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Engineer, even with the prices you proposed, anyone who has serious intentions about reaching the legend needs to invest no less than 40 CC by my calcs (let's say 2 Potions, 2 Ether, 2 Super Potions, 2 Elixirs. You already reached 28 CC. Then there are Ultra Balls/Sports Balls etc to buy). Personally, I think that given the chances of failure are pretty high and the need for scouting even higher, people shouldn't have to spend more than 20-30 CC for a run.
About difficulty: would you clarify what you mean with easier? Because when you say "If less counters are required to get to the end, it becomes easier to get to the end", I really don't get what you mean. The skill level involved in a run which requires 10 CC is the same of one which requires 50 CC to be undertaken - simply, the former requires less time to prepare for. But the ability, knowledge, strategy required to go through it is exactly the same. So really, what are we talking about here?
Also, given the variety of battle formats/RP events available to us, I think designing all TLRs in a way none of those go over a certain amount of fights won't turn out to be boring, as long as the designer isn't completely skilless.
Also, DK, not to put too much of a point there, but I'm pretty sure the referees know all trap mechanisms, and yet I don't recall any instance of simple abusing. Or can you guys show some?
I wasn't going to make a second post here, but since debate has stagnated I might as well.
I support full open source TLR and reducing item cost (I don't care about exact values). Simply put, the current system artificially raises difficulty in a way that is not equally distributed nor of a desirable variety.
I'll start with the lesser controversial item cost proposal. At the moment, TLR is more or less only possible by stockpiling CC for ages or a ref neglecting their mons development (even fully training some mons) just to challenge TLR. That is a very steep price to ask of someone likely to fail, and something only very few players can do. If costs were reduced but challenge difficulty increased, it would remain difficult but not have the same effect of limiting who can challenge and how frequently to unjustifiable levels.
I disagree with closed source TLR simply because it provides an invaluable advantage (information) to a small and arbitrarily selected group of referees, some of whom barely ref. This makes it inordinately easier for some, mostly the same users arguing here to keep it. There is no other RP in the game at the moment (bar the Raid Zone, which has far fewer active refs and a much lower potential reward) that is closed source, yet several have intense difficulties (such as the hall) that make them almost impossible to clear. I do not know what mechanism could be employed, but I am skeptical of any situation that gives a mid-sized group a major advantage over everyone else.
Based on the discussion, how would you guys feel about the following changes being made to TLR:
1) Reduce item costs: I think the prices Engineer posted for healing items and the prices Texas posted for Pokeballs are fair. The prices could use more discussion I guess, but the general consensus is that they are currently too high.
2) Increase the amount of substitution commands: There is also consensus here, just getting 1 sub is not enough.
3) Post Pokemon information at the start of an encounter: There is a push for more open info, and I think this is a very good starting point. It's currently pretty obnoxious that you can't see what moves your opponents have (and having only 1 sub compounds this, but even with 2 subs it'd be annoying), but doing it this way we avoid posting a list of Pokemon or providing all the info on RP scenarios. We can of course do those if after these changes it looks like things still need to be more open, but starting with small changes is usually a better idea.
4) Change capture mechanics: This heavily reduces what's easily the most bullshit luck-based part of TLRs. I like what Objection posted, but it could use more discussion and modification?
5) Hire more refs: The huge queue right now makes TLRs take even longer than they should, and if you have a slow ref you can't exactly just get a subref easily. Adding more refs also has other upsides too I guess.
I think starting with these changes, TLRs will become a lot more accessible without fundamentally changing how they are supposed to work. If these aren't big enough changes, we can always do more later. Thoughts?
I disagree with closed source TLR simply because it provides an invaluable advantage (information) to a small and arbitrarily selected group of referees, some of whom barely ref. This makes it inordinately easier for some, mostly the same users arguing here to keep it. There is no other RP in the game at the moment (bar the Raid Zone, which has far fewer active refs and a much lower potential reward) that is closed source, yet several have intense difficulties (such as the hall) that make them almost impossible to clear. I do not know what mechanism could be employed, but I am skeptical of any situation that gives a mid-sized group a major advantage over everyone else.
Just pointing out that the Raid Zone has its own built-in mechanisms to avoid ref advantage - namely, I know all the raids but I can challenge only ones which have been completed at least once, while the other refs (currently only EP since Deadfox is gone) can only ref raids which have already been defeated once (namely, the ones I could challenge as well). This way, the "ref advantage" is significantly limited and, as a testament of this, some of the top raiders are not referees. (and Engineer was hot way before becoming one)
Naturally this system is largely unfeasible for the TLR. I don't see anyone here who has the time to take the reins of the TLR facility in the same way I directed raids all alone. However, there's nothing shameful in admitting that some kind of challenge is impossible to replicate without major flaws, given our game system. I would have loved, for example, to render full WoW-like raids with trash mobs, position based fights etc... but this is just not possible without a hassle which I think would've outweighted the benefits.
There is the very legitimate possibility of people deciding that it's not worth keeping the "exploration" factor given the great inequality it produces among refs and non-refs, and so we opt to develop our "legend-catching" RP in a different way. This is, probably, where we need to start being openminded and accept that the first concept we came up with, maybe, wasn't the optimal one.
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That being said, though, E_M's five points are all very welcome changes which I think could meet a full consensus, even if we can't agree on some fundamental aspects of the matter. I think, like E_M suggested, that we should implement those and then see if we're satisfied with the changes, rather than allowing these reasonable changes to be swamped into brickwall fighting.
4) Change capture mechanics: This heavily reduces what's easily the most bullshit luck-based part of TLRs. I like what Objection posted, but it could use more discussion and modification?
