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Post by SG on Apr 26, 2020 3:04:33 GMT
New More Flexible Battle System
After some testing of our previous update to the battle system, we found it to be a lot better than the first draft, but ultimately still frustrating to both players and mods. As such, staff have discussed and come up with a new, very different battle system that relies more on willingness to put in effort and a little luck than on competitive skill, making Gyms and similar battles in a way easier while not removing their challenging aspects.
This system should be used from here on out for Gyms, battling NPCs in Contests, and similar battles. While players are allowed to use this system for random trainers encountered in Journeys, if they would like more of a challenge, they are not at all required or even encouraged to do so.
We will be discussing and releasing updated PvP rules at a later date.
How It Works
The new system is a hybrid of freeform writing, dice rolling, and mod prompting, making it not entirely dissimilar from Jobs and Quests, for instance.
Upon challenging a Gym Leader or other NPC, the player will send out 1-3 Pokemon depending on the style of battle chosen, then [ proll ] 1 die (regardless of how many Pokemon you are using). Mod call, and a Mod will send out the same number of Pokemon with 1 die rolled for each of them.
Depending on how well you roll compared to the Mod's roll, the battle will be placed in one of several categories of difficulty: Very Easy, Easy, Average, Hard, Very Hard, or Mission Impossible. If in a double or triple battle, your single roll will be compared to each roll of the mod's, and each of their Pokemon may be in a different category. (Ex: In a double battle, you might get 1 Easy + 1 Hard.)
You will then write a freeform, player-vs-self battle controlling both your own Pokemon and the NPC's. The difficulty category determines the word count required for this battle, based on a chart you will find in the next section. Type advantage and disadvantage will further modify your required word count accordingly.
For doubles and triples, total word count matters more than individual 'mon WC, but individual difficulty should still be used as a guideline for how much easier or harder one Pokemon should be than another. For instance, assuming type neutrality and the earlier example of 1 Easy 'mon (250 words) and 1 Hard 'mon (650 words), defeating both would require 900 words total, and does not need to be split exactly 250/650 as long as that total is reached. However, the Hard 'mon should still take more focus and time than the Easy 'mon overall.
If your Pokemon faints/loses (you may recall a Pokemon before it fully faints, but doing so retires it for the rest of that battle), you will send out a new one and roll again, comparing your new roll to the mod's original roll(s) to get the new category. HOWEVER, the word count you put in to the Pokemon that fainted is also counted toward the new goal.
Let us say, for instance, that you are in a 1v1 battle, and your initial roll is Very Hard, with neutral typing. You don't feel like writing 900 words for this battle, so your Pokemon loses after, let's say, 250 words. Next, you roll an Average, requiring a shorter 400 words! However, since you already wrote 250, you only need another 150 to reach the total 400 goal. This represents damage the previous Pokemon has already dealt to the defending Pokemon. Do be careful, however, as it is certainly possible to roll as bad as or worse than your first attempt! No matter what, though, that particular battle will always be made easier the more effort you put in with the first Pokemon who lost.
Whether you have any Pokemon fainted or not, once you defeat any one of the NPC's Pokemon, you will Mod Call to have their next Pokemon sent out and its roll given to determine its difficulty. The Mod will also likely give you a prompt of some sort at this time, similar to Job and Quest threads. This might be something like Mega Evolving, using a Z-Move, breaking out a tricky combination you will have to incorporate into your battle, etc. Mods may also take this time to RP the NPC commenting a little on the battle to keep some of the personality alive from the old system. That said, players are free to control the site NPCs to a small extent as well, as long as they do their best to stick to the personalities in their bios.
Mods reserve the right to give prompts which raise your total required word count or insta-faint 1 Pokemon if we feel you have abused the freeform system up to that point and written the battle unfairly, in order to even the playing field back out. However, this will only be done as a warning (for minor WC increases) or punishment (for larger ones or a KO) for misusing the system, so as long as you are being reasonable, it shouldn't ever come to that!
