The PokeYen Conundrum

[DoubleJ]

The PokeYen Conundrum: A Story of Competitive Struggles.

 

A long time ago, there was a time when financial wealth came much easier to the players of PokeMMO. A time when comps didn't require hours and hours, and even days, of dedication just to be on par with the remainder of the competitive field. A time when Godly pokes weren't rejected or low-balled in trade chat because they were only 3x31, despite having 28+ in the other two stats. A time when breeding one poke didn't require 8 hours of money farming. 

 

Oh those were the days. The days when the competitive players could enjoy the game the way they wanted to play it, and not have to dedicate hours of mindlessness to Pay Day farming just to buy a few overpriced braces and a couple Everstones. 

 

I also remember a time when Shiny Traders and Competitive Players played this game cooperatively, and when tens of millions of PokeYen wasn't coveted by one player. 

 

I asked for an economy re-work a few months ago. What I got were a few changes that alleviated stress on obtaining battle points, but broke any and all opportunity to sell them for a reasonable amount of money worth the time invested. 

 

 

 

So PokeMMO, I ask you this: Will you find a way to fix the current economy to help competitive players?

 

 

My quick-fix recommendations include: 

 

1. Reduce the cost of breeding Braces

2. Reduce the cost of Ability Pills

3. Increase payouts from Official Tournaments (1M is just too little compared to the current demands of breeding)

 

My long-term ideas include:

 

1. Develop an auto-sell program where you can breed a pokemon, and trade it to an NPC for a set profit. Factors determining payout could be based on the following:

• Total sum of all ivs
• Species
• Appropriate nature
• 31 IV bonuses

This could create a reasonable market for players to base their player-to-player trades on, rather than just a shit-show like it is now. It would also provide an option for old, unwanted comps to be sold at a reasonable price. While this would be difficult to code (I think), I truly believe this would be a beneficial addition to the game.

 

2. While I haven't found a good way to do this that would undermine the game's development progress thus far, I think there should be a link made once again between Shiny Traders and Competitive Players. In the past, prize Shiny Pokemon were able to be traded, which enticed Shiny Traders to hand over their wads of cash to get their hands on something they otherwise weren't able to get. Idk how we'd do this with our current system, but I really can't appreciate a system that promotes players who give the least amount of time to this game a leg up. Comp players are grinding 24/7, while Shiny Traders log on just to trade among themselves or to chase a new shiny that was reportedly seen in the possession of an unknown player.  

 

So please, we out here struggling. Funds are dried up and breeders are long gone. The system is driving us away. 

Edited September 10, 2015 by DoubleJ

[KaynineXL]

I don't want no huge cooldowns either. If I want to power farm money for hours, why shouldn't I be able too? I'm investing my own time..

[DrCraig]

I've skimmed most of this, a lot is a bit tldr. I agree with making the e4 give a payout reward in both regions and having the BF a choice between bp or money payout. I don't think we should just reduce the braces and leave it at that, in fact if we get better payout options I'd be happy to leave them as is. It's the grind for cash that needs to be fixed so that gameplay isn't tedious. In fact a suggestion I remember from ages ago was implementing the Lady in the house up on Resort Gorgeous to ask you to catch a certain pokemon and she'll reward with cash, this could help those not into battling to make some money more easily, it's basically like an official catching contest.

 

Trade hub isn't coming until Hoenn is complete so that will take a while for our trades to be easier, but these options listed above I feel could be more than placeholders in the time being, that way we don't rely on trading to make money

Yea we just need more ways to get money. Nobody can maintain their wealth because the costs just outpace the rate we can get money. Either we arent making enough or everything costs too much.

[Bestfriends]

Here is my solution to fix the economy (for comp players [and upcoming comp players]):

 

Bestfriendsnomics 101 (for comp players)

 

1. I know this may sound a bit broken, but I think this is a good idea. Make trainers not only pay Battle Points, but also Pokeyen. At this rate, people can get a nice income at the Battle Frontier and money can shower and thus breeding won't be as expensive and people will stop by the battle fronter more often. (thank you Beldore for this idea)

 

2. Lower prices of breeding utilities (thank you DoubleJ for this idea)

 

3. Make pay day rate x1,000 instead of x100. I understand this may sound broken, but hear me out, players that have college and other things irl that make it impossible to play PokeMMO for 8-9 straight hours and gain a decent income.

