...Yet another solution to Genderless Breeding

[OldKeith]

As we all know, Genderless breeding is currently too RNG-reliant, as you need perfect dittos to get your perfect comp.

And as we all know, there have been countless non-canon proposals to solve this, such as breeding genderless with genderless.

 

But, one subject has not been touched as far as I know this... and I believe this can solve the whole problem, allowing us to have balanced breeding all across the board. Why should our comps be punished because they are genderless or male-only, after all?

 

Introducing weekly trades:

 

Every week, a knowledgeable pokemon collector is arriving in the pokemon fan club in Vermillion. He will be looking for a specific pokemon, and will offer to trade one of his own, in exchange.

 

Example: Looking for a female Anorith, I am offering a Porygon in exchange.

 

The Porygon you will receive from him will have the same IVs and Nature as the Anorith you traded him.

 

Note that this is an example, weekly is not necessarily a norm.

 

I believe this is an elegant solution to balance breeding for genderless, and possibly male-only pokemon and please implement this before January if you think it is a good idea. :3

Edited June 23, 2015 by OldKeith

[Rache]

This is extremely abusable by alts, and addressing a problem that I'm still convinced isn't really a problem. Not everything should be equally or similarly easy to create.

[DrCraig]

This is extremely abusable by alts, and addressing a problem that I'm still convinced isn't really a problem. Not everything should be equally or similarly easy to create.

How can this be abused by alts? Edited June 23, 2015 by DrCraig

[OldKeith]

This is extremely abusable by alts, and addressing a problem that I'm still convinced isn't really a problem. Not everything should be equally or similarly easy to create.

 

Please explain, since I feel you did not entirely understand the suggestion. 

 

Edit: I never said the collector would be limited to one trade only. If you want, you can produce countless genderless comps via him per week.

 

The suggestion was made because pretty much every competitive player feels like breeding a genderless pokemon should not be so heavily RNG-reliant. 

Edited June 23, 2015 by OldKeith

[Rache]

How can this be abused by alts?

 

Please explain, since I feel you did not entirely understand the suggestion. 

 

It's no secret that genderless Pokemon are difficult to create. The player could make multiple of the Pokemon that the trader requests as it's going to be far easier than making the genderless Pokemon that he's offering, and they can then make the trade several times on their various alt accounts whereas players with a single account can only do that trade once. The only way around this is to make the Pokemon a gift, which I have a feeling that players won't like.

Edited June 23, 2015 by RacheLucario

[OldKeith]

It's no secret that genderless Pokemon are difficult to create. The player could make multiple of the Pokemon that the trader requests as it's going to be far easier than making the genderless Pokemon that he's offering, and they can then make the trade several times on their various alt accounts whereas players with a single account can only do that trade once. The only way around this is to make the Pokemon a gift, which I have a feeling that players won't like.

 

Trade a bad one, get a bad genderless in return. What is the problem with making multiple good pokemon, especially if you breed a rare one yourself? The point is to create a level breeding field.

 

I don't know how you can put your hands over your eyes as the community complains about this time and time again: genderless should be as easily obtainable as other pokemon too. Why do we justify the lack of solution through the phrase "some species are harder to breed". You know as well as I do that genderless need natures, IVs and hidden powers. Let's not ignore the fact that some people caught better breeding periods and managed to get their hands on pokemon like 30+ all across Starmies, Magnetons and Hitmonlees. Let's give newer players a chance to catch up other than feeding them the bullshit that if they clinch their teeth hard enough, a perfect ditto will pop up. 

[Rache]

Trade a bad one, get a bad genderless in return. What is the problem with making multiple good pokemon, especially if you breed a rare one yourself? The point is to create a level breeding field.

