To make hunting more interesting

[Merse]

This is an idea I'm thinking on for a while. Obviously it cannot be fulfilled before the new client arrives, but then it would be nice to have something like this.
My idea is to make hunting a bit more - how should I say - fair. Currently hunting is all about pure luck. The dice rolls and whatever comes up, you'll encounter it. The idea is to introduce a certain type of hunting XP. You would get hunting XP for looking for different Pokemon.

As you try to track down and catch certain animals in real life, you start to know their behavior, the paths, drinking points, feeding areas they use, when and where they may show up etc. You become an expert of that animal.
On the same fashion with Pokemon, if you track them, you should get known them and so you could easily track them down. Hunting XP would increase your chance to encounter that certain Pokemon.

The idea is to get hunting XP by spending one real hour without interruption on one map, you will get hunting XP. There would be a limit of - let's say - 1000 XP which means 1000 hours spent on the same map.
You can get hunting XP on two levels:
1) For the map: As you spend time there, you start to get known with the area and so your chances of finding a certain Pokemon on that map will increase.
2) For a selected Pokemon on the map (you would be able to chose which Poke you're hunting for specifically today, form a menu or something). You also start to get known the Pokemon living on the map, which means if they are catchable on any other map, their encounter chance will increase there as well.
If you get 1000 hunting XP it doubles your chances for encountering that Pokemon.
As you can get 1000 XP per map and 1000 XP per Pokemon, it means that your chances of getting a certain Pokemon may be multiplied by 4 in total.

Well, this is it. It still needs some polishing, and I have several variations in my head like map hunting XP wouldn't effect the encounter chance directly but it would increase the speed you can gain the Pokemon hunting XP for example.

What do you think?

 

[HitmonFonty]

I'm not against any idea that increases the chance of finding pokemon, especially one like this that rewards patience. I would add though that after you catch the pokemon you are after- the HR in the area- that your chances reset again. I think if your chances remained doubled beyond catching the HR pokemon it would unbalance the game too much. Realistically you could also say that as much as the hunter gets to know the game trails and pokemon habits etc- the pokemon will also become more wary of one who has successfully hunted one of their number already and take steps to avoid you.

 

[HeavyPetter]

1000 hours in order to maximize chances of capturing one pokemon? Most people don't even have 1000 hours in game overall. I consider myself more or less an arch-nerd, I'm ashamed of how much i play PWO and I'm not even close to accumulating 1000 hours over 2 years . I think something like this would further serve to punish people who don't play the game extremely much. At least in my opinion PWO should be open for players who just want to play it casually, that is to say even if you only want to put say one hour per week into playing, you should not be at a huge disadvantage compared to those who play all the time.

 

[Ramensnoodle]

A part of me would like to see something like this implemented it would actually make my long hunts more enjoyable.
It can also be argued the other way that those that put in more time when it comes to hunting should get a small perk for it. If it does reset after finding the poke like fonty said that could balance it out.

 

[HitmonFonty]

1000 hours in order to maximize chances of capturing one pokemon? Most people don't even have 1000 hours in game overall. I consider myself more or less an arch-nerd, I'm ashamed of how much i play PWO and I'm not even close to accumulating 1000 hours over 2 years . I think something like this would further serve to punish people who don't play the game extremely much. At least in my opinion PWO should be open for players who just want to play it casually, that is to say even if you only want to put say one hour per week into playing, you should not be at a huge disadvantage compared to those who play all the time.

You misread it, he said 1000 XP from pokemon in that area, not 1000 hours.

 

[Algiers]

You misread it, he said 1000 XP from pokemon in that area, not 1000 hours.

The idea is to get hunting XP by spending one real hour without interruption on one map, you will get hunting XP. There would be a limit of - let's say - 1000 XP which means 1000 hours spent on the same map.

 

[BlackSeven]

I kinda like this idea, perhaps it could be implemented as a sort of item or something. One concern I'd have is people who aren't specifically hunting HR's and only Shiny rares for example, using these methods wouldn't rares become extremely common? Or perhaps the tool/item/method could have something to increase shiny chances as well but not the whole Pokemon. Overall I like the idea though like you said it would need some polishing.

