Suggestion Box

1. Luftballon said:

(a) and (b) are essentially identical in terms of super-buff large pokémon feeding the tiny ones [but pffh why], it just becomes necessary to control what pokémon is holding the exp share each time one of your battles goes up for reffing. realistically I am not going to stay up 24/7 refreshing to watch if someone has decided to ref my battles (because ajaja that won't ever happen) but in principle that the difference between the two is if you can't solve the knapsack problem with weights of your own choosing, which would be kind of an embarrassment.

the problem isn't so much with the item slot as the fact that it takes a (fairly expensive) item which is kind of ??? of itself. because uh if someone doesn't use/can't afford held items for every pokémon is it desirable to charge them for the privilege of putting xp where they want it?

[I talk about theoretical equivalences that don't actually ever pan out in reality a lot but that's mostly because I don't think tedium is good]

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Except a) restricts you to siphoning EXP to only one Pokemon, so if it's more than a 1v1 then you're going to have to send out something else you want to get EXP on. With b) you can just send out all the buff Pokemon ever.

It's a one-time investment? I mean if the price is a problem we can lower it somewhat *shrug* But the best way to put EXP where you want it is to use the Pokemon you want to have the EXP, and we're trying to encourage that (or more accurately, trying not to encourage the pure usage of buff monsters)

Can ASB, like, actually start having set numbers for things? And a damage calculator? It's kind of annoying how most things are up to ref discretion while also having an undocumented consensus, and it would be really nice if the app had a damage calculator that I just plug moves and pokemon into and it gets me everything else I need. I would actually, like, ref reliably if the numbers were mostly sorted out for me.

It's really silly that refs need to make decisions on the damage and energy calculations and spend a while looking up how everyone else does it, rather than only having to finagle edge cases.

It is also silly that it's not clearly stated how weather affects things like Solar Beam and Synthesis!

surskitty said:

Can ASB, like, actually start having set numbers for things? And a damage calculator? It's kind of annoying how most things are up to ref discretion while also having an undocumented consensus, and it would be really nice if the app had a damage calculator that I just plug moves and pokemon into and it gets me everything else I need. I would actually, like, ref reliably if the numbers were mostly sorted out for me.

It's really silly that refs need to make decisions on the damage and energy calculations and spend a while looking up how everyone else does it, rather than only having to finagle edge cases.

It is also silly that it's not clearly stated how weather affects things like Solar Beam and Synthesis!

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Synthesis is accounted for in the database - it heals 66% under sun and 25% under other weather. And Solarbeam deals half-damage under bad weather and requires an extra charge turn, while it can fire instantly in sun.

Synthesis doesn't specify whether weather shenanigans should affect its energy cost, though, and Solar Beam is kind of vague on weather shenanigans all around. A lot of moves' descriptions are needlessly vague on numbers and I totally agree that should change.

And I also totally agree that things like stat boosts being +1 or +2 at the ref's whim is pretty annoying — having to ask the ref how they handle half the rules of the game is a pain, for the battler and for a lot of refs who like reffing but haven't been playing for half a decade and don't want to get heavily invested in ASB, especially since, yeah, there often is a de facto rule in place that just isn't written down anywhere.

I do agree that a lot of things are fuzzy in the text but there are precedents in battle and that's. Really messy and difficult to keep track of.

I believe we'll be editing moves and stuff on the database to be more specific soon! Zhorken is working on making a visible log of changes to moves and stuff; until that happens, we'll probably just be making minor fixes.

Zhorken said:

Synthesis doesn't specify whether weather shenanigans should affect its energy cost, though,

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Negrek said:

8. Direct Healing Attacks

Direct healing attacks cost energy equal to half the health they restore, rounded up. Thus, if a pokémon at 77% health uses recover to return to 100% health, the recover will cost 12% energy.

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solarbeam is indeed vague, but this one specifically is a non-issue. the energy cost is half the health. there is no undefined behaviour. there is no exception. it is precisely specified.

