Those of you who've been around since the start know that Random Battle was PS's first format, even before Custom Game (which was the second, although it was called Debug Mode back then). I needed some way to test a variety of different pokemon and moves, and I hadn't made a teambuilder yet, so I made Random Battle.
The original Random Battle plan was to make something like Challenge Cup. I didn't have a learnset database, back then, though, but I did have a database of competitive movesets, so I compiled that into a viable move database, and took random viable moves for my sets.
As development continued, it was obvious that most people preferred Random Battle's "random viable moves" to Challenge Cup's "random learnable moves", so when I implemented items and abilities, I wrote AIs to choose competitively viable items and abilities. Besides, writing AIs is more fun that writing code to randomly choose things. :P I also added some refinement to what move combinations could and couldn't be chosen in random battles.
And that's where the story ends, around a year ago. A period of salutary neglect befell Random Battle, while I started focusing on other parts of Pokemon Showdown: lag, ladder bugs, supporting past gens, supporting doubles, a huge bunch of UI upgrades...
In the past year, I haven't worked on random battles at all. Aside from a few tweaks to level balancing and the move chooser AI, there's only been one change to Random Battle: The introduction of not-fully-evolved pokemon.
This was a change that I wasn't aware of until much later, as I've played random battles with friends. And, honestly, I want to remove it.
That's probably the most controversial change I have planned for random battles:
Changes:
- limit 1 of each type on a team (should reduce the tendency to generate teams with single glaring weaknesses)
- removal of the Eviolite ban
- and the controversial one: removal of NFEs, except ones in RU or higher.
These changes are because the random battle algorithm is designed to generate teams that have some similarity to competitively viable teams, and NFEs for the most part aren't. Sure, by level balance, they can be, but I'd argue that the difference is artificially created by level balance.
I think the difference between Challenge Cup and Random Battle is that in Challenge Cup, everything is random. In Random Battle, you get six pokemon that have been trained to be competitively viable, and I think that should include evolving it. Level balance can make it better unevolved, but like I said, that's artificial. NFEs that can reach RU or higher without the crutch of level balance are still allowed, after all.
NFEs also ruin Pokemon Showdown's tier-based level balance, which was designed for Pokemon that are viable in NU or higher.
So, in the end, this is a discussion thread for my proposed changes. Unless there are very strong objections, I'd like to remove NFEs from Random Battle.
The original Random Battle plan was to make something like Challenge Cup. I didn't have a learnset database, back then, though, but I did have a database of competitive movesets, so I compiled that into a viable move database, and took random viable moves for my sets.
As development continued, it was obvious that most people preferred Random Battle's "random viable moves" to Challenge Cup's "random learnable moves", so when I implemented items and abilities, I wrote AIs to choose competitively viable items and abilities. Besides, writing AIs is more fun that writing code to randomly choose things. :P I also added some refinement to what move combinations could and couldn't be chosen in random battles.
And that's where the story ends, around a year ago. A period of salutary neglect befell Random Battle, while I started focusing on other parts of Pokemon Showdown: lag, ladder bugs, supporting past gens, supporting doubles, a huge bunch of UI upgrades...
In the past year, I haven't worked on random battles at all. Aside from a few tweaks to level balancing and the move chooser AI, there's only been one change to Random Battle: The introduction of not-fully-evolved pokemon.
This was a change that I wasn't aware of until much later, as I've played random battles with friends. And, honestly, I want to remove it.
That's probably the most controversial change I have planned for random battles:
Changes:
- limit 1 of each type on a team (should reduce the tendency to generate teams with single glaring weaknesses)
- removal of the Eviolite ban
- and the controversial one: removal of NFEs, except ones in RU or higher.
These changes are because the random battle algorithm is designed to generate teams that have some similarity to competitively viable teams, and NFEs for the most part aren't. Sure, by level balance, they can be, but I'd argue that the difference is artificially created by level balance.
I think the difference between Challenge Cup and Random Battle is that in Challenge Cup, everything is random. In Random Battle, you get six pokemon that have been trained to be competitively viable, and I think that should include evolving it. Level balance can make it better unevolved, but like I said, that's artificial. NFEs that can reach RU or higher without the crutch of level balance are still allowed, after all.
NFEs also ruin Pokemon Showdown's tier-based level balance, which was designed for Pokemon that are viable in NU or higher.
So, in the end, this is a discussion thread for my proposed changes. Unless there are very strong objections, I'd like to remove NFEs from Random Battle.