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Old 02-12-2019, 07:07 PM   #1
Sandaa
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Mewtwo FEEDBACK REQUESTED: New Idea for FB Gyms

Hi guys, so I have been working on a bit of an idea lately with the other mods that I would like to gauge the opinions of the community at large on. Please bear with me because most of the details are pretty bare-bones right now, but I will try to explain the intentions behind it to the best of my ability.

Basically the idea behind what I have in mind is that I would like to do something with the very dead Trainer Battles subforum. There have been multiple attempts in the past to try and come up with ways for people to keep up activity and progress with raising their Pokemon during times like these when updates are less frequent and FB just turns into periods of people only showing up to use the daycare. So the idea I have come up with would be a sort of revamp to the Gym Leader system but in a completely different way from how it was before.
I would like to state right now that this has nothing to do with PvP Trainer Battles at this moment, and while I am not ruling out that they might come back in the future, that is not the purpose of this discussion.

The crux of my idea would basically be that we would form a guild or circle of sort centered around each element in the Pokemon universe and managed by a Gym Leader at the top. I haven’t fully fleshed out the mechanics of the system with stuff like how many gyms one can be a part of and how the leaders are decided, but there are a few specifics that I did have in mind. For starters, the Gym Leader positions would be merit based, and I would definitely look to implement a rule where if a leader does not continue upkeep on their gym for a set period of time (maybe a month?) they would forfeit their position and it would become up for grabs to someone else. I haven’t fully decided on everything that the gyms would do together, but one idea I had would be that members of a particular gym would band together and fight raid-style battles against NPC challengers that come to fight them. Pokemon allowed in each gym would obviously revolve around the type of that gym, though I could see there being room for an exception rule. I’d definitely be willing to listen if anyone had any ideas about more activities they would like to see gyms do together.

So now here’s the nitty-gritty about expectations I have for this system. I would like for it to navigate a narrow tightrope between two extremes.
1.) I do not want this to become just another weekly shop on top of daycare and candies and whatnot. I know that was a big issue that a lot of people had with old!FB and would like to make this fun and exciting.
2.) On the other hand, I know a lot of stuff that we have implemented since the reboot have been too RP-centric (mostly events) which has caused some people to burn out or take excessively long to reply to.
My vision for this idea is that it could be something that people reply to on a daily? (maybe too frequent) or weekly basis and wouldn’t take too much time out of their lives to respond to. For those lean towards the first extreme mentioned above, I would like to submit that Emi and I have talked about a reward incentive for those who would be inclined to RP out their responses opposed to a simple shop-like bump. This goes for gym leaders as well. I can’t state enough that most of the burnout in FB comes not from the updates, but from those who volunteer hours of their time to write up the wonderful adventures that their updates embark on. I do not want this to just become another zone where the gym leaders are worn down by writing updates whatsoever. This will be completely different from zone adventures.

So this is the TL;DR of it all and a few questions that I would like to get feedback from you all on:
• Without making it too much like a zone or too much like a shop, what kinds of things would you like to get out of a Gym Guild system? Is this something you even want to see in general?
• Would you be in favor of the proposed raid-style battle system against NPCs? How would you like to see it being managed? Should the Gym Leader control the NPCs who attack their own gyms (potential issue for conflict of interest) or maybe they control NPCs that attack other gyms (would need to hash out a way for all gyms to have fair and balanced participation)?
• Lastly (this might be the most important question of all), what kinds of rewards would you like to get out of this? Levels (I don’t want this to just become a duplicate Daycare Center)? Moves/TMs (again, I don’t want to just make shops obsolete)? Maybe Enigma or Type-Based Eggs? One thought I had would be that gym participation would be rewarded in points, which could be cashed in at a shop of sorts.
I would greatly appreciate everyone’s input on what that think about this system. To repeat myself, I’d like for this to be a way to keep people active and not feel like their progress in raising their Pokemon has fallen off due to inactivity. I just want it to be simple enough that it’s sustainable and doesn’t place burden on the people running it while being intricate enough that people don’t feel like they’re just showing up to pick up and drop off Pokemon. The good news is that the idea is still early in development so if there’s something you would like to see this grow into, now is the time for you to contribute! Please let me know what you think!
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Old 02-12-2019, 07:49 PM   #2
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Well, this would certainly revitalize that graveyard for a little bit. Might as well share my initial thoughts on the matter for the time being, eh?

