How PvP could be
PvP is something that was in the very first trailer and should have been in the game from day 1. Below my view on how Niantic could roll out PvP. I hope that my view will be clear and if you have questions, feel free to ask :)
When two players meet they can set up a “battle” against each other by having an extra button to search for players nearby offering a battle. This button should be in the screen where also the “Pokemon”, “Items”, “Shop” and “Pokedex” buttons are.
When a player offers a battle, he can see which players want to battle him so he can select his friend/family member/ stranger to battle him.
The two players enter a raid like loading screen with a timer counting down (let’s say 80 seconds). In these 80 seconds you select your line-up of 6 Pokemon that you want to fight with AND this exact same line-up will be fought by your opponent in the order you have put them.
The player that is the fastest at beating the other players’ line-up wins. This makes things interesting because if someone chooses to have the best attacking movesets on all of his/ her mons, they might sacrifice the best defensive movesets. Or if a player chooses only six 3000cp Blisseys he will not be likely to ever beat the opponents’ line-up of six. The other way around, if a players chooses six Alakazams he will be likely to lose because Alakazams have horrible defensive stats. A mix of lugia’s with Tyranitars and blisseys will be best (my guess).
Thus, both players will be fighting each other’s “temporary” gym, the Pokemon in the gym (your line-up of six) will function like in a real gym with twice the Stamina/HP and the Pokemon “defending” every 2 seconds + move duration.
This way Niantic does not have to change the core battle mechanics.
long post i know so here is a picture of a Bobafett
Answers
I was hoping Niantic will be changing the battle style like allowing the NPC Pokémon to dodge. For the hit to land, the player must tap on the Pokémon body, also if certain body parts will take in more damage. With this addition, the weight and speed of The Pokémon would be considered. On top of changing the battle style, we should only have to defeat The Pokémon twice, it get really repetitive after defeating it so many times especially when defending trainers or spoofers with their unlimited supplies using a golden raspberry.
Nice till "twice stamina/hp" like gyns. People didn't realize how broken blissey is right now. There's is no lack, or wickness in make a full team of blissey despite machamp presence.
I really wish some bit more of complexity, not that much to make people who don't research feel like they get no chance against those who do, just enough to give every pokemon more personality and get about the meta (yes, i'm talking about hidden abilities and 3 or 4 moves/pokemon, doesn't need stats condition).
I dont think that it will be benefitial if someone chooses more than one Blissey in their line-up, because you slow yourself down quit a bit. If de HP/Stamina is double it benefits hardcore players more than regular players and by ldoubling the HP/Stamina Niantic does not need to change much within the battel mechanics.
Edit: one 3k blissey can never defeat another 3k blissey, simply too much time needed, so a team of six 3k blisseys would never work. Another thing, friends/family/strangers could just agree on not using blissey/snorlax/chansey/mons above certain cp/level
Then again i would rather have PvP with; abilities (slaking, i am looking at you), 3 charge moves per pokemon (trainer tips made a video about how this could work) and the above mentioned tapping on a pokemons' body to register a hit.
But this could Niantic do pretty fast (fast as in Niantic fast)
Perhaps it would be more interesting if you both create those gyms (no multiples of each species) and then each player picks the battle pair in the order he prefers. Each battle finishes in 45 seconds and the game then shows the result to each player:
End of turn 1:
Player B hurt your Vaporeon badly. His health is now 20%. Your Gyarados fought hard and is now at 60% health.
Player A beat your Houndoom.
Your Venusaur survived the battle with a health of 76%.
Turn 2. The players select their next match-ups.
If a player uses a previously hurt Pokémon, and it faints, he quickly needs to select another one, until they are all fainted.
This gives the players mid-battle feedback and more sense of being in a fight, not a gym.
On the other hand, the results will probably become predictable for such bulk battles. Winning becomes simply a function of power times stamina. The only surprise would be type effectiveness and move sets, and people may get around it by joining the battle, leaving after seeing the opponent's line-up to return with better counters.
To make things fair, CP should be capped by the level of the weaker player.
As an example:
You expect the opponent to bring in a Blissey, so you might include a Machamp. At the first turn, you pick the pair, and your opponent as well. The opponent will hope to take out your main attackers first, so if you don't use that Machamp now, it will faint before you can use it. So you battle the Blissey and get it down to 30%. Opponent battles your Machamp at the same time. The highest of damage done to Machamp in the same turn would count in that case.
It is an interesting question who to go for first, defenders or attackers. If everyone eliminates attackers first you end up with a sluggish fight between defenders. You could use defenders best in offense against certain attackers, since DPS will be higher and you can dodge. Probably it will make no sense to use high DPS low stamina attackers as they will be eaten quickly.
