Single post in 2024 Update Phase 1: Lab + Ranks

As discussed in the main 2024 Updates announcement thread, the time has come for some updates to the Lab and an overhaul of the Rank system. This update will go live on February 21st - there will be a brief maintenance around midday while the changes go out. During that maintenance I will be posting updates on our Discord server, so be sure to join us there! Note that while I use the present tense throughout this post, the update is not yet live. These changes will apply after the maintenance on Feb 21st. Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Lab updates: - You now get 10 free Lab Reloads every day. Any reloads beyond those free ones will require the use of Lab Reloaders. But on that topic... - Lab Reloaders now cost Interaction Points instead of GP. They are sold in packs as follows: Lab Reloader x10 == 10,000 Interaction Points Lab Reloader x40 == 30,000 Interaction Points Lab Reloader x100 == 60,000 Interaction Points - Lab Speed Boost has been added This item can be bought for 100 GP, and reduces the 5-minute cooldown by 30 seconds. Up to two of these items can stack, for a total of one minute of reduction. - The plan to add more Lab slots has been adjusted since my last announcement. Instead of being tied to EggDex completion, which is a bit weird, it will be based on your number of Lab adoptions. However, this stat was not previously tracked. This means that everyone will be starting from 0 for this progression metric. It will start counting from the time the update goes live. Additional Lab Egg slots, up to a total of 8, will be granted as you continue to use the Lab. They are unlocked at 100, 250, 500 and 1000 Lab adoptions. To help veteran users gain access to these expansions, the next Tournament will be a lab-adoption tournament. (I have to manually change this after the Tournament is created, so the randomly chosen one will show until I fix it to be lab-adoption instead) - Information has been updated. The "About the Lab" section of the page has had some information added regarding Fishing, Variant breeding and a pointer towards where to get Legendary Pokémon. This should help newer users find the things they are looking for. It's worth noting that the old text was so old that Alolan forms didn't even exist at the time! Definitely past due for an update. Also the ages of various NPCs has been updated, partly due to passage of time, partly just to make a bit more sense in general for the characters. Rank Updates: - New ranks have been added. - The Rank order has been updated. - Rank rewards have been overhauled, mostly focusing on permanent buffs to the game rather than an assortment of random things. - Rank progression thresholds have been reworked. They are now based on percentage completion of both your EggDex and your PokéDex. Numbers listed for EggDex and PokéDex completion are accurate as of this writing, where the total counts are 701 EggDex and 1649 PokéDex entries. As more content is added, the percentage completion goals will stay the same while the actual numbers may increase. Shiny classes will also use this percentage-based threshold system, using the same numbers as the ranks for their targets. Rewards with effects matching other upgrades (eg. Lab timer reduction, Scour slots...) stack on top of those upgrades. For the Lab Timer this means you can bring the cooldown to as low as 3 minutes. For Scour Slots you can max out at 4 simultaneous missions. Placeholder items will be inert until their corresponding Phase of the 2024 update plans goes live. Misc. updates: Due to the Rank updates affecting other features, some adjustments have been made accordingly. - The Daycare adoption limit for Hypermode users has been lowered. However, when combined with the Daycare Adoption Increase rank reward, the resulting limit (30) is higher than the current limit (24). - Because Mega Evolution is now unlocked as part of the Rank Reward progression, it is no longer a prerequisite for Referrals to claim rewards. They just need the 50 Evolutions, that's it. - Mega Stone Vouchers 1-4 have been unified into a single Mega Stone Voucher that works for any official Mega Evolution. - Mega Stone Voucher 5 has been changed to Mega Stone Voucher Q, but otherwise works the same. Voucher 1-4 can be traded in for the new unified Voucher, while Voucher 5 can be traded in for Voucher Q as a simple exchange. Tournament Prize Shop has been updated accordingly. - Data Volume Voucher is now available in the Tournament Prize Shop. - The temporary use of Legendary Seals to find them more easily in Boxes has been removed. - The Long Chain Bonus has been removed from general use and is instead a feature of the Cobalt Amulet. Under the old system, for pre-Champion users, the LCB would max out at +50% Melan chances after 5k eggs. For Arceus users, the max was +150% at 10k eggs. Champion-rank users would fall somewhere in that range depending on how close to Arceus they were. The new system provides the Gold and Silver Amulets, yielding a +25% and +33.3% increase to shiny and albino chances respectively. This combines multiplicatively into a +66.6% Melan chance. Users with these two Amulets now have a higher base Melan chance than they would get with a maxed-out Long Chain Bonus! For Arceus Rank users it gets even better. The new LCB from the Cobalt Amulet maxes out at +75% after 5k eggs, making a multiplicative total of +191.6% boost. You need to hatch half as many eggs to max out as before, and you max out at a significantly higher value! So while it may initially seem like a "nerf" to have the LCB taken away, when combined with the additions of the Amulets, your chances have never been higher.

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Thank you for your help and feedback in guiding these updates. I hope you like these changes!