On Pokemon Showdown's teambuilder UI

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I think it would be nice to have a way to convert PO team files into PS team files, or something like that; as well as more colors on the team builder, because it's looking so white. Another excellent work, though; you're one of the best programmers of this community! =)
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
I think it would be nice to have a way to convert PO team files into PS team files, or something like that;
PS can already do that:

Go into PO's teambuilder -> click Export -> Copy

Go into PS's teambuilder -> click Import -> Paste -> click Save

as well as more colors on the team builder, because it's looking so white.
What do you suggest? Feel free to Photoshop your ideas. :)

Also if PS could load PokeLab, Shoddy Battle and PO teams that'd be incredible.
PS can already do that:

Go into PO/PL/Shoddy's teambuilder -> click Export -> Copy

Go into PS's teambuilder -> click Import -> Paste -> click Save

Fun fact: PO, PL, and Shoddy can import PL/Shoddy/PS/PO teams using this exact same method.

Can't we create our own Viable Moves list by adding and/or removing moves as we see fit?
No.

You choose your viable moves by putting them on the pokemon. ;)

The PS viable move list is currently incomplete, though so if you're surprised you favorite move isn't there, it probably will be later on.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Idea for Teambuilder:



Obviously it would be implemented better than in this thumbnail, but a colored stat bar could help see the difference as well as spice up the rather grey overall screen.
 
Hey ae, just a quick suggestion for the basic layout of the teambuilder. I think that just doing something simple like adding an edge around the whole thing could make it a little more aesthetically pleasing.

 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
Hey aeo, just a quick suggestion for the basic layout of the teambuilder. I think that just doing something simple like adding an edge around the whole thing could make it a little more aesthetically pleasing.
The teambuilder looks weird since it was just a preview of a part of the sim. The full sim has a chat box on the right side; I'd advise waiting until that's public before discussing layout.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
You guys may have noticed that I took the teambuilder offline a while ago.

The new Pokemon Showdown random battle beta has the teambuilder built-in:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3457335

The teambuilder's been improved since I posted it here:
- Gen 4 TM and move tutor moves are now correctly marked
- A new "Usable Moves" tier under "Viable Moves", and a larger "Viable Moves" list for pokemon
- Sprite sheeting, which improves icon load times a ton
- Level, gender, happiness, and shininess are now editable: note that gender/shininess has no effect on sprites currently

(Report teambuilder bugs here, but other bugs go in that thread.)
 

prem

failed abortion
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basicaly answering the quetsion in the IS thread without derailing the topic.

can we make it so it shows how man EVs left. this is probably small and could be attributed to my laziness, but i dont care if i have used 440 evs, i want to know i have 70 (68 that matter but idk which one you would use) left to use.
 

FlareBlitz

Relaxed nature. Loves to eat.
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Have a few suggestions, not sure if these have been posted.

- In Overview mode, it currently displays the EVs and the stats of the Pokemon in a bar graph fashion. Really though, I would prefer to look at actual numbers, because sometimes I want to figure out if a Pokemon hits a specific speed benchmark or a leftovers / life orb number.

- With the current EV set up, the "+" and "-" are location sensitive. That is, 252+ works where +252 does not. This has led to situations where I select the nature, go to enter the EVs, and have the nature turn Serious because I entered the EVs after the number. Minor, yes, but still worth noting.

- I don't really like that you get a list of "Illegal" moves / Abilities. It makes things just a bit cluttered. It's great for Balanced Hackmons, yes, but perhaps a toggle option for whether to make those visible would be good?

- The teambuilder does not currently save my teams. I use pretty high security settings so this might be why (assuming you store the teams in the form of a client-side cookie). Are there any plans to move to a server-side database for storing teams? Or at least have a way to save teams in a folder on your computer like PO does?
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
basicaly answering the quetsion in the IS thread without derailing the topic.

can we make it so it shows how man EVs left. this is probably small and could be attributed to my laziness, but i dont care if i have used 440 evs, i want to know i have 70 (68 that matter but idk which one you would use) left to use.
Done.

Have a few suggestions, not sure if these have been posted.

- With the current EV set up, the "+" and "-" are location sensitive. That is, 252+ works where +252 does not. This has led to situations where I select the nature, go to enter the EVs, and have the nature turn Serious because I entered the EVs after the number. Minor, yes, but still worth noting.
Done (your other suggestions will take longer).
 
The "Save" and "Import/Export" buttons are quite hard to use at first.

When I see a Save button, I immediately think that, unless I click it, it's going to disregard any changes I've made so far. However, this is not the case. The changes that you make will always be saved (except the team name), whether you click "Save" or "Team List".

