January Major Update: CAP BBP Season 3
Thank you all for your patience and eager attention! This update was promised for mid-to-late December, but somehow it's been delayed far into the next circuit cycle. How?
It is a mystery. Besides, I'd rather deliver a late complete patch, than a timely rushed patch. On with the show!
It's staggering to think I've been tyrant-in-chief of this game for two or three years now; depending on how you measure.
Season 2 was defined by its high highs and low lows. We've introduced several new and returning ways to play with your favorite Pokemon, and a continuing stream of improvements to ease of play and tool support. We've also had to endure agonizing queue times and a Circuit meta that might possibly go down in history as "Mew Summer".
For season 3, we want to continue the game's direction towards being a self-sustaining, enjoyable grind hobby where players get to grow their Pokemon together, expand their roster, and eventually prepare each other for end-game challenges; before doing it all again, and hopefully making a friend or two along the way!
On January 14th UTC, Lucky Egg will be retired from future matches. Any Lucky Eggs in your profile will become 4
RC when the patch becomes effective.In this update:
- Combo Cleanup, part 2
- Energy Work
- Switching Cleanup
- Raid Overhaul
- Contest Adjustments
- Incense Items
- Timing Clauses
- Handbook Updates
- Balance Changes Continued
- Playable Ventures
- Individual Raid Adjustments
- The Guild Alliance
Combo Cleanup, part 2
Effective in challenges and matches that start on January 14th UTC or later.
We're finishing what we started last major update. With new Combos, comes what is hopefully a new and better-than-ever version of Battle-by-Post!
Argument
As was stated in Combo Cleanup 1, Combos rule and warp the game from stem to stern.
To recap: Ordering first against an opponent who is capable of useful Combos is almost always catastrophic. The opponent has free reign to sneak the move they want to use through the most carefully worded substitutions, as long as their Pokemon's movepool is sufficiently wide.
This isn't because individual combos are overly powerful. Instead, it's because an opponent ordering second is capable of every single legal combination in their entire movepool, all at the same time. No player can reasonably be expected to account for this, every other round, in every match they ever play.
So, we're no longer expecting this of players.
Implementation
We're implementing a new system for learning and storing combinations. You'll want to read this thoroughly.
Combo Data
We'll be shaving down the remaining rules for Combination Legality:
We're also changing how certain properties of the combination are found:
Combo Limit
This is a new parameter of moves; replacing the system of Combo Level, Combo Class, and Combo Subclass.
The Combo Limits a move can have are as follows:
With this system, certain potentially-problematic combination components are kept apart from one another, and the rest are left to the free reign of players. Priority attacks are barred from Explosion; and 100% Effect Chance moves are barred from most multi-hit moves (except 2-Hit moves, which are fine.)
This would result in Pokemon having more combo freedom, not less... Were it not for the next mechanic we're introducing.
Combo Slots
Starting this Season, Pokemon are going to be made to declare their combos upon claim, much as they declare their Hidden Power type or their Nature. Combos are now a critical feature of a Pokemon's progression.
Starting at Level 2, a Pokemon will have Combo Slots in their profile; above their Movepool but below their Formes. Pokemon unlock two (2) Combo Slots at Level 2, and two (2) more at Level 3 and Level 4, for a total of six (6) slots.
Each component move can only be used in one of a Pokemon's known combos. You'll have to think very carefully which move to pair with which others!
Combos will be written one-combo-per-line, in the form "Move A + Move B". In battle, a known combo is "reversible"—that is, a Pokemon that knows Earthquake + Whirlpool can also legally order Whirlpool + Earthquake, if a Water-type combo is desired.
Players can fill empty Combo Slots in the Prize Claim thread for free, whenever they would like. It may be useful to sometimes leave slots empty until you know what Combo want. A high-Level Pokemon with 4 or 5 Combos is almost as versatile as a Pokemon with all 6 slots filled.
Pokemon can replace any and all of their known Combos upon reaching Levels 2, 3, or 4; or by spending TC in the Day Care shop. Empty Combo Slots should still be indicated on the Pokemon's profile, with "(empty)" or "---" for each one.
When you're done, your Combos section should look like this:
At the time of writing, everyone's Combo Slots are empty; so you're at the mercy of the 10-profile Claim limit for getting your Combos. Be nice to our Approvers!
Advanced Combo Technique
New in this patch, we're adding a fifth Advanced Technique for Pokemon to unlock: Triple Combos!
Upon unlocking this Technique, the Pokemon becomes able to fill a Combo Slot with three different moves. These moves still can't be shared with other Combo Slots, so plan carefully.
Using the Triple Combo will follow all of the normal rules for Combos; including Type, Effect Chance, and so on. Because of the extra component move, Triple Combos are more flexible in type and can feature many added effects.
You can specify an Action Clause with "as a Triple Combo" or "not as a Triple Combo", as needed, if you need to partition an opponent's Triple Combo from their regular combos.
Triple Combos still only cost 1 Tech, just like a normal Combo. They don't cost "extra".
Using a Triple Combo counts as performing an Advanced Technique, unlike normal combos.
Earning Triple Combos
Triple Combos will be earned from the Battle Tree, which is going under reconstruction, and will thus be difficult to obtain for now.
For the time being, the only source of Triple Combos is a new Advanced Facility we're introducing with this patch. Read on...
As was stated in Combo Cleanup 1, Combos rule and warp the game from stem to stern.
To recap: Ordering first against an opponent who is capable of useful Combos is almost always catastrophic. The opponent has free reign to sneak the move they want to use through the most carefully worded substitutions, as long as their Pokemon's movepool is sufficiently wide.
This isn't because individual combos are overly powerful. Instead, it's because an opponent ordering second is capable of every single legal combination in their entire movepool, all at the same time. No player can reasonably be expected to account for this, every other round, in every match they ever play.
So, we're no longer expecting this of players.
Implementation
We're implementing a new system for learning and storing combinations. You'll want to read this thoroughly.
Combo Data
We'll be shaving down the remaining rules for Combination Legality:
- Targets:Components no longer need to share a target.
- Combo rules will still narrow the combo down to one of the components' targeting scopes. Combo with care.
- Teams: Each team is limited to one (1) Combo per round; instead of allowing one per Pokemon.
- Combo Level: Replaced with Combo Limit, per-move, below.
- Combo Classes/Subclasses: Replaced with Combo Limit, per-move, below.
We're also changing how certain properties of the combination are found:
- Target Scope: The combination only targets the User if none of its components target any other Pokemon.
- Energy Cost: Total Energy Cost of all components.
- Effect Chance: Highest Effect Chance among components.
- Moves with 100% Effect Chance are now very valuable in Combos.
- Tail Glow + Vacuum Wave
- Sandstorm + Weather Ball
- Fire Fang + Bulldoze
- Meteor Beam + Electro Shot
- Inferno + Confusion
- Focus Blast + Draining Kiss
Combo Limit
This is a new parameter of moves; replacing the system of Combo Level, Combo Class, and Combo Subclass.
The Combo Limits a move can have are as follows:
- Banned: Cannot be combined.
- One: Cannot be combined with any other CL: One move.
- Free: Can be combined with any other move, so long as the other components' CL allow it.
