[Keita's Diary] A short self reflection about the game from Keita

[Keita]

Recently I was immersed inside the PVP topics more and more often, to the point it just made me reflect on many things regarding Pokémon as a game but as well PRO as a fanmade and how much this is a heavily-centered PVP game.

Everything I will say will be a subjective opinion and will come from Keita (the player) and not Shinohara (the admin); worth to mention however that being admin of the game gives me a really vast, or semi-complete, picture of the game.

 

I will try to keep it super super short as much as I can, I worked on it really hard in terms of making it short as much as I can.

 

[Part 1] PVP Situation

Going straight to the point, the main reason I never liked PVP is cause it's always the same 15 Pokémon being used and this is quite annoying.

I played Archeage for many years (during his gold-age/time) and was top 3 in South Korea, with over than 30.000 PVP players for like 8 months, playing a class that was everything but not popular.

 

On Pokémon, it just looks you either play those 15 Pokémon out of 800 or your victory chances decrease of a lot even before playing or, in another cases, just become zero. This is just annoying and doesn't allow me to customise my playstyle in the way I want to and that might be unique or similar.

This happens on Pokémon in general, not only on PRO. But on PRO this is something that can be felt way more than the original game. If we check the most used Pokémon in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 we can notice that they are always the same with really little variance.

 

Making an example, lets suppose that I do like Druddigon (please, understand the example and don't focus only on Druddigon argumenting around it). PVP offer me only one single mode where, if I only even try to play it, I am already in the grave before pressing ready. This is why I like the new Random Battle (both on PRO and outside) and thanks DEVs for having added them.  Screw the meta!

 

Also, unfortunately, it just look as if the PVP players do focus themselves only on the best of the best Pokémon available. I do like to believe that there are way more Pokémon that can be PVP-viable, but that there are some that are that much good that overshadow every other one. 

I do think some of the reasons of why this happens, but I am not certain about it, are:

 

• Obtainability (Tier, Quest, etc)
• Cost/Price
• Trend (or meta?)
   

However, I do feel as if I have missed something somewhere.

Good to mention as well that bans are quite helpful in these situations as they allow diversity and also open up to teambuilding. There are/were some Pokémon [Greninja, Aeiglshash or Mega Sableye (don't hate me)] that prevented many other Pokémon from being used or anyway they were used but were not really "shining",  meanwhile now, with bans, they have much more space and will be, in theory, be used more.

 

The hard question here, as another person pointed out, is if we can still find a way to incentivize players to use different Pokémon in PvP and, if not, can there be any extra use for them outside of PvP – aside from what we currently have to offer?

 

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[Part 2] The ECONOMY

What mentioned above also looks like annoying and unhealthy for the economy.  I am not talking only about the prices of what is currently on the market, but I am talking in general about what is into the market. 

This happens cause PVP heavily dictate the economy, in my opinion and has a really big influence even on the people that will never PVP.

 

I doubt you will ever find someone hunting a Druddigon, unless that person need it for Pokedex-entry or is someone who really love the Pokémon and want the shiny version. The same goes probably for Oshawott/Samurott and many others; basically the other 780 existing Pokémon.

 

Basically everyone, or almost, always hunt the same 15 Pokémon and sell those. This is not limited to veterans but as well new players cause they are influenced by the «"what do I have to hunt to make money?"».

After that question, coming from far you will hear around 300 people screaming together: Froakie! (before the ban of course, this is something I wrote before of that, you can however change it with Snivy or Larvesta)

This, unfortunately, leads to have the market lacking variety of goods, exactly cause the other Pokémon are not as profitable as a Froakie/Snivy and therefore people feel their time is wasted. This looks as if people only have the stupid kind of mindset where everything goes around the «"My time is only worth to get the best thing"» and in that way they put the fun part aside/on a second plane.

• Would this be fixable with adding PVP tiers? I don't know, hard to say. 
• Can there be a solution to this? Probably yes, but it's something really hard.

