Other Getting CAP back on track!

[sax king]

I agree that the long time it take to make a CAP almost makes the actually playing with them an afterthought. However I would not think that making CAPs faster is a good solution. The true goal of the CAP project is to learn about the Pokemon metagame, and just flying through for the sake of getting done faster kind of defeats the purpose.

Okay, well yeah I do want to learn something about the metagame and all that, but still. Think of the typing polls. First there are the primary typing discussions. Then the nominations. Then the first poll, and the final poll (and in a lot of cases, there's more than two polls). Then there's the secondary typing discussion, nominations, and polls. Each takes at least 24-48 hours. That means that just to find the typing of our CAP, we spent about 1-2 weeks deciding. Sure, other things are going on at the same time, but not enough is going on simultaneously for this to really be efficient. There' definitely a way to streamline this.

Also, for people suggesting new tiers such as LC, RU, UU, and Ubers, it's a good idea, but do we really want to split the CAP playerbase into separate tiers? It's small enough as is, and these metagames really don't have anyone playing them. Like, usually on the Smogon server, there are about 10 LC players on at a time. Imagine how small the CAP LC tier would be.

 

[tennisace]

In response to the gerard's post: what you are talking about can be accomplished through recycling concepts. CAP Pokemon are manifestations of specific concepts tailored to a specific metagame. 4th gen OU's metagame is vastly different than 5th gen, so while concepts still can be useful (I'm looking at you fidgit), the implementation will assuredly be more different than a simple movepool/ability tweak.

As for people responding to my post: please note that I gave that as an example. You guys can scrutinize that in a thread which will be coming some time this week. However this thread is for general ideas or comments on kick-starting cap.

 

[v]

Dexes don't add time to the process. They're essentially a fun afterthought. If you want to "save time" we'd might as well cut out the art, sprites, and names and just call this "Create-Some-Numbers Project." As for ways that I personally think we could improve CaP, I was always a big supporter of the CaPs being designed for the "all-CaP" metagame. Right now, all we do is learn about some vague "what-ifs" for OU, which is all fine and good. However, when we control the environment more, we are able to learn a lot more about what makes the game tick, about potential roles for other Pokemon, and about designing a competitive Pokemon environment. It may seem a bit "out there," but it's something I am personally interested in and am sure there are others who feel similarly.

 

[Deck Knight]

A lot of these concerns have come up before, and we've got some fairly standard answers for them based on the project's goals. I'll address each one:

Building CaPs for the CaP metagame:

There are two problems here: The first is that the more CaPs we add, the less the metagame resembles whatever it is supposed to be. At the end of 4th Gen the CaP metagame was pretty much separate and distinct from OU, and as the full CaP metagame gets considerably less traffic than the 4th Gen OU metagame, it wouldn't really serve the purpose - which is as a testing ground Smogon uses for information on competitive play.

The second problem is linked to the first in that the information bias doesn't help us advance an understanding of Pokemon because we're playing in a metagame scewed by Pokemon who are literally designed to make an impact on the OU metagame. It's the reason we decided to make playtests exlcusive for each individual CAP, since by the time we added Syclant, Revenankh, and Pyroak, Our OU was less and less representative of the standard 4th Gen OU.

Building CaPs for metagames other than OU:

In general we make projects for OU because it has the largest playerbase and also tends to have the most restrictions on play, so we can get better information about adding a specific threat for that metagame. Effectively we can make a Pokemon that locks in on a specific timeframe and analyses a "problem" in that metagame. For example, if Excadrill gets banned in this round of suspect voting we could have a CaP Project centered in the previous OU metagame for a Pokemon designed to deal with Excadrill and other Sand threats in a post-Drizzle+Swift Swim metagame.

Because of complex bans, however, OU is generally less stable than it used to be, and the other metagames are gaining steam. Ubers is even large enough (and Game Freak was crazy enough) to make even Ubers consider things for banning. So I would say this idea wouldn't be impossible, we'd just have to be very clear on what our goals are and what we would actually test, so the TL would have to be experienced in Ubers as a non-negotiable qualification. In fact I would ask specifically for those users because it is such a massive and novel undertaking, and the fact Ubers has such exaggerated threats both offensively and defensively, relying on the community to lead a project where the primary goal is getting useful information of of playtesting will be difficult.

