Policy Review Checks and Counters Discussion

ginganinja

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Approved by Birkal and jas61292

Most people that hang out in #cap are well aware that I wish to discuss the issue of the checks and counters process of the CAP Process, mostly because I believe that there are a number of things that we could do differently to improve the process.

The current issue I think we have, is that currently the checks and counters process is done so early on in the process, that when we progress to movepool and ability polls, people see what we are countered by, and then tailor their submissions in order to beat the counters of the current CAP. I will not call out anyone, but I remember looking at the list we ended up on for CAP 6 (it was something like Breloom, Heatran, Magnezone, Scarf Jirachi), while we agreed that electric attacks, priority, and fast scarfers that can take Bullet Punch as being reliable checks. The final result however, was a CAP with Volt Absorb (it would actually beat Magnezone and Scarf Jirachi), Drain Punch (to nail Heatran + Mag + Heal off Jirachi residual damage), and it outsped Breloom with priority. Furthermore, certain stat spreads were submitted (and slated), that allowed CAP 6 to beat Skarmory by healing off enough damage from a +6 Drain Punch, so that it could Drum again and thus beat Skarmary if the conditions were right. Much of this happens due to the large number of differenting perspectives of CAP participants, which ultimately leads to the CAP in question beating many of its checks and counters. This flew in the face of the list we had at the start, and everyone knows that it caused considerable frustration.


As I see it, we currently have two options here:

Option #1 is that we simple move the checks and counters thread to a different stage in the process, which would limit people "rigging" abilities for instance, to bypass certain checks and counters. However, this doesn't stop people tailoring movepool submissions since I expect the checks and counters thread would still have to pre-empt this movepool thread. With some clever implementation, this might work.

Option #2 is that the TLT simply vetoes submissions that violate the checks and counters list we decide upon as a community. This places more pressure on the TLT to make these decisions, but overall I believe it is a better option. We already have to convince the Section Leader of each individual process why we selected our states / movepool / abilities, all people would have to do would prove to the Section Leader that the submission does not allow the CAP to beat its checks and counters. The TL would also, ideally, serve as a second quality control member when reviewing the slate for +1 / -1 / veto.

That said, I am sure others have their own opinions, so I invite you all to post opinions and submissions of their own, as well as perceptions of the above two options outlined above.
 

jas61292

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Looking at what happened last CAP, I completely agree that we had issues with our checks and counters. We chose what we wanted our counters to be, and then pretty much completely ignored it. That is not good and not something we want to happen in the future. However, looking back to CAP5, I think that we, under the exact same system, did a fantastic job of picking our counters early on and sticking to them. So, what exactly was the difference? To me, it was very much a function of the project leadership, as suggested in option #2.

Don't get me wrong here; I am not trying to say that CAP6 leadership did a bad job. This is something that was not explicitly spelled out in their roles, and while it probably should be going forward, it is not something we can really blame anyone for. What I am trying to say is that, in general, on CAP 6, the TLT slated all the popular options and cape as TL approved of them, regardless of the impact on our checks and counters. Back on CAP 5, on the other hand, there were never really options on any of the slates that would have be detrimental to our chosen counters. So yes, when you compare the two, I think the big difference was in how the leadership handled this, and I think, going forward, it should be very much on the leadership to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen.

With that said, I believe that this is not just a function of slate making. In fact, I think this is not really something we should be putting on Section Leaders, as much as something we should be putting on the TL themselves. In our current system the TLs job is to essentially "champion the concept." They are supposed to make sure that we stick to the concept and don't get off track. But how exactly are they supposed to do that? In my opinion, one of the biggest keys is in checks and counters. While they can keep us sticking to the overall concept in a general sense, everyone will have their own interpretation, so that can only go so far. Once we decide what will counter us AND what we want to counter (a very important thing that is just as crucial to remember), however, we have some specific points that the TL can use to keep us focused, and I believe it should be the TL's first and foremost responsibility to make sure we stick with these decisions. They were decided based on the concept, so sticking to them is absolutely key. And, as I said, this goes way beyond slate making. The TL should not simply say "X beats a counter, -1'd." It should be the responsibility of the TL to be incredibly active in conversations and to make sure that something that goes against our checks and counters lists never even garners enough discussion and support to make it to a slate in the first place. While the section leader should also be on the lookout for this kind of stuff, and possibly try and lead discussion is such a way so that such things do not come up as much, in the end, their job is to slate the community supported options. It is the TL is who must lead the project in the direction the community decided on and it is the TL who needs to make sure that we abide by our past decisions.

Of course, this is easier said then done. The TL can't really force people to do anything; they no longer have any such power. They must do it solely through high quality posts and discussion leadership. This is not always going to be a simple task. However, as I believe I can attest to, it is far from impossible. In fact, the ability to take such a role is exactly the quality I think we look for most when choosing a TL to begin with. While I do not think we did a great job with counters in CAP6, I think that is simply because we never really stressed this like we should. I fully believe that capefeather is perfectly capable of taking this kind of role, and so is everyone else who applied for the TL position. I personally think it is just a matter of putting it out there.

While what I am saying is slightly different from what is suggested in the OP, I think the key thing in both is that we really need to do is formalize whatever we decide on. I think the best solutions will not involve any process changes or even real rule changes, so much as simply placing guidelines that the leadership team (and all experienced CAP members) should strive to follow. If we do specifically just go with what I am saying here, then we need to just put it out there that this is part of the TLs job description, and if we do, I expect that we would have very few problems, if any, of this nature going forward.


