Alternate Shiny Colour for new Shinies caught WITHOUT Membership.

thunderclap

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This creates a new rarer more valuable variant of shiny, which mostly new players, or people who can't afford memberships, will find.

It turns the tables of the economy on its head. Old shinies are suddenly less sought after -- the rich old elites who just log in to show off suddenly won't have everything. Gives people a reason to hunt again. Many people currently only play when they can afford membership, which is usually only during events. This gives EVERYONE something meaningful to hunt for at all times, on an equal playing field.

Also it would mean we can finally include shiny hunting in unofficial tournaments without being unfair to anyone.

People have toyed with the idea of alternate shinies for a while .. this might be one solution.

Thanks to an anonymous puppet for helping come up with this suggestion.

(It could even go further: completely different sprites, random colors, different forms, animated sprites, or different sparkle animation.. etc but I don't want to complicate things).

Edit: See original related suggestion here: https://forum.pokemon-world-online.com/index.php?threads/shiny-colors.38455/

Edit#2: I'm proposing this entirely as a means of stimulating the economy, and helping new players. But only if my better suggestion of adding free memberships as a drop item which can be sold to NPCs like nuggets, and other related suggestions, have been rejected.
It's not because I actually want new shinies.
 
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Ramensnoodle

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So just like the alternative shiny colour suggestion previously will this come with an opt out option? Because if I'm hunting without ms I definitely don't want my shiny roll wasted on something I don't want.
 

thunderclap

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So just like the alternative shiny colour suggestion previously will this come with an opt out option? Because if I'm hunting without ms I definitely don't want my shiny roll wasted on something I don't want.
I don't see why not. It gives me some pause that you would want to. Is the entire premise / all possible variations completely unappealing to you? I can understand not wanting to start a whole new collection after playing so long. Definitely don't want to "finish kill off [anyone's] reason and drive to hunt" as you said.

This looks kind of like this suggestion
Yes, very much. I looked for it before posting this but didn't see it.

Main difference of this suggestion = Membership doesn't help you. It makes the game less pay to win. Also the new shinies aren't artificially harder to find (I commented in that thread about not wanting to hunt a 10x more difficult Shiny Zubat).

After reading those comments, I'm leaning towards some unifying theme. Shadow / albino / alt-sprites. A simple random color change is less appealing.

And I'm maybe less adamant about the idea in general, but think it's still worth renewing the discussion. Could it work, and what negatives would it bring?

The other thread has some great discussion. Adding new versions one-by-one, seasonal event variations, etc. Also different forms, possibly non-shiny.

Boora said:
Honestly it'll sound bad but with the current player base it'll be a waste of time to do something like that, i think priority should be to get more people playing
I see this as another tool to help fulfill my overarching goal to fix the economy of PWO and empower/retain new players. I've made several other suggestions to achieve the same thing. Maybe another suggestion that is more true to the original game is better.

I see the point that it's off-putting for new players to join a new Pokemon game and have to learn about multiple colours of shinies, custom mechanics and all the other random homebrew variations which may or not be good.

I just want to see PWO active and healthy again. https://forum.pokemon-world-online....ggestions-for-quick-improvement-of-pwo.38944/
 
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Jobey

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It's not a bad idea. Though the fact they can only be caught without a ms is kind of odd. Imo would be better as it's own entity instead of an alt shiny form ( that way its an equal opportunity regardless of ms or not)
 

Jobey

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Membership doesn't help you. It makes the game less pay to win.
I still disagree that an ms should be considered pay to win as it's still completely luck based and having extra chances at shiny Pokemon isn't going to give you such an overwhelming advantage in PVP or such over somebody without an ms.
 

thunderclap

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I still disagree that an ms should be considered pay to win as it's still completely luck based and having extra chances at shiny Pokemon isn't going to give you such an overwhelming advantage in PVP or such over somebody without an ms.
Acquiring the membership itself is pay-to-win, until there's some way to acquire free memberships, other than trading with other players.

One of my biggest/best suggestions is adding Membership as a random rare drop item, which is sellable to Mart NPCs for Pd like a nugget. And a pokemon disposal NPC, which pays you for unwanted pokemon in either Pd or other rewards.
 
