[Implemented] Event Pokemon as Swarms

[Alex]

Since other regions are still a long way off, how about having foreign pokemon occasionally come in swarms? While the rare ones make good rewards for tournaments and whatnot, this might be a nice way to let players get the more common ones from the other games.

Maybe some kind of daily event, where each day there would be a guest wild pokemon available on a specific route. This would help prevent players from getting bored since there would be something new every day. And even if they miss out on a pokemon they like, they can always trade for one, and eventually people will be able to breed more.

Examples:

One day, wild Houndour can be found in Route 7.

Another day, wild Feebas can be found by fishing in Celadon City.

Another day, wild Shroomish can be found in Viridian Forest.

I don't know how feasible this would be, since Fire Red didn't have a swarming mechanic. Also I don't know if it's even possible to change what wild pokemon appear without needing to patch it.

[Safushio]

That sounds like a really cool idea.

[Zidane]

Cool idea indeed.

WHERES MY MUDKIPZ?!

[Forks]

I support this

[Generic230]

I agree. Having it undocumented with a large rotation of swarms would make it more fun.

[Alex]

I agree. Having it undocumented with a large rotation of swarms would make it more fun.

That works well with this being a MMO. Like in the old games you'd find out about swarms from NPC trainers calling you, here you'd hear of a swarm from other players in the chat.

[foshu]

This would be relatively easy to do, complexity-wise. I'm all for it, sounds like a great idea!

[DaVVp]

To be honest, the idea of discovering a truely new region with truely new pokemon would sound better to me :/...

Swarm pokemon would be quite rare then, since there are about 230 pokemon from other regions...

I'm not really sure about this... can't agree for now.

[Enk]

This is a great idea. The events give players something new to do, fuel discussion, keep you coming back, rewards veteran players, etc etc etc. So many plus sides to this over 'HURR DURR ENTIRE NEW REGION' that it's not even funny.

[Norfok]

awesome idea, indeed!

[skazord]

Good idea, but should be controlled. Spawn rate for these should be low, area should be randomized, and maybe limited to 1-2 pokemons per day. If not, players would easily get all pokemons from other regions without even going there, and I suppose that's not intended.

[foshu]

Spawn rate for these should be low

I agree with all your other points, but the idea of "swarm" is to overtake whatever is there. Having swarms be time specific e.g. last for an hour, already limits the amount of people that will be able to catch them. I mean, I can see where you're coming from, wanting to make sure that swarm pokemon feel rare, but it's not like the pokemon that will be used will likely be "strong" pokemon. Having a swarm of hoothoot take over Route 2 won't break the game or metagame, if you get what I mean.

[rfultra]

great idea

[jonhwoods]

Since other areas are probably far, far ,far away and that this would be relatively easy to implement it could be in the game until its possible to obtain the Pokes in an other way. This way, all Gen3 Pokemons are always available (at least the commons ones)

[Alex]

This would be relatively easy to do, complexity-wise.

this would be relatively easy to implement

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Even seemingly simple things can bring forth all sorts of unexpected nastiness.

But people have already been thinking about some kind of clock for day/night and changing encounter rates to put in the LeafGreen exclusives. So maybe once those two things happen and all the other higher-priority stuff gets out of the way, we'll see what they can do.

[foshu]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Even seemingly simple things can bring forth all sorts of unexpected nastiness.

Trust, me, if the software is well managed, this would be nothing more than controlling a few lists. And of course there might be errors, but in programming, those happen more than you know.

[Kytober]

Swarms sound like a nice idea if it's as easy as foshu thinks it will be, but what if there's a swarms of a pokemon everyone wants? Would the large influx of people to a small area mean anything bad for the servers?

[foshu]

what if there's a swarms of a pokemon everyone wants?

Maybe for the initial swarm, but a number of things will ultimately decide the amount of impact: popularity/competitive viability of the pokemon in question. if the breeding system has already been implemented, and how easily accessible the area is. It really depends on how many people will actually care. If the breeding system is implemented by the time this is considered, it'll give some people even less of a reason to go to a swarm, knowing that they could get better ones once breeders get their hands on one.

But one can never really tell. I only think it won't be that big of a deal if it happens every now and then. Obviously if swarms were a one month thing, people would go crazy. So I guess the rarity of swarms will also play a large role.

[Kytober]

Once every other day sounds like a good timeframe. It would give the breeders enough time to work on one pokemon before the next big rush began.

[Alex]

Would the large influx of people to a small area mean anything bad for the servers?

We've had packs of people in spooky tower and sup-ma-digga's cave without any issue. I think it would take a ridiculous number of people in one place to cause any problems.

[Arsene]

We've had packs of people in spooky tower [...]

We need packs of people in spooky tower otherwise 3skary

[Kytober]

Any thoughts on the timespans of swarms?

[foshu]

Any thoughts on the timespans of swarms?

I think we would be fine with daily or weekly swarms. I prefer weekly swarms because until we get johto/hoenn, we won't see much outside of gen I, and daily swarms might spoil us with too many too early (unless we have a system that has a set number of basic pokemon in a rotation).

Until we hear from the dev's on their plans for something like this, we can only speculate and come up with our own ideas. But that's what we're here for :)

[XelaKebert]

Swarms have been implemented.