Seeking Arbitrary Goals
After playing through a game I've enjoyed, like GTA4, I try to set a challenge for myself that isn't set up as an intended goal within the game. In GTA4, for example (to those who are familiar), I wanted to finish off all 200 pigeons and 50 stunt jumps immediately after the first mission. It was quite difficult and required a lot of strategizing, but it was probably the most fun I ever had with the game.
I've been trying to concoct a similarly challenging but possible goal in PoGo that doesn't necessarily correspond with the intended goals of the game (high CPs, high IVs, strong movesets, completing Pokedex ASAP, etc.)
My first thought was to collect as many Pokemon with CP corresponding to their Pokedex # as possible. It would require some planning, small stardust expenditures, and it would make a few low-level catches very exciting, but it had too many problems. Obviously #1-9 would be impossible, but so would many others. Golduck (#55), for example, jumps from between 27-32CP at level 1 all the way to 56-66CP at level 1.5.
Plus, any future CP adjustments would force me to start over.
So, can anyone help me concoct some arbitrary goal that is challenging, if possible, but at least requires some planning and attention?
Answers
I like (1) because it might survive a CP change (especially if IVs are identical), but storage limitations make it hard to have more than 1 or 2 candidates at a time to try matching up with.
Although (2) wouldn't survive a CP rework, I do love the idea - it gets around the impossibility of finding evolved forms with specific low CPs. Plus if I went with different rules per family it would be far more possible; e.g., I could go for 10/100/1000 in the Bulbasaur family, 50/60/70 in the Charmander family, and 100/200/400 in the Squirtle family, depending on what I have available. Awesome idea!
I like this idea too, but now that precise IV checkers are getting people on Niantic's naughty list it might be too difficult (or too stardust expensive) to know if I have what I need. Plus it seems a bit more grind-y and a bit less strategic.
By the way, (tangent) I would love to have any 0/0/0 Level 1 Pokemon - especially a rare one. How many people have a female Snorlax fitting that description? It must be one of the rarest Gen1 mons in existence!
I just ran the numbers and after Level 30, only one in every 983,040 wild Snorlax encounters would produce a 0/0/0 Lvl1 female. I've had... I think... 4 wild Snorlax encounters. Those odds are incredible. At this rate I might have a good chance of seeing one after 163,840 years. I'd hate to be out of ultra balls after waiting so long.
This sounds like it would be a heroic grind, even with something as common as Pidgey, and it doesn't involve enough strategy or planning (aside from planning my life to allow nearly continuous grinding).
Odds of perfect IV is 1 in 4,096, so needing 6 (assuming no duplicate move rolls) could require around 24k Pidgeys. Of course, there would almost certainly be duplicate move rolls so I'd end up needing closer to 100k Pidgeys - which would eat into my sanity budget quite a bit.
1) I've been keeping my XXX pokemon LOL (those which appraise as ATT=DEF=STA). Briefly thought it would be cool to have all 1's through all 15s of something pretty common like pidgie's.... probably too much RNG however.
2) Another goal I'm toying with is to have all my prestigers have 15 STA, and possibly be even multiples of 100, or could try to get them with round figures of HP so they take an exact amount of potion to heal with no waste.
Re (1) - this thread is making me want to take another stats class so that I can more quickly assess which goals are reasonably attainable and which aren't. Like, how many Pidgeys need to be caught before you have a 90% chance of getting a 0/0/0, 1/1/1, 2/2/2, etc., all the way to 15/15/15? I have no idea, but it's knowable!
I like the utility at the end of idea (2). I've hesitated to power up Vapes past 201 HP for precisely that reason... but I usually throw away more potions than I use these days so I stopped checking for that. Perhaps fine-tuning prestige squads at specific CP tiers would be a fun enterprise. It would be slightly useful at least!
Each one of the 1/1/1, 2/2/2 etc are 1 in 4,096, so my WAG would be after you've caught 20,000 or so you'd have a reasonable likelihood of having all the flavors... I'll have to check with my son the math major and see what he says. Still, that's just an RNG goal and doesn't involve any real planning as you suggested, unlike the "Optimum Prestige Teams" goal which has some use as you also mention. Good Luck!
I have been working on a 'ones and zeros' collection...a binary collection.
1s - level 1 mons of final evolutions (blastoise, arcanine etc) and no evolotion mons (snorlax, chansey etc). But they must be caught in the wild...so catching a lvl1 pidgey and evolving pidgeot is not a thing...they must be wild catches.
0s - are zero IV mons. These are far harder to collect, and even harder than 100% mons, because eggs increase the odds of 100% IV mon
Just my on going effort.
