Ability and Item Balance/Design Tenets

[JJayyFeather]

Stat Changes Discussion

Ability and Item Balance/Design​

This is the beginning of Stage 2 of our system redesigning. I want to start it with us having a defined perspective for the role and power level of abilities and items going forward, so that we can use these principles when we start adjusting them afterwards.

I don't really have a massive blurb for this, so I'll just start by asking some questions for the community and then giving my personal opinions on them. Once again, if you have thoughts, feel free to share them, it's an open discussion. :)

Q: What do you feel like the role of abilities should be?
Q: Are abilities at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?
Q: What do you feel like the role of items should be?
Q: Are items at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?

We'll start with just these first, and expand as we go.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Q: What do you feel like the role of abilities should be?

Hand-in-hand with how I felt about stats, abilities should be a high impact part of a Pokemon's usability. It should contribute a medium-large sized impact on the viability of a Pokemon, based on the ability. For example, Huge/Pure Power are very defining abilities, especially since the Pokemon's stats are designed around it, while something like Sheer Force is a much more generic ability, just a quick way to boost the Pokemon's output, and we should make sure that our abilities properly define these differences going forward. There's some concerns with this if we try to amplify certain defining abilities that are present on already meta-defining Pokemon, but we've balanced around this concern before and we can continue to do so as necessary. But, I would like to see abilities return to being a major part of the Pokemon's prowess.

Q: Are abilities at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?

Yes and no. I think at the current scale of values (what's currently live), defensive abilities are at a very good spot, even with the odd overlap between Sturdy/Magma Armor vs Filter/Anticipation/Solid Rock currently, while offensive abilities feel pitiful. This is mostly due to the fact that while we reigned in ability power at the start of Gen 8, we didn't do the same for items, which makes abilities look substantially weaker, and it's a power balance that I seek to fix.

Q: What do you feel like the role of items should be?

Items should be a way to tweak/bolster specific aspects of a Pokemon or the intended matchup/match playstyle besides just raw output, with generic or more damage-oriented options being a marked amount weaker than the niche options at the expense of flexibility (edit, credit to Elevator Music: This is a core strength of items, the ability to make the decision on them after match start). More importantly, they need to not completely overshadow the impact of damage-altering abilities. However, they are fine to provide a higher magnitude of impact if it's much more specifically powerful. Let them be good where they should be at the cost of being bad when they should be.

Q: Are items at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?

No, generic and damaging items are overstepping the power boundaries I'd like to set going forward for them. Primarily Expert Belt, which I know many people have noticed, but it's still worth mentioning. And the other offensive items as well, but I think those are more a measure of the fact that abilities are also not up to snuff currently, and not necessarily their fault. The more niche items however, are more split. Some of them do their role(s) very well, such as Sticky Barb and Rocky Helmet, as well as the resist berries and Berserk Gene/Weakness Policy. Others, especially Choice Items and consumables, almost as a whole could use some re-evaluation in terms of their power level or risk/reward factor.

Also, realistically, it might be time to cut back on some of the bloat in items at the moment. For just a quick example, condensing the 18 memories/plates/type items/resist berries into a singular item with a sendout marker, akin to what Rotom does when he equips the various appliances. Both in terms of economic savings/stress relief for players, and increasing their exploration opportunities. But, more on this opinion later as it's not what the questions are actually about, but its a thought that has been on my mind for some time now.

 

[Gemini Taurus]

Abilities
The role of abilities should be to augment the strength of the pokemon which have them or alternatively open up new avenues for their use. Some abilities serve as minor benefits whereas some completely make or break a pokemon. I think it's hard to give "roles" to abilities considering how they're innate to each pokemon, but that's the best description I can come up with. I definitely think that abilities should be core characteristics of a pokemon, rather than the seeming +1 to a random stat that they can sometimes feel like.

I think certain abilities definitely are at a good power level, whereas others feel oddly weak. I think the biggest issue with abilities right now is that everything is boiled down to a 1 or 2 BAP change. As I stated in the stats discussion I think with the change to stats we will have more freedom broadening the range of power between abilities which I think is needed. So overall I think abilities as a whole need a broadening in their effectiveness and a general boost in power to the average.

Items
I have much more to say here so please excuse my short and not coherent ability thoughts

Items to me are a way of catering your pokemon to a given situation. Because of how items function in BBP and equipping upon sendout they are the thing that you can change. I agree with Jay that they shouldn't just overshadow BAP boosting abilities. I think my current gripe with the item meta at the moment is that the range of what they do is so narrow (in practice), sure we have many cool effects but it's just more useful to take an Expert Belt most of the time. The thing I miss about signature items is that they broadened the scope of what items could do. I definitely think increasing the breadth of item scope is something I want for items.

