Programming Pokemon Online replay player

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Zarel

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Creator of PS
Also, I thought that displaying 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x and so on was really a great idea, and not everyone using the replay machine knows the exact boost/value conversion (you lucked out in this forum though)
Yeah, I agree with coyotte. For something that's potentially so valuable as a teaching tool, I don't think displaying 0.7x instead of -1 was such a bad idea. Ultimately, it's just a preference thing though, isn't it? You'll never be able to please everybody, that's for sure -- don't feel bad if you don't bend on every little nitpick. This is a great tool either way, it's a shame people aren't more thankful for your time. Ahh, the life of a software deveoper. :)
Well, there are certainly valid arguments on both sides.

Since the replay viewer is also intended to be watched by people who aren't necessarily into competitive Pokemon, I've always leaned towards multipliers instead of boosts.

Now that it's not an overwhelming majority anymore (and BlueKirby and coyotte508 are on my side!), I'm switching it back.

http://pokemon.aesoft.org/replay-ACEos-vs-EsYuri--2011-08-18
I found a bug in this battle . Turn 5 , Ho-oh switched in SR but lost only 13% of its HP .
Fixed.
 

Super

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I don't really think a new player is going to get hung up on exactly what boosts evaluate to. All a beginning player will really think about is that +2 is better than +1, and +6 is 3 times better than +2. Don't get me wrong, the actual boost values are more useful to a novice, but it doesn't really amount to anything significant in the end. I think the gains from standardization are worth more, though my personal favorite is some way to show both.

And I agree that this can't get enough praise. Its not only the program, your work ethic is really admirable. I'm hoping it gets a lot of real use.

edit: Its really hard to discern what the majority wants. Its always the displeased crowd you're going to hear.
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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Since neither is actually a majority, and both have "arguments", can you at least make it a toggle? You can always add it as a radio button similar to the speed toggle rather than as a single button. That said, since it's obviously majorly a matter of preference, it would be a good idea to let people use what they prefer rather than just what is considered "better" by the dev.
 

firecape

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imo it's just so small of a change that it doesn't really matter beyond "preference". (BAN ME PLEASE)s always have to complain about something...
 

Pocket

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I don't really think a new player is going to get hung up on exactly what boosts evaluate to. All a beginning player will really think about is that +2 is better than +1, and +6 is 3 times better than +2. Don't get me wrong, the actual boost values are more useful to a novice, but it doesn't really amount to anything significant in the end. I think the gains from standardization are worth more, though my personal favorite is some way to show both.
That's the misconception that multipliers would avoid, because +6 is not 3 times better than +2 - it is only 2 times better.

I mean, I guess aeo can have both representations accessible for the viewers, but I, for one, am glad that he reverted back to his original presentation.
 

Super

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lol Pocket, shows how long its been since I touched Pokemon. And how much I was thinking when I made that post.

Of course, the only real "practical" benefit to stages is determining how often it was boosted.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
Since neither is actually a majority, and both have "arguments", can you at least make it a toggle? You can always add it as a radio button similar to the speed toggle rather than as a single button. That said, since it's obviously majorly a matter of preference, it would be a good idea to let people use what they prefer rather than just what is considered "better" by the dev.
I wrote a rant on options back in this post: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3755322&postcount=113

TelamonianAjax pointed out that Chrome's more popular than Opera for reasons other than how they treat the idea of options, which is true, but my point is that most things that are options really shouldn't be.

Right now, the replay viewer has three options:

Sound: On | Off
Color scheme: Light | Dark
Speed: Fast | Normal | Slow

Does it look like "Display boosts as: Multipliers | Stages" really belongs there? It feels to me like something as silly as "Light Screen color: Yellow | Red."

