[X] My Assistant

[Yamper]

So, this was brought up in Discord chat so figured I'd post it here because why not? Worth a shot, after all.

As we all know there are less active users on the site. This means there are less active breeders available for eggs to be bred and donated to the shelter. Due to circumstances with errors and lag, the bot Alex and Thomas, whom used to breed a vast majority of eggs on the site have since been disabled leaving breeding to a small pool of users.

Understandably during Site-Wide Shiny Hunts, users will be breeding the 3 Pokémon hunted. Then what? What do these users go on to breed? Chances are, probably more pointless eggs that the shelter is already in abundance of.

This poses a few issues:

• It has been quite difficult to shiny hunt various Pokémon, due to there being either a small number of users breeding or none at all. For example, I've been hunting Emolga since last year, as far as I've found (in terms of eggs) there is only a single active user who is breeding them, despite there being 4 total breeders (which in itself is still minuscule).
• It also poses a problem to new members, with eggs being unable to be found. Yes, they may find some Pokémon in the Safari Zone to which they can then attempt to breed, but for how long? They might just breed it and then hatch a single egg, donate the last 4 and change their pairs.
• It makes the site limited in terms of Pokédex completion; Egg, Pokémon and Shiny.
• As of posting this, out of all breedable Pokémon on GPX+, there are 202 non Novelty Pokémon that have 5 or less breeders - and what are the chances that these users have been 'active' in the last few weeks?
• Currently throughout the day we see around 2000-2500 users (ish), so there's definitely enough active accounts about, but most are breeding useless things we don't need.

So that aside, I'd like to suggest some form of incentive to get active users to breed Pokémon that have no breeders, or at least, next to no breeders and a smaller amount of eggs. I'd like to suggest 'Mission Cards'.

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Mission Cards

Mission Cards are a current feature in the game Pokémon Shuffle, by which each card consists of different tasks that a user must complete under different circumstances, in their own time. Upon completion of a task, you would receive so many stars; the more stars available the more difficult a task is to complete. After so many stars you would receive a prize, and once the card had been completed you would receive a 'Grand Prize', so to speak.

In the case of the site, different tasks for users to complete could be things like:

• Breed a certain number of Pokémon egg species.
• Hatch a certain number of species bred by other users. *
• Level X Pokémon to 100. *
• Breed a shiny of a certain Pokémon species.

* This is to serve the purpose of it not being 'pointless' to breed the eggs in the first place. No reason to breed them if there's no reason to hatch them, right?
* This I'm not particularly sure about. It was something I'd thought of to perhaps provide people with another means of Pokédex completion, among possible breeding pairs.

Mission Cards come with different difficulties, so a variety of colours would be ideal. Perhaps indicated by the number of tasks available, the longer the task and number of rewards available.

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Rewards

Looking about for particular items to class as a 'reward', I came across a few different things that could be used. In the Unova games, there was a place called Abyssal Ruins that bore a variety of 'treasures' that trainers collected and then basically sold to collectors for a high price.
These were Relic Items:



How I feel this could work is as difficulty increases then different Relic Items are awarded as a prize, so Relic Copper would be the easiest and go up to perhaps the Relic Vase and the last 2 could merely be awarded randomly; more so within harder difficulty cards and perhaps just sold for points instead.

In addition to this random site items could also be given as rewards, VS Seeker Items, occasional Choice Items and maybe other Valuable Items. Other site items such as Flame Orbs could also be available too.

Summon Items could be a possibility as part of a more difficult reward, so they wouldn't appear under easier cards (to limit the possible abuse)

I did have in mind perhaps some form of exchange system for the Relic Coins, as so they're not completely useless. Instead of exchanging these Relic Coins for items, they could perhaps be used in exchange to gain access to higher cards, so in order to access a medium difficulty card you would need to have 4 Relic Coppers in your inventory. These would then be used up thus allowing you to access a medium difficulty card.

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I'm not sure what else to say in regards to this, obviously ideas can be tweaked. I feel a limit would need to be placed on how many cards you can undergo at once or within a time period after completion.

Another thing that could be something to think about are multiplier days - obviously more eggs are created, so whether they would go towards the count or not is a different thing.

Thoughts on this? Any suggestions? Can guarantee you I've probably worded something only I can understand at 6:30am in the morning so let me know if anything sounds.. dodgy.


*Edited due to apparently incomprehensible text* toldyou

This post has been edited by x Sam: Jan 19 2017, 03:28 AM

[Gryphaena]

I think your idea is useful and well thought out.

