eevee/pokedex — Issue #57: Split effect for String Shot/Electroweb, Judgment/Techno Blast etc.
Author: encukou
Created: 2012-01-26 21:24:57+00:00
State: open
Labels: low-priority, refactor

**Reported by [En-Cu-Kou](http://github.com/encukou) on 2011/11/14 07:20:10 +0000 · Migrated from [Redmine issue 694](http://bugs.veekun.com/issues/694)**

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And add a non-unique game\_index column

Redmine metadata:
Updated on: 2012/01/20 20:47:55 +0000
Start date: 2011/11/14

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**Comment by [En-Cu-Kou](http://github.com/encukou) from 2011/11/14 15:18:06 +0000**

Possibly also split MoveEffectChangelog into separate effects, and have the moves always change effects instead of… umm… effects changing effects.

If we want to get move data for a particular version (instead of an effect diff w.r.t. newer games), this seems like the thing to do.

Comments?

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**Comment by [Eevee](http://github.com/eevee) from 2011/11/14 19:48:43 +0000**

are there any pairs of weird moves besides these? this is a significant change for what seems like a minor problem :(

i made a conscious decision to use diffs instead of entire separate text for the changelogs, because

- full effects make for a *lot* more text to maintain, especially for complex moves like Metronome
- full effects make it harder to see what’s actually different, which imo is more likely to be of interest
- even for a hypothetical pokedex that only covers old games, odds are that the people using it will still be more *familiar* with the newer games, and it’s easier to remember differences than to remember an entire “new” effect that happens to be slightly different

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**Comment by [En-Cu-Kou](http://github.com/encukou) from 2011/11/14 20:44:16 +0000**

Eevee wrote:

> are there any pairs of weird moves besides these? this is a significant change for what seems like a minor problem :(

Well, another problem is that the current situation is very hard to handle. Moves change move*effects, and move*effects change effects.
Exercise 1: write a query that selects the right effect for generation X
Exercise 2: write a program that lists all changes between two generations

These are unnecesarily hard! Even spline-pokedex currently cheats and relies on the assumption that only one type of change happens for a particular move. Bad bad bad.

> i made a conscious decision to use diffs instead of entire separate text for the changelogs, because

>

> \* full effects make for a *lot* more text to maintain, especially for complex moves like Metronome

Oh come on. The table has a whopping 26 rows.
It may even be possible to maintain both changes and full effects.

For moves with lists of other moves, like Metronome, it might be prudent to actually have arbitrary interaction relations in the database. And just include them in the text. But that’s an idea for another feature request.

> \* full effects make it harder to see what’s actually different, which imo is more likely to be of interest

Yeah. Actually, the proposal to maintain both changes and full effects sounds even better now.
Yes, it’s not normal, but prose difference is an algorithmically unsolvable problem so we want to cache it, and not force users to do it themselves every time they read this.

> \* even for a hypothetical pokedex that only covers old games, odds are that the people using it will still be more *familiar* with the newer games, and it’s easier to remember differences than to remember an entire “new” effect that happens to be slightly different

Unbelievable as it may seem, there still are RBY players.
The goal here is to get the data into a simulator (PO), where you do want to see just the effect for your tier.

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**Comment by [En-Cu-Kou](http://github.com/encukou) from 2011/11/15 17:35:57 +0000**

Bah. There’s currently no proper way to get a past move’s effect text, with possibly changed effect chance, even if the effect didn’t change.

This needs more normalization than I can tack onto this issue. Ignore the changelog thing, let this just be about splitting effects. It’s a potential prerequisite for such a normalization, though.

Tracker: Bug ⇨ None

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**Comment by [Zhorken](http://github.com/zhorken) from 2012/01/20 20:47:55 +0000**

Thunder Wave checks immunities; other paralysis moves with the same effect don’t