So CaP applied to other metagames must pass two tests:

1. Is the metagame sufficiently popular that it will interest a large enough portion of Smogon's userbase to contribute to the project?

2. Will we be able to gain some competitive insight by creating a CaP for that metagame?

In the case of Ubers, its general stability greatly helps in strengthening 1. and allowing us to tailor questions that will address 2. The only further caveat is that we never test against DW metagames. The reason for this is because we don't know if these DW abilities will be released, or in what order. Effectively it makes the DW metagames even more of a phantom than a CaP test. We might as well introduce one of Keldeo, Meloetta, or Genesect and call it a project at that point.

Projects with a more limited "registered" base:

Ultimately the goal of Moderators, the Topic Leader, and the Assistant Topic Leader is to lead threads toward good discussions. There is no reason that excellent posts cannot come out of good users simply because some bad ideas pop up in a thread. We actually get a lot of solid contributions from people new to the project (DarkSlay, capefeather, and Rising_Dusk all come to mind) so creative an exclusive, cliquey atmosphere does us no favors. 5th Gen CaP 1 went well specifically because we reached out to 5th Gen players with little active experience in the CaP Forum and invited them to engage in the discussions. The community is, at its very core, supposed to be inclusive and willing to engage new voices to the best possible extent.

CaP is essentially a directive democracy with a Topic Leader that works on some level as a benevolent dictator that filters out dead-end ideas. The end result is an enfranchisement to the community, but one that tried to focus like a laser on what is truly valuable competitively. 5th Gen CAP 1 was the first time we included any Pokemon with a type that had vulnerability to SR since CaP started implementing Concepts (Fidgit). Yes, Fighting does nullify the SR weakness of Flying, but the fact Flying made Tomohawk immune to Spikes/Toxic Spikes showed us the 5th Gen metagame is not based solely around SR weakness and considers other hazards.

 

[DFrog]

I am going to jump into the boat that the CAP process could be faster. We basically started this process for Tomohawk back in February and we got the analysis at the start of the month so the exact dates are 5th Feb - 7th Sept. The analysis has been out for almost a month now, so the process took roughly 8 months. We should pick up the pace of concept creation, if a new concept submissions had been proposed maybe only a week or two after the analysis we could move on with a new CAP. I have to ask why does it take a while for new CAPs to start after one has been finished? Hell looking pack on it as soon as Revenankh had been finished new concepts had been out a day later, and the process for some of the earlier CAPs only took a month or two. Although the number of months I suggested for Tomohawk may have been exaggerated or extended due to the Scratchet and the Dream World ability but cant we pick up the pace just a little more.

 

[Deck Knight]

I am going to jump into the boat that the CAP process could be faster. We basically started this process for Tomohawk back in February and we got the analysis at the start of the month so the exact dates are 5th Feb - 7th Sept. The analysis has been out for almost a month now, so the process took roughly 8 months. We should pick up the pace of concept creation, if a new concept submissions had been proposed maybe only a week or two after the analysis we could move on with a new CAP. I have to ask why does it take a while for new CAPs to start after one has been finished? Hell looking pack on it as soon as Revenankh had been finished new concepts had been out a day later, and the process for some of the earlier CAPs only took a month or two. Although the number of months I suggested for Tomohawk may have been exaggerated or extended due to the Scratchet and the Dream World ability but cant we pick up the pace just a little more.

You have no clue what you're talking about, to start. I hate to jump down your throat, but the only reason we got Tomohawk up in the first place on PO was because Rising_Dusk found a way to implement CAPs on PO. Problem was, the code became highly unstable, and we discovered that fact only after playtesting was over, so we had to scrap further CAP projects. Theorymon just recently figured out a good interim solution for putting CAPs on a PO server, but basically all of our delay so far has been technical incapacity.

PO's code is still largely garbage for implementing something like CAP. The Pre-vo process itself was just a fun aside we were running alongside Playtesting. We would have started the next CAP up sooner were it not for our technical limitations.

