Delayed Evolution Purpose

[Cjlj]

This change has killed my enjoyment of the game. I got 8 gym badges with a team of pokemon in the 55-70 range, then got crushed by the elite four. No worries, i thought, i'll just go level up some more. However, after going to seafoam cave i realised that it would be no easy task. The increased experience requirement, combined with the reduced experience yield for fighting lower pokemon made leveling my pokemon a complete slog.

 

I saw in help chat that people said you could level a Ghastly to 99 then evolve to Gengar and solo the elite 4. Faced with the grind of levelling my team up i decided to try it. A couple of hours later i had a level 95 Ghastly with maxed EVs. I evolved it and went back to the elite 4 and did it easily first try.

 

That was probably my most unfulfilling experience of playing a Pokemon game i've had in the past 18 years. The enjoyment from these games comes from building a team of pokemon and growing stronger together to overcome challenges. I want to defeat the elite 4 using the team of pokemon i raised for the past 40 hours, not some Gengar that i caught a couple of hours ago that i have no attachment to.

 

For people saying i could have used my original team, yeah i probably could have, but only after torturing myself with untold hours of grinding in Seafoam cave. As much as i wanted to use my main team i'm not willing to waste hours of my life on mindless grinding when it's much quicker and easier to just level up a Gengar.

 

You can argue all you want about how it works in the Nintendo games, or how this is an MMO so the developers should make changes to make it more grindy. At the end of the day this system encourages unfun, unfulfilling gameplay and should be removed because it makes the game worse. I don't know why it was added, but it clearly needs a rethink because the consequences are toxic and kill people's enjoyment of te game once they learn of it.

[Jinga]

-----Snip-----

 

I defeated Elite 4 with only 4 Level 70 Pokemon and I never thought that the grind was hard, no idea how do you find that mindless grinding but I don't and nor do many people who are playing the game.

 

The grind is pretty easy, even if you are using a fully evolved Pokemon till level 90, and assuming you are still in Kanto E4, it is very easy to grind all your Pokemon to level 75 without much effort. This is a MMO, where grind is part of the game, if you don't like the grind then you shouldn't even play.

[Kakoi]

117599 I saw in help chat that people said you could level a Ghastly to 99 then evolve to Gengar and solo the elite 4. Faced with the grind of levelling my team up i decided to try it. A couple of hours later i had a level 95 Ghastly with maxed EVs. I evolved it and went back to the elite 4 and did it easily first try.

 

117599 At the end of the day this system encourages unfun, unfulfilling gameplay and should be removed because it makes the game worse.

 

I don't think using lvl 95+ gengar is encouraged by the current system to beat e4. Have you tried using other lvl 95+ pokemon solo with much LOWER SPEED to e4? It won't be easy and it still uses the similar system.

 

Btw, reaching even up to lvl 95 is much easier in Victory road I think. 95+ thats where rare candies start hehe

[Cjlj]

117630

-----Snip-----

 

I defeated Elite 4 with only 4 Level 70 Pokemon and I never thought that the grind was hard, no idea how do you find that mindless grinding but I don't and nor do many people who are playing the game.

 

The grind is pretty easy, even if you are using a fully evolved Pokemon till level 90, and assuming you are still in Kanto E4, it is very easy to grind all your Pokemon to level 75 without much effort. This is a MMO, where grind is part of the game, if you don't like the grind then you shouldn't even play.

 

It depends on the pokemon you have. Maybe i could have beaten them with what i had but the 12 hour cooldown punishes experimentation. The point remains it was easier to just level a Ghastly. (For the record, i think i had a 70 Umbreon and Arcanine, a 55 Hypno, a 60 Nidoking and 60 Sandslash.)

 

I don't agree that grinding is an inherent part of an MMO. Pretty much everyone considers it a downside and the only reason it plays such a major part in MMOs is because developers need to pad the game out to keep people paying a subscription fee.

 

Even if you like grinding though, that isn't a good defense of the current system. Once players understand how the exp works in this game they will just follow the optimal strategy of not evolving their pokemon until 99, avoiding the grind. All the current system does is hurt your main team you use to get through the story which you have to evolve to beat the gyms, all future pokemon you decide to level up will be kept unevolved. If you want to make it more grindy for some reason then fine, just increase the exp requirement across the board. The current system doesn't serve any practical purpose.

[Jinga]

-----Snip-----

 

E4 had 24 hour CD when I cleared Kanto and Johto, it was made easy now.

the only reason it plays such a major part in MMOs is because developers need to pad the game out to keep people paying a subscription fee.

 

And there are many MMO's which are free to play and they too have grind, so that negates your point.

 

The rates of Handhelds is too easy for a MMO, people would start feeling bored if the game is as easy as handhelds.

 

If you are really finding this hard before clearing all the regions then when you start hunting, I don't know how many complains you are going to make about the spawn rate.

[Cjlj]

You're confusing "hard" with "time consuming" again. One shotting Golducks in a cave to level up isn't hard, it's just time consuming.

