[Release] Pokémon Essentials, version 14 - 28th September 2014

[Maruno]

Pokémon Essentials, version 14
28th September 2014
Download​

They said it couldn't be done, that they were fools for even hoping. Well, surprise!

So what's new?

Pokémon Rustling

• The Poké Radar has had an overhaul, and now works much better. Of note are being able to find Radar-exclusive Pokémon, and the ability to have up to three kinds of rustling grass animations (regular, strong and shining). And speaking of rustling grass, that animation is now tinted according to the time of day, so they're no longer an eyesore if you happen to be playing at night. There's a new field animation too, which shows dust billowing out from your feet when you land after hopping over a ledge. And there's been some changes to how you sink into tall grass and really tall grass.

AI Love You

• Actually, no it doesn't. AI hates you, and it wants you to suffer. It's spent the last 10 months learning, organising and improving itself, waiting for its chance. However, it's not Skynet yet, so whether you'll notice a difference in how it behaves is another matter. As far as the rest of the battle goes, I've overhauled the move-processing scripts, which will definitely make inaccurate many guides on adding effects, so be careful. Oh, and the menu buttons glow a bit more when you select them.

Gotta Go Faster

• I'm sure I've done this in the past, but I've done it again. I've made some things faster. The possible text speeds are new faster, with the old "fast" being the new "medium" and the new "fast" actually being pretty zippy. Screen transitions are quicker. There's been some optimisation to the loading of Pokémon sprites and icons, which has a noticeable improvement on the Pokémon storage screen. As for in battle, the HP bar and Exp bar are now faster to fill up or drain.

Yet Another Animation Update

• I have a section in every release thread for talking about animations, it seems. Well, people have spotted from the last version of Essentials that whoever made the battle animations in it can't make them properly. So I fixed them, as much as I could find. I've also improved the Animation Editor by adding in ghost frames; if you're looking at a frame in an animation, you can also see outlines of the cels in the previous frame, to help you line things up better. Finally, it's been missing for long enough, so I added an egg hatching animation courtesy of FL (tweaked by me, of course).

And The Rest

• There is, of course, much more than just the above. If you're asked to name something (a Pokémon, a storage box or yourself), you're now shown an icon of that something. You can manipulate the prices in Poké Marts (both the buying and selling prices), which opens up the possibility of discounts and special offers, or alternatively, rip-offs. The Pokémon Pack (a separate download filled with Pokémon graphics/audio) proved to be a bad idea because no one can read the instructions, so I've abolished that and everything now comes with the main download again.

There's a bunch of other additions and changes too, as well as bug fixes. As always, the full change log is on the wiki.

Enjoy!

 

[PinkCatDragon]

Well this is a good development. May I make it my job. to thank the Pokemon Essentials team for this wonderful gift.

 

[KillerMapper]

Nice ! Thanks for the update !

Will try to update my project, hope that will fix my BGM issue with FMod+VS Bar.

 

[Maruno]

I've just reuploaded v14 to fix a bug involving being unable to switch out in battle. Please download it again.

 

[mustafa505]

Wow this came sooner than i expected, thanks so much for this, i will post in the error thread if i get any ^^

 

[venom12]

Wow didnt expected that! I will be looking into that, because there so manyu changes. Great work like always!

 

[Maruno]

I've just reuploaded v14 (again) to fix another bug, this time involving the Pokémon being positioned incorrectly in the evolution screen. Please download it again again.

 

[mej71]

Love the updates, especially the AI. Could you explain (on the wiki would probably the best place) how to do the changing buy/sell prices for the marts? I'm not exactly sure, and I'd imagine other aren't either.

 

[Maruno]

Give me a chance. The wiki's a big place to update; it usually takes me about a week.

In a nutshell, call one or more scripts in the Mart event prior to starting the Mart itself. These scripts will apply to the next time the Mart is opened, and their effects are removed at the end of it.

setPrice(:POTION,250) [COLOR=Blue]- the price the Mart sells a Potion to you for (slightly cheaper than the usual 300)[/COLOR].[COLOR=Blue] Also sets the refund price to half this[/COLOR]
setSellPrice(:POTION,50) [COLOR=Blue]- the price you can sell a Potion to the Mart for (not a good deal)[/COLOR]
setPrice(:POTION,250,50) [COLOR=Blue]- a combination of the above[/COLOR]

You can make an item unsellable to the Mart by setting its sell price to 0.

