CAP Revision On Persistent, Fidgit's Ability

[snake]

approved by Birkal

Hi everyone, I wanted to speak on the transparency Fidgit and its ability Persistent. I'd like to propose two changes for Fidgit.

1. Making Persistent's ability description better.

This is Persistent's ability description:

I assume that the first proposal will be acceptable. "Certain field effects" is incredibly vague. "Does that include rain? Screens? Terrains? These do not, but to the common new player, it isn't immediately apparent. I've seen the question asked in the PS! chat, and I even remember myself asking this question before. I propose "certain field effects" to be subbed out for "Trick Room, Tailwind, and Gravity." This is because these are the most viable options that Persistent actually boosts - Wonder Room and Magic Room are not viable, and including them makes the ability description pretty long. Overall, I think this change is positive, and I would hope that there aren't any huge objections over the change itself.

2. Giving Persistent an activation message.

I do believe that Persistent would be better off with an ability activation message. Simply put, for a new player who has no idea what Persistent does (especially now with the vague ability description), they could play around Trick Room's onslaught for 5 turns, only to realize that after they sacced a mon on the fifth turn and brought in a healthy mon that would outspeed the Trick Room abuser on the free switch-in, that Trick Room is lasting 2 more turns and they've just instantly lost the match.

What kind of impression does that put onto the metagame? "LOL you just got played by a custom ability!!" certainly should NOT be the message they should be receiving from us. An activation message is the best solution, as, after a brief conversation with Zarel, there cannot be the "(5 or 8 turns remaining)" in the top left corner of the screen like there is for rain because that would be a site-wide change.

Here are a couple of reasons why I think having Persistent have an ability activation message would be a positive change, or at least a non-negative change:

1: More transparency for new players, as any player will see Persistent actually activating
2: The counterplay to Fidgit does not change. The only kind of surprise you could pull off is Vital Spirit Tailwind/Trick Room/Gravity and bamboozle your opponent when it doesn't go to sleep. The problem is sleep isn't that common with Tapu Koko setting up Electric Terrain all over the place and most Sleep users who do show up having a good match up against Fidgit (Venusaur, Amoonguss, etc.) Additionally, Frisk has an activation message so it's not like there's a surprise there. Basically, if you don't see an activation message from Fidgit at the moment, it's basically going to be Persistent, so the only people who are going to get tricked by it are new players trying to learn how to play the metagame.

Thoughts? If I'm thinking about ability activation messages correctly, then when Fidgit uses Trick Room, something like "Fidgit's Persistent extended [field effect] by 2 turns!" would appear in the battle chat. If we can agree for these changes to happen, I believe nailing down the language of the activation message and the ability description would be the next step. Again, the purpose of this thread is to discuss the viability of my proposal, so criticism is welcome.

 

[DHR-107]

I don't play very much, but making Persistent have an activation message is probably the safest way of doing this. A lot of other abilities have activation messages (even when they don't activate).

To stay in line with other Pokemon though, the message would have to come when Fidgit hits the field, like Intimidate/Cloud Nine/Mold Breaker etc. Having it as a reactive message would only match Aegislash and Kings Shield (afaik). Other "passive" abilities like Galvanize/Sheer Force/Type Boost abilities (Like Torrent/Swarm) never have an activation message. This would mean the message would be "Fidgit's Persistent pushed the limits" or something to that effect. I don't have access to my game or anything so I can't see the messages for Cloud Nine, but Mold Breaker especially is more expressive than informing.

Otherwise I agree with both points and it's definitely something that should be looked at.

 

[jas61292]

While it is unfortunate that we cannot have a extended trick room timer and the like, it is perfectly understandable why this is. So with that being the case, an activation message is absolutely the best way to do this, in my opinion. The question would be as to the details of the activation message. As DHR mentioned, things that power your own stuff typically just give messages when you switch in. There are reactionary messages on some abilities, but those are mostly just when they effect moves that are used against you, not your own moves. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are reactive to your own moves would be Stance Change, as DHR noted, and Protean.

