Research Champions Battle Mechanics Research

I'm going to try to summarize findings from mechanics streams I will be doing on Champions in these threads.
Stream #1 (Mega Evolution order research)
Stream #2 (Mega Evolution order research, Haze healing HP bug, Parental Bond vs Ally Switch, Destiny Bond flags, interactions of Parting Shot with White Herb)

Clas said:
Didn't see anyone respond to this part, but this isn't true. I don't remember where I saw the clip of this being proved wrong (maybe from dawob, feel like that'd be something he'd test first), but if someone can provide clip evidence that'd be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...
This is from an in-game tip (go to submenu -> gameplay guides -> basic battling know-how -> time limits). It specifically says only Casual or Ranked play, and doesn't mention Private Battles, so I haven't bothered to verify it because I would have to go out of my way to stall a random opponent for 20 minutes without them forfeiting, and I don't have the resources to pull that off yet.

Edit: Reddit clip of supposed behavior

1775701335189.png

Cuddly said:
Can someone check what’s going on with Haze?
https://twitter.com/x/status/2041911453309960248
The Mega Blastoise here uses Water Spout, then Milotic uses Haze. The Milotic took a massive amount of damage when Water Spout was used, but is back to 92% HP.
Click to expand...
I tried reproducing this and couldn't get it to happen again. Didn't have a Mega Blastoise to try with though, and the original post on Reddit didn't share a lot of details. Footage of tests in stream #2 around 22:32, and then at 44:10.

The Destiny Bond volatile doesn't appear to be removing itself correctly from the X-info screen. "Destiny Bound" was still present after selecting another move. When KOed, the Pokemon did not actually take the opponent known. Counting as a visual bug for now. Footage begins at 6:40 in stream #2.

Ally Switch vs Parental Bond has some funny effects with Drain Punch and Double-Edge. It appears to all be visual, though. See original Reddit post. My footage begins in stream #2 at 1:04:55.

Using Parting Shot vs White Herb has slightly different behavior depending on perspective. The player using Parting Shot does not know White Herb activates until after the next Pokemon is selected to be switched in (see footage at 25:42 in stream #2). The player with White Herb sees White Herb activate prior to the pending switch (see footage at 41:52) and White Herb is consumed before the next Pokemon switches in, so e.g. another Intimidate can lower stats (footage at 37:31).

Mega Evolution order is an enigma to me right now. In Gen 7, Pokemon Mega Evolved in the order of their pre-Mega Speed stats. So for example, an Aggron slower than a Gengar would always Mega Evolve Gengar first, then Aggron. Similarly, a Beedrill that would be faster than a Gengar post-Mega would still Mega Evolve after Gengar, because pre-Mega Gengar is faster than pre-Mega Beedrill.

In Champions, the order of Mega Evolution is not just Speed-based. But it is unclear to me what the conditions are. In my first stream, I documented tests with a faster Mega Floette and a slower Mega Aggron, and depending on which player chose blue / red at the start, the Mega Evolution order would be different. In my second stream, I documented tests with a faster Mega Gengar vs a slower Mega Aggron, and did not change the player color - sometimes, Aggron would Mega first, and sometimes Gengar would Mega first. In the livestream, I could not figure out any difference; both of us were choosing the same Pokemon, making the same decisions, and getting different results. But I don't think it can only be random either. For one, I cannot reproduce an "out of Speed order" Mega Evolution in Singles. I've only been able to do this in Doubles. Additionally, I've had a series of tests with Mega Beedrill vs both Mega Floette and Mega Gengar where the behavior appears to not be random - if I lead the same mons and do the same actions, the same results happen. So if it really was random, I would expect to have hit more variance with Beedrill. But then I don't know how to explain Aggron vs Gengar interactions.

So far as I can tell, Mega Evolution order has nothing to do with the timing of when you select your moves, or the timing of when you select your Pokemon at Team Preview.

See below for a full list of interactions. I've currently exhausted all my ideas. If folks could review the footage and add to these tests, that would be appreciated.

EDIT: the devs have confirmed current Mega Evolution order behavior is a bug! No need to fully analyze this.

