Staff Rewards -2024 Edition-

[Lil'twick]

Staff Rewards has been something that we've been looking to discuss for over a year now at this point. So, we're going to be discussing Staff Rewards within this thread. We'll be looking at FC Gains, for both Zones and Shops, as well as the actual staff rewards ladder itself. This includes updating it to match our current updaters/show owners' needs, as well as making sure it fits the modern game. This, along with a few other things, will be something we always will need to be looking at and changing to fit the updating landscape.

For reference, here's the current rewards ladder spoilered below:

Spoiler: show

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

1 FC = 1 Rare Candy
3 FC = 2 Rare Candies
5 FC = 3 Rare Candies
10 FC = $500 Pokedollars
15 FC = 1 of the Following TMs: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, or Thunderbolt /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Level, Lure, Moon, Friend, Love, Heavy, or Fast Ball
20 FC = 4 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, or Safari Ball
25 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
30 FC = 1 TM/TR of your choice
35 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Enigma Egg
40 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
45 FC = $750 Pokedollars
50 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ Shiny Spray /or/ Silver Umbra Coin

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

51 FC = 1 Rare Candy
53 FC = 2 Rare Candies
55 FC = 3 Rare Candies
60 FC = $500 Pokedollars
65 FC = 1 of the Following TMs: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, or Thunderbolt /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Level, Lure, Moon, Friend, Love, Heavy, or Fast Ball
70 FC = 4 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, or Safari Ball
75 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Items: Fossilized Drake, Fossilized Dino, Fossilized Fish, or Fossilized Bird /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
80 FC = 1 TM/TR of your choice
85 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Enigma Egg
90 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
95 FC = $750 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Held Item of your choice
100 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ Shiny Spray /or/ Silver Umbra Coin

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

101 FC = 1 Rare Candy
103 FC =2 Rare Candies
105 FC =3 Rare Candies
110 FC = $500 Pokedollars
115 FC = 1 of the Following TMs: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, or Thunderbolt /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Level, Lure, Moon, Friend, Love, Heavy, or Fast Ball
120 FC = 4 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, or Safari Ball
125 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Items: Fossilized Drake, Fossilized Dino, Fossilized Fish, or Fossilized Bird /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
130 FC = 1 TM/TR of your choice /or/ 1 Evolution Item of your choice
135 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
140 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
145 FC = $750 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Held Item of your choice
150 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ Shiny Spray /or/ Silver Umbra Coin

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

151 FC = 1 Rare Candy
153 FC =2 Rare Candies
155 FC =3 Rare Candies
160 FC = $500 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Fossil Egg /or/ 1 Starter Egg /or/ 1 Baby Egg
165 FC = 1 of the Following TMs: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, or Thunderbolt /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Level, Lure, Moon, Friend, Love, Heavy, or Fast Ball
170 FC = 4 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, or Safari Ball
175 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Items: Fossilized Drake, Fossilized Dino, Fossilized Fish, or Fossilized Bird /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
180 FC = 1 TM/TR of your choice /or/ 1 Evolution Item of your choice
185 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
190 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
195 FC = $750 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Held Item of your choice
200 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ Shiny Spray /or/ Silver Umbra Coin /or/ 1 Custom Item of your choice

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

201 FC = 1 Rare Candy
203 FC =2 Rare Candies
205 FC =3 Rare Candies
210 FC = $500 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Fossil Egg /or/ 1 Starter Egg /or/ 1 Baby Egg
215 FC = 1 of the Following TMs: Flamethrower, Ice Beam, or Thunderbolt /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Level, Lure, Moon, Friend, Love, Heavy, or Fast Ball /or/ 1 Heart Scale
220 FC = 4 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, Safari Ball, Bug Ball, Dark Ball, Dragon Ball, Thunder Ball, Fairy Ball, Fighting Ball, Fire Ball, Fizzy Ball, Flying Ball, Ghost Ball, Leaf Ball, Ground Ball, Snow Ball, Normal Ball, Poison Ball, Psychic Ball, Rock Ball, or Steel Ball
225 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 of the Following Items: Fossilized Drake, Fossilized Dino, Fossilized Fish, or Fossilized Bird /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
230 FC = 1 TM/TR of your choice /or/ 1 Evolution Item of your choice
235 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
240 FC = 5 Rare Candies /or/ 1 Pokeball of your choice /or/ 1 Shadow Gummi
245 FC = $750 Pokedollars /or/ 1 Held Item of your choice
250 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ Shiny Spray /or/ Silver Umbra Coin /or/ 1 Custom Item of your choice

-\/- 750 Pokedollars Each Step

260 FC = 10 Rare Candies /or/ 2 Shadow Gummis
270 FC = 20 Rare Candies
280 FC = 1 Nugget
290 FC = 1 TM/TR or Extra Move to be taught to a Pokemon of your choice
295 FC = 1 Z-Crystal /or/ 1 Mega Stone /or/ 1 Max Soup
300 FC = New Custom Item / Move - You propose an item or move. If it is a custom move, also an item to learn it. Mods must approve of the effects. Be reasonable but do something cool!

Here are some questions to help get the discussion going:

What do you like and/or dislike about the current rewards ladder?

How do you feel about your FC accrual rate? Do you feel that it's healthy or not?

If there was anything you could remove from the staff reward ladder, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

On the flipside, if there is anything you'd love to see added, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

How would you feel about lifetime milestone rewards being added to the ladder?

We know that this discussion is primarily geared towards active updaters and shop owners, but anyone is welcome to contribute. We know that we can't ever fully incentivize everyone to update, and that's fine. We just ask that people try and stay on topic with this discussion. If a topic is pressing enough that is raised, we will look into creating a thread for it.

[Missingno. Master]

Alright, here we go... I'm on Rank 4 by now, so I've flown up this ladder a good few times by now. What I'm about to list reflects my purely personal preferences.