(P.S. if you're wondering, yes, sound support and color schemes were just added a few hours ago. Feel free to give feedback.)
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
pain split not working as it should

i shouldve figured that that problem wouldve surfaced multiple times already

however, i did suggest that if it's possible, you can somewhat get around that problem by inputting pokemon's uninvested hp stats into your app, and using those to guesstimate where each one ends up after pain split is used
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
pain split not working as it should

i shouldve figured that that problem wouldve surfaced multiple times already

however, i did suggest that if it's possible, you can somewhat get around that problem by inputting pokemon's uninvested hp stats into your app, and using those to guesstimate where each one ends up after pain split is used
That's a fair suggestion, but with the latest version of Pokemon Online supporting Pain Split damage properly, that's a lot of code just to slightly improve support for an outdated replay format.
 

Seven Deadly Sins

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I wrote a rant on options back in this post: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3755322&postcount=113

TelamonianAjax pointed out that Chrome's more popular than Opera for reasons other than how they treat the idea of options, which is true, but my point is that most things that are options really shouldn't be.

Right now, the replay viewer has three options:

Sound: On | Off
Color scheme: Light | Dark
Speed: Fast | Normal | Slow

Does it look like "Display boosts as: Multipliers | Stages" really belongs there? It feels to me like something as silly as "Light Screen color: Yellow | Red."

(P.S. if you're wondering, yes, sound support and color schemes were just added a few hours ago. Feel free to give feedback.)
Yes, it absolutely belongs. Besides, you've gotten feedback from both sides saying how much they prefer displaying stage boosts, and you actually acknowledged the merit of displaying it as stage boosts rather than multipliers, so I see no reason why you wouldn't include it as an option. It's not obtrusive, it just lets people experience the replays the way they want to. I see no reason not to.
 

mingot

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holy jesus fuck, this is amazing.

way to wring some VERY impressive software out of html/javascript.
 
I wrote a rant on options back in this post: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3755322&postcount=113

TelamonianAjax pointed out that Chrome's more popular than Opera for reasons other than how they treat the idea of options, which is true, but my point is that most things that are options really shouldn't be.

Right now, the replay viewer has three options:

Sound: On | Off
Color scheme: Light | Dark
Speed: Fast | Normal | Slow

Does it look like "Display boosts as: Multipliers | Stages" really belongs there? It feels to me like something as silly as "Light Screen color: Yellow | Red."

(P.S. if you're wondering, yes, sound support and color schemes were just added a few hours ago. Feel free to give feedback.)
To be fair, the reason I hid it and made the font small was because I understood that it wasn't the point.

In any case, I sort of feel the option doesn't belong there either. If there ever comes a time when you have enough nitty-gritty requests like this that you want to make an additional screen of advanced options, I think it would be fine there. But I agree that it would seem out of place next to the current options.

Music and color schemes are fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of Flash, but it's the most universal way of presenting media, so I can appreciate why you used it for the music. The color schemes look great; I like darker color schemes in general, so that was a really nice touch. This is a very minor request, but is there a way to get the animated sprites to stop moving when the battle is paused, like the music? Not a big deal, though. This is coming along really nicely.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
Yes, it absolutely belongs. Besides, you've gotten feedback from both sides saying how much they prefer displaying stage boosts, and you actually acknowledged the merit of displaying it as stage boosts rather than multipliers, so I see no reason why you wouldn't include it as an option. It's not obtrusive, it just lets people experience the replays the way they want to. I see no reason not to.
This puts me in a difficult position.

You're right that there's merit in displaying it as stage boosts, but I think there's more merit in displaying either one or the other than offering an option for something like this. The options area is already getting kind of crowded (it doesn't fit on my Android phone anymore).

Is there some way to get some sort of poll? Alternatively, do BlueKirby and coyotte508 want to weigh in again?

All 2624 of the available sprites they had; it seems there were quite a few missing but it's better than nothing =D http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SPDHRU80
Thank you! I'll try to incorporate these sprites as soon as I can.

Music and color schemes are fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of Flash, but it's the most universal way of presenting media, so I can appreciate why you used it for the music.
I used a library (musicManager) to implement sounds. It defaults to Flash because it usually has better performance than HTML5 Audio. It does use HTML5 Audio on iPhones and iPads, though.