One other thing to keep in mind is that we do have a secondary counters stage prior to movepool stuff. This stage is completely optional and does not happen unless a project leader believes us to have gotten off course, but it does exist. With that said, I do not think this stage is something that would have helped last project. Our problem there was not that we had a change of direction and needed different counters. It was simply that we stayed in the same direction and ignored our counters, and I don't think that is the kind of problems this second stage would fix. In fact, in general I think it is good that we avoid this stage as for the most part it would just turn into bickering by the people who supported different counters that the ones we chose, wanting to change despite everything else staying on track. However, in the future, if we ever do have problems involving a shift in project direction that causes us to need to reevaluate counters, the stage already exists to do so, if we choose to have it.
 

Bull of Heaven

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I think this is an overly cynical explanation of what happens to the checks/counters list, and I don't agree with the implicit premise that deviating from the list is necessarily a bad thing. The checks/counters list as it exists now almost has to be more of a guideline than a rule, since it happens too early in the process for us to really understand how the Pokemon is going to develop. Do some people intentionally try to beat things that are on the list? Probably, but it seems more likely that people just get more coherent ideas of how the Pokemon should function as we get further along in the creation process, and an inflexible list based on far less information becomes impractical. I appreciate the value that the checks/counters list has in terms of guiding the project, but I see no need for it to be binding. We seem to be doing fine without that. These lists can do their job of keeping our Pokemon balanced without actually maintaining every counter we come up with, and I think the first thing we need to establish in this thread is what the purpose of the list should actually be. Is it a rule or a guideline?

I've already mentioned that I'm fine with it being a guideline, but let's suppose that we want a rule instead. Option 2 is not the way to do this. As I mentioned before, the checks/counters discussion happens so early in the process that people haven't properly considered how the different aspects of the Pokemon will combine, or even what those are most likely to be. This effect is reinforced by our otherwise-useful attitude toward poll-jumping. There's too little information available to actually understand how the Pokemon will function, and establishing a firm list of counters early on places unreasonable restrictions on a finished product that has yet to even really be conceived of, at least widely enough to get "community consensus" on it. We need some freedom to adjust the counters later on.

Option 1 is better, but still problematic. For all I've said about these lists being overly restrictive, they are extremely useful in guiding the project's development. Having at least a tentative list keeps the ideas from getting too far out there, and keeps the discussion focused enough for that coherent finished product to emerge. There would absolutely be value lost in having no list at all early in the process.

So I have a counter-proposal! If the PRC believes that there's actually a problem here (and I'm not yet convinced of that), what we should do is split the checks/counters discussion into two stages. The stage we have now would be retained, with an understanding that the resulting list not final, but is to be used as a guideline in all parts of the process, and should not be changed without good reason. The second part, which is presently called "checks/counters revision" in my head, would be a chance to reevaluate the list with more adequate information on how the CAP will function, and add/remove counters as appropriate. This list could be final and binding.

Hope that all made sense.

Edit:
One other thing to keep in mind is that we do have a secondary counters stage prior to movepool stuff. This stage is completely optional and does not happen unless a project leader believes us to have gotten off course, but it does exist.
I completely forgot about this. I guess my proposal would basically just make it mandatory.
 

jas61292

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Just to respond briefly, I think one of the main issues that causes people to think something like that is necessary (when I personally believe it is not) is that people go through the motions of listing what LOOKS like a counter or check in the first stage and then want to go back later and change that because what they "decided" on is not actually good to have in their opinion. In reality the stage is all about deciding what SHOULD be a counter in order to achieve the concept, and we should be using the rest of the stages to then go about fulfilling the goals set there. If we are only saying what appears to be a counter at that stage, then we really have not helped at all. On the other hand, if we do decide what should counter us, then I question why we would have to go back and change that, as at no other point afterwards is there a discussion of general direction that should change what the project goals are. While I don't necessarily expect universal agreement, in my opinion, going back and having a second stage for this is pointless as we are setting goals for the whole project, and there can never really be a good reason to ever change those goals unless we royally screw up what is possible in the intervening stage.
 

ginganinja

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So I have a counter-proposal! If the PRC believes that there's actually a problem here (and I'm not yet convinced of that), what we should do is split the checks/counters discussion into two stages. The stage we have now would be retained, with an understanding that the resulting list not final, but is to be used as a guideline in all parts of the process, and should not be changed without good reason. The second part, which is presently called "checks/counters revision" in my head, would be a chance to reevaluate the list with more adequate information on how the CAP will function, and add/remove counters as appropriate. This list could be final and binding.
And where exactly do you put the second stage of the Checks and Counters process, while avoiding people abusing the system. You cannot have, for instance, a checks and counters discussion AFTER a movepool is finalised, because everything is "locked in", and yet, the earlier you have it, the easier it is for people to ignore the list. Usually id just laugh it off and trust that people know when they have overstepped, and started deliberately targeting the checks and counters list, but we just had an example where the above did not happen, and it worries me.

Anyway, I rather like the proposal jas outlined, because it solves the personal issue I had with option #2, in that it encourages the TLT to enforce rules on the community, and in all honestly I don't really think thats required. There really shouldn't need to be a rule saying don't set out to beat everything on our checks and counters list, it just should be common sense. Highlighting the following sentance again because I really think its the best solution to the problem, so long as everyone sticks to it I guess.

I think the best solutions will not involve any process changes or even real rule changes, so much as simply placing guidelines that the leadership team (and all experienced CAP members) should strive to follow.
 

