: Amoonguss)
Revenge Killer Hyper-Offensive Physical (ex: Weavile)

Terms generally follow the Pokemon Dictionary we have on site. I note that you could technically add more elements to these Pokemon because of what they can do, e.g. Weavile CAN use Swords Dance but for all practical purposes it's there to immediately KO whatever was KO'd on your side before it. Excadrill CAN be a Win-Con (and often is), but its chief niche is the fact it simultaneously scares out foes with high offense and can Rapid Spin away hazards. The Scarf set doesn't stat-boost but the LO set does. Again, none of this is perfect but it's a good starting place to be "specific enough."

Also noteworthy about the way this is set up is that the Purpose is intended to be clarifying. You can easily argue the following roles for Ferrothorn:

Tank Mixed Stall
Tank Mixed Support
Utility Pivot Support
Utility Stall Support

There's a lot of overlap here, but the focus can result in different kinds of Pokemon, just to work this out by example:

Tank Mixed Stall (ex: Ferrothorn, Hippowdon, Skarmory)
These Pokemon have excellent mixed defense, credible offense against relevant targets, and can either lay multiple hazards, phaze, or both.
Tank Mixed Support (ex: Ferrothorn, Clefable, Cresselia)
These Pokemon have excellent mixed defense but have more generic supporting capabilities like paralysis, Leech Seed, Healing Wish, etc.
Utility Pivot Support (ex: Ferrothorn, Amoonguss, Latias)
These Pokemon primarily provide support for their team but can also pivot in repeatedly to keep providing it.
Utility Stall Support (ex: Ferrothorn, Forretress, Skarmory)
These Pokemon generally have high defenses conducive to Stall but are primarily there for the additional hazard laying and phazing options than tanking every hit.

Like any categorization system you can quibble with the choices, but this is at least a framework.
Part 2:

One of the concepts we've previously listed as "good" was "True Garchomp Counter." This concept is narrow enough to have a concrete end goal but broad enough so that it doesn't automatically digress into "Fairy/Flying mon with Pixilate Extreme Speed." It could be a bulky ground type with Suction Cups to negate the phazing from TankChomp's Dragon Tail. It could be a defensive Fairy with Magic Guard and Rapid Spin to ignore Rough Skin and Rocky Helmet damage while it spins. But whatever multitude of things it could be it will be designed to make TankChomp specifically and Garchomp generally a less viable threat, and the discussion will focus around "which elements of Garchomp make it viable" and "what are the most important tools CAP should have to remove Garchomp and yet not be setup bait for the common teammates people select to make Garchomp so effective."

We've had a lot of difficulty with "Core Concepts" in the past. The last one that actually worked out well was Voodoom, and even then the "Perfect Mate" for that metagame ended up being Zapdos instead of Togekiss. But structurally it still worked because we were focusing on a two Pokemon core which, at the time, was not inhibited by any clauses. You couldn't re-make Perfect Mate in ORAS because of the Baton Pass Clause, which was a major factor in both the initial Voodoom/Togekiss relationship and in what ended up being the Voodoom/Zapdos relationship. Volt-Turn is similar in operation but doesn't have quite the explicit link that Baton Pass did. Either way I digress, the point is when CAP focuses on one target for discussion we end up with a high quality result.

I think Archetypes where we not only select what our Pokemon does but what it's role against specific metagame threats (preferably a single specific metagame threat) is we will get back to establishing a project that works, that we learn a lot from, and that can be guided by our current linear multi-stage process.
 
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DougJustDoug

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I think we need to get rid of the Concept Workshop and get rid of the original NEED for the Concept Workshop.

We needed the workshop because we were not getting enough good Concepts. And we believed the reason for that was that good Concepts needed much more work and attention from multiple people to develop them into good concepts. And we thought that a single submission thread at the beginning of a CAP was not sufficient for that.

We need to flip the script. We need to make it easier to make a "good Concept". It ties in with a lot of stuff that has been said in the Direction thread. We have such high expectations for success in CAP, that it has caused an escalation in expectations for the Concepts that drive the project. We expect CAP pokemon to be perfect, therefore we require Concepts to be perfect. Repeat: We need to flip the script.

How do we do that?

Let me use an analogy: Imagine that Concepts were Houses, and we realized that making our houses were taking too damn long and required too much work. How do we lower the amount of work required to build a house?

One way is to just make a shitty, low-quality house. But that probably wont fly. "Less work" means less time and less people, in my definition, so adding more workers is not feasible. The concept workshop was a way to "add workers" to Concepts, in a sense, and we want to get away from that. The most obvious way to make a "good house", but not have to put as much effort into it -- is to make the house smaller and simpler.

I think Concepts need to be "smaller" (not try to accomplish so much) and simpler ("less details and pre-analysis").

A very common way to make small, simple houses with minimal effort is to use pre-built designs and components. This is what a big Homebuilder company does. They have several standard designs and a bunch of off-the-shelf elements, and they then put them together relatively quickly, compared to designing and constructing a custom home from scratch.

In my proposal in the Direction thread, I proposed using standard Archetypes in the Concept process, and I still think that general idea could work. In essence, Archetypes were pre-determined standard building blocks that could help form a Concept. Deck Knight proffered an "Archetype Descriptor Pool", that broke down Archetypes into a combination of standard elements, generally based on the onsite Pokemon Dictionary.

I really like the idea of mixing and matching a few basic building blocks to express a pokemon design framework (ie. a Concept). I don't think that Archetypes and Archetype Descriptors are the entire solution to reshaping CAP Concepts, but I think they can be part of the solution. I'm still thinking about it, and trying to come up with a cohesive proposal, but I'm not there yet.

I am hoping to incorporate the following themes into a concrete proposal for Concepts:
  • Smaller
  • Simpler
  • Archetypes/Standard Building Blocks
Any help or suggestions from others along these same lines, is certainly welcome.

------

EDIT: Anyone that was in the PS CAP room yesterday probably recognizes a lot of this post, because I copied a lot of this verbatim from my comments in the room. And, although this post is after the posts by Imanalt and Deck Knight, where they express some similar ideas, I wrote most of this yesterday, so apologies if this appears to be an odd "response" to them. It isn't.
 
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Deck Knight

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Going to use Hide Tags here for our current Concept OP.

We intentionally have many rules regarding Concept Submissions. If you are not prepared to read and understand all the rules, then don't bother making a submission. These rules are made to help narrow the field of concepts down to those that have been carefully designed. This is not meant to be easy for everyone -- a good, legal Concept requires a lot of thought and careful wording.

The following rules must be followed when submitting a Concept:
  • One submission per person. You may edit your Concept, but you may not change the fundamental premise after it has been posted. If editing your concept, please edit the original post instead of posting a new revision. Do not bump your Concept after you have posted it. If people do not comment on it, so be it.
  • Do not duplicate or closely-resemble Concepts already posted by others. It is your responsibility to read through all previous submissions in this thread to ensure you are complying with this rule. Ignorance or laziness is not an excuse.
  • Specific Pokemon types or type combos cannot be included or excluded in a Concept.Nor can other characteristics of the Concept specifically result in in the inclusion or exclusion of Types. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This is a Dragon pokemon with..."
    "The pokemon should be immune to Ghost attacks..."
    "The pokemon should have at least 7 resistances..."
    "The pokemon should get STAB on Thunderbolt.."​
  • Specific Abilities are not allowed.This applies to existing abilities and new abilities. Do not attempt to circumvent this rule by mentioning specific battle effects that can only be achieved by the implementation of an ability. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This pokemon should have a defensive ability like Intimidate or Marvel Scale..."
    "This pokemon has an ability that steals the opponent's held item..."
    "When this pokemon is switched in, all weather conditions are nullified..."​
  • Movepools or lists of moves are not allowed. A specific move can be mentioned if it is the basis for the entire concept. For example, the Concept "Rapid Spinner" would obviously mention the move Rapid Spin.
  • Specific stat bias, base stats, or base stat ratings are not allowed. It is acceptable to use descriptive phrases like "fast", "bulky", "strong attacker", etc -- since there are a variety of ways a pokemon can fit those descriptions without specifically requiring certain stats. But, do not use overly-specific descriptions that would narrowly constrain the pokemon's base stat spread.
  • Indications of Physical/Special bias are discouraged, but acceptable if it is essential to the Concept.
  • Do not refer to any part of the pokemon's artistic design.For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This is a bright blue pokemon..."
    "The pokemon looks like a..."
    "The pokemon uses its long tail to..."​
  • A Concept Submission must be submitted in the proper format. The format is described below. If the proper format is not used, the moderators will not evaluate the submission, regardless of content.
Concept Submission Format
Use this format for all concept submissions:
Name: (short name)
General Description: (See rules below. No more than a sentence or two here.)
Justification: (See rules below.)
Questions To Be Answered: (See rules below.)

