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Resource BBP Bug and Feedback Thread - Generation 9 Edition!
- Thread starter LouisCyphre
- Start date
Can String Shot be changed to reduce speed stage by 2 to match cart?
i dont see why not. i'll slate it for patch
gems feel quite bad at level 4.
Even if you find the perfect situation where you have a 15 bap move to go with your gem and your opponent is weak or double weak to it, the opponent can just click endure to ignore your gem and gain defence aid into the bargain. Using an item to cost the opponent a move isn't terrible, but it feels bad that this is best possible result for gems.
Even if you find the perfect situation where you have a 15 bap move to go with your gem and your opponent is weak or double weak to it, the opponent can just click endure to ignore your gem and gain defence aid into the bargain. Using an item to cost the opponent a move isn't terrible, but it feels bad that this is best possible result for gems.
if you do that you probably turned off your best attack type as well as giving the opponent bonus proof, and they will swap out afterwards which will stop your gem being SE. So you can do the sub, but it still leads to a very underwhelming best case scenario.
it's hard to make gems (one of the most "kill you in a round" items in the game) better safely at Level 4, where every mon has such huge attacks.
i think this is an endure problem, if it's a problem at all—move that is deeply ass but also makes certain things unviable by existing.
maybe in the near future i can look harder at endure, once the context around it changes
i think this is an endure problem, if it's a problem at all—move that is deeply ass but also makes certain things unviable by existing.
maybe in the near future i can look harder at endure, once the context around it changes
Mhm. The reason I brought it up at level 4 specifically is endure. I was trying to run gems vs N and when I actually got to thinking through the round I was like "wait, trying to gem this 4x weak ferrothorn I brought a fire gem specifically to beat is worse than just equipping a standard damage item."
to be fair, this one was a weird case because you do so much damage that endure is worth the action anyways.
Razz berry and similar do not work with gluttony, because their effect is not caused by consumption. the consumption is just incedental. This sounds like a bug to me but it might be a balance decision.
vs
So it will consume the berry and heal 10hp, but the berry won't do anything.
Is taunt meant to be a sound move? it bypasses decoys and thematically involves talking to your opponent.
It is not.
Checking again: How do we feel about a per-player limit on PvE challenges?
Mechanically, what we have now is... functionally a virtual limit on PvE challenges. We have enough refs to support around 2-3 challenges per player, but each player is queued for all five challenges all of the time.
Do we want a cap? If so, what's a good number, and what's a good name? Should we include any PvP in the limit?
(I stole this snip from Duo)
Mechanically, what we have now is... functionally a virtual limit on PvE challenges. We have enough refs to support around 2-3 challenges per player, but each player is queued for all five challenges all of the time.
Do we want a cap? If so, what's a good number, and what's a good name? Should we include any PvP in the limit?
I would feel very sad if there was a cap on the number of queues I could be in at one time. I do remember there used to be this kind of cap before, on Battle Tower battles, a long time ago. How was it then? Also, how sure are we that reducing the number of players in queue will increase queue times? (Looking at you Battle Tree)
I think Battle Tree is clogged because of its demands and tool support, but I don't think people are "saving room on their plate" for a Tree reffing.
I think when people are avoiding reffing a particular venue, they just ref something else; so the total number of ongoing reffings would still be the same. They need JC, after all.
I think when people are avoiding reffing a particular venue, they just ref something else; so the total number of ongoing reffings would still be the same. They need JC, after all.
I think it would be an overall good for the game.
Less people on the queues overall means that ref trading is more viable - you can't ref trade if you're 16th on the queue or if the person at the top of the queue isn't very interested, after all.
Plus - if everyone didn't play the facility that they least liked, that means that everyone gets to play the facilities that they do like a lot more as well.
My main questions about this is contests and monthly events. Contests are notable for never having jammed - ever, and in general being our best facility in term of user thoroughput. 3 players per ref is a lot, and reffing is very easy compared to the main game. Having a slot open means you can quickly hop into contest queue and get a game on, only being limited by the speed of the ref of your current contest. Might not be a bad thing at all, considering Contest is pretty liked and lets you levelup mons that otherwise would be a nightmare, alongside being a very nice distraction from the main gameplay.
The bigger issue is monthly events. If you can only queue for 2 or 3 stuff at a time and including monthly events then realistically that cap is 1 less. I think most players would prefer playing in the monthly event and getting one or two EXP records and a unique reward compared to playing a normal raid or realgam. Having said that, I do feel like it would be nice. I don't think most people would skip on major events but the smaller events, I could see an argument for. I have struggled in the past with always picking them up and not really having a reason to not do them (and overworking myself on BBP in the process) and having an excuse not to do them is nice.
