My personal opinion on Retirement

[NandoCruise]

Hello PAdventures community,

I decided to post my thoughts on few matters that have been going through my head lately.

1.- Just so you get the background. Diglett's level of evolution was changed from 30 to level 50. I noticed this change today in the morning. There is already a Meme here: http://www.padventures.org/forum/showthread.php?39801-Players-memes&p=363374&viewfull=1#post363374
and in that same Thread Huberto gave his opinion on why this change (Diglett):

It just got changed probably because:

1. Catch Diglett
2. Give to Kate
3. Few days later take it back (lvl 30, paying few HDs)
4. Evolve and sell for 200 HD
5. Profit

No easy things in this game :d

This is exactly what Darken explains in this video about "How to make money" here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHYEUBuIh0
In this video it's said that you can make up to 800 HD for 2 digletts every 8 days (Dugtrio used to be 500 HD, now 200HD). That's 3.2k~ A MONTH. I haven't personally done this, ever. But there might be people who actually do it and it is a good way they help themselves. I am NOT asking to return Diglett to the way it was, but I want to emphasise that this type of changes are what make people to quit playing.

2.- What I also think make people to quit playing or to get very frustrated (like my case), is the way some Staff members ignore us, Players (on forum). I personally don't know how Staff members are organised, but what I have seen so far is that there are "teams", like Rebalance Team for instance. It's incredible the amount of Threads that have NO answer whatsoever, but there are other recently-posted Threads that Staff members answer. Why is that?.
Furthermore, I have seen so many great and well-justified suggestions on Pokemon skills here: http://www.padventures.org/forum/showthread.php?36573-Pokemon-Skills but the ONLY change that has been applied was Dark Portal to Dusknoir about 2 weeks ago. I know Staff will say "we are busy with Alola update", but we can see that, for example, members of Staff in charge of Rebalancing Pokemons or Skills are actually online playing. Besides... if you had time to change Diglett's Evolution lvl and Dugtrio too, why can't you add the abilities that people are suggesting? or at least say "yes, we will do it but we are busy" , "we have to analyse(or discuss) this suggestion/change" or "no, rejected". Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Staff should answer the same day or the next day that the Thread was posted, but when it's been WEEKS I believe we deserve an answer.

3.- @About Platinum. I have been playing here since February, which means 3 months now. I have been questioning myself: Why do people prefer playing in Diamond, which is way harder. Simple: People get bored in Platinum. In my guild, for instance, lots of players have retired mostly because they find the server boring. But, Why do people get bored in Platinum? There are obviously several factors, but I will mention the ones I believe in.
a) There is no interaction between Staff Members and Platinum as there is between Staff Members and Diamond. I have seen how Raissa, Jano (on Pecunia), Zelricks and Hohenheim, among others, interact with Players in Diamond. They even duel with Diamond players. I even remember one time I randomly logged in to Diamond and there was this raid of Manaphy in PvP with traps and volcanoes that where killing people and I remember Raissa making fun of people. I personally killed myself a couple of times and was having a good time in Diamond and I though to myself "Well, if there is a Raid here that means there will be a raid in Platinum as well, I am going to wait for Diamond to kill Manaphy to log in to Platinum". Manaphy was defeated... and there was NO Raid in Platinum at all.
Also, this other occasion where Hohenheim made a Pool Party in Pvp in Diamond. Still, NO Pool Party in Platinum.
(I guess most friends (if not all) of Staff members play in Diamond, but that shouldn't mean that all fun things should be in Diamond)
b) Ironically, Platinum is supposed to be the server where Staff members test things; but, for instance, in Diamond all new pokemons are tested by Sting. In these past three months I haven't seen ANY new pokemon in Platinum. Not Alolan nor other pokes at all.
When I moved to Platinum I thought I would be the happiest with the increased rates, but this game is not all about lvling up your character or pokemon, it's also about interaction with other players. In Diamond, you can actually stay in PvP to chat and/or have fun watching Duels. Platinum's pvp is a desert. Check this screenshots taken exactly 5 min ago:

Diamond:

Platinum:

I am only pointing out what I think influence in the amount of players of the game. If people ask me what is there to be done to improve the game, I would say I don't know because I don't have the whole picture. These 3 points of view I have just wrote are just that... my points of view.

