So, after two years of waiting, PvP is finally out, and personally, I’m happy enough to finally get something that somewhat resembles traditional Pokemon battles in the game, albeit a system adapted and “simplified” for a mobile game, but done well enough in my opinion, despite the…connections problems.
But want I really want to talk about is the possibility of special “Invasion” events where Villainous Team Leaders like Giovanni, Cyrus, Ghetis, ect. launch an “attack” of sorts on the world and we have to battle them to put a stop to their plans, so to speak. I remember a thread a while ago where someone thought this could be a “raid/ gym battle mix” where a sort of raid egg styled timer would count down and then groups could challenge a grunt, admin, boss, ect. but I think this new PvP and battle system would work much better. Again, I’m just throwing my thoughts out their and I’m by no means a game designer, but I can see it working something like this;
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You can battle a grunt one a day for free for rewards under the “Battle” option along side the Team Leaders. The strength of their Pokemon would be a little weaker then the Team Leaders are, the only exception being Super League where they would be around same level of strength.
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Battling in gyms/ spinning Pokestops per day would fill up a “meter” that unlocks a daily Team Admin battle. The Admin would be slightly stronger then the Team Leaders overall, even using a random “trio legendary” from their region. Ex: Rocket Admins would randomly use either Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Team Aqua/ Magma Admins would have a random Regi on their Team, ect. Admins can be challenged at any League.
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The Teams Boss’ daily battle could be unlocked after beating a Raidm they’d offer a substantial challenge with a high powered team consisting of the strongest Pokemon available of their Gen that fits their style(for example, I find it difficult seeing Giovanni using Dragonite or Gyarados, but Rhypherior would work just fine despite technically being a Gen 4 Pokemon) along with their region appropriate Legendary. The way I see it, you’d only be able to challenge a Team Boss at Ultra and Master League.
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Additionally; I could see them throwing in a 3-5 part quest chain every Invasion Event to unlock a sort of “Hard Mode” battle against The Teams Leader, which would offer a solid challenge even to trainers at max level. It could possibly be done by trainers at lower levels (I’m thinking the minimum it could feasibly be done is at Lv.28) but you’d have to have extremely strong counters to the Leaders Pokemon and use your barriers at the perfect moment to pull it off. If you’re under Lv 32-ish, expect to lose to the Teams’ Boss a good number of times before beating them. That being said, the reward for beating them would be getting to capture that Teams’ Legendary Pokemon (Mewtwo for Giovanni, Groudon for Maxie, Kyogre for Archie, Girantina for Cyrus, ect.). You could only fight a “Hard Mode” Team Leader at Master Level of course.
This doesn’t even have to be exclusive to Villainous Team Leaders, they could do this for a regions Gym Leaders, Elite 4, even “player characters” like Red, Green, Gold and Rivals like Blue and Silver. Granted it would probably be a good amount of extra work to make and put all those 3-D models in the game, but I’d be O.K with them using mostly 2-D still pictures for the selection screens with the opposing trainer just using a generic “shadowy” model to represent the opponent I’m battling. So long as I feel like I’m battling a team I could expect the Gym Leader to have, I’d be happy.
I know the PvP and battling system right now is still a bit buggy and that needs to be fixed first, but I think a lot of neat stuff could be done with it and I hope to see it utilized in the future. Granted, knowing Niantic the answer to if/ when they put any Trainer Battle-themed event into the game is almost certainly going to be “eh, eventually probably”.
Anyways, what do you guys think? Does the concept sound cool? Any changes and/or additions to what I laid out that you think would work? This was just an idea that randomly hit me that I thought would be a cool event, I’m sure there’s plenty of ways it could be fleshed out. I’d love to read any thoughts/ speculations you guys have.