I over-buffed Melanistic Pokémon...

(i typed way too much for the fact that it's almost midnight here, please let me know if i should elaborate or otherwise make a certain point more comprehensible later) maybe a useless suggestion, but i've been thinking about the fact that there are only two albino boosts you can get in the game, one being the radar itself at varying levels which is required to hatch albinos to begin with (this is generously counting charging anywhere above level 1 as a "boost") and z-crystals which are (as has been pointed out many times in this particular thread) rare and expensive. shinies, on the other hand, have several potential boosts to take into account. ignoring the potd boost, there's mostly the pokeradar chain, the shiny charm, and sei, and each of these provide Pretty Big Boosts. it's hard to see the albino radar as anything but "activate it to enable albinos" rather than an actual boost, so then the z-crystals are kind of the only one. it's a big boost on paper, but again, rare and expensive. in one of the dp threads linked in the first post, the idea of getting z fragments based on the v-wave for dp was suggested, which tangentially made me wonder if maybe it would be feasible to have a potd-ish albino boost on the v-wave type? it wouldn't have to be by much, but a third (or technically second, depending on how you view it) way of boosting albinos may satisfy users who were upset over the recent nerf to the overall rate? especially with it being a boost that doesn't need purchasing, just waiting and planning, similar to sei. as far as actual feedback goes: i can't remember if i mentioned any of this in previous posts or just thought about it, but i personally have felt much more interested in delta hunting since the point increase, to the point where i now immediately trade in any extra s/a pokemon i hatch as soon as i've noted their info down in my little virtual notebook (ie: [shiny]/[hatched], +charm, [date]). i am very happy about the idea of increasing the f2p max chain even though it doesn't benefit me at all, as i always endeavor to have hypermode when i'm planning to be active and actually hunt. i think shortening the gap between hypermode and non is super important, and increasing the shiny odds will obviously also help albinos seem rarer as a whole, which is what you've stated is your preference. for the ubercharm... i believe i've said before that i'm in favor of nerfing melan odds just from looking at the market, but as someone who doesn't really *melan* hunt as much as stack boosts just in case, i have to note that it doesn't really affect me either way... which only means that i'm not going to have much of an opinion on it other than noticing "hey aren't there more/less melans in general now than there were at x time?" the idea of buffing the shiny charm excites me, but i'd like to know if that will increase either the price of the charms themselves or the amount of gp it takes to recharge them, or both? keeping the price the same or increasing it slightly would both make equal sense to me, honestly, so i don't have any opinion on which it should be. thank you for your time and efforts, niet. it's easy to say things should be some certain way or another when you're dissastisfied with your own experience as a player, but i'm sure very few if not None of us actually have experience trying to balance a whole mmo from up top. it's frankly hard to sympathize with any point of view that's difficult to imagine the actual scope of, which explains why a lot of users just aren't getting your reasoning and may feel like they're being picked on.

I am curious why posts are getting deleted.. I understand it's frustrating receiving so much negativity but it stiffles communication to do stuff like that

The feedback itself is fine. The rude commentary is not. We can still see the information, so that's not lost, but rude posts will be removed. Even if the information is useful, toxic and disrespectful behaviour is not tolerated. If it's coming to the point where insulting peoples' intelligence is apparently considered acceptable then I harbour serious concerns. It can either stop now, or I can lock the thread temporarily while people take the time to compose themselves appropriately.

I can't fault you for removing insults, i would do the same for my team. It just felt.. discouraging? Worrisome may be more accurate? To see posts just disappearing without explanation. Thank you for clarifying however! It's good to know the info isn't just gone to the void too

For me, it's not that I'm expecting shinies, it's that it was stated that the rarity tiers went shiny > albino > melanistic, but I was getting far more albinos than shinies. I'd be perfectly happy with shinies being the rarest, as a completely different color instead of just lighter or darker, but that's a total flip from how it is now, I imagine most people wouldn't go for that. But yeah, my only beef was the ratio of albinos to shinies. I understand completely that none of the special colors should be easy to get.

i think there was another post asking this same question and I'm not sure why that one got deleted but this one is fine? Also I'm wondering why the rude parts of posts couldn't just be edited out if some information in the post is useful (like how if someone swears only the swearing gets removed) but if you can still see the posts I guess it doesn't matter lol

I'll... Be blunt. Baseless accusations, twisted words and unnecessary hostility being seemingly considered reasonable reactions to this are also both discouraging and worrisome. And at this juncture, tiresome - I've seen evidence of all three listed things above and I'm going to be talking to Niet about it. Also! I sincerely apologise for the delayed response to the matter but I literally just got out of bed and was conferring with the active staff at the time. Unfortunately, I only have so many hands! And one half-functioning brain at the moment, admittedly.

I will say, Muffi did make a very good point about how the raw numbers of "out of x number of hatched eggs, y number were shiny/albino/melan, on this day" arent really that useful when you consider that those numbers dont take the distribution of those specials into account. a handful of outliers with better rng luck could end up with a disporportionate amount of specials, and thus throw off the overall average as applied to the playerbase as a whole. and that point was, it seems, repeatedly ignored. its not surprising that the frustration would mount, when it seems like your points are being brushed off over and over again. (which isnt an isolated experience ive noticed) circling back around to the numbers thing, it does remind me of the "individual experiences dont matter" thing from a few pages back. you can talk about what the numbers say all you want, but if playing the game doesn't FEEL satisfying and enjoyable to play, people arent going to keep playing it. and the numbers niet keeps citing definitely seem to be at odds with the lived experiences of people commenting on this thread. honestly, with all the opinions ive read at this point, i definitely think im in the camp of "bring back the higher special odds, but give us more we can do with them, like the DP/Z-fragments idea".at the very least, bring the S/A back closer to the old odds, Melans do probably still have room for improvment. the main reason there seemed to be so many extras just sitting around was because there wasnt really anything to with them beyond selling them or making them delta fodder, and deltas arent really everyones things

Big ol' upvote from me. Yeah, the information was handy, for sure, and certainly warrants a good look-over. Not gonna lie, a bit of it's lost on me because I lack some information that Niet does but I've got the link to that post saved in my DMs with him on Discord so that we can look it over and discuss it proper. I also agree on it needing to feel satisfying - that is, at least in part, an individual experience. It's certainly intermingled with 'the collective experience', if you will, but just because each person is an off-shoot of that doesn't mean it doesn't matter at all (I think that was a wording error on his part, personally). It's more that, as has been evidenced in this very thread, individual experiences can vary wildly, but the core focus is on the aggregate result of all of those individual experiences. Or, in other words... It's complicated as all get-out and it's gonna take some time and patience from all parties. Niet included. I don't know what's right. Maybe it should be left how it was and something else should be looked at - but that's why we're poking about now! It's better that we at least be looking at things (seriously, reverting back is a valid option, and it's not off the table or anything) and poking around than just accepting 'this is the best thing and nothing will ever change our mind', in my humble opinion.

I feel like there's probably a happy medium here, somewhere. Bring the Shiny/Albino odds closer to the old ones, if not revert them completely, and just give the playerbase additional things to do with DP, so those same specials arent oversaturating the trade market like they were before (Z-fragments are a great option, in my opinion, since theyre an item thats very useful but not super easy or quick to get ahold of). Im not sure what the sweet spot would be for Melans; I definitely enjoyed the higher odds we had for a minute, but I get that thats probably not tenable long-term. on a personal level, i just really dont really want my "nearly 4000 eggs to get a melan" experience with spiritomb to be the norm lmao