Talk:Grassy Glide (move)

Moves with Variable Priority

I thought maybe at first the edit to my addition to the article was a roundabout way to say that I was being too wordy with how I presented the trivium, but I have to state openly that the edit itself makes the entire statement false. The fact that multiple moves can have their priority modified under differing circumstances means inherently that all of those moves have a variable priority. Variable as a verb means the ability to change or be changed. Gale Wings changes the priority of Talonflame's Flying-type moves when it is at full health. Prankster changes the priority of any status move used by a Pokémon with that ability as long as it isn't targeting a Dark-type Pokémon. Triage changes the priority of any healing move that Comfey uses. It can be said that Grassy Glide is the only move that states in its description that its priority can change depending on the circumstances in battle (it really only says that its priority is reliant on the presence of Grassy Terrain), but it is false to say that it is the only move with a variable priority. I have to emphasize also that I am not trying to be rude with my words, I am just speaking honestly what I believe to be true based on my logical reasoning. I don't want to edit war and I don't want factually incorrect information on Mainspace pages. Lavince ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (talk) 12:10, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Priority itself is - fundamentally - a property of moves. The same thing should go for other properties of moves (like power, accuracy, etc.): the move may either have that property fixed, or variable. (A move having a fixed priority/power/.. doesn't necessarily mean that it can't ever be changed by other means.) And Grassy Glide happens to be the only move whose priority is inherently variable/not fixed.

So in my opinion, it's fine/correct. Nescientist (talk) 17:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

By that logic then, Grassy Glide has a fixed priority of ±0, and then under the circumstance that the user of the move is grounded whilst Grassy Terrain is in effect, the priority is instead +1. I fail to see what about this move means that its priority is handled differently than every other move in the game. Is there a special line of code that checks for the correct circumstance for this move and this move only? Wouldn't you find something very similar in the game's code for the abilities I mentioned above?

Priority is handled differently than other move properties in the game. Properties like power and accuracy are used in direct equations to determine how much damage the move is capable of doing to the opposing Pokémon, or if the move will hit the opposing Pokémon. Priority is inherently not directly used in a equation like this. Instead it determines if there is a special order the moves used on that turn will be prioritized or delayed. If two Pokémon use a move with the same priority on the same turn, then the game separately calculates which Pokémon has the higher speed stat to decide who goes first. This is why I worded the original trivium the way I did, because every move has a base priority, and then some can have that priority increased under some circumstances. The game adds one to the fixed priority property of the move after taking into account the current conditions of the battle. Lavince ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (talk) 23:42, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue that, at this point, it's a property of Grassy Glide at least as much as it is an interaction with grassy terrain. (And priority is a property of moves as much as power etc. are.) For Gale Wings etc., it's just an interaction with the Ability that just happens to affect some moves.

I see your point, but I don't think this is "factually incorrect information" at all, it is at most something you can argue about. Nescientist (talk) 10:49, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Are you trying to say that the ability for Grassy Glide to have increased priority is a property of the move? If so, I would surmise that it's also a property of the other moves that can have their priority increased by those abilities. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd assume it would be a flag at the end of the move data like how the moves are shown to have in the source code you linked. I imagine that having a set of flags as prerequisites would be a lot more simple than restructuring the formatting of all moves just to have two priority values listed for one move, especially with how specific the circumstances have to be in order to have the priority increased.

I also never said that priority isn't a property of a move, I said that it's handled much differently than other properties because it's not directly involved in a calculation, such as to determine damage, since its main purpose is to categorize which types of moves are executed first. The game engine has some internal check to know when a move should have its priority increased. To speculate that it wouldn't be both a property of the move the game is reading and a separate check that's triggered based on the ability and/or terrain that is active at the time is pure conjecture without decompiling the code and interpreting it. With that in mind, there has to be other flags (that would all be associated properties of those other moves) the game has to check for before adding one to the priority of the move on that turn. It physically can't be only a property of the move in any case because the game has to check for multiple conditions to be met before it will modify the priority.

In summary, the circumstances by which these moves can be made to have an increased priority may be unique, but the ability to have their priority increased is not unique. Lavince ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (talk) 13:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I think those detailed technicalities don't contribute to the discussion. (At least, they aren't part of my argument.)

You can pretty much say ("feel"?) that Grassy Glide has variable priority through in-game experience, is my argument. It's one move that's affected by one effect; the move has the effect detailed in its in-game move description (neither the move nor the Ability that causes that effect has); that, to me, means Grassy Glide's priority is variable. Framing it "Grassy Glide has one priority when there's no Grassy Terrain, and another when there is" seems to be slightl ymore reasonable/natural than "Grassy Terrain has the effect of increasing Grassy Glide's priority" (even though both are equally "correct").

Also notice how, even on a technical level, the move data of Magnitude, or Eruption, or Stored Power, has one and only one value, but still the move's power actually is variable (or at least we say that).

If it weren't just the one move Grassy Glide, but say all Grass-type moves, then it's a different thing. But at this point, as I said, I ultimately feel that Grassy Glide's priority is variable on a much different, more fundamental level than that of status moves due to Prankster etc. Nescientist (talk) 14:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I clarified that the effect of Grassy Glide is what can modify its priority. As you said, all of those moves have a single base power but they also have an effect that is likely defined elsewhere in the code to state when to modify the base power of the move. I feel like its an easy extension to assume that this is the case for Grassy Glide, except the priority value is changed instead of the base power. So in terms of explicit game code, a move is defined as having a given base power, accuracy value, PP total, and priority (etc.) but the effects of those moves are what can change those values under their defined circumstances. Lavince ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (talk) 14:39, 3 July 2021 (UTC)