As things stand, the number of people listed in the Daycare Center updates varies between 14 and 24 on a fairly reliable basis. From an activity standpoint, we have the ability to fill up all 18 Types with our high end with a fair bit of overflow if we choose to populate the sects on a profile basis, but we're bound to inevitably duck under the threshold that way. On the other hand, doing it on a character-to-character basis could get out of hand for people with more than, say, two while simultaneously alienating the people who stick to just having the one.

On the other hand, there's also the matter of determining how many pokemon of a given Type you need to have to be eligible to join a sect in the first place. I, for one, only have one Type with six or more examples of on my profile (albeit divided between both of my characters), and there's several members who don't even have that. I have thought of guidelines behind what may or may not be allowed as 'wildcard' representatives in a Gym, but those aren't going to help most people out in the long run.

Both of these points are logistics to think about going forward. We do want this to be inclusive without leaving people out, after all.
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Old 02-12-2019, 08:05 PM   #3
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1: I like this idea, certainly. I've wanted there to be some sort of active Gym challenge in FB since 2012, and it pleases me greatly to see that something to that effect is being worked on. As for what I'd like to see out of this... well, I'd like to get some good battles out of this, some RP opportunities, perhaps for some Pokémon I haven't been working much with before, and even opportunities for some of said Pokémon to evolve. Cool rewards for all this, while optional, would be awesome nonetheless, though I at least would like to see Gym badges to win and accumulate, with maybe some sort of ultimate reward giving an incentive to eventually challenge all the Gyms. And just to add onto another point, while I personally would use this as an opportunity to RP, I'd be perfectly fine with RPing being completely optional for this, for the benefit of those who don't have that kind of time.

2: It's an interesting idea. I feel like Gym Leaders shouldn't control NPCs who attack their own Gym, personally, but other than that, I don't really have any input on the idea at the moment.

3: Aside from the aforementioned Gym badges, I like the idea of a points system. Way back when we hadn't completely decided to phase out coins, I remember the idea of Coins being available solely through RP and used to purchase luxury items you couldn't get any other way. I wouldn't mind reviving the essentials of that idea- a shop that sells items that are otherwise difficult or else impossible to get otherwise. Examples that come to mind include Mega Stones, Z-Crystals, maybe old move-teaching items from FB events of the past, Shiny Spray, Devolution Spray (the benefit of using this over the reset thread would be allowing the devolved Pokémon to keep the moves from the evolved stage), maybe even the coveted Master Ball. In addition, I feel like there should be a reward for beating all the Gym Leaders and collecting their badges. The reward for the old FB Gym challenge, I remember it well, was being allowed to obtain a legendary. I'm not gonna push for this if overall we don't want it, but I think it at least merits consideration. Naturally, it would require us to resume the discussion regarding legendaries, mythicals, and Ultra Beasts, but like I said, just throwing ideas out here at the moment. Other ideas I could picture for this include being allowed to create your own Mega Stone or Z-Crystal, maybe even being allowed to create a Bond Phenomenon form for one of your Pokémon. Though that last one would require that we hash out the rules surrounding Bond Phenomenon, and that's even assuming we all agree on wanting that in FB in the first place.
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Old 02-15-2019, 03:29 AM   #4
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Quote:
Without making it too much like a zone or too much like a shop, what kinds of things would you like to get out of a Gym Guild system? Is this something you even want to see in general?
• Would you be in favor of the proposed raid-style battle system against NPCs? How would you like to see it being managed? Should the Gym Leader control the NPCs who attack their own gyms (potential issue for conflict of interest) or maybe they control NPCs that attack other gyms (would need to hash out a way for all gyms to have fair and balanced participation)?
• Lastly (this might be the most important question of all), what kinds of rewards would you like to get out of this? Levels (I don’t want this to just become a duplicate Daycare Center)? Moves/TMs (again, I don’t want to just make shops obsolete)? Maybe Enigma or Type-Based Eggs? One thought I had would be that gym participation would be rewarded in points, which could be cashed in at a shop of sorts.
1. Like M.M. said, having gyms and badges to earn would be a great addition to FB. Especially as there’s isn’t too much in terms of long term goals for players to strive towards outside of self imposed things like collecting Pokémon (outside of the cloud garden trials of course)