 

4. Are the staff having problems with people who yell and scream in game those ugly troll faces on channel chat or people who troll staff members? Problem solved! For the people who behave properly will get an "automatic income" of 10K monthly, but for the people who misbehave, take 50K away from their income and stop the "automatic income" for 5-6 months. These clowns may have second thoughts about posting troll messages or harassing staff! 

 

5. For people who are continue to behave properly for ONE whole year, might get something expensive in their inventory like a Desu Labcoat or a Kyu hat....

 

6. Now we get to the fun part, lets revamp the tournaments. Like lets make the reward 5 mil - 10mil pure Pokeyen. (Competitive elites like Frags or DoubleJ can't resist the temptation of being as wealthy as a novice shiny trader, but at the same time, the competitive scene would grow due to lots of people wanting that head start).

 

7. Lastly, for any suggestion on forums that is used in another update, the staff can reward those people with 100K each.

 

 

And those are my solutions to help this economy get back on track and make newbs more money thus making them interested in comp (since they can afford the utilities needed to make comps).

 

 

[spoiler]Special thanks to Beldore for helping me make this suggestion shine![/spoiler]

Edited September 11, 2015 by Bestfriends

[patienceyeah]

Pokemmo is like a korean mmo, because the grind is too strong.

[Beldore]

Here is my solution to fix the economy (for comp players [and upcoming comp players]):

 

Bestfriendsnomics 101 (for comp players)

 

1. I know this may sound a bit broken, but I think this is a good idea. Make trainers not only pay Battle Points, but also Pokeyen. At this rate, people can get a nice income at the Battle Frontier and money can shower and thus breeding won't be as expensive and people will stop by the battle fronter more often.

 

2. Lower prices of breeding utilities (thank you DoubleJ for this idea)

 

3. Make pay day rate x10,000 instead of x100. I understand this may sound broken, but hear me out, players that have college and other things irl that make it impossible to play PokeMMO for 8-9 straight hours and gain a decent income.

 

4. Are the staff having problems with people who yell and scream in game those ugly troll faces on channel chat or people who troll staff members? Problem solved! For the people who behave properly will get an "automatic income" of 10K monthly, but for the people who misbehave, take 50K away from their income and stop the "automatic income" for 5-6 months. These clowns may have second thoughts about posting troll messages or harassing staff! 

 

5. For people who are continue to behave properly for ONE whole year, might get something expensive in their inventory like a Desu Labcoat or a Kyu hat....

 

6. Now we get to the fun part, lets revamp the tournaments. Like lets make the reward 20 mil - 40mil pure Pokeyen. (Competitive elites like Frags or DoubleJ can't resist the temptation of being as wealthy as a novice shiny trader, but at the same time, the competitive scene would grow due to lots of people wanting that head start).

 

7. Lastly, for any suggestion on forums that is used in another update, the staff can reward those people with 60K each.

 

 

And those are my solutions to help this economy get back on track and make newbs more money thus making them interested in comp (since they can afford the utilities needed to make comps).

1. I said the same thing on this thread.

2. That would be amazing.

3. x10,000 sounds way too high, but would be amazing :P

4. Wouldn't that just make players not play the game?

5. There is no way staff can keep track of who is nice/bad. This also goes with #4

6. 20mil-40mil is amazing af, but that is just too high, you'd be set for a long time.

7. meh 60k is chump change :P

[bl0nde]

Some of us from 2012 will remember that we used to farm for 2 or 3 days for one pokemon. That was about the average to have what was considered a "good comp". Over the years, the quality of pokemon you can get from this amount of time investment has improved, but the amount of time people are willing to invest to reach "comp level quality" has not changed.

 

As of  lately, we obtain perfect pokemon quicker than ever, but people still spend days breeding. Most of us have done it, and it is simple. It is a matter of most people trying to invest more time than one another to gain a slight competitive edge or to at least be on par with the average competitive quality pokemon of the day. The only way to make this time investment that people are willing to make go away is to allow universal access to perfect comps for every player in a relatively short amount of time. Then, people would not have to invest the time to obtain perfects 5x/6x.

