User talk:Itan/Proposed Skill (Masters)

Hello, Wiki Staff & Contributors. I'm hoping to get some feedback on a proposal to the following page:

Pokémon Masters mobile game There is a current page which lists passive skills: Skill_(Masters)

For those unfamiliar, Skills in Pokémon Masters act as way to empower your Sync Pair roster with abilities, damage mitigation, damage increases, additional effects for all sorts of effects etc. So understanding what each skill does is vital especially for team building in 3 vs 3 battles. Anyway let's talk about what the current page displays:

The Current Main Table

After the introduction the main section of the page is occupied by a huge table, this table has the following information in regards to passive skills:

• Skill name
• Skill description
• Sync pairs with this skill
• Availability as lucky skill
• Main-series similarity

The first two are pretty basic and mandatory fields for describing skills. Let's talk about the latter 3 columns.

Sync pairs with this skill

This column, aims to try and specify each sync pair that has a given skill, within this column.

• One issue with stuffing every applicable sync pair into this column, increases the row size significantly. To the point where some rows take an entire screen when viewing the page on a 1440p resolution.
• The other issue is, lots of sync pairs feature the same skills. So you wind up with some rows that have 20-30 sync pair listings and others that have 0-3.

I don't necessarily find it wasted, as I'm sure there maybe someone who may want to CTRL+F to find a Pair with a specific skill. However I'm not sure having it listed in a table like this is the best choice.

Availability as a lucky skill

This column shows whether or not the skill is also obtainable as a lucky skill. Lucky skills are obtainable from rewards the player can accrue from lucky cookies, for a random chance at acquiring a lucky skill.

• First issue is there are only a handful of lucky skills, less than 150. I guess the anticipated that maybe the Lucky skill system would grow but it hasn't.
• The information is already specified in a dedicated lucky skills page, I don't think its relevant when looking at a master skill list to know if a specific skill is available as a lucky skill when you can go look at the specific page.
• If you count skills with each individual skill value as a separate one, there are over 4800 of them, and specifying 200/4800 skills are lucky skills doesn't make sense for a table that will be this big.

Main-series similarity

This column shows whether or not a skill in Pokémon Masters EX, has an equivalent ability that is borrowed from the main-series games.

• Pokémon Masters plays differently from the main-series, most abilities that could have been direct copies of existing abilities also have variations. For example, we have a skill that mimics Intimidate, but the same skill also goes up to a value of -6. Which is not a main-series equivalent.
• There doesn't seem to be any rules regarding this column. Does the skill have to 1:1 replica of the main-series skill, or can it be 'inspired by' the original ability? What are the qualifications that need to be met to establish equivalence?
• It's too niche. This game is pretty different, as there is no set turn order, s.t.a.b., etc, so some abilities can never be translated, and what insight does it provide the Pokémon Masters player who is looking at skills and what they do in Masters?

I recommend removing this column, it can be off-loaded into a separate table or removed entirely.

Okay, here's a new proposed table take a look:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/User:Itan/Proposed_Skill_(Masters)

• Skill name
• Value range N
• Parameter X affected by range
• Description
• Trigger condition
• Effect(s) applied

So, I've removed the bolded columns from the current table, and replaced them with 4 new columns. Let's talk a look at each refers to.

Skill name

So immediately, you'll probably notice that there is only **__one__** skill listed for each skill. This is intentional. Instead of listing Acumen 1, Acumen 2, Acumen 3... etc. It's listed as Acumen *N* with an italicized N. I'll get to why.

Value range *N*

So here is where the italicized N comes into the picture. Skills in Pokémon Masters are typically assigned values, most values range from 1 to 10. Some skills have no values. The point is that the skill remains the same, however the change in what the skill does depends on the value it's assigned. Which is what the next column will explain.

