Hi all, following the Counter discoveries by Enigami I decided I wanted to make note of all the ways in which the sim deviates from cart mechanics. Note that I will not be considering features that are theoretically replicable if playing on carts with things like pen and paper or a separate timer. I'll also be ignoring the cancel button, since it doesn't really do anything that couldn't be accomplished by spending an extra 30 seconds thinking. Anyway, let me know if there's anything I get wrong or miss!
Sleep Clause (affects all gens except for gen 5 ou)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already asleep (not including Rest), any attempt to put another pokemon to sleep will always fail
Cart- There are no restrictions on putting multiple pokemon to sleep
Freeze Clause (also affects gen 2)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already frozen, no other pokemon on the opponent's team can be frozen
Cart- There are no restrictions on freezing multiple pokemon
Wrap
Sim- The player using Wrap is informed when Wrap ends, as they are able to select a new move. The person being Wrapped is not informed when it ends, as they are able to select any move they like regardless, so there is no change
Cart- Players must select Fight before selecting a move. If Wrap is still in effect, this will lock them in to attempting to attack that turn, without giving them the opportunity to select a move. If Wrap has finished, they will get the move selection menu, at which point they can exit out of that and choose to switch to another pokemon if they prefer
Desyncs
Sim- all desyncs are ignored. Counter will always trigger based on the last move used. I honestly don't recall how Mirror Move + Wrap works on sim.
Cart-
Max DV Restrictions (Link)
Sim- All pokemon can obtain a 15/15/15/15 DV spread
Cart- Pokemon that can only be obtained by walking in caves or tall grass are restricted to certain DV spreads based on their encounter rate
Other RNG limitations (mentioned offhandedly here, not sure on the details)
Sim- There are practically no RNG limitations
Cart- Certain combinations of luck-based events are impossible. Not sure on the details beyond that.
Edit: Sevi 7 pointed out that RNG limitations exist in other generations, which can potentially also have an effect in teambuilder
HP % mod (thanks Merritt for pointing out that I forgot this)
Sim- You know the opponent's exact HP%
Cart- You can only know the opponent's HP accurate to the fraction of pixels used in the HP bar. Afaik the number of possible pixels in the HP bar is 48, though I'm not aware of any reason this couldn't vary between generations
Minimum Stats? This one's irrelevant tbh
Sim- I'll be honest, I don't know how it works on sim, but I'm guessing there's an issue here.
Cart- Any pokemon that has more stat experience than can be gained by vitamins alone must've gained stat experience in all other stats, meaning they cannot minimise those other stats perfectly
I only mention this because in theory, pokemon like Zam and Chansey would want to minimise their Attack stat to minimise confusion damage. In practice, I don't think anyone does this, since the benefit is so minimal that it's not worth bothering with
My comments
I believe sleep clause should be modified to be cart-accurate, however any solution must be valid for all gens. My preferred solution is that when the clause is active, players are prevented from selecting moves whose primary effect is to induce Sleep, unless they have no other option. This notably does not affect sleep induced via moves like Relic Song or Effect Spore since they're outside player control and/or inducing sleep is not their primary effect. The biggest drawback is that it prevents certain plays that are currently considered valid (e.g. using sleep moves to preempt and opponent waking)
An alternative to sleep clause that is cart-accurate would be to warn players that they risk activating sleep clause, and DQ them if they do it anyway. I assume that appropriate exceptions would exist for the aforementioned edge cases. I don't like this option because I think it's a bullshit way to decide the outcome of a match, and it's also very inconsistent with how we play our games at present (Mid-game DQs don't exist)
I believe freeze clause should be abolished as it's so rarely activated as to be unnecessary, while even if you tried to abuse it, that's a strategy that is unreliable and carries significant drawbacks. I'm honestly unsure what there is to add from the last time the topic was raised though, so I think I'll leave it at that.
Wrap is obviously something I think should be implemented, but I can see that it might take a bit of work, requiring mods to both client and server, especially since I imagine you'd need new code to handle this kind of request, as opposed to simply processing it as a regular move or whatever.
I think desyncs aren't something that are worth implementing exactly, but we should have rules in place to make things cart-replicable. I think the simplest solution is to ban Counter, Mirror Move and Psywave, and implement some sort of rule preventing players from deliberately thawing frozen pokemon. This latter rule does run into some interesting edge cases though. It could obviously be used as a chain switching tool, however other edge cases do exist- an example would be that anything with only Fire/Normal coverage would be hard countered by a frozen ghost if the ghost were slower, which is a bit ridiculous, and even more so if the Fire user has no other pokemon that can enter play. That example is definitely obscure, and is extremely unlikely to ever occur though, especially since FSpin would also circumvent the issue.
The DV restrictions and other RNG limitations I believe should be implemented. Idk what else to say.
