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Battling & Mechanics
Topic Started: Nov 16 2015, 11:37 AM (209 Views)
Jance
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Mega Venusaur
This has cropped up a few times in the main discussion thread and the other threads. Mechanics being things like Egg counters, Berry counters, Battle damage, Damage calc, Happiness, Leveling, Experience, etc. Basically what we use to define how things happen on the site outside of general RP.

Now some folks have suggested scrubbing all the mechanics we currently have and trying things differently, letting the story define the right time for an egg to hatch or when a berry tree'll produce a harvest, etc. If we didn't have counters and things we wouldn't need to keep track of a dozen extra things in our threads or Homebases. But then you run into the potential problem of folks perhaps abusing the system, which is why I think counters were used in the first place.

One thing I've heard brought up a few times and before even what we've been discussing now is that battles feel too mechnical, too routine, predictable, stiff, whatever. Battling being the sort of primary purpose of trainer and pokemon it's something that tends to happen all the time. And a lot of us got to a point were basically we just typed into the damage calc the best move to see how much damage it would do and used that to nuke the opponent in one hit. I think it would be cool for battles if it was more about the roleplay than the numbers.

Happiness has always been a weird mechanic. In the games it serves two purposes, to evolve certain pokemon and to power a single attack. Plus there's Anger which is only used to determine if a pokemon attacks at all and to power one other attack. Pretty useless and very situational mechanics.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Keep some mechanics? Scrap all mechanics? Reinvent the mechanics? Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
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Fordy
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ain't no new thing
scrap them/go to an extremely dumbed down version of it all and leave the rest up to the roleplay. if you don't trust your mod/DM or eventually the admins to make the proper assessment then you're not cut out for the site, because that's gonna be the whole point moving forward. we went as far as removing mods entirely and i think it was a mistake
Edited by Fordy, Nov 16 2015, 12:06 PM.
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FuzzyMittenz
Pidgey
DISCLAIMER: I'm at work right now, these are just rough ideas.

I vote for a reinvention of the wheel, based on the mechanics that are key to the enjoyment of the game:

- Battling: Battling mechanics should never have been based purely off of a numbers system to begin with. There are tons of examples of things that were done in the show that would never fly in the game, but that, because we are dynamic humans capable of intelligent thought, seem to make sense to us when we see them (think Ash vs. Brock, with Pikachu beating the Onix by setting off the sprinkler system and then electrocuting a water-soaked rock).

What we probably shouldn't do:

We probably shouldn't compile a list of all of the moves and assign them "Legacy" damage, so we have to have a system that works using the stats of the current moves.

We probably shouldn't start off with a bunch of "in Legacy, these moves do _____ instead of ______". Figuring out what can or cannot be done with specific moves has probably already been done somewhere in the rules here; we should take a look at those, determine what mechanics are too complicated, and figure out how to simplify them.

What we probably should do:

- Keep the Pokemon "type" system in place for things like immunity to specific types, and to determine advantage/disadvantage.

- We could definitely implement a system that allows for creative battling mechanics. Damage should be determined using some form of system that still allows for advantages/disadvantages (electric should still be strong against water types, for example), but that also takes into consideration strategy. One way that this could be done is figuring out a "range" for each attack, based on it's current damage. Another suggestion would be to to give Mods authority to arbitrarily modify the amount of damage received based on specific actions that may have occurred.

- We should probably have a template for how Battle posts are written. Let me explain why:

Back in the old days, a battle post went something like: explaining what the trainer sees, then describing the trainer's thoughts, then "responses" such as: giving orders to your Pokemon to try and react defensively, giving subsequent attack orders, etc. The problem came when Trainers began giving "If this, then that" orders:

"Pidgey! If you see that Growlithe prepare to Slam you, I want you to try and get out of the way. If it tries to use a Fire attack, use a Gust to try and blow the flames away! If the trainer tries to change Pokemon, " on and on and on and on.

The template might look like:

________________BATTLE TEMPLATE______________

1.) Describe what your trainer sees and thinks

2.) Describe any actions that your Trainer will take, EXCLUDING battle instructions. (Taunting, etc.)

3.) Describe battle instructions, which will be limited to 1 "move" per Pokemon controlled by your Trainer, and one "If _____, then ______" instruction.

We could clarify this into a "two posts then Moderation" system.

Trainer #1 posts

Trainer #2 (or Mod, as NPC trainer) posts

Moderation post, describing what actually occurred, what hit and what didn't, any damage that was dealt.

_______________________________________________________

This puts a little extra work on Moderators, because they essentially take on the role of an NPC any time a wild Pokemon is encountered, or an NPC Trainer appears...but having a template to fill out, without any minimum or maximum length requirements, would go a long way in making the system more manageable.

Experience, Leveling and Evolution

I absolutely think that individual Pokemon should have individual levels. Profile maintenance is something that is almost required in any other forum RPG on the net. One of the founding tenets of the game was that it is better to find Pokemon that you want and then raise them...if any Pokemon captured is as strong as the rest of my party by default, what point is there to "train" a Pokemon?

I understand that it gets to be a lot of work to update and keep track of multiple Pokemon. There is a simple solution:

Don't have that many Pokemon.

With that being said, a three star system sounds like a great starting point. If one or more Pokemon is used in a fight, they get a minimum of .25 stars. Generally speaking, the absolute maximum that a Pokemon could get for a single fight would be 2 stars (given for exceptionally well played or well thought out battles). Partial or whole stars might even be given for -losses-, so long as the player takes the loss in stride and in play. Three stars = a level.

We could have the Star system take care of Evolutions, as well.

