Other Mega CAP

nyttyn

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I'll make this one brief, because we're seriously running out of time in which we can conceivably launch CAP 21, still ride the coattails of CAP20's success, AND be done not much after world cup and as such avoid any potential bans happening near the end of a CAP's construction as has been the case lately.

Currently, we are suffering from a drought of quality posters. The only such new one to have consistently posted during the last CAP, user aim, is no longer with smogon, and we certainly didn't get many posters of his caliber posting consistently last CAP. And, well, obviously pretty much nobody played in the playtest and there was like 0 hype for it outside of birkal posting the battle and causing so many users to join the replay for the battle broke lol. This lack of quality users is seriously killing concept submissions - we've got one remotely usable concept out of 134 posts. Last time we got a few, but this time it's just totally dead.

Given all of this, I think we're in definite need of a hype drive, and I think a mega CAP is just the way to go about things, as proposed by doug here. ESPECIALLY with CAP20 having been the reasonably successful endeavor that it was (in spite of all odds), and on top of providing hype for CAP as a whole, and with world cup coming up,and with our dearth of usable concept submissions, I think now's the time.

If you guys think this is a good idea, if you think it's the worst idea ever, if you think I'm a idiot or whatever, however you feel please post about this reasonably quickly (read: 24 hours and not 1 week as is PRC norms) b/c we don't have much time left in which we could launch such an endeavour, and if we get bogged down in red tape/too much discussion the time will have past. We already had a discussion about this in the past and I don't think there's terribly much that needs to be discussed outside of logistics which should probably be something like (concept (and apply mega, maybe have a brief grace period after mega CAP is announced for people to submit mega-tailored concepts), typing, mega typing, ability, mega ability, secondary, mega secondary, stats, mega stats, art, movepool, fluff). Alternatively we can do all stages first then all mega stages but it's likely better to do them one after the other as the mevo swap can change everything, especially the stats stage (idunno maybe it'll be better to just vote on pairs of typing/ability/stats given how pre and post mega are closely entwined but that might be too complex for voters?). Though there is, granted, still the question of if this should be done or not, but that's something to determine quickly.

For reference, the last topic on CAP mega evolution (it starts talking about the idea of a new CAP as a mega aroung post #23, and the first topic about the subject wayyy back when. Neither of these is required reading, but if you're unfamiliar with prior discussion on this topic, you may wish to quickly brush up before posting, regardless of your viewpoint.
 

Ununhexium

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I know I make constant jokes about a MEGA CAP (like the MEGA TLT and MEGA TL and stuff) but this would be exactly what CAP needs. Of course, we can't make a mega every time, but every once in a while (if not just this one time) could attract a cool new crowd that we need. Megas are the single biggest change in Gen VI and so far we've just kind of tried to push it to the side.

What I want to know would be the logistics of making a mega CAP. Would we build the CAP for a concept then add the mega for another concept? Would we have separate TL and TLT for the CAP and its mega? I personally don't think these questions would be too hard to figure out with a few posts, but it's necessary we figure it out.

But yeah full support :)

EDIT: are we making a new CAP with a mega, making a mega for an existing CAP, or make a mega for a Pokemon without one?
 
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Bughouse

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I am still opposed to a mega cap for the reasons I have said previously, and I don't particularly want to type them up again.

But I will however take this as an opportunity where I will hopefully get a lot of people's eyeballs: CAP power level needs to be reassessed (upwards). We (including me) have been considerably too cautious for what actually works in the gen 6 OU meta.
 
What concepts would we explore with the Mega CAP? Mega CAP alone is far too broad a topic. We need at least some direction as to what we want this to do. Do we want the CAP and its mega to be equally impressive? Do we want to explore what causes some Pokemon to be significantly better than their Mega, like Garchomp? Should the CAP and Mega serve different roles? The same role? Should it be like Charizard where it gets multiple Megas that serve different functions?

This needs some serious fleshing out if we're going to get this concept out in time.
 

HeaLnDeaL

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hexium said:
EDIT: are we making a new CAP with a mega, making a mega for an existing CAP, or make a mega for a Pokemon without one?
This thread is only for a new CAP with a mega. In the previous thread about megas for past CAPs, the idea was thoroughly resisted by any and everyone who did not play the CAP meta, so the odds of it happening are virtually zero.

What concepts would we explore with the Mega CAP? Mega CAP alone is far too broad a topic. We need at least some direction as to what we want this to do. Do we want the CAP and its mega to be equally impressive? Do we want to explore what causes some Pokemon to be significantly better than their Mega, like Garchomp? Should the CAP and Mega serve different roles? The same role? Should it be like Charizard where it gets multiple Megas that serve different functions?

This needs some serious fleshing out if we're going to get this concept out in time.
"Mega CAP" is not the concept on its own, and shouldn't be one. This thread is aiming to discuss one whether or not we should allow a Mega CAP at all, and if so, what would the process be. A CAP with a mega, from my understanding, would still have a concrete concept (i.e. a concept that is more than "make a mega.")

