EVO 1 - Process Vote

[Darkflagrance]

Farfetch'd

has needed an evolution for 4 gens, and it's "logical" next step has alot of potential if we endow it with fighting/flying, a dual type previously unexplored. flying with no sr weak is awesome, and so is 4x bug/2x fighting resists (hera counter without 4x weaks, altohugh losing twave immune). it can also act as a great check to ttar, not dying to random ice beams (given decent def stats) and resisting dark attacks.

fight/fly is a great offensive stab combo too, only being stopped by zapdos and rotom forms. I think it would definitely muck up the metagame given the chance..

This is why Farfetch'd is not "a mistake". Furthermore, although I was not originally a diehard fan of Farfetch'd I definitely have respect for a process that we are definitely placing in jeopardy. I can guarantee that not everyone could have successfully pulled this off.

Aside from that, it is a shame that your Camerupt thread is nowhere to be seen so that I can compare the analyses from somewhere other than memory.

 

[jumpluff]

Does every Pokémon need an evolution? Some Pokémon are just gimmicky and meant to have quirks. Unown needs one more but we're not going to evolve Unown, are we? Besides, I think what's more important is what the metagame as a collective needs rather than the needs of an individual facet of the metagame. Also, if we're going to do completely bizarre things with Farfy like a steel/flying special tank, then it belongs better in CaP. Camerupt fits more with EVO in that it needs enhancing, not total re-creation. The mission statement of CaP, I believe, states that part of the mission is to explore the metagame. Gorm is not just arguing for Camerupt but arguing for a more metagame-driven and thorough EVO1; please do not be so limited as to think this is exclusive to him wanting Camerupt as the EVO1 Pokémon base.

It's not so much an issue of sway: Gorm is very respected on Smogon, yes, but that's how Smogon and a democractic society in general works. Smogon is supported by people who attain notability for themselves for the work they put into the site/community/metagame: look at PR, C&C, CaP even -- there are prominent users who have a louder voice and are better at gaining support because they are respected, but this is hardly an issue of being partial to him. Doug and darkie were very reasonable and allowed us to do this and re-examine the process in the interests of EVO1 and the process. Please stop prattling on about this and just vote. After all, they opened it up to a vote, which is after all democratic. I don't understand why people are complaining. It's a good compromise.

 

[RBG]

You have to understand how this may appear to an objective bystander.

Unfortunately, i correctly predicted that people would say this. I doubt gorm wanted to take control of this process. His reasons for why camerupt should be evolved were valid. However, Gorm was not the only one who had problems with how the process went down. There was excesive ammounts of fanboyisism, and in the end, the vote seemed to be "I want Farfetche'd to evolve" and "I don't". That is a major problem in my book. We are trying to create a viable OU evolution for a non OU pokemon, and frankly, the last poll had excessive amounts of fanboyisim. My only hope (as I have said earlier) is that if we do this over, we have writeups for each pokemon listed, so that way, its not about the fanboy, it is about the competitive battler.

 

[gorm]

This is why Farfetch'd is not "a mistake"

hey know whats funny, i posted that. and know what else is funny, listing a bunch of things this could potentially beat is still polljumping and making alot of assumptions. if we take camperupt we can easily envision where it will go (mixed bulk mixed offense whatever speed) and THATS why its more suited to EVO1 than fetchd, since fetchd is just *doing whatever we want* (new pokemon/niche essnetially) and camerupt is simply *improving* the pokemon using its current framework a a reference

i think something like that resonates alot more with my idea of an evolution than fetchd.

giving a pokemon an evolutin because its weak has that weak pokemon in mind, not the metagame.


i think tennisace's idea of *learning from our mistakes* after the fact is a waste of time when we know taht making a fecht evo is not suited to EVO1 (or does anyone disagree? apparently 13 people do and id like to hear from them)


darkie soft deleted it here is the OP

1st off lock this if im out of line, i guess but this isnt an issue im gonna let go of as long as i think it's worth pursuing. Second i dont mean to disrespect darkie in any way and i dont wanna make his hard work seem like it was for nothing..



but i digress.

