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A true hero... in training (Pokemon Gym Leader's apprentice quest)
- Thread starter Luxicato
- Start date
- Location
- Germany
[X][Orders]
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
If ganging up on a single target isn't really supported in the quest-mechanics, leading to two 1/3 battle points instead of a single 2/3 combined battle progress, we might as well occupy two opponents as we were told to do.
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
If ganging up on a single target isn't really supported in the quest-mechanics, leading to two 1/3 battle points instead of a single 2/3 combined battle progress, we might as well occupy two opponents as we were told to do.
[X][Orders]
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
Luxicato
nº1 Squid Fairy
- Location
- Star sea
Yeah. About what people talked about... Quest Mechanics are my weakest point when I write something. I never know what to do.
Buuut... On the other hand I'm a genius and I had an idea.
I like the system I have now. No math and everything is based on a situational DC. Modified by type, attack, stat base, etc. Everything goes into that DC. i also like to have a set of three points for normal battles and five for boss battles because I don't want to have to write 10 updates for a single battle.
Buuuut maybe I'm doing it all wrong. I added the system we have now so we can have just three round won and then the battle is decided. Adding to that the fact that stat moves like sword dance give you points too to not make them useless.
What if instead of that I give everyone 3hp and every "Hit" takes one hp from the enemy? That would mean that hitting a mon with two of your own actually does something more than just modify the DC. It also means that I actually can have huge attacks take more than one HP if they actually hit hard enough, like Lily hitting that Houndour. That of course means that moves like sword dance don't hit the enemy but it will help with the DC and even to take more than one HP from the enemy.
A system like that might make the battles a bit longer but they would actually feel like battles.
Buuut... On the other hand I'm a genius and I had an idea.
I like the system I have now. No math and everything is based on a situational DC. Modified by type, attack, stat base, etc. Everything goes into that DC. i also like to have a set of three points for normal battles and five for boss battles because I don't want to have to write 10 updates for a single battle.
Buuuut maybe I'm doing it all wrong. I added the system we have now so we can have just three round won and then the battle is decided. Adding to that the fact that stat moves like sword dance give you points too to not make them useless.
What if instead of that I give everyone 3hp and every "Hit" takes one hp from the enemy? That would mean that hitting a mon with two of your own actually does something more than just modify the DC. It also means that I actually can have huge attacks take more than one HP if they actually hit hard enough, like Lily hitting that Houndour. That of course means that moves like sword dance don't hit the enemy but it will help with the DC and even to take more than one HP from the enemy.
A system like that might make the battles a bit longer but they would actually feel like battles.
To clarify, I'm not arguing for battles that take the voters more rounds to resolve. That sounds horribly boring. Approximately 3 voting rounds for one combat is more than enough for me.
I'd just propose that the rounds could be handled maybe more like a "Combat Event! Respond!" kind of a thing, with a General Strategy set up at the beginning that Lux can simulate Haru guiding the pokemon with. Combat Events have the advantage that Lux could pop them up only at the crucial and most interesting parts of the fights, instead of mechanically asking for combat input evenly during the battle.
I'm dreading the eventual 6 vs 6 trainer battles, which could take 11*3 = 33 voting rounds to conclude. I think only choosing the next pokemon and setting a general strategy would really be needed, along with a few Combat Events to allow voter input for the most exciting parts, and a few finishers. That way would allow the 6 vs 6 trainer battle to be fit into less than 20 votes.
Edit: The DC part of the system seems to be working well.
Edit^2: Keeping track of HP along with the Strength (buffs) of the pokemon sounds good, and allows for changing opponents and delivering hits of varied efficiency. I would set the HP to more than 3 though. Maybe 9, and just make the average hit deal 3 damage? That would allow for more room to play with moves with different power levels, and defenses, and partial successes.
I'd just propose that the rounds could be handled maybe more like a "Combat Event! Respond!" kind of a thing, with a General Strategy set up at the beginning that Lux can simulate Haru guiding the pokemon with. Combat Events have the advantage that Lux could pop them up only at the crucial and most interesting parts of the fights, instead of mechanically asking for combat input evenly during the battle.
I'm dreading the eventual 6 vs 6 trainer battles, which could take 11*3 = 33 voting rounds to conclude. I think only choosing the next pokemon and setting a general strategy would really be needed, along with a few Combat Events to allow voter input for the most exciting parts, and a few finishers. That way would allow the 6 vs 6 trainer battle to be fit into less than 20 votes.
Edit: The DC part of the system seems to be working well.
