Policy Review Create-A-Pokemon Policy Review

[tennisace]

X-Act, I couldn't agree more. The people who could be offended by that are the ones who should "lurk moar". That being said, this is a fanboyish project to begin with. What do most fanboys dream about? Their own pokemon. We just happen to be going a little more in-depth. The fanboyism was there in the last three projects. However, by doing it concept-first, you enable the fanboy n00bs to come in, and post their ideas to their hearts content. Whereas when it was typing first, they still chimed in about the general direction the poll should go in (poll jumping), but they largely blind voted. With Hyra's bold votes, it eliminated some of the blind votes and required an explanation of why you wanted it to be semi-broken.

Now, I can see why this place is somewhat scorned upon by the veteran community, I've heard explanations of why. The problem is, we're all fanboys to some extent by coming to Smogon. This isn't an insult, seeing as I enjoy coming here as well, but a fact. The whole project is intristically flawed in that way. There is a large, bold line between a Smogon veteran's fanboyism and some random lurker from Marriland, GameFAQs, or Serebii. If we want to stop all the random n00b posts, we need more mods here. Not to necessarily infract for them, but to delete unnessisary and n00bish posts. That may in the long run turn new people away from the project, but if we clean it up, Smogon veterans may start participating more.

 

[X-Act]

I didn't say that there's something wrong with making a concept poll -- in fact I support it.

I disagree when you say that all three Pokemon done so far are fanboy Pokemon. I cannot speak about Syclant much since I wasn't part of its creation, though, from what I hear, I agree that it was a fanboy Pokemon throughout its whole process. When you create a Pokemon that's x4 weak to Rock and then invent the Mountaineer ability for him... well, I won't continue.

I can speak about Revenankh and Pyroak, though. Revenankh wasn't a complete fanboy Pokemon. Its typing certainly IS fanboyish, I agree, but it didn't get moves like Close Combat and a better movepool. Pyroak was even less of a fanboy Pokemon... its movepool was closely monitored and its stats too, among various other things. I think we're improving insofar as 'fanboyishness' is concerned, and I'm sure that CAP4 will be even better in that regard.

 

[tennisace]

You're right that we've come a long way from Syclant. The past TL's have done a good job in keeping out most of the fanboyism in the past two. What I'm suggesting is that we either A. get more mods to help with the initial concept poll by "cleaning up" bad/broken/stupid ideas, or B. scrap that part of the process and go back to typing first. I know you never mentioned that, but thats what I'm suggesting. We've done a good job keeping the fanboys out, but we've let them get their foot in our door with this mad spamfest of ideas in the concept thread. Doug, Mekkah, and other CAP veterans have been trying to help clean it up, but the truth is we need more mods.

I nominate X-Act for moderator of this forum. Even though it's not up to me, I believe that he has been participating frequently, and knows exactly what he's talking about.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Perhaps the CAP project has come to a crossroads regarding inexperienced users.

The CAP project does have inherently fanboyish motivations. It's not accidental that almost every other online custom pokemon effort that has been attempted -- by individuals or groups -- has inevitably failed to have any lasting value or staying power. For a variety of reasons, these other efforts fail to gain any credibility and fade away as quickly as they start.

I truly believe the cornerstone of the CAP project's popularity and growth is its "legitimacy". I think the project has made great strides to establish credibility. There are several factors that contribute to it:

• An active forum
• A live battle server with a large user base and good moderation
• An organized process that is constantly reviewed and improved.
• A high level of quality in tangible results like art and documentation

Unfortunately, this forum has always been one of the most "noob-friendly" places in Smogon. In the beginning, we welcomed all participants. Most of the veteran Smogoners looked down their nose at the project and did not want to get involved. So, just for numbers sake, we needed to to be tolerant of inexperienced users.

The entire CAP process has several safeguards built in to prevent the noob majority from ruining our creations. That's why all the key steps and choices available to the voting masses are determined by the TL, or by submitters chosen by the TL. Yes, everyone has an equal vote, and the noobs may vote on less-than-perfect choices. But, the slate of choices is pre-qualified by experienced members of the community -- hopefully, providing a minimum level of quality, even if the worst choice is selected.

