Contest Bosses

Where did this come from?​

Three way ties, Nervous, Copy Moves. Time and time again issues with Contests have popped up that we've had sub-optimal answers to. Every time we say the same thing: "Contests were fundamentally that way in Game Freak's original contests, the only way to completely solve this would be to create an entirely new game mode." And so we did. On August 1st 2017, Morru assembled a group of myself, Weirlind120, and diamondpearl876 to construct the next step for the Contest section. There were a number of issues that we wanted to fix with a new game mode:

- nervous moves are fundamentally flawed, but without them copy moves are overpowered
- due to the nature of an upwards scoring system and the dynamic round 5 has compared to the previous rounds, ties are inevitable
- the same Pokemon and the same move effects are seen almost every contest; many moves and Pokemon just aren't good enough in any attribute, and there's not a whole lot of appeal effects in the first place
- while a higher rank contest is significantly more likely to have hardcore participation, hypothetically it could still just be four of the worst Coordinators and one of them would still get a Master ribbon
- with only five rounds, there's very little time to realize what strategy your opponents are using, especially with random initial appeal order
- when a coordinator is going to get fourth place either way, they can purposely use specific startles and low appeals to choose a friend to get first place
...and many, many more. I've trimmed a some out since this post was getting pretty long.

We did a lot of brainstorming, but ultimately most ideas either brought new issues to the table or made other issues impossible to solve. The idea we developed the most was a 2v2 contest mode that was very similar to ORAS, but initial appeal order, ties, many Pokemon being useless in contests, and limited rounds were still major issues that we had no answers for. Not only that, but after ORAS's launch some of us weren't sure if a traditional competitive Contest mode would be what the community wanted. On September 17th, I came up with an entirely new idea. This was an idea that could solve all of the issues I listed: Contest Bosses.

How do Contest Bosses work?​

Unlike competitive (player versus player) formats such as RSE, DPPt, and ORAS, Contest Bosses are a cooperative (player versus environment) format. A team of three coordinators work together to beat a boss that the judge controls. The judge has no strategic input on what the boss will do; each boss follows a strict script in a notepad document that dictates what it does each round. The coordinators and the boss both use the ORAS movelist. Before the contest starts, the coordinators choose three positions that the boss hasn't already claimed. Each round, the three coordinators post publicly in the contest's chat what appeals they want to use that round. At the end of the contest, they have to have a higher average score than the boss's score in order to win. In the event of a tie, the boss wins by default.

As mentioned earlier, what the boss does each round is dictated by a script. Contest Bosses are ranked on a difficulty scale from 1-5. 1/5 difficulty bosses are meant to ease new players into the Contest section and should be beatable with minimal communication between coordinators. 5/5 difficulty bosses are meant to be as close to unbeatable as possible, test a team's knowledge of contest mechanics, and present a puzzle in the form of unique mechanics. 1/5 difficulty bosses function just like a regular coordinator; each round they make an appeal that can be startled, copied, etc. As coordinators attempt higher and higher difficulty bosses, the boss becomes capable of more actions each round. In all difficulties above 1/5, bosses make two appeals per round. Only the boss's second appeal can be copied, startled, etc. Condition stars only affect the boss's second appeal. What makes most of the bosses unique are the special techniques some of them use called "Schemes". Schemes are used before either of the boss's appeals and can usually only last until the end of the round. Ongoing Schemes are special Schemes that can continue after the round is over, and usually have a condition the coordinators need to meet in order to put an end to them. If you're curious about the exact mechanics of the two appeals and schemes, click the spoiler.

Spoiler

- if a boss uses two combo starters in a single round, the second one overwrites the first one
- if a boss uses a combo starter first and a combo finisher second, it can immediately create a combo
- if a boss's first appeal is a combo starter and the second appeal isn't, it still stays in combo standby from the first appeal
- +4/-4 appeals like Hyper Beam don't stop the boss from appealing until next round; +8/-0 appeals like Destiny Bond stop all remaining appeals from the boss immediately
- any special modifiers to the boss's score from Schemes before the boss's second appeal count as modifying its first appeal; any special modifiers applied after the second appeal begins modify the second appeal
- attribute based startles like Double Hit only check the boss's second appeal. If the boss uses a +6/-0 appeal like Overheat as its first appeal, startles against it are NOT doubled. If the boss uses an appeal like Substitute or Detect first, it still protects the boss from startles. Startles that rely on the target being in combo standby (like Dizzy Punch) still affect bosses that only entered combo standby because of their first appeal
- nervous effects happen 100% of the time when a nervous move is used. A player using a nervous move will not affect their teammates. If the boss uses a nervous move, it has a special effect tied to one of their schemes
- if a boss entered combo standby last round and used two appeals this round that could have combod off of last round's combo starter, only the first appeal will create a combo
- bosses can react to appeals from the previous round, appeals used before it in the current round, and appeals used after it in the current round
- appeals like Stone Edge only look at the boss's second appeal
- if a boss uses the same appeal twice in a round, the second usage of the same appeal counts as a repeat appeal; if a boss uses an appeal two rounds in a row it always counts as a repeat appeal, regardless of whether it used that appeal first or second last round
- repeat Schemes do not have a penalty
- if a boss uses schemes, it uses one scheme per round, no more and no less, however Ongoing Schemes from previous rounds may still be in play. Schemes and Ongoing Schemes can ONLY be activated directly before the boss's first appeal
- if you make the boss nervous, it changes the order of its two appeals (no effect on level 1 bosses)
- the boss will only try to make a player nervous if it can use an ongoing scheme that changes the effect of what its nervous moves do
- regardless of how many times the boss appeals in a round, it can only score 16 points for the round

