Policy Review Policy Review - Concept Submission Requirements

[cyberzero]

<darkie> i approve
<darkie> ^_^

If you are not an experienced member of the CAP community, it is strongly recommended that you do not post in this thread.

This thread is intended to contain intelligent discussion and commentary by experienced members of the CAP project regarding CAP policy, process, and rules. As such, the content of this thread will be moderated more strictly than other threads on the forum. The posting rules for Policy Review threads are contained here.

The Concept Submissions have always been an essential yet chaotic part of the CAP Process, and it has been even more of a problem when vague, gimmicky and unrealistic concepts go far into the polls. In order to avoid this, I am proposing that there be an addition requirement for the Concept Submissions:

All Concept Submissions must include 2-3 sentences describing how it either

• has a positive effect on the metagame (such as Fidgit’s Pure Utility)
• introduces something that we can learn more about the metagame from (such as Kitsunoh’s Ultimate Scout)
• is brought in to introduce a new niche (such as Arghonaut’s Decentralizer)

This is currently not a requirement, but for the last poll, Beej had stated why his concept would be beneficial for the metagame. The description will be in bold. This will essentially be an ideal guideline of how this proposition would work.

Name: Ultimate Scout
Description: A Pokemon that is very capable of forcing the opponent to reveal vital information about their team members and their moves using various techniques.

Scouting is an increasingly important role in the Platinum metagame. Moves like U-Turn, Substitute and Protect are highly valued for their ability to give us such vital information as what kind of responses do your opponents have to your sweepers, what hidden moves do they have, and so forth. Getting this information early on allows you to prepare yourself for any threats your opponent has waiting in the wings and come up with a game plan. This Pokemon would probably need resistances to common attacking types, particularly ones backed up by Choice items, as those allow for the best opportunity to U-Turn and reveal a counter. It wouldn't have to have amazing offenses, but enough to scare the opponent into making some revealing switches.

This proposition would essentially make such a description a requirement for all concepts, although in a separate paragraph rather than in the same paragraph. This is in no way a huge change, but it’s small and effective enough to make a large impact on the success of the project because if the concept is bad, the entire project will suffer from thereon in.

 

[hydrolphin]

I second this. The concept selection gets bogged down with gimmicks, undescribed concepts, and the dreaded; "I thinks this would be really cool because x is such a cool move but nobody uses it," posts.

 

[v]

While I agree with the majority of this proposition, I don't think that "fixing" or "improving" the metagame is something that CaP ought to be endeavoring to do because everyone has their own perception of the ideal metagame. However, including what new niche it will fill or what we can learn from it is an excellent idea for a requirement, and will hopefully cull some of the weaker or less-competitive submissions.

 

[Wilson]

the dreaded; "I thinks this would be really cool because x is such a cool move but nobody uses it," posts.

iirc fidgit was built around gravity, wasn't it? I think building concepts around underused, but potentially effective moves is a great way to change the metagame. The purpose of CAP is to change the metagame, not to "fix" it. The metagame ain't broke.

Concepts will win if they interest the voters. What the voters want is an interesting CHANGE to the metagame which will CHANGE their playing experience. This is the entire point of CAP. Although I'm not against a change in this new policy, I don't think it would really make CAP better in any dramatic way.

I know I'm not a regular here but I lurk this forum quite a bit and I hope my opinions are taken as valid arguments.

 

[Fuzznip]

I agree that there must be a description to each concept submission. Maybe another rule could be to explain how the concept differentiates from other pokemon? We don't want something that was already made in the past, do we?

 

[Magmortified]

Wait, wasn't hydrolphin's last concept built around nobody using Hail? :P

I agree with this. There should be no reason as to why this shouldn't be implemented as a rule. Honestly, if you can't provide any of the three above, you should start asking if it's a good concept to begin with. :S Vader does bring up a good point considering that attempting to fix the metagame may not be the way to go about things, but the base idea of requiring good reasoning on this is pretty sound.

Importantly, it doesn't fall into the pit-traps other required-reasoning suggestions have to cross. Because it's based on submission over voting. Whereas voters can easily bullshit past voting reasoning using paraphrased arguments from other people, a submitted concept is unique and therefore requires independent reasoning. Additionally, the requirements can be applied easily in looking to make sure reasoning meets them.

 

[hydrolphin]

iirc fidgit was built around gravity, wasn't it? I think building concepts around underused, but potentially effective moves is a great way to change the metagame. The purpose of CAP is to change the metagame, not to "fix" it. The metagame ain't broke.

