Legendary Pokemon in Role Plays

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Pallas Athena

Pallas Athena

Approved by the RP Committee.

Back in January, as part of the discussion on Legendary Pokemon, Deck Knight allowed certain legendary Pokemon to be distributed by Role Plays that are not The Legend Run. Specifically, this list was allowed:

Articuno
Azelf
Celebi
Cobalion
Cresellia
Deoxys-All Formes
Entei
Heatran
Keldeo
Kyurem-Normal
Landorus/Landorus-T
Latias-w/o Soul Dew
Latios-w/o Soul Dew
Meloetta
Mesprit
Moltres
Phione
Raikou
Regice
Regigigas
Regirock
Registeel
Shaymin
Suicune
Terrakion
Thundurus/Thundurus-T
Tornadus/Tornadus-T
Uxie
Virizion
Zapdos

The RP Committee wanted to seek community feedback on the issue. To be clear, we are allowed to let these legends be distributed outside TLR. We are by no means required to do so. This thread will help us focus the conversation on specific aspects of the debate. For now, we want to start by asking the following questions:

Should Specifically Allowed Legendary Pokemon be offered as rewards in Role Plays that are not The Legend Run? Why do you think so? How will this change impact ASB?

We are NOT going to discuss how these legends could be distributed, which RPs would give which legends, how difficult it would have to be, etc. All discussion of these issues until the OP is specifically edited to allow them will be highly frowned upon.

To open debate, here is a quick rundown of discussion points the RP Committee has come up with:

Positives of release:
-Alleviates TLR backup
-Gives a new motivation to participate in RPs, most of which have declining activity
-Unique ways to obtain legends

Negatives of release:
-Mostly the same people win RPs and TLR
-Simpler solution of the two
-Removes some of the uniqueness of TLR

Other points were discussed on both sides and we look forward to receiving more community input and debate.

EDIT: See post 21 for new discussion questions.
 
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I haven't done any RPs or TLRs, but it sounds like including Legendaries in an RP is okay. But I would only include them rarely in an RP, as a non-guranteed chance to the side (albeit, with a significant effect on the RP when they do appear).
 
Perhaps each RP should have a hard mode and an easy mode, to keep it a challenge. For example, a higher rank than your pokemon in the Battle Hall. That would keep incentive to use TLRs as a source of that, but you could use others. That would make people have to work hard for it, without people just training needing a lot of effort. Also, this new means of getting legendaries would probably make more people ref those RPs that give them. That should help with the Battle Hall Queue length (just recently, it took me 2 weeks to get through). The TLRs could still be used as a source of items AND pokemon, generally cheaper than buying those pokemon on their own. The TLRs could also be used to give out the higher-level legendaries, leaving a use for it while making legendaries easier to get.

Releasing legendaries would probably lead to complaints about people using legendaries more in battle, that could be a negative. A positive could be that legendaries would make the RPs more popular, and make it more popular to ref RPs, hopefully shortening queue length.
 
A positive could be that legendaries would make the RPs more popular, and make it more popular to ref RPs, hopefully shortening queue length.
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This point is absolute bullshit, and I'm partially insulting the integrity of bullshit there. The popularity of an RP does not, in any way shape or form, cause more people to want to ref an RP - All an increase in popularity does is add more work onto an already busy load for the refs of that RP, which by definition would increase the expected waiting time (This can be demonstrated in a number of ways and instances). Please note that just because we don't have the large banner reminding people that this conversation will be moderated in order to keep discussion intelligent and focussed doesn't mean that we aren't doing so - in other words, think through what you're about to post, and justify your statements. Thanks =)

As for my thoughts on the general matter:

I disagree that releasing legends will reduce the TLR load - mainly because there isn't one to reduce at the moment. In general I believe legends should only be rewarded in tournaments as approved, or through TLRs - other RPs are easier, and it would invalidate a large amount of work if there's a substantially easier way to obtain a given reward.
 
Adding legends as a hall reward shortens the queue.
Mulan, your logic always strikes me as excellent.

Anyway ~~~~~~~~~

I am in favor of allowing legends as rewards for certain RPs. There are a few reasons for this.