 

If that were to happen, then it would just turn into running multiple sets of things as the leading edge of being competitive. Wait - that already sort of happened in cloneMMO.

 

As others have mentioned, I think the best thought to helping deal with the grinding aspect of the game is to make grinding more fun. To me it sounds fun to link earning money with battling against other duelists (not the NPC). Reasons:

1. Battling is fun for most

2. it would keep the comp scene lively

3. you don't depend on payday/amulet coin farming so much.

4. new players can payday until they have a team that can earn them money.

 

To me, this seems good for a large majority of the community. My initial thought is small to medium sized automated tournaments with varying payouts depending on rank, tournament size, etc.. As you guys know, In other games you typically have 6-20 person game rooms that lasts 5 to 30 minutes. For us, our automated tournaments could be this. For example, I'm thinking you make it past round 1 = $10,000, round 2 = $20,000, etc. for small 4-6 man tournament. This was just the first thought. I'm sure you can make improvements or have better ideas. This would all require a lot of thought and rebalancing but I think linking competitive play and money being earned is the key to making the game great. Evidence for this is in other games: you play one battle, you earn coins and weapons or whatever depending on your performance - many work with that system.

 

TL;DR rebalancing won't help because players are always willing to put in 2 or 3 days worth of grinding to try to gain a competitive edge in terms of pokemon quality. Rebalancing only creates a new competitive standard, not less grind - unless easy universal access for all to perfect comps. I believe the solution is to connect battling each other (not NPC's) with earning money, possibly in the form of automated tournaments with rewards according to performance. This makes grinding money fun because battling is fun for most.

[Bestfriends]

1. I said the same thing on this thread.

2. That would be amazing.

3. x10,000 sounds way too high, but would be amazing :P

4. Wouldn't that just make players not play the game?

5. There is no way staff can keep track of who is nice/bad. This also goes with #4

6. 20mil-40mil is amazing af, but that is just too high, you'd be set for a long time.

7. meh 60k is chump change :P

1. editted

 

2. I am glad you like that idea

 

3. okay, since you said that, I don't think the staff would go for that number, how about x1,000? That sounds decent.

 

4. No, I am talking about the trolls that purposely go on channel chat to troll others or troll staff all day. I am not talking about the day to day PokeMMO player who minds his/her own business. Anotherwards, the "trolls" would quit and the good players can stay and be rewarded for their good behaviour.

 

5. What I am saying is that the moment a staff member mutes a player, there can be an automatic timer that sets and thus disabling the funds from coming to the player and killing their income. The staff don't manually do this function, that would be quite tedious.

 

6. You do raise a good point there, I edited the prize amout to 10mil - 20mil

 

7. Raising the price to 100K per suggestion used in update.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Bestfriends

[Beldore]

Wall of txt

I don't think breeding items is the problem, just money income. Also i don't think ppl battling other ppl is a good way to make money imo. What if someone who just started comp and is battling a vet? (correct if i'm wrong on this, but that's what it sounded like). Thus i find battling NPCs a better option to gain money. I don't quite find that fair all that much, but that's my opinion. If we had a sturdy supply of money to keep us supplied with some money we could buy the breeding items, it also prevents cloneMMO at least i think so.

 

1. editted

 

2. I am glad you like that idea

 

3. okay, since you said that, I don't think the staff would go for that number, how about x1,000? That sounds decent.

 

4. No, I am talking about the trolls that purposely go on channel chat to troll others or troll staff all day. I am not talking about the day to day PokeMMO player who minds his/her own business. Anotherwards, the "trolls" would quit and the good players can stay and be rewarded for their good behaviour.

 

5. What I am saying is that the moment a staff member mutes a player, there can be an automatic timer that sets and thus disabling the funds from coming to the player and killing their income. The staff don't manually do this function, that would be quite tedious.

 

6. You do raise a good point there, I edited the prize amout to 10mil - 20mil

 

7. Raising the price to 100K per suggestion used in update.

3. sounds better
4.trolls are gonna troll, staff will just mute them like usual but that's my opinion.
5.see #4
6. sounds better, personally i think 5-10mil is good enough
7.i still don't see the devs doing this, but again my opinion.

