Sprite Discovery Discussion

I'm pretty sure it's been stated hundreds of times by now, and I might not even be exaggerating that, but the site will always be undergoing change and evolution until it is stated otherwise. It's in beta, Niet's mentioned this many times. That means it's not a final product. Expect any sprite to change at the drop of a hat, they could all use improving, nothing is perfect even as art staff strive for perfection. Perhaps one day they'll be done for certain, but until that day comes they're undergoing change ;;' It's the art staff's goal and they're working hard on it to try and get sprites liked by as many people as possible. That won't just happen on a first or second revision of a sprite..Sinnoh revamps are taking a while 'cause they were started two years ago, and are probably being redone to an extent due to inconsistencies at the time that went unnoticed/the rules they had at the time that had since been revised. Art staff is also going through a lot of change, people joining and leaving and thus the inconsistencies from changes in staff/art styles need revising at times (which, to be honest, part of the reason for so many leaving is probably because of so much negative criticism all the time. Spend some time to make it constructive, and it'll make their voluntary jobs a hecking lot more enjoyable and they may stay a lot longer and thus less changes) I understand everyone's dislike of uncertainty, I dislike it as well. Perhaps we can all band together and actually discuss a workaround for it though rather than just stating that you dislike it? Let's all maybe discuss with staff and try to come to a compromise between the need for sprite revisions - because yes, they do need revising, and even the Galar sprites that were just worked on could use revising on the colors, on top of Kalos, and variants, and so on - and the need for certainty?

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I'll start I guess, better to put into practice than to just preach: maybe we could have a sprite voting system, to determine what sprites are loved as are and users are less into - it doesn't even need to be on this site, I could even - and wouldn't mind if art staff/staff believe this to be something of interest - set up a poll with each and every sprite listed for the regions next being revised. There's a way to revise yet keep something, make it mesh better into the current sprites, yet still have the old colors. For example, since it's apparently being worked on, Kantonian Ponyta line could maintain the dark coat/purple fire for the melan, but just have the shades slightly adjusted to not be so dramatic and to have the shading slightly adjusted et cetera. It'll still be the Poynta everyone loves, but it'll be revised to suit the current consistency as much as it can be. It'd be a compromise. It'd be as simple as people going on and spending maybe half an hour of the day to vote on which sprites you love the current colors for, and which you don't. That would at the very least give art staff a massive understanding of what the general users do and don't like, it would help them narrow things down and even potentially get revamps done quicker without the need to change them all the time. No need to fix what's not
broken, just tweak it a little to be even nicer. I accidentally left out an important word there lol. Just an idea, but seriously, don't just say "I don't want change", put forth a reason for art staff not to change them. They listen to us, they won't just not change it because we say not to. However, there's no reason they wouldn't keep something if we put forth a solid, well thought out reason not to ^^; put some effort into saving your loved sprites everyone <3

The whole voting on sprites conversation was also discussed six months ago and was a pretty hard "no" under the premise that "user popular" is definitely going to differ from "objectively good" and "'consistent" That's sort of a thing. EVERYTHING that nearly anyone has said about the sprites in general has already been discussed and in general the response to the users is "we'll listen to an extent but ultimately what you get is what you get." Which is fine to a degree, as I said, it's not possible to make a sprite that literally everyone likes and nobody would change. If anything a polling process would only make that more evident. Moving past that... it's worth pointing out that the most recent notable event on the site has been that it's now moving in a direction decisively bringing it out of beta and into completion - or at least that's the goal. If the features and all are being finalized, eventually that should be the goal for the sprites too... shouldn't it?

Just because a suggestion is denied, doesn't mean the idea isn't valid. The suggested execution of it may well have just not aligned with the goals for the site. That's the reason for discussion. I did mention that the voting didn't necessarily need to be the outcome of the sprites, but it could simply just be a tool for art staff to view what is and isn't liked. That could greatly improve art staff's understanding of what color choices out of the many they draft up per sprite would be most well received and thus bring us closer to "completion" faster without a need for more revamping later. The thing about a lot of the discussions involving these topics is that there is rarely an attempt at compromise. Users tend to state their demands and what they do and don't want, they don't often try to understand staff's reasoning for things and work with them, discuss with them, and come to the middle ground in between. Perhaps we are moving in the direction of completion, but it's sort of hard for art staff to finalize the sprites when most of what they receive is criticism and dislike for the changes. If we all want them to actually be finalized, maybe we could help them finalize the sprites. Put in some effort to constructively criticize - and I don't mean saying to drop the consistency to make things look better - what is and isn't wrong about the sprites in your eyes and let art staff know, it'll help speed up their progress by more than everyone seems to realize. And no, "consistency is the problem" isn't going to cut it, realize that consistency is necessary, it really is, and work with that. Our middle ground is going to have to involve some level of consistency whether we like it or not.

people are putting reasons out for not wanting change. wanting to hunt a pretty blue melan and knowing it wont someday change to be green overnight unnanounced is a valid reason this was actually part of the reason that i sold or hunted with the intention to do so with 30/37 of the melans i hatched. i have many many favourite pokemon that i never even hunted bc i didnt trust the melans or even the albinos to just... stay the way they were. it clearly wasnt a game breaker cuz i kept playing until 9 months ago but it was still a factor in how i played the game. didnt have the energy to be disappointed when something inevitably changed to something i didn't like and timid summarized what i had here, so thank you timid! sometimes suggestions just dont work

