Legendary Pokémon and RP's

[Its_A_Random]

Moderated Thread.

Basic discussion regards to Legendary Pokémon and Ultra Beasts and whether or not RP's can have access to some as well. Also as another topic, TLR as a format and its issues. I'm just quoting a bunch of posts here because it's easier.

For the first topic, look at the first page of this thread.

On TLR

TLR Length:
Today (and really, for the last few months), TLR length has been a topic of discussion. It's no secret that TLRs are really damn hard, and that's as they should be-legends should not be given away (looking at you DNA and TPF). However, the main problem with TLRs from my point of view is how incredibly long they take. An average TLR run can take a solid six months of good execution, and that can all go to waste in one poor round (save points don't really help mitigate this tbh). TLRs shouldn't be easy, but their length creates annoying artificial difficulty that most users agree we could do without. The counterargument to this is that TLR length is an essential part of their difficulty, as it allows TLR refs to wear down challengers over the course of the TLR. This discussion has been had before, but I think with the amount of TLRs coming out now this problem is becoming even more apparent-catching a decent amount of legendaries will take years, even with absolutely perfect play. If we shortened TLRs I'd be all for making them even harder. I think it's fine to demand perfect planning and execution in TLRs...so long as one slip doesn't set you back three months.

As someone not involved as much time as a lot of people who participate in this game (and I respect you all for managing to keep this game running) I think that there is maybe a tad too much time inbetween starting, and really being able to participate in major parts of the game, as someone with a bit of survivor bias, I'm totally into this game and don't see myself stopping unless everyone else quits and there is no one else to keep the game running with me, however that's not the point. The point is, I think that this has been grumbled about, and as a newer player who isn't already into the sunk cost fallacy of spending years in the game which might make people more resistant to change, I feel like there are ways to speed up the initial training process. I've been playing the game about the month and am no where near ready to do anything serious game-wise. Sure, you can argue that I could have always been on irc and constantly flash battling, or being like Toon and reffing literally everything in existence like a fricken boss(to the extent of a basic ref) and I'd be fine, but even then, having 6 pokemon who are ready for serious competition is probably not possible within a month, even by only using "Meta-mon", but I could be totally ignorant.

I know little about the TLR mostly because I wouldn't get very far in any of them, though I plan on seeking them out soon. However, my point mostly is, that even if we as a community want to speed the process up for whatever reason, whether it be newbie retention, personal stress levels, because you think it's more fun, whatever. I think either increasing the number of counters received or something to that effect is going to be the only way to effectively speed the "time-frame" of the game up without causing more of a man power issue than there already is. I believe Frosty's proposition to expand the self-reffing list to more people would be a big benefit, we could focus those who want to ref more towards gym battles, TLR, tournaments, Battle Hall, Pike, etc. without stressing out other training/flash/common BT matches, which generally speaking are simple enough to allow for most to ref with little to no problem. And it would probably speed up the other aspects more, because less work on people's plates.

All in all, much like most things I post about, I don't have the perspective of a grizzled veteran nor the time that many my opinion isn't as well liked, understood, or respected as many other members of the community, however, we're all in this together and I've seen nothing complained or commented about more than: How long it takes to train a mon to reasonable level, and that the community is getting smaller. I think that because we are the masters of our own destiny in the sense of game mechanics, it's worth talking about the "length of progression" from beginning to the suppose "end-game" of gym leaders/TLRs/future content, 2-2.5 years sure. Even more if you suck at battling and can't complete the gyms (quicker training =/= better at the game) or we increase the difficulty of the TLRs to decrease the length(I'm not apposed at all) and they become more of a challenge if we're going to make it easier to achieve status to actually attempt them. Thanks for taking the time to read this slight wall of text, and generally ramblings, but I'm just doing my duty of providing my opinion, as honestly we all should be.

There are quite a few things I believe this post is confused about, especially when it comes to the comparison between TLRs, raids, and gyms, so I will try to address them.

1) Gyms have a fixed amount of challenges - TLRs and raids don't: Aside from the uncommon circumstance of Gamefreak creating new types (something which insofar happened only two times in over 20 years), the number of gyms is set in stone. Even if it takes, say, 2 months per gym (3 years to finish all 18 gyms, or more realistically 2 years to finish as many gyms as needed to get the main rewards), a player can rest easy knowing that, in a certain sense, he's not "racing against the game". He can spread his effort throughout many years, and yet he is not going to risk falling behind new content.

The same is obviously not true with TLRs and raids, however. Every 3-4 years, a new generation is released, and with it, at least 6 or so legends (often as much as double that number). Similarly, new raids come out as time passes, with a new expansion coming out every 2 or so years (depending on how lazy/aggressive top raiders are, ofc^^). Which means that, in regards to TLRs and raids, the risk of falling behind new content (and being unable to experiment all of it - or even a good portion of it) is a reality for most players. Whether this risk is considered acceptable or not is ofc controversial, but it's there, and it makes the comparison with gyms more tenous than ZhengTann assumed.