Parameter **X** affected by range

So now we have a different variable, a bolded **X**. This X refers to what calculations are done to determine a skills effectiveness. There are some formulas that all skills follow:

• When a skill has a description: "Has a chance (20%)...", the value of the skill corresponds to an increase in the chances of that skill triggering.
  • Where X% = (N+1) * 10, so the value goes from 20% at rank 1 up to 100% at rank 9.
• When a skill has a description: "Powers up the user's (moves/sync/max) moves...", the value of the skill corresponds to an increase in the power applied to move during damage calculation.
  • Where X% = N * 10, so the boost to the move's power is equal to ten times the skill's value.
• When a skill has a description: "Reduces damage...", the value of the skill corresponds to an decrease in the damage received.
  • Where X% = N * 10, so the damage reduction is equal to ten times the skill's value.
• When a skill has a description that directly affects stat ranks by a specific amount, or when the sync move countdown is reduced by a specific amount, the value of the skill corresponds to the quantity adjusted.
  • Where X = N, so the stat rank(s) or sync move countdown, or status change with ranks will be raised, lowered or reduced by the quantity specified in the skill name.
• When a skill has a description "Quickly charges the move gauge...", the value of the skill corresponds to an increase in the rate at which the move gauge charges.
  • Where X% = (N/4/b) * 100, where b = the number of allied team members

So in a nutshell, this column will inform the user how a skill's value impacts the skill's potency. I'm open to ideas about this column since it is very technical. We could implement a separate table to explain how each the value affects the skill in the range of 1-10.

Description

So the only change occurring to this column, is that we will be replacing the value of the skill, for example Aerial Power 1 's 10% increase to X%. Since we're listing Aerial Power N, we don't need to write the same description ten times with different values for each. Also a second line will be available for skills that get rewritten when the chance to trigger goes to 100%. The game removes the words "Has a chance" and rewrites the skill to imply that it *will* happen.

Trigger condition

Now we have one of two of the important additions to this table that will help active players find what they are looking for. What is a trigger condition?

• This is where we will specify __how__ a passive skill gets triggered. E.g. All Ramped Up 1 triggers __when the user's move is successful__. So we write "User's move" as the entry.
• Why is this important? Well because the table can be sorted, an active player can now use the sort option to collapse all skills that trigger in the same way together. This means a player can easily group all skills that trigger when the sync pair enters the battle for the first time. Or they can group all skills that trigger when an attack targeting the user misses.
• You can maybe start to see how this might be helpful even coming from a main-series perspective.
• Its important that if we go with this, that rules and establish how trigger conditions are specified so that they get sorted together, you don't want it spelled differently or written another way than how an exisitng trigger was specified.

Effect(s) applied

This is the next major important addition. This portion will help players find skills based on the final overall result of a passive skill.

• Many skills that get introduced into Masters, are actually just existing effects that have new ways to trigger how they occur. E.g. Such as simply raising your Attack stat rank by 1 rank, there are skills that trigger when you attack, when you're hit, when you miss etc.
• The description written here is to simplify the **end-result** of a passive skill. The description column needs to specify how the skill reads based on the in-game text.
• E.g. Raises the user's Sp. Def stat rank by 1 or Increases power of user's max moves by X%. Lots of skills have similar effects but with different ways of occuring.
• Just like with the previous column, we can sort this. So an active player can group all similar skills together based on their effects applied. E.g. I want to see all skills that lower my target's speed stat by 1 rank or by X ranks.
• It will be invaluable especially for players trying to learn and memorize passive effect names.

So that's my proposal. There are a couple of additional things for the rest of the page:

• Skills with no official description
  • Some skills don't actually have descriptions, and some user's have contributed the 'known effect' instead what's officially written.
  • I propose we just move all these skills to a separate table so they aren't mistaken as official skill text.
• We could keep the aforementioned skills with main-series equivalencies, but just list them separately.
• We could keep the sync pairs with this skill list, but separately away from the main table because it will have very bloated rows.

What do you think? Sages (talk) 01:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)Sages