2. When you say raid style battles my mind immediately jumps to things like Snowdown and that was some of the most fun I had in FB. If I were to design it from the ground up it would work like this: 1 gym leader. A respected community member with at least “X” amount of Pokémon to a type. They design an arena for people to defend. Then every so often they open up and allow a certain number of people (determined by how many each specific leader feels they can handle at once) with “Y” amount of the typed Pokémon to join a raid. The gym leader controls the NPCs but does not participate themselves (but a gym leader can participate in other gyms). They should be dependable to update at least weekly or bi-weekly. They can design different challengers and different scenarios for people to challenge their gym. To keep things relatively fair I think a player can only be in one gym at a time and can’t participate in the same gym more than once in a row.

3. Badges should obviously be one aspect of reward. Perhaps we could borrow a page from ASB’s book and make them Hold items of some sort. I also like the idea of Type Eggs, z-crystals or the typed pokeballs. Probably levels too. But if the raids are consistently fun that would be the biggest reward for me personally.

So overall maybe kind of like several mini zones mixed with the equivalent of a mobile game’s weekly/monthly events. Gyms should definitely be more than a shop or a daycare replacement. It’s ambitious and would require some very active people to run them but I feel like it’d be fun.

** “X” and “Y” to be decided by people smarter at these kind of decisions than me.
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Old 02-15-2019, 02:07 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by biggggg5 View Post
1. Like M.M. said, having gyms and badges to earn would be a great addition to FB. Especially as there’s isn’t too much in terms of long term goals for players to strive towards outside of self imposed things like collecting Pokémon (outside of the cloud garden trials of course)

2. When you say raid style battles my mind immediately jumps to things like Snowdown and that was some of the most fun I had in FB. If I were to design it from the ground up it would work like this: 1 gym leader. A respected community member with at least “X” amount of Pokémon to a type. They design an arena for people to defend. Then every so often they open up and allow a certain number of people (determined by how many each specific leader feels they can handle at once) with “Y” amount of the typed Pokémon to join a raid. The gym leader controls the NPCs but does not participate themselves (but a gym leader can participate in other gyms). They should be dependable to update at least weekly or bi-weekly. They can design different challengers and different scenarios for people to challenge their gym. To keep things relatively fair I think a player can only be in one gym at a time and can’t participate in the same gym more than once in a row.

3. Badges should obviously be one aspect of reward. Perhaps we could borrow a page from ASB’s book and make them Hold items of some sort. I also like the idea of Type Eggs, z-crystals or the typed pokeballs. Probably levels too. But if the raids are consistently fun that would be the biggest reward for me personally.

So overall maybe kind of like several mini zones mixed with the equivalent of a mobile game’s weekly/monthly events. Gyms should definitely be more than a shop or a daycare replacement. It’s ambitious and would require some very active people to run them but I feel like it’d be fun.

** “X” and “Y” to be decided by people smarter at these kind of decisions than me.
I was going to type my piece but Big has said pretty much everything I wanted to say. I'll add a few things onto this though:

1/2: I love guilds in Roleplays! I used to roleplay (and admin) for a fake region website that placed players into guilds based on a specific type of stone that they picked at the beginning of their adventure. The stones had a large purpose in the roleplay itself, determining specific "rare" Pokemon that the player could catch (please never do this, this was an awful idea) but it also effected your team-mates, what guild you were at war with (Onyx and Quartz were always at war and I was reppin' my Onyx boys hard), and what rewards you were more likely to receive. It was a super cool concept to me, especially because it encouraged interaction between the playerbase who otherwise never communicated beyond the Xat room (this was a long time ago lmao).

Obviously, I don't want something directly like this but I think the gym concept could be similar in some aspects while still allowing creativity and interaction between all sorts of players.