Yes, there is a little bit of myself complaining... but hopefully members of Staff will take this as constructive criticism and will not ignore my suggestions for ever.

I really like this game and I felt the need of posting this to help members of Staff understand why people stop playing.

If YOU, PAd player, agree with my points of view please post something or "thank" my post so we all can know we share the same feelings.

 

[mmarvim]

I will really start to respect when this guys who chose the catch hates of some pokes, making it like 1/8000 and puting extra chance with 8~10k balls, in respaw with 1~2 start to spend all the time needed to catch it...
"This game shouldn't be easy"
But it shouldn't be shit too...
~~That's what make me sad. Don't piss me off...

 

[Fallen Angel]

Platinum needs more Cpadde for a better PvP :v

In all seriousness; not getting an answer for a suggestion is bothersome for me as well. I have been bumping Kasas's idea for Pokémon Skills with my additions for quite some time now and there are still no answers, not even a simple no, idk it just bothers me.

 

[huberto]

My personal break point, the moment when I decided to stop was my last cloned ticket. I spent like 28h~ online in 2 days, trying to catch anything, even had bonus already for Jynx (over 5k ub, +/- 150 balls with bonus) and Beedrill (over 2.5k ub, +/- 100 balls with bonus) but nothing happend. Meanwhile some random Sancho Panca caught c vile in 300 balls, c scyther in 150, c ninetales in 50. This happen everytime I go for cloneds, I got lucky 3 times in 42 ticket...

Also, there is a group of people who are always lucky, if someone is active cloned catcher on diamond he will know it very well. There are people who catch at least 1 expensive cloned on every ticket in pretty low amount of ball's. In the other hand there is group of people who are almost never lucky and they have to spend 10 times more offort to achieve things, its exhausting and boring after some time. This rule works everywhere, both in catching and looting stuff. There are people who loot TM every few days, and there are people who are happy when thay loot a single fire stone weekly.

I just came back for easter event, currently trying to catch Vivillon (272 balls on meadow pattern, 430+ on ball patter) and guess what? I'm not surprised of how things are going. I see the same lucky people catching it in 100, 200, 300 balls and I have already over 700 balls - ye, I know there are people who thrown much more but come on, how can someone be almost never lucky. This is statistically impossible.

What I'm trying to point out is that game is totaly unfair and if you are not lucky this game will become a nightmare, it's just a matter of time. Doesn't matter how much you love the game you will eventually quit it because you get bored of 'never lucky paranoia'.

It may sound selfish, it is selfish but this is expression of my own experience and I'm not the only one who see things this way and who quit from active playing. So, the 4th point that I would add to Nando's post is randomness.



P.S. I recently started playing Tibia. I don't even want to know what are catch and loot rates in PA anymore. I just saw how "hard" it is to loot things in tibia, things which have rate of 0.05 % chance or less.

 

[Raissa]

1. Price for Dugtrio was a mistake, which has been fixed, it couldn't stay like this, because it was highly abusable, especially by people, who used several 50+ lvl characters to keep digletts at daycare. I suppose everyone does mistakes from time to time and everyone or most of people try to fix them, as we did by lowering price, which isn't so low. There are many other ways to earn the money, find them, instead using the abusable ones. We are sorry that it had to happen, but there was no other choice.

