Game Direction Poll Results

[indigo_league]

Hello folks! We're here to report the results of the Game Direction poll, and the responses we're planning to take. Preemptively: to preserve anonymity, we're going to be grouping similar sentiments and paraphrasing answers rather than directly quoting any.

Let's start off with general feedback:

This will cover both the "things which are keeping you from playing/joining" question as well as the general comments section at the bottom. For the sake of conciseness, this excludes feedback on the Trainer/Breeder question (we'll get back to that!), positive answers in regards to things we're already doing (<3!), and answers that are non-actionable ("offline things are keeping me from playing", or ones that were too vague).

Taking all that into account, here are the main points we saw coming up:

Need a bigger variety of events that 1) prioritize character interactions, 2) are more-structured and have a clear objective.

For events that encourage interacting and forming CR in particular, interactions with new characters (new to the game, or just new CR) were called out, as were interactions between normal trainers and Rockets.

While we've already been trying to encourage activity in general with event rewards, we definitely would like to work on gearing future events to encourage new CR, as well as more opportunities for conflict between Rockets and non-Rockets! In the longer term, if we can think of a good way to do it, we'll consider ways to specifically reward interactions with characters new to the game. We agree that events with clear objectives and structure seem to generate more activity overall, so we will also be keeping this in mind for future event planning.

Events have been too close together / 1:1 timing is hard to keep up with

Several replies pointed out that the Contest did not get much participation because people were still occupied with the Swinub Scurry, and that players felt they were too busy with the events to use the Quest Board. There was also a comment about balancing low-key stuff vs. high-action events.

We hear the comments about event density and definitely agree! In the past, a previous composition of the mod team was planning to switch to events every other month, rather than monthly; this didn't happen, as the mod team rotated and wanted to do some experimenting with events and event timing. Now that we've done that, we're going to try out bi-monthly events from May onwards. (So May will be an "off" month!)

We still plan on providing swarms and/or "Freaky Fridays" in the calendar during "off" months for players who would like something light and open-ended to fill the time, but these will not have mod-posted logs or detailed information to keep up with.

As far as the 1 day OOC : 1 day IC timing - while we've considered this, our experience from games that do implement 2:1 or even more skewed timing is that it makes it extremely complicated for players to keep track of IC days. We also feel that slowing down the pace of events OOCly is going to make a more meaningful difference for game pace, particularly since VR is not a fast-paced game that requires players to account for what their character is doing every single day. As such, for now - unless we get a LOT of feedback on this post requesting a change to 2:1, 3:1, or so on - we're going to hold off on this.

(We do want to stress that back- or forward-dating threads is perfectly acceptable in VR! Please feel free to spend extra time on anything that you want to play out regardless of whether it's taking place in the past!)

Characters are too far apart / Needing more events that are in one location and provide transport to that location
Adding other regions / reusing large "travel" events like Paldea/Sinnoh that already had resources made

We're grouping these two types of responses together because in some ways they're almost directly opposed, so we wanted to address them at the same time!

Characters being too far apart is a challenge that VR (as well as its predecessor, Route 29) has always struggled with, and there's no easy answer when the setting is as large as VR's is! This is why we've been trying to focus on events that group people in a single location, and plan to continue! We also will continue making sure there are simple IC options for transportation so that players don't have to worry about how their characters will get there. If folks have any more suggestions for encouraging characters to be in the same place, we're all ears!

Unfortunately, on top of other concerns (namely the astronomical amount of work that it would take to achieve, as well as adding even more informational bloat to the game on top of what's already there and in desperate need of pruning), we feel that permanently adding more regions to VR would make this problem a lot worse. As such, even though a new region to explore would be exciting in theory, VR is and will remain focused on Johto and Kanto. HOWEVER: we're definitely on board with letting characters visit other regions in a limited capacity for events, including re-using regions from past events! We'll stick this on our list of event ideas for the future!

Mechanics, particularly breeding, are too complicated

This has been on our radar for a bit, and we're hoping we can tackle it somewhat with the FAQ overhaul! Truth be told, NONE of the current moderation team are overly attached to the breeding mechanics, and we have been wondering how to provide an alternative "simpler" version of breeding for people who'd just like to quickly generate some eggs without worrying about all the Egg Math. Under consideration:

1. It's fine to breed eggs that end up with just the basic level-up moves, like a wild Pokemon. (This has actually always been okay to do - the con is just that there's no particular reward for breeding over catching a wild Pokemon.)

