Finding the right balance (HM vs Shiny hunting)

I have heard your feedback and will be making further changes to Hypermode and the cost of Shiny hunting. Featured in this update, which I'll be working on today: Hypermode, Shiny Charms and the Übercharm. Based on your feedback, it is evident that even with many perks, a lot of people just want the 40-chain PokéRadar boost and cannot afford the rest of Hypermode, or consider it not worth it. So here's how I plan to fix that: "Gru's Plan" meme from Despicable Me via Imgflip Step 1: Remove "powering the PokéRadar" as a Hypermode perk. Step 2: Offer "PokéRadar Overclocking" as a new feature. For 25 ZC you can chain up to 40 for one full day. Bulk discounts apply: 120 ZC for 7 days, 400 ZC for 28 days. This will effectively triple your shiny chances for the duration. Step 3: Anyone who bought Hypermode at the 700 price point gets a 200 ZC refund. Likewise if you bought a bulk rate Hypermode at the higher price then you get a refund on the difference too. Basically, make it so the price increase never happened. Step 4: As a transitional measure, users can trade in 4 days of Hypermode for 3 days of Overclocking. I'm aware the ratio isn't ideal, but it's to prevent cheating the system due to... Step 5: Reduce Hypermode to 300 ZC for 28 days, with bulk discounts reflecting the new base price. Now, one thing to note is that this Overclocking feature is... Basically the same as Shiny Charms are. So I will be making the following changes to Shiny Charms: Step 1: Rename Shiny Charm to Old Shiny Charm so they cannot be used any more. Stick with me because it gets better. Step 2: Dead Shiny Charms yield Old Shiny Charms when recharged. Step 3: Sell new Shiny Charms for GP, at a base price of 100 GP each with bulk discounts up to -75%. This makes Shiny Charms more accessible to free-to-play users. Step 4: Old Shiny Charms can be traded in for 5 of the new Shiny Charms. Dead Shiny Charms can be traded in for 4 new Shiny Charms. This makes the duplication of the feature worthwhile since now more people can buy into it with the various sources of GP around the game (Fab Friday, Contests...) Finally, to counteract some of the problem of "too many Shinies and Albinos in the market due to Melan hunters" the following change will be made to the Übercharm. Before: Doubles Shiny and Albino chances. Indirectly quadruples Melan chances as a result. After: Boosts Melan chances by 5x. Shiny and Albino chances are no longer boosted. This aims to make the Übercharm slightly more powerful, while also addressing the oversaturation of the other two variants. I will be working on these updates today, and it should be ready by this evening, if not then tomorrow. Pushing the update live will require a brief downtime, this will be announced shortly before it happens. Thank you for your patience as we work to find a suitable balance with these updates.

That ubercharm alteration is gonna be so worth it.

Pokeradar overclocking looks weird and more expensive than part of hypermode. Big no for me. And these changes make things more complicated... ;-;

le sigh I just wanna hunt specials to complete my living dex, why must you be such a cruel Arceus? [insert ugly crying face here] I understand why these changes are happening, however, I now have to YET AGAIN, update my "what I need for a year long shiny hunt" journal entry. -.- Reread the post. Further down it explains how the changes balance out.

I think this will be huge in fixing the shiny and albino market, the "DP price" method of selling them has been bothering me since it became the norm. This will also make melan hunting more accessible without having to pay for a bunch of other features that aren't really needed. I'm also happy about the shiny charm- it was sorta weird to have both it and the ubercharm cost zc, even with the ability to recharge them. Overall there's nothing I'm really against in this update, that might change as we see how the changes actually affect gameplay though.

One question, do the new shiny charms recharge or are they a 1-time use? Since it's a GP item and we get so many in the trade, I could understand if they were 1-time, but it would be nice if that was clarified. Thanks!

So, I have 3 month oh Hypermode left and 2 more coupons in my inventory. Will I get a refund too? (Sorry for stupid question but my English is... Limited to say at best)

This is... really interesting. I think I like it a lot. For a long time I felt like the mechanics of melans requiring shinies/albinos to overlap meant that there was always going to be too many S/A and too few melans, just statistically. Buffing melan rates alone is definitely a wise plan. The overclocking business does seem to be cheaper than maintaining HM, which is very nice. I'm still processing it all a bit so I'll probably edit in further comments... but I'm so glad to see changes to S/A rates. I know it'll probably upset some people, but so does every change-- I think this will hopefully breathe some life back into the economy, assuming it's not too little too late.

The new Shiny Charm will be single-use, as you suspected. The refund only applies to people who bought the vouchers at the higher price since yesterday. You will be able to trade in Hypermode time for Overclocking time.

I think this is a big help since there are more users who melan hunt then Shiny and Albino hunt and therefore will spend the zc to use these items