Our Final Product thread was up April 29th, the Playtesting was up May 3rd and completed on May 30th, so it basically took us from February 20th (TL Nominations) to May 30th to go through the entire process from nominations to playtesting (The Pre-Evo threads were also complete by May 30th). That's about 3.5 months, which is perhaps a bit longer than we're shooting for generally, but not horribly so, especially considering this was our first 5th Gen CAP and a reboot of the process after a decently lengthy hiatus.

Granted the analysis was significantly delayed, but a lot of that was internal issues, including our technical limitations, and the fact Dusk usually does it but he had other pressures at the time. In any case, the analysis had been approved for publication since the beginning of June, and it's a legitimate criticism to point out how long it took. Had we not encountered so many problems, it would have been up 3 months ago.

That said, the process is fairly well streamlined considering our time concerns. Four CAP Projects a year is about the maximum we'll be able to get while maintaining quality, and that's if we don't run into any more technical problems.

 

[DFrog]

@Deck Knight

I dont mind you jumping down my throat as long as a understand why, as a common user like many others people may not know the issues concerning technical difficulties and the like so I personally like I said before don't care as long as the correction is correct. Although this was not the original intent of my comment your response has will probably enlighten fellow CAP-participants to what goes on behind the scenes. So in other words thanks for replying :)!

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Interesting that you got it to work. What did you do, or are you operating on an outdated server and hoping that no one abuses the critical bugs that crash the server without mercy? If you figured it out on the new version, I'd like you to explain it to me because it's likely there's a trick that Coyote never told me existed (or didn't realize existed himself!). I'm also kind of sad that you didn't contact me about this. Assuming that I've quit is a pretty sour assumption, since I haven't, and have actually been pending Coyote letting me know that he's implemented the new stuff on PO before moving forward. Furthermore, I check the site daily, so even though I'm not on IRC that doesn't really mean you can assume I've poofed. (I still run The Smog ffs!) CAP will always be something that I want to participate in and help with, and even though real life inhibits my ability to get on IRC virtually at all, I'll still help out with the main operation of CAP. Grr!

Anyway, that aside, I don't want this thread to become "Hey let's change everything!" Tennis is right that a lot of CAP is clunky, but there are a lot of steps to making a Pokemon so it is clunky by design. There are, of course, some places that can be streamlined, but a lot of it is there and can't really be cut out at all. Merging the typing threads is something I've glazed over a lot before, and it comes with advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and that we should do it, but I can see both sides of the coin and we'd really need a PRC vote on it. The advantages are streamlining the process, and remembering that it isn't the individual types that make a Pokemon valuable, it's the typing that makes them viable. We'd really have to allow a lot more options in the poll than five, since there are a lot more than 5 viable ways to type the same Pokemon, but that's okay. Anyway, this really deserves its own thread in itself for PRC discussion.

Also, as Tennis noted, Counters Discussion is tricky. It can go in a lot of places, but I agree that it should probably be sooner rather than later. Someone else mentioned DW abilities, but I've got to admit that I'm rather fond of how that was handled in Tomohawk's process. It still does need to be codified, however. Regardless, it's cool that you got this all working TM, but I'm hoping you're not on an old version of the server because that would be extremely bad.

 

[Theorymon]

Interesting that you got it to work. What did you do, or are you operating on an outdated server and hoping that no one abuses the critical bugs that crash the server without mercy? If you figured it out on the new version, I'd like you to explain it to me because it's likely there's a trick that Coyote never told me existed (or didn't realize existed himself!). I'm also kind of sad that you didn't contact me about this. Assuming that I've quit is a pretty sour assumption, since I haven't, and have actually been pending Coyote letting me know that he's implemented the new stuff on PO before moving forward. Furthermore, I check the site daily, so even though I'm not on IRC that doesn't really mean you can assume I've poofed. (I still run The Smog ffs!) CAP will always be something that I want to participate in and help with, and even though real life inhibits my ability to get on IRC virtually at all, I'll still help out with the main operation of CAP. Grr!

Anyway, that aside, I don't want this thread to become "Hey let's change everything!" Tennis is right that a lot of CAP is clunky, but there are a lot of steps to making a Pokemon so it is clunky by design. There are, of course, some places that can be streamlined, but a lot of it is there and can't really be cut out at all. Merging the typing threads is something I've glazed over a lot before, and it comes with advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and that we should do it, but I can see both sides of the coin and we'd really need a PRC vote on it. The advantages are streamlining the process, and remembering that it isn't the individual types that make a Pokemon valuable, it's the typing that makes them viable. We'd really have to allow a lot more options in the poll than five, since there are a lot more than 5 viable ways to type the same Pokemon, but that's okay. Anyway, this really deserves its own thread in itself for PRC discussion.