I like Objection's proposal too, though I also like how getting lucky helps you sometimes and I would like for that chance to stay, how about we make it so that if you roll the necessary roll you get the pokemon no matter how many balls you still need to throw but that you cannot go over the necessary number, this basically means that if you're lucky then you keep a few balls but the unluckiest player only needs to use x number of balls in order to capture wathever pokemon it wants
I think Objection's proposal doesn't need altering. In normal battling, do we allow a random roll to instantly defeat an opponent? No, we get perhaps a little bit more damage. There's no reason luck should invalidate the challenge entirely, for the player or the dungeon.
Agreeing with pretty much all of Objection's post for captures, and the rest of EM's post. We'll need to figure out what to raise the Capture Bar on legends to as well (200 = 10 Balls @ Optimum Rate, maybe a bit high?)
Also, if we run with Objections plan, we may wish to nerf Heal Balls to prevent them becoming pretty much the only ball used outside of legends - the only reason people often don't make a capture with them is because they're alternated with Sport Balls to keep capture odds high enough to prevent luck anyhow.
At the moment, balls that aren't Heal Balls, Sport Balls, or Timer Balls are rather erroneous anyway. I wouldn't mind seeing them done away with.
In honesty, I gave capture formulas a bit of thought. I'll hide my musings; they ramble a bit!
TL(;D)R: Current, RNG-based capture sucks. Instead, thrown Poke Balls deduct from a target's "Capture Counter," and the target is captured at 0. Pokemon have an initial Capture Counter of 300 minus their in-game capture rate, giving a value between 45 (easy) and 297 (hard). The "capture damage" formula would be:
(Ball Strength - FLOOR(Target HP * 0.1) ) * Status Modifier
______________________________________________________________________________________
There's no reason to use the in-game capture formula at all. It's convoluted and difficult to use from memory. Flat values would be much easier.
We'll start from the top. By this search, we can see that in-game capture rates vary from 255 (absurdly easy) to 3 (absurdly difficult). Scrap the current artificial caps, we'll work with these for the moment and make new caps if necessary.
The main component of Objection's proposal is giving the target Pokemon "Capture HP," that balls deal "damage" to. This means that difficulty derives from a high value in Capture HP -- the opposite of capture rates. The answer is simple: Every Pokemon's "Capture HP" is equal to a flat value, minus their in-game capture rate. It has to be higher than 255, however, otherwise some Pokemon will start the battle captured. I'll use 300 as an arbitrary baseline:
45 CHP
65 CHP
100 CHP
150 CHP
180 CHP
210 CHP
255 CHP
285 CHP
297 CHP
So we have a minimum of 45 and a maximum of 297, with a rough idea of how the stat scales. Poke Balls will subtract from a number not unlike this one. The ball that reduces this value to 0 or below is the one that capture the Pokemon. Easy and luck-free!
However, capture is supposed to be more difficult against a healthy Pokemon. That's easy to implement in a flat and easily-remembered way, as well. The three factors that affect capture success are 1) the target Pokemon's remaining HP, 2) the target Pokemon's major status ailments, and 3) the strength of the Poke Ball used. Let's break these down one at a time.
1) Target Remaining HP
Looking at the in-game capture formula, we can see that a Pokemon at 1% HP is roughly three times more likely to be caught than a normal one. This presents the directly-reproduced method: Multiply the capture damage by twice the target's percent missing HP. But that's an obnoxious and unwieldy ruling. Let's look at some alternatives.
Sticking to missing HP gives us several options. We could perform addition. Each X points of HP the target has lost strengthens the capture attempt by 1 (increases capture damage by 1). This means throwing balls right out of the gate isn't out of the question -- you're still getting the ball's base value, at least. But why focus on the Pokemon's missing HP? This makes Pokemon with more HP to lose marginally easier to capture. It's also confusing intuitively to have the target strengthening attacks against it. Better to have the target weaken incoming damage with their fortitude.
The easiest method of making HP weaken capture damage is to subtract it. The target Pokemon's remaining HP reduces the strength of the Pokeball in some fashion. Let's say each 10 HP the mon has reduces capture damage by 1. In other words, from 0-9 HP, the ball is fully effective. From 10-19, the ball deals 1 less damage, and so on. This is my preferred method -- it's very fast to perform mentally (just look at the HP's tens place!) and it's easy to predict. It does make bulkier Pokemon harder to capture, but that's not a major concern. By the same token, it makes evolutions marginally harder to capture than prevolutions with the same capture rate, which is fine. It makes Shedinja supremely easy to capture, but no one cares about that.
I'll assume the "10 HP negates 1 capture damage" method outlined here for the rest of this rant. Under that system, a full-health Jirachi (100 HP) strips 10 damage from balls thrown at it. That can be rather significant -- if a ball deals 20 damage, leaving Jirachi at full HP requires twice as many balls as wearing it down HP-wise first. This is fine and desirable.
2) Target's Major Status Ailments
In-cartridge, the major status ailments multiply the success rate of capture by x1.5, while sleep and freeze multiply by x2.5 as of Generation V. There's two major concerns as this relates to ASB and to this capture mechanic. One, how to handle multiple major status ailments (impossible in the cartridges); and two, whether it applies before or after HP-based reduction.
On one hand, retaining the current convention of using only the strongest status multiplier is fine. It strongly rewards using harder-to-maintain ailments (sleep and freeze) over longer-lasting effects like paralysis, as was probably intended. Allowing the multipliers to stack either additively (x1.5 -> x2.0 -> x.2.5) or multiplicatively (x1.5 -> x2.25 -> x3.375) both require Ball strength to take such methods into account, invalidating TLR teams with less status infliction methods.
Deciding to apply the status modifier before or after HP mitigation is trickier. Placing it before makes it stronger, generally. (20 * 1.5 - 10) = 20, while (20 - 10) * 1.5 = 15. Unless Ball strength is rather low (so low that it can't tear down 297 CHP in a reasonable number of rounds), calculating status before mitigation makes Pokemon easier to catch on average.