Edit^2: Keeping track of HP along with the Strength (buffs) of the pokemon sounds good, and allows for changing opponents and delivering hits of varied efficiency. I would set the HP to more than 3 though. Maybe 9, and just make the average hit deal 3 damage? That would allow for more room to play with moves with different power levels, and defenses, and partial successes.
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- Location
- France
Might make more sense in multi-battles, that true. Maybe not talking them HP (because poison, leech seed, entry hazard and all would become a nightmare), but having to score 3 "strikes" on an enemy instead of piling up three victories could be better. in fact, in this situation, Roselia and Kirlia would have distributed 2 "strikes" each instead of having 1 win each. Wich would be a better description of how the fight is going rn.
- Location
- Germany
That would fully solve the issue.
If you don't want battles to take longer, an alternative solution would be to just assign Battle Points per battle, instead of combatant. If Maelstrom and Fang each land a hit, you could just pool them together to 2/3 BP for their team.
I'd probably still prefer your HP system, though.
KidFromPallet
Pokemon Fan
- Location
- Pallet Town
[X][Orders]
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
I had a whole rant here about the problems with the current system, and then Luxicato comes in with a solution. I like changing it to a 3 HP system, but it still might have a few problems.
So, this is gonna sound kinda selfish, but would you mind including the situational DC and what modifiers affect it to the combat spoilers? Because it's just, while you as the QM can see what's happening behind the screen, we as players can't. All we see is just opposed rolls, and it can become kind of frustrating because we can't see what's going into it. Like, we have no idea what lowering the opponents stats or hitting them with a status condition or the Pokemon being exhausted actually does because we can't see any of the math going on behind the screen. We don't know whether trying to lower stats or hindering the opposing Pokemon some other way is worth it because we have no idea how it effects the damage/victory calculations.
It's like, we don't know if we should use Growl to lower the opponents attack or Flash to blind our foe because we have no idea what that actually does, mechanically. Why should we try going for status effects or anything when we don't know what they actually do?
Like, does Growl make the DC rise by 5? By 10? By 20?
Does Flash impose Disadvantage?
How the Heck would Reflect and Light Screen even work?
It's just, when we don't know the DC that we have to hit or what modifiers affect it, it's hard to make choices in battle. It's like, maybe using Flash to disorient the enemy and then following that up with Thunderbolt is better than using Thunderbolt twice in a row, but we can't tell because we can't see what DC we need to hit nor what modifiers affect it and how they do so.
So if you could just add what the DC is and how it's modified in battle posts, that'd be great. Even just a spoiler at the end that lists the DCs that the Pokemon need to hit to successfully attack would be amazing.
-[X] Maelstrom: Defensively keep Houndour D's attention, using AquaJet to dodge and harrass.
-[X] Fang: Thunder Fang on the soaked Houndour E.
I had a whole rant here about the problems with the current system, and then Luxicato comes in with a solution. I like changing it to a 3 HP system, but it still might have a few problems.
- How would defense be simulated? Like, a Geodude would logically take less damage than an Rattata from an Ember attack, so how would this be simulated? Or, like, a Thick Fat Snorlax and a Deoxys Attack Form both being hit by Flamethrower. It'd be neutral on both, but Snorlax has a much, much higher Sp. Def.
- How would small, indirect damage be simulated? So things like Toxic, or Will-o-Wisp, or Sandstorm exist. How would damage from sources like these be simulated?
So, this is gonna sound kinda selfish, but would you mind including the situational DC and what modifiers affect it to the combat spoilers? Because it's just, while you as the QM can see what's happening behind the screen, we as players can't. All we see is just opposed rolls, and it can become kind of frustrating because we can't see what's going into it. Like, we have no idea what lowering the opponents stats or hitting them with a status condition or the Pokemon being exhausted actually does because we can't see any of the math going on behind the screen. We don't know whether trying to lower stats or hindering the opposing Pokemon some other way is worth it because we have no idea how it effects the damage/victory calculations.
It's like, we don't know if we should use Growl to lower the opponents attack or Flash to blind our foe because we have no idea what that actually does, mechanically. Why should we try going for status effects or anything when we don't know what they actually do?
Like, does Growl make the DC rise by 5? By 10? By 20?
Does Flash impose Disadvantage?
How the Heck would Reflect and Light Screen even work?
It's just, when we don't know the DC that we have to hit or what modifiers affect it, it's hard to make choices in battle. It's like, maybe using Flash to disorient the enemy and then following that up with Thunderbolt is better than using Thunderbolt twice in a row, but we can't tell because we can't see what DC we need to hit nor what modifiers affect it and how they do so.