[bl0nde]

You know what, I like my idea even more after I thought about it. Because if you have a shiny trader that "likes" to earn money by trading around, they must have some measure of fun doing that AND also > make money doing it. See, there are those of us that don't care to shiny trade - we mostly only want to battle and this generates no money at all unless you enter a tournament. Okay, so basically dueling (aka playing the game) generates very little money. If these tournaments are automated and they reward you for spending time dueling this kind of closes that gap between comp player wealth and shiny trader wealth.

 

Shiny traders, I know you might think to hate the idea. Think of this of this though: like you, I've seen many shiny traders paste their shinies in the trade chat for days/weeks (think of that solrock lol). If we duelists have money from dueling each other, that puts a lot more money into the economy moving around for shiny traders and breeders. It's a win/win for everybody.

[Bilburt]

How i see it is that we do not increase payouts because this is what i think is gonna happen if you have more money you are willing to pay more for the same (its just how it works you'll think "ow i have enough money anyway what is an extra 50k?") And sellers would and should(in my opinion) take advantage of that and up prices by a pinch so here you are 10% more money then you normally do because of increased payouts wanting to buy pokemons suddenly 10-20% higher priced. Conclusion: upping payouts may make it at the end even worse than it was(getting a better payout means more players will get into he grind because now its worth grinding for money. increasing the buyers and upping the prices because more people want/need to buy the same thing

[Beldore]

How i see it is that we do not increase payouts because this is what i think is gonna happen if you have more money you are willing to pay more for the same (its just how it works you'll think "ow i have enough money anyway what is an extra 50k?") And sellers would and should(in my opinion) take advantage of that and up prices by a pinch so here you are 10% more money then you normally do because of increased payouts wanting to buy pokemons suddenly 10-20% higher priced. Conclusion: upping payouts may make it at the end even worse than it was(getting a better payout means more players will get into he grind because now its worth grinding for money. increasing the buyers and upping the prices because more people want/need to buy the same thing

Well we would have a sturdy way of making money instead of grinding islands. The money payout would most likely raise prices a bit but us players would have a way of making said money to buy the poke. Currently the money payout is terrible, nobody wants to buy a comp because the money grind is too much.

[suigin]

buy vitamins for 3650

sell for 4900

???

profit

oh didn't know you could buy them for that cheap

bring them back to their old price then, i doubt people purchase them anyways

Or just add Nuggets for sale in the Battle Frontier

Edited September 11, 2015 by suigin

[bl0nde]

i don't think ppl battling other ppl is a good way to make money imo. What if someone who just started comp and is battling a vet?

In showdown they have ranks where you get matched against the closest ranks near you when you are on-line. In world of tanks they have the matchmaker system. If the idea was to be pursued, you would have to study what is the best system for PokeMMO. The first issue I see with the idea is people making alts then trying to sweep noobs at lowers ranks for quick cash. One way to discourage that would be to make all of the tournaments in a certain area and make this area require 8 badges to enter or something. Another method of prevention would be to have slightly higher rewards for players participating in high rank automated tournaments (possibly the uncommon untradable gift shinies or something). Slightly higher rewards for top ranked tournaments would also create an incentive for players to want to climb the ladder/ "laddering". It creates the incentive for competition between the players.

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Beldore]

In showdown they have ranks where you get matched against the closest ranks near you when you are on-line. In world of tanks they have the matchmaker system. If the idea was to be pursued, you would have to study what is the best system for PokeMMO. The first issue I see with the idea is people making alts then trying to sweep noobs at lowers ranks for quick cash. One way to discourage that would be to make all of the tournaments in a certain area and make this area require 8 badges to enter or something. Another method of prevention would be to have slightly higher rewards for players participating in high rank automated tournaments (possibly the uncommon untradable gift shinies or something).

this sounds more of a method for vet players more than balanced and equal for everyone though.