Also, as Tennis noted, Counters Discussion is tricky. It can go in a lot of places, but I agree that it should probably be sooner rather than later. Someone else mentioned DW abilities, but I've got to admit that I'm rather fond of how that was handled in Tomohawk's process. It still does need to be codified, however. Regardless, it's cool that you got this all working TM, but I'm hoping you're not on an old version of the server because that would be extremely bad.

Sorry about not informing you, I honestly didn't know you were still involved with CAP!

Anyways, I downloaded the latest server (though for some reason the client is older). I implemented CAPs by actually changing regular mons. For example, I turned Metapod into Tomohawk. This "metapod" has Tomohawk's name, typing, sprites, stats, and movepool, so basicly all I did was replace really bad Pokemon with the caps. From the testing so far, it seems to work almost perfectly, and there haven't been any crashes yet. There are a few minor movepool bugs atm, I'll fix them later today. Tell me if there are any problems with this, I'll try to figure out some sort of solution if there is!

 

[capefeather]

Heh, that probably wasn't the amazing hidden parlour trick that RD expected :(

I know that this isn't a free-for-all PRC thread, but I'm going to throw this out there because I'm still not sure of when I'll be able to participate in Smogon et al at "full" capacity. I think that either TLs or a vote could change the order in which competitive "material" is put onto the CAP. An ability could be decided before the typing, for example. I bring this up because, during the IRC discussion that went on for CAP1's runner-up concept ("Weather Slayer", or "Weatherbane" as Deck Knight once called it), Forecast was brought up. If we were to talk seriously about stuff like forme-shifting abilities, the typing may not be the best place to start since it would probably only be relevant to the base forme. The main big problem with this is that it would likely end up showing a bias toward an "intended" path, which may indicate that maybe this shouldn't be a TL decision.

 

[Raikaria]

I was wondering where CAP was!

As for updateing old CAP projects, yes to moves, especially flavor ones, and ones that we may hav used had they existed before [Wild charge on Krillowatt springs to mind]

No for giving them Dream World abilities, however. While this may be a way to give some of the other suggested abilities a spotlight, most of the old CAPs streach balance too much as it is, especially with a movepool revamp to bring them to Gen 5. [Although, there is one exception, seeing as Game Freak basically took a certain Ground-type CAP's ability and turned it up to Eleven... and it fits his concept PERFECTLY]

As for CAPs for other metagames... I'd have to say no. We can't create a CA for UU without massive fuss.

Doing so would require us to also manage a CAP UU and whatnot. Technically, due to that, our 'UU' CAP could wind up falling or rising teirs. However, I would support Little Cup CAP's, as they are not subject to teir movements.

Im hoping this gets back on track sooner rather than later. I've already got a decent concept I want to explore for CAP 2!

 

[smallvizier]

We actually get a lot of solid contributions from people new to the project (DarkSlay, capefeather, and Rising_Dusk all come to mind) so creative an exclusive, cliquey atmosphere does us no favors. 5th Gen CaP 1 went well specifically because we reached out to 5th Gen players with little active experience in the CaP Forum and invited them to engage in the discussions. The community is, at its very core, supposed to be inclusive and willing to engage new voices to the best possible extent.

I'd just like to make it clear that an exclusive, clique-y atmosphere is the opposite of what I was suggesting. My point was that by breaking volunteers down into smaller work-groups, we could make sure that they all got a chance to put their points across, and get some feedback on them. In the current system, many people are never responded to because the thread is so large and unwieldy. This deprives them of their chance to learn.

Having smaller groups with more personal attention from the veterans (who would presumably be spread amongst the groups) might also create a more welcoming environment and encourage lurkers to sign up. It would certainly mean that those who do join would learn more quickly and take more responsibility in discussions - which is in line with the goals of CaP.

Ultimately the goal of Moderators, the Topic Leader, and the Assistant Topic Leader is to lead threads toward good discussions. There is no reason that excellent posts cannot come out of good users simply because some bad ideas pop up in a thread.

