Going First/ Going Second
The elephant in the room is there is an obvious advantage to the beginning coin toss; and that is that you would want the coin to flip tails to go second. Your initial turn as second you get just as many draws and just as many opportunities to play cards, but as first you are an energy generation behind. If you run evolutions like I do, you can evolve faster than you put energy on, making it pointless to evolve if you're constantly behind besides making your pokemon able to tank the hits.
My suggestion to remedy this is; allow first turn to generate energy, but not draw a card. Many other card battle games use this set up because it's a small disadvantage but not a game changing disadvantage
Comments
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Some cards are good going first with Rare candy like Weedle > Beedrill, Bounsweet > Tsarina, Exeggcute > Exeggutor EX. - These being higher stage.
For basic, Zeraora, Giratina, Turtonator doesn't really care with Kiawe.
But I agree that its not equal (Pokemon going first are not the same strength level as going second). They payoff of going first is lower than going second.
Rare Candy helped Pokemon going first but the Pokemon that they helped aren't on the same level as those going second like Skarmory for example. So +1 Support for making better mons that prefer going first.0 -
Maybe I'm missing some info, but I never understood the reasoning behind this.
It's quite obvious since the first few matches against AI when you start playing this game, that going first is usually the worse case scenario, and after few months of playing I've noticed that going first, I loose the match more often because I can't attack due to energy shortage, or getting to attack only after taking too much damage, while it's easier to play, or get out of tight spot and turn the tables when going second.
Having advantage when you "loose the coin flip" and go second is rather unusual.
From what I've read, before Shining Revelry and Celestial Guardians, the most played decks were water type because of Misty trainer card.
Standard PTCG rules allow to attach energy card from your hand during your first turn, but does not allow you to attack.
Why it can't be the same in PTCGP?
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It can’t be the same as the original TCG because the energy requirements are much more simple, so going 1st would be better almost 100% of the times.
That said... the original TCG rules on going 1st/2nd and limitations are way more balanced than Pocket... the way they did it in Pocket makes no sense to me... going 2nd it's in most situations better.
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This is something every card game, and even every turn based competitive game has struggled with forever. The first turn advantage. It's why white has a slightly higher win rate in chess.
The has to be some handicap levied against the first turn player to compensate, and different card games have different solutions, depending on their rules and resource systems.
Many opt to not allow the first turn player to take a number of actions on their first turn, such as drawing a card, generating resources and attacking. I would say not allowing the draw for turn is the most ubiquitous, but not quite universal.
I was surprised when PTCGP let the first turn player draw, and that is probably the change that should be made. I think to casual players, who are the majority audience for the app, that feels really bad and unfair, so that may be why they chose to allow them to draw.
Restricting resources is another common tactic. However I would say that it has become more common to grant the second turn player an extra, single use resource to compensate, rather than limiting the first turn player. A single use energy/mana/whatever point that they can use once and is then expended.
I think giving the second player a bonus energy in this game would be too much. I think, as OP suggests, they should let the first turn player attach energy as normal, but not draw for turn. Perhaps they should not be allowed to attack either, given that these attacks are far more likely if they can attach energy to enable them.
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