1) Doing something like beating the hall is very, very hard. It requires being a good-great player who knows how to overcome type disadvantage AND beating a mon that is a higher rank. To be honest, the rewards are very low for doing all that. The same can be said for other facilities and general rps.

2) TLR is exclusive. Despite the new price changes, it still requires a good 20-40 CC to viable challenge "Beginner" TLRs. If legends exist at all (which they do in Smogon ASB, we are rather unique in that) they should be exclusive but not that exclusive.

3) I had a third but I forget it, I'll edit it in some time.
 
I am also in favor of allowing legends as rewards for non-TLR RPs. As a newer player, I can't even seriously attempt the beginner TLRs, no matter my mons or skill level, I just don't have the CC for it. I can, however, attempt the hall, and try and win based off of my skill level. Making legends as rewards for extra-hard versions of RPs is something that allow newer players to make a serious attempt for a legend. That being said, I don't think that the harder versions of the RPs should be easy enough for most newbies to obtain a legend at all, and I also think there should be a different difficulty level based on the legend you are trying to obtain. Phione should not be as difficult to obtain as Heatran.

As an alternative to getting a set legend upon completing an RP, maybe a roulette-type reward could be implemented. The current reward for beating the hall matron is 6 CC and 2 KOC, and a regular battle is 2 CC and 2 KOC. Under a roulette system, I would propose that the hall matron's base reward is the same as a regular battle, and a roulette reward. For a regular battle hall challenge that might mean there's a (very low) chance for a weak legend (such as phione), and the other 'slots' have things like 4 CC or 4 KOC, or 2 of each. If the roulette 'lands' on the weak legend, the ref rolls to determine which weak legend. The chance to get a legend would get more and more likely with each progressive level of extra difficulty, perhaps culminating in a 100% chance to get a legend and being more likely to obtain a stronger one.
 
The problem with the roulette idea is that people can pick out and train a mon specifically for the hall, do an incredible run, beat the matron, ... and not get the legend. If offered as prizes, legends should NOT be luck based. If possible to catch it is obviously luck based.
 
People don't understand what I was saying, then. I'll give up on that. I drew a connection between more popularity and longer queues, and then longer queues to more people wanting to shorten it. I then figured that would mean more refs, and the queue would, at worst, stay the same, and, at best, shorten.

Other than me making a connection that everyone else missed, I agree with almost everything that has been stated. However, I think that the roulette-type rewards could be done as an option (after each battle choose between the roulette and the prior rewards). It should add up to a 100% chance of a legend of some type for the last battle (if you do not win one beforehand), to make it not entirely luck-based.
 
Mulan15262 said:
People don't understand what I was saying, then. I'll give up on that. I drew a connection between more popularity and longer queues, and then longer queues to more people wanting to shorten it. I then figured that would mean more refs, and the queue would, at worst, stay the same, and, at best, shorten.
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Longer queues means existing refs get more stressed and frustrated and no one else wants to ref. See: Hall, Arcade

If you put a legend in, and new refs don't pop up, you just increased the queue.

Putting them in Hall would be a REALLY bad idea for this reason. We have a queue of about 8-10 constantly, we don't need that number to be 20-25. If anything, Gold Pike should be the only facility that would ever think of putting legends in as prizes, because there's enough refs to meet demand (3 Gold refs, with like 5 challengers or so at Gold level). It's also really difficult, maybe even more so than beating Argenta in Hall.
 
Just some points I'd like to make clear:

1) If you feel adding a legend is somehow necessary to boost the popularity of a certain roleplay, then your roleplay is bad to begin with. Good, popular roleplays (including TLR itself) are popular because they are good in their own right, and give people something to do besides endless battling and I guess Gyms. I know this is a bit of a strawman of Mulan's arguments (maybe we could all try to cool a bit please?), but I don't want any roleplay wannabe to get any naughty ideas about this.

2) If a facility has a medium to long queue, then it's popular enough. This is basically what Dogfish and other said but I feel it needs repeating. Sometimes an RP being too popular is not necessarily a good thing, if the referee workforce can't meet the demand. For example, I try my hardest to not have any queues in the Raid Zone, but I'd frighten at the idea of all ASB players queuing it at the same time!

