PAX East 2014 Theme Discussion

[Kaladin]

I have been thinking about this a bit tonight, and have come up with a couple of ideas.

To expand on the 'points based on team composition' I came up with earlier, what about doing somthing simple like 2 points for a 3rd stage Pokemon, 3 points for a 2nd stage Pokemon, and 4 points for a 1st stage or one that doesn't evolve. And then, you double the points that Pokemon is worth if they Mega Evolve it during the battle (3rd stage then getting 4 points, 2nd stage getting 6 points, 1st stage getting 8 points).

Another idea would be to make up different packs of cards or pins or somthing to give to each trainer, with 6 different Pokemon in each. Then they have to find diffent trainers and either trade or battle for the ones they need to complete an evolutionary chain. Somthing like Blue Pack A would have a Totodile, a Pidgey, a Pupitar, a Haunter, a Golem and a Vileplume, while Red pack A would have a Croconaw, a Pidgeoto, a Tyrannitar, a Gengar, a Geodude and an Oddish. Once they complete a set, they can turn it in to a Leader or a centrally located Organizer or whoever, and get a raffel ticket(s) in return. You could even use a rule that each trade or battle for a card has to go 1:1, so that even if a player loses they still have 6 cards, to keep more competitive players from steamrolling the less competitive. You could also give the gym leaders a set, and then have random leaders be 'it' for the day, and only be allowed to swap cards on the day they are it.

[Mehnit]

For my two cents, I think evolution is a theme with a lot of possibilities, but I don't think we should encourage/discourage the use of some Pokemon over others by rewarding different evolutionary stages in a challenger's party during normal gym battles. In my experience, the lower tier challengers come without a lot of backup players in their box to change out their teams for different challengers, and with X&Y requiring the Bank to bring Pokemon up from previous gens, challengers may not have all their options available.
I do like the idea of challengers "evolving" by meeting certain challenges outside of the normal gym battles: be they battles with the gym leader or other challengers with specific rules, trivia, scavenger hunt, etc.

I also like the idea of a fantasy theme, but that's harder to keep related to Pokemon. It would welcome our new fairy overlords, though.

[Shrain]

Excuse me for how this is all written - making a tired post before I head onto my flight.

I would love some fun way to use a 'pokedex.' The pokedex is iconic, as it's used in both the anime and every game. Gotta see and/or capture all the mons. I wish we could come with a way that'd be similar to the pokedex and remain practical and fun.

I feel like a science/researcher theme would be fun, especially if we're makin our challengers like - researchers in training or the like. This could easily incorporate both the mystery egg (because of how often a person of science gives away an egg) and and some kind of pokedex idea.

On the note of a mystery egg, it'd be pretty cool if each leader had their own batch of eggs - one that contains a pokemon specially matching to that of the leader. I think it adds a cute, personal flair to whole design. And of course, most eggs would be handed out by the first leader the challenger fights, and any leader who doesn't make eggs could either borrow eggs from someone else or just pass the world along to another leader that the challenger needs an egg.

[tehJTK]

[Shade]

I like the idea of incorporating a pokedex somehow. If we're handing out eggs, maybe use the 'dex as a method to measure challenger progress? The trainer cards could be themed like a 'dex, with appropriate silhouettes? Just tossing ideas until something sticks. Leader exclusive items are not a great idea, but if we can split one egg among a handful of leaders, that could work (if something is exclusive to one leader, and we see the lines we've seen consistently at East, there'd be a good chance some challengers would not be able to receive that leader exclusive item-which is a sadface all around).

Incorporating trivia to guess silhouettes/eggs could also be fun (still chewing on a piece of pokemon trivia myself).

[SandstormS]

What if the cards are "pokedexes" with 6 or 8 silhouetted pokes and it is the job of the card holder to encounter them. Encountering the pokes would be [b4l7]seeing [/b4l7]them in battle with a leader. The pokes on the card would have to be unique to a, one, singular, leader so three versions could be made for the tiers. If the professor/doctor/esteemed person of study is a popular leader type this year they can be the ones to hand out the cards or hand out the medals/badges/victory item or something.

English not strong today...

[CoanArcanius]

[philomglol]

On the topic of evolution! Find the holes in my idea:

Could leaders be corralled into small groups of 2 or 3 people (based on, lets say by egg type?) and then either given a stage of evolution to build a team around (igglybuff, pichu, squirtle) or be required include all three stages of one particular pokemon in their team (igglybuff, jigglypuff, wigglytuff) from their egg type.

Then each "squad" could have an egg type to hand out, imbetween battles when available? Not sure how and where they would be handed out, but instead of giving each leader an egg to give out and having people line up, you'd have a few people sharing the responsibility for an egg type (variety up to the leader).

[Aurethious]

[Volaro]

Maybe it could be like, a bingo board of sorts with various gym leader Pokemon silhouettes on it then? Maybe a gym leader could have more than one pokemon that a challenger needs, even.