Process Update Reviewing Stats Policy and Other Streamlining Concerns

Deck Knight

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Streamlining the CAP Process - Stats

In the last CAP we had a couple of process delays because our policy was unclear. Specifically, we had a delay on the stat submissions thread because while we considered the stat bias discussion stage dispensable, we didn’t have an official policy on how to proceed with stat limits within the Stat Submissions thread.

As such, we would like feedback on whether we should re-implement the stat bias discussion, or whether we should change the flow of the Stat Submissions discussion so that we settle limits early on in the thread, and then open it up to full stat submissions.

The reason Stat Limits was suspended is that the Stat Bias thread received almost universal dislike as an unnecessary stage, and all too commonly it had the exact same structure, as stat limits do impose a realistically definable upper bound for HP / Defenses in Tankiness and Atk/SpA/Spe in Sweepiness. In the absense of that process though, the stat limits seemed to be imposed through less transparent methods and there were questions as to why those ratings were chosen and if they were too limiting.

The end goal is to have an efficient process that allows for intelligent limits for the stats stage of the process which allow multiple takes on which priorities are more important for that CAP. We don’t want ranges so broad that there is no direction, nor do we want ranges so narrow that every spread is basically identical outside speed tier and specific stat numbers.

We also want to discuss general streamlining of the process, and if there was any point at which PRC members thought the process dragged unnecessarily during CAP 23.
 

snake

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I'll speak on this topic first (and will on the next ones soon) since I experienced this first-hand last CAP.

I'm not an expert with stat biases, but I have a good understanding about what everything does. For CAP23, reachzero (CAP23 Stats Leader) and I sat down to talk about what was going to happen with stats, and after a long conversation, we ended up just finding some reasonable limits and went on with the stats stage. For CAP23, most people assumed that we were going physical to take advantage of the more reliable trapping moves, though there were a few dissents, that we should go mixed or even special.

Here's what I think should happen. Because a thread is undesirable, I do think the TL + Stats Leader can hash out stat limits. It doesn't take very long, and it also gives the TL a concrete job aside from posting in discussions and approving slates for the latter half of the CAP Process. Now of course, the limits have to be QC'ed in some way. Personally I think they should definitely go through the CAP Mod team and maybe through a thread so people can see. While this does give the Stats Leader and TL considerable power to allow for "broken" stat limits, we're depending on the Stats Leader and TL to pick spreads that aren't broken anyway.

Ultimately, I think that TL + Stats Leader should be perfectly capable making stat limits, CAP Mod team can look at anything that raises eyebrows and potentially force a rewrite, and then we can move on with stats submissions. Ideally, this should happen during the tail-end of the ability discussion / during the vote OR as soon as a stat-dependent ability has been chosen - this way we don't lag in betweens stages trying to decide on stats.

EDIT: Can't believe I forgot to talk about this last thing. The only issue with my above proposition is if the bias from threats and concept don't imply physical / specially defensive / whatever by the time stats roll around. If that comes into play, then perhaps a thread or a PS! discussion akin to that of CAP22 just to figure out physical / special bias would be good.
 
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jas61292

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As boring as stat limits can be, I think that they are an important aspect of the stats stage of the project. Not having any limits lets things be far to wide open, pitting completely different approaches against each other, when that sort of thing should really be decided before any poll takes place. On the other hand, having limits that are too strict ends up making entries different only in the most cosmetic of ways. So it is incredibly important that we have stat limits, and that we get them right.

Unfortunately, stat limits is the single most boring stage of the project to most people, and the discussions we have had on them have never been all that great. However, I fully believe that some sort of discussion of stat limits is absolutely necessary, as it should not be up to one or two people alone to totally dictate the stat biases of our Pokemon, especially when things like whether it is physically or specially offensive are massively important to how the Pokemon functions.

So, I believe that perhaps the best approach we could take he would be to follow in the footsteps of what many section leaders have been doing in typing and abilities in recent projects: make people discuss what we want from stats in the same thread as where stat submissions will go, but do not allow people to make submissions until after this discussion happens. Now, really that might not seem that different from what we have traditionally done, but by eliminating the need for a second thread, it will greatly speed things up. Rather than trying to wait for the limits thread to come to a natural conclusion and then going through the formal process of closing it and starting up submissions, we can just open it, have a discussion for a day or two, at which point that leaders can just throw together some limits and then open it up to submissions. I feel like this will speed up the stage significantly, but still give us everything important we need out of it.
 

Deck Knight

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Conclusion:

Since stats is coming up soon, I ought to make a concrete conclusion.

Based on Discussion, the stat limits thread will be eliminated and instead stat limits will be incorporated into the first part of the stats submission discussion before any submission WIPs are allowed to be posted.
 

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