• The 15 FC reward and its equivalents further up the ladder. Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt is a bit of a... limited selection. I'm not saying open that reward up to every single TM, just maybe... expand the selection a bit, y'know? I know those three are kind of an iconic type trio, but I think there's an argument to be made for including moves of a similar caliber from other types. Energy Ball and Sludge Bomb come to mind as prime examples. Also, I'm pretty sure the decision to put Apricorn balls in this predates them being made buyable normally, so I feel like this too could be turned to something more enticing.
• This is a really minor thing, but since FB no longer considers TRs to be distinct from TMs, maybe the wording of the 30 FC reward and its subsequent equivalents could be reworded to remove the reference to TRs?
• Maybe the Pokédollar rewards per step could be, well, stepped up a notch? Granted, I can get that some people might object to getting them in anything other than multiples of 250, I know keeping it to that makes the math all the easier (and I do not math, so yeah, I appreciate when the math is easier). But at the same time, I know just ramping it up by an additional 250 every single step... it'd add up. Still, maybe the second to last set of rewards can ramp it up to 500 per step, at least?
• 75 FC and its equivalents- what if we added more fossils than just the Frankenfossil halves? Old Amber and the like? Even if it's just to the later equivalents of the step, I feel like it's a good idea. Hell, maybe throw the Odd Keystone in there at some point, let us bring it to the Hatchery for a Spiritomb.
• 280 FC- the Nugget. I... I feel like I personally would not object to this being changed to straight-up getting ₽1,000. Comes to the same thing, with fewer steps involved.
• As far as adding stuff to the ladder... Master Ba- *shot* *repeatedly* *gratuitously* *set on fire* *run over by a steamroller* *the steamroller is also on fire* *someone Dynamaxes their Tinkaton* ...no, but seriously, if ever we were gonna add the Master Ball to FB, surely it'd be through here. I'd expect it to be nothing less than a 300 FC reward as an alternative to creating a new item or move, of course.
• Lifetime milestone rewards could be cool, and might even serve as a neat way to implement the idea I just mentioned above. Of course, if the general consensus is still a resounding NO on that, there's one other idea I've had- additional legendary adventure slots. To be clear, I don't think this should be the only way to gain additional legendary adventure slots beyond the three we currently have, but I do think it should be one of those ways. Maybe you're allowed one extra legendary adventure for every time you've cleared a rank on the ladder.
• As far as my FC accrual rate, I feel like it's pretty healthy, but then, I accrue FC at a pretty decent clip, so, I might be biased LOL. That said, I know others don't have it as good. Iron, for example, runs a shop that can sometimes go weeks without any business. Maybe the expected activity for a given shop can be made to factor into how much FC the shop owner gains? It admittedly sounds like quite the undertaking, but I feel like it's worth looking into.

...that's everything I had for the time being. If I think of anything else, you'll see it later in the thread, I'm sure.

[Nidon]

Well I literally started updating two weeks ago so I don't have much in the way of experience to contribute, because so far every extra thing I get from the ladder feels like a nice incentive. However I imagine it might lose appeal for those with higher FC counts, because the ladder does repeat a lot and might feel underwhelming for those of you who already have a lot of resources. "Oh, it's a Thunderbolt again" as you hit 1200 FC probably feels less exciting than it does for me atm is what I'm saying!

[Princess Ana]

Alright it's time to give my general opinions on the ladder that I've been thinking about for some time now. It helps being the original design of the ladder so I still remember why I made it and what my intentions were in its design. To start pretty much immediately: I think the ladder is important to have in Fizzy Bubbles and I think proposals that look to get rid of it are very short-sighted.

Why Was The Ladder Created

The ladder was created due to dissatisfaction with how shop focused Fizzy Bubbles had become, and in particular, partly exists because of my own dissatisfaction with the Staff Store as a reward system. I am not a particularly big fan of how shops exist in Fizzy Bubbles as a concept. The existence of a shop requires someone to run it, requires verification, and in particular, requires tracking to prevent the double spend issue. The double spend issue is where you use the same currency in order to buy two different things. This happens in Fizzy Bubbles pretty much entirely by accident, usually due to arithmetic error, and in truth, it's not a big issue, but it pretty much demands a higher level of involvement to address. In addition, shops create a value issue, where the value of game piece becomes immediately quantifiable. This means that is became quickly apparent in everyone's eyes what was worth their cost and what wasn't, and encouraged hoarding. But probably most importantly, while the Staff Store created goals to build towards, it didn't actually reward updating per se. On an update to update basis, there was nothing to actually incentivize you to continue. A very common occurrence was that someone would take a bunch of updatees in an attempt to get something from the store, and burn out before they ever reached it.

The ladder was designed to solve all of that. It's a system that doesn't require anyone dedicated to run it, it's a system that doesn't really require any verification since going up the ladder is done in very easy to track steps, nothing is exclusive to get and competing with each other, and it provides incentive to update from update to update. This was something I really wanted to hone in on, because the best way to ensure that Fizzy Bubbles is active is to make sure people are playing regularly, and that means updating regularly.

What do you like and/or dislike about the current rewards ladder?

The ladder was made at the beginning of New Fizzy Bubbles which has made a creation that is a product of its sentiment at the time. During the time it was Fizzy Bubbles was a lot more optimistic about how the game was going to progressed than it probably should have been in hindsight, and that is reflected in the ladder.

There are two primary issues I have with the ladder in its current state: the first is that the ladder is simply way too long. 300 updates is not a reasonable thing to expect out of our members, and it was largely picked for being a fairly distant round number goal. The ladder needs to be condensed, I would probably say directly in half, and that will help to reduce the second problem I have with the ladder: the amount of redundant rewards. There can, and probably should, be more tiers that provide more choices in rewards than the one's we provide. Rare Candies are nice and all, but they probably shouldn't be the only thing on offer in any tier.

This presents obvious issues. Shortening the length of the ladder creates an issue with the Rank system. Everyone Rank 2 or above got there when the ladder was 300 steps, and everyone who would rank up on a shorter ladder (such as Iron, or Raves) would not benefit from the change in tiers. The alternative to this is to increase the value of tiers past the 150 mark, but this is also a bit complicated. There is only so much to give in Fizzy Bubbles and this might require us to think of new rewards to give out on the ladder, or be more comfortable with other rewards dropping into lower ranks.

There exists a third option here as well: introducing a Staff Store in supplement to the rewards ladder. You would still be able to claim your ladder rewards while using your FC in a more targeted measure to get things you want. This presents all the problems of the original staff store, along with requiring a lot of balance issues, so I feel the least comfortable with this as an option. There's a valid argument that any implementation of a Staff Store can be substituted by better reward tiers.