Let's look at specific numbers. I've been using 20 as a throwaway number to represent a standard Poke Ball. A paralyzed Zubat has 45 CHP and a capture mitigation ("catch defense"?) of 9. Calculating status first, a Poke Ball weakens Zubat by (20 * 1.5 - 9) 21 CHP, catching him with three tosses. Calculating mitigation first, Zubat is weakened by (20 - 9) * 1.5 - 15.5 CHP and is still caught in three tries. So there's no real difference at full health when paralyzed. It follows, then that there will be no real difference when Zubat falls below 10 HP -- 20 * 1.5 is the same as 20 * 1.5, in other words.
If we put Zubat to sleep, however, this changes. Calculating status first, a sleeping Zubat is weakened by (20 * 2.5 - 9) 41 CHP, nearly catching him in a single attempt! If Zubat is asleep and below 50 HP, he's caught instantly -- a dramatic change in effectiveness. Calculating mitigation first, Zubat will be weakened by (20 - 9) * 2.5 = 27.5 CHP, a two-ball attempt and a mere fraction of the full 50 CHP Zubat would lose if he were under 10 HP. Zubat's measly 9 capture defense reduces the CHP loss by 23.5 -- more than an entire Ball's worth.
Calculating the status multiplier after applying mitigation, and only using the highest status modifier among the target's major ailments, is what I will assume for the rest of this tirade.
3) Poke Ball Strength
This is where it all comes together. I've been using the figure "20" to represent a standard Pokeball, but realistically that's a bit high. Let's look at multiples of five, from 10 to 35, to see where the best numbers lie for Poke Ball, Great Ball, and Ultra Ball. For ease of comparison, I'll use Maractus, Tropius, Rhyhorn, and Darkrai, who have varying CHP and all share 100 max HP in ASB (and thus share a matching catch defense number).
WARNING: Lots of numbers inside these hide tags! In addition, while parsing this data, bear in mind that only two balls can be thrown each round, and that Poke Balls are currently purchased for 2-5 CC in sets of five (that is, each toss costs 0.4 to 1 CC).
10 Ball Strength:
100 / 100 HP, No Status - 0 Capture Damage --
That's a lot of information to parse through. Where to start?
From the top: 35 strength is obscene for any ball. With no prior capture attempts, a sleeping and wounded Darkrai is taken in a mere two rounds of throwing. With 50 more HP, Darkrai lasts but one round more. This sort of power should be reserved for only the strongest or most specific Poke Balls.
From the bottom: 10 strength can do work! In ideal conditions, it can catch a 45 CHP mon in a single round, which makes it just powerful enough for most common Lackies: Zubat, Spheal, Stunky, and Gulpin are examples of Pokemon who, while not particularly desirable outside of a TLR, might be appropriate cannon fodder for the TLR run itself. A Heal Ball with this level of strength would see use to pad out the challenger's team before delving deeper.
Most Guardians will have between 150 and 210 CHP, and won't be threatened by a 10-power Ball any time soon. It takes a 20- or 25-strength ball to threaten them with a reasonable three-round capture (that is, in less than ideal conditions). This is a solid midrange for type-focused balls especially.
Where does that leave the individual balls? Well, starting with the basic set:
Poke Ball: 15 Strength
Great Ball: 20 Strength
Ultra Ball: 25 Strength
Master Ball: 310 Strength
These are fine. Poke Balls are cheap, efficient ways to secure Lackeys and other low-priority targets, but they stumble when the pressure's on and every round counts. Ultra Balls will likely form the backbone of most trainer's arsenal, providing solid capture rating on anything they might come across while being a bit more expensive than any given specialty Ball. Great Balls are less efficient than either of the other two types, but can be made CC-efficient to offset this.
Currently, the highest HP a 297 CHP can have is Giratina. Giratina has 125 HP at maximum, meaning it takes (12 + 297) = 309 capture strength to snare it in a single toss. However, 309 is not a multiple of five.
Notably, a 1 HP sleeping Giratina suffers 775 CHP loss from a Master Ball.
In the hide tag below, I'll assign Capture Strength to balls based on the ones in this post. I'll preserve their current effects for now, and provide reasoning for their assigned strengths.
Heal Ball: 5 Strength
Since they're used to fully heal the captured Pokemon they get to be a bit weaker that Poke Balls, but their utility will ensure they still see use. In this system, they are best purchased sparingly and used to last-hit the target.
Premier Ball: 10 Strength
Luxury Ball: 5 Strength
These two balls grant EC, MC, or DC to the captured Pokemon; the Luxury Ball grants more than the Premier. Another ball for enhancing the target, this fits into the same niche as Heal Balls and thus warrents reduced strength.
Cherish Ball: 5 Strength, or 30 against Legendary Pokemon
Boasting the ability to provide great aid in the climax of a TLR, the Cherish Ball is certainly very desirable for any legend-aspiring Trainer. To offset this, making the use of Cherish Balls on anything else unpalatable leads to an interesting trade-off. Certainly, they're valuable assets at the end of the TLR run, but they take up valuable CC and space until then that might be better served catching Pokemon to get you to the end of the run in the first place.
Dream Ball: 10 Strength or 20 against sleeping targets
Also known as the Overkill Ball. With Sleep having such a large multiplier anyway, there's no reason to allow a ball dedicated to it to exceed the already-present Ultra Ball. Instead, I picture this as something that can be bought cheaply in bulk for Sleep-centric teams to abuse, without making such teams overpowering.
Dive Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 in aquatic arenas (surfing, underwater, etc.)
Dusk Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 in low-light conditions (certain caves, etc.)
Lure Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 against trapped targets (ambushes, etc.)
