First of all, I think we can all agree on the fact that it is very time consuming getting into competetive battling if you are a new player starting from scratch.
Second, I believe we can also agree that for the majority of people PvP is the only real option if they want to enjoy this game longer than the few hours it takes to complete the storyline. And while I am aware of the fact that there are also players who enjoy shiny hunting or breeding or battle frontier and don't like PvP, I'm pretty sure that's not much of enjoyment for the average player.
When I orginally started playing this game, I convinced a couple of friends (I believe we were 8 people, if I remember correctly) to play PokeMMO. All of them were Pokemon fans and we all were interested in joining the PvP community. Eventually, all of them except me and my girlfirend stopped playing the game after they realised how time consuming it was getting into competetive gameplay. The time between the moment you finished the storyline until you can finally start your first serious PvP battle is just too long to be fun, in my opinion. First, you have to spend a lot of time becoming familiar with all the game mechanics which are different from the original games (e.g. breeding, berries, tier lists, later gen battle mechanics). After this you can start building your first team and it's not like you could use some of your storyline Pokemon, no you have to start from the very beginning. Grinding money, catching wilds, breeding, EV training, grinding Battle Points,... and all of this at least times six. In most situation all of this will take even longer because you will be doing some newb mistakes everyone of us has done... It's just so many hours you have to spend grinding until you can finally have fun. Oh and it's not like it's done once you're through this, no, you will most likely get wrecked because your first team sucks because you're still a noob and aren't yet familiar with the meta... So you'll have to start all over again.
Well, that was quite a lengthy introduction, but here is my suggestion:
1.) Rent a Pokemon from NPCs:
Create NPCs who offer you to rent a Pokemon after you beat E4 in both regions. They offer some of the most common mons of each category and each tier. Categories would be "Special Wall", "Physical Sweeper" and so on. IVs should be by no means perfect but something like 15/15/15/15/15/31, so they are worse than average selfmade comps. They should come at level 50 with a good EV spread and with a common moveset but without any items. A player can rent a maximum of 3 Pokemon at the same time (so he/she can't build a complete team only with rented mons). Renting a Pokemon will cost for example 10k per 24 hours and has to be payed in advance (I know that's not much, but it should be affordable for new players to rent two or three mons for a few days after all). Rented Pokemon can't be used for breeding, don't count for your Pokedex, can't be traded, sold, released ... etc. Rented Pokemon will be automatically returned after the days you've payed for, so you will always have to have at least one own Pokemon in your team. I also think it would be a good idea to change the offered Pokemon every ~ 2 weeks or so to have little bit of variety.
Here are some OU examples:
Special Sweeper: Jolteon (HP Ice, Thunderbolt), Espeon (Psychic, Signal Beam)
Special Walls: Chansey (Counter, Seismic Toss), Umbreon (Wish, Protect)
2.) Rent a Pokemon from other Players:
This could be a new feature of the GTL. It's basically working the same way as renting Pokemon from NPCs but the player who offers his Pokemon can decide the price per day and the minimum or maximum number of days. Movesets can be changed but after the mon is returned to it's owner, the moveset changes back to how it originally was. The rules for these Pokemon are more or less the same as the ones rented from NPCs with the addition that they can not be renamed (so the owner can leave his/her own little "signature" which is visible in battles if he/she wants to). A player can't offer more than 2 Pokemon at the same time. Offering a Pokemon in the GTL will include a small fee and there will by a cooldown before being able to offer it again.
Advantages of such a feature:
New players can much easier try PvP for the first time
New players will get an idea of the some of the most common Pokemon and movesets
New players can experiment a litte to see which Pokemon fit best for them without risking to much
More experienced players can also try out something new ("I always wondered if a Milotic could be a good addition for my team, let's try it!")
You can more easily try out a new tier you've never played before.
Renting from NPCs is another money sink but it's optional. Nobody is forced to use it.
