ASB Quests

[Negrek]

So I was thinking of some potentially fun things to do with the ASB, and one thing that came up was the idea of having sort of "quest battles," special event battles that people can do when they meet certain requirements.

For example, some basic quests where the requirement is simply that you complete one battle and then you can fight e.g. one of the starter pokémon, and afterwards you get a prize that might be particularly useful for a new trainer. Or maybe one quest requires that you own at least ten grass-types, at which point you can fight, say, (mega) venusaur in a special grass-themed arena and perhaps win a grass-type with its hidden ability or something. And perhaps finish enough quests to be able to battle against legendaries and win appropriately legendary-themed prizes, etc.

I thought this might be a nice way to create some cool, interesting challenges that you don't get to do in normal battles, like fight legendaries, and also potentially a way to distribute nice prizes that people might not ordinarily have access to, like hidden ability pokémon that are hard to get if you happen to miss the distribution window for a special giveaway, or special pokémon you can't ordinarily buy, like type: null or phione. There would need to be people willing to play the opponents in these battles (i.e. be in charge of Arceus), but hopefully some people would enjoy doing that, and they'd get paid and not have to burn a battle slot to do it.

Is this something anyone would be interested in? Does anybody have any thoughts on what kinds of quests there should be or what kinds of prizes they should award?

[Cynder]

Perhaps Mega Stones could be rewarded in this way, once the rules are clarified on them, of course.

I, personally, would love to be in charge of a legendary or a Mega, or multiple pokemon in something like a horde battle.

Perhaps that would be one way to get Hidden Ability pokemon, you fight three of that species at once with one pokemon (the horde pokemon probably should have low health to counter their high damage output).

[Gzhoom]

Negrek, I absolutely love this idea.

I would also love to play the part of an opponent pokémon.

Maybe some chain-quests? Like an equivalent to chaining the same pokémon over an over in the video games; for instance, if you defeat 10 Poochyena in a row, you fight and - if you win - get one with a unique move (i.e. one with Flame Wheel), or one with Rattled.

[Negrek]

Perhaps Mega Stones could be rewarded in this way, once the rules are clarified on them, of course.

I, personally, would love to be in charge of a legendary or a Mega, or multiple pokemon in something like a horde battle.

Perhaps that would be one way to get Hidden Ability pokemon, you fight three of that species at once with one pokemon (the horde pokemon probably should have low health to counter their high damage output).

Yes, mega stones and hidden abilities are both things it might be good to try distributing through these sorts of battles! The horde fight idea is an interesting one that I hadn't really considered... I think it would be tricky to balance (multiple-on-one gets tough fast), but it could be something interesting to try out.

Are there any legendaries or megas you'd be particularly interested in seeing featured? (Which means you'd have the potential to play.)

Maybe some chain-quests? Like an equivalent to chaining the same pokémon over an over in the video games; for instance, if you defeat 10 Poochyena in a row, you fight and - if you win - get one with a unique move (i.e. one with Flame Wheel), or one with Rattled.

This is kind of a twist on Cynder's idea, except instead of fighting multiple pokes at once you fight them consecutively! That's another battle mode that we could definitely try. The only difficult I see here is that it's harder to customize the pokémon you'd get through "chaining;" you can already make your mons shiny at any time, and since pokémon can already use everything in their movepool, it's a bit harder to award special moves that aren't kind of out-there and non-canon. Hidden abilities could be something to access this way, though. Or perhaps items or money--some kind of increasing thing, where each successive pokémon defeated is worth an additional amount of cash, and/or after each X defeated you get some kind of item? It's also tricky because most items in ASB you don't really need more than one of them. idk, just throwing ideas out there, but the idea of doing SOS/chain battles is definitely one that we could try.

Thanks to both of you for volunteering to be opponents for these, by the way!

[Gzhoom]

Originally Posted by Negrek

Hidden abilities could be something to access this way, though. Or perhaps items or money--some kind of increasing thing, where each successive pokémon defeated is worth an additional amount of cash, and/or after each X defeated you get some kind of item? It's also tricky because most items in ASB you don't really need more than one of them. idk, just throwing ideas out there, but the idea of doing SOS/chain battles is definitely one that we could try.

Thanks to both of you for volunteering to be opponents for these, by the way!