I personally agree that a new CAP + Mega would be a good idea. The main issues (for those who agree it should happen) are when it should happen and what the edited CAP process should look like to take the mega into consideration. A Mega would give us some hype or momentum or whatever you want to call it; if we want new users we have to be willing to do something exciting.

In general, I believe that it is very much possible to design a CAP and a mega and not break it. All the arguments that CAP participants are too nooby to do anything right just seems like a cop-out to me. Yes, there are areas that we should tread carefully on for sure. But identifying those areas and coming up with solutions to get past them is much more helpful than saying that we just can't be successful no matter what.

I personally disagree about the process order that was suggested in the OP (doing typing, then mega typing, ability, then mega ability, etc). I think it would be best for us to do almost the whole normal CAP first before starting the explicitly mega steps. I don't have time to make a drawn out explanation, but my proposal for the order of the competitive process (basically ignoring flavor since that order shouldn't be relevant to competitive discussion) would be something like this:

1) Concept Assessment (with either mega evaluation tied in or another thread happening right afterwards with the goal of trying to briefly consider the mega's impact on the concept... overall, if the concept easily translates to a mega, then this separate thread might not be necessary)
2) Base Typing
3) Threats Discussion (tricky part would be deciding if the Mega should be brought up at all or if it should be limited to the base only)
4) Base Primary Ability
5) Base Stats
6) Base Secondary Ability (if we want to try to save time since the Mega Process would likely be longer, we *might* be able to avoid secondary ability as a stage or combine it with primary ability... Would save time, but I'm not sure how much it would be worth it)
6.5) Optional Counters Discussion for both base and Mega
7) Mega Typing
8) Mega Ability
9) Mega Stats
10) Movepool (since Base and Mega have the same movepool, I personally think that movepool is best done last)

I know jas on multiple times has supported making the base first and then the mega. My above proposal for the most part follows this, but I believe that movepool should be last since the base and the mega share the exact same movepool. Maybe my proposal isn't the best, as my post for the most part has been generated on the spot so there's room for improvement. Suggestions and alternative proposals are definitely something I'm interested in.

Anyway, I think that having some discussion on the process framework is helpful in deciding whether or not megas are a good idea... Afterall, if we can't come up with a process that everyone can feel comfortable with, then it might be a sign that we should hold off on megas for the time being.
 

Birkal

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To me, the main messages in the OP contradict themselves. On one side, we have a relatively stable metagame that would be ideal for starting up a new CAP. On the other, we're considering adding several process steps to CAP. I am skeptic that we can hop on board with both ideals and come out of it with a quality product. We need to decide whether we want to start CAP now (re: this weekend) or take some time to firmly develop a process for Mega Evolutions. Personally, I am in favor of the former. While Megas are an important part of the metagame, we are ultimately here to study the metagame. Since it is in such a good place right now, I find it worthwhile that we take advantage and press on with our studies. Spending weeks to develop a process that won't please everyone seems to glorify our process more than do what we're actually about: learning about the metagame.

Furthermore, I think the whole idea of "we're out of quality users" is exaggerated. We have plenty of users contributing to the process and our products are still built with quality in mind. If anything, we should fix our playtest or change what we're about at the core of CAP. But if you seriously think we need more voices, bringing in a flashy mega isn't the way to do it. At the end, I think our result would be half-baked and muddled. Perhaps if we want to make a mega CAP, we should plan it for CAP 22 so we have adequate time to prepare.
 

nyttyn

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We have plenty of users contributing to the process and our products are still built with quality in mind.
The first statement is correct but misses the point. We have PLENTY of users, yes. Quality users is another question altogether - moving onto the second point, CAP has, for the entire generation, been predominately discussing and, more importantly, voting for balance that is incredibly outdated, as user Bughouse has stated. As a result, we've wound up with extreme contradictions to reality such as Naviathan being voted in as Water/Steel in a Landorus-I dominated metagame, Plasmata being Worse Heatran, Cawmodore being mostly voted on the conservative side of things (but was still a bit silly because people didn't really understand how stupid volt absorb on a mon with Caw's resistances is combined with drain punch, though arguably resulting in the only CAP this gen to match XY/ORAS power levels properly), and Volkraken being...well, extremely depressing in all regards. Sure, votes =/= users, but without users well vetted in the current metagame, we're at a huge disadvantage toward getting good votes (edit) due to a lack of leadership toward the right direction.