At higher difficulties, coordinators will be challenging the same boss over and over again to learn how it reacts to their various strategies, as well as to try out various counters to what the boss throws at them. Due to the scripted nature of each boss and the ability for coordinators to choose what position they start in, it's possible to beat each boss without having to rely on RNG. Because a boss that's beaten with a strategy once can easily be beaten by the same strategy again, bosses will be unavailable to fight once they're beaten. To stop players from ripping through all of the bosses immediately, players will be unable to fight a boss if they've already beaten one in the past week.

What rewards are you thinking of?​

The only staff member who's looked over this so far has been Ash K., so all of this is still very much up in the air if it's considered too profitable. Bosses will give a cosmetic ribbon for your stats based on the level they are. This ribbon cannot be used for RSE or ORAS eligibility, but earning a level 3 ribbon is required to fight any level 4 boss, and earning a level 4 ribbon is required to fight any level 5 boss. Additional ribbons aren't required to fight more of these bosses, even when the higher bosses have been beaten. Even if you beat a level 3 one week then a level 4 the next, you can do yet another level 4 the week after even if you only have the one level 3 ribbon.

If you lose against a boss, you get a small amount of money and CC to compensate you for your time and effort (probably $500 + 500 CC). If you defeat a level 1 or 2 boss, you earn a higher amount of money and CC. These are meant to be beatable on your first or second try, so $1,500 + 1,500 CC per person for a level 1 boss and $2,000 + 2,000 CC per person for a level 2 boss are what we're looking at. Level 3 bosses should take most groups multiple attempts to beat, so each player will be awarded with a random cheap berry or TM from the berry store in addition to money and CC. Level 4 and 5 bosses should take players a significant amount of time to defeat. Because we're unsure exactly how difficult players will find these bosses, they'll award a level 4 token or a level 5 token in addition to the money, CC, and ribbon they give out. After about a month of Contest Bosses, the number of level 4 and 5 bosses beaten and how long it took players to beat them will be considered and the level 4 and 5 prize pools will be determined. Each level 4 and 5 token can be redeemed for a random item (or potential Pokemon) from that prize pool, and all level 4 and 5 bosses from that point onwards will give away a random item from that pool instead of one of the temporary tokens.

 

I like this idea, a lot. From TC on Discord, Sari brought up a good point about where these scripts will be kept/who gets to know these scripts, 'cause if all judges know every script then being a judge would be a surefire way to win against the bosses. Your response was that every boss would only have one judge who would know their script (I assume each judge comes up then with their own boss), does that mean in order to become a judge, one must create a script for a boss? Does each judge have a script for a boss of each rank (1-5)? If not, then what happens if a judge who has all the 4 rank bosses goes inactive? (I assume another judge will come up with a new boss, but I just want that to be clear).

Along with that: Who approves of new bosses? Does this person abstain from doing boss battles because they know the script? How strict are the scripts? Like, do they ever deviate from what one will do on round 3/4? If I just watched some people battle a Rank 4 boss and studied its script, could I go in knowing what it'll do every turn?

Oh also:

Why only ORAS? Why not RSE as well? I would assume it would broaden potential for Pokémon usage and possible strategies to also have RSE, especially if you're going to have ORAS since the two have the same format but only with some differences.

These "Schemes" sound p interesting, but could you give us some examples on how they'd work? (I'll ask this again later, like if you could give us a couple faux-contest boss battles so we can see what they would look like, that'd be great.)

seems a bit broken, like an element punching boss essentially can earn 12 appeal points every round without hesitation, but idk, maybe the scripts won't be broken? I'm just unsure

what do you mean by "react"? Could you give an example?

What do you mean? Can you elaborate/give an example?

