Resource BBP Bug and Feedback Thread - Generation 9 Edition!

This also seems like a good time to revisit the idea of an on-time bonus for referees. If there's a JC shop then even +1 for timeliness could become desirable enough to provide an incentive to ref faster
 

TheEver

It's beauty and rage!
is a Pre-Contributor
I agree with the sentiment that the JC angle is the one to further explore.

Thankfully a lot of people still have an interest in doing labour, due to some combination of kindness, duty, the enjoyment of it, or most realistically, getting their own things done faster. I think we've become a bit reliant on that, perhaps, and I think interest in doing the busy work is dwindling overall, as we're starting to see with things like the raid queue and prize claim queue frequently building up, and the non-trivial amount of johning that occurs across the playerbase when things do get taken. I don't think we can rely on the goodness of people's hearts to keep the game afloat, unfortunately.

I do think any solution which truly looks to tackle JC's place within the economy is going to have to address the massive stockpiles people have amassed though. Full bias, deleting existing JC doesn't really seem fair, as it does represent legitimate labour contribution to the game.
 
My first thought for handling JC stockpiles would be something along the lines of Lo-EXP records for a moderate amount (20?) and Mid-EXP records as extravagant purchases (100?). I don't think Hi-EXP records should be available for reasonable purchase (500???), so that mons have to actually do things to get to Lv4. Winning 2 circuits or 10-boasting a realgam are currently the only ways to get a hi-EXP record, and I believe :x attack3: should remain highly exclusive.

Having extravagant purchases available, to me, is the clear solution to massive JC stockpiles. However, I don't believe exclusive mons should be those purchases. I also don't think converting to TC or RC is particularly useful, as the people with massive JC stores are probably not desperate for hundreds of TC or RC.
 
By the way - right now, how much approvers gain by claim is only visible in the patch notes - feel like something that should be in the "So you want to be a claimer?" post in the claiming thread. Having said that,

I feel like if a JC shop were to exist it'd have to be something that:
A: Is exclusive
B: Appeals to a fantasy or goal

Putting mid and hi EXP records does not solve the JC stockpile problem - if people were to choose between 4 hi EXP records and never having to ref again, people will, by and large, pick never having to ref again. Remember that taking a mon from level 1 to 4 has a minimun of 12 JC, doing 3 2v2 Singles. If you were to do it via the 3v3's it'd be 28 JC, or 27 JC if you take the more expensive level 2 and 3 3v3 content. And this is for 3 mons, not just 1.

I don't think it makes sense to tangle the JC economy with the leveling economy; it means if the JC economy breaks, the leveling economy also breaks. It means if the leveling economy breaks, JC also breaks (due to people no longer spending JC on rewards, reducing the need for JC making people ref less). It makes the game as a whole more fragile and harder to balance around.

In the current economy if someone were to ref 10 Hop realgams, their reward is being able to play 11 Hop realgams. This + the approval JC means that we will never make a self-sustaining queue - a balance where player A is out of JC so they ref player B, where then player B is out of JC afterwards and must ref for player A is not sustainable. Eventually the profited JC means both players will reach a point neither have to ref to play their next player, causing the queue to stall and neither to actually play. If either is an approver, this heat death happens way earlier.

(Assume Hop is the only content and there's only two players, A and B. The players will always play when they have the JC to do so and will never ref unless they need the JC to play. Player A has 10 JC and player B has 0. B refs Hop for A; A now has 0 JC and B has 11. A then hosts Hop for A; now A has 11 and B has 1. This goes on until 18 games have been played total (9 for each player), where player A will have 20 JC and player B will have 10. Both get into the queue at the same time, neither want to play and the queue gets stuck.)

The solution the game has right now is making level 4 content cost more JC than it pays out, to ensure that this never happens. However:
A: The JC deficit is rather small. -6, -7, -4 and -2 are not enough to meaningfully shake up the dynamic; in the above example had player A played Nascour and Evice as their 9th and final game they'd be at 13 JC, still enough to stall the queue.
B: Level 4 content isn't as necessary to play. Having Z-Moves and Gigantamax is very nice, but it's not as necessary as having all your mons level 4. That means skipping level 4 content on mons is a viable thing to do, which is horrible for this model as it means the JC sink isn't being fed, leading to JC oversaturation and stalled queues.