| Combo Limit: Banned | Combo Limit: One | Combo Limit: Free |
|---|---|---|
Every Command
Every Max Move Every Z-Move Ally Switch Assist Baneful Bunker Beak Blast Belly Drum Bide Bounce Burning Bulwark Copycat Counter Crafty Shield Curse Curse (Ghost) Detect Dig Dive Doom Desire Egg Bomb Encore Endure Fake Out Feint Fissure Fling Fly Follow Me Future Sight Guillotine Heal Order Heal Pulse Healing Wish Helping Hand Horn Drill Instruct Jungle Healing King's Shield Life Dew Lunar Blessing Magic Coat Me First Milk Drink Mirror Coat Mirror Move Moonlight Morning Sun Nature Power Pain Split Phantom Force Present Protect Purify Quick Guard Rage Powder Recover Rest Roost Shadow Force Sheer Cold Shell Trap Shore Up Silk Trap Sky Drop Slack Off Sleep Talk Snatch Soft-Boiled Spikes Spiky Shield Spotlight Stealth Rock Strength Sap Substitute Swallow Synthesis Taunt Tera Blast Torment Toxic Spikes Transform Wide Guard | Accelerock
Acid Spray Anchor Shot Ancient Power Apple Acid Aqua Jet Aqua Step Arm Thrust Aura Wheel Baby-Doll Eyes Barrage Beat Up Bitter Malice Bone Rush Breaking Swipe Bulldoze Bullet Punch Bullet Seed Ceaseless Edge Chatter Chilling Water Clear Smog Comet Punch Disable Double Slap Drum Beating Dynamic Punch Eerie Spell Electroweb Esper Wing Explosion Extreme Speed Final Gambit Fire Lash First Impression Flame Charge Fury Attack Fury Swipes Glaciate Grassy Glide Grav Apple Ice Shard Icy Wind Imprison Inferno Jet Punch Low Sweep Lumina Crash Lunar Dance Lunge Mach Punch Memento Misty Explosion Mortal Spin Mud Shot Mud-Slap Mystical Fire Mystical Power Nuzzle Order Up Pin Missile Population Bomb Pounce Powder Snow Power-Up Punch Psychic Noise Psyshield Bash Ominous Wind Quick Attack Rapid Spin Relic Song Rock Blast Rock Tomb Salt Cure Scale Shot Self-Destruct Shadow Sneak Silver Wind Skitter Smack Snarl Sparkling Aria Spike Cannon Spirit Break Spirit Shackle Sticky Web Stone Axe Struggle Bug Sucker Punch Syrup Bomb Tail Slap Throat Chop Thunderclap Thunderous Kick Torch Song Trailblaze Triple Axel Triple Dive Triple Kick Trop Kick Vacuum Wave Water Shuriken Zap Cannon | Everything Else |
With this system, certain potentially-problematic combination components are kept apart from one another, and the rest are left to the free reign of players. Priority attacks are barred from Explosion; and 100% Effect Chance moves are barred from most multi-hit moves (except 2-Hit moves, which are fine.)
This would result in Pokemon having more combo freedom, not less... Were it not for the next mechanic we're introducing.
Combo Slots
Starting this Season, Pokemon are going to be made to declare their combos upon claim, much as they declare their Hidden Power type or their Nature. Combos are now a critical feature of a Pokemon's progression.
Starting at Level 2, a Pokemon will have Combo Slots in their profile; above their Movepool but below their Formes. Pokemon unlock two (2) Combo Slots at Level 2, and two (2) more at Level 3 and Level 4, for a total of six (6) slots.
Each component move can only be used in one of a Pokemon's known combos. You'll have to think very carefully which move to pair with which others!
Combos will be written one-combo-per-line, in the form "Move A + Move B". In battle, a known combo is "reversible"—that is, a Pokemon that knows Earthquake + Whirlpool can also legally order Whirlpool + Earthquake, if a Water-type combo is desired.
Players can fill empty Combo Slots in the Prize Claim thread for free, whenever they would like. It may be useful to sometimes leave slots empty until you know what Combo want. A high-Level Pokemon with 4 or 5 Combos is almost as versatile as a Pokemon with all 6 slots filled.
Pokemon can replace any and all of their known Combos upon reaching Levels 2, 3, or 4; or by spending TC in the Day Care shop. Empty Combo Slots should still be indicated on the Pokemon's profile, with "(empty)" or "---" for each one.
When you're done, your Combos section should look like this:
Combos:
Iron Defense + Snowscape
Ice Beam + Throat Chop
Trailblaze + Body Slam
Snore + Uproar
( empty )
( empty )
At the time of writing, everyone's Combo Slots are empty; so you're at the mercy of the 10-profile Claim limit for getting your Combos. Be nice to our Approvers!
Advanced Combo Technique
New in this patch, we're adding a fifth Advanced Technique for Pokemon to unlock: Triple Combos!
Upon unlocking this Technique, the Pokemon becomes able to fill a Combo Slot with three different moves. These moves still can't be shared with other Combo Slots, so plan carefully.
Using the Triple Combo will follow all of the normal rules for Combos; including Type, Effect Chance, and so on. Because of the extra component move, Triple Combos are more flexible in type and can feature many added effects.
You can specify an Action Clause with "as a Triple Combo" or "not as a Triple Combo", as needed, if you need to partition an opponent's Triple Combo from their regular combos.
Triple Combos still only cost 1 Tech, just like a normal Combo. They don't cost "extra".
Using a Triple Combo counts as performing an Advanced Technique, unlike normal combos.
Earning Triple Combos
Triple Combos will be earned from the Battle Tree, which is going under reconstruction, and will thus be difficult to obtain for now.
For the time being, the only source of Triple Combos is a new Advanced Facility we're introducing with this patch. Read on...
Energy Work
Effective in challenges and matches that start on January 14th UTC or later.
We're doing a more intentional pass across... Well, every mention of Energy in the entire game.
Argument
This work actually started as a deep dive into recoverable health, of all things, and ways to import it into BBP.
Often when writing balance changes, I wanted to write buffs that grant incidental recovery. Small heals are a great way to tilt the damage race in a player's favor without contributing "damage creep" or shorting the average lifespan of Pokemon in play. In moderate doses, adding HP recovery to battles helps players order with more confidence and experience less ordering anxiety.
However, if we added too many unchecked sources of recovery, players would bend over backwards to stack them, and our "You get 2 Roosts" resource was not granular enough to limit this. This is how I ended up adding more obtuse defensive options, such as Defense Aid, Dread, and Bonus-Proof, as a sort of compromise. This is also how every berry ended up costing a Recovery; I wanted to ensure players weren't trapped in battles that were dragged out for weeks longer than they needed to be.
All of these options were ultimately unsatisfying to me, so I wanted to find a way to limit how much HP players could gain from passive healing. I had considered several recovery-limiting options:
This work was shelved for a while, but it had raised a very old question from the ASB days: Why so many Chills?
Energy Costs have always been a mess, but Energy has always in theory prevented matches from running forever. In practice, though, the only time users run out of Energy is when they expend a massive chunk of their Energy on an expensive Combo. Rarely, Energy does kick in when a player has spent a long period of time playing passively, but by then the damage is done. The match length has to be drawn out several rounds longer than usual for this to happen; so can Energy really be said to have encouraged proactive play?
Because Energy doesn't really act as a timer in a practical sense, we end up in a situation where allowing players excessive healing can lead to four or five extra rounds per matchup. There's another way to tackle that issue, though, besides never offering players reasonable healing!
Energy work has been suggested several times in ASB history, most often because the cost of most moves is arbitrary and difficult to remember. It's one point of Energy for every 2 BAP... Starting on odd counts, except when you get to moves of 4 BAP or less, and for certain strong moves, and draining moves. And moves that aren't attacks, of course. The consensus has usually been that it would be nice to update Energy from the original cost rules laid down by Deck Knight, but it would just be too much work. After all, it would involve individually rating each individual move and deciding its value against every other move.
So again, I left the issue alone for a while to pursue other work. In that time, Helios made a post that picked at this wound, but we were already questioning the value of Chills thanks to complaints from passive players and their opponents alike. I began to brew possible Energy replacement systems borrowed from other games, modeled after resources like Memory and various implementations of per-round action points, but nothing satisfying came of it still.
A tighter Energy resource would let us actually use Energy to balance certain moves; players would have to make round-by-round decisions between longevity and power. We could just re-cost outliers like Meteor Beam, for example, until their users were brought in line. With sufficient Energy cost, some moves would no longer need their fanfiction downsides. Eventually, we determined that simply re-balancing BBP's Energy economy as we know it (and putting in all of the required elbow grease) was the best solution.
Based on the game length talk above, I set to the task of sorting EVERY move and command into tiers of Energy use. I laid some ground rules, set up my spreadsheet, and got to work on what seemed to be an arduous task. It... took me about an hour total. (Which reminds me of a funny gaming history anecdote.)
Implementation
Starting from the effective date above, Pokemon (that have Energy) will have a maximum of 30 Energy.
We will also be removing the Recovery and Chill resources. The command Chill will be reworked entirely.
Actions will be balanced around a default Energy Cost of 3. This means that a Pokemon will... usually exhaust their Energy after about twelve actions. Usually less, though, as players will wish to use strong moves often.
We specifically avoided assigning any action an Energy Cost of 1 — We don't think there's any interesting case where a Pokemon takes thirty actions. Having "cheap" moves still cost two-thirds of an average move keeps matches moving towards a conclusion. A Pokemon using only the cheapest available moves will still exhaust in 20 actions, which is probably the ceiling on acceptable longevity. (Which reminds me. I should rework Rest.)
More expensive actions come in three broad categories:
behold: table!
Most Attacks that cost 5 or 6 will gain restriction requiring that their full cost be paid.
Gating large recovery moves on a resource that matters lets us finally escape from a long history of awkward healing caps, weird stipulations on when healing is effective, and lets us finally be rid of certain fanfiction conditions like Sluggish. Oh, that's right—we're removing Sluggish, too. Moves like Hyper Beam will now only speed the user along to exhaustion.