Explanation: (Whatever you want to say here.)
Here is the format with tags. Just copy/paste this into your post, and fill it out:
[noparse]Name: (short name)
General Description: (See rules below. No more than a sentence or two here.)
Justification: (See rules below.)
Questions To Be Answered: (See rules below.)

Explanation: (Whatever you want to say here.)
[/noparse]
  • Name - Don't get too clever with the name. If the essence of the concept is not intuitively obvious in the name, then you are hurting your chances of people understanding it. If the essence of your concept cannot be expressed in a few words, then you need to seriously re-evaluate your concept.
  • Description - This is the official description of the concept, and must follow ALL the content rules listed above. Do not make this a long description. Long descriptions are invariably too specific or too convoluted. Keep it short. Any more than a sentence or two is TOO MUCH. Do NOT include your Explanation of the concept in the Description. See "Explanation" below.
  • Justification- A few sentences describing how the concept satisfies one or more of the following:
    • Has a positive effect on the metagame (e.g Fidgit’s Pure Utility)
    • Allows us to learn more about the metagame (e.g Tomohawk's Momentum)
    • Introduces a new niche in the metagame (such as Mollux's Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition)
    Do not make up your own categories for justification. If you cannot justify your concept against at least one of the three requirements above, then your concept is illegal for the CAP project.
  • Questions To Be Answered - The purpose of the CAP project is to learn new things about the metagame, and each concept submission is a proposed "experiment". List out a few interesting competitive questions that should be answered after properly implementing your concept. At the conclusion of the CAP project, these questions will be revisited to see how well we implemented the concept. If your questions are not significant, relevant to your Justification, and well-written -- then your concept will be rejected.
  • Explanation - This can contain just about anything. This is where you can explain your concept without restraint. You may make suggestions, even specific suggestions, regarding the possible implementation of the Concept. This explanation should help facilitate discussion of the Concept -- but the Explanation is NOT part of the Concept and will be omitted from the polls and any future use of the Concept. Since your explanation is non-binding, regarding future polls and threads, it will not be evaluated for purposes of determining if your concept is legal or illegal.
It is the submitter's responsibility to figure out how to make a legal submission within the rules listed above. Do not complain about the difficulty of making a submission in this thread. There are many, many legal concepts that can be presented within the rules. Here are few examples of good and bad Concepts from previous projects:
Good Concepts from Past Projects
"Pure Utility Pokemon"
"Anti-Ghost Rapid Spinner"
"True Garchomp Counter"
"Great Lead Pokemon"
"Ultimate Weather Abuser"
"Status Counter"

Bad Concepts from Past Projects
"Ice-Resisting Dragon"
"Super Luck User"
"STAB Explosion Glass Cannon"
"Auto-Stealth Rock Remover"
"A Pokemon with Special Intimidate"
"Pyrokinetic Pokemon (Fire/Psychic)"
"Special Guts"
"Typing Means Nothing"​


I think a lot of these can be condensed down to simper statements. It is not that we don't want people to take concepts seriously, but a lot has changed since this initial OP format was made. We also want whatever simpler system we come up with to simplify this framework.

I'll start with a modification of the format and see if that works out for some of our previous CAPs. This will be imperfect but I think we can work towards them. The idea is to make our concepts "easier" without losing diversity.

BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Vague
END ARCHTYPE: Sweeper Physical

Name: Typing Underdog

General Description: A Pokémon which utilizes an undervalued typing to its full potential, by playing towards both its strengths and weaknesses.

Justification: Each typing possesses a unique set of characteristics, causing all of them to perform very differently in various aspects of battle. However, not every typing has been granted the opportunity to display this potential, being forced into suboptimal roles by virtue of stats, ability and movepool, and therefore often being labelled as “bad”.
This concept aims to do a detailed analysis on the primary function of such a typing along with its potentially unexplored capabilities, by creating a Pokémon that that emphasizes the typing’s most prominent traits and utilizes them effectively.
This approach will not only allow us to widen our understanding on the unique niche and preferred playstyle of the typing, but will also give us additional insight on the mechanics that lead to success and failure of the typing when comparing CAP to the wielders in the lower tiers.

Questions to be answered:
  • What are the most important traits the Pokémon gains from the chosen typing, both positive and negative?
  • Is quality or quantity of weaknesses/resistances/immunities more relevant to the chosen typing? What does this mean for the way it is played?
  • How significant is the niche provided by the typing in OU? Are there any striking flaws in the typing that can’t be played around and prevent the Pokémon from performing reliably?
  • How reliant is the typing on stats, ability and movepool in order to succeed in OU?
  • Are the unique characteristics granted by the typing enough to set the Pokemon apart, or does it face strong competition for its role from Pokémon of other types?
  • Is there any distinct playstyle that suits the chosen typing the best? Or can the same typing be utilized in an entirely different approach to similar success?
  • How important is a type’s versatility for its overall success?
  • Is a single Pokémon capable of portraying most relevant aspects of the entire type
Explanation: There have been significant changes in the metagame and even the type chart itself since the time CAP13 set out to explore typing mechanisms with Mollux.
However, while Mollux's concept was about mitigating the downsides of a typing and granting it a brand new "artificial" niche, this concept will instead acknowledge those downsides and work around them without trying to fix them directly. The aim is to emphasize the inherent strength of the chosen typing, and therefore find its "natural" niche in the metagame. Since Mollux’s concept has already been resubmitted for this project, it is important to take note of this main difference.
As such, the roles and playstyles we want the Pokémon to take on should be based on the typing first and foremost. Stats, Ability and Movepool would be important in the later process to complement the chosen role as per usual, but shouldn’t be a deciding factor in the Concept Assessment.

The inclusion of a Mega form in this project gives us the opportunity to explore multiple approaches to this concept, be it two entirely different roles of the chosen typing, or even two different typings altogether. The former would of course be preferable as it gives us deep insight into the functioning of that particular typing, and even allows a direct comparison between those two roles. However, the latter is still a valid alternative to increase the scope of the concept should the chosen typing be mostly one-sided.

There are plenty of typings that could fit this concept, but preferably they should already be associated with the lower tiers, as to keep our gained knowledge relevant and in context. The ability to directly compare CAP to counterparts of the same type, both during and after the creating process, allows us to examine exactly how fine the line is between success and failure of the typing.
Examples would include many single typings (e.g. pure Psychic, Fire, Poison,…), but also certain type combinations (e.g. Bug/Flying, Steel/Rock, Water/Ice). Although they undoubtedly have their benefits, those are largely set off by exploitable weaknesses, making those typings more of a burden than an aid in most cases. While several of the wielders do have respectable Stats, Abilities and Movepools, one could argue that they do not complement their typing's intended role, and that is what holds them back. Finding out which playstyle truly suits the chosen typing, would be the most essential and interesting part of the concept.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Sweeper Mixed Stat-Boosting
END ARCHTYPE: Sweeper Mixed Stat-Boosting

Name: Use the Boost to Get Through!

General Description: A sweeper with several boosting options that result in completely different checks and counters. While each set should be viable in its own right, the unpredictability of this Pokemon should make it much better than any one set alone.