As for 'flashy megas not being the way to do it,' flashiness is everything. The human factor to pokemon players is very real, and just like anything with a human factor, enthusiasm is a huge part of things (doubly so, since this is all volunteer stuff). In addition, delaying to CAP 22 is, for all intents and purposes, not only taking a gamble that the meta won't shift after so long in a unfavorable way, but banking on the hope that CAP 21 goes well (and as such, doesn't require us to spend CAP 22 repairing CAP's reputation again, and also pushing it back even further. And CAP is absolutely awful at getting things done when they're kicked down the road - just look at how much shit has been indefinitely labeled [POSTPONED] or forgotten about entirely. Mega evolution has already been kicked back four projects, and been delayed by two separate PRC topics (one of which saw no reasonable or satisfactory conclusion and simply fizzled out), which is no small amount of time - if it gets kicked back again, odds are good that it will be kicked back indefinitely, just like everything else that CAP postpones.

Finally, let's be real here, while bringing in people might be half the story, the other half is that Mega Evolution is not only a huge part of this generation, but it's a kickin' rad one, and it's a downright shame we keep pushing it down the road. If our goal really is to study the metagame, we can't keep ignoring such a critical and massive part of ORAS (Nearly every single team has a mega evolution on it! Not even Genesect enjoyed that crazy amount of usage). And if there was ever a time for it, I firmly believe this is now or never. This is a unique situation, and one I'm not so sure we'll be able to replicate again in the future. But I would bet good money on, should Mega Evolution be delayed now, it will get delayed again, and again, and again, and eventually just be left to languish with [POSTPONED], just like so many other CAP initiatives.
 
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Birkal

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The phrase "getting good votes" doesn't really jive with the project, and is largely subjective to whatever participants are campaigning for at the time. The nature of CAP is that it is an open source project where anyone can have a say. We would have to change our philosophy entirely to accommodate for "good votes" in CAP. And even if we tilt the project where users with more metagame knowledge have more say, we will still take missteps with our CAP. Not to nitpick, but Volt Absorb Cawmodore was supported most by our veteran users, including jas61292, Stratos, Bughouse, alexwolf, and the like (users I'd argue had good metagame knowledge). Hindsight is twenty-twenty, which is why we're a project for learning as a community. Any talk about quality is irrelevant when we're all here to learn.

Postponing isn't ideal, of course. Yet, you don't seem to consider the balance of time to build a process versus the timeliness of starting in the current metagame. I consider it an embarrassment for us to half-bake a Mega Evolution process just to bring in new users, when the end result is more disjoint and hazy than any previous project. And all those new users have is an impression of a hasty project that is all dessert and no dinner. Is this really the ideal time to make a Mega CAP? Consider the amount of time it will take to make a usable process and if that gap time is worth spending when we could be making a Pokemon for the metagame right now.
 

QueenOfLuvdiscs

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As much I'm somewhat reluctant for the idea of a mega CAP, we really do need something to revitalise what is a dying part of the forums. I feel that in order for this to work, the concept has to be exactly ideal for it and a new potential approach is needed on how we do this. One possible option is that we focus on the mega and then make a version with lesser stats, just like we do with giving prevolutions to CAPmons. Of course since we'll be dealing with a mega, the way we look at power balance is gonna have to change as we're gonna have to give this some brute force or mass defense depending on the concept as well as potentially leaving the art submissions until a later time period so that once we develop the stats for it, we can have people design the 'base form' if you will, and then design the potential mega from that or we allow both a base form and a mega artwork submitted at once.

Either way we look at this, for this CAP or any potential future ones to work, power is key for it to work in a 'power creep' generation.
 
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EternalSnowman

DPL Champion
I am very much for the idea of making a Mega for a CAP. However, I feel that without previous preparation, it could easily turn out to be the new M-Mawile or something. Megas in general are much harder to balance due to the stat dump that you can get from it. However, something to note is that when trying to create this CAP, would be that is it possible to make both the non-mega and mega both viable? A good example of this is M-Latias where you can Mega bluff effectively or Slowbro. I also feel like recently CAP has been taking a turn for the worst. Naviathan was very much disappointing to play while overall this generation Cawmodore has been the most successful. This has been a step downwards from previous generations when pretty much all of the CAPs were viable. I think making a Mega CAP would totally be amazing, but I would hold off on the idea until CAP 22 or 23. Birkal has stated pretty much all the points as to why this is the case, but I just wanted to bring up possible questions as to how this would be successful.
 

Bughouse

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Not to nitpick, but Volt Absorb Cawmodore was supported most by our veteran users, including jas61292, Stratos, Bughouse, alexwolf, and the like (users I'd argue had good metagame knowledge)
Whoa now, I know this is not the most relevant thing here. But let's get one thing straight. I did not support Volt Absorb. I supported Intimidate and I supported NCA in the secondary ability poll. Moreover, I still maintain that Volt Absorb is not what broke Cawmodore. Drain Punch was, which I most definitely vigorously opposed. This doesn't matter... but please at least don't group me in with the dumbdumbs who broke Cawmodore. I wasn't one of them.

In any case, users who do know the metagame better DO make more informed votes. And I do fully agree with nyttyn's frustration that CAP lacks the same amount of good quality users it once had... However a Mega Cap won't fix that. In fact it would probably exacerbate the problem by raising the fanboy:competitive player ratio even more out of wack.
 