I'd like to participate in Mission Cards after I finally hatch a Shiny Bidofo from my Daycare pair.

[Cryptic Lyric]

I actually really like this idea. I know with my Cranidos hunt that I was the only person breeding it for a long while, and even I stopped because I moved on to a different hunt.

I know some people are trying to create a "living dex", but the pokemon are simply not there. At least not in the shelter, and who wants to scour the lab for an egg that may or may not even be there?

Maybe the effects of multiplier days - more eggs bred and hatched - could be chalked up to bonus cards, ones that were set aside for those reasons. They could have higher threshholds and perhaps completely different prizes?

[Yamper]

I actually really like this idea. I know with my Cranidos hunt that I was the only person breeding it for a long while, and even I stopped because I moved on to a different hunt.

I know some people are trying to create a "living dex", but the pokemon are simply not there. At least not in the shelter, and who wants to scour the lab for an egg that may or may not even be there?

Maybe the effects of multiplier days - more eggs bred and hatched - could be chalked up to bonus cards, ones that were set aside for those reasons. They could have higher threshholds and perhaps completely different prizes?

That's something yeah. I guess it could work similar to how Aurora and the Star Guided Journey works; maybe it'll only trigger from a minimum number multiplier?

Nothing too drastic to put people off, though aha.

[Cycloneblaze]

You've always got the best suggestions, Sam. I'll easily support this, it sounds real cool.

[SilverPT]

I support this as well. It would be even better if it worked side-by-side with the Achievements.

[Gryphaena]

How would it work side by side with achievements?

The achievements are clear and we're not allowed to propose new ones.

Edit: I have an idea, what if the Mission Cards were something that Alex and Thomas do since they don't breed anymore?

They'll generate Mission Cards and say something like "Hey, [name], we've noticed that the population of [Pokemon species] is drastically low! Would you help us out by breeding some? Thanks!"

This post has been edited by Gryphaena: Jan 18 2017, 08:04 PM

[SilverPT]

How would it work side by side with achievements?

The achievements are clear and we're not allowed to propose new ones.

What I meant by that was that the implementation and creation of new Mission Cards would not hinder/cancel the implementation of new batches of achievements and vice-versa.

[Yamper]

How would it work side by side with achievements?

The achievements are clear and we're not allowed to propose new ones.

Edit: I have an idea, what if the Mission Cards were something that Alex and Thomas do since they don't breed anymore?

They'll generate Mission Cards and say something like "Hey, [name], we've noticed that the population of [Pokemon species] is drastically low! Would you help us out by breeding some? Thanks!"

It's a nice idea but the way it comes across is like they're a 'chance text encounter' asking for a favour, opposed to something that is completely independent. They could, by all means, have a different section that A&T run and offer you different cards to choose from (limited choice) to which you can then carry out the mission card.

I'd rather Alex and Thomas not be directly linked to it (in terms of how you suggested) and keep them separate in that respect, but if they 'ran' the 'area' I guess that would make sense.

[Spoovo The Pirat...]

As someone who actively breeds obscure things (Currently Bastiodon x Slowpoke), I'm personally all for this. My flatmate's recently started a hunt for Maractus, so I'd imagine she'd be all for this aswell.
At the very least, something needs to be done. There are scores of eggs you literally just can't find without a miracle. Even semi 'common' ones like Smoochum take a lot of luck.

[InsaneMoments]

Just a thought, i doubt it will be usable, but what about a second daycare, possibly one that you cannot claim an egg for?

Id forsure breed other things, but unless i want to stop my clone hunt I cant overly switch out my pairs all that often.

If I had a second daycare, that I would have to release obviously I could breed other randoms without it impacting my personal hunts

[Yamper]

Second daycare could work along side things I guess - could be an incentive to use it to breed, considering one of the things I suggested was to hatch eggs bred by other users I feel it could work.

I'm sure someone suggested a second daycare before.. I'll find it and link to both (the forum thread and your post, Vikk)

[Manah]

I love this suggestion (I'm definitely one of those users that have trouble finding certain eggs at times), but I'll be honest, I wouldn't use it much, for two reasons:

1) Shiny novelty hunting - keeping up with the release of new novelties is already near impossible.
2) The extra hour you have to wait for eggs after switching out your pair makes breeding different things...not very appealing.

Not much can be done about 1), other than a second daycare (which I also support), but if a site feature requires you to switch your pair often (if you do multiple missions), we need to get rid of 2).

