Hello,
This post follows the RBY Counter community vote and the discussion about various unfixed issues, mainly Psywave, Imperfect DVS, and Thawing Desync Glitches. The RBY council discussed them and made the following decisions:
Psywave
By voting to patch Counter whenever it causes a desync, the RBY community showed that it preferred patching desyncs over banning them. Right now, Psywave is banned because it has a chance of causing a desync depending on the level of the user. At level 100, the desync chance is 0,662% (1 out of 151). In order to be consistent with how the RBY community handled Counter, Psywave will be patched and unbanned from RBY, which means that from now, Psywave when used by a level 100 Pokemon will have a 0,662% chance of failing. Since this is level dependent and can affect RBY Random battles, the %fail will be implemented for every level, which you can find in this file. The formula is 1/(floor(level*1.5)+1).
Imperfect DVS
It has been discovered a while ago that perfect DVS are not obtainable on Pokemon caught in random encounters.
The only confirmed way to have perfect DVs for every RBY Pokemon would be to transfer them from GSC, which means that we would technically allow to use GSC DVs, but not GSC Tradebacks. We decided to go with that option mainly because it sounds very inconvenient to make players choose a DV spread in their RBY teambuilder. The chances that it ends up being a driveaway for new players seemed too high for the gain of a very niche way to respect cardridge mechanics. It is basically a case of cardridge accuracy vs simulator convenience, and we went for the latter because RBY as we play it on a simulator is more built towards convenience.
The fact that you can’t have perfect DVs on certain Pokemon on RBY will be patched (or ignored, as nothing needs implementation), making this discovery acted on.
Desync glitches triggered by thawing
This desync was discovered by Crystal_. If you are interested in the full details of this glitch, please watch this video and read its description.
As this desync is avoidable in a majority of cases if two players played a game on cardridge while being aware of how it works, we have also decided to patch it, the alternative being banning Fire moves which does not seem like a good option for such an obscure situation. The desync glitches triggered by thawing are currently unimplemented due to incorrect implementation of thaws in RBY. Currently when a Pokemon thaws it will use the move selected by its trainer on that turn. When thawing move selection is implemented correctly (which we will look into after all of this is settled), the desync will be patched, causing the thawing Pokemon to not make any move.
Tagging Marty and Zarel to implement the Psywave change. Also, it seems like the Counter Patch the RBY community voted for has not been implemented yet, can you implement it as well please ?
This post follows the RBY Counter community vote and the discussion about various unfixed issues, mainly Psywave, Imperfect DVS, and Thawing Desync Glitches. The RBY council discussed them and made the following decisions:
Psywave
By voting to patch Counter whenever it causes a desync, the RBY community showed that it preferred patching desyncs over banning them. Right now, Psywave is banned because it has a chance of causing a desync depending on the level of the user. At level 100, the desync chance is 0,662% (1 out of 151). In order to be consistent with how the RBY community handled Counter, Psywave will be patched and unbanned from RBY, which means that from now, Psywave when used by a level 100 Pokemon will have a 0,662% chance of failing. Since this is level dependent and can affect RBY Random battles, the %fail will be implemented for every level, which you can find in this file. The formula is 1/(floor(level*1.5)+1).
Imperfect DVS
It has been discovered a while ago that perfect DVS are not obtainable on Pokemon caught in random encounters.
This is how DVs are determined in RBY :
4 RNG numbers are generated in order: RNG for the encounter, an unused RNG number that gets discarded, RNG for a 0-255 number that gets broken up into Speed and Special DVs, and RNG for a 0-255 number that gets broken up into Attack and Defense DVs. New numbers are generated based on the previous number. And since the number generated for the encounter only allows values below the encounter rate value, there's a limited pool of successful encounter numbers, which means the RNG for DVs is stuck with a shallow pool to base their own random generation off of. This causes the issue with limited DVs, and unfortunately for RBY, it cannot generate 255 values (which would give us the ideal 15/15/15/15 DVs). The only Pokemon who can generate full 15 are Pokemon that don't use encounter values. Starters, in-game trades, fishing and overworld Pokemon are all able to generate 15/15/15/15.