 

Another good point to forward is the fact that PVP actually dictates what is viable and what is not, both inside and outside the PVP environment. For example, a rare shiny or Pokémon with little to no usage in PVP can still be worth a good price; however, a rare shiny or Pokémon that also happens to be PvP-viable will be worth an insane price compared to the first one.

 

If you would remove the possibility to find the other 800 Pokémon after someone completed the story (ignoring legendaries requirements), I have the feel that only a small amount of people would be really affected by this. However, it looks insane for me to have only 10-15 Pokémon considered worth the users time out of 800 existing.

 

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[Part 3] The average user Mindset

After years in the game, it just looks to me that, as said above, the average player has the kind of mindset where everything turns around the "My time is only worth to be spent getting the best possible".

But this looks incredibly screwed/messed up to me.

 

You could create the best and funniest event ever that people enjoy with their heart and will really love (not saying this happened already), but if you place at the end of the event a reward such as 10 Rare Candies (just an example) you will see the major part of the community spitting on your face.  

This happens cause, in my opinion, the "fun" part for majority of the community is something that comes on a second plane and, as said above, they have the kind of mindset where they think their time is only worth if they get something super hyper good in change of it, meanwhile "the travel" and every other experience they had does not matter or has really little value.

This happens, in my opinion, for two reasons:

• Average user mindset being wrong
• The heavy influence that PVP has in the game.

 

I always mention this example, but I am sure that if we would throw a legendary catchable into a 4x4 area without any other requirement and we would pass it as "compensation" or "gift" for your support, the major part would actually be happy with it.

And this is just screwed/messed up.

 

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[Part 4] The PVE situation

As said above, I do really think the game is heavily-PVP-centered. This means, to me, that PVP almost overshadow the entire PVE part. 

This is in no way saying that the PVE Content we have is actually bad or done bad (content team, I love you ò.ò) but it just look as the part of the PVE Department that focus on the repeatable-content actually released in the game is actually not having the impact it should have. 

 

The non-repeatable one are actually amazing.

• Stories gives you a lot of nostalgia of when you were young and therefore you enjoy it in a chill way cause you can completed it with any Pokémon you want and also relax while doing it. There's nothing that blocks you from enjoying the story the first time you play if not the amount of fantasy/creativity you have.
• Events are WOW!(Great job Content Team!). Dark Realm is my most favorite event ever released, it's exactly what I think represent the Pokemon-Theme/Adventure in the best way. The Easter one with the battlefield is instead amazing cause it's unique and refreshing and gives you actually a challenge that require you to actually think about what to do. Also the story writing, I do love to read the dialogues during games and I can't be happier to do it in PRO, specially since we got dedicated Story Writers.
   

However, when it comes to the repeatable content, I actually think that players do not find enough reasons to replay the content that can be actually repeated unless they give super mega giant rewards.

This is, in my opinion, caused by few reasons such as:

• Difficulty
• Enjoyment 
• Complexity (difficulty and complexity are totally different things)
• Reward

 

PRO does offer repeatable content but what it actually offers have issues that goes from how heavy repeating it is, to how fast someone can speed-run it; but not only that.

Sometimes it looks as if the average user feel the necessity to complete something in a "robotic/mechanical way". One of the best example here can be Bosses, where basically there is a single team that can beat more than 50 different bosses and the difficulty is really low. Sure, takes a bit of time but it's really easy.

Unfortunately, to make them harder, we would need an AI (Artificial Intelligence) revamp that however is something that is really really hard, contrary to what many think.

 

I think PVE should offer challenges (for different rewards), and the perfect example of what a challenge is has been given recently with the Easter Battlefield event.

I am not saying that everything should be like that, but I doubt anyone can deny that such a content gives a different/unique/refreshing challenge to the user (do not complain about RNG here, as I am not saying we should necessarily copy this but just making an example of what a challenge is).

