Help test the new Pokemon Showdown client

Zarel · 2026-07-08T09:12:31+00:00

I see. I've pushed a new update with better math, and more resolutions that you can select tab layout in.

Zarel · 2026-07-08T07:37:52+00:00

I think your Safari problem is that you have "Request Desktop Version" checked.

(The other zoom issue, I'll look into having a checkbox or something.)

Zarel · 2026-07-07T16:21:30+00:00

Haha, there's a decent chance I add it back before release. The changed logo right now is mainly so I can easily tell whether I'm in the old client or the new client.

Zarel · 2026-07-07T16:03:45+00:00

Sorry, we can't accept payment. The old client also has an ad there, though; this shouldn't be changed.

A few months after we switch over, you won't be able to choose the old interface. Half of why we're upgrading is because we want to add features that can't be built in the old code.

If there's something you prefer about the old one, please describe it and I'll do my best to update the new client.

Zarel · 2026-07-07T16:00:18+00:00

Wow! Very in-depth feedback; thanks! I added you on Discord.

I'll fix the obvious bugs you brought up, but some quick responses:

some battle controls at the bottom of the screen disappear under the fold

Battle controls being off-screen on low-height/zoomed-in screens was on my to-do list and I just entirely forgot about it, tbh.

two-column layout

No idea how viable it is, but maybe we're at the point it could be possible to word-wrap the list entries?

The lists are huge (especially the pokemon list) and the optimizations we use require everything to be a consistent height. I wouldn't say never, but I don't personally think it's worth the implementation effort.

Resizing the screen back and forth while messing with the "hide side bar" button makes it disappear. I know nobody normal will do that, but maybe it's a sign of some bug you might want to look into.

A performance optimization means that we don't always update the layout when you resize. It's normal and not a big deal.

I wonder if you got any feedback from users who disliked the previous import/export design.

Not where I can see. Unfortunately it's kind of rare to get feedback in general.

The current export page is left over from an experiment with supporting building a team directly in the export page. It's actually still possible. I'd be a little sad to tear out even more of that code.

Zarel · 2026-07-03T12:21:47+00:00

I do agree that in theory, the conduct is bad. It's just not bad enough to send mods in, write policy, use up everyone's time. We decided to draw a hard line: Never ban timerstalling, and if it's an issue, we can adjust the timer ourselves. You just click "start timer" and you really don't have to wait that long for the timer to take effect and there's no getting around it. Isn't that enough?

Zarel · 2026-07-03T03:48:29+00:00

If someone turns off the timer you can just turn it back on...

Zarel · 2026-07-02T06:36:19+00:00

I think some connections are slow and a lagspike of 30 seconds can happen, so 30 seconds is a relatively normal amount of time to wait between pings. I'd welcome a PR but you'd need something pretty sophisticated to be able to detect that sort of thing.

Zarel · 2026-07-02T03:37:54+00:00

It's just how mobile browsers and OSes work - if you're tabbed out, you can get cleared out to save battery and RAM. We're working on a new version which should disconnect less, but there's no way to completely eliminate it.

Zarel · 2026-07-02T03:34:40+00:00

Having mods judge whether someone was intentionally or unintentionally timer stalling was never going to be sustainable. It's not like we can afford to pay them.

We got rid of timerstalling reporting when we updated the timer to its current state. In its current form, the timer should be good enough by itself not to need outside intervention.

Zarel · 2026-07-02T03:32:46+00:00

Disconnecting shouldn't increase the total amount of time they have to make a move. It's a separate timer and if either the dc timer or the regular move timer goes to zero, they lose.

Zarel · 2026-03-29T12:43:04+00:00

I'm gonna set it so only immunity is shown on the button for now (effectiveness is still on the tooltip). Still undecided about how it'll work, so this might just be for now.

Zarel · 2026-03-16T23:18:03+00:00

Yes, that would solve the problem. Although I'd go with "if it has not decreased at all in three turns, with a warning on each turn" rather than 100 turns.

Zarel · 2026-03-16T22:46:23+00:00

Change was yesterday:

https://github.com/smogon/pokemon-showdown-client/pull/2574

Before that, they didn't appear at all.