Stream #1
7:13
Blue player Aggron / Gengar with Sylveon / Dnite
Red player Whims / Floette with ???
No switches; Floette > Aggron

9:56
Blue player Aggron / Gengar with Sylveon / Dnite
Red player Whims / Floette with Aggron / ???
Switch Whims to Aggron, Gengar to Sylveon; Floette > Aggron

12:23
Blue player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dnite
Red player Aggron / Floette with Whims / ???
Switch Sylveon to Gengar, Aggron to Whims; Floette > Aggron

14:40
Blue player Aggron / Floette with Whims / ???
Red player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dnite
Switch Sylveon to Gengar, Aggron to Whims; Aggron > Floette

17:12
Blue player Aggron / Floette with Whims / ???
Red player Beedrill / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Switch Sylveon to Gengar, Aggron to Whims; Beedrill > Floette

20:14
Blue player Beedrill / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Red player Aggron / Floette with Whims / ???
Switch Sylveon to Gengar, Aggron to Whims; Beedrill > Floette

22:35
Blue player Beedrill / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Red player Aggron / Floette with ???
No switches; Beedrill > Floette

24:40
Blue player Aggron / Floette with ???
Red player Beedrill / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
No switches; Beedrill > Floette

24:40
Blue player Aggron / Floette with Whims / ???
Red player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Switch Sylveon to Gengar, Aggron to Whims; Aggron > Floette

29:30
Blue player Aggron / Floette with ???
Red player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
No switches; Aggron > Floette

32:18
Blue player Aggron / Floette with ???
Red player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
No switches on turn 1, no switches on turn 2; Aggron > Floette

35:15
Blue player Aggron / Sylveon with Floette / ???
Red player Gengar / Sylveon with Aggron / Dragonite
Switch Gengar to Aggron, Sylveon to Floette turn 1, turn 2 Mega; Aggron > Floette

38:25
Blue player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Red player Aggron / Floette with ???
No switches; Floette > Aggron

(Singles tests start)
42:12
Blue player Aggron / Gengar / Palafin
Red player Floette / ???
No switches; Floette > Aggron

44:20
Blue player Floette / ???
Red player Aggron / Gengar / Palafin
No switches; Floette > Aggron

47:51
Blue player Floette / ???
Red player Beedrill / Aggron / Gengar
No switches; Beedrill > Floette

50:01
Blue player Beedrill / Aggron / Gengar
Red player Floette / ???
No switches; Beedrill > Floette

(back to doubles tests)
54:15
Blue player Aggron / Floette with ???
Red player Sylveon / Aggron with Gengar / Dragonite
No switches; Aggron > Floette

56:01
Blue player Aggron / Floette with ???
Red player Gengar / Sylveon with Aggron / Dragonite
Switch Gengar to Aggron t1, Mega turn 2; Aggron > Floette

58:58
Blue player Aggron / Whims with Floette / ???
Red player Aggron / Sylveon with Gengar / Dragonite
Switch Whims to Floette t1, Mega turn 2; Aggron > Floette


Stream #2

4:33
Blue player Gengar / Aggron with Beedrill / Sylveon
Red player Kingambit / Gengar with ???
No switches; Aggron > Gengar

9:47
Blue player Gengar / Kingambit with ???
Red player Gengar / Aggron with Beedrill / Sylveon
No switches: Gengar > Aggron

(did not finish documenting once I saw Serebii's report)
 
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How does Protean interact with Mega Evolution?
If Greninja has used a attack, for example Ice Beam, before mega evolving, does it stay a Ice type or does it return as a Water/Dark type upon mega evolving?
If it stays a Ice type, does Protean not activate until it uses a different attack?
What happens if Greninja's type is changed by other means, like Soak?
 
Talpr0ne said:
How does Protean interact with Mega Evolution?
If Greninja has used a attack, for example Ice Beam, before mega evolving, does it stay a Ice type or does it return as a Water/Dark type upon mega evolving?
If it stays a Ice type, does Protean not activate until it uses a different attack?
What happens if Greninja's type is changed by other means, like Soak?
Click to expand...
It is probably the same behavior. Everytime you change a Pokemon's species/forme, it resets its type (except Terastallization).
 