While I think you mis-understood my suggestion, I do agree that the current system works just fine and that both the leaders and the deputies of recent projects have worked hard to direct the discussions.

I'm sure whatever direction we take, CaP will be successful again - just as soon as the next project starts up and everybody springs out of the woodwork.

 

[zarator]

So much glad CAP got back into business. Good job Theorymon!

A lot has already been said so far, therefore I'll address only a couple points.

About making an Ubers CAP: Our main reserve against it was that, in short, we (talking to plural in the name of the old CAP community) always feared an Ubers CAP would be a giant clusterfuck. Especially since, as Deck mentioned, Ubers tend to be have bloated movepools, ridiculous stats etc. Obviously some rules could be set in place to avoid many distortions, like for example forcing some fixed limits on the BST (like 680 maximum, no stat below 90 or above 150, and such) which would prevent from releasing something as stupid as a 90/60/90/200/90/150 Pokémon. You could go even as far as to force the community to choose between two templates

#1: 680 BST, no stat below 90, no stat above 150
or #2: 600 BST, no stat limitations

This way, it would be much easier to keep everything in balance and, by extension, more acceptable from a flavor stand of point as well (which, in an environment with more pressure on balance, is possibly more influential than usual).

Anyway, as Deck mentioned, I think an experienced TL could handle this. However, I think the CAP's tier should be specified at the start of the project (even before choosing a TL). Maybe we could let the CAP Committee vote on this?

About suggested changes to CAP: The CAP process is not too long in the slightest, if the TL makes things go smoothly. 2 months are all it takes to release a CAP generally (plus 2-4 weeks for testing). Remember the fun is in the ride more than in result. I don't think releasing a lot of CAPs in rapid succession promotes this concept well enough.


In the end, though, I'm happy CAP can make a return, and I'll be there (both on the forum and on IRC) to participate at all levels!

 

[Stratos]

Sorry about not informing you, I honestly didn't know you were still involved with CAP!

Anyways, I downloaded the latest server (though for some reason the client is older). I implemented CAPs by actually changing regular mons. For example, I turned Metapod into Tomohawk. This "metapod" has Tomohawk's name, typing, sprites, stats, and movepool, so basicly all I did was replace really bad Pokemon with the caps. From the testing so far, it seems to work almost perfectly, and there haven't been any crashes yet. There are a few minor movepool bugs atm, I'll fix them later today. Tell me if there are any problems with this, I'll try to figure out some sort of solution if there is!

FUCKING HELL my team is ruined without metapod D':

 

[Birkal]

Thanks for giving CAP some life once again! I've always been interested in helping out in the CAP forums, but I unfortunately started catching on at the tail end of Tomohawk. I'll try to offer thoughts and insights in any way I can.

That being said, as much as I would love for all the suggested stuff to happen, I believe the only real way to "get CAP back on track" is to start gen V CAP 2. CAP 1 and the creation of Tomohawk was what got me to really become an active member of Smogon in the first place, and I think that having a full project is the only way to fully revive interest in the project.

However, I understand that the way Smogon works does not allow us to just dive right in on that, and if doing other things in the meantime can help bring more traffic to this forum, then I am all for it.

I almost completely agree with this post. It'd be great to update the Gen IV CAPs to Gen V through movepools and possibly DW abilities. However, starting Gen V CAP 2 really seems like the way to bring in the most amount of traffic. The idea of actively creating a Pokemon for Smogon competitive use is the most exciting thing this subforum has to offer. Perhaps all of the secondary desires posted by Theorymon in the OP could feed off of the next project? Perhaps our process could involve the ideology of, "Hey, since your here to help on Gen V Cap 2, why not update some movepools or vote on a DW ability?" That way, we'd be updating Gen IV CAPs while getting to the heart of what this subforum does: creating Pokemon.

 

[Tortferngatr]

Also, get the PR out of the way.

...Including disputing the idea of merging the typing polls. (Which I happen to agree with and think at the very least needs talking about.)

