Resource BBP Bug and Feedback Thread - Generation 9 Edition!

[The Faz]

Something was on my mind RE new player experience, specially when it comes to Realgam Tower.

Rules bloat is a big problem for people trying to learn the game, and I feel there's some stuff we really could cut.
Namely, the flavor trio: Camouflage, Secret Power and Nature Power.

Camouflage is a level 4 move, Nature Power is level 4 and Secret Power is level 2. There is no reason for every single realgam, including the lv1 content, to list them. Can we cut these so only sims with these moves legal have these bullet points?

The Realgams' data sheet already are a massive block of numbers and stats. Adding three extra bullet points on the end of every one of them for purely flavor doesn't seem worth it for me and makes the facility feel a lot more complicated than it truly is.

If we cut these bullet points:

• Brock goes from 5 to 2 bullet points
• Tierno goes from 4 to 1 bullet points
• Trevor goes from 3 to 0 bullet points
• Shauna goes from 5 to 2 bullet points

New players are already getting overwhelmed with all the new terms and stats - Ability Count, DQ Time, Switching Method, Half-Start Rule, etc. Adding three extra bullet points to the end is unecessary data overload for them. And they're not even usable in this arena, so it's pure flavor text!

Similarly, the flavor text could be entirely italicized so it's clearer it's entirely flavor text and not match relevant, as well. Raids already do this with their flavor text so doing it here as well is natural.

Here's Rival Trevor's realgam data with these changes:

Realgam Trevor

Rival Trevor (Level 1)

Challenge Type: Normal Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Bring 4, Send 3 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Battle Level: 1
Substitution Count: 3
Recovery Count: 2
Chill Count: 5
Switching Method: On
Half-Start Rule: Off
Ability Count: All
Advanced Techniques: None
Backpack Size: 10
Arena: Kalos Route 19 (Trevor)

Kalos Route 19, also known as Grande Vallée Way, is home to a valley containing plenty of beautiful marshes. This battle takes place on a wooden bridge across the valley, on which Trevor has spent the past half hour using his extensive knowledge of Pokemon to prepare himself for battle. Take care, lest his clever tactics overpower you!

Trevor's Backpack

Ok that's enough :P

Slot 1

Raichu

Text!

Florges

Text!

Slot 2

Dragalge

Text!

Clawitzer

Text!

Slot 3

Aerodactly

Text!

Tyrantrum

Text!

Aurorus

Text!

It's a lot better, but we can do better - namely, with the massive list near the top, the Battle Info. To shrink it down, we can:

• Fuse together Match Type and Battle Level as it's the same type of information
• Fuse together Recovery Count & Chill Count as they're often together
• Remove the Arena text as it's pure flavor text
• Remove the advanced rules that are identical on most of them (Half-Start, Advanced Techniques, Ability Count & Switching Method)
  • Notably, all of them except for Advanced Techniques never get off their default stage on any of them. They're pure redundant info.
  • Similarly, in the ones where they are used (and if any that were to use them were added) we could bring more attention to the rule change by adding it to the bullet board, preventing a potential landmine for new players
    • This also is already half the case - sims with Advanced Techniques set to All have an extra line specifying the Technique Control number.
    • (also, be honest, would you really have noticed if any of these except Advanced Techniques weren't on their default state?)

With these changes and the previous ones, we get:

Realgam Trevor

Rival Trevor (Level 1)

Challenge Type: Normal Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Level 1 Bring 4, Send 3 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Substitution Count: 3
Backpack Size: 10
Recovery & Chill Count: 2 Recoveries, 5 Chills

Kalos Route 19, also known as Grande Vallée Way, is home to a valley containing plenty of beautiful marshes. This battle takes place on a wooden bridge across the valley, on which Trevor has spent the past half hour using his extensive knowledge of Pokemon to prepare himself for battle. Take care, lest his clever tactics overpower you!

Trevor's Backpack

Ok that's enough :P

Slot 1

Raichu

Text!

Florges

Text!

Slot 2

Dragalge

Text!

Clawitzer

Text!

Slot 3

Aerodactly

Text!

Tyrantrum

Text!

Aurorus

Text!

A lot more approachable for new players and less likely to overwhelm them with information they don't need.

And for those curious, this is what Cynthia's would look like:

Champion Cynthia

Champion Cynthia (Level 4)

Challenge Type: Z-Move Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Level 4 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Substitution Count: 4
Recovery & Chill Count: 2 Recoveries, 5 Chills
Advanced Techniques: All
Technique Control: 1
Backpack Size: 10

A castle overlooking two waterfalls, the Sinnoh Pokemon League is also known as the pinnacle of trainerdom. Cynthia's room is on the second-highest floor, below only the Hall of Fame itself. Here, the two of you can engage in a fair fight - though the odds might be stacked in Cynthia's favor...

