Shiny Mobs
Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2019 1:28 pm
Well, gonna be trying this again. No, I'm not doing it out of desperation for variety like it was back when I tried doing stuff with HH. I'm doing this because, this time, I think it'll actually work with how more open-ended Eliatopia's database, making it possible to do this right. Not saying anyone will be on-board with this, pretty sure it's still far from it, but I just want shiny mobs to serve more than an aesthetic purpose, even if it's a tiny bit.
In order to get a good idea on what to do, I decided to play some Pokemon Moon. In main-series games from Pokemon X/Y onwards, there is a 1 in 4096 chance of encountering a shiny pokemon of any kind in the wild (not including any special methods or buffs), and they don't really serve anything beyond an aesthetic purpose and bouts of desperation to find Heatrans or some other legendary on the global trade service (I've seen listings for mythicals on the GTS, but the games don't allow mythicals to be tradeable because the only legit mythicals are event ones not counting OR/AS Deoxys, and event pokemon are banned from being traded on the GTS). From what I can gather, there's an average encounter rate of 3 pokemon battles per minute with a full-affection pokemon, which is close to the encounter rate of Petunias (though I haven't checked the latter even though it feels that way, so I can't say for sure). Assuming I'm guaranteed to get a shiny every 4096 battles, that's an average of 22 hours and 45 minutes every shiny. And you can only spawn one pokemon at a time (again, not including any special methods). I only used the grass, by the way.
That's a lot of time to take in, more than most people would care to grind monsters for. Granted Eliatopia has more monster spawns than Pokemon (the lowest spawner count I've seen is three in Teplar Village, two of which only allow one monster at a time), but still. At the lowest you're splitting shiny spawns to once every 7.6 hours.
Let's make it so we can account for both multi-spawning monsters like the squisher and single-spawning monsters like petunias. We'll need them to have a fair chance of being shiny so as to not make any area OP for shiny-hunting. Let's give shinies a... 48/65536 (or about 1 in 1365) chance of spawning. Maybe a 72/65536 (or about 1 in 910) chance for rare monsters (woolly mammoths) or flying monsters (Eliatopian Giant Wasps) if flying monsters were to spawn as often as HH birds (literally once every minute). Of course bosses like the Lotus Eye should be shiny-locked because I want them to serve as story progression rather than as monsters for people to mow down, though having a shiny Lotus Eye in the database would prevent database errors from happening. Might as well provide a few examples of shinies.
Squisher:
Ground Spitter (single-spawning monster):
Eliatopian Giant Wasp (flying monster):
Woolly Mammoth (rare monster):
Lotus Eye (boss; done for error-prevention reasons)
HH-ish art-style kept for HH/Eliatopia cross-promotion purposes.
Yeah, literally Pokemon-ish in how they appear, with the whole palette-swapping thing and all, but that's besides the point. Since drop rates are adjustable on items now, rather than the normal loot table, I'd like shiny monsters to have a 100% chance of exactly one item off a separate drop table, with said one item being chosen at random. Particularly, I'm thinking about this.
Shiny Squisher: Hard Hat ($350; 100%)
Shiny Fanged Squisher: Paintball Gun ($428; 75%), Red Mage Staff ($856; 25%)
Shiny Petunia: Red Sandals ($224; 35%), Red Archer Helmet ($686; 20%), Red Archer Armor ($686; 20%), Red Archer Pants ($686; 20%), Red Bow ($1166; 5%)
Shiny Shagdaw: Baseball Shirt ($171; 20%), Baseball Pants ($171; 20%), Baseball Bat ($380; 30%), Sports Cleats ($591; 20%), Baseball Helmet ($1263; 10%)
Shiny Spiked Squisher: Survival Knife ($350; 15%), Crown ($423; 25%), Sports Cleats ($591; 25%), Pitchfork ($1005; 15%) Kunai ($???; 20%)
Shiny Ground Spitter: Pro Archer Hat ($283; 20%), Pro Archer Shirt ($283; 20%), Pro Archer Pants ($283; 20%), Long Bow ($481; 25%), Compound Bow ($2147; 15%)
Yeah, that seems about right. A shiny monster having a 100% chance of dropping a randomly-selected item from a separate drop table from their normal forms. Mhmm.