I like the idea of additional cash after each successive victory, and of useful items. Those could be common rewards, but maybe there could be an exceptionally small chance of chained/horde Pokémon holding a Legendary Pokémon's item (i.e. an eon ticket, an azure flute, etc.), and that could be how trainers initiate the battles with Legendary Pokémon that you mentioned. Maybe sometimes the group of Pokémon you defeat was guarding an abandoned egg they found, and your reward is a random Pokémon.

It would be cool, too, I think, to have a sort of Totem-Pokemon system at the end of the chain (or within/after a horde battle, depending). These Pokémon could have various buffs - extra defense, like in the games; extra stats in general; an extra action each round; etc - and provide extra rewards upon defeat, like extra experience or some sort of medal or banner that a trainer can display on their ASB profile.

Playing an opponent in something like this sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks for asking us!

[RedneckPhoenix]

Cobalion is a legendary that should be added give please.
Also maybe a tournament where you get to use the legendary of your choice? (Not until after you finish all of the old ones though, heheh) And maybe if you win, you get to keep that 'mon? I dunno.

[Sandstone-Shadow]

Ooo yeah! Like boss legendary Pokèmon, with seriously upped health/energy/stats? Maybe a few people could team up to take down a legendary? Mega stones/hidden abilities seem like a great prize idea. Maybe the Pokèmon you use to fight the legendary can get a switch to its hidden ability? That might encourage people to use the Pokèmon in their backlogs too haha.

I'd be willing to ref some kind of quest, or play an opponent!

[Cynder]

Genesect, Heatran, and Regice are some of my favorite non-box legendries, but I really wouldn't mind playing any legendary. The problem might not be finding people willing to play legends, but people willing to challenge them? Anyway, I am definitely going to play (and probably fail) one of these battles once I am done with one of my current ones.

[Gzhoom]

Originally Posted by Cynder

The problem might not be finding people willing to play legends, but people willing to challenge them?

I, for one, would be more than willing to test my mettle.

[Negrek]

Originally Posted by Ghzoom

I like the idea of additional cash after each successive victory, and of useful items. Those could be common rewards, but maybe there could be an exceptionally small chance of chained/horde Pokémon holding a Legendary Pokémon's item (i.e. an eon ticket, an azure flute, etc.), and that could be how trainers initiate the battles with Legendary Pokémon that you mentioned. Maybe sometimes the group of Pokémon you defeat was guarding an abandoned egg they found, and your reward is a random Pokémon.

Hmm, interesting. I was thinking that legendary battles would be ones that you work towards by completing some set of smaller challenges first, but it might be fun to have their be the odd "shortcut" possible that would allow you to initiate a challenge earlier, through an item like you mentioned. One thing I'd be a little wary of is having one battle mode that would give out all these different prizes--items, money, pokémon, legendary tokens--because it might encourage people to only focus on doing these sorts of chain battles and ignore the various other options. So, it might be better for them to be special events or limited-time opportunities.

Originally Posted by Gzhoom

It would be cool, too, I think, to have a sort of Totem-Pokemon system at the end of the chain (or within/after a horde battle, depending). These Pokémon could have various buffs - extra defense, like in the games; extra stats in general; an extra action each round; etc - and provide extra rewards upon defeat, like extra experience or some sort of medal or banner that a trainer can display on their ASB profile.

Oh yeah, these battles will definitely feature pokémon with special features/buffs like you mentioned; since they're supposed to be bosses or mini-bosses of a sort, they'll have some unique abilities other members of their species, or other pokémon in general if they're legendaries, can't use.

I had definitely been thinking of doing some kind of emblem/medal thing as a reward. It wouldn't be difficult to implement, although making the medal images themselves would be a challenge for me personally, haha. I was thinking giving out some kind of "achievement" that would show on a player's profile would be a natural prize for winning a quest battle, and might work well in the context of a larger "achievements" system. Like, I mentioned maybe owning a certain number of pokémon of a certain type of pokémon would be a prereq for certain quest battles, but it might be better instead to have GO-style medals for players who've collected a certain number of pokémon of a certain type, etc.

Originally Posted by RedneckPhoenix

Cobalion is a legendary that should be added give please.
Also maybe a tournament where you get to use the legendary of your choice? (Not until after you finish all of the old ones though, heheh) And maybe if you win, you get to keep that 'mon? I dunno.

Hadn't expected Cobalion to be the first request, but yeah, the musketeers in general I can definitely do something with.

We've actually had some tournaments where people controlled legendaries, or were intended to do so, and where they were at least supposed to be given away as prizes. The thing is, none of those tournaments, uh... ever finished. So no one's ever actually gotten a legendary, although technically there have been opportunities.