2) Gyms and raids do not mostly hold rewards which can greatly affect ASB play - TLRs do: Most of the prizes on the Gym ladder are luxury goods, such as counters and whatnot, which you can get somewhere else anyway. The only rewards which are more exclusive are:

1) TLR rewards, which of course only matter if one is interested in TLRs themselves (and indirectly in the rest of ASB, of course, but this is more of an issue with TLR themselves, not Gyms)
2) Raid Heirlooms, most of which can be obtained within the first 8 badges and which only matter if you are actually interested in raids - and besides, as I've stated many times, no Raid Boss has ever been designed (or ever will) with Heirlooms in mind
3) Heart Scales, which can be obtained as soon as the 3rd badge (not an unreasonable effort, by any means)
4) Victini

Out of these rewards, only Victini stands out as having a direct impact on your ASB performance AND being quite inaccessible for a long time. But it is just one legend, so I'm pretty sure that unless you are a Victini enthusiast, you can live with that.

As for raids, the only rewards you get from raids which you can use outside raids are, well, normal counters. CC, EC, MC, AC, KOC... People who play raids do it because they like raids, not because they are forced to in order to obtain a reward they need for something else. Again, in this sense, they are nothing like TLRs (or even Gyms, really).

TLRs, naturally, are the culprit here. They have a very exclusive set of rewards - legendaries. Most of them can only be obtained in said TLRs - except for occasional tourneys which generally do not reward you the legend(s) you are looking for specificially. This means that what TLRs do, how they are organized, is much more of an "other people's business" than raids (or even Gyms) could possibly be.

3) Flexible endgame content should have compensating mechanisms: This ofc does not touch gyms because (as noted in point 1), there is a fixed number of gyms available. But it does concern TLRs and raids, and it's interesting to show how the two RPs handled these issues differently.

The problem with raids is pretty self-explanatory: for every new expansion which comes out, it becomes harder and harder for new players to experience it. The fact each expansion has tougher bosses, which require better artifacts, means a new player has no hopes of "jumping in" and experience end-game content right off the bat. It is a similar issues many other MMORPG out there face (such as the (in)famous World of Warcraft my RP is inspired to), so it is nothing new or unexpected.

So, unsurprisingly, I decided to handle this issue in the same way they have. Basically, as each expansion comes out, I introduce "compensatory measures" which makes game progression faster than it previously was. For example:

1) Stormrage Mountain raids now drop Badges of Justice (which used to be exclusive to Isles of Lost Relics raids)
2) Previously locked bosses (like Regigigas) can now be accessed and fought even if you have not completed the previous requirements
3) Extra raids and quest have been added (such as Raging Shore) with the sole reason of speeding up the process of getting to Revered/Exalted reputation and get useful artifacts for the next expansion
4) Several IoLR bosses on Normal mode have been nerfed upon releasing the next expansion, in order to allow newer player to have a better shot at them

All these measures serve a very apparent purpose. As the number of raids increases, having players finish them all becomes less and less realistic. At the same time, newer players who find themselves cut out from the possibility of experiencing the newer content may feel discouraged from playing altogether. So, I sacrifice the "old difficulty" of these bosses in order to give newer player a fairer chance at experiencing the same content veterans do.

Now, what about TLRs? Of course, to some extent, the issue is a bit less dire with them, because without artifact progression, you can take on TLRs in whatever order you choose to. However, it would be a mistake to believe that this means TLRs do not pose this issue, at all. Think, for example, of the number of legendaries the veterans have. I personally have seven legendaries (all acquired through TLRs), and a few people who've been around for as long as I have can boast similar numbers. But a person who just joined, say, 1-2 year ago, has absolutely no hope of catching up (unless the old vets stop playing or something I suppose?). Sure, you may be able to catch all the legendaries I currently have, for example. But by the time you have, I will have caught many more. It may take a decade or more before the initial difference no longer matters much.

Now, some of you may think "Who cares if newer players can never catch up?" Then tell me: why have we NEVER applied this same philosophy in ASB as a whole? Maybe some of you have not noticed but, since ASB's inception, we have introduced a HUGE number of measures with the specific intent of making it easier for newer players to catch up. Here's a sample (I'm not even sure if I can list them all):

- We have increased the number of starting Egg and TM moves to 5 for freshmons, up from 3 each
- We have reduced the MC cost of past gen TMs/tutors, Egg moves, and event/anime moves to 2, down from 3
- We have abolished the extra CC cost for buying single-stage Pokemon, as well as making nature changes cheaper in comparison
- We have released held items outside the Battle Subway and other RPs which originally had exclusivity over them
- We reduced the CC cost of training items to 6, down to 20, and eventually gave a free set of them to new players
- We took a more favourable stance towards flash matches, whereas we used to frown upon them as an excessively cheap way of training mons

And the list goes on. The combined effect is that players entering ASB today can actually hope, within 1-2 years at most, to build a roster comparable to the ones of old veterans (excluding the veterans' legends, of course!). Which brings me to the question: Why would legends not count at all in this philosophy?

