Wishforge: Additional Progress Options

7 months ago, I posted a proposal to rework the Wishforge's "crafting" step. I got some good feedback on it and we workshopped some further ideas (so the original post is rather out of date now). Here is what I'm proposing now, along with a poll for you to express your view.
Update 21/Jun See end of post for tweaks.
Update 27/Jun Plans are made, see end of post.
Update 30/Jun You probably guessed: see end of post! Why? First let's look at why even consider changing things. After all, it "works", right? Why change something that "works"? Let's begin with why the current system is the way it is. The Wishforge's progression consists of two steps: 1. Gather Gems, and sometimes Relic Items or Flawless Gems. 2. Evolve Pokémon matching the type of the Badge you are upgrading. Step 1 can be done alone by hatching Eggs, and opening Treasure Boxes. However, it can be done much more easily by trading with other users, assuming you have stuff to trade or friends to help you. Step 2 however must be done alone. Sure you can get help from others either directly via RTE trades, or indirectly via the Shelter, but ultimately you must be the one to evolve the Pokémon. This is good, because it allows for solo play if you choose, but the "intended" way involves a good, healthy mix between personal investment and community cooperation. The downside is that the number of evolutions required gets pretty big, and it ends up more or less requiring you to gather a massive collection of Fields full of ready-to-evolve Pokémon that just end up sitting there until you finally get enough Gems, then you have to sit through and evolve them one by one. This... isn't fun. What? On to what will change about this system. Basically, I want to add more options to allow crafting progress, besides just evolutions. The crafting process will involve a points-based system, where the following actions give points: - Interact with a Pokémon of the given type: 1 point - Interact with an Egg* of the given type: 10 points - Hatch an Egg of the given type: 100 points - Evolve a Pokémon of the given type: 200 points - Turn in a Flawless Gem of the given type: 1000 points * Must be registered in your EggDex for you to "know" the type. Provides a reward for completing your EggDex! The goal will be 200× the current number of evolutions required. This means that if you just stick to evolutions, it will be the same number as before. All this does is give more options to make progress. While you can make Badges using only interactions, or only by trading in Flawless Gems, I wouldn't recommend that. The "intended" strategy is still to focus on evolutions, but you'll be able to make some passive progress via interactions, and if you happen to have Flawless Gems lying around, they can stop being useless by giving you a little boost. When? I'm going to run this poll for a week, and I'll be here for feedback and questions. After that, the update will depend on if any changes are needed, but if all goes well then we could see this update by the end of the month. Thank you for your patience and feedback!

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Update June 21st Some adjustments to the numbers, mostly, since just about everyone seems on board with the idea in principle. Change: Hatch an Egg of the given type: 100 50 points. Reason being that you get plenty of rewards for hatching Eggs already, the Wishforge should still tend to have Evolution be the "main" way to get points. Add: Mega Evolve a Pokémon of the given type: 2000 points. One Mega Evolution will count for 10 normal Evolutions, due to the higher cost of the Mega Stone and the fee involved in processing it. I've added a new poll as a quick yes/no to these changes, but feel free to continue posting your feedback on this proposal.

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Update June 27th Since the community seems to be in agreement on the changes, I'll be going ahead with them. The Wishforge will be closed on June 30th This means the page will be offline, but also you will not be able to progress badges during this day. Any evolutions made on June 30th will not count. The updated Wishforge will open on July 1st. Thank you!

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Update June 30th (Man I still hate working with PFQ's code, who wrote this mess? Oh yeah, me...) The update is ready to go and will automatically go live at Reset. I will, however, be in bed for some much needed rest. The update has been tested by myself and a few staff members, and everything seems to work, but there may always be glitches when going live. If this happens, Garthic will wake me up and get me to fix it. Assuming all goes well, however, here's a recap of changes: Crafting progress has been reworked to a points-based system. Interactions, hatching eggs, evolving Pokémon, Mega Evolutions and trading in Flawless Gems all grant varying amounts of points. Evolutions remain the "recommended" way of doing it as the most efficient source of points, but there are now other options too. The Badges themselves have been redesigned, featuring a more prominent and intuitive "progression" design. Additionally, the rankings have been shuffled a bit. Nickel and Zinc have been added to the front, and Titanium and Adamantium have been dropped. This doesn't impact their effects, just the names have been moved. Thank you for your patience and feedback. I hope you enjoy these changes!

I've been waiting for this update tbh I'm very excited about it and hope other users agree. I love the explaination you've given, reasoning and just the idea overall. It's great that evolutions are still important and still the technically "preferred" method, but there are other options to get it built up slowly as well. I have one, albeit silly, question - I'm assuming ones that are going through "on-going construction" would be upgraded to this new point system as well? Just curious how anything that's currently on-going is going to be effected, if at all. Thanks for the update about this, once again really look forward to this and hope it's pushed through. Also love the thought of flawless gems giving points towards it as well, but I'm concerned that 1000 points is a bit high, I feel like cutting it in half or to 3/4ths (500-700 range) is a bit more reasonable IMHO but that's just my thoughts on it. I'm also curious if there might be some kind of pop up warning of using a flawless gem if its going to go over the needed amount of points?