Justification: In the early days of Pokemon X and Y, we experienced the first Pokemon that could (viably) boost and sweep from either the physical or special side: Mega Lucario. While it was clear his unpredictability could have a devastating effect (having your Chansey eat a Close Combat, Will-O-Wisping on the Nasty Plot, etc.) the true extent to which this could make a Pokemon better was masked by the fact that Lucario's sets were both already amazing. The purpose of this concept would therefore be to explore the impact of unpredictability in sweepers by creating a Pokemon that can run several boosting sets, none of which are dominant in their own right, but that when combined can result in an extremely dangerous threat.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • Is there a limit to how much unpredictability can make a Pokemon better? Can it make a decent Pokemon great? Or can it only make them usable?
  • How does being unpredictable with boosting options compare to other forms of unpredictability (such as uncommon coverage moves or trying to speed creep certain threats)? Is unpredictability in sweepers inherently more dangerous because of how easily they can win a game?
  • For a Pokemon that is already unpredictable, will we see the use of strange coverage moves (as many sweepers tend to run) or will it tend to stick to standard sets because it already has the element of surprise?
  • Which boosting moves are distinct enough to completely change a Pokemon's checks/counters? Are Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, and Agility the only ones that can fit this concept? Or is there a way to incorporate moves such as Dragon Dance without giving the Pokemon "the best of both worlds".
  • How effective will double boosting sets be on this Pokemon? Will the ability to "pick your counters" on a Pokemon already designed to bypass its counters be too good? Or can it be designed so that the loss of coverage will still leave it with several checks and counters on any set?
  • To what extent will teams have to prepare for this Pokemon? Will they have to pack several checks/counters like for M-Lucario? Or will they be able to just use a standard team so long as they can identify the set early?
Explanation: One aspect of OU that seems to be omnipresent is unpredictability. And so it should come as no surprise that many of the proposed concepts (such as One Hit Wonder and Distribution Revolution by nyttyn and trc respectively) have tried to tackle this issue. The purpose of this concept is to take a slightly different angle and explore unpredictability in a sweeper specifically. What makes boosting sweepers unique from other Pokemon is that if you lose a specific check or give them one too many free turns, they can single-handedly win a game. My vision for this Pokemon is one that could be extremely deadly if mishandled, but that if you can identify its set early on, a standard team should be able to handle it. That way we could avoid some of the complications Lucario presented, and instead focus on how deadly unpredictable boosting really is.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Vague
END ARCHTYPE: Tank Mixed Support

Name: Einherjar ~Acta Est Fabula~

Description: A Pokemon that dissuades your opponent from fainting it, or can even leave it's presence on the field felt even after it faints.

Justification: When a Pokemon faints, it's usually thought of as the battle having gotten down to a 5-6. However, we've yet to discover if a Pokemon can leave a lasting impression on the battle even after having fainted; be it through moves like Healing Wish and Destiny Bond, placing hazards that the opponent can't remove as their removal has been taken care of, or by leaving an opponent's key member weakened and/or taken out.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • How can a Pokemon leave a long-lasting effect on the rest of the battle with just it's moves?
  • How the hell is it different from simply ramming a sacrificial martyr into your opponent's team and hoping it punches holes in it?
  • Building on the previous question, is it possible to build this Pokemon as a defensive threat rather than a "Glass Cannon"?
  • Is it even possible for a Pokemon to leave a lasting effect on on the battle, even after it faints?
  • Could changing your opponent's way of thinking even be plausible? From, "I need to take CAP X out!", to, "Damn, if I take CAP X out, I'll be in trouble...!"

Explanation: Just going back to the basic rules of Pokemon, we all know we have to faint all 6 Pokemon on the opposing team. Once a member goes down, we think of it as a 5v6, and then subsequently a 4v6, etc. However, I was thinking if it was possible for a Pokemon to somehow "continue fighting", even after it faints, be it through a lasting effect on the field or by dissuading your opponent from fainting it. That, or having your opponent having the thought of fainting the mon being a taboo, causing them to choose their moves carefully instead of swinging their sweeper into motion all the time. Maybe the Pokemon can grab momentum extremely easily? I'm trying to wrap my head around my own concept myself, but you get the general idea. I hope.

I actually drew lots of inspiration from a specific type of Hyper Offense team in OU; the one known as "Flying Spam". However, that one is kind of one-dimensional and relies on repeatedly attacking to wear down your opponent's answers; my concept however tries to discover if it's even possible at all to take on that idea with a more defensive/balanced approach, or, on the flip side, to dissuade your opponent from recklessly swinging their battering rams into your team as it will leave repercussions if the mon faints.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Vague
END ARCHTYPE: Revenge-Killer Offensive Special
END ARCHTYPE 2: Wall-Breaker Offensive Special

Concept: Major Third

General Description: A Pokemon that forms an effective offensive or defensive core with two lesser-used OU Pokemon.

Justification: Cores have always been an integral part of the metagame, whether you're running Talonflame/Staraptor to brute force everything, Slowbro/Amoonguss/Heatran for Regenerator-Leftovers stalling, or a whole team of Dragons + Magnezone. We've previously explored what it takes to make a successful partnership in CAP11 (Voodoom), but the metagame (and the simulator!) has changed dramatically since Voodoom's creation. I would also like to up the ante a little bit: Instead of just one, can we now take TWO Pokemon and find their missing piece? Whether we opt to build on an established two-Pokemon partnership or choose two previously unrelated Pokemon and put them together, I think that we can certainly find a Voodoom for a more offensive time.

Questions to Be Answered:
  • How do effective cores in the current metagame differ fundamentally from the cores of previous metagames, if at all?
  • Is synergy as important (relative to power) in the current metagame as it previously has been? (That is, has power creep rendered synergy unnecessary?)
  • What differences are there between tailoring a Pokemon to two others and tailoring it to one? What else must be considered besides weaknesses and resistances?
  • How does the addition of a Pokemon to a core change what other Pokemon can be effectively run alongside the core?
  • Does Team Preview make running cores more difficult?
  • Is it possible to create a core uncounterable by a single Pokemon? (For example, Celebi/Heatran/Jellicent was a very effective BW core that got slaughtered by Tyranitar. Can a core force opponents to counter it with another core?)
  • Tagging onto the above, what is required to "counter-core" a core? What combination of offensive and defensive characteristics among "counter-core" members achieves this?
Explanation:
The hardest step in creating this CAP would almost undoubtedly be choosing which two Pokemon to pair up. Personally, I've enjoyed running Gourgeist-Super and Scarf Rotom-H together, but I haven't yet found a Water-type that can totally complete the two. The closest I've gotten is probably either Tentacruel or Gastrodon. Something that can handle Tyranitar, Mega Venu, and Specially Defensive Heatran equally well would certainly be nice here, but Tentacruel just isn't bulky enough (or maybe I just don't get lucky enough with Scald burns, idk) and Gastrodon is totally crippled by Toxic (and Mega Venu) and can't actually hit Tyranitar that hard. In turn, any core with a specially-oriented cleric (say Sylveon/Tyranitar or even Blissey/Tyranitar) can handle this core- but none of them can do it alone. (Sylveon and Blissey can be Tricked a Scarf, Ttar and Mega Venu can be Burned by WoW/Scald, Heatran can't stay in on the Water-type and won't enjoy a Scarf, either.) That's the kind of thing I'm going for.

Heck, we could even pick two random 'mons (e.g., Diggersby and Mega Gyarados) and try and make them work if we want more of a challenge. The majority of the customization of this CAP will probably come from the partner-choosing step; once we've settled that, the rest should be fairly straightforward. The one thing I absolutely want to avoid, though, is a third core member that can be run very reliably outside of the core. For example, if you were running Voodoom without either Zapdos or Togekiss, you weren't using it correctly. On the other hand, you can easily run Heatran outside of JelliCeleTran and have it perform really well.

Also, I think "lesser-used OU" should both include some upper-tier UUs/BLs (such as Kyu-B, Slowbro, and Metagross) and exclude anything above about #30 on the ladder (Volcarona). This way, we don't end up building something that makes, say, Tyranitar/Excadrill/CAP unwallable or Rotom-W/Gliscor/CAP unbreakable.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Vague
END ARCHTYPE: Sweeper Physical Stat-Boosting Win-Con

Name: Show Me Your Moves!

General Description: A good user of moves with effects not frequently used in the OU metagame.

Justification: There are many moves in Pokémon with great effects, but they often end up unused. Moves such as Gravity, Snatch, and Safeguard have potential in OU, but they are neglected for several reasons: the moves are apparently overshadowed, have poor distribution, or are inefficient compared to another strategy. This CAP uses a combination of typing, ability, and stats to make these underused moves not only feasible, but also capable.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • What mechanics of Pokémon determine how viable moves are?--not only the Pokémon's typing, stats, and ability, but also its interaction with playstyles and momentum.
  • What new strategies might emerge by giving a new OU Pokémon underused moves?
  • What challenges do Pokémon that use lesser-used moves face compared to ones that use a more standard moveset?
  • If the Pokémon has options of staple OU moves (high-powered STABs, offensive stat-boosting moves, reliable recovery, Substitute), will those moves be useful to it, even if it's specialized toward a separate and distinct strategy?
  • Can underused moves increase other underused moves' viabilities?
  • Can one user of a strategy unrecognized in a metagame massively influence a pre-existing playstyle?
Explanation:My inspiration for the concept stems from Sigilyph. Take the move Cosmic Power. It is a defense-boosting move, and it is avoided by OU user Jirachi, as even though Jirachi can wall and/or stall with this move, it is susceptible to multiple threats. First, it can be the recipient of a status effect that limits its walling capability. Additionally, opponents can put a Substitute up and boost their stats, while Jirachi is unable to break the Substitute without giving the opponent an advantage in terms of boosts. Using Cosmic Power Jirachi makes it a sitting duck.

