![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mc776Just some thoughts on making the gym system less predatory and more like the way it's depicted.
First, let's establish a few observations:
Everything about the lore and the aesthetic and the in-battle mechanics is geared towards ritual social violence, but the social dynamic for the actual players is almost pure resource predation: all your incentives have you getting in through the path of least resistance and avoid engagement as long as possible until it's time to collect the reward (possibly through your opposing-team alt account created for this purpose, if your gym is particularly well hidden).
So with that in mind, I'd like to imagine going to a better monstrous pocket dimension. I can think of a few marketing, accessibility and lore reasons why nothing remotely like this will ever reach PoGo, but hey, if I ever get to develop an AR monster fighting app...
Each Pokémon entering a gym will have two running counters: honour and motivation.
Motivation is not entirely unlike what it is now, slowly going down over time (higher CP going down geometrically more quickly) until it hits zero or is replenished through use of berries. Anyone can berry any Pokémon for any reason.
Honour starts at zero and goes up with certain interactions, until it is satisfied at 100% upon which the Pokémon will go to maximum motivation and remain there until it departs the gym.
Once motivation has hit zero, the Pokémon will leave the gym upon its next defeat, OR if one full calendar day goes by without any fights.
Once honour has been fully satisfied, the Pokémon will leave the gym upon its next defeat.
You still gain 1 coin for each 20 minutes spent in the gym. The 50 coin per day per Pokémon limit applies as before.
Honour is satisfied differently as follows:
Of course this will need to be tweaked. The general principle is that the closer the fight and the greater the mayhem, the better it is for everyone. (The combat system itself would also allow for more skill-based evasions and timing, as well as quasi-random second winds and sudden comebacks; some of this is considered below.)
After each battle a defending Pokémon has a chance of being credited random(1,X) coins, X being 1/500th of its CP to a minimum of one. The chance of gaining coins is a percentage equal to the amount of its honour satisfied in that battle, to a minimum of 15%.
No more than 6 Pokémon may attack a gym at once. Defenders are brought out to match the numbers and targets chosen based on type advantage; multiple defenders may end up going after the same attacker at once. Honour in these mêlées is based on damage taken for the entire fight.
Once during the fight, any spectator may throw their chair into the ring to damage a Pokémon (if your Pokémon is engaged, then the one it is engaging; if not, a random member of an opposing team). This will cause it to abort any charged attack and will send its charge down to zero. You will be fined 1 coin for doing so and any coins you may have won from this fight will be forfeit, but if you are defending your Pokémon will immediately go up to max motivation.
You cannot feed a Pokémon berries while it is fighting, but if there's a fight going on and you don't have a chair a Pokémon who is waiting in the gym might occasionally offer you one that it has scavenged.
If more than 3 of your last 10 attacking fights resulted in bottom-tier 1% honour or worse, all the Pokémon in a gym may randomly suddenly swarm your attacker. If your Pokémon gets chaired in the middle of its first charged attack and you have no reason to believe any defending player is participating, consider bowing out.
When you enter a Pokémon into a gym, its starting motivation is the average honour of the last six Pokémon who were in it before your team took it over.
An attacking Pokémon gains experience points from winning a fight, equal to 1/10 of the honour gained for the defender rounded down. It gains a level each time it earns next level * 10 experience points. Occasionally one random IV will go up by one point instead of levelling up. There is no feedback to the player for this except for the different stats that will appear on the screen.
A user can opt to keep a fight record of up to 100 individual Pokémon. Each fight entry would look something like this:
For reference, sporkgirl89's record will show for the same fight:
If your Pokémon was engaged by multiple opponents in a single fight, multiple entries will be created documenting each outcome. (Recording of assists may be fleshed out later.)
The record may be cleared manually, whether entirely or up to a certain date, upon which the cleared items will be auto-saved into a folder as a plaintext file.
And, of course, anyone would be able to spectate any ongoing fight.
First, let's establish a few observations:
- The gym fights take place in a big stadium where presumably people are watching.
- The Pokémon actually want to fight, and get something out of it.
- The Pokémon are "kicked out" when defeated while out of "motivation", which implies that this is at least in part a choice to stay, or at least its state of mind is a relevant consideration.
- The Pokémon are not directly motivated by coins gained, as they cannot interact with the coins directly at all.
Everything about the lore and the aesthetic and the in-battle mechanics is geared towards ritual social violence, but the social dynamic for the actual players is almost pure resource predation: all your incentives have you getting in through the path of least resistance and avoid engagement as long as possible until it's time to collect the reward (possibly through your opposing-team alt account created for this purpose, if your gym is particularly well hidden).
So with that in mind, I'd like to imagine going to a better monstrous pocket dimension. I can think of a few marketing, accessibility and lore reasons why nothing remotely like this will ever reach PoGo, but hey, if I ever get to develop an AR monster fighting app...
