Suggestion: The Anime Style Battling League

[Grand Wizard Ryan]

A memory of this gem was sparked around ten minutes ago whilst writing. Back when I was on the Marriland forums, for about a year, we had something called the Anime Style Battling League. I would like to suggest that we open up our own forum Anime Style Battling League (or ASBL, as some would have it.).

What is it? It is a league in which to form a team (slowly) and battle other members of the league (for you must first sign up). You can also battle gym leaders (who will be controlled by members of the league, usually the more experienced) and eventually Elite Four members. The aim of the game is to gain as many gym badges as possible and become the champion of the league. Simple enough, right?

How does one battle? Battles can range from 1v1 to 6v6, the numbers referring to how many members of your team you use in the battle. You must challenge your opponent to a battle and then wait for them to accept, as well as somebody who helps run ASBL (who may also compete, by the way) to accept running the battle. You will them PM the person running the battle your starting Pokémon for the battle and they will sort out the rest. Each of your Pokémon will have four moves and the base stats present from the Serebii.net Pokédex (as will the moves). Simply enough, you will choose a move, your opponent will choose a move, and then the person running the battle (referred to as the judge) will calculate the amount of damage said moves do. Of course, speed applies for the first Pokémon to hit. How its calculated is something I have forgotten and will need to look into (it has been a good two years since I have partaken, afterall). The winner of the battle wins Poképoints.

What are Poképoints? You spend them on items that are available from the store. Items may range from evolutionary items to healing items to whatever else. You may also spend them on gaining access to battling Gym Leaders, and even buying new Pokémon that are on offer.

Is that it? Hell no. Each battle takes place in a different arena (randomly decided by the judge) that contains certain bonuses. Furthermore, tournaments are a common thing with some very interesting prizes (Pokémon included). Other secrets (that I will keep to myself for now) are also available.

How do I gain Pokémon? You can buy them, win them, or they appear in the wild. Now, I gave seen ASBL done in a way before that includes regions, your location in them determining which Pokémon appears and when. This can be a feature that we implement later, purely because a simple start to ease people into ASBL is probably required (and regions do have their draw backs).

How do I evolve them? Each Pokémon evolves after partaking in a set amount of battles. This amount is individual to each Pokémon. Pichu may evolve into Pikachu after three battles, for example, yet Snover may evolve into Abomasnow after nine battles.


I think I have covered the basics in this explanation. You will probably be thinking that there are holes in this whole thing, but that's only because explaining everything will take hours and a lot of writing of rules. I am here to merely introduce you to the concept of an ASBL.

I am sure some members here are familiar with the ASBL. I am personally willing to run the ASBL (I may need to teach myself one or two things but given time I should be fine) with the assistance of some members who have experienced it before or who are willing to learn, and by assistance I mean I need some judges to help me.

The entirety of ASBL is a lot of fun, and can act as a roleplaying experience if the user chooses it to, or a simple battling experience if they don't want to delve too far into the roleplaying experience. Hell, you can even give your trainer a personality and the works and build them up. That sort of stuff is really in your hands.

So, what does everybody think? Good idea? Bad idea? Mods, Admins, would you guys mind? If I am to run this, I'd like to first see enough people willing to participate in order to get the entire thing off of its feet without it flopping due to numbers.

Also, an example of an ASBL can be found HERE.

 

[Nick]

From someone who tried to get into this once before, this is one of the most difficult to understand games ever. And you know what? I consider myself a pretty smart and logical guy. I've gone to Serebii a lot to try my best to understand it, and found it so incredibly hard. I feel like a lot of the members here would feel the same way.

It all just seems so disorganized and complicated. Just looking at the forum on Serebii I have no idea where to go and there's so much there it's just way too much to process. Its just much more trouble than it's worth.

In the past we've only had a small number of people support the idea, and that was such a small number it was never enough to convince anyone who was ever in the position to pass a vote to implement it to try it. I don't think this will take off if it were even tested. For an idea to even get to that stage, it needs a substantial amount of support and interest. And even if that is met, interest will likely decline after the initial launch, just like the Member Interaction Center.

 

[Necrum]

If you want to battle more like in the anime, you should try by Roleplay Corner. There are some good Pokemon oriented games over there with a more dramatic battle style than the traditional games have.

