Shoddy Battle Glitches List

This is a research project that I don't want to be totally public because I want to make sure everything is 100% accurate and I can expect that from Badgeholders!

I need an exhaustive list of all battling glitches that are currently known and "abuseable" in Shoddy. Just the name, and a simple explanation of what happens if it is activated, and how to activate it. If you could use the following format, that would be helpful to us.

Name: Glitch X
Result: User automatically wins upon activation
How: If a user switches in Gliscor, uses Earthquake, but presses cancel while blowing his nose, the glitch activates.

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A "glitch" can be defined as a departure from the cartridge battle mechanics. If you are unsure if something "qualifies" as a glitch, just go ahead and include it and I'll sort it out later. We are developing a more comprehensive set of general tournament rules to deal with glitches and this is something we need. Thanks in advance for the help!

My quoted post below provides a bit more explanation for those of you who are curious.

Ok I've changed my mind. I do have a strong opinion on glitches in general.

General philosophy:

Adhering to cartridge mechanics in the simulator is the program writer's responsibility and duty. The players have a duty to attempt to win within the confines of the game presented to them (simulator, NOT cartridge).

Practical implementation:

This was really easy before DP because the most heinous glitch was that rapid spin was blocked by substitute. Things have gotten worse since there are now glitches that can be abused that totally break the game. So here's my proposed solution which seems to me to be what Earthworm was talking about:

1) We compile and exhaustive list of known battle glitches and how they are abused
2) We specifically outlaw only those that are really bad (judged subjectively by us).
3) The rest of them are simply "part of the game" and everyone should just plan accordingly.

Can we make this happen?

Click to expand...

Name: Protect / Switch Glitch
Result: Protect does not fail on the switch, preventing the user from Protecting 100% successfully the next time
How: When Protect is used while the opponent switches, the move is successfully executed

ETA: I tested this on SU to verify it. After awhile I managed to double Protect, so it just treats it like a normal Protect, which shouldn't happen.

Name: Choice / Hazards Glitch
Result: User can select a new move when Choice-locked
How: Opponent switches in Pokémon on the newly-selected Choice move, hazards kill it

If you select a move when Choice-locked on the switch and the incoming Pokémon dies to hazards, you can switch move the following turn.

Thanks for the speedy reply jumpluff. However, If you could please use the format I indicated it would actually really be helpful for us later when we are trying to compile this stuff. Also, if you aren't exactly sure how something works, don't post until you're sure.

Name: Pursuit + U-turn
Result: Pursuiter hits a Pokemon before they can do damage with U-turn
How: If a user switches Tyranitar (or any Pokemon with Pursuit) against Azelf (or any Pokemon with U-turn) and uses Pursuit while they use U-turn, the Pursuit damage goes first (regardless of who's faster), which could mean that it could KO the opponent's Pokemon before getting U-turn damage off. In-game, it's the opposite.

There are a bunch more. I already said I'm more than willing to volunteer to help get all these out. Hopefully they'll all be fixed in SB2 though.

Edit: @jumpluff: The second glitch you posted also works if a user explodes before you can use your choiced move.

Important glitch, abused a lot in UU from what I can tell.

Name: Multi-hit moves + Sash
Result: Sash fails to activate correctly
How: Rock Blast (and other multi-hit moves but Rock Blast is the most egregious) can OHKO Sashed Pokemon from 100%, because Shoddy regards each hit as a "separate move", and as such, if the target isn't at 100% at the beginning of a "move", it doesn't activate. Normally, the Sash would activate for each hit if the user is at 100% before the attack occurs, preventing the OHKO.

Sorry, Aeolus! I amended my post and verified the bit I was unsure about. I also just re-tested this, which is a known glitch:

Name: Full Paralysis + Bounce
Result: The Bouncing Pokémon is trapped and cannot come down from the Bounce
How: When a Bouncing Pokémon is fully paralysed midair or hits itself in confusion, the midair / charge stage remains, keeping it there until it dies, since it can't switch. This also happens with Fly, Shadow Force, Dig, and Dive

and this:

Name: Lock-On
Result: A Lock-On move may still miss
How: You use Lock-On, then use an inaccurate move (I used Zap Cannon)

Name: Intimidate glitch
Result: The ability Intimidate activates on the switch-in even if the Pokemon dies to entry hazards.
How: When a Pokemon with the ability Intimidate switches in, the ability activates before entry hazard damage comes into play, meaning that Intimidate can activate as the Pokemon dies to entry hazards; in-game, entry hazard damage comes into play first, meaning that Intimidate should not activate if a Pokemon switching in dies to entry hazards.