 

I don't know how you can put your hands over your eyes as the community complains about this time and time again: genderless should be as easily obtainable as other pokemon too. Why do we justify the lack of solution through the phrase "some species are harder to breed". You know as well as I do that genderless need natures, IVs and hidden powers. Let's not ignore the fact that some people caught better breeding periods and managed to get their hands on pokemon like 30+ all across Starmies, Magnetons and Hitmonlees. Let's give newer players a chance to catch up other than feeding them the bullshit that if they clinch their teeth hard enough, a perfect ditto will pop up. 

Create multiple good Pokemon, get multiple good genderless in return. It goes both ways. A level breeding field is not a necessity, and I'd argue that it's actually a bad thing.

 

I've bred multiple genderless Pokemon myself, and while it's harder than making most other Pokemon, it's not so ridiculously hard that it needs a change. The exception to that is perhaps Hidden Power, which may be looked at. Not all Pokemon should be equally easy to breed, it's like saying that there should be no rare weapons in other games. They're harder to get, but far from impossible and well worth the effort.

 

That aside, remnants of the old system should not be a reason to hold back balancing the new system. Some pre-update Pokemon are incredible and would be difficult to make now, but they're not an excuse to push for making the game easier when there would otherwise be no reason to do so.

[Senile]

It's no secret that genderless Pokemon are difficult to create. The player could make multiple of the Pokemon that the trader requests as it's going to be far easier than making the genderless Pokemon that he's offering, and they can then make the trade several times on their various alt accounts whereas players with a single account can only do that trade once. The only way around this is to make the Pokemon a gift, which I have a feeling that players won't like.

I don't know why you're so fixated on the alt thing. It wasn't explicitly stated that you could only trade it once.

 

The idea isn't perfect, obviously; Allowing very easy access to a specific pokemon for only one week is definitely not an ideal solution. But honestly, the state of genderless breeding right now is beyond terrible, for basically no good reason. The argument that not everything should be equally difficult to make is a valid one, and it works for every pokemon other than genderless breeding. Some pokemon are slightly more difficult to breed than other ones, to an extent, sure. But Genderless pokemon are basically 20x more difficult to breed than everything else for no good reason. It's one thing to have one pokemon be slightly more difficult to breed, it's another to have a group of pokemon that are SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to breed than everything else for no reason other than the misfortune that they were originally labeled by Nintendo as not having a gender.

 

And that's the biggest issue, the fact that it's so arbitrary. It's not like we're saying "oh, these pokemon are harder to breed because they're really stong", or "they're rare in the wild, they'll be hard to breed"; They're hard to breed for no reason other than the fact they were genderless in the original games, and a workaround to make them simpler to breed was either pushed off to the side by the devs or overlooked. In other words, how difficult they are to breed isn't really justifiable; they're a group of pokemon that are arbitrarily more difficult to breed than others. If the point of the new breeding system was to make it less-RNG based while avoiding the endless cloning factory so that there's a system where players can create reasonably good pokemon without negatively impacting the economy, why are there a group of pokemon that you need godlike RNG to be able to properly breed? It's not like these pokemon are special; I mean, if a Zapdos (once legends come out) was more difficult to get in PokeMMO than breeding a good Snorlax, that's the kind of disparity in difficulty I can understand to an extent. The genderless problem is 100% arbitrary and is unhealthy to the game, especially with how already ditto centric breeding already is.

 

The idea in this thread isn't exactly flawless, but it's one thing to point out flaws to a solution and it's another thing to try and pretend the problem doesn't even exist.

[Gilan]

 it's like saying that there should be no rare weapons in other games. They're harder to get, but far from impossible and well worth the effort.

Can we please stop using this Pokemon=Weapons/Armor analogy? It's just a bad comparison.

[Darkshade]

Can we please stop using this Pokemon=Weapons/Armor analogy? It's just a bad comparison.

 

And why do you consider it to be a bad comparison Gilan?

[PandaJJ]

Okay, I understand that suggestions to fix genderless breeding might seem odd to you Rachel, since you don't acknowledge the problem at hand. I was gonna make a long post explaining it over again, but I think Senile summed it up pretty nicely. Also refer to my posts in this thread: https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/50776-genderless-breeding/, and the post Senile refered to above. If this is not enough evidence for you that there exists a problem here, then I am honestly clueless about what to do.