 

But again, if as you say the point of the increased experience requirements is to make it so people at end game can't easily level whatever pokemon they want to 100, then the current system is a complete failure even at that. Anyone who has beaten the story is just going to level any extra pokemon they want in their unevolved forms. The system only harms new players who don't know that they shouldn't evolve their pokemon. If you want to make it hard to get to 100 then tweak the exp curve so it takes a lot more exp at higher levels.

 

The current system only makes it so the optimal strategy is to dump your main team in the PC and quickly grind up unevolved replacements once you have unlocked the region's map.

[Crimefridge]

...if you don't like the grind then you shouldn't even play.

 

The problem isn't the grind itself, the problem is the pointless mechanic that penalizes evolving far too much. Again, evolving say Squirtle twice means you have to grind 9 times as much.

 

That's not some "oh you're anti-grind, why are you playing an MMO then" argument you can make.

 

That's like saying shooting yourself in both feet and then running a marathon is fun.

 

If the devs want to keep this asinine, pointless mechanic, they could at least offer a way to unevolve pokemon. Hell, you could even make it a paid service since milking money is what this seems to be about anyways.

 

The "absolutes" that I've heard from the dev team about this game mortifies me.

 

"Absolutely no breeding, no discussion, never happening."

 

The reason is to increase grind and therefore make more money.

 

But they could easily incorporate a certain other MMOs breeding system where both parents die, they could then make products you can buy with donations that aid the process (or are even required), and they can make breeding prohibitively expensive with in game currency and they would still win.

 

It takes a massive lack of imagination and basic mass communication ability to write off the most desired feature in the game like it's unattainable because of the bottom line. "It'll ruin pokemon hunting!" then design it so it doesn't. "It'll lose us money," then make it so you gain even more money over time than without.

 

The excuses I hear for decisions is baffling (why is Shadow Ball TM, a competitively heavily relevant TM, subjected to being limited availability only during Halloween? [it's now available for the Celadon daily quest by chance at least]) and instead of resolving the problems that are actual problems through user feedback, the responses we hear are "it's never, ever ever ever going to happen" like some stubborn kid.

 

Now I'm not some idiot who doesn't understand the level of programming required to implement the breeding system. But to claim that the problem is the long term server sustainability, pokemon inflation, the killing of the economy, or whatever such nonsense gets said is far too short-sighted to really be worth listening to.

 

I don't think anyone is going to reflect back on "oh I'm so glad the server made me keep my pokemon unevolved the entire game" and think of it fondly as a wonderful game mechanic that allowed for an immersive user experience.

 

And that's my entire issue so far with the server. It's like beating your head against a wall against tradition because "it just is" and it's clearly not good enough for the incoming user base. Now if you guys want to fail basic mass comm on your business (whether it's non-profit or not, it's still a business) where user feedback has dictated a current issue that's annoying / frustrating your user base, by all means, instead of being the CostCo of Pokemon MMOs you can be the Wal-Mart.

[Cjlj]

I can understand the point of not including breeding. In a game where it's so easy to trade pokemon they don't want the game to be flooded with perfect statted pokemon to the point where catching wild pokemon is entirely pointless. You can agree or disagree with the position but at least it serves a purpose.

 

Making evolved pokemon require several more times exp to level up is baffling to me. I can't see what purpose it serves, apart from being a screw you to new players who don't understand how it works.

 

As for getting annoyed by all the closed minded players coming out the woodwork to proclaim that whatever is the status quo is the best decision, i can understand your pain. I think it's wise to keep in mind that this is a Pokemon game, and it attracts a lot of younger players. So when people try to refute your arguments with nonsensical appeals to tradition and the like, just remember that there's a high chance that they're 14 years old. It might help you keep your sanity.

[Piggypup]

After reading this entire thread, I decided to just delete the game. Evolving Pokemon is my personal favorite part of the Pokemon franchise. As many other users have echoed, punishing players for evolving their Pokemon is ridiculous. It has nothing to do about making the game easier. The game IS easier. But how? Well just don't evolve your Pokemon of course! .... This may work for Ash Ketchum fans(yuck), but not for a large portion of the Pokemon community.

 

The argument that "nobody is forcing you to not evolve your Pokemon!" is blind and ignorant. That is very easy for the person who is just in love with their basic Pokemon. They don't have to deal with 9x exp(believe i read 9x in this thread?) requirements. No one should be punished for raising their Pokemon the way that they want to.

 

Unfortunately, the defenders of these poor game design decisions blindly defend it with "If you don't like it then you don't have to play!". Or "Not every Pokemon game has to be the same!". Pretty sad really.

 

P.S. The term is Evolve your Pokemon. It is NOT Evolute. LOL

[Eoxsa]

Evolving has the side benefit of making some Pokemon more tolerable to level, and keeping up with the balance status quo of the games. If you want it to take longer or to be a grind, just triple xp requirements or something. It's much easier to explain than evolutions suddenly being miserable to level (Which again is not explained to new players anywhere)

 

grinds are a side-effect of mmos, not the core mechanic. if this mmo doesn't charge a subscription fee, why are you forced to spend so much time in it to get anywhere? why not make it a place you want to be because it's fun and enjoyable, rather than because you have to. For the record I do like a bunch of the changes to gym leaders even if misty with ice type attacks was a nasty surprise, put more things like that in rather than "You must spend this much time doing nothing to ride" signs