While the idea of a Mega Evolution helps accommodate the CAP during the XY and ORAS power creep, I think we should not devote an entire concept to having a Mega CAP because it's too general. As EternalSnowman said, I don't want it to turn into Mega Mawile, Mega Kangaskhan, or something like that.

In short, I agree with people from both sides of the story, but I'm curious to try it out at least once as an experiment.

EDIT: I had this idea regarding the Mega side project. We could make a Mega poll, and we have two choices for voting: "Yes" and "No". If more people vote "Yes," we have to work on a Mega for that project. If more of those people vote "No," we cannot make a Mega for that project. The next CAP that could utilize this poll could be CAP 22, as CAP 21 should guarantee a Mega for the sake of the experiment.
 
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DetroitLolcat

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I'm still in favor of doing a Mega CAP so long as we design the base form and Mega form both from scratch, under the same TL/TLT, and only for the current OU metagame like a regular CAP. I'd also like to say that the arguments about the quality of CAP posts and users are not germane to this thread. Nor is any discussion about the "fanboy:competitive user" ratio. This thread is about Mega Evolution. The bullcrap about Cawmodore, quality users, and power level can wait for their own threads.

On topic, I agree with Ununhexium: CAP needs to experiment with Mega Evolution. Not necessarily for popularity reasons as nyttyn stated (although it will definitely help!), but because CAP professes itself to be about exploring and learning about the OU metagame. Mega Evolution is the single most important addition to Gen 6 OU. Therefore, ignoring Mega Evolution severely undermines our credibility as a project dedicated to learning about OU. In my opinion, we need to make at least one Mega CAP during this generation, and CAP 21 seems like as good a time as any to do so unless we make major changes to CAP's process or mission statement during the current PR period. I strongly warn against doing a flavor-based Mega or a Mega of an existing OU or CAP Pokemon. The former is actively encouraging a fanboy circlejerk, while the latter is a completely unnecessary restriction that will hamper our ability to explore Mega Evolution. The reason to do a Mega CAP is because CAP has a responsibility to explore OU to its fullest and either ignoring Mega Evolution or gimping ourselves by using a previous CAP or existing Pokemon as the base form is irresponsible on our part.

The potential cons of a Mega CAP project mentioned so far are that we don't have a process in place to accommodate Megas, that we're not on the same page on what should get a Mega Evolution, and that it'll just turn into a "fanboy project". None of those arguments hold water. Some people want to Mega Evolve an existing CAP, some people want to Mega Evolve an existing Pokemon, some people want to create a CAP along with a Mega Evolution, and some people don't want to touch Mega Evolution at all. But eventually, we have to choose one of those. And eventually, we will choose one of those. Not everyone will be happy, but we'll make a decision and roll with it. Once we have that, we'll most likely fit in Mega steps into the process if we decide on making one. And when it comes to "adding too many fanboys", well we just added two new moderators ready to delete whatever bad posts pop into the thread as always.

We can't be scared to explore the single most important competitive aspect in OU. We sure as hell can't deny ourselves the opportunity to do so for logistical reasons. If our process can't accommodate Mega Evolution, then we change the process. Even if it's only for one CAP! We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to our community.
 

Cretacerus

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While we should definitely keep Mega Evolution an option for future CAPs, once the process has been worked out adequately, jumping right into it now doesn’t seem to do the concept justice.

Drastic changes to the process always require adequate time and discussion in order to guarantee a smooth flow of the project, not to mention we already made some significant changes to the Concept and Movepool stages not too long ago, which still have to settle down as well.
If we really want the concept of Mega Evolution to attract and retain new quality users, we can’t just rely on initial hype, but have to make sure the process itself is enjoyable and organized. Otherwise the constant delays caused by a hasty change to the process, along with the significantly longer duration of a Mega CAP, could easily backfire and drive of quality users instead of attracting them. People already tend to lose interest towards the end of a project, so an especially unorganized and lengthy project just seems to add to this.
Mega Evolution is definitely an intriguing and important mechanic in the metagame, no doubt, but I’m sure there are more than enough other interesting concepts around which we can work on until we have decided on a solid approach for our Mega CAP.

Overall, I don't see a simple "hype drive" changing too much on the situation in the long run, since there are more profound reasons for the drop in interest as I believe, such as the consistently low impact of the recent CAPs on the metagame, or even the recent removal of likes as a posting incentive, which could be worth a thread on their own.
 

Imanalt

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I would be shocked if doing a mega cap brought in a single quality contributor. Nyttyn seems to think flashy things are what we need to attract good players, but most good players already view us as overly flashy, basically as a bunch of fanboys making broken shit. Even though this isn't particualrly accurate overall, creating a mega will just make that impression stronger. Instead of trying to bring in good users with gimmicks, we should try to bring in good users by creating a reasonable environment and figuring out how we can make our discussions more reasonable in terms of level of baseline knowledge.
 