• All of Cynthia's Pokemon have maximum IVs. As a result, each of them has each of their four core stat ranks increased by 1. Except for her Garchomp, whose stats are already so high that the extra IVs don't make a difference.
• Camouflage turns the user into a Normal type
• Secret Power may cause paralysis
• Nature Power becomes Tri Attack

Cynthia's Backpack

Ok that's enough :P

Slot 1

Braviary

Ok that's enough :P

Togekiss

Ok that's enough :P

Roserade

Ok that's enough :P

Slot 2

Eelektross

Ok that's enough :P

Spiritomb

Ok that's enough :P

Gastrodon

Ok that's enough :P

Slot 3

Garchomp

Ok that's enough :P

Lucario

Ok that's enough :P

What does everyone think?

 

[Keriel]

Poor Garchomp.

 

[Doduodrio]

DAT Conditions Tab

r

 

[Ayush_1]

Stance Change mentions transforming into Sword Forme!!

But apparently the forme isn't Sword Forme but Blade Forme!!

 

[The Faz]

(I am once again talking about the new player experience)


Problem 1 - Insufficient Resources
When you register you gain 3 lv0 Pokémon and 5 meh items.
After playing the beginner battle you gain 1 TC, 2 RC, 20 JC and can level one of your mons to lv1. That means that, off the heels of the beginner battle you don't have enough either to buy a standard item or to get all your mons to lv1.

At the end of the Beginner Battle they will have two level 1 mons, two berries and a level 0 mon, alongside the standard battles. Playing any sort of content - specially with the lack of skills of a new player - is essentially impossible like this. What this means is the second match a player ever plays is either failed content or a grinding battle tower match.


Problem 2 - The Throw Match
A new player won't have the levels or the mons to challange content other than exactly Battle Tree. Furthermore, due to the way the game is made having 3 random mons to throw at Raids or a Realgam alongside no good items to pair it means they will, by and large, lose, forcing them to grind Battle Tower while waiting their turn in the queue for Battle Tree.

This is not good. A Standard b5p3 is usually attack spamming for the sake of getting it over as fast as possible to grind the rewards, furthermore they're gonna be bringing a literal level 0 here. Grinding with someone who also isn't interested in playing the game is a horrible introduction for the game. Furthermore you get 4 TC and 5 RC, being able to level your last starter to lv1 and adopt a new lv1 mon, alongside having enough RC for 2 standard items. Maybe with these boosts the new player's team might be good enough to challange lv1 content but depending on how the team matches vs the content, the quality of the mon and how smart the purchases were and how good the player is they might need to grind a second or third Battle Tower match.

Problem 3 - Prize Claim Queue
Waiting in a line for several days is an incredibly surefire way to stiffle someone's interest in something and this is a really bad one. Remember, new players are stuck with lv0 Pokémon until their first prize claim goes through - which can take from a few hours to literal weeks if queue is particularly clogged up. And they can't even play other content to compensate - no lv1 mons to play Realgam or Tree, Starter Battles give essentially no rewards and lv1 battle tower battles are soul crushing when you have lv0 LCs and they have lv1 evolved mons. This is a biig bottleneck for new players.

Proposed Changes

Proposed Change 1: Level all 3 Starts
Only getting enough TC to level one of your starters and using the free levelup to the second one. That leaves the third mon in a real awkward place, requiring another match to level it up. That's a bitter feeling of not having everyone powered up alongside the requirement for another match to level it up. Just, make playing a Beginner Battle with 3 lv0s evolve all 3 to level 1 for free. It solves this issue and saves 1 TC for the new player.


Proposed Change 2a: More TC and JC to Beginner Battles
Even if their 3 mons were upgraded to lv1 they still would not have in most cases a team capable of challanging Realgam or Raid, requiring extra grinding for the TC and RC for new mons and items. By making the Beginner Battle give 10 TC and 12 RC (rather than 1 and 2) it allows new players to get off the beginner battle with 5 Lv1s and 4 standard items, thus having a much better chance at lv1 content.


Proposed Change 2b: Graduation Battle
In addition to the Beginner Battle there would also be the Graduation Battle, which would act as the de-facto ending and climax of the BBP tutorial. It has the same rules as the Beginner Battle however at lv1 rather than lv0 and B3P2 rather than B3P1. This would be the first real taste of BBP for the new players - all the mechanics are in place, your mons are lv1 and they're all fully evolved (Proposed Change 1). This gives players a little bit more taste of BBP before getting thrown into the wider world alongside serving as a climax, being an exciting and (hopefully) memorable first real battle before being thrown into the grind.

