Suggestion: No Event-Exclusive Pokemon

My main gripe is this. Exclusive Pokemon. More specifically, Event-Exclusive Pokemon. Can we get rid of them, the concept, and the practice, please? There should be no such thing as an event-exclusive Pokemon. I know some of you’re already clutching your pearls and crying “muh uniqueness”, but sorry, I feel that it’s bad design. A game like this one can’t afford to artificially lock off specific pokemon (currently Torchic, Gible, Lillipup, Audino, Deerling, Vullaby, Fennekin, Clauncher, Phantump, Pumpkaboo according to the Wiki) because you weren’t here on an arbitrary date 50 years ago and missed a one-time event, so now you no longer can get this Pokemon. Screw you for not playing the game 24/7 since 65,000,000 BC. Ayla was playing, why weren’t you?

This game is centered and predicated around a community, a community based on, making friends and joining/forming guilds with said friends, and conscripting your favorite (or all) pokemon to your team so you can play as your favorite pokemon as you scour dungeons with your friends. So, imagine my surprise when I finally have more free time, it’s about June or July 2017, and I decide to pop in and check up on PMU. Here I was, thinking “Now that Fennekin is out, I have a reason to play the game again.” But no, Fennekin is locked behind an event I missed out on three months ago, at that time. And to drive the nail into the coffin even further, I was playing fairly recently that Alolan Vulpix is also locked behind an event. Why are we locking all the pokemon that we knew everyone in the game wants behind one-time events?

So screw me and other players because we missed a one-time event? Why? This isn’t like TF2 or something, where I can’t play as a Spy in a whacky red, white, and blue tuxedo because I missed an Independence Day event. At least I can still play as a Spy. That character is still available to me, I just don’t have the glitter. I can live with that. This is far worse because every pokemon is like an individual character. This is like MvC4 coming out and being unable to play as Dr.Doom or Zero or Dante, some of the most popular characters in MvC, because I didn’t pre-order the game. Those characters are permanently unavailable to me and never will be available to me unless I fork over my wallet because they know that everyone wants these characters, and that’s gross.

So there goes my only real reason to even come back and bother playing, and who knows, that might’ve been a turn-off for other players, both new and old. While I’m dead I’ll probably miss out on even more pokemon because of a backward design choice. I have no reason to stick around and get to know new players or participate in events because the game doesn’t even offer anything I want anymore. At least then I would have a new pokemon that I like, and to train it I could go to a dungeon with a friend or some guildmates or some other random players. Other players might feel that way too. It’s a lost opportunity and as long as this philosophy is still in place it will continue being a lost opportunity.

Alright, because I don’t like to gripe without at least proposing a solution or two, here’s a few reasonable suggestions and a few anti-solutions I also want to knock down.

Wrong Solution #1:

Throw all event-exclusive pokemon in Holiday Cave and make them available once a year on holidays. This doesn’t work for a number of reasons. A little disclaimer, I’ve never been in Holiday Cave, and I don’t know exactly when it’s open, so I’m going to assume it’s open on most important US holidays. This means HC is open:

  • [li] January, for New Years,
    [/li]
    [li] February, for Valentines,
    [/li]
    [li] March, for St Patty’s Day
    [/li]
    [li] April, for Easter
    [/li]
    [li] May, for Cinco De Mayo
    [/li]
    [li] July, for Independence Day
    [/li]
    [li] October, for Halloween,
    [/li]
    [li] November for Thanksgiving,
    [/li]
    [li] December for Christmas
    [/li]

Which means HC is not open in June, August, and September, maybe January or December if you combine Christmas and New Years. Either way, not only do those months seem arbitrary, but having HC open for 1 week out of all those months kinda ruins the je ne sais quois of HC, and it’s just too much, at least in my opinion.

Even if you restrict HC to specific holidays, New Years, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas for example, it just means that I and other occasional players, have to wait every few months or so before playing the game again to get the pokemon we want and then going back to being dead for the rest of the time. This is not the goal if you’re trying to sustain a community unless you want a community that’s only active on holidays.