Suggestions:
  • When you click "Team List", a dialog pops up asking "Do you want to save the changes made to the team?", with buttons "Save Changes", "Disregard Changes" and "Cancel".
  • When you click "Save", instead of bringing you back to the team list, it displays a caption saying "Saved!" (could be animated, fading out or something).

As for the Import/Export feature, it took me a few attempts to understand that I had to click "Save" for the imported text to actually take effect.

Suggestions:
  • Change the caption of that button to "Switch to Text Mode". This way, people can infer the purpose of this button more accurately, as it is actually more powerful than just for importing and exporting. For example, I've used it to reorder the pokemon in the team.
  • When you switch to "text mode", the caption of that button would change to "Switch to Normal Mode". And, when you click that button after making changes to the text, a dialog is displayed: "Do you want to apply the changes made in Text Mode?". And if you choose to apply the changes, it still wouldn't save the team itself - you'd need to press "Save" to do so.
  • Since the words "import" and "export" wouldn't be mentioned anymore, you could display a caption above the text editor with the text "You can use this editor to import a team in a text representation."
  • As for the "Save" and "Team List" buttons, I suggest the same behavior as for the normal mode.

I often want to save a team with a different name when I make significant changes to it, so that I could go back to the original team if those changes don't turn out so well. In my first attempt to do so, I set a different name for the team and clicked "Save", in hope that it would save a copy of the team with a the new name. To my surprise, it didn't keep the original team, which means that I had lost it. The only way to do what I wanted to do involves using the Import/Export feature, which is kind of obscure.

Suggestions:
  • An additional button "Save As..." in the team editing form, which pops up a dialog asking for a new team name, and with the buttons "Save" and "Cancel".
  • A "Clone" button beside every team in the team list, which pops up a dialog saying "A copy of team <team name> will be created. Enter a name for the new team:", along with a text box, and the buttons OK/Cancel.
  • The team name text box could be separated from the "Save" button. I suggest putting it in a new line below the buttons, along with a caption "Team name:". This way, it would't have the appearance of a "file name" anymore.

The EV adjusting part is way more difficult to use compared to previous simulators, for several reasons:
  • You are forced to type the exact value for each EV. In previous simulators, you could set the value with just by dragging the EV slider.
  • You are forced to use the keyboard to set the nature. In previous sims, this could be done with two clicks (sometimes just one) - left-click on the boosting stat, right-click on the nerfing stat. If right-clicking is a problem, you could instead add two buttons ("+" and "-") for each stat in order to set the nature.
  • The EVs aren't locked to multiples of 4 for level 100 pokemon. This can lead to waste of EVs or to requiring an additional effort from the user.
 

Imanalt

I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
The "Save" and "Import/Export" buttons are quite hard to use at first.

When I see a Save button, I immediately think that, unless I click it, it's going to disregard any changes I've made so far. However, this is not the case. The changes that you make will always be saved (except the team name), whether you click "Save" or "Team List".
This is actually not true unless things have changed, if you were to reload the page i believe you woudl lose the changes.


anyways, onto my suggestions:
1. This is my biggest suggestion, which i have raised to you in IRC, but just wanted to get down. Import/export En masse, for example, i recently switched from using safari to chrome, and i havent brought over most of my teams because 60 teams copypasted 1 by 1 takes a long time...
2. I would love if you could enter a stat you wanted to hit and it gave the number of evs needed to hit that stat number automatically, assuming its a number you could hit. (not sure if this would be possible to program reasonably)
3. I agree with EV sliders, and also buttons that you could click to boost or drop the stat via nature.
4. Also throwing my support behind a clone button, makes using different versions of the same team much easier.
5. Finally I'd love to be able to save teams other than in cookies, as i wouldnt have to worry about clearing my cookies or anything.
 

Jukain

!_!
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It would be great if there was a way to type in the forme names for formes. e.g. Shaymin-Land, Shaymin-Sky, Rotom-Wash, Kyurem-Black, Kyurem-White, Tornadus-Therian, you get the idea.

