Done Add Nintendo Cup 1997 and 2000 as Challenge-Only Formats

Sleep and Freeze Clause + Mechanics Implementation
With the revelation of Stadium Sleep Clause not counting Rest, there is cause for concern with implementation here. Pokemon Stadium was built off of Nintendo Cup rules and Yellow Colosseum2 Battle Logic in the first place. As such, I think it's best to enforce this Sleep Clause rather than Smogon's. This would mean Rest sets become significantly more viable and serve as Sleep Blocking tools; ergo, Pokemon like Slowbro and Cloyster become effective.

In addition, Colosseum2 features Stadium Sleep Mechanics as well. This has Poke Cup - Nintendo Cup 97 rules - available. As such, it uses the 0-3 Sleep Turn Limit. Japan does in fact play the Yellow format, so it is imperative that this is implemented. This also means the Blizzard nerf is used. You can see NC97 Yellow played unanimously on my playlist here. I haven't checked if any Pokemon is slept and immediately wakes up, though. This would mean Lead Gengar is less effective due to Hypnosis being inconsistent already.

As a result, the Sleep Mechanics should be as follows;
  • Sleep lasts 0-3 turns
  • Stadium Sleep Clause is in effect. As a result, Rest counts as a slept Pokemon.
Given Colosseum2 mechanics demand it, the Blizzard nerf should also be perfectly fine to implement. I believe this is already a thing on PS Main for Gen 1 as a whole, so I don't think anything major needs to be done here.

It should be noted that Stadium Substitute and Critical Hit Mechanics are not implemented in Colosseum2, at least to my knowledge. Enigami viewed the disassembly and found nothing. I did attempt to test all this for myself but I couldn't get the emulation to work for the life of me. If I had 2 copies of Yellow I would try to make a save for this all, but bleh. If anyone wants to test this, I encourage at least trying Substitute, as that thing is a meta warping demon in RBY if allowed to block status.

Feel free to give thoughts on this implementation.

EDIT: I've found that Pokemon Battle Historia plays using Colosseum 1, likely for RG compatibility. As a result, the Sleep and Blizzard mechanics may not need to be implemented. Depends on how you'd want it to be enforced. It's all very odd.
 
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Someone called Meiling from the RoA Discord came up to me talking about Evasion and Accuracy being counted as normal stat boosts in the Japanese games. Pokemon Battle Historia also supports this. Thus, you could say Evasion and Accuracy received nerfs during localisation, and likely in Stadium "2".

This quote from them should help sum it up;
In the Japanese versions, evasion and accuracy moves share the same modifiers as normal stat boosters, making evasion moves even more potent. For instance, a Pokemon that used Double Team once would only be hit 2/3 of the time rather than 3/4 of the time, changing "100%" accurate moves to 67% accurate moves instead of 75% accurate moves.
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If the PS Devs choose to sim the Japanese games for the full Nintendo Cup 97 experience, this would need to be considered.

EDIT: You should also consider that legality is restricted to the year 1997. As a result, moves like Kinesis can be seen as illegal due to it being exclusive to Yellow. This would also cause a lot of weird stuff such as Yellow learnset tweaks.
 
I'm currently working on implementing Nintendo Cup 1997 right now. All the Japanese cartridge mechanics are done, and I've coded the level check that ensures you can field atleast 3 Pokemon within the total level limit. Just need to work out ensuring that once the team preview begins, each player's options are limited to Pokemon that will not cause the 3 Pokemon that will fight to exceed the total level limit.

One issue though is which "version" (or versions) of the format to include.

Being hosted in 1997, the original format hosted by Nintendo could only have moves available in Red/Green/Blue, which means an accurate recreation of Nintendo's tournament would require Pokemon to not be allowed to have moves obtained in Yellow and Stadium (and post '97 event Pokemon). Modern "Nintendo Cup 1997" played by Japanese players seem to use Yellow Colosseum 1 with Yellow or even Tradebacks moves allowed.

How should learnsets be handled? '97, Yellow or Tradebacks? If the purpose of NC '97 is to support Japanese players, is there anyone who can communicate with the Japanese players to get their input on which learnset they'd prefer to be standard?
 
