TPPC Trainer's Corner - Fixing speed tower

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- - Fixing speed tower (http://forums.tppc.info/showthread.php?t=605515)

Fixing speed tower

Ban elemental stone usage from speed tower in addition to resetting speed tower rankings.

As it is now it is impossible for anyone without elemental stone to compete which makes it go from a “challenge” to just impossible garbage monopolized by the few lucky enough to win some random contest. There’s no actual benefit to allowing elemental stone into speed tower anyhow since all it does is take away said challenge

for me it is just simple, the winner must await a week once he wins.

i agree. not everyone has the time to train all year and get 1b teampoints or have a close enough connection with a mod to 'win' an elemental stone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuu Taka (Post 10836648)

for me it is just simple, the winner must await a week once he wins.

problem still remains. Then all those with elemental tone jut swap off

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHANGEYOURNAME (Post 10836663)

i agree. not everyone has the time to train all year and get 1b teampoints or have a close enough connection with a mod to 'win' an elemental stone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I doubt more than 2 people traded earned team points for an elemental stone lmao. The vast majority/all were from contests whether it be points or the stone itself which is essentially an impossible barrier to entry

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sakura (Post 10836664)

problem still remains. Then all those with elemental tone jut swap off

I doubt more than 2 people traded earned team points for an elemental stone lmao. The vast majority/all were from contests whether it be points or the stone itself which is essentially an impossible barrier to entry

I did earned team points :x

the entire idea behind elemental stone is just stupid. even before when people dominated the old training challenges (not the current garbage training challenge we have now), the 1st place was always someone with an elemental stone aka f00sh/hobo.

i feel like the item should be changed into something thats not as unbalanced like this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuu Taka (Post 10836672)

I did earned team points :x

F. But yeah core problem remains

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHANGEYOURNAME (Post 10836677)

I mean there’s a difference between whoever has the most time to commit (training challenge) and arguable macroing involved or whatnot and whoever just outright cannot win (current speed tower). One you can argue whoever has the least amount of life can and should win. Whereas speed tower no matter how much time you have, you cannot realistically win due to impossible barrier of entry. A challenge or whatnot should be accessible for all on rpg as opposed to a select few. I swear if anyone says .33^20 is attainable for the average player then they need to give me some of what they’re smoking. This was obviously shown in training challenge where it was massively revamped, so I fail to see why the same can’t be done now.

yeah i was just giving an example that this isn't the first time something like this has happened but now this is just downright stupid.

idk what shrimpy was thinking

1/100 people actually earn them and the rest r given out by contest few moths back alot elemental stones were given out., because of this wats the point of even working hard for it

i'm working for the speed tower now lol, 1 month for 100mill TP now on 200mil TP hehehe

I'd really like to see this idea implemented, too. For me it's not about the actual Pokémon you can win, but the badge that comes with placing an all-time high score, and only a few people have that badge and chances are it'll stay that way and won't give others a chance to win it. The Speed Tower needs to be revamped to accommodate for this; badges were always meant to be obtainable, not near impossible to get.

Even with an elemental stone it’s near impossible to beat the current speed tower record holder times, so if elemental stone wasn’t allowed, we’d narrow it down an unbeatable time and only a few winners with the badge again. Getting rid of elemental stone isn’t the entire solution here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jzero (Post 10836994)

it kind of is cause more than half the player base aren't even given a chance to get top daily/weekly

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHANGEYOURNAME (Post 10837005)

it kind of is cause more than half the player base aren't even given a chance to get top daily/weekly

I should have quoted DeRozan, because what I said only has to do with the badges.

However, like I said there would still only be a few more GoldenZygarde won then it’d be impossible again if the scores were reset - this is the actual part that needs to be worked on, disabling elemental stone is the easy part.

BUT I am confident that even if every single player was given an elemental stone, only Reyga and Mewtwo07 would continue winning the weekly prizes. It takes a combination of skill, luck, and persistence to win, there are tons of active players that won an elemental stone on discord and they’ve tried speed tower with no success.

i mean i dont care if others dont win it, i just feel like its unfair if they don't even have a chance to try to win it

So we have established that elemental stone shouldn’t be allowed. I am trying to point out the other flaws of the Speed Tower.

i was responding to this part not the first

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jzero (Post 10837010)

BUT I am confident that even if every single player was given an elemental stone, only Reyga and Mewtwo07 would continue winning the weekly prizes. It takes a combination of skill, luck, and persistence to win, there are tons of active players that won an elemental stone on discord and they’ve tried speed tower with no success.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jzero (Post 10836994)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jzero (Post 10837010)

However, like I said there would still only be a few more GoldenZygarde won then it’d be impossible again if the scores were reset - this is the actual part that needs to be worked on, disabling elemental stone is the easy part.