Talpr0ne said:
How does Protean interact with Mega Evolution?
If Greninja has used a attack, for example Ice Beam, before mega evolving, does it stay a Ice type or does it return as a Water/Dark type upon mega evolving?
If it stays a Ice type, does Protean not activate until it uses a different attack?
What happens if Greninja's type is changed by other means, like Soak?
Click to expand...
I can't speak on Soak as I haven't tested that (likely the same as previous games, but needs confirmation), but I did fight Greninja and yes, if you changed types by Protean before Mega Evolving, you can change again after. Here's a video (not mine) of it, too:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2041733046840521112
 
Ropalme1914 said:
I can't speak on Soak as I haven't tested that (likely the same as previous games, but needs confirmation), but I did fight Greninja and yes, if you changed types by Protean before Mega Evolving, you can change again after. Here's a video (not mine) of it, too:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2041733046840521112
Click to expand...
They wanted to know if Greninja's type resets to Water and Dark after Mega Evolving, which is not clear in the video.
 
Hello research folks, thank you in advance for the hard work you're doing. Champions seems to have many new terms / phrases for certain in-game conditions, and I was wondering if y'all could help us (GP Team) compile a list of them. Not urgent at all, but whenever one comes up I would appreciate it (feel free to DM me if you don't want to clog the thread).

Here is what we have found so far, so no need to tell us these:
List said:
  • 4x and 0.25x effectiveness for moves are now called extremely effective and mostly ineffective, respectively.
  • Effort / Individual values (EVs/IVs) changed to Stat Points (SPs)
  • Dig's semi-invuln state is called Underground, Phantom Force's is Concealed, Dive's is Submerged, and Fly and Bounce use Sky-High.
  • Outrage, Raging Fury, Petal Dance, Thrash, and any similar moves cause the Rampaging state when used.
  • Partial trapping moves like Fire Spin, Snap Trap, and Wrap cause the Bound effect.
  • Trapping moves like Mean Look and Spirit Shackle cause the Can't Escape effect.
  • Perish Song inflicts the Perishing effect.
  • Power Trick causes the Atk/Def Swapped effect.
  • Psychic Noise causes the Healing Prevented effect.
  • Trick-or-Treat makes the target go Trick-or-Treating.
  • Imprison's effect is called Sealed Off.
  • Disable causes the Move Disabled effect.
  • For several moves that inflict a unique effect on the target, Champions basically refers to that effect as "(move name) + -ed".
    • For example Leech Seed causes the Leech Seeded status.
    • Other moves include: Fairy Lock, Forest's Curse ("Forest Cursed"), Lock-On ("Locked On"), Throat Chop, Ingrain, Minimize
  • Charge's power-up effect is called Electric Boost.
  • Moves that have a boosted crit rate as well as Focus Energy use the term "x-stage Critical-Hit Ratio Boost" in their move descriptions, where x is a numerical number.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
Scenario that has just occurred to me in the game:
- My Maushold uses Population Bomb on the foe's Kingambit with confirmed Defiant (thank you, Supersweet Syrup)
- It hits 10 times (thank you, Supersweet Syrup)
- My Maushold is holding a King's Rock
- Kingambit doesn't flinch

Was I just extremely, extremely, extremely unlucky or do multi-strike moves not benefit from King's Rock independently on each hit? If it's the latter, wouldn't that be a change from how it worked before?
 
eworm said:
Scenario that has just occurred to me in the game:
- My Maushold uses Population Bomb on the foe's Kingambit with confirmed Defiant (thank you, Supersweet Syrup)
- It hits 10 times (thank you, Supersweet Syrup)
- My Maushold is holding a King's Rock
- Kingambit doesn't flinch

Was I just extremely, extremely, extremely unlucky or do multi-strike moves not benefit from King's Rock independently on each hit? If it's the latter, wouldn't that be a change from how it worked before?
Click to expand...
The probability of 10 hits of Population Bomb flinching is 65%, not that high.
 
qrChar said:
I also had a weird interaction with encore, but I wasn't recording and can't review it
I encored, with a max speed m-lopunny, a neutral speed m-dragonite into protect and then it immediately used protect, moving ahead of my +1 volcarona (198 speed stat)
Seemingly acting at the priority of the move it was encored into and not the move they selected, as it would do previously
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Regarding this change, if the Encored move forces a Struggle, does Struggle always move at +0 or does it use the priority of the move that was forced? e.g.: Does an Encored Fake Out always use Struggle immediately after Encore? Does something that was hit by Taunt and then Encored into Trick Room use Struggle at -7?
 