These new Energy costs upend some threat-answer dynamics. It now matters much more that Rapid Spin and Mortal Spin (2 En) are cheaper than the Hazards and other conditions they answer (3-5 En). Speaking of Hazards, we can price multiple-layer Hazards to be cheaper than their single-layer relatives, and so on. The much-maligned Spikes now exists in the lowest price tier (2 En).
We expect these changes to have both immediate and long-term ramifications for how players evaluate certain moves or Pokemon. As we play Season 3, I think players will develop a feel for which Pokemon are more or less "Energy-hungry", and I expect that the skill of Energy management will be developed and refined by a wider section of the playerbase. I'm very excited to see how players adapt!
This work actually started as a deep dive into recoverable health, of all things, and ways to import it into BBP.
Often when writing balance changes, I wanted to write buffs that grant incidental recovery. Small heals are a great way to tilt the damage race in a player's favor without contributing "damage creep" or shorting the average lifespan of Pokemon in play. In moderate doses, adding HP recovery to battles helps players order with more confidence and experience less ordering anxiety.
However, if we added too many unchecked sources of recovery, players would bend over backwards to stack them, and our "You get 2 Roosts" resource was not granular enough to limit this. This is how I ended up adding more obtuse defensive options, such as Defense Aid, Dread, and Bonus-Proof, as a sort of compromise. This is also how every berry ended up costing a Recovery; I wanted to ensure players weren't trapped in battles that were dragged out for weeks longer than they needed to be.
All of these options were ultimately unsatisfying to me, so I wanted to find a way to limit how much HP players could gain from passive healing. I had considered several recovery-limiting options:
- I first wanted "wound damage", like the HP bar pictured here. In the referenced game, the light grey portion is recoverable with free healing actions, but the dark grey portion is recoverable only with precious medicines.
- I then tried to develop a "healing cap" resource that refreshes each round; not unlike Round Hours.
- Frustrated, I tried to limit how many times a Pokemon's HP could be healed each round.
This work was shelved for a while, but it had raised a very old question from the ASB days: Why so many Chills?
Energy Costs have always been a mess, but Energy has always in theory prevented matches from running forever. In practice, though, the only time users run out of Energy is when they expend a massive chunk of their Energy on an expensive Combo. Rarely, Energy does kick in when a player has spent a long period of time playing passively, but by then the damage is done. The match length has to be drawn out several rounds longer than usual for this to happen; so can Energy really be said to have encouraged proactive play?
Because Energy doesn't really act as a timer in a practical sense, we end up in a situation where allowing players excessive healing can lead to four or five extra rounds per matchup. There's another way to tackle that issue, though, besides never offering players reasonable healing!
Energy work has been suggested several times in ASB history, most often because the cost of most moves is arbitrary and difficult to remember. It's one point of Energy for every 2 BAP... Starting on odd counts, except when you get to moves of 4 BAP or less, and for certain strong moves, and draining moves. And moves that aren't attacks, of course. The consensus has usually been that it would be nice to update Energy from the original cost rules laid down by Deck Knight, but it would just be too much work. After all, it would involve individually rating each individual move and deciding its value against every other move.
So again, I left the issue alone for a while to pursue other work. In that time, Helios made a post that picked at this wound, but we were already questioning the value of Chills thanks to complaints from passive players and their opponents alike. I began to brew possible Energy replacement systems borrowed from other games, modeled after resources like Memory and various implementations of per-round action points, but nothing satisfying came of it still.
A tighter Energy resource would let us actually use Energy to balance certain moves; players would have to make round-by-round decisions between longevity and power. We could just re-cost outliers like Meteor Beam, for example, until their users were brought in line. With sufficient Energy cost, some moves would no longer need their fanfiction downsides. Eventually, we determined that simply re-balancing BBP's Energy economy as we know it (and putting in all of the required elbow grease) was the best solution.
Based on the game length talk above, I set to the task of sorting EVERY move and command into tiers of Energy use. I laid some ground rules, set up my spreadsheet, and got to work on what seemed to be an arduous task. It... took me about an hour total. (Which reminds me of a funny gaming history anecdote.)
Implementation
Starting from the effective date above, Pokemon (that have Energy) will have a maximum of 30 Energy.
We will also be removing the Recovery and Chill resources. The command Chill will be reworked entirely.
Actions will be balanced around a default Energy Cost of 3. This means that a Pokemon will... usually exhaust their Energy after about twelve actions. Usually less, though, as players will wish to use strong moves often.
We specifically avoided assigning any action an Energy Cost of 1 — We don't think there's any interesting case where a Pokemon takes thirty actions. Having "cheap" moves still cost two-thirds of an average move keeps matches moving towards a conclusion. A Pokemon using only the cheapest available moves will still exhaust in 20 actions, which is probably the ceiling on acceptable longevity. (Which reminds me. I should rework Rest.)
More expensive actions come in three broad categories:
- 4 En: Field-setting moves, Stall moves, and Self-Switching moves.
- 5 En: Moves that restore large amounts of HP to the user, every former charge-up move, every OHKO, and certain outliers.
- 6 En: Specifically Healing Wish and Lunar Dance, every non-Normal Hyper Beam clone, Explosion, every Switch-Forcing move, and Oblivion Wing.
behold: table!
| 2 Energy | 3 Energy | 4 Energy | 5 Energy | 6 Energy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Absorb
Accelerock Acid Aqua Jet Astonish Baby-Doll Eyes Barrage Branch Poke Bubble Bullet Punch Captivate Celebrate Chilling Water Confide Confusion Constrict Copycat Cut Disarming Voice Ember Fairy Lock Fake Out False Swipe Feint Flash Flower Shield Fury Swipes Grass Whistle Growl Gust Happy Hour Harden Hold Back Hold Hands Ice Ball Ice Shard Kinesis Leer Lick Lock-On Mach Punch Me First Meditate Metal Claw Mind Reader Mirror Move Mud Sport Mud-Slap Nature Power Nightmare Nuzzle Pay Day Play Nice Poison Gas Poison Powder Poison Sting Poison Tail Pounce Pound Powder Snow Power-Up Punch Quick Attack Rage Rock Smash Rock Throw Rollout Salt Cure Sand Attack Scratch Shadow Sneak Sharpen Sing Sketch Skitter Smack Sleep Talk Smack Down Smog Snarl Snatch Spikes Spite Splash String Shot Struggle Bug Tackle Tail Whip Thunder Shock Tickle Toxic Thread Trailblaze Twineedle Vacuum Wave Vine Whip Vise Grip Water Gun Water Sport Aim Cover Hide | Everything Else
| Assist
Aurora Veil Baneful Bunker Baton Pass Bitter Blade Boomburst Bounce Burning Bulwark Ceaseless Edge Chatter Chilly Reception Confuse Ray Counter Court Change Defog Destiny Bond Detect Dig Disable Dive Drain Punch Dream Eater Electric Terrain Encore Endure Flip turn Fly Focus Punch Freeze Shock Gear Up Giga Drain Grassy Terrain Guard Split Hail Heal Block Horn Leech Ice Burn Imprison Instruct Jungle Healing King's Shield Leech Life Life Dew Light Screen Lunar Blessing Matcha Gotcha Metronome Mirror Coat Misty Terrain Obstruct Pain Split Parting Shot Perish Song Phantom Force Power Split Protect Psychic Terrain Quick Guard Rain Dance Recycle Reflect Safeguard Sandstorm Shed Tail Shell Smash Shell Trap Silk Trap Skull Bash Sky Attack Sky Drop Snowscape Solar Beam Solar Blade Spider Web Spiky Shield Stealth Rock Stone Axe Substitute Sunny Day Tailwind Teleport U-turn Volt Switch Wide Guard Savage Spin-Out Black Hole Eclipse Devastating Drake Gigavolt Havoc Twinkle Tackle All-Out Pummeling Inferno Overdrive Supersonic Skystrike Never-Ending Nightmare Bloom Doom Tectonic Rage Subzero Slammer Breakneck Blitz Acid Downpour Shattered Psyche Continental Crush Corkscrew Crash Hydro Vortex G-Max Befuddle G-Max Cannonade G-Max Centiferno G-Max Chi Strike G-Max Cuddle G-Max Depletion G-Max Drum Solo G-Max Finale G-Max Fireball G-Max Foam Burst G-Max Gold Rush G-Max Gravitas G-Max Hydrosnipe G-Max Malodor G-Max Meltdown G-Max One Blow G-Max Rapid Flow G-Max Replenish G-Max Resonance G-Max Sandblast G-Max Smite G-Max Snooze G-Max Steelsurge G-Max Stonesurge G-Max Stun Shock G-Max Sweetness G-Max Tartness G-Max Terror G-Max Vine Lash G-Max Volcalith G-Max Volt Crash G-Max Wildfire G-Max Wind Rage | Aqua Ring
Beak Blast Curse (Ghost) Draining Kiss Electro Shot Final Gambit Fissure Floral Healing Giga Impact Guillotine Heal Order Heal Pulse Helping Hand Horn Drill Hyper Beam Ingrain Leech Seed Memento Meteor Beam Milk Drink Misty Explosion Moonlight Morning Sun Parabolic Charge Pollen Puff Purify Recover Roost Self-Destruct Shadow Force Sheer Cold Shore Up Slack Off Soft-Boiled Strength Sap Synthesis Wish Catastropika 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt Stoked Sparksurfer Extreme Evoboost Pulverizing Pancake Genesis Supernova Sinister Arrow Raid Malicious Moonsault Oceanic Operetta Splintered Stormshards Let's Snuggle Forever Clangorous Soulblaze Guardian of Alola Searing Sunraze Smash Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom Light That Burns the Sky Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike | Blast Burn
Circle Throw Dragon Tail Eternabeam Explosion Frenzy Plant Geomancy Healing Wish Hydro Cannon Lunar Dance Meteor Assault Oblivion Wing Prismatic Laser Rest Revival Blessing Roar Roar of Time Rock Wrecker Whirlwind |
Most Attacks that cost 5 or 6 will gain restriction requiring that their full cost be paid.
