Hello! So, I’m aware that trading in this game is pretty controversial, and there are a lot of arguments for or against it. My main reason for suggesting something like this is due to the grip shiny hunting has over the in-game economy - the method for sharing shinies requires you to be in a guild and use basically an exploit of the guildmate encounter system to work. I’m not saying that should be removed necessarily - and in a space where trading would be a money sink, may remain the more attractive option to avoid monitary loss - but I think an alternate means to obtaining Pokemon from other players should be available.
How Would It Work?
I imagine it’d be a specific building or location to perform a trade, where each player would select a recruit, be shown what the other player has chosen. Both the name and Portrait should be shown, hopefully of the correct form, to avoid using the system to scam others.
Some level of fee should be implimented to trade recruits, perhaps a scaling fee depending on the level difference between the Pokemon traded? (I’m not an economist or mathematician I might not know the best way to impliment fees!)
As far as game lore is concerned, I don’t think it’s out of place to have a scheme in place where different exploration teams can exchange recruits with each other, I mean it’s essentially just trading workplaces.
Suggested Restrictions
- Your leader (starter) cannot be traded.
- Pokemon with HM moves cannot be traded. (Avoids exploits to skip dungeons)
- You cannot trade a Pokemon who’s level is higher than the other player’s highest level Pokemon.
- You cannot trade until you hit a certain point of progression. This could be unlocking evolution, or hitting a certain explorer rank.
- Explorer rank could tie into it further, as far as not being able to exchange recruits with lower ranks if you are a very high rank. Thinks would get very restrictive however as you enter the highest ranks if you were only able to trade within your rank. There could be ‘bands’ of ranks that are able to trade with each other (eg grouping master**, master*** and guildmaster or something like that), with lower ‘bands’ having more restrictions as far as what levels they may trade with each other or such.
- Shiny trading could be unlocked with a later explorer rank, and/or incur a larger fee like in Pokemon Go’s trading model. I’m unsure about how I feel about this myself, but it’s at the discretion of game balance.
- Certain Pokemon can’t be traded - things like key unlock Pokemon (Dratini, Gible, Jangmo-o, etc) or other special Pokemon (Phione, Spiritomb, Rotom).
Conclusion
Ultimately, this is quite a sophisticated system and I’m not entirely sure that it would work with PMU’s existing framework. Obviously this wouldn’t be a priority, given that a lot of PMU’s current structures need to be fixed or reworked / in the process of being reworked. I just thought I’d put this on the radar as a possibility for the future when the game is more able to support it. As a multiplayer / social game, I think there’s more of a case for trading to exist here than there would be in a traditional PMD game.
