I would like the type chart in smogon.com/dex to be more accurate.
More specifically, there are factors other than types which affect how damage is calculated and the granularity is finer than the currently displayed immune/strongly resists/resists/normal/weak/very weak. For example, Gengar in gen 3 onward is immune to ground, not weak. We also have more fun cases, such as ground versus Bronzong which is sometimes 2x and sometimes 0x. Another case is Snorlax sometimes getting 1x from fire, but sometimes 0.5x. You also get a bit custom multipliers on some (but not all!) Mr. Mimes, being 1.5x from steel. So to say, I think the type chart should consider abilities, as they are inherent to pokemon and are important factors in designing teams.
There is also a class of abilities which affect the type chart indirectly—stuff like Desolate Land, which generally reduces water attacks to 0x, although some small set of other pokemon can nullify this trait. I think this needs a remark in the chart (tooltip? footnote? different font?), but I am not sure which should be displayed as the default. I'm leaning towards saying that Primal Groudon is immune to water, because you need a special ability to hit it (just like you need Mold Breaker to hit Gengar with Magnitude).
A seemingly orthogonal problem with the current design is that the chart is hidden under a tooltip. This makes it much less visible (I literally rewrote this suggestion because initially I wanted to request adding the chart to the website) and less handy. It also displays with a noticable delay on some browsers which is a bit annoying especially on touchscreen when you disappear it by clicking it second time thinking you had missed initially.
Why seemingly orthogonal? Because differing abilities complicate the chart making it less flexible for interaction. If we wanted to consider abilities, we would end up with several cases for some pokemon (Bronzong would get 3!). The two UI solutions I see are:
1. Multiple charts for each case, maybe divided into tabs
2. One chart with some cells split (tooltips could be helpful to specify when a case applies)
Both of them have a layer of interaction which, by my preference, is incompatible with a popup triggered by hovering. What I propose is to make it permanently visible instead. As for placement, I think that's a good way to utilize the empty space right to where stats currently are (on mobile either below stats or in tabs with stats). To compress things, I don't think there is much sense in including x1 effectiveness. Maybe for search, but nah.
I have no clue how much effort it is to implement it as I haven't looked into the spaghetti on GitHub yet, but if you like the idea, I'd be happy to take the task. I've never contributed to PS or Smogon, and I think it would be a good intro. I'm a computer scientist, did a couple of atrocious websites in my life, I think I can handle it fine.
Let me know what you think!
(I am not sure if this is the right forum, but the "inadequate description?" link in the dex leads to this one, so here I am)
More specifically, there are factors other than types which affect how damage is calculated and the granularity is finer than the currently displayed immune/strongly resists/resists/normal/weak/very weak. For example, Gengar in gen 3 onward is immune to ground, not weak. We also have more fun cases, such as ground versus Bronzong which is sometimes 2x and sometimes 0x. Another case is Snorlax sometimes getting 1x from fire, but sometimes 0.5x. You also get a bit custom multipliers on some (but not all!) Mr. Mimes, being 1.5x from steel. So to say, I think the type chart should consider abilities, as they are inherent to pokemon and are important factors in designing teams.
There is also a class of abilities which affect the type chart indirectly—stuff like Desolate Land, which generally reduces water attacks to 0x, although some small set of other pokemon can nullify this trait. I think this needs a remark in the chart (tooltip? footnote? different font?), but I am not sure which should be displayed as the default. I'm leaning towards saying that Primal Groudon is immune to water, because you need a special ability to hit it (just like you need Mold Breaker to hit Gengar with Magnitude).
A seemingly orthogonal problem with the current design is that the chart is hidden under a tooltip. This makes it much less visible (I literally rewrote this suggestion because initially I wanted to request adding the chart to the website) and less handy. It also displays with a noticable delay on some browsers which is a bit annoying especially on touchscreen when you disappear it by clicking it second time thinking you had missed initially.
Why seemingly orthogonal? Because differing abilities complicate the chart making it less flexible for interaction. If we wanted to consider abilities, we would end up with several cases for some pokemon (Bronzong would get 3!). The two UI solutions I see are:
1. Multiple charts for each case, maybe divided into tabs
2. One chart with some cells split (tooltips could be helpful to specify when a case applies)
Both of them have a layer of interaction which, by my preference, is incompatible with a popup triggered by hovering. What I propose is to make it permanently visible instead. As for placement, I think that's a good way to utilize the empty space right to where stats currently are (on mobile either below stats or in tabs with stats). To compress things, I don't think there is much sense in including x1 effectiveness. Maybe for search, but nah.
I have no clue how much effort it is to implement it as I haven't looked into the spaghetti on GitHub yet, but if you like the idea, I'd be happy to take the task. I've never contributed to PS or Smogon, and I think it would be a good intro. I'm a computer scientist, did a couple of atrocious websites in my life, I think I can handle it fine.
Let me know what you think!
(I am not sure if this is the right forum, but the "inadequate description?" link in the dex leads to this one, so here I am)