Park Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 in urban conditions (cities, villages, etc.)
Safari Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 in dense foliage (very tall grass, forest, etc.)
A Ball that derives power from the TLR itself instead of a challenger's decisions isn't too dangerous. Arenas that have an abundance of water, or a sylvan setting, or so on become a bit easier to operate in, should the player choose to specialize in these balls. They become more like Poke Balls or more like Cherish Balls depending on the TLR, at the whim of that dungeon's designer. TLRs with wildly varying terrain discourage these balls, but they're still valid if the trainer is targeting a specific encounter.
Fast Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 against targets with 100 or more speed.
Heavy Ball: 10 Strength, or 20 if the target is WC 4 or more, or 25 if the target is WC 6 or more, or 30 if the target is WC 8 or more.
Strange sorts of balls that lend themselves to the pursuit of particular species. Again, being a specialty ball makes it simple to plan for -- a TLR designer might fill a musketeer's dungeon with slower, bulkier targets to weaken a Fast Ball; or fast targets to encourage it. Overall, not particularly dangerous.
Friend Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 if the current thread is a double TLR.
I'm... not sure what this is supposed to mean????? It's currently listed as "Catch Rate: 1x, 3x (With another trainer companion)". Maybe it can be remade to gain strength when the Trainer has several empty bench slots, or something.
Level Ball: 10 Strength, or 30 if the target has a pre-evolution.
Love Ball: 10 Strength, or 30 if the target is infatuated with one of the user's team members.
Moon Ball: 10 Strength, or 30 if one of the target's Egg Groups is Fairy.
These Balls target demographics of Pokemon that generally aren't legendary, and therefore aren't the main goal of the TLR run. Therefore, we get to kick them up a notch -- this puts them above an Ultra Ball when taking on their specific targets. Some Legendaries, such as the Latis, are vulnerable to this type of ball, but that can be written off as a quirk of that particular TLR, because this won't be very frequent.
Nest Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 if the target is Flying-type or is a nest encounter.
Net Ball: 10 Strength, or 25 if the target is Bug- or Water-type.
These type-targeting balls are dangerous, because TLRs tend to carry a strong typing theme throughout their length. This category of ball becomes a very efficient thing to stock up on for these dungeons, and significantly lower their CC requirement when applicable. These balls may need adjusting in strength or price before they're considered balanced!
Repeat Ball: 10 Strength, or 40 if the trainer has ever owned a member of the target's species.
Whoa! Honestly, even with a crushingly strong rating of 40, I doubt these will see a lot of use. I suppose if a trainer has the gall to repeatedly clear a TLR hoping to build up a stock of a particular Legendary and trade them off or something, these will require some revision. However, the prohibitive difficulty of TLR and its inherent CC cost should do something to prevent that.
Quick Ball: 10% of the target's CHP (rounded down) Strength
Sort of a curveball here, but it certainly serves its purpose of being strongest on the first throw! Highly desirable against Legendaries, for sure, but not worth bringing once one or two of these have been thrown, so I doubt this will be an issue.
Timer Ball: 10 Strength, plus 5 times the number of rounds that have passed previously, to a maximum of 40.
The inverse of the Quick Ball. Rather than futzing with a missing-CHP percentage or whatever, I simply went with a round counter, which is easy enough for both the ref and the player to parse quickly. It takes six rounds for these bad boys to wind up fully, but having a couple of these on-hand can be a lifesaver when it comes down to the wire in an intense TLR-endgame fight.
Sport Ball: ???
These need remaking. No ball should be a mandatory 50% of a trainer's backback, with the exception of perhaps Ultra Balls.
Okay I started typing this at like noon, my time. It's turned into a detailed proposal for new capture mechanics, so please give it a read.
I don't need you to weigh the specific numbers of the proposal (although I gave them a lot of thought); just the meat of it.
I agree with Emma. Seems like a great place to start. I am just wondering about if we (and who are "we") can do these changes.
Working from these changes emma listed:
1) Reduce item costs
2) Increase the amount of substitution commands
3) Post Pokemon information at the start of an encounter
4) Change capture mechanics
5) Hire more refs
#1 can probably be done via simple vote by the council, as it is a change regarding an specific item (see constitution).
#2, #3, #5 can only be done by Deck Knight, as the "owner" of the RP. The RP Committee has powers to "transition" the RP only if the owner is inactive (not sure if that is the case since the indefinite background thread doesn't mention the TLR). There is nothing on the small paragraph regarding the committee's powers about making decisions on an approved RP when the owner is active on anything other than payment. Since it is up to the RP Committee to do that, the Council can't decide about it.
#4 can be done by the Council, but has to be approved by Deck Knight, as I am positive this qualifies as a major mechanic change (see constitution).
In other words, aside from reducing the costs of items, all other changes depend on a saying from @Deck Knight for the Council or the RP Committee to act. Or else we would be just wasting our time >_<.
That being said, regarding Lou's proposal, it seems quite lovely. Makes the capture itself completely reliant on strategy and skill instead of luck. While I'll miss the lovely possibility of getting that first turn lucky catch, in the end it benefits the one with the better streategy (although it may be good to keep the old formula in tandem with the new one in case the trainer reaches the legend without enough balls or if the arena is so cruel that the battle can't last that much - see Black Sulfur Caldera).
If we have to roll a percent capture chance every toss, there's no point to changing everything! Eliminating chance from capture is the entire point. TLR designers can count on that 297-point buffer to give them time they need to try to break weak players.
Stupidly-designed battles aren't a valid concern when it comes to revising TLR mechanics, because they require revision themselves.
If we have to roll a percent capture chance every toss, there's no point to changing everything! Eliminating chance from capture is the entire point. TLR designers can count on that 297-point buffer to give them time they need to try to break weak players.