So if you could just add what the DC is and how it's modified in battle posts, that'd be great. Even just a spoiler at the end that lists the DCs that the Pokemon need to hit to successfully attack would be amazing.
To this, I'd actually ask Lux to Not tell that DC information
. Sorry KidFromPallet, I often agree with you and we see eye to eye, and even in this issue I totally feel you, but I disagree here.This quest is mechanics-light by choice, and it should stay that way I feel. While that does make it harder for us voters to do decisions as KidFromPallet said, it offers other major benefits, primarily to Lux (and thus indirectly to us).
All hope is however not lost! Learning the effects of these things from the narrative is still possible, at least to a point. It can also make us feel more like Haru, who can't see the DC either
.Edit: to clarify, keeping the DCs and the modifiers hidden allows Lux to just throw them from the top of his head. I trust Lux to keep them sensible and consistent enough.
Edit^2: In Discord, Lux described the 3 hp thing as more like a 3 wounds system. Some attacks can lead to 2 wounds directly, while some attacks (like Sandstorm) could slowly build up damage over time to eventually deal 1 wound. Defense would be counted in that.
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Luxicato
nº1 Squid Fairy
- Location
- Star sea
Okay, okay. Now I have a great idea for sure. More or less. Probably.
First of all I'm calling the vote here. Why? Because we are going to have now a new vote on what we want our combat system to be and depending on the result the voting for the next round of combat might change greatly.
So let's see... I have a lot of problems with my current combat system. Yes, I know, I created it but that's exactly why is so shitty. My combat systems in this quest don't hold more than one combat without just imploding. In this case the Combat Points system works only for 1v1 or 2v2. I knew that but my inspiration told me to sic a pack of dogs on Haru leading to a mass battle. I'm not smart. At least it made me realize that this isn't working so we are going to make things better.
First of all what do I want in a combat system? I want freedom to write. If it's too mechanical I just end up saying numbers with no actual narrative. That leads to the other thing I want. No math. I'm not bad at math but I can't do math and write, I also can't write and do math. So it's one or the other. That's kind of why you don't see the DC's, because they aren't hard math exactly.
Thinking about this I ended up creating two different combat systems... And we are going to vote on which one you want. One is a bit more micromanagy and slower, the other is a lot more fluid but it also gives you a bit less control. I will explain now.
System 1: What we are doing now but better.
This system is basically what we already have. Rounds, two orders each round, roll the dice and then see what happens. Then it starts again. The big change would be an actual HP system. Each pokemon can have up to 3 wounds. It's not HP because that feels like almost no life points. Wounds are more "solid". A pokemon gets a wound after being hit with a strong enough attack or something happens to it that makes fighting a lot harder. A Solar Beam to the face? That's a wound (Or two). Poisoned? A wound. Hit by a tree that just fell after an attack? A wound.
There are things that aren't wounds of course. Light hits, terrain modifications, etc. Those things will make next rounds easier or make you harder to hit. Maybe even heal wounds. We will see the details if we pick this option.
Another thing good about this system is that battles might last less than 3 turns if the hits are strong enough. I dread a fight against a trainer with a full team where we spend a whole month fighting the same person. My creative juices will run dry when the fourth pokemon is released. This system still makes some battles take forever but it's still shorter than the actual one. It's slow, but it lets you micro-manage more, making sure you control every turn and can change plans on a whim.
System 2: Shut up and let me write.
I honestly like this more and the title says it all. This system will let me control most of the battle after you imput a strategy. This means no more rounds, no more fear of a battle lasting months. Things will be a lot more fluid but you will have a bit less control over the battle. Let me explain.
This system will work like this: You will vote on a general strategy. Not for a round but for the battle as a whole. Of course it will allow to use more than two moves and it can be more elaborated. Like trying to get some sort of terrain advantage and then do something else. The point is to give me a guide of what you want Haru to do this combat. Then I roll a dice because fun and then I will start writing. Two things might happen at this point. Best case scenario your strategy is flawless, your pokemon strong enough and RNGesus smiles upon you. Battle is won in just a single update instead of three/four. We might even finish a 6 team battle in a week if everything goes perfect! On the other hand things might not go well. Maybe Maelstrom wasn't ready to fight that Zapdos, maybe Fang is in a losing battle because the enemy surprised you with a secret tactic you didn't plan for. In that case when things go badly I will cut the update there and give you another chance to change strategies, use items or even change pokemon (I might use the wounds system here so you can actually see how badly you are losing/winning before making decisions). Then another dice and update. That means that most battles will be decided in two updates, three in a worst case scenario. You will give me strategies and I will use it to write whatever I want.