I see 2 big solutions - expanding this already existing JC sink and adding new JC sinks.

My first solution is simple: Make level 3 content also have a negative JC profit, just like level 4 content. That way the lower level content, the monthly events and the approvals act as a way to put JC into the economy and the higher level content removes the JC. By adding it to level 3 content it means that it's not easy to skip the JC sink, like how right now you can choose to not play the level 4 content and still have a reasonable competitive team.

My second solution is adding new ways to spend JC at massive prices - the idea is that, for the players interested in these rewards they'd keep reffing content and keeping the queues moving even if they don't need the JC for content because they're saving up for these rewards. And when they do get the reward they'd be back to low JC, making them ref for JC to play, preventing them from stalling at the top. It also solves the problem of stockpilled JC - if we add several 100, 200 and/or 300 JC cost rewards all at once the people with hundreds of JC can spend them on these rewards and go back to normal levels.

Notably, these rewards cannot be something obtainable other ways, specially if that other way involves spending JC - if the rewards were the EXP records, for example, why would they spend a ton of JC to get a few EXP records when they can spend that JC playing instead and get the EXP that way? (Yes, I am aware of it being more convenient, but the theoretical basis here relies that "playing the game" be treated as an inherently pleasurable and desirable thing to do - unpacking that besides that would be much, MUCH bigger of a talk and go on a ton of other stuff not really related to JC economy and the queues. For other reasons why this doesn't work, see the top of this post.)

If we go back to the example of Player A and Player B and Hop, imagine we add a shop that sells a desirable thing at 300 JC, and player A decides to save up the excess JC to buy the desirable thing, it means the queue would only stall after Player A saves up 300 JC rather than at 10, because they would still be reffing Player B's queue even if they're both above 10 JC (where they wouldn't need to ref in order to play) due to Player A grinding for the 300 JC item.

WHAT I'D SELL (Skippable section)

For 1 and 2, they're more so cosmetic/social purchases, purchases that are cool but don't inpact gameplay. They are the more expensive of these shop suggestions - 300, 500, etc.

1: A hall of fame. Make a hall of fame for top contributors, and make it cost ~300 / 500 JC. You buy it and you get put on it, alongside how many times you've bought it. Getting social recognition and status is something human beings adore, so I don't need to dwell much on why this would be desirable for people with tons of JC. I can even see non-approvers grinding JC to get here as a way of cementing their legacy on BBP.

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2: Spiky-Eared Pichu. Heartgold & Soulsilver let you obtain this special Pichu that can't evolve and has a special ear; it's completely useless in battle, but it's a very neat collector's piece. It's a perfect candidate for what we want: Something inherently desirable but that doesn't affect the balance of the rest of the systems. I can see people with hoards of JC cashing some out for this for the novelty or for restricted pokémon collectors to grind JC to get this guy to their collection.

For 3 and 4, I'm pitching gameplay affecting game pieces. Stuff you can confortably or semi-confortably bring to a competitive match. These would be towards the cheaper end of things - 25 JC, 50 JC, etc. That way even competitive players would sometimes want to grind JC rather than always remain at that "enough to play" treshold, and it means if the queue stalled but they have enough JC to go by they have an incentive to move the queue along - not only does their game come by faster, but they also get spare JC to save for these items and rewards!

3: Restricted pokemon. This can be any singular or group of pokémon that aren't yet available - Shaymin, the Legendary Beasts, the Swords of Justice, it doesn't matter much which ones. I'm really not in the spot to talk about which ones would be of the desired power level so I'm not gonna speculate further; these would be towards the higher end of the JC cost. Essentially making it like the boasting hall or league circuit, where a few otherwise unobtainable pokémon can be obtained if you show extra effort for it. I particularly like the idea of putting Shaymin here due to it being the gratitude pokémon, but that's beside the point.

3.5: Non-adoptable Signature Held Item. You can put in Shaymin's Gracidea here I have realized that Shaymin-Sky is a fucking monster and might break the game in half. I am keeping this here for posteriority but this thing is crazy. If something here would have the 100 JC tag it would be this.