You want a community that’s decently and consistently active. Basing it on holidays and special occasions doesn’t forward that goal. You also don’t want to forward the notion that you can be completely comatose and still get whatever you want with little effort, because then regularly active players will feel cheated. Both regular and occasional players should feel like they have a fair opportunity to get what they want, and all this does is teach regular players that they don’t have to be active.

Wrong Solution #2:

Enable breeding and then have players sell Fennekin or other exclusive eggs for exorbitant amounts of poke. That might sound good to a newer player, but that’s because they haven’t figured out that the economy is so garbage that it has less value than its own currency. Money is literally useless to glorious 1%-er players like me. I’m obviously exaggerating for comedic effect here, but nevertheless, new players have to grind for money for so long that by the time they reach the point of distinguished bourgeoisie players like me, Fennekin eggs cost like 5 poke and they don’t have anywhere else to spend the 9,999,995 poke they have, and I still don’t have anywhere to spend the insignificant stash of 9,999,999,995 poke I have.

This might even sound good to veteran and older players because it’s “revitalizing the economy” and “It’s another money sink” and whatnot, but you might as well throw away all the relevance of exploring and going through dungeons with the exception of finding items to sell and finding money. Why bother making the effort to find the pokemon when I can buy it with poke and hatch it in a few minutes? This might forward a community-driven philosophy, at least in terms of going out and grinding dungeons for money or bartering with players for money, but it only exacerbates the already horrendous economy problem and arguably defeats the purpose of a core element of the game.

Reasonable Solution #1:

Because I know people are going to whinge about participating in an event only because of the availability of another pokemon, why not just lock the pokemon off publicly for 2-3 weeks? I’ll use Torchic as an example. Let’s pretend Torchic is coming out, so to celebrate you have an event where all participants are the first ones that get access to Torchic. After the event, other players that didn’t participate have to wait at most 3 weeks (any longer is pushing it) before Torchic is publicly available. These 2-3 weeks gives the active player mustard race just enough time to brag and lord it over other people that couldn’t participate because they have 9-5s, families, and other priorities that don’t involve memes, and it’s long enough for the fuzzy warm special feeling and hype to die down and stop being special.

If you want to bring up “Well, I’ll just die for 3 weeks and come back,” then fair enough. But unfortunately for you, I accounted for that. After 3 weeks pass, you can stick Torchic in the higher floors of Harmonic Tower or Inferno Volcano or some other difficult and/or obscure dungeon with a low but fair and non-obnoxious spawn or recruit rate. Don’t do both.

Staff can announce Torchic is out, but keep where it is a mystery. That means players have to go out and explore dungeons, aka play the game. Oh baby, playing the game, that’s a goal accomplished, this is sounding good, but it gets better! When players find it, they talk and interact with each other. Also, because it’s in a difficult dungeon, players might be encouraged to form parties with others or make guild expeditions, aka, they interact with the community. Aw yeah, this just got hot! Now we’re talking! Now we got players all going to this one or more dungeons, and now everyone can join in on the fun. That’s not even mentioning the demand increase for Friendship Bows and Golden Masks, but who cares about money having a use for a day, we established that money sucks.

Okay, so let’s see here, community-driven solution? Check. Current players are happy? Check. New and/or returning old players aren’t permanently screwed out of an opportunity and can get the mons they want? Check. Core elements and objectives of the game are still intact? Check! Sounds like a perfect idea to me.

Reasonable Solution #2:

Make all event-exclusive Pokemon available via eggs that cost Event Tokens. If you want, you can even split them into genders, i.e, a male Pumpkaboo egg for x tokens and a female Pumpkaboo egg for x tokens, where x is the cost of event tokens, and both cost the same amount of tokens. We’re all equal opportunity~ ;) Or not, I suggested this for me and all the other 3 people that care about gender for mostly RPing purposes. As long as they’re not essentially lootboxes, then I don’t care.

“What? But you just utterly demolished the idea of them costing poke! Whats the difference?” I see you typing on your keyboard. The difference is Event Tokens are worth a bit more, and while I concede that it might be a worthwhile money sink for poke, it doesn’t forward a community-driven philosophy. You can’t even buy and sell eggs so this point (and Wrong Solution #2) is kinda moot, but I’ll entertain it anyway for the sake of argument. If you buy it from a player, you interact with that player or a small handful of players that routinely sell things and you’re done. Nothing special. You don’t even have to participate in an event. Just let others earn the eggs for you, then pay for them yourself. Even worse if you can readily buy it from an NPC for poke, you’re not even interacting with anyone at that point. This is semi-acceptable for items, but this just brings us back to the money problem, and we would ideally want pokemon to have some sort of actual value.