Back in adv, zapdos was somewhat rampant but all it really had was resttalk and thunderwave/hidden power. it was comon knowledge that camperupt stopped this zapdos cold.. but due to the sheer amount of bulky waters (no Lo meant weaker mence/dragons in genera so pert/milo were everywhere)

currently the metagame is somewhat tumultous... heatran/scizor means blissey zapdos everywhere and most matches seem like a diceroll of who has better threats/leads and personally i find it kind of rough for teambuilding, i dunno who agrees. 

evolving a camerupt gives us a check towards a surprisingly huge amount of offensive/defensive threats, but performing these duties mosstly offensively.

none of skymin/heatran/zapdos/scizor/blissey/tyranitar can switch in reliably and even threaten with an ohko (given the right amout of bulk), while camperupt evo thretens them all in some way, be it with stab eq or fire blast. bulky waters are a different but they arent exactly difficult to beat with celebi/kingdra or whoever. I'm sure we've all also heard of zapdos.

since camerupt/celebi are heatran weak you can throw in something like gyara/starmie and you pretty much have all offesnive threats covered save tar, but being weak to all of their stabs hes not exactly switching in and setting up.



I think fanboyism played apart in the selection process and that farfetchd isnt as ~interesting as camperupt right now, as someone pointed out fight/fly are common enough in OU right now because they are great types. if chomp comes back.. thats different but right now i think we should consider camerupt as a serisou candidate..

Given all the great things about camperupts potential evo already, we would be free to work on inhancing instead of creating which is the purpose of evo isnt it?


---


I'm not posting this for nothing. The only reason im insisting so hard is because the community is extremely 50/50 right now and i think adding cameruprt to the race would really make the commuitys choice more clear..

 

[PapaCAP]

I do not want a Farfetch'd evolution. I would much rather have a Camerupt evolution or Girafarig evolution. I do not think we should go back and redo the polls, however. I think my basic reasoning has to do with the fact that we should finish what we started and learn from our mistakes. This is the first evo project after all, so there are going to be a lot more arguments and disagreements than normal CAP which has already been refined and fine-tuned. It wastes too much time to go back and fix every single thing in order to get it perfect the very first time, and I think it'd be more efficient to just keep pulling forward, and if there's any flaws in the process we can iron them out NEXT evo project.

Moderators will not change votes for ANYONE, even supposed "mis-clicks".

Oh the irony.

 

[zfs]

This is why Farfetch'd is not "a mistake". Furthermore, although I was not originally a diehard fan of Farfetch'd I definitely have respect for a process that we are definitely placing in jeopardy. I can guarantee that not everyone could have successfully pulled this off.

Aside from that, it is a shame that your Camerupt thread is nowhere to be seen so that I can compare the analyses from somewhere other than memory.

You're right, flying/fighting is a great dual-type. You should suggest it for CAP 6, and I'm sure you'd get a ton of support.

 

[TAY]

To all you people saying, "gorm got special treatment" or "this is only because gorm is cool/has weight": just shut up. If you really want to talk about the issue at hand in this thread then do so by presenting your case. If you want to attack gorm for no reason, then just shup up an vote no. The fact is that this had a lot of support, even disregarding gorm. Just because he was bold enough to bring it up isn't a good reason to be a douche to him. He saw a problem and acted to try and fix it, and I applaud him for that.

So far tennis is the only one to present a valid argument for voting no. And as much as I agree with most of the things tennis has said, I think that the fact that the results will likely be very significantly different is reason enough to take a mulligan here. We should learn to do it right the first time.

 

[gorm]

papacap we have not started anything really except arbitrarily discussing the evo's type which is an argument against it being evo 1 since that is probably something that should be known a priori. fetchdd does not have a strong enough framework to build on

To all you people saying, "gorm got special treatment" or "this is only because gorm is cool/has weight": just shut up

thank you tay

You're right, flying/fighting is a great dual-type. You should suggest it for CAP 6, and I'm sure you'd get a ton of support.

exacly (but it will prolly be saved for a later evo project (when we are more experienced ahve a better process :D)

 

[Bass]

In my last post regarding this issue, I held a lot of my emotions back, but I am admittedly bad mood right now, so here it goes...

My vote is for not redoing the poll.

My opinion is that we shouldn't even be conducting THIS poll in the first place. The fact of the matter is, after THREE polls, mind you, a majority of the community chose Farfetch'd to be the pokemon we evolve in our first trial of the Evolution Project. Even if Gorm's assertions are correct, that somehow, he misguided some community members into supporting farfetch'd, as a veteran of this project, redoing a poll just because you didn't like the outcome is completely bogus.

First, I'd like to mention my votes for the first three polls. I did not support farfetch'd. I actually wanted Girafarig to win, but it didn't. When it was just down to Farfetch'd and Houndoom, I was a bit skeptical about Houndoom initially, but after hearing Doug post some very strong arguments for Houndoom's support, I, contrary to Gorm's belief that Houndoom voters were simply voting as anti-farfetch'd voters, voted for Houndoom. Houndoom lost by a very small margin. But so what? Farfetch'd was determined as the legitimate winner of the poll, so I will stand by the results and just deal with it.

