Greetings!
I'm a relatively new player to PRO, but I am a successful business man in life. I find enjoyment in researching, sourcing, and distributing products and thus I decided I was going to dabble in PRO's economy. I sold some Coin Capsules for the starting capital, got some false swipe memento gallades, made a few successful trading buddies, bought 700 super repels, 800 great balls, and began my journey about a week ago to dabble in tier 8 and 9 rare pokemon.
And then today, after the 7th day of nothing viable, with thousands of repels and great balls gone, I decided to re-evaluate my business venture decisions to find a new path to mega-millions success. Thus I took to my favorite weapon of business.... the spreadsheet.
What I discovered is that PRO does not have an actual healthy economy. It's a gambling ring. As a long time player of multiple MMO's one thing i've found that always draws a larger crowd and keeps the game running, is a healthy competitive economy. But PRO has pokemon hunters too right? Those folks you're running into out there grinding, farming, and hunting? They don't actually know their ROI, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
For those that don't really like math, i'll try to break some of this down as common place as possible so the spreadsheet attached below does make sense, and then get into the ideas I have for potential remedies, their pluses, and their downsides. At-least from a player base perspective.
Okay, you've made it this far. Math time!
The probability of any multiple things occurring, that do not have a correlation and causation effect on each other, are simply calculated by Probability of item A * probability of Item B, and so on and so on. The neat thing about pokemon, is everything is random rolled, so nothing about a pokemon you see in the wild is correlated. It's all random, so the math is made easy!
So with that in mind, I averaged out my encounters over a few thousand repels, with a tier 8 rare pokemon. This gave me the "average" step count, which could very well have a higher deviation than i'm comfortable with, but alas, I don't have a few hundred friends to assist with this. So bare with me please.
With the average steps required and the probability formula in hand, all I had to do was yoink someone else's beautiful IV probability forumula right off our forums. (I lost the post, but whoever you are, I thank you.)
Which we got as (32-Desired IV)/31 Super simple!
Thus I put all the numbers together into a spreadsheet... and viola!
That 20/20 Atk/Spe adamant Tier 8 Drag with normal ability you just bought for 200k and felt like you got robbed? That pokemon takes on average $67,438 pokedollars in ultra balls, and 1,873 hours of walking in place to get. If they had to repel trick, it's cost average is $769,923.98 pokedollars to get. If time is money, we apparently, are not worth much in this economy! Also to note, this does not include the time, effort, or resources it took to EV train, level, and teach that sucker moves. That 31/31 Ada HA with correct nature you just got for 10+mil? Yea that suckers cost average resources and labor value is 18.5mil with no repels, and 210mil with. (Just remember, repel trick = faster find, no repel trick = longer)
The better the stats get, and the more rare the pokemon, the larger the disparity on the cost average to average market sell price gets. Aka, there are some poor souls out there in the wilderness scraping away just to pay others to take their pokemon, or fiending for an addiction hoping to hit the jackpot. Neither are very healthy.
Spreadsheet sample, I will happily provide the full spreadsheet with all tiers of rarity at anyone's request. (PLEASE remember, there's no way I can guarantee the step counts. I do my best, but deviation will always exist. The cost is right, but time and step counts? Could very well be wrong.)
So... if your brain hurts from that, mine does too. That's a whole lot of probabilities less likely than catching lighting with both hands, winning the lottery with my right foot, and catching a legit shiny Mew with my left foot, at the same time.
So how do we offset these disparities? We don't like breeding. We want interaction, MMO environment, longevity, and sustainability.
1- In-game Auction House. Auction houses bring with them some of the most competitive pricing you can find in any game. If you don't have the tricks of the trade, you won't have the price to sell. I have no idea how to code, and whether it's feasible or not. But I do know that public forums that present information, like an auction house in game, or raw material index in real life, bring stability to pricing modules. There's no way you're selling that 15/15 Dragonite for 800k when there's 45x20/20's on the AH for 400k. However, it does mean a stable price point will be visible and set accurately reflecting supply, demand, and labor+cost average for your farmers to make their money and feed their poke-families with. (I know this is on the way, i just couldn't help but re-add it, and hope we get one more thing with it!)
2- Sweet Scent. (With a twist?) The worry about sweet scent, is it can be abused by many, which will bring down and devalue the markets pricing on pokemon. Soooo... how do we get around it? You limit the supply of sweet scents available to the market. One of two ways, A) Make it a shop purchasable item (not a move) with a weekly cap, or B) Make it a weekly reward for bosses/events with a cap on how many that can be earned. (again, not a move). Will we see some fluctuation in pricing with sweet scent? Yes. Product versus demand is always real. Could it be rolled out with an Auction House "Commerce" update to balance it out? Absolutely!
3-Resell limits. Simple. Pokemon may be sold by their OT to one other trainer. That trainer may sell that pokemon one time. That pokemon may NOT be sold/traded ever again, and is either used or released back into the wild to begin the cycle of life anew. Pros? By limiting resell, we increase market demand for hunters/grinders to get out there and do their job. This increases the average amount of tries to obtain the desired pokemon, and stabilizes pricing and flow. Cons? This could upset a few "flippers" who like the scam newbies out of their pokes and re-sell them for profit, but honestly I don't like those kind of businessmen anyways. Also, how the heck would you code this? Beats me.
Last con I can think of.
if we implement healthy commerce, the prices of some pokemon will drop drastically, while others will sky rocket. (Looking at that 31/31 HA Jolly Metagross). So all of a sudden, nobody can afford these pokemon right!?! Wrong! A slight increase to certain PvE/PvP content payout after some metrics have been recorded, and the influx of hunters selling to distributors for resell will stabilize cash flow all around. Will you be able to get that super cool god roll poke when you've put no time or effort into getting cashflow or hunting it without crazy luck? Nope. But who gets rich or beats end game content in MMO's without time, effort, and community anyways?
If you read this far, thank you for reading my rant and viewing the numbers. If you hated it all, let me know. (Politely please, i'm really trying to be helpful here.) If you loved it, please let me know. I would be ecstatic to look at this and consult anyone player/admin/or anything else to the best of my abilities.
Lastly,
Now that this has been posted. I'll be returning to my obligatory 3 meter deep worn 2x4 walking path on the moon with a full bag of repels and ultra balls to hurt my self more, because sadly, there's no other way and doggone it I like gambling too.