Above, we discussed how WC is retained after a loss on your side to represent sustained damage by the opponent. Likewise, we have a system to represent sustained damage on your side. If a single Pokemon is in battle for more than 2 posts (that is, starting on post 3), the battle becomes more difficult and you start gaining +300 words total required per post until the Pokemon is recalled. If that Pokemon goes over 3 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Hurt. (The Mod will roll on their next post.) If it goes over 4 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Bruised (1-10 roll) and a 15% chance of it becoming Hurt (11-25 roll). If it goes over 5 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Bloody, a 15% chance of it becoming Bruised, and a 25% chance of it becoming Hurt. (Total 50% chance of injury.) In the unlikely event a battle ever lasts more than 6 posts, chances remain static after that. If your Pokemon becomes Bruised or Bloodied, it must be recalled immediately. If it becomes Hurt, chances of becoming Bruised increase (taking the place of the Hurt chance on later rolls), making it not strictly necessary but very advisable to recall a Hurt Pokemon.
Repeat the above steps as necessary until all Pokemon on either side have fainted or been recalled, then Mod Call for thread rewards!
Note: Due to the nature of this new system, it does mean that all gyms from here on will have NO SWITCHING ALLOWED. Once a Pokemon is sent out, it either wins or faints. No recalling until then! The moves U-Turn and Volt Switch can be used to do damage, but will not work to switch out, and moves like Roar and Whirlwind can be used for flavor and in interesting ways that only work in freeform/would never work in a stat-based system, but cannot be used to force switching.
If you have any questions about how this system works, please let any mod know!
Type Advantage, Difficulty Levels, and Word Count
As mentioned above, type advantage or disadvantage will affect the total Word Count requirement. We know this can get tricky, so here are some notes:
- Only one buff or nerf will be applied per Pokemon.
- If a Pokemon is weak to one type and double-weak to another type, you get the double advantage or disadvantage; it doesn't stack, you only get the best option.
- If you and your opponent both have a (dis)advantage, you cancel each other out. If you have both an advantage and disadvantage (ex: Hawlucha vs a Rock-type), you cancel yourself out. If a 4x advantage is paired with a 2x disadvantage, your net total is regular advantage rather than double advantage due to the regular disadvantage canceling half the double out. Vice versa for 4x disadvantage and 2x advantage, etc.
- Immunities are only counted when they are immune to the only type the other side has in play. (Ex: Your pure Electric type vs any Ground type on the opponent's side, or the opponent's pure Ground-type vs any Flying type on your side.) In these cases, it counts for double advantage or disadvantage. If there is more than one type involved (ex: an Alolan Raichu vs a Dugtrio, where of course the Raichu will focus on using its Psychic moves over Electric, etc), immunities are not factored in.
- You must actually use moves of the appropriate type at least some in order to take advantage of the buff. For instance, if you are facing an Aggron with a Fighting-type, but never use a Fighting-type move, you cannot take the double advantage buff. This does not mean EVERY move needs to be Fighting-type, and in fact a little diversity for more interesting flavor is encouraged. But you should be using your advantage to some extent.
- Similarly, if your opponent has moves you are weak against, assume they WILL use those moves, not necessarily every turn, but quite a bit. Do not write your opponent only using Normal-type moves against your Fire-type if they have Water or Rock moves, etc. This will be considered abusing the system.
All make sense? Good! If not, give a staff member a shout! But with that out of the way, let's move on to the difficulty to word count charts!
In the chart below, "Advantage" means the PLAYER has advantage, and "Weakness" means the Player is at a disadvantage!
Note: Nothing special happens if the mod rolls 1-5 or 96-100; there are no extra bonuses or penalties to either side in those cases.
This system should be used from here on out for Gyms, battling NPCs in Contests, and similar battles. While players are allowed to use this system for random trainers encountered in Journeys, if they would like more of a challenge, they are not at all required or even encouraged to do so.
We will be discussing and releasing updated PvP rules at a later date.
How It Works
The new system is a hybrid of freeform writing, dice rolling, and mod prompting, making it not entirely dissimilar from Jobs and Quests, for instance.
Upon challenging a Gym Leader or other NPC, the player will send out 1-3 Pokemon depending on the style of battle chosen, then [ proll ] 1 die (regardless of how many Pokemon you are using). Mod call, and a Mod will send out the same number of Pokemon with 1 die rolled for each of them.
Depending on how well you roll compared to the Mod's roll, the battle will be placed in one of several categories of difficulty: Very Easy, Easy, Average, Hard, Very Hard, or Mission Impossible. If in a double or triple battle, your single roll will be compared to each roll of the mod's, and each of their Pokemon may be in a different category. (Ex: In a double battle, you might get 1 Easy + 1 Hard.)