EDIT: made it clearer (I think)

Name: Sleep Talk + Payback
Result: Payback / Revenge has 50 Base Power, even when moving last
How: When Sleep Talk selects Payback, the damage is done as if it has 50 Base Power, even if the defender moves last

I tested this myself. When awake, Payback going last did ~46%. When asleep and Sleep Talk Paybacked, it should've done the same, but it did half of that, even though the sleeping Pokémon was moving second

Eo Ut Mortus said:

Name: Intimidate glitch
Result: The ability Intimidate activates on the switch-in even if the Pokemon dies to entry hazards.
How: When a Pokemon with the ability Intimidate switches in, the ability activates before entry hazard damage comes into play, meaning that Intimidate can activate as the Pokemon dies to entry hazards; in-game, entry hazard damage comes into play first.

Click to expand...

Does this ever affect gameplay adversely?

Name: Shield Dust Non-Activation
Result: Pokemon with Shield Dust flinch when hit by Fake Out.
How: Shield Dust is supposed to prevent all secondary effects, including flinching. But when a Pokemon with Shield Dust is hit by Fake Out, it flinches anyways. It seems that Shield Dust does properly prevent the flinching from Iron Head (well I just exhausted a Jirachi's PP and it didn't flinch once; nor have I ever experienced a flinch from Iron Head while using Shield Dust Venomoth), but just doesn't work for Fake Out.

Name: Charging + Full Paralyze = Infinite Cycle
Result: A Pokemon repeats the first stage of a two-stage attack.
How: When a Pokemon uses a two-stage attack like Bounce, Solarbeam, or Sky Attack (I've only seen this in battle with Bounce for obvious reasons but I just tested it for Solarbeam and Sky Attack and it works the same way) and becomes fully paralyzed on the second turn of the attack, every turn after that, no matter what attack is selected, the Pokemon is shown as performing the first stage of the attack. It also cannot switch out.

Example with a fake log since I didn't save one:

[turn 1]
Vaporeon used Surf.
Gyarados used Bounce.
Gyarados bounced up!

[turn 2]
Vaporeon used Surf
Gyarados is paralyzed! It can't move!

[turn 3, selecting Bounce]
Vaporeon used Surf.
Gyarados bounced up!

[turn 3, selecting Waterfall]
Vaporeon used Surf.
Gyarados bounced up!

[turn 3, attempted switch]
Gyarados is trapped!

edit: I took a while to write this post =/

Name: Pursuit Switch Selection
Result: After dying to a switching Pursuit, it takes you to the switch screen, allowing you to change your switch
How: Select a Pokémon to switch to as the opponent Pursuits. If the Pokémon currently in dies, you may change your switch

Example: have a Starmie out against a Tyranitar and switch to Pikachu. Starmie dies to Pursuit, so now you can change your switch to a Jumpluff. This does not happen on Wi-Fi. On Wi-Fi, your original switch occurs anyway (i.e. Pikachu comes out automatically).

ETA: There are a million in the bug tracker / Shoddy forum, but I'm going to sleep, so don't have time to dig the rest out.

Name: 2-turn charge attacks are not boosted by Life Orb glitch
Result: 2-turn charge attacks (SolarBeam, Dig, Sky Attack, etc.) are not boosted by Life Orb
How: Life Orb recoil activates; however, the attacks do not receive the boost in power from Life Orb.

Chris is me said:

Does this ever affect gameplay adversely?

Click to expand...

This doesn't matter. We'd really prefer to have as complete a list as possible.

Name: Berry glitch
Result: Berries will not activate via passive damage only direct attacks activate them
How: Hail, Sand, Substitutes, Burn, Poison, Spikes, and Stealth Rock do not activate Berries if brought down to the right amount of HP or below

Name: Encore Glitch
Result: An Encore'd pokemon doesn't receive attack boosts or bonuses from Sun, Rain, Hail, or Life Orb
How: A pokemon who was Encore'd no longer gains the boosts normally acquired via weather or LO. This includes things like Thunder and Blizzard missing in Rain and Hail, respectively, and SolarBeam now requires a charge time.

EDIT: wasn't there also a Torment glitch or was that fixed?
EDIT2: SDS is checking something for me about Encore one second
EDIT3: SDS knows exactly what's wrong and how it happens and so look at his post
EDIT4: Turns out Rock-types get to keep their Special Defence boost while Encore'd those jerks.

i'm pretty certain the torment glitch is fixed. it didn't kick in yesterday in my battle (on the cap server, but i don't think it matters) when i was kinda hoping it would.

Some more AWESOME details about how Encore works.

DISREGARD WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY HERE

EDIT: I got it all wrong.

The issue is this line of code:

MoveListEntry entry = p.getLastMove();

This returns a vanilla unaltered move entry based on the move that the Pokemon last used. This means that after Weather and Life Orb have been used to transform the move, the Encore GetTransformedMove function overwrites the active MoveListEntry with the untransformed version of the move.

I'll look into potentially fixing it since it seems fairly simple at this point.