Each Pokémon entering a gym will have two running counters: honour and motivation.
Motivation is not entirely unlike what it is now, slowly going down over time (higher CP going down geometrically more quickly) until it hits zero or is replenished through use of berries. Anyone can berry any Pokémon for any reason.
Honour starts at zero and goes up with certain interactions, until it is satisfied at 100% upon which the Pokémon will go to maximum motivation and remain there until it departs the gym.
Once motivation has hit zero, the Pokémon will leave the gym upon its next defeat, OR if one full calendar day goes by without any fights.
Once honour has been fully satisfied, the Pokémon will leave the gym upon its next defeat.
You still gain 1 coin for each 20 minutes spent in the gym. The 50 coin per day per Pokémon limit applies as before.
Honour is satisfied differently as follows:
- Defender wins: +1%, motivation +5%
- Defender loses and the close fight bonuses do not apply: +0%, motivation -4%
- Close fight: total damage to victor since fight started exceeded 50% of its maximum HP: +10% AND, once per item per fight:
- +1% for each 10 percentage points of the above total damage to victor
- +1% to 3% if used charged attack (depending on how long it takes to charge)
- +1% if charged attack was super-effective
- +2% if charged attack directly defeated attacker
- +2% if survived attacker's super-effective charged attack
- +5% if defeated directly by attacker's super-effective charged attack
- +1% if fast attack was super-effective
- +1% if attacker's fast attack was super-effective
- +1% for each 10 percentage points of the above total damage to victor
- 2x all of the above if mutual KO (charged attacks once begun are finished before a Pokémon faints)
Of course this will need to be tweaked. The general principle is that the closer the fight and the greater the mayhem, the better it is for everyone. (The combat system itself would also allow for more skill-based evasions and timing, as well as quasi-random second winds and sudden comebacks; some of this is considered below.)
After each battle a defending Pokémon has a chance of being credited random(1,X) coins, X being 1/500th of its CP to a minimum of one. The chance of gaining coins is a percentage equal to the amount of its honour satisfied in that battle, to a minimum of 15%.
No more than 6 Pokémon may attack a gym at once. Defenders are brought out to match the numbers and targets chosen based on type advantage; multiple defenders may end up going after the same attacker at once. Honour in these mêlées is based on damage taken for the entire fight.
Once during the fight, any spectator may throw their chair into the ring to damage a Pokémon (if your Pokémon is engaged, then the one it is engaging; if not, a random member of an opposing team). This will cause it to abort any charged attack and will send its charge down to zero. You will be fined 1 coin for doing so and any coins you may have won from this fight will be forfeit, but if you are defending your Pokémon will immediately go up to max motivation.
You cannot feed a Pokémon berries while it is fighting, but if there's a fight going on and you don't have a chair a Pokémon who is waiting in the gym might occasionally offer you one that it has scavenged.
If more than 3 of your last 10 attacking fights resulted in bottom-tier 1% honour or worse, all the Pokémon in a gym may randomly suddenly swarm your attacker. If your Pokémon gets chaired in the middle of its first charged attack and you have no reason to believe any defending player is participating, consider bowing out.
When you enter a Pokémon into a gym, its starting motivation is the average honour of the last six Pokémon who were in it before your team took it over.
An attacking Pokémon gains experience points from winning a fight, equal to 1/10 of the honour gained for the defender rounded down. It gains a level each time it earns next level * 10 experience points. Occasionally one random IV will go up by one point instead of levelling up. There is no feedback to the player for this except for the different stats that will appear on the screen.
A user can opt to keep a fight record of up to 100 individual Pokémon. Each fight entry would look something like this:
2021-02-03 13:37
Venusaur "Mariska" defending St. Chad of Mercia Orthodox Church
Defeated by sporkgirl89's Tyranitar "Happy Noodle Boy"
CP 1024, Vine Whip/Frenzy Plant
CP 1123, Crunch/Stone Edge
Victor finished at 24% HP
1 coin earned
For reference, sporkgirl89's record will show for the same fight:
2021-02-03 13:37
Tyranitar "Happy Noodle Boy" attacking St. Chad of Mercia Orthodox Church
Victorious over Creppylus' Venusaur "Mariska"
CP 1123, Crunch/Stone Edge
CP 1024, Vine Whip/Frenzy Plant
Victor finished at 24% HP
If your Pokémon was engaged by multiple opponents in a single fight, multiple entries will be created documenting each outcome. (Recording of assists may be fleshed out later.)
The record may be cleared manually, whether entirely or up to a certain date, upon which the cleared items will be auto-saved into a folder as a plaintext file.
And, of course, anyone would be able to spectate any ongoing fight.
(no subject)
Date: January 21st, 2019 05:25 (UTC)