Site-wide Goal Adjustments

Respectfully, if you don't play a lot, then why should those things matter as much? Like, if you play that casually, just log in on bonus days and have your fun! There is nothing wrong with that. And if you DO play a lot, then you will likely be able to earn HM for free. Lots of people want to buy box boxes for ZC and you can earn the additional scour slot very early in the dex entry unlocks. I was surprised to realize my daughter has the scour slot and she's 8 and doesn't really know what she's doing on the site yet 😅 I think if you play hardcore you should be rewarded for your dedication. But I also think that it's valid to want to be able to just log in and not do much or just hatch a few eggs. I dunno, I hope this doesn't come off as rude! I totally get being frustrated by these changes and I do think that the bottom end of the bonuses when they activate if they activate less often can feel bad. But they are still just bonuses at the end of the day, just an extra perk for being active on the site. And if you need help unlocking dex entries for further rewards, myself and many others will happily dex you as much as you need for absolutely free. All we can do is see how it goes. Call me an optimist or overly positive, but I'd really like to believe that if Niet saw the counters and realized that we as a community were struggling to reach them in a timely matter, he would dial back accordingly.

Sei's Bonus Counter used to require 7,777 Shinies. It no longer requires 7,777 shinies, even now as I'm raising the Counters up. That should be enough said, right? :D

All of what you said is valid, and I appreciate your perspective. However, it does matter to me and what you’re saying feels a bit dismissive. I’m not a casual player because I want to be. I would spend much more time on here if I had the ability to. I do my best to be on when I can. As I said in my original post - it’s not as simple as logging in on the bonus days because of my crazy irl work schedule. I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford many of the benefits you can purchase with $ which gives me an extra boost. It’s not that I want to have the bonus days given to me despite not playing much. I’m simply saying that as someone who cannot afford to be a hardcore player, the bonuses help. And while the community is wonderful, and I have utilized free dexing prior and will do so in the future. It doesn’t always feel as accomplishing as doing it on your own. Again, I appreciate your perspective and positivity surrounding these changes. I still can’t help but feel like your response is a bit dismissive to some of what I said. I am also choosing to remain positive as I know Niet does so much for this site and is not going to do anything to damage it. Although, I still felt like my feelings deserved to be heard.

@tokimews They do, friend. All of our opinions deserve to be heard and I apologize if I came off as dismissive. I realize that I am in a privileged position with time as I am unfortunately unable to work anymore so I realize it may color my experience a bit. I do think the bonuses are helpful to casual players as well. And they are fuuuuun, boy, the last Niet/Sei day I think I hatched pushing 2k eggs or something absolutely absurd. And, really, times and priorities change too. I used to play World of Warcraft extremely hardcore. For 15 years I ran my guild and it absolutely gutted me to have to dial back because of my new disability as well as my daughter being more of a priority. And eventually I had to stop playing all together. Things changed there that made it harder for me to do the things I wanted to do with my time I did have to play, but unfortunately that is what happened when I couldn't dedicate the time I wanted to. I think at the end of the day that's the choice and balance we all have to consider - what value do we get from our time we spend? For me, here and in WoW, the community was a lot more important than the in game bonuses, though they are always welcome. But they feel secondary. And the way you value your time and play style is also valid. For both of us, it may not align with the developers expectations and it stinks. I don't think you want anything given to you friend. It's an adjustment and it will hopefully be a good one overall, but we'll see. As Niet replied to my post, the bonus counter was higher in the past already, so I do hope that things are in a nice balance for everyone. 🥰 Again, sorry for seeming dismissive. I hope you are having a wonderful day or night ❤️

i wish it was that easy :( ive been selling stuff for 2 months now and still only have about 280 ZC.. im on daily and get up to 10k interactions a day so im far from inactive.. i just enjoy the niet+sei bonus for hunts since even with the amulet, i still have hunts consistantly hit 300-500 eggs without a shiny :( its all rng in the end, but the bonuses help a lot for being f2p not to mention potd and vwave are luck too. if im 400 eggs into a hunt, i cant just drop it for potd and get it in one day unless i get really lucky so its not really worth it either im just hoping it pans out better than it sounds <:(

Free to play grinding is not easy. I know first hand. I do not pay for anything on this site, and it took me over a year to collect enough ZC for a 6 month HM. Until I made the commitment to buy Hyper-Mode, I have always been a very casual player. I don't think that everyone should have to and they sure as heck will not want to take that long for a boost, but a reminder, that was for 6 months, and this was BEFORE we got ZC for free just for logging in. And now there are more ways to earn ZC than ever before, selling boxes, Z Crystals, Specials, Delta Points, trading currencies, ECT. It is not the daunting task it used to be. While the concern and frustration is entirely valid, the current landscape is far, far more forgiving and rewarding for casual players than it ever used to be, and all but perhaps this update from this year in particular have done exactly that, made the game easier in so, so many ways. You don't need these bonuses to enjoy the game. They are, again, very free bonuses to reward the player base for being active and for a collective effort. I don't think Niet ever expected them to be used as crutches for regular game play of the site. More activity from the player base = adjustments to make the bonuses what they were intended to be. Plus many of the mini bonuses that Goatlady outlined are extremely easy to get, and not that costly when it comes to in game currency.