 

A little message coming from me, as Admin (still subjective but not that much), is that when it comes to reward, some people complain about them or about nerf. As staff we honestly understand every complain and where they come from.

However, the biggest problem PRO ever had in terms of reward-balancement/adjustment is people who abuse the 4 account rule by repeating content (some are super easy, like bosses, as pointed out above but to make them harder it would require an insane amount of work to improve the Artificial Intelligence) with 8 accounts (4 accounts, each account has 2 server so 4x2).

People abusing the 8 accounts are honestly the thing that destroyed economy or heavily damaged it and also lead to have those nerfed.

Would be dope if we could reduce the maximum owned account to 2, but this require such a massive staff work no one, even barely admins, can imagine.

 

 

 

★ Keita [The Player] ★

 

[G3n3r4l]

Me and the boys hunting our epic druddigons to play in trick room teams to be completely anti-meta

jk im lonely i hunted alone.

 

I do overall agree and see your points on all of them, i can confirm that i was once in the position of asking what to hunt for money, and the reply i got was froakie or gible, so i went to hunt that. And yea another prime example of a good pvp pokemon that isn't used is Hawlucha. He's just not got a great spawn so nobody wants to hunt it, which means it's not seen in pvp. Seed-Lucha is one of the most broken combinations in Gen 7 OU, and if terrains are ever to work in PRO, i don't think that it would be used much just considering how hard Hawlucha is to hunt

[Bhimoso]

I completely and wholeheartedly agree that the PvP run economy is a complete pain and, in my opinion, one of the most toxic factors for PRO. It is extremely sad to see people rate any pokemon ingame as "garbage" if it's not perfect for PvP, if it's only PvEable or fit there. Let's put a few examples.

A newbie finds a Timid 30 Speed Gastly with 20+ IV in all other stats. What answers does he get ingame?
-Garbage, trash it
-Not 31 IV in Speed, useless
-Trash that, 5k for Dex

But in reality, the pokemon is still amazing. Remember there is no breeding here. We can't just have perfect IVs here. In the long term, where luck and probabilities apply properly (because in the short term you could be extremely lucky and get your 31 SPEED Gastly in 2 catches, or not get it in 50), you would get 1 in 31 Gastly with 31 speed IV, 1 in 2 with the right nature, and 1 in 20 with also 20 or above SPATK IV. This Gastly will still be a monster in PvE content. Yet what does a newbie get from this info ingame? If you don't get the right pokemon with right IV, nature, etc, people ingame will not bother giving him the full explanation. You'd have to find the right people that would go further and tell him "hey, this will not work for PvP, as it's a tier 1 that everyone farms and you will lose a lot of speed ties. However, you can use it for PvE, Story, Bosses and more! keep it up!". 

I believe a lot of UU, RU, and less used pokemon would benefit from having their spawns changed or made easier. Why is Shinx a tier 7 in Sinnoh? Why not a Tier 3 or 4 everywhere? It's not a very good pokemon, but not useless either, many people like it. It has no reason to be this rare. It wasn't in the original games, either. There's many more that thanks to Qeight's updated thread we could move together and fix by suggesting that many poorly loved pokemon get better spawns. There are some that will inevitably stay rare (like Chikorita, who's gonna hunt that?) because they're starters or really rare pokemon to obtain in the original games too, and some of that spirit has been kept, but I'd love to see less loved pokemon get some attention.

It also saddens me that people directly head into the Lategame and don't bother playing Pokemon the way it used to be, even on an MMO: train, use whatever the hell you want and have fun with it. A guildmate in Silver kept winning with his Raichu, even when everyone else called it trash. Why? Because he kept improving, he kept going and trying. Actually because he got lucky with Static paralysis every single game, but you get what I mean.
I myself train meme mons. I train Unown, Girafarig, Stantler, Lumineon, pokemon that nobody will sell or ever use. Meme pokemon that if you saw in PvP, you'd be like "wtf is that, a Digimon?".