Da Pizza Man

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I would be shocked if doing a mega cap brought in a single quality contributor. Nyttyn seems to think flashy things are what we need to attract good players, but most good players already view us as overly flashy, basically as a bunch of fanboys making broken shit. Even though this isn't particualrly accurate overall, creating a mega will just make that impression stronger. Instead of trying to bring in good users with gimmicks, we should try to bring in good users by creating a reasonable environment and figuring out how we can make our discussions more reasonable in terms of level of baseline knowledge.
While I do somewhat agree with this, imo this shouldn't be any reason for us to have to put off the Mega CAP project. Mega Evolution is not only the biggest Generation 6 mechanic, but probably also the biggest mechanic change ever since the Physical/Special split in generation 4. The entire reason we even do CAP is to learn more about the metagame, and I feel like not exploring it even a little bit just so "We don't look like fanboys making broken shit" is really only doing a disservice to the CAP Project, since we really have the potential to learn a lot from a Mega CAP project. Although we should defiantly have a way of keeping the fanboys in check.

(Separate from the Quote)

Another thing, I would heavily advise against creating multiple Mega Evolutions on the same CAP. Having to technically create 3 pokemon at the same time would create a shit ton of problems. We could create a situation where one Mega Evolution is completely superior to the other, a situation where the CAP is broken because of the surprise factor that comes from having two different mega evolutions, or a situation to where the Mega Evolutions are so similar that there is little reason to use one over the other. Not to mention that fanboyism is an even bigger problem with 2 Mega Evolutions over 1 Mega Evolution. Allowing multiple mega evolutions also just increases the level of already high stress on adjusting the CAP process to allow us to find a way to fit Mega Evolution into the project.
 

Bughouse

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Fine, I'll just come out and say it like it is:

How about CAP makes a reasonably successful Pokemon in ORAS period before it tries to handle a Mega CAP? ... None of Volkraken, Plasmanta, nor Navaiathan were a notable addition to the OU meta. That is an inarguable fact.
 
I think that no matter what we decide to do for the Mega CAP, we're gonna be shunned by some people regardless. Some people will think we're old-fashioned and stubborn for denying the opportunity to create a Mega, while others will think of us as fanboys making overpowered nonsense because we like making overpowered nonsense. Either way, optics are gonna take a slight dip unless we perform a miracle somehow. I think worrying about optics is a lesser concern, and we should focus on making this process work with our CAP process, if we decide to go through with the project.

PR aside, I think it would be best to hold off on the Mega Evolution CAP until the process if fine-tuned over the course of CAP 21. Before we add new stuff, we need to fix what we have. It seems a lot of the community is open for a Mega Evolution, but the question to answer is when we introduce it.
 

jas61292

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Back when we first discussed the concept of Mega Evolutions in CAP, I was one of the . Asupporters of what would eventually become our policy: that megas, while an interesting mechanic are not important and interesting enough compared to other interesting mechanics that we should allow one to disrupt our process. As such we should never allow any mega evolutions as part of the CAP process.

Since then, having witnessed the 6th generation metagame develop, I willfully admit that I miss-assessed things. Mega evolutions ARE most certainly far more important and integral to the metagame than any other potentially disruptive mechanic. While I am by no means certain on the best way to do things, I think it would be an absolutely travesty for us to continue to have our policy be one that refuses to acknowledge just how important mega evolution is to the game. And not only is it THE defining new mechanic of the generation in a competitive sense, but it is also the mechanic that Pokemon fans in general find the most intriguing. Take like 2 seconds to do a quick internet search and you can easily find half a million fan made mega. People love this stuff; there is no denying that.

So, with all that said, it is my opinion that we absolutely need to find some way to do something with this. After the discussion in our previous threads on the topic, I personally believe that the best possible way for us to do a mega evolution project would be to do a complete project featuring both a new Pokemon and its mega evolution. As HeaL pointed out, I do think that in general, making the majority of a Pokemon first, and then dealing with its mega would be the best way to do this, and I really like that sample project outline that he provided. But before I get too ahead of myself, we definitely do need to decide if we want to do this, and just as importantly, when.

Personally, I think nyttyn has the right idea in that, if we are to do this, now is the perfect time. A mega project WILL generate hype, which is something we could really use right now. At the same time, a mega project may be more precarious than any other when it comes to balance, so having a stable metagame is ideal. I also believe that the concerns brought up by Birkal are really unnecessary. A mega project really wouldn't be adding any new steps as far as I can see. Copying and pasting them, sure, but not really anything new. Are there some specific rules we might want to layout for megas? Maybe. But I believe most rules would either be super simple to the extent that no real PR is needed on them, especially if for the more subjective calls we just use the restrictions that game precedent itself sets. And, as is often pointed out (but rarely followed through with), PR doesn't die when a project starts. If people have concerns about exactly how we will do stats, for instance, we can talk about that all throughout the concept and typing stages. All we really need here is an order for our steps.