 

[Algiers]

I kinda like this idea, perhaps it could be implemented as a sort of item or something. One concern I'd have is people who aren't specifically hunting HR's and only Shiny rares for example, using these methods wouldn't rares become extremely common? Or perhaps the tool/item/method could have something to increase shiny chances as well but not the whole Pokemon. Overall I like the idea though like you said it would need some polishing.

Spending 1000 hours (which, for most people, is more than their entire playtime so far) to reduce the chance of meeting a shiny rare from... say, 1/100000 to 1/25000? No, I don't think this will put a significant dent in the prices of anything. And who the hell does that anyway? It's just boring. Even dedicated rare Pokemon hunters want variety.

 

[BlackSeven]

Spending 1000 hours (which, for most people, is more than their entire playtime so far) to reduce the chance of meeting a shiny rare from... say, 1/100000 to 1/25000? No, I don't think this will put a significant dent in the prices of anything. And who the hell does that anyway? It's just boring. Even dedicated rare Pokemon hunters want variety.

Even though this is all hypothetical, I'll just put down some quick math.
1/100000? 100,000 battles, 10 seconds each, 1,000,000 seconds, 16,666 minutes, 277 hours. So lets say "277 hours average".
Lets "say" this gets reduced to 1/25000 , so 25,000 battles, 10 seconds each, 250,000 seconds, 4,166, 69 hours "average".

Now, I don't even think the S Rare rate is 1/100000, since I see people getting S Rares almost every month withen 100-150 hours, but lets say it is.
If you think a 75% drop in time, with a new S Rare getting spit out to the game every 69 hours, wouldn't effect prices over a long period of time, I'm not sure what you're thinking.

Either way these are all hypothetical numbers and ranges, there isnt even a point in arguing about this, but I will say that when you implement something you think about every matter in which that thing can be used, you don't simply say "Oh well people arent really going to use this, so I think so it'll be fine", Because there's always, going to be someone who does.

 

[Algiers]

Even though this is all hypothetical, I'll just put down some quick math.
1/100000? 100,000 battles, 10 seconds each, 1,000,000 seconds, 16,666 minutes, 277 hours. So lets say "277 hours average".
Lets "say" this gets reduced to 1/25000 , so 25,000 battles, 10 seconds each, 250,000 seconds, 4,166, 69 hours "average".

Now, I don't even think the S Rare rate is 1/100000, since I see people getting S Rares almost every month withen 100-150 hours, but lets say it is.
If you think a 75% drop in time, with a new S Rare getting spit out to the game every 69 hours, wouldn't effect prices over a long period of time, I'm not sure what you're thinking.

You still underestimate the significance of the 1000 hours required. This game's been out for quite a few years now. How many people have surpassed 1000 hours altogether? How many of those spent all 1000 hours hunting for a single Pokémon?

Either way these are all hypothetical numbers and ranges, there isnt even a point in arguing about this, but I will say that when you implement something you think about every matter in which that thing can be used, you don't simply say "Oh well people arent really going to use this, so I think so it'll be fine", Because there's always, going to be someone who does.

I still think a negligible amount of people will even try to attempt to grind a Pokémon for 1000 hours. So what if someone does? Remember, most people would still hunt rather casually and the amount of "extra" S Rares introduced by the hunting bonus would be relatively small compared to the S Rares injected naturally.

And if someone really wants to sacrifice 1000 hours of their life to hunt those shiny rares... well then, good for them! Let them reap their reward of extra shiny rares, they deserved it, unless they botted. Of course, the price is going to be affected if lots of people start doing it, but not sufficiently to wreck the game. Certainly not to the degree of shiny rares becoming

extremely common

 

[psychosamm]

I really like this idea, it's very creative. I would personally love to see something like this be implemented, but like you said something like this would be very very far off from being possible, but not a bad idea at all.