 

I have a collection of meme mons that I'd love to use in Ranked PvP. But if I ever (because I barely do) get in ranked PvP, 95-97%+ of the matches you'll find the same high list of pokemon. Whether we'd like it or not, Ranked PvP is to win, and only the best and most useful pokemon will be played, will indirectly rule the economy in this MMO, unless we somehow manage to revive or make lower tiers (Thank Walross for the Random Battles, it'll be a fresh air breath), we will never see Samurotts, Meganiums, Unfezants and so on. Even there they'll be rare, but they will not be laughed at anymore, but seen as fun options.

I can also heavily agree on the event part. If the event is not worth their time, will they take part in it? I was incredibly happy when I did a birthday event in PRO, as I wanted to celebrate it with my guildmates (and part of the whole Gold server joined for a Hide and Seek in ALL regions, it was incredibly fun to see). I loved it. I realised though that maybe some would've stayed until the end if they had been gifted better pokemon or better items. Sometimes it feels a bit empty inside if you don't automatically reward players with big rewards that can compare to their PVP Pokemon hunts or their big pokemon EXP farming they're going to have to delay just to join your event.

To end, I also agree that us, the 4 account abusers, have sadly created an issue with PvE quests now. Staff seems not to be able to balance these properly as they now have to calculate that these can be exploited heavily, as some quests would be done 4 times in Gold and 4 in Silver for massive rewards. I think there is no real solution to the problem than looking to nerf or modify what these rewards will be in future quests. It's sad, but as years have now gone on, there's rarely any other choice or way to go around it.

It is a bit sad that most PvE rewarding quests fall off compared to spamming the same Boss Team in 50 different bosses because people will only look to maximise gains such as Pokedollars or PvP Items, but I guess it's an MMO after all where most people will tryhard and obtain the full benefits. I can understand both sides, to be honest. It is inevitable that people will exploit the most high reward low effort possible mechanisms in the game. 

I'm just happy that this game exists, despite its flaws, and I hope I can continue creating content, helping and dedicating some of my free time for many more years.

[Shiningshade]

I totally agree with most of the points the market always concerns almost same pokémons and in the events it's almost the same pokémon which  is hunted because of either their awesome spawn or because the popularity of the pokémon.

 

The other point that I find interesting is about the 4 acc I wish the maximum was 2 but I guess it's too late to Change it.. Doing bosses solcaleon digs supcious bot etc with 4-8 accs is questionable if it really makes fun or is only to get the most awesome stuff. Those boss spams with 4-8acc made  the encomy how it is now and people wonder why it's hard to sell stuff for similar price as few months ago ofc it's the reason that  people can't spam so much anymore. Doing each acc 50 bosses gives already 1m imigane doing it with 8acc + pve coins + items /pokes. If we count that together you could have made over 20m just in a month just by bosses (no supcious bot / digs/solcaleon counted) 

Edited April 26, 2021 by aminnation

[Adonar]

It’s been 4 years that i say that, pvp become less interesting for those who want to play some fun pokemons teams, i think it’s the right time to create a UU ladder or something else like that 

[666g0d999]

Didn't the Chris X-mas Boss have AI? That was really fun. No idea if it's too hard to implement for every boss, but I don't really think every boss should have it. Just a few. Also I remember bosses like Thor having requirements, meaning certain Pokemon were banned from use. Why was that removed? That would make it harder too. Instead of restricting the amount of bosses you can do, just restrict the Pokemon you can use and ban certain move combinations, or make it so you can't use more than one poke with Destiny Bond or something.
 

Also concerning the multiple accounts, I think it would be a good thing if you removed the free server transfer each month. You basically help people to share between accounts on different servers. Make it so you can switch every 6 months for free. Increase the price of switching. For example first time is 400k, but if you want to switch again a day later, it costs 800k. You would have to wait at least a week or month for it to go back to 400k.