In terms of power I agree that generic boost items (ebelt and charcoal and co) are too strong, they completely outpower every ability, most other items (unless situationally) and can even augment terrible stats in some cases if high BAP moves are used. These need to be brought in line with abilities and other items. I definitely think other items are a mixed bag, consumables barring the sendout consumables (Berserk Gene, RCB) are good in the situations where they should be and I think should be used as a good comparison point for rebalancing. As a whole, making more items usable in different situations is what this stage should seek to achieve.

My note on the bloat factor would definitely be that we shouldn't just cut back to a single item called "Type Booster" or whatever, sell the items we wish to consolidate in bundles, it keeps the flavour intact and fundamentally achieves what we're trying to do. You can even put them under the same entry in the Data Audit if you'd like but I'd much rather send out with "Silk Scarf" than "Type Booster (Normal)

 

[nightblitz42]

I agree with Jjayy on questions 1-2.

As for items, I feel like there's a general conception of items as being either "niche" or "general." My conception is slightly different, in that I think every (properly-designed) item caters to at least one strategy. Destiny Knot caters to the strategy of Attracting the opponent and capitalizing off of the ensuing action-advantage, or to the strategy of pressuring the opponent into spending extra subs. Choice items on a Klutz mon promote the strategy of giving the opponent a hurtful item to prevent them from fighting at full capacity. Expert Belt caters towards the strategy of beating the opponent with powerful Super-Effective attacks with the intent of scoring as fast a KO as possible. Balance-wise, I don't think there's anything wrong with Expert Belt. It's a focused item that provides only damage. It doesn't provide bulk, or extra opportunities to switch, or better utility for non-damaging moves. As soon as you deviate from the strategy of "hit the opponent with super-effective high-damage moves" Expert Belt stops applying any benefits. Just as equipping Macho Brace without using a boosting move is a waste, every action spent holding Expert Belt and not using a SE damaging move is a waste of the item's potential. In that regard, Expert Belt does require a degree of strategic commitment, at least in theory.

To me, what defines the power of Expert Belt goes beyond what the text of Expert Belt says. The key is that the strategy which Expert Belt supports is the single most commonly-used, well-developed, and meta-defining strategy in BBP. I would argue that "Kill the opponent quickly by spamming strong super-effective attacks" might not even be the optimal strategy in every case, but it's definitely the easiest strategy to learn, as well as the most reliable. Honestly, I don't think most players even factor Expert Belt into their gameplan before they equip it. They just decide ahead of time that they wanna spam SE moves and end up equipping Expert Belt as an afterthought. To me, if Expert Belt really were overpowered, it'd be the opposite: people would be saying "wow Expert Belt is so OP that I should be looking for the best way to use Expert Belt."

I'd like to abandon the notion of creating strong "situational" items, and instead focus on creating new "strategic" items -- items that are as versatile or reliable as Expert Belt, but boost strategies that don't involve defeating the opponent with powerful damaging attacks as quickly as possible. We can make berries that are as powerful as the strongest damaging items, but if the outcome is that the game has changed from "hold an expert belt, spam Thunderbolt on a flying-type" to "hold this specific berry, spam Thunderbolt on a flying-type" then the game hasn't substantially been changed or improved.

 

[LouisCyphre]

I don't want to see the return of signature items. Their worst offense, outside of any balance concerns, was that they basically precluded their target Pokemon from holding any other item--that's the last thing we want.

I think we have a pretty great array of "answer" items (that inhibit the enemy gameplan) like Rocky Helmet, Assault Vest, Boots, and so on. That's something that's inherent to any game based on cartridge Pokemon, and I don't think we need to worry there.

What I think we're stifled on is items for pushing different win conditions. What kind of gameplan exists that *doesn't* involve typing out super-effective coverage? There is no hyper offense or stall in BBP. Very few items strongly interact with spamming a boosted stab until the cows freeze over, or with residual damage as a win condition.

When you equip an item, you're declaring your intentions for that match and you're committing to a gameplan. What gameplans are there that we could even begin to support in a tangible way?

 

[Mowtom]

In terms of broader philosophy and whatnot, I think I agree with GT pretty well. I'm not gonna go on for paragraphs about that. What I do want to talk about are the weirdnesses in the berries that currently exist.

Natural Gift berries are berries that serve no purpose except to give a 12 BAP Natural Gift to the holder. Right now, we have NG berries for Fire/Water/Electric/Grass/Ice/Bug/Rock/Ghost/Dragon/Dark/Steel, but not for Normal/Fairy/Fighting/Flying/Ground/Psychic/Poison. I recognize that the berry lists are directly taken from ingame, and if there isn't an appropriate berry for a type in the latter set than so be it. However, on the discussion of condensing items, I imagine we would want to condense the NG berries into one pack as well.