 

[Grand Wizard Ryan]

From someone who tried to get into this once before, this is one of the most difficult to understand games ever. And you know what? I consider myself a pretty smart and logical guy. I've gone to Serebii a lot to try my best to understand it, and found it so incredibly hard. I feel like a lot of the members here would feel the same way.

It all just seems so disorganized (just looking at the forum on Serebii I have no idea where to go and there's so much there it's just way too much to process) and complicated (especially after you said explaining it in full will take hours) and much more trouble than it's worth.

In the past we've only had a small number of people support the idea, and that was such a small number it was never enough to convince anyone who was ever in the position to pass a vote to implement it to try it. I don't think this will take off if it were even tested. For an idea to even get to that stage, it needs a substantial amount of support and interest (see Member Interaction Center, which was still a real challenge to pass in HQ, despite the overwhelming support by the member base). And even if that is met, interest will likely decline after the initial launch (see Member Interaction Center).

I will admit, linking Serebii may not have been the best of ideas when it comes to examples. I can promise a version that it is a lot more clear and simpler. I was thinking of starting simple before climbing into something more complex, though if you've tried before and found it hard then I cannot fault you for trying. There was a way that we did it on Marriland where even relatively young members found it easy. Admittedly, it took me a battle or two to get the hang of, but practice creates understanding with most things.

If you want to battle more like in the anime, you should try by Roleplay Corner. There are some good Pokemon oriented games over there with a more dramatic battle style than the traditional games have.

Trust me, I am eagerly awaiting a Pokémon RP that interests me to open up. Most of them do interest me, it's just timing the signing up right.

 

[Hiatus]

I'm not much of a role-player, but on another forum, I did try ASB before; it was pretty fun. Though, I did have some trouble getting started with it; when I looked into their introduction thread, everything was written in huge blocks of text, and it was sort of difficult to understand concepts if you didn't pay much attention. I don't know if that's how it will be should we ever have such a thing in PC, but I think it'd be best if we avoided that, somehow, as it might scare off those who would like to get in, and kept everything straightforward without getting into much detail.

Another thing that should be taken into consideration is that ASBL would need to have its own staff group with their own, separate board, so that they'd be able to discuss matters such as how to run things, how they could keep track of troublesome members, what decisions they should make on referee promotions, and so forth (if I remember correctly, where I participated, this is how it worked). H-staffers would also have to select heads for the group before all of this gets settled, I believe. which is sort of a big hassle. There could be other ways to deal with these kind of things (Skype and private messaging, maybe?), but I'm not sure how easy they would actually be when put into action.

Would I like to see Anime-Style Battling make it into PC? I'm currently leaning more on the side of no. To me, PokéCommunity doesn't seem to be such a big role-playing forum, sadly; it's more about creativity in general, featuring ROM hacking, art, and writing. Role-plays do indeed belong here, and we have many users that are dedicated to them, but I just don't think it's our actual focal. It could be if our RP sections' activity gains some boost in future, but unfortunately, right now, they don't look very occupied.

 

[moon]

Trust me, I am eagerly awaiting a Pokémon RP that interests me to open up. Most of them do interest me, it's just timing the signing up right.

*roleplay mod sigh* That's so often a problem here, I know. Shows that we have a lot of eager roleplayers though! We'd just need even more people who create new roleplays as well.

Another thing that should be taken into consideration is that ASBL would need to have its own staff group with their own, separate board, so that they'd be able to discuss matters such as how to run things, how they could keep track of troublesome members, what decisions they should make on referee promotions, and so forth (if I remember correctly, where I participated, this is how it worked). H-staffers would also have to select heads for the group before all of this gets settled, I believe. which is sort of a big hassle. There could be other ways to deal with these kind of things (Skype and private messaging, maybe?), but I'm not sure how easy they would actually be when put into action.

I think you are looking a little on the negative side here. Sure, it's a big machinery, running an ASBL, but it's obviously not impossible :) I've glanced at the hacking forums and thought jeez, that looks hard to get into. But apparently many manage. If you are interested in something, you get into it.

Would I like to see Anime-Style Battling make it into PC? I'm currently leaning more on the side of no. To me, PokéCommunity doesn't seem to be such a big role-playing forum, sadly; it's more about creativity in general, featuring ROM hacking, art, and writing. Role-plays do indeed belong here, and we have many users that are dedicated to them, but I just don't think it's our actual focal. It could be if our RP sections' activity gains some boost in future, but unfortunately, right now, they don't look very occupied.

