Beta Notes and Bike Music (Patreon)

another beta patch went up today! for those not in wave 1, in this post i'll be keeping you in the loop with the recent patch notes, and stay tuned at the end for a poll to decide the fate of bike and surfing music

wave 2 when tho?

here's the current plan: this patch is up today. we have some other jank we need to be testing during it. we have a few very last minute features to get in. we do that, get one more patch up, make sure it's not on fire, and then wave 2 starts.

that plan is fallible. something might explode. the jank we need to test might not work. i might forget how to function for two days straight again. it happens. i'll try to keep you guys posted at least a day or two in advance so it's not a surprise.

our goal is to release the community open beta on the 10 year anniversary of the game's first release. would be cute, non? that is april 16th. I want to make sure you guys are getting beta access early enough that you have a healthy head start over the general public. 

if this were any other episode it wouldn't be an issue... but there is a lot of new game in this game. initial wave alpha testers are still getting through the end of postgame. half of the multi test crew is just getting to the end of the main game. it's been a week and i'm not aware of... sorry, what, it's been a week? already? no? i... uh... ugh. anyway. after a week, i'm not aware of anyone in wave 1 who has finished postgame yet. 

point is, we're cramming a bit to make sure you guys have a chunk of time in which someone could at least theoretically finish it in before community release.

we'll see how we do.

very hype

patch notes!

today's patch was .15. The post I announced beta during was .13. So let's start with .14:

• Icy field no longer doubless chance of freeze
• Implemented Itemfinder qol change from Rejuv; now shows an animation on the specific tile instead of messages. Thanks Jan!
• Added an optional, missable event into the early game to receive an early itemfinder in between Florinia and Shelly. 
• Mirror Field seed now boosts evasion by 1 stage instead of 2 and applies Magic Coat.
• The post-restoration kecleon quest is now active by default upon returning to the city. Moved a few particularly obnoxious keks.
• Added new password "freemegaz" which allows the Mega Ring to be picked up from the Grand Hall at the start of the game.
• Added early incubator and early mega ring passwords to the speedrun password pack.
• For personal reasons, giving Titania Blue Moon Ice Cream no longer has lasting consequences or gives extra relationship points. Unique dialogue remains.
• Nyu no longer gives Heracrossite and Pinsirite for Blue Moon Ice Cream. Both Megastones have been placed later in game. 
• Added Power Item vendor to Agate Circus
• Removed Perish Song from wild Arceus' default set. God. Fucking, dammit gamefreak.
• Wild pokemon should no longer generate shiny if they're uncatchable
• Some improvements to map loading and battle speeds 

Now today's patch, .15:

• -- Updated the patcher for more direct error messages, and to politely ask antivirus programs to calm their entire tits. A new core update is required to resolve previous permission errors.
• -- Eeveeium Z, Pikanium Z and Lightball all now double as Eviolite and Everstone.
• -- Added a method to activate passwords on existing save files, at the cost of one Data Chip a pop.
• ---- Added a couple more free Data Chips in early game.
• -- If Easyhms is on, Flash will be used automatically when entering a dark map
• -- The Randomizer updates have been finished and are ready to be tested! 
• ----Huge shout to Cass, Haru and a small side helping of Perry for expanding the randomizer to this iteration! 
• ----Use Password 'randomizer' to begin a randomized run! 
• ----New randomizer features include separate options to randomize the following:
• -------- Species 
• -------- Ability 
• -------- Movesets
• -------- Move Type
• -------- Move Base Power
• -------- Move Accuracy
• -------- Pokemon Type
• -------- Type Effectiveness Chart
• -------- Items
• -------- Options for shuffled randomization vs true instanced randomization also exist!
• --Field Changes:
• ----Electric Terrain activates Slow Start twice as fast
• ----X Scissor now reduces Flower Garden Stage
• ----Mirror Field boosts Accuracy and applies Laser Focus when switching in a battler with Wide Lens, Zoom Lens, Keen Eye, Compound Eyes, or Tinted Lens
• ----Locked On Pokemon are always crit
• ----Wasteland Seed no longer applies a random status, but lays Stealth Rocks on both sides of the field.
• -- Implemented Waynolt's Sort Item by Type mod as an in-game option.
• -- Added an event Mareanie.
• -- Added the Magnetic Lure, a new item based on Waynolt's Smoke Ball mod. Leading with a Pokemon holding it will force wild encounters to generate with a species you have yet to catch. Guarantees fleeing.
• -- Added the Negative Imprint, a postgame item that allows you to set a particular IV stat of a Pokemon to 0.
• -- Added a small reward for showing the Squirtle to the quest starter NPC after catching it.
• -- Added type-unique animations for Hidden Power and Multi-Attack
• -- Added an EV Berry vendor to the circus

This was a pretty huge patch tbh. Outside of the core dev team, I really wanna highlight Aie again for making this patcher bullshit possible, Haru for taking the vanguard on the randomizer stuff, and Waynolt for helping us adapt several of his mods! 

Big thanks to them all~

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Now, we actually have a poll for you today. Those of you active in the patreon discord might remember this came up a bit ago-- I am choosing to not perceive the amount of time it took me to get to this, thank you-- but a few people mentioned that they didn't use the bike very much. This surprised me. From the ensuing conversation, I gathered that there were three main reasons:

• It's not that much faster than running. 
• The event to get it is easily forgotten. 
• Biking music kind of breaks the mood.

To the first two points: One thing we did for e19 before that discussion was speed the bike up some more. Now, that's probably still only marginally helpful because speed up + run is already too fast at times... but by golly we did it. In fact, doing so entirely broke a puzzle in E19. Remind me to tell you all about that once the spoiler dust has settled.
And, resulting from the discussion on the server, we also added an event to serve as an overworld cue and point to the bike event to help it be less forgotten. 

But that third point surprised me. 

...Don't get me wrong, it didn't really surprise me that much-- because I kind of agree. But biking music (and it's vehicular equivalent, surfing music) are features I kind of haven't thought twice about in the last decade because they are just in Essentials by default as hold over things from the main series.

Then again, our base generation of the main series has a lot less smooth GlitchxCity remix atmosphere going for it and a lot more WAH WAH WAWAWA WAWA waaaaaa trumpets announcing your every march. So I get it.

Also-- and here's the personally motivated part-- biking and surfing music was kinna being a tool during alpha. As of writing this, I'm not personally aware of any outstanding issues with those musics in the beta-- I'm pretty sure Perry flayed them into shape. But I also think he just kind of had to hit them with a sledge hammer to do. Several times. We might've had to back off of some of the functionality that perserved them between maps, because that seemed to be the biggest issue. And it's been so long, I don't know if that was always the case or if this is an MKXP thing or just an e19 thing or what. Anyway, it was annoying.

...But if people don't like biking and surfing music anyway...
...I mean, why not spare ourselves any future headaches (agate city do not interact)...
...And just yeet it?

But, I don't know how popular of an opinion this is. It came up and a handful of people agreed, but this could be a pocket minority. Hence, poll.

Do we keep biking and surfing music, or do we flush it down the drain?

I would like to formally state for clarification-- I know I just said it was kind of a headache, but we have also already done the work to make it function again. Throwing it out is not necessarily easier for us at this point, so please make your votes based solely on whether you want it in the game or not.