"Lucky Item" Shiny-Odds Bonus drop item, Shiny-Odds Pokemon Disposal NPC (using REP)

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
CheckeredZebra said:
So, let's talk cycles.
You have the rich who have so much money and items they have nothing left to really spend/barter for aside from things that probably will never exist again due to low playerbase. (Shiny, extremely rare things or just very strong PvP-based pokemon.) There is nobody coming in as well as no noteable additional content to provide the rich with the next new thing they might want to bust their wallets on. Good riolu, garchomp, for example. Of course, with nobody really joining the game now and staying long enough to "climb", there is no money accrual and circulation. There is no content the newer can put effort into in order to entice richer players to "spend down". Battle tower WAS an example of this: Lots of needed goodies anyone could get if they grinded for it, so they would pay other people to skip the grind.

That no longer exists in PWO. It's a huge issue. There is no middle ground that will want their first shiny to pay for their first shiny. It is almost exclusively a playerbase issue, and the NPC is just a way to bandaid that void of buyers. In old PWO, there were so many people that finding a buyer for some random shiny, common or not, was a non-issue. There is almost no middle class. There is almost no lower class. There are almost no high profile wealthy even if they SEEM more numerous...mainly because they join just to flaunt their wealth or their accomplishments in this game are memorable.

Sorry if this lacks tact, I absolutely do not mean this poorly, but your suggestion is a tourniquet on a laceration that may never heal. It's a nice stopgap, but you're just stemming the bleeding. The wound is infected, and without proper care into the game (updates, regions, revived PvP scene), it is at best alleviating a symptom and will eventually become redundant if the actual issue is properly tackled. Maybe you're fine with that, but then you have to look at labor vs outcome. Do you want that effort going toward solutions that permanently solve the problem or into a bandaid? That's why I'm pretty iffy.

PWO needs regions. It needs more diverse pokemon as shodan noted to support a more balanced/diverse meta, as well as help diversify the economy. It needs things that brings people here instead of to other random pokemon MMOs, which are a dime a dozen these days. Is giving people an option to get extra luck nice? Yes. Will it harm things? Probably not. Does it divert from the heart of the issue? Yes. At the core of it you are automating a function that real people should already be doing, and the fact that people aren't is indicative of much larger, much more severe problems that need to be tackled ASAP or PWO will not survive.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply CheckeredZebra. Personally I would want even the most common shinies if they had great IVs. I'm currently actually rocking a shiny zubat in my team that I caught on the weekend. If we started to see a few more hard T1 and T2 shinies for sale, and greater variety, I'd be excited to try to buy them. There are lots of shiny T1s that are never for sale because nobody hunts them. Also I've heard people say that they quit because they've gotten everything already, but I don't see how that can be true (for most people) when things are SO hard to find. Years to find a shiny T2.. the other tiers impossible..

IMO it just depends how much coding time needs to be diverted from other projects to make this happen. It's supposed to be a relatively low-effort high-reward project. If it doesn't take too much programming, I absolutely think it is worth it to make. Furthermore it might be such an exciting idea that it would attract additional coding time that developers wouldn't have been motivated to put into regions. Regions at this point may seem like a nearly insurmountable goal where a full day's work would only bring them maybe 1% closer or reveal new issues and another full day's work needed. Being able to see immediate rewards for your efforts is a powerful motivator. The suggestions in this thread could also be implemented in stages and disabled easily at any time.

My suggestion isn't just a stop-gap fix while we wait for regions though. The NPC will still be useful when there are new regions. Eventually the market will be flooded with shiny Silcoons, or whatever. Stagnation is the inevitable outcome without intervention. All successful economic systems have mechanisms to control inflation. Just like the banks control the interest rates for mortgages PWO needs to be able to control shiny luck and pokemon supply.

I obviously agree this game needs regions badly, but they seem a little further off in the indefinite future. I think implementing some variation of my suggestions might kindle some player interest and prevent people from quitting while we wait. That increased player activity might in turn motivate the developers to seek greater challenges and higher praise, or even new players with coding skill to contribute.