2. We do read those suggestions, as long, as they are not answered by "rejected", it means we might consider them sooner or later. We kindly ask you for understanding - we, part of the development staff, that is responsible for things like rebalance, quests, new systems, events etc are just few people. We are unable to do everything at once. Consider the fact, that Zelricks, who's mainly taking care of those rebalance related stuff was absent for 3-4 months, while Lord Sqnik, who took his job was busy with tons of work needed either for alola, easter event, valentine event etc. Once, that Zelricks returned, he was also busy with tons of work like alolan bosses, Z-moves and so. It is not like we can give such tasks / such job to anyone. First of all, it is not good idea to let too many people edit pokemons, second of all such person needs to be 100% trustable as having access to pokemons may be highly abusable.
You got to know, that we are not only working on alola and we didn't put 100% priority on it. Meanwhile we are doing other stuff, planning new systems - for example new pokedex formula on which Jano will start the work next week (what doesn't mean it will be applied next week too). Besides the plans, that are in 2018 thread somewhere in general discussion, we are also having other plans, that we want to realize, besides the new pokedex formula, there are other stuff such as in-game tutorials windows, season event etc. If you are asking us to understand you - try to understand us and consider the fact, that many things cannot be given to random hands or to someone who we don't really trust. Trust is earned with time.

3. Dagugo is mostly responsible for platinum's events and raids, but also Eudinho (Dosnyan) does them. If some raid does not appear at the same time, that does not mean, it doesn't appear later and might be replaced by another boss. It's for a simple reason. You have mentioned Manaphy, which is the strongest badass that diamond is barely able to handle it well (they kill it for like 2 hours?) and we don't imagine putting it on platinum on certain hours, when there aren't too many players online. It would be obviously not killed and we would end up with complaints "omg this is too strong, give other boss". Not everything is done at the same time.

About interacting with players - what do you really mean? duelling? I personally do it for fun to chill from many things that I have to do, everyone needs a break from time to time, else I've been duelling few times on platinum, there weren't too many players in pvp, so who I can duel with it? air? >.<. Jano is logging in on platinum to have fun with players pretty often, so let me repeat - I don't know what you really mean.
Sting, Chazz, Vittorio and Ashtib are testing alola pokes on diamond, because that's where they have characters. It is much better to test those things with bigger amount of players, than doing it on test server between each other, everyone is duelling in a different way, it's easier to have a point of view about certain pokemon (as long, as it is alola, because eventual changes don't affect anyone) when there are more people to duel with. I see no point of forcing them to have testing chars on platinum where there are less people to duel with or people who aren't really interested in that. Also diamond players don't have any adventage on it. They cannot dex those pokemons, they can only see them on duels. If someone has interest in it, I don't see what's the problem to relog on a noob character and stay at diamond's pvp for few minutes? PS. Platinum was used to test things related to new quests or systems, not to rebalance and I guess it has been mentioned few times, that it's not used for tests anymore, unless it is really necessary because of reasons, but it barely happens.
PS2. Pool party was done on platinum right after diamond, I don't know if you were offline by that time or you didn't see it. Ask people who were killed by me or Zelricks by that time

 

[Dagugo]

I will answer your last point, not interaction with staff? im having fun with many players at pvp since I PLAY IN PLATINUM, hohenheim did pool party in platinum, generally i do raids in pvp, doesnt have to be the same that in diamond, why i never do manaphy? cuz last two times nobody wanted to kill it, so i cant find a reason to summon a boss that nobody is going to kill, volcanos, pikes, poison traps? i do it, and way better to diamond if u ask me, i put rare candies there to see people dying, if a raid is done in diamond i do it in platinum, i wont wait till you are online to make those things, neither i would do in your time, i have my own time and ill tell you, if u arent online when im doing this, nothing to do, i dont need to broadcast to inform people tha im killing everyone in platinum, you can ask those that are always im pvp.

Why always rebalancers test pokes in diamond, is simple, there arent staff that are rebalancers in platinum, staff from platinum just like to hunt, as me, so is not necessary.

 

[crydoku]

this game is always a fight between players and staff, instead of read suggestions and approve the possitive things, u all prefer to fight in public all negative comment which you are also responsible of, somehow game is always changing because if something is too easy you make it more dificult, like POI places where u ban it and reduced the exp, or when we were able to catch some nice kakunas lvl 30, u all preferred to ban people instead of apologize for issue made, there are not compensations for every mistake staff make.
OHH I also Forgot Than staff has a protection way to answer all community comments like THANKING between each other (staff) all comments even if they are really senseless against community.
There has been years since i play this Game, where staff had his own idea and suggestion, and were not obliged to use staff boards to avoid a posible "issue" between staff members when they are agreed or not with a suggestion. We need to see this diferece too I suggest main staff Owners and admins to let minor staff comment even if they dont agree with main staff suggestions they are also players

 

[Hohenheim]

Also, this other occasion where Hohenheim made a Pool Party in Pvp in Diamond. Still, NO Pool Party in Platinum.

