Programming Pokemon+ : Luck-free server (DONE!)

POKEMON+ Custom Server

While I believe the official ladder should perfectly follow in-game mechanics, an alternate ladder offering a completely deterministic game can provide be interesting alternate experience, not only because of how frustrating it is to lose to the RNG, but mostly because it promotes and rewards deeper strategy.
All the changes made also help balance the game, as countering becomes more reliable and new revenge killing options appears thanks to the altered speed tie mechanics. Here, the only cases when the game needs to call the RNG are first turn speed ties, and everything else is purely deterministic.


There is no need to download anything, you can already chose this server from PO's list. This also means that the teambuilder will still show standard move description, but no BP was altered.


In order to avoid unnecessary code bloating and to stay close from the official metagame, these luck-based moves are banned :
Acupressure, Assist, BeatUp, Double Team, DynamicPunch, GrassWhistle, Hypnosis, Inferno, Magma Storm, Magnitude, Metronome, Minimize, Present, Sing, Sleep Talk, Zap Cannon, OHKO moves


Sleep Talk is also banned for now as it's almost never seen in BW OU and any deterministic implementation would be way too potent. Magma Storm is banned for now, in later playtesting we could find a way to balance it.

Here's the mechanics changelist :
  • Random critical hits can't happen anymore, but moves that always crit still do.
  • No move will ever miss, no matter what.
  • Damage is always be the average of min and max rolls, rounded down. Using 92 as the random multiplier.
  • Protect, Detect and Endure always fail when used consecutively.
  • Phazing always sends the first available pokemon in the party.
  • Sleep always lasts two turns and the sleep counter does not reset upon switching (similar to 4th Gen Rest).
  • Trapping moves (Bind, Magma Storm) always last 4 turns (5 with Grip Claw).
  • Multi-hit moves always hit min+1 times (max with Skill Link).
  • Outrage, Petal Dance and Thrash always lasts two turns and lowers the user's Atk and SpA 2 stages when it ends.
  • Charge Beam always raise SpA, but every other luck-based secondary effect was scraped. A consequence is that freezing can't happen anymore. Sheer Force still boosts the moves it used to (intended).
  • Full paralysis never happens and confusion was banished to the moon. Machamp is reportedly crying under a tree.
  • Moves such as Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge, Body Slam and Force Palm always inflict status on the second consecutive attempt. Thunder does not. Abilities such as Flame Body activate after hitting the bearer twice consecutively with a contact move. Shed Skin always activates after three turns (including the turn when you get statused).
  • Def and SpD boosts will go away after being struck 20 times (counting from when you got the first boost). It will be announced as a critical hit because the server can't send custom messages, but damage doesn't get doubled.
  • Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Thunder, Blizzard, Focus Blast, Megahorn and Gunk Shot the user's corresponding offensive stat on stage. Thunder, Hurricane and Blizzard do not under their respective weathers, but the rain moves lose half of their power under the sun. Seed Flare, Power Whip and lolMegaKick do not have downsides for now.
  • If both leads tie in speed, the first pokemon to be sent will go first. After that, every tie will be determined by the previous turn :
    ** If both sides moved, whichever side moved last will win the tie.
    ** If one side switched, it will win the tie.
    ** If both sides switched, the outcome will be determined from the previous turn.
 

DetroitLolcat

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OP said:
Make it so you lose your defense boosts after being struck 20 times without switching (Guard Break, prevents CM wars from turning into PP stall).
Don't do this. If you want to win the CM war use Psyshock. And it takes a strategy (forcing a PP war as a last-ditch effort) out of the game. It doesn't reduce hax either as you're probably taking crits out anyway.
 

a fairy

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This would change the metagame, TBH. If this DOES work out, anyone want to attemp a Tournament for it?
 

DetroitLolcat

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Will low-accuracy moves be nerfed in any way? As DynamicPunch or Zap Cannon would be incredibly broken. What about hax chances that have more than a 50% chance to hit like Jirachi Iron Head?

Or Charge Beam?
 
