Once again, it begins... AI, Round 287 (Patreon)

although it went well, i had to stop that stream earlier than i would've liked because i was feeling the Big Pain. i decided i'd take the rest of the night to relax, but i didn't really know what else to do with myself if not work. i ended up not doing a whole lot.

this morning i woke up with the sort of complete existential depression that i get only after not doing anything productive for a long period of time. "a long time" is usually, like, a week at the minimum, by which i mean a few days that feel like a week, and i was pretty sure by this afternoon that it had been at least a week from the stream. turns out it was still only yesterday.

anyway, when i'm in that kind of mood, the only thing that helps me feel like anything has any purpose whatsoever is actually working on stuff (which i appreciate about myself since it keeps me moving forward). i'm still working on starlight, but i feel bad for not doing reborn more. also, i wanted to clean up my desktop cuz it's gotten kinda cluttered... and hey, look at all those AI debug logs sitting in a pile on there that i've been neglecting since the last wave of testing?

so, on complete impulse, it's time to fite the AI.
again.

and by 'fite' i mean rub my face against it until it breaks, all the while crying internally, and then coming here to bitch about it.

l0v me sum AI.............................................

here are today's changes to the AI:

• AI now notices if it has Protective Pads or Long Reach when choosing to use contact moves
• In order to make the above change worth anything, AI now considers the following abilities when using contact moves:

Flame Body
Static
Effect Spore
Cute Charm
Poison Point
Gooey
Tangling Hair
Mummy (including advantageous uses, like overwriting truant, defeatist, etc)

• AI now considers advantageous contact effects like Poison Touch and Pickpocket
• Fixed a bug with field effects that caused the AI to overestimate pretty much all damage by 50% on the following fields:

Fairy Tale
Chess
Mountain
Snowy Mountain
Corrosive
Corrosive Mist

• Slower Pokemon with Trick Room are now more likely to use it instead of immediately going for a killing move and ruining their trainer's entire strategy
• AI no longer assumes that self-targetted water/electric moves can be eaten by storm drain/lightningrod
• AI now avoids using normal-type moves against Pokemon with electric-absorbing abilities after the player has revealed Ion Deluge... you know who you are. 
• Tweaked Ion Deluge to be more circumstantial around the check of if the opponent was likely to use a Normal move
• Fixed a bug that made the above change useless because the AI would think that every attack was a normal move >~>
• Fixed an issue with Acid Spray that made last-standing or solo Pokemon avoid using it... looking at you, PULSE Tangrowths everywhere. 
• AI now less likely to use Taunt in double battles
• Fixed a bug that caused the AI to vastly overestimate Low Kick and Grass Knot's base powers
• AI is now more likely to use Sleep moves when its moves suck, or when it has Leech Seed or Substitute
• Went on a journey of self-discovery and humility, and therefrom attained enlightenment in the form of the knowledge that not one single being in this entire existence actually knows all of the details of how Substitute is supposed to work, and nobody cares anyway, so you might as well just forfeit all of your damn worldly desires to do your best and fix it again once anyone is able to prove that it's actually supposed to be that way because even Bulbapedia isn't clear or consistent on half this stuff so who fuckin' knows but we are out here trying to get this shit right so let's GO, here's a list of all the goddamn moves that the AI now newly knows how to avoid using against Substitute--

Attacks that can't hit substitutes:

• Leech Seed
• Lock-on
• Mind Reader
• Trick
• Switcheroo
• Nightmare (aka this battle system)
• Sketch
• Mean Look
• Spider Web
• Block
• Mimic
• Copycat
• Embargo
• Heal Block
• Gastro Acid
• Psycho Shift
• Worry Seed
• Sky Drop
• Strength Sap
• Bestow

Attacks that hit the substitute for normal damage but don't apply other effects:

• Binding Attacks
• Trapping Attacks
• Incinerate
• Theif
• Covet
• Circle Throw
• Dragon Tail
• Smack Down
• Thousand Arrows
• Clear Smog
• Knock Off

Attacks that hit the substitute and don't apply other effects and don't even double damage even if they would normally, because apparently this is a canon thing that literally no one knew about because who even cares:

• Wake-up Slap
• Smelling Salts

What I'm trying to say is that our AI is now the most informed entity in the universe on what actually does or doesn't fail vs a sub
and while i would really like to believe that Gamefreak's own AI knows, their AI in SwSh can't even figure out super effective attacks, so somehow I doubt it.
on the other hand, I can definitely see why they wanted to delete a bunch of moves because this is a bunch of fail cases... for one move... out of 700.
in other words, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

• also the AI now knows not to send in Imposter Ditto vs Substitutes. whoops.

good night we will do this again tomorrow that was only 5% of the AI bug list fuck