Enter the E-Reader berries! There's 11 of them, which is more than enough to fill out the list, and Natural Gift first debuted after they were no longer obtainable. This means we aren't locked to the types they would have had in game! So I'd like to take seven of these and assign them to be the NG berries for the remaining types.

Further, we have the weirdnesses that are Watmel, Durin, and Belue berries. These give +4 final damage to a Fire/Water/Electric type move respectively, useable 4 times before being fully consumed. Why do these exist? Why only for these types? In a world where Charcoal and Fire Gem are both options, what purpose could a Watmel berry possibly serve? I'd really rather find cool and new uses for them than to let them just...sit there. If we wanted some set of effects, there would even be four of the E-Reader berries left to make seven new items total.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Alright, compiling some of the things that are written up above really quickly.

Q: What do you feel like the role of abilities should be?
- Core part of defining a Pokemon, for better or for worse (cries in Truant)

Q: Are abilities at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?
- Numerically, they are going to benefit from just a wider range of numbers to play around in.
- There's a weird imbalance between defensive and offensive abilities
- Items overshadow them

Q: What do you feel like the role of items should be?
- Defines the intended game plan of the holder, especially you can declare this intent after seeing what your opponent is packing.
- This should be expanded to make sure that more game plans are supported, rather than basically every item being primarily about a direct damage race.

Q: Are items at a power level appropriate to what you feel their role should be?
- None of the opinions above seem to imply that the non-damage items are excessively weak, but rather that options like Expert Belt and Charcoal (and friends) just are way above the bar. Not necessarily in value, but in Risk/Reward payout.
- Items that fulfill strategic desires rather than simply counterplay should be present as well.


Someone yell at me if I missed something there. Additionally we had two other topics brought up that aren't as pertinent to this part, but still important nonetheless:
- Item bloat has been modified from an item problem to an economy problem, with an easy solution being bundling groups of related items (resist berries, status berries, type gems, etc) together at a substantially better rate to encourage their purchase, which may open them up for being used more even outside of any balance changes just due to accessibility.
- Berry inconsistency, at least in the case of NG berries, is going to be added to the list of things for when we start making items. Unless someone has a serious opinion on this matter, it'll likely go through with no discussion outside of what berry gets what type flavor-wise. In the case of the Final Damage Berries, I'll make sure that's a discussion topic in the design process to see what we want to do there.

With that, next set of questions. After these, we'll likely "break off" into the design/balance discussions, as this should help us define where we are aiming for.

Q: Name an ability for each of the following: underperforming, well-balanced, overperforming. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each ability where it is.
Q: Name an item for each of the following: underperforming, well-balanced, overperforming. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each item where it is.
Q: Name an item for each of the following: poorly designed, well designed. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each ability where it is.

The goal here is to establish a mostly agreeable set of benchmarks for the three states.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Q: Name an ability for each of the following: underperforming, well-balanced, overperforming. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each ability where it is.

Underperforming: Blaze
- Pinch abilities at +2 just do not give enough return for the fact that their trigger point leaves them with only 2 actions remaining on average.

Well-balanced: Heatproof
- I know it's not directly numerical, but I just like what it does as an ability. It defines matchups that the Pokemon can take. For a numerical one, Fluffy.

Overperforming: None

Q: Name an item for each of the following: underperforming, well-balanced, overperforming. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each item where it is.

Underperforming: RageCandyBar
- Not necessarily that I think we should go back to the 6a RCB days, although it wouldn't be as potent now, but in it's current state it just is not close to being worth the opportunity cost outside of just Thief/Covet/etc.

Well-balanced: Rocky Helmet
- It has a high impact on the game state, but it's not overwhelmingly doing so. It has its desired impact upon matchups where the holder is susceptible to high damage contact moves, and effectively 0 impact anywhere else.

Overperforming: Expert Belt
- It's performing the easiest task in the game at a level that makes it next to worthless to ever consider other strategies

Q: Name an item for each of the following: poorly designed, well designed. If you do not have one for that category, that's fine, that's insight as well. Also, give a little bit on why you put each ability where it is.

Poorly Designed: Expert Belt
- The task it is designed for is simply too direct. It makes sense as an item in cartridge, where you are not going to always have the ability to hit your target super-effectively due to 4MSS, but without that issue here it is too easy to maximize the impact of. Even more so amplified by the fact that even if your opponent had a Pokemon that you were incapable of hitting super-effectively, it still takes 3 actions to get that Pokemon in against yours.

Well Designed: Choice Items
- This seems weird, but I think the design principle behind Choice Items is really good. You effectively sacrifice one aspect of your gameplay in favor of massively buffing another aspect. I just think that the way we implemented it here (mainly the cost) is very poor.

 

[LouisCyphre]

This should be expanded to make sure that more game plans are supported, rather than basically every item being primarily about a direct damage race.