Finally, to address bughouse's concerns regarding success in OU. I already replied to your thread specifically on that, but there is one comment I have that specifically applies to a theoretical mega project. Based on the other thread, the concerns you have are there because of a lack of power on our Pokemon recently. Even if you question our ability to make a solid OU Pokemon normally, I think it is safe to say that the very notion of a mega pokemon may help lift people's inhibitions with regard to both stats and movepools. I won't say this is necessarily the case, but if we are suffering from chronic conservativeness, then maybe a mega Pokemon may be just the thing we need right now.
 

Imanalt

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Fine, I'll just come out and say it like it is:

How about CAP makes a reasonably successful Pokemon in ORAS period before it tries to handle a Mega CAP? ... None of Volkraken, Plasmanta, nor Navaiathan were a notable addition to the OU meta. That is an inarguable fact.
this idiocy is why i want to make a playtest prc thread. We don't know how good naviathan was in ou. We know how bad it was in a metagame that was ridiculously centralized around it. Naviathan would be a mon that would see a decent amount of usage because of its ability to be a massive dick to fat teams either with taunt dd or with cm. And overtime i suspect its dd 2 attacks set would get better, but who knows. We have no basis to judge the performance of the mon on, so we can not say whether it was good or not. But we digress.

My personal belief is there is no need for us to do a mega. If a great concept comes along that would involve a mega then sure, lets do a mega. But until that point I would rather not see us try to force a mega.
 

Da Pizza Man

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this idiocy is why i want to make a playtest prc thread. We don't know how good naviathan was in ou. We know how bad it was in a metagame that was ridiculously centralized around it. Naviathan would be a mon that would see a decent amount of usage because of its ability to be a massive dick to fat teams either with taunt dd or with cm. And overtime i suspect its dd 2 attacks set would get better, but who knows. We have no basis to judge the performance of the mon on, so we can not say whether it was good or not. But we digress.
This doesn't say anything. A lot of caps in the past have been very viable in there playtests despite how overprepared the were for, saying the reason Naviathan was bad was because it was overprepared for is silly
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
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imanalt said:
My personal belief is there is no need for us to do a mega. If a great concept comes along that would involve a mega then sure, lets do a mega. But until that point I would rather not see us try to force a mega.
This raises the question of whether or not we should designate a CAP to be the "Mega Evolution CAP" or have Mega Evolution be something we decide on during the process. While I'm open to having my mind changed, I feel the former is the better option. Designating a CAP to be a Mega CAP will put us all on the same page to begin with and give us time to approve Mega Evolution-based concepts in the Concept Workshop. Mega Evolution is tricky to work with, so if we want to try it out we should make it as easy on ourselves as possible. That's why if we do a Mega CAP we should decide days or weeks in advance that it's going to be a Mega.

If Mega Evolution was something we decided during the process, that puts a ton of pressure on the TL to make that call. I don't think that's fair to the project leader. There's going to be significant pressure to do a Mega Evolution in any project we start, and the TL's probably going to face a ton of heat no matter what their decision is. I believe it's a better idea to just pick a CAP to do a Mega Evolution with and work from there.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
So for some reason ginganinja doesn't have access here...

He asked me to post this in response to DLC:

[11:54] * %ginganinja slaps DHR around a bit with a large trout
[11:54] <%ginganinja> can u post in PR
[11:56] <%ginganinja> can you post 4 me saying that deciding before hand that it should be a Mega CAP would be the best option, since otherwise it leads to conflict in early stages of concept selection with people potentially basing concept selection on whether something could/couldnt work as a Mega CAP.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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pinging DougJustDoug to get his thoughts before we proceed.

that being said, i think we've gone over pretty much most of the arguments for or against a mega CAP, so unless Doug wants to make some sort of executive decision, I think we should hold some sort of vote after he gets a chance to post because opinion here is sufficently divided that I do not think a unilateral decison can be formed. if people vote in favor of mega CAP for next CAP, we should go ahead and attempt to hash out a process asap (shouldn't be too hard, main question is what order to put the stages in), and if we vote to delay mega CAP (potential indefinitely), then there will be no need for further discussion.
 

DougJustDoug

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I can see both sides of this argument, and there is definitely not a clear "correct decision" here.

I agree that there are many unknowns to a Mega CAP project in terms of policy and process. To just rush into a Mega CAP will likely cause a lot of problems. It may be a total clusterfuck and invite more negative criticism than it generates positive attention and attracts new participants.

On the other hand, it's not like we are really rushing into anything, even if we do a Mega CAP right now. There have been multiple PR threads, and even more offline discussions on IRC and elsewhere, on the topic of Megaevolution and the CAP project. No, we have not discussed much the exact process of a Mega CAP. But we have talked a lot about the reasons for and against doing a Mega CAP and, if we do a Mega CAP, whether we should evolve an existing CAP pokemon, an existing Pokemon species, or make it part of a completely new CAP creation. In my mind, the latter are the really hard questions that need forethought and consideration, and are better informed with more foundation and history. Meaning, it would be hard to make a good decision early in the 6th Gen, when we knew little about Megas and had little history and experience with them in the competitive metagame. But we know a ton about Megas now, and we've talked to death about Megas in CAP.

