Policy Review Preliminary Movepools

[MrDollSteak]

Over Gen 8 in the CAP Project, we have seen a lot of fantastic changes to the projects at large. One, which has been very successful has been the separation of the final Movepool flavour stage from the competitive Moveset discussion. This has effectively solved the problem with Prevos and Gen 8 style Movepools that we saw with Astrolotl at the start of the generation.

That being said, the way that the current Preliminary Movepools are set up, has also led to some problems, most visibly seen with Chromera's. In effect, the addition of "flavour" moves in the preliminary movepools has led to unintended consequences. I am referring here to the discovery that Copycat, on Chromera's preliminary movepool as a flavour move, actually had some competitive implications. By this point, however, Copycat had already been removed from the Final Movepool, although it was not implemented.

To solve this problem, I suggest that in the future, the Preliminary movepool should be made up only of the moves featured on the chosen Movesets, as well as any defining moves which may not be on any specific sets.

In this regard, while there is less potential experimentation with niche options, we will effectively avoid a situation where moves intended as flavour only submissions have competitive implications and end up becoming mandated or required.

 

[Zetalz]

Seconding this proposal for the reasons already stated, but in addition I'd like to mention the negative impact I've seen the current implementation have on public perceptions. It's no secret that certain things about CAPs can turn new users off like our higher than average BSTs (in comparison to 'regular' mons), but the thing that I personally have experienced the most pushback with, even from regular CAP users is movepool bloat, and I think the prelim movepools have not helped this.

Miasmaw's prelim movepool was extremely bloated with pretty much every good attack that fell into it's coverage types, as well as several other things that were just kinda slapped on as a 'sure, why not?' kinda thing. I had multiple negative interactions with new users wanting to check out the new mon, only to open it up on the teambuilder and see the absolutely insane amount of moves at it's disposal. It certainly wasn't helped that Miasmaw has the highest overall combined Attack stats of any CAP (plus set-up options), which led to a negative reception not just on Miasmaw itself but on how we make our mons in general.

As stated by MDS Chomera's prelim was in a similar basket but reversed somewhat, containing an abundance of flavor moves and weird out there moves that weren't relevant to how the mon played in the slightest. I think more so than any new CAP I've been with since release, I saw the most amount of people on CAP ladder using Chromera sets that were not even remotely close to what we intended. Granted this isn't a very strong point, that's just how CAP Ladder is, but it was not helped that mera's final movepool took a very long time to implement, which resulted in things like Extreme Speed Chromera being a thing on ladder for like a month.

The Copycat thing I think is a pretty minor casualty that's not worth discussion at this point, but it's worth noting that the discovery of it would likely not have happened if the final movepool had been implemented sooner. Chromera being publicly promoted as CAP's first Legendary also felt pretty bad when we had to constantly tell people that the current movepool it had was not the final one for so long, I know that definitely killed some interest in it.

Overall these points of minor optics are at the end of the day secondary to the process but I do value CAP's public perception, as someone who was once put off by the project for the same reasons I outlined above (and many more), I know very well how much impact seemingly inconsequential things like this can have on people. We should absolutely strive to have Preliminary Movepools be functional, incomplete movepools that allow the mon to be used as intended while the rest of the flavor process finishes up.

 

[Amamama]

I wholeheartedly agree with this proposal.
Imo the 1.0, that leads into the post play lookback should entirely be reserved for competitively testing our most recent creation.
This implies, that only moves with an obvious competitive impact for our product are necessary for its first implementation and the preliminary movepool should only consist of the options, that were chosen during moveset discussion.
This will make it easier to identify holes in its coverage or utility and filter out problematic moves as well as end up with cleaner implementation of final movepools.

Considering, that the post play lookback could result in the addition or cutting of competitive moves (ice beam on Chromera, Poison moves for Miasmaw), I also think, that the final movepool should be open for revisions until this point, so that Movepool creators have the chance to adjust for possible changes and they don’t end up creating weird flavor inconsistencies.

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

I'm also all for the main proposal of keeping preliminary movepools to competitive moves only. As someone who had to explain to newcomers many times that Chromera's movepool was still incomplete, then had to explain why it was suddenly different after months of the 1.0 movepool being seen on Showdown, showing from the beginning that this movepool is only for competitive purposes would certainly be a great clarity change. In addition, the whole Copycat situation is weird due to it not being a part of the movepool that was voted in, and it would be good to avoid awkward scenarios like this in the future.

As for Amamama's proposal, I'm not sure how we could execute the flavor changes. We could have movepool run until the post-play lookback ends, but that means leaving a stage open for over a month (maybe longer, if the Post-Post-Play Lookback PR thread goes through), which sounds like a really good way to kill the momentum for that stage. Although the default solution of letting the mods figure it out with some input from the movepool creator is probably workable, I think my preference might be a quick discussion of what moves to cut through a thread or even just over Discord, as a way of getting the community to sign off on further changes.

 

[MrDollSteak]

As we get closer to this needing to be resolved, I would like to clarify that Universal moves such as Protect, Substitute, Rest and Sleep Talk should also be included in this proposal. In effect the Preliminary movepool should mirror the "required" moves list that submitters have historically used to design their Final Movepool submissions.