In the case of the Concept Thread, I have no worries about the outcome. I will guarantee that all concepts considered by the TL, will adhere to the rules of Concepts submission. And, presumably, the TL will select a slate of voting choices that are all of reasonable quality. I am not too concerned that people are submitting idiotic concept ideas.

I don't get upset when someone submits a horrible, childlike art submission. Why? Because, I know that it will have no chance of making the poll. At worst, it takes up thread space and consumes some bandwidth. Big deal. I think the supposed artist is wasting their time, but their ridiculously poor art submissions pose no real threat to the project itself. The end result art poll will have a slate of high-quality designs, and that's what really matters.

However, if the number of crappy art submissions become so numerous that talented artists become disinclined to participate -- that's when we have a problem.

I think that may be the general case now here on the CAP project. The number of crappy posts, ideas, and comments in the CAP threads are becoming so numerous that it's getting hard to find the good stuff. It is certainly the case on the Concept thread, but is an issue with all CAP threads.

The only way to curb this is through moderation. Up to now, we have not lacked moderators. There's only a few threads active at any givien time. Two moderators can easily handle a few discussion threads. (BTW, I have requested a new moderator here in the CAP forum. I'll let you know how that goes.) The question is -- what rules will be enforced with moderation? In general, the CAP forum is very well-behaved. I rarely have to infract users here. I suspect Mekkah will say the same. Most people don't troll, advertise, insult, make incoherent posts, etc.

However, I have yet to hand out a "Lurk More" infraction to a CAP user.

I think "Lurk More" is an infraction that says -- "Get more information and learn about what is going on before jumping into the discussion." (I could be wrong, since I've never actually given that infraction). Perhaps we should enforce "Lurk More" here in the CAP forum?

If we did so, a LOT of people would get infracted initially. But, once people realize they can't post noob crap here -- it would quickly die down. Inexperienced users would sit back and lurk on the veterans' discussions, and only post when they get some knowledge of what we do here. All users get to vote, which is fine, for reasons stated above. Some people might leave the project as a result of receiving an infraction. Some may even get banned if they persist. However, if they are later replaced by a good, knowledgeable poster -- I'd say it is worth it.

Tougher moderation is harsh, but necessary if we want to "clean things up" here.

 

[ShravanP]

The choice of what to do first (metagame balance or types) is a matter of priorities and vision. Is the primary purpose of CAP to balance out the metagame and improve competitiveness, or is it to champion the cause of creativity and provide a way for people's wishes and ideas to be realized? It is definitely a bit of both, but which one is MORE? The way it stands, the focus is initially too much on "how will this affect the metagame" or on "why does the metagame need this"? Even if everyone agrees that the CAP's primary focus will be on competition and metagame balance, the way the process works right now is risky. I personally think that the primary focus should be on fun and creativity and that it should supported by a solid process that ensures metagame balance in the end. This process should be thoroughly moderated by veterans (i.e. recruit more mods) who know the metagame well enough to keep it balanced through this pokemon's addition. In fact, I feel that this way is safer and produces a better balance at the end than the current way. I will explain this soon.

But first, if we want to encourage creativity, we will have to change some things. I feel that the current process tries too much to weed out fanboyism and outlandish ideas, but it ends up having a bad side effect on creativity. Essentially, the rules in the OP just provide people an extra wall to climb. To surmount it, they have to think a little more and word their posts differently, but at the heart of things, their ideas are still very fanboyish. As an example, I also posted a concept in our current thread, but it took me a long time to come up with a description that fit the rules. I don't know if I succeeded, but what I do know is that I felt slightly choked in the process. Despite having to think about the current metagame and my imagined pokemon's effects on it, my idea, at its core, was still just a cool idea. I posted something that I thought would be extremely cool and fun to use; all I did was fix my post up to fit the rules, which I do not fully agree with.

That said, I feel that the best way to fix this would be to keep concept submissions as the first step in the process but ease up a little on the rules against type and ability suggestions. Most people tend to start their creative process at types and abilities, not at "how can I balance the metagame." As I said, even if metagame balance is CAP's primary focus, it is better to think of a pokemon's niche in the metagame later in the process. It is a good idea to allow type and ability suggessions in the first thread and then fine tune chosen concepts to fit into the metagame smoothly.

