"Comparing Pokémon To Loot-Based RPGs: Make Grinding Great Again"

#PokemonGO: Pokémon Go has been a pretty substantial force in my life over the past couple months. With such little content at this stage of the game (level 32), I feel the most potential for an end-game strategy is collecting high IV/optimal moveset Pokémon. It provides a similar rush to loot-based games and knowing that you have the 'best' there is.For comparison purposes, lets look at Diablo 3, a popular Action RPG made by Blizzard Entertainment. A lot of the game is spent grinding for certain items/armor so you can build an optimal set, pushing your character into higher thresholds of damage, tankiness, what have you. Each item has certain 'rolls' that can make or break the viability of said piece of armor/weapon. This is similar to Pokémon; you could have a high CP Lapras, but if it had Frost Breath and Dragon Pulse for moves, or it had 15/2/3 IV's, you would consider looking for a better Lapras. This is common practice for these types of games, but Pokémon GO has a few scenarios that make it difficult to enjoy, especially when collecting optimal Pokémon is your highest priority.Imagine if, in Diablo 3, there was a coveted weapon that most players want for their build. However, that weapon rolled the lowest amount on one stat (i.e. 100 dex in a 100 - 500 dex range) every time, bringing down the damage properties of said weapon. Wouldn't it irk you knowing that the range is there, but due to a bug, you can't access better values? This is what is happening with the Pokedex Scaling Bug. Starters are absolutely screwed over in the IV department with a guaranteed 0 IV stat. This also affects other Pokémon, completely eliminating the excitement of catching them knowing that their IV spread will be utter garbage. It's almost like seeing a legendary weapon dropping on the ground and not even bother picking it up because you know the rolls are going to be bad. Everything should have an equal chance of 'rolls' which would bring back the thrill of the hunt.Diablo 3 has the ability to Enchant a weapon, rerolling one, and only one, of the stats of the weapon. There's also rerolling legendaries, which rerolls all of the rolls of the weapon in its entirety. There is nothing more crushing to have a near perfect weapon with an absolute garbage roll in one impactful stat. Given the low chance to find some of these weapons, it would become exhausting and frustrating to wait for the stars to align and bless you with the optimal weapon you covet. Rerolling mechanics gives flexibility to a system that otherwise is completely based on chance at the cost of coveted materials. It would be nice for Pokémon to implement a similar system. While it might be difficult to do so within the confines of the 'spirit' of Pokémon, giving us the ability to reroll IV's or movesets would alleviate the sting of getting a Pokémon that is so close to what you want. We could do so with a hefty Stardust cost, which is the most coveted resource in the game, so it won't be without consequences. TMs could be a viable option as well, but I feel these moves should have consistently lower DPS/Power than moves the Pokémon could learn naturally to be fair. Either way, at least the player can control the outcome of their catches to some extent. This makes the game so much more rewarding and complex than a slot machine.Obviously, I am oversimplifying the mechanics of loot-based games to a large extent, but there are mechanics that Pokémon can adopt to make the game more satisfying and rewarding. When you have a game that heavily relies on probabilities and the roll of the dice, you need to implement fair and flexible means of Pokémon customization so your player base doesn't consistently get crushed by fixed or miniscule probabilities. Otherwise, the thrill of the hunt wears off after you've completed the Pokedex, and there is little incentive to keep the Pokémon you catch.TL;DR: Take notes from prominent loot-based RPGs: Fix the Pokedex Scaling bug and implement a reroll/TM system so the player base has at least some control over the stacked odds of finding a certain Pokémon and having the movesets/IVs that they want.Edit: Fixing formatting issues.Edit: Additional background - For those unfamiliar with the Pokedex Scaling bug, there seems to be a correlation between the size of the Pokedex number and one of the IVs of that Pokemon. This is notoriously affecting the starter Pokemon the most, since almost all starters caught in the wild have 0 IVs in at least one stat. There are some Pokemon that benefit from the bug (I.e. Eevee/Dratini) having a single guaranteed high IV stat. This does NOT affect Pokemon from egg hatching, so my dialogue mainly addresses anything caught in the wild. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2djzReQ