4: A few generic items you can only obtain here. Collecting items is cool, and having more ways of getting them than just the shop is cool. These would be the cheapest, at like 20 JC a pop so players can splurge on them if they feel like it rather than actively grind for like the other ones. They'd be balanced just like the other regular items like Life Orb, Utility Umbrella, etc, only with a different way of obtaining them. There's quite a few event-exclusive items that could fit: the Mythical Pecha Berry, the Enigma Stone, the Discount Coupon, etc.
 
What is TC used for: obtaining pokemon / leveling pokemon to 1
What is RC used for: obtaining items / ???
What is JC used for: cost of participation (League Circuit / Battle Tower / Facilities)

What if: To level a pokemon to 1 you pay X amount of JC
Why: In my experience:
I have 3+ TC
I pay 3 TC for a level 0 pokemon
I canvas for a Bx+1Px level 3+ battle (commonly b2p1)
I put level 0 pokemon in that battle's +1 slot
I claim that battle when it completes, and the pokemon grows to level 1
To do this costs 3 TC, 2 JC, and time. In return I gain 3 TC, 4 RC, and a level 1 pokemon.
Alternatively, I can spend 1 TC and no time, and have the level 1 pokemon immediately.
What if, to cut the cost of time, I had to pay JC instead of TC? That is, to level pokemon from 0 to 1 the player has to pay an amount of JC instead of what has been just paying more TC.

This is more of a JC sink option rather than solution
this has also been sitting in draft for a few days so I'm posting it rather than let it collect more dust
 
Suddenly, non-JC related talk!
I think Loyal Three anti-spread-move mechanic is currently bugged with Sovereign Malevolence and effectively makes your tank immortal. Probably needs changing?
 

LouisCyphre

heralds disaster.
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Progression skips (Records) at any reasonably-attainable price aren't likely—doing so would essentially be removing that Level of play from the game.

As for unreasonable prices, the only way a JC store could really result in things getting reffed is by user error. Most reasonable approvers or serial-referees would use the JC shop to offload only "unneeded" JC. The idea that a user might deplete their stockpile fully, which is the only amount of depletion that could really compel anyone to ref more than they already do, isn't realistic.

In this way, Fort's right that only the last JC matters. A JC store wouldn't likely change that. Also, for new players, items costing hundreds of JC would instead be an incentive to unhealthily grind reffings and burn out, which isn't desired.

Having more content be JC-negative, and then "injecting" monthly amounts of JC into the game via events or other time-gated content, seems to only eventually result in players sitting around bored and JC-starved while they wait for the next "wave". I'd rather we not end up there.

Remember to think of the problem of reffing as something that can be attacked from both ends. I've certainly noticed that the Realgam Tower queue hasn't jammed in the same way. This is cause to examine what can be done to make reffing easier, too, so that people might be more inclined to ref a raid on the side. Each raid taken "casually" is one more raid off of the plate of our resident turbo-refs.

Unique reffing rewards are interesting for facilities that offer "spendable" meta-progression, such as Poke Balls. But that's not something that can really be retrofitted into every facility. I'm reminded of earlier versions of Boasts where they had a JC buy-in, which we scrapped because it incentivized over-burdening yourself with reffings.

With Tree, Pike, and two unknown facilities waiting in the wings, we'd like to have a plan of attack solidified for meeting them—and their associated queues. So please, keep the reffing (and necessarily JC) discussion coming, if there's more to say.
 
Re making reffing easier I think events are where I would like to draw attention. They tend to be incredibly involved and incredibly long. Harvest King and Northern King are as long as 2 raids stapled together and have more creatures in play. Little league involves as many pokemon and expected turns as 4 standard battle towers. Lance and Z-lilly are just doubles, which isn't that bad, but its pretty clear that doubles in realgams and battle tower get taken vastly slower than singles.

In most cases I think events could just be shorter. I don't really have anything to say about the particular reff annoyances of a specific little league fight or northern king raid, but the idea of reffing what is close to a pick 12 battle tower is certainly offputting.

On the JC side of things i think events also deserve a look. In terms of battles instead of approving they are by far the biggest outlier in jc creation. Someone reffing guzzlord creates 1 jc of value. Someone reffing Northern King creates 18. I get that events are meant to be a bit more casual and feel good, but paying 0 jc to enter them is really distorting things.
I think these are already being watched but the other things I would highlight for their jc creation rate is approving and flashes.

