Resource BBP Bug and Feedback Thread - Generation 9 Edition!

The Faz

The Faz

Something was on my mind RE new player experience, specially when it comes to Realgam Tower.

Rules bloat is a big problem for people trying to learn the game, and I feel there's some stuff we really could cut.
Namely, the flavor trio: Camouflage, Secret Power and Nature Power.

Camouflage is a level 4 move, Nature Power is level 4 and Secret Power is level 2. There is no reason for every single realgam, including the lv1 content, to list them. Can we cut these so only sims with these moves legal have these bullet points?

The Realgams' data sheet already are a massive block of numbers and stats. Adding three extra bullet points on the end of every one of them for purely flavor doesn't seem worth it for me and makes the facility feel a lot more complicated than it truly is.

If we cut these bullet points:
  • Brock goes from 5 to 2 bullet points
  • Tierno goes from 4 to 1 bullet points
  • Trevor goes from 3 to 0 bullet points
  • Shauna goes from 5 to 2 bullet points
New players are already getting overwhelmed with all the new terms and stats - Ability Count, DQ Time, Switching Method, Half-Start Rule, etc. Adding three extra bullet points to the end is unecessary data overload for them. And they're not even usable in this arena, so it's pure flavor text!

Similarly, the flavor text could be entirely italicized so it's clearer it's entirely flavor text and not match relevant, as well. Raids already do this with their flavor text so doing it here as well is natural.

Here's Rival Trevor's realgam data with these changes:
Rival Trevor (Level 1)





Challenge Type: Normal Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Bring 4, Send 3 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Battle Level: 1
Substitution Count: 3
Recovery Count: 2
Chill Count: 5
Switching Method: On
Half-Start Rule: Off
Ability Count: All
Advanced Techniques: None
Backpack Size: 10
Arena: Kalos Route 19 (Trevor)

Kalos Route 19, also known as Grande Vallée Way, is home to a valley containing plenty of beautiful marshes. This battle takes place on a wooden bridge across the valley, on which Trevor has spent the past half hour using his extensive knowledge of Pokemon to prepare himself for battle. Take care, lest his clever tactics overpower you!

Ok that's enough :P


Slot 1
Text!
Text!

Slot 2
Text!
Text!

Slot 3
Text!
Text!
Text!

It's a lot better, but we can do better - namely, with the massive list near the top, the Battle Info. To shrink it down, we can:
  • Fuse together Match Type and Battle Level as it's the same type of information
  • Fuse together Recovery Count & Chill Count as they're often together
  • Remove the Arena text as it's pure flavor text
  • Remove the advanced rules that are identical on most of them (Half-Start, Advanced Techniques, Ability Count & Switching Method)
    • Notably, all of them except for Advanced Techniques never get off their default stage on any of them. They're pure redundant info.
    • Similarly, in the ones where they are used (and if any that were to use them were added) we could bring more attention to the rule change by adding it to the bullet board, preventing a potential landmine for new players
      • This also is already half the case - sims with Advanced Techniques set to All have an extra line specifying the Technique Control number.
      • (also, be honest, would you really have noticed if any of these except Advanced Techniques weren't on their default state?)
With these changes and the previous ones, we get:

Rival Trevor (Level 1)





Challenge Type: Normal Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Level 1 Bring 4, Send 3 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Substitution Count: 3
Backpack Size: 10
Recovery & Chill Count: 2 Recoveries, 5 Chills

Kalos Route 19, also known as Grande Vallée Way, is home to a valley containing plenty of beautiful marshes. This battle takes place on a wooden bridge across the valley, on which Trevor has spent the past half hour using his extensive knowledge of Pokemon to prepare himself for battle. Take care, lest his clever tactics overpower you!

Ok that's enough :P


Slot 1
Text!
Text!

Slot 2
Text!
Text!

Slot 3
Text!
Text!
Text!

A lot more approachable for new players and less likely to overwhelm them with information they don't need.

And for those curious, this is what Cynthia's would look like:

Champion Cynthia (Level 4)



Challenge Type: Z-Move Singles

Battle Info
Match Type: Level 4 3v3 Singles
DQ Time: 48 hours for challenger, 72 hours for ref
Substitution Count: 4
Recovery & Chill Count: 2 Recoveries, 5 Chills
Advanced Techniques: All
Technique Control: 1
Backpack Size: 10

A castle overlooking two waterfalls, the Sinnoh Pokemon League is also known as the pinnacle of trainerdom. Cynthia's room is on the second-highest floor, below only the Hall of Fame itself. Here, the two of you can engage in a fair fight - though the odds might be stacked in Cynthia's favor...

