Puckamon bug reporting/suggestions/discussion thread

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Since Puckamon is my only "big" game other than Okédoké! so far, I figured I should post something about it. Kinda like the Okédoké! post I had a while back; I'll probably use this as a place for updates, screenshots, and so on later.

So... what did everyone think about the game so far? I've only heard from a couple of people so far, and everyone seems to like the graphics. I've also had a few complaints about things that I can't or won't change (the small handful of fart, poop, and Nazi jokes, the size of the maps), and a handful of gameplay-related suggestions (having Ash heal at Puckamon Centers and adding an Escape Rope-type item.) But that's about it.

A few questions to start off, because I'm interested in what choices people made in the game...

How did everyone answer Professor Tree's questions at the beginning? Not counting the boy/girl one, which really doesn't affect the game... You have to play as a boy in the end, no matter how you answer the question. Because it's 1995.

What Puckamon are you using on your team so far?

Anyone run into any bugs or other problems? I didn't get to playtest the Anvil City area as much as I wanted to, so if there's bugs anywhere it'll probably be there.

Any suggestions that you think could make the game even better than it already is?

And for anyone who's gotten this far... which path did the elder at Fnrrf Shrine put you on?

[The Wobbler]

Greatly reduce the HP of early enemy encounters, reduce the cost of items.

[JSH357]

I got Hitler before the first gym pretty easily and the rest of the game wasn't much challenge. Granted, I stopped playing after the second gym.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

I got Hitler before the first gym pretty easily and the rest of the game wasn't much challenge.

Whoa, how'd that happen? I thought for sure that Hitler at level 20-something would wipe out anyone who tried to go through the Swastikave that early in the game.

How did you manage to survive that battle long enough to weaken him enough to catch him?

(I really hope I didn't forget to set the "uncatchable with normal Puckaballs" bitset on the non-weakened version...)

[JSH357]

He spent most of the battle buffing, and I think Paralysis stopped his Swastika attack from working, so I was easily able to chip down his HP with Gohrilla, Rage Slime and Surlaw.

I couldn't catch the Yo Ghosts or Lucario, though. Had to run from them.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

I couldn't catch the Yo Ghosts or Lucario, though. Had to run from them.

Yeah, the Yo Ghosts can't be caught at all until you get better Puckaballs. Everything else in the Swastikave is the "must weaken before catching" type, though.

He spent most of the battle buffing, and I think Paralysis stopped his Swastika attack from working, so I was easily able to chip down his HP with Gohrilla, Rage Slime and Surlaw.

Ah, okay. I have noticed that the OHRRPGCE's enemy AI sometimes likes to use stat-boosters over and over even when they'll have no effect (like Hitler's Sieg Heil! and Mr. Triangle's Sharpen, which both raise Attack to 125% of max... can't be stacked, but the AI tries to anyway.)

So if he's just spamming the stat-boosters over and over, I should probably drop the stat-boosters off of that battle and have him use damaging moves more, because you're really not supposed to be able to catch him that early.

Greatly reduce the HP of early enemy encounters

Which enemies in particular have too high HP? I'm guessing it's the trainer battles that are a problem, because the wild Puckamon generally have pretty low HP in the early parts of game (except the Moogles, Gohrillas, and Surlaw/Walrus, but... they're all either rare encounters or a one-time thing, and they're supposed to be a lot tougher than the other random enemies.)

I actually got complaints from RMZ about Duck-Duck's HP in the first Gary battle, and I did lower that one a bit already (it was originally somewhere in the lower 40s, but I lowered it to 35 or so before uploading the game here.) Should it go even lower? I was considering dropping it to maybe as low as 32, but I was afraid that it would make that fight too easy, and it's really not supposed to be one of those "pretty much guaranteed win" fights like the first rival battles in the Pokémon games always are.

I'm thinking the worst one is probably that Jigglypuff that shows up on the road north of Sledge City, since those have ridiculously high HP... I have noticed that battle tends to take a lot longer than it should because of that.

Frankfurter in the first gym also has a lot of HP, but if I lowered his HP too much the fight would be too easy for anyone who caught some stronger Puckamon in the sewers or forest (and Cap'n Crunch doesn't use potions, so you don't have to worry about having to knock all of that HP down more than once.)

[JSH357]

Ah, okay. I have noticed that the OHRRPGCE's enemy AI sometimes likes to use stat-boosters over and over even when they'll have no effect (like Hitler's Sieg Heil! and Mr. Triangle's Sharpen, which both raise Attack to 125% of max... can't be stacked, but the AI tries to anyway.)

This is actually one of the places where Transmogrification would improve your game. Give the enemy an attack that looks identical to the usual buff, then chain to an invisible attack that self-targets and Transmogs him in to an enemy that doesn't use the buff (but is otherwise identical).