I feel like this hasn't been discussed in enough detail. No one's really even answered if gameplans outside of damaging racing are healthy in BBP or even possible.

Think of existing alternate win-condition and black sheep of the sound based moves: Perish Song. Is that a gameplan we want to support? Think of the other method of fainting your opponent: EN KO. Do we want a suite of items that support a gameplan based around Pressure, Encore, Spite, and preventing your opponent from Chilling?*

We really need to ask ourselves, what methods of winning aren't showing up because they're undesirable for the game, and which ones aren't showing up because they're lacking critical support pieces.

*I do, especially if I can pick the item into an opponent that's previously blown their energy. This definitely shouldn't be the first item I reach for in a match, but let me punish the greedy!

 

[JJayyFeather]

I feel like this hasn't been discussed in enough detail. No one's really even answered if gameplans outside of damaging racing are healthy in BBP or even possible.!

Yes, as long as the appropriate suite of counter items are available.

For example, being perish trapped as a game plan sucks, but that’s generally just because it’s a really hard game plan to interact with, especially in the case of Gengar.

Toxic stall is potentially a lot more unhealthy, but it’s currently just because of the literal pacing of it, To toxic stall currently, you would have to spend so much extra time. If toxic stalling can be set up to be capable of applying the pressure in a less time-consuming manner while still being able to be countered (realistically, ppl will just start using Rest), then it's a strategy that is worth supporting.

ENKO strategies I feel like are the easiest to support, just because it's already such a big part of our battles due to the lengthened life span of a Pokemon.

I will say however, just a primary thing for most alternative strategy discussion: the strategies that we want to encourage need to not be primarily enabled via confining the enemy. A large game health issue we ran into previously was the power of Encore as a general move, because of its ability to entirely shutdown your ability to react to their plan. On this notion alone, I'd wager that Perish Trapping is not a strategy that we should be supporting at all. It's already possible as is, and is primarily centered around completely denying your opponent the chance to get away. No one likes feeling hopeless

Also to a point in your original post, hyper offense is something that quite frankly just can't exist here. Hyper Offense in cartridge is defined around the team's ability to rapidly pivot from matchup to matchup, setting themselves up for all sorts of OHKOs and SR+OHKOs. We simply cannot take the matchup control aspect of it as literally here, as our system does not use blind switching, nor switching into attacks. And uh, we definitely don't have OHKOs here :p

 

[Dogfish44]

Commenting on Watmel, Durin, Belue: As Natural Gift berries for their 3 respective types, they're actually a smidgen stronger (10 BAP + 4 flat, assuming anything other than 4x SE, beats 9+3 BP ), plus they self-combo more effectively.... aaaand they trade that for one use less. Enchanted Meadow's Tropius used one for that exact reason (as did the Dedenne, but the Dedenne was more 'arena of nightmare causing').

That said, there are definitely things that we could be doing with those items - I'd be tempted to take the Berries from Kelpsy through to Tamato and make them NG berries, then add a 'Clear Stat Drop' berry, or say "Hey White Herb Exists".

--------------------------------​

Abilities probably need to be tuned upwards, compared to where they actually are. In-game, many weaker Pokémon are balanced by having stronger abilities. Conversely, many Pokémon with several good abilities are balanced by the fact they can't use all two/three at the same time, so that's something to keep in mind (I don't personally wish to see Single-Ability become the 'default' - using lots of abilities at the same time is a core charm of ASB imo).

Items... I agree with Nightblitz, and will also echo EM I think from the Discord - in an ASB system, we should be willing to focus on ASB mechanics. Imagine a Berry that cancels cooldown, a defensive item that adds an additional substitution, a consumable that makes the opponent order first next round! Even if we can't fit every strategy, this might be a step in a healthier direction.

I will also note - Items should, to an extent, remember that not everyone has many of them. I'm hoping that Mowtom's tourney stats are interesting - right now, it seems as though EBelt is going to be fairly common because if you can afford one, generally speaking you grab one reasonably early as even in cases where it's not hyper-optimal, it tends to be decent enough. The same will make seeing 'hoser' items fairly rare until we either see somewhere that will regularly use them (Gyms), or until people can afford them, which is gonna take a while!

 

[Sivanandi]

Abilities

Under-performing: Justified.
This ability is less of an ability that's bad than one that has very unfortunate distribution. The performance of the ability is hindered because most of the Pokemon that get it aren't really Pokemon you'd be attacking with dark type moves, anyways. Besides Equilibra, Gallade, and Arcanine, all the users of Justified resist dark, meaning that it's rarely activated and situational at best, useless most of the rest of the time. It would be much better if its distribution included some Pokemon that really needed to deter an enemy's dark type moves; you see similar abilities having more traction when they're placed on Pokemon where they would actually activate, such as Steam Engine Coalossal (thought that one's not that much better). Even worse is that it doesn't actually negate the damage, like Lightning Rod or Storm Drain, meaning that even the unnecessary deterrent isn't a very strong one.