If from above I'm correct that each judge will have their own scripted boss per rank, what's to stop a coordinator from beating, say, Weir's Rank 4 boss, then Gray's Rank 4 boss, etc, etc. Or is that how it works? You just can't rechallenge that one specific boss again? Can you rechallenge with a different pokemon? What happens to the loley newcomer who wants to challenge a Rank 4 boss, but everyone else has already beaten that boss?

I like this. Also to clarify since I saw it on TC as well, that means everyone off the bat is eligible for 1-3 rank bosses, but must have a rank 3 ribbon to challenge a rank 4 boss, and a rank 4 ribbon to challenge a rank 5 boss. Cool, I like it. Also Cosmetic Ribbon, lol.

This would seem reasonable, except if everyone is able to challenge rank 1-3 bosses off the bat, and rank 1 and 2 aren't all too difficult, and if we are of the mind that every judge will have their own bosses and we can challenge multiple different bosses, then I would imagine people trying to only do rank 1-3 boss battles because the payout is on par with winning a contest, but more guaranteed since its a group effort. These payouts might be too high off the bat, but for rank 4 and 5 boss battles, I could def. see a bigger increase there, like a 2k/2kCC - 4k/4kCC range of payout for sure.

Okay... I like the idea of winning a berry from a contest boss, but a cheap berry? Aren't they all the same price sans Lum berry? I mean I could be okay with this if Rank 3 bosses were that tough, but giving out a potential Sirtrus/Wiki/Occa berry on top of a potential 2k/2kCC payout might be too much. For Rank 4/5 bosses, I could def. see a berry being a part of the pay out as well.

No. I'm sorry, I don't this idea. I bolded the parts I took a main issue with, which was a lot of this paragraph unfortunately. Maybe it's a bad taste leftover from how lucrative the Festival was, but I'm not keen on giving out any more Pokémon from events or new mechanics like this. On top of that, I don't want to add another currency to URPG. If you want to give out a Berry that fits thematically, or possibly a TM that isn't like Protect/Sub (maybe) that again fits thematically, then yea, I'd be open to that. But no, you'd have to do some hard reasoning to me to convince me that beating a rank 4/5 contest boss deserves a Pokémon along with a newer currency. (Also, sidenote, "token" is already taken by AH.)

I don't want to leave this post on such a downer because I do like this idea. It's p cool, but part of me does say "this isn't 'contests'" per say in view of the games at least, but this is taking its format and applying it to something RPG like, so I'm def. game. I think it could be a cool addition to URPG.

 

In order to judge a Contest Boss, yes. Judges can choose to ignore Contest Bosses and only stick to competitive contests.

The same thing that would happen if every ref, judge, grader, etc would go inactive. This is simply the nature of hosted content.

Currently I'm approving any other scripts made in the development group. If Contest Bosses are well received and continue on, it would make sense for more Judges to be appointed as Contest Boss approvers.

Yes, my current plan is to only judge these.

Yes, they can react based on a number of factors: where they're positioned, what appeals were made before it, and what appeals were made after it are the most common factors.

Not exactly, but I do expect hardcore players to study the attempts of other groups to get a better understanding of how harder bosses work.

There's a number of reasons. RSE combos being so powerful is a huge contributing factor, ORAS is undiluted by URPG (like how we have Copycat as a Cool single target copy in our "RSE" format, an attribute/effect combination not actually present in RSE), and in general
ORAS allows for more possibilities than RSE thanks to CM doublers and negative CM doublers. As for what Pokemon are viable, I can assure you that in our tests many Pokemon that don't excel in any attribute across RSE and ORAS have been used specifically to use a couple obscure moves they happen to learn to beat a specific boss's pattern.

Schemes can wildly vary. Some make pure mechanical changes, like disabling the effects of copy moves. Others create an entirely new appeal effect that the boss's nervous moves transform into. Some give the boss incredible buffs until players dispel them, and how they're dispelled can be a puzzle in and of itself (like requiring a player to use a specific move or requiring all three players to use moves that would be Status Moves in the Battle section).

Yes, this can be very powerful. I could hypothetically create an impossible to beat boss in many ways. What stops them from being "broken" is that I always make sure there's a solution that doesn't involve an RNG move or a Smeargle in order to win.

Suppose there's a boss that starts in position 4 and two groups try it, Group A and Group B. Group A uses at least one "more aware of the others" appeal in the first round while group B doesn't use any. For Group A, the boss uses Earthquake as one of its appeals. For Group B, it uses Guard Swap.

Suppose there's a boss that uses "Inverted Appeal (Ongoing Scheme)". While Inverted Appeal is active, if the boss uses a Nervous move, all player-controlled Pokemon that appeal after it will lose the number of points they'd normally gain from their base appeal.

Once a coordinator beats a boss, they can't fight any other bosses for a week.

Once a boss is beaten, nobody can challenge it.

No.