And lastly, I don't know this game nearly as well as you.. so I hope you read my post with the appropriate levels of tact too :). Also note the only way I know how to write things is in this naturally confrontational tone... I get a bit too invested in my ideas and just want to be right at times. I genuinely want to hear everyone's ideas on this though..
 

main777

New Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2012
Messages
61
Points
6
hi old player here i gaveall my pokes and pd before i stop laying the game and im back for good is there away i can get ms ??? thanks ::D.. more power..
 

Isguros

Youngster
Joined
May 9, 2013
Messages
736
Points
63
main777 said:
hi old player here i gaveall my pokes and pd before i stop laying the game and im back for good is there away i can get ms ??? thanks ::D.. more power..

Sure. You can get MS by purchasing it from other players or buying it yourself from the Tokenstore.
 

CheckeredZebra

Youngster
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
2,372
Points
36
>And lastly, I don't know this game nearly as well as you.. so I hope you read my post with the appropriate levels of tact too Smile. Also note the only way I know how to write things is in this naturally confrontational tone... I get a bit too invested in my ideas and just want to be right at times. I genuinely want to hear everyone's ideas on this though..

You're fine. <3
I think regions are a lot of tedious, hard work, but not insurmountable. It needs a lot of elbow grease and, more importantly, motivation. People with basic programming/scripting knowledge and a rundown of the systems -should- be able to make it work at this point, since Donar has heavily paved the way for everything in the past couple of years. But damn, that is a lot of pressure to put on Tasigur, to the point that it would be unfair.
 

whisMEAT

Youngster
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
523
Points
63
Hello all. I got some ideas  but this is my only long term played online game so it may be quite useless. but no harm in trying.
Long post ,i wanr you.
After i read the comments here  i realized that we need to change the time intervals of "player lure" actions. I think that having daily,weekly and monthly intervals of gameplay would be dynamic.( intervals may change from 1d/1w/4w /6w or 5d,no need to get stuck in 1,7,30 days interval)
But the issue here is having differnt intervals at the same time. so what is my suggestion:Times,hints are mostly theoretical

A GM(let callit HEDE) will roam between certain gyms with predetermined routes,at predetermined day and  predetermned hours.
People will interract with HEDE for PVP.  There is a limit of battle to do. Limit is either 1) 20 but all of HEDE's pokes will be healed after any battle; or 2) 10  withouth any heal. Similar to Battle tower. HEDE will be cariying absurdly strong pokes lige 2 MEwtwo 2 Giratina etc etc. Prize will be one of bunch of things. I need to tel about hints first.
It will not be announced ,players will collect hints by certain acts; spending time in pwo, fainting x ype of pokemon ,moving x tile of water/mud ,pvp x person etc. This "challanges" (very similar to facebook and adroid games) will be randomly defined by GM each day. It can be even using splash move in pvp for 4 times.:D One thing is curical , spending time for hint. İt will be limited;  1 hour playtime in a day will give you a T1 hint and 3 or 5 hour will result as T3 hint.
HEDE will battle each week .
Hints will be about   Map T1:Region T2:Gyms, T3 Routes    Time: T1:Time range of 4 hours T2: 2 hours T3:1 hours Battle: T1 2 types it doesn have T2:3 types it have T3:2 multi type or 4 single type it has(for T1and 2 example: If it has Gyara hint can be  1: water 1:flying) One T4 hint: About either 2 of HEDE's poke or it's first poke. One T5: HEDE's first poke and one of other.  
Challange for T4 will be randomly picked by GMs. T5 will be around ,lets say 20 hours of playtime.

