Feedback about the recent HM change

[Callmerengod]

In the latest update there was a change that when you teach a pokemon any HM it will no longer have full PP but will now have 0 PP on said move.
This specific mechanic was a core mechanic for the Hoopa Dungeon and the Trainer Tower. Outside of those 2 content parts it was basically not used at all.
The big issue is, that both those content parts were balanced around this said mechanic.
Unfortunately this change also wasn't mentioned in the Update Logs, making player fail dungeon runs due to them not being aware.

Before I explain the suggestion/s I have I'll first explain why this mechanic is needed in the current state of those 2 content parts.

Long explanation:
I'll start with Hoopa Dungeon, since I feel this specific content suffers the most from this change.
Hoopa Dungeon:
When building a team for this specific dungeon you need to find a team of 4 pokemon that can clear all of the 4 possible portals.
The issue is that you do not know which portal you will get unless you enter the dungeon. And even then you do not know which exact fights you'll get inside of said portal.
This overall makes the option for viable pokemon to bring already VERY low.
Gyarados was one of the core parts of every team, since it was able to deal with sturdy pokemon, it had good options to set-up due to Moxie, had other reliable moves such as Rain Dance and Bite and you were able to constantly refresh the Waterfall PP due to the old HM mechanic.
We (as in some of my guild mates, some friends outside of the guild and myself) did quite a few test runs after the latest change and tried to find new teams which consistently are able to clear all 4 portals.
Unfortunately there isn't one. Yes we figured out teams to somewhat consistently clear 2-3 portals, if you hit the wrong portal it's an instant surrender. The main issue is that we are experienced in this dungeon since we ran this dungeon a lot of times and know exactly how to cheese certain fights. Any new player who will try to start getting in to this dungeon won't be able to at all.
This entire part is just for a solo/duo portal run. For team runs (2+ portals) this HM change gets even worse.
Another big issue of the dungeon is when you evolve a pokemon it automatically loses HP due to it's base HP increasing. This usually isn't a big deal outside of the dungeon but inside of the Hoopa dungeon it is quite annoying.
Not being able to learn a move when the pokemon evolves on the correct level is also a really annoying issue within the dungeon. 
A random example: You would evolve Drilbur on level46 to Excadril. Once evolved it will not try to learn "Drill Run". This issue rarely occurs but when it happens it's really problematic since you are not able to relearn moves.

The dungeon itself relies quite a bit on RNG. However you were able to reduce the RNG to an barely important part of the run before the change.
Now the dungeon is pure RNG. This dungeon had barely any competitive side to it before and now it's basically gone entirely. In it's current state you enter the dungeon, pray you get the 2 best portals and hope you do not get any sturdy fights within your portal. This simply doesn't sound fun or healthy for any good competition.

Ultimately there simply is no good replacement for Gyarados in the current state of the dungeon and it's a massive issue for the balancing of it.

Now here are some ideas we already had about fixing the HM issue/the dungeon itself: 

- a guaranteed Lum, Sitrus & Leppa Berry drop within the dungeon (could even be an augment)
- way higher drop rate of Leppa Berry
- (team run specific) only needing to clear 1 portal when running as a team

The issue in regards to those is that those wouldn't fix the actual HM issue. 
There is a little bit more to explain in regards to the dungeon but I'll keep it there for now.

Trainer Tower: The Trainer Tower itself has a lot of issues in it's design. I made a post about this a long time ago already.
The most used strat for the Trainer Tower was to get a lvl39/69 Gyarados with Moxie lended to you and sweep with said Pokemon. It was able to deal with nearly all trainers due to it's moveset, was in comparison very easy to obtain and didn't require a lot to be useable, making it also very easy for new players.
One of the main core parts was the fact that you could refill the Waterfall PP by overwriting Waterfall with another HM (Surf, Dive) and then reteach Waterfall again.
This entire mechanic is now gone. You will constantly need to talk to Nurse Joy to refill the Waterfall PP, making you lose 1.5k every single time just to refill PP.
This isn't as much of a problem on the lower floors, since those trainers only have 3 pokemon. However once you reach higher floors the trainers start to have 4-6 Pokemon, making you lose Waterfall PP really fast, depending on the trainer type you are facing.
Yes, for us old players it doesn't matter as much since we hoarded a lot of Leppa Berries, Ether etc. but for new players this is simply not possible. 
Having to use the Nurse Joy quite often just for a single run will drain the money of new players incredibly fast. 

Suggestions:
First of all, I do understand that this mechanic was very likely not inteded and goes against the idea of consumable TMs etc. 
However how it was made with the recent change it's not healthy for the game or said content at all and either needs a full revert, at the bare minimum an adjustment or said content needs to be totally revamped/rebalanced.