If a Pokemon is at a level that is high enough to evolve, the PC could choose to continue to level the Pokemon (3 stars), or go the extra mile and really focus on that Pokemon to help it get to the level necessary where it could evolve (5 stars).

POKEMON THAT REQUIRE STONES/SPECIAL ITEMS TO EVOLVE:

Uncertain. Stones seem to be a pretty "easy to adopt" system, so long as the stones are relatively rare.

However, Special Items are a little different for me. I'm uncertain why a King's Rock would be required for an evolution, but we could still require it. Or, we could say that for these Pokemon, you have an option.

Either:

5 stars + the required special item

or

10 stars + Moderator approval.

POKEMON THAT REQUIRE TRADING IN ORDER TO EVOLVE:

This feature seems to be obsolete in a RP environment. The original system was designed to promote interaction between Gameboy players. I think that we could remove any need for trading in order to evolve a Pokemon.

__________________________________

Happiness, Eggs, Home Bases and Berries

These are all mechanics that I largely ignore in the games. I would be willing to let other minds more interested in such things pave the way on these topics.

__________________________________
Edited by FuzzyMittenz, Nov 16 2015, 01:20 PM.
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Fordy
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ain't no new thing
one possible issue with that battle format on a solo adventure is the player is learning information from the mod's roleplay that they wouldn't have, about motivations and strategies and such, when they should just see, you know, a wild pokemon acting erratically or an npc trainer with unknown intentions. i don't know if that's an issue we actually care about, but if it is, that could actually make modding even a little bit easier than it was, and they can just detail what actually occurs without slipping the player hints like "ACTUALLY the pidgey is just looking for its mama u should be nice to it" or whatever sometimes occurs

i like taking the evolutions and moves farther away from predetermined guidelines. if i recall correctly that was something that was trying to be emphasized when switching to opaddeka but people mostly got away from it out of laziness or unwillingness to experiment. let's give it a real try this time, if your pokemon throws dust at its opponent that's a sand attack, if it throws a rock that's rock throw, and it does whatever the mod thinks it should do

this also makes modding something that can actually be fun, instead of something where you do the player's math for them like it's become

when it comes to exp though, let's not go under .5 stars for anything. there's a big difference in complexity from 6 to 12 possible exp totals and it'll only slow the game down
Edited by Fordy, Nov 16 2015, 02:22 PM.
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FuzzyMittenz
Pidgey
@Fordy

My only issue with the system you recommend:

I have six Pokemon on my belt. If I have one Pokemon fight the Pokemon in front of me, my Pokemon will get 1 star. If I have two Pokemon fight that same Pokemon, each get half a star.

If all six of my Pokemon fight the one Pokemon, all six of my Pokemon get half a star.

Why wouldn't I just swap out each of my Pokemon, every fight, to ensure that I get the utmost experience out of each fight?

_____

We could just say:

Experience is awarded to a maximum of 2 Pokemon per enemy/wild Pokemon that is defeated. If a Trainer's Pokemon faints during the battle, they will receive no experience, and experience will be distributed to the next Pokemon, in the order that they appeared in the battle.

Example #1: A trainer's Rattatta and Pidgey defeat a wild Caterpie. Rattatta and Pidgey both receive .5 stars.

Example #2: A trainer's Ratatta, Pidgey, and Growlithe defeat a wild Caterpie. Ratatta and Pidgey receive .5 stars. Growlithe gets 0 stars.

Example #3: A trainer's Ratatta, Pidgey, and Growlithe defeat a wild Caterpie, but the Caterpie manages to KO the trainer's Ratatta. Pidgey and Growlithe receive .5 stars each. Ratatta gets 0 stars, as it was KO'd during the battle.
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Maverick
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"How many assholes we got on this ship anyhow?"
I'll pop in briefly just to mention that Frac's calculator still works and will until such time as he no longer wishes to update it or he leaves.

The calculator is custom made by Frac for Legacy and does all the math for you but is a bit overwhelming when you first look at it - plus it fosters the idea of numbers being more important than role play. The first question we need to ask is - do we still need the calculator?

I agree that you need to still juggle pokemon type and attack type as well as level, but we should probably move away from assigning a number to the damage done. Battles took forever with the calculator, but no one could complain abut the damage. But I also recall not using the cal back before the Opaddeka reboot. People complained because they thought their RP deserved more damage than what was awarded by the mod.

I'd be for a dumbed down version of both. Compare the types, level, speed, and the move of both pokemon and figure the probability of the underdog winning. If the strategy was a cool idea, then maybe the underdog wins or at least gets a second round. If not, then it's logical for the bigger, faster guy to win. You still need to reference a pokedex, but you don't have to juggle numbers. and the battle is over is one or two moves.

I'm totally for the star system. It's simple and level evos still happen as they should. Stone evos stay the same, but happiness and such evos are just RPd out when it feels right.

I'm also for keeping the idea of a pokemon knowing any moves you had on a previous evo and the current evo up to its current level. Then you don't need to list them, you just see what all they could know up to that level from the pokedex.

I'll save my other comments for later. Mechanics involves more than battles.
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Fordy
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ain't no new thing
@greg, i think i'd rather assume people will play in good faith and macguffin away extra exp if someone tries to obviously game it like that. "that pokemon didn't fight enough to get experience!" or something. idk, i guess you could argue that's being more complicated. i just feel like getting down to divisions of stars, you might as well just stay how we are at that point with a straight math equation

oh, i think the rest of your post basically says that, doesn't it. i dig it

@mav, personally, i have no interest in using the calculator any more and i was a big fan of it for a long time
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