 

Rich people don't have a lot to spend their money on. The prestige mount was a nice idea, but 20m is not much if you look at the money section on the dashboard. Maybe this is a bad idea, but why not add FLYING to the game? Make it so you have to spend 50m or 100m on it. This would be a luxury feature and could function as a money sink. The high price would also not ruin the existing subway/teleport feature.

 

When it comes to PVP I also thought about adding challenges. In Saffron you have that Psychic (or whatever her name is) NPC that gives you additional PVP coins if you win a certain amount of matches. Maybe you could add rewards for specific team builds. For example = Win 10 Matches with Kanto only Pokemon. (Not caught in Kanto, but actual Kanto Pokemon), or win 10 Matches with a Rain Team, Win 10 Matches with only Psychic Pokemon etc. I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement, but something along those lines would definitely encourage people to switch it up. You could also add custom cosmetics or similar stuff as reward for these challenges and you can switch the challenges up each month.

Just some random ideas. Overall I'm really happy this game exists. Without it, my Pokemon experience would suck.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by 666G0D999

[Sympatoche]

nerf octo account 

[Heroofthestreet]

I'll focus on the PvE related part, as I believe this to be a perfect opportunity to make some suggestions on how to improve it, on the benefit of us all, which would eventually give of us a completely enjoyable experience. So here we go...

What I always felt this game was lacking in order to make PvE content really enjoyable, was the deficiency of SIDELINE QUESTS. To make an example, such as the tasks Officer Jenny provides, just on a larger scale (both time/effort-wise as well as reward-wise.) The rewards wouldn't need to exclusively be some items with a high value on the market, but let's rather say some exclusive cosmetics. Beside those Officer Jenny tasks (which are only really rewarding for the newcomers), the only other sideline quests I can think of are the Celadon Daily Quest, the Solaceon Daily Quest and the Doctor Daycare Quest. If you ask me, way too low for a game that is meant to be PvE oriented. All of them haven't been updated for a really long while either (for example, you can't do the Doctor Daycare Quest in Sinnoh at all and Sinnoh was introduced almost 4 years ago. The question is why?) and as you already said, they all are also very repetitive. The Battle Tower is an another PvE oriented content, whose idea is good, but which in my opinion, is desperately craving for a revamp, or at least an update. With all the bosses and the rewards they are giving right now, I'm convinced it's not worth spending 15k Pokedollars and quarters/thirds or even halfs of an hour just to sweep the Battle Tower Challenge with the same Pokemon you use to sweep the bosses, as well as to earn 25 pve coins. Note that the Battle Tower Challenge hasn't been updated ever since it was introduced, (which was in late 2017) when there weren't as many bosses, nor were their rewards as abundant as they are nowadays.

An another PvE content this game in my opinion severely lacks, are the MINIGAMES. Such as the Quack Jack minigame for example (and no, I don't want to encourage gambling, just making an example ). The original games have stuff like Pokemon Contest. Not asking any of you to implement exactly that, but just providing you with existing examples to implement some minigames within the possibilites and resources you have. The notorious "Chess Game" that was included in the Diancie quest could be one of those. The creativity and potential is enormous, just gotta find people who are actually keen enough to make it happen. One thing I really miss from the original games, which back in the day definitely wasn't possible to implement in PRO, is the Battle Factory. Now that the Random Battles are nearly coded, I believe it should be possible to implement it, as it's basically using the same concept, just against the AI under different rules and settings. 

The way PvE is right now (daily quests without any updates ever since they were added, boss runs, event quests that are often the same as during the previous year) are not only repetitive, but also extremely dull. I'm not a hunter myself, as that's something in what I have never found myself, so I'll be asking you this now; If I'm not willing to hunt for epics, godlies, shinies, event pokes and what not, what PvE related content is there in game right now to keep me in the game? Beside the event quests (which come a few times per year), as well as hunting, once you finish the entire main storyline, what is there for the average PvEr to do (and I'm talking only about PvE, not PvP)? That is the question every each staff that is involved in these processes should ask themselves. Don't take this as some sort of negative feedback, then rather as a constructive critique on how to actually improve the PvE part of this wonderful game

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by HeroOfTheStreet

[Bash]

Nice to see how other people see the game. I like.