For Tauros, for example, the best DVs found are 14 HP/15 Atk/15 Def/14 Spe/15 Spc and 15 HP/15 Atk /15 Def/15 Spe/9 Spc, which will affect calculations:
Example of differences in these Tauroses:
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (9 Spc): 166-196 (47 - 55.5%) -- 76.2% chance to 2HKO
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (14 HP): 159-187 (45.5 - 53.5%) -- 39.3% chance to 2HKO
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (Perfect): 159-187 (45 - 52.9%) -- 27.7% chance to 2HKO
4 RNG numbers are generated in order: RNG for the encounter, an unused RNG number that gets discarded, RNG for a 0-255 number that gets broken up into Speed and Special DVs, and RNG for a 0-255 number that gets broken up into Attack and Defense DVs. New numbers are generated based on the previous number. And since the number generated for the encounter only allows values below the encounter rate value, there's a limited pool of successful encounter numbers, which means the RNG for DVs is stuck with a shallow pool to base their own random generation off of. This causes the issue with limited DVs, and unfortunately for RBY, it cannot generate 255 values (which would give us the ideal 15/15/15/15 DVs). The only Pokemon who can generate full 15 are Pokemon that don't use encounter values. Starters, in-game trades, fishing and overworld Pokemon are all able to generate 15/15/15/15.
For Tauros, for example, the best DVs found are 14 HP/15 Atk/15 Def/14 Spe/15 Spc and 15 HP/15 Atk /15 Def/15 Spe/9 Spc, which will affect calculations:
Example of differences in these Tauroses:
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (9 Spc): 166-196 (47 - 55.5%) -- 76.2% chance to 2HKO
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (14 HP): 159-187 (45.5 - 53.5%) -- 39.3% chance to 2HKO
Lapras/Jynx Blizzard vs. Tauros (Perfect): 159-187 (45 - 52.9%) -- 27.7% chance to 2HKO
The only confirmed way to have perfect DVs for every RBY Pokemon would be to transfer them from GSC, which means that we would technically allow to use GSC DVs, but not GSC Tradebacks. We decided to go with that option mainly because it sounds very inconvenient to make players choose a DV spread in their RBY teambuilder. The chances that it ends up being a driveaway for new players seemed too high for the gain of a very niche way to respect cardridge mechanics. It is basically a case of cardridge accuracy vs simulator convenience, and we went for the latter because RBY as we play it on a simulator is more built towards convenience.
The fact that you can’t have perfect DVs on certain Pokemon on RBY will be patched (or ignored, as nothing needs implementation), making this discovery acted on.
Desync glitches triggered by thawing
This desync was discovered by Crystal_. If you are interested in the full details of this glitch, please watch this video and read its description.
- Player A uses an Ice Move while Player B switches, and Player B gets frozen.
- Player A uses a Fire Move and Player B unthaws: this will lead to the cart of the player who was frozen to believe the move selected to be the last selected move as in the counter scenario, whereas the cart of the player who was not frozen will believe the move selected to be either the first move in the moveset, in the case where there was not a move selected since the last switch, OR the last move selected otherwise, causing the desync.
To avoid the desync being caused, both players simply have to make a series of switch so that the frozen pokemon, if it is slower, gets unthawed while it switches into the fire move
- Player A uses a Fire Move and Player B unthaws: this will lead to the cart of the player who was frozen to believe the move selected to be the last selected move as in the counter scenario, whereas the cart of the player who was not frozen will believe the move selected to be either the first move in the moveset, in the case where there was not a move selected since the last switch, OR the last move selected otherwise, causing the desync.
To avoid the desync being caused, both players simply have to make a series of switch so that the frozen pokemon, if it is slower, gets unthawed while it switches into the fire move
As this desync is avoidable in a majority of cases if two players played a game on cardridge while being aware of how it works, we have also decided to patch it, the alternative being banning Fire moves which does not seem like a good option for such an obscure situation. The desync glitches triggered by thawing are currently unimplemented due to incorrect implementation of thaws in RBY. Currently when a Pokemon thaws it will use the move selected by its trainer on that turn. When thawing move selection is implemented correctly (which we will look into after all of this is settled), the desync will be patched, causing the thawing Pokemon to not make any move.
Tagging Marty and Zarel to implement the Psywave change. Also, it seems like the Counter Patch the RBY community voted for has not been implemented yet, can you implement it as well please ?
