Gym suggestions to avoid monotony
Hi all,
I just got an idea that I would like to share with you to make gyms fighting more exciting and to give some help to defenders. IMHO the problem is going to be (or has become...) that defenders are too easily defeated because of :
- knowing the exact pokemons that are placed in a gym
- knowing the order in which you will have to fight those mons
- the existence of at least one very good counter against each pokemon (and this is going to be worse with the upcoming gens).
My solution would be to hide the mons that are present in an enemy gym (only its level would be displayed) at least till you have fought it once and/or to randomize the order in which the mons come to you. Also, I think there should be a bigger penalty whenever you switch your pokemon (for instance, no move for 10-15 s or having to wait for 20 s or so before next switch).
Put together, those ideas (that are all inspired by the original game series) could have the following effects:
- More diversity among defenders (because if you are not prepared to fight steelix for example, it might become a "bad surprise" and thus a valuable defender)...
- ... which involves more diversity among attackers (to counter those possible surprises)
- necessity of preparing a "standard" attackers team that would have to be as equilibrated as possible, to be able to counter very different situations that could occur
- less monotonous gym fights: you would have to switch your pokemon... but only if it is worth it because of the penalty associated to switch that I suggest! Also, because of the increased diversity, it would not always be "dragonite vs blissey/snorlax/dragonite" :)
Niantic could then give better rewards to attackers (such as more XP) to encourage them to fight.
I would be very interested to read your opinions about these suggestions!
Answers
Except that:
1) You need 6 dragonites (I have only one with ridiculously low CP even though I'm lvl 30) for this "tactics"
2) If all attackers appear to be dragonites, all defenders will be Lapras. Then attackers will change somewhat and, in response, defenders will also, until a new equilibrium is defined.
Anyway in the current game if you have 6 3000 CP dragonites, you cannot be very wrong if you use all of them for attacking, no matter the enemy (because you basically never see any gym with only lapras in it).
The fact that only team mates can see what's inside a gym also allow different strategies for defenders' choice. As an example, you could imagine a "water-only" gym with vaporeon (arguably the overall best water pokemon), lanturn/quagsire (to deal with electrick mons), Slowbro/Slowking (to deal with grass/poison mons), Lapras (to deal with grass and dragonites)... which would become much harder to beat if it benefits from the "surprise effect" (nobody would blindly attack with a team suited for such a challenge).
That's not a terrible idea but in my opinion it has some problems.
Firstly... in the main series games you are correct... you don't know exactly what Pokemon your opponents have before you start the fight. However usually you can get a decent idea of what they have just by looking at them. Even in Gen 1, the hikers didn't look the same as the bug catchers.
Secondly in the main series games, after you defeated a pokemon that little "Hiker is about to use Geodude, Do you want to change Pokemon?" message would show up. So you are really only flying blind for the first fight.
Thirdly, type advantage is much stronger in the main games... which means that one Starmie could potentially KO 4-5 Rhydons and... potentially still be at max health. That can't happen in Pokemon Go. That means that simply bringing a balanced team into a gym fight won't work... sure your Flareon beat the first 2 Exeggutors, but now here comes a 3rd one and your Flareon is nearly dead and you don't have another counter to it.
Fourthly, in the main series games, you literally never go into a 6 v 9 fight. In Pokemon Go? Yeah that can happen, just find a level 9 gym.
At first, thanks for your constructive comment.
I think your first two remarks are true... for the 'main game' only !
When it comes to PvP battles, it's a whole nother story because :
1) you don't know what pokemon your opponent will have (to be honest, you can see his 6 mons, but not the three mons he will use for the 3 vs 3 fight, and anyway you already have your 6 pokemons too). Even in the main game, you don't know what mons the 'Pokemon master' will have... And I assume we are all Pokemon masters :)
2) this little sentence does not exist in PvP mode (and even in the main game, you can deactivate it if you think it makes the game too easy)
In what concerns the other points:
3) You got a point there, but in the main game series at least CPU can fight on equal terms with you, in Pokemon GO you can hit more often than him AND dodge. This advantage is definitely not counterbalanced by the defender's double HP.
Your scenario with 3 exeggutors and only one flareon to beat them is exactly what I would like to see in gyms: battles with an unsure end (instead of the currently seen "attackers will 100% win").
4) True but it can be quite rare and IMO it just makes the fight longer, not really harder.
I don't like this very much for a few reasons:
1 - It seems contrary to your goal of diversity. It seems unlikely to increase defender diversity much (it would increase it slightly by making second-tier defenders more viable for the surprise factor, but anything lower-tier isn't going to suddenly be good) while it would greatly decrease attacker diversity (that niche Machamp/Alakazam/Gengar/etc... attacker is now almost worthless because you don't want to waste a slot on a glass cannon that may be all glass and no cannon) - everyone would just use their best 6 attackers in every gym (so 6 dragonites if the player has it, and likely a bunch of Vaporeon/Exeggutor/Arcanine otherwise).
2 - It's going to be easy for the cheaters to cheat, meaning defenders won't necessarily change for it. It just makes the game harder for legitimate players and easier for cheaters (plenty of cheaters already have multiple accounts on different teams to kick their allies out of a level 10 gym and steal their spot - this same account can check the defenders in a gym before attacking it).
3 - The switching penalty is ridiculous. The biggest problem is that it heavily favors already strong players (there's no need to switch out a Dragonite regardless of the new defender [since there are now no good ice type defenders], while weaker players who rely on type advantages to take gyms will be heavily penalized for swapping between a Vaporeon to Venusaur to Rhydon etc... for a fight). The goal of gym attack shouldn't be to make it much harder for weaker players to take down gyms while stronger players are barely affected - to keep the game moving the gym system needs to actively encourage weaker players to take on stronger gyms as otherwise the gyms stagnate and the incumbent high level players hoard 10 coins per gym per day while no one else gets anything (as opposed to everyone actively playing and each gym generating 10x or more extra coins per day as that many more players claim coins from it).
4 - The randomization is also unfair to defenders. You and your team can construct a really difficult to beat gym with only a handful of top tier defenders (e.g. a level 10 gym with Blisseys in slots 7-8-9 is going to be hell to take down) and it becomes a lot easier if the randomization results in those defenders being slotted towards the end and the attacker is able to boot them out by beating the higher CP Dragonites/Gyarados/Rhydons that were in slots 1-6. If it randomizes for each attack, the attacker can forfeit the fights where the randomization was poor (i.e. give up as soon as they see a Blissey) and essentially knock Blisseys out of the gym without ever fighting one! Sort of entirely defeats the purpose of having a good defender and makes it PURELY about CP to sit higher - which the gym meta already favors CP far too much.
Overall - I think these suggestions go in the wrong direction. I agree that the gym system needs an overhaul, but this isn't the direction I'd want to go.
