Bulbapedia talk:Project TCG

This is the talk page for the Bulbapedia's TCG Project.

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Regarding illustrators

Wouldn't it be more useful to include a gallery section for each illustrators' article instead of simply listing their cards or linking to a category? Considering those are text-based only. --Gabo 2oo (talk) 03:42, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Page/Category for Cards that have a narrative?

Recently I've noticed many cards are part of certain narratives. However, there is no section that lists all these cards in one place. Would it be useful to create a page on this subject that links to each of these cards? Brawlersinthezone (talk) 20:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

TCGO and "Battle Simulator"

Notes from my one-man mission to get those Trainer Challenge decklists from TCG Online:

• The game's code is a mess. Not in the poorly made sense, it's just too full of classes and references to other code for an easy analysis. I have no idea how and if the game ever stores TC decklists in your computer or a way to extract info from the servers, so playing against them keeps the only avaliable opition. Most npcs have their current decklists on Bulbapedia, but this could automate the process for the future.
• The game's cache has assets for each npc's cards (not their quantity), but it seems unreliable. For example, Venusaur-EX is in Logan's assets but he does not use it in his only appearance, regardless of difficulty setting.
• Old decks are another can of worms. The "Early BW era" only applies to City Championship and Diamond League as they got introduced ater BW, while Gold and Platinum League Trainers kept using HGSS lists up until Plasma Storm came out. The "BW era" decks presented in each Trainer's article were actually "Early XY" decks that did more than replace Trainer cards, some got outright nerfed and/or their Pokémon changed. Plus somehow Mick had three copypasted decks from another npc in his article for five years.
• Daniel's decklists having a single different card (-1 energy, +1 Professor's Letter) makes me wonder about other subtle differences in other Trainer's appaearances that might've been skipped over.

Also worth pointing to a series of short TCG games from the Japanese website not avaliale in Pokémon.com; I'm not sure if these should be on their own article, or an article about Japanese-exclusive minigames. Pipefan (talk) 00:15, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Rotation marks

Since rotation is going to be based on the rotation mark (aka the D, E, etc. printed at the bottom of a card) to determine which cards are legal, it would probably be worth updating {{TCGExpansionInfobox}} to include a section for the set's rotation marker (which would apply to all Sword and Shield era sets and the Asian releases of the Sun and Moon era sets. Mr. Daikon (talk) 09:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

That's on my to-do list. Currently getting new setlists made to have regulation marks noted on expansion pages. glik^glak 12:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Competitive Usage Info on Card Pages

I would like to begin on a project that adds information related to the actual use of a card in competitive play to every single card page. Considering that the cards are playable pieces to a larger game instead of just collectibles, explaining how they are used within the game, while providing important context to the game's meta at the time, feels like a natural inclusion to their pages. I have put together a draft for Hitmonchan (Base Set 7) on Google Docs showing a mockup of its Bulbapedia page and the kind of information I would like to add. Here's the link to it. Some notes about my draft:

• The three full paragraphs of information I wrote are all directly related to the card itself and its specific impact and history, as well as important synergies necessary to understand the strength of the card. I tried to avoid including extraneous information that would be better suited for other pages. Electabuzz, for example, is a notable omission from this page, as it doesn't actually have any direct synergy with Hitmonchan, but saw play because it covers Hitmonchan's weaknesses. That particular synergy feels best explained on Haymaker's page.
• Notable deck archetypes: this section is intended to link to every deck archetype page that features the page's card. For Hitmonchan, there's only one archetype, Haymaker, but for other cards (e.g. Computer Search) there's going to be several. Keeping them a simple list that links to their deck archetype pages makes the most sense to me.
• Notable synergies/counters: These sections are intended to be a simple summary of notable interactions with the card, which is useful for readers looking for quick information. I wrote the draft detailing everything featured here, but in retrospect I think these too should just be simple lists, and each respective card's page will have the information that explains why they're a good counter/synergy. This would remove redundant information on the page, while still providing the quick information and easy linking I intend to give with these sections.