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Cleveland

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It's not a bad idea. Though the fact they can only be caught without a ms is kind of odd. Imo would be better as it's own entity instead of an alt shiny form ( that way its an equal opportunity regardless of ms or not)
I agree, otherwise I'm all for this idea.
 

Boora

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I don't see why not. It gives me some pause that you would want to. Is the entire premise / all possible variations completely unappealing to you? I can understand not wanting to start a whole new collection after playing so long. Definitely don't want to "finish kill off [anyone's] reason and drive to hunt" as you said.
Well, if it's apart of the same roll as normal shiny (i.e you would've gotten a shiny dratini but now its 50/50 alt color or normal shiny) i can understand why he wouldn't want to risk it.

for most players w/e comes is fine, but when you know you could've just as well gotten the version you wanted if not for this feature, it makes complete sense to me.

although the idea itself sounds fine, but it seems like it's catered to a large player base and not a small community which worries me a bit.
 

Ramensnoodle

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although the idea itself sounds fine, but it seems like it's catered to a large player base and not a small community which worries me a bit.
Actually its the opposite, this is more for a small playerbase thats lacking content. As Rig mentioned in the other post this kind of thing is just a band-aid, cant do needed content lets recolor whats there already.
 

thunderclap

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Jinji said:
And that's exactly what I do NOT support. Temporary band-aids only fuel problems later down the line.

Depends on the band-aid I guess. I've kinda changed my mind about alternative shinies being a good idea.

Labelling any non-monumental change as a band-aid just discourages progress though. Nobody ever wants to work on the grand, daunting task, but small changes can add up to be something monumental over time. The trick is to discuss those small changes and think carefully - so in that respect this thread was a success. But also over-discussion can interfere with action.

Thread should basically be renamed: "Suggestion: Something (in the short term) needs to be done to fix the economy / playerbase / overabundance of pokemon". Maybe with a slightly catchier title. I think the best solution is adding free MS as drop item, and disposal NPC. Relatively easy to code (reuse Bird Judge NPC code) and would have a huge effect. Also increase AFK timer.
 
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Cleveland

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"Suggestion: Something (in the short term) needs to be done to fix the economy / playerbase / overabundance of pokemon"
In the spirit of this, as a few of us were discussing in game today, the one thing that always drives players back to the game is new content. Events and expansions are the obvious ones we all love...another option is a suggestion I made a couple months ago (shameless plug, I know).

To expand on that suggestion, beyond just adding unique Event/Swarm pokes to the Token Store, simply rotating the Pokemon available in the Token Store more frequently will generate a fair amount of interest (I think) and would help both the playerbase and the economy. People would be going on everyday to see what pokes were added, hoping for particular ones to get and then train. As it stands now, we've had the same set of 40ish pokes in the Token Store rotation for awhile. Adding lots of pokes to the Token Store pool and refreshing on a daily basis is essentially having new content every day and I would think would not be too difficult to make happen. Speaking for myself, I know I would spend much more time playing if I had new pokes of interest to train. And I'm willing to bet I'm not alone on that.
 

thunderclap

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In the spirit of this, as a few of us were discussing in game today, the one thing that always drives players back to the game is new content. Events and expansions are the obvious ones we all love...another option is a suggestion I made a couple months ago (shameless plug, I know).

To expand on that suggestion, beyond just adding unique Event/Swarm pokes to the Token Store, simply rotating the Pokemon available in the Token Store more frequently will generate a fair amount of interest (I think) and would help both the playerbase and the economy. People would be going on everyday to see what pokes were added, hoping for particular ones to get and then train. As it stands now, we've had the same set of 40ish pokes in the Token Store rotation for awhile. Adding lots of pokes to the Token Store pool and refreshing on a daily basis is essentially having new content every day and I would think would not be too difficult to make happen. Speaking for myself, I know I would spend much more time playing if I had new pokes of interest to train. And I'm willing to bet I'm not alone on that.
This is kind of a different topic but I'll throw in my thoughts.. most of which I've said before.

