I'd like to address a general issue as to "Where do we stand with the CAP project right now?". Not that anyone has asked specifically, but I know some people are wondering and/or frustrated about it. As a discussion, this is typically something geared more for the CAP PRC, but this thread is also somewhat of a general project status update, so I'm posting this in the main CAP forum. Please use the proper discretion, if you decide to give feedback.
There is not much urgency around CAP right now, in terms of wrapping up PR threads or starting a new CAP, because of the new ORAS games. This is not an official thing, it's just the natural consequence of a new game coming out. The CAP project allows us to experiment with new pokemon and their impact on competitive play. Right now, we don't need CAP to scratch that itch. If people want to mess with new pokemon and see how they impact the metagame, just pick up an ORAS cartridge or log into Showdown. We are currently in the playtest period of a huge, just-completed "Create-A-Pokemon Project" right now and Gamefreak was the TLT.
That doesn't mean there is nothing we can be doing in CAP, but there is a lull as we settle into ORAS and see how things shake out. I know I personally am spending a TON of time in the new games (both playing the game for enjoyment and researching stuff for various programs that I am updating), and I assume most serious Pokemon players are doing the same. We certainly can be doing PR right now, and I am not suggesting everything in CAP comes to a total standstill. But I do expect people with a finite amount of free "pokemon time" to be prioritizing the new games over fan community stuff. This is a GOOD TRADEOFF for projects like CAP -- because our project depends on people having detailed knowledge and experience with the games.
Although I don't think we should start a new CAP project immediately, I'm not exactly sure what the criteria are for WHEN we should start the next CAP project. There isn't anything objective PREVENTING us from starting a CAP right now, so it's hard to objectively say when the time is right to get moving with CAP 20. In my opinion, there are two interrelated areas of "readiness" as it pertains to CAP 20:
When is the CAP community "ready" and when is the OU metagame "ready"?
There are plenty of CAP people that are "ready" right now, so this isn't a vote thing (Read: Please don't post ITT to say, "I'm ready now") As I mentioned above, this question is more about when we determine that intelligent, avid pokemon players have gotten past the surge of time required to immerse themselves in a new version of the game/metagame and they understand the overall consequences of the changes introduced.
I know I personally am still knee-deep in all sorts of ingame stuff, both as a programmer doing research for several pokemon-related utilities, and as a fan that likes to do time-intensive ingame projects. And I know very little about the metagame changes that have emerged post-ORAS, beyond the high-profile bans and tier changes that have occurred over the past few weeks. So I definitely have more to catch up on.
But that's just me. Is my situation different than others? Have most people pounded out their ingame campaign, beat the E4, put their DS back on the shelf, and are now ready to spend their free "pokemon time" with hours and hours of CAP discussion and voting threads? Have most sim battlers been laddering obsessively and have digested the new metagame sufficiently to begin experimenting with adding new fake OU pokemon to the mix?
In talking to a few battlers, it's debatable as to whether ORAS has been a "big deal" to the OU metagame or not. I don't really want to have that debate in this thread really, because it will be a shitstorm. Also, I don't want to get into a discussion of when the OU metagame is "balanced" -- because it never is balanced. That's why the OU Tiering Council always has something on their plate.
What I'm really looking for is some input on how we should determine that ORAS has been sufficiently digested by enough active, intelligent people for us to have intelligent discussions about making major changes to the game (ie. add a powerful fake pokemon to OU, aka CAP 20).
There is not much urgency around CAP right now, in terms of wrapping up PR threads or starting a new CAP, because of the new ORAS games. This is not an official thing, it's just the natural consequence of a new game coming out. The CAP project allows us to experiment with new pokemon and their impact on competitive play. Right now, we don't need CAP to scratch that itch. If people want to mess with new pokemon and see how they impact the metagame, just pick up an ORAS cartridge or log into Showdown. We are currently in the playtest period of a huge, just-completed "Create-A-Pokemon Project" right now and Gamefreak was the TLT.
That doesn't mean there is nothing we can be doing in CAP, but there is a lull as we settle into ORAS and see how things shake out. I know I personally am spending a TON of time in the new games (both playing the game for enjoyment and researching stuff for various programs that I am updating), and I assume most serious Pokemon players are doing the same. We certainly can be doing PR right now, and I am not suggesting everything in CAP comes to a total standstill. But I do expect people with a finite amount of free "pokemon time" to be prioritizing the new games over fan community stuff. This is a GOOD TRADEOFF for projects like CAP -- because our project depends on people having detailed knowledge and experience with the games.
Although I don't think we should start a new CAP project immediately, I'm not exactly sure what the criteria are for WHEN we should start the next CAP project. There isn't anything objective PREVENTING us from starting a CAP right now, so it's hard to objectively say when the time is right to get moving with CAP 20. In my opinion, there are two interrelated areas of "readiness" as it pertains to CAP 20:
When is the CAP community "ready" and when is the OU metagame "ready"?
There are plenty of CAP people that are "ready" right now, so this isn't a vote thing (Read: Please don't post ITT to say, "I'm ready now") As I mentioned above, this question is more about when we determine that intelligent, avid pokemon players have gotten past the surge of time required to immerse themselves in a new version of the game/metagame and they understand the overall consequences of the changes introduced.
I know I personally am still knee-deep in all sorts of ingame stuff, both as a programmer doing research for several pokemon-related utilities, and as a fan that likes to do time-intensive ingame projects. And I know very little about the metagame changes that have emerged post-ORAS, beyond the high-profile bans and tier changes that have occurred over the past few weeks. So I definitely have more to catch up on.
But that's just me. Is my situation different than others? Have most people pounded out their ingame campaign, beat the E4, put their DS back on the shelf, and are now ready to spend their free "pokemon time" with hours and hours of CAP discussion and voting threads? Have most sim battlers been laddering obsessively and have digested the new metagame sufficiently to begin experimenting with adding new fake OU pokemon to the mix?
In talking to a few battlers, it's debatable as to whether ORAS has been a "big deal" to the OU metagame or not. I don't really want to have that debate in this thread really, because it will be a shitstorm. Also, I don't want to get into a discussion of when the OU metagame is "balanced" -- because it never is balanced. That's why the OU Tiering Council always has something on their plate.
What I'm really looking for is some input on how we should determine that ORAS has been sufficiently digested by enough active, intelligent people for us to have intelligent discussions about making major changes to the game (ie. add a powerful fake pokemon to OU, aka CAP 20).