A new way for breeders to generate a steady income with their breeds.
Ulitmately I strongly believe this will lead to a much more active PvP community and an overall increase of new players getting into competetive battling!
Question
Guest
Introduction:
First of all, I think we can all agree on the fact that it is very time consuming getting into competetive battling if you are a new player starting from scratch.
Second, I believe we can also agree that for the majority of people PvP is the only real option if they want to enjoy this game longer than the few hours it takes to complete the storyline. And while I am aware of the fact that there are also players who enjoy shiny hunting or breeding or battle frontier and don't like PvP, I'm pretty sure that's not much of enjoyment for the average player.
When I orginally started playing this game, I convinced a couple of friends (I believe we were 8 people, if I remember correctly) to play PokeMMO. All of them were Pokemon fans and we all were interested in joining the PvP community. Eventually, all of them except me and my girlfirend stopped playing the game after they realised how time consuming it was getting into competetive gameplay. The time between the moment you finished the storyline until you can finally start your first serious PvP battle is just too long to be fun, in my opinion. First, you have to spend a lot of time becoming familiar with all the game mechanics which are different from the original games (e.g. breeding, berries, tier lists, later gen battle mechanics). After this you can start building your first team and it's not like you could use some of your storyline Pokemon, no you have to start from the very beginning. Grinding money, catching wilds, breeding, EV training, grinding Battle Points,... and all of this at least times six. In most situation all of this will take even longer because you will be doing some newb mistakes everyone of us has done... It's just so many hours you have to spend grinding until you can finally have fun. Oh and it's not like it's done once you're through this, no, you will most likely get wrecked because your first team sucks because you're still a noob and aren't yet familiar with the meta... So you'll have to start all over again.
Well, that was quite a lengthy introduction, but here is my suggestion:
1.) Rent a Pokemon from NPCs:
Create NPCs who offer you to rent a Pokemon after you beat E4 in both regions. They offer some of the most common mons of each category and each tier. Categories would be "Special Wall", "Physical Sweeper" and so on. IVs should be by no means perfect but something like 15/15/15/15/15/31, so they are worse than average selfmade comps. They should come at level 50 with a good EV spread and with a common moveset but without any items. A player can rent a maximum of 3 Pokemon at the same time (so he/she can't build a complete team only with rented mons). Renting a Pokemon will cost for example 10k per 24 hours and has to be payed in advance (I know that's not much, but it should be affordable for new players to rent two or three mons for a few days after all). Rented Pokemon can't be used for breeding, don't count for your Pokedex, can't be traded, sold, released ... etc. Rented Pokemon will be automatically returned after the days you've payed for, so you will always have to have at least one own Pokemon in your team. I also think it would be a good idea to change the offered Pokemon every ~ 2 weeks or so to have little bit of variety.
Here are some OU examples:
Special Sweeper: Jolteon (HP Ice, Thunderbolt), Espeon (Psychic, Signal Beam)
Physical Sweeper: Flygon (Dragon Claw, Earthquake), Gyrados (Dragon Dance, Waterfall)
Physical Walls, Skarmory (Spikes, Whirlwind), Weezing (Pain Split, Will-O-Whisp)
Special Walls: Chansey (Counter, Seismic Toss), Umbreon (Wish, Protect)
2.) Rent a Pokemon from other Players:
This could be a new feature of the GTL. It's basically working the same way as renting Pokemon from NPCs but the player who offers his Pokemon can decide the price per day and the minimum or maximum number of days. Movesets can be changed but after the mon is returned to it's owner, the moveset changes back to how it originally was. The rules for these Pokemon are more or less the same as the ones rented from NPCs with the addition that they can not be renamed (so the owner can leave his/her own little "signature" which is visible in battles if he/she wants to). A player can't offer more than 2 Pokemon at the same time. Offering a Pokemon in the GTL will include a small fee and there will by a cooldown before being able to offer it again.
Advantages of such a feature:
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