Time will be proportional to "most playing time zone  of the previous week or month" and will be picked best for it. So guild members or different continents,countries can orgnize and compete. If it fails it will not change anything,if it succeds it may bring people
Rewards: Two system can be. One that either all will share the plunder in ratio's to their damage. Or the last/only beater. I like the second one
Rewards will be ranged from T5 20+ pokemon to T5 shini or 2xT4 ,old event move tutors, bunch of millions pd,tokensims etc. I think lucky stone can be implemented as always sure gift for those who able to battle the HEDE.
All players will pick their own pokes. HEDE will be waiting for 1-2 min when a player interracts(to get pokesimay be mor if far away) When anybody interracts at that time ,they will be in line. New players will get bonus,since most will be not making their full team. Again tier system. Certain playing hours will be picked as treshold by GM's (since we dont know) Example: 100 hours. Any body below it will have all picked pokes at level100 and max ev to re/spend,may be even breed moves. On Ratio players get EV bonus x of 510 as x is  %hours below 100. Like %10 bonus EV if 90 hours. Players below 10 hours pick 3,30 hours 2 and 60 hours 1 pokemon available for that combat.

Aim is to lure people without turning into facebook game. Also make the interract. Through time zone they are best to call friends. If HEDE will be as survive in Battle tower than economy gets a boost. Because one hit KO ,perish songs and similar abilities will have a use. Also due to "challenges" GM may direct people to certain areas. Certain pokes will be eventually more avalible. Need very few coding and effort. No absurduties in economy.
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
Without judging pokewhisperer's suggestion as good or bad, I think it's different enough that it warrants its own thread.

I still think my suggestion (with revisions) would be basically perfect and not too hard to implement.
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
Recently resumed my hunt for S Marill and was reminded how absurdly difficult the RNG is in PWO. We really could use a system like this in place: not so much to make everything easier, just an extra sliver of hope and possible reward for persistence and diligence.
 

Boora

Youngster
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Messages
487
Points
43
The thing is, i was right there with you on the same boat, but when you think about it from a different point of view it looks different,
what i'm trying to say is, marill isn't supposed to be easy to get, actually it's supposed to be VERY HARD to obtain in a shiny form, this is why it's expensive.
When something is rare and above or for newer players i'l say T2+ it isn't something you can "hunt" for, i mean granted you can, but it'll take you months of daily grind to do so,
The shiny T2+ are more of a lucky "drop" or collectors pokemon, they aren't meant to be easy or cheap, and to "justify" that, you can always get a none shiny version with what ever stats you want if you keep catching them.

Personally, i'd LOVE for marill to be easier to get, but when i think about it, really think about it , what's the point of that, everyone will have them and they'll drop in price to a point where it's not a unique or rare pokemon anymore.

There are some changes that can be done such as more maps where you can have a chance at multiple rare+ (truely rare not common in a different place) pokemon such as saffari

you could also make an item that would multiple your shiny chance for a set amount of time, BUT AND THIS IS A HUGE BUT, it's should be rare and expensive, so even if you catch a rare poke you took a huge blow
to your vallet/pc by just buying it in the first place which would make it worth it since it's basically like you paying for that pokemon, unless you got lucky.

Or add a few quests to the game where the reward can be a shiny pokemon (details can be twicked easily,how often it resets, what can you get from it, how hard the quest is, etc )

or make a ranked system that that rewards you based on your battle stats once every week or month, (random pokemons 1st place (S)t4, 2nd place (S)t3 3rd(S)t2, 4th-10th (S)common, and so on, again can be twicked was just an example

and i can go on and on, point is, there are different ways of doing what you want without actually lowering rng/shiny chance or giving out memberships to everyone

also to note, i do think a free 1 week membership to new players is a good thing, activates after you're done with both cities.

one last thing, i did not read all the replies so if it sounds like i'm ignoring or saying things that were said, sorry 'bout that.
 

Jobey

Jr. Trainer
Joined
Jul 14, 2016
Messages
1,214
Points
113
Boora said:
marill isn't supposed to be easy to get, actually it's supposed to be VERY HARD to obtain in a shiny form, this is why it's expensive.
When something is rare and above or for newer players i'l say T2+ it isn't something you can "hunt" for, i mean granted you can, but it'll take you months of daily grind to do so,
The shiny T2+ are more of a lucky "drop" or collectors pokemon, they aren't meant to be easy or cheap, and to "justify" that, you can always get a none shiny version with what ever stats you want if you keep catching them.

