Idea to make pvp less stagnant

PvP
1

I don’t mind that some Pokémon are better than others to a point where there is the Meta picks but it just really bores me going up against the same 6-10 Pokemon over and over again. Even Cups have the same problem and sometimes worse because smaller pool of Pokemon even less variation.

The idea I have in mind would essentially stop players using the same Pokemon all the time. Something along the lines of only being able to use a Pokemon three matches out of a series of five. So if you’ve used a Swampert for the first three matches of a series, you can’t use any of your Swamperts for the last two in that series.

I appreciate new players may only barely have three Pokemon to compete in a particular league so why not make ranked and unranked and then unranked can have no restriction on how many times you use a Pokemon in a set, and you can still earn the same rewards depending on how many matches you win in a set, but your rank won’t be affected and you won’t able to reach ace or higher without competing in ranked.

1 Like
2

Good to have your input here, with that valid concern and one possible way to mitigate it. If we are to have something like that, I’d like it to be optional, since I just don’t like the 1-on-1 battles and want to have LESS overhead for the times I’m coerced by Niantic to use that part of the game. Having to create new combinations of teams gets tedious pretty quickly, and those players whose play time is scarce will resent having to spend more time researching teams than actually playing the game.

Pros and cons… Other people’s thoughts on this?

3

Hello @Johntrom
:wave: :wave:

Welcome to the community !!




I am a regular PvP player, who plays in every format except Master League.

This is pretty much common in Master League, where entire theme is based around Dialga, his supports, and his counters.

But,

I am slightly not in favor of this !
:wink:
As my playstyle is based around favoritism, hence I tend to use those Pokemon continuously even if they are not performing better.


The problem with this will be :

:point_up: :point_up: :point_up:




So instead, I prefer diversifying the entire game. Except some exclusive moves, majority of moves are available to many Pokemon if they bear the same type, or they learn them as an alternate way. But in Pokemon GO, many good moves are only reserved to certain Pokemon which Niantic likes, and they try to protect the prowess of those Pokemon, like Registeel.


I want to give you couple of examples of moveset of only one Pokemon, but with different playstyle. This experience is based on competitive battles in MSG style.





Consider the case of Gardevoir.

  1. Idea One :

Taking the benefit of STAB, one can go with :

Moonblast
Psychic
Mystical Fire
Calm Mind



This moveset allows Gardevoir to the advantage of her STAB moves, with Mystical Fire providing some counter coverage. Calm mind helps boosting her Sp.A even further.




  1. Idea 2 :

Coverage + Counter Coverage , which provides greater flexibility.

Moonblast
Psychic
Shadow Ball
Focus Blast



This moveset allows Gardevoir to blast past the tanks like Registeel with ease, since Gardevoir easily outspeeds Registeel, and also possesses high Sp.A, so Focus Blast will most probably be OHKO.




Now you see how diverse one can make a Pokemon for battles. This entire point is missing in Pokemon GO. As Niantic is only considering attack, defense and HP as parameters for stats, because of which many Pokemon who have potential play with different style miss out, and Pokemon who have above average defense and HP become too good.

This is my idea. We should be able to teach any viable moves to our Pokemon which is possible in MSG as well.

And the biggest trouble for this is the idea of Fast moves. I believe every fast moves should provide different style of play for a Pokemon. Many good moves like Zen Headbutt are made terrible, whereas many average moves like mud shot are too good.

Another idea which I wish is that XL candies should be banned in PvP. This easily gives the high level players an upper hand against majority of players.



Legendary encounter rate after rank 20 and beyond should be increased drastically. What’s the point in playing that much far if we are not able to get them, considering the time which we invest in battles.



In MSG, we raise our Pokemon level by training them in battles, but here, its all about catching same Pokemon again and again, do unnecessary grinding by walking with your buddy.






But everything which I told above are just speculations and wishes, and we cannot make them happen, unless I am the lead developer of the game.
:rofl: :rofl:


So presently what I do is :

  • Make a team having overall balanced typing.
  • Look for Pokemon, and their moves. Everyone will say that Furfrou is not good in PvP, but with him, I had defeated Swampert and Talonflame teams. That’s why availability of varied moveset helps.
  • Try not to follow the crowd’s ideas and principles. For example, I use my Giratina-A in Ultra league with Shadow Force, rather than the recommended Shadow Sneak. And with the former one, almost every time, all high level opponents are caught off guard !
  • Not too much believe in the PvP articles, and PvPoke’s ranking. Though they are certainly good, but all those are based on ideal scenarios, not on the real matches. So certainly we have the freedom to deviate from that analogy.
  • Trying the teams again and again. This is most important. I am not a player who has access to communities, friends and Pokestops/Gyms, as I lack all of these. Despite that I manage to fare well in GBL quite enough by crossing at least Ace Rank every time. This is because of the fact that I tried numerous teams, before getting few good teams for battles.
  • We cannot bring the change, but can adapt to the mechanics. There are few mechanics in the game about which many newcomers might not be aware of. If you need to know, I can tell them !


This is my point of view, hope no one felt offended by my response.
:grin: :grin: :grin:

1 Like
4

No offense at your response here. But that’s a “tl;dr” for now. I’ll have to put off reading it until I have a few contiguous minutes for reading… like after work, sometime this evening.