However, take a look at Sigilyph. This Pokémon is able to remove the flaws of using Cosmic Power through a combination of other lesser-used moves. Any status conditions it receives can be given to the opponent with Psycho Shift, and as it gains stat boosts with Cosmic Power, Stored Power increases in damage, making Sigilyph not only a sturdy wall, but also an offensive threat to non-Dark-types. It can Roost off any damage it does receive and thus continue boosting. That is just one possibility Game Freak has granted to the Pokémon metagame. Many moves that appear flimsy on their own chain well with other moves, and a Pokémon's typing, ability, and stats will increase their viabilities. Users of lesser-used moves can reveal an unexplored niche in the metagame and restore the viability of a lesser-used playstyle, giving fresh life to OU.

Additional: I had a small compilation of 'interesting' moves that originally was in my Justification, but it became too lengthy. The moves included in it are Reflect Type, Soak, Aqua Ring, Telekinesis, Role Play, Whirlpool (and clones), Entrainment, Imprison, Heal Block, and Power Trick.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE 1: Sweeper
BEGIN ARCHTYPE 2: Utility
END ARCHTYPE 1: Sweeper Physical Stat-Boosting Win-Con
END ARCHTYPE 2: Utility Pivot Support

Concept: Sketch Artist

Description: A Pokemon that learns Sketch, once, and everything that goes along with that.

Justification:
Rising Dusk said:
Originally Posted by Fat Rising Dusk

I'd like us to spend some time thinking about the Pokemon and what it can teach us from how it changes the metagame, rather than the other way around where we choose an effect on the metagame and then develop a Pokemon around it.
In terms of uniqueness, I think that few existing Pokemon can match DPP Smeargle, an otherwise laughably worthless Pokemon trolling OU with access to every trick in the book (or at least 4 of them) but also affecting the metagame greatly by becoming a top threat in the lead metagame. This Pokemon will borrow some of that uniqueness by learning the move Sketch and thus having access to ONE surprise/strategic/gutshot bonus move to supplement its pre-existing movepool. Being otherwise competently built (read: usable stats), this Poke could be a top threat or specialist for reasons we can't even predict yet.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • How will a Poke that has access to any one move out of all the moves in the game affect common battling tactics, namely prediction, scouting, and switching?
  • Which Sketch moves will become most common on this Poke's best sets? Does Sketchmon's success rely on hiding that secret Sketch move until just the right moment or can it succeed with predictably powerful moves like Spore, Spikes, Hurricane, Shell Smash, etc.?
  • Does this unique and powerful access to moves need to be counterbalanced elsewhere in the Pokemon's design? If so, then to what degree?
  • What kind of impact can Sketchmon have on teambuilding in terms of being able to patch holes with common utility moves like Rapid Spin or Toxic Spikes?
Explanation: The key here is that we have a lot of freedom to construct a unique Pokemon while staying within the confines of the concept. Typing, stats, abilities, and even most of the movepool are completely fair game so long as the Poke learns Sketch only once along the way and that we keep that in mind during previous steps. Now, this doesn't mean the CAP process will be directionless; Rising Dusk is pretty well organized and good at keeping discussions focused, and the concept itself has firm grounding in Smeargle's precedent. What's really being studied with this concept is movepool diversity and effectiveness, so it should have the most effect on the movepool process, where movepool creators will have to carefully balance their Sketchmon's actual movepool with the possibility of adding any one other move to the list. In terms of the metagame, there is no doubt in my mind that throwing a wildcard like this into the mix will strongly affect the metagame.
BEGIN ARCHTYPE: Utility Pivot Support
END ARCHTYPE: Utility Pivot Support
END ARCHTYPE 2: Tank Stall Support

Name: Momentum

General Description: This will be a Pokemon that can be utilized to gain or regain momentum for a player's team at any point in the match as its primary function.

Justification: Gen. 5 is a very powerful metagame. As such, most battles are won by the smarter strategist who can best maneuver around his/her opponent's onslaught to gain even a single turn's advantage, potentially clinching them the match. This process of gaining and regaining momentum is most often the defining element that makes a winner and a loser out of a single Pokemon battle. Any top player in this metagame should agree that momentum is the most crucial element in any given match; however, "momentum" itself is a rather vaguely defined term that is never really explored in concrete terms. Is it keeping opposing teams on the defensive? Forcing switches? Good prediction? Spamming U-turn? These have all been approaches to achieving momentum, but they are also player-side and largely synonymous with "strategy," as opposed to Pokemon-side and regarding a Pokemon's role on the team. Certainly there are threats like Ferrothorn/Gliscor (defensive) and Scizor/Latios/Voltlos, etc., etc. (offensive) that can achieve momentum as we know it, but there is no current niche for a "momentum Pokemon" because the concept has been purely delegated to players and not to Pokemon.

Questions to be Answered:
-How do we define momentum in terms of competitive Pokemon? What factors make current Pokemon able to achieve momentum and how can we incorporate that information into a successful CAP?
-How do different styles of play (Weather-based offense, stall, bulky offense, etc.) use momentum to achieve their goals and how can our CAP play to those strategies in an effort to take their momentum away?
-What type of traditional role (sweeper, tank, wall, support) would a Pokemon like this most resemble? Would it have to be able to fit more than one of these roles to fit in a variety of teams?
-How will the different playstyles be affected by the addition of a Pokemon that can regain offensive/defensive momentum at any given point? Will offensive teams play more conservatively? Will defensive teams play more recklessly? Will everything simply adapt to a new threat and move on normally?

Explanation: This concept should teach us just as much about the metagame during its creation process than through actual playtesting, especially in the Concept Assessment, where the community should be looking to the metagame as a whole to analyze how successful teams and players gain, regain, and maintain momentum. Since momentum has largely been defined at the discretion of the battling community and takes many forms, so too could this CAP. Scizor, Blissey, Skarmory, Magnezone, Celebi, Jirachi (Celebi and Jirachi are great examples, due to their versatility), Heatran, Balloon Heatran, etc. can all achieve momentum according to their strengths, yet all are very different. Now, I'm not about to suggest that this CAP should be able to check everything in the metagame; that's not the goal here. What it should be able to do, though, is pose a reasonable threat in some manner to a good chunk of the metagame, enough to make opponents think twice about staying in or at least think very hard about what to switch into this Pokemon. A Pokemon with almost no offensive presence can do this just as well as a blunt instrument kind of Poke.


I chose a multitude of recent projects and a few older, successful ones because I wanted to see if this system was of any help. We've had a number of good concepts that started out very vague but their end purpose fulfilled their role nicely. This spawns a few questions:

1. Are vague concepts inherently desirable, inherently undesirable, or somewhere inbetween?
2. If we are more specific about our end goal, does that make our concepts more focused or less focused?


My fear here is that Archetypes, for their many benefits, have the potential to lock us out of unique concepts which could otherwise arise. Cawmodore started very vague but because we chose Belly Drum our direction was determined mid-project and led to a specific archetypal goal. Sketch Artist seemed like it would be undefinable but because *ANY* move means it can either Shell Smash or lay Sticky Web, its clear it can either be a great Sweeper or a great Utility Pokemon but it probably won't be as good as a Tank or a Revenge Killer.

So I'm looking for feedback. I want us to be able to make better concepts. I just don't want to pigeonhole us into too restrictive a system. If I mischaracterized the end archtypes of prior projects, please correct me on that as well. I want any component system we use to make sense and make like easier, not harder for out concept submitters.
 