Some people are very strongly against players getting to own legendaries. I'm not sure where the current feeling of the community is on that matter, but I think that opportunities to play against legendaries, or to use them on a temporary basis, for special battles, is more likely than any chance to get to own them, at least in the near future. I wouldn't rule anything out over the long term.

Originally Posted by Sandstone-Shadow

Ooo yeah! Like boss legendary Pokèmon, with seriously upped health/energy/stats? Maybe a few people could team up to take down a legendary? Mega stones/hidden abilities seem like a great prize idea. Maybe the Pokèmon you use to fight the legendary can get a switch to its hidden ability? That might encourage people to use the Pokèmon in their backlogs too haha.

I'd say pretty much all of those are likely, some of them maybe not for quests (teaming up with other people could get logistically difficult), then for special battles in the near future!

Switching a pokémon to its hidden ability is an interesting option. That one would probably require some technical support, since the only way to change an ability right now is for Zhorken to manually change it in the db, at least as far as I know. If a solution for that can get worked out, though, it's definitely something to consider. I'm absolutely up for anything that can encourage users to play with their unused mons rather than buying more.

Originally Posted by Cynder

Genesect, Heatran, and Regice are some of my favorite non-box legendries, but I really wouldn't mind playing any legendary. The problem might not be finding people willing to play legends, but people willing to challenge them? Anyway, I am definitely going to play (and probably fail) one of these battles once I am done with one of my current ones.

For what it's worth, box legendaries aren't out of the question, either! They'll probably be more powerful/rarer than the legendary birds, beasts, etc., but I don't see any reason why not to have them show up now and again.

I'm not too worried about finding people willing to play... several years ago there was a shop where people could fight battles against legendaries, and there was always a huge queue of people wanting in, even though you actually had to pay money to participate! For me, I'm most concerned with balancing things so these battles are something to look forward to, without having them be basically unattainable. The idea is they're special event kind of things, not a replacement for battles against other trainers, but at the same time I don't want to make the entry requirements so stringent that anyone goes, "Oh, it would take me like six years to even be able to think about doing one of these..."

[Gzhoom]

Originally Posted by Negrek

For me, I'm most concerned with balancing things so these battles are something to look forward to, without having them be basically unattainable. The idea is they're special event kind of things, not a replacement for battles against other trainers, but at the same time I don't want to make the entry requirements so stringent that anyone goes, "Oh, it would take me like six years to even be able to think about doing one of these..."

Maybe we could do a sort of raffle system to participate in the legendary fights? Like, trainers could buy raffle tickets over the course of, say, a month, and then at the end a Moderator draws x-amount of raffle tickets and those trainers get to participate in the next legendary event. There would presumably be a cap on how many tickets can be purchased in any one buying period, considering how much money some of the trainers have and how little money others do, but a high enough cap that people who have been saving up can guarantee themselves a decent shot at participation.

This system would allow that event-item option that I mentioned earlier to work pretty well, I think. During each raffle ticket buying period, there could be one event item (Azure flute, eon ticket, etc.) available as a prize for this chain/horde mode we've been discussing, encouraging trainers to play that mode in the hopes of racking up the generic prizes, but also with the very slim chance to grab that one golden ticket.

Even better, you might hide the golden eon ticket, as it were, in a random ASB facility during each buying period. That way, players that really want to participate in the legendary event - especially newer trainers who can't hedge their bets as much as the veterans - will be encouraged to participate in every aspect of ASB in the hopes of grabbing the free ticket.

[Stryke]

I would be totally down with participating in this; it sounds awesome! I don't really have anything new to add, though; just that I totally support this and would also be willing to be an opponent if need be.

[Cynder]

Originally Posted by Negrek

Hadn't expected Cobalion to be the first request, but yeah, the musketeers in general I can definitely do something with.

I volunteer to be Virizion! (Hope no one minds)

[Negrek]

The ASB Quest thread is now open! Go check it out!

Thanks to everyone who expressed interest and/or gave some input, and I hope you enjoy the implementation I came up with. Please also feel free to leave any feedbeack here... this is a very experimental thing, so ideas and corrections are always helpful! In particular I doubt the battles are very balanced... wanted to make them a satisfying challenge, but not ridiculously difficult to beat. Keldeo's fight in particular is probably a little bizonkers. :X

Also definitely tell me if the formatting of the quest post looks like garbage, I tried to fiddle with it on a variety of display sizes, but if the text size is too small it definitely breaks badly, and I don't know how likely it is that people will be viewing it like that.