In fact, it is my past experiences in this project that have led me to my opinions on this matter. Mine and many others'. Since this project's inception, we have held dozens of polls, where in most of these cases, a segment of the community was disappointed with the results. However, in none of these cases, not ONCE, did these people bitch enough to force us into even considering a redo of a poll. I brought this up in my previous post, but I'll mention it again.

During the Primary Typing poll for CAP 4 (Fidgit), I got myself into a situation very similar to gorm's. I was in the camp of Electric supporters for Fidgit's primary type, but at the beginning of the poll, Poison was the clear favorite to win because at the time, Electric supporters, such as my self, felt that the "fanboy" vote was largely misguided into supporting poison, so I and a few others made well thought-out reasons for why we felt Electric was the right choice. Never mind the fact that a few of Poison supporters also had some project veterans on their side, some of them even posting lengthy counterpoints to my argument for Electric. Some voters claimed that they wanted to change their votes to Electric after seeing my argument.

Electric ended up losing the poll by just 3 votes. We were very bitter about the results, and we ended up pushing for tighter voting restrictions in future PR threads. However, not ONCE, did we bitch to the point where we begged for a recount, as Gorm did. We dealed with our loss and accepted the majority vote. We did our very best to let the process go by smoothly, which was more important, so that Fidgit would become a good pokemon (And sure enough it was). Really, losing one fucking poll is not the end of the world. If it's bad to the point that you don't want to participate in the current CAP creation, then you may just wait for the next one to start, and hopefully, learn from your past experiences to become a valuable CAP contributor.

However, I feel that redoing even just one of the polls for EVO 1 goes completely against what CAP stands for. As I have said before, many veterans of this project have all been through similar situations to this one. We did not get any type of recount when we weren't happy with the results. X-Act also agrees that a recount is pointless. It's easy to understand how he feels, especially because X-Act has lost many, many CAP polls, to the point where he mentioned it in his member title. However, he didn't bitch or try to distrupt the process during each of those times, instead, he continued to contribute as much as he could to the project. But when someone, who is well liked by the community (yet ignorant about the CAP project as a whole) decides to beg for a recount, we are considering it. This probably greatly offended X-Act, and it greatly offends me and many other CAP contributors. It's no wonder that a lot of people (with a few exceptions) who support gorm's position haven't really been through this kind of thing at all. I actually agree with him 100% that Camerupt deserves an evolution and would be a great addition to our metagame. However, that's only one of the many things that are part of a good CAP process, and disrupting it like this is a complete insult to its integrity.

 

[gorm]

However, I feel that redoing even just one of the polls for EVO 1 goes completely against what CAP stands for.

does cap stand for never looking abck and just churning out pokemon? im not sure what you mean in this sentence. if so though, im not interested in that kind of process for this kind of project.

if you were ever unhappy with the results, you should have done something about it like i did. sorry if its *never happened before* but i really think it's for the ebst and im not alone.


let's get sturdy footing before we take a step into this new frontier.

also agreeing with zfs and rook venom

 

[zfs]

However, that's only one of the many things that are part of a good CAP process, and disrupting it like this is a complete insult to its integrity.

I think it would be more of an insult to its integrity if we continued to push forward even though, as the current poll standings seem to show, well over half of the community thinks that we made a bad decision.

 

[Venom]

I say re-do the poll, but I accidentally made the wrong vote, so if it could be fixed that'd be g....e_e;

 

[RBG]

if you were ever unhappy with the results, you should have done something about it like i did. sorry if its *never happened before* but i really think it's for the ebst and im not alone.

I think you mean "If you have a problem with the process as to how the final result came", not "If you were ever unhappy with the results".

There will always be someone unhappy, but people can agree that the process worked correctly. But if we are very early in a new process and we find that we made a mistake in how the process works, then I say, lets right this ship before we send it out to sea.

 

[tennisace]

He saw a problem and acted to try and fix it, and I applaud him for that.

As do I.

So far tennis is the only one to present a valid argument for voting no. And as much as I agree with most of the things tennis has said, I think that the fact that the results will likely be very significantly different is reason enough to take a mulligan here. We should learn to do it right the first time.

