Step 2 On Generation 9 CAP Updates

[snake]

approved by ME! (as well as SHSP, wulf, spoo, and quz)

Note: This thread is NOT the place to discuss Necturna in Generation 9. Please see On Necturna in Generation 9 (linked here!)

Well CAP, a new generation is upon us...and that means we have some decisions to make! This thread will be regarding the update process to existing CAPs movepools in their transition from Generation 8 to Generation 9. There are several decisions we need to make, so let's take them one at a time.

Scope of Updates:

From what I can tell, it's widely regarded that Generation 7 Updates had too large of a scope for changes between Generation 6 and 7. Notably, ability changes were sometimes allowed, which bogged down progress in threads, and we ended up with CAPs like Triage Revenankh and Guts Naviathan. On the other hand, some Pokemon got moves they "obviously" should get due to unchanging movepools, such as Icicle Crash Syclant, Volt Switch Krilowatt, and Volt Switch Cyclohm. A notable example of buffed CAP during Gen 7 was Spikes / Circle Throw Arghonaut, which didn't "obviously" need those moves, but they certainly were impactful for Arghonaut in coming generations.

On the other hand, (again, from what I can tell), it's widely regarded that Generation 8 Updates were too narrow in scope for changes. We removed ability changes, and we were much stricter in how we distributed moves, even during the mid-generation update done for Isle of Armor tutor moves.

Finally, while parsing through Generation 9 movepools, I found it interesting to see where Game Freak added new moves to Pokemon. Some examples: Honchkrow got U-turn, Hydreigon got Stealth Rock, Drednaw got Shell Smash, and Banette got Swords Dance. While not a comprehensive list, these are pretty high-profile moves that got distributed.

Thus, for Generation 9 CAP, I'd like to propose a mid-ground between Generation 7 and Generation 8 updates:

1. We will continue not to consider ability changes during updates. If a CAP really needs its ability changed to be viable, we now have the Buff Process to do that. Typing changes and stat changes will not be considered for similar reasoning.
2. As we update CAP movepools, each CAP can have up to two new competitively-relevant moves.

Notes: Adding new competitively-relevant moves to "stronger" CAPs will be under higher scrutiny. As always, signature moves will be held with higher scrutiny than non-signature moves. Legendary signature moves are not allowed, as always. We can also change the number of new competitively-relevant moves that could be added to each Pokemon.

Format of Updates:

Generation 7 and Generation 8, despite their differences shown above, shared one glaring flaw. Doing upwards of 30 threads on forums, one for each CAP was a long and grueling process, leading to community burnout. However, towards the end of Generation 8 updates and for Isle of Armor move tutor updates, we found that doing updates on Discord was much more effective - the long list of decisions could be knocked out quickly with a live chat.

Accordingly, I'd like to propose that Generation 9 updates take place on the CAP Discord:

1. CAPs will be updated at scheduled times, such that a variety of timezones can be accommodated for.
2. CAPs will be updated in groups based on their release order.
3. Conclusions from these Discord discussions will be available for review on forums for those who cannot make it to the scheduled time.

The size of these groups is TBD. If that number is 5, we'd update Syclant, Revenankh, Pyroak, Fidgit, and Stratagem at one scheduled time. Then, we'd update Arghonaut, Kitsunoh, Cyclohm, Krilowatt, and Colossoil at another scheduled time. We would continue until all CAPs are updated. The starter CAPs would be considered as three separate Pokemon for this process.

We also need to decide how often these discussions will take place.

Movepool Removals/Replacements:

As most of us are acutely aware at this time, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet do not allow for moves to be transferred from previous generations. Therefore, movepool trends/removals from Scarlet and Violet movepools should be applied to CAPs. The wunderful Wulfanator has gone through old CAP movepools to take care of some of these changes. Here are the relevant changes that will be applied to Pokemon Showdown soon™:

• Updated level-up levels to fix calculation errors
• Deleted moves purged from level-up pools
• Scald removed from Arghonaut level-up
• Scald remains in Volkraken level-up (due to sharing typing with Volcanion)
• Overlapping Gen 8 TM/TRs and Gen 9 TMs kept (i.e.: Krilowatt no longer learns Scald)
• Tera Blast added to all learnsets except Protowatt
• Snowscape treated as a 1-to-1 replacement for Hail

However, many decisions are still left in the air, such as:

1. For each CAP that learns Isle of Armor tutor moves, should they be added to their level-up movepools, as they are still coded into the game?
2. For each CAP's Sword/Shield transfer moves (i.e. moves that had to have been transferred from prior generations to Sword and Shield) that do not appear in Scarlet and Violet's TM List, which of them should be added to their level-up / egg movepools?
3. For each CAP who had level-up moves that were deleted in Scarlet and Violet, what do we do with its movepool gaps?
4. What are the new movepool patterns present in Scarlet and Violet? For example, many Pokemon learn the new move Chilling Water.