How would you feel about lifetime milestone rewards being added to the ladder?

I think this is a pretty good idea, but there is a question on implementation. These might not be correct to introduce until we have a good idea on the kind of things we want the ladder to actually have. Then we need to discuss how the milestones would exist in practice (probably as a supplement to a normal reward tier instead of replacing them is my guess).

If there was anything you could remove from the staff reward ladder, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

On the flipside, if there is anything you'd love to see added, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

I think these questions are inherently tied together so I'm going to handle them all at once.

Things That Could Be Added:
Heart Scales
Shop Vouchers
Full Access to All Fossils
Earlier access to Custom Pokeballs
Earlier access to Custom Consumables
More access to form-changing held items
Unique consumable items (i.e. Ability Capsule)
LAP (admittedly, I despise this)

Things That Could Be Removed:
Any restrictions on TM acquisition
Any restrictions on Pokeball acquisition
Many, many of the /or/s currently present

[Ironthunder]

Wrt reward process, it's too variable. MM and Lit power through rapidly, and I've had the dept store for five years and am just now coming up on 300FC. For the record, my annual Dept Store income averages to 26FC per year discounting 2020-2021 where lockdown caused activity to spike. It's at most 1FC a week, assuming someone uses either shopfront, which isn't that common. Assuming we take a baseline of about 1FC a week, which feels a reasonable pace for most updaters, that's 52 a year, and six years to finish the ladder. I think it needs trimming. We can definitely just collapse 1-251 into a 1-50 ladder you just repeat for a while, and then on repeated loops you gain additional rewards.

As for rewards... I'd say scrap fossils except as a possible loop reward. Adding Heart Scales might be worthwhile. Special balls and Tm choices should be just unrestricted. And agree with Emi on scrapping some of the ORs in the rewards. Make the ladder an actual incentive again.

Also another thing I wanted to consider: For the first time through the first X rungs, updater FC is doubled.

Idea splurt done, I'll probably have more to say on PC tonight.

[Lil'twick]

Originally Posted by Emi

Alright it's time to give my general opinions on the ladder that I've been thinking about for some time now. It helps being the original design of the ladder so I still remember why I made it and what my intentions were in its design. To start pretty much immediately: I think the ladder is important to have in Fizzy Bubbles and I think proposals that look to get rid of it are very short-sighted.

Why Was The Ladder Created

The ladder was created due to dissatisfaction with how shop focused Fizzy Bubbles had become, and in particular, partly exists because of my own dissatisfaction with the Staff Store as a reward system. I am not a particularly big fan of how shops exist in Fizzy Bubbles as a concept. The existence of a shop requires someone to run it, requires verification, and in particular, requires tracking to prevent the double spend issue. The double spend issue is where you use the same currency in order to buy two different things. This happens in Fizzy Bubbles pretty much entirely by accident, usually due to arithmetic error, and in truth, it's not a big issue, but it pretty much demands a higher level of involvement to address. In addition, shops create a value issue, where the value of game piece becomes immediately quantifiable. This means that is became quickly apparent in everyone's eyes what was worth their cost and what wasn't, and encouraged hoarding. But probably most importantly, while the Staff Store created goals to build towards, it didn't actually reward updating per se. On an update to update basis, there was nothing to actually incentivize you to continue. A very common occurrence was that someone would take a bunch of updatees in an attempt to get something from the store, and burn out before they ever reached it.

The ladder was designed to solve all of that. It's a system that doesn't require anyone dedicated to run it, it's a system that doesn't really require any verification since going up the ladder is done in very easy to track steps, nothing is exclusive to get and competing with each other, and it provides incentive to update from update to update. This was something I really wanted to hone in on, because the best way to ensure that Fizzy Bubbles is active is to make sure people are playing regularly, and that means updating regularly.

What do you like and/or dislike about the current rewards ladder?

The ladder was made at the beginning of New Fizzy Bubbles which has made a creation that is a product of its sentiment at the time. During the time it was Fizzy Bubbles was a lot more optimistic about how the game was going to progressed than it probably should have been in hindsight, and that is reflected in the ladder.

There are two primary issues I have with the ladder in its current state: the first is that the ladder is simply way too long. 300 updates is not a reasonable thing to expect out of our members, and it was largely picked for being a fairly distant round number goal. The ladder needs to be condensed, I would probably say directly in half, and that will help to reduce the second problem I have with the ladder: the amount of redundant rewards. There can, and probably should, be more tiers that provide more choices in rewards than the one's we provide. Rare Candies are nice and all, but they probably shouldn't be the only thing on offer in any tier.

This presents obvious issues. Shortening the length of the ladder creates an issue with the Rank system. Everyone Rank 2 or above got there when the ladder was 300 steps, and everyone who would rank up on a shorter ladder (such as Iron, or Raves) would not benefit from the change in tiers. The alternative to this is to increase the value of tiers past the 150 mark, but this is also a bit complicated. There is only so much to give in Fizzy Bubbles and this might require us to think of new rewards to give out on the ladder, or be more comfortable with other rewards dropping into lower ranks.

There exists a third option here as well: introducing a Staff Store in supplement to the rewards ladder. You would still be able to claim your ladder rewards while using your FC in a more targeted measure to get things you want. This presents all the problems of the original staff store, along with requiring a lot of balance issues, so I feel the least comfortable with this as an option. There's a valid argument that any implementation of a Staff Store can be substituted by better reward tiers.

How would you feel about lifetime milestone rewards being added to the ladder?

I think this is a pretty good idea, but there is a question on implementation. These might not be correct to introduce until we have a good idea on the kind of things we want the ladder to actually have. Then we need to discuss how the milestones would exist in practice (probably as a supplement to a normal reward tier instead of replacing them is my guess).

If there was anything you could remove from the staff reward ladder, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

On the flipside, if there is anything you'd love to see added, what would it be and why? If there are multiple things, please list them.

I think these questions are inherently tied together so I'm going to handle them all at once.

Things That Could Be Added:
Heart Scales
Shop Vouchers
Full Access to All Fossils
Earlier access to Custom Pokeballs
Earlier access to Custom Consumables
More access to form-changing held items
Unique consumable items (i.e. Ability Capsule)
LAP (admittedly, I despise this)

Things That Could Be Removed:
Any restrictions on TM acquisition
Any restrictions on Pokeball acquisition
Many, many of the /or/s currently present

So I do mostly agree with this, and I'll be doing my own thoughts and full responses sometime later this week. However, RP Updates are 2 FC per Update now, and have been for a couple of years. So the number for active updaterd is about 150 updates per ladder rung, not 300.