If we are going to do a Mega CAP, I think we should just get on with it. I think we should just declare that the next CAP will be a Mega CAP, choose a Concept like normal, and then proceed to make our CAP pokemon. I don't think we need to make this harder than it needs to be. I think we should make the process map as closely as possible to the existing CAP process. And I think we can justify that approach competitively too. Let me explain...

Mega Evos range across a broad spectrum of "change to the base species". On the upper end of the change spectrum, you have Megas like MegaBeedrill and MegaPidgeot. Their base forms are total dogshit. Their MegaEvos are pretty badass (I'm not here to argue how good they are or not in OU. But their megas are a fuckton different than their base forms.) Then on the other end of the change spectrum, you have stuff like MegaScizor. Lots of people agree that while MegaScizor is certainly good, it still plays a lot like base Scizor (Once again, not arguing about total effectiveness in OU, just saying the delta is much less than the previous examples).

I think a Mega CAP should target somewhere in between these extremes on the "change spectrum", when it comes to the differences between the base form and the Mega Evo. If we try to make something with a big "mega delta" (like Beedrill), we probably need to have a lot of extra steps to the CAP process, because we are making effectively two very different pokemon. If we seek to make a MegaCAP with a small "mega delta", we probably ruin a lot of the excitement, novelty, and learning of making a Mega Evolution in the first place. So I think CAP should seek to make a Mega Evo with a significant-but-not-huge "mega delta".

How do we define "significant-but-not-huge mega delta"? We don't. We leave that to the interesting rollercoaster of CAP discussion threads. We use something like MegaBeedrill (there are many others) as an example of "too much mega delta", and something like MegaScizor (there are many more like this as well) as "too little mega delta" -- and then leave it to the so-called intelligent community consensus to figure out what makes sense in between those two examples.

It's not too important to define the middle ground. What matters is to overtly eliminate the proposals for extreme mega delta (which may be a lot of fun, but will probably attract more fantastical fanboyism than we really want to deal with), but also stifle the wet blanket conservatives that push for a mega with nothing more than 100 extra BST along the same stat bias as the base form (which will hopefully encourage people to push the ability, typing, and stat boundaries a bit, without fear of being labeled a fanboy noob).

If we don't try to get too extreme with the amount of change, then we can simply piggyback the MegaEvolution characteristics with the regular CAP steps to which they apply. More on this in a minute, but first, let me cover the impact to Concept, which has been debated a lot in past discussions of Mega CAP's.

If we aren't making effectively two different pokemon (a la MegaBeedrill, etc), then we don't need to get too fancy with defining a special Concept tailored for a Mega Evolution. Any CAP concept will do. Looking back at past CAP concepts, any one of those could have been done as a Mega Evolution. Because, at the end of the day, a Mega is nothing more than 100 extra BST (excluding HP), and POTENTIALLY a different ability, and POTENTIALLY different secondary typing. That's it. Admittedly, those three things can produce a wide range of "change spectrum", but not necessarily.

Yes, a Mega CAP COULD be a unique platform to accomodate some amazingly interesting Concepts that would be virtually impossible to do with a regular CAP. But I think that is simply too ambitious for a big project like CAP. Create-A-Pokemon is about the "art of the possible". Don't know that phrase? Look it up. We need to focus on what we can actually get done here. And making fancy nuanced Concepts has never been our thing. CAP cuts with a broadsword, not a scalpel. Even with our new Concept Workshop (which has been a very good thing), special tailor-made Mega Concepts are just wishful thinking, in my humble opinion.

So, assuming we can pick a Concept like normal, the relatively minor modifications to other steps for a Mega CAP would look something like this.

Concept Assessment
This is the big "decision" step when it comes to a Mega really. Because this is where we get an idea of how good the pokemon will be pre and post evolution. Will the base form be relatively weak or different in terms of what they bait before mega evolution? Or will the base form be viable on its own? How the base form and mega form interplay is VERY concept-dependent (meaning different Concepts will have a different "right answer" here) , so we won't even try to put any rules on this ahead of time. Other than the general instruction that we are NOT intentionally trying to make two completely different competitive mons (a la MegaBeedrill, or whatever better archetype the rest of you want to throw out for us to use for reference purposes). Beyond that, let the TL wrangle the discussion and somehow chart a general direction for the project. Business as usual, right?

