Divide the rarity tiers: Tier 1, Tier 1+, Tier 2, Tier 2+, etc

thunderclap

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"Hard tier 1's", as they've become known, such as Growlithe, Wigglytuff, etc, can be 20+ times harder to find than other tier 1 pokemon like Zubat, etc.

In some cases it's very difficult to determine whether a pokemon is a "hard" tier 1 or not. Take Stantler for example - it's only found in locations with 5-6 other pokemon in unpopular hunting spots. This creates a difficulty for sellers and buyers on the mart - is it a 200k Pd pokemon or an 8 million dollar pokemon?

These variations seem to be present throughout all the tiers. When Starly was Tier 5 for a recent event, most people caught several of them. On the other hand Hitmonchan is also Tier 5 and I can't remember anybody ever finding one, despite literally insane persistence by some players. Mudkip was Tier 4 in another recent swarm, but seemed even more difficult than Starly had been at Tier 5.

There are insane variations in difficulty and value between the sub-tiers, whether they're officially subdivided or not. It's a major disservice to players to label a Zubat and a Growlithe as the same rarity. Doing so hurts sellers, in that they can't sell for what the pokemon is worth, and hurts buyers because sellers often don't even try to sell pokemon without well-established values.

The lack of transparency hurts new players. It's already far too difficult for a new player to gain a foothold in PWO's economy. Without the right information, they have no chance.
 

shodan21

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thunderclap said:
On the other hand Hitmonchan is also Tier 5 and I can't remember anybody ever finding one, despite literally insane persistence by some players.

:( :s :dodgy: :mad:
 

HitmonFonty

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I believe the plan was to streamline those lower tiers for more accuracy/practicality after feedback. There was just too much else to get done, I believe the plans may be around somewhere still but nobody is able to pick them up at this time.

For higher tiers players can make their distinctions but we are unlikely to break them down any further. The tiers are a rough guideline for hidden RNG figures. The more we pin down the exact chance the less reason to keep them secret, wouldn't you say?

Comparing events with maps will rarely work. Starly could well have been the exact same chance as hitmonchan but hitmonchan requires a person to dedicate 10s of hours on a map unless they are very lucky for a pokemon that is rarely or never used? An event you have a lot of people dedicated to hunting one rare pokemon in one map for a certain amount of time. You would really need to get the same amount of people hunting chan at the same time to make the comparison. You could do it over time but then you're just guessing how many players were hunting in SRR and for how long and who gave up and who persisted etc. so it would be a lot harder to make the comparison that way.

For prices that just requires research into the current market prices, and it will still be affected by what individuals are will to spend on the pokemon or sell it for. Rarity is only one factor out of many.

In short, yes tier 1 and 2 could use an overhaul and hopefully it will get one when we have the time to allocate to it.
 

thunderclap

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HitmonFonty said:
I believe the plan was to streamline those lower tiers for more accuracy/practicality after feedback. There was just too much else to get done, I believe the plans may be around somewhere still but nobody is able to pick them up at this time.

For higher tiers players can make their distinctions but we are unlikely to break them down any further. The tiers are a rough guideline for hidden RNG figures. The more we pin down the exact chance the less reason to keep them secret, wouldn't you say?

Comparing events with maps will rarely work. Starly could well have been the exact same chance as hitmonchan but hitmonchan requires a person to dedicate 10s of hours on a map unless they are very lucky for a pokemon that is rarely or never used? An event you have a lot of people dedicated to hunting one rare pokemon in one map for a certain amount of time. You would really need to get the same amount of people hunting chan at the same time to make the comparison. You could do it over time but then you're just guessing how many players were hunting in SRR and for how long and who gave up and who persisted etc. so it would be a lot harder to make the comparison that way.

For prices that just requires research into the current market prices, and it will still be affected by what individuals are will to spend on the pokemon or sell it for. Rarity is only one factor out of many.

In short, yes tier 1 and 2 could use an overhaul and hopefully it will get one when we have the time to allocate to it.
Sounds good! Thanks for the update. I agree tier 1 and tier 2 would be the most benefited from an overhaul. However I think the term "overhaul" makes the task sound a bit too daunting and impossible for developers, when it could actually be fairly straightforward. I'd recommend using the "+" system instead of re-numbering all the tiers - that would save everyone a lot of confusion, and that way you probably only need to reclassify a couple dozen pokemon.
 

Rigaudon

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We were going to divide the lower tiers into better time chunks based on feedback. To do this, T5 was going to be split in half, so there was a T5 and T6. This way you have "event" pokemon rarity like Stary and "easy T5" stay T5. Meanwhile, very difficult pokemon like Bagon would be indicated as T6.

Old:
http://prntscr.com/l8u4uz

New:
http://prntscr.com/l8u54w

This was in testing while I was in staff. It worked out nicely. However, it needs a crapton of work and updates behind it, as well as a lot of fine tuning. I got up to Powerplant/Viridian city (read: not much, especially when Johto would need the rehaul).

If current staff find this inappropriate to post, feel free to remove this, though since current rates are public this shouldn't hurt anything.
 

Isguros

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Personally, I don't have many issues with the current rarity system: for veteran players it shouldn't take that much to figure out which Tier1's are easy to encounter, and which ones take a little more time.


That being said, for beginners that might be a bit harder to do. Just by looking at the rarities, they might expect that a Pokemon like Growlithe or Abra would be just as easy to find as let's say a Pidgey and don't require any form of time investment to acquire. Finding out they're incorrect can be quite confuzzling.

With that in mind I can agree with the small part of the plans that Rig leaked about the current Tier1 being seperated into two individual tiers.
The rest of the tiers shouldn't cause any issues (unless you count in those who believe some Tier5 Pokemon have an exceptional high average encounter rate just because it's not capped), and therefore I don't believe they should undergo extensive/time consuming changes; I can digg that there's a bit of mystery within the tiers right now, it makes me feel that everything can happen. "pinning down" those tiers to the rest of what Rig suggested would take away that mystery and in turn make hunting rather stale in my opinion.



When it comes to naming said tiers, I don't feel the plusses. If there's anything that might cause confusion, it'd be that. 

P.S.: Let's just appreciate that we now refer to rarities with tiers, and not with names like 'Endangered' or 'Abundant'.
 

Jinji

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Isguros said:
P.S.: Let's just appreciate that we now refer to rarities with tiers, and not with names like 'Endangered' or 'Abundant'.

Ironically, I remember proposing exactly this in an earlier draft of the rarity overhaul.
 

thunderclap

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Isguros said:
When it comes to naming said tiers, I don't feel the plusses. If there's anything that might cause confusion, it'd be that.
It's certainly less aesthetically pleasing. I think that is the only downside. For current players, I don't think it would cause much confusion. The only confusing part would be whether the plus means more or less rare.

The benefit of the "plus system" is that you don't have to shift all the tiers. Previous Tier 3 doesn't have to become Tier 5, and so on. There would be a lot fewer pokemon to edit, and fewer wiki pages to change. It might be too much work to do any other way.
 
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