My intention with this project is to make Bulbapedia a better resource for competitive history than it currently is. I would like to get started as quickly as possible, but I was advised to make a Talk post about it first.Alice Voltaire (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

I think you explain the utility of Hitmonchan well but the tone needs a second pass to make it more encyclopedic. For instance "Super Energy Removal’s cost of discarding an attached Energy is often trivial for Hitmonchan"; instead of the subjective term "trivial", it'd be better to say that SER's cost is effectively nullified. And in "It still remained a serious competitive threat until Neo Genesis’s Sneasel came out", "serious threat" is very hype-ish. It maintained viability or it continued to see play.

Your first paragraph has a couple factual errors. Onix has the second highest HP for a Base Set Basic at 90 and Hitmonchan's Jab isn't the most damage for one Energy, it's the most consistent highest damaging one Energy attack. Farfetch'd's one use of Leek Slap and Magikarp with two damage counters both do 30. Flipping it around goes farther: "Hitmonchan's Jab attack had the highest damage of a single Energy attack that did not have drawbacks. And of all the Basic Pokémon with access to such moves, Hitmonchan had the highest HP".

Outlining the timeframe should be done at the beginning of a section like this. Additionally, recorded uses at official tournaments should be referenced where possible.

Finally, an objective statement like "most efficient attacker" needs a good amount of hard data to back it up, exactly how many Basic Pokémon it can KO in a hit or two, how many of those are due to Hitmonchan's typing in comparison to the other single Energy 20 attackers, etc. It really needs a full breakdown of the meta of the time. And that's a bit too much to stick on one card page just to justify saying "most efficient" over "very efficient". glik^glak 21:01, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

This is very useful critique, I very much appreciate it and will try my best to apply it for future edits. I do have one issue with this, though, and that's with the "outlining the timeframe" part. I feel that it best flows with having that portion of the section at the end, as the history of the usage of a card is best understood if you have an understanding of how a card functions within a meta first. Additionally, if a card sees less play later on in its history, then something happened within the meta itself (e.g. a good counter came out), and it is impossible to understand that change without first knowing basic information on the card's function first. If it would be preferable, I could divide these three paragraphs into "Overview" and "History of Competitive Play" to help define each section. I have updated the draft with these changes in mind.

Also, important to note that there is unfortunately very little tournament data in the early years of the game's history, particularly in the first year as there were no major tournaments at all then. I will do my best to find good, significant tournament placings, but 1999 only had small card shop tournaments. Alice Voltaire (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

A timeframe is necessary so readers not already familiar with the meta of the time have a reference for what is and isn't usable at the time. For the Base Set it isn't paramount since there weren't any previous cards, but for future formats it's very important. There are even cards that only saw significant usage when they were in the Expanded format and a synergy card was introduced later. A thing I forgot to mention, these sections should entirely be in the past tense given that we're talking about the past; Hitmonchan certainly doesn't have the highest single Energy attack nowadays. And avoid using "you" or referring directly to the reader in other ways.

Separating the overview and history is fine but the other three sections need to be merged into overview. glik^glak 23:24, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I think I just misunderstood what you meant by timeframe, I definitely agree with that being needed. I thought you meant to put the breakdown of the history first, and made the "Overview" and "Competitive History" sections as a compromise out of that misunderstanding. I've now reverted it back, and added at the beginning what I believe it is you wanted.

I intentionally wrote most everything in present tense because these formats are still perfectly playable, and have active fan communities still playing them today, and reserved the past tense for things describing the historical development of the format. This will be even more of an important distinction later as some cards were mostly ignored in their time, but in modern play have been discovered to be really strong. But I also understand if you insist on it being past tense, I just think it sounds weird when talking in past tense about interactions that still are correct today. I have updated the draft for hopefully the final time, and if this is up to your standards, then I'll apply everything we've talked about to all future edits I make for this project. Alice Voltaire (talk) 03:20, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

You misunderstood about the section headers: overview and history are fine, it's archetypes, counters, and synergies that don't need their own sections. The overview being present tense is fine if the "timeframe" is explained by expansion. Instead of "During the 2001 Modified format", "In the Team Rocket-Neo Destiny format" for example. glik^glak 19:20, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Lost Origin missing from individual card pages

Most if not all the */[Pokemon name]_(TCG) pages are missing entries for the respective Pokémon regarding their appearances in Lost Origin. Is this something that's automated or is it done manually? I could do some if it's the latter. --INTERNETFRIEND (talk) 18:18, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

