ADV Beat Up Revealing Nicknames

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kumiko

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i am not an adv main nor an active adv player, however i do play the tier and i watch a lot. i have seen so many teams with the nickname theme of 1 2 3 4 5 6 simply because beat up reveals all pokemon's names and it gives away information if you don't.

let's patch it so it works the same as other generations and doesn't reveal the names of the pokemon on the team. because everyone can nickname a team with or without beatup with whatever names to hide this information, i think this is only a positive change.
 

Finchinator

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Beat Up can be used to reveal false informations to your opponent and induce mistakes in their gameplan, therefore I think we shouldnt patch that. Also the game shouldnt be modded to patch people's unability to find gold nicknames.
This is nonsense.

We should not be attaching competitive merit to nicknames -- there is no skill in remembering to or forgetting to nickname something. You cannot fake nicknames after other Pokemon, so there really is no strategy here. The OP's proposal is foolproof and should be implemented.
 

M Dragon

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i am not an adv main nor an active adv player, however i do play the tier and i watch a lot. i have seen so many teams with the nickname theme of 1 2 3 4 5 6 simply because beat up reveals all pokemon's names and it gives away information if you don't.

let's patch it so it works the same as other generations and doesn't reveal the names of the pokemon on the team. because everyone can nickname a team with or without beatup with whatever names to hide this information, i think this is only a positive change.
I was actually thinking about this after seeing people using numbers as pokemon nicknames yesterday in a lot of tournament games.
100% in favor of this
 
You can rename Pokemons with their names in another langage and fake this way.

Also, if you can do it on cart and abuse your opponent thinking they are getting informations you should be able to do it on sim. Because YOU believe a part of the game should be removed it doesnt mean it has to.
100% agree with this. If it works this way on cartridge, it should work the same on a simulator. Ignorance about mechanics should be punished, if you want to win while using Beat Up, you should remember about the cons using the move brings and act accordingly (by changing the nicknames) . Also, people who don't use nicknames can't be respected.

Btw, for the very same reason, I am also against the opponent's PP showing thing (you can just write those down if your game plan relies on PP Stalling) but I know that one is a lost cause.

Also, while I am at it another way to solve this issue is to just Ban Arena Trap ( the most common Beat Up user iss by far Dugtrio) for the same reasons as in other gens. (in my opinion, which tends to not be shared by many people) Dugtrio is way more broken in Adv than in the gens in which it has been banned anyway.
 

peng

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Whilst I have to admit that this mechanic is a fun detail of ADV, its definitely at the point now that its just completely optimal to nickname every single time and as a result we can probs just patch the sim to assume that all pokemon are nicknamed and have Beat Up behave as in all other gens.

Simulation is all about cutting the bs inconveniences and just getting down to playing pokemon. As soon as something becomes “optimal” in the teambuilding phase - i.e. there is no longer a competitive edge because it is an assumed aspect of teambuilding - we include it as default.

IVs are autoset to 31, TR / Gyro Ball IVs are autoset to 0 Spe, hidden power IVs assume you want 70bp, dynamax was auto set to top level, PP is automatically maxed out + tracked in the simulator. If we were assholes we could just force people to manually set all of these parameters in the teambuilder but there is literally zero reason to force players to have to do that when there is an objective best option. Setting nicknames is exactly the same to me - simulator conveniently ticks off the optimal setting so you can focus on actually playing the game. At minimum we should include a pop up window if you forget to nickname as happens when you forget to set EVs
 

Heroic Troller

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What?!?!?!? A quality of life change that could prevent whole teams from being nicknamed 1 2 3 4 5 6? In a simulator that already greatly differs from cartridge to begin with? Patching something that only gives advantage vs new people, who should, by logic already be in extreme disadvantage and lose anyway?

This shall not be allowed. Boomer squad assemble!
 
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DaWoblefet

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I'm sure folks are aware of this, but Beat Up works the exact same way in both Gen II and IV, so presumably you'd want to carry over this "patch" there. It's a bit bizarre only ADV is in discussion here with everyone nicknaming their teams 1 2 3 4 5 6 to be optimal, but I guess it's because that's the only Gen Beat Up is getting used in atm.

Surely this mod isn't being proposed out of aesthetics, but out of convenience. It's not as if folks are arguing it doesn't look pretty to have 1 2 3 4 5 6 in nicknames (which would be bizarre to make for a competitive format), but rather this is being proposed to save time in the teambuilder. If so, I think you can just avoid having to break cart mechanics by making it so that if a Pokemon doesn't have a nickname in Gen II-IV, it is given a simple nickname automatically when entering the battle - no mechanics mod required, and no effort required on the part of the player! If you're worried about 1 2 3 4 5 6 being boring, we can randomize these automatically generated nicknames so things are a bit more spicy. In order to justify a mod to move mechanics, you're going to need more than just aesthetic arguments.