2. Rather than calculating egg moves, TM moves, etc, you may choose to breed a “simple” batch of eggs. These eggs will all get just one randomized egg or TM move that is valid for them, even if the parents don't have the move. If you do this, however, you may not have them inherit any moves from the parents in the "normal," more complicated breeding fashion.

3. Creating a script/webpage that calculates egg/TM/etc moves for players. Downside: players would still have to manually input every one of the parents and the parents' moves, which is lengthy and annoying. (This would also be very conditional on time availability for the mod who is able to code, so please don’t depend on this option being possible!)

If you have any suggestions for other ways to provide a "simple" version of breeding/votes for any particular solution, please chime in in the comments!

More reasons/opportunities to PVP Pokemon battles, and gym battle events where characters can watch each other's gym battles

Although we would love to see more IC Pokemon battles, we're a little torn on this one because the last event that required Pokemon battling in general didn't have a very strong reception. This particular request was also only submitted by one respondent. If more people express interest, however, we're happy to stick an event of this style on our docket for future event planning!

As for characters watching others' gym battles - we love this idea! We're not sure this would have a lot of stretch as an actual event, but players are extremely welcome to assume their gym battles have an audience, either in-person or streamed, and use this as a prompt for posts and logs.

Characters being able to keep their powers, with nerfs, since Pokemon have powers anyway

We're not currently planning on implementing this (and it was a request from just one respondent), but we'd like to explain our reasoning behind it a bit more.

Characters aren't allowed to keep powers in VR not because they'd be "overpowered" as such, or because we're worried about nerfing - it's correct that they have the powers available through Pokemon anyway! Rather, it's because the entire point of VR is to engage in the setting and be Pokemon trainers. Characters are deprived of their powers specifically so that they must learn to rely on their Pokemon. Allowing powers, even nerfed, would undermine that! Additionally, we feel that the charm of Pokemon's premise relies strongly on the contrast between normal, seemingly-mundane humans and whimsy/magic of the Pokemon themselves.

We do want to remind players that during VR’s regular Fourth Wall events, characters are allowed to temporarily regain their old powers/appearances! So even if your character cannot be a superpowered or fantastical creature 24/7, there are still opportunities to play them in the setting as such.

Make VR into an app-less sandbox/dressing room game

We had two responses about this - both from people not currently in the game - but we've also had a single person repeatedly use the mod contact anonymously on this topic.

To be up-front: we are not planning to do this, until/unless there is a point in time that either the mod team retires without replacements available, or an overwhelming majority of players vote for it.

We have several reasons for this: a sandbox game would mean mods fully step away from providing events, and events have been overwhelmingly the most activity VR has gotten in the past months (even if some individual events were less successful). Given how sandbox-style games frequently languish due to lack of player motivation, we do not feel that removing what incentives for activity VR does have would improve the game's activity levels.

It would also give mods extremely limited capacity to protect existing players from problem players/behavior, which (while thankfully rare these days) is still something that comes up from time to time for us and we take it very seriously.

Finally (and most importantly), the last vote on this topic had a response mixed between players who firmly did not want a sandbox, and those who would be okay with it if the only alternative was the game completely closing. We feel we have done our due diligence in this regard, and the conclusive result was no significant player interest for making the game a sandbox.

However: VR absolutely doesn't have a monopoly on Pokemon-themed premises. If you'd like to create your own PSL or sandbox with the same setting - and even use details/mechanics specifically from VR - you have our blessing! Otherwise, for now, this topic is closed.

Second, what about that Trainer/Breeder question?

25% of votes had no opinion; the other votes were evenly split between "getting/rid of the Trainer/Breeder distinction and opening up more career options" and "keep the distinction but add more career options." We did, however, have a lot more comments supportive of getting rid of the distinction if it allowed for more careers/affiliations. We also separately had comments about disliking the balance of how certain rewards are locked to careers, like wild shiny Pokemon.

Because of this, we're tentatively considering getting rid of the distinction. This doesn't mean characters wouldn't be able to be Trainers or Breeders, of course! Here's a bit more info about what we're thinking of:

• Characters would be appable as a Rocket or as a standard trainer, lowercase t. (This would be purely so players could rope unwilling characters into Rockethood.)
  
• Rather than a bunch of individual "career" pages with their own walls of FAQs, there would be a single "career system."
  
• We would provide examples of possible careers that players may use - like Ace Trainer, Breeder, Contest Coordinator, PokeDoctor, Pokemon Professor... but players would also be able to suggest whatever they think would be appropriate for their character! The sky's the limit!
  
