CAP Flavour Consistency Standardisation

[MrDollSteak]

Hello PRC,

This may seem like a bit of an odd time to bring this up as we are in the middle CAP 30's process, but I've unfortunately been a bit too busy to write this up until now. Furthermore I think proposing it now has the benefit of meaning we have some time to think about how to address some of these features rather than springing it in the middle of the next CAP gap PRC period. This thread also aims to resolve some of the extant concerns raised in the thread here, both by myself and Dogfish44: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/proposal-gen-8-level-up-movepool-qc.3666036/

While the changes to final movepool submission now effectively mean that there are likely to be no major problems with new CAP prevo movepools in the future (this has been witnessed with Miasmite's movepool submission running well, as well as with Nohface, Monohm, Duohm, Protowatt and Dorsoil's stages being similarly successful) and have thus mostly resolved my concerns raised in the thread there still remains the need to discuss Dogfish's proposals, as well as some further consistency considerations that I have identified as part of the CAP Prevo Updates that myself, DHR-107 and kjnjkmjk1 have been running.

There are two major aspects that I would like to address, and those are in regards to Level-up Movepool Flavour and the matching between Art, Models and Sprites.

Movepool Summary

Firstly, in regards to Movepools, as part of the Movepool prevo updates, it has occurred to a lot of us, that many of the current Gen 8 movepools do not fit current standards of Gen 8 movepools. There are a few points to be made here to explain why this is the case. From studying extensively Gen 8 movepools in regards to both making submissions for new Gen 8 CAPs, as well as seeing learnsets for Pokemon in order to inform the prevo updates, I have identified the following trends in the level-up movepools.

• Level-up movepools always have moves occur at regular intervals of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 with some Legendary Pokemon having larger gaps.
  • There are one or two very minor exceptions where a move would be learnt at the minimum level for evolutions is instead moved one later
• Level-up movepools never contain moves that can be learnt as egg moves
• Attacking moves are learnt in order of base power with the only consistent exceptions being variable power moves, multi-hit moves which use their maximum and average hits respectively for their placement in the learnset. Trapping moves occasionally factor in multiple turns of damage.
• For evolved Pokemon, the first four moves in a pre-evolution movepool are listed at level 1 instead of their corresponding level
• For evolved Pokemon all other moves that a pre-evolution would learn prior to evolution are listed at the same level
• For Pokemon that evolve by level-up all new moves learned after evolution occur at intervals (2) larger than the pre-evolution
  • In the case of dual stage Pokemon this occurs a second time for each stage, meaning that with a pre-evolution having intervals of 3, the middle stage will have 5, and the final evolution 7
• For Pokemon that evolve by Trade, Item, Happiness all moves are learnt at the same level intervals as their pre-evolutions
• For Pokemon that evolve by Stone all moves are either learnt at the same level intervals as their pre-evolutions or all moves are learnt at level 1
• For evolved Pokemon, any moves learnt by a previous evolution either appear in the exact same sequence as they have occured on the pre-evolution, or at level 1.
• Pseudo-Legendary and Legendary Pokemon are the only Pokemon to consistently learn any moves after level 70
• Pokemon from Generation 1 to 7 have often had their movepools shrunk, with many level-up moves from Gen 7 pools being removed if they are also:
  • Learnt as Egg Moves
  • Learnt as TM/TRs

With this in mind, as part of updating and making the movepools for Gen 8 Pokemon I have further taken the liberty to update existing CAP movepools to fit the standards of Gen 8. As a result there are a series of level-up changes that need to be made in order for the CAP movepools to be made legal, primarily in terms of the level intervals in which moves are learnt, as well as the number of moves that are learnt in level-up. I will be posting a complete thread once the updates are finished with the suggestions that have been decided upon in order to vote on should we decide that we agree with making these movepools consistent. The implications of such a process are that a few moves will no longer be able to be learnt by level-up and would instead become TM/TR exclusive or Transfer-only. This for the most part is a flavour decision, but could have some impacts in updating for future generations if moves are no longer TM/TRs and transfer compability is requred (potentially no longer a problem with Pokemon HOME). Personally I think the consistency of the movepools is worth such issues as this will naturally be true for any other aspect of any CAP we create being subject to Game Freak's whims.

