On Direct Recovery

[M&F]

I'd also like to suggest that direct healing moves get changed to restoring 30% HP for a constant 15% energy, with Synthesis/Moonlight still costing the same regardless of weather and instead healing 25% or 35%. That basically gives you one round back with the standard damage caps, means you would actually have a benefit/penalty for weather, and would not be nearly as obnoxious to play against. It also means you wouldn't tank your energy any time you wanted to heal, which would encourage actual strategy in defensive play.

Our topic at hand is direct recovery. Is it possible -- and worthwhile -- to nerf it into something less tedious? And how would Rest work compared to other direct recovery moves after general changes are made? Is the current mechanic duly strategical, or is it simply broken and too spammable for anyone's good?

 

[nastypass]

I fully agree that direct recovery moves ought to be nerfed, and I think surskitty's proposal is an excellent starting point. There are few battles to point to as evidence of recovery's brokenness, and with good reason, as it has traditionally been banned in most challenges alongside OHKO moves. Therefore, I don't think the argument needs to be so much that it needs balancing, but how, and whether we should bother. I think 30% and a flat 15% energy cost are good values for recovery, giving the user roughly a round's worth of damage at a fairly high energy cost.

However, I see one other problem with recovery: it's much harder to disrupt than damaging attacks. One cannot throw up a quick Protect or Substitute to prevent the opponent from healing as one might for a super effective attack or a status move, so a heal will always be the 'safe play' unless your opponent has Taunt, which is obviously limited in distribution. Here is my proposal, then: direct recovery moves should be made -1 priority, and the users left more vulnerable to to secondary effects of moves (I would suggest doubling the base chance as a starting point). This would give players the option to try flinching the recovery away, or roll the dice in some other way when they might not have ordinarily (such as going for a burn from a weaker fire attack).

I have no idea what should be done about Rest. No chilling in one's sleep seems like a good idea in general, but I don't think it goes far enough re: health. Maybe it can give 50% over the course of the 3 actions it takes?

 

[blazheirio889]

Direct recovery is either tedious (for the ref, mainly, and when that happens the battle usually gets abandoned), but if it doesn't heal enough, it's not useful (and will still probably be tedious for the ref).

Let's start with the proposed 30% recovery. The lowest usual damage cap is 30%, so okay, in that case, you get an extra round. But 30% damage is easier to deal than it seems - an 80bp STAB move used three times will accomplish that easily. So basically at the end of the round you could easily be where you started, minus some energy.

Will 30% recovery be less tedious? Perhaps not - recovering less means you have more control over your energy, and energyfainting is one of the things that keep direct recovery in check. A strategy of heal ~ chill ~ chill every round could actually be feasible with a low damage cap.

Currently I think direct healing is kept in check by the amount of energy it uses; I've seen plenty of instances where Pokemon can't keep up energy-wise after recovering. Sure, it's tedious (which is why it's banned so often), but tedious doesn't necessarily mean broken.

 

[shy ♡]

I think the problem with the 30% recover is halving the energy cost, making it possible to spam healing.

So I suggest raising the energy cost of healing instead - instead of 1/2... make it 3/4's?

 

[1. Luftballon]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS GOES ANYMORE it is a hugepost please read it ;;

okay, look, asb balance is hard to evaluate. there are broken things, no contest. but you know, direct healing isn’t some new untested thing that’s getting introduced for the first time here, and rest is a move learned by practically everything that learns tm moves. if it were game-breaking, you’d expect that to be to have become obvious in the past decade.

if, in spite of this, rest and chilling by themselves formed an imbalance, we’d expect to see its effects on the metagame: dominance in the worst case, or causing other strategies to be unviable. certainly it would be something that players would have to keep in mind in order to play effectively with any regularity.

empirically, this is not the case. for one thing—I’m not sure how you’re understanding it, but I don’t think allie means that it is a pain in the ass for your opponent. it is, but more importantly it is a pita for the ref and it is a pita for yourself. on paper you’d never notice but considering how many battles end in DQ or just fall apart at some point this is a far more important consideration for maximizing your enjoyment in practice.

personally, until you brought it up, I didn’t even bother thinking about how to deal with indefinite rest ~ chill ~ chill. when I did think about it, it still didn’t seem like a huge deal.

asb is not, and is not intended to be, a perfect mirror of the games. chill’s effect can be diminished by environmental factors. rest’s effect can be diminished by environmental factors.

for one, per tradition, chill’s energy restoration is diminished by distraction; keep in mind that this isn’t something that you’re expected to memorize, either. it is not a mechanic which incidentally sort of makes sense; the logic precedes the mechanic. this is part of what we mean by creativity in the context of asb.