I can understand that legends are supposed to be "special", "exclusive", or whatever. And I fully agree that some legends are so powerful that they could dramatically alter the ASB metagame if a lot of people owned them. But it is hard to advocate for the former concern when we are speaking of legendaries which have been available (both in generational and TLR-release-time terms) for years, and that are so weak that most of them are C-viability rating, at most. I am talking, here, of stuff such as Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and so on.

I'm not asking, here, to give them out for free. Nobody would want that. And I'm not asking to give them out in an easier challenge than TLRs, either. But, we could consider giving them out in a less time consuming way (while still keeping them available in TLRs as they used to be), so that people can obtain them while still pursuing the newer, or more prized, content in TLRs. I'm pretty sure this is something we can all agree on - and not just in regards to UBs.

One last word about content going neglected. I speak here as the developer of the Raid Zone, so cut me some slack for possibly sounding a bit haughty. The truth is, I spend a lot of the time designing, playtesting, and personally reffing the content I make for players, without anybody helping me in any shape or form. I do care about the stuff I design. But I have the common sense of understanding that, as time passes, some of the content I have designed will be eventually "forgotten", in that nobody will ever play it again (well, at least, not unless overgeared).

Among these "neglected" raids there are some I personally loved to design and play, such as Eye of the Storm and Shrine of the Old Gods. Heck, some of the raids have not even been played in both modes, despite the fact I did spend hours playtesting each mode (which means hours over hours of my work still are, and prolly will forever be, useless). And yet, you don't see me whining about this all over the place, or putting my designer petty needs over players' enjoyment. It is sort of like being a Dungeon Master in a Dungeons&Dragons group: in order to be prepared for everything, and offering real choices to your players, you end up designing a lot of stuff which, one way or the other, will go unused. This happens even in professional game designing. A lot of what designers do does not make it to the final product. Or it does, but it becomes forgotten after a few years of new content. But that's part of the job. If you cannot accept it, frankly, you should quit designing job altogether. Not TLR design, but design PERIOD.


EDIT: Incidentally, Endless's post above me pretty much sums up my point about newer players quite damn well

I'll make it known.

I am in the camp that agrees that TLR needs an overhaul. The current format I argue is broken. The format is far too taxing on the players because of the sheer length and the insanity of some encounters. Yes there might be a tangible prize at the end, but most of the time, the reward isn't worth it. The format is far too taxing on the referee because they must play as the "house" and are consistently under pressure to make sure that the player has a hard time. The format is far too taxing on designers because of the amount of encounters you have to think about, the length, scenario amounts, flavour, etc, etc, etc, and you wonder why it takes a long time to design one. And this does not take into account play-testing which designers aren't obligated to do.

And then you wonder why TLR challenges take a long time to complete. And no, trying to make it shorter by adding a DQ time does not fix this. Instead, it sweeps the issue under the rug and adds unnecessary time pressure on the players, making TLR's much harder to win because the player now has to worry about how much time they have to order and this is kinda why i am even considering abolishing tlr dq times.

TLR should be shorter, much shorter. I saw zarator say something about reducing TLR to a three-part challenge while viewing IRC logs for the first time in a while half an hour ago. I feel like this is a good starting point, taking out unnecessary fluff that artificially extends time and making challenges take less time to complete. This also has the added bonus of reducing the difficulty of TLR's which I feel is a good thing because it encourages more people to play the RP and also helps deal with the "Hard TLR, Bad Legend" "Easy TLR, Useful Legend" that this RP tends to have. There are probably other solutions that can help, but the point is that TLR is far too long and far too brutal that I feel that the format needs to change.

Another point I saw on IRC was the possibility of allowing lesser legends in other RP's and ending TLR monopoly. I am in favour of this, and if TLR for whatever reason maintains status quo, this absolutely needs to happen; there is no way people are going to spend four months to catch a Raikou. In terms of difficulty for other RP's awarding them, they should definitely be challenging but not impossible, like, you don't want to give away a legendary like it's a closing sale, but you don't want to make it too hard that it will crush the motivation of people.

My five cents for all they are worth.

Go nuts.

 

[ZhengTann]

Uhm, my post was quoted but the text inside that box belonged to Endless. How did that happen?

(just delete this when OP is fixed, if needed)

 

[Dogfish44]

I'm bringing across a little paragraph, with some minor editing.

---

TLR Length & Difficulty:
I still hold the view that, in TLRs, playthrough length in terms of needed updates is not currently a huge problem - although I might change my mind on this one when I see how DQ changes impact TLRs. With that said, now I've had a chance to think, I think it's worth considering the following;

• Training TLRs as it stands are expected to have 4 Combat Events
• Legendary TLRs usually have 5
• Uber is undefined

If we're looking at length as a problem, one option which wouldn't be a major overhaul per se would be to knock that down one for each TLR - knock Training down to 3, Legendary down to 4, and Uber down to 5. As an example, I would probably move Enchanted Meadow to be Dedenne --> Kirlia + Tropius --> Floettte-E + Sunflora. I would then probably replace Clefable with either nothing (The TLR structure doesn't need an RP there), or with a single RP.