Secondly, this is an issue that has been occurring for a long time with some of our legacy CAPs as they are modelled and sprited. It is not likely to be a problem in the future but is something that I raise in regards to existing assets of existing CAPs in regards to their being a mismatch between the Art, Models and Sprites in some cases.

Art, Model and Sprite Summary

I have been doing my best to compile all of the examples of such mismatches occuring but am likely not to have hit them all, in either case it is important I believe to point out the most egregious, some of which I have been directly involved in, and think it important for us to consider and address going forward.

There are a few major categories that I identify have occurred and list them in order of importance to resolve and will provide examples for each.

1. Discrepancies between the winning Art designs, Sprites and Models

The most notable example of such a mismatch occurs with the Pyroak family. Specifically with Flarelm and Pyroak. Both Flarelm and Pyroak's artwork does not match-up with the existing sprite resources, and in the case of the model for Pyroak which is based primarily off of the artwork. While artistic liberty is something that has been allowed, these particular Pokemon have large enough discrepancies that I think they need to be addressed. Additionally, Protowatt which was recently designed also features some minor discrepancies between the Model, Sprite and Artwork.

Flarelm Example

For reference this is Flarelm's winning artwork.,

and this is its current set of Gen 5 sprites

As can be seen the size of the head frill leaf, the colour of Flarelm's wood, skin are different, and the entire head, cannon and feet designs and shapes are different. I have taken the liberty of preparing a more artwork accurate set of sprites to highlight this difference.

With this in mind I think for this particular example, we will either need to choose to accept the updated set of sprites or to run a new artwork competition in order to design a sprite that better depicts the design of the sprite. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that currently Flarelm is the only member of its evolutionary family to have a gender difference, something that is unheard of in Pokemon with the closest example being Combee having a red spot in the case that it is female.

Pyroak Example

In the case of Pyroak, the main discrepancy that has occurred has been in regards to the colour of its skirt. The original artwork, shown here, features Pyroak with a yellow skirt that has also been reflected on the model.

meanwhile in its current gen 5 sprites which was remade, the skirt is clearly Green, as well as its foot and head shape being slightly different

. With this in mind I think it would be a good idea to decide exactly what colour the skirt should be and to standardise them across the model, art and sprite. One suggestion that I would make is, considering Flarelm's current gender difference being exclusive, is to instead suggest that all members of the family have a gender difference with the skirt colour changing between yellow and green depending on whether its Male or Female.

Protowatt Example

Protowatt's is definitely the less egregious of the three and can probably stand as is, but now that it's model has been recently finalised, it is clear that the extent to which its segments are pronounced is different between the model and its sprite and artwork. With both its sprite and artwork appearing to be completely flat, while the model has clearly raised segments with the yellow stripes wrapping around the bottom more like the reaal life anatomy of a shrimp. While I think it's generally less noticeable as a problem, I do believe that it will be harder to remodel the design than it would be to replace the sprites and artwork to be more pronounced. Another minor difference is that the model's eyes are red rather than black.

Raised

Flat

2. Discrepancies between Gender differences in Models, Sprites and Families

The main offender here is one that I actually was involved in relating to Voodoom. The reason why this change occurred was because the way in which the models textures were set up, the bandage patch that was originally featured in the sprite entry here would have become stretched and distorted, and as such I devised an alternategender difference for use with the model that has since been rendered by QxC4eva.

Voodoom Example

Here is the original Gender difference from the sprite submission in Generation 4

demonstrating the sewed on patch. As mentioned previously this would have been unfeasible with the model and as a result I suggested a new gender version that inverted the brown and yellow colours, as can be seen here.

There has never been a situation in which this has happened between generations and as such I think there are two viable courses of action, retroactively replacing the gender differences with those used in the model or removing them completely. It should further be pointed out that currently Voodoll does not have a gender difference at all. Should we decide to keep this gender difference I have prepared an updated series of Gen 5 sprites, and would further make some for Voodoll.

3. Discrepancies between Shinies in Models and Sprites across generations

Finally there are a few different examples where the shiny colour schemes of CAP Pokemon are different between their sprite and model formes. These differences are generally pretty minor and range from things such as eye colours and full body colours. While there is precedent for changes to shinies occurring between Gen 5 and Gen 6 that would probably make this a non-issue, in the case of Kitsunoh and Volkraken the changes are substantial enough that I thought it worth pointing them out.