I’d be p hard-pressed to find one pokémon that can’t do something that could distract the opponent hard enough to prevent regaining half the damage cap in energy. 25% is the low end of damage caps for non-gimmick battles, and that requires you to restore >4% per action, and first of all using a pokémon without a substantial movepool in a battle capped at 25% is kind of suspect in the first place, and second I have little trouble allowing an opponent purposefully singing cacophonically to make it harder for you to rest can reduce your energy recovery to 5% or less.

and even purely mechanically, uproar is hardly the only way to prevent an opponent from rest/chilling indefinitely: it is broken by snatch, interrupted by encore, interrupted by taunt, restricted by torment, stopped cold by worry seed or heal block, prevented for a long while by imprison, impeded by wake-up slap, and turned into your opponent’s win condition by judicious use of spite. meanwhile an opponent with access to boosting and any draining move and use the actions you’re chilling and resting to boost up, wreck your defenses, and target energy.

now, you might say, there are pokémon who nevertheless have none of these counters, and the fact that rest is on every single pokémon and allowed makes them unviable. (I don’t know if you’d say that, but I’ll anticipate it anyway.) that is correct, under certain conditions. however, the pokémon with so lacking a support movepool are, simply put, are not especially viable in singles with a damage cap low enough for you to reliably rest/chill-stall indefinitely anyway. I don’t think anyone is arguing that every pokémon should be viable in every format, and ideally people will choose the pokémon they use with the battle format in mind, so basically this is a non-issue.

IF IN SPITE OF ALL THIS, you are nevertheless convinced that rest/chill is broken, you are welcome to demonstrate, preferably in a live battle situation. like, go win a battle or two with it. I mean, this isn't really my place to offer but I am perfectly willing to hold off-the-record suspect-testing exhibition battles if someone’d be willing to ref.

I really do think you’re too fixated on the mechanics and unbellyfeel asb, though. I kind of understand?—it’s basically secondhand embarrassment tbh. yes, I’d prefer to stick to the mechanics most of the time, too, but the non-mechanical parts are just as much an important part of the asb experience. more important, when you come to the edge cases.

 

[Mai]

I fully agree that direct recovery moves ought to be nerfed, and I think surskitty's proposal is an excellent starting point. There are few battles to point to as evidence of recovery's brokenness, and with good reason, as it has traditionally been banned in most challenges alongside OHKO moves.

It's banned because it slows battles down, which would happen no matter how we nerf it. That's inherent to idea of recovery.

I don't think our current method of recovery is broken at all, actually. Recovery happens most when you're both low on energy /and/ health, so once you spend a lot of energy pulling up your health, you're in a crisis there too. Plus, when you're just sitting there, the opponent gets free actions/rounds.

I have no idea what should be done about Rest. No chilling in one's sleep seems like a good idea in general, but I don't think it goes far enough re: health. Maybe it can give 50% over the course of the 3 actions it takes?

The main drawback to rest is not being able to control how much you heal, actually. It makes it a dangerous recovery move when you're low on health: your opponent can sap your energy and faint you that way instead. I don't think lowering the amount it heals would help anyway.

 

[surskitty]

The sheer fact that direct healing is a pain in the ass for the ref and for yourself is still a sign it needs to be rebalanced in some way. An entire class of moves that could very easily be actually viable is functionally useless because they're overcentralising enough that anytime they come into play makes the game boring. If they weren't boring, people wouldn't ban them all the time and dismiss the very idea of using something that should be potentially strategically viable.

Whether or not recovery is overpowered is irrelevant. What is relevant is that as it is, direct recovery is boring and it shouldn't be.

If 15% for 30% sounds too cheap, then 20% for 30%. I'm not picky about the exact numbers, but the numbers as they are do not work. You can tell they do not work by how people do not like to use them.

Also, yes, 30% damage is easy to deal and you could easily be back where you started at that rate of heaing at the end of the round. That is kind of the point. If you can easily lose that much HP back again, then you're going to need some kind of plan beyond healing yourself. But at least then you can have a plan involving healing, as opposed to everyone by consesus ignoring that the mechanic exists.

 

[1. Luftballon]

I don't think changing the numbers could possibly make direct recovery interesting. the concept of direct recovery is that the battle goes on for longer. you can also compare the usage of stall-type tactics in tournament-type play (where winning is the goal) compared to normal play (where in the end, most of us just kind of want to poke around a try a thing and facepunch with friends or something, get some monies and experiences).

direct recovery is used when you're low on hp, high on energy, and usually when you want to punch a hole in the opponent's next sendout before you go down.

the structure of asb simply does not incentivise making your battle longer. I don't think this is fixable and it is inherently in conflict with direct recovery as a concept.

fwiw people ban OHKO's all the time, too, and atm they are p much not even useful moves to use compared to, like. conventional attacking.

