Ask A Simple Question, Get A Simple Answer - Pokemon Showdown! Edition

[herewegoagain]

Perhaps I missed this somewhere else, perhaps not -

Why are some moves labeled "illegal" and are they not allowed in all battle formats? (e.g. OU suspect, UU, etc.)

[jumpluff*]

Originally Posted by Fat Halcyon of Light

I haven't been able to access Showdown for about three days now. Is the site down for everyone, or is it just me? If it is just me, what should/can I do to fix it?

Site isn't down. If you want support, go here and follow the instructions. ^^

[Arcticblast]

Originally Posted by Fat herewegoagain

Perhaps I missed this somewhere else, perhaps not -

Why are some moves labeled "illegal" and are they not allowed in all battle formats? (e.g. OU suspect, UU, etc.)

If a Pokemon can't learn a move (example: Kyurem and Icicle Crash), that move will be listed as illegal. All moves not mentioned later in this post can be learned by Pokemon ingame (and thus used in the Hackmons tiers).

Shadowstrike and Paleo Wave are moves exclusive to Pokemon created for Smogon's Create-A-Pokemon Project. (the abilities Mountaineer, Persistent and Rebound are CAP-exclusive abilities as well.) Magikarp's Revenge is a move created by Zarel specifically for debugging purposes and cannot be learned by any Pokemon. It's designed to have every possible side effect.

[herewegoagain]

Hmm okay, so you're saying that "illegal" moves are allowed in hackmons only? Sorry, I'm new here and probably sound dumb...haha

[Arcticblast]

Anything you can get ingame - even with the use of an external device like Gameshark - can be used in the Hackmons tiers, with some restrictions in Balanced Hackmons (ban on Wonder Guard, Pure Power, Huge Power, OHKO moves, Shadow Tag, and Arena Trap).

Shadowstrike, Paleo Wave, Rebound, Mountaineer, Persistent, Magikarp's Revenge, and Missingno. can only be used in Custom Games, available through challenges. Shoot me a PM on Showdown some time and I'll show them off if you'd like!

[the_artic_one]

Is it normal for servers to automatically shut down if no one is connected to them?

I'm trying to figure out if my hosting service is killing my processes.

[ThisMysteriousGuy]

Why was /banredirect removed? It was so great/fun to use on our server with all the random spammers and trolls coming to it every now and again.

[Zarel*]

Originally Posted by Fat the_artic_one

Is it normal for servers to automatically shut down if no one is connected to them?

I'm trying to figure out if my hosting service is killing my processes.

No, that's not normal. Your hosting service is doing something weird (perhaps it just doesn't like long-running processes?)

Originally Posted by Fat ThisMysteriousGuy

Why was /banredirect removed? It was so great/fun to use on our server with all the random spammers and trolls coming to it every now and again.

When we rewrote some code, it would've been more work to make sure redirect commands still worked.

Other than kicking, there's no real reason to support redirecting except to troll users, so we figured it wouldn't be a big deal not to redo the redirect stuff.

[NoahsArk]

Hello. I really like the Pokemon Showdown battle server, but the only time im ever able to use it is at school... and being a junior in high school, thats still hard to do lol. Reason why: My web protection marks it as Spyware/malware. My dad doesn't agree that i should just pass it up, and we both agreed to ask. help with enlightening my father and his suspicions?

[MJB]

Originally Posted by Fat NoahsArk

Hello. I really like the Pokemon Showdown battle server, but the only time im ever able to use it is at school... and being a junior in high school, thats still hard to do lol. Reason why: My web protection marks it as Spyware/malware. My dad doesn't agree that i should just pass it up, and we both agreed to ask. help with enlightening my father and his suspicions?

There is nothing malicious about PS that can harm your computer. This does not include links in the chat, while 99.99% of the time not malicious (i can't remember seeing a bad one for months) it is possible that these may contain some form of malware, so just watch out for those (as with anywhere on the internet) and you're fine.