We could also trivially do like what peng said (notify the player if they lack nicknames), but we can't do our usual "put only 1 EV in some stat" override in Gen II, because stats are maxed out in Gen II, so I don't think that's preferable. It would be a straight-up block at that point until the player added nicknames.

Also, these non-sequiturs about "the sim has modded cart mechanics in some places, therefore it's totally fine mod it in others" goes against current tiering policy - we are to avoid breaking cart mechanics where possible. Breaking game mechanics for teambuilder convenience is surely not trying to "play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge".
 
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Gilbert arenas

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I'm sure folks are aware of this, but Beat Up works the exact same way in both Gen II and IV, so presumably you'd want to carry over this "patch" there. It's a bit bizarre only ADV is in discussion here with everyone nicknaming their teams 1 2 3 4 5 6 to be optimal, but I guess it's because that's the only Gen Beat Up is getting used in atm.

Surely this mod isn't being proposed out of aesthetics, but out of convenience. It's not as if folks are arguing it doesn't look pretty to have 1 2 3 4 5 6 in nicknames (which would be bizarre to make for a competitive format), but rather this is being proposed to save time in the teambuilder. If so, I think you can just avoid having to break cart mechanics by making it so that if a Pokemon doesn't have a nickname in Gen II-IV, it is given a simple nickname automatically when entering the battle - no mechanics mod required, and no effort required on the part of the player! If you're worried about 1 2 3 4 5 6 being boring, we can randomize these automatically generated nicknames so things are a bit more spicy. In order to justify a mod to move mechanics, you're going to need more than just aesthetic arguments.

We could also trivially do like what peng said (notify the player if they lack nicknames), but we can't do our usual "put only 1 EV in some stat" override in Gen II, because stats are maxed out in Gen II, so I don't think that's preferable. It would be a straight-up block at that point until the player added nicknames.

Also, these non-sequiturs about "the sim has modded cart mechanics in some places, therefore it's totally fine mod it in others" goes against current tiering policy - we are to avoid breaking cart mechanics where possible. Breaking game mechanics for teambuilder convenience is surely not trying to "play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge".
This is nonsense.

We should not be attaching competitive merit to nicknames -- there is no skill in remembering to or forgetting to nickname something. You cannot fake nicknames after other Pokemon, so there really is no strategy here. The OP's proposal is foolproof and should be implemented.
I can name my metagross miltank on cart
Just do this
 

vapicuno

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There is one nuance about this proposed patch that affects what can be inferred in the game. I'll describe with an example.

Suppose the opponent uses beat up, and you notice that unrevealed "x" did 10% and "y" did 11%. Then, your opponent reveals a Pokemon that is known to be able to roll both 10% and 11%, say, Cloyster. If Cloyster is nicknamed "x", then the remaining Pokemon's damage range must coincide with 11%. Conversely, if Cloyster is called "y", then the remaining Pokemon's damage range must coincide with 10%. This information can be used to exclude Pokemon that aren't strong enough to deal 11% but can plausibly deal 10% (e.g. Zapdos) if it is revealed that Cloyster is called "x", and likewise Pokemon that are too strong to deal 10% but can plausibly deal 11% (e.g. Aerodactyl) if Cloyster is called "y". Patching nicknames out of beat up removes this inference opportunity.

Of course, this requires astute observation.

I personally don't care about whether it is patched.
 
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watashi

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There is one nuance about this proposed patch that affects what can be inferred in the game. I'll describe with an example.

Suppose the opponent uses beat up, and you notice that unrevealed "x" did 10% and "y" did 11%. Then, your opponent reveals a Pokemon that is known to be able to roll both 10% and 11%, say, Cloyster. If Cloyster is nicknamed "x", then the remaining Pokemon's damage range must coincide with 11%. Conversely, if Cloyster is called "y", then the remaining Pokemon's damage range must coincide with 10%. This information can be used to exclude Pokemon that aren't strong enough to deal 11% but can plausibly deal 10% (e.g. Zapdos) if it is revealed that Cloyster is called "x", and likewise Pokemon that are too strong to deal 10% but can plausibly deal 11% (e.g. Aerodactyl) if Cloyster is called "y". Patching nicknames out of beat up removes this inference opportunity.