An example of the process could go like this:

1. Hey, I think an offense-oriented Dragon/Dark type would be really cool.
2. Okay, so what kind of niche will it fill in the metagame? Ans: It will be a bulky sweeper that utilizes its many resistances and decent defenses to stat up and sweep.
3. What will its BSR, ODB and PSB be?
4. What stat spread is best to allow it to fit well into the metagame?
5. What ability can we give it that would make it unique/fun/balanced/etc.?
   ...

By doing something like that, we start with a cool idea first and fine-tune it into a solid pokemon that everyone can use.

The current process sort of works the other way: what will balance the metagame, and what are some cool ideas for it? This current process is more in danger of fanboyism than a 'cool-idea-first' approach. In the method I suggested, the fanboyism is all at the beginning, and the rest of the process is a thoroughly moderated and professional affair. While the heart of the idea is essentially a fun concept, the final product is as fine tuned as Iron Man's Red/Gold suit. The current method, however, starts with metagame considerations and leaves a large portion of the process in the hands of a majority of fanboy voters. This leaves more room for imbalance because the important middle and tail end of the processes are left too loose.

So I feel that the solution is two-fold:

1. Ease up on the anti-type and anti-ability rules at the beginning to encourage creativity. Limit it to one post per person, but allow them to post more than one concept per post (within reason).
   [*]Acquire more mods and make the remainder of the CAP process strongly moderated, with reviews at certain steps along the way. These reviews can catch any possible imbalances that might occur so that we can either roll back or fix it through later steps in the process.

By allowing and encouraging people to post even their outlandish ideas, we definitely take a risk of flooding, but we also open the way for the best ideas to come forth. Also, we CAN keep the process the way it is, with focus on metagame considerations at the beginning, and just get stricter moderation throughout the process. But that would make the whole of CAP just downright boring.

 

[tennisace]

The problem with your suggestion is that the suggestions with types and abilities built in limit creativity even more. Without them, you have to be very vague, which is the point, let the community decide them after.

Example A:
Concept: Burning Bush

Description: A new Fire/Grass type that can SubSeed effectively due to high HP and an ability that blocks critical hits. It would be quite defensive.

Example B:
Concept: Original Tank

Description: A tankish pokemon who has an unique typing which allows it o hit many pokemon for super-effective damage with just its STAB moves, while not having too many common weaknesses.

As a rhetorical question, which one is the first talking about? Pyroak obviously. What about the second one? Revenankh or Pyroak? Its too vague to tell because it doesn't mention specific types or abilities, just the niche it would fill. That is why types and abilities shouldn't be in the concepts. The second one could go any way we choose, while the first is quite limited in scope.

 

[ShravanP]

That could be argued both ways. Most often, setting a limitation and providing a definitive direction improves and encourages creativity. For example. choosing the types early allows for more creative stat builds, movesets, art, etc. Leaving it too vague will leave people with no sense of direction, meaning that we'll only get a whole lot of bogus posts. Variance does not entail or equate to creativity.

As an analogy:

• Compose a sad song using only wood instruments.
  [*]Compose a sad song.

The second might see more diversity, but the first is likely to produce more truly creative ideas that clearly stand out above the rest. I see what you're saying, but I still think that allowing types would overall improve the creative process.

 

[Dane]

I'm not sure if anything is needed at this exact moment, just based on the concept thread. While I agree there's a lot of idiotic suggestions and ones that just flat out break multiple rules, I wouldn't say there's an immediate need for action. Perhaps immediate action in the concept thread, but not necessarily the forum as a whole.

If it continues that new people don't follow guidelines in later threads, then I could see a need for more strict rules. I think part of the reason for the massive amount of bad ideas / rule breaking ideas is because "Concept" is a more vague term than most of the other threads. Granted it would help if they actually read the rules, but we all know people don't do that.

The choice of what to do first (metagame balance or types) is a matter of priorities and vision. Is the primary purpose of CAP to balance out the metagame and improve competitiveness, or is it to champion the cause of creativity and provide a way for people's wishes and ideas to be realized?