Gating large recovery moves on a resource that matters lets us finally escape from a long history of awkward healing caps, weird stipulations on when healing is effective, and lets us finally be rid of certain fanfiction conditions like Sluggish. Oh, that's right—we're removing Sluggish, too. Moves like Hyper Beam will now only speed the user along to exhaustion.
These new Energy costs upend some threat-answer dynamics. It now matters much more that Rapid Spin and Mortal Spin (2 En) are cheaper than the Hazards and other conditions they answer (3-5 En). Speaking of Hazards, we can price multiple-layer Hazards to be cheaper than their single-layer relatives, and so on. The much-maligned Spikes now exists in the lowest price tier (2 En).
We expect these changes to have both immediate and long-term ramifications for how players evaluate certain moves or Pokemon. As we play Season 3, I think players will develop a feel for which Pokemon are more or less "Energy-hungry", and I expect that the skill of Energy management will be developed and refined by a wider section of the playerbase. I'm very excited to see how players adapt!
Switching Cleanup
Effective in battles that start on January 14th UTC or later.
Triggers in the Switching Phase will be cleaned up, and matchup-control moves will affect the post order in new ways.
Argument
The Switching Phase is an awful mess.
Players have gotten quite good at positioning around post order. Our frequent Circuit contenders usually have their desired matchups charted out in advance, and they also usually have their coming-round first-post ordersets in mind when they issue second-post orders for the current round.
This has exposed structural issues with the Switching Phase as-is; mainly, there is little to no downside for aggressively initiating switches whenever possible. Switching can be initiated only when ordering first; so players ordering first are incentivized to at least try to order first in a matchup of their choosing. Comparatively, accepting the counterswitch is often an act of self-sabotage: By ceding second order to the player who initiated a switch, it becomes very easy to turn good matchups sour, and suffer unacceptable damage to important team members. The result is that, typically, players take turns initiating switches and ordering first.
That isn't an issue in and of itself, necessarily. Ordering first is easier when the player doing so gets to choose their matchup. What often ends up happening, though, is that the player who sends out first and orders second in the first round has defacto control over most of the match.
When a player orders second, they get nearly free reign to disrupt the orders of the opponent. Naturally, players will thus write safer, more striaghtforward ordersets when going first. This affords the going-second player even more freedom, allowing them to pursue their choice of Speed control, field setup, status, and direct damage, in whatever proportion they would like. This excessive freedom; from the nature of ordering second and from the habits of players often-burned by first order, has further reprocussions.
An oft-quoted wisdom of playing BBP is that players ordering second have four actions of freedom; rather than three. The first step of the coming round is also almost entirely within the control of the player ordering second in the current round. Any Pokemon who can't stomach 3-4 attacks is thus in danger of fainting. The way BBP is designed, that's most Pokemon in most matchups. It's no accident that most Pokemon can stomach around 4 super-effective attacks from average attackers. Because of the current (and especially, the prior) state of Combos, players ordering second are unlikely to "waste" turns on unprofitable disruptions or setup. Even without those, most playable Pokemon have a suite of utility attacks that can be used for controlling Speed, items, or other stat stages for the purposes of sculpting the coming round.
When ordering second, the best position any player can create is to bring their opponent within KO range of a single attack, slower than themselves, and then leaving them there. By doing so, a strong player can essentially waste their opponent's entire second order; after which, second order will shift back to themselves, and they'll be able to repeat the process. The overall result is that matches were decided by primarily by the coin toss; and secondarily by the favored player's capacity to blunder this control away. Once this control is broken, it then falls on the now-favored player to simply not blunder their large advantage.
There are, technically, ways for players to interact with post order. Self-switching moves (like U-turn) and switch-forcing moves (like Roar) directly adjust post order... negatively. These moves cede second order to the opponent when used, handing them control of the post-order loop as described above. In antique ASB design, it was thought that gaining the freedom to choose any matchup you like without counterswitch was too powerful to freely allow. In current BBP, that's what a prepared player gains in every Switching Phase.
The current state of switching is the result of players becoming better at the game—at planning, teambuilding, and ordering—than the system was designed to accommodate.
Changes in post order control to should be a constant fact of the game, not just a specific players' blunder. That is to say, this loop of control should be much more difficult to maintain. To facilitate this, the tools for interacting with post order need to become more robust. In the same breath, I don't particularly want to make counterswitching stronger, and I certainly don't want it to stop ceding second order. All that would accomplish is make initiating switches into self-sabotage instead.
While we're here, it's important to clean up and clarify the Switching Phase as a mechanic. The entire process involves many more steps and terms than are necessary; and allows for strange interactions such as double-switching in the same Switching Phase after a KO or pivot. We also don't want players to load their teams up with "double-switch" fodder just to provide weather, Intimidate, etc. The simplest remedy for this problem is to eliminate double switching.
Implementation
The Switching Phase will be streamlined into declaration, fielding, and trigger steps:
As stated above, moves that create Switching and Phazing now carry high Energy costs, as suits their newly-powerful effects.
The Switching Phase is an awful mess.
Players have gotten quite good at positioning around post order. Our frequent Circuit contenders usually have their desired matchups charted out in advance, and they also usually have their coming-round first-post ordersets in mind when they issue second-post orders for the current round.
This has exposed structural issues with the Switching Phase as-is; mainly, there is little to no downside for aggressively initiating switches whenever possible. Switching can be initiated only when ordering first; so players ordering first are incentivized to at least try to order first in a matchup of their choosing. Comparatively, accepting the counterswitch is often an act of self-sabotage: By ceding second order to the player who initiated a switch, it becomes very easy to turn good matchups sour, and suffer unacceptable damage to important team members. The result is that, typically, players take turns initiating switches and ordering first.
That isn't an issue in and of itself, necessarily. Ordering first is easier when the player doing so gets to choose their matchup. What often ends up happening, though, is that the player who sends out first and orders second in the first round has defacto control over most of the match.
When a player orders second, they get nearly free reign to disrupt the orders of the opponent. Naturally, players will thus write safer, more striaghtforward ordersets when going first. This affords the going-second player even more freedom, allowing them to pursue their choice of Speed control, field setup, status, and direct damage, in whatever proportion they would like. This excessive freedom; from the nature of ordering second and from the habits of players often-burned by first order, has further reprocussions.
An oft-quoted wisdom of playing BBP is that players ordering second have four actions of freedom; rather than three. The first step of the coming round is also almost entirely within the control of the player ordering second in the current round. Any Pokemon who can't stomach 3-4 attacks is thus in danger of fainting. The way BBP is designed, that's most Pokemon in most matchups. It's no accident that most Pokemon can stomach around 4 super-effective attacks from average attackers. Because of the current (and especially, the prior) state of Combos, players ordering second are unlikely to "waste" turns on unprofitable disruptions or setup. Even without those, most playable Pokemon have a suite of utility attacks that can be used for controlling Speed, items, or other stat stages for the purposes of sculpting the coming round.