Of course, this requires astute observation.

I personally don't care about whether it is patched.
this scenario only exists because ps does not allow you to have two of the same nicknames. you wouldn't be able to tell if everything was the same

weird situation where the cartidge is actually more optimal than ps
 

Hipmonlee

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Also, these non-sequiturs about "the sim has modded cart mechanics in some places, therefore it's totally fine mod it in others" goes against current tiering policy - we are to avoid breaking cart mechanics where possible. Breaking game mechanics for teambuilder convenience is surely not trying to "play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge".
I would like to point out the difference between modifying the mechanics (patching) and modifying the playing conditions.

In this case what is being proposed is functionally identical to simulating a game where every pokemon has the same nickname, and then, for purely aesthetic reasons, allowing players to give the pokemon nicknames on the sim. So that is just a change in playing conditions. Compare that with the ADV switch patch, where the functionality could not be recreated on cart.

Some other playing conditions include timers, the undo button, pp counts, explanations of moves in the log, having the log in the first place, and the fact that we can use long nicknames with unicode. Basically in terms of playing conditions you should be able to make any change that improves the playing experience for players. This is just a no brainer fix.
 

McMeghan

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DaWoblefet kindly asking if you could reconsider your stance/the proposition discussed in this thread given the arguments added since your post by other people in the thread, it'd honesty be a very much appreciated quality of life improvement for ADV Players; especially given the widespread desire from the community (and the council) on the matter.

Ideally, we'd like it to work like in the latter gens, here is an example.
 

DaWoblefet

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I have done a bit more reflection on the matter, and I still haven't seen any non-aesthetic argument offered here. I am in complete agreement with most respondents in this thread that being required to nickname your Pokemon to avoid a potential information leak is a dumb mechanic (since it's optimal to at least bluff you have Beat Up). However, an argument from purely aesthetics feels very, very weak to me. It's like saying "we should allow Shiny Greninja to have Battle Bond because Shiny Ash-Gren looks epic. Shininess doesn't impact play either, so there's no downside!". I think Shiny Greninja is way cooler than non-Shiny, but I hope everyone would agree that intentionally breaking set legality to allow for aesthetics would be an unwarranted deviation from cartridge.

I assume people are memeing about the "nickname all your Pokemon another mon's name", but I'd be perfectly fine with that as a solution. That clause is just inherited from VGC play, and there's no reason OU has to follow it. So that'd be a perfectly fine change that wouldn't break cart mechanics at all, and because it'd be even possible to nickname your Pokemon another name, it removes the obligation to nickname all mons 1 2 3 4 5 6. So that sounds fine to be, but I assuming those suggestions are less serious.

I don't find Hipmonlee's differentiation between modifying the playing conditions and modifying the mechanics very helpful. You might be able to distinguish between cart-possible convenience features and not cart-possible convenience features. For example, it's certainly possible to track PP usage yourself, and you could keep detailed logs. A neutral judge could enforce a move timer as well. On the other hand, something like 'Cancel Mod' is a not cart-possible convenience feature, modifying mechanics, and defined as such in all official formats. We have to implement special logic for Imprison so the Cancel button doesn't leak information about what moves the opposing Pokemon could have, for example. So I don't find the distinction relevant to the discussion at hand.

However, I do think Hipmonlee is on the right track towards a plausible argument that respects cartridge. Unlike in modern gens, if you have your Pokemon nicknamed, there's no way to actually pull up the Pokemon's name if you don't happen to recognize the sprite. You could see the sprite of Tyranitar, but you wouldn't necessarily know its name was Tyranitar. So maybe you have some helpful, neutral judge who informs the player about the name of the Pokemon they're fighting if they are unaware. So let's extend that to nicknames! Suppose each player nicknames their Pokemon all the same name, but you give this neutral judge another list of nicknames that they announce whenever your Pokemon does something identifiable, like switch in or faint. So if you lead your Tyranitar, with the name 'A' on cart, the neutral judge can say "Player 1's Tyranitar's extra nickname is Despotar" or something similar. Then, when you use Beat Up, it just says "A's Attack!" 6 times. Showdown's nicknames here would be more like the judge's list than like the nicknames actually on cart, which would also let you justify using things like long nicknames or unicode characters. Now, if you want to say this idea of a third-party neutral judge relaying information is ridiculous, I'll remind you that it was consistently offered as justification for why HP can be displayed in 100ths rather than strictly out of 48ths and recently reaffirmed when deciding how to handle Deoxys in the Deoxys Camouflage thread.