"Other appearances" section for species pages

I'm looking to propose a pretty sizable increase in scope for the TCG species pages; I want to run it by other folks to see if there's other suggestions/better ways to do it. For context, I've met a lot of collectors looking for artwork of a specific species of Pokémon, but they miss several cards due to the Pokémon they're collecting not being part of the card's name. For example, a Dragonite collector thinking they have every Dragonite card, then finding out about Pokémon Breeder Fields (Neo Revelation 62) or Blaziken (Furious Fists 14) by happenstance, and then realizing they have more work to do. There's not too many resources out there for this type of collector -- a handful of YouTube videos, a thread on EliteForum, and a Google Sheet I maintain and occasionally post to Reddit. I'd like to add a section to every relevant species page with this information. I posted some mockups to my userpage. Thoughts and help appreciated, thanks. RotomAmiti (talk) 14:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Are art collectors typically as meticulous as regular collectors, wanting multiple prints of the same art? Like, is an art collector likely to be searching for both the Challenge from the Darkness and the Yamabuki City Gym prints of Warp Point, where the only difference is one has a circle in the corner? Cause if not, you could save a lot of space with a simple name + description table. glik^glak 18:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

From personal experience, I've definitely met folks who are pretty particular about having a super-duper-ultra-100% collection, but I think listing each individual release has a more practical use in that "Hey, these are the exact prints of Warp Point that have Oddish." Listing them all out like that, to me, makes it clear that the Majestic Dawn and Regigigas Half Deck prints are excluded. Additionally, for people who aren't hyperfixated on getting every variant, it plainly lays out their options. "Ok, my only options for the EX Series are MA, UF, and CG. CG is the cheapest, I'll buy that one." Regarding cards that have multiple arts which qualify (Professor Elm's Lecture is a good example, with LOT 188 and LOT 213 having different arts but the same Pokémon), I figure they can be listed with their name cells unmerged to hopefully make it clear that they refer to different arts. I'm unsure how well that would come across, though. RotomAmiti (talk) 21:21, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I can't imagine someone getting to the "which one do I buy" step before going to the card's page to look at the art, where the information on which prints have what art already lives. And I don't think "all 24 prints of Tierno have Vannilite" is information worth the amount of space it'd take up. Space is really the major factor here; 24 prints of Tierno for Vannilite, 22 prints of Switch for Geodude. Imagine those numbers on Pikachu, who's bound to be on over a hundred cards' art. glik^glak 23:31, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

So, using the Switch example, would something on a more basic table that simply says "All prints from EX Ruby & Sapphire through EX Dragon Frontiers, as well as Celestial Storm" be preferred? Or even just "EX Ruby & Sapphire 92", maybe with a separate listing for "Celestial Storm 147" because it's a different card template. I don't know, I just feel like one of the wiki's weaknesses is that it's unclear which card numbers correspond to which card art, and I'm concerned that not being explicitly thorough in a list of cards would just make that problem worse. To be clear, I'm fine with making a simplified list if it is deemed necessary, I just think doing it for the sake of a shorter page would be phoning it in. Incidentally, I can confirm that Pikachu has over 100 card appearances before even counting reprints (although there are surprisingly few reprints, it's mostly stuff like No. 1 Trainer). RotomAmiti (talk) 15:50, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Cobbled together an example table. If there's multiple arts in a set (like regular and Full Arts) I'd put the card number, e.g. "Lost Thunder 188". Beyond that, compress info when it's reasonable. Matching arts to prints is the purview of individual card pages, which is a project I'm not getting into until the next upgrade to the site's backend. glik^glak 19:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this concept is known and understood by people as a Pokémon cameo on another card. That's what we should call it too until the official outlets give it a name, but it notably doesn't include things beyond that (like the illustrator magazine cards). ^Maverick_Nate 01:34, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

With the knowledge that card pages are planning to be modified for the alternate prints, I can get behind this. I'll whip up some modified example tables in the next few days, before I start modifying the pages. RotomAmiti (talk) 20:04, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

(resetting indent)Figure out any changes/additions, then I'll make it a template. glik^glak 23:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Didn't see any alteration suggestions, so made the basic table a basic template. Entries are so simple I'm not bothering to make it one, you just use standard table formatting. glik^glak 15:01, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Deck Archetypes Should Be High Priority