Edit: I forgot HP% mod. I support it's removal, though it would DEFINITELY take some getting used to
Sleep Clause (affects all gens except for gen 5 ou)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already asleep (not including Rest), any attempt to put another pokemon to sleep will always fail
Cart- There are no restrictions on putting multiple pokemon to sleep
Freeze Clause (also affects gen 2)
Sim- If one of the opponent's team is already frozen, no other pokemon on the opponent's team can be frozen
Cart- There are no restrictions on freezing multiple pokemon
Wrap
Sim- The player using Wrap is informed when Wrap ends, as they are able to select a new move. The person being Wrapped is not informed when it ends, as they are able to select any move they like regardless, so there is no change
Cart- Players must select Fight before selecting a move. If Wrap is still in effect, this will lock them in to attempting to attack that turn, without giving them the opportunity to select a move. If Wrap has finished, they will get the move selection menu, at which point they can exit out of that and choose to switch to another pokemon if they prefer
Desyncs
Sim- all desyncs are ignored. Counter will always trigger based on the last move used. I honestly don't recall how Mirror Move + Wrap works on sim.
Cart-
- Psywave has a small chance of causing a desync
- If you thaw a pokemon before it takes an action (e.g. if it's slower), a desync may be triggered. Worth noting that I don't think FSpin triggers this, as the pokemon being thawed wouldn't get to take an action
- If you copy a partial trapping move with Mirror Move, and then the opponent getting trapped switches to something that dies as a result of the move, a desync will trigger, as Mirror Move will fail on one game, and successfully KO on the other
- If the opponent uses Counter and the last move you had highlighted was different to the last move used, a desync will occur if one can be Countered and the other cannot. This can occur if you fully paralyse, or if you enter the move selection menu, then change your mind and switch instead
Max DV Restrictions (Link)
Sim- All pokemon can obtain a 15/15/15/15 DV spread
Cart- Pokemon that can only be obtained by walking in caves or tall grass are restricted to certain DV spreads based on their encounter rate
Other RNG limitations (mentioned offhandedly here, not sure on the details)
Sim- There are practically no RNG limitations
Cart- Certain combinations of luck-based events are impossible. Not sure on the details beyond that.
Edit: Sevi 7 pointed out that RNG limitations exist in other generations, which can potentially also have an effect in teambuilder
HP % mod (thanks Merritt for pointing out that I forgot this)
Sim- You know the opponent's exact HP%
Cart- You can only know the opponent's HP accurate to the fraction of pixels used in the HP bar. Afaik the number of possible pixels in the HP bar is 48, though I'm not aware of any reason this couldn't vary between generations
Minimum Stats? This one's irrelevant tbh
Sim- I'll be honest, I don't know how it works on sim, but I'm guessing there's an issue here.
Cart- Any pokemon that has more stat experience than can be gained by vitamins alone must've gained stat experience in all other stats, meaning they cannot minimise those other stats perfectly
I only mention this because in theory, pokemon like Zam and Chansey would want to minimise their Attack stat to minimise confusion damage. In practice, I don't think anyone does this, since the benefit is so minimal that it's not worth bothering with
My comments
I believe sleep clause should be modified to be cart-accurate, however any solution must be valid for all gens. My preferred solution is that when the clause is active, players are prevented from selecting moves whose primary effect is to induce Sleep, unless they have no other option. This notably does not affect sleep induced via moves like Relic Song or Effect Spore since they're outside player control and/or inducing sleep is not their primary effect. The biggest drawback is that it prevents certain plays that are currently considered valid (e.g. using sleep moves to preempt and opponent waking)
An alternative to sleep clause that is cart-accurate would be to warn players that they risk activating sleep clause, and DQ them if they do it anyway. I assume that appropriate exceptions would exist for the aforementioned edge cases. I don't like this option because I think it's a bullshit way to decide the outcome of a match, and it's also very inconsistent with how we play our games at present (Mid-game DQs don't exist)
I believe freeze clause should be abolished as it's so rarely activated as to be unnecessary, while even if you tried to abuse it, that's a strategy that is unreliable and carries significant drawbacks. I'm honestly unsure what there is to add from the last time the topic was raised though, so I think I'll leave it at that.
Wrap is obviously something I think should be implemented, but I can see that it might take a bit of work, requiring mods to both client and server, especially since I imagine you'd need new code to handle this kind of request, as opposed to simply processing it as a regular move or whatever.
I think desyncs aren't something that are worth implementing exactly, but we should have rules in place to make things cart-replicable. I think the simplest solution is to ban Counter, Mirror Move and Psywave, and implement some sort of rule preventing players from deliberately thawing frozen pokemon. This latter rule does run into some interesting edge cases though. It could obviously be used as a chain switching tool, however other edge cases do exist- an example would be that anything with only Fire/Normal coverage would be hard countered by a frozen ghost if the ghost were slower, which is a bit ridiculous, and even more so if the Fire user has no other pokemon that can enter play. That example is definitely obscure, and is extremely unlikely to ever occur though, especially since FSpin would also circumvent the issue.
The DV restrictions and other RNG limitations I believe should be implemented. Idk what else to say.
Edit: I forgot HP% mod. I support it's removal, though it would DEFINITELY take some getting used to
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