Balance the metagame through the use of creativity and group decisions to prevent a single person from running wild with "their idea". Unless someone has a very vague "wish", it's not going to be the same in the end. However, like I posted in the concept thread, I just want a usable Hazer. That's a very simple concept, and easy to run with.

Essentially, the rules in the OP just provide people an extra wall to climb. To surmount it, they have to think a little more and word their posts differently, but at the heart of things, their ideas are still very fanboyish.

If people didn't try to create the entire Pokemon in their concepts, they wouldn't have to word anything differently. Look at the concepts that are likely to make it to the poll (as per Doug's post on page 9). Rapid Spinner/Anti-Entry Hazard, Garchomp Counter, Hazer, Status Counter, Baton Passer, "Stallrein of the Sand", Utility, Lead Pokemon.

These all work within the rules and don't need to be reworded. The ones that are needing to be reworded are ones where people try to do everything themselves, such as the 3654475 "Ice Dragons with high Special Offense and high defenses" submissions I've seen. I can see where you might've had trouble with your "Soul Linker" though, as you went into quite a bit of detail to describe it.

That said, I feel that the best way to fix this would be to keep concept submissions as the first step in the process but ease up a little on the rules against type and ability suggestions. Most people tend to start their creative process at types and abilities, not at "how can I balance the metagame." As I said, even if metagame balance is CAP's primary focus, it is better to think of a pokemon's niche in the metagame later in the process. It is a good idea to allow type and ability suggessions in the first thread and then fine tune chosen concepts to fit into the metagame smoothly.

An example of the process could go like this:

1. Hey, I think an offense-oriented Dragon/Dark type would be really cool.
2. Okay, so what kind of niche will it fill in the metagame? Ans: It will be a bulky sweeper that utilizes its many resistances and decent defenses to stat up and sweep.
3. What will its BSR, ODB and PSB be?
4. What stat spread is best to allow it to fit well into the metagame?
5. What ability can we give it that would make it unique/fun/balanced/etc.?
   ...

By doing something like that, we start with a cool idea first and fine-tune it into a solid pokemon that everyone can use.

But that's one person deciding multiple steps by themselves. Heck, the very first line is the person doing three steps by themselves. The entire point of a concept isn't to define everything about the Pokemon, just what it intends to do or be. We saw with the third CAP that we need a focused concept early on, otherwise it can (and will) change every poll or two and we end up with a hodgepodge of ideas that doesn't really fit with any of what was talked about at any given time.

The current process sort of works the other way: what will balance the metagame, and what are some cool ideas for it? This current process is more in danger of fanboyism than a 'cool-idea-first' approach. In the method I suggested, the fanboyism is all at the beginning, and the rest of the process is a thoroughly moderated and professional affair.

How exactly do you end up with a fanboy Pokemon when your focus is on the metagame, but not when your focus is on a fanboy idea? The beginning is the bulk of defining the Pokemon, the later parts just fine tuning it.

While the heart of the idea is essentially a fun concept, the final product is as fine tuned as Iron Man's Red/Gold suit.

Have you seen how many times his armor has broken down over the years, been tampered with, been upgraded, destroyed, etc etc? He's on his like, 120th variation of his armor because he has to keep changing them. That's NOT fine tuned.

Limit it to one post per person, but allow them to post more than one concept per post (within reason).

This would only result in people either editing or deleting their previous post, or ignoring it all together. I prefer the idea of just 1-2 concepts per person, if putting a cap on it at all.

By allowing and encouraging people to post even their outlandish ideas, we definitely take a risk of flooding, but we also open the way for the best ideas to come forth. Also, we CAN keep the process the way it is, with focus on metagame considerations at the beginning, and just get stricter moderation throughout the process. But that would make the whole of CAP just downright boring.

I'm sorry, but if the best ideas are "I wantz Ice Doragons!", then I'd rather not have a concept thread at all. Besides, the entire point of this isn't to create Pokemon that don't do anything other than take up room. The point is to change the metagame without breaking it. We aren't here to fulfill people's wishes of being able to battle with their Ice Doragons.

That could be argued both ways. Most often, setting a limitation and providing a definitive direction improves and encourages creativity. For example. choosing the types early allows for more creative stat builds, movesets, art, etc. Leaving it too vague will leave people with no sense of direction, meaning that we'll only get a whole lot of bogus posts. Variance does not entail or equate to creativity.