Well-balanced: Dazzling.
This ability is great because it completely shuts down a whole method of "speed control" that the opponent has. If you outspeed them, then it relieves you from having to sub for Sucker Punch, or Extreme Speed, or Fake Out, or Prankster moves, or Triage, or whatever fancy tricks your opponent has up their sleeve.

(This is just one example: I honestly think all of the abilities that don't have numerical values, or many of them, have cool niches that make them very interesting and good for the game.)

I don't think any ability really over-performs. However, there are some Pokemon that might over-perform because of their abilities. Pokemon that are blessed with two or more helpful abilities often become extremely powerful. The prime example is Conkeldurr, obviously. Sheer Force, Iron Fist, and Guts is a brutal combination that lets Conkeldurr do a LOT of damage (as DF said in discord, "Conk is why abilities are FUCKING ARSE to balance.") This issue will only get worse if we make abilities better (which I think is what we're leaning towards?) but it can be remedied by adding clauses to some abilities that let Pokemon with less abilities reach equal heights (or, as Mowtom suggested in discord, by adding clauses that certain abilities can't stack), allowing us to buff abilities to where we want to see them while not getting murdered by stuff with fifty good abilities.

Items

Under-performing: Cleanse Tag.
This item is like, what? I see literally no reason where I would equip this item. Sure, it's nice to take less damage from some statuses and be less affected by them in general, but it's just extremely situational and I'd almost always equip something with a more realistic benefit.

Well-balanced: Ring Target lol
Okay, maybe I'm biased cause I equipped it in the tournament to somewhat good effect, but I think it's a good item. It's hardly game-breaking, but it helps in certain matchups and can catch the opponent by surprise, which I think is cool.

Over-performing: Expert Belt.
It's a brainless item that nearly always works because we have full movepools. It's rare that there's ever a situation where other items actually outclass Expert Belt. Others have said more useful things than me on this matter, so I'll just agree with them.

Poorly designed: Yeah still EBelt, moving on

Well designed: Adventure Rules, Barometer, Exp. Share, Lucky Egg, Berserk Gene
I really love these new sig items that we've been given in gen 8 (and Berserk Gene lol). They're items that I think should be the model for other items that we modify or create in the future. They have good, immediate benefits, and I really like that some of these benefits are tied to abilities, making them not as exclusive as signature items seemed to be in the past. I feel like it'd be very interesting if in the future, we have many items like these that leave the opponent guessing as to which of those items the opponent will equip: not necessarily tied to just abilities, but possibly other similar things such as typings or stats. This isn't the case yet because we don't have that many of them yet; it's not hard to guess that an Own Tempo user might equip Berserk Gene, or that a Heliolisk might equip a Barometer. But if we get more items like these, I think it'd really help the game be more fun.

 

[nightblitz42]

Uhh catching up:

I like Jjayy's strategy analysis. Particularly, I agree that Perish Song strategies are only really useful degenerately (part of the reason I ended up heavily nerfing Perish Song in Battle Tree). I do think being able to nullify some of your opponent's options is important in order to make the game interactive and fun, but it should be impossible to nullify all of your opponent's options (assuming the opponent isn't using Magikarp). I suppose that leads me to conclude that when properly-balanced, Perish Song should never work successfully since even allowing a single answer to Perish Song nullifies all its benefits. The only purpose for Perish Song should therefore be as a ploy to drain EN by denying "easy outs" from the opponent and leaving them only their most expensive, resource-consuming answers. I suppose Toxic stall ends up the same way: if a Pokemon can deal the 16+ damage in one hit necessary to defeat Rest, then they probably don't need to rely on Toxic stall at all. In that case, Toxic would be used in situations where you want the opponent to use Rest and maybe Sleep Talk, being very expensive moves, and you hope to set up an opportunity to ENKO.

Anyways, to directly answer the questions:
Underperforming Ability: Gorilla Tactics. +2 BAP in return for extreme lack of flexibility is not good at all. It goes with Choice Band, but Choice Band is bad too. And if Choice Band were a good item, then Gorilla Tactics would still be bad because Choice Band can be equipped to any other mon that lacks Gorilla Tactics.

Well-Balanced Ability: Illusion. Is choosing that one cheating? It's somewhat underpowered, but it has such a unique niche that it runs no risk of overshadowing or being overshadowed by other Abilities. Absolute perfection. I also think Power of Alchemy is extremely well-balanced for similar reasons: a strong identity, a unique effect that gives it room to breathe, and an activation requirement that keeps it somewhat underpowered despite its potential.