Personally, i'd LOVE for marill to be easier to get, but when i think about it, really think about it , what's the point of that, everyone will have them and they'll drop in price to a point where it's not a unique or rare pokemon anymore.

I'm glad somebody else understands the logic of shiny pokemon. There are not supposed to be easy, and they are not supposed to be common. They are supposed to be hard and be rare. As so the more rare the pokemon the more rare a shiny because again, that's how it is supposed to be.
 

CheckeredZebra

Youngster
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
2,372
Points
36
The spawn system -was- made with the intention of a higher population with better economic circulation, so it is likely to feel pretty bad right now. PWO has a low population and low economic circulation.
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
Thanks everyone for the responses and discussion.

Can we please all just think again about this math?:

The current odds for a shiny Marill without membership are ~1/819200 assuming a 1/100 encounter rate. That is about 237 days of constant grinding 24/7, assuming 25 seconds per encounter. That's equal to 2.73 years if PWO is played as a full-time job 2080 hours per year (with no bathroom or smoke breaks).

With membership, using those assumptions, I calculate that the odds to successfully find shiny Marill, are currently 1/204800, equal to ~9 months at 40 hours per week.

Even with a 10x shiny rate of 1/819 (which would be extremely rare and difficult to get) you'd be looking at 14 40-hour weeks to find a shiny Marill, and you'd probably only have the full bonus for a couple days or less depending when you found your second clover. It would be highly rare to find 1 clover, period, let alone 2 clovers in one week with enough time left to hunt. The actual impact on numbers on high-tier shinies caught due to implementing this suggestion would be negligible. It would be nigh impossible for anyone to have those odds for any significant amount of time.

Even if they did, 1/819 is 5.7 hours on average for one shiny (non-targeted). In our Marill example the odds are still 99-to-1 that that shiny you hunted for 6 hours will be Zubat/Golbat. By this time your 2-clover period would likely be almost over and you'd probably never find 2 of them again. In fact it's such a small advantage that we might find in trialing this system that the clovers should last a month instead of a week.

This is a low quality fan-based MMO for kids. Those odds are way too challenging. It's not reasonable to have the rarity such that people would have to spend months or years of their life to find a TIER 2 shiny when we have 5 tiers. Since we're not adding new content any time soon, it's time to further leverage the content we have.

Right now we have a difficulty curve for shiny hunting roughly as follows (With & Without MS):
Tier 1 "easy": 14-57 hours
Tier 1 "hard": 355-1422 hours (assuming 1/25 encounter)
Tier 2: 1416-5688 hours (assuming 1/100 encounter)
Tier 3: 6400 hours (assuming 3hrs - 1/450)
Tier 4: 20480-81920 hours (assuming 10 hrs - 1/1440)
Tier 5: not enough data

I didn't make a tally, but it seems to me that the only people that are against this idea are people who can't do math or read, or people who are old players with old tier 4 and 5 pokes who played in a time where accumulating such assets and wealth was vastly easier. Or people who have stopped playing and are out of touch with the difficulty..

For anyone who hunts, the RNG is a massive problem with this game!!! The grind/success ratio is just not worth it whatsoever.




Boora said:
There are some changes that can be done such as more maps where you can have a chance at multiple rare+ (truely rare not common in a different place) pokemon such as saffari
This is a very good idea. Hopefully it would include some desirable hard-tier 1s in some of those areas too. Something for shiny hunters to hunt.