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Enigami said:
If the purpose of NC '97 is to support Japanese players, is there anyone who can communicate with the Japanese players to get their input on which learnset they'd prefer to be standard?
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I'd personally recommend contacting someone like Gold; he runs the Pokemon Battle Historia site. Since he runs a blog here, perhaps he can be reached there?

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I feel like giving some opinions on this as well. This is a really minute detail, though naturally, it deserves analysis. There are multiple ways to interpret the learnset issue, so I've made three statements for each avenue I thought about that you can look at. I also gave my opinions on each one.

For clarity, you can see a table of moves added Post-1997 here. It's part of a guide I'm making, and also illustrates the level of what's being discussed. It's all really minor, though. You may need to Ctrl+ to make it easier to read, it's a small image.

Since Nintendo Cup 97 was run in, well, 1997, there is no conceivable way players could have Pokemon such as Kinesis Alakazam or Bind Pinsir. As such, Pre-Yellow learnsets make the most sense to remain faithful to the cartridge format. It's kind of like VGC in this respect; only moves from those games at the time can be used. VGC 2017 and similar years weren't retroactively changed, why should this one?
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This, in my personal opinion, would be the best way to go about it. It reduces the questions on what format should be used and ensures it's faithful to what was originally played, without any historical revision. It's a very simple way to look at things: just play the format like it was played in 1997.

However, you could argue this adds a complication factor to the format due to move removal, though the attacks removed are mostly inconsequential. It also does naturally make some Pokemon less powerful, namely Golduck (loses Amnesia), Scyther (loses Wing Attack) and Pinsir (loses Bind). Those are the only real ones I can think of though. I feel the argument about making Pokemon less powerful feels less logical as well, as you could also say this about formats such as UU No Scald which was a thing at one point. I suggest looking at the table above to come to your own conclusion.

Yellow had Nintendo Cup 97 available in Colosseum2 while nerfing Sleep and Blizzard, this can be seen as maintenance of the format, and as there is a standard that cartridge games are used, this should be the standard. Yellow was released on VC and has the "latest" cartridge interpretation of NC97. If Colosseum2 is an issue, Colosseum1 can still be used.
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Colosseum2 is banned on Pokemon Battle Historia, though I believe this is due to compatibility with Red and Green. I can't be certain that this is the reason though. Colosseum1 Yellow is the most common instance I've seen of NC97 in Japanese footage, though people are seen playing Red, Green and Blue JP as well. I think this is a matter of version popularity.

I believe this would be what people would pick if they just didn't want the learnset restriction. I feel Colosseum2 is a drastic measure to take for something so minor as well (with the biggest change being Amnesia Golduck via Stadium Zero). Generally, this is a question of whether you should retroactively add the Yellow moves to the format, is there a tangible benefit, and does it outweigh Statement 1?

Since Pokemon Stadium "2" ran Nintendo Cup 97, this can be seen as the final instance of the format, and since Yellow moves are allowed, allowing these would make sense.
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This could possibly lead to "Stadium Poke Cup" being the standard. Note that this does actually have some big changes due to the mechanical differences. In addition, Focus Energy Jolteon is also made available through the Yellow learnsets, which becomes a threat in Stadium given the changes made. This would be a very large change to the format and imo would not be the best way to go about it. Poke Cup should be a separate format if anything at all.

If we take Stadium as a "ruleset", however, then it does begin to make better sense as a statement. Since Yellow moves aren't flagged in the hackcheck, could this be taken as Yellow moves being allowed? Though, the hackcheck for moves is universal and is pretty iffy at times (eg. Acid Diglett is allowed). There's a lot of back-and-forth arguments you can make about this one.
 
Enigami said:
How should learnsets be handled? '97, Yellow or Tradebacks? If the purpose of NC '97 is to support Japanese players, is there anyone who can communicate with the Japanese players to get their input on which learnset they'd prefer to be standard?
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@Enigami I want to congratulate you in public for the awesome work that you did with your Nintendo Cup 97 simulator, it is a work of art, works well and more important, it finally allows players to enjoy this format. I also want to congratulate Plague von Karma, Shellnuts, Dr. Caetano and the other players that helped you to make it possible.