Overperforming Ability: None.
Serene Grace, Frisk, Protean/Libero, and Gulp Missile I'd list as particularly above-average Abilities, off the top of my head. I don't think they're overperforming, though, since none of them are so overwhelmingly powerful that they could carry a bad Pokemon.

Underperforming Item: Any berry that activates at an HP threshold. If I have to wait until 50% health to see any benefit from my held item, it better be AMAZING. First of all, I don't even know what Pokemon I'm going to be matched up against when my Pokemon is at 50% HP. We could switch mons and be in an entirely different matchup by then. If I use an item with immediate payoff like RageCandyBar, I get its effect in the matchup I'm currently in, which is a way more reliable way to use my held item than using a delayed berry. Secondly, I'm counting on my berry not being Knock Offed, or Plucked, or Incinerated before I hit the HP threshold, since if that were to happen I wouldn't get any benefit from my held item whatsoever.

Well-Balanced Item: Charcoal, etc. have simple and powerful effects. Only boosting 1 Type of attack makes them more committal then Expert Belt, but they're still remarkably general-use. Having them in BBP as cornerstone aggressive items might level the playing field between mono-type and dual-type Pokemon a little bit, seeing as how now that Rare Candy and Everstone are gone there isn't anything in BBP that explicitly benefits mono-type Pokemon anymore.
Also, Smoke Ball. What a great item. No BAP boost, but allows the user to beat D/E moves. Obviously, it would be better to use a mon that beats D/E moves entirely and give it a BAP-boosting item, but this item provides a useful alternative for mons that would get completely screwed over. Was it well-designed? Maybe not. Seems kinda band-aid design. But I still like the end result.

Overperforming Item: Everyone's already said Expert Belt, which I don't think is game-breaking but at the same time doesn't have any real competition, so I have to agree... But aside from that, Big Root is probably dummy good too, although it's definitely matchup-dependent. And we might want to revisit some of those Signature Z-Crystals that let the Pokemon use a Z-Move twice.

Poorly-Designed Item: Destiny Knot. The effect is great, I like how it basically boils down to "the equipped Pokemon gains a sub-eating move". I haven't found any other items that pressure an opponent's sub-budget so well. What I dislike is the gender requirement. I understand why it's there: Destiny Knot would be unbalanced without the gender requirement, and would go against the flavor of Attract. But the gender requirement just isn't fun to play with because it's too arbitrary. It's un-fun in the same way an item that only works against Pokemon whose names start with vowels would be un-fun. I think gender-based effects should be kept to an irrelevantly low power level because they simply stray too far away from satisfying BBP gameplay tenets.

Well-Designed Item: I have two picks. Firstly, I think the Type Gems (in practice, mostly Flying Gem) are well-designed. Part of the appeal to me is that the Type Gems appear to be strictly "worse" than Charcoal-like items because they're consumable. However, they not only proc consumable-reliant effects like Acrobatics and Unburden, but also can be prevented from activating at will, which can be useful when trying to control your precise damage output. "I might want to equip this item so I can do big damage without accidentally doing too much damage" is such a stupid perk that I love it.
Finally, I think Generic Z-Crystals are well-designed. I like how the obvious benefit of the Z-Crystals (being able to use powerful Z-Moves) sometimes turns out to be less important than the smaller side-effects of equipping Z-Crystals (unable to be Knocked Off, can circumvent Taunt/Imprison/etc). Plus, even though equipping a Z-Crystal requires significant commitment (you can only use 1 Z-Move per game, so equipping multiple Z-Crystals without planning ahead is sub-optimal), there's a lot of diverse options for Z-Moves to use after you've equipped the item. Items with multiple uses and non-obvious benefits can be fun because you get to learn more about them the more you battle with or against them.

I'm starting to think that consumable items give us a lot more design-space than held items.

 

[JJayyFeather]

I'm starting to think that consumable items give us a lot more design-space than held items.

Sadly we can't have everything be consumable >_>

One last big question and then we'll move onto the threads where we actually make the changes.

Q: Should BAP boosting/reducing abilities from the same source stack together or simply take the effect with the greater absolute value? (e.g. Iron Fist + Sheer Force, Sturdy + Solid Rock)

 

[JJayyFeather]

Q: Should BAP boosting/reducing abilities from the same source stack together or simply take the effect with the greater absolute value? (e.g. Iron Fist + Sheer Force, Sturdy + Solid Rock)

I think it's probably time to at least give heavy consideration to the latter. While I very much enjoy the "Abilities: All" gameplay of BBP, I don't think stacking increases/reductions from abilities gives us the most design space to work within. It's really hard to justify giving them values that let Pokemon without more than one ability in these categories get more meaning from them without having to worry about the cases (present and future) of Pokemon being able to stack them together.