I'd love to hear more quest ideas, too! Depending on how this set of quests goes, I'll probably have a poll in a few months asking what pokémon people would like to see featured in the next set of quests, at the very least.

Originally Posted by Gzhoom

Maybe we could do a sort of raffle system to participate in the legendary fights? Like, trainers could buy raffle tickets over the course of, say, a month, and then at the end a Moderator draws x-amount of raffle tickets and those trainers get to participate in the next legendary event. There would presumably be a cap on how many tickets can be purchased in any one buying period, considering how much money some of the trainers have and how little money others do, but a high enough cap that people who have been saving up can guarantee themselves a decent shot at participation.

This system would allow that event-item option that I mentioned earlier to work pretty well, I think. During each raffle ticket buying period, there could be one event item (Azure flute, eon ticket, etc.) available as a prize for this chain/horde mode we've been discussing, encouraging trainers to play that mode in the hopes of racking up the generic prizes, but also with the very slim chance to grab that one golden ticket.

Interesting! I think once a year would be the best frequency, rather than once a month, given the pace at which battles tend to move, we've never really done a raffle before for... anything, but it could be fun to try one and legendary items to participate in legendary quests might make good prizes.

Originally Posted by Gzhoom

Even better, you might hide the golden eon ticket, as it were, in a random ASB facility during each buying period. That way, players that really want to participate in the legendary event - especially newer trainers who can't hedge their bets as much as the veterans - will be encouraged to participate in every aspect of ASB in the hopes of grabbing the free ticket.

Hmm, what aspects of ASB were you hoping to encourage people to participate in with this? Outside of battling we don't really do a ton, haha. What facilities were you thinking of hiding tickets in?

Originally Posted by Stryke

I would be totally down with participating in this; it sounds awesome! I don't really have anything new to add, though; just that I totally support this and would also be willing to be an opponent if need be.

Fantastic! Hope to see you in the thread. ;)

I volunteer to be Virizion! (Hope no one minds)

Hopefully someone decides to fight Virizion so you can try it out!

[Eifie]

Originally Posted by Negrek

Also definitely tell me if the formatting of the quest post looks like garbage, I tried to fiddle with it on a variety of display sizes, but if the text size is too small it definitely breaks badly, and I don't know how likely it is that people will be viewing it like that.

Mm, it's tricky to format that much data. Do you think you could add some extra line breaks between the descriptions of the musketeers? For me it looks like this:



I'd imagine having extra space on smaller screens is probably better than things accidentally being pushed together on larger screens.

[Sandstone-Shadow]

This looks fantastic! Oh man! Thanks for putting this together, Negrek!

Are these challenges open indefinitely (pending people to play opponents and ref)? So I wouldn't have to be in a hurry to sign up for one?

And, does each round we use only count once? Let's say we have five rounds under our belt when we sign up for a challenge, and don't get any more regular rounds during that challenge - would we have to fight five more new rounds before making another challenge?

[Negrek]

Originally Posted by Eifie

Mm, it's tricky to format that much data. Do you think you could add some extra line breaks between the descriptions of the musketeers? For me it looks like this:

I'd imagine having extra space on smaller screens is probably better than things accidentally being pushed together on larger screens.

Ugh, yup, that's what I was afraid would happen. Does it look better now?

Originally Posted by Sandstone-Shadow

This looks fantastic! Oh man! Thanks for putting this together, Negrek!

Are these challenges open indefinitely (pending people to play opponents and ref)? So I wouldn't have to be in a hurry to sign up for one?

And, does each round we use only count once? Let's say we have five rounds under our belt when we sign up for a challenge, and don't get any more regular rounds during that challenge - would we have to fight five more new rounds before making another challenge?

They're open indefinitely, although once we have a fair number I might retire some and introduce new ones. That would be for a long time, though, so no rush!

Yes, you can only use a round once, so in the scenario you gave you'd need to go out and fight more in order to make another challenge.

[Eifie]

Originally Posted by Negrek

Ugh, yup, that's what I was afraid would happen. Does it look better now?

Yes, everything is spaced out properly now!

[Gzhoom]

Do quests give experience as normal battles? Or at all? Sorry if this has been answered, I didn't see it anywhere.

[Negrek]

They do! Generally any battle-like activity will give experience unless explicitly stated otherwise (i.e. metronome battles).