Format Discussion [Gen 8] Battle Factory Set Discussion

Drifting

wrapped in plastic
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Hey, been grinding out some games to look for issues, here are a few I managed to find.

Azelf: Change Naive to Timid as it has no physical moves

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Suicune: CroCune is supposed to run Sleep Talk over Ice Beam

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Minccino: No reason for a fully offensive Minccino to be running max defense investment, attack and defense ev's should be swapped (or defense removed altogether to counter Porygon download).

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Diglett: Earth Power serves no purpose on Evio Dig, should be Final Gambit, Substitute, Rock Slide or maybe Sludge Bomb

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Tyrunt: Supposed to run 204 Attack not 204 HP

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Probably missed some because it's very late and I'm tired, but taking care of these should be a good start :)
 

A Cake Wearing A Hat

moist and crusty
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Azelf: Change Naive to Timid as it has no physical moves
On consultation with UU QC this was deemed undesirable because it would reduce the frequency of Nasty Plot.
Suicune: CroCune is supposed to run Sleep Talk over Ice Beam
this is RU, ice beam is good. Sleep talk is still an option also. It's a 50/50.
Minccino: No reason for a fully offensive Minccino to be running max defense investment, attack and defense ev's should be swapped (or defense removed altogether to counter Porygon download).
This is on purpose. On discussion with Fiend, Mincc with defense investment hits the same rolls as Mincc with attack investment, so it's better to just get the bulk.


fixed others.
 

Lasen

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Hello! I sat down with Aberforth and we discussed the sets available for Ubers and I came back with some notes.
First off, I'd like to inquire about where Shuckle is. I understand that most Sticky webs setters are very very bad from the outside, but having a mon that compresses Stealth Rock + Sticky Web in 1 slot is very valuable. Its utility outside of hazards is also... kind of there.Onto sets themselves:
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Life Orb Yveltal aka Yveltal set #5 has Rock Slide, which is an extremely targeted move that I don't think Battle Factory benefits from, especially on a special set.

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Block Kyogre is similarly extremely specific to the hyper-specalized Ubers metagame; keeping it just Ice Beam is a net positive.
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Curse Ferrothorn is being considered to be dropped from the dex so removing it from BF sets would also be a good idea; especially since Knock + Whip is a possible combination on another set.
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Since Battle Factory splits sets with minute differences, splitting Lunala into Ice Beam, Roost, Will-O-Wisp, Roar/ Defog and Ice Beam, Roost, Thunder Wave, Hex shows off how differently the two work and is also the way one would run them in the actual tier.
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Heatran's Roar is never run in the tier and its niche is NOT it. We're dropping it from the analysis, as should BF.

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Eternatus' Meteor Beam set should run Recover instead of Substitute, giving it just enough longevity + bluffs some sort of phys def set if need be. Why it isn't on the analysis set I will not comment on.

Dracovish is also missing which, while in theory "only" works in rain, it puts immense pressure on teams on weatherless as well, especially when SOMEHOW Magearna and Zarude show their ugly faces all the time.


have a good weekend/day!
 

Celever

i am town
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I just got a UU team with 3 rocks setters and I doubt that this is intended.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8battlefactory-1690297197
(Did !showteam at the end)
The code to try to ensure there's one rocks setter per team is being developed for battle factory but is deceptively hard. ATM we have rocks on a lot of mons to try to ensure every team has rocks, but that does mean sometimes you get unlucky and have a lot of rocks setters.
 
Is there a way to get winrates for this? I'm always tempted to have a go at adjusting the balance of this tier a little bit so it doesn't feel quite as matchup dependent as it can do at the moment.
 

A Cake Wearing A Hat

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Is there a way to get winrates for this? I'm always tempted to have a go at adjusting the balance of this tier a little bit so it doesn't feel quite as matchup dependent as it can do at the moment.
there's not really "adjusting the balance" of something like battle factory. We don't have the freedom to adjust levels; everything is level 100. We also don't have the freedom to purposefully nerf sets, because that would go against battle factory trying to be actual sets used in actual tiers.

It's gonna be matchup. nothing to be done.
 
there's not really "adjusting the balance" of something like battle factory. We don't have the freedom to adjust levels; everything is level 100. We also don't have the freedom to purposefully nerf sets, because that would go against battle factory trying to be actual sets used in actual tiers.

It's gonna be matchup. nothing to be done.
I get the philosophy, but in the end, this is it's own metagame that should have some thought towards it's own balance. It should still be actually used sets, but if a mon has a huge amount more win chance than any other mon, I think it's fair to tone down some of the sets it has.
The sets in battle factory have basically always been kiiiinda true to the meta rather than what's actually used, so sacrificing playability for the pursuit of some false purity seems like a bad deal to me.
 
What's actually used in tiers varies because players also build with their perception of what's good and other players' tendencies in mind which is impossible to replicate, and they still build based off actual standard sets, so the sets in Battle Factory are still what people consider the standard to build around. If something becomes mainstream then it will be eventually popular and become a standard set in BF already.
Level balance is also completely off the table not only due to it being the nature of tiers, BF sets are tailored to outspeed by a point, always survive a hit after Stealth Rock, etc. Changing levels would directly mess with those purposes and frankly isn't feasible at all.
 