We can slap the 10 TC and 12 RC here, giving the player a post-climax boost (further helping the empowerment and player-encouragement aspect we're trying to give) here. More importantly, it also means we can simplify the Beginner's Battle - there's a lot to learn in the game, after all. Splitting the tutorial in two means the Beginner Battle can focus on stuff like ordering moves, battle structure, substitutions, etc while some mechanics like equipping items, abilities, etc can be delayed to the Graduation Battle.

IE, we could disable items and abilities in the Beginner Battles to reduce the amount of text and mechanics present on the early stages of the tutorial.

Proposed Change 3: Priority Queue
After playing the Beginner's Battle (and the Graduation Battle, if it also gets introduced) give the new player priority queue in the Prize Claim - ie, placing their prize claim at the top of the queue rather than at the bottom. This is once-per-account so it won't overrun the queue or create any other problems. In addition to making the new players be able to play their second match much faster it also helps with the approvers as they don't need to dig through several other prize claims before getting to the more urgent and simple new player's prize claim.

Thoughts?

 

[epicdrill]

So the latest patch asked some questions about problem rules and events, so I'm just going to type out my response here.

Re: Problem Rules
The biggest problem rule by far imo is the one that's mentioned as an example in patch notes: event order sorting. The rule as written is clear in that I can look at an example, read the rule, and figure out exactly what should happen without external input, which is good, but the reason it fits in this section is I have to reread the rule literally every time an example comes up. This is also the problem rule that comes up by far the most frequently. I would even go so far as to say that this problem rule probably comes up more than all other problem rules combined. There are other rules I also need to look up every time (like which wins of at most/at least/equals, or some of the more niche timing clauses) but those come up far less frequently.

Editing to add some thoughts I had about this: in a game this complicated nobody is going to remember every niche interaction. "Value maximums override value minimums, which override value overwrites" might be a fairly simple rule to remember, but when it comes up once every 2 years then yeah, you're going to look it up every time, because you don't use it enough for it to stick around in your memory. So I think there's a frequency threshold for how often a rule or interaction comes up before people generally not remembering it becomes an issue. I'm not exactly sure where to put the line on that, but purely based on vibes event order sorting is well past the line to the point where it's hard to tell if anything else is past the line, just because nothing else that people can't consistently remember comes up anywhere near as frequently. The closest would probably be how replacing the same pokemon slot multiple times in the same switch phase (e.g. through replacing a fainted pokemon and then counterswitching) interacts with entry hazards, but even that doesn't come up anywhere near as much (although with entry hazards becoming more popular who knows how long that will remain true).

Re: Events
I'm going to copy what I said in Discord about events and put it here so people can refer back to it:
I feel like past events should mostly be optional tbh
You effectively need to challenge 2 runs of Level 4 content to run 1 past event, and I think that very quickly gets to be an unreasonable burden on new players if you make running past events an important checklist of rewards
Like we already have 4 major events, so that means new players would need to train up 8 teams for level 4 content to level 4 and run 8 pieces of level 4 content just to complete that checklist
And as we get more events, that burden only grows

In addition to what I said on Discord, I do think it's reasonable that some events could be important to grab rewards for, but I think that needs to be limited in scope, mostly for the above reasons. An expectation to run one, or even 2-3, past events is fine; an expectation to run every past major event we've ever made is not.

 

[HeliosAflame]

Order Easing
Order-easing work sounds interesting, game definitely feels like it is normally decided by who throws the hardest which is not ideal for making players feel good about their decisions.
One thing that might be hard to balance is trying to fight through an opponents subs.
For example you were talking about losing 3 actions to evasive moves.
its a massive blow out if you had no subs for it.
On the other hand if the opponent uses agility or disable first order, then two evasives which probably are not STAB or SE, that is actually a pretty fair round. If you can only dodge someone once with an evasive per round then there is no point spending effort to beat the sub any more.
Trade off might be worth it, but it does make the game less nuanced if subbing for a move consistently blocks the move completely, instead of there sometimes being options as p2 to spend set up actions working around a sub.

Past Events
Right now it is very hard to get past event tokens. I echo Epic in thinking these are a bad choice for new player value, unless their method of acquisition is moved away from late game content.

