[discussion] opinions on pokemon transfer

the reason why I’m putting this here instead of suggestions is because i actually want to know people’s opinions on the matter.
a lot of older players, such as myself, are under new usernames and do not have access to the pokemon that we used to have. it would be pretty cool if there was a system in place that allowed players to transfer their old pokemon to their new account or something.

what are your thoughts on transferring pokemon? i think that a lot of people can establish an economy of sorts by paying people to get their pokemon, so this function could also require poke to use. let’s assume that this is possible, so … let’s refrain from “this will never be implemented”, “impossible coding”, and other dialogues of the type. these statements are typically redundant and contribute nothing to the discussion at hand

if transferring pokemon was implemented, would you use it? would you pay poke for your dream pokemon?

Shouldn’t this be in Game Discussions?

Anyway, game balance discussions are interesting to me, so here’s the all out.
Let’s assume they make the system 100% safe, somehow. Let’s pretend staff have thought of a way to prevent people from just running off with the transfer pokemon, for this discussion.

As you noted, such a system would create a roundabout Pokemon-based economy, where people pretend to own other accounts.
“Want Torchic? You’ll have to transfer me a Togepi.”

On the surface this doesn’t sound too bad, but this creates massive changes in PMU since PMU was never designed to support this. For example, Are you somewhere you aren’t supposed to be yet? You’ll just get knocked out or take so much damage that you will want to leave instantly. But now let’s assume some vet with level 99s in everything has a spare level 30-50 geodude lying around. The vet, in their generosity, drops the money for the transfer onto the newer player. They then transfer them the level 30-50 geodude, and newbie just powers through the HM dungeons with this new Pokemon.

Right off the bat, staff would need to create a way to prevent vets transferring to newbies. They would either need to make a NEW system (yet another obscure thing to keep track of in PMU) or utilize an existing one, somehow.

Those small unexpected exploits are going to be fixable, but a Pokemon-Based-Economy could absolutely destroy PMU’s longterm viability.
General long-term goals of PMU are based on A) Getting a Pokemon you want/like and B) Training that Pokemon to max level.

A) Is an individual-based effort that gives the game most of its longevity. Ex: new permanent area, or an event. These are the bread and butter of the game. Having rare things you gained by your own effort (or with mild help of a honey-spamming and spawn-spotting friend) is a mark of prestige, is something that takes a long time to accomplish, and in some cases requires a huge amount of investment.

With indirect trading (Pokemon-Based-Economy), Pokemon can flood the market in the long term. Because Pokemon do not expire and because people can hold multiples of the same species, trading/giving away/whatever duplicates of any kind at any level will become pretty common, even if it is inconvenient. Why? because it is less inconvenient to jump through hoops via transfer system than it is to actually hunt those Pokemon.

The above concept will just about kill any event and dampen any permanent content that doesn’t introduce previously unreleased Pokemon. This is because you no longer have to rely on your OWN effort and luck to get these things. Instead, you rely on other people’s and pay them accordingly. You can very easily stack up money in this game, inflation has been a huge problem historically and you will almost always make a profit in some way when running dungeons.

Most other MMOs were designed to handle a global economy and have loot/money sinks in place to keep it under control. Most other MMOs can introduce new monsters, items, and features or any design whenever they want in order to shake things up or make old things semi-obsolete. They are designed around global/universal effort; the only reasonable way to become part of the elite class is to massively stay on top of things and join a more serious group. Think “serious raids” stuff.

PMU is designed to be a single player core experience with optional multiplayer interactions, and not a global economy. The prospect of just making up new Pokemon and adding new max level caps endlessly is not only iffy and alienating but is a design crutch. You can’t make old Pokemon “obsolete”, because Pokemon like Salamence, Pikachu and Eevee will always have a base appeal. The features that are the most incomplete (last I checked) are guilds, trading, shops, party management, etc. Dungeons based around teamwork end up as frustrating or neglected, such as Harmonious Tower (if I recall the name right - the place where all 4 members have to survive several floors while pressing buttons).

PMU would have to overhaul its “achievement” system - how you get Pokemon, how you keep Pokemon, how you get items that relate to evolving Pokemon, etc for a transfer/trade system to co-exist with PMU’s staple gameplay mechanic (super rare Pokemon gained from mostly individual effort) without also crippling that staple mechanic. Events would have to be rethought/adjusted around the existing distribution of specific Pokemon. “Oh, Eevee is kind of common in this event? Pass, I bought 6 of them from other people a month ago. Not interested.” Events would also semi-permanently affect the economy instead of just being a nice treat for whoever is on at the time.

PMU would have to create its own untested system to make this work. Could PMU do this? Yes. Should they consider the topic/concept of long-term goals and how they can get more lategame/update potential than just “add new dungeon lol?” 100% yes, I think the shallowness of longterm goals (Get Pokemon, train it, then stare at it like a trophy) makes people drop the game/turn into lurkers like me. I might make this into a topic one day if I get bored enough - it deserves attention on its own.

Have other Pokemon fangames succeeded at having a global economy that involves Pokemon trades? Yes, but they aren’t PMD-based and so have a slightly different foundation for their economy. Furthermore, almost all of them currently have or are going to face serious problems due to them being beholden to the Pokemon Franchise. I can go over them if desired but this post is long enough as it is.

obviously as CheckeredZebra stated above it would be a problem if they kept their levels. So when you transfer 'mons, there’s no doubt that they’ll have to become level one or five automatically. Assuming that everything runs smoothly, is possible, and goes perfectly, I would use the transfer. Though I would rather call it “Recruit Transfer” to make it uhh… look less like slavery. You know how sometimes people get transferred to other groups.

Also selling pokemon for money would just look like slavery, so it’ll be a lot like pokemon for pokemon. A rarity system set up by the staff will also help people get an idea of if “trading this pokemon is fair for that pokemon”