[Event] The Labyrinth (Ultra)

[flx-sta]

Event Name

The Labyrinth

Rarity Tier

Ultra

Waves

50-150

Description

You trip and fall into a hole in the ground. You lose consciousness, but when you wake up, you find yourself in front of a large wall which seems to be a Labyrinth. Some writings on the wall seem to spell "T_e w__ out is t_r_ugh!". Do you take the chance and try getting pass through the labyrinth or try to climb your way back up?

Biomes

• NON-EXTREME

Options offered to the player

• [ ] Enter the Labyrinth

  • There are 3 total turns
  • Each turn has 3 options (forward, left, right), the player must choose 1
  • Of those options, one is “good” (+1), one is “bad” (-1), one is “neutral” (0), all at random
  • Upon each choice, nothing immediately happens, but your total score is tracked
  • At the end of the three turns:
    • If your total score is positive, you encounter an incredible reward! (Shiny Charm)
    • If your total score is 0, you find something valuable, but not a huge treasure. (King's Rock)
    • If your total score is negative, you start a battle against a Tauros (it can be caught)._
      • Notes on Tauros fight further down below
      • After the fight, you still find the King's Rock

• [ ] Climb back up

  • You choose to not risk it and pass by the labyrinth.
  • Climbing back is tedious, exhausting and turns out, very dangerous to you and some of your Pokémon.
  • Lose 30% of party's HP.

Explanation/Notes on Design

This ultra ME exclusively plays on the Minotaur's Labyrinth fable/myth and doesn't go overboard on the rewards, other than buffing somewhat the chances of wild shiny ME spawns.

Asdar's note: It's gated to appear 50-150 because I feel like getting the Charm for the last 20 waves only is too minimal a reward and I rather they see a different Ultra ME in that case. It's above 50 because you're fighting a pretty strong Tauros so we wan't to make sure the player is sitting at stage 2-3 evolutions.

Notes to Developers

The Labyrinth should never be the same. The correct combination should be based off the Seed. The chosen Tauros (Blaze, Aqua, Paldean, Generic (shiny, non shiny)) should be rolled by the seed RNG.

Tauros fight:

• The Tauros' forme is determined by seed number.

• Before combat, Tauros hits you and your team. Every party member loses 20% HP in the process. KO any if below 0.

• Start of combat: Regardless of forme, all Tauros will use:

  • "No Retreat".
  • If wave index >= 80, have it use Work Up.
  • If wave index >= 120, have it use Work Up and Agility.
  • "Raging Bull".

• Tauros is a boss with however many HP segments a biome boss should have at that stage + 2 (max. 5)

• Regardless of Tauros forme, passive should be unlocked.

• Tauros is catchable

• Would be cool if it. had a custom name. like Mino-Tauros

• Tauros' movesets:

  • Kantonian Tauros (Sheer Force, Adamant nature, maxed IVs). x1 Silk Scarf.

    • Raging Bull
    • Combat Torque
    • Blazing Torque
    • Earthquake

  • Paldea Tauros (Intimidate, Adamant nature, maxed IVs) x1 Black Belt.

    • Raging Bull
    • Iron Head
    • Lash Out
    • Earthquake

  • Paldea Tauros Blaze (Intimidate, Adamant nature, maxed IVs). x1 Charcoal.

    • Raging Bull
    • Body Press
    • Lash Out
    • Bulk Up

  • Paldean Tauros Aqua (Intimidate, Adamant nature, maxed IVs). x1 Mystic Water.

    • Raging Bull
    • Icicle Crash
    • Thunderous Kick
    • Earthquake

[ben-lear]

• maybe add RUINS as a biome? I feel like Ice Cave could also make more sense than Snowy Forest, maybe
• I also think instead of having the correct directions be seed-based, we could just make them full random at runtime so that resetting does not give you a deterministic "success" eventually
• As far as rewards go, maybe a Shiny Charm? This is a Rogue tier event after all, let's make it cool
• In order to make "failing" to godroll the Shiny Charm or w/e, maybe we give a consolation prize when they beat the Tauros. Either the same item or a slightly worse one (perhaps Ability Charm or Lock Capsule).

W/R to implementing multiple option layers, I think this could be done with not too much headache.

Overall love the idea

[flx-sta]

• added
• Idk. I'm always on the side of giving people some i wanna cheat myself thingi but I guess we can still think about it
• we can still think about rewards later
• same answer. but yeah. a little rewards should be good after defeating such a strong foe

[ben-lear]

I created an issue for handling "multiple option selection", we can work on that feature separately before implementing this encounter I think. That feature will be useful potentially to puzzle-type encounters, etc. https://github.com/AsdarDevelops/PokeRogue-Events/issues/55

[AsdarDevelops]

I think this Event has an identity crisis around its rarity:

On the one hand, "Rogue" makes sense as a first take because of the underlying complexity of the crossing the labyrinth, but not so much for a few other reasons:

• Right now it's not tied to any meta progression.
• The Tauros isn't even catchable.
• The Gold Chest reward is very unspecified
• The Event is biome-gated.

My "Ultra" proposal: One angle we could go for is have the chest offer a pseudo-progression like a Shiny Charm, but I'd bring down the Event's rarity to Ultra, in that case. I would also make the Tauros spawn with above higher IVs and slightly better chance at shiny, and make it catchable -- much like as if it was encountered in Safari, but perhaps a bit better even.

My all-out "Rogue" proposal:

• Play hard on the Labyrinth and tie it to a mythical. In the Greek mythology, the Athenias just sent people to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, so there shouldn't be "anything" of interest inside. However, there are many takes on the myth in movies, one of them being Pan's Labyrinth from "Guillermo del Toro" which I think it's a hilarious coincidence. Here's the link to the Wikipedia article:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth

Since in the movie Ofelia thinks she's a princess, we could go for a Princess-like Pokemon, like Diancie. Here's what I'd do.

• Player has to guess right 3 times, a left/right decision, to find a catchable Diancie at the deepest part of the labyrinth. A map shortens this by 1 guess.

• If they guess wrong, they get a 50% chance to be caught by the Tauros and end the exploration. Tauros is not catchable, has perfect IVs, is omniboosted by 1, and has boss bars.

• The other 50% wrong guess takes them to a double fight with Carbink, where both Carbink get a free Diamond Storm cast on your team. They are not bosses or omniboosted otherwise. After defeating them, you progress as if you had chosen the right path.

Overall, this maths out to a 2/16 to reach Diancie unharmed (2/8 with map). and 7/16 chances to be stopped by Tauros (3/8 with map). Reaching Diancie somehow (unharmed or fighting Carbinks) would be 27/64 without map (bit less than a 50%), and 9/16 with map (bit over 50%).

Rogues odds on top of this as well as the current Biome limitations, and the fact that you might not get Diancie should offset the fact that it's a mythical.

Just defeating Tauros could earn you some Ultra-Tier loot instead.

Edit: I'm thinking reaching Diancie could trigger a fight with Tauros nevertheless, perhaps an even harder one. Defeating Tauros gets Diancie to offer to join your team, instead of fighting her -- you rescued the princess, and all that.