- when a Pokemon has only 3 moves and you teach a HM move it still obtains the full PP of said move
- when you overwrite a non-HM move with a HM move you still obtain the full PP of said HM move
- when you overwrite a HM move with another HM move all the PP get fully depleted
- (Trainer Tower specific) just remove the cost of Nurse Joy within the floors


I'm happy to hear other ideas from other players and happy to discuss other options.
However there needs to be a change because this change is not healthy for the 2 specific content parts it is aimed at.


Thanks a lot for reading.

Edited Sunday at 05:06 AM by Callmerengod

[Mingrenpro]

This initial result from both servers should be able to send you a message.

[Thesim91]

The initial result you're talking about is literally no one finishing a single group run and 2 players finishing a solo double realm run out of possibly hundreds of tries, that pretty much proves how inconsistent it is, how much of a waste of time it is, and how much rng reliant it is thanks to this change.
For the record I did that 2.2 score in silver myself cause i got the easiest combo of portals, mentioned in the thread, and miraculously finding max elixirs in both treasure rooms.

Edited 16 hours ago by Thesim91

[Callmerengod]

I'm not entirely sure in which context your comment is meant but 2.2k isn't a lot, ye.
It's just been 5days since the new season began in fairness but the competition looks dire. To be fair this is a massive issue for all dungeons but that's for another topic.

Like I mentioned you can easily clear duo portal right now IF you get the correct portals or get very lucky and get any leppa berries.

I watched someone run the dungeon just 2 days ago and he had not a single graveler/golem fight, making it impossible for him to even get leppa berries.

I could also build an entire team just for the Water Portal and reset twice daily until I hit this specific portal to clear/set a score.
However that's not how it should work.

Other dungeons had this competition issue as well but it was insanely rare and mostly due to the server lags. Lavender is the best example: If the Slowbro boss respawns after defeating it - you lose 1000 points because it somehow counts as a lose/surrender. If you need to fight the Sceptile boss twice you gain ~100+ extra points, making it impossible for other guilds to compete.

Edited 16 hours ago by Callmerengod

[Mingrenpro]

Well, it's been 5 days since the new season starts, so 10 standard entries spent, 7 of which were all 2k2+ from me, consistently (net issue with the remaining 3 so quitted early, continuing is pointless), none of them are the best possible combo for me, 0 leppa gained (I don't need anyway), completely ignored everything in the treasure room, hence the result. 

 

Why would a team run needed, when solo alone can already beaten everyone. 

[pinklazeee]

+1 

 

[Prayforstefan]

20 minutes ago, Mingrenpro said:

Well, it's been 5 days since the new season starts, so 10 standard entries spent, 7 of which were all 2k2+ from me, consistently (net issue with the remaining 3 so quitted early, continuing is pointless), none of them are the best possible combo for me, 0 leppa gained (I don't need anyway), completely ignored everything in the treasure room, hence the result. 

 

Why would a team run needed, when solo alone can already beaten everyone. 

Stop the cap

[Callmerengod]

I'm sorry @Mingrenpro but you genuinely do not seem to understand the issue at all.

First of all I do not see Ascension on the Gold Leaderboard for Hoopa Dungeon.

Second, the fact you base the argument on "Why need group run when you can beat everyone with solo run" just speaks for itself.

Yes you can also set a solo score in lavender, however you won't ever beat an actual score run from a 4-5man group run.

(Also ignoring stuff in the treasure room doesn't change much about the results)

You are entirely missing the point of the thread so far. Yes we can beat the dungeon right now, be it solo or duo portals. Yes we can cheese fights, yes we do have ways to clear it without leppas/treasure room. However the moment you do get a leppa berry/max elixier etc. it makes the run A LOT faster & makes other ppl not able to compete unless they hit the same RNG.
However we've run the dungeon hundreds of times, we know exactly how to cheese fights. New players won't be able to at all without a reliable Pokemon like Gyarados.

This dungeon is also designed to be a group dungeon, however in it's current state it's not clearable unless you hit really good RNG.

This all in all simply is not healthy for the content or for the competitive site of it.