BUT I am confident that even if every single player was given an elemental stone, only Reyga and Mewtwo07 would continue winning the weekly prizes. It takes a combination of skill, luck, and persistence to win, there are tons of active players that won an elemental stone on discord and they’ve tried speed tower with no success.

My apologies - my initial reply was rushed and unclear; what I said only applied to the thread title, that is, the Speed Tower needs a revamp.

I agree with you, banning Elemental Stone here is not the solution. A rework to the whole challenge is required for it to be more appealing to the general community.

My main issue is with the badge and how it's now near impossible to obtain. For players who like to conquer every RPG challenge, it becomes demoralizing knowing that they'll probably never be able to obtain them all. The idea of GoldenZygarde being a rare gold and being extremely limited isn't necessarily a bad idea to me as it keeps its rarity and it will be sought after because of how few of them there are in the game. I do think that other players should still have a chance at somehow obtaining one, and that isn't really possible until some changes are made.

I apologize for any confusion I may have caused. I hope you see where I'm coming from and what I really meant to say.

Imo, this is a motivation to let poeple train there pokemon to get those team points, on the other hand, there can't be made more contests for the elem stone or they free once should be removed again so everyone needs to work for.

If you train 1h a day, you can get it in about a month or 6-7. This is excelly not a time waste or a lose for yourself because you get a high lvl'd pokemon to train and with that afford you can train other pokemon much fast to say "2k-3k" and it can give you profit, or you can open a training gym for the lazy trainers ;)

So excelly it's a no, there need to be something harder in the game to motivate to train your pokemon instead off trading all day long and doing nothing except doing golden day ect...

Better is they remove the elem stone that were are given free so everyone that excelly do the afford can enjoy the price. In a game you need to learn be pattiens.

Can I just have my normal form Xerneas and Yveltal pls Shrimpy, thanks.

Also even taking out the Ele Stone, there's still the factor of RNG coming in to play, getting the perfect lineup, or necessary crits etc. etc., something which I feel shouldn't really be a major part of a tower. RNG is never fun. Add to that the fact that people have different ISPs and hence varying net speed, Speed Tower overall isn't really something that is equally winnable for everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jzero (Post 10837010)

The point isn't so much that the winners would change (this I heavily disagree with btw) but moreso the fact that the barrier of entry automatically removes 99% of the rpg by default due to how u cannot even hope to compete since u lack the necessary essentially unobtainable item.

Needing to grind hundreds/thousands of hours for even the ability to compete in the speed tower is laughable (see EA's attempt at star wars battlefront2 for instance). Rn the primary prizes of the xerneas/yveltals are unobtainable for non elemental stone users. and with the current system it will forever stay that way. If they become more accesible then you can begin with golden zygarde tbh, which could just be given the golden genesect treatment where there's a decay/reset period so one person can't just hit an impossible high score and g gene stays unwinnable forever.

Another elemental stone approach would be to award daily top10 winners a stone replica that only works for the tower and expires after a week(i.e. faints the pokemon when equipped outside of the tower and give it a weekly expiration so they don't have a reason to hog the top10 everyday).

Admittedly, this would work better for us who has been using elemental stone since day1 since we've(or at least I'm pretty sure I have) spent a thousand hours honing our strategies, and (personal opinion) don't want to relearn a new way that some people have an advantage on (using leftovers strategy). An argument against banning elemental stones entirely though would be that we still deserve that advantage since, well, we weren't granted those advantages, we earned them, both through countless hours of training and practicing the tower. A counter argument would be that we are a minority, but the point is that it would be tilted, one way or another.

I agree with both jzero(that there would still be a point where G. zygarde would still become unwinnable), and with sakura(that a decay period is necessary to make sure that doesn't happen, and that the winners would no longer be the same or atleast be limited to us). My stance on the matter is still to make it yearly, or perhaps quarterly, to keep with the whole daily/weekly/monthly patterns.