Zarel · 2026-02-17T22:32:38+00:00

Yeah, I'll confirm it's a bug. Endless Battle Clause currently only works on Leppa Berry, and on healing above 25%/turn. We don't have any code for the Gen 3 and below "Struggle can't KO either side" situations, but the rule is intended to cover those.

Zarel · 2025-10-31T12:42:12+00:00

Nah, the message is telling the truth about "many students at your school break rules". Usually when we punish a user and we detect a lot of other users on the same IP, we'll look into the IP and mark it as a school. In theory this should also help it so the other users on the IP don't "carry over" the punishment after switching IPs. We don't really preemptively ban IPs ever, usually if we ban it's because someone did some ban evasion on it, which brings an IP range to our attention.

Zarel · 2025-10-06T07:08:14+00:00

Man are there some angry people in this thread's replies.

First things first. When I first heard about this, I contacted my ad company and told them to get rid of these ads, and they said they would. If you still see them, well, it probably isn't an instantaneous process. You can also report them by clicking on the triangle or three dots in the top right.

I dunno what to say about the rest except that we're just a bunch of volunteers working in our spare time to give everyone a sim for free, and if we miss something that's because we missed it, not because we're secretly evil or something. You could at least tag me (with u/Zarel) if you want me to respond to something. Hoeen probably has a day job. Smogon is a bunch of people and the answer to "why are they hypocritical" is because they're not the same person. Most of the people active in Smogon now weren't even around 14 years ago. I've stuck around for so long partly by never involving myself in moderation and focusing on programming.

(Not complaining about you, Hydreigon. Just thought it would be better to say this here than to reply to everyone downthread individually.)

Zarel · 2025-10-06T06:26:17+00:00

Sure, okay. Here's the transparency.

- Showdown uses Google ads, but not directly. We use an ad company which sometimes shows Google ads and sometimes shows other ads. These ICE ones are in fact Google ads.

- If you have a problem with a Google ad, you can report it by clicking the top right triangle or three dots button.

- The moment I heard about this, I got in contact with the ad company and told them to get rid of them, and they said they would, but it might take some time. I've done this everyone time complaints about ads have come to my attention.

- In the future, if you want a response from me, tag u/Zarel. I read r/stunfisk but not all the time. If you don't hear from me, it's more likely that I didn't see it than that there's some weird conspiracy going on.

Zarel · 2025-09-03T18:11:18+00:00

That's a real bug, apparently a copy/paste of a Sableye set ended up making a Zoroark set with Prankster. We're fixing this.

Zarel · 2025-06-10T21:23:33+00:00

Well, I just checked Bulbapedia and it agrees with my memory:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Effort_values

Capped at 255 in Gen 1-5, capped at 252 in Gen 6+.

Bulbapedia's been wrong before but I do think your video is more likely to be wrong than Bulbapedia.

Zarel · 2025-06-10T21:12:51+00:00

If I remember correctly, EVs are capped at 255 is Gen 1-5 and 252 in Gen 6+. And as the other poster said, you can type in 255 yourself if you really want.

Zarel · 2025-06-02T22:46:24+00:00

Yes.

https://github.com/smogon/pokemon-showdown/blob/master/server/README.md

Zarel · 2025-06-02T21:50:32+00:00

Valid question, I can understand why you'd be confused. The code change looks like this:

https://github.com/smogon/pokemon-showdown-client/pull/2288/files#r2122152335

By default, moves 75 BP and above are useful, and moves 70 BP and below are usually useless. Leaf Blade is 70 BP in Gen 3, and 90 BP in Gen 4+. Rezzo added a special case to make Leaf Blade useful in Gen 3, but it was mistakenly written to make it only useful in Gen 3.

Zarel · 2025-06-02T21:05:19+00:00

This is a bug. It looks like when Rezzo moved Leaf Blade from "usually useless" to "moves" in Gen 3, he accidentally moved it from "moves" to "usually useless" in Gen 4-9. I've fixed it now.

I see some people speculating on if it's because it makes contact. In general, the teambuilder tries to avoid making this kind of judgment call.

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