Stupidly-designed battles aren't a valid concern when it comes to revising TLR mechanics, because they require revision themselves.
Pretty much this. There's not really any point to having capture partly come down to chance since then you'll just end up with the worst of both worlds.
one problem I have with lou's proposal is that it makes heal balls REALLY OP—you know exactly when a ball is going to catch, and it takes only a little maneuvering to make sure it's a heal ball. we'd need some sort of balancing agent there (say, heal balls only heal 30 hp/en) if we were to adopt it as stands
As for chance and what-not, I am pointing out that if you are gonna remove luck from the equation you will need to revise many runs. Personally I think i can get used to it. If the trainer doesn't have enough balls, then tough cookies, I guess.
The eventual hope was an overhaul of TLR systems, yes. But that's a long project that I can't suggest brazenly. It would require a team of competent people giving each aspect a lot of discussion.
Expenditure caps, streamlined (but not homogenized!) dungeon structure... There's a lot we could do to make TLRs accessible, strategic, and still deeply challenging.
one problem I have with lou's proposal is that it makes heal balls REALLY OP—you know exactly when a ball is going to catch, and it takes only a little maneuvering to make sure it's a heal ball. we'd need some sort of balancing agent there (say, heal balls only heal 30 hp/en) if we were to adopt it as stands
Heal Balls are OP anyway. They're automatically one-fourth of any challenger's backpack!
With a revision, we have three levers to adjust in regards to Heal Balls -- capture strength, cost, and amount healed. Furthermore, if you focus on these sorts of Poke Balls, you find yourself using weaker varieties trying to cherry-tap the target down into an ideal range, which isn't round-efficient. I'm not particularly concerned.
So I'd like to discuss three things: the relative difficulty of TLRs, limited information, and the capture formulas.
On Difficulty: Now, I'm not complaining about the difficulty of the Uber and Legendary TLRs. Those are supposed to be ASB's ultimate challenge, and they do a good job at it. My problem is more with Mysterious Cove. It's supposed to be a TLR for semi-beginners, and your prize is Phione (which, to be honest, sucks). As zarator's stats show, this doesn't happen and only very experienced players have beaten it. This TLR, more than anything else, needs to be reworked. Legendary TLRs in general might be a tiny bit too difficult, but if we make some of the changes being suggested in this thread they should be fine.
On Limited Information: Okay really why do players still get 0 information? This wouldn't be a problem if the TLR refs didn't get all the information. They all say that they try to avoid taking advantage of this information and I'm sure that's largely true, but I'm sure it still biases their decisions a bit (and/or meta-bias by actively trying to avoid taking advantage of their information). This is especially true because a good amount of TLR refs don't really ref but still have access to this information (because of some arbitrarily chosen standards in some cases). I'm not suggesting that challengers should get all the information, but maybe a general outline of the dungeon or something would be good. Also show challengers enemy Pokemons' full profiles. It's ridiculous this isn't implemented already.
On Capture Formulas: So I think something like what Objection has proposed is a good starting point; however, it isn't perfect. As stated above, it makes things like Heal Balls way too easily exploitable. Two other bigger-yet overlooked issues are:
a) The CC cost is ridiculous. Buying a guaranteed 20 balls per legendary every run is just stupidly expensive.
b) Bosses don't just sit there doing nothing. If you think you'll survive 20 capture rounds doing nothing with a Heatran, you're wrong.
To alleviate these problems while still not placing too heavy a focus on RNG, I'd like to propose a hybrid system. All Pokemon would start with 'capture HP(/counter/whatever)' as outlined above, and throwing balls of varying strengths would decrease that number. The difference is that knocking down the capture counter would also increase your chances of catching the Pokemon. For instance, maybe a Pokemon with 'capture HP' of 100/100 might have a 1% base catch rate (I'm terrible with numbers), the same Pokemon at 50/100 would have a 35% base catch rate, and at 0 you have a 100% chance of catching it. Obviously some of these numbers and mechanics would have to be tweaked a bit and some mechanics fixed (for instance, perhaps there could be an alternate method besides Poke Balls to lower capture hp?) but I think the general concept does the best possible job of balancing RNG and skill in catching.
I figure I might as well post this here before we get too much further... Due to catching being allowed in Rivaled Explorations (Normal and Epic), I would like to propose something. The Hidden Information below is builds up to my main point, but is unnecessary for the main point.
Epic Rivaled Exploration: Explore a wide area, potentially gaining a lot of goodies to take out with you. However, your opponents are here to do the same things, assuming the environment does not take them out first! With very mighty foes in the area, it is unlikely you will last very long alone, but if you’re after the same prize as them, backstabbing them will become a very attractive option. Think about the Icy Forest, only longer, more patience, and able to catch the Poke’mon in it.
The Epic Rivaled Exploration mode of the CAP ASB Adventure Battles I intend to allow certain Legendary Pokémon to be caught (with Deck's permission, of course). However, there will be certain measures in place to limit the potential of the legends (and make the Epic Rivaled Exploration closer to Nintendo Hard like TLRs).
The only legends avaliable are those that have either been reached 5 or more times OR are owned by a trainer in ASB. Raikou and Phione are avaliable legends, both being owned by trainers in ASB. Shaymin is not (needs to be reached 4 more times or caught). One of the Lake Trio will become avaliable in an Epic Rivaled Exploration at the end of the Factory Tournement.
When you sign up, you have no idea which of the avaliable legends will be avaliable in the Exploration. You might get lucky with Registeel. You might get bad luck with Phione. You might find Regirock when you wanted Regice.
You need to do something to make the legend appear. It could be solving a particular puzzle. Or it could be KOing a certain number of wild Pokémon in the area.