EDIT 2: If Colin or Bearzly reads this... what's the purpose of the bolded part of this function?

For reference: m_entry is a saved instance of the encored move, and m_transform is a boolean set to True when the Encore is first applied.

I ask because this is the offending chunk of the function. At the time of the Encore, m_entry is an untransformed instance of the first move, and since Encore is applied last in the stack, it reverts any transformations that were applied.

EDIT AGAIN: Not exactly sure if this is it, I'll have to keep testing this.

Name: Weather Glitch
Result: This falls along the lines of the Intimidate glitch and other things that activate upon entry but basically if you switch in a Pokemon like Tyranitar and it dies to SR it shouldn't activate its weather.
How: Kyogre switched in and died to SR, the rain was activated when normally it shouldn't even start up because Kyogre technically didn't hit the field.

Name: Bounce Glitch #2
Result: Bounce is not scoring as much damage as it should.
How: When used Bounce in tandem with Life Orb, the damage scored is less than the expected.

Here are some examples:

Expected damage: (102.48% - 120.79%)

Expected damage: (68.81% - 81.68%)

Expected damage: (91.84% - 108.51%)

Expected damage: (35.64% - 42.08%)

Note: I've tested the same situations without Life Orb, and the damage is correct. I have also ran some of these tests in Wi-Fi, and I haven't found any discrepancy.

Genny said:

Name: Oran Berry glitch
Result: Oran Berry is not activated via passive damage only direct attacks activate it
How: Hail, Sand, Substitutes, Burn, Poison, Spikes, and Stealth Rock do not activate Oran Berry if brought down to 50% health or below

Click to expand...

This also occurs with pinch berries at 25%.

Taken from the latest research thread in Stark:

Name: Substitute + Berry Transfer
Result: Opponent can transfer berries through your Substitute through moves like Bug Bite and Fling on Shoddy.
How: When you're behind a Substitute and an opponent uses Bug Bite on Shoddy, they steal your berry. In-cart they don't. Also, if you are behind a Substitute and your opponent Flings a berry at you, you get the benefits on Shoddy, but not in-cart.

Also I was wondering, is there any reason this thread is hidden in IS? I'm sure the general public would be able to contribute to a lot of random little glitches (though the topic would need to be heavily moderated on Stark).

Edit: I guess my question is answered in the first sentence of this topic, lol. Either way, I think we should consider moving it to a public forum. I mean, I just looked at the research thread one time and found something we were missing. Maybe at least PR, where all users can at least see the topic and PM a badgeholder if they think we're missing something. Then the badgeholder can post if they know it's legit or not. That would prevent flooding too.

Once we have compiled a base list, it will be posted publicly.

Name: Conversion
Result: Conversion fails
How: When you have two moves of different type and Conversion, Conversion should work like a switch between them (i.e. you Conversion into Electric / Thunderbolt, then Ice / Ice Beam, and then Electric, and so on). It doesn't

Name: Fire Fang + Wonder Guard
Result: Fire Fang does not go through Wonder Guard
How: In the games, Fire Fang always goes through Wonder Guard, regardless of the type of the Wonder Guard Pokémon. In Shoddy, this doesn't happen (Trace)

Name: Metronome + Counter / Mirror Coat
Result: Counter / Mirror Coat fails
How: Select Counter and the opponent Metronomes a physical move through Counter

These are fairly meaningless, but I think having a base list would help a lot for the Shoddy Battle forum, as well as the fact we want a comprehensive compilation.

Name: Pursuit glitch
Result: Pursuit does not lose a PP.
How: If a Pokemon uses Pursuit, and the opponent switches, it will not lose PP.

Name: Grass Knot + Rindo Berry
Result: Grass Knot ignores the damage reduction from Rindo Berry.
How: Use the move Grass Knot against a pokemon with the item Rindo Berry.

@Chrisisme: yeah it does, say you switch in salamence as their starmie dies and they only have physical attackers left you just lost an advantage you would otherwise have.

My small contributions (I don't play Shoddy much):

Name: Acupressure + Substitute glitch
Result: Acupressure works while behind a Substitute.
How: Use Acupressure while behind a Substitute.
Acupressure is a targeting stat-changing move (it can target the partner in doubles), and should therefore be blocked by Substitute. On Shoddy, it still works (AFAIK), making the Pokémon deadly once you've boosted your defenses.

Name: Max stat Acupressure glitch
Result: Acupressure fails.
How: Use Acupressure while at least one (but not all 7) raisable stat is at +6; it has a chance of attempting to raise it again and failing.
Acupressure cannot select a maxed-out stat in-game; it will only select stats which are at +5 or less. It should only fail if all 7 stats are maxed.

I was looking forward to using Acupressure Drapion for fun, but the second glitch really screws it over, and the first is easy to abuse. At least on Pokémon Online the second one doesn't exist (though I can still abuse Sub).