Also regarding Fake Out + Encore: the footage we have shows Encore being used on the same turn as Fake Out. However, there could be a case (it is probably the case) where, if Encore is used on the second active turn of the Pokémon that used Fake Out, Fake Out fails that turn instead of resulting in Struggle.

This would match the SV interaction for Disable + Encore and Choice Lock + Encore when Encore is used before the other Pokémon acts.

We would need to confirm this specific interaction.

Sauzels said:
Regarding this change, if the Encored move forces a Struggle, does Struggle always move at +0 or does it use the priority of the move that was forced? e.g.: Does an Encored Fake Out always use Struggle immediately after Encore? Does something that was hit by Taunt and then Encored into Trick Room use Struggle at -7?
Click to expand...
If the interactions stayed the same, the answer to this is: "you can never be Encore'd into Struggle". Also, just like Disable, if you Taunt and Encore a Pokemon into Trick Room, it won't Struggle, it will just fail to act because of Taunt.
 
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sunny said:
Hello research folks, thank you in advance for the hard work you're doing. Champions seems to have many new terms / phrases for certain in-game conditions, and I was wondering if y'all could help us (GP Team) compile a list of them. Not urgent at all, but whenever one comes up I would appreciate it (feel free to DM me if you don't want to clog the thread).

Here is what we have found so far, so no need to tell us these:


Thank you!
Click to expand...
Some of these may be redundant or are already noticed, but I went ahead and did this:

Ball and bomb move -> Ball & Bomb

1775765684465.jpeg


Pulse move -> Pulse

1775764750972.jpeg
1775765718404.jpeg


Sound-based move -> Sound-Based

1775765668497.jpeg


Moves that restore HP -> Healing (note that attacking moves that heal do not seem to have this flag, such as Draining Kiss, Bitter Blade, and Giga Drain)

1775765701923.jpeg


1775765789975.jpeg

1775765822520.jpeg

1775765834965.jpeg

Punching move -> Punching

1775765736535.jpeg


Slicing move -> Slicing

1775766513964.jpeg


Powder and spore moves -> Powder

1775766526382.jpeg


Wind move -> Wind

1775764987312.jpeg


Dance move -> Dance

1775765000138.jpeg


Biting move -> Biting

1775765087542.jpeg


Explosive move -> Explosive

1775765101752.jpeg


Status that causes sleep next turn by Yawn -> Drowsy

1775765050183.jpeg


Status caused by moves with a charging turn -> Charging

1775765115490.jpeg


Status caused by moves that force a recharge after use -> Recharging

1775765342035.jpeg


Status caused by a lingering Future Sight -> Future Attack

1775765304186.jpeg


Status caused by Smack Down -> Landed

1775765156148.jpeg


Status caused by Destiny Bond -> Destiny Bound

1775765548869.jpeg


Status caused by Torment -> Unable to Repeat

1775765653681.jpeg


Status caused by Cute Charm and Attract -> Infatuated

1775765756873.jpeg


Status caused by Imprison -> Sealing Off

1775765862851.jpeg


Burn, paralysis, poison, bad poisoning, confusion, sleep, freeze -> Burned, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Badly Poisoned, Confused, Asleep, Frozen


1775765257254.jpeg
1775765185637.jpeg
1775765239758.jpeg
1775765941949.jpeg



Status caused by entry hazards (Stealth Rock, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web) -> The name of the respective entry hazard (Stealth Rock, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web)

1775765129183.jpeg


Status caused by Psychic Noise -> Healing Prevented

1775765961420.jpeg


Field effect caused by Rain Dance / Drizzle -> Rain

Field effect caused by Sunny Day / Drought –> Harsh Sunlight

Field effect caused by Snowscape / Snow Warning -> Snow

1775764823058.jpeg


Status / field effect caused with the exact same name as the given move or ability that causes them: Reflect, Light Screen, Wish, Flash Fire, Aurora Veil, Trick Room, Wonder Room, Magic Room, Gravity, Uproar, Grassy Terrain, Electric Terrain, Psychic Terrain, Misty Terrain, Sandstorm (see above image for proof), Safeguard