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Anyways, I downloaded the latest server (though for some reason the client is older). I implemented CAPs by actually changing regular mons. For example, I turned Metapod into Tomohawk. This "metapod" has Tomohawk's name, typing, sprites, stats, and movepool, so basicly all I did was replace really bad Pokemon with the caps. From the testing so far, it seems to work almost perfectly, and there haven't been any crashes yet. There are a few minor movepool bugs atm, I'll fix them later today. Tell me if there are any problems with this, I'll try to figure out some sort of solution if there is!

Ech, yeah, that isn't nearly as elegant as I would have liked. I knew you could do that, and had actually run it through that way myself at one point. However, when CAP was merged with SU, it was impossible to use that solution because of the necessity of random battles. For whatever reason, people got really mad losing Metapod or Kakuna in their randbats. I suppose going back to our own server, that isn't as severe a problem, though it certainly is enough of a catch that it's going to bother me a lot. It won't be that big of a deal for the majority of CAP, however, which is A-OK. Cool that you put forth the initiative to make this happen; thanks for that.

 

[Paradox]

Awesome, great to see some activity in CAP. I'm not sure how much I can participate right now, but I'm glad CAP is still alive. Here are a couple of things that I remember discussing in terms of PR during CAP 1 that I think certainly merit PR threads (or a single PR thread) for discussion and decision:

Combining Typings:
As has already been brought up, typings don't really exist in isolation. A Flying/Fighting Pokemon is very, very different from a Flying pokemon, and it could be argued that it isn't beneficial, or even that it is detrimental, to the process (for example I know that in CAP 1 some people voted specifically to avoid certain second typing possibilities – e.g. "I'm not voting Ghost because I don't want Ghost/Flying, even though I would like to have Ghost/Grass – a problem which wouldn't be had if they were voted on together.)

At the same time I understand the argument that we should look at what each typing does for the CAP individually, to better segment/analyze the effects I guess. But at the same time I feel like that is more of a philosophical thing and doesn't really have too much bearing on things, I know on IRC we discuss the final dual-typing far more than we do the individual merits of each typing. Regardless I think this warrants discussion, and I certainly have more to say on the topic.

Changing Event Order:
Capefeather already brought this up, and I definitely agree. In some cases the typing is going to be subordinate to the ability (for example the case he brought up, or in any situation in which we may be considering very powerful abilities like Magic Mirror or Speed Boost), and in these cases, or in similar ones with other events, there should definitely be some flexibility around order. I would suggest it just being a TL discretion thing, and not worry to much about "forcing" votes, but again it'd be great to have proper discussion.

Freezing the State of the Metagame:
This was something that was brought up for CAP 1 but never actually went through PR, and so wasn't implemented. The idea is that CAPs are designed for a specific metagame, not whatever metagame is the standard at the time that the CAP is finished. I know that I included calcs for Blaziken in the stat spread I submitted for example, but it was banned at the time of playtesting. This is a pretty minor thing in my opinion, but something that should be sorted out.


Anyways I'm all for getting things started as soon as possible, and not mucking around too much with side projects (although those could be lots of fun and could even be run simultaneously with CAP 2), but obviously everything server-side should be fairly sorted out before we can do so (although to be fair we don't actually need the server until the end of the process.)

Edit: I don't want to get too much into these things now, I'm just bringing them up as possible points for PR if we are trying to get that done.

 

[Tortferngatr]

Paradox: ...Why not simply have an event order section-where we analyze what the stage order most likely to produce a mon that fits the concept would be?

 

[Theorymon]

So much glad CAP got back into business. Good job Theorymon!

A lot has already been said so far, therefore I'll address only a couple points.

About making an Ubers CAP: Our main reserve against it was that, in short, we (talking to plural in the name of the old CAP community) always feared an Ubers CAP would be a giant clusterfuck. Especially since, as Deck mentioned, Ubers tend to be have bloated movepools, ridiculous stats etc. Obviously some rules could be set in place to avoid many distortions, like for example forcing some fixed limits on the BST (like 680 maximum, no stat below 90 or above 150, and such) which would prevent from releasing something as stupid as a 90/60/90/200/90/150 Pokémon. You could go even as far as to force the community to choose between two templates

#1: 680 BST, no stat below 90, no stat above 150
or #2: 600 BST, no stat limitations

This way, it would be much easier to keep everything in balance and, by extension, more acceptable from a flavor stand of point as well (which, in an environment with more pressure on balance, is possibly more influential than usual).