Korski

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I think we need to change the expectations for what sort of benefits the Checks and Counters list can offer us. We actually aren't that good at predicting how a CAP will work out in its playtest, so imo we need to rely more on the process to find a spot for the CAP in the metagame rather than shoehorning it from the get-go and muddling up the rest of the discussions. We need to expect that some Pokes on the initial counters list won't make it to the final stages as intact checks or counters (and that needs to be okay). The Checks and Counters stage, as we currently run it, is flawed for two reasons:

1) As soon as the list is decided upon, it begins to take precedence over the actual concept itself in the following discussions. Many pro-concept choices for abilities, stats, and moves fly in the face of the counters list, and many choices that maintain the counters list are ones that completely ignore the concept. Yet, we give equal significance to both and immediately schism in two directions early on in the process, with the subtext of concept vs. counters causing the most frustration. I personally feel as though we give too many options away in deference to the counters list, to the point where we lose the concept completely from the Stats stage onward .

2) It is arrogant of us to assume we can control the actual outcome of the CAP in terms of how it performs in real battles, especially from such an early point in the process. More often than not, the counters list is very specific and contains a wide array of different Pokemon who play a variety of team roles, run a variety of sets, and have a variety of unique characteristics that all need to be accounted for at once in order to maintain the integrity of the list. At the same time, we need to consider that the CAP may not only lose to the members of the counters list, but all Pokemon that play similarly in battle or share any of the qualities that make them counters, which would probably result in an ineffective Pokemon. It's basically an enormous, likely unsolvable puzzle (and it's no wonder why it takes on so much significance from Primary Ability onward).

I have an abstract proposal for the Checks and Counters stage that addresses these problems by turning the stage into an ongoing process that lasts throughout the project. I think the final list at the end of checks and counters should be a lot larger and more vague (after all, we only have a typing at this point), and that we should revisit the list every now and again to cross off some Pokes, break core groups down into specific Pokes for consideration as checks or counters, and narrow down the list in general, so that by the end of the process we have a handful of specific checks that make sense and are determined by actual decisions we made along the way. Not every decision we make is going to affect the list, but if we get to Secondary Ability and too much has been lopped off, then we should start to pay more attention to how our decisions may be overpowering the Pokemon. If not, then we should be basing our arguments solely on how they pertain to the concept.
 
The main problem I saw with CAP 6's threat discussion stage was that the discussion pretty much died before a list that even made perfect sense could be made. And then people started complaining that the list I drew up based on the discussion didn't make perfect sense. Much of Korski's last paragraph was what I always wanted to go for whenever I signed up for TL, and it was something I tried to live by in CAP 6. However, in reality, the flow of discussion makes it difficult to do stuff like post updates and clarifications to the threat list. In CAP discussions, the threat list is only part of the story.

The Belly Drum angle exacerbated these difficulties. Doug's suggestion to try to make Belly Drum as good as we can was a strong driver in many people's rationales, and there was no way to say honestly that such a suggestion was misguided until the playtest. And even after the playtest, could we really say that it was wrong? The relative importance of switching in and actually sweeping was a big question in the discussions, and I think that the playtest gave us a pretty clear answer. Obviously a CAP Pokemon will never provide a definitive answer, and people can debate on what we really learned from the playtest, but I just think that to declare a process failure just because a certain question was answered in a certain way is kind of presumptuous.

Anyway, I contend that it's unrealistic to expect a threat list made with only typing and concept in mind to be binding or even for it to make perfect sense. After a certain point, people just want to move on, and in that situation it can be difficult to account for everything. Some concepts will allow a solid list of checks and even counters to be made and followed through on without much fuss, but that won't be true for every concept, and it seems silly to me to judge the merit of a concept or the process from those fluctuations. I think that the best we can do is to make bigger lists of threats like Korski said, and have community leaders stress the impact of a given decision on these bigger threat lists.
 

jas61292

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Ok, so... yeah, I just have to say that I almost completely disagree with everything Korski said, and that mostly stems from the fact that I think his first point completely ignores the entire point of the stage itself. What I mean by this is that, if done correctly, I do not think there is such a thing as an ability or stat set that supports the concept but not the chosen threat list. When we choose counters, all we really have is concept. Yes, typing exists too, but the fact is that we choose, or at least should be choosing, counters based on what we need to fulfill the concept. Counters are NOT based on the typing. It provides a frame for discussion, but is completely irrelevant in the long run. Hell, if anything should change about the process, we should be moving the threats discussion up to before typing because typing is irrelevant to what our checks should be and if anything should be chosen to help beat what we want to beat and lose to what we want to lose to.

Regardless, my point is, checks and counters are a natural extension of concept analysis. To say that something can support one and not the other is something I personally consider completely absurd as that can only indicate a complete failure on our part to actually choose the kind of counters we should have, and that is rooted in concept analysis itself, not in a failure to consider stuff down the road.
 

Birkal

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I tend to side with jas61292 in terms of this discussion. Our concept should always be our trump Ace when it comes to determining a CAP's direction, in my opinion. If we're suffering from issues in Checks & Counters discussion, I lump that into two general categories. One, the leadership team needs to do a better job of sticking to our previously made lists whenever possible. I agree with capefeather that it's nigh impossible to fulfill every single check and counter we suggested at earlier stages. But on the other hand, ginganinja provides some good evidence that CAP 6 failed to fall within most of the guidelines we set as a community. Two, there are issues with the Concept Submission stage. There are definitely concepts out there that are anti-CAP process that do quite well (makes me think of the Eviolite concept from CAP4 taking second...), which essentially ruins everything we do. Counters and checks are impossible to solidify when the concept is poor.

I don't have a proposal here to fix this. Leadership needs to be stronger, especially at the concept slate. It wouldn't be amiss for the CAP moderators to discuss the slate with the Topic Leader before it is published. It also wouldn't hurt for them to contact the Topic Leadership Team at that stage. And finally, there should be a larger role in the arguments provided by facts from our checks & counters discussion. The CAP moderators should do a better job of moderating posts that flow against these stages, while the leaders in CAP support those lists as fervently as possible.