[bl0nde]

Paydaying is always an option still. New players have to start somewhere. That was bullet point 4 in my original post. As far as balance for everyone: the laddering system in pokemon showdown works great - new players at the bottom, vets at the top. I'm not sure if I could say anything is unbalanced about it. The only thing people could complain about is it's not always possible for the highest level players to be online simultaneously since their rank is so high. That would definitely happen in our game at low traffic times with our smaller community. Of course, that could be balanced out too by giving players a slightly higher reward ($) or lower reward than is typical for participating with players outside of what is determined as the normal range of ranks for a given automated tournament. That's the way it works in showdown: if a vet beats a lower rank, the reward is less. Besides, doesn't everyone like a challenge once in awhile, especially knowing if they win they get more cash$$ ? :)

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Beldore]

Paydaying is always an option still. New players have to start somewhere. That was bullet point 4 in my original post. As far as balance for everyone: the laddering system in pokemon showdown works great - new players at the bottom, vets at the top. I'm not sure if I could say anything is unbalanced about it. The only thing people could complain about is it's not always possible for the highest level players to be online simultaneously since their rank is so high. That would definitely happen in our game at low traffic times with our smaller community. Of course, that could be balanced out too by giving players a slightly higher reward ($) or lower reward than is typical for participating with players outside of what is determined as the normal range of ranks for a given automated tournament. That's the way it works in showdown: if a vet beats a lower rank, the reward is less.

Let's assume I'm a player that just begins comp, I have no comps. So I enter the automatic ranking tourney. Let's assume "almost" everyone there has some comps, I get destroyed, I figure I'll just make my own cops before I enter again. They begin the long grind of breeding, with little to none income. Also let's say I make an alt and get all 8 badges and transfer some comps to the alt. I just destroy the low rank players, easy money. Rinse and repeat. Many ppl have loads of alts to do that.

[bl0nde]

Those are valid points. I wouldn't be sure how to deal with them off the top of my head or if they could be addressed with the automated tournament format I mentioned - which is fine, I just liked the idea of connecting money to dueling or something fun. Dueling is arguably the most fun activity in the game and it could be worked into a reward system somehow. We already have this system and people seem to like it. The difference is the tournaments we do now are not automated and the rewards usually only go to the top few players.

 

Whatever the case is, I'm sure as hill not supporting just making money easier to obtain because that's not a solution and I explained why in my opening post. I think the issue emanates from people just hating the grind - what you have to go through to get to play(duel). If you were rewarded somehow as did fun things, that would be much better. by the way, dungeons will only be fun if the terrain is randomly generated, otherwise people will just map them out within 2 days then it turns into grind. This is my last post. I am responding to these questins and hijacking double J's thread too much. Good luck peeps.
 

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Beldore]

Those are valid points. I wouldn't be sure how to deal with them off the top of my head or if they could be addressed with the automated tournament format I mentioned - which is fine, I just liked the idea of connecting money to dueling or something fun. Dueling is arguably the most fun activity in the game and it could be worked into a reward system somehow. We already have this system and people seem to like it. The difference is the tournaments we do now are not automated and the rewards usually only go to the top few players.
 
Whatever the case is, I'm sure as hill not supporting just making money easier to obtain because that's not a solution and I explained why in my opening post. I think the issue emanates from people just hating the grind - what you have to go through to get to play(duel). If you were rewarded somehow as did fun things, that would be much better. by the way, dungeons will only be fun if the terrain is randomly generated, otherwise people will just map them out within 2 days then it turns into grind. This is my last post. I am responding to these questins and hijacking double J's thread too much. Good luck peeps.

I like the idea of it don't get me wrong, but old players would have more of an advantage with alts. We don't want money super easy to obtain, we just want more ways with a better payout. Well at least I do, don't mind grinding for it if the payout is good.

[bl0nde]

hold on, I'm laying in my bed on my phone. If you are going to assume that this game is an ongoing entity like a business then these people with alt accounts (if they did keep up with all of them) will eventually run out - just like people ran out of most clones from the cloneMMO days.

I am also thinking some sort of requirement could be set to help prevent alt runners from slamming noobs for cash - we've got in game hours, pokedex completion, and different things. Remeber how they cleaned out all the unused accounts with certain criteria? Maybe a criteria list of some sort related to hours or something. Ask Rhyzpic to time an alt then add 20 hours to it and make that in game a criteria to participate in the tournaments lol. The criteria doesn't have to be a "lockdown" , it just has to be enough to make the alt runs less effective than pay daying or participating in the tournaments under your regular account.