 

For the suggestion itself, it can easily be tweaked to work better, if that's what people want. Make the pokemon gifts, sure. Instead of having a weekly period, its possible that this trading guy will offer you a random genderless/all-male pokemon for trade, and will not change this offer untill you trade him. There could be an hour long cooldown between everytime he gives a new offer, for example. There are many other ways to make this suggestion work, please don't bash the basic idea.

 

And for the weapons analogy - this game requires you to have pretty much all weapons. In other games better weapons allow you to get rid of the old ones. Of course they have to be harder to obtain, otherwise you would just obtain the most difficult weapon first. The idea of having different difficulty for different spieces for an arbitrary reason is not at all an obviously good idea, and should be justified in another way than a terrible analogy.

[dataforce]

It's no secret that genderless Pokemon are difficult to create. The player could make multiple of the Pokemon that the trader requests as it's going to be far easier than making the genderless Pokemon that he's offering, and they can then make the trade several times on their various alt accounts whereas players with a single account can only do that trade once. The only way around this is to make the Pokemon a gift, which I have a feeling that players won't like.

 

Even so, there's still some effort that has to go into breeding the Pokémon you give to the collector in order to get specific iv's on the Pokémon you receive in return. It's not like we magically make hundreds of perfect IV Pokémon of the species to trade. If I want an HP Fire Metagross with this system, for example, I'd have to breed a Pokémon of the species that he's looking for in the time frame given. Breeding for very good IV's will also take a lot of time and resources to produce, and I don't see why it's wrong to reward the effort players put into making a Pokémon's IV's and HP (optional) ideal with a Pokémon that would take significantly more time and resources to make.

[dustybunny]

I think this is a great idea, even better the way panda said it.

 

I don't understand why all the mods are pretty much always against ideas as great at this is.

 

Also I would like to point out that none of the mods posts have any likes, but then again why do likes matter?

Its not like its a way of symbolizing support or anything.

 

I guess if I ran a game with a nicely but not to big player-base I would make the community my first goal, and only focus on the negatives aspects of the game/parts that need to be fixed or tweaked. Kind of like if you're a chef, compliments are great, but the negatives are better.

[Gilan]

And why do you consider it to be a bad comparison Gilan?

Because when we consider swords and armors in other MMO's (gonna use runescape, cause it's the easiest) it is clearly defined what is the best armor for each role. With pokemon, that is nowhere near the case. It isn't like Gengar is Rune armor and Salamence is Dragon Armor, thus they shouldn't be treated differently. Rare equipment in other games are rare and expensive generally because they are good and op. Are genderless pokemon good and OP? No. So why are you forcing them to put in so much more effort to walk on stage with the other great gendered pokemon?

 

See, you can make a good pokemon team without using genderless pokemon and still compete. Even if your team has genderless pokemon, it doesn't mean the team is any better, or any worse. But, if you don full dragon armor, it is certainly better than full Rune armor.

 

 

Runescape has justified the price and rarity of each armor based on the armor's stats. However, you are trying to justify rarity of pokemon based on, well, "just cause". That's why it's a bad comparison.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Gilan

[Darkshade]

Because when we consider swords and armors in other MMO's (gonna use runescape, cause it's the easiest) it is clearly defined what is the best armor for each role. With pokemon, that is nowhere near the case. It isn't like Gengar is Rune armor and Salamence is Dragon Armor, thus they shouldn't be treated differently. Rare equipment in other games are rare and expensive generally because they are good and op. Are genderless pokemon good and OP? No. So why are you forcing them to put in so much more effort to walk on stage with the other great gendered pokemon?

 

See, you can make a good pokemon team without using genderless pokemon and still compete. Even if your team has genderless pokemon, it doesn't mean the team is any better, or any worse. But, if you don full dragon armor, it is certainly better than full Rune armor.