This discussion seems to be winding down, but I don't want to close things just yet. A lot of people liked Korski's post, so I'd like to give them a time to respond. paintseagull, Nyktos, Bull of Heaven, nyttyn, Korski. Thoughts on this? Any more thoughts, capefeather or jas61292? Not to rush this thread, but the beginning of CAP 1 is likely dependent on when we finish our discussions here. This thread will go as long as it needs to (if we need a month, we'll take it). So please, post as soon as you can.
 

paintseagull

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I suppose Checks and Counters has never made a whole lot of sense to me, especially its timing in the process and the resistance on the part of leadership to revisit it. It seems to me that it ought to be a more flexible estimate at first which is then refined as we go, fluidly as we realise which things work and don't work as counters as we sort out which abilities and stats we need, as Korski described. This is a massive rework though and probably not feasible at this stage. It seems we mostly need an attitude shift on this, or a reworked description of what Checks and Counters is supposed to do. It's definitely not good if we are not on the same page about what it's supposed to accomplish.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Yeah all I can say here is we need an attitude shift; it's not a matter of just slamming down some checks and counters based on the typing to say "ok we have checks and counters," what we need to do is actually assess the role the cap will be assuming in the metagame with the concept and typing we've selected, and then choose the checks and counters that we want to form with the rest of the process. Honestly for that reason I could even imagine putting it before typing, so that we can really base C&C JUST off of roles and concepts, and then build the rest of the project around that.
 

Nyktos

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Sorry, I kept meaning to respond and then not having time. I currently don't have a computer and it's reading week so I can't use school ones, so I'm not going to make a detailed post here because phones suck.

I really don't understand how we can do checks and counters based on the concept and nothing else. How on earth do we decide that being countered by Skarmory but not Gliscor is more pro-concept than the reverse? Unless our list is super vague things like "at least one physical wall is a hard counter" there's no way we can do it without making a whole bunch of decisions that are completely orthogonal to the concept.

I support either something like Korski's proposal or just moving it later on chiefly because Volt Absorb absolutely deserved to be discussed during CAP 6 and excluding that because we happened to arbitrarily decide Electric-types should be checks is dumb. (And there is no way around the threat list being more or less arbitrary if it remains this early.)
 

jas61292

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...it's not a matter of just slamming down some checks and counters based on the typing to say "ok we have checks and counters," what we need to do is actually assess the role the cap will be assuming in the metagame with the concept and typing we've selected, and then choose the checks and counters that we want to form with the rest of the process.
This. This so much. I feel like a lot of people want to push the treats stage back or make it less important simply because they don't think that it has anything to do with the concept or role, when I believe that in reality, nothing has more to do with the concept and metagame role than what we are going to threaten and what we will be threatened by. Look at CAP5; sure we decided on what we wanted to do "officially" for counters in the threats stage, but half of that job, deciding what to beat, we already did before we even got to that stage. Latios/Latias and water types. We decided what to threaten and then chose the type based on it. If we had decided that our chosen threats were not binding and we could just change them because for some reason that was too early to decide, the only thing that could have possibly come out of it is that we have a Pokemon with a type that was poorly chosen.

I really don't see how pushing this discussion back helps in any way because if you are choosing aspects of the Pokemon with no regard to what your threats are, then I can't see how the hell you are following a concept at all. It can only serve to increase the ambiguity of the concept, and, as I'm sure we are all aware from the various concepts of this past generation, ambiguity is always a bad thing for CAP.
 

Bughouse

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I'm wary of moving Threats to before Typing. I'm concerned it will become a rather structureless thread, just like Concept Assessment, that requires very strong leadership from the TL (and Moderators) early on, with little to use as background reasoning, since nothing has been decided yet. We all know how Concept Assessment has gone awry before, and I'm not sure moving Threats earlier will improve that stage for similar reasons.

That said, I'd be willing to give it a try on CAP 1, since maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic.
 

nyttyn

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Echoing Nyktos and Korski's thoughts here.

I am of the opinion that, as stands, C&C is not only useless, but actively detrimental to the project. It's a almost completely arbitrary list based on a grand sum of two factors that so often just boils down to, as pwnemon said, "ok we have checks and counters." And, in my opinion, moving it back isn't going to help at all.

While I do agree we need guiding direction for our CAPmons, as it stands, we do not know nearly enough at the Threats stage to determine what our mon should beat, what it should lose to, etc. Typing in a vacuum, as proven by Mollux, is utterly worthless, and as shown by Aurumoth, we can't always rely on a concept to give us any direction whatsoever. As a result, people are, rightfully so, kind of considering the threats stage to be an arbitrary waste of time, and as shown by Cawmodore, the community has no qualms with out right ignoring it if the consensus of where the project should go does not fall in line with what the Threats stage decided upon.

So, my proposal, based on my sentiments and ideas I have obtained by reading the thoughts of others: we should stop seeing the Threats list as a hard, fast set of mons that we should beat or should not beat, but instead initially a list of archtypes that we should beat/be beaten by. It should be after the concept stage, but before typing. At first, it should be a fairly sizable (most of the time) list of archtypes, such as Physical Walls, or Set Up Sweepers, but as the concept goes on (such as typing), it should be narrower and narrower, as determined by CAP community input and the thoughts of the TL based on how the project evolves. And, of course, ideally the thread would remain open all project long (until the flavor steps, at least) so people can continue to provide input.


edit: since I don't think I was clear enough with my example:

let's take a hypothetical mon with the concept "Wall Breaker"

Post-concept: we agree that it should be stopped by offensive, speedy mons in general.
Post-typing: as it's a draogn/fighting type, psychic types, ice types, and dragon types should ideally check it or better, so long as they have speed. It should also ruin the day of dark types, normal types, slower dragon types, and steel types.
Post-ability: as it has been agreed upon that its ability should be mummy, mons that rely upon their abilities are moved to being checked by this cap.
Post-stats: as it has ben agreed upon that this will be a slow, mixed, somewhat frail attacker that's still faster then most walls, it will be checked by anything that can outspeed and murder it. As it has no way of setting up, it is thus reserved to beating walls and the like.
Post-movepool: due to all that has been agreed upon earlier, this mon receives no set up moves, only coverage to beat the walls of OU/UU, and receives no statuses or other countermeasures against setup or offensive mons.

yeah this is a inconsistent mess of a mon but it's a hypothetical example.
 