I haven't used the workshop so my expectations of what it should do or how it should work are null when pondering ideas of how to fix it. I'd like to think that works as 'a pair of fresh eyes'. I've skimmed through it few times and have a vague internal understanding of how it worked but nothing too concrete when initially discussing how to possibly salvage the 'concept workshop' model. Cretacerus brought the topic up in a casual discussion on PS and from that discussion I feel he explained it to me well. Unfortunately, in his explanation as a casual user I could see some glaring problems with the process that would discourage people from wanting to put the effort into a concept that would even be considered as a worthwhile idea for the concept workshop. A lot of my realizations are going to sound oddly familiar as coincidentally, Doug has come to a similar conclusion to myself. I agree with everything Doug had to say with the exception of dismantling the workshop concept subforum. And I have other, further expanding ideas as well.
Cretacerus said:
[09:12:34] Cretacerus: The idea of increasing the quality of the concepts may sounds great in theory, but just doesn't work if we don't get any submissions :/
[09:13:37] Cretacerus: In the past, people would prepare their concepts for months, even before the project began
[09:13:52] Cretacerus: because they were excited about the concept submission stage
[09:25:41] Cretacerus: Our expectations were that we retain the same number of submissions, but can sort the bad ones out and improve on the good ones
[09:26:49] Cretacerus: Many of the submissions in the respective threads are doubles from previous concepts
[09:27:06] Cretacerus: as you may know, there aren't that many new ones to begin with
Is less more?

My thing is from the basic premise is I ask myself this: Is less less or is less more? Are we looking at it from the perspective of sheer volume? Then the concept of a concept workshop probably isn't going to work considering the resources it requires. Are we looking at it in terms of quality control? If so, the concept workshop is essential. The fact is that having less concepts means we're going to be more focused when it comes time to discuss concepts than if we have double or triple the minimal amount. That isn't even getting to the issue of TLs and the concept workshop which I will address later on. If enthusiasm is waning, that's not inherently a bad thing. Quality control means there are going to be less submissions; Not only less submissions, but less approved submissions. And if the premise of the concept workshop is to have quality concepts, then you are going to have fewer concepts. But by the same token, they're going to be of a much more consistent level of quality.

Unrealistic Expectations

What are we really expecting of newcomers and the concepts we're looking to use for future CAP projects? Creatacerus noted that expectations may have been getting the same number of submissions as the traditional concept submission phase of CAP project, but then being able to sort the 'bad' and 'good' ones. This is UNREALISTIC. How can you honestly expect to get the same number of submissions in what is a free-for-all with minimal rules when you shift that model to one more inclined to a bunch of red tape and rules? It's flat out unrealistic, and with those kind of expectations I can see how many would consider the concept workshop past its due date. We need to reign in our expectations with what should be expected so we're not stymieing the flow of potential concepts from coming in.

Reducing Stigma for Better Concepts

There are two more issues Creatacerus brought up that I think are truly valid points: the aforementioned duplicate concepts that are posted ad nauseum because they never get picked, leaving the idea well dry after they're proposed; and the fact that putting in all your effort into creating a great concept isn't necessarily rewarded with it being slated for a future CAP project.

So let's start with duplicate concepts. There are two big points here that I think can really help us understand how to correct the workshop model to a manner that more effectively welcomes people to propose concepts. One: There is only a finite number of concepts to work with while people still have a sitgma with repeating an idea. Two: People want to create the most original idea which often leads them astray.

QueenOfLuvdiscs said:
One of the reasons I think we're getting less optimal submissions is because there's only so much you can do before you start repeating old concepts or end up with something incredibly niche. We're at 21 now, eventually we're gonna have to bring up something, not exactly the same as a previous concept, but make take some submissions that have similarities to older ones.
This is a quote from 'part 1' of this discussion which sort of went under the radar but I feel really hits the head on the nail in its brevity. The world of competitive Pokemon is vast and yet by the same token it's very shallow. When you boil down Pokemon to their essentials you're left with only a handful of archetypes that every idea stems from, often duplicating a process with a few tweaks that end up creating a vastly different Pokemon in comparison. For some reason however, there is a stigma around the notion that if we've done a concept it would be bad to do it again; that it would just be a carbon copy and we wouldn't learn anything from it - that it would have less or no value. And so we shy away from doing something that worked because we assume doing it again is bad.

This leads us to the second point, where we believe doing things over and over again automatically lead to the same conclusion/won't be fun and we need to come up with this great new idea. This logic leads us to the fringes of Pokemon obscurity picking out niche moves or concepts that don't see much debate and it gets proclaimed a great new concept. Except it isn't. The concept is in reality often subpar because in trying so hard to find something new it ends up being bad. Or worse yet, people are left scratching their head. They can't think of anything new and we're left with nothing. Sound familiar? It's the situation we're in now. We need to correct this stigma just as we need to correct the stigma in the CAP project. It leaves me wondering if these issues correlate and maybe there's a deeper systemic problem with the people instead of the institutions, as seemingly we're dealing with two related issues that have the same core problem.

Effort Should Equal Reward

And last but not least, the effort =/= reward problem. Again there are two points I'd like to bring up: one: The amount of red tape in response to a concept and two: The TL's involvement with slating and how the concept workshop replaces that.

In regards to how the concept workshop currently works, it is obviously too imbalanced and too restricting of concept submissions. This once again harkens back to our expectations and how unrealistic they are. Too much time is spent analyzing, reviewing, and most of all QC'ing them before they even get approved for discussion. It's a mess! If say, a quality concept takes two hours of research and an hour writing it up so that it's persuasive and articulate, it shouldn't take months in response to only have that idea be denied. It's so discouraging. It's ineffective. It needs to be changed. QC'ing a concept should be much simpler and much faster.

But for the sake of argument say you have put in a lot of hard work and after a month your idea finally gets approved, everyone likes it and you did a good job. So what? It's not guaranteed anything. As of CAP20 only, the TL picked the slate. That means if the TL doesn't personally like your idea, tough luck. Your hard work isn't going to get appreciated. That's unfair. Why go through all the effort of crafting a great concept, submitting it through the slog of red tape hoping it gets approved, maybe getting it approved, discussing the concept as if it's going forward and then at the last second you're (un)intentionally snubbed by the TL because they weren't personally a fan of your concept.

Bughouse said:
1) I am not likely to be all that involved moving forward, so take my comments as you will
2) Since basically its creation, I've felt that the implantation of the concept workshop was poor
3) I still don't think it's appropriate for a TL to ask to override the system
In a rare occurrence I'm going to have to agree with Bughouse; it's not appropriate for a TL to override the system. The system should be neutral and it should be absolute: if your concept was good enough to be approved, your hard work should be awarded and your concept should be slated for the next CAP. Period. End of discussion. You can't honestly expect people to want to send in the same amount of concepts if you:

- Create a bunch of rules.
- Take forever to approve it.
- Potentially modify and bastardize it before it even hits the slate.
- And if all else fails, snub them and disregard their concept.

That sends the wrong message 100% of the way and honestly I can see why the concept workshop isn't working right now. It's wound too tight and people aren't interested. We need to incentivize and encourage people to want to participate, not scare them away - we need to build a level of trust and straightforward understanding of how things operate.

How to Fix the Concept Workshop?

With all of that said, let's move on to how we can fix these supposed problems:

1. We need to make things easier and simpler. (As Doug suggested)

There's a lot of unnecessary steps in the approval process that could probably be stripped down to make it easier to determine whether or not it would work. There should still be a stringent process but let's try to make it less convoluted and more straightforward. Let's have more realistic expectations.

2. We need to remove the stigma of repeating a concept design.

Stigmas are bad, no question about it. Given the current model, I don't think you can remove the stigma in question from the concept workshop. If people are left to their own whims to design a concept they're going to hit a brick wall because they're conditioned to think it's bad to repeat themselves and they'll attempt to reinvent the wheel. However it's not bad, furthermore there's only so many raw conceptual ideas before you start repeating yourself and we need to recognize that. We need to change gears from allowing people to freely write up their concepts to a model that uses predesigned archetypical concepts as a mold for people to flesh out (as Doug suggested). This allows people to just select a template and put their unique twist on it. It's easy, efficient, and if done right could be a whole bunch of fun.

3. We need to reward participation.

If an concept is good enough to get approved, it's good enough to get slated. We should leave whether or not it gets selected as thee concept up to the democratic process of the CAP project and not to the TL. In doing so, we would probably need to start numbering our slate as to organize and coordinate when a concept would be up for slating. I would consider 4-8 concepts to be a minimum and maximum number to work with. The process would work as follows:

Four concepts is the minimum, if we don't reach four concepts (we should) then we take a 24 hour day period in traditional fashion and the TL is able to pick up to 5 they like to add to the slate.