1775765324719.jpeg

1775765068450.jpeg

1775764851594.jpeg

1775765883112.jpeg

1775765574846.jpeg


1775765409005.jpeg

1775765848068.jpeg

1775765979547.jpeg

1775764885217.jpeg

1775764894371.jpeg

1775764906073.jpeg

1775764961719.png

Status caused by a singular move with the same name as the singular move with some variant of "-ed" at the end: Ingrain, Ghost-type Curse, Taunt, Throat Chop, Salt Cure


1775765169953.jpeg

1775765383602.jpeg

1775765426317.jpeg

1775765618493.jpeg

1775766549886.jpeg


Also, Growth is now a Grass-type move, which is worth pointing out as it only became of such type since PLZA:

1775765480195.jpeg
 
sunny said:
Hello research folks, thank you in advance for the hard work you're doing. Champions seems to have many new terms / phrases for certain in-game conditions, and I was wondering if y'all could help us (GP Team) compile a list of them. Not urgent at all, but whenever one comes up I would appreciate it (feel free to DM me if you don't want to clog the thread).

Here is what we have found so far, so no need to tell us these:


Thank you!
Click to expand...
Here's the file from the game data with the English text for the battle states. If you ctrl+f "OriginalText", you'll get to each one on every other hit.

https://github.com/projectpokemon/champout/blob/main/rom-txt/usa/btl_state_syn.json

1775772961824.png
 
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Anubis said:
Here's the file from the game data with the English text for the battle states. If you ctrl+f "OriginalText", you'll get to each one on every other hit.

View attachment 822671

View attachment 822675
Click to expand...
If you can, do you think you can check if the changes to Paralysis, Sleep, Freeze, and any other RNG mechanic are accurate to the text found in game?
We saw that Leech Seed’s description claims it drains less HP than it does in reality, but that’s easy to test. You can’t really test the mechanics of Freeze so easily since they are RNG based.
 
Cuddly said:
If you can, do you think you can check if the changes to Paralysis, Sleep, Freeze, and any other RNG mechanic are accurate to the text found in game?
We saw that Leech Seed’s description claims it drains less HP than it does in reality, but that’s easy to test. You can’t really test the mechanics of Freeze so easily since they are RNG based.
Click to expand...
So, usually when there's a new Pokémon game, I start looking for known mechanics in the decompiled code like Pokémon generation and the damage formula. Even though Champions being Unity gives us all code symbols like we had in BDSP, I couldn't find anything that was part of the damage formula in BDSP. I looked for common things like rolling to apply random effects, checking for successful hit, random damage rolls, rolling for chance to crit... nope, couldn't find anything at all.

That leads me to suspect everything is now server-sided, probably for security reasons. That means that I can't test any better than you can, so you might as well do it. Good practice for Wind/Waves when everything has to be transcribed by hand.

I really don't want people to default to asking a dataminer to solve all the specific number-based questions anyways. Everything that is battle mechanics can be tested vanilla even if it takes a lot of observations or specific setups. You can repeat moves, write down how many had the effect, and calculate a confidence interval to see if you observed enough to exclude certain numbers at a high confidence level. I've stepped away from testing a lot of stuff that regular players can do just because I think it's important for researchers at any level to be able to contribute.
 
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Anubis passed me some data dumps that i ended up parsing, so here are some base power/pp/accuracy changes:

Base Power changes: https://gist.github.com/KrisXV/8ba8f88b644644869d87a14520224872
Accuracy changes: https://gist.github.com/KrisXV/b9ac9e54ca382356cb2051d7374bcd2a
PP changes: https://gist.github.com/KrisXV/76a7e01bb8c9b3c1e9527a0338c68c24 (also I didn't include them in here but any move whose PP was > 20 is now 20)
Type changes: https://gist.github.com/KrisXV/c7d520b6853c41008031c3aebb045c9b
Dexited moves: https://gist.github.com/KrisXV/cc41016629828aa7bd0dc5efac067b59

No priority/contact-making changes
 
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