While you are right about roleplaying hardly being the focus of PokéCommunity's activities, the Roleplay Corner actually seems pretty renowned from what I've heard. People join PC just to roleplay, just like some join just to talk anime or hack ROMs. As for the activity, I suppose it's difficult to see for people who aren't used to how the RP section works, but there's no trouble on the roof there; I'd say we're blooming rather :3 Uh, what point was I making here... Oh yeah. Roleplaying attracts some people, just like any niched section does.

Still, ASBL and roleplaying as we do it normally on PC, it's not the same thing. For ASBL to become a thing worth starting up here, we'd need a whole bunch of people (from other places most likely) who know how it works and who would be ready to start up something. Perhaps as a subforum to the Roleplay Corner, perhaps as another section entirely. It wouldn't be impossible to implement some kind of ASBL-staff rank just like we have a Battleserver staff rank. Both are pokémon stuff, both are battling stuff, yeah?

So, while I myself have similar experiences to what Arago described, haha, I'm definitely not shooting the idea down.


Anyways! Already with how the forum looks today, you could try to introduce the ASBL to PokéCommunity through some kind of well organized roleplay that follows our norms well enough to run in the Roleplay Corner, but keeps as much as possible of the ASBL's workings? You could enlist co-GMs to be referees etc, battles could be written up in PMs or in pads (such as https://titanpad.com/) between the players and the referee, each player could have a post with its inventory, ranks, teams and whatnot in an OOC thread and the GM could list and link to those posts in the opening posts. I might be underestimating just how huge and complicated ASBL is, haha, but a lightweight version to begin with is better than none at all? If it would work and become popular, we might keep imagining from there? Not promising that ASBL will ever become a thing on PC, but that's what you could do at this point, just suggesting.

 

[Mana1]

The How does one battle? section reminds me of The Battle Server - since that is basically a battle simulator with damage calculators, etc., built in.

I don't have a login so can't see much more than the forum headings

 

[Grand Wizard Ryan]

Anyways! Already with how the forum looks today, you could try to introduce the ASBL to PokéCommunity through some kind of well organized roleplay that follows our norms well enough to run in the Roleplay Corner, but keeps as much as possible of the ASBL's workings? You could enlist co-GMs to be referees etc, battles could be written up in PMs or in pads (such as https://titanpad.com/) between the players and the referee, each player could have a post with its inventory, ranks, teams and whatnot in an OOC thread and the GM could list and link to those posts in the opening posts. I might be underestimating just how huge and complicated ASBL is, haha, but a lightweight version to begin with is better than none at all? If it would work and become popular, we might keep imagining from there? Not promising that ASBL will ever become a thing on PC, but that's what you could do at this point, just suggesting.

After reading this and giving it a night to mull over in my head, I think that it would be a good idea. I mean, I would have to get rid of some elements to start with, but that may be best considering how I need to get used to it myself. To start with, I could have a tournament featuring 8 people and just see how it works from there. After that I could create an ASBL RP, if there's an extremely popular demand I could then may be ask about getting a section of the boards that's just based on ASBL? I suppose an RP would be a good way to start things up and introduce it to people, so thanks for the idea! ^.^

 

[bobandbill]

Having helped run a ASB system elsewhere and maybe starting a new version of it as well, I will say that it does take a heck of a lot of organisation, especially to get off the ground and then to keep it going. It's no small task as there's all sorts of aspects to it on various levels, from the reffing (a monster in itself), to the motivations for people to participate and continue doing so, to restricting pokemon choices and converting a game/anime-esque system to a rp, etc etc.

I admire your enthusiasm, but I do suggest that if you try out a test of sorts for it, either start small and see if there is interest to continue it into something bigger, and/or have people help out. You'll also want to spend some considerable amount of time planning it out (which is why starting small with say sample battles or the like may be something to consider - basically, like you said in the above post).

After that I could create an ASBL RP, if there's an extremely popular demand I could then may be ask about getting a section of the boards that's just based on ASBL?

Yeah - if there's a LOT of demand, then I'm sure it's something we'd consider. Otherwise no, because new sections only really get created if we feel there is a significant interest from the member base for it. We've removed/merged sections in the past because they haven't maintained activity after all.