Eight concepts is the maximum, if more concepts than eight are approved, there is a cut off and every approved concept from thereon is pre-slated for the next CAP down the road (So if this was for CAP 22 for example and we had eight concepts, every other approved concept would be slated for CAP 23).

Once concepts have been slated, if they aren't selected they need to go back through the approval process and can be slated again in the future if they have been approved, maybe needing a few alterations after feedback from the prior CAP concept discussion.

This model would encourage people to submit their ideas, it would make it easier to do so, and it would reward their hard work in doing so; but it would also encourage people to think smart, not hard. And that's what the concept workshop should be all about. Let's make it work instead of giving up and scrapping it altogether.
 

snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
I'd like to echo Reapehify's point here. As he says in his post and I said in the Change in Direction thread, we've run out of "really cool ideas." Already we've seen similar concepts to those of previous caps in Volkraken (similar to Voodoom) and Crucibelle (similar to Mollux). Whether or not we fix the concept workshop, we really do need to open to similar concepts to the past. Would "Utility Counter" (Krilowatt's concept) or "Ultimate Bulk-up User" (Revenankh's concept) produce the same product? Obviously they'll be similar, but I doubt we'd come up with an Electric- and Water-type with 151 Base HP or a Ghost- and Fighting-type with Air Lock and Shed Skin.

If we do try to fix the concept workshop, we need to rethink QC for it. From what I can tell (and I might be wrong), there's a lot of: "Hey, if you did THIS to your concept, it might work!" and less of "Ok, we can't do this concept because a) blah, b) blah, c) blah...yeah lol this won't work." I'm not saying we should try to make every single concept possible, but it seems like there's not enough "Here's what's wrong with the concept, and here's a possible solution" and way too much of "Here's why your concept won't work."
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
There's one other idea I want to get off my mind that's related to something I posted earlier.

Archetypes are one type of building block, the other building block I want to explore is "Targets."

Some Pokemon really are more dominant than others, and I think having a concept that directly tries to weaken that specific threat is an excellent basis for a CAP project that should be considered. We already allow "Poll Jumping Concepts" for moves that are unique enough to warrant it, I think a concept that predetermines a small part of the "Threats" discussion is not out of line, especially because it still leaves a lot of room for the "how" of the target while identifying the "what".

Landorus-Therian for example has pretty consistently broken 25% in 1825 stats over the last 3 months. A concept based around lowering Lando-T's viability would be perfectly in line with learning about the metagame. What's also noteworthy since we also have partner statistics is that Latios and Keldeo hover around the same percentage (7-8%) but otherwise its partners are scattershot. More interesting is that when you look further down at their teammate stats, Landorus tends to break 10% in each instance. In fact for February it was near 20% for Mega-Lopunny and Latios and over 20% for Rotom-Wash, so that tells us that Landorus is the splashable Pokemon in those combinations.

What I'm ultimately saying is, now that we have so much more data available to us, a concept based on weakening a specific target is a very viable project source and should be actively encouraged. If I can wrap all this into a neat little bow, here's what I'd like to see be considered viable for a concept submission:
Name: I Have Altered The Deal (Anti-Lando)

General Description:
A Pokemon that lowers the viability of Landorus-Therian in the OU Metagame.

Archetype:
Tank Support
Target: Landorus-Therian

Justification:
Landorus-Therian is one of the few Pokemon in OU so dominant it routinely scores above 25% usage at the highest levels of play, and its partners can frequently exceed 15 or 20% teammate scores. Creating a Pokemon designed to lower its viability will teach us a lot about how to target specific, versatile Pokemon. The best Archetype I feel suited for this is a Tank with Support capabilities because Landorus-Therian hits hard, has several momentum and support moves like U-turn, Stealth Rock, and Knock Off, and even has rarer boosting sets.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • What are Landorus-Therian's defining characteristics that make it so dominant?
  • Is neutralizing Lando-T's support options more, less, or equally important to lowering its viability than simply being able to remove it with a relevant attack?
  • Given that Landorus is much more splashable than any of its teammates (based on team-mate statistics), which teammates of Landorus-Therian should CAP also address to lower its overall viability?

Explanation:

The core of a good concept is what it can teach us about how metagames work as a whole. I feel like targeting one of the top Pokemon in usage and viability will be a prime test of learning from a focused CAP Project.


Again, always looking for feedback on things like this. These are the kinds of concept I think we can make easier to proliferate, and ease a lot of the stress while still having relevant, engaging projects.
 

snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
Don't get me wrong, I really love this Target idea. I feel like we need to expand it to at least two Targets though. Or some other solution.

Unless we don't care about making exact clones of exisiting mons/past capmons, here's why:

"Landorus-T always runs Earthquake. Let's make it a Flying-Type!"
"Ok...but Landorus-T commonly runs Stone Edge, so let's give it a resistance to Rock coverage."
"Let's try Steel/Flying. We'll give it high physical defense...wait this is looking a lot like Skarmory."
"Alright let's try Fighting/Flying. We'll give it high physical def- no this is looking a lot like Tomohawk."
"Ok fine let's try Ground/Flying. We'll give it high physical- nope Gliscor and Landorus-T (accounting for Intimidate)."

Sure you could go for the Levitate route or give it like Grass/Bug so it 4x resists Earthquake, but do you see what I mean? I really like this Target idea, but we need to expand upon it so we don't get the above situation.
 

Deck Knight

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Don't get me wrong, I really love this Target idea. I feel like we need to expand it to at least two Targets though. Or some other solution.

Unless we don't care about making exact clones of exisiting mons/past capmons, here's why:

"Landorus-T always runs Earthquake. Let's make it a Flying-Type!"
"Ok...but Landorus-T commonly runs Stone Edge, so let's give it a resistance to Rock coverage."
"Let's try Steel/Flying. We'll give it high physical defense...wait this is looking a lot like Skarmory."
"Alright let's try Fighting/Flying. We'll give it high physical def- no this is looking a lot like Tomohawk."
"Ok fine let's try Ground/Flying. We'll give it high physical- nope Gliscor and Landorus-T (accounting for Intimidate)."

Sure you could go for the Levitate route or give it like Grass/Bug so it 4x resists Earthquake, but do you see what I mean? I really like this Target idea, but we need to expand upon it so we don't get the above situation.
I think in general the point of targets is to not only look at the Pokemon but look at its common teammates. Landorus is a special case in that regard because by definition as the top-used Pokemon it will almost always be a greater share of its partner's teammates stats than they will be of it's teammate stats, but if we thought Lando paired with, say, M-Lopunny was a bigger threat the discussion would shift that.

What's notable even in your list is that all of those Pokemon tend to address Landorus passively. In any such discussion that would probably be brought up, and my experience is that CAP hates covering old ground and actively tries to avoid similar flight paths to prior CAPs. Either way the core point is "is this a good baseline concept for the direction we want to go in" and I think the answer is yes.
 

Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
Our issue is less 'we've run out of good, interesting concepts' and more 'we're having trouble identifying what makes for a good concept'. I don't think that limiting the scope of our concepts to a single style, like deck knight suggested, is really that helpful for the project. We would've never seen a CAP like Necturna if concepts only looked at specific Targets, and honestly, that would be a shame.

For a long time, CAP has been about answering questions about Pokemon through theorycrafting, and the reason Target-Style concepts do well is because they give us insight into the Pokemon we're building CAP around. This is the same reason Kitsunoh was a solid project - it gave us a better idea of what it meant to scout. Same with Tomohawk, and even Plasmanta. I don't particularly consider Plasmanta a failure because it still answered its concept's question.

All that said, though, answering questions isn't what makes a CAP project fun. The real problem we're having is that we answer a question too early and the rest of the project becomes less Ad-Libs and more Connect-the-Dots. We finish the question answering so quickly that we get bored with the rest of the project. For Plasmanta, our question was answered at concept assessment, which lead to the rest of the project into a very specific niche - which, while not a bad thing, made it feel like we were repeating the previous project as well as the project before that, which is kind of boring. It's also possible we just answered the question wrong, or it wasn't the answer people were expecting.

We'd run into the same problem if we just repeat Target-Style concepts for CAP. They're by no means a bad thing - in fact, from the point of view of answering questions about the metagame, they're great. But they won't make the process inherently fun or interesting, and won't deal with the burnout effect CAP so often sees.


