>>13863073I remember back when Smogon ran Shoddy Battle and how long it took to do basic shit like get all the moves to calculate damage properly. And that was back when you could ROMdump the game and look at the fucking code.
Now, they've got to manually sprite all the X/Y Pokemon because they can't run models, and all of the calculation math is going to rely on guesswork since the game's internal workings will be more or less impossible to determine accurately (can't actually see the base stat totals, can't actually see the damage math, can't actually see the total HP lost, but you need two of those numbers to determine the third).
They'll have to program in new combat mechanics if anything was changed, which we KNOW takes forever because even shit like rotation battles still aren't implemented.
Showdown made Gen V easy because it was plug-and-dump. New mons? Load the sprites in, copy some moves and change some damage totals around. Different abilities? Uncheck some boxes. The fact that Smogon had DW abilities for mons that never got released with a DW ability is pretty good proof that all they were doing is cutting the game in half and peering at its metaphorical guts.
The process of discovery ALONE is going to take months of dedicated effort just to understand how everything in XY works in the numeric sense, and that's before all the manual spritework that's gonna be necessary, plus the requisite engine overhaul of PS! to at LEAST make Mega Evos doable mid-match.
I'm saying it's gonna be a hell of an undertaking, the scope of which is what killed Shoddy Battle and left everyone holding their dicks until PS! in the first place.