Anyway, as Deck mentioned, I think an experienced TL could handle this. However, I think the CAP's tier should be specified at the start of the project (even before choosing a TL). Maybe we could let the CAP Committee vote on this?

About suggested changes to CAP: The CAP process is not too long in the slightest, if the TL makes things go smoothly. 2 months are all it takes to release a CAP generally (plus 2-4 weeks for testing). Remember the fun is in the ride more than in result. I don't think releasing a lot of CAPs in rapid succession promotes this concept well enough.


In the end, though, I'm happy CAP can make a return, and I'll be there (both on the forum and on IRC) to participate at all levels!

I mostly agree with those limitations on an Ubers CAP, though note that there is precedent for Ubers having a stat above 150 (Mewtwo, Lugia, and Ho-Oh each have a stat of 154 somewhere). However, when I imagined Ubers and LC CAPs, I imagined them as side projects to be done along side CAP 2. I'm not 100% sure if thats the way to go, but just a thought! We should probably focus on getting CAP 2 up before we get into the side stuff though, I actually imagined the side stuff being done WHILE CAP 2 is on going, sorry for the confusion!

I think the best time to start CAP 2 would be right after the suspect voting has been concluded, so hopefully we can sort out the PR stuff by then!

 

[DougJustDoug]

Thanks to Theorymon for putting CAP pokemon into a server. I cringe at the technique you are using to get the CAP's to work in PO, but compared to the alternative (which is NOTHING) -- then I am a huge supporter of your ugly hacking! (I mean that in the most complimentary way possible!)

Before I get on to the rest of my comments about a CAP restart, I would like to mention here that I am hard at work creating a permanent simulator solution for the CAP project. My project is much, much, much more involved than just the CAP project -- but the CAP project is a fundamental part of my design and development thinking. So when this thing is completed, I can guarantee that CAP will never have to worry about having a simulator to implement new pokemon.

I'm making an entire new "pokemon web services framework" and that framework will be very flexible and extensible, which is exactly what the CAP project needs. I won't get into the technical details of this framework here, and I'm not spending a lot of time talking about it with people. If you don't understand what web services are, then feel free to characterize this project as "Doug is making a simulator". But know that I'm not really making a simulator, I'm making a framework that extends beyond the scope of what simulators do. I'm not making this thing to try and compete with any existing simulators. I making this to satisfy a completely different set of needs. I'm not discussing it very publicly, because most people just don't get it. Not because they are stupid, but because when you discuss making a program that will allow pokemon battles to be fought online, most people automatically jump to the concept of "it's a simulator" and all their comments and potential contributions are driven by that. So, I'm not doing a lot of drum-beating about my project. I discuss it here and there with a few technical folks and that's about it. As for CAP, it just so happens that we will end up with a server for battling and all that good stuff.

I've been working on it for a very long time (over a year now), and I work on it almost every single day. If anyone thinks I have "disappeared" or whatever, nothing could be further from the truth. No, I'm not posting on the forums much, but I am online all the time, and I am constantly working on pokemon programming. My current programming project is the biggest charity programming project I've ever done, and it will be a while before I am finished. I know there has been a long lag in activity here in the CAP forum, but from my personal perspective, I have been working on CAP almost every day non-stop the entire time. Rest assured that CAP is still a big part of my thinking, and in terms of sheer number of hours worked, I am working harder on CAP-related stuff than most of you could ever imagine.

As for the CAP project getting publicly underway again -- I am very supportive of the effort. I'll do what I can to help. Be aware that there are some big things happening internally with the infrastructure of the Smogon site, and therefore we probably won't be making significant programming changes to the CAP website in the immediate future. If I need to do anything else from a site or forum administration standpoint, I'm up for it.

As for changing up the CAP process -- I think it is healthy for the CAP community to question and evaluate all our processes from time to time. Yes, as a longtime veteran of the CAP project, I think some of these discussions are simply a rehash of debates we have had many, many times over the years. But, for any longtime CAP contributors that have a similar reaction -- I want to remind you that many of the people that are making these suggestions have not been involved with CAP for years and years. And with all the long downtimes that CAP has experienced over the last year or so -- there just isn't much recent history out there for CAP members to experience. I don't plan to shut down any suggestions with comments like "We've been there, done that. Trust me, it won't work." Perhaps one of the best ways to rekindle the project is to take fresh look at our process and discuss it again in detail. If we come to the same conclusions we came to in the past, that's fine. If we change it up, possibly even for the worse, that's fine too.