Regarding your question, I think we should have two simulators, one that only has 1997 movesets and another that has all movesets. We already have a simulator with the 1997 moves, so I think we should leave that in peace and not alter it more (unless it is to fix problems or add clauses that aren't still present). Regarding the other simulator, it would be cool if players could use any move combination that was legal in Gen I because when Nintendo Cup 97 arrived in the Americas and the rest of the world it did it with the games Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Stadium 1, which introduced new moves for many pokémon.

I think an important question here is if adding a second simulator would be hard as Hell or if it would consume a lot of time. Maybe there are other simpler solutions like adding the missing moves via a clause or a command. What do you guys think?
 
Beelzemon 2003 said:
I think an important question here is if adding a second simulator would be hard as Hell or if it would consume a lot of time. Maybe there are other simpler solutions like adding the missing moves via a clause or a command. What do you guys think?
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I really don't see why an entire second format taking up space on Pokemon Showdown for so few changes is necessary. However, I think the command part could be explored here. Rather than go out of the way to make a second format for such a tiny thing, having a command similar to the Tradeback one for the room tours could be a fair solution. However, this is largely an NC97-specific issue, as even NC98 had Pokemon Yellow released, thus releasing the moves (12th Sept 1998 in Japan).

The issue I have is that I don't really see where this hypothetical command would come up outside of NC97 room tours. Even then, most of what was added wasn't even close to meta-defining. The only other area I can see this being even remotely relevant is Gen 1 UU, where Amnesia Golduck is apparently pretty good, but not top tier? Is it worth the trouble for Supersonic Venomoth? Even that's...not really a set.

All the suggestions here feel extremely drastic for the sake of such a small change. I feel Gold's opinion would be the best to consider here.
 
If we play Nintendo Cup 97 with only 1997 moves, some of the restrictions hurt some mons a lot:

-Charizard loses Fly which does more damage to Fighting mons like Primeape (let's say that Charizard is already low on health and is facing Pimeape or Machamp, wouldn't it prefer to hit them harder with Fly before they kill it?). Fly also allows Charizard to dodge Explosions, a rare but possible situation.
-Scyther can't touch the ghosts without Wing Attack (yes, it is a horrible attack, but at least it can hit them), Wing Attack also causes more damage to Parasect than Slash, Double Edge or Hyper Beam.
-Bind Pinsir is a gimmick, but it can force switches and chip damage which hurt more when you only have three pokémon instead of six.
-Low Kick is Primeape's best fighting move in my opinion since it has better accuracy than Submission, doesn't cause Recoil and can flinch 9 % of the time.
-Jolteon loses Focus Energy which sucks in Colosseum 1 and 2 but is good in Pokemon Stadium 1 (its moves crit like 79 % once it uses Focus Energy).
-I think that Double Team is better than Kinesis on Alakazam, but Kinesis could still be a good gimmick. I once saw a Jolteon ruining Jynx with Sand Attack (Jynx couldn't hit it the entire match end eventually died), Alakazam could do something similar to Jynx or other pokémon.
-Amnesia Golduck is perhaps the biggest loss. Even with Amnesia, Golduck is "average", but without that move, it is bad.

I agree that the other missing moves are garbage, though.

I also agree that we can enforce simpler solutions like adding a command that allows post 1997 moves to be allowed, by the way, how should we call that command? The "1999 Clause" (I'm being serious)?
 
Beelzemon 2003 said:
If we play Nintendo Cup 97 with only 1997 moves, some of the restrictions hurt some mons a lot:

-Charizard loses Fly which does more damage to Fighting mons like Primeape (let's say that Charizard is already low on health and is facing Pimeape or Machamp, wouldn't it prefer to hit them harder with Fly before they kill it?). Fly also allows Charizard to dodge Explosions, a rare but possible situation.
-Scyther can't touch the ghosts without Wing Attack (yes, it is a horrible attack, but at least it can hit them), Wing Attack also causes more damage to Parasect than Slash, Double Edge or Hyper Beam.
-Bind Pinsir is a gimmick, but it can force switches and chip damage which hurt more when you only have three pokémon instead of six.
-Low Kick is Primeape's best fighting move in my opinion since it has better accuracy than Submission, doesn't cause Recoil and can flinch 9 % of the time.
-Jolteon loses Focus Energy which sucks in Colosseum 1 and 2 but is good in Pokemon Stadium 1 (its moves crit like 79 % once it uses Focus Energy).
-I think that Double Team is better than Kinesis on Alakazam, but Kinesis could still be a good gimmick. I once saw a Jolteon ruining Jynx with Sand Attack (Jynx couldn't hit it the entire match end eventually died), Alakazam could do something similar to Jynx or other pokémon.
-Amnesia Golduck is perhaps the biggest loss. Even with Amnesia, Golduck is "average", but without that move, it is bad.

