This was an interesting read. I played pokemon as a kid, and I didn't really get into all the nitty gritty of it. I didn't care about stats, and most of my monster's abilities were offensive ones. When I grew up, that was when I heard about shinies, and optimal stats for pokemon; but I wasn't playing it anymore. So learning about the capture rate is very enlightening. But now I am curious, how hardcore is the game going to be. Can this still be played casually and get a good experience, or will casuals be stomped every battle.
For casuals the PvE aspect can be very easy as they would "play it like Pokemon", i.e. they would choose fire over grass type for easier battles while disregarding the effects it has on their level up.
For PvP they would also be able to match up with other casuals in their own league, if they then would want to try something more competitive we have some other things in mind where they won't have to rely on their "wrongly trained monsters" alone. This could act as a bridge where if they get interested in competitive battling they would then have to start leveling new creatures they've caught in the "correct" way which is harder, more time-consuming and more resource-consuming.
Casuals would also always have a chance to encounter rare monsters and monsters with rare high stats and have a chance at capturing them, it would definitely be a lot harder but possible, which means they could get lucky and capture something very rare they notice goes for a lot of zing on the markets but since they aren't interested in the competitiveness of the game they'd trade it off.
Great question!
Thank you for the detailed answer. I like how you will have different leagues, and have a lot of things for casuals to do as well. I can see myself as a rare monster hunter, instead of grinding for the optimal stats.