For a number - we have 7 facilities rn: Tree, Safari, Realgam, Raid, Events, Legend Gauntlet and Contest Hall. (Battle Tower not included)
I could see 4 being a good number. The way I'd use is one slot for events, one for Legend Gauntlet/Contest Hall and two for regular content. At 5 I'd start shoving it into regular content I'm not that keen on, and at 3 I'd start shaving from Legend Gauntlet/Contest Hall to play the Events so I think it's a good number for me.
I think there is a reasonable argument to cut PvP/Events from the queue - in this case Legend Gauntlet, Contest Hall and Events.
(The League Circuit has been removed from this conversation as a whole because it already has its own system to ensure that it doesn't clog up.)
These 3 facilities have a unique trait: Higher throughput than other facilities.
Places like Raid and Realgam have a 1-for-1 ratio: For every player, there is 1 ref. That means that for every game that is played then someone else MUST ref. You need as many people willing to ref as there are to play, which is a tall order. Legend Gauntlet and Events are a lot better in this, having a 2-for-1 ratio: for every player only needs 0.5 refs. (ie, 1 ref every 2 player) - IE, it has doubled throughput. You can get double the amount of players per the same effort of a ref.
This is even bigger for the Contest Hall - just one ref can feed 3 players. And it's because of that it's the only facility with a standard queue where there's genuinely more refs than players. A queue of 10 people is nightmarish for most facilities but Contest can eat it up in 3 refs. That's very notable and worth looking into.
This does raize the question of if raising throughput in other venues is possible. Maybe the Doubles Realgams could fit two players? That has its own problems, and Realgam doubles is in general a mess. Maybe turning those sims onto one of the "two players 1v1" formats that events that have been comming out recently could be good; maybe convert one to this and see how it goes would be a worthwhile experiment ot pursue.
It bothered me so I'm saying it now: The Battle Tower is at the end of this table rather than at the start. Having the order of the venues go lv0 -> lv1 -> lv2 -> lv4 would be a lot cooler than lv1 -> lv2 -> lv4 -> lv0, specially with how Battle Tower is the first facility that new players are meant to go through, having it be on the start of the list really helps sell the idea of progressing through the facilities.
Same for Contest Hall - I don't think it has much business being between the Boasting Hall and League Circuit, specially the lv3/lv3/lv2/lv4 progression. Moving it to the start would make it a lv2/lv3/lv3/lv4 sequence, which is a lot nicer
I don’t think there is any current need to include PvP in queue limits right now. The queues seem to be flowing well, either naturally or with their flow mechanisms.
Part of the appeal of having a wide range of facilities on offer is that, at least in terms of leveling, you can play the ones that appeal to you the most. A lot of people naturally tend to do this anyway, so I don’t think introducing a queue limit of, say, 3 really does much to change how people plan out their leveling (not necessarily a bad thing), and I think that those who cycle through every queue off cooldown in the name of efficiency would be able to adapt and phase their least favourite facility out of their cycle. 3 would likely be fine for now, and then, if the two outstanding facilities come out and people feel squished, then there's probably room to go to 4.
One worry I do have, though, is that while players have shown interest and disinterest in each facility to varying degrees, refs are much more aligned on the experiences that they seek. Facilities where the ref has agency, but that don't take too long (both in an individual round and an overall battle sense), will see the lion's share of the refs. I don't agree with the idea that those who enjoy reffing Raid Frontier, as an example, will instead go pick up a Battle Tree reffing if there are no raids in queue. Sure, some people are driven by the need for JC, others driven by wanting to put in what they get out, but those who aren't may choose to just not ref instead.
Part of the appeal of having a wide range of facilities on offer is that, at least in terms of leveling, you can play the ones that appeal to you the most. A lot of people naturally tend to do this anyway, so I don’t think introducing a queue limit of, say, 3 really does much to change how people plan out their leveling (not necessarily a bad thing), and I think that those who cycle through every queue off cooldown in the name of efficiency would be able to adapt and phase their least favourite facility out of their cycle. 3 would likely be fine for now, and then, if the two outstanding facilities come out and people feel squished, then there's probably room to go to 4.
One worry I do have, though, is that while players have shown interest and disinterest in each facility to varying degrees, refs are much more aligned on the experiences that they seek. Facilities where the ref has agency, but that don't take too long (both in an individual round and an overall battle sense), will see the lion's share of the refs. I don't agree with the idea that those who enjoy reffing Raid Frontier, as an example, will instead go pick up a Battle Tree reffing if there are no raids in queue. Sure, some people are driven by the need for JC, others driven by wanting to put in what they get out, but those who aren't may choose to just not ref instead.
That... might self balance?
For example if a realgam gets taken every week and a battle tree gets taken every month, maybe players who just want to do a facility will move from battle tree to realgams until the realgam queue is twice as long.
If everyone's goal is "EXP, don't care from where" then sure, but a lot of people have a facility that's their favourite and want to play more of, or least favourite and want to avoid when possible, or a mon they want to level that’s way more suited to one facility than another, etc.