From there, you look onto difficulty. If we're cutting down on the number of combat events in a run, then we probably need to either improve arenas, make non-combats generally more damaging / increase their number... or just let TLRs be less difficult. It's something I was thinking about when I was agreeing with Zarator on letting legends be released through other RPs - TLRs, in my mind, should probably be easier (Or at least equally difficult) to get legends from, but potentially the most time-consuming path to do so. However, that doesn't really work with the simultaneous Nintendo-Hard philosophy of TLRs at the moment. I'm undecided on if we should maintain difficulty or look to lower it tbh, just raising the point.

(Of course, if we're primarily releasing legends through, say, beating Hall completely or beating Gold Pike, then perhaps TLRs would be fine in terms of difficulty :u)

 

[Frosty]

4 cents

1) We can always use simultaneous traps or similar mechanics. While dickish, that mechanic speeds up the process while keeping the difficulty unchecked. Iirc only keldeo's old tlr had 2 traps at once (the stupid croagunk swagger traps that will make zarator post "hee hee hee" in this topic). This is one example of a simple way to speed up the process while keeping the difficulty in check. Assuming we balance them properly and don't fill them with confusion-inducing moves ofc
2) tbh I doubt the DQ change will result in the TLRs being sped up. It will just result in more DQs :>. Seriously though, it is uncommon that refs pass one week and when they do, only a few will venture a return to the queue, unless said ref is going out of his way to be a true john.
3) You can also lower the difficulty of TLRs simply by reducing the size of backpacks or removing Revives. I mean, for example, for an uber TLR you have effectively up to 8 pokemon to use (the 4 you begin with, plus 2 you can catch, plus the 2 revives you have). This means the TLR will need to score at least 4 KOs until the boss to stand a fair chance at keeping the challenger at bay. That is a lot of kills and you will need not only a difficult TLR, but also a long one, as unless you go haywire on the encounter (or the challenger is really not prepared or screws up) the average kills is like one per guardians/boss and less than one per trap. So you would need Guardians + 5 or so traps to have the challenger reach boss with 4 mons (losing one and having 3 to work with).
4) As far as structure goes, I like our current one. I only have one suggestion: can we please remove the lackeys? I mean, it is a boring encounter, whose only purpose is to make unprepared challengers retreat or for a surprise or two. And while entertaining, I'd rather remove it and have those some tests be done through more creative traps/nests or even just nice RPs. Lackeys is just dull and boring and is only tacked on TLRs (mine at least) because there isn't other choice. Only very rarely that have an actual purpose (usually as bait for the following RP scenario, but there are other ways to have that, since the only difference it causes is an extra usage of pokeballs in exchange for not suffering a certain hazard, which seems too much effort in battle for a very little effect that could be done through other means).


In the end I'd suggest getting rid of lackeys and working with Guardians + Boss + one obligatory fight + one or two RPs that may or may not produce a proper fight for legendary and Guardians + 2-phase Boss (think Lati@s) + 2 obligatory fights + 2-3 RPs that may or may not produce a fight for Uber. Depending on backpack.

 

[smashlloyd20]

Alright, couple things here. I already posted on this topic in SotG, but this discussion really needs to move along.

On non-TLR RPs: It would be great if these gave out legendaries. I think the main thing RPs suffer from at the moment is not really providing any cool incentives-ASB has proven time and time again that the only way to keep an RP thriving for the long run is to offer good rewards. The problem is, what is universally considered a good reward? Setting aside raids because they're so different from anything else, the only rewards we currently give out outside of TLRs for the most part are counters (see: Hall, some ASS challenges), which is all well and good to a point but is also kind of lame. I would love to see us give out legendaries as rewards for beating really really hard RPs to give people actual incentive to play some really cool (but under-explored) RPs (Pike/Orre when it opens/etc). Petition to move to voting (or just get a mod ruling) on other RPs being allowed to give out legendaries for sufficiently difficult accomplishments.

On TLRs: I like the wide variety of solutions that have been proposed to making TLRs less...annoying. I'm super on board with Frosty's proposal to remove lackeys, as they tend to just provide artificial difficulty and be a time sink that we don't really need. I think this would be the best way to cut down on combat events, as dogfish suggested. In order to compensate for this, I think we should decrease backpack sizes, which would more or less keep TLRs at their current difficulty while cutting out a decent portion of their length. I'd like to see a bit more discussion on this before we move to voting.

 

[Exclaimer]

I agree with both of the above. RP committee has already given a lot of thought to legendaries as rewards in RPs, and we're planning on having JJayyFeather 's gold pike give out Rayquaza as a prize, among other things.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Alright, new stance on TLRs.

I want to see the non-combat RPs removed. They very rarely do anything besides quite honestly just give the ref time to not ref your TLR. Their effects often become negligible after the next fight of stalling anyways.

EDIT:
00:48:33<&phonefish44> Oh, since phone
00:48:44<&phonefish44> Can someone in the legend mom thread
00:49:12<&phonefish44> Raise the whole dick-moves thing wrt safeguard and such?

 

[Frosty]

Wholeheartedly disagree with the non-combat rp removal proposal. They don't account for much time (or time at all) and it is one of the few things that differentiate TLR from other RPs. Ideally we would have non-combat RPs that may turn into Combat RPs depending on the choices made or that can provide an actual boost or deterrent to the run, instead of just being fillers. While we do have a fuckton of filler non-combat RPs, it just means we are doing them wrong, not that they are wrong in principle.