Yes, but that was before the Shiny odds were nerfed.

Shiny odds were nerfed? I mean maybe I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure the shiny odds have pretty much only ever gotten better. - Non-HM users gained the ability to chain up to 39 instead of 38, representing a 50% increase in odds - The Shiny Charm was buffed from 2x to 2.5x - Most recently, the Gold Amulet was added to give another 1.25x The only time that I can remember where Shiny odds were lowered is when I changed the Übercharm from a "Shiny + Albino buff" to a "Melan buff". At that time, a 2x shiny modifier was removed (along with the 2x albino modifier, in favour of a 6x melan modifier). So... okay, yeah, admittedly this does mean that - all combined - our users who purchased all the premium offerings did see about a 25% decrease to their Shiny odds (in return they have about +135% to melan odds before factoring LCB), our non-HM users have never had higher odds than they do right now. Unless I'm forgetting some major nerf to Shinies that isn't documented either in the code nor the Wiki, I just don't see the issue here.

Shiny Rate Change: https://pokefarm.com/forum/thread/231895/Shiny-Albino-rate-update Sei Goal update (~1 month later): I don't think it detracts from your statement that you're willing to reduce a goal if it's too hard (and in fact it kinda supports it), but Sei was indeed dropped because of a nerf to shiny rates.

Oh, well, fair enough! Kinda weird that it didn't get documented anywhere though, the Wiki is usually quite thorough with such updates! Thanks for finding it. Let me just recalculate my conclusions with this resurfaced information: - EDIT: It looks like the linked shiny nerf was actually done in conjunction with a buff to non-HM users, enabling chaining from 35 to 38, which was a 2x buff, completely cancelling out the nerf. I believe this was done in order to narrow the excessive 6x gap that HM granted at the time, making it 3x instead, and subsequent updates allowing chaining to 39 reduced the HM gap to 2x, drastically reducing the advantage in hunting that HM users would receive over free-playing users. - Totally free-to-play users (specifically users who don't even trade for things) have since seen +87.5% increase to Shiny odds with the Radar buff and Amulet addition, representing a mere -6.25% overall nerf to their odds. EDIT: Thanks to the 35=>38 chain buff mentioned above, free players actually have the full +87.5% higher Shiny chances than they did "pre-nerf"! - Since Shiny Charms were buffed to be permanent items that can be recharged for GP, it is possible to consider these "semi-premium" items. You can get a couple of them totally free within a year of online bonuses if you save up for that, but more realistically you can pick them up without too much trouble in the Marketboard or Trade forums. If we factor them in, the 2x => 2.5x buff means that "semi-premium" users have seen about a +17% increase to their Shiny odds since "pre-nerf" times. EDIT: Actually +134% with the 35=>38 non-HM chain buff! - It does remain true that "fully upgraded" users using the Übercharm for Shiny hunting purposes (if there were any) did see a drop in odds due to that Charm now only affecting Melans, but realistically the Übercharm was always advertised as a Melanistic boost item and I doubt anyone was seriously using it specifically for Shiny hunting. With its rework, Melan odds went up by +50% (4x => 6x), and notably it decreased the amount of "trash" Shinies people would get while they were Melan-hunting. - Leaving aside the Übercharm since realistically it wasn't a "shiny hunting buff", it was always a "Melan hunting buff", users who already had HM did see the full impact of the Shiny Nerf. However since then, the combined effect of all the little updates along the way have led to the odds being only 22% lower than "pre-nerf" levels, however in exchange the Melanistic rates are also +134% improved, before factoring in the Cobalt Amulet's bonus (up to 1.75x on top). As mentioned previously, the goal of the Übercharm changes was specifically to reduce the number of "excess Shinies" that were incidentally hatched while trying to hatch Melanistic Pokémon (which funnily enough also reduces Troll Party frequency so in theory is less frustrating!) and to that end I believe we have succeeded. EDIT: Additional data: approximately 16.5% of active users currently have Hypermode - quite a chunk of them did not buy it themselves, but that's another point for another time. This means that 83.5% of users are actually benefiting from higher Shiny odds than they had "pre-nerf" (which, reminder, wasn't even a nerf for them since they got the 35=>38 chain buff at the same time). Meanwhile the 16.5% of HM users might potentially be seeing 22% lower rates than pre-nerf. This means that overall there are approximately 70% higher shiny rates overall globally across the site than there were "pre-nerf". So it all kinda comes back to my initial query, "shinies were nerfed?" /lh To which the answer is "yes, a tiny bit, for a small percentage of users, who now have drastically higher Melan odds instead because the nerf was for balancing reasons that have totally worked."