I agree that the other missing moves are garbage, though.

I also agree that we can enforce simpler solutions like adding a command that allows post 1997 moves to be allowed, by the way, how should we call that command? The "1999 Clause" (I'm being serious)?
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I feel the subject of whether Pokemon are hurt or not by the changes isn't what we should be discussing. It's the subject of whether we should add the moves at all. The Pokemon losing moves is largely irrelevant, as this is about whether we should be faithful to the time period the ruleset was enforced or not. Note the time period factor, this is the important part of the discussion. Should this result in a command or clause it should probably be called 1997 Clause, but once again, I seriously don't know why any of this is necessary.

And once again, I really think Gold should be contacted first. An important thing to establish here is what should be the default ruleset.

But, I'll give some answers to your move points.
  • Fly is not really a thing on Charizard in most instances, and its relevance in NC97 is very debatable. Swords Dance/Fire Blast/Earthquake/Body Slam is what I'd usually go for. You could definitely argue it for the Slash set given it opens up slots, but I generally disagree with the notion this is a good option. I would rather go to other areas of Charizard's large attacking movepool, such as Submission to hit Tauros. I suppose you could argue the semi-invulnerability glitch could be exploited, but this is so situational that I would rather go for the consistency. Fly as a move is already inconsistent.
  • Scyther having Wing Attack, while definitely important, isn't really helping its relevance in the format. Scyther is just generally a really bad Pokemon in Nintendo Cup. Should also be noted that a super-effective Wing Attack deals less than Slash crits most of the time, Parasect is the only target for this and that thing is somehow less relevant than Scyther.
  • Bind Pinsir isn't a gimmick, imo it's one of its better qualities. It gives it a niche as a Bug-type, though this isn't really a...big achievement. Abusing switches with Bind is very important, and as you said it is more potent in 3v3. This is one of the legitimate losses I see, though Pinsir, like Scyther, is not relevant in the format at all.
  • Low Kick Primeape is...no. The power drop from Submission is sorely missed and it loses so many important calcs. I don't know why you'd drop the damage output for that. Primeape is frail as hell anyway, it's not like the recoil hurts or anything.
  • We're definitely not playing on Stadium, so the Focus Energy Jolteon mention shouldn't be relevant here.
  • Kinesis is literally a Sand Attack that hits 80% of the time, I don't see how this is an argument. While accuracy drops are more powerful in Japan, the lack of consistency is a massive blow given it's already on the outer realms of viability as-is.
  • I agree that the loss of Amnesia Golduck is sad, but in 3v3 I'd probably go to Slowbro whether it was there or not.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up Supersonic Venomoth on this list. In general, though, these feel like reaches a lot of the time. I wouldn't use half of these moves you suggested, I don't see why this "hurts the mons a lot". If I were to use Pinsir, Scyther or Golduck I'd definitely miss these moves, but I don't get why the rest even need a mention? I don't know why arguing move relevance is even what we should be doing...
 
zalarye said:
I've reduced myself to a smogdrone to offer my input on the implementation of the formats.