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also @spoodle i'm glad you can be positive about the changes! the 'pede line is undoubtbly one of the ones that "won" the consistency game. i feel this way about the caterpie line when it first changed years ago. caterpie is really dear to me, but i just don't have the same confidence that it stay a winner next time it changes. some pokemon aren't so lucky, and usually they get changed. but the staff don't know until people start complaining

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i wanna add that sometimes we dunno how to express our disappointment without sounding mean or ungrateful. the commenters in this thread could stand to not say things like "please dont change my precious ponyta" and "now i dont like this pokemon" because while that isn't outright saying "this is garbage" its still not a very kind thing. but i really dont agree with the idea that people need to be able to speak in their nice voices and always have constructive feedback in order to comment here. there is a Lot of reasons for people not knowing how to do those two things every single time they post. heck, i've been working on this post for over an hour, trying to manicure my words correctly. i could be doing something way more important but i chose to do this. and just look at how few different people actually talk here regularly and engage in discussion, im pretty sure its not because everyone else is just neutral to sprite changes and more along the lines of people are afraid to voice their opinions or otherwise believe they wont be heard im not saying people should be allowed to trash the artists but i think some people might be reading too deeply into the tone of commenters. talking thru text is not the easiest way to deliver emotions. i just dont think most people come here intending to hurt the artists. i mean that'd be silly to get locked over a sprite recolour, yeah?

not to ignore the rest of your post, im just tired out from typing so much ;__; ill just respond to a bit: half of the time, i hunt a pokemon without looking at the melan. i hunt it because i love that pokemon, not for the aesthetics, and finally seeing the melan at all is a big reveal kinda thing, good or bad. yes, i get some people DO hunt for looks; that's valid, and 'losing' the consistency game is always a risk, but in my experience things look better most of the time, and it's a risk we all take due to the ever changing nature of the site and sprites. because i dont care too much about the looks, im cool with a lot of changes, and even so i feel 95% of them are good changes, as I stated. the ones that end up kinda bad? of course staff wouldnt knowingly push something bad onto the site; they think it looks good, and have to hope you guys like it too. so yes, feedback, criticism and further changes are a big part of it. hell, why do you think there's a discussion thread? they want to hear it! but there's a VERY clear cut difference between constructive criticism, and complete teardown. And in my opinion, people who can't tell the two apart don't deserve the chance to have their feedback heard. If you're responding in anger, maybe you're not giving the best response to a change. go away, calm down, come back and explain why you dont like things. maybe it is just that you prefered the old colour scheme, or the old way of contrasting colours, or the shades? perhaps the new ones dont work as well because they arent dark or light enough? it's so easy to say WHY you dislike something, over just saying its terrible and you want the old one back... that it really surprises me when people are so nasty about it. As I said earlier, there's thought gone into it all, and a lot of maths, numbers, knowledge, experience... theyre artists after all; they WANT to put out good work! And the best way to get that is explaining what you feel doesn't work, rather than shouting and complaining at every change. if you shoot down 100% of changes, then good ones go down with the bad too :c of course, using 'you' here as a catchall; not accusing you, cloudtail, of these things!! Perhaps a form or example of how to give constructive, neutral criticism is needed. I'm not saying people shouldn't be upset or emotional over these things, but there is a definite right and wrong way to go about talking about changes in public places. cry type to your personal server/best friend/other pfq users all you want, but when dealing with people who can exact the changes? try to keep emotion out of it. i have never typed so much in my life good golly ;__;

I'm a little late to the party, but... Yes. At some point things have to be done and finished and over with. As much as I'd like to go back and redo every commission from a year or even half a year ago, what's done is done and I have to leave them alone. I do appreciate that sprites are being looked at to change small issues, yes. If that was the brunt of what was being done, I would be much more receptive to the changes. But it's not. The retroactive changes are often a complete color palette swap, with the only exceptions I can think of being the Alolan Vulpix albino lines. I think everyone, myself included, would appreciate for things to be final at some point. That doesn't mean sprites can't be changed or fixed (such as the hoof shine) but at some point the work that's been done on the colors should be left as is. None of us notice that things are wrong with the colors. We just like them. And I think users liking the melans and albinos is a lot more important than consistency.

I'm popping in here to say a huge CONGRATS to Forbidden for discovering melan Unown F and a huge CONGRATS to Quiint for FINALLY discovering melan Registeel!!!!! The hunt has been so long and tiring and I'm SO happy for you to finally get it!! Melan Registeel and Regice are definitely my favourite melans out of the trio, they look so cool <33

arth coming into sprite discovery with melan registeel while everyone else is discoursing like honestly though!!! congrats congrats congrats, melan registeel is so beautiful, and i'm so so so glad you finally got your melan robo, you worked so hard for it and now all your hard work has paid off ;o; you gotta be one of the most dedicated people i know!!! congrats once again!!

Ohhh myyy godd i need melan registeel now!!! Ive never wanted to melan hunt a legend before now. Im literally in love!! Congrats quiint!! What a well deserved melan!!!

thank you everyone, the kind words mean so much! 😭 i absolutely love the colors, i love the green eyes against the darker colors... it was a long hunt but so worth it!! also congrats to forbidden for melan F, too! unown are always fun to see, itll be nice to finally see the whole alphabet in melans soon