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paintseagull

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jas61292 said:
One other thing to keep in mind is that we do have a secondary counters stage prior to movepool stuff. This stage is completely optional and does not happen unless a project leader believes us to have gotten off course, but it does exist. With that said, I do not think this stage is something that would have helped last project. Our problem there was not that we had a change of direction and needed different counters. It was simply that we stayed in the same direction and ignored our counters, and I don't think that is the kind of problems this second stage would fix.
I wonder if this second CC stage being mandatory or at least more standard would help leadership on keeping the Check and Counters list as an important thing in everyone's mind. Nobody participating in this project wants it to be seen as a failure at any point before it's finished, and I think if we had this step looming over us as we make choices past typing people might be more inclined to take the CC list seriously. This would also give us an opportunity to slightly modify our list if anything was overlooked or if one counter had to be sacrificed.

I think there is a bit of a resistance in the CAP culture by leaders to choose to include this step, but community members clamoured for it last time. Why not just make it mandatory?
 

Nyktos

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Posting again to respond to jas's point about CAP 5: that is on one hand not the normal case and on the other an excellent argument against putting threats before typing. Most CAPs are not like Malaconda: while it was built to fill a specific role on a specific team archetype, most CAPs are meant to be more broadly useful and are often team centerpieces themselves. We can argue about whether it should be that way or not, but it's the truth. As such while a large part of Malaconda's identity revolved around its matchups against specific opponents, the same does not and cannot apply to the majority of CAPs. For CAP 5, it was absolutely necessary that we beat Latias and lost to Fire-types in sun. In CAP 6, it didn't really matter that it was Skarmory that was our best counter: the important part was that we had an OU mon that could wall us.

But also, imagine how boring CAP 5 typing would have been if we'd already decided what to beat. That was actually a really interesting typing stage, but it mostly revolved around which threats we wanted to match up well against. Had that already been decided, in a non-polling stage no less, we'd have lost that. And these are the same kind of discussions we gain by allowing the case for Volt Absorb to be made before deciding whether Electric-types are counters.
 

jas61292

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I wonder if this second CC stage being mandatory or at least more standard would help leadership on keeping the Check and Counters list as an important thing in everyone's mind. Nobody participating in this project wants it to be seen as a failure at any point before it's finished, and I think if we had this step looming over us as we make choices past typing people might be more inclined to take the CC list seriously. This would also give us an opportunity to slightly modify our list if anything was overlooked or if one counter had to be sacrificed.

I think there is a bit of a resistance in the CAP culture by leaders to choose to include this step, but community members clamoured for it last time. Why not just make it mandatory?
The number one problem with this is that it will, the vast majority of the time, be a complete rehash of the first discussion and be a complete waste of time. As I already stated, if the first stage, the Threats Discussion, is done the way it really should be, then the resulting threat lists that come out of it should be followed. If we are not following it, it is, (again) the vast majority of the time, going to point to the fact that we are not heeding the concept to the extent that we should.

As such, the vast majority of the time, if we did have this second stage mandatory, the only "discussion" we would have would be rehashes of what was said in the first discussion, mostly by people who were not happy with the initial discussions conclusion, regardless if anything has actually changed to make their view more viable.

The only real time where a second discussion would do anything positive would be if we completely got off track with regard to the concept, and I believe the only real time that such a thing could happen would be if we fail at properly assessing things to begin with. Our goal should not be to force something that is not helping the majority of the time, and only patching a problem the few times it is necessary. Rather, what we should do is focus on stopping us from getting off track to begin with by having a stronger concept assessment and threats discussion, and making sure the two are complimentary and that we stick the the decisions therein.

Of course, its not bad to keep this optional stage. Having an opportunity to patch mistakes is never bad. But preventing the need for such a patch is significantly more useful overall.

Posting again to respond to jas's point about CAP 5: that is on one hand not the normal case and on the other an excellent argument against putting threats before typing. Most CAPs are not like Malaconda: while it was built to fill a specific role on a specific team archetype, most CAPs are meant to be more broadly useful and are often team centerpieces themselves. We can argue about whether it should be that way or not, but it's the truth. As such while a large part of Malaconda's identity revolved around its matchups against specific opponents, the same does not and cannot apply to the majority of CAPs. For CAP 5, it was absolutely necessary that we beat Latias and lost to Fire-types in sun. In CAP 6, it didn't really matter that it was Skarmory that was our best counter: the important part was that we had an OU mon that could wall us.