5

Like I said, have a ranked where you’re forced to not use the same Pokemon for the entire set, and unranked where everyone can just spam the same 6-10 Pokémon over and over at each other. Or have ranked: no variation, ranked: forced variation, and unranked.

A lot of research has been done and articles have been written on team combinations anyway so I don’t think anymore effort would need to be put in to it if forced variation in pvp was a thing.

Personally I would prefer it if you couldn’t use the same Pokémon of that name more than once in a set but I think three out of five is a happy medium. You’d only need two teams and if you don’t, play unranked or ranked: no variation.

6

Or another idea to promote it as opposed to force would be incorporate something league of legends has post match where you can award/reward your opponent.

If I’ve just versed someone who’s used a team of Pokémon that are really uncommon in pvp, I’d like to give them an award/reward them for doing so. Or incorporating themes into a team, like if they had all Pokémon from Johto, or three Pokémon that have a type in common.

In fact having just written the above, it occurred to me that this would be even better if the game automatically awarded/rewarded you for it. At the end your set the game checks if you had any themes throughout the entire series, including not using a Pokémon that is in the top five/ten/twenty of that particular format as well the other things mentioned in the previous paragraph.

7

It seems similar to Nuzlocke variations of Pokemon Games.



I am a firm believer of the fact that generating a new idea with same input is much better than doing similar things with new input.

Why should we disable the usage Pokemon, rather than providing every Pokemon with good viable moves ? The Pokemon Company had provided the utility of good amount of Pokemon in the MSG, but Niantic had messed them up with their fallacy in their ideology.



In MSG, Arcanine is strongest Non-Legendary, Non-Pseudo-legendary Pokemon, and excluding Slaking. But in Pokemon GO, he is jailed with ugly moves, and below average stat distribution.



This is harder than it seems !!

There are three play styles which I know. They are Offensive type balance, Defensive type balance, and mixed balance.


Sending out Giratina-A in front of Registeel in order to absorb Focus Blast shows his defensive balance, whereas sending Cresselia in front of Swampert shows her offensive type balance.

Those articles are very simple because all Pokemon are fixed into a very limited moveset, out of which only two of them provide different utilities, for example Obstagoon with Gunk Shot, or with Cross Chop.

If all Pokemon will have good amount of moves available from their movepool, then those articles are trash.





This is easy for those players who are high-leveled and have access to good amount Pokemon with all of their moves unlocked.

But for average players, this is entirely impossible. Any new player begins their journey by strengthening one Pokemon at a time, and with time he/she assembles 3-4 Pokemon. So for them, using different team each time is impossible.



Now a little question for you, would you prefer the idea that your Pokemon will transferred to Professor if that Pokemon faints in any Raid ?

This is slightly sterner, but on the same line with idea of using different Pokemon in every match.

8

Rather than this, there is much better tier listing in online battles of MSG.



There are good amount of tiers, like :

  • Ubers : Top quality PvP Pokemon
  • OU : ( Over-used ) = They are also good, but not as those in Ubers
  • UU : ( Under-used ) = They can be used in PvP, but are not used much
  • RU : ( Rarely-Used ) = People tend to neglect these

etc...


Any Pokemon eligible in lower tier can be used in upper tier, but converse is not true. By doing this, the MSG battles are much better and are diverse than Pokemon GO’s poor ideology.

9

From my point of view, your tiered system looks like a further expanded version of remix/premier cup which I think would lead to the same often recurring problem of the same top 6-10 Pokemon. If anything it would likely be worse lower down the tiers because of the vastly reduced selection of Pokemon like cups with few type choices.

My idea is not to ban the meta pokemon, just make a separate ranked system where you’re forced to not use the same pokemon all the time like 3/5 of a set etc.

I played a set today in standard open great league and Swampert was in all five matches… again, don’t mind that Swampert is up there on the meta, it’s just boring versing one that often.

10

Your idea is quite good, but for me its almost impossible, as I have only few Pokemon, and not being able to use them continuously will be overkill for me, who constantly faces Lv.50 players in GBL, whether it is rank 5 or Elite Rank !!
:sob: :sob:

11

Well this is why further up in this thread I suggested there be both a format/ranked system where you can just use the same three Pokemon over and over and another one where you are forced not to.

1 Like
12

Ok I totally see the good intentions that your idea is stemming from. However, in my opinion, even just offering an optional format that forces you to change up your team every few battles is not going to be healthy for players. One of the best ways to improve at GBL is use the SAME TEAM a LOT. Practicing with specific Pokémon feels so good once you figure out what to do in certain matchups. If you are constantly changing your team, it will be much harder to improve, meaning that these two separate formats will force a wedge between newer players and more experienced ones, as newer players will want to play in the format where the pros can’t grind with the highest ranked Pokémon all the time. Meanwhile, if you have a perfect team of three, you’ll be quite likely to grind in the OG format.

Instead, why not make a new limited meta that we see rotating in every now and again with a tier and point-spending system? This is how the new battle frontier people are doing it:

IMG_2859
IMG_28591536×1152 192 KB

13

No idea how to value… if I can, I don’t use this part of the game.