thunderclap
Youngster
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2013
- Messages
- 463
- Points
- 63
Events/swarms are great, but one thing I dislike about them is they basically hold a gun to your head and force you to play almost every waking minute when there's something you want, because often you will never have another chance. This burns people out, making the game a job rather than fun/casual (especially if you fail to find your target), and it also means many people only play during events. The only time when they perceive it's worth having a membership. This leads to horrible dead periods when it's not unheard of to log in and be the only player online at times. It's also just way too long a period of intense hunting if the event is like 3 weeks long.
The aggregate effect of an event is also like a nuclear bomb on the economy that has to be carefully planned. It can destroy the value of certain pokemons in the blink of an eye. It's usually been well-managed so far but we're running out of pokemon that nobody has whose values can safely be destroyed. So I have an additional suggestion: a second type of membership drop-item:
'Mystery Membership Cards' could give MS perks and trigger one of the Token Store pokemons to start spawning on a random map for that player for a limited time. It would give a player their own personal micro-event. I already think all pokemon should be removed from the token store, so this would be a great alternate way of making those pokemons available. At worst 1-2 of a given rare pokemon might be found, total, instead of 100 shiny Slugmas all at once. Nobody could spam real cash to get a shiny anymore. Logistically, a Mystery Event Transporter NPC would probably be needed.
Mystery maps could be previews of maps from new regions, closed sections of existing maps, player-made contest maps, etc, strictly for hunting, without a need for NPCs/scripting or flawless design.
Both types of membership drop-items should be stackable and findable at any time. They would activate instantly, and not be sellable. Otherwise people would just hoard them for events.
Mystery MS cards could be stackable by adding a 2nd rare spawn to your map, but perhaps each of them would be a bit less likely, like adding additional pizza toppings.
Lucky MS cards would be stackable (as discussed) by adding more luck points, according to the math in the first post, or less generously if necessary. Staff would have the power to control drop rates to control things as they wish.
Having 2 types of membership drop items reduces any crazy influx of shinies people are worried about in the case of having only Lucky-MS drops, and also gives something to people who don't care about shinies. Other additional types could even be added if staff want to run with the idea -- how about "Magic Trainer Cards" which make all wild pokes high level for more EXP/money? I know spawns/trainers can already scale to your highest level, thanks to LUA.
These membership drop items would be a passive way to encourage a steady number of players playing, just like the battle tower currently does, without much planning, without dropping nukes on the economy. It will reward those who actually are playing, rather than people who only return for events and might not deserve things as much. It improves the optics of the game (less P2W) with more activity. It removes the gambling controversy with TS shinies. It adds more things which cannot be bought/sold and must be earned by playing (merit) rather than spending tokens.
All this is more about giving people hope/reason to play more regularly, than it is about making things easier. But if people are very lucky it will do that too. Usually not very significantly - it should only be incorporated after careful calculation.
A new player is more likely to stay if they join and see a bunch of players playing and feeling lucky, than if they join and only see a few people. And when they ask "how do I get membership" or "how do I get Charizard" you won't have to tell them the only way is by spending real money, or spending an unimaginable wealth (to them) in Pd... which is easiest to get by spending money. We can hopefully get the activity snowball rolling, and keep it going and getting bigger, not stopping like it does after a big event.
Then, in addition, the trade-in NPC portion of this suggestion allows people to squash their disappointment in finding horrible IV rares, since they can cash them in for some more luck points. The buyback amounts or valid types can be varied by staff as a 2nd means of control over the economy. It's a very important part which I've discussed more in other posts. You'll probably want to fix the "/list pokemon" command first to easily report basic tier information, to make this trade-in NPC most intuitive to players.
All of this should be easy to program with minimal coding, using an already existing system (REP). So far it's just 2 NPCs and 2 items.
There are just so many ways that the Lucky/Mystery MS Cards and Trade-in NPC are amazing suggestions that will fix/improve so many things. I've probably forgotten some other benefits from earlier posts too.
The aggregate effect of an event is also like a nuclear bomb on the economy that has to be carefully planned. It can destroy the value of certain pokemons in the blink of an eye. It's usually been well-managed so far but we're running out of pokemon that nobody has whose values can safely be destroyed. So I have an additional suggestion: a second type of membership drop-item:
'Mystery Membership Cards' could give MS perks and trigger one of the Token Store pokemons to start spawning on a random map for that player for a limited time. It would give a player their own personal micro-event. I already think all pokemon should be removed from the token store, so this would be a great alternate way of making those pokemons available. At worst 1-2 of a given rare pokemon might be found, total, instead of 100 shiny Slugmas all at once. Nobody could spam real cash to get a shiny anymore. Logistically, a Mystery Event Transporter NPC would probably be needed.
Mystery maps could be previews of maps from new regions, closed sections of existing maps, player-made contest maps, etc, strictly for hunting, without a need for NPCs/scripting or flawless design.
Both types of membership drop-items should be stackable and findable at any time. They would activate instantly, and not be sellable. Otherwise people would just hoard them for events.
Mystery MS cards could be stackable by adding a 2nd rare spawn to your map, but perhaps each of them would be a bit less likely, like adding additional pizza toppings.
Lucky MS cards would be stackable (as discussed) by adding more luck points, according to the math in the first post, or less generously if necessary. Staff would have the power to control drop rates to control things as they wish.
Having 2 types of membership drop items reduces any crazy influx of shinies people are worried about in the case of having only Lucky-MS drops, and also gives something to people who don't care about shinies. Other additional types could even be added if staff want to run with the idea -- how about "Magic Trainer Cards" which make all wild pokes high level for more EXP/money? I know spawns/trainers can already scale to your highest level, thanks to LUA.
These membership drop items would be a passive way to encourage a steady number of players playing, just like the battle tower currently does, without much planning, without dropping nukes on the economy. It will reward those who actually are playing, rather than people who only return for events and might not deserve things as much. It improves the optics of the game (less P2W) with more activity. It removes the gambling controversy with TS shinies. It adds more things which cannot be bought/sold and must be earned by playing (merit) rather than spending tokens.
All this is more about giving people hope/reason to play more regularly, than it is about making things easier. But if people are very lucky it will do that too. Usually not very significantly - it should only be incorporated after careful calculation.
A new player is more likely to stay if they join and see a bunch of players playing and feeling lucky, than if they join and only see a few people. And when they ask "how do I get membership" or "how do I get Charizard" you won't have to tell them the only way is by spending real money, or spending an unimaginable wealth (to them) in Pd... which is easiest to get by spending money. We can hopefully get the activity snowball rolling, and keep it going and getting bigger, not stopping like it does after a big event.
Then, in addition, the trade-in NPC portion of this suggestion allows people to squash their disappointment in finding horrible IV rares, since they can cash them in for some more luck points. The buyback amounts or valid types can be varied by staff as a 2nd means of control over the economy. It's a very important part which I've discussed more in other posts. You'll probably want to fix the "/list pokemon" command first to easily report basic tier information, to make this trade-in NPC most intuitive to players.
All of this should be easy to program with minimal coding, using an already existing system (REP). So far it's just 2 NPCs and 2 items.
There are just so many ways that the Lucky/Mystery MS Cards and Trade-in NPC are amazing suggestions that will fix/improve so many things. I've probably forgotten some other benefits from earlier posts too.
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