You will then write a freeform, player-vs-self battle controlling both your own Pokemon and the NPC's. The difficulty category determines the word count required for this battle, based on a chart you will find in the next section. Type advantage and disadvantage will further modify your required word count accordingly.
For doubles and triples, total word count matters more than individual 'mon WC, but individual difficulty should still be used as a guideline for how much easier or harder one Pokemon should be than another. For instance, assuming type neutrality and the earlier example of 1 Easy 'mon (250 words) and 1 Hard 'mon (650 words), defeating both would require 900 words total, and does not need to be split exactly 250/650 as long as that total is reached. However, the Hard 'mon should still take more focus and time than the Easy 'mon overall.
If your Pokemon faints/loses (you may recall a Pokemon before it fully faints, but doing so retires it for the rest of that battle), you will send out a new one and roll again, comparing your new roll to the mod's original roll(s) to get the new category. HOWEVER, the word count you put in to the Pokemon that fainted is also counted toward the new goal.
Let us say, for instance, that you are in a 1v1 battle, and your initial roll is Very Hard, with neutral typing. You don't feel like writing 900 words for this battle, so your Pokemon loses after, let's say, 250 words. Next, you roll an Average, requiring a shorter 400 words! However, since you already wrote 250, you only need another 150 to reach the total 400 goal. This represents damage the previous Pokemon has already dealt to the defending Pokemon. Do be careful, however, as it is certainly possible to roll as bad as or worse than your first attempt! No matter what, though, that particular battle will always be made easier the more effort you put in with the first Pokemon who lost.
Whether you have any Pokemon fainted or not, once you defeat any one of the NPC's Pokemon, you will Mod Call to have their next Pokemon sent out and its roll given to determine its difficulty. The Mod will also likely give you a prompt of some sort at this time, similar to Job and Quest threads. This might be something like Mega Evolving, using a Z-Move, breaking out a tricky combination you will have to incorporate into your battle, etc. Mods may also take this time to RP the NPC commenting a little on the battle to keep some of the personality alive from the old system. That said, players are free to control the site NPCs to a small extent as well, as long as they do their best to stick to the personalities in their bios.
Mods reserve the right to give prompts which raise your total required word count or insta-faint 1 Pokemon if we feel you have abused the freeform system up to that point and written the battle unfairly, in order to even the playing field back out. However, this will only be done as a warning (for minor WC increases) or punishment (for larger ones or a KO) for misusing the system, so as long as you are being reasonable, it shouldn't ever come to that!
Above, we discussed how WC is retained after a loss on your side to represent sustained damage by the opponent. Likewise, we have a system to represent sustained damage on your side. If a single Pokemon is in battle for more than 2 posts (that is, starting on post 3), the battle becomes more difficult and you start gaining +300 words total required per post until the Pokemon is recalled. If that Pokemon goes over 3 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Hurt. (The Mod will roll on their next post.) If it goes over 4 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Bruised (1-10 roll) and a 15% chance of it becoming Hurt (11-25 roll). If it goes over 5 posts, you have a 10% chance of it becoming Bloody, a 15% chance of it becoming Bruised, and a 25% chance of it becoming Hurt. (Total 50% chance of injury.) In the unlikely event a battle ever lasts more than 6 posts, chances remain static after that. If your Pokemon becomes Bruised or Bloodied, it must be recalled immediately. If it becomes Hurt, chances of becoming Bruised increase (taking the place of the Hurt chance on later rolls), making it not strictly necessary but very advisable to recall a Hurt Pokemon.
Repeat the above steps as necessary until all Pokemon on either side have fainted or been recalled, then Mod Call for thread rewards!
Note: Due to the nature of this new system, it does mean that all gyms from here on will have NO SWITCHING ALLOWED. Once a Pokemon is sent out, it either wins or faints. No recalling until then! The moves U-Turn and Volt Switch can be used to do damage, but will not work to switch out, and moves like Roar and Whirlwind can be used for flavor and in interesting ways that only work in freeform/would never work in a stat-based system, but cannot be used to force switching.
If you have any questions about how this system works, please let any mod know!
Type Advantage, Difficulty Levels, and Word Count
As mentioned above, type advantage or disadvantage will affect the total Word Count requirement. We know this can get tricky, so here are some notes:
- Only one buff or nerf will be applied per Pokemon.
- If a Pokemon is weak to one type and double-weak to another type, you get the double advantage or disadvantage; it doesn't stack, you only get the best option.