The problem with that approach is that, without duplicate nicknames allowed, you end up losing information from Beat Up. Currently, an astute player could identify, based on the damage rolls from Beat Up during a turn, the base Attack of Pokemon in the back, and potentially still gain information on what that unrevealed Pokemon is. For example, if we have 1 2 3 4 5 6, and 3's damage roll was very high, you might be able to calc that and determine there was a Salamence or Metagross as 3, because only a Beat Up roll using 135 attack could have achieved that much damage. Or conversely, you can see that 2's damage roll was absurdly low, only possible with a low base Attack like Blissey. This is going to be most impactful if the damage ranges are initially ambiguous (say it could be possible for the Attack stat Beat Up used for its particular hit to have been anywhere from 125-135), but multiple instances of Beat Up provide additional numbers to narrow the potential range of options. I have no idea if ADV players are in fact doing this in tournament or not, since the damage calc doesn't support Beat Up (and I doubt people are manually adjusting the values in the damage calc to check) but if they were to do so, it'd be optimal. So the distinctiveness of nicknames matters. But, you can completely circumvent this by not excluding duplicate nicknames! So I think you can do this Beat Up mod, but only if you also remove the restriction on duplicate nicknames.

Ideally, we'd like it to work like in the latter gens, here is an example.
We'd probably make it even more straightforward than that, keeping it the same way it is now but changing the text from "<nickname>'s Attack!" to "generic Pokemon's Attack!" or something similar. Beat Up in past gens shouldn't say "it hit x times" (note this is currently bugged on sim) or use the modern Beat Up base power formula. So it'd be more straightforward to just change the text here to remove the nickname, rather than literally use the modern gen implementation.
 
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Oglemi

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Think everyone would be fine with that.
To note, this probably isn't as big a deal these days because our sim isn't quite as text reliant as shoddy or po (the hover text on the pokemon helps immensely to alleviate the following), but I remember a rather infamous discussion on this policy when reachzero won a tourney final almost because of this, as it forced errors on his opponent (sds(?)) trying to back track through the match and trying to find how dmg certain pokemon had taken earlier in the match and couldn't because of duplicate nicks + timer. Again, probably not an issue nowadays, but still something to note imo
 
This isn’t an aesthetic change as much as a quality of life change. I’d rather have to nickname 1-6 than have command f be tampered with (like oglemi outlined). I would much rather do neither though.

It just seems very unnecessary to make players’ lives objectively more tedious for no apparent gain.
 
DaWoblefet any potential update on this since allowing duplicate nicknames is not feasible? Speaking on behalf of old gen councils, I can confirm that GSC and DPP councils would support modding beat up in our tiers alongside ADV for consistency. I think there have been several good arguments that support this quality of life change while also debunking the idea that this is purely aesthetics and that it would be a heinous deviation from cartridge mechanics. As finch points out, this mechanic adds an element to the competitive aspect of this tier that is undesirable and a significant enough inconvenience to warrant some change. Marcop and watashi point out inconsistencies with cartridge mechanics relative to the simulator that should make modding this more acceptable. This is a small change that the old generations community unanimously supports and I really hope this can be reconsidered to fix beat up in a sound way with no drawbacks. Thanks for your time
 

Eo Ut Mortus

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think DaWob's proposed implementation will break readability or the stats collection script. There are two discrete cases where a nickname is shown: text displayed when the Pokemon is not on the field (currently, this is just Beat Up), and text displayed when the Pokemon is on the field (switching, attacking, basically every other action). In both these cases, the same text is currently being used. DaWob is suggesting that separate values are used for these two cases; to disambiguate, I'll be calling the value displayed during Beat Up a "nickname" and the value displayed everywhere else a "label." In every case outside of Beat Up, the sim would change to displaying labels rather than cartridge nicknames. So, imagine the case where you nickname all your Pokemon "A", but label them 1, 2, 3, 4...6. When Beat Up is used, you will see "A's attack" or "<generic Pokemon's> attack", and whenever you switch something in, you will see "Go, 1!" and "Go, 3!", rather than "Go, A!" both times. Since nicknames wouldn't be shown anywhere besides Beat Up, where you'd want them to be all the same, I believe that they would not be configurable on the sim, and it would just be assumed that they're all set to the same value by the player. Meanwhile, labels would be set and customized as nicknames currently are. If all this is correct, we can permit duplicate nicknames and prohibit duplicate labels, and the original proposal can be implemented while respecting cartridge fidelity.
 
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