Generation 9 Proposed Update Process

With the above outlined, I propose this process for Generation 9 Updates:

1. CAP Moderators post a Generation 9 Updates thread, which will serve as a hub for Generation 9 Updates.
2. The scheduled date and time for the first batch of CAPs to be updated will be posted in this thread.
3. At that scheduled time, we will convene on Discord to discuss the batch of CAPs. A CAP Moderator will lead the discussion and ensure that movepool additions are not excessive.
   1. The fate of its Isle of Armor tutor moves
   2. The fate of its Swords/Shield transfer moves
   3. Its level-up movepool gaps
   4. Any applicable movepool trends new in Scarlet and Violet
   5. Its new competitively-relevant moves (as of now, up to two)
4. The results of the Discord discussion will be summarized in the Generation 9 Updates Thread, and users will have up to 48 hours to voice any objections to the proposed changes. Heavily contensted additions could be put up to a vote, if necessary. Additionally, the next scheduled date and time for the next batch of caps will be posted in the thread.
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until all CAPs have been updated.

Notes:

• The CAP Moderator leading discussion will have discretion to steer discussion away from "obviously" broken movepool additions. For each CAP in the batch, we will discuss these as applicable.
• We will skip Necturna if its PRC thread has not been resolved in time.

Please discuss this proposed update process and its associated motivations as listed above.

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As an aside, here is a final section to ponder:

The Future of Updates:

While this could apply to this generation of updates, there is a valid concern about future updates. Updates are integral to ensuring CAPs look like continuing, evolving Pokemon throughout the generations. Ideally, we do not want another situation such as Krilowatt lacking Volt Switch in Gens 5 and 6. However, as the pool of CAPs grows ever larger, the effort required to hold updates in a public manner increases. Switching from forum-based updates to Discord-based updates is a good but ultimately temporary solution to this problem.

Therefore, it is worth bringing up a question: Would it be worth having CAP Updates completed by a smaller group of people? If so, when and how should that happen?

 

[Amamama]

The overall structure of these updates seems fine to me and I don’t think it needs changes.
I would like to discuss adding a caveat to the competitive additions though.
Since the buffing process for CAPs is a reality now, which we didn’t have last updates I think, buffs that aren’t recompensations for an unavailable move should be considered to be halted until the metagame can settle in a bit and we can evaluate what mons need some more power and which mons are fine without addition.

Obviously there are Mons that are very likely to need buffs further down like Mala and some that have obvious issues that won’t go away with the generational changes like Plasmanta or Snaelstrom.
That said these issues to me are explicitly what should be addressed in buff processes and not via updates, since we can only hardly predict what mons will struggle and which won’t (we were memeing about how Mollux would have saved early OU just a week ago)

Mons which currently would not have access to moves, which were a core part of their sets in previous metas but which are coded in the game like Poltergeist on Revenankh or Kit or meteor beam on Strata should keep those moves.
If a Mon permanently lost access to a move (basically only snapped moves, with how Egg moves work now) I don’t think we should immediately recompense them and wait how they settle in, before deciding about additions.

Any competitive addition outside of these cases (think giving Caribolt hyper drill or Colossoil Headlong Rush), would not be within the scope of the update process as well.

Since the Buff process is intentionally slow and helping several struggling caps within a meta cycle might be too much to do in a short time, a midground could work, where we note down potential flavorful competitive additions to mons during the updates, see how they fare and hand them out if they seem to struggle after a certain time has passed.

 

[spoo]

In general I like this proposal a lot - this is a well-thought-out plan and a significant improvement upon both Gen 8 and Gen 7 updates. I wouldn't be upset to see it implemented in its current form, but I have a couple small comments:

As we update CAP movepools, each CAP can have up to two new competitively-relevant moves.

I'd lower this to one. Glancing at the CAPs that have struggled to be viable in the past generation or two, mons like Caribolt, Plasmanta, Mollux, etc can be effectively updated with just a single move. We have even seen how impactful just one movepool addition can be with CAPs like Revenankh and Stratagem in the past. I really don't think these updates should be approached as large-scale de facto buff processes, but it would obviously be great to give some struggling CAPs new life and a fighting chance in this metagame, so a single new competitive addition is what strikes that balance for me. I know it's tempting to throw new toys at these mons, but if a CAP can't be "fixed" with one move, then it probably can't be fixed with two, either, and likely needs fundamental reworking in a formal buff process instead.

What are the new movepool patterns present in Scarlet and Violet? For example, many Pokemon learn the new move Chilling Water.