When ordering second, the best position any player can create is to bring their opponent within KO range of a single attack, slower than themselves, and then leaving them there. By doing so, a strong player can essentially waste their opponent's entire second order; after which, second order will shift back to themselves, and they'll be able to repeat the process. The overall result is that matches were decided by primarily by the coin toss; and secondarily by the favored player's capacity to blunder this control away. Once this control is broken, it then falls on the now-favored player to simply not blunder their large advantage.
There are, technically, ways for players to interact with post order. Self-switching moves (like U-turn) and switch-forcing moves (like Roar) directly adjust post order... negatively. These moves cede second order to the opponent when used, handing them control of the post-order loop as described above. In antique ASB design, it was thought that gaining the freedom to choose any matchup you like without counterswitch was too powerful to freely allow. In current BBP, that's what a prepared player gains in every Switching Phase.
The current state of switching is the result of players becoming better at the game—at planning, teambuilding, and ordering—than the system was designed to accommodate.
Changes in post order control to should be a constant fact of the game, not just a specific players' blunder. That is to say, this loop of control should be much more difficult to maintain. To facilitate this, the tools for interacting with post order need to become more robust. In the same breath, I don't particularly want to make counterswitching stronger, and I certainly don't want it to stop ceding second order. All that would accomplish is make initiating switches into self-sabotage instead.
While we're here, it's important to clean up and clarify the Switching Phase as a mechanic. The entire process involves many more steps and terms than are necessary; and allows for strange interactions such as double-switching in the same Switching Phase after a KO or pivot. We also don't want players to load their teams up with "double-switch" fodder just to provide weather, Intimidate, etc. The simplest remedy for this problem is to eliminate double switching.
Implementation
The Switching Phase will be streamlined into declaration, fielding, and trigger steps:
- Declaration Step: For each position a player has on the field, the player may declare a Pokemon from their reserve they'd like to send out. If there's a Pokemon there, this also inherently declares that the occupying Pokemon will be withdrawn.
- Switching and Phasing now state that they return their subject to the bench "At the start of the switching Phase". They also stipulate that their subject must be replaced with a different Pokemon, if possible.
- The act of initiating a Switch Phase thus means you're declaring that you will switch; and accepting a counterswitch is declaring that you will counterswitch.
- "Position" only matters in the sense that players can field a certain number of Pokemon, and in the sense of replacing specific other Pokemon in play. We're not enabling "left/center/right" positioning by default.
- Replacement Step: Every Pokemon occupying a declared position is then withdrawn by their trainer; in order of declaration. Then, every Pokemon that was declared-for-sendout is sent out; also in order of declaration.
- Trigger Step: Effects triggering "when a Pokemon enters play" now trigger at this timing.
- Since the Pokemon enter play in a specific order, the effects triggering from the entry of those Pokemon will also trigger in that order. The first-declared Pokemon will take Hazard damage first, etc.
As stated above, moves that create Switching and Phazing now carry high Energy costs, as suits their newly-powerful effects.
Raid Overhaul
Effective in Raids that start on January 14th UTC or later.
The Raid Frontier is getting an overhaul focused on engaging the referee with a new mechanic. Strap in, because this is going to be a large section.
Rather than import in-game Raid Dens 1 for 1, Raids for Gen 9 BBP were designed to replicate MMO boss fights. This is carried forward from ASB's Raid Zone, spearheaded by Zarator and almost entirely patterned after his enjoyment of tab-targeting MMOs. You can read an old raid here!
In Raids both old and new, the design focused on automating the opponents "like an MMO Boss". The focus was on importing fixed rotations of mechanics and phases, as was the fashion in popular MMOs at the time. This design, however, ignored the referee's enjoyment as a player.
In part this was on purpose. For the Gen 9 Raid Frontier, we chose to carry forward this referee-ignoring style of automation. Refs at the time had expressed a desire for a simpler, less decision-intense reffing experience. This request probably has roots in the lookup fatigue and ordering burden of regular play, which was at its height right around when the Raid Frontier opened. Referees expressed concern over "letting players through", or of being easy marks for players looking to earn powerful prizes. The pressure to perform weighed on quite a few players' minds.
Raids kowtowed to this feeling, and took many steps to relieve the referee of the "fault" of a player victory. However, we on the mod team wouldn't really pinpoint the cause of this overall mood of worry among worries—that is, we wouldn't realize just how much players felt pressure to perform—until well after the launch of the Raid Frontier. The result of this is that raids didn't address the cause of the anxiety; just the symptom.
Without referee agency, Raids of all Levels and design types have struggled to deliver a satisfying experience. Because all of a Raid's decisions are known, they've always had issues with being "mappable"—players can enter several Raids with a concrete plan for what they'll do each and every round. There are a handful of Raids that can't be mapped as well, because they feature a high amount of randomness in their behavior. These Raids instead involve throwing yourself at them and hoping to avoid instant losses.
Worse still, the only real lever for adjusting a current Raid's difficulty is how predictable it is. The easiest Raid, "Vs. The Spectacular Spore-verlord!" mostly quizzes the player on whether or not they have Safeguard available to them; and on how much Fire- or Flying-type damage they can deal. Making the fight harder can be done only by making it more strict statistically, or by adding more mechanics for the player to solve at once—which can be clearly seen to any readers who browse down the Raid Frontier's data thread. The hard fights are made so only by the sheer volume of information to track.
The Raid Frontier is thus getting a large facelift, again; much like the Safari Zone needed to arrive at its current finished-enough state. This time, we'll be borrowing heavily from various asymmetrical board games; particularly, those that feature a designated enemy or game-master player.
Raids will also borrow more from their source inspiration. We'll be trying to capture the feeling of responding to an AoE marker, or passing a tethered enemy from one party member to the next.
Raids will gaining new mechanics focused on engaging the referee now, including a simple resource that they get to manage, and special tokens that they place.
Action Points (AP):
A new resource used by the Raid's Pokemon. The referee will spend AP to place Indicators on the player's team, below.
Raids will usually give the referee one pool of AP for all of the Raid Pokemon to share. Some Raids may require that the referee split the AP in certain ways.
Indicators:
A new mechanic that occurs at the end of the battling phase. The referee places as many indicators on Raiders as they can afford, based on the Raid Pokemon's behaviors and their available AP.
While any Protectors is present, at least half of the Boss' AP must be spent placing indicators on Protectors, rounded up.
For example, a Raid Pokemon might have behaviors that look like this:
Action Points: 7 <- [ This is how much AP the Raid Pokemon gains at the start of each Ordering Phase, to spend on indicators. ]
Limit 1 of each indicator.
Spend all AP. <-^- [ These are instructions for the referee on how to spend that AP. ]
Phase 2 BehaviorAction Points: 11
Repeat indicators OK.
Unspent AP rolls over to later rounds. <- [ Means the referee can save AP for later rounds. Very dangerous. ]
| 2 AP: [Foul air...] | 2 AP: [It inhales...] | 3 AP: [It glares...] | 4 AP: [Vines whip...] | Scr: [It stood up-!] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sleep Powder Toxic Leech Seed Sweet Scent | Acid Spray Worry Seed Growth Defog | Aim Purge Crush Shear Expose | Power Whip Knock Off Sludge Bomb Stomping Tantrum Venoshock | Earthquake Frenzy Plant Sludge Wave Raging Fury |
Indicators work in three steps:
- The referee places indicators before the player issues orders.
- As the referee counter-orders afterthe player, they'll choose which action each indicator represents.
- The chosen action can target the Raid's own Pokemon, if possible.
- The chosen action must target the indicated Raider before it can target any other Raiders. (That is, it has to target the indicated Raider first among Raiders.)
[Foul air...]
[It inhales...][It inhales...][Foul air...]
[Foul air...]Placing these indicators costs the referee 3 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 11 AP. The player will have to decide how they're going to defend against possible Sleep Powder, multiple possible Acid Sprays on Goodra-Hisui, and still deal good damage.
On the [It inhales...] indicator, Venusaur has the option to use Growth. Even though the indicator is placed on a Raider, 8.3c will handle the situation and ensure Venusaur uses Growth on themselves, instead.
In this way, the indicators act to both warn the player of danger; and to allow the referee to outplay the player. The player will be able to reference the possible actions for each indicator and sub against them; and the referee will be able to arrange indicators as they like to try to make the player's life hell. When designing custom Raids, try to avoid giving the referee enough AP to place too many indicators each round—the work adds up quickly!
As a lever for difficulty; lower-Level Raids might have similar behaviors on their indicators, such as an indicator that only has Poison-inflicting moves. These indicators would be very easy for the player to answer. Higher-Level Raids might have indicators with a variety of attacks and non-attacks, making those indicators more difficult to cleanly answer.