The Deck archetype (TCG) page has a dangerously high amount of red links. But more importantly than that, they are red links that are hard to fill because they require specific knowledge from past metagames that may have passed from the minds of editors. I know I've watched coverage and read articles from 2019, but I don't know what Grass Growth (TCG) is, nor do I remember the make up of the average PikaRom (TCG) deck. It could be possible to pull out old articles from Pokemon.com and use their data to fill these out, but I think these articles are aiming for being slightly better than old Pokemon.com coverage. Deck archetype should be on the todo list somewhere for this reason. Salmancer (talk) 03:19, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean ultimately what content gets added depends on where individual peoples interests lie, TCG is already such a big project with thin resources, so I feel it somewhat natural that unfortunately some articles get neglected. If you want to take charge however, filling out those deck archetype articles would be a big help. As for finding potential builds, one option might be to look up key cards from the archetype on limitless and then you should be able to get a bunch of decklists that people have taken to past tournaments. For PikaRom specifically, you can look here. 4iamking 03:51, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Isn't there a rule against collecting data from other fansites? Wouldn't we have to source from Pokemon.com decklists? Salmancer (talk) 15:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

We don't allow a fan sites own content without prior consent, but in this context its just pure unmanipulated data, that would be no different than if you rewatched a tournament stream to get a deck list. 4iamking 04:41, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Type symbol representation as letters

I wanted to talk about representing the Fire type in card page titles as "R" instead of "F". Pokémon Trading Card Game Live already does that for deck list exports to prevent ambiguity with Fighting, and the main application for this is distinguishing Fire Energy and Fighting Energy cards. Similarly, the Fighting/Fairy situation is solved thanks to representing Fairy via the letter "Y", and the Darkness/Dragon situation is solved with the letter "N" representing the Dragon type (although this isn't actually done to distinguish Basic Energy cards).

Due to this, I'm proposing to move five card pages to resolve these ambiguities:

• Blend Energy GFPD (Dragons Exalted 117)
• Unit Energy GFW (Ultra Prism 137)
• Unit Energy FDF (Forbidden Light 118)
• Fairy Charm D (Lost Thunder 177)
• Heat F Energy (Darkness Ablaze 174)

On those pages, I already put up {{move}} notices and the proposed new titles. Holon Energy FF (EX Delta Species 104) has actual letters instead of type symbols in the printed card name, in both English and Japanese. Because of that, this page doesn't need moving. --Bfdifan2006 (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree the types should be as follows:C for Colorless, D for Darkness, F for Fighting, G for Grass, L for Lightning, M for Metal, N for Dragon, P for Psychic, R for Fire, W for Water, Y for Fairy. This will give us deferentiation, avoid confusion and facilitate deck-list exports. As far as PTCGL is concerned, the types can also be spelled out, which is an alternative that im also partial to instead of Blend Energy GRPD Fairy Charm N we would instead then have Blend Energy GrassFirePsychicDarkness and Fairy Charm Dragon. 4iamking 15:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Counterpoint, the Pokemon.com database semi consistently uses type icons for the names of these cards. The exceptions are the two from Rebel Clash, Speed Lightning and Horror Psychic, which uses the full type name. (These were the first of the Swsh Special Energies, so it is possible the style guide was not established yet.) Also, this ruling says the name of these cards on decklists should use their abbreviations. So I much prefer using the letter codes for page names. Salmancer (talk) 15:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

The one consistancy with the Pokemon.com database is that it is that it is full of inconsistancy. PTCGL is a better source for card data because thats more better since tournaments can be held on the platform. As for using symbols, thats not really feasible to use in page titles due to MediaWiki constraints, but we can discuss introducing Them to the articles in the same way WikiDex currently does. None of this goes against the ruleing that you cited, if anything that ruleing demonstrates the need for differentiation since different symbols are not the same name, even when we use the same letters. 4iamking 16:41, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

But the above proposal is to move all articles using {F} to represent Fire to {R}, making the symbol use consistent with the ruling and to general representations of types via letters. With that change (and the fairy and dragon changes), no types have the same letter to represent them in cases where the symbol cannot be used. Salmancer (talk) 16:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I think we generally think the same way, however we cant use squiggly brackets on page titles, it's one of the very few banned characters because of how it's used in wiki code. To represent Fighting, we can either use F or Fighting to represent the type, but {F} and are not possible to include in the title. 4iamking 04:51, 10 December 2023 (UTC)