This update is a lot more fluid and makes combat not take forever, but it also means less control over combat. Less of a chance of quickly changing tactics mid-battle unless you are losing.
And these are the two systems I have now. I can't decide because I know some people prefer to have more control over battles and I don't want to just take that away. This is a quest and voting is what we do. So we are going to vote on this. Now that you have the information you need, you can decide on which system you preffer.
[]What we are doing now but better
[]Shut up and let me write
Decide.
First of all I'm calling the vote here. Why? Because we are going to have now a new vote on what we want our combat system to be and depending on the result the voting for the next round of combat might change greatly.
So let's see... I have a lot of problems with my current combat system. Yes, I know, I created it but that's exactly why is so shitty. My combat systems in this quest don't hold more than one combat without just imploding. In this case the Combat Points system works only for 1v1 or 2v2. I knew that but my inspiration told me to sic a pack of dogs on Haru leading to a mass battle. I'm not smart. At least it made me realize that this isn't working so we are going to make things better.
First of all what do I want in a combat system? I want freedom to write. If it's too mechanical I just end up saying numbers with no actual narrative. That leads to the other thing I want. No math. I'm not bad at math but I can't do math and write, I also can't write and do math. So it's one or the other. That's kind of why you don't see the DC's, because they aren't hard math exactly.
Thinking about this I ended up creating two different combat systems... And we are going to vote on which one you want. One is a bit more micromanagy and slower, the other is a lot more fluid but it also gives you a bit less control. I will explain now.
System 1: What we are doing now but better.
This system is basically what we already have. Rounds, two orders each round, roll the dice and then see what happens. Then it starts again. The big change would be an actual HP system. Each pokemon can have up to 3 wounds. It's not HP because that feels like almost no life points. Wounds are more "solid". A pokemon gets a wound after being hit with a strong enough attack or something happens to it that makes fighting a lot harder. A Solar Beam to the face? That's a wound (Or two). Poisoned? A wound. Hit by a tree that just fell after an attack? A wound.
There are things that aren't wounds of course. Light hits, terrain modifications, etc. Those things will make next rounds easier or make you harder to hit. Maybe even heal wounds. We will see the details if we pick this option.
Another thing good about this system is that battles might last less than 3 turns if the hits are strong enough. I dread a fight against a trainer with a full team where we spend a whole month fighting the same person. My creative juices will run dry when the fourth pokemon is released. This system still makes some battles take forever but it's still shorter than the actual one. It's slow, but it lets you micro-manage more, making sure you control every turn and can change plans on a whim.
System 2: Shut up and let me write.
I honestly like this more and the title says it all. This system will let me control most of the battle after you imput a strategy. This means no more rounds, no more fear of a battle lasting months. Things will be a lot more fluid but you will have a bit less control over the battle. Let me explain.
This system will work like this: You will vote on a general strategy. Not for a round but for the battle as a whole. Of course it will allow to use more than two moves and it can be more elaborated. Like trying to get some sort of terrain advantage and then do something else. The point is to give me a guide of what you want Haru to do this combat. Then I roll a dice because fun and then I will start writing. Two things might happen at this point. Best case scenario your strategy is flawless, your pokemon strong enough and RNGesus smiles upon you. Battle is won in just a single update instead of three/four. We might even finish a 6 team battle in a week if everything goes perfect! On the other hand things might not go well. Maybe Maelstrom wasn't ready to fight that Zapdos, maybe Fang is in a losing battle because the enemy surprised you with a secret tactic you didn't plan for. In that case when things go badly I will cut the update there and give you another chance to change strategies, use items or even change pokemon (I might use the wounds system here so you can actually see how badly you are losing/winning before making decisions). Then another dice and update. That means that most battles will be decided in two updates, three in a worst case scenario. You will give me strategies and I will use it to write whatever I want.
This update is a lot more fluid and makes combat not take forever, but it also means less control over combat. Less of a chance of quickly changing tactics mid-battle unless you are losing.
And these are the two systems I have now. I can't decide because I know some people prefer to have more control over battles and I don't want to just take that away. This is a quest and voting is what we do. So we are going to vote on this. Now that you have the information you need, you can decide on which system you preffer.
[]What we are doing now but better
[]Shut up and let me write
Decide.
Lifeandlice
Practitioning side-character
- Location
- Usa
[X]Shut up and let me write
This sounded best to me on discord so I'll be sticking with it.
This sounded best to me on discord so I'll be sticking with it.