On the other hand, there are some "less-fortunate" Pokemon that supremely benefit from these abilities being able to stack together.

I'm partial to removing the stacking myself, but it's not even a fully confident vote from me yet.

EDIT: After some discussion on Discord, and realizing that I forgot to really highlight what I meant when I said "design space to work within," my opinion is more steady now on removing this form of stacking. Here's why:

A lot of abilities were very obviously balanced around the fact that they could be stacked together numerically, at time of adaptation or at a later date, and it "hurt" a lot of those abilities. "Hurt" because they never got to realize their maximum potential. This created masterpieces like Conkeldurr, who was able (previously) to get +4 BAP on a wide suite of moves through Iron Fist + Sheer Force. And it was a dominant factor in considering a Pokemon's strength, because it was really hard to compete with that.

Designing around stacking hurts the large amount of Pokemon that just do not have that option. And we can design around not-stacking without directly nerfing the Pokemon that can stack their abilities.

For a current example of this, we can just look at Iron Fist + Sheer Force as an example, but this works with any 2 abilities that each provide +1 BAP. Currently they proivide a total bonus of +2 BAP. What if we just reverted the nerf they received at the start of Gen 8, but implemented this new limitation on stacking? Then it's still +2 BAP, but now Pokemon that didn't have abilities to stack also get the +2. And this is just small in scale for a quick example. Realistically, this opens up the window for larger magnitude impacts on BAP, just because we wouldn't have to worry about them stacking up.

 

[nightblitz42]

I agree that the Ability changes from gen7 should be reverted if possible. I think preventing BAP stacking is the best way to prevent any resulting balance issues. We could implement this change either by creating an overarching rule change, or by adding text to the effect of BAP-boosting moves that says "+2 BAP unless another of the user's Abilities is applying a greater boost." I suppose the specifics of the implementation are mostly irrelevant.

I think a significant part of BBP's appeal is the potential for multiple abilities to work together. This change would not undermine that appeal, because having multiple BAP-boosting abilities could still benefit the Pokemon in terms of versatility. Iron Fist + Sheer Force, for example, could boost punching moves without secondary effects, as well as non-punching moves that have secondary effects. We'd just be reducing the power boost on the overlapping moves.

As for the interactions between Sturdy, Overcoat, and Filter, removing stacking would make combinations of those abilities obsolete. I think it might be a good idea to consider reworking Sturdy and Overcoat in order to give them new effects that do not overlap with other BAP-reducing Abilities.

 

[P2X7]

Q: (Abilities)

Underperforming: Ripen
This Ability seems okay at a glance, but starts to look like a trap once you consider the Berries available. Because Ripen requires two uses remaining to activate, all it really does is speed through a Berry in half the time a normal Pokemon would, resulting in no extra effect; cheesy Type-resist Bery strategies are a small exception, but they are generally not worth giving up your item. Berries are extremely vulnerable to Item disruption strategies due to the presence specialized anti-Berry Moves and Abilities, and Ripen does very little to make these Items attractive.

Well-Balanced: Everything Else
I think that the Generation VIII transitional nerfs are proving to have hit damage-manipulating Abilities too hard, but I otherwise like the performance of virtually every Ability.

Overperforming: None
See above.

Q: (Items)

Underperforming: Choice Items
These Items offer far too little reward for the risk involved in using one.

Well-Balanced: Eject Button / Red Card / Eject Pack
I'm lumping these together because they are designed very similarly. I really like the versatility these Items provide for their user, and they have enough counter-play and mind games associated with their trigger conditions to increase the depth of a match-up involving them.

Overperforming: Expert Belt
E-Belt has always been a good Item, but it was buffed to keep up in the 2x Ranks era. That meta has passed and Expert Belt is currently outperforming Silk Scarf clones, which were historically intended to be better for Pokemon that only need a single attacking Type, as it essentially provides such an Item for every offensive type in a Pokemon's movepool at once.

Q: (Items II)

Poorly Designed: Expert Belt
See above. The reason behind E-Belt's newest incarnation no longer exists, yet it remains at a now-inappropriate power level.

Well Designed: Razor Claw / Razor Fang
I would have repeated Eject Pack and friends here, but I think this would be more useful. These Items blend their on-cartridge effect with a unique, BBP exclusive effect to create well-balanced choices that find use in a variety of situations without overshadowing other Items with similar effects.