[Electric Blue Eye]

I’ll need to seat down and type out my full response later, however when it comes to Staff Rewards I will say that updators and just updators get the short end of the stick.

Meaning that even after many years and probably many upgrades, shops still take precedence to what FB seems to care about the most.

While it’s understood you really only need to make a 150 Word submission to get 2 FC. It’s a slap to the face of those that care about writing, want to write and like giving their updatees the most out of their adventure.

I’ll compare it to a work environment…you may love what you do, you may even give it your best, but seeing someone do less than you and giving little effort and get the same amount as pay as you is a bit detrimental and unmotivating.

There’s also the fact that I don’t think Staff Rewards should be an all in one box. Possibly having a Staff Rewards meant for updators only and shop owner’s only may make it feel more balanced. Because if I cared about the rewards more, I would rather be a Shop Owner than an Updator.

[Prof.Enigma]

Originally Posted by Electric Blue Eye

I’ll need to seat down and type out my full response later, however when it comes to Staff Rewards I will say that updators and just updators get the short end of the stick.

Meaning that even after many years and probably many upgrades, shops still take precedence to what FB seems to care about the most.

While it’s understood you really only need to make a 150 Word submission to get 2 FC. It’s a slap to the face of those that care about writing, want to write and like giving their updatees the most out of their adventure.

I’ll compare it to a work environment…you may love what you do, you may even give it your best, but seeing someone do less than you and giving little effort and get the same amount as pay as you is a bit detrimental and unmotivating.

There’s also the fact that I don’t think Staff Rewards should be an all in one box. Possibly having a Staff Rewards meant for updators only and shop owner’s only may make it feel more balanced. Because if I cared about the rewards more, I would rather be a Shop Owner than an Updator.

I have to say I quite agree with this way of thinking I honestly feel the same way that shop owners and updators need to be separated. yeah we have shop updators and we have updators who put way more time and effort into writing, not to say that some shop updators put in time and effort and write out stuff to update the shops, but I feel like having them separated will incentivize both shopped updators and regular Zone updators more than what currently stands.

You'll have to pardon me because I'm using Text to Speech while I'm at work so I'm not able to draft up all of the responses and replies that I want to to everything but I'll do so as best as I can in time

[Ironthunder]

Originally Posted by Electric Blue Eye

I’ll need to seat down and type out my full response later, however when it comes to Staff Rewards I will say that updators and just updators get the short end of the stick.

Meaning that even after many years and probably many upgrades, shops still take precedence to what FB seems to care about the most.

While it’s understood you really only need to make a 150 Word submission to get 2 FC. It’s a slap to the face of those that care about writing, want to write and like giving their updatees the most out of their adventure.

I’ll compare it to a work environment…you may love what you do, you may even give it your best, but seeing someone do less than you and giving little effort and get the same amount as pay as you is a bit detrimental and unmotivating.

There’s also the fact that I don’t think Staff Rewards should be an all in one box. Possibly having a Staff Rewards meant for updators only and shop owner’s only may make it feel more balanced. Because if I cared about the rewards more, I would rather be a Shop Owner than an Updator.

You say this but... Shop owners get the shorter end of the stick in terms of regularity. Updaters get their FC as and when they update, but for shop people, it's 1 FC per calendar week, assuming someone actually used your shop in that time. The RP boost is there and probably should go, but that's not really because it's a problem per se: It's because nobody actually RPs in shops at all unless it's the Hatchery, so the output becomes very slanted. I genuinely don't think anyone's benefitted from that rule in the last year other than MM, who can churn out six hundred words on the drop of a hat. The vast majority of shop owners are chugging through the ladder at 1FC a week tops, and very few shops are actually active on a weekly basis (Basically just the Hatchery and the Daycare). I only have numbers for the Dept Store, but that genuinely ends up earning about 2FC a month on average. It is not much, and it is not reliable.

ftr I am agreeing that the shop RP bonus should go, I just think the reasoning is a bit out of whack when you look at the practical side of it.

[Missingno. Master]

Yeah, I think I'm one of the only ones who regularly RPs shop updates these days. I feel like the boost should remain, personally, and not even just for my own benefit- I think it should be an option for those who want to shoot for it, and/or have the time to do so.

But yeah- this all does go back to what I'm saying about shop FC maybe needing to be reworked a bit, depending on how active a given shop is, because that's not really something the SO can influence in most cases. Hell, I cited Iron as an example of this. I feel like Department Store updates should maybe be worth a bit more FC- historically, that shop doesn't see a lot of business, so the SO accrues FC at the speed of continental drift. I still remember when my only source of FC was updating the Calendar- one FC every three weeks. The drip feed can get infuriating.

[Naru]

Originally Posted by Electric Blue Eye

I’ll need to seat down and type out my full response later, however when it comes to Staff Rewards I will say that updators and just updators get the short end of the stick.

Meaning that even after many years and probably many upgrades, shops still take precedence to what FB seems to care about the most.

While it’s understood you really only need to make a 150 Word submission to get 2 FC. It’s a slap to the face of those that care about writing, want to write and like giving their updatees the most out of their adventure.

I’ll compare it to a work environment…you may love what you do, you may even give it your best, but seeing someone do less than you and giving little effort and get the same amount as pay as you is a bit detrimental and unmotivating.

There’s also the fact that I don’t think Staff Rewards should be an all in one box. Possibly having a Staff Rewards meant for updators only and shop owner’s only may make it feel more balanced. Because if I cared about the rewards more, I would rather be a Shop Owner than an Updator.

I agree with a lot of this, I won't lie. Though I will say that the low word count used to be way higher to earn one FC and I believe it was changed because we had a huge overturn of updators and burnout from feeling like they needed to make huge updates just to make a quota. (A large number of people that are no longer involved in Fizzy had this problem and I had it happen to me when I used to strive to churn out the longest possible updates).