To be clear, I'm in favour of a queue limit still, it's just not gonna fix any fundamental issues different people have with reffing different facilities. I don't think people are going to suddenly start taking doubles realgams much, if at all, faster than now when they hit the top of the queue.
To be clear, I'm in favour of a queue limit still, it's just not gonna fix any fundamental issues different people have with reffing different facilities. I don't think people are going to suddenly start taking doubles realgams much, if at all, faster than now when they hit the top of the queue.
I am not currently sold on queue limits.
They probably should not apply to pvp content for the reasons people have mentioned but where does it end up if it is applied to pve only?
There are 4 pve facilities right now and I doubt that many people are signed up to every single one. So 3 max does very little. 2 max probably does do things but it also sounds not very fun? If I am a new player I don't want to be stuck doing only 2 facilities, especially since I am not actually allowed to enter any of the pvp things. In my current state I want a mega. Either I abandon that, or I only do 1 facility at a time while praying that the battle tree actually moves.
I think the main positive thing queue limits does is stop people sitting in 3 or 4 queues and taking no reffings. There isn't much functional difference between someone taking 2 reffings and queuing 4 facilities vs taking 0 reffings and queueing 2 facilities, something they could still do in the new system. Don't we already have a system that is meant to do this? Jc is meant to broadly make people take about 1 reffing for each battle they play (slightly more due to other labour like prize approval). If someone does want to sit in 4 facilities and ref 4.5 things to make their economy work that seems fine to me, while if lots of people are putting 2 things into queue and reffing 0 things the shorter queues will still not move.
tldr probably won't surprise people but I think the jc economy needs to be tighter. It is meant to be filling the role of limiting how many things people can play in vs ref and we are constantly going to have slow queues if people feel they "should" be able to play 1.25 things for each thing they ref because that is what makes them jc neutral.
They probably should not apply to pvp content for the reasons people have mentioned but where does it end up if it is applied to pve only?
There are 4 pve facilities right now and I doubt that many people are signed up to every single one. So 3 max does very little. 2 max probably does do things but it also sounds not very fun? If I am a new player I don't want to be stuck doing only 2 facilities, especially since I am not actually allowed to enter any of the pvp things. In my current state I want a mega. Either I abandon that, or I only do 1 facility at a time while praying that the battle tree actually moves.
I think the main positive thing queue limits does is stop people sitting in 3 or 4 queues and taking no reffings. There isn't much functional difference between someone taking 2 reffings and queuing 4 facilities vs taking 0 reffings and queueing 2 facilities, something they could still do in the new system. Don't we already have a system that is meant to do this? Jc is meant to broadly make people take about 1 reffing for each battle they play (slightly more due to other labour like prize approval). If someone does want to sit in 4 facilities and ref 4.5 things to make their economy work that seems fine to me, while if lots of people are putting 2 things into queue and reffing 0 things the shorter queues will still not move.
tldr probably won't surprise people but I think the jc economy needs to be tighter. It is meant to be filling the role of limiting how many things people can play in vs ref and we are constantly going to have slow queues if people feel they "should" be able to play 1.25 things for each thing they ref because that is what makes them jc neutral.
Battle Tower Rewards Post
This section should probably be removed or modified to refer to Trainer Level.
This section should probably be removed or modified to refer to Trainer Level.
Battle Tree Feedback
It is common knowledge that battle tree queue has trouble moving and is considered a lot of work to ref. I think a lot of the discussion focuses on the writing requirements for tree and I want to take a different approach. The community definitely has some appetite for roleplaying content, having a facility catering to it makes sense. However having reffed almost a full tree now, here are my thoughts on why I do not really feel like reffing another one even if I am in the mood for creative writing.
Hopefully this ends up being useful for nightblitz42 in running the facility!
Length
Battle Tree is really long and this turns me off as both a player and a ref. Even if we ignore the fluff requirements winning tree requires defeating 6 opposing pokemon. That is twice as many as is required by safari or realgam. This length is off putting in its own right and also exacerbates the other things that turn me off of reffing tree.
Gimmicks
To ref raid I look at the first post for the raid. To ref realgam I look at the first post of the realgam. To ref Tree I need to go to quick access, battle tree, ref guide, gimmicks list and consult a table of 60 effects and timing clauses, with 864 possible combinations per gimmick. Over the course of tree I will need to perform this procedure between 6 and 12 times, and each time I do it I need to track which options are already used up over the course of what is likely a 2 or 3 month long facility.
It is a hell of a lot of decision making with unfamiliar components and a large + long memory requirement to not screw up with dupes.
Tools and Previous Knowledge
Tree pokemon have custom stats and custom move pools. This breaks all my prior knowledge and all my tools that I use to play the game. I have to manually fix all the stats intead of just auto generating them for reffing. I can't rely on my memory for what any of the pokemon can do. I can't use the combo finder to know for sure if they have comboes for a particular move or not.