Kitsunoh Example

Kitsunoh has actually had three different shinies, between Gen 4, 5 and now its model. The first was a pure green.

The second in the BW sprite is a more pronounced blue teal

and the model's shiny being a midpoint between the two as a more green turquoise.

Although I don't think this is a major issue it might be worth tweaking the BW sprite to make it more of the appropriate midpoint it should be. Also it might be worth shrinking its tail slightly although that is probably appropriate artistic license.

Volkraken Example

Volkraken was another one that I was actually involved in changing slightly as a result of the original shiny colour scheme not working particularly well when translated to the model as outlined in my post here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-3d-modeling-project.3536091/page-33#post-8283364
QxC4eva personally approved the changes and has made a test render with the updated colour scheme here

I personally believe it would be fine to just chalk this up to a generational difference in the same vein as Charmeleon with no need to replace the existing sprite, although I believe Darquezze has actually mocked one up that looks pretty nice as well.

Crucibelle Example

The last example I have here is a very minor one and that is in regards to Crucibelle's eyes remaining yellow in its model shinies, both for the regular and Mega form. The reason this was specifically done was because the purple eyes featured in the sprite here

did not translate to the model. With this in mind it might be worth considering changing the eye colour as this has previously never occurred, although as I have mentioned before it is probably something that can just be chalked up to generational changes.

Thank you for the time to read through this everyone, I'd love to hear your thoughts in regards to how to proceed with some of these consistency considerations mentioned.

 

[MrDollSteak]

To further add on to this proposal, in regards to Level-up Movepool Flavour, I have since compiled a final list of the discussed changes to the Level-up movepools for all of the CAPs and Prevos in Gen 8. If anyone has anything to discuss in regards to this completed list, please feel free to do so either here, or in the other thread. The post is linked here.

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

As someone who spent a lot of time working on the movepool updates, I am in favor of implementing the movepool changes. I have been up close and personal with the entire process, and I can say that there are very few implications that this has for the current CAP metagame, and having a consistent source should also be a boon for future updates.

Just for transparency's sake, I want to highlight three deletions that we want to make retroactive (i.e. we want to rewrite history). None of these have any competitive implications, but because they involve undoing decisions from past generations, I figured it would be good to point them out.

Removing Belly Drum from Cawdet

Belly Drum Cawdet has been a regular terror in CAP LC, and was even banned in the previous iteration of the metagame from last generation. In the Generation 7 updates, Belly Drum was moved to an evolution move for Cawmodore, which would prevent Cawdet from learning it in the current generation. However, this does not preclude it from using it as a transfer move from Generation 5. As a result, we decided to remove that possibility as well by completely taking out Belly Drum from its learnset altogether, so it is not even a transfer move anymore. This way, we can reintroduce a hopefully more balanced Cawdet to the CAP LC metagame.

Moving Petal Blizzard from egg moves to level 1 for Pyroak and removing it from its prevos

Petal Blizzard is a move that, despite being added in the Generation 7 updates as an egg move to Pyroak (and thus to Embirch and Flarelm), has never been distributed as an egg move. It is one of a few moves on CAPs that have never been passed as an egg move, but unlike the other instance in the (debatably) competitively relevant Bone Rush Smokomodo, Petal Blizzard has no competitive relevance, so we felt comfortable deciding on whether to remove it or modify it. In the end, we ended up maintaining the original reason for its addition (that most Petal Dance users also get Petal Blizzard) by putting it as a level 1 move for Pyroak, and decided to completely remove it from Embirch and Flarelm. As a result, we are also pretending that Petal Blizzard was a level 1 move in Generation 7, and that Embirch and Flarelm have never received it.