well I think it would be fun to collect trophies and stuff too. We could put a spot on the trainer card for gold silver and bronze trophie counters. I wouldn't want a public lose counter because then you get all of the elitist chanting on those and being hateful about it. Just different trophies and your rank to document your success I think. You could differentiate trophies by different colors or breaking them down into tiers.
Like tier 1 gold trophy is you won a tournament with only players from the top 50. Tier 2 gold trophy = win tournament filled with players from rank 50-100, etc. No one could call you a suck duelist because no trophies could mean you just don't do tournies often. U could make the trophies gold, silver, etc pokeball trophy to make it more fitting. Ex: 50 count tier 1 gold poke balls on your trainer card = super leet. The trophies also preserve your accomplishments if u quit playing for awhile because of school/job or something and you lose your rank because of that (your rank goes down if you don't ever play). Having a large trophy case of gold silver and bronze poke balls as a mark of success on your regular alt trainer card could also be an incentive to not try to win under alt account names - u cant show them off without giving away your identity.

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Bilburt]

hold on, I'm laying in my bed on my phone. If you are going to assume that this game is an ongoing entity like a business then these people with alt accounts (if they did keep up with all of them) will eventually run out - just like people ran out of most clones from the cloneMMO days.

I am also thinking some sort of requirement could be set to help prevent alt runners from slamming noobs for cash - we've got in game hours, pokedex completion, and different things. Remeber how they cleaned out all the unused accounts with certain criteria? Maybe a criteria list of some sort related to hours or something. Ask Rhyzpic to time an alt then add 20 hours to it and make that in game a criteria to participate in the tournaments lol. The criteria doesn't have to be a "lockdown" , it just has to be enough to make the alt runs less effective than pay daying or participating in the tournaments under your regular account.

well I think it would be fun to collect trophies and stuff too. We could put a spot on the trainer card for gold silver and bronze trophie counters. I wouldn't want a public lose counter because then you get all of the elitist chanting on those and being hateful about it. Just different trophies and your rank to document your success I think. You could differentiate trophies by different colors or breaking them down into tiers.
Like tier 1 gold trophy is you won a tournament with only players from the top 50. Tier 2 gold trophy = win tournament filled with players from rank 50-100, etc. No one could call you a suck duelist because no trophies could mean you just don't do tournies often. U could make the trophies gold, silver, etc pokeball trophy to make it more fitting. Ex: 50 count tier 1 gold poke balls on your trainer card = super leet. The trophies also preserve your accomplishments if u quit playing for awhile because of school/job or something and you lose your rank because of that (your rank goes down if you don't ever play)

If i got his right ur saying that dueling should be a source of income?
Assuming im right what would stop people from losing intentionally making it a easy source of income

[bl0nde]

If you join an automated tournament with a room of people you might not get to play against the alternate account that is intended to lose on purpose. Someone else might get the money. The brackets are determined by timing. You click join the tourney then the system sets you up in a bracket, so you'd have to try to click in both PC's at the same time then hope you got matched against your dummy account and not someone else.

Guilds on teamspeak could try to time into a bracket together to give money to one another but that might not always work if traffic is on and if it did happen to work some of them would get money from killing fellow guild members on purpose, but not all. So with all factors considered it would overall be inefficient i think and simply more consistent to payday or play in tournaments normally for money since they would all potentially be winning money.

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Bilburt]

U are assuming alts but im talking about friends who would gladly do it and when do you decide who is matched with who?

[Kizhaz]

If a payout occurs in every round of a tournament then that would make people sign up just to make a quick buck, meanwhile those that actually want to join for the sheer fact that they are a competitive player might not make it into the bracket due to how signups work. I think only paying the winner is fine tbh

[bl0nde]

My other post addresses this. If you tell the bracket to payout higher as players are knocked out, it's not advantageous to get in, try to get a buck, then quit. There is more payouts for going further in the bracket. It's not good to only pay the winner. Some of these guys could play 3 brackets and get rng'd in the butt in the finals 2 out if 3 brackets for only one payout. or their girlfriend told them to get off. It's better to get some cash each round I think so it's not all or nothing all the time - that seems like it encourages stressful and angry playing, whispers of rage, etc. Also the terrible noobs out there, if they even win a bit it gives them a bit of money (and hope) from playing brackets. We already have to much of that high entry barrier whining.

Edited September 11, 2015 by bl0nde

[Bilburt]

This would mean that eventually more people are joining tourneys making maybe even the brackets biggers making tourneys maybe even twice as long