"[Idea] Implementing Speed with Cooldowns."

#PokemonGO: ATTENTION: Long post incoming. For TL;DR, just read through the bolded parts.Here we go!--PREFACE--You know, speedy pokémon got the short straw in this game, right? Their speed stat, which in the main games used to be decisive for strategy, is nothing more than a measly modifier for Atk and Def, even after the rebalance: 1+(BaseSpe-75)/500. There's no Speed stat in PoGO. That means a pokémon speed depends completelly on their moves, not on the pokémon, which is like saying a heavy armored Paladin wielding a Dagger should be as fast as a Thief, a Rogue or a Ninja. Why use any of those, then? No wonder Vaporeon is so OP, having one of the fastest quick moves added to its high bulk!I think... No, I am certain there should be a speed stat in PoGO. And here is my suggestion on how to implement it. Some have suggested that a speed stat should change the battle animations, but what I'm about to suggest is easier to implement for almost the same effect.--SUGGESTION--First, we need a BaseSpeed stat, which could be 2xSpeed, like Stamina. Their Speed by level would be Base Spd+IV*CPM, like the other stats. So, a level 40 perfect Electrode would get a speed of: (280+15)*0.7903001 = 233.14Then, the Attack Speed (ASPD) would be simmilar to Niantic's current speed modifier: 1+(Speed-125)/500. This Electrode would have an ASPD of 1.216Ok, so what does this ASPD do? It reduces Attack Duration. Base At. Duration would be the sum of 80% At. Animation and a 20% of Base Cooldown. Animations are fixed (though they could be shortened like they did with evolutions), but Cooldown would be reduced or augmented by ASPD. This means, for an Attack Duration of 80% (0% Cooldown), a pokémon would need an ASPD of 1.25, because 1/1.25 = 0.8So, for 0% Cooldown, a pokémon would need 250 speed. The 125 in the formula is half of that, which would count as average instead of 75. This leaves a bit of gap between Electrode's maximum speed and 250, in case Niantic decides to rise the level cap to 50, or even implement status moves like Agility. Anything more than 250 would be redundant, as animation couldn't be reduced, but that simply means Ninjask, Deoxys and a few Mega-evos would get max ASPD at an earlier level, and/or with lower Speed IVs.Of course, if they want to keep current At. Duration, all At. Animations would have to be reduced to 80%, which I think would be easier than making them fluctuate with speed like others have suggested (I have never seen anything like that in any MMO!). With the other 20% of base cooldown, base At. Duration would be kept unchanged for a pokémon with an ASPD of 1.Now, CP would be calculated by multiplying the Atk part by the ASPD. Or they could even make two separated Power stats, one for Offense Power (Atk*Spd) and one for Defense Power (Def*Sta).They could play with the delays too. Like, making priority moves like Quick Attack have no delay, or putting it before moves like Dig or Solar Beam.I'll put a practical example of how this would work. If you don't want to read through all the maths, just read the bold parts or jump to the conclussions.--EXAMPLE--A Rhydon VS a Dugtrio, both level 30, 100%, with the same moveset: Mud Slap and EQ. The defender is a level 30, 100% Arcanine. For this example they'll spam only the Mud Slap.Currently, Rhydon has (222+15)*0.7317 = 173.41 Atk. Dugtrio has (167+15)*0.7317 = 133.17 Atk.Arcanine has (166+15)*0.7317 = 132.44 Def. I'm rounding to two decimals for simplicity, but as far as I know, the game doesn't round these stats: it only rounds HP.Mud Slap has Power of 15 and duration of 1350 ms. It's also STAB and SE.Now, as seen here, damage formula is FLOOR(0.5*POW*Atk/Def*STAB*Type)+1, where FLOOR means rounding down what's inside the parenthesis, cutting decimals. Then adding +1.For Rhydon, a Mud Slap would do FLOOR(0.5*15*173,41/132,44*1,25*1,25)+1 = 16 damage to Arcanine.For Dugtrio, a Mud Slap would do FLOOR(0.5*15*133,17/132,44*1,25*1,25)+1 = 12 damage to Arcanine.With current stats, the damage per second against Arcanine from Rhydon is 16/1350*1000 = 11.85 DPS For Dugtrio it's** 12/1350*1000 = 8.89 DPS, which is 0.75 times Rhydon's.Rhydon is clearly superior here: Stronger, tankier... There is practically no reason to use Dugtrio for combat if you have a Rhydon. Even for prestiging, a low level Rhydon could do better, if only for survivability.Now let's implement my changes. The attack and def stats wouldn't have the speed modifier anymore, so Rhydon would get (239+15)*0.7317 = 185.85 Atk, while Dugtrio would have (153+15)*0.7317 = 122.93 Atk.Arcanine would have (160+15)*0.7317 = 128.05 Def.For Rhydon, a Mud Slap would do FLOOR(0.5*15*185.85/128.05*1,25*1,25)+1 = 18 damage to Arcanine.For Dugtrio, a Mud Slap would do FLOOR(0.5*15*122.93/128.05*1,25*1,25)+1 = 12 damage to Arcanine.Things look even grimmer for Dugtrio now, but let's look at what speed would do.Rhydon would have (80+15)*0.7317 = 69.51 Spd, while Dugtrio has (240+15)*0.7317 = 186.58 SpdTheir ASPD would be 1+(69.51-125)/500 = 0.88902 for Rhydon and 1+(186.58-125)/500 = 1.12316 for DugtrioAttack animation would be reduced to 80%, so Base At. Duration of Mud Slap would be1080*1,25, or 1080+10800.25 = *1350 miliseconds, rounding decimals. **1080 of Animation and 270 of base delay.For Rhydon, this would mean an At. Duration of 1350/0.88902 = 1519 ms. For Dugtrio, 1350/1.12316 = 1202 msWith the ASPD changes, the damage per second for Rhydon would be 18/1519*1000 = 11.85 DPS, almost the same as before, but rounding up. For Dugtrio, however, it's 12/1202*1000 = 9.98 DPS, which is 0.84 times Rhydon's.--CONCLUSSIONS--Did you expect Dugtrio to suddenly become stronger than Rhydon? Of course not, silly. Even if the gap is way tighter, Rhydon still deals more damage per second And since we took the speed bonus from defense, the gap in defense became a bit wider, making Rhydon even tankier than Dugtrio.However, now Dugtrio has two advantages over Rhydon. It's attack being faster means it can dodge easier, compensating it's fragility, while Rhydon would have to tank most of the hits and might waste many potions. Also, Dugtrio's Earthquake would be charged earlier than Rhydon's so, for short combats (not Snorlax) where you know a couple EQs from either of them is enough or more than enough, Dugtrio would be the best option. Thus, Dugtrio wouldn't be a beast but it'd have it's niche as the fastest Ground type.When defending, Rhydon is generally better too, in both damage and tankiness, but the ASPD could also be applied to the ~2 seconds delay between attacks (~2/1.25 = ~1,6 minimum delay). This means, a fast defender may be fragile, but it would attack more often and be harder to dodge than a slow defender. Stone Walls, Glass Cannons or Fragile Speedsters, everyone would have a role in a gym, instead of only the Stone Walls. We would not only see (a bit) more diversity of pokémon in gyms, but also more variety of defending styles, making combats more interesting.... Whew! Sorry for the neverending post. Please leave your opinion or tell me if you see something wrong. I believe with this, an HP constant, rebalancing mixed vs specialized defenders, and a better type effectiveness, we would reach a pretty good balance. It shouldn't be too hard, right? I hope you enjoyed the read! via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2kFUcLM