Rarity of Pokémon and the level of grinding.

[Xtremes]

While I am recently new, I'd like to speak on the topic that I constantly see within the game whenever I look at chat. Most people seem disappointed in how hard it is to obtain certain Pokémon, causing frustration and even leading to arguments within game chat. I've read from "I'm 100 repels in and I've only seen 2 of X Pokémon" to "There's nothing good in trade chat to buy because the good Pokémon are too rare". Now I understand that this game is meant to be an MMO and for that reason, looking for ways to extend the amount of time players have to spend on the game to reach their goals is ideal, but I feel maybe it's gone a bit too far for some and maybe even most players.

 

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't have more than a few hours to play the game per day and maybe can't even play on a daily basis. The other day I went to hunt for a Skarmory without repels, and it took me 4 hours to find 3 of them. Unfortunately none of them were the right ability, nor the right nature (even with a sync) and I felt very sad after that session. I continued on about my day and decided to just work on other easier to achieve goals that I had set for myself. The following day, I decided to repel hunt for a Skarmory instead. I used up 50 max repels which is 35,000 PokeDollars and found 1 Skarmory which again not the right ability, nature etc. I felt the same disappointment as the previous night, but this time I was actually frustrated because even though I didn't have to fight or run away from a bunch of Pokémon I didn't need because I had repel, I still only came across 1 in about an hour which is about what I had found the day before without repelling. 

 

My point in all this is that I fail to understand why there are so many Pokémon in the high tiers of rarity. I understand some Pokémon are super rare, and sure those should be hard to obtain, but others seem like they were maybe uncommon in the original games but are very high levels of rarity in this game. There are so many things that have to fall into place for a player to want to keep X Pokémon that there is already rarity even if the spawn rate was higher. Pokémon that depend on having not only the right nature and right IVs but also hidden ability come to mind. The amount you have to grind for those is already high, even if the spawn rate was doubled, it would still be hard to catch that type of Pokémon. The game has content, there are an insane amount of Pokémon to catch and different teams to build. There are so many bosses and quests to do, that players will continue playing for a long time. I understand the fear of people getting through the game TOO fast, but not everybody has 8-10 hours a day to throw at this game and with how hard it is to find some of these Pokémon, they will never make any significant progress and possibly end up just giving up on the game. 

 

To clarify, this is not a jab at any of the developers. I know that creating something and reaching a point where everybody is pleased with the game requires a lot of trial and error, so please do not take this as me attacking anybody. I am simply trying to speak on behalf of the player base who maybe do not want to spend the time typing up a post but would still like the game to grow healthily so they can play it for years to come. The game is amazing. I only have about 100 hours as of today, but I've enjoyed playing through the story and all the side quests you guys have added to your version of the game. I just do not want to see people drift away from this game simply because they feel they cannot achieve their goals because they're insurmountable. I hope you guys will take something from this and maybe aim to listen to the community a bit more (at least the players that aren't rudely attacking the game). Us players, we want nothing more than to see this game thrive. We do not want to hop around from one Pokémon MMO to another because we're unhappy with the game. We want to make this our home.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

 

Xtremes

Edited June 28, 2021 by Xtremes

[Qeight]

3 hours ago, Xtremes said:

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Hey there, I really appreciate the feedback. Actually more than you can imagine. 

Nikola (The Senior Admin of this game) made the spawns back in 2015, added spawns for Hoenn and Sinnoh when they were implemented. He was the only one working on spawns for a long time due to the time commitment and complex understanding between spawns and the economy. 

In 2017 I came into the mix, we overhauled a lot of the spawns, changed a lot of the "rare" spawn areas and officially supported Repeltrick spawns (https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/69218-spawn-revision-2017-and-repel-trick). This wasn't previously the case, we only found them through testing and such but in Summer of 2017 we introduced it officially and changed spawns to make them repelable. 

Repeltrick don't "increase" your odds of finding the Pokémon you are looking for, you merely skip the battles you would have encountered. Let's say you take 100 steps with repel active, you get 0 spawns. Do the same but without repel, you will get into several spawns/battles. So its very possible you might spent 100 or so repels and get nothing. Repel hunting isn't for the people who are "poor" and can't afford it. It is for the lazy ones who don't want to fight every battle. 

Trade Chat has been the same since 2016 when I started to play on my player account (Prehax, 4k hours already in 2017, #1 playtime on the server at the time), it's always a lot of junk with barely anything good. The really good stuff you find in auctions on the forum. 

To add to the timeline, in 2018 Nikola introduced the Spawn Editor role (which was basically a role to get me into staff & to give me the ability to make changes myself https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/97320-spawn-editor-new-rank/). I did a lot of changes, like thousands (https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/97479-old-not-used-anymore-spawn-changelog/?tab=comments#comment-551810), this included changes to the rarities and what I consider abnormal spawns (they still exist in the game in some regions). So spawns from back then (2015) to now have seen a drastic 180° change. They are not nearly as hard as they used to be. Thanks to better rarities, better tier grouping and understanding of spawns. 

PRO is considered an MMO / tries to be one and therefore maintains an economy, The economy is a big factor in the game & having "rare/hard to get things" make this possible. If everything was the same rarity or super easy to get then there wouldn't be an ecomomy, everyone would have perfect Pokémon & the game would just be a half broken battle simulator. 

The original rarity of a Pokémon and their respective rarity in PRO got nothing to do with each other. 

As for improving spawns (the old 55 page feedback therad: https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/97256-pokémon-spawn-related-suggestions-feedback-requests/)
The new one is here: (https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/175066-spawn-suggestions-feedback-changes-2021/)

95% of all spawn changes are based on player feedback, so in case you weren't aware of this but yeah most changes are already based on feedback by players. 

Spawns will always be a point of critique for new players because they think they are too hard but they don't know that they were already harder before. There needs to be a limit though how "easy" we make spawns, I think we found some balance with that but for sure there are always routes that can be improved or changes that can be made. 

If you still got any questions or got specific spawn feedback, feel free to post here or in the feedback thread (if it is for specific spawns). 

Peace o/