For the interests of PWO as a whole, I think the token store (especially shiny chance) is a horrible thing. It's basically a form of gambling, with real money, and this is a kids game. Legitimate types of gambling also tell you your odds of winning. I've seen people quit PWO (and have complete meltdowns) because of their frustrations with shinies in the token store. I don't think the server needs to exploit children to continue running; notably staff have not chosen to comment on my question about server costs. We also badly need a way to earn memberships without spending real money. Based on what I know others have donated, this game has more than enough to last for years. One might conclude there's a reason for the secrecy.

That being said, if the token store must stay, I'd welcome both more variety and more consistency.


For consistency, what I mean is some standard amount of time that certain pokes will be in the rotation for, or an indication if they will be available for nonstandard amounts of time.
-Bulbasaur was in there utterly randomly in a completely unprecedented one day sale for 2282 tokens (price with MS). Not announced or anything, most people certainly would have missed it. This was before the recent price drops, so it was about a 10,000 token discount per Bulbasaur.
-Nosepass, Spheal were in the cheap rotation for a couple months each but randomly removed without any warning.
-Baltoy, Ralts were in the rotation at 2282 for about a week and then removed.
-Absol, Shuppet and Duskull have been staple budget offerings for probably 2 years now, while the other budget pokes above have come and gone. Anyone who cared about their value probably isn't too happy. Anyone who assumed the others above would stay forever and be worthless might regret not trying for them.

My point is, if someone has the unwise mindset (allegedly discouraged) to hunt for shinies in the token store, it's both impossible to know your odds, and also how valuable that pokemon (if you're successful) might be in a week, month, year, etc. If something is going to be there for either a very short time or very long time it should be marked as such. And reveal the shiny odds (with explanation that it's the average odds, random, and not a guarantee). Allow people to make informed decisions with their real money.


For variety, it's true that the same ~40 pokes have been in the rotation forever, and I'd welcome more variety. I would rather that newly released pokemon are first introduced through swarms/events rather than the token store. Not sure the magic formula if/when those new pokes should appear in TS. If they enter a long-term rotation they destroy the exclusivity that gets people excited during an event. But exclusivity can perhaps go too far.. people have shiny Lapras, Electivire, Tyranitar, Jolteon, Dragonite, etc, all purchased from the token store in the distant past (some even with old IVs), and all those pokes are worth about 500m+ each now, up to several billions. I've never seen any of those pokes in the token store. Not really fair to preserve these old players' impossible soulcrushing wealth by denying others equal opportunities. I'm not saying to put them in the store long-term or make them cheap, but they could be sprinkled in once or twice without too much damage.

Most importantly, if the token store is going to stay, the staff really must reveal the token store shiny chances.
 
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Prof.Rygar

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And a pokemon disposal NPC, which pays you for unwanted pokemon in either Pd or other rewards.

Would be easy to do, just give a pokemon, and it will give you what you would have got for fainting it instead of catching it.

I definitely don't want my shiny roll wasted on something I don't want.

You've heard of trading, yes? Pokemon is a game based on trading what you don't want, for something you do what.
 

Prof.Rygar

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Oh, right. I also wanted to add that any new shiny sprite alternate art is going to make an artist have to draw 100s of pokemon in a new color, or in different postures, and will likewise make the overall file size much bigger and complicate the pathings.
 

thunderclap

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Oh, right. I also wanted to add that any new shiny sprite alternate art is going to make an artist have to draw 100s of pokemon in a new color, or in different postures, and will likewise make the overall file size much bigger and complicate the pathings.
I'm not suggesting alternate shinies anymore, but for the record:

To simply recolor all sprites one can batch-process all 600 images in a few seconds using Irfanview.
1636244323728.png

We could also just copy sprites from other graphic artists that have already been made.
 

Jobey

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I'm not suggesting alternate shinies anymore, but for the record:

To simply recolor all sprites one can batch-process all 600 images in a few seconds using Irfanview.
View attachment 6747

We could also just copy sprites from other graphic artists that have already been made.
Oh, Irfanview? I see, a man of culture as well! :D
 
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