Boora said:
You could also make an item that would multiple your shiny chance for a set amount of time, BUT AND THIS IS A HUGE BUT, it's should be rare and expensive, so even if you catch a rare poke you took a huge blow to your wallet/pc by just buying it in the first place which would make it worth it since it's basically like you paying for that pokemon, unless you got lucky.
In my opinion, the Lucky Item should absolutely not be purchasable/tradeable. That will just further benefit the super-rich players, without them even having to play for it. One of the goals of having this Lucky Item in the first place would be giving everyone an incentive to go hunt again.
Jobey said:
I'm glad somebody else understands the logic of shiny pokemon. There are not supposed to be easy, and they are not supposed to be common. They are supposed to be hard and be rare. As so the more rare the pokemon the more rare a shiny because again, that's how it is supposed to be.
Nobody is saying that shinies shouldn't be rare. We're arguing about how rare they should be. Right now any shiny above tier-1 is almost impossible to find. The changes I proposed are small and would still involve spending months of constant grinding to find a lowly tier-2 shiny, which for any sane person would still be impossible to hunt.
CheckeredZebra said:
The spawn system -was- made with the intention of a higher population with better economic circulation, so it is likely to feel pretty bad right now. PWO has a low population and low economic circulation.
Exactly. Giving players small ways to improve their luck would have the same effect on the economy (in terms of shinies caught) as having a few more players playing. Most people who are against this idea would agree that PWO's economy was better back in the day when it was more active.
 

Jobey

Jr. Trainer
Joined
Jul 14, 2016
Messages
1,214
Points
113
thunderclap said:
Exactly. Giving players small ways to improve their luck would have the same effect on the economy (in terms of shinies caught) as having a few more players playing. Most people who are against this idea would agree that PWO's economy was better back in the day when it was more active.

Although that does make plenty of sense and I see what you mean, there is the issue that the lesser players would destabilize the economy even more if the few playing had an easier time with these rare shiny pokemon. Less players means less buyers to begin with, but if those less buyers have a better chance of finding something that normally would be more commonly bought, that lessens the buyers even more. To me, this would work out best in an event or something with the whole "invisible NPC" gimmick or during a swarm as an added bonus. It should not be something that could be obtained by anymore than 3 people at a time and it should not be able to stack with an MS. Granted I for one would love easier shiny pokemon because in my nearly 2200 hours or so (pretty much always had an MS since my first 40 hours) I have had likely the worst shiny luck of any player in PWO history (see my caught shiny list below) but I try to be unbiased and look at the bigger picture. This is a great idea, don't get me wrong, but it has to be something heavily limited, there is such a thing as being too generous.

My shiny Pride. :(
[attachment=4956]​
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_7.png
    Screenshot_7.png
    99.1 KB · Views: 14

Boora

Youngster
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Messages
487
Points
43
I get the frustration i really do, but you HAVE to remember this is an online game and not handheld, even if you make it % based, even the rarest of pokes that would be 1%, it's 1 out of 100, which would make them barely a t3, sounds amazing doesn't it ? well no, because even though you'l lcaught a few you aren't the only one, we all will, and than they aren't rare anymore.
Again a lot of different ways to make higher tier shinies available, just not through lowering shiny chance, but this is up to the staff to decide if they want to implement them.
(quests,ranked,timed items,etc)
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
Boora said:
I get the frustration i really do, but you HAVE to remember this is an online game and not handheld,  even if you make it % based,  even the rarest of pokes that would be 1%, it's 1 out of 100, which would make them barely a t3, sounds amazing doesn't it ? well no,  because even though you'l lcaught a few you aren't the only one, we all will, and than they aren't rare anymore.
Again a lot of different ways to make higher tier shinies available, just not through lowering shiny chance, but this is up to the staff to decide if they want to implement them.
(quests,ranked,timed items,etc)
I wasn't suggesting whole percentage based shiny chances .. I agree that would be way too easy. If anyone thinks what I've proposed would make good shinies too easy, they should look at the math again.. sorry to sound like a broken record.

Staff giving away t2+ or uc shinies would be okay in rare occasions, but I don't think it's preferable to making people work for them. I'm not sure we have a big enough community currently to make those shinies an appropriate prize for simple battle tournaments.
 