I have a ton more to say on this, but I don't have time to do a full post on it yet, so I'll just leave this here for now and follow up later.
 
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Deck Knight

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Our issue is less 'we've run out of good, interesting concepts' and more 'we're having trouble identifying what makes for a good concept'. I don't think that limiting the scope of our concepts to a single style, like deck knight suggested, is really that helpful for the project. We would've never seen a CAP like Necturna if concepts only looked at specific Targets, and honestly, that would be a shame.

Just to be clear, I'm trying to pursue a Concept mentality of "Yes / All of the Above" rather than trying to pigeonhole every concept into using these terms. To go back to Doug's house construction analogy, what I'm trying to do here is stock ready-made components for concept ideas rather than trying to eliminate the more theoretical kinds of concepts. What I was trying to do with my last post is try and apply the archetype/target model to prior concepts to see if they were analogous. In some cases they are and in other cases they aren't, but I thought it would be a useful exercise to go through.

I agree we need to keep the spirit of fun in CAP. But I have a blast every single CAP, maybe because I can appreciate all the ups and downs after contributing for so long. What bores me more is the long lulls between projects which kills our forward momentum. I probably could have made this post a few days ago but it didn't work out time-wise.

Basically I want more tools, not more constriction.
 

Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
I agree that having ready-made components for a project will definitely help with concept creation, but I worry that going about it in the form of targets is actually more constricting then it is helpful. If we're building houses, but the frame is the same for every house, obviously we're going to have similar building processes. This is actually the same problem I have with the way we have the archetypes idea defined right now - having a predefined list of archetypes will naturally restrict concepts. So, I'm going to propose an iteration to the idea of archetypes to help expand the breadth of concepts that it allows for, without having it get in the way of the advantages the original proposal has.

Fantasies - What makes a Pokemon "fun" to battle with?

In game design, even outside of Pokemon, often times you run into 'fantasies' as a conceptual starting point for creating a new playable character. As an example, lets say you're playing some standard medieval RPG. Near the beginning, you get to choose a class that you'll spend the game as. In this case, you choose from Rogue, Magician, or Warrior. Each of these classes have a different 'fantasy' attached to them.

This fantasy is dictated by what decisions player feels empowered by. For the Warrior, the player feels smartest and strongest when they carve a path through the front lines of a battleground. Becoming an unstoppable juggernaut is what dictates the design decisions around the class. The Warrior has more armor than the Magician or Rogue because they need to take hits in order to feel unstoppable. They deal damage at the closest range possible because charging head-on into a cloud of arrows and coming out on the other side with the heads of ten archers helps fulfill the fantasy. For the rogue, the time when you feel smartest is when you're the underdog - Fighting against huge monsters by out-speeding and out-smarting them. Magicians feel best when they manage to successfully pull off a massive spell with a combination of superior intellect, positioning, and firepower.

For each of these characters, the defining moment of their creation comes from the fantasy they fulfill. That is, the question "When should the player feel best using this class?" is what dictates the decisions made during each character's design. So, I'm suggesting we do the same thing here in CAP.

Good concepts already do this. Most recently, we saw Crucibelle end up doing this on accident - Its concept was practically "Find a underutilized type and fulfill the fantasy associated with it." So, we did, and the process went great. Similarly, concepts that don't go as well fail to meet their associated fantasy. Plasmanta's fantasy was "Lich" - we wanted to create a Pokemon who made the player feel smartest when it died, but we ended up running into problems with the mechanics of the game going against this fantasy. So, the project was seen as a failure, and reasonably so.

Even Targets have an associated fantasy. "I used (CAP) against (Target)!" is a perfectly good reason for a player to feel like they made the right choice. Every time we give a player an obvious 'smart choice', we fulfill a fantasy.


Implementation

There's a couple of ways to implement "Fantasies", so I'm going to go through a few different ways I can think of off of the top of my head.
  1. Fantasies entirely replace Concepts. Rather than having CAP be about answering questions, we just make Mons that are fun to use.
  2. Fantasies become a required part of concept submissions. The author of the concept attaches a description of when they want the player to feel like they used CAP 'right'.
  3. Fantasies are decided after concept submission by the community in a separate poll. Discussion of what fantasy should be fulfilled will be added before concept assessment and after the concept poll.
  4. Fantasies become an active part of concept assessment, and are decided by the TL.
  5. Fantasies are a active part of concept assessment, and are decided by poll.

There's like a million different places we could put this, but honestly it isn't that important where it goes. The important part is that deciding on a fantasy fixes our problems without restricting concepts. It forces us to define our concept in a way that makes it immediately obvious if it isn't feasible for game mechanics with just a bit of thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, yeah. Fantasies. They're good. Here's an at a glace version for people who forget to read things.
  • Fantasies are a conceptual topic used in game design to define when a player should feel smart/good after preforming an action.
  • We can use this as a basis for CAP!
  • Good Concepts already do that!
  • Bad Concepts are the ones that fail to properly meet their fantasy!
  • Doesn't restrict concepts to "These are the good concepts. Use one of them."
  • We can implement them in a variety of ways!
 

DougJustDoug

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Birkal will be the designated closer for this thread. We are looking to get Policy Review wrapped up over the next few days, so if there are any unsaid points, let's get them out there ASAP.
 

HeaLnDeaL

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Retire CAP Mod who is now more active than ever before said:
Basically I want more tools, not more constriction.
I'm really in favor of the "more tools" approach, and as what I think Deck Knight is getting is not that we need to use all of these tools for a single concept, but more of these tools all offer a different, but still viable, perspective on making a good concept. Earlier, Deck posted a concept example in which both the archetype tool and the target tool were used together. While I definitely do think combining of these approaches should be allowed, I also just want to stress that I don't think it should be required (and Deck's later posts seem to echo this sentiment). The more we require, then the less freedom concepts have and the more poll-jumpy they will end up.

I also feel that Ignus's "fantasies" (essentially Character Classes) are a great addition to our toolbox. However, I disagree with Ignus's methods of implementation. The way I see it, a fantasy/character class could be built as a concept altogether, following the old format (as in the justification/question format). The justification would usually be the lack of a viable class (or the lack of that class being explored for the traits that make up its class). The questions asked, at the simplest level, would be what traits in Pokemon correspond to the character class, which of those traits are most viable in the metagame, etc. Admittedly these questions are more bland than some other past concepts, but if doors for more specialized or unusual classes (beyond warrior, mage, etc) open up then I think these questions will inherently gain complexity. I also want to say that there is some overlap between the archetype method and the character class method, but I feel like they combine some sort of smaller, yet-to-be defined building blocks in different enough ways as to give then enough variation to be used as different tools... I might have more to say on this later, but I guess we'll see.

Basically, I'm supporting "more tools available" but not supporting requiring the use of more tools.
 

Deck Knight

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Just a brief summation post because I've played around with some larger models.

CAP Concept Toolkit:
Actualization:
What is the feeling your Concept Pokemon INSPIRES when used properly in the metagame, do existing Pokemon come close to that, and why or why not?
Archetypes: What does your Concept Pokemon DO - functionally - in the metagame, and why does the metagame need something with that role?
Targets: What does your Concept Pokemon ADDRESS in the metagame, and why is addressing that target important?

Actualization is centered around Ignus's idea of fantasies. I just don't like that word because CAP has a culture that tamps down on fanboyism. Stratagem (Break The Mold), Tomohawk (Momentum) and Kitsunoh (Ultimate Scout) were great examples of an Actualization concept. Most of the "Teammate" Concepts also broadly fell under this, actualizing a core that would change the metagame. I'd say the lion's share of CAP Concepts in the past have been Actualization concepts, we just didn't have a way to define them properly.

Fidgit (Pure Utility Pokemon) and Naviathan (Use the Boost to Get Through!) are examples of successful "Archetype" projects. We didn't have concepts at the time of Revenankh, but "Ultimate Bulk Up Sweeper" would definitely fit into an Archetype concept mold.

Arghonaut (Decentralizer) and Colossoil (Stop the Secondary) are the best examples of previous successful "Target" projects, Arghonaut's was literally based around re-centering the metagame, while Colossoil's purpose was to target the most common users of status and secondary effects. Malaconda's concept (Type Equalizer) was also at its base a "Target" Project, though the target was pretty broad as it encompassed entire types, and ended up more as an Actualization Pokemon for sun teams.