(these were originally actual bullet points but they looked really chunky all close together)

- I think members of the community (pre-existing updaters/pillars of the community as a whole) should function as the leaders of the guilds

- I think activity check ins should be mandatory to ensure that the guild (or gym, semantics man...) will continue to function smoothly

- With this said, sometimes people do have periods where they, for one reason or another, cannot post. (Finals, Children, Jobs, Etc.) I don't think a gym leader should lose their position immediately so long as they communicate their absence properly. As you would with a job.

- That being said, I think after a month of proper inactivity the leader should be forced to forfeit their post

- I agree with Big's comment about a leader possibly requiring to have a specific number of Pokemon of that type in order to apply to the gym

- I think little raid wars and battles between the gyms would be super cool! It could be possible that some guilds have specific distaste towards another, in an aspect, thus encouraging more confrontations between the two. (Like... as an example the Water and Electric guilds don't get along or something... idk). Obviously this could be done with NPCs sent by the guild leaders (a collaboration project in a way where members of each guild can face NPCs controlled by the leader of the opposing guild)

- I feel like that last point is poorly explained. What I mean is like... let's say that a user controls the fairy gym and another user controls the dark gym. The dark gym attacks the fairy gym, various members of the dark gym join in the assault and face NPCs controlled by the Fairy gym leader. Meanwhile the members of the Fairy gym are defending against NPCs controlled by the Dark gym leader. The two leaders are both collaboration and writing updates for the people that they're facing off against.

- I think with these raids it could start initially as NPC faceoffs but could eventually evolve into PVP. (I'm not saying we need to start PVP or dive headfirst into it... but it could be a good starting point)

3: I'm pretty much completely on board with the reward list that Big stated... I think levels and being able to gain bond would also be a plus.
  • Levels
  • Bond
  • Type Items (Miracle Seeds for Grass, Type Balls, TMs)
  • Type Eggs
  • Z-Crystals (reserved for big boy raids)
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Old 02-15-2019, 07:08 PM   #6
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*cracks fingers*

Alright, I've been privy to this idea for a little while so I've had some time to think about it. I'm all in favour of Gym's as long as we ensure that it doesn't take away from zone updating and we ensure that Gym Leaders are actively engaging in the community as a whole.

Reward System
I'm personally in favour in a standard points and shop system, with occasional events presenting additional reward. I feel like points should be 'Gym Specific', you earn points in a gym, you spend them in that gym. Perhaps 1 point per week for a general claim post, 2 points if RP'd. In terms of reward I could see something like this (using water as an example).

1 point- 1 Water Candy (increases the level of a water type by 1)
2 points- 1 Standard Water TM (BP less than 80)
4 points- 1 Standard Water TM (BP more than 80)
6 points- 1 Non Standard Water TM (BP less than 80) (to clarify, Non Standard TMs refers to level up moves that aren't normally TM's. Example, Aqua Jet. Obviously no legendary moves and I guess we could say no signature moves e.g. Spirit Shackle, Darkest Lariat and Sparkling Aria).
8 points- 1 Non Standard Water TM (BP less than 80)
20 points- Gym Battle/Badge
30 points- 1 Water Egg
100 points- 1 Mega Stone (Mega Pokemon must be Water typed)

This way you can still gain levels, learn new moves, get new Pokemon and even get a Mega Stone, but it would require a great deal of dedication to a specific gym. It would take 15 weeks of RP posts just to get a type egg and 50 (almost a year) to get a Mega Stone, which honestly I think is a fair amount of time to work towards something like a Mega Stone. You could put Z Crystal in there somewhere (maybe at 60 points) but I'd rather see that as an event reward. I put Gym Battle/Badge in as well, allowing people to challenge the Gym Leader to a short RP'd battle, generally the challenger should win, since they have worked hard to accrue their points but obviously if someone does something stupid like fighting a Mega Aggron with an Aurorus they should probably lose.... As for where the Gym Battles should take place, this might be an unpopular opinion. What if we did them on discord? It would be less stressful on both parties, simple replies like "Match their Flamethrower with a Thunderbolt!" stuff like that. I just think it would be a long and stressful process to RP it in the gym itself. Additionally, giving out badges for gym events or something like that would be kind of unrewarding? Like when Ash is pretty much gifted his first two gym badges...

