This will be the last of my "Big 6" Policy Reviews (it was originally supposed to be seven, but some recent discussions have led me to put the 7th one on hold). This last one could be the most controversial and difficult to develop a concrete policy revision.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.
I think we can do more to hone the competitive focus of a given CAP project. The Concept Poll is a bit messy in the beginning, but it has been incredibly successful over the past two CAP's for providing a general compass for the project; preventing discussions from meandering all over the place, which was a huge problem in CAP1-3. But, I think we need to do more in the early phases of the project to point us in a direction that will yield a pokemon with a legitimate competitive role in the metagame.
I suggest we define "Intended Counters" in the early stages of the CAP process.
This would be a new step in CAP process. There would be a discussion thread and two voting threads. The goal would be to decide two things:
1) Which pokemon would the new creation be a counter for
2) Which pokemon would be a counter for the new creation
The wording on that is a little confusing, but hopefully you understand what I mean. We will be answering the questions, "What does the new pokemon counter?", and "What counters the new pokemon?"2) Which pokemon would be a counter for the new creation
Normally, we don't discuss countering until very late in the process, and we never actually make any concrete decisions as a community. We just kind of hope it works out. But, since different people have different ideas about countering, they are all voting under different assumptions. As such, we frequently get deep in the creation process and realize that we are close to making a pokemon with no counters, and it counters everything else in return! When that happens, we usually "save" the pokemon at the very end in the movepool voting, since countering is heavily influenced by movepool. I don't think these "late game saves" are a good way to run the show. It also unnecessarily heightens the drama in the movepool threads, with never-ending cries of "It's broken!" and other doomsayings.
We had a past Policy Review on "Metagame Role" -- and we decided against it for a variety of reasons that I will not rehash here. But, one of the big reasons was the inability to express role in terms that could be objectively managed in the community creation process. I think defining Counters could provide almost as much competitive focus as Role, and it is MUCH easier for the community to grasp, discuss, and vote.
Almost every pokemon in the metagame is defined by what they counter and what counters them in return. It is arguably the biggest factor in team-building, and it is a common part of any in-depth discussion of an individual pokemon. We need to discuss this on the CAP project, and not as an adjunct to another discussion. It deserves a step all by itself. And if that step is conducted early on, I think it would focus all subsequent steps tremendously -- and that focus would be competitive-based, instead of flavor-based. That would be a big help, IMO.
Let me clear this up right now -- please don't derail this conversation with a bunch of pedantic arguments about "What is the definition of a counter?" I'm sick of hearing the same hackneyed discussion every time someone uses the word "counter".
For the record, I believe the number of "true counters" in the DP metagame are so small, that using the "textbook" definition of counter is basically worthless. I know that many metagame analysts have taken up using the word "check", or "situational counter" to describe a pokemon that can be used as counter in some, but not all, cases.
Call it a "counter", call it a "situational counter", call it a "check", call it whatever you want. But, I think we all know what I'm referring to here. I'm open to other names for the step in the process, if you think the word "counter" is too inviting for the "Let's argue about the definition of a counter" freakshow to commence every time.
Also note that I called the step "Intended Counters". This is because we have no way of knowing whether something is going to counter something or not. All we can do is build a pokemon with the intent to counter or be countered. If we fail to produce a pokemon that actually meets our countering intent -- that's fine. The purpose is to build a pokemon that has a role in the metagame. If we conduct each poll with some specific metagame counters in mind, I think we will be much more likely to produce a competitively viable, but not broken, pokemon.
I do not have a set of specific process guidelines to propose. If this idea is popular with the community, I hope to define the exact process in this thread. But, my general idea is that we would identify a few pokemon in two lists "Is Countered By" and "Is A Counter For" (Better names, please?) I don't think we would make a set number, but it should be small. The goal is not to define an exhaustive counter list. We just want a few "headline counters". I think the step should occur immediately after the typing is decided. Since this is a major indicator of the pokemon's competitive purpose, I think we should get it on the board very early in the process.
As always, I look forward to hearing your feedback on this proposal.