“But Event Tokens are worthless too! I have over 300 of them!” Well, you got me there person that’s been playing and hasn’t logged off since the stone ages, but this isn’t about you as an individual. This isn’t an argument and that doesn’t make Event Tokens worthless.
Event Tokens are more worthwhile than poke because there’s only one way to get them: By participating in events, and thus, interacting with the community. So you have to at least be there to earn them. Even if you participate and don’t say a thing to other players, you still have to work together or compete with other players, and that’s more or less the point of these events, right? As for how much these eggs should cost, I say about 50-60 event tokens, but it’s ultimately up to you guys.

“What?! 50?! That’s way too much!” Well, any lower, and I think they lose their value. Globes cost either 25 or 35, I don’t recall the price exactly, so I just doubled that. I was actually going to suggest 60-70, but that would take upwards of 6 months minimum to get under the following equation. The idea is that you want these pokemon to require effort, but not take an eternity to get. Assuming minimum effort and assuming you get 3 or 4 tokens per event, that’s 16 weeks for 3 tokens/50 price, 12 weeks for 4/50, 20 weeks for 3/60, and 15 weeks for 4/60. That’s around 4 or 5 months assuming 4 weeks in each month. Seems reasonable to me, at least it’s better than half a year. Unless you want to hybridize this solution with Solution #1, and at that point, it’s just a shortcut for lazy people with an overabundance of tokens.

The point of this solution is to require some amount of effort on the community’s part. Do you want this pokemon? Better hike your pokebutt to an event and participate and socialize. At least then you’re still accomplishing a community-driven objective, even if people are doing it just to get the carrot you’re dangling over them. People respond to incentives, that much is fact. This accomplishes similar things to solution #1, it just takes more time, and is a little bit heavier handed.

I know my activity is sparse at best. Also, please feel free to correct me where I may be wrong. I’ve played PMU from about 2014 or 15, spottily during college, and about when I graduated college in 2017, then stopped playing regularly when I had to focus on my internship and career and finally land a job that focuses on said career.

Either way, the length of time and investment, nor my inactivity in this game is relevant to my point and to my argument, as this is aimed to improve the experience for all players both now and in the future. The specific pokemon and amount of pokemon locked behind events are irrelevant as well. I’d be posting this thread whether the pokemon was Fennekin or Klefki. I’d also be posting it it was just Klefki locked behind an event.

I tried to think of solutions in which some amount of effort was still required while keeping the game intact. Yes, I am still bitter about Fennekin lol. But, I didn’t just want to be another guy whining about how I can’t get a certain pokemon. I’m willing to put in some in-game work and interact with others if it means I have the opportunity to get it and other mons. This event-exclusivity practice is dated, it doesn’t fit this game, and it shuts out opportunities for both new and old players for no reason other than novelty.

If there’s still insistence as far as unique one-time awards go, I think novelty items would be much better suited for this kind of thing, so long as they aren’t egregiously advantageous over other items in the game.

But if there’s no Holiday Cave / Event exclusive items & Pokémon alike then the entire point of the event is already gone. You’ll notice that in other MMOs there’s a lot of event exclusive items and things alike.
Also if you don’t make the event then I apologise but do know that there’s usually 2 whole weeks. That should be enough time. If you can’t make it then you can’t really blame PMU for that. To me, it sounds like you just want everything given to you from the get go. Also please remember that Pokémon that were event exclusive will be released for good at some point in the game so it’s not like you won’t be able to get them again. (Such as Espurr. That was an exclusive to Halloween).
Also when exclusive Pokémon are in events that does give reason for people to actually play PMU. The amount of players you’ll find online compared to an average day is astounding - which is definitely a good thing.
Oh, also making Pokémon in buyable eggs from tokens I believe is impossible at the moment. Unless they can implement some way around that which albeit would be very difficult, it wouldn’t work. It would just be a bad egg. They could probs make it so they can give you an egg somewhere, or pull another Dratini like mechanic but I digress.
Point is, is that this wouldn’t happen. It’s like ripping one of the best things about this game because some person doesn’t have time on their hands during a 2 week minimum event.