I also agree with Tyroniter's point about the tower being inherently unfair because of internet speed limitations(I wouldn't be able to get my current times at my parent's place). That, I have no idea what to do with tbh lol. You make this fair with no time tie-breakers and we might end up with 10 winners a week(assuming the elemental stone solutions are implemented, ban or otherwise). It would really just ruin the concept of speed tower as a whole.

Disclaimer:

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I'm just stating different views. Take of it what you will.

I don't mind changes or otherwise. I've already gotten more than I deserve from the tower. That said, other than backing off most of the weeklies, I have no intention of not taking advantage of my current edge against others. I feel I deserve it until they take it away from me. If that doesn't sit right with you I sincerely apologize. I am not as charitable as I would like to be lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reyga (Post 10839839)

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I also agree with Tyroniter's point about the tower being inherently unfair because of internet speed limitations(I wouldn't be able to get my current times at my parent's place). That, I have no idea what to do with tbh lol. You make this fair with no time tie-breakers and we might end up with 10 winners a week(assuming the elemental stone solutions are implemented, ban or otherwise). It would really just ruin the concept of speed tower as a whole.

For just this part, what if we were to completely disband the concept of recording times, and instead, only record the number of turns it took for a person to complete a battle? That way, connection speeds shouldn't be an issue as long as you're able to think strategically for the lowest possible score of 39. With that in mind, "Speed Tower" would also have to be renamed as it would no longer be appropriate either, perhaps to something like the Turn Tower or anything else that's more creative but gets the same idea across. As for settling tiebreakers for monthly prize, well, I guess the first person to score the lowest score of the month would get it.

On top of that, there should definitely be some sort of system where people are able to obtain GoldenZygarde as well as the badge associated with it. I feel by getting rid of the time aspect it would make it more fair for everyone.

Also, it seems like most of the strategy nowadays for getting a score of 39 just seems to be persistence with restarting battles and then praying to RNG to give you a set where it's possible to do, something that doesn't require any strategy really. If it's possible, more sets where it's possible to get lower scores should be added as well, so the tower becomes less tedious and more doable for people who do not have as much time but would still like to defeat the challenge.

Having said that, and as optimistic as these ideas are, I don't think we can really expect updates or revamps, at least not any time soon. :(

Regarding the battle completion time factor, it's something I brought up to Shrimpy just before this update rolled out.

I quote his response: "If actual connection speed starts becoming an issue, we can definitely revisit."

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeRozan (Post 10839940)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gin.A (Post 10839964)

Here's my argument against removing timing in speed tower if you're interested:

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My argument against making it a first come first serve thing is it defeats the idea of "monthly" and "weekly" alltogether. It becomes a first of the month, sunday affair. Then you start having arguments like "we have busy lives", "sunday is a time for family", "why not just make it a saturday thing" and all that crap. Really hard to accommodate everyone lol.

The thing is, tppc is a text-based game, and the general public(I would imagine over 75%) has access to good enough internet to support it, enough that 50s records should be no problem. Even with 5mbps at my parents place which speed test described below the 75th percentile speed-wise, I was able to consistently score 47-55s last summer. Even darryl could get 45s on 47 move records when he was grinding it and having been to the philippines(where darryl is from, and so was I years ago) in august, internet there sucks, and it's not exactly the best location to be for tppc, considering, I assume, servers are in north america.

It's also evident from alpha and mewtwo's records that decent time is obtainable by most people who currently participate. The biggest difference between them and me is most likely:
1.)experience and mouse speed/programability(I have mine at exactly 1475 dpi when doing speed tower for consistency).
2.)and I'm not really sure they are consistently trying to get 39 and good time like I am. I think Mewtwo is still using the earthquake-giga strategy which is more consistent for 41 moves, although capable of 39 and 40 on very specific lineups with very taxing rngs, while beerus is sticking to his rayquaza(I think) to score 42-45.

The point I want to make is that, internet should not be a problem for your average gamer. The root problem is still the fact that the average gamer isn't even in the contest. I think before making drastic changes to how the tower works, we should fix the main issue, which is, the average player can't compete against Elemental stone.

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I mean, I was still the first to 40 moves this month so unless you remove elemental stone it wouldn't really affect me, generally speaking.

Now, this is where I point you back to my above Idea of making elemental stone replicas for speed tower=P And don't forget to read the disclaimer!

Additional disclaimer:

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I've practiced arguing against anything anyone says without saying it out loud and the sole reason I do that here is because I believe it helps advance the flow of ideas. I think it's an engineering thing.