✦ ᗒPokémon Expeditionsᗕ ✦ ⋖Beyond the Horizon⋗ ✦ [Many System Overhauls!]

astralprogenitor

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astralprogenitor
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Hello and welcome back, Nauwillians. It's finally time - the revamping of Pokémon Expeditions is complete and ready to go. There have been a LOT of changes under the hood, so make sure to look at all the new threads and don't hesitate to ask questions if necessary. I'm going to go over a sort of changelog right now, so you have an idea of what to expect. THIS IS REALLY LONG I'M SORRY



Skills Are No More​
First up, skills are gone. Poof, kaput, boom - into the aether never to be seen again. While skills are fun in an actual tabletop setting, when you're playing on a forum it gets... kind of unwieldy to reference and cross reference, to be honest. Not to mention, it's rather restrictive when you're trying to balance numbers around your character concept. Since you're restricted from power play by hard attribute numbers anyway, we decided to simply nix the skills category. Your characters can study and be good (or bad) at whatever you want, so long as you aren't dipping into godmode territory. Your big actions will still be covered by core attribute rolls anyway, so be free, be creative, and have fun!



Lots Of Stats Are Gone, Actually​
HP, Def, Sp. Def, and Confidence are gone too! No more energy, either; Expedition length will be governed largely by trainers' VIT stats now, simplifying the number of statistics you have to worry about. Note that Natures DO still exist, as we find them quite fun! Move lists are also gone, which might be confusing until you realize...



Battling Is Now RP Only​
You can give your pokémon any movelist they could reasonably know, and use them freely in RP'd battles. Expedition battles will be determined by stat comparison. While this might be the most controversial change, we feel it's a necessary one; crunchy tabletop battles are, again, fine when you're sitting at a table with your sheet easily available and dice quick to roll, but when you're having to type out descriptions and look up effects and bla bla bla it quickly becomes an unpleasant slog. The exciting part of battling is the fast action, and having a crunchy system just doesn't do that here. So, instead, you'll roll specific stats against a difficulty modifier, then feel free to write/roleplay out the battle as desired.

If people want hard rules for player vs player action, we will make some, but they will be just as simplified as the Expedition rules to keep the focus on story and action instead of struggling with math or referencing rules and stats.



Dots Be Gone​
While I like the display effect of the filled/unfilled dots, they just ... don't display well on certain devices, and they're a little harder to reference than just a simple number written down. Attributes and Socials will be displayed with simple integers indicating their current and maximum value, making them much faster to read and understand.



Research / Journeys Are Being Retired, and Expeditions Are Different​
We've rolled the concepts into Expeditions, currently. Rather than roll for every step, we've adjusted Expeditions to be more like Journeys - roleplay / writing oriented exercises where you can earn events by participating. They are able to be done solo or in a group, regardless of how well researched an area is. Research will take place over time and is earned on Expeditions, both automatically from participation and finding specific research earning events.

If non-Expedition oriented research tasks are still desired, we will attempt to re-implement the system in a new, more interesting way, but we've decided the grind-type setup of Research isn't really what we want to be pushing. We would much rather players take those ideas and simply participate in roleplays, which allows for freedom of character development as well as accrues credit towards ranking up trainers.



Character Applications Are Easier​
We've loosened up the requirements on characters a bit, and we're allowing more types, such as ex-criminals and ex-team members, to join the island populace. We've also outlined a hopefully better explanation of things that are and aren't allowed, as well as added guidance for some areas that have historically given players problems when developing their applications. We want everyone to be able to join us without too much hassle, so we hope this is an improvement for everyone.

Please note any / all unfinished or unapproved characters have been moved to a special subforum and must be updated with the new rules / guidelines in order to go forward with the submission process.



So Many Things Can Be Done On Discord​
Gone are the days of waiting for my slow ass to process things like pokémon names or trainer assignments. Shark's newly built bot will let you do all these things and more without me or any other mods being around to actually Do It. From now on, you'll be able to do these things all on your own, at any time of day or night:
  • View your or someone else's mons.
  • View your or someone else's trainers.
  • View a mon's image and information.
  • Assign mons to trainers.
  • Name mons.
  • Raise your mons' ranks.
  • Assign your mons' extra stats points.
  • Reset your mons' stats.
  • View your inventory.
  • Shop for items.
  • Give a user a pokémon as a gift.
  • Trade pokémon.
  • Link your BS name to your Discord ID.
Now, some of these things probably require a little explanation, because...



Trainer Assignment Is Now Limited​
You can only reassign a mon to a trainer once every 30 days! This is to keep you from trying to game the system by shuffling one mon around to many trainers for ... well, whatever reasons you might have. So make sure you're giving them to the right trainer! However, this doesn't apply in certain instances, like...