Unintuitive Rules
I consistently need to look up what happens if there is a double swap into rocks, or etb abilities etc.
For example p1 has rocks on their field, p1 is phazed, p2 swaps, p1 counter swaps

Comboes
I like the idea of writing out a list of comboes before hand (1 per level perhaps)
leads to less blow outs from nowhere, but still lets move pool mon assemble silly stuff like acid spray + rock blast.
If we make people actually write the move out before hand, like its full text, targets etc, then it becomes much easier to ref since they can just look at the combo at the top of the page. It also means anyone (ref, opponent, observers) can tell people if they have misswritten the combo, which gives extra time to find odd interactions before it actually needs to get reffed.

 

[The Faz]

We'd like fewer matches to be decided by single, backbreaking errors that set them further back than they can possibly recover. The game should be balanced around players, not perfect theoretical trainers.

• This is a vague, vibes-based statement. A concrete example would be making it more difficult to completely evade a full round of opponents' actions.

Part of me wonders if a comeback point system could be a path, alongside removing landmines. Something like, if your move fails to execute for some reason (taunt, psychic terrain, etc) you get 1 comeback point, or counter having text where if it hits it gives the opp a comeback point. This would mean that a first order that converts into Counter - Counter - Counter or Agility - Taunt - [Something], while still behind a way to come back into the game. What it could be used I really don't know - please quote this and reply with y'alls ideas on this.

RE: Order-Easing Work / Combos
I agree a lot with this sentiment. Combos right now are:

• 1 - Extremely complex in their legality
• 2 - Extremely hard to first order against
• 3 - Extremely swingy in how they affect the game's outcome
• 4 - Further skews big movepool mons being more viable over small movepool ones
• 5 - Rather complicated for new refs to learn what a combo move does, often requiring a big trip to the comprehensive rules to untangle them

...but also

• A - Extremely skill-expressive and rewarding
• B - Extremely fun to pull off and see other people pull off
• C - Extremely climatic and the highlight of almost any match

I don't have solutions for these conundrums but I do have a couple thoughts:

• Thought 1: Have we considered not just restricting their pool of moves but also when you can combo? For example, going second you can't combo order unless last turn you declared "I will be using a combo next turn second ordering"; that way you don't lock out second ordering combos but it's now telegraphed, meaning you only have to worry about subbing for combos 1 round rather than the entire game.
• Thought 2: The rules for how combo works is a massive, massive wall of text. Are there ways we could reduce the text size complexity without sacrificing the positive gameplay aspects? Alternatively, could we format it in a different way?
  • I'm mostly talking about everythind underneath "- combinations have the names of all of their component moves, and they have the combined effect text of the component moves. specifically". It has 13 different bolded rules alongside their subrules, and they're all in a very random order; the first one is Restriction Text, with the move's BAP, EN cost and Priority being randomly thrown alongside the text. Stuff like Z-Moves and Tags are also in this pool, sandwiching more relevant text like EN cost.
  • This whole section could be split into more parts - fundamentals of the move (BAP, EN cost, priority, hit count, etc), effect (restriction text, effect text, effect chance, etc) and others (tags, target scope, Z-Move/Max Moves, etc).

Thoughts on these issues, positive points and thoughts?

-----

Completely unrelated topic, but would it be possible to have some s strewn across the comprehensive rules?
Notably I'm asking for the small sprites, not the big large models. The models would take too much space.

Currently it's a massive, massive wall of text. Adding some pokemon sprites around the comprehensive rules would:

• Add "landmarks" to the page. If you're scrolling the comprehensive rules knowing where on the page you are can be hard at a glance; you'd need to stop scrolling to look at the text. With a few pokémon sprites around you'd know "Oh, it's the one with the Tropius above it".
• Make the text more approachable. Let's not kid ourselves - a new player would need to read the bulk of it sooner rather than later, notably when they need to start reffing stuff. Pointing them to a massive wall of texts is incredibly intimidating and unapproachable; adding a few Pokémon sprites around would help de-intimidate the rules.
• Make the text more fun and charming. Rules text isn't (by and large) fun to read, specially when it's your 700th time there and you just want to see one specific thing. These sprites are pretty charming; seeing one of these goobers while looking for what you're after can make the process a tad little less grueling, removing a bit of friction. It makes the rules-checking experience a little more fun and charming.
• Help with learning the game. After the 700th word you read in a row you kinda start to zone out a bit; adding small pokémon sprites between sections help keep focus for someone reading the full rules for the first time; seeing a pokémon you didn't expect to see or that you are very fond of can help inject a little bit more motivation and interest into the reader, preventing skimming through the rules and hopefully increasing the retention of information.

As an example, rather than
8. Performing An Action
I'm pitching
8. Performing an Action
Thoughts?