For NC97, the only official tournament format using its ruleset that I'm aware of was the RGB/AMA/whatever format on colosseum. Every other way of playing this ruleset, whether you use the improved version of colosseum in yellow or play poke cup on stadium, is an imitation and wasn't made for official competition in the first place. I think we can agree the biggest goals of adding nintendo cup to PS are to give people a straightforward way to play past official formats and to give Japanese players a chance to pick up PS and play what's most familiar to them.
v the part of this post that doesn't matter

As for learnsets, by the time Yellow was released the active format had already shifted to NC98 (and obviously a whole new generation had to come out a year after that for tradebacks to exist), so it seems like the most logical thing to do is to see it as a legacy format where what flies now is what flew then. Battle Historia is our best reference for how longtime players of the format would want this to be handled, but I would take authenticity myself. The best reason I can think of for allowing yellow + tradebacks is to spit in the faces of OU players.
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While I respectfully disagree with the last sentence, the rest is a fairly interesting take on the issue that I find myself agreeing with. From a Smogon perspective, this is essentially an RoA format, and the main policy there is to ensure that the format is pretty much identical to how it was before. It's very difficult to make any changes there, and for very good reason. Given the circumstances, authenticity is extremely important.
 
zalarye said:
Now all we need for NC97 to be done is invincibility glitch. Surely nothing will stop invincibility glitch from being implemented, right bros?
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I invented the Semi-Invincibility Clause to prevent Dig and Fly from being broken when they're allowed, you can find more info about it here. of course, my clause is a suggestion and we don't know what the Japanese do when a pokémon gets stuck in the Sky or the Ground. Maybe we can ask the Youtubers again...but I'm afraid they're fed up of us making questions in English XD
 
Beelzemon 2003 said:
I invented the Semi-Invincibility Clause to prevent Dig and Fly from being broken when they're allowed, you can find more info about it here. of course, my clause is a suggestion and we don't know what the Japanese do when a pokémon gets stuck in the Sky or the Ground. Maybe we can ask the Youtubers again...but I'm afraid they're fed up of us making questions in English XD
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Dig and fly are used frequently in their sample sets and adding rules is the last thing you'd do with this kind of format so I doubt they ban or even discourage it. If they do, it should be easy to find a source stating the rule.
 
Dig-Fly Rulings
I did some digging on the Dig/Fly rulings, and there is mention of it on Pokemon Battle Historia. Meiling sent me a link to the Historia Cup 2016 rulings page. This was actually an irl event with 46 participants! My Japanese is a bit limited (only been slowly learning it for around 2 months), but I've got some deduction as to what it's on about.

Here's the rule in question:
ポケモンセンターで状態異常を回復したポケモンで対戦に臨んでください。穴を掘る・空を飛ぶの麻痺による半無敵化対策です。
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My rough translation, with English nuances:
Enter a match with Pokémon that has recovered its status conditions at a Pokémon Center. This is a countermeasure against paralysis during Dig and Fly, which makes a Pokemon semi-invincible.
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Basically, it's a citation for the reasoning behind the Cleric Clause. Given that there are no further mentions regarding the glitch, as well as the fact they are on Nintendo Cup analyses as a whole, it appears that there is nothing against using the glitch. And, obviously, there is no ban on Dig or Fly. I assume they utilize counterplay methods (eg. PP Stalling the now-invincible Pokemon, etc) or resort to a gentleman's agreement to end the glitch, in a similar way to what Beelzemon 2003 proposed. However, since there is no explicit ruling against abusing the glitch, I believe it should be allowed.

Some other interesting observations;
  • Sleep Clause violations result in handing a game loss to those who violate it.
  • Freeze Clause is unenforced due to cartridge restrictions, which they also cite as being accurate to Nintendo Cup 97 as well.
  • Defeating a Pokemon with a recoil move (eg. Submission) will always count as a win (I believe there were questions about how this is handled).
  • Players will play through Desyncs if they occur.
    • This is likely because any kind of "Desync Clause" is unenforceable on cartridge without say, replaying the battle. In which case, you gain previously unknowable information, allowing you to completely change the outcome of the battle. It's basically an unresolvable game state by that point.
 
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Enter a match with Pokémon that has recovered its status conditions at a Pokémon Center. This is a countermeasure against paralysis during Dig and Fly, which makes a Pokemon semi-invincible.
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Interesting that they specifically state "status conditions" are to be recovered, to prevent dig/fly invulnerability (also interesting that they don't note using PSN pre-status to block paralysis, sleep and freeze)... is non-full HP fair game in GSC cartridge tournaments? By starting with 1 HP, Reversal and Flail users can start off with full power immediately, and some are flying-type which prevents them from being invalidated by spikes.