I like this a lot. If this is for Gen 5 Whimsicott with Grasswhistle is going to be the most broken thing ever, so I'm assuming it's not
 

eric the espeon

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Quite a few abilities would need to be banned (or massively altered). Effect Spore, Static, Flame Body, Cute Charm, Poison Point, Shed Skin, Cursed Body, Healer, Poison Touch, Wonder Skin. Maybe a few more. Attract/infatuation would go. And crits (other than on the 100% crit moves).

Glad someone is making this. Would be good to have somewhere for players who don't want any luck to play.
 
I forgot to put it in the OP, but of course, random crits don't happen anymore. 100% Crit moves still work.

Might want to make Flame Charge raise Speed all the time too.
What about hax chances that have more than a 50% chance to hit like Jirachi Iron Head?

Or Charge Beam?

All guaranteed secondary effects were kept but everything else got the boot. I just ran a script through the database to remove any probability below 100%, but set Charge Beam to always work as stated in the OP

Will low-accuracy moves be nerfed in any way? As DynamicPunch or Zap Cannon would be incredibly broken.
In order to keep code modification to the strict minimum and to stay close from the official metagame, luck-based moves are banned. This only includes moves such as Assist, Metronome, Magnitude, Present or Dynamic Punch.
This ^

Don't do this. If you want to win the CM war use Psyshock. And it takes a strategy (forcing a PP war as a last-ditch effort) out of the game. It doesn't reduce hax either as you're probably taking crits out anyway.
Well, this is low-priority anyway, as in, I'll only do it if the need for it arises during playtesting. Guard breaking would involve more strategy than PP stalling while being much more enjoyable, though.

I like this a lot. If this is for Gen 5 Whimsicott with Grasswhistle is going to be the most broken thing ever, so I'm assuming it's not
Since Hypnosis is banned, Grasswhistle and Sing share the same fate. The sleep counter does not reset upon switching to balance Sleep Powder.

Quite a few abilities would need to be banned (or massively altered). Effect Spore, Static, Flame Body, Cute Charm, Poison Point, Shed Skin, Cursed Body, Healer, Poison Touch, Wonder Skin. Maybe a few more. Attract/infatuation would go. And crits (other than on the 100% crit moves).

Glad someone is making this. Would be good to have somewhere for players who don't want any luck to play.
All of these abilities are allowed but disabled and Attract is obviously banned. I also disabled Rivalry, as this is basically a combination of luck and teambuilder design abuse... I might make it so that all 30% effects (such as Scald, Flame Body but also Shed Skin) except flinching, confusion and infatuation will always happen on the second consecutive attempt. This is very, very low priority though, it definitely won't be in the first release.

This would change the metagame, TBH. If this DOES work out, anyone want to attemp a Tournament for it?
I expect it to, but I think it will create a positive shift. When I say it should stay close to the BW OU metagame, I mean that it should use the same banlist and analyses should still be relevant (so no move BP, statspread or moveset change) but it won't be a seamless transition.*I don't think we will need to ban anything more than BW OU, as most (if not all) of the changes nerf offense. The 120 BP modification means Thundurus can no longer blast his way through Blissey, and Starmie can't Hydro Pump spam in the rain anymore. Without critical hits, random miss or Rock Slide flinches, countering will also become much more reliable, and the new speed tie mechanic will make revenge killing a lot easier. Considering the metagame will probably be less offensive even without Sleep Talk, I'm not sure it's ever going back. Any deterministic implementation would be a huge, unneeded buff to defensive play.



I don't have time to code right now, but this is definitely going to happen, as there are no technical barriers preventing what is left to do. Help would be gladly appreciated ;)
I would also like to know if anyone would be willing to host this when it is finally done ? My horrible connection prevents me from hosting it myself, but this shouldn't produce much load.
 