It's better than shiny monsters being there just for the sake of being there, if only a smidge. But yeah, there ya have it.
In order to get a good idea on what to do, I decided to play some Pokemon Moon. In main-series games from Pokemon X/Y onwards, there is a 1 in 4096 chance of encountering a shiny pokemon of any kind in the wild (not including any special methods or buffs), and they don't really serve anything beyond an aesthetic purpose and bouts of desperation to find Heatrans or some other legendary on the global trade service (I've seen listings for mythicals on the GTS, but the games don't allow mythicals to be tradeable because the only legit mythicals are event ones not counting OR/AS Deoxys, and event pokemon are banned from being traded on the GTS). From what I can gather, there's an average encounter rate of 3 pokemon battles per minute with a full-affection pokemon, which is close to the encounter rate of Petunias (though I haven't checked the latter even though it feels that way, so I can't say for sure). Assuming I'm guaranteed to get a shiny every 4096 battles, that's an average of 22 hours and 45 minutes every shiny. And you can only spawn one pokemon at a time (again, not including any special methods). I only used the grass, by the way.
That's a lot of time to take in, more than most people would care to grind monsters for. Granted Eliatopia has more monster spawns than Pokemon (the lowest spawner count I've seen is three in Teplar Village, two of which only allow one monster at a time), but still. At the lowest you're splitting shiny spawns to once every 7.6 hours.
Let's make it so we can account for both multi-spawning monsters like the squisher and single-spawning monsters like petunias. We'll need them to have a fair chance of being shiny so as to not make any area OP for shiny-hunting. Let's give shinies a... 48/65536 (or about 1 in 1365) chance of spawning. Maybe a 72/65536 (or about 1 in 910) chance for rare monsters (woolly mammoths) or flying monsters (Eliatopian Giant Wasps) if flying monsters were to spawn as often as HH birds (literally once every minute). Of course bosses like the Lotus Eye should be shiny-locked because I want them to serve as story progression rather than as monsters for people to mow down, though having a shiny Lotus Eye in the database would prevent database errors from happening. Might as well provide a few examples of shinies.
Squisher:
Ground Spitter (single-spawning monster):
Eliatopian Giant Wasp (flying monster):
Woolly Mammoth (rare monster):
Lotus Eye (boss; done for error-prevention reasons)
HH-ish art-style kept for HH/Eliatopia cross-promotion purposes.
Yeah, literally Pokemon-ish in how they appear, with the whole palette-swapping thing and all, but that's besides the point. Since drop rates are adjustable on items now, rather than the normal loot table, I'd like shiny monsters to have a 100% chance of exactly one item off a separate drop table, with said one item being chosen at random. Particularly, I'm thinking about this.
Shiny Squisher: Hard Hat ($350; 100%)
Shiny Fanged Squisher: Paintball Gun ($428; 75%), Red Mage Staff ($856; 25%)
Shiny Petunia: Red Sandals ($224; 35%), Red Archer Helmet ($686; 20%), Red Archer Armor ($686; 20%), Red Archer Pants ($686; 20%), Red Bow ($1166; 5%)
Shiny Shagdaw: Baseball Shirt ($171; 20%), Baseball Pants ($171; 20%), Baseball Bat ($380; 30%), Sports Cleats ($591; 20%), Baseball Helmet ($1263; 10%)
Shiny Spiked Squisher: Survival Knife ($350; 15%), Crown ($423; 25%), Sports Cleats ($591; 25%), Pitchfork ($1005; 15%) Kunai ($???; 20%)
Shiny Ground Spitter: Pro Archer Hat ($283; 20%), Pro Archer Shirt ($283; 20%), Pro Archer Pants ($283; 20%), Long Bow ($481; 25%), Compound Bow ($2147; 15%)
Yeah, that seems about right. A shiny monster having a 100% chance of dropping a randomly-selected item from a separate drop table from their normal forms. Mhmm.
It's better than shiny monsters being there just for the sake of being there, if only a smidge. But yeah, there ya have it.
it great idea Flashlight, keep up the work! However, I do have one suggestion. Due to the fact that baseball gear/ hardhat, all that stuff etc is kinda nub, these shinies should automatically drop runes. This way, they are more meaningful rather than just being a rare sighting that is meaningless after they die.