Some Raids will have indicators that say "Scr:" (Scripted) instead of an AP cost. These can't be placed for AP; instead, the raid will tell the referee when and how to place them.
Example: "Every odd-numbered round, place the indicator [You're next!] on the raider with the least remaining HP."
Switching, Role Swapping, and the Backpack:
When the player sends out a Pokemon to replace another Raider in the Raid Zone for any reason, the replaced Pokemon's role, Vocation, and indicators will be passed to the replacement. This was already a mechanic in certain Raids, but we're making it facility-wide for any Raid to use. Expect to see it more in the future.
Essentially, the player team should always have field positions for the roles and Vocations they started with, even if some of those spots become empty. If a Pokemon becomes available for one of those empty positions, the player will have to decide which position they'll be sent out in.
Furthermore, in the Switching Phase's new Declaring Step, players may instead have two Raiders Role Swap. The specified Pokemon will swap their role, Vocation, and indicators with one another. Role Swaps occurs in the Replacement Step, and you can't also withdraw one of those Pokemon in the same Switching Phase. Neither of the swapping Pokemon leave or enter play in order to Role Swap.
The Team Size of many returning Raids is now 4; and the Backpack Size has been greatly increased across the board. Between the increased team diversity, the ability to Role Swap in different Protectors and Aggressors to maximize damage, and the increased access to items, players will be able to deal much more damage and take much more punishing hits—which the Raid Zone is prepared to supply. Expect Raid Bosses to have fewer explicitly Piercing attacks, but increased access to damage multipliers and larger pools of HP.
New Commands:
New enemy-specific commands will be created for Raids, much like Ball Reject for Safari. These commands will do much of the work of the previous list of immunities that Bosses had. Expect commands for destroying donated items, removing multiple conditions, disposing of troublesome stages, or temporarily blanking abilities; as well as dangerous commands such as generating additional AP.
| Command | Effect Text |
|---|---|
Purge | This command can also target the user. While attempting or performing this command: Conditions created by Raiders are ignored. Discard all Conditions created by Raiders from the defender. |
Crush | This command can also target the user. While attempting or performing this command: The effects of items not owned by the Raid are ignored. Destroy all items held by the defender. |
Shear | This command can also target the user. Reset the defender's positive stages to zero if they are a Raider. Reset the defender's negative stages to zero if they are a Raid Pokemon. |
Expose | This command can also target the user. While attempting or performing this command: The abilities of Raiders are ignored. Inflict a unique condition on the defender for the next round, with the following effect: ● The effects of the subject's abilities are ignored. |
Ennervate | While performing this command: The effects of Raiders are ignored. Inflict Fatigue on each active Raider. |
Renew | This command can also target the user. Fully heal the defender's HP. |
Mark | This command can only target non-Protector Raiders. Exchange the defender's role and vocation with the Protector's. (This is forced swapping, so triggers "on Role Swap" won't trigger.) |
Being commands helps make them more resistant to disruption.
Lower-Level Raids will probably have to spend large fractions of their AP on indicators that contain these commands. Higher-Level Raids will probably be able to access them quite cheaply.
Vocation Adjustments:
As the behavior of Raid opponents has fundamentally changed, and Raids now more actively resist the players' setup attempts, most Vocations need simplifying. After all, we're now expecting referees to "order into" three overlapping vocations at minimum.
While the Protector is in play, the AP spent on placing indicators on non-Protectors can't exceed the AP spent on placing indicators on Protectors—that is, at least half of any spent AP must be spent on the Protector.
Each Protector vocation has an effect that punishes foes for hurting the Protector's allies.
| Vocation | Effects |
|---|---|
 Guardian | Allies take two (2) less damage from hits. |
 Provocateur | After the referee places indicators: The most expensive indicator (ref's choice if tied), from among those placed indicators, is moved on the user, if possible. |
 Bodyguard | When an ally is hit by a Raid Pokemon: Raise that ally's Defense and Special Defense stages by one (1) each, for their next two (2) turns. |
 Commando | When an ally is hit by a Raid Pokemon: Restore that ally's most recently-consumed item. |
 Daredevil | [ i don't have enough characters left in this post for this edit ] |
 Duelist | When an ally is hit by a Raid Pokemon: Raise that ally's Attack and Special Attack stages by one (1) each, for their next two (2) turns. |
 Engineer | When an ally is hit by a Raid Pokemon: Transfer the user's Decoy with the most remaining HP (randomly, if tied) to that ally. |
 Paladin | When an ally is hit by a Raid Pokemon: Discard the oldest Major Condition from that ally, and heal that ally's HP by five (5). |
Supporters will now have 3 Substitutions, from the previous 4. Raid Referees will need this breathing room to better trouble the player.
More Supporter vocations will share moves, like Tutor currently does. Others will have their support moves directly and greatly improved.
| Vocation | Effects |
|---|---|
 Strategist | Each Raider has an additional Substitution. |
 Reporter | Weather or Terrain created by the user has no Duration. (It lasts until it is discarded.) This vocation also has the effect text of each Weather in play that was created by the holder. |
 Rearguard | When the user swaps roles with the Protector: Raise the user's Defense and Special Defense stages by one (1) each for their next three (3) turns. When the user swaps roles with the Aggressor: Raise the user's Attack and Special Attack stages by one (1) each for their next three (3) turns. |
 Cleric | Protectors have Recovery Aid 6. Aggressors can't have Major Conditions inflicted on them while they have a Major Condition. |
 Thief | When an effect of the user lowers another Pokemon's stat stage: Raise the user's same stat stage by the same amount, for the user's next three (3) turns. |
 Tutor | During the Switching Phase, instead of a Role Swap, the user's trainer may declare a move the user originally knows. Note that move on this vocation. Allies in play know each move declared by the user. |
 Gardener | At the end of each round: Restore each Berry that was consumed by Raiders in the previous round. (This adds a one-round delay to the Restore.) |
 Butler | The backpack size of the user's trainer is increased by two (2). During the Switching Phase, instead of a Role Swap, the user's trainer may equip an item from their backpack to a Raider that can legally hold that item. |
Aggressor vocations need the fewest changes, but we'll still make a pass while we can.
| Vocation | Effects |
|---|---|
 Warrior | When the user attacks: Grant that attack a Power Bonus of three (3). |
 Scribe | When the user executes an attack: Note that attack on this vocation. The user knows the noted attacks as borrowed moves. |
 Blackguard | When the user attacks, if the user has taken no damage this round, been inflicted with no conditions this round, and had none of their stat stages lowered this round: Grant that attack a Power Bonus of four (4). |
 Sorcerer | When the user completes an attack: Note each of that attack's types on this vocation; then, un-note all but the four (4) most recently noted types. The user can't attempt attacks of the noted types. When the user attacks: Grant that attack a Power Bonus of four (4). |
 Pugilist | The user's attacks are Physical. |
 Psychic | The user's attacks are Special. |
 Mercenary | The user's trainer earns one Coin each round, for each of these objectives that the Raiders completed that round, below:
|
 Gambler | At the start of the raid, and at the end of each round: Select three (3) core types at random. Note those types on this Vocation until new types are selected. When the user attacks, and that attack has one of the noted types: Grant that attack a Power Bonus of six (6). |
Contest Adjustments
Effective in Contests that start on January 14th UTC or later.
We'll be doing some light adjustments to Contests to keep players coming back for more.
Argument
Heya, TMan here! As head of the Contest Hall, I'm happy to announce that the release of Contests seems to have gone over well with the players. They're played reasonably frequently, and from observing them the way contests flow is satisfying. No big adjustments to be seen there in this patch!
Now, there are a couple of things that should be ironed out a little. First, slightly more emphasis should be put on the voting round: winning should be advantageous for basically anyone grabbing the most votes, which is a problem right now since many people enjoy playing last so they can develop their gameplan unbothered. We wouldn't want players to throw the voting phase!
Next is the problem of the Genres. As some of you are keenly aware, not all Genres are equal in Contests, and the playerbase has heavily revolved around either Cute or Cool Genres, with some rare sprinklings of Beautiful and Tough for the daring. Clever isn't considered at all since most of the moves who would benefit from the Genre grant no appeal and cannot benefit from the +1 appeal to Genre specialties. This lack of variety is, in my eyes, a problem.
Implementation
The first point begets a rather simple change: the contestant who wins voting may take the points, or they may decline the points and decide the first round's post order instead. If you do decline, you're essentially trading a head start for a gamble that you can stay cozy in the back of the order.