Oh yes there was, don't mess Hohenheim in your lies.

 

[Sucrilhosforever]

I suggest main staff Owners and admins to let minor staff comment even if they dont agree with main staff suggestions they are also players

so, i've been a staff member since 2012(of course with some retirements on the course cause life is really hard), and i never agreed with something i disliked cause it was an admin opinion, we all have our opinions and we MUST express them, otherwise we wouln't be a team, only 1 admin working alone, but the way you speak seems like high staff members are tyrants or something, guess what: they aren't!
They won't kick you out or hate you forever because you disagreed, but if there's people that's affraid of that, that its his/hers way of thinking, we can't change that.

The only time i got demoted cause i disagreed with someone it was when i disagreed with YOUR BELOVED ADMIN NINO, he demoted me from gm to player with no explanable reason.

Do i agree with everything that is happening? of course no!
Do i need to start shitstorms? no!
I just try to understand both sides, always, staff members and players, so i can think about a solution good for both.

If disagreement inside staff leads to demotion, i wouldn't be tutor today, LOL
But that's also my POV, maybe ex staff and current ones thinks different, i don't know.

 

[Darken]

1. Price for Dugtrio was a mistake, which has been fixed, it couldn't stay like this, because it was highly abusable, especially by people, who used several 50+ lvl characters to keep digletts at daycare. I suppose everyone does mistakes from time to time and everyone or most of people try to fix them, as we did by lowering price, which isn't so low. There are many other ways to earn the money, find them, instead using the abusable ones. We are sorry that it had to happen, but there was no other choice.



I was also surprised by the change, since the suggestion of that had been done for players who could not be playing for so long but somehow could keep themselves active in the game, because this change was made to both the lvl and the dugtrio. price hurt my video more to make a few small changes, but what seemed more strange was the lvl dugtrio since for years evolves from lvl 30 and from one moment to another puff from lvl 50

 

[Matelus]

Eh, another shitstorm thread in which players are 'so mad' at staff members. From my point of view, as I am a tutor for the second time, I can tell you that they really listen to every suggestion, just there's really not enough time to do every single thing that every player mentions. I also was suggesting many things for the game (for example Sniff system, which WAS ADDED).
Being a Staff member is like a job, but most of them/us do it for free, just for the sake of happiness of this game's players. Please understand that each of them/us has a real life too and sometimes it is really hard to bring everything together.

 

[NandoCruise]

@Hohenheim.

I am glad there was a Pool Party too in Platinum. It seems that I logged out.

@Raissa.

*About Dugtrio: As I said, I don't see how 3 - 3.2k~ a month it's "abusing". It's basically like daily task. Many players make Daily Task with several characters, you only need a character lvl 50 to use a Wobbuffet lvl 60 and you can easily make 7 points a day, and subsequently after 40 days (a little bit more than a month) get a random tm, for instance, electric storm which is worth 70 - 80k in Platinum, 35 - 40k in Diamond. I personally do that (hopefully you won't change that).

*About Forum. My personal experience: I made a suggestion about a new ability, Snow Warning. I posted it on 23-01-18. Almost 3 months and no answer. And I am sure there are more players like me. Now then, after 3 months... what do you want us to think? That you are still considering the idea or that you completely forgot/ignore our Threads? As you said: "try to understand us (Players)".

*About Changes in Pokes: You are absolutely right, I totally understand that you can't just give control of pokemons to anybody. And I understand too, that it is not fair to overload Zelricks or Lord Sqnik. But again... in Spanish we say "Hablando se entiende la gente", which in English would be something like "By talking people understand each other". An answer in out Threads would be nice.