I guess the question is, what do you hope to make more viable by changing direct recovery?

 

[Superbird]

Just speaking about the numbers, I have a proposal: Direct recovery moves other than rest may restore a maximum amount of health equal to the damage cap or the move's conventional upper limit, whichever is smaller. Rest may restore up to twice the damage cap. In both cases, the energy used is equal to 2/3 of the health restored.
Maybe treat them more similarly to ohko moves in regards to the damage cap (ohko moves deal a maximum damage of the damage cap, right?)

A potential way of nerfing Rest, if it's too overpowered, would be extending the mandatory sleep time to three actions instead of two.

 

[surskitty]

I don't think changing the numbers could possibly make direct recovery interesting. the concept of direct recovery is that the battle goes on for longer. you can also compare the usage of stall-type tactics in tournament-type play (where winning is the goal) compared to normal play (where in the end, most of us just kind of want to poke around a try a thing and facepunch with friends or something, get some monies and experiences).

direct recovery is used when you're low on hp, high on energy, and usually when you want to punch a hole in the opponent's next sendout before you go down.

the structure of asb simply does not incentivise making your battle longer. I don't think this is fixable and it is inherently in conflict with direct recovery as a concept.

fwiw people ban OHKO's all the time, too, and atm they are p much not even useful moves to use compared to, like. conventional attacking.

I guess the question is, what do you hope to make more viable by changing direct recovery?

OHKOs are never going to not be boring, regardless of what ASBdoes. The problem there is that a 30% accuracy move is never going to be interesting to work with. It just isn't.

Roost in particular could potentially be an interesting move, but other than that I would just like to be able to recover so I can get a round back with which to do other things without making it too obnoxious for my opponent to hit me back down again. Yeah, there are a lot of other ways to stall depending on the pokemon, but I don't think healing in general needs to necessarily be tedious for all involved.

Just speaking about the numbers, I have a proposal: Direct recovery moves other than rest may restore a maximum amount of health equal to the damage cap or the move's conventional upper limit, whichever is smaller. Rest may restore up to twice the damage cap. In both cases, the energy used is equal to 2/3 of the health restored.
Maybe treat them more similarly to ohko moves in regards to the damage cap (ohko moves deal a maximum damage of the damage cap, right?)

A potential way of nerfing Rest, if it's too overpowered, would be extending the mandatory sleep time to three actions instead of two.

I like the numbers suggestion.

It's not so much that Rest is overpowered as that it heals a ton of hp and is boring. Adding another round of sleep just makes it even more boring. I don't think it's possible to de-boring Rest unless Sleep Talk gets reworked.

Though maybe if you could specify types of move to Sleep Talk? Still wouldn't be able to command particular attacks, but 'try to buff yourself' or 'try to attack' at least would make it marginally less obnoxious.

 

[shy ♡]

Rest is supposed to be boring though... that's part of why it sucks. Making sleep talk more plannable would just make it kinda op.

I think wanting to get a round back with recovery is the problem; you gotta plan better or deal with the energy costs of healing. Or just not-heal due it being banned. Or use indirect healing. Even if you do try to get a round back with ~30% healing you'd be losing a round of energy and probably not be gaining that HP anyhow, since your opponent can easily knock you down that HP in that action.

There's a reason most battles are 2 vs 2 or more; your one pokemon isn't supposed to last the entire battle.

 

[Mai]

OHKOs are never going to not be boring, regardless of what ASBdoes. The problem there is that a 30% accuracy move is never going to be interesting to work with. It just isn't.

If you use gravity, it's a 50% accuracy move! Plus other accuracy shenanigans. Getting them likely to hit might make them interesting in themselves.

Roost in particular could potentially be an interesting move, but other than that I would just like to be able to recover so I can get a round back with which to do other things without making it too obnoxious for my opponent to hit me back down again. Yeah, there are a lot of other ways to stall depending on the pokemon, but I don't think healing in general needs to necessarily be tedious for all involved.

... Why? If your opponent can knock you back down in the same round you healed, you're just wasting everyone's time. That's just making it unnecessarily obnoxious for everyone involved: you, the opponent, and the ref. I mean, imagine a scenario like that:

You: Recover ~ Chill ~ Chill (the energy cost of healing was already driven up, anyway, you /need/ to chill)
Opponent: Damage ~ Damage ~ Damage

If we nerf heals, then you're right back where you started, except the same or lower on damage and energy. The ref has to write a boring round, too. What have you accomplished? Why is that interesting?