We still have a typing poll after the concept poll. It isn't gone. It's just not decided as part of the concept. Typing is for the typing, concept is for the concept. Concept is NOT for typing.

 

[ShravanP]

I understand what you are saying, and I want to clarify that I do not want the typing polls to precede concept polls. My suggestion is that we do not ban type and ability considerations from concept discussions. The example process I put up was not to demonstrate how one person can come up with a pokemon on their own. It was meant to be a rough (and perhaps choppy) example of how we, as a community, can start with a hybridized concept/typing and create a useful pokemon out of it.

I still definitely agree that the role the pokemon plays and the niche it occupies must be decided very early in the process. But at the same time, it might not be a bad idea to include type/ability considerations IF they are central to making an interesting concept work. It finally comes down to using a workable concept. All I am suggesting is to ease the rules so that we can allow for the possibility of very good usable concepts that come bundled with a type or ability. Yes, we will still have those "Ice dragon" ideas, but like Doug said, those are not likely to make it to the polls anyway. Allowing people to suggest possible types to work along with their concepts might open up the way for some very good type- or ability-based concepts to make it to the polls. Currently, such concepts cannot and will not.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I have made two additions to the CAP Forum Rules. Both of these rules are implied by other CAP rules or general Smogon posting rules, but I want them explicitly mentioned.

• All CAP posts must be on-topic and follow the rules defined in the OP of the thread. Almost all CAP threads have a specific purpose and many have specific rules listed in the OP. If you are not familiar with the purpose of the thread, or have not read the OP -- please do not presume you can contribute to the discussion.
  
  
• All posts should demonstrate a good working knowledge of the CAP project and the competitive pokemon metagame. Less experienced users are welcome to vote in CAP polls, but please refrain from contributing to discussions, until you have a firm grasp on how the project works and how the competitive metagame is played. Read the reference stickies and lurk more.

The first new rule will cover poll-jumping and other topic-specific infractions. Moderator discretion will determine what is off-topic or not. My general rule of thumb regarding poll-jumping will be to allow posts referring to the next poll (as defined in the process guide), but no further.

The second rule is the "idiot rule". Smogon already prohibits stupid posts in general. This just makes it clear that newbs to the project or the metagame should lurk and vote, but should not pollute the discussions. Hopefully, this will encourage a higher quality of discussion and debate.

These new rules will be enforced immediately, although I will likely ignore noob concepts posted in the remainder of the Concept Submission thread. That thread contains so many dumb posts already, I don't want to crack down in there now.

And BTW, I'm happy to announce that X-Act has been added to the moderation team of the CAP forum. He's been an active participant in the project for a long time, he's been a mod on other forums, and many key parts of the CAP process are based on his ideas and research. I think he is a perfect addition to the CAP moderation team.

 

[Elevator Music]

Like you said DJD, the rules were already implied. But still, clearing things up never hurts.

I have elluded to this before (as have others), but the 2 problems with the current Concept poll are as follows.

1) "Noobs" (as some of you have kindly put it) that aren't follwing the rules of the project. There is nothing that can really be done about this except a high moderation of the topic ('Gratz X-Act).

2) We have not set a clear definition of a concept (as far as I know, please correct me if I missed it in this page somewhere). All we have done is put restrictions on what a concept cannot be. I can say an orange can't be purple, green, red, yellow, be in the shape of a cube, etc, but I that wouldn't tell you what a concept is. Either we need to define this (it seems we haven't), or we need to give better examples to back the up restrictions. Even better, do both.

​

I really hope I didn't miss something obvious.

 

[Dane]

The concept is what it does, what it's role is, etc. Basically, what do we want this Pokemon to do? Not so much "What do we want it to be", but "What do we want it to do". For example, Revenankh was to be able to utilize Bulk Up efficiently.

 

[tennisace]

We should put examples down. For Revenankh:

Concept: Weight-lifter

Description: A pokemon who uses an unique combination of types to effectively attack and defend while using Bulk Up to increase it's attack and defense.

For Pyroak:

Concept: Fire-Retardant SubSeed

Description: A tankish SubSeeder who is resistant to fire, but can also use other support moves effectively.

