Part 90: Side Note #11: Aprijuice and Performance (HGSS)

Side Notes 11: Aprijuice and Performance (HGSS)

Oh cool, it's the first Side Notes where we properly go into a remake mechanic. I'll only do this for ones exclusive to this game so there shouldn't be much to it. Anyway, you've seen everything about the Pokeathlon: its events, its challenges and what you'll get at the end. But how do you make it that far? Let's have a look at Performance.

As stated in the update, every species of Pokemon has set Performance stats of Speed, Power, Skill, Stamina and Jump. While the individual Pokemon might not have the maximum stats of its species due to a number of factors, it can reach those via its Nature, its personality value, what day of the month it is, or by drinking Aprijuice. Natures boost Performance in a similar way to how they boost stats and they even link in the same way. Natures that boost Speed boost, well, Speed. Attack and Power, Special Defense and Skill, Defense and Stamina, and Special Attack and Jump are all boosted similarly. A full list of what nature boosts and lowers what can be found here.

Since some natures boost one stat by +2 and another by -2, that's where Aprijuice can come in handy to make up the lost difference. It can be a tricky balance trying to boost as many stats as possible, but you can be screwed over by the current day. This is where things get funky. A Pokemon's Personality Value is an unsigned 32 bit interger that determines a lot of things. The last five integers of a Pokemon's Personality Value is its Power, Stamina, Skill, Jump and Speed attributes and how its translated into stars is calculated as the sum of three separate factors. The first formula is the day to day performance:



Where day is the current day of the month, ranging from 1-31, Attribute is 0 for Power, 1 for Stamina, 2 for Skill, 3 for Jump and 4 for Speed, and P Attribute is the integer that the Performance stat governs in the Personality Value, from 0-9. Therefore, the result ranges from -9 to 9 and the value will always be odd. So, the day to day modifier cycles every 10 days, except for Power and Speed, where the modifier is different for day 1 in comparison to days 11, 21 and 31. Similarly, since Natures are calculated using the last two digits of the Personality Value (sharing with Jump and Speed), a Pokemon of a certain nature will never exceed a modifier to a specific Performance stat. Ah yes, the next modifier is the Nature modifier:



Depending on the Nature depends on how it influences the value of the Nature modifier. If a Nature boosts or lowers a certain stat, it will therefore boost or lower the corresponding Performance stat by 35. For the ten neutral Natures, five will increase a certain Performance stat by 10 and five will lower a certain one by 10. So those five are ones to never have on a Pokeathlon Pokemon. It overall depends on what you want the Pokemon to compete in. Now I did say earlier in that much larger table that Natures boost or lower the stars by 1 or 2 depending on the Nature and that still applies, it's the base you're working from, while this shows how it applies to the overall formula. If the other two modifiers are 0, or close to it, then this is the easiest modifier to keep track of.

And this segues quite nicely into the final modifier: the Aprijuice modifier. But firstly, let's talk about the Apriblender and how it all works. In the similar way to the Berry Blender, you put in five Apricorns at a time and after you walk, run or cycle 100 steps, you'll create some Aprijuice. This can be used up to three times and you can add more Apricorns to the mix to improve or change the flavour. Each batch of Aprijuice has a flavour level and a mildness level, as well as how many more Apricorns you can add. You can Taste an Aprijuice to find out what Performance stat it will boost and how strong it is.

The flavour level of the juice determines how much it will raise the stats of the Pokemon that drinks it. Adding more Apricorns can increase the flavour if they're of the same type as the juice and have a strong value (we'll talk about that in a second). Juice with high flavour level can increase stats by multiple stages, but the maximum flavour it can have is 100.

Mildness, meanwhile, determines how much of a negative effect it will have on a Pokemon's Performance stats, with a lower mildness reducing the stats by less. Every 100 steps, the mildness increases by one level, as well as days passing. If you add an Apricorn to increase the flavour, the mildness of the batch will be reset to 0 when it's done mixing. Mildness maxes out at 255. Also note that the effects of Aprijuice does not stack. If you use another batch on a Pokemon, its current effects will be replaced by the new one.

So now that we have that, the game determines flavours in the exact same way as Poffins, with Spicy, Sour, Dry, Bitter and Sweet and these match up to a Pokemon's Nature and their preferred taste. These do not in any way affect Contest stats, so give as many as you want to your Pokemon. The batch will have the strongest flavour noted and can have second strongest, third strongest, etc flavours if different Apricorns are used. All the Apricorns have at least two flavours to them, with one Strong and one Weak, except for White and Black Apricorns.



So, a batch containing nothing but Red Apricorns will have a strong Spicy flavour and then the second strongest flavour will be Sour. If you add more Apricorns to the batch, the game calculates the new flavour with the following:

The existing flavour of the Aprijuice, its mildness as well as the identities of the strongest and second strongest flavours are noted. The flavour values are then adjusted appropriately by the Apricorn's taste effects. A Strong flavour increases the corresponding flavour by 4 points, while a weak taste lowers the corresponding flavour by 2 points. All flavours range between 0 and 63. If a flavour that is not the strongest or second strongest was raised by the Apricorn, then mildness decreases by 10 and cannot be lowered more than 0. Finally, if the combined flavour of the batch exceeds 100, the strongest flavour that was not boosted by the Apricorn is chosen (though if there's a tie it goes in the order Power, Stamina, Skill, Jump and Speed. Also, a random flavour is chosen if a Black Apricorn was used, while no flavour is chosen if a White Apricorn is used) and that is lowered so that the flavour is 100.

The sum of all the flavours is given and it cannot exceed 100 and any mildness increases by steps are made before a new Apricorn is mixed in. With the strongest, second strongest and weakest flavour all determined (if there's a tie for strongest it goes in the order of spicy, sour, dry, bitter and sweet), then it adds to the corresponding attribute in these ways:

For the strongest flavour, add flavour of Aprijuice multiplied by 1.5 (rounded down) plus 10 to the corresponding Performance stat. For the second strongest flavour, add flavour of Aprijiuce multiplied by 1.5 (rounded down) to the corresponding Performance stat. Finally, for the weakest flavour, subtract x times the sum of the two strongest flavours (rounded down) from the corresponding Performance stat, depending on the Aprijuice's mildness. If mildness is between 0-199, x = 1-0.1*(mildness/25), rounded down of course. If mildness is between 200-254, then x = 0.2, and if mildness is 255, then x = 0.1.

With the three numbers for the separate modifiers, the sum of that is translated into stars using the following table:



So there we go, that's how the game calculates Performance on a day to day, drink to drink, nature to nature basis. That's enough words outta me.