 

[MasterOfTheHunt]

I would have to agree with some type of reset after you capture a pokemon.
Maybe 100-250 hours instead of 1000
This seems very difficult to add to the game but I like the direction of the topics Idea

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

I would say something on a smaller scale if it were to reset after each pokemon sighting, maybe around 10 constant hours of nonstop searching would reward with a 2x increase in sightings.

 

[Orean]

I am not in opposition to the nature of this idea. However, should 1000 hours (tentative time denominator/quantity, I assume) on the map alone be required for such a system to amount to any difference in improvements for the odds of encountering a Pokemon in the map, it seems like such an intricately complex feature to develop would only really benefit a vast minority of players - namely long-time players who have been active enough to accumulate 1000 hours of playtime on their record.

Should such a complex feature in concept be actuated in the future, I feel as if it'd be in the best interest of the players for such a time requirement to be of a smaller extremity, so it is more plausibly achievable and put to better use.

Just some food for thought~

 

[Jacollo]

Well this idea is really nice, but i think that this isn't doable in the near future. I would still add it on the "Things to add list", if something like that exists of course.

 

[Merse]

That 1000 hours was only a number. I didn't want it to be achievable by anyone, so I said a big number And that 1000 (or whatever number would it be) hours would be accumulated on two fronts: By the map and by the Pokemon. soem VRs are catchable on multiple maps, and on whichever you hunt, it would add up to the Pokemons hunting XP. My basic idea was to somehow specialize the players. SOmeone spends weeks on hunting Snorlax, so he becomes a Snorlax expert, so he catches more Snorlaxes than the rest. Another guy hunts Hitmonlee a lot,others Bagon, others Elekid etc. But because it takes so long to reach the maximum hunting XP, it is unlikely that anyone would be an expert on every Pokemon and so players could cooperate. "I catch an Elekid for you if you catch a Hitmonlee for me"

But after reading all the post so far, I actually like Fonty's idea more than my original. So let's say 50, 100 or 100 hours of hunting would be enough to increase the encounter chance by 2 or 4, but once you encountered the Poke you were looking for, you lose the hunting XP and you have to accumulate it again. And of course if you leave to heal your Pokes or to sell something, or you're just fed off with hunting for a while, you wouldn't lose your progress, only the last hour which you didn't finish when you left. But you could come back later and continue the hunt with the bonuses you already got.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

Just fyi, for people wanting to do math, it takes approximately 13.5 seconds for battles to finish and for a new battle to begin on average... IF the battle is a 1hit KO with no "It's super effective!" message. If it has messages like "person was paralyzed" or "It's not very effective..." it comes out to be around 14-14.5 seconds.

*Searches for loopholes, just as she does for every idea*
Am I right in assuming this would be an HR bonus only?

But because it takes so long to reach the maximum hunting XP, it is unlikely that anyone would be an expert on every Pokemon and so players could cooperate. "I catch an Elekid for you if you catch a Hitmonlee for me"

What if this was only a small increase, with the bonus only available to one areas HRs at a time? Like if you learned about Elekid, but went to hunt Snorlax, eventually you'd forget how to hunt elekid and learn snorlax instead. This keeps people from having a monopoly while still allowing cooperation.

In other words: You'd have to stay for hours uninterrupted on the map to get the bonus, but if you left the map the bonus would actually stay until you overwrote it with another HR. (Example: Spend several hours in Dragon's Den and get a "Dragon's Den Specialty Bonus." You leave Dragon's Den, and you STILL have the bonus. However, you got the bagon you wanted while you were there, and now want to hunt a Chansey in Cerulean Cave instead. You spend straight hours there and get a "Cerulean Cave Specialty Bonus," but this makes you lose your "Dragon's Den Specialty Bonus." Also note how I did it by location, you can't make it specifically by pokemon because some areas have more than one HR.)

The downside with this is if a player is training in, say, Mt. silver 5F, they could automatically overwrite an old bonus with Larvitar or something. But simply leaving before getting insane amounts of uninterrupted hours there would prevent any problem. Easy to avoid.

Sounds kind of complex though. Mmm. Bleeehh. Maybe others can make something of this. I could be missing something obvious here too, so forgive me if so. I'm just kind of braindead from doing a ton of math earlier, so if ya find something wrong with this assessment please let me know.