You can use however many of these scripts as you like, and whenever you like (e.g. within conditional branches). They don't need to be called directly prior to the Mart script itself, but it's common sense to put them just before it, since the effects only apply to the one next time you open the Mart.

 

[~JV~]

That's great news! I'm pretty excited to see what you did with the AI. (I've been messing with this script for a while myself and to me it's one of the most interesting ones for sure)

Also, I haven't seen in the changelog, but what did you do to the encryption bug? Did you do something new or it was the "fix" I suggested some time ago? (rolling back to v12 script). I'm kinda interested to know your approach here.

 

[Monophobia]

Merged the Pokémon Pack back into the main download because people can't follow instructions.

{XD} Thanks for the laugh.

Anyway, glad to see an update so soon! I was expecting sometime early 2015, so this is a very nice surprise.

 

[DarkGrey]

Cool, Life Orb. Time to test Magic Guard stuff.

Will any future update include move and ability effects from the gen 6 project?

 

[TBM_Christopher]

The Pokémon Pack (a separate download filled with Pokémon graphics/audio) proved to be a bad idea because no one can read the instructions, so I've abolished that and everything now comes with the main download again.

A pity; I actually liked it as a separate download and never had any trouble with it. Could it have been that you only received feedback from the vocal minority who had trouble with it?

 

[Florio]

This is really awesome... I'm really glad about the AI. I was battling a Hitmonlee earlier today and it used Meditate instead of Close Combat (which would have killed me). Now that the AI should be smarter, the battles should be more challenging.

 

[Maruno]

Also, I haven't seen in the changelog, but what did you do to the encryption bug? Did you do something new or it was the "fix" I suggested some time ago? (rolling back to v12 script). I'm kinda interested to know your approach here.

Reverted changes to class StringInput from v13.

Cool, Life Orb. Time to test Magic Guard stuff.

Will any future update include move and ability effects from the gen 6 project?

I have no plans for that.

A pity; I actually liked it as a separate download and never had any trouble with it. Could it have been that you only received feedback from the vocal minority who had trouble with it?

If the only feedback I have is from the vocal minority, that's all I can go on. In any case, I was sick of people complaining about not being able to read.

That's great news! I'm pretty excited to see what you did with the AI. (I've been messing with this script for a while myself and to me it's one of the most interesting ones for sure)

This is really awesome... I'm really glad about the AI. I was battling a Hitmonlee earlier today and it used Meditate instead of Close Combat (which would have killed me). Now that the AI should be smarter, the battles should be more challenging.

I don't know how much of an effect the AI changes would have, so I can't promise anything.

I'd love to properly overhaul the AI at some point. Currently it ignores a lot of things (additional effect chance, whether the move would thaw the target, properly considering all the target(s) the way it deserves, what the player has chosen to do, how devastating the move will be, partner strategies, etc.), and there's probably not as much min-maxing of options as there should be. Perhaps you can help with that.

 

[Florio]

I don't know how much of an effect the AI changes would have, so I can't promise anything.

I'd love to properly overhaul the AI at some point. Currently it ignores a lot of things (additional effect chance, whether the move would thaw the target, properly considering all the target(s) the way it deserves, what the player has chosen to do, how devastating the move will be, partner strategies, etc.), and there's probably not as much min-maxing of options as there should be. Perhaps you can help with that.

I`m sure the AI is going to be a lot better. I`m definitely going to test it out now. Most of those things you listed aren`t so important anyways. I can`t help with the scripting but I can definitely help with testing things out.

EDIT: Here are some of the error's I have encountered while play testing. Some are AI related, some are move related, and others are just opinion's.