The Legends in the Epic Rivaled Explorations will be very strong. How strong? Raid-level strength and HP. Furthermore, until they are brought down to their normal ASB HP (usually below 100) or below, they will be immune to all Poke'balls (save for the Master Ball).
The only way a Legend will stop attacking once appearing is if they are caught. That ball fail to catch that Raikou? Congratulations; you're now eating a Thunder attack, and you can't avoid it due to throwing a Poke'ball. They won't sit around while you try to catch them!
There will be many other wild Poke'mon avaliable for capture and complicate things. While you can throw Poke'balls while there are multiple Poke'mon around, if you are busy throwing Poke'balls, you can't order your Pokémon and the wild Pokémon are able to attack and weaken the trainer.
Trainers CAN and WILL BE attacked. They can be knocked out. While if their Pokémon is still up, they are still considered participating, (though the Poke'mon is considered Sluggish), but they cannot throw any Poke'balls.
Epic Rivaled Exploration. You will be competing against 3 other trainers with one Poke'mon each to do as they wish. And if you're after the same Legend, expect backstabs. (Unless your rival is the last one standing; the Explorations automatically end the round when one side remains.)
Each Rivaled Exploration (Epic and Normal) is only done ONCE. You miss your shot at a particular legend? Well, good luck with a new map for a new legend. If you can even get onto the queue for one of them.
Rivaled Explorations are going to be taxing for both refs and players. Refs in particular. Expect very few of them to be run at a time.
Players can only be a part of one Adventure Battle at one time. Furthermore, once you participate in a Rivaled Exploration, you enter a "Recovery" state, during which you cannot participate in another. Regular Rivaled Exploration: 3 Months. Epic Rivaled Exploration: 6 Months. Epic Rivaled Exploration AND CATCH THE LEGEND: 9 Months. This is to encourage people to go for other parts of the Adventure Battles and prevent one from simply spamming Epic Rivaled Explorations to catch legends.
How about each RP that allows catching of Poke'mon use a different catch formula? The current fomula works fine for my purposes (though it could use a little altering). After all, once the legend is in catch range, I expect at least four Poke'balls thrown a round in Adventure Battles. Using Objection's formula, that will quite possibly mean a guarenteed capture within one or two rounds once the max catch HP is reached. And the trainers would likely start playing a game of chicken to make the legend theirs (as the Catch HP drops, eventually it will hit zero and the one who brought it down that far will be the victor).
Besides, I like a little uncertainty. In my opinion, save for when using the Master Ball, there should always be a chance for failure.
TLRs currently limit the items you can bring with the backpack. As we know, it takes a lot of CC to fill the backpack at this time.
What if, instead of a backpack predicated on different pockets, we simply had a CC cost limit based on the dungeon? A dungeon with a 30 CC Limit would let you bring 30 CC worth of items or less. It's more abstract and less complex than the current pocket-based model.
The major selling point of this mechanic is that it allows us to make a meaningful decision regarding exactly how expensive we want TLRs to be. An aspiring legend owner would have a set goal for their run, "I'm saving up 30 CC for a trip to Iron Dungeon!" Better items take up more of your limit, as well, introducing another layer of strategy to item selection.
There's still a wealth element to this (rich players can challenge TLRs more often), but CC drains fast and after a certain point, being richer doesn't make you any more likely to succeed.
The exact cost limits can be decided later on based on discussion; I'm just presenting the concept.
I'm going to make a series of threads addressing each different elements of some of the concerns mentioned here:
1a. Capture Formula and Mechanics
ASB should have a single, consistent formula for capture mechanics. TLR is currently the only RP that has a capture element, and part of this might be the reward is sufficiently high for the challenge of actually using the formula (which is based on the in-game model). This thread would also cover Ball mechanics so that balls would remain consistent across RPs. I've always wanted a more Safari-zone like RP, but I think the capture formula and ball parameters get in the way of that.
1b. TLR Shop Rules. Once we figure out what balls are supposed to be doing, then we can discuss things like CC limits for TLR runs, because the actual best way to clear a TLR is to catch something along the way as a meatshield or as a follow-up triples partner to keep pressure up on opponents.
2. TLR Scenarios
TLRs should be more consistent and offer a more diverse and balanced mix of risk and reward. The only way to do this is to open source the data and have multiple RP elements that can balance these concerns, with a general guideline for each TLR and a basic dungeon map (e.g. Glacial Cave has as its arenas one where Weight-Based attacks do more damage and shifts to a Rain/Hail combo chamber, then to an all-Hail Boss, etc.)
All other rules will be changed at my proprietary discretion. I'm sure 10 people all have great ideas on how to make TLR better, the problem is what "better" means in a difficulty / ease of capture and gameplay context. I guard TLR pretty jealously on this kind of thing.
Ahem... let's get this revived. It's been stalled for a month and a half, and while we're all distracted with the new generation, we really should try to finish what we started.
Here's the checklist Frosty provided:
1) Reduce item costs
2) Increase the amount of substitution commands
3) Post Pokemon information at the start of an encounter
4) Change capture mechanics
5) Hire more refs
Points 2, 3, and 5 can only be dealt with by Deck, so we can't do much there. Before this stalled completely, there was progress on point 4 in a different thread (which has also stalled), so I'll cross that off the to-do for this thread. Which leaves us with point 1: Reducing item costs.
With the overhaul on Poke'balls going on, prices of those are likely going to be fluctuating. So I request that we focus on the medicines. Engineer Pikachu provides a good starting point:
Potion / Ether: 2 CC
Super Potion: 4 CC
Elixir / Revive: 6 CC
Zarator and Texas have also provided options:
Potion: from 5 CC to 1 CC
Super Potion: from 8 CC to 2 CC
Ether: from 5 CC to 1 CC
Elixir: from 10 CC to 4 CC
Revive: from 10 CC to 4 CC
Ether to 2 CC, Elixir and Revive to 5
Any other suggestions? Or should the council vote on these?