Next, we'll be adding "Strike" as an explicit step to the start of the Appeal Procedure, where a move is stricken from the contestant's production. This will stop moves that grant Endearing from preventing their own strike, which leads to an essentially infinite Production.
Finally, to try to diversify the Genre selection somewhat, we will be implementing a specific passive for each Genre specialty. Specialist passives are objects attached to the contestant, that apply their text to that contestant, called their "Specialist". They can be thought of the Contest version of Abilities.
The Specialist Passives are as follows:
This implementation is not without its risks. The main concern is that introducing Specialist Passives will lead to yet another unbalanced Genre selection and forcing us into an eternal loop of nerfing or buffing the one or two genres players are favoring or avoiding, respectively.
As such, Specialists Passives will be watched very closely, and will be removed altogether should they prove more harm than good to Contests.
Adjustments to expect:
Heya, TMan here! As head of the Contest Hall, I'm happy to announce that the release of Contests seems to have gone over well with the players. They're played reasonably frequently, and from observing them the way contests flow is satisfying. No big adjustments to be seen there in this patch!
Now, there are a couple of things that should be ironed out a little. First, slightly more emphasis should be put on the voting round: winning should be advantageous for basically anyone grabbing the most votes, which is a problem right now since many people enjoy playing last so they can develop their gameplan unbothered. We wouldn't want players to throw the voting phase!
Next is the problem of the Genres. As some of you are keenly aware, not all Genres are equal in Contests, and the playerbase has heavily revolved around either Cute or Cool Genres, with some rare sprinklings of Beautiful and Tough for the daring. Clever isn't considered at all since most of the moves who would benefit from the Genre grant no appeal and cannot benefit from the +1 appeal to Genre specialties. This lack of variety is, in my eyes, a problem.
Implementation
The first point begets a rather simple change: the contestant who wins voting may take the points, or they may decline the points and decide the first round's post order instead. If you do decline, you're essentially trading a head start for a gamble that you can stay cozy in the back of the order.
Next, we'll be adding "Strike" as an explicit step to the start of the Appeal Procedure, where a move is stricken from the contestant's production. This will stop moves that grant Endearing from preventing their own strike, which leads to an essentially infinite Production.
Finally, to try to diversify the Genre selection somewhat, we will be implementing a specific passive for each Genre specialty. Specialist passives are objects attached to the contestant, that apply their text to that contestant, called their "Specialist". They can be thought of the Contest version of Abilities.
The Specialist Passives are as follows:
| Genre | Playstyle | Bearing/Marker | Specialist Passive |
|---|---|---|---|
 Beautiful | Excels at calming Judges, resetting others' Bearing, and moving later in post order. | The Calming bearing has the effect: "The subject's moves calm each Judge, rather than possibly Exciting any." | Finalist: While performing last: The specialist's moves with any Appeal have +1 base Appeal. |
 Clever | Excels at influencing post order, disrupting others, and applying Marks to the user and others. | The Irritated bearing has the effect: "If the subject would lose Score from being Jammed; instead, they lose twice (x2) that much Score." | Saboteur: The specialist's moves with any Jam have +2 base Jam. |
 Cool | Excels at exciting Judges, large but reckless Appeals, and moving earlier in post order. | The Thrilling bearing has the effect: "The subject's moves Excite Judges regardless of their genre preference." | Frontrunner: While performing first: The specialist's moves with any Appeal have +1 base Appeal. |
 Cute | Excels at stealing score from others, borrowing or copying moves, and punishing high-Score opponents. | The Endearing bearing has the effect: "The subject's moves are not stricken from their production after use." | Saccharine: While last in score (not tied): The specialist's moves with any Appeal have +2 base Appeal. |
 Tough | Excels at preventing Jamming, removing negative Marks, and improving later Appeals. | The Pumped mark, while not a Bearing, has the following effects: "The base Appeal of the subject's moves is increased by one (1)." and "When the subject is Jammed: Discard this mark." | Conditioned: While holding 2 or more marks: The specialist's moves with any Appeal have +2 base Appeal. |
This implementation is not without its risks. The main concern is that introducing Specialist Passives will lead to yet another unbalanced Genre selection and forcing us into an eternal loop of nerfing or buffing the one or two genres players are favoring or avoiding, respectively.
As such, Specialists Passives will be watched very closely, and will be removed altogether should they prove more harm than good to Contests.
Adjustments to expect:
- Beautiful and Cool have the least-adjustable passives. We're likely to balance other passives in relation to these.
- Tough's passive is the the most likely to be unbalanced, but also the easiest to adjust. We can change the Appeal increase *and* the number of marks.
Incense Items
Effective in matches that start on January 14th UTC or later.
A new series of items will be introduced to replace Lucky Egg. Lucky Egg is being retired.
Argument
adsf
Implementation
We're introducing a series of items to provide Attack Aid and Defense Aid in the place of Lucky Egg.
Lucky Egg will be retired. Your Lucky Eggs will become 4RC when the patch becomes effective.
The following Incense items will be available in the BBP Department Emporium for 3RC, as they are considered Generic Series Held Items.
Each Incense item provides either Defense Aid, Attack Aid, or both to the holder; and also has a second "smoke" effect that conditionally affects all of the Pokemon in play. (Much like incense filling a room.) The key to best using these items will be to find users who easily fulfill the profile of these "smoke" effects.
When looking for users, the Incense item's associated Pokemon is a good starting point, but we expect some Incenses to be popular on a variety of holders. Some, like
Lax Incense, will likely be more niche, but we're okay with that. You should also take care that opponents can't exploit the "smoke" effect back.
There are four incenses providing only Defense Aid and four providing only Attack Aid. One,Pure Incense, will instead provide both to all Pokemon in play—perfect for sizing up your own Furret against an opponent's Mega Tyranitar.
As these items affect all Pokemon in play, we also expect them to have ramifications in Doubles battles and in Raids.
adsf
Implementation
We're introducing a series of items to provide Attack Aid and Defense Aid in the place of Lucky Egg.
Lucky Egg will be retired. Your Lucky Eggs will become 4
RC when the patch becomes effective.The following Incense items will be available in the BBP Department Emporium for 3
RC, as they are considered Generic Series Held Items.Each Incense item provides either Defense Aid, Attack Aid, or both to the holder; and also has a second "smoke" effect that conditionally affects all of the Pokemon in play. (Much like incense filling a room.) The key to best using these items will be to find users who easily fulfill the profile of these "smoke" effects.
When looking for users, the Incense item's associated Pokemon is a good starting point, but we expect some Incenses to be popular on a variety of holders. Some, like
Lax Incense, will likely be more niche, but we're okay with that. You should also take care that opponents can't exploit the "smoke" effect back.There are four incenses providing only Defense Aid and four providing only Attack Aid. One,
Pure Incense, will instead provide both to all Pokemon in play—perfect for sizing up your own Furret against an opponent's Mega Tyranitar.As these items affect all Pokemon in play, we also expect them to have ramifications in Doubles battles and in Raids.
| Incense | Description |
|---|---|
 Full Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Munchlax, that fills the arena with a calming Berry scent. All super-effective attacks (from anyone), that share no types with their users, deal four (4) more damage. The holder has Defense Aid. |
Lax Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Wynaut, that fills the arena with a calming earthy scent. Trapped Pokemon in play are unaffected by Decoy and cannot have their HP healed. (Their HP can still be set.) The holder has Defense Aid. |
 Luck Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Happiny, that fills the arena with a calming, refreshing scent. Pokemon in play with no Major Conditions have Bonus-Proof. The holder has Defense Aid. |
 Rock Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Bonsly, that fills the arena with a calming salty scent. All attacks automatically pass their accuracy checks. The holder has Defense Aid. |
Pure Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Chingling, that fills the arena with a aggressively calming, clean scent. Pokemon in play have Attack Aid and Defense Aid. |
 Sea Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Azurill, that fills the arena with an aggressive freshwater scent. When a Pokemon in play pays HP for an action's cost: Grant the holder Quickness. (You can't order moves with (Quick) before the holder has Quickness, so you'll have to wait a round.) The holder has Attack Aid. |
 Odd Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Mime Jr., that fills the arena with an aggressively bizarre scent. When the user executes an attack, of types that the user hasn't executed this round: Give that attack a Power Bonus, equal to the current step number. The holder has Attack Aid. |
 Rose Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Budew, that fills the arena with an aggressively floral scent. Poisoned Pokemon in play are unaffected by Protection, Attack Aid, Defense Aid, and Sleep. The holder has Attack Aid. |
 Wave Incense | A heavy ceramic incense burner depicting Mantyke, that fills the arena with an aggressively saline scent. Burned Pokemon in play are unaffected by Bonus-Proof and Penalty-Proof. The Effect Chance of all attacks are doubled (x2). The holder has Attack Aid. |
Timing Clauses
Effective on January 14th UTC.