[Tyranisaur]

I don't think there's an inherent need to switch breeding pairs often. The issue that should get addressed is that there's a mismatch between what people are breeding and what eggs people want to pick up. In the bigger picture, you would think that most of eggs picked up are for the purpose of shiny hunting, and this takes a while. So it would be natural to not switch out the breeding pair until at least someone get to complete their shiny hunt. How many eggs you need to breed to complete someone's shiny hunt depends on both how many breeders and hunters there are for that pokemon. If there are few hunters and a lot of breeders, then it will take a long time. Even if there are few breeders, it might still take a long time if nobody is hunting them. Finding out which eggs to breed that are useful is not only something we should incentivze, it is also hard to do even if you want to.

[Yamper]

I don't think there's an inherent need to switch breeding pairs often. The issue that should get addressed is that there's a mismatch between what people are breeding and what eggs people want to pick up. In the bigger picture, you would think that most of eggs picked up are for the purpose of shiny hunting, and this takes a while. So it would be natural to not switch out the breeding pair until at least someone get to complete their shiny hunt. How many eggs you need to breed to complete someone's shiny hunt depends on both how many breeders and hunters there are for that pokemon. If there are few hunters and a lot of breeders, then it will take a long time. Even if there are few breeders, it might still take a long time if nobody is hunting them. Finding out which eggs to breed that are useful is not only something we should incentivze, it is also hard to do even if you want to.

I'm probably misunderstanding with the incentivising eggs to breed, but that's why I've included the shiny part to the 'missions' - there's no point breeding things if nobody will hatch them obviously. If I'm getting the wrong end of the stick I do apologise, ha.

[Indigo Sapphire]

Can we make the number of eggs produced per hour be increased or decreased depending on their availability in the Shelter?

I'm not sure if I explained that well, but if a Pokemon egg is not as common in the Shelter, couples that can breed that egg will breed more of those eggs. Likewise, couples that breed a common egg will breed less of those eggs. The likelihood of breeding more or less eggs would automatically change with the amount of eggs in the shelter, which I'd assume is possible and it would assure an equal distribution among non-Very Rare and non-Novelty eggs. I don't know how this kind of system would work with those rarities though.

[Yamper]

Can we make the number of eggs produced per hour be increased or decreased depending on their availability in the Shelter?

I'm not sure if I explained that well, but if a Pokemon egg is not as common in the Shelter, couples that can breed that egg will breed more of those eggs. Likewise, couples that breed a common egg will breed less of those eggs. The likelihood of breeding more or less eggs would automatically change with the amount of eggs in the shelter, which I'd assume is possible and it would assure an equal distribution among non-Very Rare and non-Novelty eggs. I don't know how this kind of system would work with those rarities though.

So you mean, the number of eggs in the shelter scales with how many are produced?

[Naixatloz]

Can we make the number of eggs produced per hour be increased or decreased depending on their availability in the Shelter?

I'm not sure if I explained that well, but if a Pokemon egg is not as common in the Shelter, couples that can breed that egg will breed more of those eggs. Likewise, couples that breed a common egg will breed less of those eggs. The likelihood of breeding more or less eggs would automatically change with the amount of eggs in the shelter, which I'd assume is possible and it would assure an equal distribution among non-Very Rare and non-Novelty eggs. I don't know how this kind of system would work with those rarities though.

So you mean, the number of eggs in the shelter scales with how many are produced?

Or rather, how many are produced scales with how many there are in the shelter. Or it could scale with how many active users are breeding that species.

[EmmeBearPaw]

Really anything that encourages people to breed Pokémon that aren't already super common is something that I will wholeheartedly support. Seriously, I am the only breeder of Natu on the entire site. Pokemon like Natu completely fall of the face of the shelter if that one or two people decided to stop breeding them. There really does need to be a way to prevent more obscure Pokémon from falling out of existence, because if they do then it may cause a ripple effect of no new players breeding them because they can't get the Pokémon to actually breed.



This post has been edited by EmmeBearPaw: May 7 2017, 08:13 PM

[Mars Adept Enten]

I'd be for this, as some Pokémon *cough*Crabrawler*cough* have hardly any breeders which makes their eggs hard to find. I haven't even seen one Crabrawler egg in the Lab or Shelter, and I need that for my Egg 'Dex. Yet I see tons of Crabrawlers in the Safari Zone and that infuriates me.

So even for people wanting to get egg completion stats up, this would be useful.