It's done, and the server is up and running !
The complete changelist can be found in the first post. Most of these are what you would expect from a luckless server, with a few twists :

  • Moves such as Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge, Body Slam and Force Palm always inflict status on the second consecutive attempt. Thunder does not. Abilities such as Flame Body activate after hitting the bearer twice consecutively with a contact move. Shed Skin always activates after three turns (including the turn when you get statused).
  • Def and SpD boosts will go away after being struck 20 times (counting from the frst boost). It will be announced as a critical hit because the server can't send custom messages, but damage doesn't get doubled.
  • 120BP, inaccurate moves now lower the user's corresponding offensive stat on stage. Thunder, Hurricane and Blizzard do not under their respective weathers. Seed Flare and Power Whip do not have downsides for now.
  • If both leads tie in speed, the first pokemon to be sent will go first. After that, every tie will be determined by the previous turn :
    ** If both players moved, whichever side moved last will win the tie.
    ** If one side switched, it will win the tie.
    ** If both sides switched, the outcome will be determined from the previous turn.

The only ladder is BW OU, following Smogon's ruleset with, of course, additional move bans. Luck-based abilities are either modified or disabled, but allowed.

Feel free to try it, report bugs and offer suggestions !


If someone from the smogon staff sees this, can I make a quick advertisement on the Smogon server ? Thank you.
 
Just a quick note: you banned DynamicPunch and Zap Cannon, but not Inferno, which is basically the same move. Great idea as a whole, btw.
 
Thanks for the feedback, I just corrected this. Could you please try to connect to the server and see if it works ? It doesn't work for me from the PO list, but only when connecting to localhost.
EDIT : It does work.
 

panamaxis

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** If both players moved, whichever side moved last will win the tie.
Might be worth thinking about making this so whichever side moves first wins the tie (avoids people running the timer down to 0:01 so they can win a potentially very important speed tie?)
 
Oh, I guess the way I worded it can be confusing : I meant that the player whose pokemon moved last during the previous turn will lose the tie. For exemple, if Jirachi Subs and Scizor U-Turns out to Zapdos, then Zapdos will win the speed tie because Jirachi moved before Scizor. Should both pokemons stay in, the next tie would be won by Jirachi because Zapdos outsped it last turn, and so on.

EDIT : Status glitch fixed, I don't know how it got through. Server back up.
EDIT2 : Server back up, BeatUp segfaults for no apparent reason.I don't have time right now so I temporarily disabled it. I went through some of the battle logs, and everything else seems to be working as it should, though.
 

a fairy

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I VM'ed Yoki about the IP problem.

BTW: I've talked to Yoki the idea of running a tournament using the server, he said I could after the glitches are gone. Do not apply for it, damnit.
 
Why do you need it ? You can connect to it from the server list, which btw show the IP and port. It's currently 90.61.162.208:5080, but the IP might change. There was 7 players connected at some time, so it most definitely works. If you didn't find it, then it must have been down at that time because BeatUp crashed it while I wasn't home.

About the tournament, you can file the application right now, as this will take much more time than making sure there aren't any glitches left anyway (especially considering this kind of tourney has low priority). The status glitch was an interaction between the very first and last modifications I made and Beat Up is, well, Beat Up, but everything else is already well tested. After fixing Beat Up, I will test everything again with the latest build, just to be sure.
 
Haven't posted here in quite a while, but wanted to show my support on this.

Keep up the good work, this will definitely be a fun alternative to the current metagame, and with the removal of hax it's definitely extremely altering. I know a lot of people have wanted to try this for a long time. :)
 
Yes, Fire Blast does lower SpA 1 stage. The reasoning behind these changes is that choosing between Hydro Pump or Surf should still be a choice between power and reliability. -1 STAB*Fire Blast has 80BP, so STABed moves are still usable on turn two, but you basically lose your coverage. This could change depending on what the metagame turns out to be, but don't forget offense also got some nice buffs and nasty strategies.

The only "perfect" 120 BP moves are Seed Flare (traded its powerful secondary effect for some accuracy) and Power Whip (hardly overpowering). The latter might be made to also lower Attack, depending on the evolution of the metagame and the community's opinion.

Thanks for the support, I really hope this will become something.
 

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