IMO the rewards are meant to be a bonus to updating, not really so much of an incentive. I just enjoy writing and adventuring/updating is one of the easiest ways for me to do it. Sometimes I do end up with a shorter update for someone just because of me needing to move from point a to point b or struggling to write a battle scene (literally my bane even after all these years). I will say I do look forward to a lot of the rewards (eggs my beloved... shiny spray my beloved) and I will sometimes update more when I'm close to those tiers.

The shop owner thing is kind of a two way thing, though I do agree with the possibility of it being a seperate thing. People like Yuki only get FC weekly for the daycare, and Iron/MM/Oki get it every update they make (and it depends on the activity of a shop) so it can sometimes be a hassle. I did the AC and Daycare when I was a mod and it sometimes felt like a slog for the FC gain for those.

I also like Emi's suggestions in terms of the ladder adding/changing some rewards. The bi-monthlies got a big boost and I honestly think removing the /or/ in a lot of sections would highly benefit the ladder/possibly incentivize new updators.

[lilboocorsola]

I've long been vocal about my opinion that Updaters should have access to exclusive/better offerings. Personally I don't have a problem with my own accrual rate one way or the other, but in my eyes it is an imbalance that I can just sit back and "easily" collect FC on a weekly basis to earn the same rewards eventually (while arguably putting in less work than those who support the actual writing side of FB). For that reason I do think the Shop RP bonus should stay even if I have my personal hang-ups with it sometimes.

Agreeing with Naru in general that the rewards are meant to be a bonus rather than incentive; like I said when I first started running the Daycare I honestly wasn't even aware I could claim FC for it. But I do think those who put in the extra effort to keep the real RP backbone of FB afloat should be compensated thusly.

I've also stated in the past my preference towards a shop format for spending FC rather than a ladder, but seeing as it's been argued the ladder is too ingrained at this point and there are other various issues with a shop system, I won't continue to harp on it (even if I think those issues can be worked around). Accepting that the ladder's not going away anytime soon, I definitely agree there should be tweaks to it and introduce more variety. As someone who really only cares about a handful of the prizes (Eggs, Custom Items, Shiny Spray), it gets pretty boring/tedious "having" to claim redundant stuff I don't need nor want on the way to get there. This does get into the same problem that not everyone values the same content (hence my leaning towards fully choosing what and when to cash in), but at least spreading out more unique milestones would make it feel like less of a repetitive grind.

[Ironthunder]

So I got bored and drafted a rough idea of what I think the new ladder should look like. Bluntly, my general idea is that a lot of the interim tiers (basically everything from 51-250) can probably just be collapsed into one tier and the 260-300 rewards become total FC tiers. Once you hit 100, you bank that cycle and start from the top.

Spoiler: show

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step
1 FC = 1 Rare Candy
3 FC = 2 Rare Candies
5 FC = 3 Rare Candies
10 FC = $500 Pokedollars
15 FC = 1 TM of your choice and 1 Apricorn Ball
20 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, Safari Ball or a Type Ball
25 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Shadow Gummi
30 FC = 2 TMs of your choice
35 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Enigma Egg
40 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Shadow Gummi
45 FC = $750 Pokedollars
50 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Shiny Spray and 1 (Silver Umbra Coin OR Enigma Egg)
55 FC = 5 Rare Candies
60 FC = $500 Pokedollars
65 FC =1 TM of your choice and 1 Apricorn Ball
70 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 of the Following Balls: Dream Ball, Sport Ball, Safari Ball or a Type Ball
75 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Shadow Gummi
80 FC = 2 TMs of your choice and 1 Evolution Item of your choice.
85 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Enigma Egg
90 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Shadow Gummi
95 FC = $750 Pokedollars and 1 Held Item of your choice
100 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Shiny Spray, a Custom Item of your choice and 1 (Silver Umbra Coin OR Enigma Egg OR Type Egg OR Zone Egg OR Starter Egg OR Baby Egg OR Fossil Egg)

200 total FC = 20 Rare Candies
300 total FC = 10 Rare Candies and 1 TM, MT, EM or XM to be taught to a Pokemon of your choice
400 total FC = 10 Rare Candies and 1 (Z-Crystal OR Mega Stone OR Max Soup)
500 total FC = 10 Rare Candies and a New Custom Item / Move - You propose an item or move. If it is a custom move, also an item to learn it. Mods must approve of the effects. Be reasonable but do something cool!

On top of this, I'm assuming we're scrapping the RP in shops bonus because bluntly it kinda just doesn't work with how most shops go.

Splitting shop owner and updater FC I think would probably be a bad move simply because it's just more unnecessary flicking between for those who do both. Maybe have a bonus for updaters or something like "double FC if you update within a week, +5FC upon the adventure finishing" if you want updaters to be progressing faster (which is probably the correct answer) but I don't think splitting the two does anyone any favours.

The other other point I want to raise, that likely needs its own topic, is I'd want to sort out Shadow shit before we start including things like Shadow Gummis in the reward structure (also bc I feel like as discussions go, it'd probably be a quick one so it wouldn't hold much up). My personal idea for this is to just cut Clarity entirely and have it so a Shadow Gummi turns a Pokemon into a Shadow Pokemon, or a Shadow Pokemon into a regular Pokemon (double negative cancelling), but again, likely warrants its own thread. I genuinely don't think anyone tracks Clarity at all.

[Princess Ana]

I don't really agree with the idea of bumping up the requirements for some of the rewards. The problem was their current position was too high, not too low.

I'd also advocate for just removing the Shadow Gummi from the ladder entirely until we rework the frankly bad Shadow system in FB.