-Exp gain is too fast imo. It should be only a bit faster than it was before but now its way too fast.
-AI doesn't lead with screens (it should imo, the opponent lead with a level 38 Meowstic with the moves Psyshock, Fake out, Reflect and Light Screen. the first time I battled it the first moved it used was fake out, second time it didn't even use fake out. And it used reflect on the first battle but only on the 3rd turn, it should use it right after fake out, and second battle test I did it didn't even use screen's at all, but opted for 2 not-very effective Psyshock's)
-Next pokemon uses the selected move if the previous pokemon died before they could use them (for example, the opponent's talonflame killed me with brave bird before my Haunter could use confuse ray. when I switched out my Meganium, it instantly used confuse ray even though it doesn't know it and didn't pick a move yet).
-Seems to be a problem with roar (not sure exactly what, but when the opponent tries to use it they just get skipped, there is no text shown)
-When a pokemon tries to switch out but then faints with pursuit, there is a double send out. In this scenario I was about to switch out my Meowstic but I got hit by pursuit on the switch out and then fainted. It then asked me again if I wanted to select my Pokemon. I picked Meganium both times, so it showed Meganium being sent out twice.

 

[~JV~]

I`m sure the AI is going to be a lot better. I`m definitely going to test it out now. Most of those things you listed aren`t so important anyways. I can`t help with the scripting but I can definitely help with testing things out.

EDIT: Here are some of the error's I have encountered while play testing. Some are AI related, some are move related, and others are just opinion's.

-Exp gain is too fast imo. It should be only a bit faster than it was before but now its way too fast.
-AI doesn't lead with screens (it should imo, the opponent lead with a level 38 Meowstic with the moves Psyshock, Fake out, Reflect and Light Screen. the first time I battled it the first moved it used was fake out, second time it didn't even use fake out. And it used reflect on the first battle but only on the 3rd turn, it should use it right after fake out, and second battle test I did it didn't even use screen's at all, but opted for 2 not-very effective Psyshock's)
-Next pokemon uses the selected move if the previous pokemon died before they could use them (for example, the opponent's talonflame killed me with brave bird before my Haunter could use confuse ray. when I switched out my Meganium, it instantly used confuse ray even though it doesn't know it and didn't pick a move yet).
-Seems to be a problem with roar (not sure exactly what, but when the opponent tries to use it they just get skipped, there is no text shown)
-When a pokemon tries to switch out but then faints with pursuit, there is a double send out. In this scenario I was about to switch out my Meowstic but I got hit by pursuit on the switch out and then fainted. It then asked me again if I wanted to select my Pokemon. I picked Meganium both times, so it showed Meganium being sent out twice.

It's pretty easy to fix this kinda of inconsistencies with the AI once you learn how the script for it works! For example, in the case of Reflect/Light Screen, in PokeBattle_AI, the lines 1679 and 1681 are the ones that handles these moves. As you can see, all they do is lower the score in the case their effects are still up. You can change a few things to make it more obvious to the AI that it should use these moves, for example, making the score go up if the pokémon is holding the Light Clay:

      when 0xA2
        if attacker.pbOwnSide.effects[PBEffects::Reflect]>0
          score-=90 
        elsif attacker.hasWorkingItem(:LIGHTCLAY)
          score+=50
        end
      when 0xA3
        if attacker.pbOwnSide.effects[PBEffects::LightScreen]>0
          score-=90 
        elsif attacker.hasWorkingItem(:LIGHTCLAY)
          score+=50
        end

You could even go further than that obviously. The more complex is the handling of each move's score, the smarter your AI will be.

 

[FL]

Finally! After 9 months!

A pity; I actually liked it as a separate download and never had any trouble with it. Could it have been that you only received feedback from the vocal minority who had trouble with it?

Me too. If people doesn't want to read very basic instructions, these people deserves their problems!

 

[Maruno]

Me too. If people doesn't want to read very basic instructions, these people deserves their problems!

But we don't deserve to be harassed by them. And really, it was a bit more work on my part to make the separate Pokémon Pack anyway.

 

[Florio]

Honestly, I don't really get the point of the separate Pokemon pack. Isn't it simpler to just put it all in one folder, like it is now?

EDIT: I guess the point is to limit the download size, which makes sense. Honestly, if someone can't even grasp that concept then I doubt they could even come close to completing a fan-game.