Boora

Youngster
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Messages
487
Points
43
You might think so, but this aint it, if there's an insentive to battling a lot of old players would come back not even for the reward but to battle, a lot of none shiny pokemon would go up in price (good ivs)
and a lot of the newer players would have a goal or something todo apart from hunt when they're done with gyms,
I get what you're saying ranked system with 20 online is silly, but again it'll make more people log on, and to be fair, 3 rare shinies per month(1st-3rd place) isn't a big deal, i think this is even less than how much 20+people would catch in amonth if they hunted, especially considering it'll be random shinies, so even 1st place who gets a st4 could get a none battler.
But this is just one example of many,

i'l say it one last time and i honestly hope you understand, Online games are different than handheld , they have no ending and unless we're going to wipe the server we CANT afford to make shinies easy to get.
Personal gain isn't worth the effects in the long run, just look at shiny commons now, with VERY FEW EXEPTIONS they're 10-50k if you actually trying to sell them, and even than who would buy it, with history of 10 years of zubats being common, when i played and we had the in-game mart you could catch a shiny put (any shiny) put it in the mart for 500k-5m and it'll sell like hotcackes, even commons , especially commons,
The game evolves over time so keeping this hard to get/rare is very important.
The difference with ranked system/quest is that the reward is random, vs set, what i mean by that is, getting different shinies rare or not is different than getting the same shiny over and over (by loweing rate)
even if we get 5 s smearge, 3 s qwilfish few wobbufats, and a ditto, (just examples) it wont do anything to the game, but if 12 of the same shiny would be caught (multiple times because you lower rate not specific shiny) it'll lower the value of the pokemon by alot, and not just this one all the other shinys that are worth catching,
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
I agree the occasional shiny prize wouldn't hurt the economy much, but the tournaments need to be fair for everyone. If the rich players like Dragon16 end up winning everything, it just makes the problem worse. Trickle-down economics does not work in this game. Battle tournaments should be limited to pokemons caught within a designated hunting period, so that people can't sweep with their shiny Electivires and so on.

Don't forget the second part of my suggestion, which is a Pokemon Disposal NPC. That would get rid of huge numbers of junk shinies and unwanted pokemons, reducing supply therefore increasing prices. It would give some redeeming value to junky non-shiny tier 3s and stuff which seem like a big deal to casual players, even though the luck boost for trade-ins would be very small (less than the pokemon's value).

Other considerations: only the people who manage to find a Lucky Item will have increased shiny odds. Finding that item would be like finding an eevee or probably harder. Look at market prices of eevee - still insanely high (for good ivs) even after 10 years with it being catchable, plus a recent eevee swarm. Only people who have previously found a Lucky Item (clover) can use the disposal NPC (leprechaun). Only people who are fainting pokemon have a chance at finding the item. Fainting takes more time than running, which reduces chances of finding shinies-- people would likely still faint after finding a clover, in hopes of finding a second one. All that fainting increases the general money supply, which is a good thing, since part of the problem with our economy is a huge money scarcity (or inequality if you like). Lucky Item would only last for one week, and any trade-in boosts die at the same time.

Boora said:
we CANT afford to make shinies easy to get.
Once again, nothing would be easy. That's why I spent so long explaining the current and projected odds.
 

thunderclap

Youngster
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
462
Points
63
This is still one of the best suggestions that has been made for PWO, IMO, especially in terms of how much work it'd be vs. potential benefit. I'm not satisfied by any of the arguments against it.
 

Prof.Rygar

Youngster
Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Messages
497
Points
63
while Reputation is no longer automatically given as a reward for NPC Battles, it is still used in PvP. Would this behaviour still be desirable under such a system?


Well, this would certainly encourage PvP activity if we can win battles and increase our chances at finding shinies.
 

Prof.Rygar

Youngster
Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Messages
497
Points
63
I just wanted to comment that I would like an item that can increase "Luck" and it lasts a certain number of hours. AND, that is tied to ACTUAL hours of gameplay, and not just keep pissing my luck out while I am not online. I would feel a lot less pressured and could relax and enjoy the rare item I just found. That's how I feel about it.
 

Prof.Rygar

Youngster
Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Messages
497
Points
63
As for a disposal NPC, I had the idea for an NPC where for instance, I could take 10 garbage larvitar and give them to him 2 at a time to get 1 larvitar in return that has randomized IVs and shiny chance. That would get rid of garbage pokemon, it would be sort of exciting like playing the lottery and I could find out what it feels like when rich people play the token store lottery. I've seen this kind of thing in other games but done slightly differently.
 
Top