Typing
We already slate and vote on Typing as a "package deal", so we simply continue that tradition with a Mega CAP. We don't add a separate step to explicitly decide whether we want the Mega to have a different typing or anything like that. We have a single discussion thread for typing, and we consider the base form typing and the mega typing as a single "package". The base form typing and the mega typing should be proposed and discussed together, along with the interplay of the typing potentially changing upon megaevolution and the risk/rewards of the typing changing or not. Meaning, typing proposal posts might look something like:

"I think CAP 21 should be mono-Normal, just like Kangaskhan and MegaKang. <Insert great reasoning here>"

"I want this pokemon to be Poison/Fairy, all the way, both the base and mega forms. <Insert great reasoning here>"

"I want the base form to be Electric/Ground and the mega to be Electric/Fighting. <Insert great reasoning here>"

If those all made the slate, the slate would be:
Normal
Poison/Fairy
Electric/Ground -> Electric/Fighting

I'm sure CAP will probably have a bias towards unique typings and cool typing combinations, but that's certainly nothing new here. We might institute a restriction that only one type may change on the mega evo, if that is, in fact, a rule observed in the actual game. I think it is, but I haven't checked specifically.

Abilities
On a Mega CAP, I think we should consider the Primary Ability as a potential "dual package", kinda like Typing. Since Mega Evolutions have a single ability, and that ability may be different than the ability of the base form, we should vote on Primary Ability with the potential for a pair. Of course, we may have only one Primary Ability for both the base form and the Mega. That's fine. But we allow discussion proposals for two Primary Abilities as a package, with the first being the base form Primary Ability and the second being the Mega's Ability. We can use the same arrow notation ("->") I suggested above for Typing combinations to indicate a pair of Primary Abilities in the slate. For example, a Primary Ability might look like:

Intimidate
Klutz -> Magic Guard
Etc.

The first option means the base form Primary Ability and the Mega Ability will be Intimidate. The second option means Klutz will be the Primary Ability for the base form and Magic Guard would be the ability for the Mega.

There does not need to be any change to our existing steps for Secondary Ability and Flavor Ability.

Yes, I can envision some messy discussions about Abilities with a mega ability in the mix. But Ability discussions are already messy much of the time, so I really don't see this as an added burden.

Base Stats
Continuing with the same thinking as with the previous steps, Stats will be presented as a packaged pair. Submitters will create two stat lines, one for the base form and one for the Mega evo. The Mega stats need exactly 100 more BST than the base form stats and the HP stat needs to be the same in both stat lines. The stats "package" will be slated and voted as a single voting option. We can use the arrow notation ("->") to indicate the pair. A slate option would look something like this:

80/100/75/75/100/105 -> 80/135/100/80/125/115

This will require more work and damage calcs by submitters, and choosing a slate will be more complicated for the Stats Leader -- but I don't think it's too much for us to handle.

Art
Not surprisingly, art will probably be the step most affected by doing a Mega CAP. But I think we can take a straightforward approach, and not try to get to fancy or nuanced with our process. We can treat it just like all the previous competitive steps and make Art a "package submission" too. Artists will submit two designs for a legal submission -- a design for the base form and a design for the Mega. Yes, this will be more work, but I will be stunned if top artists aren't up to the challenge. I don't see this much different than what spriters have been dealing with forever, in having to make both a front and back sprite for a legal submission.

We will definitely have to amend the art posting rules, since each submitter will be working on two designs, so they will post twice as much art as usual. But, I can work out these details with the other CAP art mods in short order.

Sprites and/or 3D Models
Twice as much work will be required here, and that could be a problem from a scheduling perspective. But these steps have a very low number of participants that do the heavy lifting and submissions, so I think we can work out the process details for these steps with the people that do the work. At a high level, I'll continue to advocate we treat these steps with the same "package deal" mentality as all the other steps.

That's it. I know I wrote a lot for all those steps, but if you look at it overall -- it really is not a very big change from a process standpoint. Yes, several steps have additional discussion and slating complexities. But there are no new steps, and the intent and outcome of every step is thematically the same as always. We'll just produce "more" on several steps with a Mega CAP.

I am not saying this is a perfect proposal for how to do a Mega CAP. But I think it is VERY doable. It allows us to do something legitimately interesting and exciting without getting too fancy, too ambitious, or too extreme. And most importantly, I think we can do this RIGHT NOW.

I am not going to shove this down everyone's throat. This is not a conclusion post to this thread. But I am trying to drive resolution quickly, if possible. I am trying to accomodate Birkal and others' concerns that we really are not prepared for big process changes to do a Mega CAP. That's why I am specifically proposing to NOT do big process changes, and instead limit the scope of a Mega CAP just a bit and put some additional work and complexity on our existing process steps. I am also trying to accomodate nyttyn and others that want to stop putting off Mega CAP to the unspecified future and get on with it, and stop ignoring the biggest competitive characteristic of the entire 6th Generation of Pokemon games.

CAP policy is, and always will be, about tradeoffs. Everyone participating in this thread should understand the need to stretch and compromise. I'm trying to do my part, so please keep that in mind as you consider and comment.

lgi
 

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