If we build with mechanics in mind, could we make a compromise by building a Project that works in both OU and CAP? The idea may sound ridiculous at first, but we could easily decide if we want to playtest for OU or CAP when the time for that comes, rather than focusing only on one or the other throughout the whole Project. This would work much better with an emphsais on a mechanic like a move or ability with low distribution, Z-Moves, or even the recently-buffed Terrain. My upcoming Concept sub revolves around Terrain, so this type of exploration will help greatly.
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Policy Review An Adjustment in Direction Part 2
- Thread starter HeaLnDeaL
- Start date
I have no time to write out a full post, but I think Deck Knight is still asking a rigged question. From my viewpoint, no, we do not have anything to lose from not building for SM OU. What Deck is representing is a big case of FOMO, when in reality there is nothing to miss. In my 5+ years at CAP, I have never once grouped (nor heard someone else group) Syclant, Tomohawk, and Volkraken together because they were the firsts of their generation. That is a classification that you are pushing just to further your argument of building for OU. There has never been any prestige of being the "first," they were just the first because they were... first. I haven't seen a convincing argument otherwise, but maybe someone can shed some light on what the big deal is here. In fact, we even could technically make a Pokemon for SM OU even after the release of USUM -- building for an old metagame has always been on the table. Sure, it's unlikely, but still feasible. But that point is far inferior to the fact that Deck is making up credentials to try to push building for SM OU -- it kind of seems to be fear-mongering when we should be boldly pushing forward with the policy we implemented before CAP22.
More interestingly, I'm going to address reach's point.
It looks like statistically, you are correct, but those don't tell the whole story. If you go back in time, CAP21 (Crucibelle) had only 2,038 battles over the course of a two week playtest. Further back, CAP20 (Naviathan) only featured 1,491 battles. Even if we doubled those numbers (since playtests only lasted two weeks), CAP22's (Kerfluffle's) playtest was twice as popular as popular as the previous CAP's playtest. Even more impressively, 5,940 battles in May is more popular than Crucibelle's playtest, and May is half a year after Kerfluffle was released! Sure, there are revisions to take into account, but I am seeing growth within CAP when I look at these numbers. We are more unified as a community by building for the CAP metagame, which I will get into when I have time for a lengthier post.
More interestingly, I'm going to address reach's point.
It looks like statistically, you are correct, but those don't tell the whole story. If you go back in time, CAP21 (Crucibelle) had only 2,038 battles over the course of a two week playtest. Further back, CAP20 (Naviathan) only featured 1,491 battles. Even if we doubled those numbers (since playtests only lasted two weeks), CAP22's (Kerfluffle's) playtest was twice as popular as popular as the previous CAP's playtest. Even more impressively, 5,940 battles in May is more popular than Crucibelle's playtest, and May is half a year after Kerfluffle was released! Sure, there are revisions to take into account, but I am seeing growth within CAP when I look at these numbers. We are more unified as a community by building for the CAP metagame, which I will get into when I have time for a lengthier post.
I didn't really have enough concern on this topic to actually share my bit of opinion on it yet. I have to say that at first it didn't seem to bother me wether or not we build for OU or CAP but seeing how this issue is still going on has made me want to have a deeper thought about it and put my perspective out there.
We've been updating CAPs for the past couple months, it's been a very long process but it has made a lot of improvements. While making those updates we've been very focused on how CAPs would do on the CAP metagame rather than the OU metagame. I don't see the reason why we should focus on the OU metagame when CAP 23 will only be playable in a CAP metagame where others have been updated for it. Both metagames are different and building something that might do very great in the OU tier might be something terrible in CAP, which might lead to an update in the future which would be focused on the CAP metagame.
I can also support Drap, I doubt that building CAP 23 for OU would attract new comers as well, if new comers are attracted by CAP I'm guessing it would be for knowledge, curiosity or just the desire to join the community, not by wether or not CAP 23 was built for OU.
We've been updating CAPs for the past couple months, it's been a very long process but it has made a lot of improvements. While making those updates we've been very focused on how CAPs would do on the CAP metagame rather than the OU metagame. I don't see the reason why we should focus on the OU metagame when CAP 23 will only be playable in a CAP metagame where others have been updated for it. Both metagames are different and building something that might do very great in the OU tier might be something terrible in CAP, which might lead to an update in the future which would be focused on the CAP metagame.
I can also support Drap, I doubt that building CAP 23 for OU would attract new comers as well, if new comers are attracted by CAP I'm guessing it would be for knowledge, curiosity or just the desire to join the community, not by wether or not CAP 23 was built for OU.