People won't take ownership in a process, if they don't feel like they have a hand in creating or changing it. That's the main reason I always felt like an open CAP Policy Review process was part of the bedrock that makes CAP a success. Anyone that takes a little time to learn about the CAP project and participate -- they can be part of our policy review and call our policies into question and suggest changes. And that policy will be openly discussed with other experienced CAP members. That has always been part of the CAP project, and always should be.

With that said, I don't think we should throw everything out and make a completely new process, just to be different. The CAP process wasn't just thrown together quickly and then set in stone. That process has been tweaked and changed many many times over the years. It is the result of us trying lots of different things and keeping the stuff that worked best for our project goals. So don't be too quick to assume that the existing process is old and bad and needs massive changes. But if we need to spend a bit of time going back through the whole thing and evaluating key parts -- I'm willing to bring my historical perspective to the discussion, and I'm open to new suggestions from others that perhaps don't have similar history. I encourage all you other CAP veterans to do the same.

One final note about project goals -- don't forget the mission of the CAP project. If you don't know what that mission is, then read it. By far the biggest thing in the CAP mission is that this project is about PARTICIPATION. I can't stress that enough. This is NOT a project for a small team of people to make an awesome pokemon. Yes, it is a well-known fact that a small group of people can make a much better competitive pokemon than an open group of hundreds of random forum posters and voters. If our goal was to make the best pokemon possible, then assembling small teams or closing off open participation would be the way to do it. That's not what we do here in the CAP project.

The CAP project is a place for a bunch of people to come together and to discuss interesting concepts related to competitive pokemon -- concepts that simply cannot be discussed anywhere else in Smogon, because the concepts do not exist in the current game of Pokemon. We create something new in order to fuel participation and interest, we set a standard to make it as good as possible in order to keep the project organized and focused. If we said "Hey let's make a crazy weird terrible competitive pokemon" -- it would be a shitstorm. So we try to make "good pokemon" here. It gives us a yardstick to judge arguments, to motivate participants to give their best efforts, and to give weight to the honor of winning a poll or making a successful contribution. But do not get so wrapped up in the quest to make good pokemon that you take the leap to actually excluding participation. If you do that, you are missing the whole point here. The pokemon we make in the CAP project are simply the output than emerges at the end of a huge fun group participation effort. Don't obsess over trying to make the results perfect. And don't rush it along too much. Yes, a long project makes people lose interest. But don't get in a hurry to "get the pokemon finished so we can battle with it". If you do that, you're missing the point.

CAP is about the journey, not the destination.

 

[Kyuzeth]

I'd really love to see the old CAPmon in Generation V and how they would function.

Also, Little CAP sounds really nice. And, as an UU player, I'd love to see UU CAP.

 

[macle]

i disagree slightly on how we should start things. I think we should start off with giving the old caps tm moves / dw abilities (flavor ones). Once thats done, hopefully OU has settled down from the changes that are going to happen with the new suspect test. Then I believe we can start a new cap.

 

[Molk]

I'd really love to see the old CAPmon in Generation V and how they would function.

Also, Little CAP sounds really nice. And, as an UU player, I'd love to see UU CAP.

I totally agree with this post, the old capmon in gen 5 would make me very happy, they all still seem to be ou viable to, IMO Krillowatt improved this generation, it can abuse rain very well, and it is a great counter to rain; tomohawk, tornadus, and politoed all fall to krillowatt, it can also check thundurus.


Edit: @ cychlom=best rain abuser ever!

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

My personal opinion is that even though we could learn a couple things about how the CAPs perform in Gen 5 with new tools, it would just be a side project at this point and would detract from what the project is all about: Moving forward with fresh ideas (or new takes of some explored ones) about how a particular element in the standard competitive game.

I think a strong first step in getting CaP going strong again would be to conduct a "review on Policy Review" of some sort where we go through some of the topics (either briefly or thoroughly) and reevaluate the way they are handled.

And when I say topics, I mean these.