Thanks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if restart wins, we should stop the EVO project temporarily, Make a new PR thread about it, and start CAP 6. Obviously its flawed. Lets give Gorm and everyone a chance to change it with us, instead of constantly fighting. Then we'll try it (no restarts allowed whatsoever), and if it doesn't work, we change it and try again. Deal?

(Note that this isn't my idea completely, Doug, Darkie, and a bunch of people on the server agreed.)

 

[PapaCAP]

Thanks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if restart wins, we should stop the EVO project temporarily, Make a new PR thread about it, and start CAP 6. Obviously its flawed. Lets give Gorm and everyone a chance to change it with us, instead of constantly fighting. Then we'll try it (no restarts allowed whatsoever), and if it doesn't work, we change it and try again. Deal?

But we aren't going to know everything that we need to iron out until we go through the whole EVO project at least once. That is why I think it's better to go through a flawed EVO process and then learn what repairs need to be made than going partway through, going back to try to fix something, then going through again, something ending up wrong at a later part of the process, and then going back and changing it and trying again. We'd never get anywhere that way.

 

[gorm]

we should stop the EVO project temporarily, Make a new PR thread about it, and start CAP 6.

uh i personally am very interested in seeing how far a process that we can question along the way and change based on current problems (malleable process) is. if someone (like me) speaks up when he doesnt think somethin in the process is right all we have to do is lisetn and decide if we have to change the process.

its going to take a while but -thats what a pilot project is about, getting it right as you can-

writing a new process could work but it could also just lead to another deadlock. i think this project can get a better start with all the new options including camerupt that this is oppening up lets not slow the momentum tennis

 

[Darkflagrance]

I think it would be more of an insult to its integrity if we continued to push forward even though, as the current poll standings seem to show, well over half of the community thinks that we made a bad decision.

Note that these polls have been known to go to 180 and beyond.

I have faith in the community, that it will realize that this kind of actions sets precedents and sends signals which are unacceptable. But supposing we turn out to have "made a bad decision." How do you go about remedying it?

In other words, there is no countermeasure to this supposed "fanboyishness" because it did not drive the vote in any way that we can control.
Looking between the two arguments of competitive value, can one say that one is honestly better than the other? Is there an ABSOLUTE need to do Camerupt first just because one guy posted another analysis that happens to be of similar quality? Even if we go back now and try to eliminate fanboyishness, you would have gotten the same result because the argument for Farfetch'd was just as competitively based as the argument for Camerupt.

So then, would we impose stringent crackdowns on fanboyism everywhere? Would Pokemon be selected and created based on a mathematical formula? Evolved pokemon must be able to beat every threat of the current metagame?

So Camerupt happens to appear good to some. So, because one user posted a good argument after we finished the poll, we decide to abandon everything and do his suggestion? Isn't that the purpose of the next EVO project?

Think about it. We have set up a process, an institution of sorts, with precedents and rules, so that it can stably ride out any crisis. Then, on the whim of a member, we decide to throw that away. Gorm has put a lot of effort into this, but so has everyone else that has already voted on Farfetch'd and are even now doing so in the still-open type changing poll.

I'm also going to have to ask why Doug allowed this to go so far; it runs contrary to everything I expected from him as a mature, responsible, and rule respecting member of this community, and if he ever thought people were criticizing him for sticking too hard to the rules, I apologize on behalf of those of us, like myself, who took him for granted and did not make their appreciation of his maintenance of standards known.

uh i personally am very interested in seeing how far a process that we can question along the way and change based on current problems (malleable process) is

writing a new process could work but it could also just lead to another deadlock. i think this project can get a better start with all the new options including camerupt that this is oppening up lets not slow the momentum tennis

So we're just an experiment to you eh? I too would like to experiment on this process, maybe by firing some moderators and replacing them with randoms with <10 posts, see what that would do for CAP.

 

[RBG]

Thanks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if restart wins, we should stop the EVO project temporarily, Make a new PR thread about it, and start CAP 6. Obviously its flawed. Lets give Gorm and everyone a chance to change it with us, instead of constantly fighting. Then we'll try it (no restarts allowed whatsoever), and if it doesn't work, we change it and try again. Deal?

(Note that this isn't my idea completely, Doug, Darkie, and a bunch of people on the server agreed.)

While in theory, that is a good idea, I have a problem with doing that after this project was advertised on the from page. If we can agree that the main problem was how the Pokemon was chosen, then I am sure we can fix that and then continue with EVO1.