But also, imagine how boring CAP 5 typing would have been if we'd already decided what to beat. That was actually a really interesting typing stage, but it mostly revolved around which threats we wanted to match up well against. Had that already been decided, in a non-polling stage no less, we'd have lost that. And these are the same kind of discussions we gain by allowing the case for Volt Absorb to be made before deciding whether Electric-types are counters.
I would disagree with this sentiment in that I really do believe that, regardless of concept, it definitely matters at all stages what does and does not counter us. You say that it doesn't matter if Skarmory was the best counter and that someone being able to wall was all that matters, but I fail to see how that is the case. The fact is, any CAP should have multiple checks/counters, and should itself check/counter multiple Pokemon. Saying we lose to "something physically bulky" does absolutely nothing to help us as a project. At the same time, I fail to see how saying we lose to Skarmory is a negative. With the former, we have people with all different ideas of what bulky things we beat, and more often than not, that means we end up beating the majority of them, with no rhyme or reason as to why we beat what we beat. The concept is not helped by this, and the project is not helped by this. Leaving options open for options sake is not any sort of advantage whatsoever. On the contrary, if we know from the get go what to beat and what to lose to, it directs the flow of conversations to the "HOW" and away from the "WHAT." The fact is, if we are halfway through a project and we still don't know what our goal is, that is undeniably a bad thing. Concept assessment is way too abstract to keep things on track all by itself.

You talk about how doing this would get rid of the Volt Absorb discussions, but I did not personally think such a discussion was all that great to begin with. As I just mentioned, this discussion was a debate about what we should do, rather than how we do it. A huge portion of the Pokemon was made with one goal in mind, and this ability was tacked on with a completely different goal in mind. Maybe the discussion was not bad, but it led to a disjointed product. I fully believe that, regardless of the actual quality of this conversation, the quality of a conversation with a focused goal, where we debate how to achieve this goal, would almost always be better, and more in line with the goals of this project.
 

paintseagull

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Log from this evening

Highlights:
20:40 <DetroitLolcat> "20:39 <jas61292> We don't let people submit movepools with more VGMs than allowed. We don't lets people submit stats that don't fit the stat limits. So we shouldn't allow posts and suggestions that self admittedly don't follow the counters that have been decided on."
20:40 <DetroitLolcat> this this this this this
20:41 <DetroitLolcat> I literally want to delete the post I'm making right now and replace it with this.


21:40 <nyttyn> to be honest
21:40 <nyttyn> if we try to stick with the threats list as it currently stands
21:41 <nyttyn> I think we, instead of deleting posts, need to have public and repeated PSAs as need be that the threats list is to be taken seriously.
21:41 <nyttyn> because right now it just feels like a lot of users (and I even myself fell guilty of it a few times) simply only acknowledge the threats list when it is convenient to do so.
21:42 <paintseagull> "the threats list = the concept in a practical sense" ?
21:42 <jas61292> That's how I view it
21:43 <jas61292> Concepts are abstract. Check/Counters list is the non-abstract version of the concept we choose to persue
 

ginganinja

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While I do agree we need guiding direction for our CAPmons, as it stands, we do not know nearly enough at the Threats stage to determine what our mon should beat, what it should lose to, etc. Typing in a vacuum, as proven by Mollux, is utterly worthless, and as shown by Aurumoth, we can't always rely on a concept to give us any direction whatsoever. As a result, people are, rightfully so, kind of considering the threats stage to be an arbitrary waste of time, and as shown by Cawmodore, the community has no qualms with out right ignoring it if the consensus of where the project should go does not fall in line with what the Threats stage decided upon.

So, my proposal, based on my sentiments and ideas I have obtained by reading the thoughts of others: we should stop seeing the Threats list as a hard, fast set of mons that we should beat or should not beat, but instead initially a list of archtypes that we should beat/be beaten by. It should be after the concept stage, but before typing. At first, it should be a fairly sizable (most of the time) list of archtypes, such as Physical Walls, or Set Up Sweepers, but as the concept goes on (such as typing), it should be narrower and narrower, as determined by CAP community input and the thoughts of the TL based on how the project evolves. And, of course, ideally the thread would remain open all project long (until the flavor steps, at least) so people can continue to provide input.
You bring up a really good point, an argument can be made that currently with the threats discussion, people don't actually know what works at this early stage. That said, we did have archtypes being brought up constantly during Cawmodore, and it didn't solve the problem. People mentioned being walled by scarfers, but then people went out of there way to beat said scarfers. An example of this can be seen with Scarf Magnezone being tossed around in threads, as a excellent check / counter to CAP 6. This is how things progressed

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Step 1: capefeather decided upon a threat list. The decided list was eventually rehashed 3 pages into the thread following the Threats discussion, however cape did highlight 3 key archtypes, walls to beat Cawmodore, Revenge killers part 1 (Priority from Breloom for instance), and Revenge Killers Part 2 (Scarfers with Jirachi being commonly discussed, as well as Heatran and Magnezone also being discussed). which included mons faster than CAP 6 such as scarf mons or mons like Jolteon, swift swim mons etc.

Step 2: Stat Spread submissions are published, and instantly Breloom is removed from being a check due to many of the spreads out prioing it. A certain user (who shall remain nameless), makes a big show of mentioning max HP max speed Scarf Zone as still a full on counter to this CAP, and that we still have many, many counters. He claims our threat list is still intact.

Step 3: Secondary Ability discussion begins, and Motor Drive is put forward, then quickly removed when someone mentions how it cripples choiced mons with electric moves as counters. Volt Absorb is then slated (tho it still has the same problem). Currently at this stage, some people highlight +6 Flying Gem Acrobatics OHKOing Skarmory, (the only physical wall we wanted this CAP to be beaten by, as we specifically called out beating Hippowdon, and by extension Landorus-T) but this is fine, as discussion shifted to the Sitrus set which failed to beat Skarm. worth noting Stoutland, Mag, and Scarf Jirachi are still called out at beating this CAP. Anyway, polling starts and Volt Absorb wins. Jolteon and Jirachi are effectively removed from our checks and counters list. We still claim Magnezone as a good counter tho, because Specs HP Ice can OHKO after Stealth Rock, a Belly Drum, and if CAP 6 doesn't run a fighting move, and / or Sitrus.