Concepts will win if they interest the voters. What the voters want is an interesting CHANGE to the metagame which will CHANGE their playing experience. This is the entire point of CAP. Although I'm not against a change in this new policy, I don't think it would really make CAP better in any dramatic way.

I know I'm not a regular here but I lurk this forum quite a bit and I hope my opinions are taken as valid arguments.

Fidgit wasn't built aroundGravity, but it was an attempt to have all the Utility stuffs (entry hazards, screens, field changes) in one package. A pokemon built around Gravity only would likely not be competetive, as the opportunties Gravity provides are easily avoidable and not game-breaking to begin with. A gravity user wouldn't CHANGE the metagame that much.

The CHANGE in policy would help one of the three most messy polls (concept, typing, and art) get cleaner.

@mag- yes my last concept was about Hail... Hail is competetive-look at the Old New UU with Obomasnow. That really CHANGEDtheir metagame. XD

 

[billymills]

This is basically an explanation which is always given with the best submissions anyway.

Making it imperative is still a good idea though.

 

[cyberzero]

This is basically an explanation which is always given with the best submissions anyway.

Making it imperative is still a good idea though.

This is exactly why I'm suggesting to make it imperative. If we weed out the bad submissions while also forcing contributors to have a different mindset towards concept submissions, we'll be doing something right.

 

[Veedrock]

I do not like this proposition.

All Concept Submissions must include 2-3 sentences describing how it either

• has a positive effect on the metagame (such as Fidgit’s Pure Utility)
• introduces something that we can learn more about the metagame from (such as Kitsunoh’s Ultimate Scout)
• is brought in to introduce a new niche (such as Arghonaut’s Decentralizer)

Going in order.

1) There is no way to tell what will have a positive affect; it would be complete 100% theorymon. Also, this is highly subjective. Concept "Rips stall to pieces and wipes its ass with it" would probably piss off stall players, while others feel this is positive (though a crude description for the dramatic touch). Because topic leaders have to choose what makes it to the bold vote based on legality, that rule creates a bias. A perfectly fine application may not be "beneficial" enough for the TLs liking.

2) I don't really understand this one. What can one pokemon tell us that Doug's statistics can't? I don't see how Kit even fits it (especially since you with no evidence, going back to theorymon), and if it does somehow then can there really be others without being redundant (I think not)? Please provide further explanation on what you mean, but based off of my vague idea, it shouldn't be there because only Kit will fit the description (if she even does). EDIT: Misunderstood completely.

3) This I don't disagree with, but doesn't the structure of the process make this happen regardless? If two things go up and one is a general "Physical Sweeper" description running against something unique and interesting, voters will go for the latter naturally. This is the only part that I think is 'standard but unspoken.' I do not feel it should be clearly laid out on paper like this for the bias reasoning given above; it doesn't need enforced by the policy reviewers when the voters naturally do this. Let this happen naturally, because in the odd event that it doesn't (like they do pick the physical sweeper), we shouldn't be stepping in and saying "Oh fuck no. We don't need that. The other wins by default" (essentially what this filtering does, just happens before a 'bad' [again, subjective] concept wins). If that was the mindset, then policy reviewers would control every aspect of the creation process already.

This is currently not a requirement, but for the last poll, Beej had stated why his concept would be beneficial for the metagame. The description will be in bold. This will essentially be an ideal guideline of how this proposition would work.

This proposition would essentially make such a description a requirement for all concepts, although in a separate paragraph rather than in the same paragraph. This is in no way a huge change, but it’s small and effective enough to make a large impact on the success of the project because if the concept is bad, the entire project will suffer from thereon in.

Good in theory, but that's essentially it: theory. If you try to include something like this, the claim would be all theorymon. And if this becomes a requirement, again, it's subjective and give topic leader biased power. Personally, I think scouting is lol and pointless as most info is known from previous encounters regardless (so if I was TL, I would've trashed it as "not needed"). There's really no info that is absolutely dire to the success of my match that you will find out specifically from scouting. And if 'forcing switches' is what scouting is all about, I'll use something that'll do this naturally and stop the pokemon at hand, not some specially designed scout (if you come in on Heatran, you won't be scouting much obviously, whereas something like Vaporeon could, while having uses outside of 'forcing switches').


My two cents. I think the current legality checks are good enough. Your proposition hinders submissions because the TL "doesn't feel they're necessary" and also requires the submitter to guess what will happen (and to top it off, they have ZERO knowledge of typing, moves, etc etc, to base their claim on).