 

 

Runescape has justified the price and rarity of each armor based on the armor's stats. However, you are trying to justify rarity of pokemon based on, well, "just cause". That's why it's a bad comparison.

 

Rarity does not always coincide with usefulness, and the usefulness of each species is not something that is static.

In Runescape the usefulness of each type of Armour gets objectively better the further down the scale you go; this is because they are literal replacements of the previous, with better stats.

 

It does not work like that here, outside of evolutions nothing can act as a full replacement for something else.

There are things that can fill the same niche but it is very unlikely they will be exactly the same.

 

The armor in Runescape has to scale like that, because if it did not and Dragon was more common than anything else, few people would ever bother with Rune and it wouldn't be anywhere near as valuable as it had the potential to be.

It also scales with your defense level too and becomes almost a requirement to upgrade because the tasks at hand need you to kill harder and more powerful mobs.

[Gilan]

Rarity does not always coincide with usefulness, and the usefulness of each species is not something that is static.

In Runescape the usefulness of each type of Armour gets objectively better the further down the scale you go; this is because they are literal replacements of the previous, with better stats.

 

It does not work like that here, outside of evolutions nothing can act as a full replacement for something else.

There are things that can fill the same niche but it is very unlikely they will be exactly the same.

 

The armor in Runescape has to scale like that, because if it did not and Dragon was more common than anything else, few people would ever bother with Rune and it wouldn't be anywhere near as valuable as it had the potential to be.

So then we agree that comparing pokemon to equipment is a bad analogy?

[Darkshade]

So then we agree that comparing pokemon to equipment is a bad analogy?

 

Not at all, in fact if it strengthens it even further.

 

 

In Runescape the usefulness of each type of Armour gets objectively better the further down the scale you go; this is because they are literal replacements of the previous, with better stats.

 

IVs.

 

If you're familiar with many MMOs outside of runescape, you'll know they have a 'fortification' system, which takes materials and allows you to improve upon their current stats.

Here you are able to 'fortify' via breeding.

 

And to state the obvious; they are used to complete your objective, without them you would not be able to progress and battle and get through the rest of the game.

 

Egg Moves/Event Moves/TMs/Anything outside of standard level-up moves can be looked at as similar to enchantment stones, where you use a external consumable on a particular piece of equipment to better improve it's fighting or defensive capabilities.

There are of course limited slots (Four in our case) to prevent you from making things too powerful.

 

Runescape falls very flat when it comes to more complex MMO systems.

[DrCraig]

Rarity does not always coincide with usefulness, and the usefulness of each species is not something that is static.

In Runescape the usefulness of each type of Armour gets objectively better the further down the scale you go; this is because they are literal replacements of the previous, with better stats.

 

It does not work like that here, outside of evolutions nothing can act as a full replacement for something else.

There are things that can fill the same niche but it is very unlikely they will be exactly the same.

 

The armor in Runescape has to scale like that, because if it did not and Dragon was more common than anything else, few people would ever bother with Rune and it wouldn't be anywhere near as valuable as it had the potential to be.

It also scales with your defense level too and becomes almost a requirement to upgrade because the tasks at hand need you to kill harder and more powerful mobs.

Isnt that exactly what he is trying to prove? You cannot compare the weapons/armor to the pokemon thing?

[Gilan]

Not at all, in fact if it strengthens it even further.

 

 

IVs.

 

If you're familiar with many MMOs outside of runescape, you'll know they have a 'fortification' system, which takes materials and allows you to improve upon their current stats.

Here you are able to 'fortify' via breeding.

 

And to state the obvious; they are used to complete your objective, without them you would be able to progress and battle and get through the rest of the game.

 

Egg Moves/Event Moves/TMs/Anything outside of standard level-up moves can be looked at as similar to enchantment stones, where you use a external consumable on a particular piece of equipment to better improve it's fighting or defensive capabilities.