They'll have to challenge one of the current Rank 4 bosses that hasn't been beaten yet.

No, not in the same week. Once you beat a boss, you can't challenge any other bosses for a week.

The adjective was ambiguous, I meant "cheap" to apply to both the possible berry and the possible TM. I could've worded it better by saying "a cheap item from the Berry Store, like a berry or TM".

It wouldn't be too different from the proposed dungeon loot system, and it would heavily depend on how many of these bosses are cleared. I agree that 10+ Pokemon shouldn't be given out per month from this.

It won't be a "currency". The literal maximum a perfect coordinator would be able to get would be four tokens (if they beat a level 3 boss the day the system launches and beats a level 4/5 boss the day their lockout resets four times in a row).

It depends on how hardcore the content is. I'd like to think that spending a month fighting the same boss over and over until you conquer it should give a better reward than winning an hour long 6v6 randoms match.

If you have any better ideas for what word to use, I'm all ears. I think of token as in something you'd put into a gacha machine to get a random prize.

Thank you for your concerns and feedback! I greatly appreciate it.

 

1. Would Boss Contests contribute toward Legend?

2. What should be the correspondence between Boss Level and Pokémon Rank?
I do believe a Pokémon should be among the rewards, since some Pokémon can only be bought with Ribbons, and Boss Contests don't give a regular Ribbon.

 

No. This is a possibility to consider for the future, but Contest Bosses will not contribute towards a Legendary at launch.

No Pokemon will be given out for level 1, 2, or 3 Boss Contests. Whether 4s and 5s will is up in the air. We purposely aren't letting you buy Berry Store Pokemon with Boss Contest ribbons so this isn't seen as a replacement for traditional contests.

 

You didn't really answer my question here because I know what happens when people go inactive. Maybe that was due to my example question confusing you? It was poorly worded, so mb. So the heart of my question here was: does each judge have a contest boss for each rank (1-5) or does a judge specifically have contest bosses for 1 rank; e.g. Morru has a contest boss for ranks 1-5, or Morru has a few bosses for only rank 4.

Makes sense :thumbsup:

So this was talked a lot in TC on Discord. There are just too many unsure things for me to feel comfortable even saying getting a pokemon this way is a potential. It seemed like you were cool with starting at a lower rate of prizes anyway and bumping them up if need be, which I'm more of the mind as well.

I understand what a token is and how you'd think of it, but this is your project/proposal, pick anything you want. My only deal is I don't want overlapping terms in URPG, which fortunately is large enough to unfortunately have a minor issue like this. Some ideas could be using "tickets" from the festival as the festival is over, or PHs (literal placeholders), doesn't matter as long it's specifically known for this.

Lastly a few things from discord and some other thoughts:

I was unsure if this was a permanent thing to be added or just an event, to which I found out it would be a staple part of contests. I think others have said this and I would agree and I think this would be best as a series of events rather than an available activity. Best idea on this I read was Gray's on having it be raids/seasons/waves/whatever y'all'd want to call it. Maybe once every 4-6 months? Could be more sporadic and not on an actual time table to give some random life here and there in URPG, idk, but that, imo, would solve any possible sustainability issues/could solve some prize issues as well.

And finally I have one last concern about the style, on the idea that it's a 3v1. There are pros and cons to having a team of 3. Pros are you get to grab some friends and go on a little campaign together (as I'd imagine those who get together and focus on one boss would then continue to work together until they defeated said boss and then continued onto the next rank/level); you grow and work together as a team throughout; etc along those lines.

Cons would be: some people may unfortunately get excluded due to their unavailability to get online the same time as others, they aren't able to find a 3rd person to join their group as everyone else has a Rank 3 ribbon already or s/t, etc; if a group of 3 have been working on a boss for a while, but then 2 of them are on and a 3rd who's eligible joins them in a sporadic challenge and they win, that original teammate who wasn't there is now excluded from the rest of the team's journey (this may not be such a terrible thing, but something to think on); if two groups are working on the same boss, then when one group beats the boss the other group's time and effort put into learning and trying to defeat that boss are null as they'd have to start on a new one (this could be solved by saying one boss per team, but that would be difficult to limit, or changing the rule about a boss completely disappearing once defeated); etc.

These pros and cons aren't major issues, but food for thought as we decide on having groups of 3 vs. 1 bosses with the proposed rules thus far. Y'all might've already thought about these things and touched on them privately, idk, but just something people should be aware of as well.

 

Any mix of the two. Morru could have seven bosses ready that are all rank 4, one boss of each rank, or a dozen bosses spread across the difficulties.

A lot of those are issues inherent in hardcore cooperative content like MMO raiding, but the specific potential issue of the level 3/4 clear requirement for level 4/5 bosses could easily be solved by lifting the restriction once a tier/season of bosses has been out long enough.