(if this conflicts with your concept of the fluff, it's probably ... because you're not imagining it the same way. it doesn't make a difference mechanically but yeah.)

i think having a set damage/energy calculator and then leaving weird things to be up to the ref's discretion would make reffing a lot more accessible; i know i personally wouldn't want to ref unless there was a kind of standard like that and i know others have been put off reffing in the past because of it. it'd also make planning your actions and stuff kind of easier, because you could put those numbers in yourself and be like huh! if I do this pikachu will use 20% energy but if i do this then pikachu will use 15% energy! i guess maybe people do this already but i'm really really not a numbers person and it's hard for me to conceptualise that stuff.

anyway i think that a calculator would pretty much only be beneficial to the league and it would be really awesome.

Superbird said:

Synthesis is accounted for in the database - it heals 66% under sun and 25% under other weather. And Solarbeam deals half-damage under bad weather and requires an extra charge turn, while it can fire instantly in sun.

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And how does weather impact the energy? It's not explicitly stated somewhere clear that it continues to be HP recovery/2, after all.

Solarbeam can fire instantly anyway. In sun, does it just not get the penalty for skipping the charge turn? Is it even cheaper than that? Does it require one charging turn or that charging turn and an extra one in weather?

These are not questions that should actually need to be asked. It's not like this is a weird edge case!

That probably doesn't jive with several of the current rulings/decisions now, though, heh. I know it definitely doesn't match parts of the DE Guide as it exists right now because it was based on my personal set of rules (e.g., ew antistab, somehow modifying damage based on EXP as opposed to evolution never made it in there, etc.). I could theoretically update it, I guess? Or, rather, rewrite it entirely, since I wouldn't want to/can't do it in Flash again hahaha... ha... But I don't know that I have the attention span/interest for that and it probably would be nice if there were something ~Official~ and actually integrated with the DB, if that's swingable!

Negrek has one that is actually based on the DE Guide, although, again, possibly might not account for recent changes.

I still think anitSTAB makes no sense personally by either game or anime logic but whatever.

I was actually in the works of making one the other day when it occured to me that I was reasonably sure Negrek already had one. Does this one qualify?

Yeah, adding a damage calculator to the db is definitely on my to-do list.

Would it be possible to make the database indexable, i.e. by population, by speed, or alphabetically? Possibly with moves (by power, type, energy), trainers (by money, by number of pokémon), and owned pokémon (alphabetically, by experience, by happiness) as well?

Zhorken said:

Yeah, adding a damage calculator to the db is definitely on my to-do list.

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Can I just say that I'd love this? I'd like to try my hand at reffing but I'm utterly abysmal at the maths involved. I have Kratos' calculator bookmarked but I'd love for one that's up to date.

challenge board seems like something which could be lobotomised onto the dB at some points.

Something minor that I would assume is relatively easy: could list sorting be added to the database? Particularly movesets.

Table sorting is more difficult than it sounds because I don't know JavaScript. I have successfully pirated obtained a copy of JavaScript: The Good Parts though so I'll try and tackle that soonish.

Could you nerds try adjusting the numbers so that Chilling and doing a one-action re(charge) move is not more efficient than actually taking two actions for those moves? As it is that's kind of absurd.

ETA: I mean yeah some people limit chills in their challenges, so it's not always going to be a factor, but that still seems like probably either Solarbeam, Giga Impact et al are too cheap or damage-guide Chills restore too much energy, especially given that they're generally only used if you have nothing else to do. And generally I think that if people are frequently giving move restrictions (like the common ban on direct healing), that implies the moves in question are unbalanced.

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.

Eh, screw it, double-posting.

Has it been observed that if you Chill while Resting, you pretty much get restored to full health for free, and that that's neither fun nor balanced, and probably either the mechanics of chilling or resting should change?

I'd like it if you can't Chill while asleep, confused, or paralysed. 'If you'd hurt yourself in confusion, Chill instead' is generally accepted as a valid command, and while 'If you'd hurt yourself in confusion, do nothing' is useful for balancing confusion and keeping it from being the arbiter of a battle, 10% energy is a lot of energy to be able to get as a bonus for losing an action you couldn't have done anything with anyway. That is most of the way to throwing another Hyper Beam, or enough to heal 20% HP.