Step 4: Movepool Discussion: We pick Drain Punch, remove defensive Heatran and Magnezone from our checks and counters list, while Skarmory takes a truckload from +6 Drain Punch, that as it phazes us out, we heal enough back from Drain Punch + Sitrus as to Belly Drum right again assuming we find a safe switch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The issue here is that (personally speaking), I think we had something similar to what nyttyn suggested, we started off with 3 very clear archtypes we wanted CAP 6 to be handled by, we identified key mons within these archtypes, and at each step of the process, we removed more and more counters, claiming that it was ok to do so, as it still had other counters (which we then targeted at later stages of the process using the same argument). My feeling is no matter where you put the threat list, late or early, none of it will really do any good. You can put the threat list early (as we currently do) and have people look at is as something to beat, or you can put the threat list later, after movepool has been discussed, after abilities, after stat spreads, and thus look at your threat list and realise that its too late to specifically change anything. I am sure a "sweet spot" exists somewhere, but finding it without using arbitrary logic seems difficult.

To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with further discussion of these proposals that have been discussed. I think some of them are really cool, and that redoing the entire Checks and Counters process, is something that could be really neat. That said, there is currently no proposal that I have seen, that actively discourages or prevents people from doing what happened during CAP 6 - seeing our intial list, concrete or not, as something to beat, and would prefer we sorted this issue / bad habit out before we renovate the checks and counters process. As for a solution to that problem, I am comfortable with letting the TLT Model / CAP Mods / Topic Leader (whoever so long as we actually nail down the responsibilities of the role) using their own judgment in deciding if something does or does not fit the spirit of out Checks and Counters list. Obviously, its not a perfect system, but its something we all seem aware of (due to the posting of this thread), so hopefully the issue won't be as frustrating as it was for some during CAP 6, as we can just deal with it informally.

Basically, I agree with Birkal in this thread and nyttyn's quote above, that as long as the leadership team (and role model cap posters etc) continue to tie things back to how a submission reacts with our Checks and Counters list, we shouldn't have a problem. If we want to revamp the Checks and Counters process, then I think that is ok as well, although I would prefer we did a dry run during CAP 1 to see if we solve the highlighted issues, and THEN look at implementing proposals to fix the system, if its still judged to have problems.

(I apologize for the length of my post, im rly sorry :( )
 

Korski

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I feel like the biggest part of my original criticism of the Checks and Counters stage was sort of lost in the immediate response, so I'll sort of update my opinion here based on what others have been saying. Mainly, my biggest gripe is that we don't actually have the power or foresight enough to "work backwards," as the C&C list demands of us. We don't need to decide, ever, and especially in the early stages, that Charizard-Y beats CAP and CAP beats Charizard-X, or whatever, nor are we actually capable of seeing such a decision through within the scope and unpredictability of the Project's structure. Furthermore, even if the threats list is a de facto application of the concept, it is still twice removed from the original intention of the concept in terms of framing debate and is highly prone to losing a lot of potential for the project in that translation.

I think the value of the threats list comes from keeping us aware enough of a CAP's potential interactions with other OU Pokes so that we don't overpower it, and that's about it. I don't know why we need an inflexible list of specific threats right from the get-go; in the past I have felt like this has detracted from concept-based arguments. Don't we just need to make sure some stuff beats the CAP and some stuff loses to it, so that it doesn't wall or run over the entire metagame? Can't we just see where concept-based arguments get us in terms of how well the CAP deals with various opponents, instead of trapping ourselves with overly complicated and unnecessary limitations? What good does it do us to mandate a specific outcome when we have no specifics to work with? These are the sorts of things I'm hung up on.

Yes, there is a lot we can extrapolate from the Concept Assessment regarding how a given CAP should work during the playtest. Discussion of "roles" and "strategy" and "playstyles" is very important for framing arguments in the actual building process. Still, the result of the Concept Assessment remains an abstract assumption of how the given CAP should operate in the metagame; it is crucially and intentionally devoid of the sorts of specifics that would limit discussions in the later stages. How are we to then jump immediately into forming a threat list full of specifics? What is the advantage of doing things this way, as opposed to a more open approach?

Ideally, the threats list would evolve as our CAP does. When we have an abstract impression of what the CAP should do after the Concept Assessment, we will have an abstract impression of what sorts of Pokemon could perform poorly or well against it. When we get a typing, we'll get a list of stuff that resist its STABs or can hit it super effectively with common movesets. We can begin cross-referencing here, and we can cultivate this list as we move through stats and abilities and finalize it with a movepool. This would give us measurable progress on the balance front without needlessly complicating the process of turning a concept into a Pokemon.
 

Bull of Heaven

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The fact that Cawmodore has Volt Absorb has been mentioned so many times in this thread, and I still can't figure out whether people think it's a bad thing.

Korski has summed things up well, but I just want to expand on it a little. We have, for good reason, a culture that discourages poll-jumping. When we do things like concept assessment and threat discussion, we're not thinking about specific stat spreads, abilities, or moves. No doubt individuals are, but we're not allowed to consider them as a community except in the vaguest of terms. Maybe no one has thought of a particular ability that's almost perfect for the concept, but eliminates certain counters. Or maybe someone has, but recognizes that it's too early to discuss it. Maybe no one has fully analyzed the pressures that the concept places of stats. Sure, we should have abstract goals by then, but we won't have figured out how to accomplish them without poll-jumping. It's a complicated game. My point is that we can't just say things like "we choose, or at least should be choosing, counters based on what we need to fulfill the concept," when at that stage we've barely started to work out the concrete details of what those things we need are. It doesn't make sense to make a binding C+C list so early in a process that's intentionally unclear about how the specifics of the CAP will develop.