And what of PP and PP Ups? Even if you have a ruling that PP must be restored before the fight, Wrap can be 20, 24, 28 or 32 PP based on how many PP Ups are applied, which affects the timing of when rollover to 64 PP occurs if the opponent switches out while under the effects of partial trapping.

Now all we need for NC97 to be done is invincibility glitch. Surely nothing will stop invincibility glitch from being implemented, right bros?
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Dig/Fly invulnerability glitch will be added in my next pull request, so Gen 1 Custom Game will have Dig & Fly properly implemented alongside the NC '97 update.
 
Enigami said:
Interesting that they specifically state "status conditions" are to be recovered, to prevent dig/fly invulnerability (also interesting that they don't note using PSN pre-status to block paralysis, sleep and freeze)... is non-full HP fair game in GSC cartridge tournaments? By starting with 1 HP, Reversal and Flail users can start off with full power immediately, and some are flying-type which prevents them from being invalidated by spikes.
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To be honest, a "No Cleric Clause" RBY or GSC is a ruling nightmare in a lot of ways so I'm not gonna blame them for not going into it. They specifically mention a Pokemon Center, which given the rules means it's basically Cleric Clause. I believe my translation's wording wasn't the best on this front.

Enigami said:
And what of PP and PP Ups? Even if you have a ruling that PP must be restored before the fight, Wrap can be 20, 24, 28 or 32 PP based on how many PP Ups are applied, which affects the timing of when rollover to 64 PP occurs if the opponent switches out while under the effects of partial trapping.
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As far as I can see, PP Ups aren't noted, and I've seen lopsided PP on Pokemon in tournament games before. Usually they start with Blizzard, then move on to everything else. As a result yes, you could pick Wrap PP. Showdown has had the intention to implement it but from what I've heard it's a bit wack.

Enigami said:
Dig/Fly invulnerability glitch will be added in my next pull request, so Gen 1 Custom Game will have Dig & Fly properly implemented alongside the NC '97 update.
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Sounds good. It'll certainly be interesting hearing what people have to say about it; some could say the current implementation is a "patch" that can get the moves unbanned in OU. Not that it would be wise.
 
Enigami said:
Interesting that they specifically state "status conditions" are to be recovered, to prevent dig/fly invulnerability (also interesting that they don't note using PSN pre-status to block paralysis, sleep and freeze)... is non-full HP fair game in GSC cartridge tournaments? By starting with 1 HP, Reversal and Flail users can start off with full power immediately, and some are flying-type which prevents them from being invalidated by spikes.

And what of PP and PP Ups? Even if you have a ruling that PP must be restored before the fight, Wrap can be 20, 24, 28 or 32 PP based on how many PP Ups are applied, which affects the timing of when rollover to 64 PP occurs if the opponent switches out while under the effects of partial trapping.
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I think it's very heavily implied that when you center your pokemon in front of your opponent and spectators right before a match you don't tell him "hey give me a minute" and reduce something's HP to 1, same goes for reducing or rolling over PP. Max PP ups isn't something you'd ever enforce on cartridge and I think showdown shouldn't force it to begin with, but I don't think people would use lower PP wrap if it was implemented. By the way HP percentage mod needs to go.
 
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An updated and more complete Nintendo Cup '97 (compared to Pokemon Perfect anyway) is playable on the RBY 2k20 PS Server, with the intention to add variations of the format (Yellow Col2, Stad0, Stad1) in the future. The only problem is a slight issue with it claiming it allows L100 Pokemon with L50s when it doesn't; to solve this, make HP 253 in the Import/Export. Otherwise, it's pretty much completely playable, replicating JP Cart Mechanics to the best the sim can allow atm.
 
Plague von Karma said:
An updated and more complete Nintendo Cup '97 (compared to Pokemon Perfect anyway) is playable on the RBY 2k20 PS Server, with the intention to add variations of the format (Yellow Col2, Stad0, Stad1) in the future. The only problem is a slight issue with it claiming it allows L100 Pokemon with L50s when it doesn't; to solve this, make HP 253 in the Import/Export. Otherwise, it's pretty much completely playable, replicating JP Cart Mechanics to the best the sim can allow atm.
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Hey thanks bud :)
 
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