 

[cyberzero]

1) There is no way to tell what will have a positive affect; it would be complete 100% theorymon. Also, this is highly subjective. Concept "Rips stall to pieces and wipes its ass with it" would probably piss off stall players, while others feel this is positive (though a crude description for the dramatic touch). Because topic leaders have to choose what makes it to the bold vote based on legality, that rule creates a bias. A perfectly fine application may not be "beneficial" enough for the TLs liking.

The example: Fidgit's Pure Utility. If you can tell me how that isn't helping the metagame, I don't know what is. When you have something as vague as "Break the Mold", CAP5's winning concept, you have no mention of what it'll do besides the flavorful context, but in this case, the same concept would not be passed without a more precise description of what it will bring. I don't see how this is negative in any way. Your example of concept "Rips stall to pieces and wipes its ass with it" is also invalid because if they have perfectly valid reasons as to why it would improve the quality and health of the metagame, it will be voted for, and if not, it won't get any votes. Simple as that.

2) I don't really understand this one. What can one pokemon tell us that Doug's statistics can't? I don't see how even Kit does this. Please provide further explanation on what you mean.

What can we learn? The whole POINT of the CAP Process is to learn about the metagame, so if a concept ever comes up that allows this, it DESERVES to win the concept poll. It's in the damn mission statement. A perfect example of how we can 'learn' is from Magmortified's Partner In Crime concept from the previous Concept Submissions. Nothing more really needs to be said about this as it is all in the Mission Statement very clearly.

3) This I don't disagree with, but doesn't the structure of the process make this happen regardless? If two things go up and one is a general "Physical Sweeper" description running against something unique and interesting, voters will go for the latter naturally. This is the only part that I think is 'standard but unspoken.' I do not feel it should be clearly laid out on paper like this for the bias reasoning given above; it doesn't need enforced by the policy reviewers when the voters naturally do this. Let this happen naturally, because in the odd event that it doesn't (like they do pick the physical sweeper), we shouldn't be stepping in and saying "Oh fuck no. We don't need that. The other wins by default" (essentially what this filtering does, just happens before a 'bad' [again, subjective] concept wins). If that was the mindset, then policy reviewers would control every aspect of the creation process already.

The point is that people should not be looking to vote for a "unique and interesting" concept, they should be looking to vote for the concept that would be the best to use in the OU metagame, even if it is CAP OU. If the "unique and interesting" concept is stupid or is a gimmick, no person who cared about the metagame would choose that over the general "Physical Sweeper". Not everything has to be a new niche. Once again, we can recycle or upgrade current niches as long as the reasoning is given.

Good in theory, but that's essentially it: theory. If you try to include something like this, the claim would be all theorymon. And if this becomes a requirement, again, it's subjective and give topic leader biased power. Personally, I think scouting is lol and pointless as most info is known from previous encounters regardless (so if I was TL, I would've trashed it as "not needed"). There's really no info that is absolutely dire to the success of my match that you will find out specifically from scouting. And if 'forcing switches' is what scouting is all about, I'll use something that'll do this naturally and stop the pokemon at hand, not some specially designed scout (if you come in on Heatran, you won't be scouting much obviously, whereas something like Vaporeon could, while having uses outside of 'forcing switches').

Until we playtest the CAPs, which MAYBE 5% of the voters do, all of CAP is theorymon. The movepools, typings, abilities, we have absolutely no idea how it will perform outside of theory. This point really doesn't make any sense because the point of the concept submissions is to find something to base our said "theory" around. When you say "something that'll do this naturally", what if there is nothing that does it naturally or effectively? This is why you can state in your concept submissions that the niche is not fulfilled, which is exactly what you can mention in your description.

My two cents. I think the current legality checks are good enough. Your proposition hinders submissions because the TL "doesn't feel they're necessary" and also requires the submitter to guess what will happen (and to top it off, they have ZERO knowledge of typing, moves, etc etc, to base their claim on).

This makes the least sense. The TL allows all submissions that passes all the criteria through based in order, usually, so there is no way that the TL can pick and choose which ones not to bring. The ones who choose are the forum moderators and Doug, who try their best to be unbiased and they would definitely not leave out a valid concept.

 

[the_artic_one]

While I agree with the majority of this proposition, I don't think that "fixing" or "improving" the metagame is something that CaP ought to be endeavoring to do because everyone has their own perception of the ideal metagame. However, including what new niche it will fill or what we can learn from it is an excellent idea for a requirement, and will hopefully cull some of the weaker or less-competitive submissions.