Legendaries on RPs is a RP Committee decision. Hell, the reason it wasn't implemented before was because the previous RP committee ruled against it on a 2-1 voting. If the current RP committee is on board, it can be done without the need of a council voting. Hell, not evenn sure a council voting would have power to do anything about it for or against.

 

[zarator]

I agree and disagree with Frosty at the same time. While non-combat RP is an interesting, unique, and flavourful addition to TLRs, they commonly suffer from a crucial flaw: they are often unimportant.

For example, consider the RP1 of Siren Sands. Here, the challenger has basically two choices:

a) Getting a random number of Pokemon asleep, and recovering 12 energy on each Pokemon
b) Getting one Pokemon asleep

Considering this RP comes right after lackeys, the need to recover 12 energy is quite minimal - especially if compared to the risk of potentially having the whole team put to sleep. Option (b), on the other hand, simply requires you to burn an Awakening and move on. It is pretty clear to me that most (if not all) challengers who did not screw up at lackeys - or who did not build their team around sleep/sound immunities - will almost always choose option (b), use the Awakening, and move on.

This RP is a waste of time because (1) the two choices are hardly balanced, with one being clearly better in the long run, and (2) said best choice simply involves using an item and being done with the RP. If you gave the challenger one less slot for status healers, one less CC on the backpack, and omitted the RP entirely, the difficulty of the whole TLR would be completely unchanged.

Even putting aside extremely bad RPs (such as pre-revamp TPF Obstruse Garden and the lancet thing), many non-combat RPs rarely affect the outcome of the TLR, offer a "false" choice, or both. A good example of an RP, on the other hand, would IMO be the RP3 of Seven Seas of Rhye. The choices, for once, have real stakes involved: it is not something you can just be done with and move on. Furthermore, there is no clear, optimal choice. While I would argue that some choices may be better than others, different team builds may assess the choices differently.

If I were to give a suggestion to TLR designers, both in regards to combat and non-combat RP, it would be: make each update matter. Stuff like Lackeys, and several non-combat updates are labelled as "filler" because you know you are not rly risking much vs them. It's just a matter of "executing the script" and wasting a couple weeks worth of time in the process. For TLRs to be fun, it's important that each update comes with stakes and decisions attached. Flavour is important, but it's sort of a secondary concern. First think of the challenge, then make it flavourful somehow. At least, that's how I approached raid designing since HoT, and I believe I have reason to be pleased with the results.




EDIT: As for legendaries in other RPs, what Frosty said is true, but I believe the general feeling changed since then, so another voting may be in order.

 

[Dogfish44]

Non-Combat Segments:
I'm very much in favour of maintaining these - it was the original implications that we should nuke them that I objected to when the idea was originally proposed. Like Frosty and Zarator, I agree that a revamp of quite a few of them is needed in order to provide impact - but that is something that I think a revamp to remove other segments of TLRs should already cover.

Lackeys
Lackeys are v.interesting... if you're fond of watching paint dry. Given that I want to trim the Legendary TLRs down anyway, and that Training TLRs haven't used them in a long while, and that Uber TLRs tend to use a Nest-equivalent rather than the traditional 2-Lackeys, there's a strong case to dispose of them.

Update Impact
Zara raises a good point that's worth looking into - how much can a TLR update matter, even if there's no combat. Let me take an example for this one. The current structure of the FSQ TLR is as such. In other words, every choice you make changes your available paths and options. I would, personally, consider every choice I made to matter in this case.

It's harder to do impact in more linear structures however. SSoR I happen to know rather well. I'd posit that the choice of trap in RP1 definitely matters, as does any choice in RP3a/b/c. But then you can look at RP2, and I wouldn't object if people said it looked rather... tepid. Sure 2c has an impact down the line, but 2a and 2b are... bland. I would certainly not object to trawling through the current TLRs and looking for ways to change these. In short, this is a very long-winded way to say that I broadly agree with Zara on this one.

TLR 'dick moves'
Speaking of SSoR, one of my favourite design aspects of the TLR is that if you capture a Guardian, you can Worry Seed/Gastro Acid away Manaphy's status immunity.

Issue: Safeguard. It's the sensible ref play, but it... ruins the point, somewhat.

I think there's a reasonable case to be made that we need to revamp our list, but I'm leaving this one open ended again. If nothing else, I would like to move 'Chill' onto that list.

Boss Spawns
Also known as 'The #$@&%*! Cottonee'. I'm posting another open Q - how do people feel about boss spawns? Are they too much, too little? One thing I've been pondering is having them start out fast, then slow down over time. Again, open-ended, because debate is useful.

 

[JJayyFeather]

Lackeys
Mixed feelings here:
(1) I like lackeys because if nothing more they provide the challenger with cheap capture fodder for dealing with certain aspects of the TLR.
(2) I hate lackeys because they do nothing impact-wise unless the challenger is playing sub-optimally

Impact
This point by Zara actually hits what I feel very hard on the head. I think I could've phrased my post better to say that I'm just not fond of the lack of impact that certain RPs have, and it serves to arch over all aspects of a TLR.