*About interacting with Players: This matter is a bit tricky. I know it depends on the time I am online, but believe you me... I have been playing A LOT of hours. What I meant was that for this past 3 months I haven't seen much of Staff Members in Platinum, as I used to see in Diamond. By interaction I mean exactly that, killing people, or doing that funny spell that leaves you with 1 hp.
Also about duelling, I feel like this part needs to be stimulated in Platinum. Only the same people duel in Platinum. But this has nothing to do with Staff members, I just wanted to point it out.
And about what I said of new pokemons testers, maybe you should choose 2 testers in Platinum. I didn't mean that Diamond have an advantage over Platinum with regard to new pokes, it's more about the excitement. As I mentioned above, the experience in game is not just about lvling and catching but also duelling and chilling out at pvp. For example, I remember when Sting was duelling with the Unova Starters, I dexed them and thought "Wow, Samurott has Detect, Hydropump and Brine.. NICE! and it can learn Rain Dance... it cannot learn Reflect but It can learn water pulse, perfect! so I need Rain Dance and Water Pulse!" this was my new motivation. I wasn't playing in Platinum back then, but I am pretty sure there wasn't anybody testing these pokemons before they were available, was there?

@Dagugo:

About raids: I didn't know Manaphy is one of the strongest pokemons, I was wondering why Diamond took so long, but I thought it was because of the traps and volcanoes. This point goes a little bit together with "interaction with players". I know there are raids in Platinum, I have personally won some bosses. But my point of view is more like in the sense of making raids fun like in Diamond, like this Manaphy raid I mentioned. If you say you do it, I believe you.

 

[Shadow Mist]

ill focus on this point, if you don't mind.

@About Platinum. I have been playing here since February, which means 3 months now. I have been questioning myself: Why do people prefer playing in Diamond, which is way harder. Simple: People get bored in Platinum. In my guild, for instance, lots of players have retired mostly because they find the server boring. But, Why do people get bored in Platinum? There are obviously several factors, but I will mention the ones I believe in.

hey, I created my char (Shadow Mist, now Vittorio) on Diamond arround 3 years ago, when Platinum already existed. The reason why I choosed to start again on Diamond instead of Platinum was easier: more players = you get less bored. That's why I didn't mind losing "bonus exp" when I created this char as long as I could make friends/talk to people to not get bored while grinding forever. If I wanted to just solo-exp, which is what most platinum players do, I'd play a singleplayer game, instead of a MMORPG.

a) There is no interaction between Staff Members and Platinum as there is between Staff Members and Diamond. I have seen how Raissa, Jano (on Pecunia), Zelricks and Hohenheim, among others, interact with Players in Diamond. They even duel with Diamond players. I even remember one time I randomly logged in to Diamond and there was this raid of Manaphy in PvP with traps and volcanoes that where killing people and I remember Raissa making fun of people. I personally killed myself a couple of times and was having a good time in Diamond and I though to myself "Well, if there is a Raid here that means there will be a raid in Platinum as well, I am going to wait for Diamond to kill Manaphy to log in to Platinum". Manaphy was defeated... and there was NO Raid in Platinum at all.
Also, this other occasion where Hohenheim made a Pool Party in Pvp in Diamond. Still, NO Pool Party in Platinum.
(I guess most friends (if not all) of Staff members play in Diamond, but that shouldn't mean that all fun things should be in Diamond)

I login from time to time on my GM char on Platinum to troll some friends, or just to chill at PVP. I remember there was a time I was having fun with Lany and others on PvP with "Magikarps lv100 raids". There is also one GM (Mau) and one CM (Dagugo) who is online everyday at Platinum, keeping in touch with community, but as I pointed above, they choosed platinum to exp, not to sit at PvP, that's the reason why you don't see them dueling like Raissa on Diamond, for example.

b) Ironically, Platinum is supposed to be the server where Staff members test things; but, for instance, in Diamond all new pokemons are tested by Sting. In these past three months I haven't seen ANY new pokemon in Platinum. Not Alolan nor other pokes at all.
When I moved to Platinum I thought I would be the happiest with the increased rates, but this game is not all about lvling up your character or pokemon, it's also about interaction with other players. In Diamond, you can actually stay in PvP to chat and/or have fun watching Duels. Platinum's pvp is a desert.