That said, maybe we could solve this just by having the TLT emphasize the threat list throughout the discussions. If a particular option removes some agreed-upon counters, I don't have a problem with it requiring particularly strong arguments in its favour to be slated. I don't mind if it requires extra effort from supporters to get Volt Absorb slated for Cawmodore; I just don't think it's reasonable to say that the door should be closed entirely before the discussion has even happened.
 

ginganinja

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Unless I am mistaken, I think a conclusion has been reached, as recently there has been no real outspoken opposition to letting the CAP Mods / TLT members to moderate submissions that are deemed to be too aggressive in attacking our Checks and Counters list. If I have overlooked someone's post or argument, then I apologise and invite you to quickly bring it up again here so we can continue to discuss it. I am pushing for a 24 hour notice before I encourage the CAP mods to close the thread, and allow us to move on to other policy discussion threads.
 

Nyktos

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I'd like to see the idea of changing things more dramatically revisited next PRC session but for now I think that's okay.
 

DougJustDoug

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This has been an interesting policy discussion. I read it when it kicked off, but I wasn't tracking it over the past several days, and just came back and read it again start to finish. Many interesting points have been raised in the interim.

I don't think we need any overt changes to CAP policy, but this thread has probably served the ultimate purpose of refocusing project leadership on the Threats discussion. This thread underscores that we (the mods, TL, TLT, and respected discussion participants) probably need to up our game in terms of considering, choosing, and adhering to threats in future CAPs.

Remember, the ultimate goal of any CAP is to host a series of interesting and engaging discussions about competitive pokemon, to explore intimate details of competitive play and to debate with other intelligent, like-minded people. The pokemon we create, the concept we choose, the step-by-step construction process, and even the playtest of our fakemon -- it is all just a "platform" to allow us to discuss competitive pokemon. But for any discussion to be interesting and engaging to intelligent participants, it needs to have structure and focus. Otherwise, it's just a big mess and all the intelligent folks will go elsewhere. We'll be left with noob fanboys and trolls arguing over cute artwork and broken uber abilities.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter whether our CAPmons actually beat <whatever> or are countered by <whatever>. What matters is if we are able to intelligently discuss how to beat certain pokemon and be countered by others. I think we all agree those discussions are interesting and valuable, when done correctly. The question is if we are doing it correctly today, and if our policies encourage the best discussions possible, or if they are actually getting in the way of good discussions.

I think this policy thread has compelling arguments on both sides. A rigid threats list that is poorly conceived or based on a concept that is not conducive to identifying discreet counters early in the process -- that is probably not something that helps us have great discussions, if we strictly enforce that threats list to the letter. On the other hand, if we have the right concept and a well-constructed threats list -- it hurts discussions if everyone is able to pick and choose at their leisure when they want to observe the threats or use it as the basis for debating options in a given step.

The main purpose of the threats discussion is similar to the Concept step -- it helps us frame our desired goal, without specifically dictating the exact choices that need to be made in order to achieve the goal. It also is expected to help prevent making overpowered CAP pokemon.

Before we introduced the Checks and Counters step in CAP, our pokemon creations tended to have so many options and capabilities that they had no counters and beat everything in the metagame. Create-A-Pokemon has a natural bias towards making pokemon with "everything but the kitchen sink". And if Kitchen Sink was a move or ability, we'd give it that too! (Storm Drain does not apply...) There are so many options for almost every step of a CAP, even with a clearly defined concept, that it is difficult to argue whether a given option is good or bad for the pokemon, using just the concept itself as a baseline for the discussion. By forcing the CAP community to explicitly identify OU pokemon that are clear counters to our as-yet-not-created fakemon, we ensure that it won't "beat everything" in the end. It give us real pokemon, moves, and abilities (as opposed to the Concept which is, by definition, just theorymon) to act as guard rails for every discussion.

Can those guard rails sometimes be too wide to serve any useful purpose? Can they be too narrow to allow for robust, creative discussion? Yes to both questions, IMO. I think the onus is on us as CAP leaders and experienced project participants to properly establish and observe reasonable threats and counters. Whether we establish archetypes or explicit pokemon and movesets, I don't think we need to enumerate exact policy on that right now. I think heightened attention to the issue is all we need for the next CAP.

I would like to point out one last thing about Section Leaders and their role in observing threats and counters while leading discussions and making slates. Remember that Section Leaders are expected to assess the "intelligent community consensus" in every thread they lead, not just count posts for or against the options being discussed. If someone is arguing for or against an option that clearly goes against the defined threats for the project, then you should not regard that argument as "intelligent", even if it has some support from others. If someone wants to explicitly challenge the threats and give intelligent reasons as to why they should be changed after the fact, I think those can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But that should be the exception, not the norm.

I realize the definitions on this sort of thing can be very fuzzy and hard to call when a discussion is taking place. But remember that your job as Section Leader is to MAKE THOSE CALLS. Moreover, you should make those calls often and actively throughout the discussion, and not just swoop in at the end of a thread and post a slate that represents your "verdict" on the intelligence of every post you read while sitting on the sidelines. If someone makes an otherwise intelligent post, that you think goes against the defined threats for that CAP, then make a post pointing out the discrepancy. Then let other discussion participants argue in support or against you. Make the discrepancy something that IMPROVES the discussion by making it more engaging. If a clear consensus emerges that disagrees with the Section Leader, then the option should of course be slated. But if we have good Section Leaders that are intelligent, communicative, and in tune with the community at-large, this should not be a major issue for the project.
 
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