• This likely requires removing Petal Blizzard from the learnset code for Embirch and inserting it into Pyroak as "petalblizzard: ["8L1", "7L1"],"

Cleaning up Mimic

Mimic is an artifact from a time when CAP was less concerned with flavor consistent with actual Pokemon. For the unaware, the only time that Mimic has not been a level up move or an egg move to a specific group of Pokemon was as a move tutor in Generation 3 games. However, Mimic was declared as a move tutor for all of the CAPs that have it, which makes no sense, as there was no Generation 4 tutor that taught it. Mimic is not even passed as an egg move in this generation, which did not stop it from being listed in as an egg move obtainable in the current generation. As a result, we have decided to do the following:

• Move Mimic to transfers as an egg move for Revenankh and the Fidgit and Voodoom lines.
  • For Revenankh and the Voodoom line, it is actually feasible to have received it from Mr. Mime through breeding in Gen 4.
    • This requires changing the 4T notation in the Showdown code to 4E. (mimic: ["8E", "7E", "4E"],)
  • For the Fidgit line, the egg move has to be starting from Gen 5, which is the first time a Pokemon in its egg group (Field) received the move through egg move and thus learned it outside of the Gen 3 tutors.
    • This requires removing the 4T from the Showdown code. (mimic: ["8E", "7E"],)
• Remove Mimic from the Syclant, Pyroak, and Colossoil lines.
  • For the Syclant, and Pyroak, there is no way for them to obtain the move, unless you pretend that Pokemon in their respective egg groups would pass it, then transfer a Pokemon from Gen 3 and breed it that way, which is frankly absurd.
  • For Colossoil, it was decided that the flavor was simply too weak to justify the stretch done for Fidgit.

EDIT: Forgot one more retroactive deletion we are doing. This one isn't on Showdown, and it was already deleted from Pyroak in the Gen 8 updates, but it is a complete removal of a move from a previously voted-on movepool, so I figure I might as well make a note about it here.

Removing Psybeam from the Pyroak prevos

You might be wondering what this is all about. The implementation of Embirch and Flarelm is actually very messy on Showdown, as it is a weird amalgamation of their original movepool from jas61292 with their updated movepool from Gen 7 by Drew. It was decided that we would use Drew's movepool as the base, which includes Psybeam as an egg move. This is derived from the movepool revisions that happened at the end of Gen 4, with Psybeam in particular being derived from Parasect. The issue is that Parasect is in the Bug and Grass egg groups, which means it is not in Pyroak's Monster and Dragon egg groups, and there is no way to pass the move otherwise. This, combined with its generally questionable flavor and the decision to delete it on Pyroak, lead to its deletion on Embirch and Flarelm as well.

 

[MrDollSteak]

It's been quite a while since this was first proposed, and as a result of the upcoming Pyroak revamp process, unless there are any last minute objections in the next 24 hours, this thread will be closed.

There will be no further action on Movepool standardisation, as this has already been resolved by the implementation of new Gen 8 movepool standards and the reorganisation of all existing CAP movepools to better match Gen 8 requirements as part of the CAP Prevo movepool updates.

In terms of resolving the discrepancies between the artwork, models and sprites of certain CAPs, a thread will be opened in order to discuss and implement changes to existing resources to standardise their designs. This thread will be run by the flavour moderation team, and discussion on the areas that need to be addressed will be sorted sequentially in order of priority. The moderation team will propose various suggestions about how to resolve the discrepancies, and when consensus is reached by the community, further action for that specific CAP will be determined and implemented, and the next area of discussion will also be opened. This will ideally remove bloat in terms of polls and allow for these discrepancies to be resolved and the new resources to be implemented as soon as possible.

 

[MrDollSteak]

So, it seems a bit strange to be posting here again in light of the previous post which appeared quite conclusive, but as everyone knows did not end up coming to fruition for a few reasons, none less major than the fact I ended up stepping down as a Mod for IRL reasons.

At the end of the day, the artwork flavour standardisation still needs to happen, and in addition I would similarly like to propose some tweaks to Embirch and Flarelm's stat lines in light of Pyroak's stat nerf. I believe ability changes were already voted against so such tweaks would purely be in terms of bringing their individual stats and base stat totals into a more logical place. This may not be the best place to post this, but I think it is worth raising again, in case there are any existing mods that may wish to take it on now that Gen 9 updates are happening. I will naturally be more than happy to contribute and make suggestions, but don't think it is functionally appropriate to take a lead on as I am no longer a representative of the Mod team.

Thanks everyone!