Update

12/01/19: Bug-Squashing (+ rambling)

For a couple of months now there's been an issue with the Favorite Pokémon Picker for some users using Chrome on Android devices - the images would just fail to load, leaving a rather useless grid of gray circles in place of the Pokémon to pick from. After some major headaches reproducing this, I finally discovered that it was about a recent Chrome feature, which for all that the page says about how "if the developer doesn't include the ‘loading’ attribute, then the resources will be eagerly loaded as they always have been" was actually being activated on the page, despite the images being already visible, and refusing to load them.

I've now fixed it by explicitly telling the browser to eagerly load these images, but this is quite frankly just a bug in Chrome and I am pretty annoyed to have had to deal with this.

Note that thanks to caching, the updated script may not load for you immediately; you can clear your cache or wait for it to expire.

For those of you wondering when the picker's going to get the eighth-generation Pokémon: I will get to that as soon as there exists a consistent set of images of every Pokémon (other than party sprites, which are a bit too small to usefully show what the Pokémon looks like at all). We don't yet have Sugimori or dream art for the Galar Pokémon, while rips from Sword and Shield can't include every Pokémon because not every Pokémon is programmed into the game.

As far as I can tell, the most feasible routes to obtaining vaguely consistent images for the picker are: a) we wait for full official art reveals for the Galar Pokémon, and then remove from the picker those Pokémon forms that don't have official artwork; or b) people more knowledgeable about 3D rendering than me rip all the models and textures from Sword and Shield, add Gen VII models for the unobtainables, and then actually create small renders of every Pokémon in an idle pose, suitable for use in the picker (and probably other applications). Option B is very attractive if it's at all feasible. If you or somebody you know knows about this stuff, please do contact me.

Speaking of Sword and Shield, my in-game experimentation indicates that prior to the level restriction on capturing being lifted entirely near the end of the game, the capture algorithm is modified to significantly reduce the chance of capture if the wild Pokémon is a higher level than your active Pokémon - from a guaranteed capture to as little as 20-30%. Looking at the actual code will be needed to tell exactly how that change works, but otherwise the algorithm looks probably fairly similar to Gen VII.

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Comments

My own messages will be signed as Butterfree, with the Admin label below my name. If someone signs as Butterfree without that label, it's probably not me.

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-01-19

Yup, using menu sprites for the picker isn't great at all and I wouldn't publish an official version of the picker using them unless I was extremely desperate. It works, but it's not pretty or consistent (and also doesn't have shinies or all the forms).

[17/12/2019 18:51:08]

Motekopasznyaku
Commenting on: 12-01-19

Oh hey, I see your menu sprite-based Favorite Picker to include the Gen-8 Pokemon, and definitely appreciate the effort you're still putting in on that little feature. That said, after trying it out, I do kind of feel like it still suffers a noticeable amount of inequality, with some sprites at double the resolution size compared to those that didn't make it onto the Switch yet. It makes me kind of wonder if using the official illustrated artwork for each pokemon would be a better way of going about things instead, to really keep things on a properly even level.
Regardless of the outcome though, thanks for your work here.

[17/12/2019 01:00:08]

Zelkova
Commenting on: 12-01-19

I spoke to Butterfree once about this (long time ago when the picker was new, doubt they even remembered me) but honestly I feel the 3D models kinda lose some of the charm that sprites have. Charmander used to be (and still is depending on the game) be my favorite Pokemon but he just look extremely awkward in 3D. Also the poses (more so when Butterfree have to set them up to show gender differences) can cause a bias as well as you might have to choose between a borderline T-posing default Pokemon or one showing action. Like some people think such won't make a difference but many people will still argue the earlier sprites for the game which gave almost every Pokemon a pose was much more enjoyable than the default standing stuff we get nowadays. I feel voting between the two even if subconsciously cause bias. I honestly unironically wanted an option to switch to a sprite based graphic system. Butterfree understandably said no and that is fair, that would had been a lot of hassle. Now though given models are becoming more of an issue and many people are willing to make sprites for free for the fun of it, I kinda want to pop in and ask "how about now?" While you would need permission to use them I'm sure a browser game call GPX+ is working on the new sprites (if they haven't done them already) and I know at the very least they are up to Sun and Moon if nothing else. Of course there could be other Pokemon games for fangroups that also have usable high quality sprites. Just a suggestion though, if Butterfree judgement say they shouldn't then I'll accept that like I did last time. I'm truly a fan of this site and just like anyone else on here I just want to see the best out of it.