We're mandating written Timing Clauses. This change deprecates default timing clauses.
Argument
It's become clear in recent months that the default timing clauses are becoming the next "substitution esoterica that trips people up". In particular, players have had to carefully manage their timing clause whenever ordering a charge-up or readied move, such as Sky Attack or Meteor Beam. Players primarily used empty Timing Clauses to obtain "self-adjusting" timing behavior. By default, an empty timing clause would be checked before the charge of a charge-up move, if the Pokemon intended to use such a move; or at the start of the Pokemon's turn otherwise.
This self-adjusting functionality couldn't be replicated with any available timing clause, leading to unclarity and frustration for players using or facing these substitutions. Because charge-up moves and readying moves are being reworked anyway, the last remaining useful function of default timing clauses is going away
As a result, we're now requiring players to write out their timing clausee. We consider this to be both a good habit for strong play, and an important courtesy to opponents and referees. Now, all sub three components are mandatory. This should help clarify, for players new and old, which components can be omitted: none of them!
Implementation
Substitutions posted after the effective date will need written Timing Clauses to be legal.
We expect the shorthands "Each step" and "On your turn" to be commonly understood to mean "At the start of the step" and "At the start of your turn", respectively; and to see common use.
It's become clear in recent months that the default timing clauses are becoming the next "substitution esoterica that trips people up". In particular, players have had to carefully manage their timing clause whenever ordering a charge-up or readied move, such as Sky Attack or Meteor Beam. Players primarily used empty Timing Clauses to obtain "self-adjusting" timing behavior. By default, an empty timing clause would be checked before the charge of a charge-up move, if the Pokemon intended to use such a move; or at the start of the Pokemon's turn otherwise.
This self-adjusting functionality couldn't be replicated with any available timing clause, leading to unclarity and frustration for players using or facing these substitutions. Because charge-up moves and readying moves are being reworked anyway, the last remaining useful function of default timing clauses is going away
As a result, we're now requiring players to write out their timing clausee. We consider this to be both a good habit for strong play, and an important courtesy to opponents and referees. Now, all sub three components are mandatory. This should help clarify, for players new and old, which components can be omitted: none of them!
Implementation
Substitutions posted after the effective date will need written Timing Clauses to be legal.
We expect the shorthands "Each step" and "On your turn" to be commonly understood to mean "At the start of the step" and "At the start of your turn", respectively; and to see common use.
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" if there is only one Weavile in play. If there are two or more, you need to be more specific: "Brick Break enemy 
Attack Forme
Defense Forme
Speed Forme
Braviary-Hisui.
Leppa Berry
Chesto Berry, 
Pecha Berry, 
Rawst Berry, 
Aspear Berry, and 
Persim Berry
Oran Berry
Sitrus Berry
Enigma Berry
Figy Berry
Wiki Berry, 
Mago Berry
Aguav Berry, 
Iapapa Berry
Tamato Berry
Cornn Berry
Magost Berry, 
Rabuta Berry, 
Nomel Berry, 
Spelon Berry, 
Pamtre Berry, 
Watmel Berry, 
Durin Berry, and 
Belue Berry
Occa Berry
Liechi Berry
Ganlon Berry, 
Salac Berry, 
Petaya Berry, 
Apicot Berry, 
Lansat Berry, 
Starf Berry, 
Micle Berry, and 
Custap Berry.
Jaboca Berry
Rowap Berry.
Fairy Feather, those contexts would be better served with direct adjustments rather than relying on move-providing items. For example, if we want more Pokemon to have access to healing moves in the Raid Frontier, we could simply give raiders greater access directly from the facility.
Mystic Water. With changes to Supporter Vocations to provide similar moves, these items can now provide moves useful in more typical formats.
Dragon Fang: The holder knows 
Hard Stone: The holder knows 
Never-Melt Ice: The holder knows 
Silk Scarf: The holder knows 
Silver Powder: The holder knows 
Power items (except 
Power Weight) have struggled to find footing as useful items for supporting stat-raising moves. Instead, they exist mainly to occupy Archaludon's item slot.
Training Guild aims to prepare aspiring trainers for the rigors of Guild work.
Big Game Guild posts tasks involving defeating powerful Bosses.
Defense Guild posts tasks involving protecting specific objectives from damage.
Reconnaissance Guild posts tasks involving retrieving specific objects or rescuing civilians.
Rangers' Guild posts tasks involving defeating hoards of minor opponents.
TC, 
Festive Event Vouchers.
Chien-Pao Lv3.
EXP Record.
Rayquaza Lv2 or 
Giratina Lv2.
Administrator Access
Energy Powder: -10 -> -3 Energy
Energy Root: -15 -> -4 Energy
Ether: +20 -> +8 Energy (This is a buff.)
Max Ether: +40 -> +15 Energy (This is a buff.)
Elixir: +20 -> +8 Energy (This is a buff.)
Max Elixir: +40 -> +15 Energy (This is a buff.)
Heal Powder: -5 -> -2
Potion
Full Heal
Max Potion
Revive
Basculin-Blue-Striped
Armaldo to the trait but I'm not sure it's the worst mon without it.
Spinda
Shiftry to see if they need this or not.
Choice Specs, restricting Physical and Other moves based on the holder's use of Special moves.
Icy Rock referencing Snow and the moves Hail and Snowscape;
Heat Rock referencing Sun and the move Sunny Day; and
Damp Rock referencing Rain and the move Rain Dance.
Maybe now some of you will think this is worth challenging Realgam Tower for?
Articuno, 
Zapdos, 
Moltres
Raikou, 
Entei, 
Suicune
Mega Forme, as they will have already spent their first Technique for the battle in order to Mega Evolve. (Even implicitly, for pre-Mega-Evolved NPC Pokemon.)
Minior now correctly shares the "free Tech" Trait with their default Forme 
Minior-Meteor.
Dark Gem, 
Dragon Gem, and the rest of the Gems that I'm not willing to spell out.
Conkeldurr, 
Forretress, and 
Nidoking; as well as for Pokemon that can hold multiple items such as 
Delphox.
Dragonite, 
Wailord, and 
Xatu will be in high demand to wall demanding attackers.
Nostalgia.
Florges
Melmetal
Zygarde (and 
Zygarde and 
Zygarde)
Gem items, and furthermore has a little too much counterplay.
Temper
Burn
Frost
Partial Trapping
Snow
Spikes
Toxic Spikes
Astonish
Baton Pass
Counter, etc.
Dynamic Punch, etc.
Eerie Spell
Magic Coat
Magic Room
Rage
Rest
Sheer Cold, etc.
Spite
V-create
Wonder Room
Anger Point
Aroma Veil
Dark Aura
Drought, etc.
Flash Fire
Hustle
Inner Focus
Intimidate (Masquerain)
Iron Barbs
Klutz
Pastel Veil
Pressure (Uber)
Regenerator
Rough Skin
Sheer Force
Tangled Feet (Pidgeot)
Trace
Unnerve (Arbok)
Steadfast
Sweet Veil
Synchronize
Berserk Gene
Black Sludge
Eviolite
Kee Berry, etc.
Maranga Berry
Light Ball
Life Orb
Muscle Band, etc.
Power Bracer, etc.
Power Anklet, for Speed
Power Band, for Special Defense
Power Belt, for Defense
Quick Claw
Razz Berry, etc.
Bluk Berry, for Defense.
Nanab Berry, for Special Attack.
Wepear Berry, for Special Defense.
Pinap Berry, for Speed.
Sovereign Malevolence
The Crowned Sword and 
The Crowned Shield now start with less missing HP and missing Energy.
The Initiative Token
Initiative Token for their Team. (Represented with 
Guild-Exclusive Commands
Rewards
Step and Round Tracking
Enemies, Respawning, and Mon Placement
Mega-Rewarding Maps
New Maps
Jigglypuff, up to 
Dunsparce, before resuming the existing tables with 
Butterfree onward.
League Points for playing in the League Circuit.
Hi-EXP Record, or 1x
Academy Credit, or 
Meltan Lv0
Heatran Lv2, or 12x
Lo-EXP Record, or 
Azelf Lv2, or 
Mesprit Lv2, or 
Uxie Lv2
Celebi Lv3, or 
Jirachi Lv3, or 
Manaphy Lv3, or 
Hoopa Lv3.
Lesser Gauntlet: