Changing/Removing 4 item limit does not mean ruining economy or lowering difficulty

[Kirbycide]

Different communities have differing opinions on whether it's better to make new threads after old ones die out or bump the old one. 

My choice is generally to make new ones until someone tells me otherwise.  Anyway, I don't think the discussion here 

 

 

really goes deep enough regarding item use.  I'm gonna give a little context, because my suggestions make more sense with the context and many people will blow it off the suggestions without it

 

but you can skip to the end for tldr and go back to read the details if what I say doesn't make sense.

 

In the past week, I played through, emerald, platinum, and white for the first time. I had only played blue before this, but I thought it was worthwhile to run through and get some rare or even pokemon into pokemon bank / pokemon home since bank is free after eshop got shut down. I got to ORAS (chose AS) which is far enough to get previous generations to bank only to find out home (which was advertised as free on pokemon go) was actually tiered and the free tier doesn't allow transfers from bank. Ok, whatever. I enjoyed playing through the games on their own and decided to go back and play the games I missed instead of moving on to the 3DS and switch generations.  (looking forward to HGSS because I heard you go back to kanto afterwards) But I started with white 2 since white is still fresh in my memory. and going to move backwards.  

 

While going through white 2 (I'm 7 badges through) there was a pokemon that did really low special attack regardless of how high I leveled it, so I went and bought calciums for the first time in all the games and it... had little effect. So I Went and did some research on IV and EVs and how they work and that's how I discovered pokemmo

 

cool! no point really in playing the official pre-3DS games since I don't care about bank anymore -- And I thought it could be a 1:1 replacement for the games except with more player interaction from the MMO features.

 

I was on discord while setting up the game and character and people suggested starting in the region you're most familiar with (I didn't ask, I was reading answers from other people asking). So I started in pallet town since that's the only game I played for more than 2 days, even though it's been probably over 20 years at this point. I beat brock, and moved on to misty anticipating it to be difficult (As a child it was more difficult for me than later gyms)  So I decided to stock up on items before the battle. 

 

I get in the battle and... I can only use 4 items?! yes decisions are arbitrary and preference but this one felt very wrong to me. Pokemon is already a simple enough game with so many restrictions already, why limit it more? You're forcing players to play how you decide to and how it "should" be played instead of encouraging players to find their own solutions. As a Fighting game player whose main game is Street Fighter II [ST specifically for those who care, -- and I'm damn good at it -- I place in tournaments]. I absolutely hate it Modern fighting games went this route for the past 10 years, and are only starting to shift back now. And everyone loves the return to form.

 

I ended up beating the gym anyway, because earlier on discord someone offered to loan me the starters that I didn't pick until I beat the E4 and the squirtle they loaned me were overpowered compared to the other starters. -- I was limiting my use of it until all my pokemon were more on the same level -- similiar to how people self impose limits with nuzlocks --.  I ended up using squirtle because I didn't expect this limitation, but I don't think it's discouraging that I couldn't use the solution I'm naturally inclined to in jRPG type battles.

 

The only reasons I can really think to limit items are the mmo environment (probably economy) and difficulty. I had a discussion on the discord about and I don't think the 4 item limit needs to be as restrictive as it is currently to preserve those.  And i'm talking about PvE not PvP. Most if not all MMOs already have a different set of rules for PvE and PvP and item use can just be another difference.

 

For the economy -- People mention rematch battles get more difficult the more times you repeat them. So I assume the rewards scale as well? 

-you can allow a less restrictive use of items only in the initial story run.

-mmo economies tend to fail because of inflation, consumables are and should be money sinks.  Especially for lower reward battles where people "should" be able to clear them without items. Allow them to use items. If they want to spend more than the money reward to beat whatever section they want to beat, why not let them? it gives more agency to money management.

You can even adjust the price of items, or reduce the rewards to manage the economy and still allowed for more varied gameplay.

 

which brings me to difficulty

"you're just paying to win with consumables what's the point?"

First of all, others --correctly mentioned that you can also pay for an OP pokemon and mash A. That's allowed, what's the point in that?

Second of all, There is strategy in correctly choosing and timing the use of items. You can definitely still get wiped out even with unlimited consumables, -- which by the way, consumables aren't unlimited because of money, and I don't know if mmo has inventory limitations but because the mainline games do I assume they may be here too.

 

"If you have unlimited revives, then you can just keep reviving until the opponent runs out of PP and struggles to death"

Yes, I didn't think of this initially, But I do also have a few answers to this as well.

 

First of all, and I'm going to use an example coming from an arcade background. People play in different ways and have different goals.  Some people speedrun through arcade games trying to complete them as fast as possible, Some don't care about speed and go purely for 1CCs or no deaths/damage etc,

 

And here's the thing, some go on "endurance" runs for games that have no specified ends.  Infinite runners, once you reach max speed doesn't get any more difficult, it's about endurance.  Same thing with Any arcade game with infinite loops Even pac man, which bugs out at level 256 is really an endurance run. after about level 9 the game doesn't get any more difficult, and the ghosts behave the exact same way every time. Their behaviour is so static that, if you make the same moves every game (entirely possible since you can hold down a direction before turns) the ghosts will take the exact same paths so you can have a route to follow and that will just keep working. 

 

I can absolutely see someone wanting to attempt to make a difficult battle struggle themselves to death. Seems marginally different to any other endurance run in any other game.  Again, it's a money sink too. something that nearly if not all MMOs need more of.  I don't know how events work in pokemmo yet, but you can even encourage people to do this by making an event out of it, or give achievements or whatever for people who manage it outside of events.

 

Also, even with the "endurance run" factor of it aside,  At misty in pallet down, revives aren't even available yet.  Even if they were, you can just have NPCs refill PP when they reach 0 in all their moves, that way people can still predict what moves the NPC will do. Compared to just giving them infinite PP, this way someone can still use PP to predict / limit NPC's moves.

 

Another way you can get around this (not the way I prefer) is to only limit revives, and not other consumables.

 

Something else?  Well, one thing I noticed going into B/W is that "trainer" actions aren't always first in the queue any more. the NPC can attack before a switch. (and maybe before an item too? I'm not sure, i'm going to say this again, I ran through these games in 2 days)  That gives another opportunity for pokemon to all get wiped out even with unlimited revives, and adds another element to planning and strategy for going in with underleveled pokemon and more consumables. 

 

So yeah, there are plenty of ways to remove / tweak the 4 item limit in NPC battles that are absolutely viable and good for the economy as a money sink.

-remove restrictions for initial story run only 

-remove restrictions for low reward battles

-reduce/change consumable price/rewards

-only have restriction on revives

-create challenges that encourage use of consumables

-tweak battle behaviour to something closer to gen 5 rather than closer to gen 3/4

 

Please at least consider increasing the limit from 4. Four items is way, way too restrictive for players who want to experiment / be creative etc. With a 4 level limit you're basically saying items are to fix minor mistakes from a prebuilt team and nothing else. Narrowing strategy options way, way more than I feel is right.  Anything to encourage gameplay away from the direction of "just mash A" can only be good right?

 

And again, what else are going to be money sinks if not consumables?

Edited April 14 by Kirbycide

[MrVdd]

Quote

For the economy -- People mention rematch battles get more difficult the more times you repeat them. So I assume the rewards scale as well? 

No. Rewards mostly stay the same as difficulty increases. Though I haven't reran E4 as much so I'm not sure if the first 4 reruns pay out worse than after they hit max difficulty.
 

Quote

Well, one thing I noticed going into B/W is that "trainer" actions aren't always first in the queue any more. the NPC can attack before a switch. 

Not sure where you think you saw this happen, but trainer actions always go first and if their is a trainer action, the pokemon does not attack.

 

 

Other than that you bring up money sinks a lot, and pokemmo does not experience any inflation except in customizable outfits. For the past couple years I've been playing the cost of 1K RP has remained exactly around 2.4M, the cost of 5X IV non-natured pokemon has remained right around 500k, the cost of ocarinas is always right around the 500K mark as well. This game has no problems with over-inflation or it's money sinks. The only reason it implements the item limit is to increase difficulty and prevent "cheese" strats that people will use for the more difficult content like raids and E4 reruns and boss fights where you actually have to come up with a strat instead of "just spamming A" like you said. 

[Kirbycide]

I brought up 

3 minutes ago, MrVdd said:

No. Rewards mostly stay the same as difficulty increases. Though I haven't reran E4 as much so I'm not sure if the first 4 reruns pay out worse than after they hit max difficulty.
 

Not sure where you think you saw this happen, but trainer actions always go first and if their is a trainer action, the pokemon does not attack.

for sure they can attack before pokemon switching though. I lost a few battles because of that after being used to platinum.

 

4 minutes ago, MrVdd said:

 

Other than that you bring up money sinks a lot, 

I brought up sinks a lot because that seems to be the most common reply from discussions in the other thread and when I brought it up in the discord.  So I REALLY wanted to dissuade that dumb argument.

[MrVdd]

Quote

for sure they can attack before pokemon switching though. I lost a few battles because of that after being used to platinum

The only times they attack before switching are with the moves Volt Switch and U-turn. If a trainer switches a pokemon, it does not attack before switching and never has. Trainer actions go first always.

Edited April 14 by MrVdd

[Kirbycide]

8 minutes ago, MrVdd said:

The only reason it implements the item limit is to increase difficulty and prevent "cheese" strats that people will use for the more difficult content like raids and E4 reruns and boss fights where you actually have to come up with a strat instead of "just spamming A" like you said. 

Yeah. Items really can be part of that strategy, just put the limit on revives or have the limits on just those difficult battles.  I really see no point in limiting items in for example misty's gym like i experienced.

[Kirbycide]

4 minutes ago, MrVdd said:

The only times they attack before switching are with the moves Volt Switch and U-turn. If a trainer switches a pokemon, it does not attack before switching and never has. Trainer actions go first always.

Oh Like i said, I only spent 2 days with those games so maybe I thought there were more than that.   Still doesn't prevent pokemmo from changing that slightly to prevent cheese. they already changed other rules.  4 item limit just seems way too restrictive compared to other options or something less heavy handed.

Edited April 14 by Kirbycide

[Rache]

The 4 item limit was implemented to make trainer battles more fair, forcing players to come back with a better strategy or stronger team if they can't win without excessively chugging potions. It's okay to lose if you're under-prepared or play a fight poorly, the overall goal of the change is to make you better at the game after you've beaten the storyline than you were when you started to ease the transition into harder postgame content and/or PvP.

 

Most important storyline trainers have 1-2 healing items and never have Revives or X items, so you still have a significant advantage over them with the current limit. The restriction makes self-healing moves more valuable as well where previously you might disregard them for being worse than bag items.

 

Item cheese is okay to an extent, but it becomes too big of a crutch if it's not restricted enough. We believe that 4 is a suitable limit.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

First of all, others --correctly mentioned that you can also pay for an OP pokemon and mash A. That's allowed, what's the point in that?

Buying something with a type advantage or something generically good means that you've identified an effective solution to your problem instead of trying to brute force it with bag items. The willingness to change your team to overcome a fight that you're struggling with isn't a bad thing and can be helpful if you stick around after the storyline. A lot of the harder postgame challenges call for thoughtful teambuilding tailored to those fights instead of using the same 6 for everything.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

-create challenges that encourage use of consumables

The Halloween boss is entirely built around consumables (with no limit), but this is only effective because it's a triple battle where multiple mons can faint in a single turn and the boss can heal off any damage it takes if you're not playing aggressively. You actually can be put into a situation where infinite items don't ensure a victory in this context.

 

Healing items in this series are extremely powerful in single battles however as you typically don't lose any ground by using them while your opponent is still expending resources every turn. If you can attack between items, you're progressing the fight directly as well. If you're not able to, X items can change that.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

one thing I noticed going into B/W is that "trainer" actions aren't always first in the queue any more. the NPC can attack before a switch.

Pursuit gains priority and doubles in power if the target is switching out.

 

10 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

And again, what else are going to be money sinks if not consumables?

Healing items have never been a particularly big sink, even when they were unrestricted. Catching, breeding, and listing fees remove a large amount of money from the economy.

[caioxlive13]

People shuffle potions a lot and forgot that there you don't lose money by losing a battle. If you're about to lose it's better to let yourelf be defeated and train instead of delay the inevitable. 

[Kirbycide]

6 hours ago, Rache said:

The 4 item limit was implemented to make trainer battles more fair, forcing players to come back with a better strategy or stronger team if they can't win without excessively chugging potions. It's okay to lose if you're under-prepared or play a fight poorly, the overall goal of the change is to make you better at the game after you've beaten the storyline than you were when you started to ease the transition into harder postgame content and/or PvP.

 

Interesting. What do you think about progressively limiting items until you get to 4 by the end? Suddenly going from regular pokemon games to the 4 item limit was a big shock. I would have rather been eased in if that's the case. and change some of the more useless trainer tips signs / dialogue from unimportant NPCs to reflect this?

 

And regarding type advantage / stronger team.  It's not like I ignore that completely. I choose to run through most jrpgs with a lower level team because i hate grinding for the sake of grinding. and have pots as part of that. but even in 1v1, having unlimited consumables/revives doesn't necessarily mean you can go on forever.  For a simplified example, Say you have 2 pokemon. one is fainted. You use one turn to revive the other, (opponent faints the one on the battle field) The other comes in, but the opponents speed is faster and on hit ko's the other one.

 

So yeah I agree about the type advantage part, but a "stronger" team? you mean leveling pokemon when you're underleveled? Lets agree to disagree on that. because I would prefer grinding for the sake of grinding to be optional.  Especially when end game/pvp has caps anyway and you don't get unlimited scaling

Edited April 15 by Kirbycide

[Rache]

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

Interesting. What do you think about progressively limiting items until you get to 4 by the end?

It's needlessly complicated and feels worse when the crutch is taken away later on when it's wanted the most.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

and change some of the more useless trainer tips signs / dialogue from unimportant NPCs to reflect this?

The number of remaining items you have available is displayed on the bag button at all times during trainer battles. It may not be seen immediately, but NPCs and signs are much easier to ignore.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

And regarding type advantage / stronger team.  It's not like I ignore that completely. I choose to run through most jrpgs with a lower level team because i hate grinding for the sake of grinding. and have pots as part of that.

There's very little "grinding for the sake of grinding" during the storyline unless you're rushing through and skipping all of the optional trainers. A well balanced team should be able to proceed through the majority of the game without battling any wild mons or rematches. Severely underleveled teams can progress if you play them well, but will have a harder time.

 

17 minutes ago, Kirbycide said:

but even in 1v1, having unlimited consumables/revives doesn't necessarily mean you can go on forever.  For a simplified example, Say you have 2 pokemon. one is fainted. You use one turn to revive the other, (opponent faints the one on the battle field) The other comes in, but the opponents speed is faster and on hit ko's the other one.

There's almost always an item-based solution that makes good teambuilding and smart play optional. In this example, you have a few options:

 

1: Revive something that actually can take the hit and use its turns to Revive multiple other party members. Revive that mon again when it faints then repeat.

2: X Defend or X Sp.Def can allow less bulky mons to survive and make progress. X item > Potion > attack or Revive something else > Potion > attack > Potion.

3: Use Potions or Revives until the opponent either misses or runs out of PP on their most dangerous move.

 

The restriction ensures that you instead need to think about which items to use and when to use them.

 

-

Overall, the game has been rebalanced for its older audience and is intended to be reasonably challenging compared to the originals. Bag items are powerful enough that leaving them unlimited (or making the limit so high that it doesn't actually matter) trivializes the difficulty by giving you an easy solution that works for every problem.  A difficulty curve that forces inexperienced players to get better at the game to proceed is important to prevent the postgame from being too jarring of a difficulty spike. Many of the skills picked up along the way can also be applied when learning PvP.

[Kirbycide]

1 hour ago, Rache said:

 

 

There's almost always an item-based solution that makes good teambuilding and smart play optional. In this example, you have a few options:

 

1: Revive something that actually can take the hit and use its turns to Revive multiple other party members. Revive that mon again when it faints then repeat.

2: X Defend or X Sp.Def can allow less bulky mons to survive and make progress. X item > Potion > attack or Revive something else > Potion > attack > Potion.

3: Use Potions or Revives until the opponent either misses or runs out of PP on their most dangerous move.

 

The restriction ensures that you instead need to think about which items to use and when to use them.

 

-

That's my point, taking emphasis away from teambuilding isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not saying allow items to continue to be so strong as to let good teambuilding to be completely optional. However, I think the 4 item limit is like using a machete to carve out a spot better handled by a scalpel.  Sure, it works, but you can more easily get a targeted cleaner cut with a scalpel compared to a clumsy broad cut of a machete.  there is potential for lots of interesting problem solving involving and synergy interactions between items, teams, and situations that's lost.  With only 4 there isn't enough pieces to do interesting item combinations.

 

What's wrong with option 2? without revive, That doesn't seem like to bad a thing to allow.  What would X defend or X sp def be used for if not that? killing an already advantage matchup with a bigger hp lead and safety margin? isn't the ONLY use for x def or X sp def to increase survivability? I'm not talking single items, i'm talking synergy.  Hell, all three isn't bad as long as it's not allowed to loop infinitely.

 

one of the suggestions from my first post would be to only limit revives. which would get rid of all three of these options which "bypass good team building".

 

Another suggestion i made in my original post was to have trainers refill PP when they reach 0 pp, I mentioned all of them for struggle or whatever, but You can do something like, the NPCs refill their PP after 2 moves run out. Or you only get a 1 turn break from the move rather than for the rest of the battle.  Playing around the other trainer's PP rather than just your own should be a viable thing the theorycraft and experiment around.  I'm thinking like, control decks or mill decks in MTG, everyone hates playing against them. But I don't think any serious player would say a restriction that essentially removes the archetype would be bad for the ecosystem.  "All control/mill cards must have the same name" -- would limit a person to 4 cards in a deck and would be a severe strike to the archetypes. Especially mill, because many players see that win condition as against the "spirit" of the game

 

Instead of thinking Teambuilding vs items.  Think of items as part of the teambuilding.  It's a slightly different view and philosophy.  You might not like it, and if that's the case just say that it's not a philosophy you want to encourage.  But at this point i'm only going on because from your replies, I feel like you're rejecting something that's different from what i'm trying to conceptualise and communicate. I'm trying to describe a middle ground and you're rejecting the extreme which we both agree is bad.

 

The examples you gave just now was good, because It allowed me to explain my thoughts in a better way than I could without that prompt.

 

edit: continued thought, back to that purchasing a pokemon example. It would be the equivalent of me saying the focus on pokemon instead of items is bad because someone can just buy a pokemon so overpowered compared to the team leader that it can just ignore a type disadvantage and "bypass proper teambuilding".

 

Or how about this, why specifically 4 as a number? and not 5, 6, or 7? Making a change from 4 to 5 may not seem like a big change at first glance, but for each single item you allow, possible combinations and orders increase exponentially. 7 items would give lots of freedom, but only allow one or two additional repetitions for revive loops. Allows creativity, and prevents the cheese although it takes a bit longer to do so.   -- hmm As i'm writing this I'm making the realization that it seems like  *only* limiting revives rather than all items is probably the best solution to prevent cheese.

 

 

Edit: i'm an idiot cuz you can still infinitely pot -- well except for one hits. Still. why specifically 4?  I think an answer to that question would clarify a lot in terms of your goals, and me possibly making a suggestion that you might consider. Allow the MtG "johnnys" johnny with items too not just pokemon.

 

Edited April 15 by Kirbycide

[Rache]

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

there is potential for lots of interesting problem solving involving and synergy interactions between items, teams, and situations that's lost.  With only 4 there isn't enough pieces to do interesting item combinations.

I'd say that this is actually more effective with the restriction in place as you can still lose if your strategy isn't very good. The limit forces you to use your problem solving skills to pick the right amounts of the right items at the right times to maximize your advantage, relying on your team synergy for what your bag can't do. It requires some amount of skill rather than brute force, which is the goal.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

one of the suggestions from my first post would be to only limit revives. which would get rid of all three of these options which "bypass good team building".

Potions are equally problematic if left unrestricted, especially in combination with stat boosts. Only limiting Revives doesn't resolve the issue.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Another suggestion i made in my original post was to have trainers refill PP when they reach 0 pp, I mentioned all of them for struggle or whatever, but You can do something like, the NPCs refill their PP after 2 run out. Or you only get a 1 turn break from the move rather than for the rest of the battle.  Playing around the other trainer's PP rather than just your own should be a viable thing the theorycraft and experiment around.

PP stalling is a legitimate strategy that isn't necessarily reliant on bag items and is often done without them, it's extremely undesirable to kill it off.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Instead of thinking Teambuilding vs items.  Think of items as part of the teambuilding.  It's a slightly different view and philosophy.  You might not like it, and if that's the case just say that it's not a philosophy you want to encourage. 

Bag items are generic options that every team benefits from, we're going to have to disagree.

 

5 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

Or how about this, why specifically 4 as a number? and not 5, 6, or 7?

It's double what any NPC trainer has, so was chosen as a middle ground of sorts between the previous mechanics and enforcing a fair fight with the same amount of items. You retain a significant advantage at 4 without it being excessive.

[XanarchyNL]

7 hours ago, Kirbycide said:

taking emphasis away from teambuilding isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I strongly disagree with this point. Teambuilding is fundamental to any Pokemon game and should be a major factor in the game's decision-making. It's why the devs have gone through and reworked every single NPC trainer to encourage proper team building.