I think the next big mechanics update should be Battle Points.
I envision them working like (and retroactively replacing) the 'Battles Won' marker you can only see on your pokemon before a gym battle. BP would be locked to the pokemon that earned them and used to purchase moves for that pokemon. A reasonable amount of BP would act as a more certain alternative to a TM. (I'm thinking 200 BP for a Fast move and 400 for Charged) Perhaps a less reasonable amount could be used to purchase moves not usually in the move pool like those that were removed to make room for other moves (maybe 1,000 to 2,000 for moves like Water Gun on Feraligatr). And for an even less reasonable amount of BP, special moves like the 3hr window exclusive moves or Gengar's Shadow Claw could be purchased. (maybe 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 for any move that needs to be kept rare to avoid breaking the meta). Raids could give double or triple the BP a gym battle would in order to keep premium raid passes desirable.
I think a system like this would help to build attachment to specific pokemon which has always been the appeal of these games for me. It would also help with the fear some players have about evolving others that may have a Community Day coming. What do you guys think?
I was thinking a similar thing though I was imagining more cumulative CP beaten because we'd then get tons of alt accounts spamming gyms with things like pidgey to grind up super fast. I was thinking something like cumulative CP beaten filling something like a buddy distance meter then earning a candy after X CP been beaten
I'd certainly make those GRB blissey/lax spams more worth it to fight either way.
I like the idea as it gives more power to the Players to decide how their Pokémon grow. I would expand this idea by saying that Pokémon get BP for both Attacking and Defending a Gym, based on the way that Gym XP is currently given out.
So if you beat a CP 3000 Pokémon, you get 30 BP. When you put a Pokémon onto a Gym, THAT Pokémon gets 100BP - and 1 BP for every minute it defends the gym.
As for the levels of the rewards... I think anything over 100,000 is going to be too high. Even 10,000 is likely going to be too high for a majority of players - even if we used the Gym XP scale, we're looking at 333 battles against CP3000+ Pokémon to reach 10,000, or almost a full week of Gym Defense. Per Pokémon. That's a lot; even some Hardcore players would have trouble getting those numbers.
But again, it gives players more control over how their Pokémon grow, and that's something I'd support. It's just a matter of working out the details.