 

I really like PvP rn and its at its all time high imo.

While in the past, before megas and some legends, we were able to use many many Pokemon with decent success, while you would be destroyed with them right now. In the higher elos you didnt saw many different teams tho. Right now, there are less Pokémon you can use for a "decent" rating imo, but you have a very big variaty of mons you can use to get actual high rating. I counted 80 Pokémon which have the potential to be in a more or less normal ladder team.

With the implementation of megas you have many more playstyles aviable, and you can build around many megas (banning mawvile supports a bigger mega variaty btw).
PRO is a game that focused more and more to PvP after the years, which is normal since PvP is the only realistic late game content for ppl who dont only like hunting. Without a more or less good PvP this game wouldnt exist anymore, at least not in this (good?!) shape.

 

A big thing about quests/story in PRO is imo: hard does not mean annoing. But many many PRO quests are just streight up annoing. Its not hard to train a OT mon to 100, ev train it and have max happiness on it, but its so friking annoing when you have this mon but its not your OT, or is already on 100 and it sux to train its happiness. So, you have to hunt a Pokemon, probably you dont even hunt a good mon since that would require to much time, then u train it up, ev train it, show it to the quest NPC and then delete it in your PC.
I played the Sinnoh story just today on my alt to PvP on it, and I know now why I dont remember it - its annoing in so many ways. I have to run throught the whole map plently of times to get 1 fight and a small dialogue just to path through the whole map again to reach the other dialogue. Fly is such a nice thing in the original games.

PRO has a huge problem of having annoing, long streched quests. I understand tho that it is not easy to create a story/quest that keeps the player more then 20 mins in the game and is fun at the same time.

In the first 2 maybe 3 regions one quest fits in another more or less, its more a flow which makes the first two regions very enjoyable. I played almost every PvE content part, hunted the full dex when Latisa/os werent even out and enjoyed it.

Why some other PRO quests are (imo) bad, is a different topic.

 

 

 

PvE would also be much cooler if you could actually shiny hunt. I mean you can rn, but a tier 9 mon with a 1/8092 shiny chance...
Apparently noone wants to lower the chance because oF tHe eCoNeMY.

 

Based on this statement: PRO is a game that has evolved. Now many different opinions crush on each other. Opinions from new, old, pve, pvp, staff ... player. Some dont want to hunt so much, some find it okay. Some want a lower shiny chance, some dont. Some want to play Greninja in pvp, some dont (best ban). I also have many ideas how PvE content would make much more fun for me personaly, but that doesnt mean others see it the same. I dont care when the shiny marked "crushes" but many more would actually have a motivation to shiny hunt. I hunted like 500 hours for a shiny eevee - I gave up years ago. It makes no sense, its easier to do bosses and buy it (I did buy 2). Makes less fun, but whatever.

 

 

Hope thats not to chaotic written.

[Blitzkriegz]

Only reason the economy stagnated is because of easier spawns/repel tricks during year round events. Even before summer 2020 lots of decent mons had good marketvalue. The whole economy started visually dropping right at that time. 
If we look back at some previous events,
1. During halloween 2019 event, the repel tricks for Larvitar, Togepi, Ralts were turned off to preserve the rarity of the event forms.
2. Xmas 2019 had dratini/dragonair spawn without repel in the event map and the usual N time repel in Love island.  It became 24/7 repel trick in both easter 2020 and xmas 2020 maps.
3. Gible market crashed the hardest with double repel tricks in b2b events summer and halloween. 
More examples can be given but the point is already put up.