Dick Moves
(1) Safeguard is sensible-ish I guess, it's great gameplay but horrible to deal with as a player. I'd say abolish it, but I've captured a legend through it, and I run a lot more Taunt and Imprison now, so I'd just call it a strategy adjustment. Similar to how you just need a way to remove Hydration from Manaphy in SSoR, it's just a preparation thing.
(2) Chilling should follow the same basic principles as in battling: do it when low on EN. And that should be the only place. In other words, the ref should only be allowed to Chill if not doing so would result in an ENKO of the mon, assuming this is the legend or you just can't suicide yet for reasons in one of the other rules

Boss Spawns
I like these a lot. I'll do it from both sides though.
- As a player, the spawns give me a sort of timer, or a schedule to maintain, as to not waste time and end up just getting wiped. I see the problem with them being hard to deal with, but boss spawns tend to have enough time in between them that you should be able to address the wave, then handle the boss.
- As a ref, hell yes I love these things. Otherwise the last 4 rounds of a TLR tends to just be you scrambling to shatter them while they meticulously cram to try make sure you cannot do anything at all. It's an anti-stall mechanism, and I love it.

As such, I'd like to see this be a bit more common, but I do want them to not be a centralizing force in a TLR.

Stalling
I'm also going to pose a Q here - How much stalling should a player be allowed to do? How much should a ref expect to deal with stalling? Can we make TLRs work so that stalling becomes significantly less valuable the longer you do it? For example, I'm absolutely infatuated with Giant Chasm currently. The small EN draining effect in each arena seems so minimal, until you realize that it's effectively just a punishment for taking forever to get anything done. And I kinda want to see that implemented elsewhere, whether that be in the form of EN drain, like in Giant Chasm or Seven Seas of Rhye's Pressure RP, or in the form of massive damage, like in the Ruined Eden TLRs how the dogs have Radiance Form if you try too hard to stall them out.

 

[Gale Wing Srock]

Boss Spawns : No
I think it is weird and complicated. AOPSUser once advised me to KISS.

Lackeys: No
Pretty useless, Nests and Traps serve as better replacements.

Non Combat: Yes
Choices make the experience interesting. Keep them limited in depth though. Double / Triple Nested IF loops complicate things for everyone.

Dick-Moves: IDK
Ref guidelines (like the ones we see in Battle Hall and Pike) should suffice.

 

[Frosty]

Boss spawns are one way to make things harder, depending on how you put (hint: a cottonee after round 4 or whatever that is won't do that much difference, while a triple goldeen spawn at the end round 1 will certain make quite a difference). I am heavily against tacking that on every boss in existance tho, as it is one way to make things harder, not the only way and if we keep repeating the same mechanics in every TLR, they will end up all playing the same, which I assume isn't the point.

wrt to Stall I feel that is a result of two issues that may or may not be together:
a) The arena and scenario aren't properly prepared to handle with unwanted stall. I mean, stall will always be a possibility, but some arenas make it at least hard. If the player stalls, but needs a shitload of effort and energy for it, then fair enough. But some scenarios (looking at you TPF unowns) just seem to promote stalling. I usually don't have that much problem with players stalling (all of them do, even those that claim that they don't. all of them do and it is always annoying, but some are standable), but the problem lies on those scenarios that could theoretically hold infinite stalling and you can't do a thing about it. All scenarios (specially traps, since they can turn into 3vs1) should have some sort of mechanism to make stalling at least not THAT good. Sure, people will stall, but as long as they pay the price, it isn't a bad thing. Unless that easiness to stall is by design of the TLR creator, which leads to my second point.
b) If stalling is seen as a necessary means for the player to get back on their feet, it shows one of two very disturbing points: the TLR is too hard and to make it fairer it was chosen to tack on the worst possible way (time consuming, not fun to ref, not fun at all....and fun is kiiiinda the goal here) to adjust difficulty, instead of, you know, toning things down a bit so the difficulty is precise without the need for an extra encounter OR the TLR is supposed to have a tougher time followed by a break of sorts (which is possible), but the creator decides to do the worst possible break ever. Seriously, it isn't hard to put on a free healing encounter, or an item discovery encounter or something of the like and restore some health without the need to force people to engage in stall.

Point b is the most important here. I've seen people saying that stalling easier scenarios are a necessity for the player and I couldn't disagree more. There are a gazillion ways restore energy or health of the pokemon without wasting 5+ rounds of useless annoying reffing, that normally is done over 2 months or so, since they are so dull and boring. And you could, you know, tone down the difficulty spike so a stall process isn't needed? Hell, even putting an extra slot of potions on backpacks does the trick (just don't do it for revives). Stalling is the worst possible way I can imagine to put on a moment of intended restoration and we mustn't see it as a necessity, or else the fun factor in TLR will continue to be heavily reliant on how much the player will stall.