[NoahsArk]

Originally Posted by Fat MJB

There is nothing malicious about PS that can harm your computer. This does not include links in the chat, while 99.99% of the time not malicious (i can't remember seeing a bad one for months) it is possible that these may contain some form of malware, so just watch out for those (as with anywhere on the internet) and you're fine.

mk thank ya so much!! This will really help!

[TooWycked]

Can I play Showdown on my Android device using the Dolphin browser?

[Seth Vilo]

Is there no answer to my question on the last page?

[Zarel*]

Regarding being able to deduce things about a pokemon from its pokeball: yes, that's planned.

[EnchantedMaractus]

How exactly do I go about viewing usage statistics?

[mikel]

right here mate

[Magcargo 2]

For some odd reason, I can never log in. I go to the change name part, but I always remain a guest. I can only Log in as a guest.

[Mara316]

I have a problen i play in the pc of a friend whit my nickname and registry in the pc of my friend... but i wanna play in my pc i cant play but seems that both accounts are attached what i can do?

[Raichoice]

i cant make a server, i keep entering node app.js and npm install

[Nemusus]

I was just wondering what would be considered a "good" rating in OU?

[mikel]

Originally Posted by Fat Nemusus

I was just wondering what would be considered a "good" rating in OU?

well, 1500 glicko2 is by definition "average", so anything above that is better than average :p

"good" is hard to define, but anything from probably 1600 or so ACRE (the value which determines the leaderboard) up is a healthy reference point.

[Scepticallistic]

I apologize if this question is old hat, but is it currently possible to turn off move animations, or at the very least, switch to static, non-animated sprites for Pokemon?

After throwing away a random battle match spent staring at the source code changing, I've come to the conclusion that there is not a simple animation toggle.

I've tried to speed Pokemon Showdown up a little on a suffering old laptop by hiding the main lobby chat with an HTML/CSS editing extension on Chrome, which works well. I tried to find a telltale element in the battle that could be similarly disabled, but I've had less luck.

Does anybody have a better idea than I about these matters?

[Joim]

Not yet, but that's a feature we expect to have.

[MJB]

Originally Posted by Fat Scepticallistic

I apologize if this question is old hat, but is it currently possible to turn off move animations, or at the very least, switch to static, non-animated sprites for Pokemon?

After throwing away a random battle match spent staring at the source code changing, I've come to the conclusion that there is not a simple animation toggle.

I've tried to speed Pokemon Showdown up a little on a suffering old laptop by hiding the main lobby chat with an HTML/CSS editing extension on Chrome, which works well. I tried to find a telltale element in the battle that could be similarly disabled, but I've had less luck.

Does anybody have a better idea than I about these matters?

The easier way to turn the lobbychat off is to type /lobbychat off :P

Animations shouldn't really be bothering you in terms of performance, they use ALOT less resources then, say, a youtube video on minimum resolution. The lag is due to other processes. The big one that has been optimised lately in the userlist, though im not sure if thats still the main cause of lag.

[Zarel*]

Originally Posted by Fat Scepticallistic

I apologize if this question is old hat, but is it currently possible to turn off move animations, or at the very least, switch to static, non-animated sprites for Pokemon?

After throwing away a random battle match spent staring at the source code changing, I've come to the conclusion that there is not a simple animation toggle.

I've tried to speed Pokemon Showdown up a little on a suffering old laptop by hiding the main lobby chat with an HTML/CSS editing extension on Chrome, which works well. I tried to find a telltale element in the battle that could be similarly disabled, but I've had less luck.

Well, the animations are animated GIFs.

We do have still sprites, though, and I think it's actually a single if statement that determines whether to use PNGs or animated GIFs. I'll do that once I introduce an options GUI.

Originally Posted by Fat MJB

Animations shouldn't really be bothering you in terms of performance, they use ALOT less resources then, say, a youtube video on minimum resolution. The lag is due to other processes. The big one that has been optimised lately in the userlist, though im not sure if thats still the main cause of lag.

Actually, animated GIFs are surprisingly intensive things, even compared to other animations. Of everything PS uses, it's animated GIFs that cellphones/tablets have the most trouble with, actually.