[Princess Ana]

Spoiler: show

-V- 250 Pokedollars Each Step
1 FC = 1 Rare Candy or 5 Berries
3 FC = 2 Rare Candies
5 FC = 3 Rare Candies
10 FC = $500 Pokedollars or 3 Rare Candies
15 FC = 1 TM and 1 Apricot Ball
20 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 non-Custom Held Item
25 FC = 5 Rare Candies and $1000 Pokedollars
30 FC = 2 TMs of your choice
35 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Enigma Egg
40 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 non-Custom Pokeball
45 FC = $750 Pokedollars
50 FC = 10 Rare Candies or 1 Shiny Spray or 1 Silver Umbra Coin

-V- 250 Pokedollars Each Step

51 FC = 1 Rare Candy or 5 Berries
53 FC = 2 Rare Candies
55 FC = 3 Rare Candies or 1 Evolution or Form-Change Item
60 FC = $500 Pokedollars and 1 non-Custom Held Item
65 FC = 1 TM and 1 Apricot Ball
70 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 non-Custom Pokeball
75 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Fossil
80 FC = 1 TM and 1 MT Voucher
85 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Enigma Egg
90 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Essence
95 FC = $750 Pokedollars and 1 Held item (including Customs)
100 FC = 10 Rare Candies or 1 Custom Pokeball and Custom TM

-V- 500 Pokedollars Each Step

101 FC = 1 Rare Candy or 10 Berries
103 FC = 3 Rare Candies
105 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Zone Egg
110 FC = $750 Pokedollars and 3 non-Custom Pokeballs
115 FC = 2 TMs and 3 Apricot Balls
120 FC = 6 Rare Candies and 2 non-Custom Held Items
125 FC = 8 Rare Candies or 1 Fossil
130 FC = 2 TMs and 1 Evolution or Form Change Item
135 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Enigma Egg or 1 Type Egg
140 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 2 MT Vouchers
145 FC = $1000 Pokedollars and 1 Held Item and 1 Essence
150 FC = 10 Rare Candies and (1 Z-Crystal or 1 Mega Stone or 1 Max Soup)

-V- 500 Pokedollars Each Step

151 FC = 1 Rare Candy or 10 Berries
153 FC = 3 Rare Candies
155 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Zone Egg
160 FC = $750 Pokedollars or 1 Starter Egg or 1 Baby Egg
165 FC = 2 TMs and 2 Pokeballs (including Customs)
170 FC = 6 Rare Candies and 1 Heart Scale
175 FC = 5 Rare Candies or 1 Fossil
180 FC = 3 TMs and 1 Heart Scale
185 FC = 10 Rare Candies or 1 Egg of your choice (except Birthday Egg)
190 FC = 15 Rare Candies or 1 Custom TM of your choice
195 FC = 20 Rare Candies or 1 Custom Held Item of your choice
200 FC = New Custom Item / Move

Lifetime FC Goals

50 FC: 1 Mega Stone or 1 Z-Crystal or 1 Max Soup
100 FC: 5 Heart Scales
150 FC: 1 Birthday Egg
200 FC: +1 Adventure Slot
300 FC: 1 Legend Adventure
400 FC: $20000 Pokedollars and 3 Enigma Eggs
500 FC: 1 Fizzytopian Egg
1000 FC: 1 Master Ball of your choice

So with being reminded about the FC gain rate I've changed my numbers somewhat and here is what I think ends up being pretty reasonable. Getting to 200 FC means making 100 updates, which is not entirely unreasonable although still makes it a pretty lofty goal, and in general, things have been rejiggered to offer more unique rewards and spread out some of the conditionals. In particular, the final 100 also have some ramping up aspects. There are some aspects where this new ladder strictly speaking reduces the rate of some rewards (such as Shiny Sprays) but I think that allowing for some items to appear more commonly in Bi-Monthly rewards will overall be positive for updator activity.

The lifetime goals are not a particularly serious suggestion, but more represent the kind of things we could offer here. I don't want to say any of there are automatically possible or a good idea, so don't get excited behind the idea of an extra adventure slot and be sad if mods say no, but these are one-time rewards. We should be thinking, especially depending on how high we want to make this, how impactful these rewards should be.

Another thing I want to bring up as well is my belief that we should be rewarding updators for completing adventures as well as updating. We could make the life time goals scale off of adventure completion rather than FC. Understandably, this would represent a pretty big kick in the teeth for our shop owners, so my suggestion would just be to make adventure completion worth a little bit of extra FC, maybe about 5 or so.

[Lil'twick]

Alright, I've been reading over the thread the past few days and finally have some free time to respond to the discussion and offer my own thoughts. There are a few things I do not agree with in the slightest, and others I hard agree with, so I'll be breaking down the talking points instead of individually quoting.

Shop FC gain vs Updater FC gain:

I'll be honest I completely agree with Iron here in terms of SO FC. If you aren't doing RP updates for the Hatchery or Adoption Center, or working on the Credit Union... You just kind of get gimped. Updaters overall have more consistent access to FC. Two singular updates within a month are the equivalent of an entire month's worth of FC for a lot of shops. And that is a big sort of disparity. Of course, we do want to incentivize updating so we avoid pure shop simulators, but that doesn't mean those running shops should be left behind. So, here's what I'm proposing.

Each shop can have RP Updates now. Not just Hatchery/AC/Realm of Shadows. If you want to write an update of someone buying items or something, go for it! That'll net you 2 FC per customer, regardless of store. Boutique, Daycare, etc. It's all free game. (MM this is not your cue to take over everything).

Secondly, increasing FC gain per shop. Of course, this is entirely dependent on each shop and the frequency of use. Exact numbers will be balanced depending on the shop type, but we'll strive for a middle ground with SOs and see what they feel is acceptable based on the amount of worth and customer base for their shop.

On the flipside for updates, there was one suggestion that I saw that I did quite like. And that was Adventure Completion FC. The ladder I'm proposing here is more stacked in general for all staff involved, so I feel Adventure Completion FC always having you hit at least one new tier compensates for no additional rewards. Thus, here are my proposed rates. 5 FC for a Short Adventure Completed (up to 10 updates). 10 FC for a medium adventure completed (11 to 19 Updates). 15 FC for a Long Adventure completed (20+ Updates). And, to top it all off based on how much of an undertaking they are, a bonus 5 FC for the completion of a Legendary Adventure.

The other main thing I like is trimming the ladder from 300 to 200. It's an easier, better number to deal with. If this is a change that goes forward, I'll say already claimed fc won't be up for a redo point. Otherwise, people like MM and I suddenly will get a very, very large influx of things that won't be healthy for the game. The sole exception would be for people who would end up missing their First Custom Item reward. We'll allow you to submit that if you end up getting pushed into the next rank and already claimed your FC. Only retroactive rewards should be for proposed lifetime milestone rewards.

So, with those talking points out of the way, I've drafted up my own ladder and lifetime milestone rewards. That is spoiled below, and my explanations and comments will be after the spoiler.