I agree with this, our goal is to learn about the metagame, not reshape it to our idea of perfection.

 

[Wyverii]

I am not sure if this is needed. We already do instinctively try to pick concepts that benefit the metagame. Even if a concept causes the completed CAP to fail within the CAP OU metagame it is still teaching us something provided that we actually tried to make it work. Every one of those enforced rules you've listed are something that we already try to aim for when picking concepts (well, most of the time).

The concept rules are already long and convulted. Do we need to add more rules to it? I'm yet to be convinced.

 

[Cartoons!]

Perhaps it would help people trying to find out what would make a valid entry if we put into words what we've learned from previous CAPs as a reference.

Arghonaut, for example, highlights the nature of the 'ecosystem' at the very top of the metagame. Arghonaut failed to affect major changes to the usage numbers, falling prey to Zapdos, despite checking most of the top 10. Something to that affect, but more insightful, would help ground the somewhat abstract goals of 'learning' and we'd have something tangible to show newcomers and demonstrate, in real terms, how we've accomplished our mission statement. This kind of pride in results could only elevate the level of submissions we receive.

Some of our more eloquent writers could probably examine what we've learned from CAPs that didn't have a specifically educational bend (like Pyroak or Stratagem) demonstrating that a viable concept doesn't have to be one be predetermined results.

 

[cyberzero]

I am not sure if this is needed. We already do instinctively try to pick concepts that benefit the metagame. Even if a concept causes the completed CAP to fail within the CAP OU metagame it is still teaching us something provided that we actually tried to make it work. Every one of those enforced rules you've listed are something that we already try to aim for when picking concepts (well, most of the time).

The concept rules are already long and convulted. Do we need to add more rules to it? I'm yet to be convinced.

First of all, I mean no offense to any of the users who submitted any of the concepts I will cite.

In the past concept poll, we have seen two extremely vague and unecessary concepts come into serious consideration: Low BST and Great Tank of China. Of course, these are interesting concepts, but the community will be in chaos throughout the process, as these don't introduce a niche, allow us to explore the metagame or have a definite positive effect on the health of the metagame as clearly as other concepts. In the case that something like these do win, the CAP would go horribly wrong, which is what this Policy Review is meant to avoid.

 

[Darkflagrance]

Perhaps it would help people trying to find out what would make a valid entry if we put into words what we've learned from previous CAPs as a reference.

... demonstrating that a viable concept doesn't have to be one be predetermined results.

^
Maybe I'll give it a shot.

It seems to me that the end result of Strategem was a new combination of ability and special sweeping ability. Previously, there had been no special sweeper in the metagame that was both extremely fast and hard hitting, had access to bolt/beam and a wide array of special moves in general, had an extremely useful and powerful rock-type STAB, had calm mind, and had as useful an immunity as ground. Only Gengar came close, but ghost/poison stab is inferior to rock, and hypnosis does not make up for Stratagem's raw power.
In short, it is a a premier, idealized, versatile Special Sweeper that exceeded nearly everything that preceded it - that is Stratagem's niche.

In addition, Stratagem served a secondary role as a Technician special sweeper, which had never been seen before.

Neither of these roles came up in the original concept.

In addition, Pyroak's ultimate niche as a utility-tank-counter was not predicted from the beginning at all, but that was because of the process.

In these pokemon we experienced an organic evolution of the concept over time. It is highly unlikely that a concept could encompass all the final nuances of Stratagem, because Technician/Levitate could not be specified, although its nature as a versatile special sweeper could.

A potential problem that such requirements might bring up is that they preclude something as like Stratagem that does not have a specific niche per se but rather increases the scope of potential offensive threats in general, and thus it could not be implied by a concept under these restrictions.
It could be argued however that Stratagem "improved" the metagame by adding to the variety of Special Sweepers (seriously, PorygonZ is the only OU with boltbeam and a good special stat and it has no speed).

 

[Bass]

Perhaps it would be a good idea to put this into the perspective of the moderators. If this has not been emphasized already, then I will say this: Concept Submissions are the messiest part of the entire process by far. I support cyber's proposal because it will actually reduce a lot of clutter.

For starters, we deleted 67 posts in the CAP 7 Concept Submissions thread. From my point of view, that's fucking ridiculous. Plus, a fair share of people who had their concept submissions deleted were quick to bitch at me via PM (as well as in the thread) demanding an explanation. And I really cannot stand having to explain to people why their concept submissions did not make the cut as it really is your responsibility to read through all of the rules before submitting a concept.