3) One question we haven't addressed yet is: Should all legendaries be available through TLR? This question seems basically the same of the OP, but it is actually a slight variation of it. The OP basically asks the community if other RPs should be allowed to give out legendaries or not. My question, on the other hand, is if said legends should also be catchable via TLR or not.

Personally, I feel that every legend that is catchable outside the TLR should be catchable inside the TLR as well. While I can see a point in forcing people to go through the Legend Run to catch a legend (since the RP has been designed specifically for that, in more than a way), or even to have them go in a tournament (under the assumption that, sooner or later, that legend will be available through other means as well), I don't feel I should be forced to go through Hall, Arcade, Raids, or anything else you may devise should they desire a particular legend. For example, I dislike the setup of some of these roleplays in themselves (especially the Arcade), and forcing me to go through it to obtain something which has never been intended for it in its inception feels slightly unfair to me.
 
While I would like to have a way to get legends more quickly (since you would be able to go on several runs [different RPs] instead of just one), I am more inclined to leave legends exclusive to TLR and Tournaments, the reason being that I feel that TLR is, like, the perfect way to make legends available. You want it? You go on an epic adventure through many dangerous and hard events to get the chance to batte it, and then finally catch it after a grueling fight.

I think that, instead of trying to get more places where you can get legends, we should worry more about the one we already have, since TLR has a good deal of problems (most succesful runs taking near or more than a year to complete being the most worrying).
 
The RP Committee has a long list of questions regarding implementation if we decide to release legends outside of TLR. While I recognize that it is hard to keep the two topics distinct, this thread at this time is more for discussing whether or not they should be released at all than how they should be released if they are.

The current narrative about whether or not this would overwhelm existing facilities is more the direction that this thread should take right now, rather than discussions on how large the implementation should be or how difficult the legends should be to obtain in facilities.
 
Oh boy time to dislodge the bandwagon.

I am against releasing Legendary Pokemons outside of TLR. May I first quote the OP's list of pros:
... Positives of release:
-Alleviates TLR backup
-Gives a new motivation to participate in RPs, most of which have declining activity
-Unique ways to obtain legends

...
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Releasing non-TLR legendaries would not do much, if at all, to positives #1 and #2. TLR backups and declining activity in RPs do not happen because of anything related to a Legendary - these things happen because we only had one Flora, one Frosty, one Box, one ww, and now one akela. If we could have 3 of them then those things wouldn't have happened, but as it stands, reff shortage is the main reason for those issues, and saying releasing Legendaries would in some way encourage more people to reff them sounds dubious to me. Positive #3, as well as the negatives listed in the OP wouldn't affect referee workload or battler activity much, so I'll pass.

When non-TLR legendaries would be introduced, it is natural for people to expect being able to have them without the 40-CC preparation TLR players run through. But they forget that in order to beat an RP, it takes a certain amount of skill and investment (you'll still need to get a decent movepool on a decent mon). So I can doomsday-prophesise that it won't take long after release for people to complain about "non-TLR Legendaries are still exclusive". So we'll get a tsunami of negative feelings, pretty much the same as the feelings shared by beginners towards TLRs. In short, I don't think there are concrete positives to releasing Legendaries outside of TLR, which makes it

In fact, let me drop a homemade flashbang here (note that it might not work since it's homemade) - WHY do we need to find other ways of releasing Legendaries? For quite a long time, it is only to recognise great skill and long-term activity in players (something tourneys and TLRs do explicitly, since you can't win either without both criteria stated above). And people suggest beating Hall Matron as one of the ways to get a Legendary - when is history, the number of players who'd been able to do so can be counted in a single hand IIRC. Which is even more exclusive than TLRs and Hard Mode Raids, in turn making such releases a waste of RP committee time, IMHO.

Right now the RP environment is not conducive towards the release of non-TLR Legendaries. Maybe we can do so when we have a suitably designed RP (AOPS suggested Gold Pike and I can agree with it, also I'd like to see if Zar can be persuaded to turn them into prizes for maybe beating certain Hard Mode Raids), and a community sufficiently large enough to sustain this project. Finally, I'd like to quote this:

<dogfish44> It makes Sunflora the best Groudon counter!