Pokémon Can Be Gifted And Traded​
A traded mon obviously can't belong to another player's trainer, so these can be swapped immediately. But yes, that's right - you can now trade and give away mons like arceus intended. There is a 30 day cooldown on trades, so you can't play musical mons, but now you can swap things you might not want to others, or throw that fifteenth lefmew at a newbie for fun.



Training Is Different​
Happiness and Loyalty are now removed - you can roleplay your mons' journey to trust and adoration without the intervention of dice. Because of other changes, this means training is very much only used for rank ups now, and has been altered to be a solo RP activity that earns you Training Certificates. You can spend these Certs in the bot to raise your mons' ranks without mod intervention. This means you can train with any trainer and rank up any mon, so you don't have to RP with characters you don't feel like writing with.

With this change does come a limit to the number of trainings that can be done per day - you can only submit three maximum per day, though you can now write them ahead of time and submit later if desired.



Evolution Is Different​
Since battles are gone, those evolutions are being replaced by using Rare Candies, purchased from the shops or obtained through events. Any Victory Tokens previously handed out will be converted to Bitter Rare Candies, so you're not losing anything. Happiness evos are now being adjusted to require a pokémon being involved in a certain amount of RPs, though Soothe Bell items can be used to replace these. Other evolutions can be triggered through the use of special items relevant to that mon, and these can be purchased in the bot shops or obtained through Expeditions or events.

Note that the dex is still being updated, and I'll get that organized this week, so you can actually see how many Rare Candies are needed for the level-based mon evolutions. Happiness and single item evos always require the same amount, however.



Mega Evolution ... uhh, Exists​
We are allowing megas in the shop! Mega evolution can be triggered for ANY fully evolved pokémon, not just those that exist in canon... including greater fusions! There are heavy requirements for it, but anyone can work towards one. Currently, earning one in the shop is the only way to obtain a mega pokémon - they are not available for RLC as of writing.



There Are Only Two Fusions​
This might actually have been announced before, I don't remember, but old style standard fusions are being removed. The amount of work they required made it such that they might as well have just been greater, so they've been nixed. From now on, what was called a lesser fusion (a pokemon with another mon's colors) will just be called a standard fusion, and greater fusions remain the same. If you see a reference to lesser fusion, let us know so it can be updated to the proper language.



Breeding Shift​
So far there hasn't BEEN any breedings ... largely because the system is kind of messy. While the Enrichment Facility will continue to exist, it will be adjusted ... sometime this week to where it will open for entries when an artist feels like doing breedings. Keeping track of who is/isn't in the facility is just a mess and Not Fun for anyone involved. I would do it right now, but I only just realized how much I hate the system and it's 4:30 in the morning and I REALLY want to get this update out before everyone wakes up, so you'll just have to deal with it for now. :p





I ... I think that's it. So, you know, no big deal, just a complete and total rewrite of basically every system. There will be some delay while we get all your old inventories and currencies transfered into your accounts, so please bear with us during this fresh transition.

You will be getting appropriately compensated for any old completed Journeys / Expeditions / Research / Training, which will take a few days as well. Note that training will simply be rewarding Training Certificates equal to whatever actions were submitted - you'll need to apply those rank ups and stat changes yourself, because you can now.

As always, please let us know if you spot anything out of date or incorrectly referenced; it's been a lot to go through and it's always possible something was missed.

Special note: ALL pokémon have been given a FREE stat reset as of this transition. Go forth and assign your stats freely, friends!

In addition, if you'd like to adjust/retcon any previously approved characters with the new system's rules, you may do so by starting the process within two weeks after this announcement. Just make a new thread with the new application, fill it out, but add a link to the old character at the end. You don't have to have it DONE in the two weeks, just get it started so we know you want to!

Final note: You need to link your BS account to your Discord now in order to use the functions! Please use the /linkaccount command to do this without our intervention.
 
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astralprogenitor

late to the party
astralprogenitor
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Staff member
Admin
Designer
🐸

Me and sharkie both! None of the bot things would be possible without him, so a HUGE thank you for him taking so much weight off us. Not having to process all those things by hand is massiveeee.

I hope everyone enjoys the ... easier to handle systems. Obviously it might take a little ironing out over time but this should be a lot simpler to manage than before. u wu
​
🐸​
 

PeterPan_da144

Stew Aficionado
PeterPan_da144
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Supporter
yaaaaaasssssssssss I cannot wait to dive headfirst into the shop again and play with all the things Polli and Shark have made muahahahahahaha
 
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