Hello, As Sharky stated: Events have two weeks to be done so you have plenty of time to check on something, that’s half a month. Also as Sharky stated every event only pokemon will be permanently released somewhere. They’re not going to stay exclusive forever, its a matter of dungeons being worked on that they will be released. You just have to be patient for that to happen! There are plenty of Pokemon that have never been in events that also aren’t released, it’s ust a matter of time and what dungeons are being worked on.

All of the points Sharky brought up were absolutely correct.

Well, firstly, I never suggested getting rid of Holiday Cave. I suggested getting rid of event exclusive pokemon or at least mitigating the amount of time they’re event exclusive as a compromise. I also appreciate you saying that I sound like I just want everything given to me from the get go, even though I clearly stated that I’m willing to do in-game work and I proposed solutions that involve effort on the community’s part. I also suggested that I’m not just doing this for me, but I also think this would improve the experience for a lot of other players. The statement you made is not only an ad hominem, but it also just makes me unsure if you read the entirety of my post. Nevertheless, I’ll still give you the benefit of the doubt.

Secondly, I disagree with your premise for events. The point of an event is to bring the community together and encourage player interactivity and socialization, aka to have fun if we’re going to be jejune about it. The exclusive pokemon, and to a broader extent an award in general, is just an incentive. One that I think is bad and could be implemented better. The point of an event is not to get a reward, otherwise you’re just bribing people to keep playing, and I don’t think that’s what you guys want. If you want players only playing PMU to get that exclusive pokemon, train it for a couple of weeks, and then leave again, then by all means don’t change the way it’s implemented now. All I’m saying is that there’s a better way to do it that doesn’t involve locking off pokemon for inordinate amounts of time.

I don’t think a lot of the people that came to PMU came just to get Espurr. I wouldn’t sell the game short like that. People came to PMU because of the concept. An MMORPG version of the PMDverse where I can play and explore dungeons with my friends? That sounds pretty awesome. Being able to play as my favorite pokemon is a plus and a vital one at that. I want to play the game more believe me. However, I’m afraid trying to sell me and other players on “Waiting around for millenia so that your favorite pokemon aren’t locked behind events,” isn’t helping yours or PMU’s case.

You’re correct in that a lot of MMOs do have event exclusive items, but a lot of MMOs also either have in-game alternative items that are either flat out better or they have the same item but they aren’t skinned/colored the same way, so that way players that miss the event or players who weren’t around for the event aren’t completely shafted. ESO and Runescape are good examples. Sometimes ESO has event-exclusive or holiday-exclusive mounts. But when the holiday is over, I might not be able to get the horse with a wreathe around it’s neck, but I can still get a horse and they function exactly the same. Runescape at one point had a Cornucopia item that, currently at the time of this post, can hold a maximum of 1000 HPs worth of food. Certainly a hearty amount of HP, but there are Lobsters and Swordfish that restore 1200 and 1400 HP respectively, that any player with the appropriate fishing level can get with relative ease. So not only can we dismiss the whole “Well if it’s okay in other MMOs, it’s okay for PMU” argument, but a lot of MMOs have a better implementation of this idea. This is not the case for PMU. If I missed an event where I could get Espurr (just as a hypothetical), there is no alternative way for me to get Espurr if I miss said event, other than waiting for Espurr to come out.

If pokemon that were event exclusive will be released eventually, then that’s a step in the right direction. It’s the “eventually” part that bugs me. Which is why I suggested in Reasonable Solution #1 that event exclusive pokemon be released publically 2 or 3 weeks after said pokemon was released because that gives us a time frame. I don’t know how the game works when it comes to what Pokemon are available in what area, I’m assuming it’s some sort of collection, like an array and an RNG just randomly chooses what pokemon spawns in from that specific array. If that’s the case, I don’t see how pushing another pokemon onto that array takes more than 2 or 3 weeks, especially if it’s already in the game’s data.