Why would you need a Groudon if you can still be beaten by a Sunflora in ASB? To give bragging rights to the Sunflora owner? :P

EDIT: Okay, too long; didn't read version. Our community is currently not able to sustain another RP, what with most RPs already having a shortage of referees and/or volunteers to complete the transition to Gen 6, so using not-TLR RPs for Legendaries would not be beneficial to the RP environment.
 
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That positive meant that if players could obtain the same legend in and outside of TLR, it might alleviate some of the challenge backlog to TLR if players made their bid elsewhere. As for what RP difficulty is needed to obtain a legend, that is a whole discussion outside of the current one. For now, the discussion is a theoretical "if the right RP/circumstances occurred, would we be willing to release a Legendary Polemon outside of a tournament or TLR." What those RPs and circumstances are is a totally separate debate.
 
Ermm...

I don't get your points zt haha.

I don't want to really enter the discussion, but I would like just to emphasize some points so the discussion doesn't derail any further (read: add to what red said):
a) We never said a legendary will be given only when you beat Hall entirely, so don't base your arguments around that. The benchmarks for getting the opportunity to catch a legendary will be decided later, should this pass. In other words, saying that other RPs are easier/harder than TLR (the simple fact that people above regarded other RPs are both "easier" and "way harder" shows how adorable that argument is) is pointless since they will have their overall difficulty rehauled (and the benchmarks will be carefully chosen as well) in order to make getting a legendary through them as hard as through TLRs;
b) Ref shortage is an entirely different subject that is being (or will be or should be) addressed accordingly regardless of legendaries or not. There was a thread about it before and I suggest you go check it (thread about "cooldown" time before trying the same RP again). So don't answer the question based solely on "oh but if you increase the number of people playing the RP we will asplode!". If we want ASB to be a fun experience and assuming RPs are fun, our (read: at least mine) goal on the RP Committee should be to make it that the highest number of players challenge them. Surely...this means that we will need to make RPs more attractive (or get RPs that fill in different gaps) and we will need to give them the proper structure (refs and all) so they work smoothly.

The whole point of this discussion is not to say if the way RPs are now can handle Legendaries properly. Be sure that, if Legendaries are indeed released on RPs, those RPs will have to be completely rehauled to accomodate that as well as refs need to be hired and trained and etc.

In other words, what we are asking is: "Should we bother to add Legendaries to RPs?" or "Should we bother to try to find other ways not-named-TLR to consistently get a Legendary without the need to wait forever for a tourney?"

If you don't mind relying on the updates of TLR or on passing through queues to get Legendaries, then by all means say so. Saves us time.
 
Personally, I'm fine with the idea of legends being available outside of TLR. But like Zarator said, they should get their own TLR as well. My "ideal" I guess would be having more than one way to obtain the legends in question, as I personally never really want to tackle a TLR. But I'd be willing to try my hand at an RP that isn't such a CC sink. I realize it's being revamped, but its still a lot of CC considering that there's only 2 legends I want.
While I realize this is a separate discussion, as mentioned above me, the only real hesitation I have is that the other methods be equally difficult. A very hard thing to measure, but that is all.
 
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Despite the fact that you need a whopping thirteen badges to get one, there is enough precedent from this prize to suggest that we could offer Legendary Pokémon for major achievements in other non-TLR role-plays if we want to (counting the Gym League as a role-play).

I am not really for or against giving out Legendary Pokémon in role-plays as it stands, but the fact that a Victini can be obtained in what is technically a role-play (non-TLR) is something that should be considered moving forward in this discussion.
 
I'm not against giving legends on RPs as long as this are against a reasonable level of dificulty, for example all you need to beat lvl 1 or 2 of the hall is an overleveled Togepi/Munchlax, I'm not saying the people that used this won only due to the huge movepool adventages but those definetly played a role when you're against pokemon with <20 moves, even lvl 3 to me seems not hard enough, but for winning lvl 5 it seems like an appropiate price (or maybe beating all levels once), the equivalent of an achievement in a videogame in my mind.
 
Gerard said:
I'm not against giving legends on RPs as long as this are against a reasonable level of dificulty, for example all you need to beat lvl 1 or 2 of the hall is an overleveled Togepi/Munchlax, I'm not saying the people that used this won only due to the huge movepool adventages but those definetly played a role when you're against pokemon with <20 moves, even lvl 3 to me seems not hard enough, but for winning lvl 5 it seems like an appropiate price (or maybe beating all levels once), the equivalent of an achievement in a videogame in my mind.
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Rank 5 Argenta: Ref gets to use Arceus, of the typing they get to pick. Good luck.

