Hello everyone, we have some news to share about the research. This time will be a bit of a smaller update as the research was going a bit slow recently, but we nonetheless have some interesting data to share:
New Adventure Effect: Dynamax Cannon
As you know, Eternatus’ Dynamax Cannon has an Adventure Effect that increases the max move level of all your pokémon – except Zacian and Zamazenta – by 1. The gamemaster data saw the addition of a fourth level to all max moves shortly before Eternatus’ release, which made this rather easy:
Max move powers:
Level 1: 250
Level 2: 300
Level 3: 350
Level 4: 450
GMax Move powers:
Level 1: 350
Level 2: 400
Level 3: 450
Level 4: 550
This does align with the announcement that Level 3 max moves get a bigger boost than others, as the Adventure Effect is basically +2 levels instead of +1.
However not everything is as exciting, as unfortunately the moves max guard and max heal did not get the same treatment:
Max Guard powers:
Level 1: 20 HP
Level 2: 40 HP
Level 3: 60 HP
Level 4: 80 HP
Max Heal powers:
Level 1: 8%
Level 2: 12%
Level 3: 16%
Level 4: 20%
They only receive a boost that equals +1 level, while we were hoping that those would also get the same +2 increase as the damaging moves. What's up with that Niantic / Scopely?
Update on Species Max Battle Parameters
We have revisited some older videos of max battles and also did researches on the new max battles, specifically around the Max Finale week and we now believe that the parameters for each max/gmax battles are different, sometimes even across multiple instances of battles being available. Almost all gmax bosses since gmax gengar had a 0.9 attack multiplier, while their defense multiplier was seemingly still set to 1. This also includes eternatus, which specifically had the parameters of 0.75 cpm, 60k HP and an attack multiplier of 0.9.
For a complete list of battle parameters check the “Raid / Max Battle Parameters” of the Config History Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gz_e_8JUyOmt3M6wZvTvw5__lhGNdYhnAR3wtdbpTyg/edit?usp=sharing
For all the config related updates we find, we’ll try to keep that one up to date as it will be our main source of data for simulations and stuff.
One notable change is that Raikou had its HP buffed from 20k to 25k for the Max Finale Week, being the only T5 Legendary that received parameter changes (at least as far as we noticed).
Just a little info: We may restructure the Raid / Max Battle Parameters Tab a bit in the future, as some more general battle parameters are a global thing and not raid level specific.
Update on Max Battle Helper Data
Originally we posted about this a few updates ago and stated that the Damage Bonus for 3 Icons is +18.8% damage, however after thoroughly testing it we found that the Damage Bonus is actually dependant on the actual number of Helpers, while the Icons just give you a rough estimate at which range of Bonus you are. u/MocTalox absolutely killed it with the amount of work he put into getting and verifying these results.
Currently the data suggest that the Helper Bonus values are these:
| Number of Helpers | Damage Boost |
|---|---|
| 0 | +0.0% |
| 1 | +10.0% |
| 2 | +15.0% |
| 3 | +17.0% |
| 4 | +18.0% |
| 5 | +18.7% |
| 6 | +19.1% |
| 7 | +19.2% |
| 8 | +19.3% |
| 9 | +19.4% |
| 10 | +19.5% |
| 11 | +19.6% |
| 12 | +19.7% |
| 13 | +19.8% |
| 14 | +19.9% |
| 15+ | +20.0% |
All Helper values after 15 give the same flat 20% boost, as we have not observed any difference in damage from 15 to 40 helpers. The initial 18.8% we measured was a combination of us not knowing that its dependant on actual Helpers, and a little planning error by the idiot that did the test (me), as I thought the data I collected would provide no doubt about the damage, when it actually left 3 possible damage values in the range, not one, this has not been caught by anyone until recently, proving how important it is to have multiple people double and even triple check your results.
For now, we do believe that these are the correct values. But we’ll keep an eye out and if our damage noticeably increases for higher helper counts, we are sure to check them again.
You can find all the data that led to those results here: https://github.com/MocTalox/Max-Battle-Tests/tree/main/tests/help
Little Side Note on Max Shrooms:
Max Shrooms give a flat 100% damage bonus, this is simply a 2x multiplier inside the damage formula BEFORE the +1 is applied. This is how the shroom was expected to work, but just to make sure you know that this was confirmed.
Update on CPM Chaos based on catch level
We were hard at work on this one, however unfortunately we have not yet been able to replicate the values we have seen with any formula. However, the issue that the stats of a pokémon can differ very slightly after being powered-up based on what level it was originally caught at is still in the game. At around the 1st of July we saw that additional values were added to the “combatexperiment” section in the BATTLE_SETTINGS category in the gamemaster file. Specifically the settings with the number 17, 18 and 21 were enabled.
We were able to confirm that the Charge Move Priority issue in which a Level 50 hatched Pokémon always loses CMP against a Level 50 purified or shadow pokémon with the same attack IV (when it should have been a 50/50 tie) was in fact fixed, and both pokémon had a 50% chance of winning the CPM of the time.
However, on the 31st of july the setting 21 was removed again. Following this we immediately tested it and found that in fact the CMP behaviour returned to its old way, causing the L50 shadow machamp with 15 Atk IV to always win CMP against another Level 50 machamp with 15 Atk IV that was hatched from an egg. So that experimental setting nr. 21 fixed the issue, but was removed again after around 4 weeks of it being active and it has not returned since.
So, uh, hello to the random dev(s) that reads these posts and worked on that fix, but it's gone again, so fix plz? And if you’re at it, please fix it so that no stat differences are there at all anymore (looking at the 1106 / 1107 CP bellsprouts), because we would really like to check raid and max battle cpm values with perfect accuracy ;P And feel free to drop by the research channel to say hi 🙂
Things that are still unknown / not understood:
Let's take a little check on what things we don’t know or don’t understand yet, just to give you all an idea of what type of research is likely still ahead of us (and if it’s something you may wanna help out with, feel free to let us know). The Goal is still the same: being able to recreate all combat related calculations with perfect accuracy, but knowing what we don’t know and especially knowing that there are things we don't know that we don't know is much more important that knowing what we actually know.
- CPM Chaos based on catch level is still there, and we have not yet found any way to properly recreate the results we saw
- CPM values of raids / max battles still have a range, we want to tackle this, but it’s borderline impossible with the CPM Chaos still being a thing and NOT understood. Once we know what’s going on there we can resume testing to get the ranges down to a single float. This of course also includes all damage multipliers that are in the game
- PvP damage modifiers still need testing as well, as this is also dependant on the CPM Chaos, there is no realistic way to get those down to a single float, unless we get lucky and find matchups that we can test without any need to power-up anything
- Targeted / Spread Move Rate for max bosses, we have not forgotten that part of the research but there have not been any mentionable steps forward on this. However with Zamazenta and its instant shields being there, testing may resume rather soon, as we can now better and faster check this out
Research Team:
u/flyfunner (Lead Researcher, coding, Data Analysis)
u/bmenrigh (Co-Lead, coding, Data Analysis)
'alexelgt' (Data collection, Data analysis, coding, gamemaster supply)
CalcyIV-Team (Data collection)
u/TrueNourishment (Data collection & Analysis)
u/eli5questions (Data Collection & Analysis)
u/MocTalox (Data Collection & Analysis, coding)
u/CreatorBeastGD (Data Collection & Analysis)
u/Key-Bag-4059 (Data Collection)
by Flyfunner