A Cake Wearing A Hat

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I get the philosophy, but in the end, this is it's own metagame that should have some thought towards it's own balance. It should still be actually used sets, but if a mon has a huge amount more win chance than any other mon, I think it's fair to tone down some of the sets it has.
The sets in battle factory have basically always been kiiiinda true to the meta rather than what's actually used, so sacrificing playability for the pursuit of some false purity seems like a bad deal to me.
ok, i've brought up the concept of actively nerfing the sets in battle factory for balance to the randbats dev council. please note that if it passes the stats will be very low and it'll take upwards of five to six months to get anything of any value.

Fair disclaimer: in typing this post i've received solely negative responses to the proposal and it's extremely unlikely anything will ever come of this. But if it does due to some stroke of impossible luck, look forward to your requested Shadow Ball Calyrex-Shadow in 2024.
 
There's a reason why gen 7 battle factory still gets a lot more players than gen 8.

I appreciate the work it took to make the gen 8 battle factory and think it is well made, but ultimately it's just not as fun to play. The amount of matches that are entirely unwinnable from MU feels a lot higher to me than was ever the case than 7 or 6. This may well just be the nature of the tiers rather than any decision made. This is clearly a project people put a lot of effort into, and I'd like to see that effort be used more by getting more people playing the tier through some minor balancing changes.
 

Wigglytuff

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as someone that's 90 gxed both,

This may well just be the nature of the tiers
it's definitely mostly this.

in gen 7 battle factory, you can have some pretty wildly imbalanced matchups but you're very rarely more than a few good double switches with rocks up or some crit luck away from having a fighting chance. with boots, though, that element is removed from most of the good walls so it does just end up largely boiling down to "can you 2hko or not".

gen 8 tiers are also a lot more centralized than gen 7's. not that gen 7 ubers wasnt pdon simulator but at least that's only 1 mon, unlike yveltal + NDM + calyrex shadow. similar thing with gen 8 ou, where double regenerator balances were dominant, whereas in gen 7 ou you can stick a mega camerupt on team in a tier where rain offense is a top archetype without it being a complete meme.

centralized tiers just don't translate well to battle factory where (as far as i know) every mon has about the same chance of being generated as every other mon, and any attempt to rebalance will take the format a step away from the tiers they're based on. given that there's low probability that the end result will actually be better anyway, i don't think this is the path to go on.

the wokest option would be to emulate the centralization of the tiers. in extreme cases, like ubers, this would probably mean forcing ndm + yveltal + calyrex-s to start your team off. on the flip side, i did play a decent bit of SS RU and i found it to be a pretty diverse tier, and anecdotally it doesn't end up on the "worst tiers to get in bf" list from the other bf players ive talked to.
 

A Cake Wearing A Hat

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as someone that's 90 gxed both,


it's definitely mostly this.

in gen 7 battle factory, you can have some pretty wildly imbalanced matchups but you're very rarely more than a few good double switches with rocks up or some crit luck away from having a fighting chance. with boots, though, that element is removed from most of the good walls so it does just end up largely boiling down to "can you 2hko or not".

gen 8 tiers are also a lot more centralized than gen 7's. not that gen 7 ubers wasnt pdon simulator but at least that's only 1 mon, unlike yveltal + NDM + calyrex shadow. similar thing with gen 8 ou, where double regenerator balances were dominant, whereas in gen 7 ou you can stick a mega camerupt on team in a tier where rain offense is a top archetype without it being a complete meme.

centralized tiers just don't translate well to battle factory where (as far as i know) every mon has about the same chance of being generated as every other mon, and any attempt to rebalance will take the format a step away from the tiers they're based on. given that there's low probability that the end result will actually be better anyway, i don't think this is the path to go on.

the wokest option would be to emulate the centralization of the tiers. in extreme cases, like ubers, this would probably mean forcing ndm + yveltal + calyrex-s to start your team off. on the flip side, i did play a decent bit of SS RU and i found it to be a pretty diverse tier, and anecdotally it doesn't end up on the "worst tiers to get in bf" list from the other bf players ive talked to.
We're definitely open to weighting in battle factory; maybe not to such a point where you force three mons, but i think it's definitely a valid option to weight pokemon by some metric: vr rank, usage rate, etc. We just haven't managed to get a programmer to propose such a mechanic yet. Perhaps I'll see if I can get someone on that.
 
was told to post about BSS factory sets here. There's a BSS factory genger set in gen 7 or 8 (i don't remember which I play a lot of both) with dream eater hypnosis and like when is that ever going to be useful. Hitting a hypnosis itself is risky but what does it get out of dream eater. non stab on a infamously situational move doesn't seem worth it. Feel like psychic is better in every way. I guess an argument could be made that its for a max move (if it is in gen 8), but I still think psychic is better as you can actually use it after dynamax turns
 
was told to post about BSS factory sets here. There's a BSS factory genger set in gen 7 or 8 (i don't remember which I play a lot of both) with dream eater hypnosis and like when is that ever going to be useful. Hitting a hypnosis itself is risky but what does it get out of dream eater. non stab on a infamously situational move doesn't seem worth it. Feel like psychic is better in every way. I guess an argument could be made that its for a max move (if it is in gen 8), but I still think psychic is better as you can actually use it after dynamax turns
and to add on to that I just found this bronzong set in gen 7 bss with hypnosis and dream eater. I guess this one is more understandable since it can spam hypnosis under trick room thanks to the accuracy boost from z-TR, but I still thinks it a pretty bad gimmick. IMO all hypnosis dream eater sets should be removed

1706064149107.png
 
and last one. is there a reason why gen 7 bss Blaziken doesn't have a mega set. Maybe I just haven't gotten one ever, but if there isn't one, I don't see why it can't have one. thanks
 

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