The thing about TLRs is not that they are impossible, but that you really need to prepare, scout, have a good team, and know what you're doing. TLRs are the only roleplays where you have to pay a bunch of money to have a chance, and that's why they can give out legends as prizes, because you are essentially paying 40-200 CC (depending on how many times you have to try) to get that legend.

With every other RP, except Gyms, there is no such thing as 100 CC of preparation. You go in, counterteam the facility boss, and hope you don't get unlucky. Gyms you actually have to have a really varied team with lots of threats, which will take somewhere around that much preparation, just to get Victini. But, for instance, Subway, you go in, bring 3 Pokemon to beat Excadrill/Haxorus/Chandelure, truck through three battles, and go win. If you lose at some point, you get some free MC and come back 3 days later.

I don't really like the idea of giving legends as prizes to RPs that don't need some investment (~40-50 CC) to beat, not only because of the queue issue, but because there is no price for trying and failing over and over, and inevitably more people will beat them than TLRs because they don't have funds for TLRs and such. Either that, or it will be impossible, like Rank 5 Hall.
 
Erm...

I find it funny that you say this, considering that, afaik, only 3 (Emma with Togepi, Engineer with Munchlax and C$FP with Perish-Turn Kitsunoh) managed to defeat Hall and only 8 Managed to get a 8 streak on Subway (and the benchmark we were thinking was 12 just to give you an idea), while there are more than 11 legendaries distributed.

It's not just a matter of counterteaming. Either with Gyms or with Roleplays, you can be sure as hell it is more than just counterteaming. Winning relies on your overall skill as a player, while the same doesn't happen as much with TLR since it wasn't made to overwhelm you on an equal battle (but to see how you manage many battles and healing and etc).
 
I think we're at more or less the limit of conversation we will get out of this topic, so I will move it on to other questions now. Note that discussion of exactly how hard an RP would need to be or attempts to establish specific routes to get a legend are still banned. If you must base your arguments on beating the hall or something, just say "a very hard permanent challenge that few users have done." Discussion of RP queues and refs is also probably a bad idea unless it is very directly tied to obtaining a legend, such as the quality of refs or the equivalent amount of time needed to get through a challenge. If you feel strongly about the current lines for RPs, talk to the RP owner or the RP committee privately as that is a separate issue entirely.

With that said, here are the new questions:

1) Should Legends be rewarded for Permanent RPs (ex: Subway, Hall, Pike) or only for any temporary challenges that may arise, as the Tournament Legends have given precedent too. Note that this does not refer to specific challenges in the future, but only a hypothetical one as there are currently no Roleplays like this that have approval. Alternatively, should they only be rewarded for Permanent RPs.

2) Should current RPs with only tangential connections to Legends be allowed to release them or only RPs with a clear connection to a Legendary Pokemon?

3) Tied to #2, should an active effort be made to release all or a subset of legends (such as those release by TLRs or weaker ones), or should they only be released when a specific RP calls for it and it is deemed to be of equivalent difficulty to other means of obtaining the legend or the most similar one presently obtainable?


A reminder that discussing specific avenues that legends may be obtained is frowned upon. This discussion is almost entirely theoretical.
 
While the lack of feedback is, itself, feedback, I would like opinions regarding this.


Sure if no one replies in, say, a week we will lock the topic and continue the discussion in black alley with a bottle of cheap whisky and some girls PM amongst the committee.
 
Would like to say that if Legendaries are ever released, might as well release them as a permanently open option, so that players who missed that time window can, in future, expect to give the said release a try.
 
Very Little. Basically the lack of interest from this thread passed to the committee discussion.

There are some issues about this that involves TLRs. Actually TLRs were mentioned quite a lot in our discussions.

I will pester Dogfish44 and put him in the convo as the RP overlord and one of the TLR pair. And cast Revive on it while doing so. If you don't get an answer in like...uh...one month, then feel free to lock this and cast the result as being "nah for now".
 
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