Spoiler: show

-\/- 250 Pokedollars Each Step
1 FC = 1 Rare Candy
3 FC = 2 Rare Candies
5 FC = 3 Rare Candies
10 FC = $500 Pokedollars
15 FC = 1 TM and 1 Pokeball of Choice
20 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 Non-Custom, non-Mega/Z/Soup Held Item of Choice
25 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Fossil of Choice
30 FC = 1 TM of your choice and 1 Evolution Item of your choice
35 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
40 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Tera Protein Shake /or/ Ability Capsule
45 FC = $750 Pokedollars and 5 Rare Candies
50 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Shiny Spray, and 1 Egg of Choice

-\/- 500 Pokedollars Each Step
51 FC = 1 Rare Candy
53 FC =2 Rare Candies
55 FC =3 Rare Candies
60 FC = $500 Pokedollars and 1 Fossil Egg /or/ 1 Starter Egg /or/ 1 Baby Egg
65 FC = 1 TM and 1 Pokeball of Choice
70 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 1 Non-Custom, non-Mega/Z/Soup Held Item of Choice
75 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Fossil of Choice
80 FC = 1 TM of your choice and 1 Evolution Item of your choice
85 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
90 FC = 5 Rare Candies and 1 Tera Protein Shake /or/ Ability Capsule
95 FC = $750 Pokedollars, 5 Rare Candies, and 1 Non-Custom, non-Mega/Z/Soup Item of your choice
100 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Shiny Spray, and 1 Egg of Choice /or/ 1 Custom Item of your choice

-\/- 500 Pokedollars Each Step
101 FC = 1 Rare Candy
103 FC =2 Rare Candies
105 FC =3 Rare Candies
110 FC = $500 Pokedollars and 1 Fossil Egg /or/ 1 Starter Egg /or/ 1 Baby Egg
115 FC = 1 TM, 2 Pokeballs of Choice, and 1 Heart Scale
120 FC = 4 Rare Candies and 3 Held Items of Choice
125 FC = 5 Rare Candies, 1 Fossil of Choice, and 3 Rare Bones
130 FC = 1 TM, 2 Evolutions Item of your choice, and 1 Custom Plushie of Choice
135 FC = 5 Rare Candies, 1 Custom Food Item of choice, and 1 Enigma Egg /or/ 1 Type Egg /or/ 1 Zone Egg
140 FC = 5 Rare Candies, 3 Pokeballs of your choice, and 1 Floral Bouquet of Choice
145 FC = $750 Pokedollars, 5 Rare Candies, and 1 Non-Mega/Z/Soup Item of your choice
150 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Shiny Spray, and 1 Egg of Choice /or/ 1 Custom Item of your choice

-\/- 750 Pokedollars Each Step
160 FC = 10 Rare Candies, 1 Custom Food Item of Choice, 1 Plushie of Choice, and 1 Floral Bouquet of Choice
170 FC = 20 Rare Candies and 2 Eggs of Choice
180 FC = 1 Custom TM and 1 Custom Held Item of choice
190 FC = 1 TM/TR or Extra Move to be taught to a Pokemon of your choice
195 FC = 1 Z-Crystal /or/ 1 Mega Stone /or/ 1 Max Soup
200 FC = New Custom Item / Move - You propose an item or move. If it is a custom move, also an item to learn it. Mods must approve of the effects. Be reasonable but do something cool!

---

Lifetime Milestone Rewards (Any item introduced here is exclusive to this, and may not be obtained or claimed otherwise):
1 FC - x1 TM Present
5 FC - x1 Pokeball of Choice
10 FC - x1 TM and x1 Pokeball of Choice
25 FC - x1 Enigma Egg
50 FC - x1 Mega Stone or 1 Z-Crystal or 1 Max Soup
100 FC - x1 Amulet Coin and x1 Golden Sychee
200 FC - x5 Heart Scales
300 FC - x1 Lucky Egg and x1 Birthday Egg
400 FC - $20000 Pokedollars and x3 Enigma Eggs
500 FC - +1 Permanent Adventure Slot
750 FC - x1 Devotion Scale
1000 FC - x5 Available Custom Items of your Choice.
1250 FC - x1 Expert Ball
1500 FC - x100 Rare Candies, $10000 Pokedollars, 5 Heart Scales, and 3 Memory Berries
1750 FC - 1 Fizzytopian Form of your choice /or/ 1750 FC Goodie Bag
2000 FC - Create a custom Mega Evolution or Z-Move /or/ 2000 FC Goodie Bag
2500 FC - Create your Own Fizzy Form /or/ 2500 FC Goodie Bag

So, two paragraphs. The first one is for the ladder. I cut the old 1-100 entirely. It's not good, and the old 101-150 tier served as a good basis point. I cut a lot of the fat and made the rewards more general than specific as a whole. As well as upped the Pokedollar amounts in the middle two tiers to compensate for that money being lost. I trimmed a good amount of the ORs as well, and only left them for choosing between a specific item of a group instead of between different kinds of items. Also added more custom reward options, such as Plushies and the like. Overall tried to make it an exponentially growing list that doesn't feel awful once you hit the final FC mark and have to restart.

And then lifetime milestones. Yes, there are a lot of good things in here, I get it. But this also requires a lot of work to even get to. Not even I'm at the point where I can just claim all of this, and tbh I feel this list can be expanded on as more people start to climb higher and higher. The first few milestone rewards are small, but as you get more and more between them the rewards start to get better and better. For example, the Devotion Scale will be able to be used at the MT to teach your Pokemon all the moves they can learn outside of the level, but it is a once-per-account item. Same with the Expert Ball, which is a Master Ball that can't catch Legends or Mythicals. Most of these have been designed for people to be able to raise their Pokemon, or just in general get some cool shit. The Goodie Bags do need to be discussed, but use the 1500 FC milestone as a basis for them.

I did cut out the Shadow Gummis and SIlver Umbras for now until we talk about Shadow Pokemon. We did talk about that as a possible starting discussion but wish to wait until at least a few other discussions and changes are done first. But any thoughts, comments, or changes would be appreciated.

[Missingno. Master]

Originally Posted by Lil'twick

(MM this is not your cue to take over everything).

Just the fact that you think you have to put that in there like that... tells me you know me entirely too well XD

But yeah, I'm liking this proposed ladder. Obviously I'm very much OK with RP updates being open to any and all shops- I promise I won't try to snipe everyone's shop updates on this basis, but whenever I do get to do these legitimately, I do see there being some potential depending on the shop. As I said before I'm very much against cutting out shop RP FC- even if the option isn't often used (by people other than me), I still feel it's better to have the option open than not.