For Syclant:

Concept: A New Infernape

Description: A fast Mixed Sweeper that can attack and stat up from both ends of the spectrum, but is weak to many common types, and is very frail.

Are those good?

 

[Dane]

Except Pyroak isn't resistant to fire, he's just not weak to it. It's hard to describe Pyroak, since he ended up being a hodgepodge of things. If nothing else, I'd just call him a defense oriented Pokemon with a variety of movesets and purposes.

 

[tennisace]

Ok, so:

Concept: A Defensive Seeder

Description: A tankish Seeder that can use its resistances to come in on many attacks, shrug them off, and sap damage.

 

[Hyra]

better idea:

Name: Pyroak

Description: Something so jumbled, we decided we needed a concept poll.

yeah.... Pyroak is why we want this, why would it follow it if we were trying to correct how sporadic he was?

Edit:

that was pretty much my point

 

[tennisace]

How about we just post examples for Syclant and Revenankh then.

 

[X-Act]

To add insult to injury, these same new people then end up voting in our CAP polls, and my fear is that if they outnumber the people that know what they're doing, we might see some very disagreeable things happen to our CAP Pokemon. I'm not advocating removing the democratic part of CAP -- all I'm saying is to give food for thought about this, because it may quite well happen that new people vote for the 'fanboyish' ideas and win because they outnumber the people who voted judiciously.

I'm quoting this again because I _really_ hope it's not going to happen with CAP4!

 

[Aldaron]

It already happened in the Poison vs. Electric poll =/

I'm all for adding some sort of arbitrary check against random newbies voting in our polls. The CaP project is a democratic process sure...but do not orget that it is a Smogon community project, not an Internet community project.

Shouldn't people involved in this project be at least somewhat involved in Smogon?

 

[latinoheat]

i hate the fact that the current pokemon is possibly going to end up covering atleast 3 submitted concepts, is there anyway this can be fixed.

 

[Time Mage]

i hate the fact that the current pokemon is possibly going to end up covering atleast 3 submitted concepts, is there anyway this can be fixed.

I, on the contrary, love that. Why is it bad?

Also, I really don't like the bitching about the typing results. It might not be the one you wanted, but Poison is a very valid type, that shouldn't be accused of being the product of the votes of newbies. Many veterans supported it as well, and backing it up with good reasoning.

 

[latinoheat]

I wasn't aware of this till now but according to sunday, Art thread is meant to open the same time as Secondary typing. This unfairly influences secondary typing and doesn't really give the artist any focus either.

 

[Wyverii]

Most good artists will wait for the second typing or otherwise risk a few sketches to warm up. I don't think any artist can get any detailed work done so quickly so your fears are mostly unfounded with artists affecting typing.

 

[DougJustDoug]

The art thread simply gives a home to something that is happening anyway. People have already started discussing design concepts for this pokemon. It actually started during the primary typing poll. This has always been an issue with the CAP project. People just can't wait to throw cool design ideas out on the table. So, instead of moderating everyone, or allowing the typing threads to become sidetracked into design discussions -- we just open the art thread and let people have at it. It doesn't hurt anything. If someone posts an incredible drawing that influences the poll, so what? No matter what happens, we WILL have the art thread open concurrently with other polls. It has always been that way. And, inevitably, the art will have some spillover effect on the polls and vice versa. This is nothing new on the CAP project. We've just decided to move the art thread up to avoid a bunch of bitching and/or poll jumping in the non-art threads.

And BTW, this process order was clearly posted for discussion a LONG time prior to this. In fact, here's where I first brought it up. That was a month and a half ago. I really hate when people ignore shit like this and then decide to bitch about it in the middle of an ongoing project. Why do I even bother submitting this stuff for review?

 

[Elevator Music]

Doug, I think because at this time it's easy to see what the changes do to the polls. Equate it to playtesting.

But one thing I'm sorry I didn't bring up until now is what is the point of having the BST Submission open yet when we haven't really decided much about the stats in the first place. It would shy me away from making a spread because I don't want to make a spread that I'll have to change later to conform to something that wasn't decided when I made the spread.

I haven't really looked through prior discussions, so if the answer lies in there I'll go through them later.