1) Not all new pokemons are tested only by Sting, there's also Ashtib, Chazz, and me.

2) as Raissa pointed out: we test such pokes on PVP mostly, that means we actually need players to duel with, and with the pictures you took, you can notice why we do rebalance related stuff on Diamond instead of Platinum. So, why would we test pokemons on pvp when we actually need different players to test them with? as you said: platinum pvp is a desert. So, there's the reason why we choose to test them on Diamond instead of Platinum.

 

[Dark Raze]

3.- You will notice that there's less people in platinum pvp because in platinum people go to hunt, catch etc, we don't do duels because there's no winning in it. No body wants to waste money on pokes for duels since you wont win anything from it. Good TM's for duel are expensive in Platinum. (over 50 to 100k)
also @player interaction it's simple they have more friends on diamond so they rather talk there than stay Semi-afk on platinum


I'm Actually getting retired from PAd since I feel it lacks of content, Im at 192 and I dont feel like doing boring hunts to get 205~ to do absurd tasks which aren't worth the reward/time. I will 'probably' get back when they release alola or when they put some effort in doing more quest's. there are some things that I dont like, likely the new maps/respawn mostly of them aren't useful for any player (frozen harbour resps for example).
I Level from 130 to 192 in 3 months and half playing like crazy, I really enjoy it to be honest.

If you ask any player about how to make money in both servers probably they will say "go to mankeys" because... yes there's no other way a low level player would get a decent profit from. If you ask me on platinum I would say go to hunt anything and throw balls you will profit anywhere.

@Staff take it as suggestion of some player that likes RPG's you should focus on doing quests rather than new events, not about throwing sh@t but the quests will stay forever, and I believe pad already have enough old events to repeat every year.

 

[NandoCruise]

Eh, another shitstorm thread in which players are 'so mad' at staff members. From my point of view, as I am a tutor for the second time, I can tell you that they really listen to every suggestion, just there's really not enough time to do every single thing that every player mentions. I also was suggesting many things for the game (for example Sniff system, which WAS ADDED).
Being a Staff member is like a job, but most of them/us do it for free, just for the sake of happiness of this game's players. Please understand that each of them/us has a real life too and sometimes it is really hard to bring everything together.

I am not mad at all. Frustrated, yes. But not mad.

*In regard to suggestions, which is what you posted about: I also know Staff members have a real life. As I've said, it's not about them doing EVERYTHING we ask for, but about letting us know whether they will work on it or not. I know too, that the work some people do is for free, but I guess when they were asked to join Staff they were warned about it.

 

[mmarvim]

Nothing about the subject but, it's possible to "mix" catch systems?
Like, 45% of progress mean 0,45* (0,3% extra), and when you get 100% it become 0,5% extra...
Eeh, please?

Edit: This way amound of balls will influence not only after a very hight amound, and this will be worst than getting the amound necessary for 0,5% extra.

 

[Tuca Strike]

Regarding the changes in game, I would suggest increasing the detail of changelog, for example:

How it was. -> How it will be. Date of change.

It would be interesting to announce the changes without applying them and give some time, such as 1 week, for players make something before changes take effect.
I believe that would be less frustrating for players in terms of uncertainty.

Some changes we have to discover in the worse way possible, and there is nothing we can do. Except if someone has privileged information... I am referring specially to prices, evolution requirements, rebalance of moves, etc.

 

[demz]

I dont know why you guys still bother, I already proved mathematically that a certain event was high unlikely to happen, not to say near impossible and ofc I was told i was being paranoic. They rely on the average player's ignorance/stupidity and this cant be changed.

Currently Im totally on autopilot, waiting for the day I will get sick and never log in again - or at least until some major changes happen.

Ps. I was told by Jano himself nobody even cared about my suggestion on safari/extra. And here I am with over 6k balls on a colored chicken. Tottally senseful after all game shouldnt be easy

Edit: now that i though i cant actually remember If It was jano or vitto who told me but anyway