- Location
- Pallet town, Kanto
[X]Shut up and let me write
Luxicato
nº1 Squid Fairy
- Location
- Star sea
Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Both systems will have this because I love the idea of a cool finishing move or the chance of throwing a pokeball at the end so you don't have to worry about throwing one in the middle of combat.
[X]Shut up and let me write
KidFromPallet
Pokemon Fan
- Location
- Pallet Town
To this, I'd actually ask Lux to Not tell that DC information
This quest is mechanics-light by choice, and it should stay that way I feel. While that does make it harder for us voters to do decisions as KidFromPallet said, it offers other major benefits, primarily to Lux (and thus indirectly to us).
All hope is however not lost! Learning the effects of these things from the narrative is still possible, at least to a point. It can also make us feel more like Haru, who can't see the DC either
Yeah, that's fair. I guess was more asking from the old system standpoint, where we only had three rounds in battle so we had to make each count. Now that there's potentially more than three rounds per battle, I'm much more willing to go for status stuff without knowing the hard mechanics.
...And it looks like Luxicato just ninjaed me with a cool system idea.
[X]Shut up and let me write
Yes, let's go with this. We choose a strategy on our end, Luxicato implements it until something goes wrong. Lets updates and battles flow better, and Luxicato likes it better. Because let's be real, the only times that we'd want to change our strategy is when things are going wrong anyway, so a style that only offers votes then works best. Plus, it forces us to strategize more at the beginning of the battle, which is gonna be great for discussion. Like, we'll have to guess what kind of sets opposing trainers are running and how to counter it, and how to counter their counters, etc. It's gonna feel amazing when one of our pre-battle plans survives contact with the enemy. Plus, it'll be great for storytelling. Instead of breaking immersion and having to haggle over every little move, we can just sit back and watch as Haru and his team struggle for victory.
But yeah, I'm all in favor of making the battles more fluid. Better for both the QM and us.
- Location
- Germany
[X]Shut up and let me write
Long live freedom!
But yeah, nothing of substance to add. The important stuff seems to already have been said.
Long live freedom!
But yeah, nothing of substance to add. The important stuff seems to already have been said.
- Location
- France
KidFromPallet. Well according to what was discussed in discord, the shut up and let me write option would ask us for the overall strategy. Trying to fill in every gap and cover everycase scenari would turn out a pretty long paragraph, indigest to Luxi, and maybe 20 different versions of it (probably not, but still, bunch of data to ingest, many times that).
And as Luxi will come back to us if the plan doesn't work, we do not need a "if it fails, do that" part on the input. The lighter the input, the better : not only is it easier to process by luxi, but the whole point (letting him write more freely) would be better served this way.
As someone that wanna have as many esacape routes and cover as many cracks in an armor as possible, I understand you would like to find the counter of a counter of a counter, cause I love to do it too, but that would just be hell to deal with. A more viable approach would be to theorize out one or two ways the enemy would act and propose a simple strat for each. Like a move combination, or how to use the environment to take the high ground, a bit of both, but nothing too fancy or complicated.
(basically, for the magikarp fight, we would have said "use splash to dodge, and try to bait it to tackle the wood so it will take damages". short, simple, viable ... and once in the hands of Luxi, epic as fuck against all odds.
and for our team against the gligar, it would have been "Maelstrom chase it in the sky with aqua jet : as soon as it tries to go down, Fang will use ice fang for maximum damage" or something like that. Again, it is easier rn because we have a puny movepool with little options in it, but I think you can grasp the idea)
And as Luxi will come back to us if the plan doesn't work, we do not need a "if it fails, do that" part on the input. The lighter the input, the better : not only is it easier to process by luxi, but the whole point (letting him write more freely) would be better served this way.
As someone that wanna have as many esacape routes and cover as many cracks in an armor as possible, I understand you would like to find the counter of a counter of a counter, cause I love to do it too, but that would just be hell to deal with. A more viable approach would be to theorize out one or two ways the enemy would act and propose a simple strat for each. Like a move combination, or how to use the environment to take the high ground, a bit of both, but nothing too fancy or complicated.
(basically, for the magikarp fight, we would have said "use splash to dodge, and try to bait it to tackle the wood so it will take damages". short, simple, viable ... and once in the hands of Luxi, epic as fuck against all odds.
and for our team against the gligar, it would have been "Maelstrom chase it in the sky with aqua jet : as soon as it tries to go down, Fang will use ice fang for maximum damage" or something like that. Again, it is easier rn because we have a puny movepool with little options in it, but I think you can grasp the idea)
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