If I ever do make that "extended options" screen, HTML5/Flash toggling will definitely be there, along with that "how to display boosts" option. Until then, well, I did explicitly code the Flash to play nice with Flashblock. :)

The color schemes look great; I like darker color schemes in general, so that was a really nice touch.
:)

I implemented it because there are valid reasons for preferring either light or dark color schemes - YouTube and Hulu have "turn off the lights" options, too - I think it depends a lot on the type of screen and the amount of ambient light. I nearly always prefer light color schemes, though, so my fear is that too many YouTube replays will be dark since "dark is cool". :(

This is a very minor request, but is there a way to get the animated sprites to stop moving when the battle is paused, like the music? Not a big deal, though. This is coming along really nicely.
Yeah, that's going on the to-do list. Pausing GIFs isn't really possible, though, so I'd have to implement it by swapping them out for the non-animated versions, which the current architecture doesn't support that well, so it's not one of those "really soon" type things.
 
Wow this thing is really amazing, this could make reading Warstories alot easier ....

I just wish that the back sprites could be animated, but I don't really mind.
 

Oglemi

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Well as a kind of argument for the +1 vs. the 1.5x debate:

As a battler, in most situations when you're using a boosting move, it's intuitive to think "OK I need to Dragon Dance 3 times in order to break his [insert wall] and sweep his team." Which, imo, easily converts to needing +3 Attack and +3 Speed. I don't think I've ever encountered a situation where I thought, "OK I need to have 2.5x the Attack and Speed that I currently have in order to break his [insert wall] and sweep his team." Does that make sense?

I can understand wanting to do it from the correct math point of view, but I think in layman's terms, and in order to be consistent with the current simulator and the onsite analyses, that the boosts should be displayed in +1 format.

And I know we're not the only ones that display it this way. Serebii does it regularly in their analyses, obviously WishMKR does in their analyses, even Bulbapedia does when explaining boosting moves like Swords Dance (see link).

I can fully understand wanting to do it your own way since it's your program, but saying "I'm helping noobs understand what the boosts mean" doesn't really count as an argument when every other Pokemon source on the Internet teaches noobs to learn the +1 way.
 

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 definitely have a good point, Oglemi, as do SDS and Ajax. On the other hand, so do Pocket and BlueKirby and coyotte. And I'm sure there are a few more people I'm forgetting. I definitely haven't "finalized" my decision yet.

I'd prefer if this sort of discussion occurred in a different thread. I'm still new to the Smogon forums, so I don't know where would be a good place to post such a thread, or whether this forum has some sort of polling feature that could make the decision easier.

I'd also prefer if this thread could be split and all the posts relating to the stat boost display were moved into that new poll/discussion thread. I understand a significant number of people posting here are moderators/supermods/admins and have that ability (though the last time I used vBulletin was like 2003 - I'm pretty sure it has that feature).

------

In other news, I've applied the back sprites from the animated sprite pack Tomxc helpfully packaged for me. With it, we've jumped from having around 5% of back sprites animated to around 70%. The sprites seem to be different from the ones I got from Arkeis in terms of speed and dimensions. :/ Someone should check to see if the front sprites are faster/slower than the game, and if the back sprites are faster/slower than the game, and if they're consistently the same factor.

If you do, make sure to use Firefox or Chrome. IE animates GIFs at incorrect speeds, and I don't know how Opera/Safari does GIF animation.
 

Scofield

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i haven't read through the topic, but would it be possible for it to replay old shoddy logs? what about po logs in word format (such as from a pastebin)?
 
No bugs to report, just wanted to say that this is freaking amazing. Thanks a lot.
WRONG

Words can't describe this
EDIT: Also, I just found another bug. Whenever Giga Impact/hyper beam fails (due to switching in a Ghost Type), the "Must Recharge" tag stays there untill the user of giga impact switches out. Can't provide a log, sorry
 
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