Don't have much to add to my specific position on this, but I did want to address Deck Knight's question. Personally, I do not believe that making a Pokemon for any particular metagame is important. If we never made a mon for the SM OU meta, well... so what? That's not to say it is not an important metagame, but there is no compelling reason why we have to ever make one for it, nor is it a disaster if we completely skip a metagame.
Furthermore, even if this was something to care about, who is to say that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be all that different. Yeah, new games bring new things, but the idea that it will be an entirely different metagame is unsubstantiated. All we know so far is that two Uber (and thus irrelevant) Pokemon will be getting new forms. Sure, there may be a bunch of new forms and major tutors that massively change things. But there may also be next to nothing that majorly effects the competitive metagame. Really, all history has shown us is that people are terrible at predicting what will be in a new game, and I do not want us basing any policy over a theoretical like this.
Though again, I don't really think it is all that relevant, as missing any given metagame is in no way a problem. There are tons of mature metagame we never made a CAP for, and I think a lot of the arguments in favor of the CAP Metagame are based in the idea that the OU meta is no more important than other metagames.
Furthermore, even if this was something to care about, who is to say that Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be all that different. Yeah, new games bring new things, but the idea that it will be an entirely different metagame is unsubstantiated. All we know so far is that two Uber (and thus irrelevant) Pokemon will be getting new forms. Sure, there may be a bunch of new forms and major tutors that massively change things. But there may also be next to nothing that majorly effects the competitive metagame. Really, all history has shown us is that people are terrible at predicting what will be in a new game, and I do not want us basing any policy over a theoretical like this.
Though again, I don't really think it is all that relevant, as missing any given metagame is in no way a problem. There are tons of mature metagame we never made a CAP for, and I think a lot of the arguments in favor of the CAP Metagame are based in the idea that the OU meta is no more important than other metagames.
I strongly disagree with the idea that nobody uses or wants to use CAP to make disruptions to OU anymore because Other Metagames exist. OM fills a very unique place on Smogon in that anyone can think of a cool idea for a twist on any metagame, then explore it by modding the server. That is far, far different that CAP does. OMs are about testing while CAP is about building. CAP is about asking anyone who's interested what they'd like to see in the metagame (be it OU or CAP), then building that Pokemon with surgical precision. It's about the polls, the debates, the forum, the flavor, and, least of all, the final product. Meanwhile, all Other Metagames are is a final product. They're one person's idea of a cool Pokemon format. I'm not going to say one is better than the other, just that CAP and Other Metagames are nothing alike.
I agree with Quanyails' complaint that not enough time is spent playtesting our creations. I have been pushing for playtest reform for years; I'd like to see us reach out to the Tournaments forum and playtest our Pokemon both tournament-style and ladder-style. There are usually six or more weeks of Policy Review between CAPs; we should be using every minute of that time playtesting our previous creation! And once we're done, we can send it to the CAP metagame to frolic with our other creations. The CAP metagame is not substantially hindered if we build for OU.
I'm not swayed by arguments about CAP's growth when OU gets more battles in three hours than CAP gets in a month. We literally handed our entire Pokemon creation apparatus to the CAP metagame crowd and their ladder has barely seen noticeable growth. Furthermore, whether CAP is growing or shrinking is barely relevant; CAP is a medium sized Other Metagame while OU is the standard of competitive Pokemon. If we built for OU and interested even one percent of the OU playerbase, our project would grow faster than it ever could if we built for the CAP metagame. It's not just about the playtest numbers, it's about the potential for growth over our project's future. The best-case scenario for building for OU is that we attract a sizable amount of fresh blood and improve our community and reputation on Smogon. The best-case scenario for building for CAP is stagnation; the same people will be pumping out Pokemon after Pokemon while barely attracting new members. I'm sure OU has picked up 100 new players for every new player CAP has picked up over the past few months; all we have to do is convince one percent of them to participate in our project. I'm up to the challenge.
And finally, I don't want to belabor the "we only switched to CAP because of perceived toxicity among OU players" point, but I'm going to bring up a few quotes from the previous thread and let you all draw your own conclusions. I also implore you to read the last two or three pages of that thread. Toxicity was arguably the main reason for switching to CAP by the end of that thread.
I agree with Quanyails' complaint that not enough time is spent playtesting our creations. I have been pushing for playtest reform for years; I'd like to see us reach out to the Tournaments forum and playtest our Pokemon both tournament-style and ladder-style. There are usually six or more weeks of Policy Review between CAPs; we should be using every minute of that time playtesting our previous creation! And once we're done, we can send it to the CAP metagame to frolic with our other creations. The CAP metagame is not substantially hindered if we build for OU.