[11/12/2019 05:47:30]

espurr
Commenting on: 12-01-19

ohoho, it IS my lucky day! I'm gonna have fun with this on my break tonight :P

Thanks so much for your work!

[08/12/2019 20:44:02]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-01-19

You're in luck, because I just did exactly that (funnily enough, having not yet seen your comment). Enjoy.

[08/12/2019 18:16:21]

espurr
Commenting on: 12-01-19

I still think that using menu sprites would be a good idea, even though they're small. They don't cover shinies, or the more minor colour and gender variations, but they do cover different forms!

Most people doing the picker probably at least have an idea of what the full Pokemon looks like already.

You could also keep the current version of the picker as a separate version, and create a new page for the Galar picker using menu sprites, perhaps? That's one way to compromise.

[08/12/2019 18:11:02]

Jirachu
Commenting on: 12-01-19

Commenting on the galar pokemon related post (also hi DP fan :P).

I find it interesting how the newer Pokemon games put more and more importance on battling to become friends with Pokemon. The battles definetly have a meaning to the creators, and like articles on this site of said, they're probably more good than they are bad or the what not. The new friendship system sounds challenging, it kind of scares me a bit xD Pokemon losing trust if they're in the pc too long o.O; but JUST battling (not just 'leveling up'. really any battle) and also the camp in general may make regaining trust go a bit faster. The new games are one of a kind. I wonder if i'll enjoy playing them :) i'm sure it'll be hard to go back to older ones a little if i feel i need to keep proving myself to my pokemon xDDD haha….how are you taking the frienship system, butterfee? I ask others this as well. Maybe some fans don't care as much as me (i won't judge them for it. its still a game and i know that).

Galar pokemon for the picker will be awesome :3 One of my overall favs is alcremie, its so adorable^^

[05/12/2019 13:11:44]

Negrek
Website: Thousand Roads
Commenting on: 12-01-19

Sure! But I'd like some more precise numbers if possible, and confirmation that what's listed there is actually true and/or there isn't anything else going on. Serebii is not… great… about accuracy.

[04/12/2019 23:06:08]

Harmony
Commenting on: 12-01-19

@Negrek: According to Serebii, it depends on the type of raid battle (ordinary Pokemon or Gigantamax), whether or not the encounter rate was boosted by an ongoing event, and whether it's solo or multiplayer. Solo, non-event encounters are supposedly a guaranteed catch. Assuming this is all true, Butterfree's observations about the capture algorithm seem to apply here as well; a G-max Centiskorch I fought solo last night broke free, and considering the difficulty rating it was almost certainly a higher level than my Pokemon.

[03/12/2019 15:06:33]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-01-19

I'm talking about creating new renders of all of them, not just the Sw/Sh ones, in a single consistent style. (Although the Sw/Sh models absolutely are rendered with outlines in the games; they're just comparatively way thinner outlines, because they're HD games.)

[03/12/2019 14:58:35]

jc_51996
Commenting on: 12-01-19

even if someone does make renders of the models they won't be consistent with the other pokémon. they removed the outline effect that previous generations had; it's not a huge thing but if you see swsh models next to older models you can definitely see the difference.

[03/12/2019 02:06:11]

Negrek
Website: Thousand Roads
Commenting on: 12-01-19

Ah, but how does capturing work for max raid battles?

[01/12/2019 16:32:02]

Page last modified November 3 2020 at 02:21 UTC