There are of course limited slots (Four in our case) to prevent you from making things too powerful.

 

Runescape falls very flat when it comes to more complex MMO systems.

Sure in that aspect of Pokemon they are similar to equipment. But do you think comparing a Firework to an Atomic bomb is a good comparison? No. But why? They both blow up right? The both have the potential to seriously hurt someone? Sure they are similar in some aspects, but it's still a bad comparison. But let's not forget the context of this argument; Species Rarity. What you've said doesn't change the argument that I outlined in my first response.

[Darkshade]

Sure in that aspect of Pokemon they are similar to equipment. But do you think comparing a Firework to an Atomic bomb is a good comparison? No. But why? They both blow up right? The both have the potential to seriously hurt someone?

 

When weaponry or equipment is used as an analogy it is not being used as a reference to real life, but a reference to game mechanics; especially those found within an MMO environment.

This is the only aspect that matters.

 

Whilst they may not match up on a scale of rarity:usefulness (and because our meta game is not static) it holds no bearing over whether or not the mechanics match up with that of other MMOs.

It would not matter whether do or do not, they're used in exactly the same way regardless.

[Gilan]

 

 

IVs.

 

Sure in that aspect of Pokemon

 

This is the only aspect that matters.

Then why are you using it for species rarity as well?

[dustybunny]

When weaponry or equipment is used as an analogy it is not being used as a reference to real life, but a reference to game mechanics; especially those found within an MMO environment.

This is the only aspect that matters.

 

Whilst they may not match up on a scale of rarity:usefulness (and because our meta game is not static) it holds no bearing over whether or not the mechanics match up with that of other MMOs.

It would not matter whether do or do not, they're used in exactly the same way regardless.

Alright, enough with the horrible analogies, back on topic, give me 1 solid reason why this is a bad idea, and I will not accept "you can abuse it easy" or anything like that, you can abuse anything.

[Gilan]

Alright, enough with the horrible analogies

but I like debating ;-;

[Makarovs]

what about, on a certain day of the month, this npc appears to change some genderless Pokemon (this can be considered an event) and asking in return some random Pokemon. So, in this period (24 hours / 2 days / anyway) players will look for that Pokémon to breed and change as often as he deems necessary.

A small example:

-npc: Oooh, look what I have here, a Staryu, but I love to have a jigglypuff, you happen to have one?

So this one day of the month, we will have an "event" where all players who want to have a competitive Starmie, seeking a jigglypuff modest/timid with ivs he can.

So we still have some difficulty in getting Pokemon with some Hidden Power, but not everything has to be so easy.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Makarovs

[Kizhaz]

I actually really like this idea, it cant be abused either since you need to trade a good pokemon in exchange, so unless you have multiple or breed like crazy you will most likely just get 1. If making them gifts is what it takes to have this implemented then by all means do it, I'm just looking for a pokemon to use myself anyway. We would need the npc around for at least a week imo so everyone has enough time to breed what he wants, but we also need him frequently there so everyone has an equal chance to obtain a comp genderless pokemon.

[OldKeith]

Not at all, in fact if it strengthens it even further.

 

 

IVs.

 

If you're familiar with many MMOs outside of runescape, you'll know they have a 'fortification' system, which takes materials and allows you to improve upon their current stats.

Here you are able to 'fortify' via breeding.

 

And to state the obvious; they are used to complete your objective, without them you would not be able to progress and battle and get through the rest of the game.

 

Egg Moves/Event Moves/TMs/Anything outside of standard level-up moves can be looked at as similar to enchantment stones, where you use a external consumable on a particular piece of equipment to better improve it's fighting or defensive capabilities.

There are of course limited slots (Four in our case) to prevent you from making things too powerful.

 

Runescape falls very flat when it comes to more complex MMO systems.

 

Glad we can agree that pokemon should be harder to obtain if you want good IVs/hidden power rather than if they have a gender or not.