Like I said, I got all my data from the wiki, so if those event-exclusive pokemon are available elsewhere for good now, then by all means point them out and I’ll stand corrected, but the points Sharky brought up aren’t correct or solid enough of an answer.

Too lazy to quote.
Anyway - I never mentioned you specifically wanted HC gone. I’m just mentioning that it would kill most of the point of an HC if exclusives were removed.
Sure, events are obviously there to band people together and venture through it, having fun and all sorts don’t get me wrong there, but if there’s nothing special to work hard for then what motive really does it give to other people to go? There isn’t one really. Complete the dungeon a few times and it just gets boring.
Also, in regards to Espurr, I’ll let you know A LOT of people were dead set on getting it. Same when Gible was released in HC. It was like a priority. Sure not everybody but you can’t please everyone. You take your chances. You please the most amount of players as possible regardless of others disagreeing, just a risk you have to take.
There is nothing wrong with the way events are handled. I apologise if you seem to be offended with how I described you as but it does seem like that way.

((sorry if I missed out on some crucial points, exhausted at the moment))

Events provide an outlet for us releasing new Pokemon. They’re not exclusives because they are not only going to be available in the event. They provide an early release to Pokemon. Releasing Pokemon works such as this: We make new dungeons and Pokemon appear in it. We always try to add a new Pokemon to each dungeon that is created. Sometimes it includes Pokemon from events, sometimes its Pokemon that were not in events. It depends on the dungeon and what the staff member wants to work on. Regardless they do not stay exclusives. The system as it is right now is not going to be changing in that regard.

As far as HC goes, you could always give it a new point or a new purpose. It could be a way to get exclusives or rare pokemon easier via better spawns/recruitment rates. All the unique “holiday” items sold in shops could be instead placed as drops in HC. You could incorporate it into events, like, for example, on Valentines, you can pick another player to join your party as your “valentine” and explore the dungeon together and find chocolates and candy. For Easter, you can crate egg items and scatter them randomly in the dungeon, hiding them in secret rooms/compartments, and then at the end whoever finds the most eggs get a prize. All the pokemon could be egg-themed and know egg bomb. For Christmas, make it a wintery wonderland with hot cocoa drops that thaw you out of being frozen. Just a few suggestions, all of these would still give HC a point. I don’t know how HC works, again, I’ve never been to one, and according to the wiki HC was discontinued when prior to me joining. During my time when I was active it was never reopened.

Yeah, I would imagine as such. Everyone that was already playing was dead set on getting Espurr, sure. But this doesn’t address newer players, who at the time might not know about the game, then when they find out, and they want Espurr, they can’t get it. Of course now they can if I’m taking your word for it. And that’s good! I’m glad! That’s how it should be for all pokemon! When a game is released, all characters should be available to everyone provided they do the appropriate work, i.e playing the game.

I’ll reiterate my stance on events again. People seem just as apt to go to events for tokens than they are for an early chance at a pokemon. Heck, sometimes, when it’s announced on Discord, I still participate and I have all the globes I need. As I stated in Reasonable Solution #1 these event-exclusives can still be proper rewards if the time they remain exclusive to an event is mitigated. 2 or 3 weeks of them remaining exclusive, then they get released to the public via a vague announcment saying “X Pokemon is now officially released for all! Where are they at? That’s for you to find out!” That’s literally the solution and it’s the one I see most applicable if staff are open to a compromise.

Yeah, you’re right, events do provide an outlet for releasing new pokemon. That much is fine, as I stated when addressing Sharky. If anything you’re just confirming my point about events. We both agree that events can be useful and that they can be an opportunity to show off new pokemon, and heck, those new pokemon can still be used as a reward like I suggested in Reasonable Solution #1! The only thing we seem to be disagreeing on or that you haven’t addressed yet, is the 2 or 3 week time period after the release of said pokemon in an event. I understand that they won’t be exclusive to an event for long, but that doesn’t make them non event-exclusive. As long as there’s no other way to get them then they are still event-exclusive regardless of having plans to make them non event-exclusive. If you can only get Dunsparce from an event, then Dunsparce is still event-exclusive. Even if you announce that Dunsparce will eventually no longer be event-exclusive (which, again, is awesome!), and that he’ll be put in Pebble Cave on 6/12/18, then until 6/12/18, he is an event-exclusive.

