Not A Bug Encore duration in Gen 2-3

[drifttrick]

What type of bug are you reporting? Mechanics

What is the bug?
In gens 2-3, Encore should last for 2-6 turns. This is well-documented info on Bulbapedia, Pokemon DB, and Serebii, but for some reason, it lasts for 3-6 turns on PS.

Are you able to replicate it? If so, how?
I tested this mechanic on a Pokemon Emerald cartridge, and a 2-turn encore is indeed possible. It never occurs on Pokemon Showdown for some reason, and every Showdown/Smogon description for gens 2-3 lists encore as lasting 3-6 turns.

 

[DaWoblefet]

Do you have cartridge footage of this? According to the pret Emerald disassembly, Encore always has a duration of at least 3 turns in Gen 3.

gDisableStructs[gBattlerTarget].encoreTimer = (Random() & 3) + 3;

The first part Random() & 3 will result in 0, 1, 2, or 3. So Encore will last 3-6 turns.

I'm not very good at reading assembly, so I'm not as certain about Pokemon Crystal. UltimatePokemonCenter, a much more reliable source than the websites you mention, lists Encore as having 3-6 turn duration in those generations. In any case, we'd need some cartridge footage demonstrating that this is wrong.

 

[drifttrick]

Yeah nvm this is not a bug. I forgot that older gens count encore as an end-of-turn counter rather than a number of occurrences, so faster pokemon will always cause the target to repeat their moves 3 times while slower encore users may only cause 2 repeats.