I'm not swayed by arguments about CAP's growth when OU gets more battles in three hours than CAP gets in a month. We literally handed our entire Pokemon creation apparatus to the CAP metagame crowd and their ladder has barely seen noticeable growth. Furthermore, whether CAP is growing or shrinking is barely relevant; CAP is a medium sized Other Metagame while OU is the standard of competitive Pokemon. If we built for OU and interested even one percent of the OU playerbase, our project would grow faster than it ever could if we built for the CAP metagame. It's not just about the playtest numbers, it's about the potential for growth over our project's future. The best-case scenario for building for OU is that we attract a sizable amount of fresh blood and improve our community and reputation on Smogon. The best-case scenario for building for CAP is stagnation; the same people will be pumping out Pokemon after Pokemon while barely attracting new members. I'm sure OU has picked up 100 new players for every new player CAP has picked up over the past few months; all we have to do is convince one percent of them to participate in our project. I'm up to the challenge.
And finally, I don't want to belabor the "we only switched to CAP because of perceived toxicity among OU players" point, but I'm going to bring up a few quotes from the previous thread and let you all draw your own conclusions. I also implore you to read the last two or three pages of that thread. Toxicity was arguably the main reason for switching to CAP by the end of that thread.
DougJustDoug said:
Deck Knight said:
Bughouse said:
I don't think Deck's question is an interesting one and ultimately still do not care about the question of building for OU or CAP all that much. But in any case, I don't think "CAP should be a lens on OU and we'll miss out on commenting" is an important viewpoint.
I also don't think the decision should be about growth. For one thing, I don't think CAP's growth is dictated by which metagame it builds for. There's a cap (puns ha) on how many people will realistically be interested at any point in time, based on the fact that niche projects with lower activity only become interesting when the main attractions are boring. If there's a lot going on in standard metagames, there's just less of a need to explore side projects. The way GameFreak has been steadily releasing mega stones, along with occasional OU suspect tests (not to mention low tier development) has made SM OU (and lower tiers) a really exciting place to be, stall aside. And secondly, an argument last time was CAP will grow if we build for CAP. And it did. Marginally. I question if it grew really any more than any other part of Smogon did during the new generation, when all the new people arrive anyway.
If I had to make a strong argument, I'd go with OU only because I believe the CAP metagame is fundamentally busted. The last thing any OU has needed since BW is more top threats to have to account for. Currently OU has too many, and CAP inherently has to have it even worse, especially after revisions. CAP currently has 48 mons in A- rank or higher. OU has 36. CAP is probably misvaluing many things just because of a lack of metagame development (see low battle count), but still that's a large inflation of top threats you have to cover. I still think CAP can build for it... Just make another top threat. I just find that limiting and boring.
I also don't think the decision should be about growth. For one thing, I don't think CAP's growth is dictated by which metagame it builds for. There's a cap (puns ha) on how many people will realistically be interested at any point in time, based on the fact that niche projects with lower activity only become interesting when the main attractions are boring. If there's a lot going on in standard metagames, there's just less of a need to explore side projects. The way GameFreak has been steadily releasing mega stones, along with occasional OU suspect tests (not to mention low tier development) has made SM OU (and lower tiers) a really exciting place to be, stall aside. And secondly, an argument last time was CAP will grow if we build for CAP. And it did. Marginally. I question if it grew really any more than any other part of Smogon did during the new generation, when all the new people arrive anyway.
If I had to make a strong argument, I'd go with OU only because I believe the CAP metagame is fundamentally busted. The last thing any OU has needed since BW is more top threats to have to account for. Currently OU has too many, and CAP inherently has to have it even worse, especially after revisions. CAP currently has 48 mons in A- rank or higher. OU has 36. CAP is probably misvaluing many things just because of a lack of metagame development (see low battle count), but still that's a large inflation of top threats you have to cover. I still think CAP can build for it... Just make another top threat. I just find that limiting and boring.
I see no reason to build for OU. Period. The argument that building for OU guarentees success is flawed. Naviathan was built for a very recent iteration of OU. Yet still, it failed to fully accomplish its niche in both the OU playtest AND the CAP metagame. Playtests never truly give an accurate representation of how a Pokémon does in the metagame, as new Pokémon always tend to make people over account for it. For CAP, due to not accounting for several threats in the CAP metagame, in play it falls flat against things like Mollux, Plasmanta and every bulky water (pre-update).
That argument about CAP letting us explore things not present in OU is outdated, as the now common place Other Metagames reasonably to ghis quite well. It would be much more interesting and beneficial to create mons to develop the CAP Metagame, as that IS the netagame that CAPs are used in at the end of the day.