As far as I know, Chilling Water is a one-to-one replacement for Scald on everything not named Volcanion, every fully evolved Bug-type bar Slither Wing learns Pounce, Trailblaze is learned by every fully evolved Grass-type bar Breloom and Amoonguss, and Ice Spinner is learned by every fully evolved Ice-type bar Glaceon, Baxcalibur, and Beartic. There might be more patterns like this, I'm not sure, but I would support distributing these moves to all CAPs with their respective typings to save time during individual updates. These moves also shouldn't count towards the proposed limit of new competitive additions.

Therefore, it is worth bringing up a question: Would it be worth having CAP Updates completed by a smaller group of people? If so, when and how should that happen?

Mixed feelings on this; I'm not totally sure who this smaller group of people would be, besides maybe the moderation team. The metagame council could also do it, but it would be last generation's council which feels somewhat arbitrary and I'm not sure that they would even be interested. Maybe volunteers from both of these groups could work together, or we could field applications to a designated "CAP updates" council. Placing the burden of all 30/40/however many potential CAP updates in the future onto a single small group will almost certainly go poorly, though, so some additional questions come up - how would we split up CAPs between community updates and small group updates, what does a fair distribution look like, etc, in addition to questions that already exist about what kind of community approval/oversight these small-group updates would receive and whether they would happen fully behind closed doors or not. This is a topic that can be reevaluated in Generation 10 depending on how SV updates go, so let's just cross that bridge when we get there - the logistical barriers seem like a lot for us to sort through right now.

 

[Darek]

Sounds good ta me

 

[Yu_IOTJ]

I think the isle of armor tutors that were integral to the moveset of the mons should be kept. Sorry I could not be more elaborate in my thoughts

 

[SHSP]

I'd lower this to one. Glancing at the CAPs that have struggled to be viable in the past generation or two, mons like Caribolt, Plasmanta, Mollux, etc can be effectively updated with just a single move. We have even seen how impactful just one movepool addition can be with CAPs like Revenankh and Stratagem in the past. I really don't think these updates should be approached as large-scale de facto buff processes, but it would obviously be great to give some struggling CAPs new life and a fighting chance in this metagame, so a single new competitive addition is what strikes that balance for me. I know it's tempting to throw new toys at these mons, but if a CAP can't be "fixed" with one move, then it probably can't be fixed with two, either, and likely needs fundamental reworking in a formal buff process instead.

Seconding Spoo on this. We really don't need to go overboard here, especially not now with buff processes down the line a possibility if something ends up really struggling. In general, a lot of what the SM Updates ended up being were almost beta forms of our later buff/nerf processes with wide reaching changes through community consensus. This proposal of 1-2 new additions, alongside overarching general stuff like say, Clant getting Ice Spinner seems to be a good fit. It's not overreaching into buffs/nerfs, it still has an immediate impact, it catches things like the infamous Volt Switch-less Kril, and it doesn't take a small eternity like the SM ones did.

 

[Brambane]

I am okay with whatever allows us to finally give Malaconda Coil, as well as everything else mentioned above me.

 

[snake]

Based on the feedback from the thread, we'll move forward with the following process:

1. CAP Moderators post a Generation 9 Updates thread, which will serve as a hub for Generation 9 Updates.
2. The scheduled date and time for the first batch of CAPs to be updated will be posted in this thread.
3. At that scheduled time, we will convene on Discord to discuss the batch of CAPs. At least one CAP Moderator will lead the discussion and ensure that movepool additions are not excessive. These are the following discussion points for each CAP:
   1. The fate of its Isle of Armor tutor moves
   2. The fate of its Swords/Shield transfer moves
   3. Its level-up movepool gaps
   4. Any applicable movepool trends new in Scarlet and Violet
   5. Whether or not it will get a new, competitively-relevant move, and (if it will) what that ONE move will be (this move does not need to be introduced in Generation 9)
4. The results of the Discord discussion will be summarized in the Generation 9 Updates Thread, and users will have up to 48 hours to voice any objections to the proposed changes. Heavily contested additions could be put up to a vote, if necessary. Additionally, the next scheduled date and time for the next batch of caps will be posted in the thread.
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until all CAPs have been updated.

Notes:

• Retaining old moves (such as Knock Off Malaconda) OR acquiring new moves based on movepool trends (such as Ice Spinner Syclant) will NOT count as the "one new competitively-relevant move" outlined above.
• Adding new competitively-relevant moves to "stronger" CAPs will be under higher scrutiny. As always, signature moves will be held with higher scrutiny than non-signature moves. Legendary signature moves are not allowed, as always.
• The CAP Moderator leading discussion will have discretion to steer discussion away from "obviously" broken movepool additions. For each CAP in the batch, we will discuss these as applicable.

Unless there is a significant counterargument, this thread will close in 24 hours.