Hmm, if we can't find an appropriate sink, maybe it is ok to say eve and novax never have to ref anything again if they don't want to, but in general people will have to ref if they want to play.

theever 1095
Novax 456
GT 197
Hyjack 186
Lou 110
city 105
me 58
epic 54
dylando 48
keriel 36
ayush 35
Mow 35
maxim 31
p2x7 30
fort colorcastle 24
prismat 18
duo 13
the faz 10
Looking at this it... might be possible to adjust jc just by stopping how much it is inflating? I would say anyone below 100 needs jc within a few months if they intend to use all 3 facilities. Eve and Novax are lost causes but even the 200's would take a serious dent within 6 months if they don't ref anything.

This being said I still wouldn't mind 20jc for a low xp record. That seems to be in a place where it is not efficient enough to invalidate level 1 facilities, it is still vastly more efficient to do those, but it does clean up jc and makes people feel better than taking more things than they "need" for their jc balance. For example I have been slowly inflating my jc by reffing more things than I play, and the current state where all my jc uses are time gated is a pretty big incentive to stop doing that.
I would also like to note how much work Hyjack put into the raid queue to make it function even as slowly as it does, and if he keeps doing that much reffing there is no shot he will ever be able to spend the jc he generates just using 3 facility queues, which makes it very unlikely that he does long term.


Re turning jc into progression could invalidate level 1 from the game. How bad actually is this. 20 jc a pop means that new players are very much still going to be playing level 1 games since facilities are vastly more jc efficient. Is there any old player who prefers playing level 1 games to level 2 games? I don't think that 20 jc for a lo-xp token does remove level 1 content from the game for people not named eve or novax, but even if it did I am struggling to see who is losing out from this. This seems like a natural extension of 1tc to level from 0 to 1 to me, where at some point in your bbp career we say that levels 0 and 1 have fulfilled their puposes and it is fine to play them less, or potentialy even not at all.
 
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it looks to me like safari moves have a couple unintuitive interactions:
"attacks that share an original type with the user, or Normal-type attacks" checks original type for the first part but current type for the second, I believe
this means, as I understand it:
- you can't order weather ball if weather is currently active, even if you're the right type, but if weather gets set during the round you can get a sunny weather ball etc.
- even normal types can't order weather ball if sun is active when ordering
- against a delcatty, safari mons can order any attack from turn 1.

is this intended?
 

LouisCyphre

heralds disaster.
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
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...i'm not sure why you're inserting "current" when the sentence you quoted says "shares original type"

against delcatty, who even cares if they're using return/frustation or earthquake. and even if they use, say, bulldoze, delcatty is already terribly slow. it's all normal anyway.
 

TheEver

It's beauty and rage!
is a Pre-Contributor
I think Rest > Sleep Talk > a later second Rest may be too good.

For 3 actions and net 15 EN cost, you get a total 70 HP recovered, status cleansing, and immunity to status for six steps. While 24+ DPS to out trade this, or Taunt/Uproar/whatever else to stop it from starting, aren’t uncommon, this seems a bit too good for a gameplan that slows match progress to a crawl and that every mon has access to.

Helios has identified the power of these moves and spams them regardless of his or his opponents mons’ archetypes to general success. I think what’s stopping more people from doing so is that, frankly, it’s quite boring for all parties involved.
 
DAT - Moves:
False Swipe and Hold Back undermine their own ability to help catch Pokemon in the Safari Zone. Although these Moves cannot reduce a target's EP to a value lower than its current Fatigue, no type of Poke Ball thrown at that point will guarantee a capture, and most will instead trigger an Escape Attempt check.
 
Sticky barb is in an odd spot right now where it is very powerful and also a few of the abilities that look like they should counter play it don't.
Notably frisk does not beat barb (because barb applies after the attack) and sticky hold does not beat barb (because the item is discarded by game clean up not directly by barb.)
 
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With how safari works right now according to 9.8a, you can't catch a mon you already own, because you can't order a capture order on it. Intuitively that sounds like an artifact from some previous variant of the facility, or else someone who owns all the mons in a trek mechanically cannot proceed in it.
 

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