While the idea of it showing the activation message when you use the move sounds neat, I probably would say that just showing it when you switch in would be better. After all, unlike those other abilities that show activation when you use the relevant moves, Persistent has no obvious effects until turns later. It is not directly impacting anything at the time of the moves use, so it seems to make more sense to just show it at the same time as most other abilities.

 

[Mx]

While it is unfortunate that we cannot have a extended trick room timer and the like i, it is perfectly understandable why this is. So with that being the case, an activation message is absolutely the best way to do this, in my opinion. The question would be as to the details of the activation message. As DHR mentioned, things that power your own stuff typically just give messages when you switch in. There are reactionary messages on some abilities, but those are mostly just when they effect moves that are used against you, not your own moves. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are reactive to your own moves would be Stance Change, as DHR noted, and Protean.

While the idea of it showing the activation message when you use the move sounds neat, I probably would say that just showing it when you switch in would be better. After all, unlike those other abilities that show activation when you use the relevant moves, Persistent has no obvious effects until turns later. It is not directly impacting anything at the time of the moves use, so it seems to make more sense to just show it at the same time as most other abilities.

I agree that displaying the message when Fidgit switches in would have better consistency with pre-existing abilities. However I think that this approach misses the point of this discussion. This is an accessibly issue, and the solution should be dictated by what would be most easily comprehensible display for most people. Of course, the ideal solution would be to add the extra turns on the top left corner but, as this seems to be not an option, we need to find a way around this limitation, and I think that having the message appear each time Fidgit uses a move affected by Persistent would be much more easy to understand for everybody. Making this clear is especially important because right now, the PS interface basically lies to you regarding how many TR/Tailwind turns are left, so someone unfamiliar with this mechanic would be at an unfair disadvantage. Some might argue that people just need to get used to this, but I think this is a terrible practice, and makes the CAP meta harder to get into for no good reason. Everyone should be able to understand how Persistent works, and I think that a message while using the appropriate move would be the best way to achieve this, even if it's not ideal when looking at the precedent.

 

[snake]

I agree that displaying the message when Fidgit switches in would have better consistency with pre-existing abilities. However I think that this approach misses the point of this discussion. This is an accessibly issue, and the solution should be dictated by what would be most easily comprehensible display for most people. Of course, the ideal solution would be to add the extra turns on the top left corner but, as this seems to be not an option, we need to find a way around this limitation, and I think that having the message appear each time Fidgit uses a move affected by Persistent would be much more easy to understand for everybody. Making this clear is especially important because right now, the PS interface basically lies to you regarding how many TR/Tailwind turns are left, so someone unfamiliar with this mechanic would be at an unfair disadvantage. Some might argue that people just need to get used to this, but I think this is a terrible practice, and makes the CAP meta harder to get into for no good reason. Everyone should be able to understand how Persistent works, and I think that a message while using the appropriate move would be the best way to achieve this, even if it's not ideal when looking at the precedent.

Personally, I have to agree with mxmts here. Yes, an entry message alert new players to think (if they know the dt / data command), "Hmmm, what IS this ability Persistent?" but making Persistent show a message when the move is used is the clearest way to go about it, even if it's less consistent with the games. Even if we went with the way that expects new players to use the dt command, we still have this problem with ability description (Point 1 in the OP), which causes more confusion.

 

[Quanyails]

With approval from Birkal, we'll be closing this thread!

A few of us discussed with Marty on Discord on how this should be implemented. Because of technical limitations, the message would have to be triggered before the move itself. This means the tense used by the message would be present tense, not past tense. In other words, the wording used will be "Fidgit extends <move name> by 2 turns!" Here's what it will look like, courtesy of Marty.

In addition, again with thanks to Marty, the description for Persistent will be clarified. This commit diff shows the change that will be implemented.