I love this proposed idea. On the surface, I don't see any changes needed, but more attentive/assertive members might see something I don't. I like the fact the points will be 200x whatever level of evos we need for the current badge. It makes it a bit more interactive, too. I know the original idea was to interact with more players, rather than a select few's' fields, but for those of us who *do* mass-click through a handful of people's fields, it'll be a nice little bit of help. Interactions with a pokemon of x type = 1 point. This is very fair, in my opinion. It's already hatched or evolved, or... you get the idea. The hard work for that pokemon has already been done, so one point for a passerby on that pokemon is acceptable. The system also rewards us with hatching and evolving our own of the type, prioritizing them for a faster gain. I also like that there'll be more use for Flawless gems beyond Memories and furthering Wishbadges (if there are other uses, I may have missed them). Fields cost a lot the higher you go. I think my fields are costing in the low 1.2 mil credits right now. Not needing to have all the excessive fields will be a nice change of pace, leaving me my precious space for collections and sorting and organizing as I'd like. All in all, I definitely approve of the proposed changes. EDIT: Moroha pointed it out, and others appear to agree; the lowered reward for Flawless would definitely be reasonable!! EDIT 2: But, seeing Niet's response to it... quantifying it to Evolution equivalent does seem more appealing... well heck.

Support. I play this game to collect stuff I'm attached to, not elolve 800 pokemon. It's why before, I was never going to go past maybe gold on everything. If I'm going to hoard, it's gonna be Swirlix or something, not rte junk.

Giant fan of this update! Getting your badges upgraded feels extremely tedious and not worthwhile because of that, even though it definitely is worthwhile! I'm in agreement with Moroha for lowering how much Flawless Gems would give, probably to 500 instead of 1,000 just because that just feels more reasonable than anything higher really. I'm very glad to see more prominent uses for Flawless Gems in the future instead of just selling them from your inventory or selling them on the market for marginally more. Happy with all the other changes to come, but yeah I'd definitely not be opposed to lowering the amount Flawless Gems give, just that final stretch alone from Nintendium -> Wishalloy you'd only need 168 gems which would be ridiculously easy to obtain in my opinion. Excited to see this get implemented!

I disagree with lowering the points for Flawless Gems, and here's why: - Evolve: 200 points - Flawless Gem: 1000 points ∴ 1 Flawless Gem = 5 evolutions Do you really want Flawless Gems to be worth even less? ;)

Support, Heavily support, as it currently stands Wishforge is a tedious process, and for people who hunt specials, it's something that I personally don't really have the luxury of going to do, as it would require breaking away from the hunts to focus solely on evolving pokémon to make any progress, and as you mentioned, that number gets pretty high the further Badge Progress gets, which means taking even more time out from a hunt just to get one thing which speeds up hatching a little.

I mean, I wouldn't mind if they were less. This is coming from someone who has full wishalloy though and is working on upgrading to max master badges. I just personally feel like it wouldn't be bad if it was reduced a bit from the 1,000 cause to me it does just feel like a bit too high. 500/750 sounds a bit more reasonable in my opinion but I guess not?

I love this proposal! Especially as someone who doesn't have fields of RTE available for every single type, which means I have to rely on evolving Pokemon through party interactions for most badges. Especially if the Type in question doesn't have a lot of quick and easy evo options. Take Steel for example, which I'm working on right now. Upgrading from Titanium to Mithril has taken about 2 weeks already, and I'm only a little over halfway done. This new proposal would help a lot with the grind.

I don't think they'd be worth less overall by giving them less points towards the wishforge progress, after all they give zero so far so anything is better than that. I just feel it'd be a bit too easy with them being worth so much? If you look at it in the way of dual types, like Zubat for example. I can get Poison and Flying Gems hatching those. I could upgrade both of those badges at the same time while hunting as well. If I get 1 done before the other however, because it's not just an exact 50% chance of getting either Gem, I could end up getting Flawless Poison Gems before I get Flying to Wishalloy. I can then swap my Flawless Poison Gems for Flying ones, and that huge grind I just did for Poison is now done in a matter of hours as opposed to days if I find the right person. You might not even need to swap gems, you could just end up bulk buying them off somebody who has a decent collection that already got their Badges upgraded to the point where they hatch Flawless Gems. I'm not gonna argue keeping it higher/easier it'll definitely make it much faster to upgrade them, but balance wise I feel it'd be better to lower it a bit. Either way the update overall will be better than what we currently have.