One of the reasons Concept Submissions is such a mess in the first place is because far too many "eager mcbeavers" who don't have much understanding of the project will post the first thing that comes to mind and call it a "concept". Then, when I monitor the thread and read through each of the submissions, I end up having a very difficult time understanding exactly what some people are talking about, and it makes it more difficult for me to determine its legitimacy as a concept. Worse, other posters will not understand either and just derail the thread with a lengthy debate about how Concept A does or doesn't "contribute to the metagame". All of this really gives me a headache, to be honest, and I think forcing people to actually describe how their concept has a positive effect on the metagame will force people to think more about how they design them before they submit it.

Yes, I can understand where Wyverii is coming from. Without a doubt, the OP of the Concept Submissions Thread is intimidating, and probably one of the main reasons people simply do not read it at all. However, adding this additional rule won't really make things any worse in that respect. Intimidation is no excuse for not reading the rules, but this new rule would only make it easier for the moderators as well as the TL when we read through all of the submissions.

 

[jagged_angel]

In the past concept poll, we have seen two extremely vague and unecessary concepts come into serious consideration: Low BST and Great Tank of China.

With the Low BST, I believe the poster's intention was to explore what makes a pokemon OU despite low BST. We already have examples like Dugtrio and Breloom to illustrate this, with Arena Trap and Spore respectively, so we might not learn anything we did not already know. Despite that, this concept was definitely in the spirit of discovery.

Great Tank of China I failed to see the merit of. I believe that sometimes people feel like they Have to submit a concept. Failing a good idea, they throw any old thing in the ring. This proposal may help to reduce some of that, which is a good thing. It may reduce the number of submissions, or at least the number of legal ones, but I'd rather have 10 decent submissions than the same 10 amidst 90 crappy ones.

 

[cyberzero]

With the Low BST, I believe the poster's intention was to explore what makes a pokemon OU despite low BST. We already have examples like Dugtrio and Breloom to illustrate this, with Arena Trap and Spore respectively, so we might not learn anything we did not already know. Despite that, this concept was definitely in the spirit of discovery.

This is a legitimate argument, and it is true that the poster had the best intentions, but it was extremely vague. True, with the introduction of the Concept Assessment stage, we are able to make it clearer, but then that part of the process would be in disarray, which we are trying to avoid. The concept itself is very good, but under these rules, it can become even better and give us a clearer direction as to where to go with this CAP, even if it's just stating things that are 'understood'.

This was Articanus' post:

Concept: Low BST
Description: A pokemon with a low BST that can still rape thanks to his typing, movepool, or ability.

Maybe that's too specific, but maybe an easy-to-use Shedinja or not-as-broken Wobbuffet is what I'm trying to get at: something that doesn't need the sky-high stats to be good. I think this would be a unique idea for a CaP, imo, considering all the others have ~500 or something

Nothing wrong with it, very good post in fact. Under this proposal, though, it would require another paragraph stating some examples of how this would be effective, and what we could learn. We could use a single extremely effective move, such as the Spore example you gave, and learn the effect that one move can have on the metagame, which you don't see much (outside of Scizor getting Bullet Punch). Another example that could be given in a following paragraph could be the ability, such as Dugtrio's Arena Trap, making the Pokemon viable, but even a little bit of clarification could make a concept go from being good to great.

I believe that at the expense of a little bit more thinking from contributors, the quality of the concepts will increase dramatically.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Conclusion

This proposal will be implemented, starting with CAP 8. Concept submissions will require an additional component, to be called "Justification". The justification will be a few sentences describing how the concept satisfies one or more of the following:

• Has a positive effect on the metagame (e.g Fidgit’s Pure Utility)
• Allows us to learn more about the metagame (e.g Kitsunoh’s Ultimate Scout)
• Introduces a new niche in the metagame (such as Arghonaut’s Decentralizer)

The format Concept submissions will have the following format:

Name: (short name)
General Description: (See rules. No more than a sentence or two here.)

Justification: (See rules.)
Explanation: (Whatever you want to say here.)

The Concept submission rules will be edited to include these additional requirements.


Explanation

For good concepts, I don't think this additional requirement is necessary. However, it hopefully will make concept submitters think a little more carefully. If not, it makes it easier for mods to disqualify the crappy concepts. It is yet another concept submission rule -- but for concepts, that's not really a bad thing!