Alrighty CAP, lets talk about Necturna... again
Necturna has been a thorn in our side (pun entirely intended) for several gens and iterations of those gens now. The changes to Egg Moves starting in ORAS forced us to implement Necturna Clause, which limited Necturna's options to one Sketch move per set. This becomes a problem in SM due to a variety of back-end factors, formally forcing us to implement Sketch as an Egg Move. Effectively, starting in SM, Necturna Clause is not cart replicable.
Additionally, the changes to how transfer moves work both in SS and SV have made dealing with Necturna in recent gens increasingly more of a headache. Sketch was unavailable entirely in SS, as Smeargle was not present in the game, and transferring moves from SM and prior into SV would render moves such as Sketch unusable. Necturna was able to get around this by "sketching" moves in SM or another old gen, and transferring the post-sketch move up through into SS. This meant that Nect was unable to sketch anything new that was added in SS, and it makes SS's Necturna Clause subject to the same issues with SM's non-cart replicable implementation. In SV, Nect was actually in worse shape prior to the release of the Indigo Disk. Moves could not be transferred up between SS and SV at all, meaning there effectively are no transfer moves: Nect lost the entirety of its sketch movepool. This led us as a community to go as far as to add Shell Smash, its most commonly sketched (and available) move, to its base moveset as we awaited Sketch's return. Smeargle returned in the second set of DLC, and with it Sketch, meaning that Nect not only on-paper has its almost full movepool back, but also anything new from SS and SV that exists in the current iteration of SV.
Necturna raises an interesting question, and we wanted to push it to PRC to hear from what the community thinks about this dilemma. It presents very unique difficulties, most notably Necturna Clause and its interaction with transfer moves. Is Necturna Clause, a clause that breaks existing game mechanics, something we want to have existing in our format? Does our post-Gen 4 rule avoiding custom content and changing the laws/rules of the game (here, Necturna Clause) override our commitment to any individual CAP's concept (Necturna's defining feature of Sketching exclusively once)? Is there a serious issue with the future-proofing of Necturna now that transfers effectively don't work, and we would continually have to update and change the mon? We wanted to open up the floor to the community at large to discuss.
Necturna has been a thorn in our side (pun entirely intended) for several gens and iterations of those gens now. The changes to Egg Moves starting in ORAS forced us to implement Necturna Clause, which limited Necturna's options to one Sketch move per set. This becomes a problem in SM due to a variety of back-end factors, formally forcing us to implement Sketch as an Egg Move. Effectively, starting in SM, Necturna Clause is not cart replicable.
Additionally, the changes to how transfer moves work both in SS and SV have made dealing with Necturna in recent gens increasingly more of a headache. Sketch was unavailable entirely in SS, as Smeargle was not present in the game, and transferring moves from SM and prior into SV would render moves such as Sketch unusable. Necturna was able to get around this by "sketching" moves in SM or another old gen, and transferring the post-sketch move up through into SS. This meant that Nect was unable to sketch anything new that was added in SS, and it makes SS's Necturna Clause subject to the same issues with SM's non-cart replicable implementation. In SV, Nect was actually in worse shape prior to the release of the Indigo Disk. Moves could not be transferred up between SS and SV at all, meaning there effectively are no transfer moves: Nect lost the entirety of its sketch movepool. This led us as a community to go as far as to add Shell Smash, its most commonly sketched (and available) move, to its base moveset as we awaited Sketch's return. Smeargle returned in the second set of DLC, and with it Sketch, meaning that Nect not only on-paper has its almost full movepool back, but also anything new from SS and SV that exists in the current iteration of SV.
Necturna raises an interesting question, and we wanted to push it to PRC to hear from what the community thinks about this dilemma. It presents very unique difficulties, most notably Necturna Clause and its interaction with transfer moves. Is Necturna Clause, a clause that breaks existing game mechanics, something we want to have existing in our format? Does our post-Gen 4 rule avoiding custom content and changing the laws/rules of the game (here, Necturna Clause) override our commitment to any individual CAP's concept (Necturna's defining feature of Sketching exclusively once)? Is there a serious issue with the future-proofing of Necturna now that transfers effectively don't work, and we would continually have to update and change the mon? We wanted to open up the floor to the community at large to discuss.