If you’re waiting to put them in a new dungeon, then that’s fine. But creating new dungeons could take several weeks and months. So, why not plop the pokemon in an older dungeon on higher floors with a smaller recruitment/spawn rate, then when the new dungeon is finished give it a higher recruitment/spawn rate in the new dungeon? That way the new dungeon is still worth exploring (you know, aside from the fact that it’s new), and it’ll be easier to find the pokemon you want when it’s released, and at the same time the pokemon that was once exclusive to an event is now available to the public much sooner than having us waiting on a new dungeon? Is that not a happy compromise?

Are you honestly this incensed over something commonplace in mmo’s?

I’d like to see you try and complain to developers of other games for exclusivity unfairness based on duration and see how far that gets you… whereas here, your suggestion is duly noted, but not likely to be accepted.

Oh, just to throw this out there - -PMU actually had a time a few years ago that it cancelled Holiday Cave & Event Dungeons for a while. …It didn’t go well. Again, I know that your point isn’t necessarily to close HC for good but the outrage more or less was because when it closed people couldn’t go and get something awesome and special from that specific from an event no more. The game felt barren. I’m pretty sure staff were forced to continue events because of that thus making it so there’s some sort of goal and achievement when getting a special Pokémon or item.
I’d guarantee the same would apply if this idea was to happen, which again stated from Fennes and Kit, most likely won’t happen.

I think Event Dungeons could be a thing, but that’s an idea for another thread at some other time.

Incensed? Maybe at the time, but not now. My feelings are irrelevant and distinct from my arguments. I’ve been in this boat before, and as I said these mmos usually have an alternative in-game item that’s better or functions exactly the same. And as far as I know, mmos almost never make holiday or event exclusive “characters”, just items. So there’s no reason for me to complain in these other mmos.

I wasn’t even complaining, just trying to make an earnest suggestion and a genuine contribution that I think could make the game better with some solid opinions behind them…Thanks for at least listening I suppose.

Your ideas are pretty neat, and I’m sure everyone is glad you shared them, which is why there is such a discussion going on. This method has been a way of releasing certain Pokemon for quite some time and a generally accepted idea (as we all can see), it gives these Pokemon a unique value to them. Different species will be released with various methods and it’s an understandable procedure (see: special Rockruff for Ultra Sun/Moon). If there is a guarantee that these Pokemon are to be released I don’t see the issue. You will get white Vulpix and a fluffy Fennekin eventually, as will all players that missed out!

While ideas are always open to talking over, just know that there are plenty of different ways staff release Pokemon, and this is just one of those ways, limited or not. I wouldn’t be too worried; every Pokemon will be available one day! :la:

Can we really call them event-exclusive if there’s a promise of said Pokemon being perma-released in the future?

I’m earnestly surprised someone else replied to this thread. I thought I would get only three perspectives despite the 9 people so far that have voted on the poll, then it would die and everyone would forget about it. I’m glad you thought my ideas were neat! I appreciate it. I hesitate to call this a discussion, I feel like this was more of a shut down than a discussion, but that’s just me, and that’s probably another discussion for another day. I don’t have any issues with how staff release pokemon otherwise, just this way, and it’s not even an issue of why, it’s an issue of how.

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with your post. Yes, we can call them event-exclusives. That’s what they are.

As long as there’s no other way to get them then they are still event-exclusive regardless of having plans to make them non event-exclusive. If you can only get Dunsparce from an event, then Dunsparce is still event-exclusive. Even if you announce that Dunsparce will eventually no longer be event-exclusive (which, again, is awesome!), and that he’ll be put in Pebble Cave on 6/12/18, then until 6/12/18, he is an event-exclusive.

I don’t know how many more times I need to explain myself and how many more examples I need to come up with. If I promise to give you $10 eventually, you don’t automatically get $10 in your wallet, nor do you automatically have $10 extra when take into account your finances. You don’t get $10 in your wallet until I deliver the $10 to you. You don’t have and account for the $10 until you obtain the $10. The key words here are deliver and obtain. Deliver and obtain imply results, not promises. Just because Espurr is no longer event-exclusive, doesn’t mean Fennekin, Alolan Vulpix, and other pokemon that are still only obtainable by that event are no longer event-exclusive. They will be no longer event-exclusive once staff deliver and the public obtains these pokemon.