 

[HitmonFonty]

Maybe you would need an item which can be programmed with the pokemon you are hunting for. Then whenever you are in an area with that pokemon in the list points are gathered up per battle towards the bonus chance rate. To change your hunt to a different pokemon you would need to reset it completely, most likely on the playerdex.

(I was confused earlier with the XP thing. I think it would be better to call them 'hunting points' or something like that.)

Maybe 50 hours gives 2x chance, 100 hours or equivalent hunting time 4x chance. And reset in any case when the pokemon is found. I guess if someone is still unlucky enough not to have found their pokemon after 200 hours the chanced could double again. And the chance would have to reset whether the pokemon is caught or not to stop people using it for an ongoing better shiny hunting chance.

 

[Merse]

Ok, let's call them hunting points. But if you call it "fishing XP", why can't you call this "hunting XP"

Am I right in assuming this would be an HR bonus only?

No, I thought you could choose any Pokemon, even a common one which you wish to hunt. Of course it would be used mostly for HRs, but I could imagine that occasionally it would be used for VRs, or rares, if you look for a specific shiny.

To prevent losing your progress while you're training, I suggested to have a menu, or item or whatever, whit which you can set up which Pokemon you're currently hunting, and only get Hunting Points if you're on the map where you can catch it. I'm not sure though that it would be a good idea to lose the gained Hunting Points if you change your target. After all, if you learned how to do the math, you won't forget it. So I think you could store your Hunting Points and it would reset only if you caught the Pokemon you were looking for. But you could hunt Chansey and Bagon "simultaneously": 1 day here, 1 day there, and you wouldn't lose your progress, you just don't increase the Hunting Points of Chansey while you're at DD.
Or you could add a decay factor to it. If you don't continue your hunt for 30 days, you'll lose 50% of the Hunting Points you gained for that Pokemon.

I don't think it would be an issue if they would use it for looking for shinys. If the Hunting Points would reset after every encounter, then it would really be a HR-exclusive feature, and I doN't think it would be a good idea.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

NOTE: I edited this a million times. Sorry. =P

The whole "lose xp points by some means" keeps the system from getting overpowered. (Note I didn't make plans based on set hours. So I wasn't thinking "1,000 hours with a matching benefit", I was thinking "x" hours that could be adjusted in accordance with the difficulty of getting hunting exp vs its adjustable benefits.)

Your decaying idea prevents a bonus monopoly because you simply cannot juggle every single pokemon out there, haha. Which is good. I would also guess such a system would make a "reset once encountered/caught" penalty unnecessary as well, depending on the decay is scaled. I didn't really use/consider the reset once caught thing though, because it'd be pretty hard to make it fun and efficient for lower rarities.

Now, to discuss feel:
The downside is this could create a larger gap between casual and hardcore players, as casual players might not be able to get on every day. With current ingame systems, a casual player can make it eventually. And with decay they still could, but they might have a disadvantage of not being able to maintain their bonuses depending on how the decay was scaled.

With this, the feel could be changed in the lategame. It brings a time limit into an otherwise "just log in and play" game, which could be a pro or a con haha. Players might not even notice it, might not like that it has to be maintained, or it could bring a bit of incentive for them to get on more consistently.

Furthermore, maintenance on a hard-to-earn system for a marginal benefit might not be worth it to some people, so there would have to be fine tuning with formulas to make it worth the time for the average player.

I feel like my old overwrite system would work for HR-only bonuses, but probably not for other rarities. That is, unless you would manually select that pokemon from a menu and have the xp be based on that pokemon being in the area instead of a specific map. At the same time, it lets players earn their carrot and keep their carrot without unbalancing the game, if you can see what I'm saying. With decay and reset on encounter, they can earn it as well, but in decay they have to maintain it and with reset on encounter they can easily lose it. (Gonna be honest, I can't see reset on encounter working for lower rarities :L)

ATM I feel like we're discussing which penalty is most effective at balancing the feature while being the most fun to actually use, so we should compare/contrast them at some point.