Changes from the patch should now be reflected here; including the provision of some
standard rulesets for players to enjoy. You can seek matches for some of these pre-made rulesets simply by saying so (
such as "Seeking a Standard battle"), rather than having to spell out every rule.
Players previously felt forced to have large Level 0 matches, sometimes 4v4 or more, in order to "efficiently" grind counters. This sucks, mainly because the format is designed as a tutorial instead of a serious format to be played repeatedly. Two changes were made to rewards to help herd players back to formats that are a bit more stimulating:
- You can promote one of your Level 0 Pokemon after each battle, even if they didn't participate.
- TC and RC rewards are increased by half of the highest Level sent into battle.
We're aware that this means players will send any Level 0 Pokemon as a tag-along when forming a new battle; but it beats the alternatives: Massive battles of Level 0 teams that devolve into Rest spam, or worse, new players becoming stuck if they send the same Pokemon out in multiple Beginner Battles. For the time being, this is the best bandaid.
Speaking of bandaids, basing the bonus rewards on the Level of Pokemon sent in, rather than the Level of the battle itself, certainly is a bandaid. We have to do this one to stop players from sending a suite of low-Level Pokemon, but then calling the match "Level 4", specifically to obtain this counter bonus. We want to reward players for
actually playing more complex matches.
Special rules for Beginner Battles are also included. New players should be encouraged to seek one or more Beginner Battles to get their team started, before looking to challenge Facilities. Also, new players—here meaning those who started December 2023 or later, just to be lenient—will earn a bonus of 20 JC when they finish playing in a Beginner Battle for the first time.
While updating the OP to include these Beginner Rules, I've also taken the liberty of cleaning up the rewards post. And while I was in
there, I took the liberty of adding a little more pay. This makes Level 1 and 3 matches very slightly more efficient than matches at 0, 2, or—I think these two Levels make good benchmarks for a "casual" Level that still has functioning gameplay; and for a "serious" Level that isn't as brutal as matches featuring Techniques.
Queue:
Keriel vs Ayush (Mix & Mega 2: Revenge of the Z) (Lvl 3 B5P3) (Ref???)
Subrefs:
TheEver vs TMan87 (Lvl 0 B3P3) (Custom Rule: Chaos Shuffle)
HeliosAflame vs Pratik (Lvl 1 B6P3)
HeliosAflame vs Doduodrio (Lvl 2 B3P3)
Doduodrio vs Keriel (HP is EN)