Edited 14 hours ago by Callmerengod

[Pinklax]

Unfortunately, this change will make the dungeon even harder Mainly for beginners (which is a pb imo) and teams run (3-4-5 people) and will probably discourage the few people who were already doing the dungeon, especially since the rewards weren't that great for a daily content to begin with (after getting hoopa and his unbound form which is a great reward ofc).
for a 1 man run with 1 or 2 floors the impact is not the biggest problem (on clearing side but it is on the scoring one) for people who already know how the dungeon works but its very anoying and not on the good way especially if you're unlucky and don't have any Gravelers or Golems on your first floor but even these berry being only on these one is already anoying, which prevents you from getting Leppa Berries, since now a long time only these pokemons drop them. and treasure room can be very cool with you and offer you 2 full heal to be sure you dont have a way to restore PP before facing a Pressure dialga or/and palkia 4 times.
I understand the infinite pp was probably way too strong but at the same time I think player should have at least full pp on the first learn because without HM a lot of pokemon become not viable anymore and Players criticism of the dungeon was already the lack of diversity in the usable Pokémon it was not completely true before but with this change this diversity has now been drastically reduced.

 

I did a bit more testing on the dungeon since the update and yeah, like I said earlier, I can technically still reach around 2400 in solo runs like before the change. The difference now is that it’s way more room-dependent and RNG-dependent than before. Previously I could almost consistently reach that score, or something very close to it, regardless of the RNG or Rooms.

My first run this patch was 2280, and that was while being completely slow and rusty since I hadn’t touched the dungeon for months. Even then the run itself just wasn’t enjoyable. It feels like the dungeon is becoming annoying for the sake of being annoying, and that’s coming from someone who knows the dungeon very well. I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must feel for newer players who don’t have that level of experience/Knowledge.

A lot of the recent dungeon changes feel like they remove quality of life rather than fix actual problems.

For example:

• Not being able to swap Pokémon during a Pokémon’s aggro travel. That wasn’t broken, it was simply QoL.

• Not being able to swap an item during the death animation at the end of a fight. Again, was not broken, just QoL.

• Relogging, which was actually broken and deserved to be nerfed. No issue with that one.

• Evolving a Pokémon making it lose HP because of base stat differences, which just feels unnecessarily annoying.

Then you add the HM changes on top of that, and it just adds even more friction to a type of content that already struggles to keep players interested.

There are already not many people actively investing time into dungeons, and these kinds of changes really don’t help with that.

The Hoopa dungeon in team play is a good example. On paper it should be the best way to push for high scores (3k2+), but in practice these changes make it much more tedious and frustrating than it used to be.

It limits team composition options and increases the importance of RNG when trying to get a good run. That’s the kind of thing that quickly demotivates players.

Because of that, a lot of people end up running the content solo just to chase a high score which feels strange for an MMO, because now the team run is just so anoying and not enjoyable anymore. Ideally, the dungeon should encourage 5-player runs where everyone clears the 4 floors together and interacts with the mechanics.

That’s still technically possible today, but RNG now plays such a big role that it removes a lot of the fun from it.

The reality is that it was already difficult to find four other players motivated enough to run the Hoopa dungeon regularly. With the current changes, it’s becoming almost impossible to found people that want to invest time on this and that’s coming from someone in one of the most active dungeon guilds.

 

[Mingrenpro]

@Callmerengod

It's because you guys can abuse an unlimited pp mon in the party in the past, doesn't mean it's a balanced state that should be continued. Whoever failed to adapt to the new change deserves to drop, it's just that fair, competitively. (see your 1940 score after change and still talked big about 2200-ish being low, how nice)

 

If you care that much about Ascession ranking, check last month's score, that one was set after the change by a chill run from me, and I don't cry about the change at all, I ignore it completely, it's even make me reach a higher score than before, why should I complain. In a competitive environment, you do whatever it takes to reach the highest possible placement, or at least a place that safe enough for your goal. You cannot do it in a group run doesn't mean it's the same for other guilds, you don't represent them, speak for yourself only. Why are you that obsessed with group run for a dungeon content? Is that because you have no confidence beating other guild the solo way, just curious?Logically speaking, when you admit you can't do it in Team run, your only choice is to solo, or accept that this race is not for you. Plain and simple. Team run brings a higher score in dungeon in general, but it is harder obviously, you either try all your 60 standard entries in the whole month for testing out a feasible one, or make it easier for yourself by solo-ing it, mind you, I know last month, and not just last month alone, silver ladder in hoopa dungeon was mostly from solo run, so don't act like you care that much about team run when you chose to skip it even when you can that way.

 

By the way, don't keep bringing out new players as your shield to push for the change you wanted, "It's harder for them", of course it is, but look, their goal is not to set a top score (not happening anyway), simply set a 1000+ in a whole month (60 standard tries, blame yourself if you still fail to do so after that many entries)

 

Simply put, adapt, or stay where you are, I'm enjoying the content so far as a top dungeoner.