Research Missions

[Opaque02]

Hey all, this is a quick discussion to talk about the possibility of Research Missions in PE

The general idea would be that there'd be a way to earn research tokens, which can be used to power up a device and have a unique type of run (a Research Mission run)

The original idea would be that you get research tokens for "quests", though the quests are repeatable and wouldn't necessarily be too hard, but it could be something like capture x pokemon/defeat y trainers/do z damage in a particular way etc - once completed, you would get a biome research token.

Another option is that instead of offering tokens directly, they can give research points - for example capturing 10 pokemon could give 100 points, and every 1000 points you get given a token. This allows for finer tuning of missions, but also allows a) the ability to have multiple grades of levels, with harder ones giving more points (i.e. Capture 10/20/30 pokemon for 100/200/300 points) or b) giving us the ability to have modifiers - perhaps a metaprogression item or ME can increase the gain or research points

Once you have enough tokens to open the portal to the Research Mission, you would get a short run (maybe somewhere between 20-50 waves? number TBD). The final boss will be a legendary, and will be guaranteed as the final boss. When you get to the end, the boss won't be capturable but can be killed, and if you kill it, the legendary joins your team and you capture it. Alternatively if you get lucky you can use a masterball to capture it if you find one along the way?

So as an example of this, you could finish some quests which allow you to get some research tokens, and once you have enough, you can open a portal to a 20-50 wave Rainforest run where Mew is the final boss, and is captured once you kill it. This allows players to target specific legendaries to complete their collection, or to capture them to upgrade them if needed.

The original miro link is here

[Snailman11]

b) giving us the ability to have modifiers
Run Modifiers, that could be applied to any Classic run, could be chosen to add artificial difficult and replayability to Classic. The run modifiers "Research modifiers" (Name needs work) would award a much larger quantity of points compared to easy missions. This would allow the Player a predictable and skill-based way of earning points, with a much greater return than Players that run Classic without these modifiers.

"Research Modifiers" are small modifications to runs that may be stacked and cannot stand as challenges themselves. Things such as {reduced Attack-Type damage}, {Reduced Supereffectiveness}, {Type-based resistance removal}, {Late Evos} (Ideas and criticism needed)

"Research Modifiers" could be attached individually or deterministically based on a Legendary's base game, group or typing*. This would however force the Player to target specific Legendaries with the "Research Modifiers" they choose to apply to a run. This also necessitate that the Player be shown the Legendary attached to that "Research Modifier".

 * A Legendary may or may not need their "Research Modifier" to be completed for their portal to be unlocked.
 
 > This allows platers to target specific legendaries to complete their collection, or to capture them to upgrade them if needed.
Catching a Legendary Pokemon in this way can either Unlock that Pokemon or give the Player an Egg Move or eventually Passive.

• This would require around 5 runs completed to fully unlock a Legendary Pokemon's upgrades if "Research Modifiers" that give a large amount of points are added. This would likely be much faster than only doing minor missions.

[Snailman11]

open a portal to a 20-50 wave Rainforest run where Mew

Should the entire Scenario stick to the Biome it began in?

If yes,
a) We could hinder the Player bringing a Fire type, or Type that would steamroll the Biome's predominant typing by introducing Type restrictions, and restrictions to certain legendary Pokemon based on Starter Cost. (6 and higher?)
b) We could also just have Biomes assigned to Legendaries be Biomes that contain Pokemon with diverse typings.

If no,
Custom Biome Pathing in Scenarios? (Jungle -> Parking Lot)

[frutescens]

I am on team no, but I think it would be cool to have a way to implement custom biome pathing for some missions.
We could also have team restrictions for certain missions like 'cannot bring Pokemon above X BST', 'can only bring Pokemon from Johto', and 'can only bring X-type Pokemon'.

[Opaque02]

Originally I had a single biome because I was making the research missions biome specific, but we've since scrapped that idea. Given that, I think we shouldn't stick to the biome we started it, and if we could do some custom pathing that's be awesome

[DayKev]

How would levels be handled? Would the player bring in a team of, like, level 50 pokemon? Would they have reduced "starter points" to bring pokemon in with?

[Opaque02]

Maybe it could be something like a daily run where you start with level 20 or something? Otherwise just a fresh run starting from level 1 like usual? That said, we could have it different if we want - I haven't given it much thought yet