• Career progression would involve several loose "ranks" - which are a stand-in for becoming more skilled at your career, more well-known, or both. This would be up to players and also pretty flexible - max rank could mean a character who is an astounding Ace Trainer who can crush the Elite Four, but is otherwise a total unknown and a hermit, or they could be a Contest Coordinator who has auditoriums full of fans in every city. We'd provide some examples for each rank, which players could use directly, but anything a player can make a solid argument for is also absolutely fine!
  
• Upgrading ranks would require evidence of a character working on their career - threads in general, participation in events, badges, AC check-in summaries, and so on - as well as a recommended minimum time played in game. While we'll provide some rough examples of evidence, the tldr is: rather than requiring certain comments counts, we'll be paying a lot more attention to engagement in the game overall. Higher ranks will require more effort!
  
• Rocket ranks would also be transferred to this career system. Rockets could engage in a civilian career (as long as they're not caught as a Rocket) or climb the Rocket ranks.
  
• Potentially, characters would be able to engage in multiple careers - with the trade-off that they'd only be able to max out the rank on one of them. You can't put in a full-time job as a Rocket Alpha with a bunch of underlings, and also have an illustrious career as a celebrity Pokemon Professor who's giving lectures on the daily! There's only so many hours in a day, you have to choose which to prioritize!
  
• Trainer/Breeder perks would be reworked to be available to all characters, as relevant.
  
• Potentially, higher-ranked characters might attract the notice of NPCs in events or plot opportunities. (For example, Contest Coordinators might be invited to run their own Contest by Soy and Riegfried, or PokeDoctors might be asked to help with something more complicated if there’s another Pokerus outbreak.)
  
• And, of course, it would be completely fine for a character to run a business without having a related career, or be a trainer working on badges without being an Ace Trainer! Rather, careers are there if you want your character to be earning notoriety or “official” expertise in something.

Last, here's how the preferred rewards and mechanics votes shook out:

The most preferred rewards were "special" Pokemon like shinies, and "lore" knicknacks like sentimental items from NPCs/Legendary Pokemon, closely followed by customized mod responses like the Snorunt fortunes. The least preferred rewards were mechanical ones like hidden ability candies.

The mechanics that were voted as most used/planned to be used were battling, calendar/weather, and badges, closely followed by breeding, the quest board, and the Aurora League. The mechanic the least people voted for was the JKBA - which we have some suspicion is because it's so heavily restricted to breeders. We're not currently adding/removing any mechanics based on this vote, but we're keeping results in mind!

As mentioned a few times above, this post is open for feedback - have at it!

Comments

[prayreturn]

Yo. Ex-player here who still loves VR (to be honest, I left because I eventually just felt like Minfilias' arc was complete this time, and who knows - I might return someday), but I wanted to remind you guys (players, mostly) that I made a web page that lets you enter two Pokemon and see any egg moves they can learn.

it's here! It's not the best solution, but it's something that is also future-proof. (Also, the All-Generation Moveset Calculator. because wow this game is old and sometimes you need to check if arcanine can REALLY learn teleport or not,,, or what level Pokemon learn moves,,, if any mod wishes to take the code, feel free to! I hosted it on Neocities so that it won't die if I stop paying for my main website.)

I'm honestly glad, actually, that you've decided not to sandbox/dressing room the game, due to the issue of problem players. I miss you guys, but I'm glad to just watch for now.

I also feel that having events that last a long time ICly is a good idea, since it can be like 'oh what was my character doing? oh they were [event]-ing for the last week'.

[loopsiedaisy]

I'm definitely planning to link this when I deal with rewriting the Breeding pages!

(But thank you for dropping it here again, it means I don't have to dig through old mod posts for it, haha! And if I do end up writing that more complicated script, I will probably peek at how you've done these ones if you're okay with it! With credit, of course.)

[outofsynth]

To be honest I still manually calculate egg moves on the rare occasion I do figure out eggs here (no issues, just preference), but the moveset calculator has saved my life so many times when I'm doing levels so thank you for that!

[bugbeverage]

A career system sounds really nice!

[paladinlost]

Lots of interesting stuff in there, thank you mods!

In this tentative new career system, would PC Gym leaders have that count as their career? As a rank in something like Ace Trainer? Or would the Aurora League be kept separate from that system entirely?

[loopsiedaisy]

With a big grain of salt here since this is all very tentative and Kit & Worm might have other thoughts, but I'm thinking along these lines:

- The Aurora League (and badges) would be kept separate - a new member doesn't come up super often so it's honestly not a lot of (mod) work to maintain.

- Being an Aurora League Gym Leader would be 100% optional for max rank, but could probably be used as part of someone's evidence for getting to the max rank! (I did think about having max rank be a a requirement to get a Gym alongside the badges, but honestly... someone who is making an entire Gym is generally pretty engaged in VR and the badges are a relatively long haul as is! So my inclination is, it makes more sense to use it as "if you can become a Gym Leader, it's evidence that you've Made It in your career".)