  • All of Cynthia's Pokemon have maximum IVs. As a result, each of them has each of their four core stat ranks increased by 1. Except for her Garchomp, whose stats are already so high that the extra IVs don't make a difference.
  • Camouflage turns the user into a Normal type
  • Secret Power may cause paralysis
  • Nature Power becomes Tri Attack
Ok that's enough :P

Slot 1
Ok that's enough :P
Ok that's enough :P
Ok that's enough :P

Slot 2
Ok that's enough :P
Ok that's enough :P
Ok that's enough :P

Slot 3
Ok that's enough :P
Ok that's enough :P

What does everyone think?
 
Last edited:
The Faz

The Faz

(I am once again talking about the new player experience)


Problem 1 - Insufficient Resources
When you register you gain 3 lv0 Pokémon and 5 meh items.
After playing the beginner battle you gain 1 TC, 2 RC, 20 JC and can level one of your mons to lv1. That means that, off the heels of the beginner battle you don't have enough either to buy a standard item or to get all your mons to lv1.

At the end of the Beginner Battle they will have two level 1 mons, two berries and a level 0 mon, alongside the standard battles. Playing any sort of content - specially with the lack of skills of a new player - is essentially impossible like this. What this means is the second match a player ever plays is either failed content or a grinding battle tower match.


Problem 2 - The Throw Match
A new player won't have the levels or the mons to challange content other than exactly Battle Tree. Furthermore, due to the way the game is made having 3 random mons to throw at Raids or a Realgam alongside no good items to pair it means they will, by and large, lose, forcing them to grind Battle Tower while waiting their turn in the queue for Battle Tree.

This is not good. A Standard b5p3 is usually attack spamming for the sake of getting it over as fast as possible to grind the rewards, furthermore they're gonna be bringing a literal level 0 here. Grinding with someone who also isn't interested in playing the game is a horrible introduction for the game. Furthermore you get 4 TC and 5 RC, being able to level your last starter to lv1 and adopt a new lv1 mon, alongside having enough RC for 2 standard items. Maybe with these boosts the new player's team might be good enough to challange lv1 content but depending on how the team matches vs the content, the quality of the mon and how smart the purchases were and how good the player is they might need to grind a second or third Battle Tower match.

Problem 3 - Prize Claim Queue
Waiting in a line for several days is an incredibly surefire way to stiffle someone's interest in something and this is a really bad one. Remember, new players are stuck with lv0 Pokémon until their first prize claim goes through - which can take from a few hours to literal weeks if queue is particularly clogged up. And they can't even play other content to compensate - no lv1 mons to play Realgam or Tree, Starter Battles give essentially no rewards and lv1 battle tower battles are soul crushing when you have lv0 LCs and they have lv1 evolved mons. This is a biig bottleneck for new players.

Proposed Change 1: Level all 3 Starts
Only getting enough TC to level one of your starters and using the free levelup to the second one. That leaves the third mon in a real awkward place, requiring another match to level it up. That's a bitter feeling of not having everyone powered up alongside the requirement for another match to level it up. Just, make playing a Beginner Battle with 3 lv0s evolve all 3 to level 1 for free. It solves this issue and saves 1 TC for the new player.


Proposed Change 2a: More TC and JC to Beginner Battles
Even if their 3 mons were upgraded to lv1 they still would not have in most cases a team capable of challanging Realgam or Raid, requiring extra grinding for the TC and RC for new mons and items. By making the Beginner Battle give 10 TC and 12 RC (rather than 1 and 2) it allows new players to get off the beginner battle with 5 Lv1s and 4 standard items, thus having a much better chance at lv1 content.


Proposed Change 2b: Graduation Battle
In addition to the Beginner Battle there would also be the Graduation Battle, which would act as the de-facto ending and climax of the BBP tutorial. It has the same rules as the Beginner Battle however at lv1 rather than lv0 and B3P2 rather than B3P1. This would be the first real taste of BBP for the new players - all the mechanics are in place, your mons are lv1 and they're all fully evolved (Proposed Change 1). This gives players a little bit more taste of BBP before getting thrown into the wider world alongside serving as a climax, being an exciting and (hopefully) memorable first real battle before being thrown into the grind.

We can slap the 10 TC and 12 RC here, giving the player a post-climax boost (further helping the empowerment and player-encouragement aspect we're trying to give) here. More importantly, it also means we can simplify the Beginner's Battle - there's a lot to learn in the game, after all. Splitting the tutorial in two means the Beginner Battle can focus on stuff like ordering moves, battle structure, substitutions, etc while some mechanics like equipping items, abilities, etc can be delayed to the Graduation Battle.

IE, we could disable items and abilities in the Beginner Battles to reduce the amount of text and mechanics present on the early stages of the tutorial.

Proposed Change 3: Priority Queue
After playing the Beginner's Battle (and the Graduation Battle, if it also gets introduced) give the new player priority queue in the Prize Claim - ie, placing their prize claim at the top of the queue rather than at the bottom. This is once-per-account so it won't overrun the queue or create any other problems. In addition to making the new players be able to play their second match much faster it also helps with the approvers as they don't need to dig through several other prize claims before getting to the more urgent and simple new player's prize claim.


Thoughts?
 
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