If you think healing as it is now is uninteresting, it's not going to get much better, no matter how much it's nerfed. It's just stalling and extending the game unnecessarily. If it's not tedious - if your opponent can knock you down as fast or faster than you can get back up - then it's wasting your time.

 

[1. Luftballon]

I am still really confused as to what you're trying to get at here

I mean roost has an interest mechanic indeed but

how do you intend for an effect with literally the intended effect of "keep me alive for longer" to be not p close to the definition of tedious

 

[Mai]

Though maybe if you could specify types of move to Sleep Talk? Still wouldn't be able to command particular attacks, but 'try to buff yourself' or 'try to attack' at least would make it marginally less obnoxious.

Off topic, but in the games, if you plan to use sleep talk you generally build your moveset around it. Maybe in ASB, you choose from three or four moves from which sleep talk can roll? Or maybe up to six.

 

[1. Luftballon]

probably better just some (maybe all) of the moves you've used up to that point in the battle

tbh I think the main issue with sleep talk is that it could choose moves that would be actively harmful to your situation, like explosion or, uh, swagger when you don't want it

 

[allitersonance]

There is no situation in which I'd be pleased with having the potential of unlimited heals as a ref though. Lengthening the battle is the last thing I want as a ref and stalling is boring. It's as boring as "flamethrower x3" but without the promise of the battle ending soon, and instead it has the opposite promise. Having a limited number of heals has the potential of the one possible exciting aspect of a well-placed heal turning the battle around, but as a ref it is not at all desirable for one of my battlers to be outright playing a stalling game. Battles already take weeks to months to complete, so stalling is more annoying than in a video game.

I don't mind making sleep talk more viable, or at least more limited and predictable. Not related to rest's usability, but in general. Selecting 3-4 moves makes it too easy to get what you want though, because you don't have to go through the effort of building a moveset around sleep talk in order to make sleep talk useful when you do need it; maybe a list of 6 moves so you're less likely to get what you want, or x number of moves previously used in the battle (precedent: similar to imprison), or else you can only specify a vague category like surskitty suggested. I'd want the database to be pretty clear about how vague the category must be though; it could be as simple as choosing the type or choosing whether it's physical/special/nondamaging but not both at once, or whatever.

For that matter, assist.

 

[surskitty]

Uh, the whole reason I'd want weaker healing is so that you can't Heal ~ Chill ~ Chill. As it is, that's technically sustainable and you spend enough energy healing that you are likely going to need to chill, so antime healing comes up is probably going to be a boring round for all involved. I would want Heal ~ Actual Move That Does Things ~ Further Moves That Do Things to actually be plausible, much as you can Protect yourself from something to give yourself a bit more time. Which is also why I'd prefer 15 for 30.

 

[1. Luftballon]

that doesn't seem plausible though

ed: not so much that it can't happen as I entirely fail to see how that is less boring than the current state of things

ed: apparently I am still not clear. dammit I was not intending to expand this forever.

doing other things in the same round that you try to heal is already viable. that is kind of what recovery moves other than rest are for: they give you the choice of whether you want to top up your energy right now or if you want to keep going until you really need that energy. otherwise you could/would just rest ~ chill ~ chill! (this is the balancing factor which makes rest fine as it is.)

weaker healing isn't going to encourage heal ~ action ~ action over heal ~ chill ~ chill, it's going to encourage heal ~ heal ~ chill, since you need more actions to get the same healing effect. these are actions that nobody is accomplishing anything because you're healing off damage and energy is usually in surplus until the first KO unless you're healing repeatedly.

I'm not sure why you think weaker, more frequent, and more controllable heals is going to make them less boring because from any perspective I can imagine they just seem ... like, more boring. which is why I think I'm still missing what you're trying to communicate.

it'd probably be more interesting if all healing were 100% with corresponding energy loss because then you can't just throw around healing when you need it, you'd have to plan ahead to heal when it'll only cost you as much energy as you can afford, and you have to judge ahead of time how much energy you can afford. but apparently I'm the only one who likes calculus.

 

[surskitty]

Limit healing o once per round, then, and don't permit chilling the same round as healing.

 

[1. Luftballon]

that's an arena condition, not a move effect

it'd probably be more interesting if all healing were 100% with corresponding energy loss because then you can't just throw around healing when you need it, you'd have to plan ahead to heal when it'll only cost you as much energy as you can afford, and you have to judge ahead of time how much energy you can afford. but apparently I'm the only one who likes calculus.

also quoting this because ninjaed while adding info