IMO, there is no need for anti-stall rules or anything of the like. The arena and general scenario can cover it. As long as the TLR designers consider that in their creator and don't use stalling as an intended mean of recovery, replacing it with simple +Xhp scenarios, we should be overly fine.

 

[zarator]

Just two quick notes about Boss Spawns.

1) As Frosty noticed, abusing this risks making TLR encounters feel too much "the same". Plus, as Frosty once again hinted, there are many more ways to avoid stalling tactics. Please forgive me from doing a quick WoW-centered excursus now, but I believe this perspective may be helpful

In World of Warcraft, there are a variety of anti-stall mechanics which are commonly labelled as "soft berserk" mechanisms (they are called like this to distinguish them from "hard berserks", which is when a boss goes nuts with +500% or so dmg after X minutes). These mechanisms basically cause the encounter to become gradually harder as time goes on, to the point that it eventually becomes unwinnable. The point at which it becomes unwinnable varies (the more geared the group is, the longer it takes), but eventually it just happens.

Now, of course a typical form of "soft berserk" is an increased amount of "spawns" as the encounter progresses, which forces the group to kill the boss before being overwhelmed by adds. But there are many more available. Here are a few WoW-taken examples (I used some of these in the ASB Raid Zone, as you may realize^^)

• The boss grants the group a very powerful buff at the beginning of the fight, but this buff expires after a certain amount of time. The boss is nigh impossible to kill (or even survive) without the buff, so the group must try to kill it before the buff runs out.
• Everytime the boss kills a party member, that party member is resurrected, but the boss "gains experience" and "levels up", eventually becoming so strong it is impossible to survive (naturally, the number of resurrections available is limited).
• The boss gains a bonus in damage every X seconds. After enough gains, the boss can basically one-shot anyone.
• The boss applies an unremovable damage-over-time effect to a target every so often. Eventually, the periodic damage becomes too much for healers to keep up.
• After a certain time, party members can no longer be healed, or recover mana (energy)
  
• The boss spawns an add at periodic times. Everytime an add dies, the boss grows stronger.
• During the fight, party members get increasingly negative effects from actions performed during the fight. Once these effects reach a certain threshold, the members die.

And I'm sure more can be thought of. Any of these could be introduced and/or managed with relatively simple arena effects, and all reach the same goal: make stalling ultimately unfeasible.


2) Right now, I don't think spawns are balanced. Or rather, the philosophy behind how they're scripted is partially flawed. The reason is, I believe, that designers severely underestimate how much of a difference an additional Pokemon makes.

Consider for example SSoR. Here, we have a choice between: (a) 3 Horde Goldeen, (b) 1 Seaking, and (c) 2 Luvdisc. Maybe some will disagree, but I believe most will concur with me that choice (b) is generally the easiest. Aside from absolutely massive differences in stats/types/movepools (say, 1 Mewtwo vs 2 Rattata against a Fighting-type party), facing 2 Pokemon is significantly harder than one. Consider for example choice b vs choice c. Not only are two Luvdisc going to cause significantly more damage than a Seaking, but that's two Pokemon instead of one which can use disruptive moves. When a Pokemon uses, I dunno, Swagger, it doesn't matter if it's a Luvdisc, or a Seaking (or a Rattata, or an Arceus). The effect is absolutely the same. And incidentally, Luvdisc carries even more disruption than Seaking, with a significantly higher Speed stat to boot.

The bottom line is: increasing the number of opponents increases the encounter difficulty drastically, no matter how "puny" the Pokemon may look.

 

[Frosty]

any progress on this?

 

[smashlloyd20]

I'd say part of the problem here is that nobody really knows where the heck we're supposed to be going with this. This doesn't feel like something that will go to council vote - instead, it feels like we're just tossing out ideas for the RP committee to take and decide where they want to go with TLRs and legends for the future. Can some RP committee people confirm/deny whether council is actually supposed to do anything here? Dogfish44 Maxim Exclaimer

 

[Exclaimer]

I think before we tackle TLR difficulty, we need to finalize how we're going to trim down TLR length. It would be counter-productive to try to make things more difficult and then have to cut the content later. Though, other than removing Lackeys, I'm not really sure what to do other than redesigning most TLRs entirely...

 

[zarator]

Here are some thoughts about how to reduce length.

First of all, RPs. I tackle RPs because I feel they're the most liable to extend the TLR's length to ridiculous levels. I believe here we need some hard and fast rules for designers that prevent length from escalating. In particular, RPs should basically fit into either of the following categories:

1) Battle: Trap, Nest, Rare Encounter, etc.
2) Non-combat
3) Mixed

It is my belief that we should enforce something along the lines of the following rules: non-combat RPs (or the non-combat segment of mixed RPs) should never last more than two updates. I know this reduces the room for creativity from the point of view of designers, but it's important to keep length within reasonableness. The only instance where I could see this rule broken is when a non-combat RP basically substitutes a combat RP completely. But even then, keep in mind most traps, Nest, and rare encounters last rarely longer than 3-4 updates.

This, in short, would mean that the fourth RP scenario of almost all Legendary TLRs would be either removed or would replace another combat RP (basically taking two "RP slots" instead of one). I haven't bothered to check Uber TLRs, but none of the Training TLRs would be affected.