Piloting Ref Pokemon
Gimmicks are overwhelming but certainly have a lot of decision making. Actually playing out the battles involved a lot of "thunder punch x 3, if my opponent has a protective status, use x."
I am not sure this one is fixable and it would probably fine if reffing tree was less total effort, but the potential pay off for getting through all the other stuff is a battle that looks a lot like a level 0 match.
While I am here I also have a few player minded thoughts as well.
Gimmick Timing and Effects
The mid round option select of most gimmick effects mean they effectively time travel to screw with the player. Even as second order you have to deal with cases where "actually the opponent had light screen all along", or "you should have known you were asleep." The gimmicks seem to often be designed as traps and sub eaters since the ref gets to make decisions on them in the middle of the round.
Examples
"Inflict yawn or sluggish on the opposing pokemon."
"Create reflect or light screen."
"Inflict taunt on the opposing pokemon."
"Inflict burn, para or confusion on the opposing pokemon."
All of these cripple your main order or need at least 1 sub to deal with.
The game has room for this sort of design, but is the room for this design the narrative facility where we deliberately gimp the players ability to sub for things? I feel like I would want more subs for this and for the facilities primary theme to be mechanical challenge.
Rewards
Battle Tree is intended to be a new player facility, but it has probably the most crippling reward structure of any facility. If you win 2 of your 3 battles, which is very realistic as a new player, you get 4 xp. You would need to run tree 3 times to get your first team to level 2 and it would legitimately take you 9 months to do so.
Ok that is all I got. I hope the thoughts are useful!
It is common knowledge that battle tree queue has trouble moving and is considered a lot of work to ref. I think a lot of the discussion focuses on the writing requirements for tree and I want to take a different approach. The community definitely has some appetite for roleplaying content, having a facility catering to it makes sense. However having reffed almost a full tree now, here are my thoughts on why I do not really feel like reffing another one even if I am in the mood for creative writing.
Hopefully this ends up being useful for nightblitz42 in running the facility!
Length
Battle Tree is really long and this turns me off as both a player and a ref. Even if we ignore the fluff requirements winning tree requires defeating 6 opposing pokemon. That is twice as many as is required by safari or realgam. This length is off putting in its own right and also exacerbates the other things that turn me off of reffing tree.
Gimmicks
To ref raid I look at the first post for the raid. To ref realgam I look at the first post of the realgam. To ref Tree I need to go to quick access, battle tree, ref guide, gimmicks list and consult a table of 60 effects and timing clauses, with 864 possible combinations per gimmick. Over the course of tree I will need to perform this procedure between 6 and 12 times, and each time I do it I need to track which options are already used up over the course of what is likely a 2 or 3 month long facility.
It is a hell of a lot of decision making with unfamiliar components and a large + long memory requirement to not screw up with dupes.
Tools and Previous Knowledge
Tree pokemon have custom stats and custom move pools. This breaks all my prior knowledge and all my tools that I use to play the game. I have to manually fix all the stats intead of just auto generating them for reffing. I can't rely on my memory for what any of the pokemon can do. I can't use the combo finder to know for sure if they have comboes for a particular move or not.
Piloting Ref Pokemon
Gimmicks are overwhelming but certainly have a lot of decision making. Actually playing out the battles involved a lot of "thunder punch x 3, if my opponent has a protective status, use x."
I am not sure this one is fixable and it would probably fine if reffing tree was less total effort, but the potential pay off for getting through all the other stuff is a battle that looks a lot like a level 0 match.
While I am here I also have a few player minded thoughts as well.
Gimmick Timing and Effects
The mid round option select of most gimmick effects mean they effectively time travel to screw with the player. Even as second order you have to deal with cases where "actually the opponent had light screen all along", or "you should have known you were asleep." The gimmicks seem to often be designed as traps and sub eaters since the ref gets to make decisions on them in the middle of the round.
Examples
"Inflict yawn or sluggish on the opposing pokemon."
"Create reflect or light screen."
"Inflict taunt on the opposing pokemon."
"Inflict burn, para or confusion on the opposing pokemon."
All of these cripple your main order or need at least 1 sub to deal with.
The game has room for this sort of design, but is the room for this design the narrative facility where we deliberately gimp the players ability to sub for things? I feel like I would want more subs for this and for the facilities primary theme to be mechanical challenge.
Rewards
Battle Tree is intended to be a new player facility, but it has probably the most crippling reward structure of any facility. If you win 2 of your 3 battles, which is very realistic as a new player, you get 4 xp. You would need to run tree 3 times to get your first team to level 2 and it would legitimately take you 9 months to do so.
Ok that is all I got. I hope the thoughts are useful!