- If you and your opponent both have a (dis)advantage, you cancel each other out. If you have both an advantage and disadvantage (ex: Hawlucha vs a Rock-type), you cancel yourself out. If a 4x advantage is paired with a 2x disadvantage, your net total is regular advantage rather than double advantage due to the regular disadvantage canceling half the double out. Vice versa for 4x disadvantage and 2x advantage, etc.
- Immunities are only counted when they are immune to the only type the other side has in play. (Ex: Your pure Electric type vs any Ground type on the opponent's side, or the opponent's pure Ground-type vs any Flying type on your side.) In these cases, it counts for double advantage or disadvantage. If there is more than one type involved (ex: an Alolan Raichu vs a Dugtrio, where of course the Raichu will focus on using its Psychic moves over Electric, etc), immunities are not factored in.
- You must actually use moves of the appropriate type at least some in order to take advantage of the buff. For instance, if you are facing an Aggron with a Fighting-type, but never use a Fighting-type move, you cannot take the double advantage buff. This does not mean EVERY move needs to be Fighting-type, and in fact a little diversity for more interesting flavor is encouraged. But you should be using your advantage to some extent.
- Similarly, if your opponent has moves you are weak against, assume they WILL use those moves, not necessarily every turn, but quite a bit. Do not write your opponent only using Normal-type moves against your Fire-type if they have Water or Rock moves, etc. This will be considered abusing the system.
All make sense? Good! If not, give a staff member a shout! But with that out of the way, let's move on to the difficulty to word count charts!
| ROLL: | CATEGORY: |
| If you roll 70-94 points higher than the Mod | Very Easy |
| If you roll 30-69 points higher than the Mod | Easy |
| If you roll 29 points higher to 14 points lower than the Mod | Average |
| If you roll 15-54 points lower than the Mod | Hard |
| If you roll 55-84 points lower than the Mod | Very Hard |
| If you roll 85-94 points lower than the Mod | Mission Impossible |
In the chart below, "Advantage" means the PLAYER has advantage, and "Weakness" means the Player is at a disadvantage!
| Type Neutral | Double Advantage | Regular Advantage | Regular Weakness | Double Weakness | |
| Very Easy | 100 WC | OHKO Allowed | 50 WC | 150 WC | 250 WC |
| Easy | 250 WC | 100 WC | 150 WC | 300 WC | 400 WC |
| Average | 400 WC | 200 WC | 300 WC | 500 WC | 600 WC |
| Hard | 650 WC | 400 WC | 500 WC | 800 WC | 900 WC |
| Very Hard | 900 WC | 600 WC | 700 WC | 1100 WC | 1200 WC |
| Mission Impossible | 1250 WC | 750 WC | 950 WC | 1500 WC | Guaranteed Loss |
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
- If you roll 96-100, AND at least 25 points higher than the Mod's Pokemon, you may OHKO that Pokemon, with no WC minimum. In multi battles, this only applies to the Pokemon you rolled 25+ points higher than, if not all Pokemon meet that qualification.
- If you roll 96-100 but within 25 points of the Mod, use the chart above, then make the battle one category easier, still applying advantage or disadvantage accordingly.
- If you roll 1-5, AND at least 50 points lower than the Mod, you will have a Guaranteed Loss; however, WC put in before the loss still counts toward overcoming the opponent with the next Pokemon as usual. In a multi-battle, if ANY of the Mod's Pokemon are over 50 points higher and you roll a 1-5, this applies; however, you are only required to faint one of your 2-3 Pokemon.
- If you roll 1-5 but within 50 points of the Mod's Pokemon, use the chart above, then make the battle one category harder, still applying advantage or disadvantage accordingly.
Note: Nothing special happens if the mod rolls 1-5 or 96-100; there are no extra bonuses or penalties to either side in those cases.
Once again, if you have any questions or feel we've missed anything, just reach out to any Staff member and let us know!
This new system will be effective immediately on all Player vs NPC battles that would have required Official Battle rules under the old system. As previously stated, it can optionally be requested for other NPCs as well, since it isn't very mod intensive, but is by no means required or encouraged.
Thank you all for your continued support and involvement in the community!
This new system will be effective immediately on all Player vs NPC battles that would have required Official Battle rules under the old system. As previously stated, it can optionally be requested for other NPCs as well, since it isn't very mod intensive, but is by no means required or encouraged.
Thank you all for your continued support and involvement in the community!