The Role of the Gym Leader
Gym Leaders post at the end of a week, quickly summarising what has transpired during the week and confirming points earned and transactions made. This begs the question, should Gym Leaders be given FC or maybe just 1 point in their own Gym every week? Gym Leaders should certainly be able to participate in another gym. Personally I'd rather see them given 1 or 2 points in their own gym a week, rather than FC because I think giving them FC would take away from zone updating.

Maybe once a year, each GL should hold a small raid event or challenge like what has been brought up previously. However, we would have to decide if there if these events are limited entry (maybe you need to have a couple of points in a gym to participate in the event?). The raid/challenge should also be pretty simple, we don't need GL's burning themselves out having to pump out 1000+ word updates week after week for an event.


Gym Leader Qualifications
1. Must have at least 4 Pokemon of selected type, this leaves room for growth, yet it is enough for them to start with.
2. Must have some level of consistency in FB (I know implementing Gyms might given some more of a reason to get involved in FB again, but ultimately I feel like those that have shown consistency in their activity should get the rub of the green.
3. Must be willing to step down if they are no longer able to fulfil their duty. Recognise when you can no longer commit so you don't stand in the way of others enjoying this game we all love.


There is probably some stuff I forgot to talk about, but this will do for now.
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Old 02-19-2019, 12:18 AM   #7
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Personally, I'm not sure if I agree with type-specific points only useful in that type Gym. I'm pretty sure we want to keep the different kinds of currency to keep track of to something of a minimum, and this suggestion would mean piling up to a whopping 18 new forms of currency on top of Pokédollars. I feel like all Gyms should give the same kind of currency, personally. But, I'm definitely interested in the idea of encouraging dedication to a Gym. Perhaps the shop's selection could vary based on which badges you have, and/or how many badges you have. We'd still need to work out a way to ensure, though, that it takes dedication to said Gym to earn the badge in the first place. And we'd need to ensure that some of the more desirable prizes cost so much that you can't just earn all the badges and be good on points forever- make 'em good enough to keep people coming back.

Such as non-standard TMs. I love that idea. That said, I'm not fond of the notion of keeping signature moves out of it. Legendary/Mythical signature moves, OK, maybe, but signature moves of regular Pokémon, nah. Those things can lose their exclusivity on a whim. Back in Gen 3, Leaf Blade, Blaze Kick, and Muddy Water would've qualified as signature moves under this, being exclusive to the Hoenn starters, and now they're so widespread that if anyone suggested barring them as potential TMs for this, they'd be laughed out of the thread. Also, I really want my archery-crazed Budew to learn Spirit Shackle someday. That said, I feel like at least a few restrictions should be in play here- might not be the best idea for TMs teaching Transform and Sketch to be floating around, after all! But beyond those, I don't really see much in the way of exclusive moves that shouldn't be made more widely available. In addition, we'd have to keep track of any legendary exclusive moves that lose their exclusivity, because that's a thing that happens. Just look at Sacred Sword.
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Old 02-19-2019, 12:40 AM   #8
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I mean, it wouldn't exactly be that kind of a currency, the GL would just have to keep track of everyone's points in the opening post and then you can just quote from that really, wouldn't exactly be 18 new currencies. That said, should we allow there to be 18 gyms at once, or should there be a limit to the amount of gyms there can be at one time?

Maybe we could have some form of overall currency, but then have different titles in each gym and certain items are unlocked for purchase at certain levels?

Example
Water Gym Newcomer (0-3 weeks)
Water Gym Assistant (4-8 weeks)
Rookie Water Gym Trainer (9-15 weeks)
Water Gym trainer (16-23 weeks)
Elite Water Gym trainer (24+ weeks)

So after 6 months in one gym, you would be considered an Elite Gym Trainer. You could make it that you can't challenge a Gym Leader until you reach the Rookie Gym Trainer rank, that way people can't just blitz through all the gyms in an instant.
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