I think as long as a concept can satisfy one of these tools (and is generally coherent and purposeful) it should be considered. Whether this needs a whole workshop forum dedicated to it is another matter, but I think having established these three tools exist and by describing them, concept submitters can get a better handle on what the project is trying to achieve.
 

Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
The word 'fantasies' isn't mine, but I agree that it's probably inaccurate for the topic that it's describing. Actualization is a fine name for it.

I feel like if we can implement these 'tools', as we keep calling them, we can probably remove (archive) the workshop completely. So the only thing left is actually putting them into practice.

I've already mentioned my ideas for implementing my idea, but probably the easiest way to dump our full toolbox into the project is by having the "Justification" section of the OP replaced with how the concept fulfills one of the above categories. That way, we can pull away from talking about whatever the current metagame is at that fleeting moment and instead focus on making CAPs bring up interesting and intelligent discussions about Pokemon as a whole.
 

Birkal

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Co-authored by Birkal and Deck Knight

Conclusion:

1. The CAP Concept Workshop Forum will be Archived. Concepts will instead be submitted in the Concept Submission stage as had been done in previous projects.
2. The CAP Concept OP will be changed include the Toolbox as the guiding reference for the Justification section of the standard form. Other sections will be altered to reflect this.

The Updated OP is in Hide Tags Below.

This is where we discuss the general goal of the next Create-A-Pokemon project -- CAP X. The Concept will be a guiding force throughout the ensuing project, to ensure the the final result is a cohesive competitive pokemon. Any discussions, suggestions, or submissions in later topics, that do not support the spirit of the Concept, will be moderated by the Topic Leader. Concepts must be presented as high-level descriptions of a general idea. They cannot be detailed Pokemon designs. Since we have polls to determine each aspect of the Pokemon, we cannot allow any specific features of the Pokemon to be determined by the details of the Concept. We intentionally have many rules regarding Concept Submissions. If you are not prepared to read and understand all the rules, then don't bother making a submission. These rules are made to help narrow the field of concepts down to those that have been carefully designed. This is not meant to be easy for everyone -- a good, legal Concept requires a lot of thought and careful wording. The following rules must be followed when submitting a Concept:
  • One submission per person. You may edit your Concept, but you may not change the fundamental premise after it has been posted. If editing your concept, please edit the original post instead of posting a new revision. Do not bump your Concept after you have posted it. If people do not comment on it, so be it.
  • Do not duplicate or closely-resemble Concepts already posted by others. It is your responsibility to read through all previous submissions in this thread to ensure you are complying with this rule. Ignorance or laziness is not an excuse.
  • Specific Pokemon types or type combos cannot be included or excluded in a Concept. Nor can other characteristics of the Concept specifically result in in the inclusion or exclusion of Types. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This is a Dragon pokemon with..." "The pokemon should be immune to Ghost attacks..." "The pokemon should have at least 7 resistances..." "The pokemon should get STAB on Thunderbolt.."​
  • Specific Abilities are not allowed. This applies to existing abilities and new abilities. Do not attempt to circumvent this rule by mentioning specific battle effects that can only be achieved by the implementation of an ability. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This pokemon should have a defensive ability like Intimidate or Marvel Scale..." "This pokemon has an ability that steals the opponent's held item..." "When this pokemon is switched in, all weather conditions are nullified..."​
  • Movepools or lists of moves are not allowed. A specific move can be mentioned if it is the basis for the entire concept. For example, the Concept "Rapid Spinner" would obviously mention the move Rapid Spin.
  • Specific stat bias, base stats, or base stat ratings are not allowed. It is acceptable to use descriptive phrases like "fast", "bulky", "strong attacker", etc -- since there are a variety of ways a pokemon can fit those descriptions without specifically requiring certain stats. But, do not use overly-specific descriptions that would narrowly constrain the pokemon's base stat spread.
  • Indications of Physical/Special bias are discouraged, but acceptable if it is essential to the Concept.
  • Do not refer to any part of the pokemon's artistic design. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:
    "This is a bright blue pokemon..." "The pokemon looks like a..." "The pokemon uses its long tail to..."​
  • A Concept Submission must be submitted in the proper format. The format is described below. If the proper format is not used, the moderators will not evaluate the submission, regardless of content.
Concept Submission Format Use this format for all concept submissions: Here is the format with tags. Just copy/paste this into your post, and fill it out:
  • Name - Don't get too clever with the name. If the essence of the concept is not intuitively obvious in the name, then you are hurting your chances of people understanding it. If the essence of your concept cannot be expressed in a few words, then you need to seriously re-evaluate your concept.
  • Description - This is the official description of the concept, and must follow ALL the content rules listed above. Do not make this a long description. Long descriptions are invariably too specific or too convoluted. Keep it short. Any more than a sentence or two is TOO MUCH. Do NOT include your Explanation of the concept in the Description. See "Explanation" below.
  • Justification Utilizing the CAP Concept Toolkit, craft a concept that can fit into at least one of the following categories: Actualization, Archetype, or Target.
    • Actualization: What is the feeling your Concept Pokemon INSPIRES when used properly in the metagame, do existing Pokemon come close to that, and why or why not?
    • Archetype: What does your Concept Pokemon DO - functionally - in the metagame, and why does the metagame need something with that role? Use Smogon's Pokemon Dictionary to assist with role definitions.
    • Target: What does your Concept Pokemon ADDRESS in the metagame, and why is addressing that target important?

    If you cannot justify your concept utilizing one (or more) of the three tools above, then your concept is illegal for the CAP project. (More at the end of the OP)
  • Questions To Be Answered - The purpose of the CAP project is to learn new things about the metagame, and each concept submission is a proposed "experiment". Each tool has its own specific set of questions, but good concepts often can explain other facets of competitive Pokemon. Use this section to pose those additional questions. Note that this is different from Justification where you are answering tool-related questions, in this section you are proposing questions.
  • Explanation - This can contain just about anything. This is where you can explain your concept without restraint. You may make suggestions, even specific suggestions, regarding the possible implementation of the Concept. This explanation should help facilitate discussion of the Concept -- but the Explanation is NOT part of the Concept and will be omitted from the polls and any future use of the Concept. Since your explanation is non-binding, regarding future polls and threads, it will not be evaluated for purposes of determining if your concept is legal or illegal. Although it is tempting, refrain from making too long of an explanation; it will deter readers from fully considering your concept.
It is the submitter's responsibility to figure out how to make a legal submission within the rules listed above. Do not complain about the difficulty of making a submission in this thread. There are many, many legal concepts that can be presented within the rules. Here are few examples of good and bad Concepts from previous projects:
Good Concepts from Past Projects "Pure Utility Pokemon" "Anti-Ghost Rapid Spinner" "True Garchomp Counter" "Ultimate Weather Abuser" "Status Counter" "Momentum" Bad Concepts from Past Projects "Ice-Resisting Dragon" "Super Luck User" "STAB Explosion Glass Cannon" "Auto-Stealth Rock Remover" "A Pokemon with Special Intimidate" "Pyrokinetic Pokemon (Fire/Psychic)" "Special Guts" "Typing Means Nothing"​
Note that all good concepts not specifically dictate anything in later polls. Please try to remember that we are simply pointing the project in a general direction, we are not trying to decide anything right now. We have several weeks of polls ahead of us where EVERYTHING about this Pokemon will be dissected, discussed, voted, and decided. The concept is a very basic guide for the creation process. It is hard to provide solid concept descriptions without basically designing the entire Pokemon right off the bat. Submissions should be written and chosen very carefully to avoid these problems.

Past Projects and Concept Toolbox:
Stratagem (Break The Mold), Tomohawk (Momentum) and Kitsunoh (Ultimate Scout) were great examples of an Actualization concept. Most of the "teammate" concepts (Voodoom and Volkraken) also broadly fell under this, actualizing a core that would change the metagame. The lion's share of CAP Concepts in the past have been Actualization concepts.

Fidgit (Pure Utility Pokemon) and Naviathan (Use the Boost to Get Through!) are examples of successful Archetype projects. We didn't have concepts at the time of Revenankh, but "Ultimate Bulk Up Sweeper" fits the definition of an Archetype concept.

Arghonaut (Decentralizer) and Colossoil (Stop the Secondary) are the best examples of previous successful Target projects, Arghonaut's was literally based around re-centering the metagame, while Colossoil's purpose was to target the most common users of status and secondary effects. Malaconda's concept (Type Equalizer) was also at its base a Target project.
 
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