The only pokemon that someone pointed out to me that was event exclusive and no longer is, is Espurr. I don’t know how long that took between its event-exclusivity and its availability to the public. I don’t have a timeframe of when that happened or how long it took. Fennekin as far as I can recall, was released around June of last year as an event-exclusive. It is now March of 2018, that’s 8 months, possibly longer if I got my dates wrong. As far as I know it is still event-exclusive. If I’m wrong, please correct me.

8 months is far too long of a time period for a pokemon to remain event-exclusive. Which is why, in Reasonable Solution #1, that I suggested that it be mitigated to 2 or 3 weeks, and why in my last post addressing kit, that they be released in an older dungeon with adjusted recruitment rates if they’re planning on saving it for a newer dungeon. Again, as per Reasonable Solution #1, I am fine with the prizes of some events being exclusive pokemon. I just think that the time needs to be mitigated. If they’re being released that means they’re already in the game’s data. If the pokemon is already in the game’s data, then what exactly is preventing this from occuring, aside from disagreement?

I’m glad that the staff are working to make these pokemon non-event exclusive, even if they aren’t doing it in a way that I think would be beneficial to the game. I just disagree with the implementation and think it could be handled better.

hello. not really a big fan of the way some people have been responding but i do agree with the premise of their response.

yeah. it’s understandably annoying that events lock up certain recruitables behind timebased bars. in a perfect world every player would be able to get they wanted within a reasonable timespan- but unfortunately this is an MMO and exceptions are made to allow playerbase to rise and to allow grinding.

thing is, events hold incentives to encourage players to run through dungeons or participate in order to get some worthy reward. i personally don’t like running various HCs (halloween being the worst offender) but i did them anyway so i could get stuff like litwick or charmander back in 2013. @ the community bonding thing, i’ve never really seen HC or various other event as an act to bond the community(in fact, some releases made the community outraged e.g valentine event 2016); maybe the incentive was to do so or maybe I just haven’t seen it personally, but ultimately it does result in a higher playerbase which PMU sorely needs. it encourages people to login and do that specific daily run in order to get the prize they want.

and that is moreso a fundamental flaw of the gameplay. if the grind’s too easy then people ofc stop logging in. getting a certain mon to 100 takes only a dozen MJ runs or so anyway right? once you’re done with that it’s kind of game over for that mon for you; can’t leech with it, no exclusive 100 things to do, etc. so unfortunately to make up for this sad fact events are an applicable design choice in PMU.

inevitably, things are supposed to be valuable in an MMO. might be a little more irksome if that shiny, unique factor was untradable (e.g pokemon) but nevertheless things are supposed to have more rarity than others. events allow an easy bypass to put a really rare thing on a time limit.

a dungeon release containing that mon maybe a few months later would be fine, but probably not a few weeks imo bc then that’d kinda make the event a bit fruitless(again, maybe besides community bonding as u say(???))

i have no qualms with suggestion #2 though

but yea, the event occurs for two weeks in a year, (maybe three given how the server’s feeling) and each run probably only takes an hour. you’ll probably see that mon or egg once every few as well.

(and well, easter’s next sunday so maybe that’s another avenue for people to get what they want, right?)

adieu. hope there is more productive conversation

When events first started in 2010 was a way to get users of all levels together to recruit some exclusive shiny pokemon before we reworked the pokemon form system for the shiny variant is broken atm.

Then we eventually with more spriters around switch to Pokemon outside of gen four. Which in turn made events exclusives.

I don’t really see much harm on having people testing out new pokemon sprites when they new HC pops in. Looking for the right dungeon for a event-only Pokemon can have many delays due to the nature of quality control. I doubt events completely delay release of pokemon. There a lot of factors that go into, small team, volunteer hours, resources, dungeon testing, world building and other game designing aspect that ensures quality over new dungeons. To me, HC make it a more streamlined way to test out sprites and getting available contributors to make a collab without worrying over all the details of a full new monster of a dungeon.

The wait may be inconvenient, but luckily we have many other pokemon released within the public dungeons under several other regions!