Gen 8 random battle results in no available moves

[jzyrobert]

1. Run the performance showdown fork
2. Copy the random player tutorial but replace "gen7randombattle" with "gen8randombattle"
3. Run it, and it hangs until manually quit.

I've added print messages to the "choose_move", and an example returned object is:
{'_battle_tag': 'battle-gen8randombattle-90', '_opponent_username': 'Player 1', '_player_role': 'p2', '_player_username': 'Player 2', '_players': [{'username': 'Player 1', 'player': 'p1', 'avatar': '2', 'rating': ''}, {'username': 'Player 2', 'player': 'p2', 'avatar': '1', 'rating': ''}], 'logger': <Logger Player 2 (WARNING)>, '_available_moves': [], '_available_switches': [], '_can_mega_evolve': False, '_can_z_move': False, '_force_switch': False, '_in_team_preview': False, '_maybe_trapped': False, '_trapped': False, '_force_swap': False, '_wait': False, '_finished': False, '_rqid': 3, '_rules': ['Species Clause: Limit one of each Pokémon', 'HP Percentage Mod: HP is shown in percentages', 'Sleep Clause Mod: Limit one foe put to sleep'], '_turn': 1, '_won': None, '_weather': None, '_fields': set(), '_side_conditions': set(), '_opponent_side_conditions': set(), '_team': {'p2: Octillery': Octillery (pokemon object) , 'p2: Manectric': Manectric (pokemon object) }, '_opponent_team': {'p1: Glaceon': Glaceon (pokemon object) }}

As you can see available_moves, available_switches are both empty.

I have also attempted to set log_level="DEBUG" for one player, and the output is debug.txt

I will attempt to debug this, but do you have any idea where this might be going wrong (maybe in the message parsing?)

[hsahovic]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for bringing that up. I will try to reproduce your issue this evening; I'll keep you posted. From the looks of it, it might be a gen8-related issue.

[hsahovic]

The problem comes from gen8 mechanics / specifics. Right now, the project is not compatible with gen 8. However, gen8 compatibility is part of the roadmap.
It is planned as the next step after implementing an open ai gym wrapper, which is currently being built. If gen8 support is a priority for your project, feel free to reach out - it might be prioritized.

[jzyrobert]

@hsahovic I'm happy to help out if required.
Do you know which part isn't compatible? I can look into it and submit a PR

[hsahovic]

Sure, that'd be awesome!

There are two main things to do:

• Handling new mechanics, including dynamax / gigantamax. This mainly imply work on the Battle class (parsing and allowing interactions with these mechanics through the API), Pokemon class (new attributes), but also on the Player class (mainly modifying the choose random move method for now). I think that the code to do that will be similar to what is implemented for mega-evolutions.
• Handling new moves / pokemons. This means updating the datasets we are using. Updating pokedex.json is straightforward as it is directly extracted from Pokemon. Updating moves is a bit more tricky; I have a regex somewhere that was used in the process - I'll try to find it and post it here.

For a more precise list:

• Things to update:
  • src/data/pokedex.json
  • src/data/moves.json
  • src/environment/Battle.battle_parse_message
  • src/environment/Battle.battle_parse_request
  • src/player/Player.choose_random_move
• Things to add:
  • src/environment/Battle.can_dynamax
  • src/environment/Pokemon._dynamax
  • src/environment/Pokemon._dynamax
  • src/environment/Pokemon._gigantamax
• Things to add if necessary:
  • src/environment/Battle.can_gigantamax
  • src/environment/Pokemon._gigantamax
  • src/environment/Pokemon.is_dynamaxed
  • src/environment/Pokemon.is_gigantamaxed

I am available to discuss things more in-depth / answer questions if you want - let me know if that would be helpful.

[jzyrobert]

So after some testing:

• There is only dynamax in random battles, no gigantamax (In other tiers, you can directly add gigantamaxed pokemon to your team I believe, and then dynamaxing acts like gigantamaxing)
• I have hit this upstream issue so I'll try to fix that first, otherwise it's a bit of a hassle having to deal with index based moves rather than just being able to select the name
• The request message does not return additional statistics for dynamax moves, so would have to query it from the own dictionary or add it to upstream.

Otherwise, the logic seems reasonable to deal with:

• If a pokemon can dynamax, add dynamaxed moves as well as regular moves
• If the pokemon is already dynamaxed, only present dynamaxed moves
• When the pokemon un-dynamaxes, go back to regular moves

I'll keep working on this in my spare time, have exams soon so not for the next 2 weeks.

[szymonWojdat]

Hi, the upstream issue that you mentioned has been fixed here. I still don't understand how does it select a max move not based off of the original move/index as you can have multiple "base" moves resulting in the same max move, eg. Trick Room and Protect turning into Max Guard. While it doesn't seem to matter that much, the difference is that max moves and base moves share PP, so it's often better to select the one with higher PP if the effect is the same for both moves.

Either way, I'll start looking into gen 8 support as well in the following days. I'll open a PR once I get something done.

[hsahovic]

This issue should be fixed by version 0.3.0, which includes support for gen 8 single formats :)