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

This is actually one of the places where Transmogrification would improve your game. Give the enemy an attack that looks identical to the usual buff, then chain to an invisible attack that self-targets and Transmogs him in to an enemy that doesn't use the buff (but is otherwise identical).

Wow... I hadn't even thought of using transmogrification like that, to make sure enemies only use an attack once. I think I might actually try something like that for enemies that use the one-time-only stat-boost moves, because it's really annoying to see them use them over and over again even when they have no effect. Or maybe if I want one of the Gym Leaders/Elite Four to use moves in a specific order later on... hmm.

On a related note... I recently decided to go ahead and use transmogrification for the "weakened" forms, rather than the glitchy-looking Phase Out+respawn thing. They come along with a different picture (looking visibly weaker... or just silly, in some cases) and a "____ is growing weaker!" message to let people know when it's time to start chucking Puckaballs.



Since I had two spare enemy bitsets left over, I made one into a "No Sleep" bitset, which all of the non-weakened "weaken before catching" Puckamon have. That way there's no chance of someone putting them to sleep and preventing them from using the transmogrifying attack when they're weak enough, though it's still possible to accidentally knock them out before they weaken if you just keep attacking with no regard for how much HP they have left (which means... the Scan attack that Moogles and Robots learn will actually be useful for something now!)

[JSH357]

Cool! That's actually exactly what I had in mind when I said I was surprised you weren't using Transmog a lot. The only issue I have with the feature is that you have to make so many gosh-darn enemies. It would be cool if you could have a 'parent' enemy and a bunch of 'children' to use with transmogrification that had the same stats unless otherwise noted.

[JSH357]

On the issue of overbuffing again, another solution to the problem is this:
1. Have the buff attack set a tag, like "already raised str"
2. Have the same attack only activate on a tag, via chaining, then have an instead chain go to a different attack.
3. Use an after-battle script to set the tag back off

Only problem with making buffs one time only: heroes can lower the stats again. I still haven't figured out a workaround to make the enemy re-buff besides a crazy element spawn chain. Better enemy AI options would be sooo nice.

[The Wobbler]

Every fight felt too long to me, and I never finished the first gym. I got bored in the sewers, because every random encounter felt like it took forever. I'm not asking to make the game easier, just faster. Hell, reduce both enemy AND player HP, or boost everyone's attack power equally or something.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

On the issue of overbuffing again, another solution to the problem is this:
1. Have the buff attack set a tag, like "already raised str"
2. Have the same attack only activate on a tag, via chaining, then have an instead chain go to a different attack.
3. Use an after-battle script to set the tag back off

I actually tried to use tags with an attack a while ago (the "Brandon sent out another Pikachu!" attack that shows up in the second gym battle), and the attack would set the tag just fine... but chains set to only go if a tag was set on or off never worked.

Not sure what the problem was, but tag-chaining doesn't seem to work yet. Or maybe it's just a problem in the nightly I'm using (4/14/2010)...

Every fight felt too long to me, and I never finished the first gym. I got bored in the sewers, because every random encounter felt like it took forever. I'm not asking to make the game easier, just faster. Hell, reduce both enemy AND player HP, or boost everyone's attack power equally or something.

Hmm... reducing everyone's HP across the board might work. Of course, I'll probably need to redo a lot of Puckamon's attack stats if I do that, because a few Puckamon (Walrus is the major one) are already doing way more damage than anything that early in the game should, and with lowered HP the overpowered Puckamon would just flatten everything even easier than they already do.

I might just completely redo all the Puckamon stats before I get too much further with the game.

[Mogri]

Tag-chaining works. Crystal Chasers uses it.

[JSH357]

Yeah, Duck uses it too. Check your settings and make sure you're doing it right; I screwed up a lot of tag chains before getting them right.

[Only One In All]

Comments and suggestions so far:

1) I liked how the first time I named Ash, HASH, and Prof Tree was like, wow, your parents must be on drugs! The second time around, I just named him A S S, and when Gary was like "Smell ya later, A S S!" : P

2) I like how the game follows in tradition with the original Pokemon games, like jumping over ledges. With that said, I think it could benefit with having a Pokemon style flash and screen fade in, instead of the traditional OHR, fade out to white then battle screen (or at least, flash the screen and play the song before traditional OHR fade). I don't know if you are using anything for your before battle scripts, but I'd recommend doing that because when I first stepped into the grass outside Mallet town, I was half anticipating for the flashy effects.

3) Why is the palette completely green? It made me think, why not have an option to change color palettes, like how you could with the original GB games on your GBA? I think it'd be kinda neat if you could change from palettes of green, blue, red, etc.

4) I agree with Surlaw in that the beginning battles are waaaaay too long. I fought a Mr. Pepper for about 6 minutes before it ran away and I got no EXP, which was really frustrating.

5) I like the Frenchmen who sings a variation of Bad Romance... I commend the effort you put into that scene, cause I enjoyed it!

That's all for now.