(Note that when we reduce prices, we might also want to reduce the sell prices of TLR-found only items in proportion to these.)
Ow...after just seeing my second completed TLR end with yet another critkill, I think I need to say something. The thing is, we can reduce the RNG all we want for the regular scenarios, but frankly, spending months upon months to try and get a legend, only to get screwed by the RNG in the actual battle itself is just stupid. In game you can just reset your game, in ASB you just lose and have to wait months on end to get another chance.
Because of that, I think there really needs to be a shift in the way we do things. The less radical way to do this would be to simply have some kind of really nice reward at the end if you do accidentally knock out the Pokemon, like a large sum of UC for instance. I know Deck was planning to have a "Boss Rush" mode, but I'm not entirely sure that's even enough, especially in order to get to the legend you still have to wait in a very long queue.
Of course, what's to say we need TLR at all? I honestly find no real reason to make somebody slog through an entire dungeon then prepare a boss encounter assuming they're back at full health. Why can't we just scrap the capture mechanics and go for a slightly simpler solution? Rediamond put up a decent suggestion when we were to introduce Mega Stones, which was to have a Hall-esque Roleplay that would be a difficult challenge in order to get the Mega Stones. Couldn't we do something like that here instead?
Of course, if having False Swipe be a mandatory move was a conscious design choice, I guess the way they're working now is working as intended. -_-
Ow...after just seeing my second completed TLR end with yet another critkill, I think I need to say something. The thing is, we can reduce the RNG all we want for the regular scenarios, but frankly, spending months upon months to try and get a legend, only to get screwed by the RNG in the actual battle itself is just stupid. In game you can just reset your game, in ASB you just lose and have to wait months on end to get another chance.
Also, the idea that TLR's will always take months to complete is not always true. With optimum activity from both users, & quick posting, it is quite possible to get a TLR completed with a challenger success in roughly two weeks, & I have managed to do that in the past. Not that it counts for much, but you cannot help inactivity I guess.
Because of that, I think there really needs to be a shift in the way we do things. The less radical way to do this would be to simply have some kind of really nice reward at the end if you do accidentally knock out the Pokemon, like a large sum of UC for instance. I know Deck was planning to have a "Boss Rush" mode, but I'm not entirely sure that's even enough, especially in order to get to the legend you still have to wait in a very long queue.
Boss Rush seems like a pretty solid method, actually. Player goes to the end, randkills the legend, they have proven that they are good enough to conquer the legend, therefore, they should deserve the right to be able to re-challenge them if they wish, only that they go through the minor encounters first. These boss rushes will also be far more quicker than regular TLR's, so it is reasonable to assume that these TLR's should be picked up faster. Waiting at the end of a long queue, however, is a problem with referee activity, a problem with challengers. Hire more referees that are active & willing to ref TLR's, & the queue is likely to dwindle. Empty queues are certainly possible, contrary to popular belief, & it has certainly happened before.
Of course, what's to say we need TLR at all? I honestly find no real reason to make somebody slog through an entire dungeon then prepare a boss encounter assuming they're back at full health. Why can't we just scrap the capture mechanics and go for a slightly simpler solution? Rediamond put up a decent suggestion when we were to introduce Mega Stones, which was to have a Hall-esque Roleplay that would be a difficult challenge in order to get the Mega Stones. Couldn't we do something like that here instead?
Because a Hall-esque Role-play is a big a slogfest as a TLR. I am not going into detail here, but I would rather a TLR over a hall-esque role-play for anything else. Besides, the goal of this thread is to improve TLR as a whole, not ditch it & create a replacement.
That said, I guess I will answer the OP's questions on accessibility... :|
1) The Legend Run is time consuming: No RP (not even raids) ever compared to the length of a TLR. We're talking about between 30 and 50 rounds reffed for each successful run. That's a crazy amount of rounds reffed (to put things in perspective, the maximum amount of rounds ever reffed in a raid was roughly 25 or 26). Each person wanting to try and catch a legend is looking forward to at least two months of battling before getting a chance to catch the legendary. What's worse, unless the raid in question has been played a lot of times (like TT), the chances of failure approach 100%. A raider attempting to conquer, say, Ruined Eden, Heaven's Ascent or Glacial Cave has a lot of months of trial and fail before getting a chance to win.
I could argue that a successful hall challenge would be as time consuming based on round count, but that is exclusively Singles. If you are running an offensive team & somehow be successful, then yeah 30 is about right, maybe 35 tops. The only time you would spend as long as 50 rounds is if you are massively stalling (which means you are using annoying, impossible to take out mons like Audino -.-'). As before, it is not always true that TLR's will take forever, it depends on the activity of the referee & the challenger. If you are counting waiting in the queue, however...
Also some people are willing to do so called scout runs where they enter with three mons & nothing else. Of course they will lose, but they help others gain information. With the increase in transparency, there will be less need for these. Also, people have managed to succeed in a TLR that was not challenged before, like Mysterious Cove, Ice Spire, & almost Bladed Grass Meadow were won by users with zero information beforehand, but these largely count for nothing, more like citing evidence to the contrary.
All RP's are time-consuming like TLR as well. I do agree that the consumption of time needs to go down though. This is more of an activity thing though, & can be solved with active referees willing to take them (I cannot handle TLR for everyone, folks). Basically, this can be solved with more active referees and/or shorter TLR's, but even then, refereeing is a self-motivated commitment, so this is kinda hard to solve... :|
2) The Legend Run is counter consuming: The amount of counters required to go into a TLR with some degree of success is ludicrous. Unless someone is lucky enough to have three trained mons which already fit the bill perfectly, he has to buy one to three new mons, and spend a lot of time (or universal counters if you're rich) to get them into shape - because unlike raids, you really need trained Pokemon for TLR due to the vast support movepools required. Then there's consummables and Poke Balls, which cost a sizeable amount of CC too. And what's worse, if you end up failing, a lot of those CC basically went wasted. If you're looking to try a not-fully-scouted TLR (read: not TT/MC/perhaps BSC) you'll need either a friend who scouts before/after you, or an impossibly high amount of CC to pay for your runs (unless you're just scouting the first two-three battles or something).