Then, I would suggest the following structure for TLRs (CRP = Combat RP; NRP = Non-combat RP; MRP = Mixed RP):

Training

CRP -> Guardians -> NRP -> Boss
Total number of fights: 3

Legendary

MRP -> Guardians -> CRP -> NRP -> Boss
Total number of fights: 4

Uber

MRP -> Guardians -> CRP -> MRP -> Boss
Total number of fights: 5

This is just a basic suggestion. I'm not sure this would still make TLRs short enough, especially Uber ones - though, if only Ubers were the issue, I guess it could be acceptable.

Speaking of Ubers, for all the Uber TLRs which require Legendary TLRs as prerequisites, I believe said pre-requisite should be placed right after Guardians, not right before Boss. You might say that this makes accessing Uber TLRs too easy, but that's exactly the point - accessing an Uber TLR can be a bit time consuming (and trust me, doing 3 TLR even up to Guardians only would still take a lot of time, factoring in queue etc - this just removes the risk of a time loss from unexpected pre-boss wipes). After all, it is an Uber TLR, so it'll already be crazy hard as it is. It does not rly need any extra help to "defend itself".

As for complaints about "reduced difficulties", remember that we still have two important "levers" we can use to manipulate difficulties: bag size, and encounters. Even a 4 fight TLR, involving at least 1-2 fights vs FE Pokemon, would be nigh impossible without items, under normal conditions (say, no obvious counterteaming, good play from both parts, reasonable arenas, etc). This means that, as long as we "tune" bag size appropriately, we can hit whatever point on the difficulty spectrum we need to. On the other hand, encounters offer a large degree of customization too. A TLR could be made easier/harder by selecting Pokemon which offer (or don't offer) obvious choices for counterteaming, by selecting Pokemon with low (or high) CHP, by selecting fair (or unfair) arenas, and so on. None of these measures impact length significantly, but they can and do contribute to make the TLR easier or harder. The fact they can do so without extending its length is exactly what we should look for.

Maybe in due time I will come up with further ideas... but at least we have some basic proposals to discuss so we can get this operational.

EDIT: Btw about traps and stalling, I was thinking - why don't we implement a "run" mechanic? For example, at the end of every round in which the trap mon faces more than a Pokemon, it has a cumulative 20% chance of fleeing. I believe this wouldn't necessarily be beneficial to the challenger because:

(1) it obviously prevents them from stalling to their heart's content
(2) most importantly, it denies them control over how long they can stall for. This means, for example, that they could be caught with a Pokemon still resting, right after they expended a lot of energy to set up, or in an otherwise unbalanced situation

If you feel that this makes it too hard/luck-based to catch the trapmon, you could change the "flee counter" appropriately. For example, the first round after the other two mons join could always have a 0% flee chance, but the chance would start increasing on subsequent rounds, by 20 per round or even more (optionally, we could decide that catch rounds do not trigger the flee chance unless the Pokemon has the 100 En extra action). After all, if the player has no intention of stalling, he should likely have the trapmon ready for capture by the end of the first "post-trap" round, with low HP and possibly a status.

Again, this is merely a suggestion, feel free to comment/disagree/offer alternatives.

 

[Dogfish44]

With the above post, let me draft something out. In this case, I will be drafting up a 'revamped' Mysterious Cove, which is the idea I've had for the easier of the training TLRs since this thread went up.

Mysterious Cove Potential Draft

RP Flow:
Slowpoke Races --> Guardians --> RP3 --> Boss

Slowpoke Races remain as is - an RP with three different results, stemming from two different choices.

Guardians and Boss remain as is

RP3 is reliant upon the result of Slowpoke Races. If you manage to gt the King's Rock (aka had a member with 13 or less speed in your team), you get a Rare-Encounter Combat with Malamar. If you got the Nest Balls, then you get to fight the Fish Maw fight. If you skipped, you get the Abra Trap.

In this case, the TLR would follow the format NRP --> Guardians --> CRP --> Boss, which I honestly think is fine. There's also enough space within the TLR to allow the designer wiggle room for branching, which is equally important in my mind. Like, I think I could easily enough plot out FSQ using the length given - which given that it's a ridiculous set of paths, should help ease concerns.

As for voting and such... I'm actually not sure. Ultimately TLR is an RP, which means I think it falls under RP Council (Much as Legendary Mons do afaik), but I think mods need to talk as to what actually happens here.

ediZt: We're probably not going to have the time and space to convene as mods. At least, I haven't really talked to IAR/Dogfish/Deadfox over the past few days if not weeks. So I am here agreeing with Dogfish that yes, RP Council can make the final decision. At least there was a dialogue instead of RP Comm steadfastly refusing to listen to anyone else - if that were the case, mods would've stepped in before this point.

 

[Frosty]

So based on that stealth edit we are waiting on the RP Com to decide?

I mean, I just want to continue my TLRs -_-. I have 2 being revamped and like 3 or 4 on the works and all of those stopped 2 months ago due to this. I would love to continue them at some point in my existance, regardless the specific decision on format.