Q: (Ability Stacking)
I think that these Abilities should stack effects. The concept of playing a game with all Abilities active simultaneously is a core design principle of ASB and BBP that has served us well, as it encourages the use of any Pokemon with multiple strong Abilities despite flaws in other Areas, which increases metagame diversity. It is unfortunate that some Pokemon with poor Abilities are significantly worse than certain Pokemon with three BAP-boosting Abilities, but nerfing every Pokemon blessed with a good set of Abilities only pushes us toward a bland, homogenized metagame in which every option is equally unsatisfying. Moreover, these particularly bad Pokemon are often burdened with awful movepools, stats, or typings as well, meaning that a simple nerf to Ability stacking would not be able to remedy their unviability.
Honestly, I think this issue revolves more around Conkeldurr than it does around BAP-modifying Abilities as a whole. The nerf to such Abilities at the start of Gen VIII was insufficient to bring down Conk and proved overly damaging to the rest of the game, so we're learning from those mistakes and trying a new balancing strategy. Remember, though, that Conkeldurr is already really good with a +2 BAP boost from Abilities, and it can make up for any missed damage thresholds with Drain Punch and priority moves. If we push through a nerf to Ability stacking, Conkeldurr will skate by unchanged while every other Pokemon with multiple BAP-modifying Abilities will greatly suffer.

Ultimately, I don't think we should violate a functioning, fundamental strength of BBP to nerf one great Pokemon at the expense of many weaker Pokemon. If Conkeldurr is truly such a problem, it would be much easier to add a "tech" to Sheer Force saying something like "if the Pokemon also has Iron Fist, its muscles are overloaded with raw ki at the expense of its energy projection abilities while Sheer Force is active, increasing the BAP of its Punching moves with a secondary effect by an additional one (1) and changing them to Typeless attacks." This isn't perfect, but it prevents Conkeldurr from hitting the entire metagame with super-powered coverage moves while retaining Ability stacking for everything else that actually needed it.

 

[nightblitz42]

P2X7 with regards to removing Ability stacking, I agree that the change wouldn't affect Conkeldurr. Conkeldurr using Sheer Force and Iron Fist (without Guts) currently gets +2BAP total. Also, Conkeldurr is still a pretty strong Pokemon right now. If we bump up individual Abilities by +1 each and remove stacking, Conk still gets +2BAP. And if it also has Guts activated, it only goes from its current +4 BAP to +3 total. If Conk with 3 stacking Abilities is hardly seeing any change, I'm not worried about other Pokemon with stacking suddenly becoming less viable either.

What does change is that Pokemon with only one boosting Ability get an additional +1BAP boost no-strings-attached, which I do think is a good change, considering how underwhelming the power level of Abilities right now is. This seems like the most efficient way to boost the power level of Abilities in general without enabling ORKOs from any Pokemon we might have overlooked, especially since the planned rank-changes might allow Pokemon with high base stats to deal substantially more damage to frail Pokemon.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Okay, a quick wrap-up before we get to work.

- Alternate strategy support would be a cool idea, but realistically cannot be supported in a way that isn't healthy for us. Primarily due to either the time it would take for the win condition to run its course or promotion of counterplay denial, two things that are not in our best interest.

- Most raw numerical abilities are underperforming, as a result of the Gen 8 transitional nerf.
- A lot of the non-numeric abilities are doing just fine, with a handful of exceptions
- No abilities really stand out as stark overperformers
- A lot of items with opportunity cost (berries, choice items, etc) do not have effects powerful enough to counterbalance their risk factor.
- The more strategic items that are used to manipulate matchups or matchup control are in a very good spot as they currently are
- Expert Belt needs a nerf :p

- When working on items, we should be open to considering ASB-specific effects.

- Following all the data changes, a series of bundled items will be announced in order to reduce the economic cost of branching out and trying new strategies as a trainer, primarily focused on groups of items such as resist berries, type-boosting items, and the like. More on this in Stage 3.

Now for a new thing,

After discussion in Discord and checking opinions from here, the mod team has decided to nix Ability Stacking. We agree with the many sentiments that this is potentially unfair to Pokemon that currently do benefit from it, but we think that it has far more room for benefits when we go into further changes to abilities. We can put more power in the abilities themselves rather than be worried about the cases where they do overlap, which will unstifle the Pokemon that suffered from us having to consider the cases where the abilities stacked up together. And for people who are worried about this being a nerf to Pokemon that have stacking - assuming they can only stack +1 BAP abilities (applies to most), this is a neutral change at worst, as the Gen 8 transition nerf will likely be fully reverted (someone asked about potentially leaving it in place for Rivalry, which is understandable), and as such they go from +1+1 to +2 at worst. Think of this not as a nerf to those Pokemon, but a buff to the Pokemon who were unable to keep up with what stacking offered.

Next step: Ability and Item Balance/Design

We're going to split this up into two separate threads, to have Abilities and Items moving together. Links will be edited in once the threads are up.
- Ability Balance and Design: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ability-balancing.3664197/
- Item Balance and Design: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/item-balancing-and-design.3664201

Thanks for the continued contribution and discussion, and let's keep it going!