Coming off that interesting point: OU players just aren't interested anymore. Its a known fact that barely any mainstream OU players know mich about CAP, and the average doesn't know at all. So why build for a set of people that do not support, only for CAP meta players to pick up the pieces afterwards.
TL;DR Don't waste time and build for OU. CAP is the way to go.
That argument about CAP letting us explore things not present in OU is outdated, as the now common place Other Metagames reasonably to ghis quite well. It would be much more interesting and beneficial to create mons to develop the CAP Metagame, as that IS the netagame that CAPs are used in at the end of the day.
Coming off that interesting point: OU players just aren't interested anymore. Its a known fact that barely any mainstream OU players know mich about CAP, and the average doesn't know at all. So why build for a set of people that do not support, only for CAP meta players to pick up the pieces afterwards.
TL;DR Don't waste time and build for OU. CAP is the way to go.
I think that CAP shouldn't build for the SM OU metagame as since the metagame is currently quite set in stone right now it would be rather difficult to fit in a Pokemon solely built to perform a significant role in a very compact and solid metagame since this gen introduced so many of these already in new Gen 7 Pokemon and even though it can spice up the metagame even more it would all be too fast right now as the OU metagame is good as it is right now and a build for OU would just be deadweight like some previous attempts at OU building. Like some previous posts above this one, I don't think the community, especially the big OU community really supports CAP a lot since many ideas were so long prolonged and only some were brought to light just recently. Honestly at the state CAP is in and its interest wouldn't fare well if we built for OU since a lot of community is still interested and focused on experimenting with the Pokemon they have now in OU because even though the metagame seems quite stable already people are always eager to test for new things and sadly that isn't including new things after that, and the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon would probably further push back this built due to new mechanics and interest if it is good as people think it is. So my ultimate answer is no, and I think focusing on CAP building is the good choice since when we go back to Kerfluffle, way more people were very interested due to improvement of the CAP userbase and better mechanics developed which I think can benefit future CAP builds that can become more popular and interesting, but we'll have to see in the future, although I think that the future of CAP building won't be a waste of time as there is a lot of potential right now.
I wasn't quite sure what I should write that wasn't a repeat of what I had said in prior posts. So I decided to, instead of just rewording it, throw it all together in bullet points.
These are the most noteworthy of my points that I touched upon when taking a stand on this topic. I solemnly believe that building for our own metagame is by far not only our best option in terms of efficiency but also the option that is going to be the most fun.
- I personally feel that OU is nothing more than a leash or chain to the CAP meta-game hold us back from where we truly want and need to be. I feel that Kerfluffle went wonderfully and the only reason it took so long was not only because it was a hard concept to build around but was also one of our first times not building for OU. For one of the First times I feel like CAP stepped out of its boundary zone.
- WE ARE BUILDING FOR CAP. It is the best option we have at this point. It will go faster and will increase the likely hood of us making something a lot better content wise. Not to mention, think about how much FUN we are going to have if we build for CAP. Building for OU is honestly just a poor decision on everyone's part if we decide to do so.
- "Building for OU is just us taking a step forward with kerfluffle and 2 steps back with Cap23."
- Based on last project and how it went it is obvious that building for our own CAP meta-game is just the easiest and most note worthy decision. As a community we can not only work to our best capabilities but also the content we create will be A+ material. It just makes sense that build for CAP is the best decision.
These are the most noteworthy of my points that I touched upon when taking a stand on this topic. I solemnly believe that building for our own metagame is by far not only our best option in terms of efficiency but also the option that is going to be the most fun.
Alright, let's try this again! My draft disappeared when I came back to finish this up, so this might be a bit more haphazard, but I'd still like to get my thoughts out here in some form or another. To start, I think I'll state my general position of I don't really think one metagame is inherently better or worse if we're only talking about growth of the project/ladder. Personally, as I play CAP far more than I play OU, I would prefer to build for CAP, but we're not really here to care about my personal preferences. Regardless, this is how I sort of see the current situation in terms of growth. Heads up here, I'll be going mostly theoretical, since I don't trust the battle stats to tell me anything more than relative player base size, and I can't do the math I want to without unique player count. I tried deriving the numbers, but it eventually worked out to just be guessing a percent of overlap which again, only gives me relative relations. If anyone knows where I can get that stat, I'd be happy to revise my opinions/post, but until then, we're going with theory!
Overall, I see building for CAP and building for OU as both affecting participation positively, but with slight differences. My reason for thinking so is this. Although we may attract more people to the actual process itself if we build for OU instead of CAP, those same people aren't necessarily going to stick around or become CAP ladderers. For all we can guarantee, they might just participate in the CAP project on the forums, do the playtest, go back to OU in the interlude, and then rinse and repeat. Due to the fact that the ladder for CAP is, well, the CAP meta, and the process would be performed in OU, there would exist a kind of disjoint between project and ladder. So, yes, while you would have access to a larger player base, you can't guarantee that all those same people will be bothered to mess with the ladder of, as has been kind of mutually agreed on here in this thread, a medium-smallish sized meta.
Looking at the other side, let's say we build for CAP. I see what would happen here as the near opposite of OU's scenario. If you're building for CAP, you're almost forcing people to educate themselves and invest themselves in the CAP meta, increasing the chances that the people who participate in building would stick around or try the CAP ladder (a la mere exposure effect). However, the downside to this is that instead of giving people the option to learn the CAP meta later, if they want to try laddering, you make it a part of the actual CAP-building process. Overall, the theoretical effect would be that the amount of people who join for the process might be smaller than that of OU's, but they might be more likely to stick around longer and be more active with CAP outside of the forum project due to the time investment they already put in.
In my eyes, this isn't so much a 'one is intrinsically better than the other' unless you have a specific goal in mind, but more of a different means to a similar-ish end. It's mostly due to this interpretation of mine that I'm a bit unnerved with an earlier post's assertion. I actually agree with the points about the distinction between some OMs and CAP, but I'm hesitant to support some of the claims of the third paragraph.
Let's start with the first part. Nobody is going to deny that OU is the de facto head meta on Showdown. It's essentially Smogon's posterchild, and as such it's reasonable that it's far larger than CAP. It was then alleged that a certain CAP metagame period, which I'm assuming to be Kerfluffle since I can't exactly tell what's being referred to here, but that seems likely, saw no growth. According to Birkal's earlier post, Kerf's playtest was far more popular than the previous ones of Crucibelle and Naviathan. Obviously the playtest participation does not reflect directly ladder participation, but for the sake of skepticism indulge me in this thought. If the playtest was relatively more popular when we used the CAP meta to build for, which forced people to at least invest some time with the meta, but the CAP ladder itself still saw little to no growth, then why would building for OU, which requires absolutely no investment of time into the CAP meta on the behalf of the participants, inspire more growth? If anything, I would expect if we build for OU, people may try the CAP metagame out on a whim, but without any prior knowledge of the metagame's larger threats, as they weren't discussed during the CAP creation process. This lack of prior experience may exhilarate some people to learn a 'brand new meta,' but it's also just as likely to turn people off, having to invest time learning a meta with no relevance to the actual project they enjoy, which would be being done in OU. The disjoint between ladder and project, as such, could become frustrating for players who already enjoy and are dedicated to OU. Notably, this issue could be alleviated or at least reduced as we get more resources updates and out, but it still discourages learning while working in CAP.
Now, does building for CAP inherently fix the problem of people maybe not wanting to split their time? No. Suggesting that would be silly. However, it does eliminate the disjoint between ladder and project meta, which could make the transition from project participant to ladder participant a bit smoother if ladder is what you're concerned about.
However, I digress. The next point in the paragraph says that playtest numbers aren't the focus of this discussion, but instead the focus is the "growth over our project's future." Now, I'm not sure if the paragraph is contradicting itself here, as earlier it said that "whether CAP is growing or shrinking is barely relevant," but clearly growth is a theme we should be considering. I hope I've made my ideas on the differences between how OU and CAP would each affect expected growth in which areas decently clear, but in case I haven't, allow me to be crystal. I think that OU building can potentially attract more people than CAP to the project, but the disjoint between ladder and project would cause that growth to be possibly not affective to the ladder participation. CAP building on the other hand eases the disjoint, allowing for likely more uniform growth, but potentially deterring some people who want to earnestly join the project, but lack the time to learn the meta before doing so.
It then goes on to state that interesting even one percent of OU would cause unprecedented growth. I don't deny this. It would. However, attracting and keeping around are different things, and you're talking about keeping a lot of people here. That isn't just going to magically happen. It takes time and effort into attracting people, and honestly, I don't think that you're going to attract much of a different crowd whether you advertise as OU or CAP. Your fundamental audience is people interested in building Pokémon based off of competitive aspects. A hardcore OU player isn't going to see "Create a Pokémon" and think, "That might be fun!" if they don't already have some vague curiousity or interest in the process of creating a mon. I suppose what I'm getting at is focusing on attracting new people is a poor language to discuss this issue in. As we start creating more media and raising more awareness, more people will come. The rate at which they come and the rate at which they stay around or not may change based on the metagame, but your core demographic doesn't. After all, if you build for CAP, you're still going to be 'advertising' to general Smogon, and by extension a largely OU community. I think someone mentioned it earlier, though I can't recall who, it might have been reach, who focused on the idea of coming across as fangame-y if we work with CAP, hurting our image. I don't disagree with this either. That is a possibility and we need to consider it, but we also should consider that with careful self-monitoring, that impact can be drastically reduced, and the bar to entry that working with the CAP meta presents, can be as well with the advent of new informative resources.
The last thing I want to investigate about this paragraph is this 'best case scenario' spiel. I fundamentally disagree with what was presented here. 100% on the OU part, that's fine. However, this directly implies that there's nothing to be gained from working with CAP, and I hotly contest that. Here's my idea of a 'best case scenario' for CAP: Through working with CAP, the community attracts dedicated new 'fresh blood' as it was put, and grows a bit more slowly than OU, but is filled with people who are more than willing to work to advocate and spread the word about a project they're invested deeply in, helping to keep the project thriving and growing. Alternatively, here's a worst case scenario for each, to show how both CAP and OU proposals can equally be wrong here. Take the 'best case scenario' from the quoted paragraph for CAP, and that's what I would call a worst case scenario. Essentially, we try something and it doesn't work. Oh well, we can go back to the drawing board. For OU? We try advertising for OU and it also just doesn't attract the new people we expected. People dart in for a bit, get caught between OU and CAP, and then leave back for more OU time. Again, oh well. Back to the drawing board.
This brings me to my last point I really want to drive home here. Regardless of what you think, it's important to accept that if we want change, we need to change something. Whether that be the meta, the media, or our modus operandi doesn't particularly matter. Both CAP and OU building have potential pluses and deltas; I don't think anyone will deny that. However, as it stands, I don't think we really have the sufficient data to say that one way is better than the other, bringing me back to my initial warning of how literally everything you just read (or skimmed) was based off of what I think would happen. If I had it my way, we would build for CAP for a while, then build for OU for a bit, compare data, adjusting for overall PS! growth and participation and the like, and then draw our conclusions. However, such a process is a long and not really the best answer to how do we increase our growth currently. And such is our impasse. I think if we build for CAP a few more times and see how it fares it would be a good experience to, at worst, learn from, and at best, stick to if it works.
TL;DR: My input is this: With respect to growth of the project/ladder, both OU and CAP have good and bad aspects, we don't have the definitive data to say long-term OU is better than CAP or vice-versa. Personally, I prefer CAP and would like to see how it plays out across a few more CAPs before drawing any sweeping conclusions.
Overall, I see building for CAP and building for OU as both affecting participation positively, but with slight differences. My reason for thinking so is this. Although we may attract more people to the actual process itself if we build for OU instead of CAP, those same people aren't necessarily going to stick around or become CAP ladderers. For all we can guarantee, they might just participate in the CAP project on the forums, do the playtest, go back to OU in the interlude, and then rinse and repeat. Due to the fact that the ladder for CAP is, well, the CAP meta, and the process would be performed in OU, there would exist a kind of disjoint between project and ladder. So, yes, while you would have access to a larger player base, you can't guarantee that all those same people will be bothered to mess with the ladder of, as has been kind of mutually agreed on here in this thread, a medium-smallish sized meta.
Looking at the other side, let's say we build for CAP. I see what would happen here as the near opposite of OU's scenario. If you're building for CAP, you're almost forcing people to educate themselves and invest themselves in the CAP meta, increasing the chances that the people who participate in building would stick around or try the CAP ladder (a la mere exposure effect). However, the downside to this is that instead of giving people the option to learn the CAP meta later, if they want to try laddering, you make it a part of the actual CAP-building process. Overall, the theoretical effect would be that the amount of people who join for the process might be smaller than that of OU's, but they might be more likely to stick around longer and be more active with CAP outside of the forum project due to the time investment they already put in.
In my eyes, this isn't so much a 'one is intrinsically better than the other' unless you have a specific goal in mind, but more of a different means to a similar-ish end. It's mostly due to this interpretation of mine that I'm a bit unnerved with an earlier post's assertion. I actually agree with the points about the distinction between some OMs and CAP, but I'm hesitant to support some of the claims of the third paragraph.
Let's start with the first part. Nobody is going to deny that OU is the de facto head meta on Showdown. It's essentially Smogon's posterchild, and as such it's reasonable that it's far larger than CAP. It was then alleged that a certain CAP metagame period, which I'm assuming to be Kerfluffle since I can't exactly tell what's being referred to here, but that seems likely, saw no growth. According to Birkal's earlier post, Kerf's playtest was far more popular than the previous ones of Crucibelle and Naviathan. Obviously the playtest participation does not reflect directly ladder participation, but for the sake of skepticism indulge me in this thought. If the playtest was relatively more popular when we used the CAP meta to build for, which forced people to at least invest some time with the meta, but the CAP ladder itself still saw little to no growth, then why would building for OU, which requires absolutely no investment of time into the CAP meta on the behalf of the participants, inspire more growth? If anything, I would expect if we build for OU, people may try the CAP metagame out on a whim, but without any prior knowledge of the metagame's larger threats, as they weren't discussed during the CAP creation process. This lack of prior experience may exhilarate some people to learn a 'brand new meta,' but it's also just as likely to turn people off, having to invest time learning a meta with no relevance to the actual project they enjoy, which would be being done in OU. The disjoint between ladder and project, as such, could become frustrating for players who already enjoy and are dedicated to OU. Notably, this issue could be alleviated or at least reduced as we get more resources updates and out, but it still discourages learning while working in CAP.
Now, does building for CAP inherently fix the problem of people maybe not wanting to split their time? No. Suggesting that would be silly. However, it does eliminate the disjoint between ladder and project meta, which could make the transition from project participant to ladder participant a bit smoother if ladder is what you're concerned about.
However, I digress. The next point in the paragraph says that playtest numbers aren't the focus of this discussion, but instead the focus is the "growth over our project's future." Now, I'm not sure if the paragraph is contradicting itself here, as earlier it said that "whether CAP is growing or shrinking is barely relevant," but clearly growth is a theme we should be considering. I hope I've made my ideas on the differences between how OU and CAP would each affect expected growth in which areas decently clear, but in case I haven't, allow me to be crystal. I think that OU building can potentially attract more people than CAP to the project, but the disjoint between ladder and project would cause that growth to be possibly not affective to the ladder participation. CAP building on the other hand eases the disjoint, allowing for likely more uniform growth, but potentially deterring some people who want to earnestly join the project, but lack the time to learn the meta before doing so.
It then goes on to state that interesting even one percent of OU would cause unprecedented growth. I don't deny this. It would. However, attracting and keeping around are different things, and you're talking about keeping a lot of people here. That isn't just going to magically happen. It takes time and effort into attracting people, and honestly, I don't think that you're going to attract much of a different crowd whether you advertise as OU or CAP. Your fundamental audience is people interested in building Pokémon based off of competitive aspects. A hardcore OU player isn't going to see "Create a Pokémon" and think, "That might be fun!" if they don't already have some vague curiousity or interest in the process of creating a mon. I suppose what I'm getting at is focusing on attracting new people is a poor language to discuss this issue in. As we start creating more media and raising more awareness, more people will come. The rate at which they come and the rate at which they stay around or not may change based on the metagame, but your core demographic doesn't. After all, if you build for CAP, you're still going to be 'advertising' to general Smogon, and by extension a largely OU community. I think someone mentioned it earlier, though I can't recall who, it might have been reach, who focused on the idea of coming across as fangame-y if we work with CAP, hurting our image. I don't disagree with this either. That is a possibility and we need to consider it, but we also should consider that with careful self-monitoring, that impact can be drastically reduced, and the bar to entry that working with the CAP meta presents, can be as well with the advent of new informative resources.
The last thing I want to investigate about this paragraph is this 'best case scenario' spiel. I fundamentally disagree with what was presented here. 100% on the OU part, that's fine. However, this directly implies that there's nothing to be gained from working with CAP, and I hotly contest that. Here's my idea of a 'best case scenario' for CAP: Through working with CAP, the community attracts dedicated new 'fresh blood' as it was put, and grows a bit more slowly than OU, but is filled with people who are more than willing to work to advocate and spread the word about a project they're invested deeply in, helping to keep the project thriving and growing. Alternatively, here's a worst case scenario for each, to show how both CAP and OU proposals can equally be wrong here. Take the 'best case scenario' from the quoted paragraph for CAP, and that's what I would call a worst case scenario. Essentially, we try something and it doesn't work. Oh well, we can go back to the drawing board. For OU? We try advertising for OU and it also just doesn't attract the new people we expected. People dart in for a bit, get caught between OU and CAP, and then leave back for more OU time. Again, oh well. Back to the drawing board.
This brings me to my last point I really want to drive home here. Regardless of what you think, it's important to accept that if we want change, we need to change something. Whether that be the meta, the media, or our modus operandi doesn't particularly matter. Both CAP and OU building have potential pluses and deltas; I don't think anyone will deny that. However, as it stands, I don't think we really have the sufficient data to say that one way is better than the other, bringing me back to my initial warning of how literally everything you just read (or skimmed) was based off of what I think would happen. If I had it my way, we would build for CAP for a while, then build for OU for a bit, compare data, adjusting for overall PS! growth and participation and the like, and then draw our conclusions. However, such a process is a long and not really the best answer to how do we increase our growth currently. And such is our impasse. I think if we build for CAP a few more times and see how it fares it would be a good experience to, at worst, learn from, and at best, stick to if it works.
TL;DR: My input is this: With respect to growth of the project/ladder, both OU and CAP have good and bad aspects, we don't have the definitive data to say long-term OU is better than CAP or vice-versa. Personally, I prefer CAP and would like to see how it plays out across a few more CAPs before drawing any sweeping conclusions.
Okamu makes a great point about how both OU and CAP have good and bad aspects when working with either, even though we can't fully determine which one works better than the other yet. Going toward either of these paths will allow for similar outcomes with different ways of aiming for those results. We've only gone back to the CAP metagame one Project ago, so I suggest we give the CAP metagame another chance to handle our next Pokémon creation.
Conclusion:
After discussing it with CAP Staff and looking over the arguments in this policy review thread, we are excited to announce the following:
CAP 23 will be built for the CAP Metagame.
As Updates just recently went live and we're still cross-checking implementation, there will need to be a few weeks to ensure the meta is constructed properly on the server and people can familiarize themselves with the Updates Meta.
Therefore:
We will begin Nominations for CAP 23 Leadership Team on Wednesday, July 19th, closing the thread on Wednesday, July 26th.
Polling will take place July 27th-28th as necessary.
Concept Submissions Thread will begin on Saturday, July 29th and last until Friday, August 4th.
Polls will be conducted the weekend of the 5th-6th as necessary.
This will allow our participants at least 3 weeks to play the Updates Metagame before submitting concepts, and a full month before Concept Assessment and the remainder of the process.
Finally, after the completion of CAP 23 during the Policy Review Period we will create a Policy Review Thread to discuss Meta Build for CAP 24.
It will be the policy to have a thread with the very limited scope of Meta Build after each CAP during the Policy Review Period.
In summary, the net result of our Adjustment in Direction Policy Reviews is that the metagame we build for is an opportunity to discuss what most benefits the project. Our original choice to build for CAP after Adjustment in Direction 1 was done in the context of a toxic, warping environment. CAP 22 was so successful, that environment dissipated entirely and we experienced a heated but basically civil thread well within what we expect in the CAP Forum during this thread.
Kerfluffle's project showed there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to building for the CAP Metagame, and we would like each additional CAP project to consider metagame choice before creating the next CAP. As the Policy Review Period between CAPs is a hard-coded policy in the process, the Policy Review Period provides an efficient outlet to address that question without slowing down the process itself. After we have more data points to consider on project benefit for CAP vs project benefit for OU, that policy may change.
After discussing it with CAP Staff and looking over the arguments in this policy review thread, we are excited to announce the following:
CAP 23 will be built for the CAP Metagame.
As Updates just recently went live and we're still cross-checking implementation, there will need to be a few weeks to ensure the meta is constructed properly on the server and people can familiarize themselves with the Updates Meta.
Therefore:
We will begin Nominations for CAP 23 Leadership Team on Wednesday, July 19th, closing the thread on Wednesday, July 26th.
Polling will take place July 27th-28th as necessary.
Concept Submissions Thread will begin on Saturday, July 29th and last until Friday, August 4th.
Polls will be conducted the weekend of the 5th-6th as necessary.
This will allow our participants at least 3 weeks to play the Updates Metagame before submitting concepts, and a full month before Concept Assessment and the remainder of the process.
Finally, after the completion of CAP 23 during the Policy Review Period we will create a Policy Review Thread to discuss Meta Build for CAP 24.
It will be the policy to have a thread with the very limited scope of Meta Build after each CAP during the Policy Review Period.
In summary, the net result of our Adjustment in Direction Policy Reviews is that the metagame we build for is an opportunity to discuss what most benefits the project. Our original choice to build for CAP after Adjustment in Direction 1 was done in the context of a toxic, warping environment. CAP 22 was so successful, that environment dissipated entirely and we experienced a heated but basically civil thread well within what we expect in the CAP Forum during this thread.
Kerfluffle's project showed there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to building for the CAP Metagame, and we would like each additional CAP project to consider metagame choice before creating the next CAP. As the Policy Review Period between CAPs is a hard-coded policy in the process, the Policy Review Period provides an efficient outlet to address that question without slowing down the process itself. After we have more data points to consider on project benefit for CAP vs project benefit for OU, that policy may change.
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