On the same note, if you click on the forme of a Pokémon, it automatically goes to the default forme, causing you to have to click it again. It's slightly annoying.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
EV sliders have always struck me as incredibly silly - it takes up an obscenely large amount of space, and aside from multiples of 252 it's much easier to just type the number in.

my suggestions for the builder:
a) When choosing a Hidden Power, you simply click the name Hidden Power, then, below, it lists the sixteen hidden power types and you can pick the one you want. This should clean up the movelists of the pokemon (especially those for which multiple hp types are viable)
b) some sprites are a bit too large to fit in overview mode correctly - just make the space between bottom and top of sprite a little bit larger?

seconding alt's suggestion that you can enter the stat and get the required ev's - especially useful in speed.
 
the fact that I cant save the team i build is very silly, tho how it shows the moves the pokemon can learn and what are the most viable first is not to much of a big deal but its a nice convenience. I disliked that I cant save the team I build. Being the only simulator that has the therians the kyurem forms and all the move tutors from black white 2 makes it the premiere simulator at the moment though there arent as many people on it as say PO
 
This is actually not true unless things have changed, if you were to reload the page i believe you woudl lose the changes.
Yes but there should still be some sort of "abort all changes, I did not really want my team saved with bidoof on it" button. I just tried it... I stuck flame orb on my heatran and immdiately back-pedaled all the way to the Lobby, but when I returned to teambuilder it still had it.

Also a browser button (eg: "back," "reload", etc...) should never be required for navigating a particular website. I think such a rule extends to an on-site program like PS! Everything (reasonable) that I want to do, I should be able to do with the UI's own interface.

Anyway I don't really have many qualms with the team builder, I just randomly found this thread. >_>. I actually like PS's teambuilder better than PO's, speaking only in terms of function and not aesthetics of course. My main complaint is something I already brought up in IRC: making the nature's + sign not a part of the text box for the EVs. Perhaps just make a second text box right next to the EV text box, that serves no purpose other than housing these + and - symbols? I only suggest that because it seems like an easy solution for the meantime or something.

It would be nice if there was an option for "smart EVs" like I think netbattle used to have... for those of us who are bad at math and don't immediately realize that 162 EVs is dumb (because 160 EVs is a multiple of 4... if one does this on two or more stats, they waste at least 4 EVs). Or you could just always have it round down... or something.

I know we can export and use Notepad and shit, but the ability to directly save a team somewhere would be cool, for those of us that have multiple browsers and multiple user accounts... and for other silly people who clear their history after watching porn, instead of just using "incognito mode" like they are supposed to.

Aesthetically, since your logo uses a dark-ish shade of royal blue or whatever that is... maybe the margin/padding between pokemon and stuff can be that same shade of blue. It would add some color to the UI, and also give a "theme " feeling.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
Honestly, there's still a lot of work to be done on the teambuilder - that's why it says "i know stfu its not done yet".

In particular, I'm still planning on:

- EV sliders
- boxes
- saving teams on server
- rearranging pokemon/moves
- EV AI (pre-fill a guessed EV spread)
- "+" and "-" buttons (and Maximize EV buttons), for lazy people who don't want to use keyboards for some reason
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
I'd really like to see a way to reorder your list of teams. When you go to find a battle, it defaults to the team at the top of the list, which will be your oldest team. If you've made a new team and want to test it out, you have to keep selecting it from the bottom of the list.
 

breh

強いだね
Agreeing with Nyktos.

I realize that the following isn't teambuilder UI, but I'd like to see a few things with respect to general UI (since there doesn't seem to be a thread for that):

HP values (or, at least, percents that are truncated a bit less) for the sake of SR, LO, and whatnot in battles are a good idea. When I have 25% I don't know what that means due to truncation (the same can be said of 10% etc.). The same values could be seen in the scrollover as well.

PP values of other Pokemon visible in the scrollover would also be nice.

I'd really like a sort function for the battles and for the users; it's silly that you have to look through the users with Control + F, of all things. Battles are especially irritating; if I want to watch NU battles because I'm too lazy to start one of my own, I have to, again, use control F... (which is even worse in this situation due to the fact that the strings that make up most of the tier names are pretty common...).

When you're trapped, you can't look at your team at all, which can be irritating. When you've made a move, you also can't look at your team. Could you just "grey out" the option for making a switch while trapped / moved?
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
Another thing I'd like to see: a "check legality" button or something of the sort. As far as I can tell, currently you have to try and find a battle to see if your team is legal.
 

prem

failed abortion
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anyone who says ev sliders are bad has never played lc because its pretty difficult to make without the sliders
 
I am pretty sure there is a way to rearrange the pokemon in your team without remaking your team. Go to the team you want to rearrange the pokemon of. Click import/export. Highlight the pokemon you want to move. Cut and paste it where you want it moved to.

EDIT: Since I have this post, might as well leave a suggestion for the teambuilder as well. Maybe include the weight of the pokemon in some capacity?
 
I might be slightly off topic here, but I wonder if we'll ever be able to make our own themes for PS teambuilder... or just PS itself. Aside from slider bars, that's the only problem I have with the switch.
 
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