- Since the careers/ranks are meant to be flexible, title would be up to the player and based primarily on how they want their character to be perceived!
Someone being a max rank Ace Trainer with a Gym makes perfect sense. If that's not evidence of being an Ace Trainer nothing is.
Someone who had been Ace Trainer all the way before max rank, and then at max rank, asked to switch the title to Gym Leader, also seems like a logical progression to me. The character is now known as a Gym Leader first, people think of that specifically before they think "extremely good Trainer".
Aaaand I also wouldn't be mad about someone being a PokeProfessor, and saying "Part of my evidence for my character becoming max rank is that they have a Gym now - yeah, they're a Professor instead of a Trainer, but it's actually part of their career as a Professor. They've studied their particular Pokemon specialty so much that they can now open a Gym about it, and they're still using the Gym to conduct so-and-so research, and..."

[paladinlost]

Now I kinda want to see what impact a Gym would have on a coordinator's career. Or a Pokémon dietician's.

I like the potential option for multiple careers! Goodness knows Cecil is pretty much minoring in breeding against his will and common sense as it is. (Though really, his team should get the credit. He's a glorified egg seller.)

[outofsynth]

Game Pacing & Career Paths:

Thank you for keeping the game 1:1. I'm not a fan of 2:1 and agree that making events bi-monthly will likely fix a lot of the pacing issues for a game like VR.

I also think your ideas for switching up career paths sound very exciting and I'm looking forward to seeing the finalised version.

Characters Being Too Far Apart:

As far as characters being too far apart, could making warps accessible to everyone from the get go help? The big issue I see with this is that it would mean characters would have immediate access to higher level Pokémon, but honestly it might be worth the trade off to make it easier to justify being able to jump in on in-person logs regardless of where your character is on their journey or normally spends their time.

If levels are a concern then wild Pokémon strength could be altered so it's based on the length of time a character has been in game instead of being location based. Since this would create additional work for the mods I'd totally get why you might not want to take this route, but it's a possibility. It may also work to make warps accessible after a certain period of time in game instead.

Another thought I had was that while it makes sense not to be able to warp to, say, the Indigo Plateau, that's not the case with all locations that aren't currently warpable. Maybe warps could be added to places like the starter towns and Sevii Islands.

Preferred Rewards:

I definitely understand why special Pokémon grabbed the top tier and why mechanical were least popular, but as a player with a character who's been here for over two years now I'm starting to become picky with which Pokémon I want to add to Min's team. This isn't necessarily the case for everyone, but there are Pokémon of his I don't showcase as much as I'd like to so I try to be more selective now. At the very least for events like Christmas where we usually get a choice of rewards I hope mechanical rewards will still be an option in addition to eggs.

Please don't take this as me asking for Pokémon not to be a common top-tier reward though! It's clearly in demand and I can happily sit back and watch other people have their fun. I do think the egg rolls for the current event are very cute even if I'm probably not going to take you guys up on it myself.

[loopsiedaisy]

Grain of salt that I'm only representing my personal thoughts and not the rest of the mod team, but: I'm honestly not too worried about higher-level Pokemon? In the rare cases where they are actually relevant, like badges, it's not difficult to judge "Hey... John Doe has only been in the game for 2 weeks... there's no way he should've been able to catch some level 80 Pokemon from the Indigo Plateau..."

My main worry with warps is that unlocking them all immediately could take away from the feeling of progression, particularly for new players & in an environment where the game is on the slower end and often very slice-of-life-y. When I was new in game (and honestly even now, if to a lesser degree), "unlock more of the map" was very useful for figuring out what to make new posts about + motivating myself until I did start getting more in-depth CR! But it might still be worth it for the ability to jump into an in-person log wherever?

...and definitely no plans to eliminate mechanical rewards entirely! They might just be showing up less often/showing up when it makes sense to have several reward options.

[outofsynth]

I think that's fair! There's a definite satisfaction in unlocking things yourself. In that case perhaps things unlocking after a set period of time could help without taking away from the exploration aspect too much? Especially since travelling might be one of the things people can play with in down months.

If a character wants access sooner then they can prioritise travelling and unlock the warps manually, but if someone settles down in one of the early towns and never actually goes anywhere they could still eventually gain access to later towns without having physically been there from either an event or their own journey.

As for mechanical rewards, I'm more than happy with them making an only occasional appearance. I completely get they're not the most exciting option out there.