If we have people list suggestions like Gorm did (albeit with proper grammar and capitalization), then it could work out like the beginning of a normal CAP, with well reasoned thoughts for each pokemon, explaining what it will do and make our final objective much clearer

 

[gorm]

Gorm has put a lot of effort into this, but so has everyone else that has already voted on Farfetch'd and are even now doing so in the still-open type changing poll.

i my defense this isn't really ont he same level xD

i agree that removing fanboyism is gonna *cull the ranks* honestly i say s be it. im way more interested in metagame shifts than in what someone thinks would be a cool offensive typing

(albeit with proper grammar and capitalization)

ill never be a shiki ^_^

 

[jumpluff]

Note that these polls have been known to go to 180 and beyond.

I have faith in the community, that it will realize that this kind of actions sets precedents and sends signals which are unacceptable. But supposing we turn out to have "made a bad decision." How do you go about remedying it?

How does this set precedent? Doug explicitly stated that this was a special case because this is the first EVO. Did you read the OP?

Please be quiet. Stop dragging the fact that it was Gorm, a popular member's, suggestion into it. The fact that the 'whim' of a member brought it up is no longer the issue at hand. As for the process, the process is good for CaP, yet, but surely we were all prepared that it would need fixing for EVO as we went?

I think this actually sends good signals: that we can make up for our mistakes and fix our project, which is community-driven after all, and I think quite a few people were convinced by the arguments for Camerupt, and most importantly, making this more metagame-driven. If you want to bring up Farfy again, do so, but I agree that it needs proper reasoning this time.

This is a site project, fanboyism is not a site project, voting for Farfy just because you think Farfy is a cool Pokémon is not the kind of vote this needs.

 

[tennisace]

While in theory, that is a good idea, I have a problem with doing that after this project was advertised on the from page. If we can agree that the main problem was how the Pokemon was chosen, then I am sure we can fix that and then continue with EVO1.

If we have people list suggestions like Gorm did (albeit with proper grammar and capitalization), then it could work out like the beginning of a normal CAP, with well reasoned thoughts for each pokemon, explaining what it will do and make our final objective much clearer

How do we know that the rest of the project isn't flawed? Oh thats right we wouldn't run through it once to find other problems. So once we restart, what happens if and when we find another trouble spot?

 

[Darkflagrance]

How does this set precedent? Doug explicitly stated that this was a special case because this is the first EVO. Did you read the OP?

Please be quiet. Stop dragging the fact that it was Gorm, a popular member's, suggestion into it. The fact that the 'whim' of a member brought it up is no longer the issue at hand. As for the process, the process is good for CaP, yet, but surely we were all prepared that it would need fixing for EVO as we went?

It's called the "Slippery slope."
Honestly, this poll is being conducted on the basis of emotion. There is nothing for us to "fix" here except for Gorm to come in earlier.
You can speak for yourself on the last part. It's one thing when an argument is ad hominem, and another when it actually addresses a key flaw in the system.

EDIT: I was afraid that my sentiments would offend some of the members of the project in that simplified state, so I white-texted that part of my post as a reminder to myself to expand it later.

 

[Antique Roadshow]

I still am annoyed that Castform wasn't in any of the votes, but oh well. I voted re-do.

 

[Bass]

I think it would be more of an insult to its integrity if we continued to push forward even though, as the current poll standings seem to show, well over half of the community thinks that we made a bad decision.

Don't forget that Gorm also got word out for his argument first (and then attacked most of the other users in this thread with similar opinions to mine). Besides, 26 votes is not "well over half the community" at all.

 

[Deck Knight]

Suppose I'll weigh in here.

I think this entire thing started on the wrong foot because, as tennis said, he viewed this as just another CAP project. That's a problem. The EVO project should be a disctinct project and not just a concurrent CAP 6 equivalent.

Our first CAP project, if you recall, had a lot of bumps in the road and we pushed through Scyclant. Then Doug got loads of complaints like "wtfbbq broken ftw!" So I'm of the mind to believe restarting the process with more focus on concept instead of just picking a pokemon and voting before a serious discussion topic of 5 or so submissions is folly.

So I voted to restart. EVO and CAP should not just be two different names for the same project. They should be two distinct and unique projects. Unlike CAP, EVO should not just rush blindly into whatever pokemon can gather 51% of the vote when the only discussion that has gone on is in contentious polls. I think we need a stop gap after our first "draft" of evo picks to really think about the metagame. Our current project is too far gone and we will end up with a pokemon that does not even do justice to the pokemon it evolved from. We only get a chance to evolve something once, don't turn it into an unrecognizable fanboy junk heap.