One thing I wanna clarify- the Devotion Scale. "Every move learned outside of level"- do I take that to mean it teaches everything the mon would get through TM, MT, as an Egg move, any Advanced moves, dare I say any event moves? And on the subject of TMs and AMs, does that include the unnatural ones as well, or no? Normally I'd assume no, but as this is intended as a once-per-account super reward, I do admit I could see that going either way. In any case it sounds like a friggin' awesome reward, and for whatever it's worth it has my approval as the SO of the Move Tutor, and, well, the Head Shop Owner, for that matter.

[Princess Ana]

Personally I have a couple of concerns about Leo's ladder

The first is that it is probably too many Pokemon inherent to it. This is, to be entirely clear, one of the only places I think its actually appropriate to have a lot of Eggs available (even my ladder does this) but you don't want to tip the scales too much. In addition, I would much rather see that being where the /or/s are placed.

I also think we can give out more Z-Crystals / Mega Stones / Max Soup. I'm not entirely sure I get why its only one every 195 FC when they're buyable.

I also would not give away Rare Bones, but that's a very minor thing.

[Ironthunder]

Buyable Mega/Z/Max is a temporary thing and is probably going to get canned at some point, likely fairly soon. They shouldn't have been buyable at all tbh, but it was necessary for access.

[Missingno. Master]

Originally Posted by Ironthunder

Buyable Mega/Z/Max is a temporary thing and is probably going to get canned at some point, likely fairly soon. They shouldn't have been buyable at all tbh, but it was necessary for access.

I honestly disagree, I feel like they're good as they are- buyable, but expensive, so that holding out for them in zones still feels like a feasible option without it being the only one. And if that didn't make my stance clear, very much against removing them from the Department Store.

[Prof.Enigma]

Originally Posted by Missingno. Master

I honestly disagree, I feel like they're good as they are- buyable, but expensive so that holding out for them in zones still feels like a feasible option without it being the only one. And if that didn't make my stance clear, very much against removing them from the Department Store.

I'm going to agree with MM on this point here. Let's be real here. I don't think we are ever going to get any more Megas, Z-Moves, or New Gigantimax forms unless we somehow open up events for that as a Fizzy specific. They are a fun gimmick but are more than likely not ever going to come back just as Terastilizations probably not going to come back when we get a new gimmick.

Keeping them Adventure only is understandable but it's a pain especially when some adventures never get finished, take up to 2ish years to finish or more ( pulling from my example rather than some of the others that took a bit to finish ) I feel like having the buyable but expensive option is good too. If and whenever we finish the backburner of contests/gyms etc. There will be the option for people to buy and use them in those then having to wait however long their adventure takes to earn it. ( sure updating and shopkeeping would be an option too )

TLDR personal stance, they stay buyable and earnable because locking it to one thing just doesn't make sense anymore especially when we had it buyable.

I have other thoughts on Staffing ladder stuff that Lilt presented but ill get to that in a bit

[Electric Blue Eye]

Going off where I left off there is a point I was trying to make with the activity that sole impacts those that take care of the shops, taking the hatchery out of it because that's the place that gets the most traffic...the shops would benefit from a heavy price cut in order to draw into actually using these shops more efficiently, my proposal is that at least cut the prices of levels gained in daycare through poke dollars, moves cut in order for people to teach their Pokémon more moves, department store allowing for someone to walk out with more of what they want, this is how you can get more people using the shops and allow for those that run it to gain more points.

Something that never really made a whole lot of sense was as an updater you work out to make a story (you don't get rewarded for this) making updates memorial is hard work but the reward is the same if you minimally reach the lowest cap; why is it you can reward an updatee twice as much in Pokedollars for writing a higher word count reply (Which I'd rather people do because it helps add to their own story) but we don't do this for updaters that like to make the update full of story, information and tidbits that can move the adventure along and not feel like a 'You walked into a forest, found a Grubbin, what do you do?'

Personally, I think we should be rewarding updaters similarly to an updatee and I do agree that the end reward should help. It gives an updater to reach their story end and would help in the long run.

[Lil'twick]

I'll be honest my current ladder has fewer available Pokemon than the current one and I feel it's overall fine for updaters to have that chase target. It works.

As for making things cheaper, while that is a discussion for another thread, if necessary the stance on that is a hard no. Prices are pretty accurately balanced for the average RP income. The main issue is that people will horde their money for potential trades instead of spending it on their current Pokemon. If anything, we need to limit the amount of money that's allowed to be traded for Pokemon. Anything at or over five digits for a single mon is honestly unacceptable.

As for updaters getting rewarded the same as updatees, you kinda do? While sure not every update is a monetary reward (that would cause even more inflation), the staff rewards ladder gives you a lot of actually useful rewards for not only obtaining new Pokemon, but leveling your current Pokemon. Especially with some of the proposed ladders and lifetime rewards, those far outweigh the benefits of a single $500. But at the end of the day part of updating is telling that story for a person to experience. We're doing it on a volunteer basis, effectively, because it's something we wish to do.

[Electric Blue Eye]

Originally Posted by Lil'twick

As for updaters getting rewarded the same as updatees, you kinda do? While sure not every update is a monetary reward (that would cause even more inflation), the staff rewards ladder gives you a lot of actually useful rewards for not only obtaining new Pokemon, but leveling your current Pokemon. Especially with some of the proposed ladders and lifetime rewards, those far outweigh the benefits of a single $500. But at the end of the day part of updating is telling that story for a person to experience. We're doing it on a volunteer basis, effectively, because it's something we wish to do.

Talking about FC here, instead of the standard 2FC points doubling if the word count reaches.

[Lil'twick]

Originally Posted by Electric Blue Eye

Talking about FC here, instead of the standard 2FC points doubling if the word count reaches.

I mean as it stands you gain 2 FC per update, as long as you hit the minimum of 200 words per update. If you don't reach the minimum word count for updates, you don't get anything at least. Having per post FC scale even harder throws the entire system out of wack. Why I proposed end of adventure FC bonuses so people are guaranteed to hit one new tier minimum when finishing an adventure.