I agree with this statement. I spent 100+ CC on my latest TLR (Uber difficulty), which is awaiting a subref because of inactive referees. Also I would not necessarily say that all the CC gets wasted if you lose. You still have the items you did not use, making your next run usually cheaper, but then again, not everyone has the CC. I guess the CC-limited backpack will solve this problem.
3) The Legend Run is extremely luck based: The kind of influence RNG has over TLRs is ridiculous. There's a lot of events which are completely RNG based. In 30-50 rounds of battling, RNG ends up mattering a lot - especially because unlike raids, your chances to minimize hax are much lower against a human opponent who doesn't just attack like raid bosses. And finally, catching a legendary is EXTREMELY luck based. Even in the nearly impossible situation that you got the legendary to 1% HP and sleeping, you're looking to a 22ish % catch chance (half the time, because Sports Ball). But we're talking about Pokemon with skyhigh stats, full movepools (including shit like Rest), and cruel arenas on your side. Unless your ref is particularly bad or unlucky, your chances to lock a legendary into such "favourable" odds are slim... in which case you're looking at 10% or so chances to catch, if not less.
Yeah we can fix this with the proposed capture mechanics, & making the scenarios less of a luck-sack. I agree with the luck statement, & well, yeah. As someone who wiped Ice Spire after throwing more than 10 balls at a Regice, I can testify to this...
4) The Legend Run is hard: it may sound odd, maybe obvious, but some TLR encounters are really damn hard - especially when you don't just need to win. You either need to win with enough life/energy to continue or you need to expose yourself to try and catch the opposing Pokemon. Then there are traps, arena effects, all sort of elements which make most TLR battles extremely harsh (even way before meeting the legend).
What I love about TLR's is the challenge of it. The fact that you have to earn your legend is what I like the most about it. If after the revamps that TLR is on a similar level of difficulty at least relative to the current format, then I would be happy. The last thing I want is a TLR that is easy. Catching is the game of TLR, & if I do not catch the legend in the end, if I catch a mon, at least I am walking away with something, & that is kinda another thing I like, the fact that everyone gets something out of the TLR, & 90% of the time, it is more than just counters, a new Pokémon, a host of new items that would have cost you money to buy, etc. Going back off my tangent, but I would rather a TLR that is challenging as opposed to a TLR that is easy. I want to feel like I earned the legend, I deserved it, etc. Catching the legend without breaking a sweat is boring. I want something that rewards skill, not blind luck.
5) The Legend Run is incredibly info sensitive: Due to the huge amount of events, wild encounters, random effects and so on, the amount of information required to stand a chance in a TLR is ridiculous. But, unlike raids, the amount of scouting required to get it right is even worse. In raids, you generally need one, in the rarest cases two tries to get a good idea of what the boss can do and how to beat it. But in TLR, with a range of encounter events ranging from five-six to ten or more, you may need three, four, five attempts if not more, before having good info about the TLR itself. Even getting up to the legend once doesn't necessarily help you a lot for next attempt, because a lot of stuff you could've just missed because of RNG and thus not have the info available.
The more I think about it, the more the idea of making TLR's fully transparent sounds like a great idea. As someone blessed with knowing what is in store for every TLR for at least two years, I can say that full transparency can result in less runs wasted just for information. The idea of mapping TLR's should not be a problem if the TLR has enough to account for all possible strategies that can counter it. Basically there is no reason why the public cannot view TLR Data (We already have this with Mysterious Cove).
One very small nitpick about what IAR said. I agree on almost all of your comments, I just feel to remind you (and others) that I didn't list these points with the idea in mind that each of them is an issue which requires fixing. Taken alone, nearly none of them are intrinsically objectionable (bar perhaps the luck factor). However, what I find overwhelming is the combination of all these factors. For example, time consumption + difficulty + expenses tend to make a deadly combo, which really puts a strain on any reasonable effort.
About your comment on point (1): you can ask for timely reffing as much as you want, but that's something ideal which won't happen the majority of the time. When I projected raids, I tried to vow myself to ref raids once per day, but when I calculated the actual length of raids, I realistically assumed 2 days per round. This frame of time takes into account both the delays caused by the players (sometimes a person needs to think, you know, before difficult battles) and by the referees (which are almost always in a difficult position by definition, and so need to think a lot to turn the tables against the challenger. Not to mention they also have to ref). And in fact, if you could check the raids of the past two years, you'd see that generally 2 days per round is the average. (for example, 20-round raids generally last approx 90 days)
This is why I'm very skeptical when you say:
With optimum activity from both users, & quick posting, it is quite possible to get a TLR completed with a challenger success in roughly two weeks, & I have managed to do that in the past.
Even assuming 1 ref per day rate (which, as I explained before, is kind of an optimistic assumption to begin with), 2 weeks amount to approx 14-15 rounds. Maybe you could get something like Mysterious Cove completed in such a short time, but I doubt even that is possible. In general, as you said, you're looking to roughly 30 rounds for Legendary/Uber TLRs, which means 30-60 days of reffing (assuming an average of 1-2 days per reffing). That's not a short amount of time, not by any definition of that. And unless you find a pretty large slew of referees which are so active that they can ALWAYS work on a 1-ref-per-day basis for 2+ weeks (I count very few, if at all), we can't rely on this kind of solution.
